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Posted by: Frag-o Delux Aug 19 2006, 01:49 PM

Im putting this here becasue I see it mentioned in the SR3 forums and Im sure its the main catalyst for developing SR4. So it doesnt fit in either forum.

What do you mean by slowing the game down. Not bragging or trying to sound better then other groups out there. But when we played regularly, once a week usually, between the group the rules were well versed. If a rule dispute came up we took a minute to look it up, but most of the time once someone started spouting out the rule everyone immediately remembered the rule and we carried on in harmony. Sure some of the rules were clunky (SR3), but once you got use to them it wasnt horrible. I mean a few dice rolls here and few there and you were back to RPing.

Rolling huge somes of dice wasnt a problem either, usually there was plenty to do while the player spent a minute rolling his dice and counting his successes. I was usually plotting what I was going to do next, or verifying that I brought a certain tool with me or some other minute detail, yes in our games if you dont specify you grabbed something you dont have it (and sadly yes we made it a point to take care of daily hygene, generally it was "you wake up, what to you do" "I shit shower shave" thing, but through out a long string of events it came up). I mean really is there a major problem with spending 30 minutes to resolve a combat instead of 20.

Again not picking on anyone, I dont even remember who said they did it, but when I read in the SR4 forums that people are painting their dice so they can visually queue to successes with out actually "reading" the die to speed combat up I was blown away. Does it really make the game that much quicker?

To me playing a PnP RPG is about getting together with friends and having a good time playing a game you all enjoy while catching up or what ever. Its not a race to beat the Gms well laid palns or what ever. Im sure a lot of people here have day jobs and other obligations. So busting ass through a run the GM had to build all week while he took care of his obligations and we the players basically sat back waiting for the game day isnt really worth it. I mean whats it matter if you complete a run in one night or 3?

This isnt a hate thread or anything, Im just trying to figure out what people are talking about when they say the game is slowed down by this or that.

Posted by: Bull Aug 19 2006, 03:43 PM

For the most part, "Speeding up the game" wasn't really the point of SR4. Simplification was.

You note that your entire group was well versed in the rules. That's an important point. Go GM a combat with 6 players and at least a half dozen NPCs, and with half the group only familiar with the core mechanics for the game. They know the system, they know a fair chunk of the rules, but the small stuff, the combat and cover and sight modifiers and the like, they don;t know. And thus have to rely on the GM to convey this.

Combat could take bloody forever, espcially because SR3's armor mechanics made it fairly easy to soak damage unless you got hit with a seriously large weapon, or the player had a ton of skill and combat pool to dump. Add in a halfway decent sized Karma pool for rerolls and the like... oy vey.

And I'm not saying SR4 "Fixes" this. I think that the simpler mechanics means that it's easier to learn all the key rules for combat, but still, not significantly faster unless all the players knew what they were doing.

I'd say the one area that really got sped up, was Hacking/Decking. And that needed a rules overhaul and cleanup something feirce. There's a LOT of dice rolling and math and such that's been removed from the Decker, and having Hacking operate in "Real Time" as opposed to that annoying, nebulous "Matrix Speed-Of-Thought Time" help speed it up and integrate it into the main game again.

Something I tell people during my Con demo's... Shadowrun 3 wasn't a bad game. On the contrary, it was a very good game. But it was also incredibly complex and was full of secondary rules sets, and unless you (the GM) and all of the players knew the syetem very well, it could cause problems.

Posted by: LilithTaveril Aug 19 2006, 08:48 PM

One other thing to keep in mind is SR has always been about quickly learning the rules. A bit of practice and, soon, you find yourself using certain aspects with ease. I know of SR3 GMs who didn't open the core book or use the GM screen to look up rules for years. And then, it was usually for something that wasn't used that often in their games. One GM I know even found a way to make Matrix runs more exciting by having the other players be the opposing deckers or IC.

At the end of the day, both systems run at the same speed. The issue with simplification is that it speeds up the game by attempting to reduce the amount of time necessary to learn the rules. Thus, it isn't speeding up the actual game session, but reducing the amount of time before you reach the fast game session.

