[incrdbil]

Looking at it from a purely mechanical standpoint of gain for BP investment, I see an imbalance.  Focusing on specific roles or very specialized builds doesn't erase that. I'm trying to focus on what the character will be,  what resources he has to make the character he wants using  effective build points.  Trolls and Orks effectively have more build points. Dwarves fare a little better, while humans, then elves plod in last.   The Elf might have a higher Charisma maximum.  He's got a free boost in that direction, but such a boost doesn't happen in a vacuum.  Body is a desired characteristic. Enough STR to lift a credstick or move in combat with minimal protective gear and equipment is needed.  An Ork Mage can go with a fairly minimum body for an Ork, have a good score, and he's effectively got 25 points more to put into stats than the elf.  Yes, he does have a normal max of 5 in CHA or LOG.  Can the elf get a higher CHA maximum than the Orc? Certainly, but ut he starts in a build point hole, from the start in order to get there in comparison.

And this is using the character build most favorable to an elf. Looking at an elf or human who doesn't play a mage, but any other character type, they are behind the power curve.   I can take an Ork, buy 'human looking' and be an equally talented (and still tougher) face than a human character from the extra points I have to work with just by leaving BOD and STR at default scores.  as for human and elf physical adepts or Street Samurai..they may as well go stand in an unemployment line.

Overall, I'm very satisfied with SR4's build system--this discussions narrow focusing on one of the few sticky areas may make it appear that I'm not, but believe me, I far prefer this to prior editions, or the priority system.  There are very few house tweaks I'm making to this game, so please don't take this discussion one issue as an attack on the system.

So to perhaps focus the discussion, I'm going to focus to on commentary on different ways to address this in my campaign.  I think I've made stated my motivation and thoughts on why I feel the need to do something, and any more detail would be repetitious, and not adding anything new beyond what I've said.  It's not that I don't want to continue the discussion, I would just like ot focus more on the 'what to do' than the why.  If you don't agree, well, there are a million different ways to approach a game, and there's no need for perfect agreement.  The game isn't broken either way, by keeping the standard rules, or with my alterations, in the long view, and I understand and respect the views that not change is needed. it's just on some level, as a GM, it just doesn't feel fair to me, and I'm seeing reactions from my group that reinforce it, and I have to work with what I've got.

What I'd like to see is the house rule suggestions from others on this issue, or if you think the costs I'm assigning are too little/too much, or any other factors I may have overlooked, like when I initially overlooked the size adjustment costs for Dwarf and Troll characters.  I'd love to see and discuss those.

I really did consider to play up the racism angle.  If my game was centered on a very specific environment (a corporate sponsored team, or a team working regularly for or employed by for a criminal organization or government), I could just tack on a 'racism' modifier and call it a day. Given that in this campaign the team works for a certain sponsor who is totally neutral on matters of race, it wouldn't be quite as effective as perhaps in other situations. Being a corporate team working for a Japanese megacorp with race prejudices..yes, that would probably do it.

I'm contemplating another possible alteration--not award positive quality points, but change build point costs.  Charge every race their 'total' bonus score I came up with before, and then subtract the human score, making the human race the zero build point default again.

That would look like this:
Human: 0
Elf: 25
Dwarf: 25
Ork 35
Troll 55

Better or worse than using free positive qualities? This may be more mechanically pure than equating the positive quality bonus to the effects of race in a characters life prior to running.

[incrdbil]

It has nothing to do with role playing--not thatplayers should be penalized for roleplaying, which is sort of the situation here.

My preferred solution is to raise caps, allowing humans more leeway in their point spread in order to simulate their far greater diversity.
So, using a base of 400bp, a human could spend up to
220bp on attributes
55bp on gear
40bp worth of pos/neg qualities

Tinkering with caps is appealing as well. Maybe instead of positive build points, I could make those discretionary BP that can be applied above caps in various areas.  But that would end run the requirement to buy certain poitive qualities to exceed caps.   Though frankly i can see mysefl discarding category caps in the future...still, a good option to dwell on, thanks!

[CanRay]

All it takes is one Pornomancer and a big bottle of Vodka to take down the whole group.

