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Dumpshock Forums _ Shadowrun _ More ruminations on how to GM Shadowrun "right"
Posted by: Wounded Ronin Apr 27 2006, 11:06 PM
Yesterday I got a bit introspective when posting on these forums and thought a bit about the things that made me like GMing SR3 and not like GMing SR3. With the music from Bloodsport where Van Damme rides the bus and thinks about Chong Li in the background I thought about beefy Asian men on busses and finally came up with some revised 80s type guidelines for GMing.
These are just my thoughts about how to balance difficulty level and payoffs so that the PCs don't get too powerful but at the same time are able to maintain their chosen lifestyles and be challenged each week at the gaming table. I think a big mistake I made early on when I was GMing years ago was awarding karma according to the guidelines given in SR3, which tended to end up being ~10 karma per run if you followed the guidelines and gave points for things like "Right Place, Right Time" and "In Character", since these mini bonuses really added up. The problem is that this, combined with my too-low difficulty levels, lead to karma pool snowballing which ruined the game for me faster than anything.
I also decided to take cues from the Genesis and SNES Shadowrun games. I reasoned that the video games represented the image that FASA wanted to present to the world of their game. If I can convey some of the atmosphere and setting detail from these games I may be closer to finding "the real Shadowrun".
With the 80s to inspire me in the quest for the "real" Shadowrun, I sketched up the following guidelines where I've classified difficulty levels and mission types. Please let me know what you think, or if I've finally permanently lost it.
=======================
Street Level
Theme Music: Beat It (Michael Jackson)
Types of Jobs: Delivering illegal packages of moderate-low value (like drugs or BTLs), escorting two-bit criminals through hostile neighborhoods (where legit bodyguards would be more expensive)
Types of Opposition: Normal metahumans with "average" stats and combat skills from 0-2. Light pistols abound. Hardly any cyberwear. Just like in real life a lot of str33t confrontations can be diffused because people usually want easy prey. Hardly any magic.
Payoff: 1 karma point, 100-200 nuyen per team member.
Notes: The point of these runs is to familiarize the players to the system and describe the atmosphere of the world. Since opponents are weak GMs can invest a lot of time and energy in flavor to flesh out the world in the imaginations of the players. The GM should describe big hair, Michael Jackson, leather jackets, and elves with permed mullets. Perhaps a disturbing amount of inspiration can be found by looking at archived Playboy magazines from the 1980s regarding big hair and big glasses and Barbie-like women of horror.
Another point is that since SR is supposed to be disutopian the majority of NPCs are bitter, grumpy, and impolite. It's the big city and most people are afraid or resentful of everyone. I remember my personal experience living in New York City as a child back in the 80s; my mom was afraid to walk outside on the street after around 7:00, the subways still had graffiti on them right out of The Warriors, the crime rate was high, and angry service-sector employees liked to glare at you and wait 20 seconds before doing what you asked them to do.
Think also of the SNES SR game where people are almost universally rude to your character. My favorite example of this was the "gay" bartender at one of the shadowrunner clubs who would say, "Nice aftershave! Very street level!".
The PCs should be able to get a job like this every other day or so so that they can theoretically maintain a Low lifestyle working full time at low risk.
Corporate Level
Theme Music: "Running With The Night" (Lionel Ritchie)
Types of Job: Stealing items from corporate offices, annhilating a small/medium neighborhood gang, annhilating a community of ghouls, assassinating or extracting a corporate officer.
Types of Opposition: Ranges from "average" stats and skill ~3 in large numbers to skill ~5 or 6 with a reasonable suite of cyberwear and a mage or two. Reasonably nasty security mechanisms should protect corporate offices so that carelessness will result in casualties. If the PCs do something indiscrete the GM should give them 5-10 minutes of in-character time before pelting them with ~20 Lone Star officers and 2 LS mages, and after that give them another 5 minutes before the SWAT team shows.
Payoff: 3 karma points, 500-1000 nuyen per team member. If the PCs squeeze in around 3 per month and fence a lot of loot they can maintain a respectable mid level lifestyle.
Notes: Thisis a basic mission which should tax new players but which good players should be able to perform flawlessly. The time crunch is introduced to make injuries actually matter in the next mission, rather than just amounting to nothing but a cash deduction. Security guards should be hostile and looking to bully anyone who looks (or smells) "street level". The GM will probably spend a little more time crunching numbers and rolling combat and less time describing the 80s hairdos which the players should by now assume.
Asian Level
Theme Music: "Japanese Boy" (Aneka)
Types of Job: Assassinating or extracting a VIP or one of a kind item, springing a high profile convict from a Lone Star convoy, annhiliating guerilla camps in the jungle, annihilating special forces teams, tangling with the yaks.
Types of Opposition: Plenty of initiated mages, rating 8 spirits, sammies with 0.1 essence, or ~30 "medium" opponents from the last difficulty level who are all hiding and ready to blow you away in a giant VC style ambush. Enemies may have vehicles, artillery, advanced riflemen, support weapons, and plenty of magic. Ninjas may begin to appear and stab you when your M16A1 jams like in American Ninja 1; being rushed by 50 melee physads at once is quite a challenge.
Payoff: 5-7 karma points, 10,000 nuyen per character. Only one of these jobs should be available per month but the runner who can succeed every time through meticulous planning and professionalism can afford the coveted High lifestyle.
Notes: In the 80s everything asian was magically better. Therefore, only really good players with hyper asian levels of meticulousness, fighting spirit, and magical powers can pull this off. Just look at Bloodsport. If Van Damme didn't have super magical asian blindfighting powers, he totally would have been pwned by Chong Li's beefy asian powder throwing ninja-fu.
Drop the Hammer
Theme Music: "Girls Just Want To Have Fun" (Cyndi Lauper)
Types of Job: Dying
Types of Opposition: See above. Every 10 minutes. Also, constant sniping when out in the open. Unlimited enemy air and magical support.
Payoff: Your war is finally over
Notes: Should the PCs do something so flagrant that a corporation has no choice but to make an example out of them they just keep getting pelted until its all over. There is a way out of this, though, and it is steeped in the wisdom of pretending to be asian. The http://homepages.tesco.net/~parsonsp/html/way_of_the_tiger.html ninja gamebooks included a "Ninja no Chigiri" which had a line to the effect of, "I will die many times, yet I shall live again." Perhaps if a PC is killed and his body falls into an inaccessible location he can Hand of God to survive and then work on changing his identities. Ninja creeds, as usual, offer rays of hopes in otherwise insurmountable situations.
Posted by: Sharaloth Apr 27 2006, 11:23 PM
Not my type of game, and you jump from 10K per run to dead. The advancement would go at a snail's pace and high-maintenance runner types would be left fairly useless without enough money and karma to keep them going. If you're getting paid only 10K per person to assassinate a VIP, you're being horribly ripped off, like by a factor of 10.
Street Level: fine, looks okay, deserves a higher Karma reward variable.
Corporate level: standard-looking. Still too low a karma variable and the money should show more fluctuation (in the upward direction). Perhaps 1K-10K per run per runner, depending on the job.
Asian level: Too high level opposition, too low payoff. From what you're describing and the types of job listed, runner's aren't going to be going for these jobs, because they're too high risk with no reward. Up the Karma level considerably and the pay even more (20-200K depending on the risks of the mission), and you might be closer to reasonable.
drop the Hammer: Why even include this? Player's royally screw up, they die in-mission. This looks like a GM deliberately out for a TPK, and that's not cool.
Posted by: Wounded Ronin Apr 27 2006, 11:29 PM
| QUOTE (Sharaloth) |
| Not my type of game, and you jump from 10K per run to dead. The advancement would go at a snail's pace and high-maintenance runner types would be left fairly useless without enough money and karma to keep them going. If you're getting paid only 10K per person to assassinate a VIP, you're being horribly ripped off, like by a factor of 10. Street Level: fine, looks okay, deserves a higher Karma reward variable. Corporate level: standard-looking. Still too low a karma variable and the money should show more fluctuation (in the upward direction). Perhaps 1K-10K per run per runner, depending on the job. Asian level: Too high level opposition, too low payoff. From what you're describing and the types of job listed, runner's aren't going to be going for these jobs, because they're too high risk with no reward. Up the Karma level considerably and the pay even more (20-200K depending on the risks of the mission), and you might be closer to reasonable. drop the Hammer: Why even include this? Player's royally screw up, they die in-mission. This looks like a GM deliberately out for a TPK, and that's not cool. |
Hmm, you're right about Asian Level. If the reward were too low, no one would take such a job.
Drop The Hammer is actually a reference to a phrase used by someone on DSF (I forgot who) to describe what is supposed to happen if the PCs go nuts and do something stupid like fire an assault cannon into the lobby of a corporate headquarters in Downtown Seattle or something. It's real CLUE files material fallout. Maybe I didn't make that clear enough in the original description.
Posted by: James McMurray Apr 28 2006, 02:14 AM
| QUOTE |
| Drop The Hammer is actually a reference to a phrase used by someone on DSF (I forgot who) |
That'd be me. I've been immortalized!!!
I'd double or triple the payouts at street and corporate level. Massively increase the payouts at Asian level, and get rid of the ninja swarms.
Also, despite being an advocate of dropping the hammer when the group does something that deserves it I don't agree with the "no way out" scenario. There's always something that they can do, assuming they can escape the initial assault. I also wouldn't have snipers take them down, but mainly because it's no fun.
