Risk Adverse Gaming, A link and some random thoughts Options

[Stahlseele]

what's a creepwood=?

[Wounded Ronin]

[Mercer]

Not to call a brother out or anything, but this jumps out at me from one of the original Creepwoodrun posts about people behaving realistically in combat:

[mfb]

what Critias described in that first post, and what Creepwood wanted to force everyone to do, is simply not realistic for the majority of characters. it might be somewhat realistic for some characters who have never gotten in a fight before, especially if they're basically innocent bystanders and don't have a direct personal investment in the conflict. but for most characters, it's not realistic.

[Critias]

If you'd like, I can post links -- dozens, perhaps even hundreds -- to the on-line postings of the sort of combats I've gotten into (complete with the appropriate OOC pages, to also share the die rolls). You can let me know if I've ever genuinely ignored the emotional consequences, the roleplaying, of my characters in any of them.

What issues I'd run into after about thirteen years of Shadowrun gaming weren't IC, but OOC. They didn't disrupt the games I was in, or show in terms of poor roleplaying or boring characters. The reactions I describe for an experienced Shadowrunner (be it a former Metahuman People's Army terrorist from San Francisco or a former Tir Ghost from Portland, and everything in between) are perfectly in character for each of them, once the lead starts flying.

What CREEPWOODRUN was based on had nothing to do with experienced professional Shadowrunners (as my satire of it in your quoted post is meant to make clear). You don't hear much in the news about Blackwater staff shitting themselves instead of pulling the trigger, or USMC Force Recon guys locking up, do you? What Creepwood suggested was perfectly fine, for completely untrained (or sloppily trained) combatants who'd never seen a firefight before.

When I've played that sort of character (and I have), I haven't needed the rules of the game to tell me how to act, by forcing me to take CREEPWOODRUN Will checks or whatever else he was suggesting. I've role played appropriately, and done so in line with my low (or nonexistant) combat skills, etc.

Frankly, I just don't see what the two topics/posts have to do with one another, except that I made them both.

[Wounded Ronin]

[Penta]

Critias: The Appropriate Documentation notes that newbie soldiers are likely to shit themselves in their first taste of combat, even -after- basic training and stuff.

Are they untrained?

[Critias]

[Mercer]

[Critias]

Part of the problem with any attempt to enforce (even by rewarding it, which can be seen as punishment to those who don't live up to standards) role playing in combat (when "role playing" = "less tactically sound actions") is twofold.

Firstly, the professionalism ratings apply to NPCs, not PCs, and that's one of the few edges your average player character has. In the timespan of any given campaign -- Hell, in the timespan of any given firefight, more times than not -- a player character will be on the receiving end of far more attacks than any single NPC will ever dream of. NPCs are (varying by professionalism rating) the ones that are supposed to cut and run when they get gut shot or outnumbered, are the ones not always supposed to think on their feet quite as quickly as PCs, and are (generally) the measuring stick against which the PCs are supposed to hold themselves and walk away feeling smug. It's true that a PC being that clinical and academic about a grenade bouncing his way might be silly -- but isn't it cooler than the far more realistic response of screaming like a girl, dropping your gun, and leaping away? PCs, by and large, want to be cooler than NPCs. Let them.

And second -- remember that a big part of the game's flavor is supposed to be metahumanity, well, dehumanizing itself. A big part of how my own personal switch got flipped "on" when it came to reflexive number crunching was a single character -- a street sam that hit just about 250 karma, tromping around with Initiative rolls in the mid thirties considered average, double digits in more than one physical attribute, and a combat pool (thanks to a tactical computer and Small Unit Tactics) that was normally somewhere in the high teens for any given combat. Toss in all the senseware he had, on top of all that?

For a guy like that, the most tactically perfect action every phase is his instinctual response.

For characters in Shadowrun, combat ability almost always far, far, exceeds, the level of thinking we're capable of reaching today. Not only are these guys combat trained professionally, not only are they veterans of life or death situations (almost daily, for some!), and not only are they on par with the most battle-hardened individuals the real world can produce today... but they've got either chrome or magic to make them even more cool under pressure. If you're an Adept with a ton of Combat Sense, how likely are you to loose your cool? If you're a street sammy with wired reflexes and the best chipped skills money can buy, shouldn't you be a pretty efficient fighting machine?