Posted by: eidolon Aug 20 2006, 12:04 AM

I always get the feeling that posters that complain about SR play speed would post about <insert game here>'s play speed, if you know what I mean.

Most people these days have the attention span of a gnat on coke. You see it in any game you play, not just this one.

Also, in regards to specific complaints (such as "decking takes too long"), as Bull said, it comes down to rules knowledge more than actual, intrensic game "speed". If you know what you're doing, everything goes fast.

The first time you play any game, it takes forever. The first time you run a specific aspect of a game, it takes forever. Most of us don't even really notice, because you automatically attribute it to the learning process. The issue as I've seen it most commonly, is that people will play, say, shoot and kill SR games for a while, and they learn the combat system. Then they go in and make their first decker or magician, and it seems so much slower because "they know how to play SR". Then they complain here about it.

Posted by: LilithTaveril Aug 20 2006, 04:11 AM

Which is part of why my fighting characters are always sub-par compared to many people's standards. I never played them first. It's always been more interesting to play a decker, a mage, a rigger, or something that's just totally bizarre (like a lumberjack).

It's to the point all of my fighting characters follow a theme. Like, Little Red Riding Hood. Or a demon. Or... Never have I played one that's a pure fighter. Besides, which is more interesting? The female street sam who is simply good at shooting and a profession, or the traumatized girl who believes she's Little Red Riding Hood and simply developped the skills as a side-effect of that?

All of these people who complain about how slow the game is probably are people who play straight fighting characters. They don't spend two or three days writing, editting, and then statting out a character concept before even starting on the backstory. They probably don't devote several paragraphs to just what the character is. And they certainly don't go through all of the effort I do in how I make my character histories. Look at the ones I've posted publically so far. And, I will admit I'm making an effort to write short character histories for the people who don't have all day to sit in front of a computer... But, I always feel mine suck.

Posted by: warrior_allanon Aug 20 2006, 04:14 AM

Posted by: Frag-o Delux Aug 20 2006, 08:13 AM

Posted by: warrior_allanon Aug 21 2006, 06:00 PM

Posted by: Samaels Ghost Aug 27 2006, 03:14 AM

There have been times that combat in our games has slowed to a crawl. Juggling NPCs and thugs, making secret hacking rolls, trying to think like a well organized group of opposing mercenaries/runner/security goons can really take a while. I'm no tactical guru, but my NPCs better not make stupid mistakes or else my runners will trounce them and get bored. The players can have a real edge on a GM governing many NPCs. They each know their characters' capablities and can be very clever. They even have more time to think about what they are doing than you do for your 4-6 man security squad.

I think that whenever our games have slowed down one of the following has occured:

-Hacking. A set of sometimes unclear rules that aren't used as often as others can slow things down with rule checking. (note: I play SR4)

-Counting dice. Sometimes information on an NPC can get cluttered on my note sheets and reading it all gets complicated. That's a problem I have ways to get around, but for a while adding up dice pools quickly was a pain.

-Making up your mind. Some players take a while deciding what their characters are going to do in combat. Even if they make a decision ahead of time, things could change before their turn and so will what they plan to do. You have to, as a GM, move things along, but going too fast tends to lead to very bad mistakes that "my character would not have made".

-Rule Disputes. Not everyone agrees on how a rule SHOULD work. I've had complaints mid-battle about anything from grunt-edge to called shots. Even if you know how things work according to the rules, in practice it may seem unfair. Then you get whining. I cut this off now by telling players that I won't change anything now, but if they write down their concern we will address it AFTER the game.

-Battle. Fighting takes the most amount of die rolling and happens pretty often if your PCs are geared towards it. For new players or munchkins, battle hardened PC builds is pretty common. My group focuses primarily on making things dead, so I make sure to throw fights into every run. To be honest, they pick a fair number of fights themselves. In battle, the many rolls made can slow things down and rolling isn't very exciting by itself. So there are downtimes where people are rolling and nothing is happening. You don't have to be a gnat on coke to get bored, either. Especially since combat rolls can be made even longer by GMs looking through their NPC notes. The more dice rolling, the more boring downtime.

