House rule: discretionary funds Options

[James McMurray]

The thread on character creation got me thinking about how long is sometimes spent ekeing the the last few dregs of gear. It seems like the money disappears like hotcakes until that last 10K, whereupon it's time to start wondering "should I get 3 clips of Ex-ex or 2 clips of ex-ex and 2 clipsof gel?" "Wire cutters or a torch?" and so on.

So here's the idea: characters get a discretionary fund they can spend on items their character would have bought but they forgot. It would be limited to 5000 :nuyen: but could be restocked as needed. In order to spend it on something the character would need a relevant knowledge skill to represent the "I would have thought of that" aspect. A knowledge check with a threshold of 1/4 the item's availability would have to be made as well.

Of course, some things would be off limits. You might have thought to buy a cheapo backup pistol, but if you don't have a sniper rifle written down, don't try and sleeze one past. :)

Thoughts? Is 1/4 a good threshold calculator or should it be higher/lower? Is 5K too much or too little?

[Drraagh]

Personally, some things I'm willing to grant my characters. Like you buy an electronics kit, I say it comes with wire cutters and maybe a flashlight, but that's a judgement call there.

Things like a holdout pistol or that, I can see somewhat. People do make mistakes because they don't think ahead. I'm sort of reminded of one SR story I heard. Guy sneaks into a military compound, avoids the guards on patrol, the cameras and watchdogs until he makes it to this perfect spot to snipe one of the guards in a watchtower. He attaches his silencer, aims, takes the shot and rolls to hit. Then after he hits, GM asks what ammo he has loaded. Player looks at his sheet, "Exex," he comments softly. At least the bullet was silent as it left the gun.

Or, more directly this could relate to the CLUE file where two characters were in the sewers with no flashlights. They just buy it with 'petty cash'. It's why I Sort of like the idea, but also sometimes even the professionals make mistakes. It's how criminals get caught, for one thing. So, sometimes screwing up, while it's human, especially since the players aren't master criminals, it is a plot twist as well as an obstacle for them to overcome.

Imagine your plan is to blow a hole in the wall from one building to the next to steal something from it. You place the charges and then go for the detonator, only to realize you don't have one. Yes, it's common sense, but now you have to improvise one, buy one, steal one, whatever.

A great example, though perhaps not directly related to this topic since I don't think a missing 'lynch pin' came up, but I suggest seeing 'Stark Raving Mad' to see exactly how a crime plan going wrong can sometimes be a 'good' thing.

[James McMurray]

I tied it to knowledge skills so it wouldn't be a "get out of jail free" card. Just because the player thinks of it at the last second doesn't mean the character thought of it ahead of time, it just gives him a chance, and even then only if he has the right knowledge skill.

[FanGirl]

Hmmm...that's a good idea, but I'd think that Memory might also have a part to play in remembering stuff. ;)

[Jaid]

as another option, you might allow them to spend :nuyen: such that 1/100th of whatever they devote towards the specific cause becomes a renewable "expense account" that refreshes every so often (once per run maybe, depending on how often they do a run, once a month, etc).

in particular, i would say the once a month refresh rate sounds good. i base this idea on the fact that you can spend 100 times the cost of a lifestyle to buy said lifestyle permanently, and you would normally pay lifestyle once per month =D

i would further suggest that you limit the fund to be usable only for expendable items, though...

but that's just my personal suggestion =D

[Aaron]

Actually, I was just thinking about this. I am poised to take over our SR4 game from our GM, who wants to play all these cool things he's been reading about and running against us, and I was thinking about normal, minor costs for things like standard ammo and medkit recharges and the like. I was thinking of including them Lifestyle payments. Like maybe setting aside 5% of the cost of the Lifestyle to allocate to "stuff that gets bought regularly."

[James McMurray]

FanGirl, it's not so much as remembering to buy stuff, but having the foresight to have bought it.

Jaid: I'm not concerned about limiting the fund. In a normal game I probably would, but I'm not really concerned about my group trying to abuse it.

I'll think about the renewable one, but it seems to me like it would cost way too much to get to a usable level. You'd have to put in 3,000 :nuyen: just to buy 10 rounds of gel ammunition once a month.

It'll actually be a while before I run Shadowrun again, but I'll be running a Spacemaster game in the near future and will probably port the idea over there.

