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Message no. 1
From: Michael Coleman <mscoleman@********.NET>
Subject: New Chargen
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1998 04:35:49 -0500
I have been thinking on a new chargen system and I would like some opinions
on it.

It starts with selecting a race template.

Human - Body:3 Quickness:3 Strenght:3 Charisma:3 Intelligence:3 Willpower:3
Magic:0

Elf - Body:3 Quickness:4 Strenght:3 Charisma:5 Intelligence:3 Willpower:3
Magic:0

Dwarf - Body:4 Quickness:3 Strenght:5 Charisma:3 Intelligence:3 Willpower:4
Magic:0

Ork - Body:6 Quickness:3 Strenght:5 Charisma:2 Intelligence:2 Willpower:3
Magic:0

Troll - Body:8 Quickness:2 Strenght:7 Charisma:1 Intelligence:1 Willpower:3
Magic:0

Then you have 50 points to buy Attributes, Skills, Magic points and Spells.
At one point for one point. This can mean a Magic Rating of 0 through 6.
To be a magician you need a Magic Rating of 1 or greater. You can choose
which type of magicians (Full, Aspected or Adept). Adepts have as many
Power Points as they have Magic Points.

Metahumans have an advantage, so humans start with 2 point in the karma pool
and 4 contacts versus metahumans 1 karma in the pool and 2 contacts. Human
also have a social advantage of +1 dice in any "normal" social interaction
(GM discretion). For resource all characters start with the same amount.
The GM can control the level of the game by the amount of starting money. I
am thinking of between 100,000Y and 400,000Y. The character gets
Intelligence times 5 in knowledge skill points and Intelligence time 1.5 in
language skill points.

I think this system will generate slightly more powerful characters but I
hope it is more streamlined.

Please tell me what you think.

Mike
Message no. 2
From: Steadfast <laughingman@*******.DE>
Subject: Re: New Chargen
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1998 13:49:23 +0200
And so it came to happen that Michael Coleman wrote:
----------
> I have been thinking on a new chargen system and I would like some
opinions
> on it.

Theyre we go;o)

> It starts with selecting a race template.
>
> Human - Body:3 Quickness:3 Strenght:3 Charisma:3 Intelligence:3
Willpower:3
> Magic:0
>
> Elf - Body:3 Quickness:4 Strenght:3 Charisma:5 Intelligence:3 Willpower:3
> Magic:0
>
> Dwarf - Body:4 Quickness:3 Strenght:5 Charisma:3 Intelligence:3
Willpower:4
> Magic:0
>
> Ork - Body:6 Quickness:3 Strenght:5 Charisma:2 Intelligence:2 Willpower:3
> Magic:0
>
> Troll - Body:8 Quickness:2 Strenght:7 Charisma:1 Intelligence:1
Willpower:3
> Magic:0
>
> Then you have 50 points to buy Attributes, Skills, Magic points and
Spells.
> At one point for one point. This can mean a Magic Rating of 0 through 6.
> To be a magician you need a Magic Rating of 1 or greater. You can choose
> which type of magicians (Full, Aspected or Adept). Adepts have as many
> Power Points as they have Magic Points.

Well, nice, but what if you want that couch potato decker/mage per example?
Do you get points back if you lower the atribute stats? If so, at the same
rate as you buy them?
Say you got a full mage (human) you decide to use the whole 25 pts. you got
25 pts. left for Atributes and Skills. Say we make the usual mental stats
up we get 19 pts. left. Then we decide he will have "full magic rating" it
costs the mage another 6 pts. 13 pts. left for skills. That is 14 pts less
then even the lowest priority, doesn't make sense to me, its more a bit
underpowered than over.
So you think to allready implement the magic loss from the start, don't
you? Why? Every mage that has a magic rating of 3 is either
cybered/bioengeniered or addicted to drugs (or once was) as the magic
Attribute is linked to the essence of the mage etc. Don't think for it as
usefull.

> Metahumans have an advantage, so humans start with 2 point in the karma
pool
> and 4 contacts versus metahumans 1 karma in the pool and 2 contacts.
Human
> also have a social advantage of +1 dice in any "normal" social
interaction

Makes sense in a way, but contradicts the system. As far as I can recall we
already have an interaction bonus for humans (don't have the page ready in
SR3rd.) as they mostly don't get the racism malus on their side in
interactions.
By the way, if humans interact under each other, say a human corpslave
going into a flower shop owned by a "normal" human shop owner they would
both get this one extra dice for the interactions (negotiations spring to
my mind) so no real win on this side.