Posted by: emo samurai Apr 28 2006, 03:34 AM
Plus, there's the whole issue of game balance. If near-impossible missions paid only about 
10,000, then they'd never buy anything but guns; cyberware would be too damn expensive. It's 100,000 for a basic cyberarm; everything above that's just unattainable. It's actually kind of evil and petty to keep pay scales at that level.
Posted by: Backgammon Apr 28 2006, 04:39 AM
I love you Wounded Ronin 
Your posts crack me up every time, and you get that Shadowrun = 80s
Posted by: hyzmarca Apr 28 2006, 04:49 AM
| QUOTE (emo samurai) |
| Plus, there's the whole issue of game balance. If near-impossible missions paid only about 10,000, then they'd never buy anything but guns; cyberware would be too damn expensive. It's 100,000 for a basic cyberarm; everything above that's just unattainable. It's actually kind of evil and petty to keep pay scales at that level. |
That is absolutly correct. It's why I always used the cheat cose that lets your pocket secretary spit out several huundred thousand nuyen when playing the Genesis version of Shadowrun.
Posted by: emo samurai Apr 28 2006, 05:19 AM
I used the frame skip on decking jobs to do the same on an emulator.
Posted by: eralston Apr 28 2006, 05:24 AM
A pretty good guide for threat/reward I've used before is asking the players to set out some sort of financial goals for their chars. Just a sophisticate name for: What do you want to buy? Usually it goes something like this:
mundanes:
AV rounds
Big Gun
Upgrade all ware to alpha
Significant Piece of Cyberware
magicians:
Materials
Expensive focus
Very expensive focus
Hunk of orichalcum size of head (AKA ludicrous focus)
Then just plot out how quickly you want them to attain it per level.
That's a bit of a top-down approach to payment so it might not work for everyone
Posted by: Glyph Apr 29 2006, 06:24 AM
Rather than limit payouts, I would favor an "easy come, easy go" approach. Yeah, you get the big bucks - you are in demand, a highly skilled deniable asset who stands out from the expendable street trash by being discreet and getting the tough jobs done. With all of the risks involved, and the well-paying, safer legitimate work that most SR characters could be doing, being a professional shadowrunner should be lucrative. But you should also have to shell out a lot of that money on bribes, upgrading your toys, replacing those drones that got shot to hell, getting a new place after your old apartment gets firebombed, buying fresh fake IDs, etc.
If necessary, follow Blackjack's law of "having money without spending it".
Posted by: Wounded Ronin Apr 30 2006, 10:06 PM
OK, it makes sense to boost the payments up. I guess the question is, "realistically", how much would a Johnson pay for a job? If a Johnson pays a five man team 200,000 nuyen apiece to do something, he'd be shelling out a million nuyen on a given mission. Do you think that's reasonable? Personally, I have a gut feeling that a Johnson wouldn't want to pay a million bucks to possibly accomplish a given objective, but I don't really have a basis for that, so maybe I'm mistaken.
The other issue I want to ask about is karma. I definitely made the karma rewards smaller than "cannon" because I feel like too much accumulated karma pool messes up the game. Ideally, I'd want the PCs to burn karma at roughly the same rate they accumulate it, since I feel like once a pool gets around ~10+ dice the character gets too powerful. Opinions on that?
Posted by: eralston Apr 30 2006, 10:12 PM
Well, metahumans screw with the pool a lot. I generally play with an alternate hand of god rule:
"Any player can hand of god if they die a meaningful death and they have non-zero karma pool. This act resets karma pool to 0. This can be used whenever applicable [no limit on number of time]"
Under that rule, the biggest KP ever achieved was ~5
The big thrust on economics would be that the more you pay the players, the most dangerous they become so you go down a bit of a slippery slope because you will have to pay them more for them to up the ante on challenges (because the challenges will become inherently more difficult, requiring more incentative to undertake them)
Posted by: Wounded Ronin Apr 30 2006, 10:37 PM
| QUOTE (eralston) |
| Well, metahumans screw with the pool a lot. I generally play with an alternate hand of god rule: "Any player can hand of god if they die a meaningful death and they have non-zero karma pool. This act resets karma pool to 0. This can be used whenever applicable [no limit on number of time]" Under that rule, the biggest KP ever achieved was ~5 |
Hmm, so that would kind of lead to a Rainbox 6 III effect. The entire team (except for Ding Chavez) gets blown to kiddie kibble on one mission but they're all back and ready to support Ding again in the next mission. You don't get the cool effect from the first Rainbox Six game where you actually empty a roster as your characters die but on the other hand this would let people keep the same character for a while which some people really like doing.
Interesting idea, actually.
It's interesting because my sort of built-in, taken-for-granted idea is that as you continue with a series of games every now and then a PC will die and be replaced by a new one. Under your system PCs need not die every now and then but on the other hand they don't get too powerful, either, at least not in the karma pool department.
| QUOTE |
The big thrust on economics would be that the more you pay the players, the most dangerous they become so you go down a bit of a slippery slope because you will have to pay them more for them to up the ante on challenges (because the challenges will become inherently more difficult, requiring more incentative to undertake them) |
Hmm. Well, one thing about gaming in the past is that I never really imposed expenses on the players beyond hospitalization bills, the cost of equipment, and things like that. No Fallout 2 style, "Pay 10,000 caps for this picture with a map on the back, lol." Maybe I could focus on hitting the PCs with more storyline-related expenses they have to pay somehow and try and trim the cash flow that way. Perhaps a bit of the "easy come, easy go"? It's not a concept I've tried out before, but I can't think of any other way to simultaneously have big payoffs *and* keep the PCs from becoming multimillionaires who nevertheless inexplicably continue to run the shadows while buying dikoted deltaware with permed hair sticking out of it.
Posted by: eralston May 1 2006, 01:17 AM
Well, if they get a grenade chucked down their throat and they are rendering unrecoverable, then I have never brought them back. The general case is, they get mortally wounded leaving a complex, the guards drive you away from them before the team can render help. Their fate is largely unknown.
Hand of God == always available ressurection does kill the game quite a bit, so you have to be harsh with that "meaningful" part.
Yeah, if you can keep profit margins constant while still making big payoffs, that will keep the team invested. Lord knows my friend who's GMing right now could stand to figure that out.
Posted by: James McMurray May 1 2006, 02:13 AM
My group has never had a problem with multiple Hand of Gods. The removal of the one-time restriction in SR4 was one of my favorite changes. Who wants to make a new character every other session? Some people do, but my group doesn't have anyone like that currently.
Posted by: eidolon May 1 2006, 04:25 AM
Meh, I've always been on the fence about them having even one HoG. I would never allow it as a constant "insta-rez" though, that much I'm sure of.
If I want to play a game in which dying is something you just roll your eyes over and go get raised, I bust out D&D. (Not a dig, I love both games.)
Posted by: James McMurray May 1 2006, 04:44 AM
Hand of God, if done "right", is far from an instarez. It's more of a trials and tribulations thing then a get out of jail free.
Posted by: Aku May 1 2006, 04:50 AM
personally, i never saw HoG as "insta rez" in that sense, sure it saved your hide, from the damage, but if you're buried, it dont matter much cuz you're still likely to die.
Posted by: James McMurray May 1 2006, 04:54 AM
I would never put a player who just HoG'ed right back into an instant death situation, like taking the damage and then still being there in the firefight ready to take the same damage from the next sec gaurd's turn (or the same sec gaurd's second simple action). HoG should be a story altering event.
Posted by: hyzmarca May 1 2006, 05:15 AM
Hand of God is related to the old "if you haven't seen a body then he isn't really dead" television and movie trope. One of the bad guys says "no one can survive that", thus ensuring that your character not only survives but eventually comes back to haunt them.
Posted by: James McMurray May 1 2006, 05:44 AM
Nah, that's the easy way out.
Posted by: eidolon May 1 2006, 06:12 AM
I never said that I ran it as "ah, you're dead, better blow that karma and respawn back at home base".
The last HoG I had a player do, the character had done something really stupid in a high class restaurant. She killed the head of thier security and two other goons with her fingertip monofilament whip, and proceeded to run out across the main restaurant floor in her blood covered dress. She ran for the kitchen doors, but before she could fly through them, another security guard hit her with his taser for D stun. I informed the player that given what he had done, the character was going to go to court and receive the death penalty. (There was no way around it. Killing three people on camera with multiple witnesses, etc.) Since this was effectively character death, I allowed a HoG.
The result of the HoG? The taser trodes impacted the kitchen door as she ran through. Continue scene. Due to the ingenuity of the player, the character made it out. However, she also became severely indebted to her fixer after he helped her arrange a face/fingerprint/voice/eye/new identity.
It was great, and I liked the character, so HoG was a good thing in that instance.
Even given that, however, I still don't really care too much for its existence. The main thing that lets me leave it in the game is that it's restricted to one use. That, to me, is the balancing factor. Therefore, in my opinion, allowing it more than once is the equivelant of "insta-rezzing", because regardless of how "hard" on the player/character you are afterward, they still get another chance.
And like James said, I'd never bother giving the player a HoG if they were just going to die again. (As was implied by Aku's "HoG but you're buried" comment.) To me, that's just stupid.
Posted by: hyzmarca May 1 2006, 06:31 AM
Remember the SNES shadowrun game? Armitage wakes in in the morgue with full amnesia and the attendants are peeing in their pants and locking temselves in the closet because they think he's a zombie.
