 Take Aim and Called Shot |
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 Nov 30 2006, 05:35 AM
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#151
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Great Dragon  Group: Members Posts: 5,430 Joined: 10-January 05 From: Fort Worth, Texas Member No.: 6,957  |
Ah. I'll disagree with that also. To get true seperation for a high powered game you have to remove the skill cap and possibly change the availability limit, but it's easy enough to do.
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Nov 30 2006, 06:02 AM
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#152
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,219 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Lofwyr's stomach. Member No.: 1,320 |
Mr. Mcmurray, you appear to be defending the system as writtne by noting how easy it is to change it. That's an interesting tact.
I'd like to make this analogy, its not a perfect one, but it will do. Imagine you walk into a store. You want to buy something, you have that something in mind. You go in to look for it. You can't find it. In fact, you can't find anything. Their inventory is non-existent, mostly display goods. Immediately a helpful store clerk asks if they can assist you. After you explain what you are looking for, they inform you that they can order that for you, exactly what you wanted, even the color, at a great price. You'll need to wait a week, but you'll get exactly what you want. Does this store give you what you want? Yes. But it involves a wait, and it has nothing to offer you right now. To me, SR4 sometimes seems like this. They offer up so much potential for the gamemaster to fudge, alter or make up the rules as he goes, but doesn't always offer enough actual content to work with. Frequently many choices are offered without informing us which one is standard. This becomes a major issure if , say you are making a character for a campaign with a new GM. Every GM should inform you of their housr rules right off the bat, but much of hte main rules have a great many different interpretations that you don't really know how it gets played until you are in the group. This is especially true for hackers. And you can't defend the matrix rules today with supplements that will be coming out next year. We can discuss whether Unwired effectively deals with the problems when it comes out, until then, the matrix rules are incomplete and that's a problem. |
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Nov 30 2006, 07:25 AM
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#153
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Immortal Elf Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 |
please tell me we're not going to have to discuss what happens when you hit 25+ average dice again. to sum up: it breaks the basic game mechanic, because it's just about impossible to apply enough modifiers--even with threshold--to keep you from succeeding. why would anybody want to play that? |
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Nov 30 2006, 10:45 AM
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#154
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Mystery Archaeologist Group: Members Posts: 2,906 Joined: 19-September 05 From: The apple tree Member No.: 7,760 |
Because some challenges are about something other than dice pools, they're about getting a chance to use that dice pool, ie getting into the right position. I have found that SR4 is very good for high powered games, where I found high powered combat in SR3 to be frustrating for all involved.
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Nov 30 2006, 01:01 PM
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#155
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Canon Companion Group: Members Posts: 8,021 Joined: 2-March 03 From: The Morgue, Singapore LTG Member No.: 4,187 |
Once you factor 25+ average dice on the other side, it becomes manageable again. It is when you are rolling for a fixed threshold with a lot of dice that the game mechanics seem to break down. 25 against 25 opposed isn't broken.
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Nov 30 2006, 03:16 PM
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#156
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Genuine Artificial Intelligence Group: Members Posts: 4,019 Joined: 12-June 03 Member No.: 4,715 |
Wow, this thread certainly came back from the brink. I'll try not to mess it up. :) Regarding the quote: I actually got off to the right start with SR4. Every GM has a list of house rules in their head, but can rarely come up with a quarter of them if asked to rattle them off. This time, I made a list. Every time I house-rule something I write it down. Just stuff I expect to come up again, of course, things that conflict or clarify the book, not one-time rulings for bizarre situations. Regarding basic mechanic and 25+ dice pools: Resisted rolls are fine, but it gets pretty weird for unresisted rolls. That's an inherent downside of a fixed TN system, though. Again, it's tradeoff between accuracy and simplicity. This is one of the changes in SR4 that I'm not too thrilled with. I liked variable target numbers. I think this was one of tha places they gave up a lot of accuracy for a very small gain in simplicity, and I think the change to the fundamental mechanic changed the feel of SR a little. But it's not a total deal-breaker. But I've already said too much about this. Anyway, about the main topic of GM involvement: I like a little bit more clear-cut rules. Or at least some good examples and guidelines. Like mfb's example of called shots being unclear. I agree that it's a problem, but I'm hoping it gets better. SR has always been really good at avoiding power creep; it has rules creep instead. I'm hoping that books like Arsenal and Unwired fill a lot of the areas that I find lacking. I certainly think they shouldn't have to; that stuff should've been better explained in the core book, but I'm hoping that a few more books of rules creep will bring it up to the level of rules I want. Basically, I'm still optimistic that all the info I want will eventually be there, but I'm critical of the order that it is all being presented. |
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Nov 30 2006, 03:50 PM
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#157
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,430 Joined: 10-January 05 From: Fort Worth, Texas Member No.: 6,957 |
Well, since the rules were designed with that in mind, it makes perfect sense to talk about it.