Make no mistake, my own personal issues with this sort of combat are mine, not my characters. I never had a problem with a given character being a horribly efficient combatant -- after a while, it was just assumed by the guys playing with me that I'd very nearly handle physical combat with or without much help -- my problem was that I found myself making it work with every single character.

For any given character, completely tactical thinking and brutal combat efficiency isn't only a good survival trait and a very good thing, it's fine role playing, too.

My problem was that after a while I got so used to it, OOC, that I was making that "any given character" every time I sat down to, as those zany kids these days say, roll up a new toon.

[Stahlseele]

[Mercer]

[Fortune]

[Kagetenshi]

[Critias]

I make a point of not cutting breaks, when I run. Period. But I guess that's just a playstyle thing.

I'll put up a warning well in advance, and people know full well what they're getting into when they sign up for one of my games -- but once you're in, you're in. If I run a game where I specifically say it's going to be (for instance) real-world combat oriented, and a decker type is only likely to be of much use if he's also capable outside of the Matrix (because the job itself doesn't involve your normal data snatch)...well, if someone shows up with the most pencil-necked geek Bill Gates knock off in the world, and insists they still want to play, then fine. He can still play...

But they're not getting cut any slack, I'm not dropping two guards from every group of bad guys patroling the compound, the NPCs aren't all suddenly toting gel rounds, and the bad guys don't all lose a die of combat pool to make up for it.

*shrugs* If you've got a GM that cuts people breaks, I really don't know what I can say because I've pretty much got no idea what a game like that is like. While I guess some people might like that sort of game, where the GM sometimes cuts people slack or fudges die rolls or whatever, to me, where I'm coming from, it sounds like trouble waiting to happen. Too much room for favoritism or hurt feelings ("Why did their called shot work on me but not Jim," or "Why has THIS guard got APDS ammo when the one that shot Billy is using flechettes?") or for complacence to set in and people to start to rely on GM fiat to keep them alive instead of their own wits and their character's own combat abilities ("Hey, who cares if this is my last karma pool, the GM won't let me die!").

But, well, your mileage may vary. I guess if that's what works for you, that's what works for you -- but it seems to me you'd just be exchanging one set of potential fun-sucking problems for another.

[nezumi]

[Mercer]

[Kagetenshi]

Not necessarily—the player could also make a character whose roleplayed combat would be more survivable (either in terms of being more tactically sound, or in terms of being more risk-averse).

~J

[toturi]

[Gelare]

[Kagetenshi]

[Gelare]

[Whipstitch]

[Mercer]

After I posted last night I drove to work, and I kept thinking about the myriad of ways "cutting breaks" could be interpreted. One gamer could say "cutting breaks" to mean bending the rules to keep characters alive, another could use it to mean not screwing them hard for every thing they do; cutting the pc's a break can mean anything from making it impossible for them to fail to not making it impossible for them to succeed.

The game breaks down at either extreme, for most players. (I think there may be slightly more players who will play in a game where they can't lose than can't win, and some that prefer it, but I think most players come down in the middle.)

For the record, I meant that I don't cut the players breaks in that I don't cheat. I do cut them breaks in that they are not doomed in everything they do (although come to think of it, some of my players from the old days may disagree). I do try to run my games as consistent to the internal logic of the game world as I can, and really, what kind of breaks the pc's can get depends on what kind of breaks they can sell me on.

Them's the breaks, I guess.

In a larger sense, it seems like a game where everybody plays all their characters pretty much the same would quickly get boring, but at the same time a game that punishes all but the "best" course of action seems designed to get everyone playing the same way.

Another factor at work here is its been a long time sine I ran SR, so I'm long on theory these days.

[Kagetenshi]

Note that the existence of a market for Paranoia and Call of Cthulhu indicates that there is, in fact, some set of players who are interested in playing in games where they can't win.

~J