From:	Michael Orion Jackson <moj0001@****.ACS.UNT.EDU>
Subject:	Re: Yet another go-around w/chargen
Date:	Fri, 16 Jun 1995 08:53:56 -0500

On Fri, 16 Jun 1995, The Digital Mage wrote:

> On Thu, 15 Jun 1995, Michael Orion Jackson wrote:
>
> > The system is self-limiting. If you take skills and attributes at level
> > 4 (max), yuo've got 40 skill points and 30 attrib. points, but you've
> > only got 2 left over for Resources (What, 90kY or something like that).
> > In other words, you're good, but you're poor. This asssumes 10 points
> > and that you don't plug any of the remaining two into something stupid
> > like magic (I'm a SuperMundane!).
> Eh? I was referring to what your gripe with the *existing* system is, in
> which you rank the areas by priority. Therefore a character couldn't have
> 40 Skill points and 30 Attributes points. The whole point of the current
> generation system is so that starting character all start off equal and
> balanced. Ie you could have really good skills, pretty good attributes,
> average money, but be human with no magic. Or you could be a full blown
> mage, have pretty good skills, be a metahuman (using More Metas rule),
> but have below average attributes and practically no nuyen.
>
> If your characters are wanting everything then theres no point sticking
> with a character gen system just use GM discretion.
>
> The Digital Mage : mn3rge@****.ac.uk
> Shadowrun Web Site under construction at
> http://www.bath.ac.uk/~mn3rge/Shadowrun.html
>
Again, the system I cooked up would create characters that are balanced.
10 points is 10 points, no matter how you spend it. You could max out
skills and attributes, but you resources wouldn't be too hot. If I
remember correctly, res2kY. So, you'd have light or no cyberware,
probably no vehicle, and fairly standard weaponry. In other words, you'd
be an awful lot like the Merc archetype in SR Basic. ON the other hand,
lets say you plug 4 into Magic, 0 into race, 3 into skills, 2 into
attributes, and 1 into resources. You then shift your money down to res0
for magic equal t res2. Basically, you have a human street
mage/shaman:magically-endowed, not too experienced or strong, and poor.
It is up to you to decide wheter or not the above two examples are equal.
I tend to think so, because magic is a powerful advantage.

My basic gripe is that with the basic table, you end up wasting priority
levels on useless crap like race or magic (assuming you make a human,
fighter-type character (by far the most common character in my experience)).
By that I mean that you put you A, B, and C priorities into resources,
skills and attributes in some order. C ends up stuck into race or magic.
As C priority gets you zilch in these areas, I say why force players to
devote part of that "creational energy" to some completely useless area.
And, because the system forces you into descending order, it ignores the
fact that, frequently, players value two areas equally. I personally
like res4, skills3, attrib3 when I play a merc (my favorite archetype).

I hope this clears up any confusion. Especially on whether or not this
system creates balanced characters, which I think it does.

__________________________________________________________________________
|Michael Orion Jackson |"A college student is a mechanism for |
|moj0001@****.acs.unt.edu |converting caffeine into finished |
|>Flaming is immature.< |homework" -unknown, but perceptive author |
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