 Game level, Why must it be street? |
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 Jan 19 2008, 07:32 PM
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#401
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Bushido Cowgirl  Group: Members Posts: 5,782 Joined: 8-July 05 From: On the Double K Ranch a half day's ride out of Phlogiston Flats Member No.: 7,490  |
..I back up knasser's 'Not in My Game" statement. There are very appropriate times to use it. A few examples where I find it appropriate:
...player brings in character that was created under a different set of house rules that is not being used in the campaign (someone built on a set of alternate hacking rules that I'm not using for example). ...player brings in a character which violates a houserule agreed upon by the rest of the group (such as a practitioner of Voodoo in my campaigns - long ugly story). ...Player writes up some really wiz bang toy not in the gear section that gives his character advantage above the others (oh he also has this Barrett XXM5000 sniper rifle that has an extreme range or 5000m a DV of 12 and -6AP without using APDS [This sort of thing actually happened once]). ...character has some quality that is not in the book or houseruled in the campaign (e.g. the character is actively hunted by the Star which I would not allow for it also means everyone on the team is also in deep horses**t being that they're SINless) ...character is a racial type not covered in the current rules and therefore not part of the campaign (whaddya mean I can't play a Klingon? I even stated out his batleth!). ...character has a major canon figure as a loyalty 6 contact (so, you are buddy buddy with Hestaby? Right...) Synner's somewhat long position this page backs this up as well for it is there to keep things fair for the rest of the players. ...oh, and Synner to avoid the "8)" I usually use "[.....8]" or leave a space before the ")" ....ohh and again. couldn't find something that was exactly a -1,000,000 modifier, but shooting a Heavy Pistol at something on the moon from HEO is approximately a -20,116,797 (+/- 5%) modifier to hit. |
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Jan 19 2008, 07:43 PM
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#402
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,416 Joined: 4-March 06 From: Albuquerque Member No.: 8,334 |
Cain, though you and I are butting heads over rules and interpretation, you have my best well wishes in recovery. Not sure what happened, but pain is never good and I sincerely hope you recover soon. Now, back to the debate!
1 - Agreed, but luck happens 2 - Also true 3 - That's a matter of opinion. 1 in a million shots happen, just not often. Mr. Lucky can do it more frequently, *in theory.* I've rolled 10 dice before and critically glitched, so just because he rolls edge doesn't mean he's going to succeed. Just means he's likely to. 4 - Luck *never* trumps skill. Anything Mr. Lucky can do, someone else can do better, much better. 5 - Again disagree here. Mr. Lucky can only do things to a minor degree, and he will run out of chances. You can't use him as the team hacker, the team gunbunny or anything else, because eventually he runs out of luck. You never run out of skill. 6 - Generalists still survive, because like in point 5, Mr. Lucky only has X tries before he's screwed, and the generalist will still have infinite tries at whatever he can attempt (which is a lot, if it's a generalist) 7 - A disconnect, maybe, but that boils down to perception and how the game is run in a lot of ways. Even "gritty, street" games can have a cinematic effect or two in them. Mr. Lucky, the super optimized luck star, is just the most extreme way of getting this. In the end, here's the biggest issue I think, and all your arguments so far support this conclusion: When using a high-edge character in extreme situations, the character does better than he probably should. This statement, even I agree with. But at average levels of edge and typical situations (even non-typical), the rules hold up fairly well. Take anything, rules or materials or whatever, to the extremes and eventually break. Nothing is foolproof in that regard. The question becomes this: Do these highly unlikely combination of factors happen often in your game? If so, then maybe your GM is doing it intentionally to let your character shine a bit. That or perhaps they're not adequately leaving holes for the characters to accomplish their goals, thus requiring only Mr. Lucky to get involved and save the day. Either way, that's a GM issue, not a rules issue. |
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Jan 20 2008, 12:19 AM
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#403
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Runner Group: Members Posts: 3,314 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Lisbon, Cidade do Pecado Member No.: 185 |
Yup. Because he was a normal guy going up against the Luckiest Man Alive. As I said the gamemaster who approved this character in his game must expect this. In fact he specifically allowed it. If he doesn't want something like this to be possible because it spoils suspension of disbelief, breaks continuity or disrupts the atmosphere, the character can and should be vetted (much like he could vet a group of magic heavies in what was intended to be a ganger campaign, or a Body 30 troll with no stealth and a HMG fetish in an infiltrator campaign). Now factor in normal circumstances.
