Take Aim and Called Shot Options

[Kagetenshi]

[mfb]

i was referencing my own post, halfway up the page.

edit: what Kage said.

[Moon-Hawk]

[James McMurray]

[mfb]

you keep inserting random things into what i say, McMurray. it's getting annoying. i said nothing about whether or not a given GM has or has not read the rulebook. what i did say is there is a wide gradiation between "good GM" and "bad GM". most GMs fall between the two extremes of never making a bad call (the ultimate good GM) and always making bad calls (the ultimate bad GM). a group under a mediocre GM--that is to say, not the best, but not the worst--is more likely to have more fun with a game that doesn't force the GM to make lots and lots of rules calls than they are to have fun with a game that does force the GM to do so, for the simple reason that in a game where the GM has to make fewer calls, he will make fewer bad calls because he will have less opportunity to do so.

SR4 is built on the assumption that the GM will be a good GM, who makes good calls almost every time he makes a call at all. most GMs are not good GMs--they're not bad GMs, they're just not good ones. therefore, SR4 is built on a faulty assumption.

i'm not sure where you're coming up with this "opinion" objection. i think SR4 is a badly-designed game--yeah, that's my opinion. it's based on points that, according to your previous sig, you accept as being true.

[Kesslan]

I dont see personaly where SR4 ever forces the GM to make alot of calls. Except perhaps for certain areas that are not yet covered by new SR4 books. I mean comparing the SR3 main book to the SR4 main book and personally I find the SR4 main book actually covers more than the SR3 one did. But thats just personal oppinion.

So now you want to get into custom guns/armor etc. Well SR3 it was ALL in the cannon companion. Now some of the mods are at least in the main book under SR4 and I'm sure alot more specific info will be presented in the new armory book when ever the heck it comes out. Thats hardly a failure of the SR4 system. Thats like saying SR3 was a horrible failure because all the advanced rules etc arnt there if you take away and forget everything you know about the rules in the SR3 expansion books (MITS, M&M, CC, SC etc)

Granted it doesnt get terribly specific about some stuff like EX and EX-EX ammo. Which means GMs need to make certain assumptions about it or at least allready do. I mean unless I"m mistaken (At work without my books to refer to atm) it specifically states under explosive ammo that it can explode in your gun. Not just fire, but flat out blow up in your hand. It certainly does that under SR3. And NO OTHER ammunition does that. Even when you throw it into a fire technically speaking. Thats somethign the rules dont really cover. Now granted EX and EX-EX rounds probably should be abit more specific but thats a really bloody minor thing.

As to the issue say with how fires are handled, and what can/cant catch fire being up to the GM. Thats less of a failure of the system as perhaps failure of common sense of the GM. I mean the average person realizes geee.. if I put my shirt in the fire it will itself catch fire! OMG! :eek: MY WORLD IS COLAPSING! :twirl: WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE! :dead:

I mean the rulebook shouldnt -have- to cover that kinda crap. And then for advanced rules for vehicles (Not to mention a badly needed expansion of available vehicles) no doubt that will all be in the new rigger book, just like all that fun stuff was in Rigger3. So it's lack of being in the SR4 book I'd hardly call a glaring oversight.

I mean as it stands, yes there are alot of gaps still, but how many of them are simply there becuase the relevant books that will cover those areas simply arnt there yet? Thats hardly something to be called a failure of the system. And most RPGs I know of are the same way. You get the main book that covers the basic core rules, and then you have all the expansion rulebooks.

D&D: You have the players guide, the GM guide, the monster manual, the umpteen expansion books for epic players, evil players, additional races/magic/gods/dragons/etc

Heavy Gear: you have the core book, the equipment guide, and an assortment of other books that add/update rules (Though been slightly condenced since the new books put out under the hybrid Silouette/OGL D20)

SR3: you have the core book, MITS, CC, SC, R3, the two SOTA books, Dragons of the sixth world and so on and so forth.

And the monstrocity that is the Palladium RPG system is even worse (Love the settings, but god they really need a new and far better gaming system)

I think one of the few games that isnt like this -might- be Paranoia. But the whole point of that system seems to be for the GM to find a way to kill you anyway.

[cx2]

Under SR4 rolls for things can be fudged up quickly and with minimum of mess for almost anything you need a roll for. Hardly any major calls that can go badly wrong.

Non-rolled stuff though is more about the *intent* of the GM. If the GM intends for the players to have fun then he will tend to make better calls, if he intends for the story to go on at all costs he'll screw them over.

