Joe:
The point is that the ages are in the RAW. Any guidelines for handling them aren't. They're also completely irrelevant to most games... as even short-lived races it's never an issue. I'm repeating that, it's completely irrelevent to most games. The lack of anything generally means what... things just kick along til what they're magically age 80 as spry as a 20 year old and kick the bucket for god knows what reason? (makes for an easy to use system... but like I said I was after house ruling a bit more detail). If you don't even add in that much... there's no point to including techs like leonization either.
My point is that you don't need rules for aging. By the time your players are that old, they can likely afford leonization. If not, Mr. Johnson can offer it as a reward for that run they really would rather pass on.
You have to be very careful about telling a player "Hey! I appreciate you sticking with my game all his time, but I don't like Orks...so...you're dead!"
Please read the next paragraph carefully to better understand why I'm leaning toward this....
Wow. That's amazingly condescending. Don't assume that I haven't read what you have said, simply because I disagree with you. You posted here and asked for feedback. I am taking time out of my day to respond. You don't have to take my advice, but if you can't take criticism, don't invite it.
I was brainstorming ways to handle adding aging (yes house ruling an undefined area of the rules) to the game in a non-broken manner. So far the best idea I've come up with is to use the cyborg/zombie rules as a guide and come up with a new bit of negative AND POSITIVE qualities that characters pick up as they get older. The idea being to handle aging somewhat similar to surge... you get older... you slowly pick up negatives and offsetting positives. The original impetus behind the goblinization idea is it's never covered in any actual rulebook and only hinted at in fluff and it struck me as a nicer answer.
Okay, but the only Quality you posted is a 10BP one for Goblinization, which you based on your insistence that Goblinization isn't covered in "any rulebook".
It is covered on SR4A 71, as I stated previously.
Goblinization
does not grant a normal life span. If anything, it shortens it. Now, if you wanted to create an optional Positive Quality for shorter-lived Metahumans to have the life span of a normal a human, that is okay. The houserule you suggested, though, is backwards in relation to RAW...and I still say imposing a debilitating aging system is a bad idea.
Onto other points...
I don't like the idea of specifically targeting holes in players skill sets intentionally. That strikes me as being just as punitive as calling in GM fiat. It's my preference generally that each player have some basic skills in a few different areas. Lets face it, most all of us have SOME social skills... we can't always keep a spokesman (face) around at all times to talk for us and handle all interactions. I think it's generally unhealthy to have characters so specialized they need to rely on one person (who may or may not be present at that time in-game, or in person due to RL events when you're playing).
How is putting them in a situation where they need Social skills without a Face present not targeting holes in their skill set?
In science, there's a bias towards positive results (because that's what gets funding and published), disproving something is rarely as 'profitable'.
Actually, that isn't how science works at all. How can you fund only positive results when you need to do fund it to get the result? Disproving any theory of significance would make you famous.
In GM'ing and runs I find there's a similar bias... towards success even when it's really not earned, many games never have a run which fails. Once I have a plan in mind I don't alter it because the players come up with a good idea of their own... or because they don't. I see it as a problem-solving exercise.
It is interactive storytelling. If you can't adapt to what your players are doing to tell a better story, you should learn how. The players don't need to always win - and they should NEVER believe they will always win.
But if you refuse to adjust your plans when they have a good idea, you're not being the best GM you can be - just because you're the GM doesn't mean you are the only one who can have ideas.
The flip side is, if you let them walk into a TPK because you're inflexible...don't waste so many cycles on those aging rules. You won be needing them.
Onto XP and rewards....
I've been considering carrot ideas on how to accomplish that. One of them is to award bonus karma that they can only spend on things outside their specialty. Though I don't like earmarking like that... maybe just let them know that the larger than normal karma awards will only keep coming if they don't overspecialize.
RAW discourages over specialization. You don't need special rules. There is a diminishing return on investing in things you are already good at...do the math on raising skills and attributes. It rapidly becomes inviting to be "good enough" at most things.
One thing I haven't liked though again is I haven't thought of how to keep the mage in line short of calling in the old school magical loss rules (which strikes me as singularly punitive). I can arrange things so a change in venue means that the street sam or rigger need to put their toys in storage and try to smuggle only a few small items here and there. But the mage always has his skills and spells (and he knows the system well enough to use spells to make up for many skills). And unfortunately unlike all the other players he's the most likely to resist any attempts at being anything but the biggest baddest mage on the planet. (this isn't a problem in and of itself... so long as everyone else is playing the biggest and baddest whatever... but this isn't the case).
Why isn't it the case? After a decade or two, they should be pretty badass.
Yes, Mages are always dangerous. But, just as a Street Samurai pays in Essence for their ever-present abilities, a Mage pays in Karma.
-Jn-
Ifriti Sophist