Not for me. :) What the designers have said here is that they had to leave the rules where they are, and I believe it. The book is fairly big already, and there's no way they could completely cover everything in every aspect of the setting. What they gave is enough to work with for now. Whether that's an acceptable decision is up to the specific player to decide.
So your complaint is that people with superhuman levels of skill rarely fail at their tasks? :wobble: Somehow I don't think that's truly a valid concern. To me it makes perfect sense.
Aresenal might have a few examples, but it's a rule that's impossible to quantify. There are examples of dice pool penalties, and a table of thresholds. Between the two you can estimate the difficulty for pretty much any given shot. A table any more detailed then "something as difficult as X should be at -Y dice" isn't really a possibility. You can't cover all the bases, a means for assigning difficulty modifiers and thresholds exists, so the best you can hope for is the GM combining the two to determine the difficulty of a specific shot. |
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Nov 30 2006, 05:22 PM
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#158
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Target Group: Members Posts: 52 Joined: 17-October 06 Member No.: 9,636 |
Wow, SL_James... Moonhawk just WTF-Owned you. A GM's job is entirely "fiat". Everything they create they create on a whim. Their entire storyline is dreamed out of thin air (I find usually while I'm on the toilet). Nothing in the game that happens happens without GM "Fiat" involved. And henceforth, I will simply be referring to it as GM Discretion, because that is what it is. Your term Fiat is frankly insulting to anyone who has ever GM'd before, implicating that they are tyrannical fiends who like nothing more than to lord over their players with unimaginable cosmic powers. If you have a GM you're thinking of every time you spew forth the word "Fiat" like it's a wad of spit, then maybe you need to work out that bitterness on a punching bag or a brick wall. |
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Nov 30 2006, 05:33 PM
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#159
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,498 Joined: 4-August 05 From: ADL Member No.: 7,534 |
I disagree. The GM (especially in a player vs environment setting like SR) has to rule thus, that he could always justify every decision if he was asked to.
There always has to be a reason for why things are happening the way they happen. And if it is random things, a random dice roller at hand is a good thing (people are very bad at trying to emulate randomness). The only exception are random events that appear to give rise to an interesting plot. As one generally assumes that the life of a Shadowrunner is "interesting" above average. |
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Nov 30 2006, 05:39 PM
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#160
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Immoral Elf Group: Members Posts: 15,247 Joined: 29-March 02 From: Grimy Pete's Bar & Laundromat Member No.: 2,486 |
You mean they're not??? :eek: |
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Nov 30 2006, 05:43 PM
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#161
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,430 Joined: 10-January 05 From: Fort Worth, Texas Member No.: 6,957 |
I'm certainly not. I like watching porn just slightly more than I like to lord it over my players with unimaginable cosmic power. |
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Nov 30 2006, 06:17 PM
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#162
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Immortal Elf Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 |
of course it does, because you're ignoring game balance. whether or not you feel it's realistic for people with superhuman levels of skill to still be prone to failure against impossible odds, it remains that the inability to fail makes the gameplay boring. you can 'fix' this by only fighting other opponents with superhuman levels of ability, but good lord--how many of those are running around? some of us are having to suspend several thousand metric tons of disbelief (not to mention the RAW, which is important to some types of gamers) just to have the PCs able to do the impossible things they can do. now you're asking us to believe that there are enough people on the PCs level of ability to challenge them every week? what is this, a comic book? |
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Nov 30 2006, 06:26 PM
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#163
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The Dragon Never Sleeps Group: Admin Posts: 6,924 Joined: 1-September 05 Member No.: 7,667 |
If everyone is special, then no one is special....