Most of the problems above are because there are new players involved. Rules, rolling, and confusing notes aren't what's fun about SR. When any of those suck up more game time then they should, there are problems. Trying to keep yourself occupied during those downtimes can be difficult and isn't always possible.

So in your case, Frag-o Delux, with a group of veteran players and experience juggling many different things at once, I can see why you may be confused. From my experience, games can get excruciatingly drawn out becuase of battle. But that sort of thing doesnt happen as much if you focus on roleplaying or your GM learns how to speed things up.

That's just my group, though. They're all new to RP, I played some D&D.

Edit: btw, your 20 man gaming sessions sound like a blast. I know I couldn't manage something like that. I've tried before. Just can't keep everyone interested.

Posted by: Frag-o Delux Aug 27 2006, 05:24 AM

I can see where a lot of these can slow the game down, but I also get confused about how "streamlining" the rules, or what ever they call what they did to SR4 will speed up the game. Keeping track of multiple NPCs is still going to take a lot of time, then comparing an attribute and skill to determine your die would add more time I think.

A few helpful tricks I used while playing NPCs on the few occasions I GMed (in SR3, YMMV in SR4 I dont know all the rules)

-Everything is a 3, stats and skills. I only changed that based on specific personel like deckers, mages and riggers, or groups I knew where special. Then it rarely went above 4 anyway. So when I rolled I already knew what I was going to roll.

-Combat situations are the same for your players and the bad guys, so once you figure out the basic combat mods everyone knew the base. If a PC had mods of their own according to gear you gave them a new number, they remembered it. Once everyone had their target number each round you only had to take into account what has changed. If the player is now running, add the run mod, if they are behind cover instead of running, they subtract the run mod, then I add the cover mod. Everything else has already been accounted for.

-I also play by the threat rules. A bit bastardized by SR canon standards. But each NPC has a threat level. If I hurt him bad enough hell give up. PCs obviously dont have that. But if my PCs run into a bunch of punk gangers, their threat is around 2. That equated to Moderate. If I shoot a ganger with my Manhunter and he doesnt dodge or soak any of it, hes pretty much down for the duration of the combat. It speeds combat up and it much more realistic. I mean most gangers are punks, and what gaurd is going to die for $10 an hour? We balance this a little by rolling a d6. Depending on how long the PCs hang out with a stack of dieing NPCs, or how they are treating them while they lay there dieing we modify the d6 roll. A 6 on our scale the situation stays as is, the gaurds will just lay there hopeing the PCs leave them alone, a 1, well a gaurd may sit up and try to kill the PC thats taking his time looting gaurds or executing them while they lay prone. Sometimes depending on how long the PCs are hanging around the 1 means more guards show up.

-I also play by the mentality of the NPC in play. Which can lead to funny stories. One of my players parked on a highway over pass to look down on a gang house to cover the other two players sneaking into the place. One was going in the back door. Well the guy providing over watch got trigger happy, a miscommunication between the players really. He started firing full auto with a MMG into the front of the house. Well gangers are not going to stick around for a fight like that. Even pistol fire will make most people run for cover, not stand and return fire. Even trained soldiers look for cover before returning it, its self preservation. Well a few of the gangers broke back, running through the house and into the PC trying to sneak in through the back door. Basically if you have 20 or 30 gangers hanging in front of the gang house, it doesnt mean all 30 of them are going to take part in the fight. you can have 30 NPCs in front to scare off the runners or make them plan to take the place. But in reality, and when the fight comes, you can widdle that number down a bit just because of human nature. It also speeds up the fight, and leaves bad guys to use later. Remember the waiting around a stack of dieing bodies scenerio? When the machine gun chatter dies down the survivors will come back to see what happened. This time the gangers could ambush the PCs.

-Players making up their minds will always take time no matter what system you play. I have seen people take 20 minutes to decide wether they wanted to buy B&O Railroads before, its the nature of people especially potheads.

A lot of the things you have said are time sinks will come with time. I mean I have been playing RPGs for 15 years now, including SR. Our proficiency with the rules and group dynamics didnt happen over night. Especially rules disputes. I always read the rules, I showed the players in my group that the more you knew the rules the better the game would be.