[Walks Through Walls]

Incrdbil your argument of its simple math is flawed. If you want a higher str and body then yes troll or ork is the way to go. If you want a higher agility like in the example I used earlier then an elf gives you an advantage in that it gives you the addition in the area that you want to excel. Same with a charisma based mage.

In my playing I see many more elves then any of the other races. Dwarves are probably the least used of the metahumans, and humans are the least played race at this point. I have GM'd both missions and stand alone games at the last two Gencons and this is what I saw.

[Angelone]

You are only looking at character creation which is only part of the whole picture. Humans are the norm there are more humans than any other race. The world is built for human sized characters. Trolls have to pay more for gear, and they have a hard time moving around in buildings.

Orcs are heavily discriminated against. Sure you can get past that with human looking but if the people you tricked find out they are not going to be happy.

[WareWolf]

Yes I dropped a wall of text. Sorry. read the first paragraph and the last for the short versions

As a long time GM for Shadowrun let me tell you there are a few things you just have to accept. There are problems endemic to the system, balancing the races is one of them. The 4th edition of Shadowrun has done the best job of creating equal opportunity mechanics of any editions. When compared to the   spliced together mechanics of first edition,the quick or the dead rule of 2nd edition, or the third edition “magic above all else” 4th edition really has integrated magic, hacking, combat and even social skills into the team dynamic far better than any previous edition. Their however remain lingering issues of balance and unanticipated consequences of balancing other mechanics. First off not every attribute has the same value all the time for every character. Look what every attribute is used for by every character. I am not including the casting of magic, rigging, or technomancy (Yet) since only certain types of characters can use their attributes in that way.

body
resists all forms of physical damage (easily the most common type of damage in Shadowrun)
resists toxins
resists disease
determines the amount of armor you can carry
does not degrade if used to defend more than once per initiative pass
determines your physical damage track

Agility
linked to EVERY physical combat attack skill. It is half your attack die pool. In Shadowrun characters get into fights. Otherwise this game could be called spreadsheets and meetings.

Reaction
determines your initiative value
used to defend against physical attacks
degrades if used to defend against more than one attack per initiative pass
used for every type of pilot skill check

Strength
determines at least in part how hard you hit in most melee combat scenarios
determines how much stuff you can carry.
linked to 3 out of 4 of the skills in the athletics skill group

Charisma
Linked to ALL Social Skills
used as damage for force of will attacks.

Intuition
Linked to most stealth and perception based skills.
A good amount of stealth allows you to avoid fights and set up ambushes when you do have to fight.
perception is your defense against surprise
The other attribute used to determine initiative

Logic
Used for all technical skills
though linked to many hacking skills is rarely used in conjunction with those skills

Willpower
your primary defense from mana spells
used to resist or augment some social tests
determines your mental damage track

If we look at numerically all the things that attributes can be used for body, agility, reaction, and strength appear to be of the most use to all shadowrunners. That makes orcs and trolls appear more attractive o paper. Anyone who has played this game longer than 5 seconds will tell you that is not necessarily true. Selection of roles such as hacking, rigging, technomancy alter the balance of attributes significantly. Elves make great shamans due to their high charisma. dwarves and elves are really good choices for technomancers due to their bonuses to mental attributes. Humans suffer from their greatest strength thye have no penalties to attributes but the only bonus they receive is to edge. Hackers since most of their dice polls are based off skills and programs can really be any race. For rigging the only race that really suffers a penalty attribute wise is dwarfs since thier penalized attribute (reaction) is related to the main skill of the archetype (pilot)  Orcs and trolls while they gain no bonuses to these specialized roles retain their versatility as a shadowrunner due to their exemplary physical fitness.

Part 2 Anachronisms, Game balance, and mechanic changes.

Another issue that seems to unbalance certain races in this edition are the basic mechanics change of going from a target number to a hit system. Under older editions of SR the larger bonuses of races like Orks and Trolls were offset by the larger penalties suffered. For example the lower willpower of a troll was a balancing factor since not only did they suffer a penalty to their effective defense to mana spells but also their dice to resist. Under 4th edition with the hit system all the troll character suffers is a minor loss to die pool. Compare the results

Troll street muscle is attacked by a force 6 manabolt spell cast from a sorcery 5 against a will power of 4. Attacking Magician allocates 5 dice from magic pool if applicable.

