Rolling less dice, Some ideas to makes stuff faster Options

[eidolon]

Nope. Nah. No, I'm pretty sure there are dice, and that it's fun to roll them. ;)

[mfb]

[hobgoblin]

or atleast let the mooks and hellhounds come in waves so that there isnt as many people in play at ones. even feng shui gets bogged down when 10+ mooks are trying to do stuff.

[Cain]

The only game I've ever seen that *doesn't* get bogged down with that many combatants is Savage Worlds. And a combat that size in SW could take less than five minutes, if everyone knew what they were doing and kept lookups to a minimum. If you want fast combat, no edition of Shadowrun really fits your bill, let alone SR4.

[James McMurray]

I agree with Cain on this one (albeit without the "let alone SR4" jab at the end). :)

[hobgoblin]

but then savage world is all about standing or fallen, no counting of HP or anything like that. ok, so you have a similar mechanic in feng shui, but there the real bog is the counting of when a NPC next steps up to the plate and do something...

by the looks of it, savage world have more in common with a miniature game then a rpg, but thats my take on the story.

[Shrike30]

Feng shui doesn't really get bogged down if you're rolling properly. I can handle the actions of 5-10 mooks in under 30 seconds by rerolling the 8 or so dice they've got 5-10 times, and letting people know what happens. "Duke, the bodyguards over near the door are just unloading on you as you roll for that table, and one of them grazes your thigh. Resist 11 damage." That's it for the mooks that shot...

[Azralon]

As in any RPG, it's all about the dichotomy of "fast play" versus "realistic play."

I've played a (never-will-get-published) game that had damage effects so detailed that whenever you got hit, the attacker rolled to see what location (head/neck/chest/right arm/left arm/abdomen/right leg/left leg), if he hit bone (percentage chance based on location), and if he hit a critical spot (eyes/throat/heart/right hand/left hand/groin/right foot/left foot), which would incur additional effects. If bone was hit, then you have to check if it was broken or if it helped reduce the damage. Then you have to keep track of any significant bleeding as a damage-over-time. Oh, and cumulative damage penalties are tracked separately for each hit location and your current fatigue level.

That amount of detail would be awesome in a computer game, but it was a sluggish bitch and a half to run on dice and paper.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, I've played checkers.

.... Obviously neither extreme is going to be very satisfying (and everyone's tastes will vary), so it's every RPG's goal to find a good (read: "marketable") balance between speed and realism.

[mdynna]

For those of us who are PDA-enabled I would suggest putting it to good use. I have a program called DicePro for my Plam that has helped me speed things up a lot. It's the best dice-roller program I've ever seen, as it includes pretty much every kind of dice rolling system in existence when it was created (like SR3 and the Rule of Six, or Star Wars D6's Wild Die!).

It has several "pages" that can be labeled (Goon, enemy Sam, Mage) then several "slots" on each page that can also be custom set and labeled (SMG Attack, B Resist, Drain). It also allows you to keep slots "generic" so if you need you can just roll x Dice vs. y TN (which, of course, is always 5).

I'm not sure if its available for Pocket PC, but for those of you with Palm's I highly recommend it.

[Eryk the Red]

Honestly, the mooks weren't what was slowing down my game. They did come in a couple waves (a few different patrols) and since I resolve a group of mooks' shots as one action, they really didn't slow anything down especially. More difficult were the spirits the player mage was commanding and just sort of the general flow of things.

I know SR has never had quick combat. I'm a compulsive tweaker with RPGs (I not long ago, before 2nd Edition came out, took it upon myself to completely rewrite the combat rules in Exalted). I prefer to try to adapt whatever system I use to my current needs.

It's all really a big experiment for me, I have a bizarre fascination with game rules themselves (I get really excited about basic overarching rules concepts that I think are good and clever).

So, yeah, I'm breaking the system a bit to make it do what I want. That's just what I do, and I wouldn't bother if I didn't on some fundamental level like the system.

[Azralon]

Yeah, Mdynna, I'm totally in love with using a PDA or laptop to do all the dierolling and NPC sheet tracking. It keeps everything in one physical place, makes IP tracking easier, keeps the players from (even subconsciously) counting how many dice you're throwing, and effectively includes a GM screen.

Mind you, it's a fairly expensive GM screen, but such is the price of technophilia.

[Zen Shooter01]

DV84good:

I know it was a while ago that you asked ;) , but the 15+1/3 notation for the Predator means that the weapon has 15 rounds in the magazine, one in the chamber, and that the character is carrying 3 extra magazines.

[Dv84good]

Thanks, I going to use that systems.