Quote from: RPGPundit;546639In terms of point-buy, Shadowrun is probably worse than the other two.

"here's 400 points, now spend the next two hours fiddling"

(vs)

spend five minutes [and] you will be playing a recognizable archetype with maybe a few special tweaks to make him your own

SR 1 & 2: Templates. That is all.

(No idea if SR4's "sample characters" are as well-done. But, on a quick glance, they seem to be similar.)

Quote from: Daddy Warpig;547103SR 1 & 2: Templates. That is all.

(No idea if SR4's "sample characters" are as well-done. But, on a quick glance, they seem to be similar.)

Nope, they're really awful. As if they were designed by someone who didn't know the rules very well, which, as they were in the first draft of the game, would make sense. Errors in the math, bad choices, obvious omissions, and things that would get you killed in a hurry in most any game you played them in.

Quote from: The Butcher;532411In three words? Front-loaded complexity. Once you're done with chargen the game runs smooth, but God help you through your first (and sometimes second and third) character sheet.

A free-to-download, easy-to-use automated chargen app works wonders on both cases. It's not to everyone's liking, though.

Absolutely. Ideally, such a program would have a "campaign profile" that the GM could create, deactivating any options that aren't appropriate for the campaign.

I used to love both games, but they've become so complex I just don't want to bother. It was hard enough when I ran 2nd Edition Champions in high school...

Quote from: Lynn;547169Absolutely. Ideally, such a program would have a "campaign profile" that the GM could create, deactivating any options that aren't appropriate for the campaign.

I haven't looked at the 4e GURPS Character Assistant in a long time and don't remember the specifics of that program, but I know that the Hero Designer program has this feature.  Also, you can choose between the 5eR and 6e rules set for characters and campaigns.  Hero Designer is really an incredible program for HERO.

Quote from: Daddy Warpig;547103SR 1 & 2: Templates. That is all.

(No idea if SR4's "sample characters" are as well-done. But, on a quick glance, they seem to be similar.)

Those are never satisfactory.

1: they only work if you forbid other players from point-building characters.  If not, what you're doing is punishing the players who don't know how to "game the system" while excessively rewarding those who do.

2: Speaking of "gaming the system" the pregen characters are always designed by people who don't know how to do the same; I've never seen a game where the sample pregens are actually efficient at what they're supposed to be, much less ideally set up for it.  So its stupid.

3. It fails to address the fundamental issue: essential archetypes are missed, others are given strange turns, and basically it fails to create iconic classes.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;547293Those are never satisfactory.

Categorical declamations are never correct.

Quote from: RPGPundit;5472931: they only work if you forbid other players from point-building characters.

That hasn't been my experience, either with Torg or Shadowrun 1 & 2. (Note that neither are actually point buy systems.)

Like everything in gaming, nothing is perfectly or wholly balanced. A game light on Matrix runs makes uber-deckers useless, a game focusing on social aspects makes straight killers less useful, a game focusing on stealth makes the loud and noisy characters less effective.

The same is true for classes, as the many anti-4e people have said. Classes can not be perfectly balanced, and designers should not try to. Why should they try with skill-based systems? (Point buy or otherwise.)

Quote from: RPGPundit;547293I've never seen a game where the sample pregens are actually efficient at what they're supposed to be, much less ideally set up for it.

So your complaint is that Templates are insufficiently min-maxed? Why is that a bad thing?

Plus, as my argument above suggests, you can't min-max for a game as a whole, only a specific GM's campaign. (Though combat is almost always a focus of RPG's, so min-maxing for that is usually a safe bet.)

Quote from: RPGPundit;547293It fails to address the fundamental issue: essential archetypes are missed,

For Shadowrun 1 & 2, I disagree. In fact, you gained a great insight into what the game was meant to be, what the Shadowrun universe was, just by looking at the templates.

Decker. Rigger. Shaman. Street Mage. Street Samurai.

Those are iconic Shadowrun archetypes (or roles), and they were all there in the templates. (Along with some oddities, to be sure. But the oddities give the game some character, like the Ork Merc, Former Wage Mage, or Tribesman.)

The character quotes, descriptions, and roles let you know what the world was, what the game was about, and what the default adventure template was. That's a lot of information, in just 16 character templates.

Just as classes imply the setting (AD&D Cavaliers say much about the assumed social structure of the game, as does the martial nature of Clerics), well-crafted Templates (well-crafted in the sense of evocative, not highly min-maxed) do the same thing.

Quote from: RPGPundit;547293basically it fails to create iconic classes.

Of course it does—it's not a class-based system. The Shadowrun rules can't create iconic classes.

But they can—and did—create archetypes, which was your original complaint.

Role + Race is the most basic choice in making an SR character, and on that level, 1 & 2 succeed at creating archetypes, if not classes.