I beleive that he did use HoG to get to that point.
Posted by: Kremlin KOA May 1 2006, 07:31 AM
Kitsune == god?
Posted by: eidolon May 1 2006, 08:12 AM
I've still never played the SNES version. I played the Sega version and didn't care much for it, but the SNES version usually goes too high on Ebay. (Read: I refuse to pay more than $10 for any SNES game. )
Posted by: hyzmarca May 1 2006, 09:14 AM
It involved a heavily cybered human Decker/Street Samurai/Shaman wielding an assualt cannon in public while utilizing a metaplanar gateway in an oil rig to find and bind a toxic Free Spirit, breaking into the volcanic island lair of an Adult Western Dragon and killing it, destroying an AI, and assasinating the CEO of a Megacorp for some reason.
And getting away with all of that.
Good stuff.
Posted by: Tiralee May 1 2006, 09:52 AM
Well....considering all the good Karma I'd recieved from slaughtering those Vampires & Ghouls, uh, about 50 BILLION times, the cash-for-karma rule could have let me buy my way out of any earthly hell.
Never did remember to return those strobes though.
/Obscure?
-Tir 
Posted by: James McMurray May 1 2006, 02:50 PM
| QUOTE (eidolon @ May 1 2006, 01:12 AM) |
| Even given that, however, I still don't really care too much for its existence. The main thing that lets me leave it in the game is that it's restricted to one use. That, to me, is the balancing factor. Therefore, in my opinion, allowing it more than once is the equivelant of "insta-rezzing", because regardless of how "hard" on the player/character you are afterward, they still get another chance. |
Cool. Different philosophies I suppose. Whatever their next character ism he/she/it will end up having a hard time with their life, but without the character continuity and the karma cost of the HoG (or Edge replacement in SR4). I know when I play I'd rather have another chance then have to make another character.
It isn't used very often in our games though, despite how "easy" it is. Losing your karma pool or a point of edge is a high price to pay, and the group is usually pretty good at running away when things get too hairy.
SNES game: didn't he also face down Harlequin at the end? Despite all that it was a great game and a much better rendition of SR then the Sega game from what I hear (I never played the Sega version). They probably should have had you switch between multiple characters, but it was good taht they managed to get most of the various aspects of SR into it (magic, matrix, and gun bunnying).
You can probably find it on an emulator for free. I'm pretty sure I had it at one point.
Posted by: ShadowDragon8685 May 1 2006, 02:54 PM
For what it's worth, I played the Sega one on the real sega, played it on an emulator, and played the SNES one on an emulator, and except for the very end, the Sega game was totally better.
Posted by: damaleon May 1 2006, 04:29 PM
| QUOTE (Wounded Ronin) |
| OK, it makes sense to boost the payments up. I guess the question is, "realistically", how much would a Johnson pay for a job? If a Johnson pays a five man team 200,000 nuyen apiece to do something, he'd be shelling out a million nuyen on a given mission. Do you think that's reasonable? Personally, I have a gut feeling that a Johnson wouldn't want to pay a million bucks to possibly accomplish a given objective, but I don't really have a basis for that, so maybe I'm mistaken. |
I would say it depends on what a successful run will do. For a VP extraction where all they get is the guy/gal, probably not, but if that VP also brings along 50 Million
a year in business, a million is only a little over a week's worth of profit. A similar situation might be a run that damages a competitor, letting the Johnson's company gain a noticeable market share for their products; a 1% or 2% increase could mean millions of nuyen.I would see the highest level runs requiring more than what a 5 man team could reasonably expect to do on their own every time, so have them spend some of their cash hiring extra hands to do things outside of their focus, like a gang to slow down or thin out the LS response (Holloweeners wreaking havoc in the business district) or some deckers to screw with their system's you don't need to draw their security deckers' attention while you make the run.
I would make it incentive based though. An example: 50k
each for a successful extraction of a VP, 25k each if he is mostly unharmed, 25k if they can't link it to the Johnson's company (or the runners), and 100k each if you can get his private files from the company system without the target company knowing it (requiring a hacking of the system or getting the VP into the office, and possibly through a fight). Of course, I would start it at half that or so and have them negotiate it up.
Posted by: hyzmarca May 1 2006, 05:30 PM
| QUOTE (James McMurray @ May 1 2006, 09:50 AM) |
| SNES game: didn't he also face down Harlequin at the end? Despite all that it was a great game and a much better rendition of SR then the Sega game from what I hear (I never played the Sega version). They probably should have had you switch between multiple characters, but it was good taht they managed to get most of the various aspects of SR into it (magic, matrix, and gun bunnying). |
Not Harlequin, Laughlyn, a Free Spirit with the same insane clown trope. However, you do kill Aneki anddestroy an incomplete AI which was probably a fetal DEUS, thus preventing the Arcology Shutdown storyline.
Harly did have a cameo in the Sega version. The SEGA version actually had multiple archetypes and essence loss for cyberware.
Posted by: Wounded Ronin May 2 2006, 02:31 AM
| QUOTE (Tiralee) |
| Well....considering all the good Karma I'd recieved from slaughtering those Vampires & Ghouls, uh, about 50 BILLION times, the cash-for-karma rule could have let me buy my way out of any earthly hell. Never did remember to return those strobes though. /Obscure? -Tir |
I went through the trouble to go all the way back to the club and you couldn't give them back anyway. :/
Posted by: Wounded Ronin May 2 2006, 02:40 AM
| QUOTE (eidolon) |
| The last HoG I had a player do, the character had done something really stupid in a high class restaurant. She killed the head of thier security and two other goons with her fingertip monofilament whip, and proceeded to run out across the main restaurant floor in her blood covered dress. She ran for the kitchen doors, but before she could fly through them, another security guard hit her with his taser for D stun. I informed the player that given what he had done, the character was going to go to court and receive the death penalty. (There was no way around it. Killing three people on camera with multiple witnesses, etc.) Since this was effectively character death, I allowed a HoG. |
See, I never interpreted cannon HoG that way. I always saw it as something that only kicked in when the character had literally died. I remember I had a situation GMing where some panickey player was screaming "hand of god, hand of god" after taking a basic D wound, and I had to explain that you had to be clinically dead before HoG could take effect.
Come to think of it, though, the HoG kicking in when you literally die might be less effective than it only kicking in in situations where "there's no way anyone could have survived that". The cannon SR3 HoG has very little reason to not be applied every time your character dies, unless you really want to start a different one. But if the rule is instead, in effect, that it only takes effect if the bad guys can't get to your body and "verify" but at the same time it dosen't necessarily only happen X number of times that could have better dramatic flow.
Maybe HoG could benefit from additional written-down penalties. Like every time you HoG you lose some attributes due to extreme mangling or something. If you write the guidelines down ahead of time no one can complain when it happens.
Posted by: eidolon May 2 2006, 04:26 AM
How was that character not effectively dead? She was in restraints (the "can't use your hand/arm cyber" kind), drugged to keep her passive, and sitting in the back of the LS car listening to the cops take statements and talk about how she was going to fry. That's as good a reason to HoG as taking a shotgun blast to the face at point blank range in my book. Both effectively end the character's participation in the game. That's my reasoning, in a nutshell.
And again, the best reason (for me) not to allow HoG multiple times is that doing so would create the idea, real or perceived, that all you have to do to make up for doing something really, really stupid that gets your character killed is blow some karma. The reason I mention "real or perceived" is that the end state of either state is the same: the characters don't take as much care to preserve their characters and to play "smart".
I also disagree that the "soap opera" interpretation is one that can be inferred from the text. "Verification" of the death by the "bad guys" has nothing to do with whether you're "allowed" to HoG.
As far as HoG needing more written rules, I also disagree. The more you try to alleviate the need for GM interpretation, the more the game becomes a VGoP. For an example, see D&D 3.5.
For "manglings" and such, see the permanent injuries section of M&M. Them are some nifty rules.
As a final (for this post) thought: "Interpretation" is indeed the key word here. In the end, it doesn't matter in your game what my interpretation of HoG is. Even "canon" is open to interpretation, and that myriad of interpretations is just one more reason that I love roleplaying games.
IMO, the new wave of d20 and D&D 3.5 type "standard gaming" has done far do much damage to people's ability to accept different interpretations of game rules and settings. There seems to have been, over the last few years, a steady diminishing of gamers' ability to play a "non-standard" game. In the push to "balance" rules and to "fix" roleplaying games, diversity and novelty are dying a horrible screaming death.
Posted by: Calvin Hobbes May 2 2006, 06:00 AM
I completely disagree. D20 modules are entirely built around the idea of the toolbox. I can play a game with as much D20 stuff as I want to include. I can run Solid, or I can run a blaxploitation game with just D20 modern, I don't think that having options open for how other people see new interpretations of a basic system is bad. Nothing is canonically required by the GM besides the D20 modern book. You like an idea, make it work in your game. I don't think the problem is that people are taking all of these books that are d20 compliant and turning them into d20 mandatory, I think the problem is that you need to find less stupid players to hang out with.
Posted by: hyzmarca May 2 2006, 06:31 AM
With the HoG you can easily handwave "and then a miracle happens" because it is the Hand of God, not the Hand of Spock. It is a miracle and it can defy logic. Every HoG use should be subject to investigation and confirmation by the Roman Catholic Church.
