Risk Adverse Gaming, A link and some random thoughts Options

[Mercer]

Fair enough. I've also noticed that players that will have a great time having their brains scooped out in Call of Cthulhu will cry bloody murder if they feel they're being overmatched by monster CR's in D&D. I guess a lot of it is managing expectations.

[bibliophile20]

[Kagetenshi]

Kagetensh-I-BOS-4 hereby demotes Citizen Bibli-O-PHI-20 to Red clearance pending investigation for subversion, treason, and communist sympathy, per order 0x4724BA83 of The Computer.

All good citizens are hereby ordered to disperse. All others shall report immediately to the nearest termination center.

~Kagetensh-I-BOS-4

[Critias]

I wouldn't say characters in Shadowrun (or CP:2020, or even a nasty WoD game or whatever) "can't win." I'd say that playing in a particularly gritty setting under a particularly harsh/impartial GM just means changing your idea of what counts as a "win."

[Mercer]

As a player, I have to define a win as a session where I have a good time. A session in which my character hoses a run, get's gutshot by a ganger and crashes his car into Puget Sound is-- if I'm having a good time-- a better session than one where things go right but I'm not as invested, entertained or having as much fun. Most of the time player and character goals are pretty closely in line, but all things being equal the only real measure of a game is if it's fun.

However, I think a GM can make a game "can't win", in the sense that a GM who abuses his authority can-- without breaking the rules-- make the game no fun.

[kzt]

[Glyph]

I think you can make characters who are less optimal, and make less flawlessly tactical decisions in combat, and still get by without the GM cutting you any breaks. You just need to take jobs that your character is qualified for.

If you are less professional, you won't be making the same runs against Tir ghosts or Aztec leopard guards that the chromed-out heavy hitters and foci-toting ubermages are doing. Shadowrunning can encompass a very wide variety of jobs, from carjacking, to kidnapping, to finding missing people, to sabatage, to bodyguarding, and so on. Not every job has to be breaking into Ares top-secret headquarters.

[DR.PaiN]

Just started up our SR 3 game again, and this thread brings a tear to my eye.

[Riley37]

Some GMs run Call of Cthulhu as winnable. As in, half the party might die or go insane, but at the end of the story arc, Cthulhu's bid for World Domination has been foiled. In which case, half of the party get to remain alive and sane, rather than join the entire world in becoming Cthulhu Snacks.

As for Creepwoodrun... sure, the US Army laundry budget has to account for soldiers wetting themselves in their first firefight... but some percentage of soldiers wet themselves while at the same time following the drill, taking the gun off safe, taking aim and firing. Or whatever the effective response is. I'll defer to the vets on what that is, and what the percentages are, but my armchair knowlege of history goes against "ALL of the nonveterans freeze up".

In my own experience - never military trained, only got to Yellow Belt which didn't go past min-contact slo-mo sparring, generally your joe-shmoe non-badass - the one time I've come across a street situation, I did just fine, and had the shakes *afterwards*. In downtown San Francisco at night, I saw a guy holding down a woman and hitting her; I got a bystander to commit to calling 911, told the guy to stop, and when he didn't stop, I grabbed him and put him in an immobilizing hold. It worked. So far as I can tell, he had randomly flipped out and attacked her without provocation, and she fell down, and he didn't stop hitting her until I stopped him.

So if I can do that well, stumbling across trouble while on my way to fraggin' *church*, then I'd like to play a rough, tough Urban Brawler PC who can do as well or better. If he gets the shakes afterwards, then fine, I'll accept the -3 DP on any card-castle-building tasks in the following hour.

[Wounded Ronin]

[kzt]

Sounds like Sensi. "Stop thinking, just do the kata."

[Stahlseele]

Zen-Boxing *g*

[Mercer]

I agree. I don't think players factoring in that their characters are acting out of instinct, passion or reflex is anything like CREEPWOODRUN. As I said before:

[PlatonicPimp]

This is where system REALLY matters. There are sets of rules that manage to perfectly balance this, either through incredibly simple basic rules that make powergaming fairly pointless (tri-stat), or by having the rules serve a narrative purpose rather than a simulation purpose. (dogs in the Vineyard)

I'm gonna talk a little about the latter.