GM quality is how well they make stories and portray the world, along with occasional helping hands if the players paint themselves into a corner. This last part isn't as serious as it sounds, it's adapting the story on the fly if the players say miss an important clue or something major with the story line goes wrong and shouldn't happen often.

Now the intent is a part of GM quality, but not all of it. A GM who is horrible at stories, but with good intent is probably far better than a halfway decent GM with regards to stories, but with terrible intent.

[Kesslan]

Indeed, and personally at least I point out to anyone wanting to play in an SR game I run, that I am abit more on the realism side. At the same time I also realize that some times I can unintetionaly create horrifically vicious traps that PCs just dotn think of because their not USED to a GM pulling said stunts on them so I compensate abit

Best example I can give was one run on Shadowrun: Seattle I ran. It never wound up finishing unfortunately due to people not being able to get togeather again etc but oh well. Basic surmize of it was, PCs go in, nab some artifacts from a dig site and get the heck out.

They had alot of detail ahead of time, they knew it was a hard run with a high payout. They knew they were giong into an armed camp with moderately well equipped guards (Basic body armor, assault rifles) and that the head 'security specialist' was basically a heavily cybered merc.

I'd allready planned out the basics of what I thought migh thappen, adjusted things on the fly as it came (for example they did alot more sniping than I expected and they got really lucky in a few cases) ok fine not a problem. So they get into the main compound, start heading down the stairs into the undergroudn tomb

They still hadnt heard a thing about the sec head leader though they knew he was probably setting iup camp in the tomb itself, which is where the objective was known to be. What they didnt expect was the fact that as a merc and an experienced soldier the guy would boobytrap the stairwell with a claymore mine.

I gave the lead PC not one, not two but THREE perception checks to notice the unconcealed wire, very dim light while he wasnt using lowlight etc. The perception targets were right out of the book for noticing a thin tripwire under those conditions (SR3 system I think the TN was 8) and you needed something like 3 hits to fully notice it. First test he gets nothing, second he only gets one and the third he only got one. This was largely because my intent wasnt to totally kill him which the claymore at pointblank range definately would have (specially with the SR3 chunky salsa effect of explosion rebound in a confined space)

So end result was he -almost- set it off and just barely in time noticed the wire pressing into his leg. STory goes on they meet the 'big bad boss' and get a hell of a tougher fight than they expect. I had him tossing grenades at them, firing from cover, moving around, falling back or advancing etc. Ran him basically like a PC. Thats not something most PCs seem to be used to. ANd thats fine. Overall they seemed to enjoy it alot more and still havent forgotten that NPC either.

I mean to me that seems more or less decent GMing. I wouldnt call it bad if some one else wasnt as linent either, SR is ment to be brutal and deadly. But I tend to lean more towards a good story myself with some decent (if some what bent) realism.

But in either case, on the matter of intent, in such a setup a GM could well intend to purposely maim/kill the characters to 'teach them a lesson'. But at the same time no rules would have had to have been bent/broken/rewritten etc at all. Which all comes back to the same thing realy. Both systems have basic modifiers to cover such events etc. And sticking to the numbers and rules could very easily kill the PCs both under SR3 and SR4. This is hardly a problem with the rules, simply if a problem exists it's purely because of the players, the GM or both.

I mean a good GM to me doesnt let a few holes in rules stop them from just making a decision on the fly much like they allways have to do if and almost allways inevitably when the PCs do something they dont expect. A good GM also looks at what sort of playstyle is expected. Something gritty, something about average to the total munchkin "I'm going to play as a great dragon in charge of a mega corp who has a massive arsenal of nuclear weapons at his disposal!"

If there are issues with players not liking the rulings it's likely you either have an incompatible GM/Playerbase or one or both parties are simply really bad. In which case you really should just try to find a setup that works alot better for you. Personally I'm certainly not the type that enjoys games where I can just make a longshot test with an incindary armorpiercing explosive bannana up the tailpipe of an APC and blow it up.

The fact that I dont like such gameplay hardly at all would make me a bad GM. I state flat out what I expect of an SR game and if people dont like it, find another GM cause it's alot of damn work as it is, and i'm sure as hell not goign to put that much work into something -I- dont also get to equally enjoy as much as the players. There's a give/take relationship there on a certain level really. I try to make the game fun for people but at the same time I have the expectation that the game will progress in a relatively (for SR) realistic game as opposed to a total munchkin driven acid trip. Cause I dont like that kinda thing and I certainly in such a situation would make a terrible GM becaue I'd not only hate the game at that point but I woudlnt even bother trying.