It can be as simple as having the speed sammie's gun jam instead of delievering a killing shot, thus allowing the targeted mage to make his head explode with a powerbolt. It can be as complex as a point-blank range shotgun blast propelling someone off a cliff without causing any physical damage, that person hitting the water feet first and somehow missing all of the jagged rocks, a humpback whale swallowing him for no apparent reason and then regurgitating him, safe and sound, on a beach several hundred miles away.
No mater what it should take the character out of danger even if there are consequences. Permenant wounds and Flaws both make decent consequences.
Posted by: ChuckRozool May 2 2006, 08:01 AM
| QUOTE (Wounded Ronin) |
| Asian Level Theme Music: "Japanese Boy" (Aneka) Types of Job: Assassinating or extracting a VIP or one of a kind item, springing a high profile convict from a Lone Star convoy, annhiliating guerilla camps in the jungle, annihilating special forces teams, tangling with the yaks. Types of Opposition: Plenty of initiated mages, rating 8 spirits, sammies with 0.1 essence, or ~30 "medium" opponents from the last difficulty level who are all hiding and ready to blow you away in a giant VC style ambush. Enemies may have vehicles, artillery, advanced riflemen, support weapons, and plenty of magic. Ninjas may begin to appear and stab you when your M16A1 jams like in American Ninja 1; being rushed by 50 melee physads at once is quite a challenge. Payoff: 5-7 karma points, 10,000 nuyen per character. Only one of these jobs should be available per month but the runner who can succeed every time through meticulous planning and professionalism can afford the coveted High lifestyle. Notes: In the 80s everything asian was magically better. Therefore, only really good players with hyper asian levels of meticulousness, fighting spirit, and magical powers can pull this off. Just look at Bloodsport. If Van Damme didn't have super magical asian blindfighting powers, he totally would have been pwned by Chong Li's beefy asian powder throwing ninja-fu. |
You always make me laugh... *sigh*
Does this level of play also include "gay hentai tentacle monsters", in warehouses even?
Or is that an entirely different kind of level altogether?
Kick'n it 80s style since 1975
Posted by: Wounded Ronin May 2 2006, 11:03 PM
| QUOTE (eidolon) |
| How was that character not effectively dead? She was in restraints (the "can't use your hand/arm cyber" kind), drugged to keep her passive, and sitting in the back of the LS car listening to the cops take statements and talk about how she was going to fry. That's as good a reason to HoG as taking a shotgun blast to the face at point blank range in my book. Both effectively end the character's participation in the game. That's my reasoning, in a nutshell. |
Well, I always try to interpret the rules as literally as possible. When you're dealing with something that can upset someone like their favorite PC getting decapitated by a shotgun and dying if you are extremely literal then it reduces incidence of players blaming pdeath on GM fiat.
So, because of my literalist thinking, I'd always reserve HoG for clinical death. It's actually kind of funny because this morning I was just reading a medical textbook from the 80s that defined do-not-resucitate conditions as decapitation, rigor mortis, and physical decay of the body. I really cracked up.
But, seriously, the way I would have handled the situation is the PC would have been out of action for a while in police captivity. She would have clinically died in the electric chair and then been carted off to the morgue. *Then* she'd be able to HoG and wake up in the morgue disfigured and naked and with hefty psychological trauma. Think one of the crappy The Crow sequels.
That is, of course, my literalist thinking. HoG spares you from clinical death but the PC could still be taken out of action for a long time.
| QUOTE |
And again, the best reason (for me) not to allow HoG multiple times is that doing so would create the idea, real or perceived, that all you have to do to make up for doing something really, really stupid that gets your character killed is blow some karma. The reason I mention "real or perceived" is that the end state of either state is the same: the characters don't take as much care to preserve their characters and to play "smart". |
Fair point. This is something I'm still mentally debating today. I'm not sure what the "best" practice is yet.
| QUOTE |
| I also disagree that the "soap opera" interpretation is one that can be inferred from the text. "Verification" of the death by the "bad guys" has nothing to do with whether you're "allowed" to HoG. As far as HoG needing more written rules, I also disagree. The more you try to alleviate the need for GM interpretation, the more the game becomes a VGoP. For an example, see D&D 3.5. |
What is a VGoP? A video game?
If so, since I've been a fan of literalist GMing, that's actually my ideal. When I play Fallout, I call it "playing with the iron GM", because the game engine administers the rules flawlessly and correctly every time, except in the case of a bug. My ideal is to be the iron GM who is literally correct about predefined rules in each situation.
That also tends to make my GMing slower since sometimes I'll have to take the time to look up a specific rule. But I feel very strongly against improvising or making something up except as a very last resort because inconsistiency can really ruin the tactical value of a game. I hesitate to make things up if only because I don't want to introduce inconsistencies in the future if I find out later that the way I made something up was dumb.
| QUOTE |
For "manglings" and such, see the permanent injuries section of M&M. Them are some nifty rules. |
Hmm, here's an idea regarding permanent injuries and unlimited HoG. Maybe each time you HoG you automatically take organ or attribute damage as is articulated in SR3, *and* a random mental flaw. The HoGs could be unlimited but if you do it maybe 4 or 5 times your PC gets reduced to a blubbering piece of trash. What do you think?
| QUOTE |
| As a final (for this post) thought: "Interpretation" is indeed the key word here. In the end, it doesn't matter in your game what my interpretation of HoG is. Even "canon" is open to interpretation, and that myriad of interpretations is just one more reason that I love roleplaying games. IMO, the new wave of d20 and D&D 3.5 type "standard gaming" has done far do much damage to people's ability to accept different interpretations of game rules and settings. There seems to have been, over the last few years, a steady diminishing of gamers' ability to play a "non-standard" game. In the push to "balance" rules and to "fix" roleplaying games, diversity and novelty are dying a horrible screaming death. |
Like I said before, I cling to predetermined rules and consistiency like a drowning sailor clings to driftwood. Making things up without at least planning them out and discussing them extensively beforehand (see my Diseases and Torture thread) just sets the stage for the game to become un-tactical and for players to complain about said inconsistency whenever their PCs die. On the other hand, if you are a literal "iron" GM no one can accuse you of that.
Posted by: Wounded Ronin May 2 2006, 11:05 PM
| QUOTE (ChuckRozool) | ||
You always make me laugh... *sigh* Does this level of play also include "gay hentai tentacle monsters", in warehouses even? Or is that an entirely different kind of level altogether? Kick'n it 80s style since 1975 |
Heh, it could, just so long as the tentacle monsters are statistically very dangerous. Heh, better hope your players are all comfortable with t3h hentai.
Posted by: ChuckRozool May 3 2006, 12:02 AM
and not pretty elven faces
Posted by: eidolon May 3 2006, 03:46 AM
| QUOTE (Calvin Hobbes) |
| I think the problem is that you need to find less stupid players to hang out with. |
First off, insulting a person's friends over the internet is poor form. You know neither myself nor those that I choose to hang out with, and that statement succeeds at nothing but making you look like an idiot. Second, someone having a different opinion or take on something does not make them stupid. Third, you're resorting to assumptions to prove your point, which isn't the safest bet. (your assumption being that I don't know "how" to use the d20 system, for starters) I gave my opinion on what d20 is doing/has done, based on my personal experiences. I'm glad you seem to have had a different experience. Kudos on your ability to disagree, negative points for not being able to do it without looking like a jackass.
| QUOTE (hyzmarca) |
| No mater what it should take the character out of danger even if there are consequences. Permenant wounds and Flaws both make decent consequences. |
Eh, it usually depends, for me, on what the player/character was doing at the time. Some that I've granted have taken them completely out of harm's way, but usually not by preemptive methods. For example, if a character were to get hosed by heavy machine gun fire and go down, and died before someone could heal them, then the HoG ruling I would give might be simply that they had managed to hang on for medical attention by force of will or something, rather than ruling that the weapon had missed or jammed. To me, the HoG isn't a miraculous get out jail free card, it's "you're not dead, be thankful". Since that's my way of handling it, the "penalties or consequences" are usually whatever they would have suffered as a result of the conditions that made HoG necessary. In my little scene there, they'd be rolling on the "sustained a deadly? look what we have here for you!" charts. In the one I described above, she went to her fixer for a new full-blown identity, which at market rates is enough of a penalty.
| QUOTE (Wounded Ronin) |
| When you're dealing with something that can upset someone like their favorite PC getting decapitated by a shotgun and dying if you are extremely literal then it reduces incidence of players blaming pdeath on GM fiat. |
I'm as literal as possible when dealing with rules that are best applied literally. So if the PC took a point blank blast to the face from a shotgun, I'd make sure that the shot, the damage, and the results were applied within the bounds of the rules. In areas where the rules are left open to interpretation, or where I've specifically chosen a different interpretation than the one given (fewer, but does happen), I interpret them and then try to be as consistant as possible in the application of my decision. HoG is one of those areas. There simply isn't any way that the designers could cover every instance or possible cause of character death, and so by default, it's up to the GM to decide how, when, and if to allow HoG.
| QUOTE |
| But, seriously, the way I would have handled the situation is the PC would have been out of action for a while in police captivity. She would have clinically died in the electric chair and then been carted off to the morgue. *Then* she'd be able to HoG and wake up in the morgue disfigured and naked and with hefty psychological trauma. |
That could work. Just as further contribution to the discussion, here's my takes on that. First, if I had let the police cart her off, I would have basically taken that player out of the game for the entire time that this scenario was playing itself out. (And while yes, I could have done some story stuff with her in court, yadda yadda, it would have been too labor intensive to be worth it, since I would be doing that at the same time as running the main game for the other four players. To me, it wasn't an option.) Therefore, it was in the group and the players' best interest to keep the character in the present game. (Now yes, the character "died" from doing something stupid, but it was in character, and so it wouldn't be fair to punish the players for it.)
