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After a LONG time of not running games, Im getting back in to it with Shadowrun 4th.
I do have a question about Build Points.
The previous GM I played with ran a 450 bp high powered, action movie type game. It was really cool but not the type of game Im interested in running.
Im curious has anyone Ran or Played a game that used UNDER 400BP?
If so do you think you were still able to have an interesting character who was able to meet the challenges that the GM gave you, or was it to low to be much fun?
I want to run something gritty and Gibsoneque, but I still want the players to be able to have competent characters they will have fun playing. Im not sure if the best way to do it is fewer BP or just use the More Deadly/More Gritty Rules
Maybe just try restricting how many BP can be spent on wealth, so they don't start with full cyborgs, insanely tricked out weapons, or tons of foci? That would encourage them to spend more on actual skills.
Pretty sure if you give characters average stats for free (ie human starts with 3 in all stats, trolls start with 5 in str/body, etc), and limit it to only 50 bp on attributes (rather than the normal 1/2 limit), then you can drop starting bp down to 150-200bp while still having usable characters.
This makes it so the characters have average or above average stats, and prevents min-maxing, but still lowers the overall power of the campaign. If you just straight up drop BP availability, then you run into weird situations like you literally cannot have a character with stats that are average for his metatype (it takes 160bp invested in attributes to raise everything to a 3. Dropping available bp to 300 with no other changes means the character can only have 150 invested in attributes, and thus will be weaker even than the average joe, rather than weaker than a prime runner as intended).
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Two intresting ideas. It looks like limiting $$$ is a good policy. Not sure about starting everyone off at 3's but it would prevet St 1 Bd 1 Deckers...
Conversely, you can drop the total BPs BUT don't restrict how much they put into attributes. Because, since skills are cheaper to buy up than attributes, and you can get gear through play, I find you're more likely to get high-stat people with a lot of potential, but not a lot of it realized.
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As a general rule, I advise against changing the BP total, either up or down. If you want a high powered game, give the characters some additional karma/money to use after creation, and for a lower powered game lower the caps on attributes/skills. The way the prices are set up in the BP system is does not take long until the characters start becoming worthless. At 320BP you only have enough to create the "average person" attributes, for example, and at 350BP you're likely to see characters with one or two stats at 5, and 1 in everything else.
If you want to lower power, you can either lower attribute/skill/availability caps, or you can use the karma creation system and give less than 750 karma to create characters with.
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As a general rule, I advise against changing the BP total, either up or down. If you want a high powered game, give the characters some additional karma/money to use after creation, and for a lower powered game lower the caps on attributes/skills. The way the prices are set up in the BP system is does not take long until the characters start becoming worthless. At 320BP you only have enough to create the "average person" attributes, for example, and at 350BP you're likely to see characters with one or two stats at 5, and 1 in everything else.
This is why my suggestion was to give everyone average stats to start with, and not have it count towards their BP total.
Right now, my group is talking about starting up a new street level campaign, this is looking like the set of house rules we're going with for character generation:
100 BP total
Attributes start at average
Cost of awakened qualities are doubled
Negative Qualities capped at 20 points.
Cost of skills are halved
Base availability limit of 9.
1,500 nuyen per BP
3 free contact points per Charisma.
Contacts cost Loyalty x Connection
The last two aren't really necessary, but something I like to encourage having at least a couple contacts, and emphasizing that having someone who is both loyal and connected is worth more than just a loyalty 1 guy with high connection.
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If my text is blue, I'm being sarcastic. No, really. Don't bite my head off for saying the Fighter is way overpowered, or how Wizards need more spells per day to keep up.
At that point you may as well just give them a starting base and give them karma to build with(disclaimer, I *hate* the BP build system, as it encourages a truly legendary level of min-maxing).
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ShadowRun 4 Build Point Question
