Why shouldn't I buy SR4? Options

[blakkie]

[blakkie]

[FrankTrollman]

To recap:

Ellery's primary complaint was that people had a noticable chance of failing on "easy tasks" if they sucked. His favorite example was people who had a dice pool of 2, which he compared to characters in SR3 with a dice pool of 2. This despite the fact that a character in SR3 with a dice pool of 2 has an actual skill of 2, and a character in SR4 with a dice pool of 2 has no skill at all.

So a normal human in SR3 with no skill is forced to default to an attribute, which means that the "easy task" (TN 2) is now TN 6, and he rolls 3 dice and fails 42% of the time.

A normal human in SR4 with no skill also has to default, which gives her a base dice pool of 2. The task is easy, so she gets 4 dice, and therefore she can buy a hit unless there is some kind of danger or distraction.

So Ellery's claims about the effects of easy tasks on unskilled people was completely false. Ellery's complaints about the ease of profoundly difficult tasks performed by extremely talented people is harder to evaluate. Certainly in SR3 it took six times as many dice to reliably succeed for every +6 TN, while in SR4 it takes 6 more dice to reliably succeed for every -6 dice pool penalty. :shrug:

---

That being said, blakkie is still being an asshole, even though his basic premise that Ellery was consistently using obfuscatory apples/oranges comparisons in the math to demonstrate points is completely true.

I don't give a crap about the tool kit/tool shed analogy being thrown around, it honestly doesn't mean a thing on close inspection. The fundamental fact is that SR3 has more rule books published for it than SR4 does. I have faith that the rules presented in Unwired will be more playable and comprehensible than the rules in Matrix 3 or Rigger 3. But those rules do not yet exist. Therefore it comes largely down to people who would rather have extremely convoluted rules they could barely understand than have no rules at all - and that's reasonable. I found that mostly people ad hocced the rules in Rigger 3, so I don't personally see the benefit. But I could see how one might.

-Frank

[blakkie]

Those aren't the only things Ellery asserted, and to be fair they aren't all totally lacking merit. But largely Ellery didn't, for whatever reason, shake the variable TN mould her mind was in, and fixed TNs don't work well when you try use them like variable TNs.

[Rotbart van Dain...]

[blakkie]

[FrankTrollman]

[eidolon]

Quick note: Not everyone dissects their game until all they have left is an overblown math problem.

As to "easy tasks", what is it that you're calling "easy". I know in our game, if it's "easy" and your character doesn't have an IC reason for not being able to do it, he/she can.

[Eyeless Blond]

[eidolon]

[mfb]

[Azralon]

The mathematical problem with having the dice results affected in three dimensions is that it's not a simple thing to judge the difficulty of any given roll. If the TN is only 2 but you're at -4 dice and need a threshold of 5, then is that test supposed to be easy or hard?

You start to create all sorts of mathematical artifacts representing "sweet spots" in those 3 dimensions, as well as "sour spots." I, as a player, even went so far as to program my graphing calculator to figure up the optimal number of dice to roll once I found out the TN and other modifiers. That's a hanging offense in Vegas, but it sure made my PCs more comfortable when the dice started rolling.

Nowadays the math is simple enough to eyeball the odds without the need for a programmable calculator. I have 10 dice with a net modifier of -3 to get a threshold of 2? Okay, odds are I can do that.

That's handy from a player perspective, but it's even more handy from a designer standpoint since you can pretty easily guess at someone's performance level given X dice and Y threshold. Overall, SR4 seems pretty well balanced from a numeric standpoint (with a few exceptions).

[mfb]

a) since when are thresholds a major part of SR3, and b) those sweet and sour spots are good. they reward players who are experienced with the system, without unduly punishing those who aren't familiar with it. they put challenge into the game part of the role-playing game. like i've said before, if you view an RPG system as nothing more than an engine to carry your stories, go for SR4. if you enjoy the gaming part, though, SR3 is a richer experience.

[FrankTrollman]

No. Sweet and Sour spots are bad. They punish gamemasters who are trying to learn the system by having tasks they assign arbitrarily end up being crazy difficult or hilariously easy.

-Frank

[Critias]

If you're stupid, sure, you don't like 'em. If you know how to use them -- and so does your GM, and so do the other players -- they're a lot of fun, and they reward you for understanding a little math, and the SR3 rules set.

SR4 should be right up your alley if you're looking for a more basic, no thinky-thinky, sort of game. Have fun with it.

[mfb]

extreme sweet and sour spots are bad, yes. that's part of the game designer's job, is to make sure those spots aren't massive game-breakers.

[Feshy]

Sweet and Sour spots mean more time calculating, and less time playing and developing plot. This is a bad thing.

This is something I'm really starting to like about SR4 -- it is extremely easy to judge the difficulty of a test, and the odds of success. This means that as a GM, if I have to improvise, I can do so quickly and fairly.