Aaron: if your group doesn't want to cocnern themselves with minor costs like that, maybe just let them spend 100x the base cost and get inifinite refills. So 3,000 :nuyen: would give you as many gel rounds as you'd ever need. Some items run out slower and might just need 10x (like a medkit).

I'd still make them track ammo spent in a combat, but only for the purposes of knowing when they have to reload. Even that isn't really necessary though if you want a more 80s cinematic feel to it.

[ShadowDragon]

I like the general idea behind it, but I don't see the need to asign any numbers to it. If the situation happens, just wing it. As a GM you're within your rights to say, "yea I can see your character remembering that, go ahead and subtract your cred and write it in. We'll just overlook it and assume you had it all along." No need to justify the judgement call with stats.

[mfb]

i think statting it could add some realism to the game. a character who's been running operations for two decades is probably going to be more aware of what he should bring along than any player. if you don't feel like making detailed mechanics, just have it cost a use of karma pool. er, edge.

[Edward]

I wouldn’t allow it. except in situations when I needed to just to have the game run properly (like the example with the flashlights in the sewer)

Hear is the easiest abuse. A player has a high knowledge of paramilitary procedures, he should know he needs a backup gun. The player deliberately doesn’t write it down. He could be searched several times before getting to where he needs it, or not. If he is searched he doesn’t have it, if he isn’t searched then he should have known better and dose have it when he needs it.


The refreshing ammunition pool is more reasonable but I wouldn’t bother myself. If you do they should be required to track both how much ammunition is in there gun and how many clips they carry but don’t have to worry about the cost if they can get to a place to acquire more (there safe house, there gun dealer), don’t let somebody reload 50 times wile on eth run unless they said they had 50 clips on there person.

Edward

[Brahm]

To save the time at chargen fidgeting over those last bits of equipment just let characters keep anything less than 5,000 :nuyen: as cash. This "spend every last cent or lose it" always drove me nuts. So I've got this guy with a Platinum Doc Wagon contract, but he'll have to beg at the corner to buy breakfast? The new Lifestyles starting cash helps, but really only if you happen to take at least a Medium one.

As for having the foresight to have equipment on hand, there is the concept of a Resources stat. Obviously you are getting outside of SR. I've been playing a bit of Burning Wheel, which kinda has this. It also has Circles, which is like a large Contacts list based on your character's background (all characters have a background built right into them) but without having to pre-create the whole list. So it's a lot easier to adhoc you way through an adventure and still follow actual rules. It also has this great feature called the Eminity Clause where if you fail the roll the GM has the option of your character still locating a contact....but the contact hates you, or you owe them money, or some other complication.

I could totally see a Gear-wise Skill, which is probably what you'd call your suggestion James McMurray in BW terms (I'm not sure, I'd have to check the Character Burner to see if that actually exists right now, default setting is high fanstyish so likely not). It also does sound like a Knowledge skill in SR terms, definately Logic based.

Incidentally it is also fixed** TN d6. So conversion of some of the ideas is pretty straightforward. The thing you do have to watch out for though is that the game encourages and assumes a lot evener GM-player power balance and level of co-operation than you might be used to. Definately no general rule zero GM fiat. In fact there are very precious few of even the GM fiats in the rules, and those there are tend to have corrosponding player "powers". The rules themselves are the ones that have the power, and it takes agreement of all players including the GM to change any given rule. Or general setting aspect for that matter. Even the general direction of the story is determined by the characters' backgrounds.


** Although the stats/abilities/skills all come in one of three "shades", with a different TN for each, for a given shade you are always rolling against the same TN.

[Red]

Shadowrun is an extremely inventory intensive game. It takes a lot of playing experience to get it right. While there is the potential for players to abuse "retconning," consider this. Players are not their characters. They never will be. They don't have the skills, the knowledge, and the physical world around them. Sometimes I forget things as a player because I don't have all the physical equipment right in front of me to serve as external memory. Sure, Player A may have forgotten to adjust his ammo because his ammo isn't a physical thing. It is a note on a sheet of paper he might have reviewed only last week.

And this leads to the next point I'd like to raise. Players don't have 24/7 to eat, live, and breathe the mission. Everything passes under compressed time and attention span. Speaking from an optimization point of view, no matter how skilled the player the player is inferior to the in-game world processing ability of the character. I can't even begin to dive into the more complex issues like the information overhead involved with a shared fictional universe between 2-6 people.