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Nov 30 2006, 06:30 PM
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#164
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Immortal Elf Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 |
no, not really. if everyone is special, the world stops making sense. what must security precautions be like in a world where a skilled man can kill someone in a Citymaster with a banana peel--without making a longshot test? what must the Olympics be like in a world where top-end shooters can make thousand-yard bullseyes while doing a handstand, blindfolded?
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Nov 30 2006, 06:34 PM
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#165
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 633 Joined: 23-February 06 Member No.: 8,301 |
The answer to both your questions is AWESOME.
(I'm not really trying to make a point now... I'm just amusing myself.) |
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Nov 30 2006, 07:11 PM
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#166
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Target Group: Members Posts: 52 Joined: 17-October 06 Member No.: 9,636 |
Well, the better ones are... but I never claimed to be a good GM... :D |
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Nov 30 2006, 07:23 PM
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#167
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Immortal Elf Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 |
you're missing the point, still. no one's saying that a GM who uses fiat or discretion is a bad GM. what we're saying is that a game which forces GMs to use fiat/discretion to cover up big holes in the rules is a bad game. |
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Nov 30 2006, 07:30 PM
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#168
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Target Group: Members Posts: 52 Joined: 17-October 06 Member No.: 9,636 |
And my point is that this encompasses EVERY SINGLE TABLE-TOP RPG KNOWN TO HUMAN KIND. No game can encompass everything. No game can create rules, systems, content for every aspects. It is the job of the GM/DM/Storyteller to fill those gaps in according to the campaign they are interested in running and that the players are interested in playing. Every table top RPG must have both enough rules to give the players and GM a sense of the world and the setting, but enough flexibility that they can play it the way they want to. YOU obviously prefer a game where as many rules and systems are outlined to give as little GM flexibility as possible, so that there is no ambiguity to allow the GM what you so disparagingly call "Fiat". I think the basic system of Shadowrun gives the GM virtually everything he needs to make a campaign work. And if a situation comes up where the GM is faced with a Banana Peel vs. Citymaster, then he can use a little gift called Common Sense to dictate what he feels will happen. Welcome to tabletop RPG reality. Enjoy your stay. |
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Nov 30 2006, 07:47 PM
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#169
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Genuine Artificial Intelligence Group: Members Posts: 4,019 Joined: 12-June 03 Member No.: 4,715 |
Well....
Which is what dragged me into the argument in the very first place. That aside, I absolutely agree that relying on it too much is generally bad. But, as always, "too much" is completely subjective. |
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Nov 30 2006, 08:13 PM
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#170
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,430 Joined: 10-January 05 From: Fort Worth, Texas Member No.: 6,957 |
If you don't want to play superheroes who require other superheroes to challenge them, what are you doing making your characters superheroes? Do you complain that commoners in d20 can't kill 30th level fighters, and that 10th level rogues can always tumble through a gaurd's square? Have you petitioned WotC for a new ruleset because 3rd level commoners can always pick their crops? Do you complain that a 15th level Mage casting Master of Kind in Rolemaster can do so without ever failing unless the target is of a similar power level? Or an 8th level Beastmaster can always get a kitten to like him? What about when a professional football player throws the ball and it always goes where he aimed it unless he was opposed by a professional level fullback trying to sack him? Do you call up the NFL and beg for new rules to make things more balanced? I don't know of any games (or even facets of reality) that have varied power levels that can't reach a point where nobody fails unless you put them up against something that's a challenge. It's like complaining that your professional level runner team never fails to rob the Quickie Mart. Of course they're not going to fail when something isn't up to their level of expertise. |
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Dec 1 2006, 05:36 AM
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#171
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Grand Master of Run-Fu Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 6,840 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Tir Tairngire Member No.: 178 |
James, you ignored one important argument. Namely, that your argument amounts to: "The rules as written are absolutely perfect, because you can change them however you want." Your argument is a fallacy, an oxymoron, and is therefore dismissed.