As far as the waking up in the morgue thing, it's a bit too soap opera for my tastes. There's just too much there that makes me roll my eyes.
| QUOTE |
| Think one of the crappy The Crow sequels. |
Exactly.
VGoP: Video game on paper. You got my meaning though. Personally, I'm of the mind that if I wanted to be playing a video game, with its harsh absolutes and lack of flexibility, I'd play a video game. I don't roleplay for that. When I'm GMing, I follow the rules to the best of my ability, but I'll only stop the game completely to look something up if it's absolutely necessary. Usually, I do one of two things: make something up for the moment, tell the players that I'm making it up, and look up the "right" way later, or, make something up, tell the players, decide that my made up way is better/faster/easier than the "right" way, and continue using it. I don't (and wouldn't) worry about looking dumb. If a player wants to call something that I'm doing as GM "dumb", they can take over and do a better job.
And it works out, because (usually) my players are totally fine with it. (As I assume yours are with your methods.) Otherwise, we wouldn't be GMing.
| QUOTE |
| Hmm, here's an idea regarding permanent injuries and unlimited HoG. Maybe each time you HoG you automatically take organ or attribute damage as is articulated in SR3, *and* a random mental flaw. The HoGs could be unlimited but if you do it maybe 4 or 5 times your PC gets reduced to a blubbering piece of trash. What do you think? |
It could work I suppose. I would prefer that to a straight up "HoG as much as you want" approach, certainly. However, a little up my post you'll see my way of handling "consequences" of HoGing. (Haha, hogging.)
| QUOTE |
| On the other hand, if you are a literal "iron" GM no one can accuse you of that. |
Nope. Then they accuse you of being a literal "iron" GM.
Posted by: Wounded Ronin May 4 2006, 04:51 AM
| QUOTE (eidolon) |
| That could work. Just as further contribution to the discussion, here's my takes on that. First, if I had let the police cart her off, I would have basically taken that player out of the game for the entire time that this scenario was playing itself out. (And while yes, I could have done some story stuff with her in court, yadda yadda, it would have been too labor intensive to be worth it, since I would be doing that at the same time as running the main game for the other four players. To me, it wasn't an option.) Therefore, it was in the group and the players' best interest to keep the character in the present game. (Now yes, the character "died" from doing something stupid, but it was in character, and so it wouldn't be fair to punish the players for it.) |
In social work they say that the silences are the most important part of a discussion because that is when the client is thinking things through. I haven't posted on this thread for a while but the truth is it's actually been on my mind constantly since I'm trying to think of how to revamp my GMing style so that I can GM successfully in the future.
I was just reading over the court-and-prison part of this last post and it occured to me that the last time a PC got arrested I handled it in a *harsher* way than even just handwaving across a HoG.
A PC got arrested by the Star. Since the PC wasn't going to be executed but at the same time had no possibility of escape, that PC was simply out of the game. There was some time for the other PCs to intervene if they wanted while the Star was carting said PC off but no one wanted to take that risk.
The player was never offered the option of HoGing out of that by me and even had he done so I would have said that since the character wasn't dead HoG was inapplicable. As it was, the character wasn't technically dead, but was still pretty much irreversably removed from the game.
Now, later on, I hatched a storyline which involved that PC being removed from prison by the Humanis Policlub to be tied up and tortured on a live Matrix feed, so the incarceration turned out not to be permanent after all. But, I hadn't planned to do that. At the time that the incarceration happened it was for all intents and purposes equivalent to pdeath from a rules standpoint, since it amounted to the removal of a particular PC from play.
| QUOTE |
As far as the waking up in the morgue thing, it's a bit too soap opera for my tastes. There's just too much there that makes me roll my eyes. |
Really? It's precisely that hackneyed cheese factor that makes it fun for me. If I were GMing such a situation I would really ham up the cliche factor, and maybe even crack a regeneration joke.
("You look in the mirror, and raise your hand to your face in disbelief...you think your scars are regenerating...
*dramatic pause*
...but then you realize that you're not The Crow and instead you're covered with hideous burn patterns. Your CHA is bumped down one, since I rolled a CHA loss on the wound table for your D wound.")
| QUOTE |
It could work I suppose. I would prefer that to a straight up "HoG as much as you want" approach, certainly. However, a little up my post you'll see my way of handling "consequences" of HoGing. (Haha, hogging.) |
I've been thinking a lot about this particular point as well. In World War I and World War II mangling was a really common outcome of battles. In the Vietnam War US soldiers had what was at the time the best medevac in the world due to helicopter support but there was still a lot of mangling. Today, really excellent armor tends to prevent lethal torso shots but a lot of casualties come from Iraq either having been ripped up by a IED or having been shot in the limbs. The thing that violent conflict inflicts on combatants tends to be mangling, loss of DALYs, and psychological trauma.
Therefore, it make a lot of sense for HoG to be survival (more feasible due to advanced medicine, which is capable of replacing organs and tampering with the CNS and nervous system) at the cost of some serious mangling. It's both gritty and realistic, I think.
The psychological trauma aspect is nice and gritty, too, and it's pretty much been a cliche since the Vietnam War.
I thought about using the following mechanic for HoG in light of these thoughts:
1.) HoG can technically be used unlimited times although it may only be invoked in the case of clinical death.
2.) When HoG is used, first roll through the permanent injury tables in SR3 as per normal and inflict damage as necessary. Next, go through the tables again, but treat each outcome as if the PC had failed to stave off attribute, limb, or magic loss. In other words, if HoG is used, you will automatically lose either a limb or an attribute point, and a point of magic when applicable. It's possible to lose twice if you're unlucky with your initial roll.
3.) In addition to this, the GM picks a random mental flaw from the SR Companion but tailors it to reflect the situation in which the PC is killed. For example if someone was lit up by a flame thrower and died they might get a phobia regarding fire.
4.) And of course, as usual, your karma pool goes bye bye.
This way, a truly battle seasoned character may lose multiple limbs, body integrity, and sanity, especially if he or she keeps going back into the meat grinder of combat more times than is really healthy. I think that the potential for a character "degrading" with combat stress adds a realistic incentive for retirement to the game, also.
That's another thing that tends to annoy me; how some PCs never retire, and instead chose to continue a dangerous and brutal lifestyle, even when there's no reason for them to do so. Part of this is because if a PC keeps getting more and more powerful the player dosen't want to go back to square one with a new character. But if the power of a character is counterbalanced by injury-related degradation there's a least some incentive to either quit while you're ahead or change characters when your old one gets too chewed up.
Posted by: eidolon May 4 2006, 06:27 AM
| QUOTE (Wounded Ronin) |
| Now, later on, I hatched a storyline which involved that PC being removed from prison by the Humanis Policlub to be tied up and tortured on a live Matrix feed, so the incarceration turned out not to be permanent after all. But, I hadn't planned to do that. At the time that the incarceration happened it was for all intents and purposes equivalent to pdeath from a rules standpoint, since it amounted to the removal of a particular PC from play. |
Without knowing the exact circumstances, I'd still say you handled it just fine. After all, you say yourself that you never intended to use the PC again. When you take a PC from play in a game, they effectively become an NPC for you to use as you see fit (within reason of course). When I say "take a PC from play", I'm of course talking about stuff like incarceration and the like. Things that, in game and in the story, render the PC unplayable. Now, generally I'd say that abusing this notion would lead to irritated players, if you do it right (only when it makes sense in the story), you can get some great situations. For example, I bet it was really interesting when the player's current character met the player's former character (well, I assume it was...did it actually happen that way? I'm just guessing).
| QUOTE |
| The psychological trauma aspect is nice and gritty, too, and it's pretty much been a cliche since the Vietnam War. |
That's true. I prefer to let the players handle their characters' pshyche. I'm not beyond "awarding" flaws, but I can't recall any situations in my last few games in which I handed out psyche flaws for simulating traumatic reactions to events in the game. That might be something I'll look into the next time I run.
As far as your proposed rules for HoG, they do invoke a very harsh/gritty atmosphere, but I wonder if perhaps it goes a bit far? As I said, I tend to stick to just letting the player roll up D wound results when they would be applicable. Generally, they end up with something that pretty well reflects what happened to them (if it seems too mismatched I'll have them reroll; like they got shot in the head and lose a foot, etc.). Throw in the fact that in my games, they can never HoG again, and you've got yourself a pretty good set of consequences. Also, there's the in-story reactions to them surviving. On top of that, you have to keep in mind that by the time something goes so badly that you're dead, things are going badly for you anyway.
So between story, the standard "one HoG", and the wound tables, I'm generally content with the level of grit. As to character longevity, I guess I'm fortunate in the player aspect. I've never had a player that doesn't recognize the "signs" that the character should retire. I do tend to let them go on for quite a while, but I've never had a situation in which I thought a character had become too good/too rich, etc. I've had them start that way...that's a different story. Having issues with characters/players not knowing when to retire, I might have different views on this, so I can see where you're coming from.