You haven't answered my second question. I asked whether this situation had come up, your answer suggests it hasn't. I'd also ask whether your SR4 gamemaster makes full use of Edge for NPCs, since the previous time we did this dance you indicated it wasn't common practice at your table - and this directly affects Edge depletion on the character's part during the course of adventures.
The system allows for the near impossible to happen, not for the impossible. If you shoot in the opposite direction you are never going to hit. So if the gamemaster allowed the shot in those extreme circumstances to take place then the onus is on him to live with the consequences. You're disassociating what Atttribute Ratings mean from what's happening. Really high Edge does indeed allow for some incredible stuff, but that's what really high Edge is intended to do. Having Edge 6+ places you among a handful of the most consistenly lucky individuals in the world. Edge 7 puts you beyond that in the realm of amazingly lucky. Edge 8 means you're in a class all your own, where destiny smiles on you consistently and allows you to do those things.
Let's try that then. Let's make this into a regular example rather than an exceptional one. Let's use Joe Wageslave with Edge 2 and Boris the Street Sam with Edge 5.
I'll concede that it can shatter suspension of disbelief (if it ever comes up) - but then again that's why the guy is Mr Lucky. We've all seen that the Citymaster example is contingent on gamemaster agreement that the shot is possible. If the gamemaster decides that the Called Shot isn't possible (because for some reason he thinks citymasters were specifically built to avoid a vulnerable spot), he rules it isn't during the targeting phase of the attack and the example falls apart. If he, the gamemaster, specifically allows the shot in his game he should be ready for the possibility that it succeeds. The system has a built in check, the gamemaster is responsible for deciding whether or not to use it in his game.
As several of the preceding posts have indicated (in response to your FastJack example) this is incorrect. Would you like to try that example with programming a Rating 5 program?
You've yet to prove that - plus it's only eight times "a game" if the gamemaster wishes. The rules allow you to tailor the importance and reliability of Edge by adjusting the refresh rate. If the gamemaster/group thinks Edge is unbalanced they can restrict the refresh rate to a trickle making it much less of a factor in play and hence making near impossible successes less common in the long run. More importantly though, if the gamemaster is posing appropriate challenges to Mr Lucky he'll also be reducing his current Edge and thereby reducing the number of times Mr Lucky can try to outshine a specialist. I can say "try" because by your own admittance your version of Mr Lucky ("who (after some Karma) has 20 dice in Pistols, and averages 6-8 dice in most other categories. He lacks technical skills, but for that he's got skillwires with a Skillwire Expert System") is going to be able to occassionally bolster his Pistols dice pool to 28 when using Edge. He can bolster certain pools to the 14-16 range when using Edge. And technicals skills, even with the Expert System, are going to be maxed out at 4 (same as everyone else with Skillwires) since you get rerolls. What you seem to be forgetting is that every time Mr Lucky might use Edge, so can everyone else and specialists have the option of bolstering their naturally higher pools too. What Mr Lucky is good at is pulling a lucky save out of the hat when a specialist is unavailable or otherwise engaged but that's why he picked up those two extra points of Edge and why the gamemaster allowed him into play.
You don't need a variety of obscure skills more than eight times a game, you just need the same obscure skill multiple times or to present Mr Lucky with actual challenges that deplete his Edge (such as boosting pretty much any pool, including defensive ones). Depending on his rolls he might even deplete faster. I've seen someone burn through 5 Edge twenty minutes into a three 5 hour session adventure.