> (GM discretion). For resource all characters start with the same amount.
> The GM can control the level of the game by the amount of starting money.
I
> am thinking of between 100,000Y and 400,000Y. The character gets
> Intelligence times 5 in knowledge skill points and Intelligence time 1.5
in
> language skill points.

Definetly no, you get no personal touch, if you have three charackters, one
beeing a hermetic mage one being a street shaman and one beeing a decker
you need different money for the charakters as the decker and sammy will
probably need more than the shaman and the hermetic while the hermetic will
probably need more than the shaman.

> I think this system will generate slightly more powerful characters but I
> hope it is more streamlined.

For Mages I say they loose. Every other is a bit underpowered I say as even
humans should have the posibilty to get 50 pts. for skills AND not only
have 18 points for atributes.

> Please tell me what you think.
Done. Thats IMO ó course ;o)

--->Steadfast
to be "human" is not a state of living
I want to achieve.
Message no. 3
From: Sean McCrohan <mccrohan@*****.OIT.GATECH.EDU>
Subject: Re: New Chargen
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1998 08:10:07 -0400
On Mon, Oct 05, 1998 at 01:49:23PM +0200, Steadfast wrote:
> So you think to allready implement the magic loss from the start, don't
> you? Why? Every mage that has a magic rating of 3 is either
> cybered/bioengeniered or addicted to drugs (or once was) as the magic
> Attribute is linked to the essence of the mage etc. Don't think for it as
> usefull.
>
In general I agree with you - this system places several unnecessary
limits on character creation that aren't present in the standard system.
This one right here, though, I sort of liked. After all, why should magical
ability be binary? It'd be kind of neat to have a system that allowed for
'weak' magical ability...maybe you only have a LITTLE mojo, and your base
magic rating is a 3, instead of a 6. It's still better than a zero, but
a little cyberware will wipe it right out (I'd still use a 1-for-1 match
between Essence lost and Magic lost, so someone starting at Magic 3 would
go Mundane if their Essence dropped below 4.00).
This could work into the priority system fairly easily (it'd give
us something to do with Magic priorities below B), but could make magically
active characters much more common, which would be a break with the setting.
Of course, if 'D' priority were a Magic Rating of 1, your typical human
(With Magic D and Race E) would be mundane - most folks have at least
a datajack, and that'd be all it would take to wipe out a 1-point magic rating.
A natural rating of 1 might be too low for the usual casual testing to detect,
so people might even be unaware they had any ability at all. Could be that
this is where that non-practicing 90% of theoretically magically capable
people come from (well, plus those who think magic is evil, or are scared
of it, or just aren't interested).
And, of course, if you put a starting Magic Rating of 1 on Priority D
(don't require it, naturally...if someone wants to be mundane, let them), it
gives Magic D, Race E human-boy something for the D priority he decided not
to become an ork or dwarf with. That's seemed to be a big issue for some
people.
However, I'm not sure how well it would work. What do people think?

--Sean

--
Sean McCrohan (mccrohan@**.gatech.edu) | "He uses his folly as a stalking
Grad Student, Human-Computer Interaction | horse, and under the presentation
Georgia Institute of Technology | of that he shoots his wit."
http://www.lcc.gatech.edu/~smccrohan | _As You Like It_, Act 5 Sc 4
Message no. 4
From: Caric <caric@********.COM>
Subject: Re: New Chargen
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1998 09:36:05 -0700
Michael Coleman wrote:

> I have been thinking on a new chargen system and I would like some opinions
> on it.
>
> It starts with selecting a race template.
>
> Human - Body:3 Quickness:3 Strenght:3 Charisma:3 Intelligence:3 Willpower:3
> Magic:0
>
> <snip other templates>

> Then you have 50 points to buy Attributes, Skills, Magic points and Spells.
> At one point for one point. This can mean a Magic Rating of 0 through 6.
> To be a magician you need a Magic Rating of 1 or greater. You can choose
> which type of magicians (Full, Aspected or Adept). Adepts have as many
> Power Points as they have Magic Points.
>
> I think this system will generate slightly more powerful characters but I
> hope it is more streamlined.

It makes the characters alot more powerful if you ask me. The human above
could have 6's in every attribute AND a magic attribute of six and still have
36 active skill points (which is darn close to the amount you get for a "B"
priority) and 30 knowledge skill points. Throw in 400,000 nuyen and oof da.