Shadowrun and other task based systems ask a single question: do you succeed? All the rules exist to determine that basic question. Because it's entirely possible that you can fail, and because in the end we want our characters to survive and succeed, the system itself demands that you "game" it. It requires you to powergame and the only way out is to choose to take sub-optimal choices on purpose for RP reasons. This puts RP against gaming, creating a conflict. There are other games that ask different questions. The question in Dogs in the Vineyard isn't "do you succeed" but "how far will you go TO succeed?" It presupposes you'll win in the end, what the dice determine is how much it will cost you. If your goal is to survive, you'll surive, but it may cost you limbs, friendships, fortunes or morals. If your goal is to defeat evil you'll defeat it, but you may die in the process. The rules are built around this premise, and it gies you good reasons, game reasons, to make poor decisions, take risks, and even fail spectacularly. There's no conflict between good RP and good gaming.

I really can't suggest playing a game of Dogs in the Vineyard hard enough. If you can get over the slightly weird premise (you are mormon preachers/gunslingers in a supernatural old west), it's seriously a much different take on gaming and is the perfect cure for the malaise described in this thread.

Now I like it both ways. I'm one hell of a powergamer, but I learned my skills because I like to take what might appear to be suboptimal choices and make them work. Which reminds me, I have a dwarven Bard I want to play in a DnD game....

Anyway, because this is a Shadowrun Forum and not a general gaming Forum: What Do I think can be done to get the rules of the game more in line with generating story rather than pushing success?

First, change what's at stake. Every combat currently decides whether the character's live or die. This means that if the characters fail, they DIE, and it's end of story and new character time. That sucks. But if the stakes were instead "Do we get to the door in time" or "who makes it out of the warehouse with the mcguffin", then the players can potentially lose the conflict and still have the story go on. The players don't make the door in time, but maybe they can still take the guards, or now they have to find another way out, or they are captured and it's time to escape. And you as GM have to be willing and able to NOT CARE which outcome the players get. Maybe they make it out the warehouse with the Mcguffin. Now there is a car chase for them to get away scott free. Maybe the other team go the Mcguffin. Now it's time for a car chase, but the PCs are doing the chasing. If they catch, then it's another conflict over the box. if the other guys get away, new conflict "do we track their hideout down?"

This is mostly a change to narrative structure, and many of the better GMs will already being doing this. What we need for the rules to support this is to ask the player "what is your intended goal in this action" when they make the rolls. They are shooting the guard, ask why. If the answer is to kill, proceed as normal. If, perhaps, the PC answers "to distract him", then instead of proceeding to a damage roll, give the margin of success as a penalty to the guards perception check as the ninja character sneaks by. Sneaky character is going to backstab the guard, apply his margin of success to the roll to stab the guard. Wait, the guard got more hits? He gets the bonus on his dodge roll. In other words, success aids a follow up check with the same goal in mind, failure provides a penalty, but doesn't prevent the attempt.

OH, and forget the rules regarding damage overflow and death. Character's don't die unless the Player chooses to risk their character's life. Instead, a character who is put past their damage threshold is out of the conflict unconcious, stunned, or otherwise unable to contribute meaningfully anymore. If the player isn't willing to stay out, let them Burn a point of edge to keep doing things (with the appropriate wound modifiers), with the express knowledge that NOW the damage overflow rules apply, and their characters can die.

I might even change the damage system entirely. You have a damage track. figure damage as normal. When the track fills up, the character has a choice: bow out or sacrifice something to keep in the conflict. Maybe they lose their favorite gun, shot out of their hand. Maybe they lose an arm, or an eye, maybe a peice of cyberware malfunctions. Maybe they lose a point of magic from the wound. Maybe their mentor spirit pulls them back, but demands a service. Figure it out, it should be good. If they choose this route, erase all previous damage from the track and start over. Each time they take a "dramatic wound", they have to make this choice. Each sacrifice must be greater than the last. The first wound should be something fairly unimportant (like the gun), the third or fourth wound should be the major one. It's important to realize that the choice is EITHER leave the conflict, or sacrifice something to stay in. if you can't bear Under this damage system wound penalties would be equal to the number of dramatic wounds you've taken.

I can see it needs working out (what do damage compensators do in this scenario?), but it's a framework.

[Kagetenshi]

Normally this would be the time when I would say "Get thee behind me, Satan!", but I already did that once this thread :(

~J