Now if I remember my 3rd edition magic clearly the above attack would roll 11 dice force plus magic pool allocation and statistically would receive 5.5 gross successes against a target number of 4. The troll in this example rolling four dice to resist at a TN of 6 would receive .66 successes leaving 4.84 net successes. In other words even if the spell was cast at moderate damage due to staging the troll is dead.

Under 4th edition equating where applicable the same scenario a force 6 manabolt we will assume a magic of 5 and sorcery of 5 all other numbers remain the same.

The caster in this example would roll 10 dice against a hit number of 5 scoring 3.3 successes. The troll muscle rolling his 4 dice for willpower resistance test would receive 1.33 successes. This would leave the magician with approximately 2 net successes  dealing force of the spell 6 plus 1 extra success for a total of 7 damage. This troll is still up and probably really mad

Now also consider another mechanics change to attributes. In previous editions their were six total physical and mental attributes in this edition there are eight. When you consider the attributes divided were the attributes typically used as penalties for dwarves, orcs and trolls the situation becomes even more imbalanced. Quickness became agility and reaction. Intelligence became logic and intuition Orks for example only lose out on a little charisma and logic for big bonuses to body and strength. Trolls get absolutely huge bonuses to body and strength. This edition compared to previous editions trolls lost their willpower penalty removing the troll racial Achilles heel to mana spells.

Another mechanical change that had unintended consequences to racial balance in this edition is how augmented racial maximum caps are calculated. When you consider that the largest penalty to an attribute's augmented maximum is 2 points. Note also through gene treatment and  positive qualities most negative stats can be offset to at least human racial levels. There is no way in the system for a human to achieve the body of a Troll or Orc while a troll through exceptional attribute and genetech could achieve the maximum augmented agility of a normal Elf. Yes an elf through exceptional atttribute and genetech could go higher by a total of two dice on quickness a troll will be able to on body receive a theoretical dice pool of eighteen compared to a human or elf's twelve.

In conclusion, Humans and elves will never be able to match some of the dice pools achievable by orks and trolls on certain stats. In contrast Orcs and trolls will never be able to reach the dice pools of Humans and elves in certain stats though by a much smaller margin. The stat bonuses metahumans enjoy as they stand right now are an anachronism to previous editions and do unbalance certain races from a quantifiable mathematics perspective. There are other non quantifiable considerations such as design of society and racism that can be used as balancing factors to a point.

[Angelone]

Warewolf, that was an amazing post. Wow. +1

[CanRay]

Another thing to consider, again going to racism, is the fact that we're dealing with the small percentage of SINless that have the Cojones willing to risk body and mind to be Shadowrunners, a good size of which are Orks and Trolls.  Most "Shadowrunners" are, frankly, dumb muscle doing whatever they can for the money.  So this fits storywise as well.  The Bot'Kham, for instance, is an All Ork team related to the infamous Shadowrunner of the '50s, Kham.  My secondary character, Murphy, is affiliated to them by being some kind of second-cousin or some such.  (Ork families are hard to figure out due to litters.).

The flipside is that there area also a lot of Elven, Dwarven, and Human SINless putting their lives on the line as well, usually in other roles, but there as well.

I said it once, I'll say it again, "The right tools for the right job.  And, man, are these guys ever a bunch of tools!"

[The_Gun_Nut]

Something that I'll put in about the characters thinking they are meat shields that can take anything:

I have never, ever, EVER had a problem killing anyone in any incarnation of Shadowrun (as a GM or a player).

But, either as a GM or a player, I have had LOTS of trouble trying to keep a character alive.

While SR can be played as a hack-n-slash game (any RPG can), hacking and slashing tends to go through characters pretty quickly (as mentioned above).  A balanced team, making intelligent choices and using smart tactics on a run, will stay alive (and get paid) a lot more and a lot more often.  Combat characters in SR are support characters.  They are there if/when the proverbial hits the fan.