Basically the system your describing is giving every character the equivalent
of a "B" value in every priority. Nothing wrong with that necessarily, just
a bit overpowered if you ask me.


Caric
Message no. 5
From: "XaOs [David Goth]" <xaos@*****.NET>
Subject: Re: New Chargen
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1998 12:13:31 -0500
> Then you have 50 points to buy Attributes, Skills, Magic points
> and Spells.
> At one point for one point. This can mean a Magic Rating of 0 through 6.
> To be a magician you need a Magic Rating of 1 or greater. You can choose
> which type of magicians (Full, Aspected or Adept). Adepts have as many
> Power Points as they have Magic Points.

Is there a cost associated with buying your mage type? If not, no one would
ever play an Aspected mage. You'd have Full mages, and Adepts. Mages won't
end up with a lot of points to farm off into Force from other areas, though.



-XaOs-
xaos@*****.net
-David Goth-
Message no. 6
From: Michael Coleman <mscoleman@********.NET>
Subject: Re: New Chargen
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1998 02:03:17 -0500
> > Metahumans have an advantage, so humans start with 2 point in the karma
> pool
> > and 4 contacts versus metahumans 1 karma in the pool and 2 contacts.
> Human
> > also have a social advantage of +1 dice in any "normal" social
> interaction
>
> Makes sense in a way, but contradicts the system. As far as I can
> recall we
> already have an interaction bonus for humans (don't have the page ready in
> SR3rd.) as they mostly don't get the racism malus on their side in
> interactions.
> By the way, if humans interact under each other, say a human corpslave
> going into a flower shop owned by a "normal" human shop owner they would
> both get this one extra dice for the interactions (negotiations spring to
> my mind) so no real win on this side.

I got to thinking in this after I posted. I decided give humans a bonus is
the wrong way to implement this idea. I should have give the metahumans
a -1 dice instead. I just might cut the whole thing and make it a
roleplaying thing (i.e. the metahumans feel slighted, etc.)

Mike
Message no. 7
From: Michael Coleman <mscoleman@********.NET>
Subject: Re: New Chargen
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1998 02:29:15 -0500
> >Michael Coleman wrote:
>
> > I have been thinking on a new chargen system and I would like
> some opinions
> > on it.
> >
> > It starts with selecting a race template.
> >
> > Human - Body:3 Quickness:3 Strenght:3 Charisma:3 Intelligence:3
> Willpower:3
> > Magic:0
> >
> > <snip other templates>
>
> > Then you have 50 points to buy Attributes, Skills, Magic points
> and Spells.
> > At one point for one point. This can mean a Magic Rating of 0
> through 6.
> > To be a magician you need a Magic Rating of 1 or greater. You
> can choose
> > which type of magicians (Full, Aspected or Adept). Adepts have as many
> > Power Points as they have Magic Points.
> >
> > I think this system will generate slightly more powerful
> characters but I
> > hope it is more streamlined.
>
> It makes the characters alot more powerful if you ask me. The human above
> could have 6's in every attribute AND a magic attribute of six
> and still have
> 36 active skill points (which is darn close to the amount you get
> for a "B"
> priority) and 30 knowledge skill points. Throw in 400,000 nuyen
> and oof da.
>
> Basically the system your describing is giving every character
> the equivalent
> of a "B" value in every priority. Nothing wrong with that
> necessarily, just
> a bit overpowered if you ask me.
>
>
> Caric
>
That would be 26 points left after buying all attributes to 6 and a magic
rating of 6. Now you would have 26 points to buy skills and spells. As for
money that is GM variable.

Mike
Message no. 8
From: Michael Coleman <mscoleman@********.NET>
Subject: Re: New Chargen
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1998 02:34:18 -0500
> > Then you have 50 points to buy Attributes, Skills, Magic points
> > and Spells.
> > At one point for one point. This can mean a Magic Rating of 0
> through 6.
> > To be a magician you need a Magic Rating of 1 or greater. You
> can choose
> > which type of magicians (Full, Aspected or Adept). Adepts have as many
> > Power Points as they have Magic Points.
>
> Is there a cost associated with buying your mage type? If not, no
> one would
> ever play an Aspected mage. You'd have Full mages, and Adepts. Mages won't
> end up with a lot of points to farm off into Force from other
> areas, though.
>
>
>
> -XaOs-
> xaos@*****.net
> -David Goth-
>
The choose of being an Aspected mage would be a roleplaying one. You would
give up certain advantages to be different.

Mike

Further Reading

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