I suggest you take a look at the How Is Your Game? thread it's pretty clear that a whole lot of people are enjoying gritty street level games, that Mr Lucky isn't common at anyone's table despite your issues this system breaking "problem". As you've seen yourself on this thread most people are doing fine with the occassional "wildly cinematic effect" too - it's so rare and exceptional that it doesn't really come into play enough to interfere with suspension-of-disbelief. So maybe the disconnect here is between how you view and use the rule set and how most other people play and enjoy the rule set. |
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Jan 20 2008, 12:34 AM
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#404
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Uncle Fisty Group: Admin Posts: 13,891 Joined: 3-January 05 From: Next To Her Member No.: 6,928 |
While I won't say that this thread doens't have interesting content, along with waaaay more dissection of a "proper" argement than is really need, this really is horribly off topic. So much in fact that I had to go back to the first page and look up what the hell we were talking about again. Please, if you'd like to continue the debate on Edge use, Mr. Lucky, and so on, create the proper thread for it. Something like : Mr. Lucky - redux - again. Whatever. This is the innapropriate place for the discussion, as this poster's thread has already horribly mutated into something not of it's nature. |
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Jan 20 2008, 12:42 AM
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#405
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,416 Joined: 4-March 06 From: Albuquerque Member No.: 8,334 |
We actually took care of that awhile back, fist. A new thread was started specifically to address the OP's questions because we knew this one was unsalvagably derailed.
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Jan 20 2008, 12:52 AM
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#406
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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 |
I think the original topic was pretty much covered, and this thread would have died a lingering death without the massive derail. Not saying that is a good or bad thing, but it sure has been interesting. :D
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Jan 20 2008, 12:52 AM
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#407
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Uncle Fisty Group: Admin Posts: 13,891 Joined: 3-January 05 From: Next To Her Member No.: 6,928 |
*looks around sheepishly, feeling bad for not being around past few days ... wanders off* :D
Thanks JhaIisiin :) Carry on! |
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Jan 20 2008, 12:53 AM
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#408
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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 |
Slacker! |
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Jan 20 2008, 01:56 AM
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#409
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,416 Joined: 4-March 06 From: Albuquerque Member No.: 8,334 |
lol No problem, fist. :-)
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Jan 20 2008, 03:09 AM
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#410
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,590 Joined: 11-September 04 Member No.: 6,650 |
1: Lone Star is not an Ares Subsidiary. 2: Knight Errant IS and Ares Subbsidiary, and the personal 'golden child' of Ares CEO Damien Knight. 3: Lone Star is the chief competitor of Knight Errant. 4: By your logic above those design flaws MUST be in Lone Star equipment sold to them by Ares. :eek: :P :D :D |
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Jan 20 2008, 03:16 AM
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#411
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Grand Master of Run-Fu Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 6,840 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Tir Tairngire Member No.: 178 |
Except those aren't Ultimatum scenarios. Instead, those sound like standard new player scenarios. A bit of education, from either you or one of the players, will likely fix that. Throwing down the gauntlet and shouting: "Not in my game!" isn't nearly as likely.
That was one of the points of the waterfront example. The troll heavy weapons specialist couldn't get a bead, but Mr. Lucky could default and still make the shot. After a certain point, your skill ceases to matter, and only your luck makes a difference. There are many other systems with a luck factor where this is not the case.
Oddly enough, in the last SRM game I played ("Wetwork, Pure and Simple"), Mr Lucky doubled as the team face. And his charisma plus social skill isn't that impressive, 7 dice. He did better at it than the generalist built to backup the face, mostly without invoking Edge. The trick is resource management. Save your Edge for the really big moments, which unfortunately tend to be spotlight moments for other players. Generalists may survive, but they're decidedly obsolete in SR4. Shadowrun has always been a game about specialists. But that disconnect is worthy of a thread all its own.