So if I were to disallow such a longshot would that really make me such a terrible GM? Personally I dont think so. I mean if it was some other thing like player says OK I wanna do this! And I'd be like umm... I dunno. How exactly do you expect something like that to actually work. Debate come to a consensus and then make a ruling on it. If it seems reasonable enough within the expected game setting, ok go for it. Otherwise nope, sorry cant do that, try thinking of something else.

[James McMurray]

I know you didn't say anything about reading the rulebook, I did. Your complaint is that loose rules cause unfairness and inconsistency. My reply is that the rulebook tells the GM to make sure to be fair and consistent. Hence, if he reads the rulebook, your worries are not valid. If he doesn't read the rulebook, then he's a crappy GM no matter how torqued the rules are.

[mfb]

[Kagetenshi]

To be fair, at least for me the idea that that was explicitly important was a bit of a revelation to me at about age 10. I never believed that they were undesirable, I just never specifically thought of them as goals. That being said, aside from staking out a tiny little box for "players/GMs too young to know the difference without being told", it doesn't change your point at all.

~J

[James McMurray]

[mfb]

you're always making everything binary, an either/or choice. black or white, ketchup or mustard, good analogy or complete fallacy. the flying example is an obvious exaggeration, and you're certainly more likely to become a fair and consistent GM by reading that you should be one than you are to be able to fly because you read you could. that doesn't mean that flying is a bad example--just an exaggerated one. it's not false, it's overblown to make the flaws more obvious. when i create an image for a webpage i'm designing, i usually work at 200% or more magnification so that i can more easily see where i screwed up. the principle i referred to--that being told you can do something doesn't automatically empower you to do that thing--does indeed apply to both examples, which makes it a non-fallacy.

[James McMurray]

Dude, the differentiation is between loose and tight. to use your Windows analogy, it's telling someone that if they don't like SR4 (Windows) so badly that they won't play it, they should try something else (command line Linux or Mac perhaps).

But yes, I do believe fully that if someone doesn't read the book and follow what it says, they're a bad GM for that game.

I'm sorry if you think your example was valid even though it was porly chosen and by your own admission overblown to exaggerate flaws. If I take a picture of someone and black out the teeth to exaggerate the flaw of that tiny gap, is it still a good picture of them? No. Depending on how exaggerated it was (and your example was insanely exaggerated) you may not even be able to recognize the face. Certainly you can't look at someone trying to fly and think "oh, there goes a guy trying to GM."

Maybe if you could provide some actual examples of the system creating a bad GM instead of "well, he's gotta think, and so he'll screw up." Or perhaps an example of how the systemn forces inconsistency and unfairness. If you can't, then it comes back to GM skill. A GM will be as consistent as he wants to be, and as fair as he wants to be. Apparently YMMV, but that's what my decades of gaming have shown me, in loose and tight systems.

The only people I hear complaining about loose systems are the ones with horror stories, sure in the "knowledge" that GMs are just waiting for the slighest slip up to become bad GMs. It's crap. It's projection at it's worst. It's assuming that because either you or people who have terrorized you from the GM seat can't make a good game with loose rules, that nobody can.

If you like the game, play it. If you don't like it, don't play it. If you like the rules, use them. If you don't like the rules, don't use them or change them.

It seems blindingly obvious to me. What's stuck in your eye and not letting you see it?

[eidolon]

I don't think it's a matter of having to see it one way or the other. Just like anything else in gaming, it's 100% subjective even when it looks like it's not. We all have our preferences, and rarely are they 100% the same.

[James McMurray]

Exactly.

[toturi]

[tjn]

[James McMurray]

[mfb]

[Cain]

Let's go back to the Windows analogy. SR4 is kinda like WinME, To a really skilled, technically-minded specialist, ME posed no significant problems. To the crowd that consistently mistook CD-Rom slides as cupholders, it was a nightmare.

What about the rest of us? Guess what, ME was a nightmare. (I've had to rip ME off two different computers now, both times with the assistance of Microsoft programmers. Not fun.)

You get a really skilled GM, they can run anything, and you'll have fun. FATAL, Wraeththu, you name it. Get a crappy GM, and they won't even be able to handle easy and difficult to mess up systems like Wushu or Savage Worlds. But for the average GM, FATAL and SR4 Wraththu are going to be difficult to pull off, and Wushu is going to be almost too simple.

Now, let's try the socratic method again:

[Kesslan]

[Kesslan]

[mfb]

complexity isn't what i'm talking about here. clearer guidelines for special effect called shots wouldn't make the rules more complex, per se.

[Kesslan]