[Fortinbras]

One of my favorite things to do as a GM is to assume half the runners money will come from their Negotiation. I'll offer around 5k, with an extra 1k per net hit on a Negotiation test. This makes a Face invaluable.
Not to mention legwork. You can only garner so much info on a Data Search and without Etiquette or Con, those bribes to get the info you need can get awfully pricey.
If you know what type of game you want to play, carrot and stick your players until they think trading in that silly old Troll for a Tailored Pheromoned Elf was their idea.

Personally, I think you are giving to much thought into "balance." The value of certain stats over others has been given by far more eloquent than myself, but I think you'll find that your group just looked at the number, did some quick arithmetic and determined that Orcs and Trolls have higher numbers and are, therefore, better. Give them a few sessions of some well rounded games, where they aren't slashing their way though an Ares facility and they'll start to complain that their hacker never uses his Strength stat.
After a few games like that, they'll start to wonder why they didn't play humans in the first place.

[tbrminsanity]

My 2c:

I'm a roleplayer, and I play with roleplayers.  I've always punished rollplayers when I GMed and always played in groups that punished rollplayers.  This isn't an issue for my groups.  That being said I think you should give by default the trait Human Looking to humans when determining their social bonus (and Elf looking to elves for there's).  That may even the odds in your net totals.

[WareWolf]

Mind you I am doing none of this in my campaign at this time. If I were to try to balance the races at character creation and post character creation this is what I would do.

Balancing humans
At character creation a human character may choose one of the following advantages for thier race in addition to the plus one edge

improved attributes
one of characters attributes are considered to have the exceptional attribute positive quality. One of the issues with humans is that they will always be mediocre at their role statistically. this gives humans a better flavor of mediocre.

Highly skilled
The character receives 20 free build points at character creation that may only be used to buy skills or skill groups

Just a little better
The character may take 20 more points of positive qualities than normal. The character may also take 20 more points of negative qualities if they desire. The extra quality points allow unmatched flexibility and give humans a little more flavor.

Toys
The character may take 20 more BP for gear than normal. The world is still made for humans so a lot of things would just be cheaper for them.

Balancing Meta's gets a little trickier. I would probably reduce the BP costs for Orks and trolls and reduce thier body and strength by 1 each. Buffing elves and dwarves seems impractical.

[incrdbil]

My 2c:

I'm a roleplayer, and I play with roleplayers.  I've always punished rollplayers when I GMed and always played in groups that punished rollplayers.  This isn't an issue for my groups.  That being said I think you should give by default the trait Human Looking to humans when determining their social bonus (and Elf looking to elves for there's).  That may even the odds in your net totals.

Taking human looking as a valuation would change the totals by 5 points.  It's a very situational value, it depends upon the campaign and who is doing the viewing...but it does make a useable yardstick for certain campaigns.

[Bradd]

Total power is only one measure of game balance. Focused power is a bigger factor at the table in my experience. When you're considering an elf or troll for a magician character, it doesn't matter that the troll's attributes will be better overall. What matters is that the elf is better at the specialty. Without augmentation, a soft-maxed elf rolls 12 dice for drain tests, while a troll only gets 9. In practice, that means that the elf can safely cast spells with 2 more Force than the troll can, which increases damage by up to +4 DV. The gap widens further once you include augmentations.

Sure, the troll can soak up a lot more damage, but that doesn't matter much when you're invisible and levitating out of reach. Having more overall power doesn't help much when there's little use for it. Useful, focused power is what counts.

[WareWolf]

Total power is only one measure of game balance. Focused power is a bigger factor at the table in my experience.

Sure, the troll can soak up a lot more damage, but that doesn't matter much when you're invisible and levitating out of reach. Having more overall power doesn't help much when there's little use for it. Useful, focused power is what counts.

Good post

Defensive power always counts unless you can guarantee the defender will never get off a second shot. A magician can levitate and float invisibly all they want but as soon as that magician runs a cross an enemy with a big gun and an ultrasound sight or radar implant the added diversity and overall power of that orc or troll means a lot more. Focused power is certainly a consideration but sometimes you have to be prepared for things to not go your way.

as far as focused power goes I think the biggest complaint about a lot of the races is that the range of focused power of certain races far outweighs the focused power of other races.