Let's try a more typical example, then. Mfb originally posted the one-klick-out-to-sea example, where the sam in question had a -15 to his Longarms skill. Taking a look at Mr. Lucky and other Dumpshock standard characters, it's not uncommon for one to have 15-20 in his primary dicepools. Heck, the badly-done street sam in the BBB has, IIRC, 16 in automatics. So, he still stands a good chance of making the shot, especially if he gets surprise (and a one kilometer shot is pretty surprising). That's without Edge, either; with even a Edge of 3, those odds go up noticeably.
Both those were Called-shots-to-bypass-armor. Which enabled me to one shot a troll tank and a PT boat. Should things have been just a tad more extreme, they would have also gone into longshot territory. Remember, one of my points is that Called Shots are also broken.
What happens if we have a much closer shot, but the only way to hit the target is with a ricochet? We've all heard of the Magic Bullet Theory, so truly wacky ricochets are within the realm of possibility, if not probability. This could be how Mr. Lucky takes out the Citymaster, by a Magic Bullet down the exhaust pipe. So, yes, you could in theory fire in the opposite direction and hit, provided you had your Magic Bullets loaded. (And please, let's not derail this thread further by arguing the merits of the Magic Bullet theory. Let's just acknowledge that not everything that is really improbable is impossible.)
And as I said before, it is very clear that past a certain point, skill ceases to matter in favor of luck. The troll in the example, being a specialist, should have 7-9 dice in his Heavy Weapons skill alone; Mr. Lucky has 0. Yet despite this huge disparity, in the example, Mr. Lucky has a much better chance of making the shot. Our hypothetical troll might have an Edge of 1 (which may or may not be used by now) and the Bad Luck hindrance, all in an attempt to save points for heavy weapons. We don't know.
First, you start game with a full Edge pool, so it is "a game", at least once. Although afterwards, I'll concede it becomes "Up to eight times a game". However, Edge is integral to the system. By slowing down the refresh rate, you hurt the low-edge characters more than the high-edge ones. I've seen this in practice: in SRM, I've yet to see a single point of Edge be refreshed in game. Mr, Lucky and high-edge characters aren't bothered by this, but the low-edge characters run out very quickly.
Just taking a look around Dumpshock, I see tons of threads on house rules, rule compaints, rule fixes, interpretation arguments, and so on and so forth. I don't see anything like this on the Savage Worlds, Wushu, or Capes forums just to name a few. Heck, I don't see this many on the Wizards forums! Even in this thread, I see very few "overjoyed" comments as opposed to: "it's not that bad" comments. Which leads me to wonder how many people enjoy Shadowrun, but merely tolerate the ruleset. |
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Jan 20 2008, 03:22 AM
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#412
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,590 Joined: 11-September 04 Member No.: 6,650 |
First point, I was born in '79 and I am still kinda stuck in the 80s on may things. so it is very easy.
So old WOD is your preferred style, a system based on player and PC disempowerment.... explains a lot.