Aemon: Untrue. Not every single table-top RPG forces out the same level of GM Whimsy that SR4 does. Some are noticeably worse, but the vast majority of them are a lot better. When you buy a game, any game, you're buying *rules*. No rules, no game. No rules, and it all degenerates into a session of: "I shot him!" "No you didn't!" "Yes I did!" ad infinitum. Rules are meant to prevent this sort of thing. And every time a rule says: "Just tell him he missed", you've gone past design choice and into design flaw, because that's exactly what a rule is supposed to avoid. I could hand you a complete Monopoly set; but without the rules, you wouldn't be able to play the game. But if I handed you a rulebook, you could fake up a board, dice, and cards, and start playing. So long as the rules are complete, there's no need for the "I shot him!" argument. There's no need for GM Whimsy. GM's have a lot of discretion, but it all has to be logical. We can't throw a Great Form dragon into a 10x10 room, no matter how much GM fiat you want to toss around. So, the behavior of NPCs, world reactions, opfor levels, and so on, all need to be internally consistent and logical, and preferably predetermined with the players beforehand. GM Fiat, or GM Whimsy, is simply an arbitrary and spur-of-the-moment decision without invoking player input. It doesn't even need to take player consideration into account. Every case of GM fiat I've seen has been because the player(s) have come up with a combination that ruins a GM's carefully-prepared glass tunnel, and so they toss a "You can't do that! Wah!" into the mix. And I've had mostly very good GM's, but a lot of people don't have the choice of whom they get to game with. Is it any wonder that so many people shudder at the thought of having to game with complete morons with the ability to ignore the rules on a whim? |
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Dec 1 2006, 06:30 AM
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#172
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Target Group: Members Posts: 52 Joined: 17-October 06 Member No.: 9,636 |
I must admit, what I am reading here is a series of people who have just had bad experiences with GMs who throw their weight around without consideration to their players, or frankly, fair play. The whole, "Well if you're not playing my way, I'm taking my ball and going home". Perhaps I have had the extreme good fortune of gaming with people that are close friends of mine, and even though we get into arguments about the game, we are generally fair towards each other and we do not throw around GM discretion with wanton stupidity. From what I've seen, Shadowrun lacks some materials that could be useful, but the general rules are enough to work with. It's such a rich and complex game, it's a bit hard to have (or expect it to have) everything in a single book. Even D&D, with its multitudes of handbooks, source books, modules and boxed-sets is still "incomplete". The system of Shadowrun is complete enough that it has a system where you can determine "Yes, he shot you" or "No he dodged". The question seems to be, is it complete enough to say, "Well, if you hit a dashboard at 70mph while not wearing a seat belt inside a convertible going down rough terrain on a sunny day in May, you take 7DV + 2 because it's Queen Victoria's Day in Canada." And no, Shadowrun is not complete enough for you to do that. |
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Dec 1 2006, 06:33 AM
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#173
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,430 Joined: 10-January 05 From: Fort Worth, Texas Member No.: 6,957 |
Not true. One of the reasons I like the rules as written is because they're very tamper friendly. It's not the only reason. Also, I never said they were absolutely perfect. If you want to paraphrase me, please stick to things I've said.
apart from things like trying to fire beyond your range, when would "just tell him he missed" ever be forced on you by the SR4 rules?