There is no right answer here but I think if you are worried about people deliberately retconning weapons past security, you have a bigger problem than the game. That said, I think that it is only fair I offer a few suggestions instead of spouting gospel from the soap box.

1. Offer the ability to use edge for retconning. "Opps, I forgot my detonator even though I have 6 in demolitions skill." A low amount of edge should be able to cover this. Now, if the same character had a 1, or a 2 in demo skill it might be fair for the GM to force an Edge roll for a certain threshold.

2. Discuss with the group. As a GM, it is your responsibility to guide the players and make sure everybody has a good time. If the group is full of hardcore, no mercy simulationists and the screwup is fun for them, then do it. Or maybe you can turn it into something really cool that doesn't necessarily screw over the characters. Example, let us take sniper Z with a silenced rifle but EX-EX ammo. Let their be some kind of background noise, or a potential source for background noise. Now the sniper has a rhythm game. He's got to shoot his targets and have it land the same time the construction pile driver strikes, or something else like that. You can leverage it for extra teamwork if sniper Z has to call out to the team hacker, "Hacker Y, I need some background noise. Work something out, quick!"

[James McMurray]

[Brahm]

[James McMurray]

[Brahm]

0) Test it, or give it. ("Say yes, or roll.")

1) I wouldn't do flat rate. I don't think I'd bother with anything under 100 :nuyen:. So now we've got the idea of 1 = 100 :nuyen:, 12 = 1,000,000 :nuyen:. To make it work out more evenly lets give it 12 iterations (1 - 13). Then we can have it at the 10^x, 10^x.3, 10^x.7 intervals (100, 200, 500, etc.). Play testing is certainly a good idea, but you should be able to get it pretty close on a first crack.

2) Just went through that. Lifestyles which are each assigned a number of die, but different pricing (see #3) and a couple extra names to cover the full potential range (see #4).

3) Taxing (failing an attempt) applies a penalty that is removed over time. The in-game time period of the refresh rate is set up front. Purchasing it with BP/karma at an Attribute rate should be ok. But with no ceiling. Having no ceiling is important because the range of Thresholds is fairly large. This is the most crucial area for playtesting, but running through with old game data should actually work fairly well to give an idea if it is in the right ballpark.

4) I'm not talking direct bartering. More like a fixer saying "yeah, I can arrange that for you....so can you go talk to a guy who owes me some vig", or you just figure out how to procure it yourself. The rest you pick up off of "clients" as you go. You just make sure to let the GM know about plans best you can so he can be prepared. There is a couple old threads about this kicking around somewhere here, including one on the Shadowrun forum from a guy that's been running cashfree for a while.

So anything else come to mind? Just toss it up, I'm out of here for a while.


P.S. I highly recommend checking out Burning Wheel. You might even find it on the shelf of a specialized FLGS, I did. Even if you never actually play it it is IMO still well worth the $25US for the two base books. Especially for SR4 players because it shows how you can get the most out of a fixed TN dice pool system. But also for other RPGs for ideas on how to further tighten up even good tables from a campaign/character/player management outlook.

[James McMurray]

[Brahm]

[James McMurray]

You have numbers, but not firm ones, and holes in several places. It's more than just starting BP. How much does it cost to increase resources? Can you even do it with karma?

Also, your numbers were off. You said 1 = 100 :nuyen: and the scale is 10^x. 10^1 = 10.

I have to admit I'm curious to see the results as well, even if I won't use them. :)

[Brahm]

[Geekkake]

I like this idea overall, and it would work pretty well with my group. My concern is abuse. Not with my group, who're pretty honest, but as a widespread houserule. I'm sure your average Monty could find a way to procure a missile from it.

Nevertheless, it's a good idea, for a good group. I give it my seal of approval, provided GM fiat is the ultimate decider.

[Edit]: Hey, Red, screw you. I live and breathe Shadowrun. If my players don't, hey, that's an impediment to them. Thank God I'm not GMing anymore. It's reasserting some sanity.

[James McMurray]

[Brahm]

[James McMurray]

Silly me. I assumed you were trying to explain something, rather than tossing out thresholds and variables that didn't line up. Next time I'll try and ignore logic when reading your posts.

[Brahm]