I was originally a big fan of the variable TN's of previous editions. Until I remembered that either I was prepared, and operating in my chosen field (target number 2ish) or unprepared and doing something I didn't have all the gear and skills for (target number 12ish). I really can't understand how people criticize SR4 for being "too easy at the high end" and "too hard at the low end" compared to SR3; as I recall rolling well over a dozen dice against TN's of 2 and at other times rolling two dice against TN's of 10 and higher.

The only real "clunkiness" in the SR4 die system is that the odds of a glitch are worse on odd-numbered rolls than the lower even-numbered roll; and the odds of a glitch are actually much higher with 3 dice than with 1 (depending on how you decide to round, as there are no default rounding rules in SR4?)

[Feshy]

[Critias]

I don't see what the problem is with thinking and planning. Even -- or, rather, especially -- mid fight. It's a fantastic way to make you feel in character as a hardened killer that knows what he's doing. It's a great way to simulate the feel of a high combat skill or SUT (or both).

Take two seconds, and figure out if it's better to aim and invest combat pool in a single shot, or take cover and snap off multiple shots, playing it more defensive and hoping for a lucky roll. Do a little tactical thinking. Allocate your own die pools, make your own decisions, take your character's fate into your own hands. Look at the difference between a pair TN 6 shots or a TN 5 shot if you take the time to aim, think it through -- same number of dice, twice, at higher TN? Or half as many dice (only one shot), with twice the chance of a success per shot? Look at the smartlink ammo-counter on your gun, think about how many baddies are left, think about your teammates and how bad they might need this guy to go down. Then make a decision, after looking at your available pools and TN modifiers, and do what needs doing to win the fight.

I don't see those as bad things. I see them as awesome things. If the above paragraph takes you 5+ minutes to do before every action for every character (PC or NPC) in every gunfight, I can certainly see why SR3 isn't for everyone; however, I've never said it is for everyone. I've just said I like it, and so does my gaming group.

We accept it for what it is, and use it accordingly. The things that needed fixing could have been fixed without the over all dumbing down/streamlining. The ability to manipulate your TN and add/subtract from your die pool was (or, rather, is) amazing, in the RPG industry. But because it requires people rub two brain cells together, it's been chucked out with the bath water, and Edge is the poor-man's replacement.

Which is too bad.

[mfb]

i don't see what y'all are talking about, with calculations in SR3. sure, you could break out the calculator if you really felt like it, i guess. but i like to think i'm pretty damn good at SR3, and i've never bothered with calculations at all.

there's quite a bit more clunkiness than that, Feshy. impossible tasks can only be made difficult through GM intervention--i call that pretty clunky.

[Feshy]

Now see, this again is what I have the problem with; the insults. You give a perfectly good reason right here:

[Critias]

The reason I can't help but pepper my speech with insults is that I've been saying the same thing(s) around here for probably 6 months. If Blakkie can use that as an excuse to be "an asshole" smilingly, I'll use it as an excuse to flavor my comments with a bit of condescension.

[hyzmarca]

You don't need a calculator for SR3. . The probability of success is always [7-(remainder of TN/6)]*[(1/6)^(1+(the quotent of TN/6))] for any specific die. I don't see how the math could get any simpler.

Thresholds, on the other hand, I have no idea how to begin to calculate the probabilities for those.

[Critias]

I understand -- and I've said as much -- that the SR3 level of complexity isn't for everyone (and I'm just talking basic combat here, that's the bit I use/like/enjoy the most). But what bothers me is that it was among the first games to offer you that sort of thing, and now it's back to not offering you that sort of thing. It's a backwards step, I think.

SR4 feels like "Shadowrun Basic," to me, by comparison. If that means there'll be some future book that has rules for recreating Combat Pool or something, great. It might be enough to make me switch to SR4 (yes, really).

But if not, it just feels like something is missing. I might as well be playing D&D (add up modifiers, roll dice, laugh or cry) or WoD (add up modifiers, roll dice, laugh or cry). Edge is better than nothing, I guess, but I see it only replacing one of the old pools/modifiers you used to be able to call upon (karma pool), and the much more common and everyday usefull pool (combat pool) is still conspicuous in it's absence.

[Fuchs]

I guess I am odd - in my group, we don't calculate what we do beforehand, we say what our character tries to do, then we check the TN and such and roll. No big deal at all. And I fail to see what the big deal is about the 6/7 controversy.

For those among us who don't really care about rules to the degree of running probability calculations in their head, and already simply most stuff down to a few rolls, SR4 may be worth it for the wireless concept and other such "Fluff" ideas as well as other concepts.

(And, for those who do care: I always go by a rule of thumb: 1 in 6 will roll a six, on average, and half of those will roll 4 or better, so a skill of six means one success for a TN of 10, as an example. Karma pool makes up the difference, and dealing with the odd fluke row of misses is often fun.
That's coming from someone who likes to let players roll 1d6 often, as a sort of "fate/random encounter" check - 1 means something bad comes up, maybe that cop at the corner dislikes the character's metatype, 6 means something good comes up, maybe the stolen car turns out to have a tuned engine - which may result in some gang boss getting angry at the runners stealing his wheels, but those are typical SR twists....)