(Or is your actual argument "all RPG's must be class-based"? I would vehemently disagree with that. And so do you. Amber. Icons. And so forth. Even D&D, in all its varieties, fails the 5 min test. Just buying gear usually takes longer than that.)

Quote from: BlazFeem;546951I'd agree that there are definitely issues with the Shadowrun system, but the issue that you point out above is really, to my mind, a player problem - not a system problem. If you're playing with minmaxing munchkins, you're going to get that effect out of Shadowrun - "I've got eighty-five dice when I use my sniper rifle!" just as often as you get it out of Pathfinder - "I've used every feat, trait and class feature possible that gives me a bonus to hit with my bow!" and likely just as often in free-form games "My vision for my character is the best marksman in the world - literally none better - I can hit a fly in the eye at a range of twelve light years..." Every one of them points to a character (ha) flaw in the player, and a lack of will on the part of the GM to bring things back into some sense of order.

You say this as though there's a clear duality of type-of-player going on; a player is either a paragon of virtue or a powergaming freak and you just shouldn't play with the latter.

This is naive; system affects how players play.  In fact, a system that is DESIGNED (as D&D 3e was, according to some of the people behind it) to encourage "character optimization" will lead to players doing all kinds of stupid tricks to try to get the ideal character.  That's just how it is: its not that you have either totally honest people or utter cads; there's plenty of people who wouldn't normally think of cheating on their wives, but if a woman throws herself on them and starts to fellate them, they're not going to say no.  That's exactly what these kinds of systems do.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;547846system affects how players play.  In fact, a system that is DESIGNED (as D&D 3e was, according to some of the people behind it) to encourage "character optimization" will lead to players doing all kinds of stupid tricks to try to get the ideal character.  That's just how it is: its not that you have either totally honest people or utter cads; there's plenty of people who wouldn't normally think of cheating on their wives, but if a woman throws herself on them and starts to fellate them, they're not going to say no.  That's exactly what these kinds of systems do.

RPGPundit

Way to NOT make point-buy sound attractive.

JG

I'll limit how big a player's min/max shopping list can get on their character sheet.  But I'll take the character for NPC use or for player hooks in some other game session if it's not too crazy of a chargen.

Quote from: RPGPundit;547846You say this as though there's a clear duality of type-of-player going on; a player is either a paragon of virtue or a powergaming freak and you just shouldn't play with the latter.

While I do find powergamers to be freaks, that was not my intention. It's always a sliding scale from zero to who-knows-how-high to describe just how much of a powergamer an individual is - my threshold for BadWrongFun is just lower than most other people I know.

That said, system mastery is a tempting mini-game to play, and I've succumbed to it a time or two. Usually in one-off games, or strictly as an intellectual exercise (build the character, not actually play him).

QuoteThis is naive; system affects how players play.  In fact, a system that is DESIGNED (as D&D 3e was, according to some of the people behind it) to encourage "character optimization" will lead to players doing all kinds of stupid tricks to try to get the ideal character.  That's just how it is: its not that you have either totally honest people or utter cads; there's plenty of people who wouldn't normally think of cheating on their wives, but if a woman throws herself on them and starts to fellate them, they're not going to say no.  That's exactly what these kinds of systems do.

What sort of system do you think minimizes the incentive to powergame? Because my experience is that the greater the level of detail that you have in your system, the greater the opportunity to minmax is. Not that the relationship is one to one, mind - D&D 4E is a powergamer paradise - the power level mechanic all but demands it - but I'd not ever accuse it of being overly detailed.

Quote from: BlazFeem;548092What sort of system do you think minimizes the incentive to powergame?

One that divorces reward from character power.

Now, you have to define "reward" carefully in that equation, because different people enjoy different things in an RP context.  People who want Deep Immersion into their character's thoughts and emotions are unlikely to care how much of a badass in combat their character is, but if you're playing a game where there's a mechanic that determines how much air time you get to play your character, then you can be sure the Deep Immersive is going to max the hell out of that.

Quote from: James Gillen;548021Way to NOT make point-buy sound attractive.

JG

Well, it is relevant to the OP in a way; its certainly why I don't consider GURPS or Hero popular systems for me!

RPGPundit

Quote from: BlazFeem;548092What sort of system do you think minimizes the incentive to powergame?

A game where character creation has high levels of randomness, and very controlled sets of choices.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;548383A game where character creation has high levels of randomness, and very controlled sets of choices.

RPGPundit

Like Classic Traveller?

Quote from: RPGPundit;548382Well, it is relevant to the OP in a way; its certainly why I don't consider GURPS or Hero popular systems for me!

RPGPundit

HERO System: It will pull down your shorts and fellate you.

JG