| From: | jeremie.bouillon@****.fr (Jérémie_Bouillon) |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Power of starting PC (was:The Gun to the Head scenario) |
| Date: | Fri, 25 Aug 2006 11:32:00 +0200 |
> From my reading of the books, it seems SR starting characters are
> supposed to be a good deal more powerful than a normal person. In SR4,
> there's not much you can take away before they're weaker than the
> average pedestrian, and there's not much space for monomaniacal
> optimizing either. I don't see that as a bad thing, necessarily.
I strongly disagree with this.
SR4 starting PC can have on attribute at 6, and one skill at 6 or two
skills at 5.
Meaning, each PC can be the "best of the best" (literally) *at
creation*. And that's if you don't want any Michael Jordan, Fastjack,
Stephen Hawking or Cap' Chaos at your table because it's possible too.
The pedestrian is most likely to have one attribute at 3 or 4 (depending
on his age and experience), the other one at 2 or 3. One skill at 3 or
4, a couple of skills at 1, some knowledges, and basta.
There's a huge difference between the two. And it's quite possible, for
a maxed-out starting PC, to have no or very little room for improvement
in his main area of expertise whatsoever.
> If you want your players to start out really weak, maybe it's best to
> switch to another rules system altogether. For example, "Shadowrun
> D20" may be a dirty word to some, but if there's one thing D20 is good
> at is at producing really weak starting characters, who have a long
> road to go before they can call themselves "powerful". I'm sure there
> are other systems which can do a similar thing and don't have as much
> negative emotional baggage.
There's no negative emotional baggage. Only if a player has little
knowledge of both the mechanic system, and hasn't been fully explained
on the scale.
And while I also disagree about the d20 system, SR3 & SR4 are quite fit
to make less fast&furious starting PC, and to leave room for improvement
for them. The players may disagree at first, but from my experience
they'll thank you later when they don't have to wait 800 session game to
have a slight increase in their cyber-equipment for example.