Rules disputes will happen most times because no one really knows the rules, or the group hasnt run into that situation yet. Like we all knew the rules to sky diving, but we didnt see the flaws in it till our characters were 20,000 feet above the Earth and falling towards it at 32 feet/sec/sec. Well we discussed it real quick, then just used the game rules as written and the GM made sure nothing stupid happened because of bad rules. After the game we talked to our friend that sky dives and made a house rule. One we were happy with. Now thats the rule we know. Now when ever we jump out of a plane we dont have that dispute anymore.

Its a group responsibility to make the game fun. The GM cant do it all themselves. Which seems to be the mentality of a lot of players, that its the job of the GM to entertain them. The GM needs to be entertained also. Sure there are some GMs that will do it no matter what, no matter the abuse. But I find the more the GM has fun, the more fun you have in return. You dont get a GM that likes to screw yoru character at ever turn.

Even with new games. The person that introduces the game to the group generally reads the rules first, after all, he bought the books. lol Then who ever is going to run it. Then every player that wants to play has to read the character creation and at least the combat rules before we play. Well generally play a game session or two just doing combat. You are right, combat is generally the slowest point in any game. So we play with it till it becomes familiar, then we get down to playing the game. Itll take a few game sessions to learn the rules verbatum, but itll come.

Also, the rules are just rules. Sometimes its just faster to rely on the person that tells you the rule. If I am playing a rigger and the GM asks a question about MIJI I answer the best I can or refer to the book. He can take my explaination at face value to keep the game going or he can get out the book. Most times its just taking the rule as the person recites it, because we knew the person explaining the rule knows it. But I mean after all does it really matter its only a game? Between game sessions you can look up the rule and then at the next game session you correct yourself, as long as its an honest misintereputation does it matter? Its no big deal, that is unless you cant trust your players and they might be cheaters.


The 20 player games was awsome. One of the funniest stories that I remember from those days happened between me and this guy steve. My character was in a bar talking to a contact, I forget what I was doing exactlly, but steve (his character was a low rung runner) wanted to tag along with my character and "learn." We RPed a lot of stuff, like top tier runners helping low tier runners make the grade. So I let him tag along. I asked him to watch my Saab Dynamite while I was in this dive. he comes running in and tells me a dobermen was chasing him. But since I wasnt close enough to hear what was going on (there was a lot of us playing and a lot of voices in the air) I pictured a dog chasing him. I told him to kick it. I dont know what he was thinking, I guess he assumed if you kick a drone hard enough it will stop working. Turns out this guy Chris wanted to kill steve and was chasing him with his doberman drone. Steve went back outside to kick it and chris shot the hell out of him. LOL I was dieing laughing when I heard what had happened.

We also changed people street names. One of the things that bothered us was players picking their own street names, especially if they didnt make convincing back stories for their characters or they made really chessey names. Steve had some silly street name for his character. Well after about 6 or 7 sessions this boy was catching more lead then a rifle range. So we as a joke broke into his safe house and painted targets all over his body armor. He grabbed his run bag to do a job one night. Slipped on his gear then seen it was covered in bullseyes. He got mad and everyoen called him target. After awhile thats all we called him, so he changed his name to target. He started laughing about it. Even today he refers to that character as Target.

It was tons of fun.

Some of the funniest stories had nothing to do with the game too. With that many people sometimes you were bound to have downtime for your character. So you usually told the GM you were doing something that took some time, like writing a program for your decker, or repairing your car for the rigger or just getting piss drunk for the Sam.

One night this guy Ben was having a lot of trouble, his character was in the lock up because of the missile incident. Well he was riding his bike up and down the alley. One of the other players (I think it was marc or derrick) taking a break stepped out into the alley and started riding his bike. Then suddenly we heard a loud crash, both of them scream and then laugh. We all jumped up and looked over the fence to see them laying in a heap, laughing with trash can lids and mop sticks. They decided to joust each other. They "dehorsed" each other. LOL

Posted by: eidolon Aug 27 2006, 04:53 PM