So then your argument is that GM Intervention doesn't work because you've never seen it work? Again, you make an interesting choice, but not one I'd go with. |
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Dec 1 2006, 03:40 PM
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#174
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ghostrider Group: Retired Admins Posts: 4,196 Joined: 16-May 04 Member No.: 6,333 |
Can you provide evidence to support this? Namely, the vast majority of games, and exposition on how their rules sets are complete and therefore superior? And no, I don't expect you to. Just pointing out that if you're going to nail someone to a wall for "logical fallacy", you shouldn't commit them right and left in the same post. In addition, it's hard to call someone on logical fallacy in a subjective discussion. Which this is.
Specific examples? Numbers showing how often this occurs in your games of SR4? Or is this yet another case of making up a theoretical situation to support your argument, although in reality all you're doing is using hyperbole to try and bolster a contrived situation? Much like the comment earlier in this thread to the notion of "every other roll requires GM fiat", I suspect this to be the case here. And on one of the the specific cases in this thread, that being "what can you really do with a longshot test", it really is pretty well a moot point. I believe common sense was mentioned before? If a player says "I want to shoot at that guy I can't see, that's hunkered down in a concrete and plasteel bunker a mile and a half away, and I should be able to do that with a longshot test", you say (as GM) "no, not a chance" and move on. GM fiat? Maybe, if you're at this point in the thread still using the mistaken assumption that those words actually mean anything. GM doing his job? That's more like it.
Then you have seen a lot of bad GMing. However, I'm less inclined to believe that it's really the problem you make it out to be, because you further go on to say that you've "had mostly very good GMs". That leads me to think that more than anything, you've built this up in your mind as a "super bad problem with the game" because theoretically it could mean that a GM could make a bad judgement, or make a decision you don't like, as a result of the GM having to make something up once in a while.
While it is true that some people live in areas where gamers aren't as abundant as they'd like, it's never true that you have to game with someone. I know that it sounds like I'm saying "your other option is just not to game" (and that is an option), but more I'm saying "if you don't like the GM's style, offer to GM, ask another person to GM, or have a conversation with that GM regarding your concerns". Saying that there aren't many gamers in an area doesn't somehow validate the argument that there's too much GM-whimsy. I just now noticed this, as well:
Ah, so now it has become "the GM doesn't make the decisions that I like as a player, so he must be making bad decisions, and I'm going to call that GM fiat". I'll let Aemon respond to that:
I'm not trying to be antagonistic toward you, Cain. This is just honestly how I read your post, and many of those made by other people in this thread. "GM fiat" as a problem exists in the minds of spurned players and those players that have unfortunately had bad GMs. Just because an area of the rules allows for the GM to decide how something works in his game does not somehow mean "the rules are bad" in some objective way. |
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Dec 1 2006, 08:18 PM
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#175
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Immortal Elf Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 |
i have acknowledged this in previous posts. you have not acknowledged that there's a sliding scale between "perfect representation of reality through the rules" and "GM just makes everything up as he goes along". my argument is that SR4 goes way too far towards the latter, and is deliberately designed to be unappealing to players and GMs who prefer something closer to the former.
your premise is false. you assume that because someone has skills and abilities beyond the human ken, they should automatically succeed at anything they do, unless they're challenged by someone else of their level. i assume no such thing, and therefore i view SR4's mechanics as being limited--they only allow for that. a less-limited game is one where high-end characters have difficulty accomplishing impossible tasks, yet are significanty more able to accomplish them than low-end characters. it's a game where high-end characters can wipe the floor with low-end characters, but low-end characters can still pose a significant danger to high-end characters fairly frequently, due to circumstance. SR4 is a very limited game. arguing otherwise is silly, since the devs themselves have stated such. if it sounds like i want to have my cake and eat it too (sidebar: what the hell does that even mean!?), it's because in other systems, i'm able to do so. and here's an important point that i've referred to but never, i think, actually spelled out. your attitude, McMurray, is that if someone doesn't like SR4, they shouldn't play it. that's fine and good; you're a player. but when the guys who actually create the game cop that attitude, deliberately disincluding certain types of players from their game, well... what the hell? |
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