That's the best thing to keep in mind during these discussions. It seems like sometimes people lose sight of the fact that their methods/standards/procedures/ideas/etc. are really only applicable to their gaming situation. If I had a different group of players, I'd have to learn to do some stuff differently. I've been gaming with the same core group of players for around 3+ years now though, so I can be comfortable in how I do things. I'm moving away from them in a couple of months, and chances are I'll be relearning how to GM all over again. It's part of the fun.
On that note, thanks for the great discussion btw. It's all too easy for things to become a "you're wrong I'm right" fest on the internet. Stuff like this reminds me of why I started posting to forums in the first place. [/sap]
Posted by: Wounded Ronin May 4 2006, 09:53 PM
| QUOTE (eidolon) |
| Without knowing the exact circumstances, I'd still say you handled it just fine. After all, you say yourself that you never intended to use the PC again. When you take a PC from play in a game, they effectively become an NPC for you to use as you see fit (within reason of course). When I say "take a PC from play", I'm of course talking about stuff like incarceration and the like. Things that, in game and in the story, render the PC unplayable. Now, generally I'd say that abusing this notion would lead to irritated players, if you do it right (only when it makes sense in the story), you can get some great situations. For example, I bet it was really interesting when the player's current character met the player's former character (well, I assume it was...did it actually happen that way? I'm just guessing). |
Actually, I let the player resume control of that character. The character he was running in the intervening time must have died or something. I honestly can't remember the details as this was years ago.
| QUOTE |
That's true. I prefer to let the players handle their characters' pshyche. I'm not beyond "awarding" flaws, but I can't recall any situations in my last few games in which I handed out psyche flaws for simulating traumatic reactions to events in the game. That might be something I'll look into the next time I run. |
Since I'm a realism junkie this gives me the idea of researching PTSD and adding mental flaws that resemble PTSD. Perhaps there needs to be a flaw reflecting acute depression, which is something I understand some combat vets get.
| QUOTE |
| As far as your proposed rules for HoG, they do invoke a very harsh/gritty atmosphere, but I wonder if perhaps it goes a bit far? As I said, I tend to stick to just letting the player roll up D wound results when they would be applicable. Generally, they end up with something that pretty well reflects what happened to them (if it seems too mismatched I'll have them reroll; like they got shot in the head and lose a foot, etc.). Throw in the fact that in my games, they can never HoG again, and you've got yourself a pretty good set of consequences. Also, there's the in-story reactions to them surviving. On top of that, you have to keep in mind that by the time something goes so badly that you're dead, things are going badly for you anyway. So between story, the standard "one HoG", and the wound tables, I'm generally content with the level of grit. As to character longevity, I guess I'm fortunate in the player aspect. I've never had a player that doesn't recognize the "signs" that the character should retire. I do tend to let them go on for quite a while, but I've never had a situation in which I thought a character had become too good/too rich, etc. I've had them start that way...that's a different story. Having issues with characters/players not knowing when to retire, I might have different views on this, so I can see where you're coming from. |
Yeah. I can't tell you how out of my mind I've been driven by characters just not retiring.
| QUOTE |
That's the best thing to keep in mind during these discussions. It seems like sometimes people lose sight of the fact that their methods/standards/procedures/ideas/etc. are really only applicable to their gaming situation. If I had a different group of players, I'd have to learn to do some stuff differently. I've been gaming with the same core group of players for around 3+ years now though, so I can be comfortable in how I do things. I'm moving away from them in a couple of months, and chances are I'll be relearning how to GM all over again. It's part of the fun. On that note, thanks for the great discussion btw. It's all too easy for things to become a "you're wrong I'm right" fest on the internet. Stuff like this reminds me of why I started posting to forums in the first place. [/sap] |
Thanks for your glowing compliments.
Personally, I like discussion, but I also like argument. I used to play model UN so a good adverserial debate can be great fun for me. I guess that's why I like bullshido.net so much. I suppose I'm lucky that I can enjoy both a great discussion and a hard-nosed argument.
Posted by: eidolon May 5 2006, 03:44 AM
Ha. Yeah, arguing can be great. In truth, I think a lot of us post to forums to pick fights half the time.
Posted by: James McMurray May 5 2006, 03:47 AM
No we don't! Arguing sucks, and you'll never convince me otherwise! N00b!
Someone had to do it.
Posted by: eidolon May 5 2006, 08:01 AM
No they didn't.
Posted by: Wounded Ronin May 7 2006, 09:26 PM
| QUOTE (James McMurray) |
| No we don't! Arguing sucks, and you'll never convince me otherwise! N00b! Someone had to do it. |
Heh, you should share your "drop the hammer" fu on this thread.
Posted by: James McMurray May 8 2006, 02:03 AM
Okay, here goes:
If they kill cops and leave any traces whatsoever, drop the hammer on them.
How's that?
Posted by: Wounded Ronin May 8 2006, 02:07 AM
| QUOTE (James McMurray) |
| Okay, here goes: If they kill cops and leave any traces whatsoever, drop the hammer on them. How's that? |
Well, what's a typical thing you'd send after the PCs to drop the hammer on them? How do you keep their inevitable death believable in terms of the amount of firepower being brought to bear? (For example, it might be considered a bit strange for Lone Star to start firing off guided missiles in a dense urban setting.)
Posted by: James McMurray May 8 2006, 02:31 AM
Swat team snipers surrounding them with medium to high (4+) force spirits to harass them and weaken them. High armor drones along with the spirits, but spirits are cheaper to replace when damaged. A lot of it would depend on where the runners were when they were found. If they're smart they headed left the city, preferably for a place the the Star (or Kinght Errant if that's who they killed) doesn't have any legal powers.
If the offended agency doesn't have legal powers they may end up with just a runner and/or elite cop team on them.
It's possible to get out of the situation, but it'd require a lot of smarts, roleplaying, and firepower used in the right ways. Sometimes hammers miss the nail or just hit it enough to bend it without actually driving it home.
Posted by: Wounded Ronin May 8 2006, 03:02 AM
How would you handle t3h advanced riflemen? Just have the PC start resisting shots? Have the PCs roll perception and if they fail they get hit? Tell the PCs there are riflemen and have the PCs get shot at when they poke their heads up from behind cover, but in so doing let them use pool and crap to avoid dying?
Posted by: James McMurray May 8 2006, 03:30 AM
I'd probably just have the first one miss or roll poorly, because dying from a sniper shot with little to no chance of living is no fun for anyone. Maybe they'd be looking to capture and so use gel or stick shock rounds.
Posted by: Wounded Ronin May 8 2006, 03:35 AM
| QUOTE (James McMurray) |
| I'd probably just have the first one miss or roll poorly, because dying from a sniper shot with little to no chance of living is no fun for anyone. Maybe they'd be looking to capture and so use gel or stick shock rounds. |
Hmm. T3h gel rounds could be funny. Maybe I could make it standard police procedure to use gel rounds. That would actually mess with the players more because they couldn't just cast treat or heal to recover quickly. They'd have to actually rest.
Posted by: James McMurray May 8 2006, 03:42 AM
Standard police procedure probably should be gel rounds. Accidental killings are bad for business.
Posted by: Wounded Ronin May 8 2006, 03:46 AM
| QUOTE (James McMurray) |
| Standard police procedure probably should be gel rounds. Accidental killings are bad for business. |
It does make sense. I guess it just never occured to me since the first GM I ever played with would kill the PCs off with ruger thunderbolts all the time. But, if you think about it, the po po gel rounding you is more potentially amusing than them simply shooting you dead on scene, since they could then arrest you and do all sorts of stereotypical things to you.
Posted by: James McMurray May 8 2006, 03:58 AM
Yep, and a live PC is usually funner than a dead one.
Posted by: eidolon May 9 2006, 02:30 AM
| QUOTE (Wounded Ronin) |
| How would you handle t3h advanced riflemen? Just have the PC start resisting shots? Have the PCs roll perception and if they fail they get hit? Tell the PCs there are riflemen and have the PCs get shot at when they poke their heads up from behind cover, but in so doing let them use pool and crap to avoid dying? |
Yes, and in that order.
They arrived to a dock structure lined by warehouses via minisub. This is after they had evaded their "intended" demise once already. Having planned for such craftiness, their "employer" (the intending to kill your team rather than have to pay you type) had hired a team of twin snipers to lay in wait as a backup plan. Upon landing at the docks, the mage got on the phone to their fixer, and had enough time to say "Terrence, we're in trouble" before the first shot rang out, taking down the rigger. (just had the PCs start resisting shots) I gave the standing PCs a perception test to have noticed the flash, and a couple of them saw it. (have the PCs roll perception; didn't do the fail and hit them thing because they reacted) They dove behind some shipping crates for cover. (tell them there are riflemen while they poke their heads up from behind cover)
Between the two shamans, they managed to get through it. The adept kept the rigger alive with karma pool dice, and they stole the snipers' car to leave after killing them off.
| QUOTE (James McMurray) |
| I'd probably just have the first one miss or roll poorly, because dying from a sniper shot with little to no chance of living is no fun for anyone. |
Meh. Depends on your group. Mine loved it. It was a great fight. Even the guy that got taken out before the fight even started enjoyed the scene. (the target was rolled randomly by me)
Posted by: James McMurray May 9 2006, 03:21 AM
Yeah, some groups don't mind that sort of thing, but we like to at least think we have a chance of avoiding instant death.
Why didn't they have a chance to notice the sniper before he fired? Even if he was invisible and hidden there would still be resistance rolls + perception rolls. Although, if you've let them start a combat with an undetected sniper shot then they're just getting a bit of the "turn about is fair play" treatment for not having you roll perception for their victims in the past.
Posted by: eidolon May 9 2006, 07:33 AM
| QUOTE (James McMurray) |
| Yeah, some groups don't mind that sort of thing, but we like to at least think we have a chance of avoiding instant death. Why didn't they have a chance to notice the sniper before he fired? Even if he was invisible and hidden there would still be resistance rolls + perception rolls. Although, if you've let them start a combat with an undetected sniper shot then they're just getting a bit of the "turn about is fair play" treatment for not having you roll perception for their victims in the past. |
Bah. Instant death is always possible.
Why didn't they have a chance to notice? Sniper, spending hours picking a spot several hundred yards away on top of a warehouse roof, having his twin sniper brother on the ground in various places trying to see him with various methods and devices until they had found a "perfect" spot. They weren't invisible, they didn't need to be.
Perception test? Hundreds of yards away, in the dark, with hours of setup time and pictures of the team. A very large docks complex littered with shipping containers and machinery. Roll against a target number of frulgrugliantubbly.
And yes, they had used the "undetected" shot too, but that had less bearing on my not giving them warning than the simple fact that there was no effing way that they could have noticed the sniper.
Posted by: SL James May 9 2006, 07:45 AM
I fail to see how under those circumstances, a sniper with enough time to get off a shot in an area full of cover will be that much harder to spot given that in SR runners often have cyberware which would make them more capable to perceive their sniper than your average joe today. What else are they going to be doing as they walk through, anyway, if not look for danger? Stare at their shoelaces?
Posted by: James McMurray May 9 2006, 02:47 PM
That's what the stealth skill is for: being stealthy. Oddly enough, the perception skill is for being perceptive. Generally the two work against one another. A boost to the TN or more dice should be available from having so much time and help, but nothing's completely undetectable. What if the helper botched his perception roll or just rolled poorly? Did you roll it out with opposed stealth and perception?
Yeah, instant death can happen at any time. Given the power the GM wields, anything and everything can cause instant death. We just don't care for that sort of game. It's not as "realistic" but we're happy to drop realism in favor of fun. Obviously YMMV, and that's cool.
Posted by: nezumi May 9 2006, 05:48 PM
James is right in that this depends *completely* on your group. If your group doesn't mind instant death at any turn, go for it. And if your group has just pissed off too many high-level people, it's probably kinder than a cow from space (althouhg less amusing than a pair of Apaches shooting in every window and demolishing the entire building).
Posted by: eidolon May 10 2006, 01:45 AM
| QUOTE (SL James @ May 9 2006, 02:45 AM) |
| I fail to see how under those circumstances, a sniper with enough time to get off a shot in an area full of cover will be that much harder to spot given that in SR runners often have cyberware which would make them more capable to perceive their sniper than your average joe today. What else are they going to be doing as they walk through, anyway, if not look for danger? Stare at their shoelaces? |
Nobody said they never spotted the sniper. Stop front loading your arguments. They knew the sniper's position after the first shot, when a few of them made their perception tests to see the muzzle flash, which I'll say again was from a location a few hundred yards away.
Also, nobody said they were walking through the cover that was present when the shot occurred. They were, in fact, standing in the open at the end of one of the piers, two of them watching the mage talking on his phone, and the remaining two staring out at open water as the sub slipped out of sight.
I love it when people invent their own scenario and then argue about it though, so feel free to continue.
| QUOTE (James McMurray) |
| That's what the stealth skill is for: being stealthy. Oddly enough, the perception skill is for being perceptive. Gene rally the two work against one another. A boost to the TN or more dice should be available from having so much time and help, but nothing's completely undetectable. What if the helper botched his perception roll or just rolled poorly? Did you roll it out with opposed stealth and perception? |
Nope. I didn't. I listened to them tell me what they were doing when the got onto the pier, and shot one of them after they said "standing there watching Romero" and "watching the sub leave" and "calling Terrence. To me, it made no sense that they would somehow magically look not only in the perfect direction, but they would activate every little toy they have in their heads in an attempt to see something that they didn't know or even remotely suspect was there. You might run perception that way. I don't. Just like I wouldn't let someone roll driving to make their car do a barrel roll, or to fly their F-18 through a really narrow alley without banging it up.
I know that Dumpshock Dogma states that the GM is never allowed to just rule on something. I don't subscribe.
Besides. This guy James told me:
| QUOTE (James McMurray @ from another thread) |
If there's a chance something can be seen, heard, smelled, etc. then roll perception. If there's no chance, don't roll it. And then, every so often, roll perception just to keep the players on their toes. |
Posted by: Kanada Ten May 10 2006, 01:52 AM
Well, the thing about letting them have the Perception test is more about the tingle on the back of your neck that tells you something's wrong. If they scored a success against the sniper's Stealth TN + Cover + Darkness (that's a TN of 16, if the sniper rolled a 2) on the test, they get a tingle the moment before the sniper shot - and at best that means they can knock off the +2 ambush modifier from the Surprise test. If they got two successes it means they saw something odd, a flash of movement, a reflection of light off the scope, etc.
Sure, you can forgo it, but would you forgo it for the NPCs? I know I wouldn't.
Posted by: Wounded Ronin May 10 2006, 02:19 AM
Hmm, this discussion actually gives me an idea. If the PCs set up a sniping their initial targets get no chance to do anything but resist the damage without pool
| QUOTE |
If do right, no can defense. |
-Mr. Miyagi
However, the flip side is that they can't complain if they have any sort of predictable daily routine and *they* get sniped out in the same manner.
Posted by: nick012000 May 10 2006, 02:37 AM
This is why my street sam lives in an underground bunker.
Posted by: emo samurai May 10 2006, 02:38 AM
Does it have only one entrance? If so, they could just set up a drone sniper there and have it kill him.
Posted by: eidolon May 10 2006, 04:09 AM
| QUOTE (Kanada Ten) |
| Well, the thing about letting them have the Perception test is more about the tingle on the back of your neck that tells you something's wrong. |
No...perception is whether you pick up on something that you could physically perceive with one or more of your five senses. You can run perception the way you've described. I don't.
Also:
| QUOTE (Kanada Ten) |
| Sure, you can forgo it, but would you forgo it for the NPCs? I know I wouldn't. |
| QUOTE (Wounded Ronin) |
| Hmm, this discussion actually gives me an idea. If the PCs set up a sniping their initial targets get no chance to do anything but resist the damage without pool |
Yes, if my players spent a couple of hours in game setting up a position, double checking it, making sure they couldn't be seen, etcetera, I would simply give them the shot.
They would roll to hit (as did the sniper in the game I have been talking about), and if they got a success, the target would roll to resist damage (as did the player that was shot by the sniper).
Posted by: Kanada Ten May 10 2006, 04:34 AM
| QUOTE |
| Yes, if my players spent a couple of hours in game setting up a position, double checking it, making sure they couldn't be seen, etcetera, I would simply give them the shot. |
So, why even have skills then? I'm just going to take several hours and make sure my virus program can hack a host. I'm just going to take several hours to program my drone for every conceivable combat situation. The Stealth skill roll could be modified in the positive direction to include extra preparations, but what if the sniper sneezed? A glitch on the Stealth roll represents these unknown quantities. Rolling super high on a Perception test could mean that they spotted the sniper's shadow due to a passing blimp with its blinking safety lights.
| QUOTE |
| No...perception is whether you pick up on something that you could physically perceive with one or more of your five senses. |
I'm not saying it's not derived from the five sense. The feeling that someone is watching you comes from your subconscious picking up ques from your five senses.
Posted by: eidolon May 10 2006, 05:25 AM
Now you're getting away from "specific situation" and into the "what if this, what if that" stage. Discussion from here on out will be pointless, as all it will do is show that we have different ways of using the skills in the game.
That said, if the snipers had crawled up on the building while the PCs were standing there, I would have rolled stealth for them and perception for the PCs. They didn't, however. By the time the PCs got there, all they had to do was lay there and shoot at them. Therefore, no perception test until the first shot.
Given the distance, conditions, and situation, I did not have the PCs roll perception in this particular situation. Why do you seem as though I've mortally offended you by insulting your ancestors? Want your PCs to have the chance to notice something like this in your game? That's fine, have them roll. I don't use perception when I don't think it's possible to perceive the target.
Posted by: James McMurray May 10 2006, 06:03 AM
If you can see someone, they have a chance to see you unless you're watching them remotely. That chance is probably astronomically low (represented by a really high TN and/or dice pool penalties). It's still there. Obviously your group differs, since it works that way from both sides of the GM screen. As long as the rules function the same in all directions and people are enjoying themselves it's all good.
When I said to not roll it if it was impossible to detect I wasn't referring to stealth tests vs. perception. If something requires a stealth test, it should (IMO) allow a perception test. My post was more about things that can't physically be detected no matter what: visual stuff behind walls, etc.
Posted by: Kanada Ten May 10 2006, 06:37 AM
| QUOTE |
| Given the distance, conditions, and situation, I did not have the PCs roll perception in this particular situation. Why do you seem as though I've mortally offended you by insulting your ancestors? |
Because you have no sense of tone over the internet.
Posted by: nezumi May 10 2006, 02:22 PM
Keep in mind, the big question here isn't so much whether the PCs should have a reasonable chance to dodge/spot/whatever, but whether your PCs are heroes, or just another group of people on the street.
If they're heroes, the rules are a bit different. They are somehow special, and they don't die from silly things like hidden snipers. If this is your game, you should roll perception against a reasonable number and, in fact, the GM should consider spending the PCs' karma pool secretly on their behalf to reroll failed perception modifiers (this completely depends on your group. I bring this up because I run online games where no one wants to see the mechanics, so it's valid. Table top groups may not like that idea so much.) The GM should also consider fudging, letting the PCs roll their dodge anyway, so on and so forth, because the idea is heroes don't fall into such silly traps.
If they're just 'another group of people on the street', they follow the same rules as everyone else. That means they're more likely to die in the gutter, alone and ignoble. Sucks to be them. They may get a perception check against some astronomical number, but no rerolls, no dodge. They can use karma pool on their damage resistance and perhaps HoG, but that's it. More than likely they're dead (or short a HoG). A simple trap like a well placed C4 mine or a group of snipers will kill the entire party quickly and cleanly, and there really isn't a whole lot they can do about it once they're in place.
So argue about perception tests all you want, both sides are 'right'. The important detail is what advantages do the PCs have over the rest of the world.
Posted by: Wounded Ronin May 11 2006, 12:15 AM
Hmm. I'm a bit concerned about even letting people roll perception vs really high numbers, since you'll end up rolling a lot of dice if you roll for each party member and furthermore people might karma reroll the perception test if they're nervous. My gut feeling is that even if you give them a TN like 25 or something they will hit it every now and then. :/
Posted by: Kanada Ten May 11 2006, 12:22 AM
| QUOTE |
| My gut feeling is that even if you give them a TN like 25 or something they will hit it every now and then. |
And why is that a bad thing? SR3 even talks about making those tests in secret, if you're the type of GM that only calls for Perception tests when needed.
As I mentioned, noticing the sniper is much harder than getting 1 success on a Perception test. You need at least 2 to have any idea what's going on beyond the vague notion of "something" in general Perception tests. It could be as simple as a PC recognizing how oddly perfect the scene is for a sniper - "Wasn't the crane over there earlier... Why is it just sitting out of the way like that, with the load over here still in the net?"
Posted by: James McMurray May 11 2006, 01:56 AM
I prefer games where the PCs are somewhere in the middle of heroes and Joes. Don't hide from death, but don't force it to happen. Ask anyone I've run a game for: death happens, sometimes quite often. If you do something that can result in your death, you'd better be able to scrape through the aftermath. But it takes a hell of a lot of screwing up for me to set up a situation with no chance of survival.
Sometimes the chacnes of survival are all predicated on running away to fight another day and the characters don't do that. In those cases, they die. Sometimes the chances are predicated on fighting the bastards off and limping away. And sometimes it means you have to figure out why you're so royally fucked and find a way to fix it. I prefer the last, because it makes for better stories then "you got shot int he head, roll a new character."
Obviously YMMV.
Posted by: eidolon May 11 2006, 02:14 AM
For the record, the PC not only lived (through expeditious use of medical skills and karma), but the whole aftermath became quite the bitchin' story line.
Posted by: Kanada Ten May 11 2006, 02:22 AM
I understood that; I just think a lot of it was run oddly. Random target? What type of sniper is this guy? He's got hours to set-up, information on the team, and he flips a coin to see who takes the first shot?
Posted by: eidolon May 11 2006, 05:20 AM
Random to be fair to the players. Random from a GM "I can shoot any of them to kick the scene off right now" viewpoint.
They were all standing in a little group, and they had all changed into "regular joe" clothes on the sub. With no obvious cyber on display, no obvious weapons on their persons, and the snipers not being at all magical (and therefore unable to assense), I didn't think any of them were presenting an overly "obvious" target.
Also, show me where I said they had information on the team. I'm assuming you're trying to trap me by indicating that if the snipers knew about the team, they would "geek the mage first" (or some such thing), and therefore my rolling randomly for a target is somehow "wrong"?
| QUOTE (Kanada Ten) |
| He's got hours to set-up, information on the team, and he flips a coin to see who takes the first shot? |
Choosing a target has no bearing on my not giving them a perception test for something that I ruled that they had no chance of seeing. They're completely unrelated.
I get your point. You would have given them a perception test. Awesome.
Posted by: Kanada Ten May 11 2006, 05:57 AM
You said he has a picture of the team. You said he had hours to prepare. You said he knew where they would be. That's information. What kind of sniper is this guy that he wouldn't ask the client which one was the mage? You set up a completely contrived scenario, the "no Perception test" is simply the tip of my feeling that you handled it wrong. I'm glad it worked for the group.
Posted by: Kremlin KOA May 11 2006, 07:04 AM
As a Sniper you shot the one who you can get the best shot on
after the thrid shot you should expect to have your location known by the target
possibly after the second
Posted by: eidolon May 11 2006, 07:55 AM
Look, I could keep going back through my notes, and going back through how it went during the session, but I'm not going to.
| QUOTE (dictionary) |
| con·trive v. con·trived, con·triv·ing, con·trives v. tr. 1. To plan with cleverness or ingenuity; devise: contrive ways to amuse the children. 2. To invent or fabricate, especially by improvisation: contrived a swing from hanging vines. 3. To plan with evil intent; scheme: contrived a plot to seize power. 4. To bring about, as by scheming; manage: somehow contrived to get past the guards unnoticed. |
You're damn right it was. It was contrived based on previous events in the game, the situation at the time, and me knowing what works for me and my group. There is no "wrong". There's "wrong for Kanada Ten and his gorup", and that has absofuckinglutely nothing to do with anyone else's game.
I also invite you to search up my post on how everything we do when we GM is "contrived", meta, and everything else that people complain about whilst doing openly.
Thanks everyone that played for the cute exercise in "how to argue about something that wasn't a debate" though.
Posted by: nezumi May 11 2006, 03:01 PM
I'm not a sniper, but I imagine I would go for the one who poses a threat to me personally first, followed by the one most likely to escape before I'm ready for a second shot. The guy standing in the middle of a field picking his nose I shoot last because he'll likely be the last to get into cover, which gives me a chance of getting 3 kills instead of 2.
Posted by: James McMurray May 11 2006, 06:33 PM
| QUOTE (eidolon) |
| Thanks everyone that played for the cute exercise in "how to argue about something that wasn't a debate" though. |
Including yourself I assume.
Posted by: Kanada Ten May 11 2006, 10:19 PM
| QUOTE |
| Thanks everyone that played for the cute exercise in "how to argue about something that wasn't a debate" though. |
...More ruminations on how to GM Shadowrun "right"...
Posted by: James McMurray May 11 2006, 10:23 PM
What, you mean that just because the opening post and title of the thread indicated it was supposed to be a discussion/debate that people posting their game experiences in it should expect a discussion/debate?
Posted by: eidolon May 12 2006, 05:14 AM
Oh, you totally nailed me on that one. Good job. Three marks.
I apologize if I got overly defensive. My reaction wasn't to KT's disagreement, but rather to his smarmy "holier than thou" attitude in presenting it, which may well have just been my perception and not how he intended it.
I get irritated when "debate" moves into "I'm right and you're wrong and that makes you stupid", which is how I think KT's posts started coming out. Flat out disagreement I can handle. Obviously pandering passive aggressive statements like "simply the tip of my feeling that you handled it wrong. I'm glad it worked for the group", I'm not so good with.
Let me give you why that sentence rubs me the wrong way so badly. The one point that you say is your basis for calling my actions "wrong" is that I didn't give them a perception test to notice the sniper. We've beaten that topic to death, and it comes down to a difference of opinion and personal methodology.
However, your statement carries the implication that I handled nary a thing "right" in the entire encounter, and you have no logical support for such a position. You were neither there for the scenario, nor are you possessing of the knowledge of what led to it, how it was handled from start to finish, what does and doesn't work for my group, or what resulted from the session.
The only other thing I can recall having a particular disagreement over was the method of choosing a target. I clearly explained why I chose to roll randomly for the sniper's first target. You might not have done it that way, but that's beside the point, because there really wasn't a "wrong" way to choose a target.
What else is there that we've even discussed that you can say was handled "wrong"? Honestly, it feels like after we got done with the difference in perception test usage, you were just looking for something else to argue about.
There's a big difference, to me anyway, between the way some people handle debate and disagreement (see the first half of this thread, where there was at least a modicum of respect), and the way that others handle it (see the latter). Unfortunately, it's all too easy to be drug along by the emotion of it when the second one happens.
So yeah, no offense intended, and I'm not looking for hard feelings. Even if it's just the interweb, I don't like to pee in people's cheerios overly much. That's just where I'm coming from at the moment. Feel free to correct any misperception from which I am suffering.
Posted by: Kanada Ten May 12 2006, 06:52 AM
Yeah, I don't spend a whole lot of time pandering to your emotional sensitivity.
I think you handled it wrong. Peroid. I could go on for days about "no chance" and a Johnson hiring twin snipers to get out of paying, but there's no point becuase you're too emotionally charged about it.
That said, I really am glad it worked for your group. If I wasn't, it would have been made more obvious, because I would have started calling you names.
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