I think Cain was referring to somethiong more like Dogs in the Vineyard. That game has a GM but the GM is constrained by a single rule "say yes, or roll the dice" |
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Jan 20 2008, 09:24 AM
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#413
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Prime Runner Group: Banned Posts: 3,732 Joined: 1-September 05 From: Prague, Czech Republic Member No.: 7,665 |
Just checking: Caiin's examples are:
Basically it comes down to Cain having a problem with two things in the system that happen at the extreme end of crazy town:
But those two actually cancel out. Having a bunch of uncompensated recoil in poor visibility while wounded on an unstable platform may indeed be a larger dicepool penalty than trying to shoot for a flaw in the armor of an APC. But it doesn't actually matter because people don't have dicepools that big. It's a system with explicit caps. Penalties don't go to -1,000,000. They don't even go to -50. Dicepools don't go that high either. Cover comes in just three varieties: Partial Cover (-2), Good Cover (-4), and Target Hidden (-6, you use Intuition instead of Agility, and you have to shoot through the barrier to continue to resolve your attack). That's it. Much as Cain would like there to be for the sake of this endless discussion there is no -10 cover or -20 cover. Within the actual range of allowed dice pools and allowed penalties, Cain has yet to find a problematic example. There are doubtles potential examples outside that range which are problematic, but they are outside the allowed range of the game and I cannot even pretend to care. Come back to me with a real problem like Agent Smith or Bloodzilla. -Frank |
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Jan 20 2008, 09:34 AM
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#414
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,416 Joined: 4-March 06 From: Albuquerque Member No.: 8,334 |
And this means... what? How is it relevant to the current direction of the discussion? Moreover, why did it take you several pages to respond to that one post of mine, and why have you chosen not to comment on anything else? I'd post a better response to you, but your snide Well-that-explains-everything kind of post leaves little for discussion and plenty for insults. Feel free to elaborate or else contribute to the discussion at hand, okay? |
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Jan 20 2008, 11:16 AM
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#415
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Shadow Cartographer Group: Members Posts: 3,737 Joined: 2-June 06 From: Secret Tunnels under the UK (South West) Member No.: 8,636 |
EDIT: Deleted. Not really necessary with Frank's post already there.
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Jan 20 2008, 06:05 PM
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#416
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,590 Joined: 11-September 04 Member No.: 6,650 |
That question is easy, I only got back to dumpshock yesterday and read the thread all the way through, replying to posts as i found them.
As for the main point. You prefer the playstyle of oWoD. oWoD is very into disempowering PCs and, to a slightly lesser extent, players. You prefer a GM to have significant authority over your games. All this fits a pattern where you prefer a hierarchical, structured environment. Long story, short version, you prefer a game style which that 'other game' would call lawful. Others prefer a style that game would chaotic. no insult intended, just a case of the lightbulb going off in my noggin |
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Jan 20 2008, 06:27 PM
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#417
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Runner Group: Members Posts: 2,883 Joined: 16-December 06 Member No.: 10,386 |
I really like the ruleset. A lot. Most of my complaints have to do with what is clearly poor editing like discrepancies between price tables. Bloodzillas are definitely a weird blip on the radar but are easily fixed. I find the matrix rules irritatingly incomplete, but they're easy to play fast and loose with, so I don't particularly care; the worst criticisms against it can be mitigated by firmly ruling on what agents can and cannot do and the script kiddy thing is largely a thematic criticism, although I can certainly understand why some react vehemently against it. Likewise whether or not skills are too expensive depends largely on whether you feel skill redundancy or systemic encouragement of metagaming is the bigger problem. I think part of the problem with finding people who like the rules Cain is that people like me who really don't see any truly massive problems to fix are unlikely to run into a Chicken Little thread which is where most of these discussions end up taking place. |
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Jan 20 2008, 06:53 PM
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#418
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,416 Joined: 4-March 06 From: Albuquerque Member No.: 8,334 |
Glad to hear it, and sorry if I sounded snappy. My initial interpretation of your comments came off as being something snooty and directed at me personally. I'm glad to see that isn't the case, and my apologies for jumping to that conclusion. That said, yes, I suppose we do enjoy having a bit of authority exercised by the GM. The mentality we tend to take is that the GM is the merciless god of our universe(s), and we respect the GM as such. We grant him/her the power to rule over the group, make decisions, and keep things on track. We have a fairly mature bunch of players, but we're horribly prone to tangents, and a random Panther Cannon shooting you in the leg because you're not paying attention works wonders. (I'm only partly joking with that last bit... hehe) I'm still not getting what you mean by disempowerment though. In the games I've been party to, the players are easily empowered to do whatever they need to, and take the story where they will. Hell, the GM helps provide fluff half the time while the players help decide the plot direction through their roleplaying. Sometimes a simple die roll can alter the course of the game entirely (I can't tell you how often a botch/critical glitch has completely changed the plans for the night, let alone a few nights to follow... all sorts of interesting things happen when you completely blow that willpower roll) As both a player and as the characters I have the opportunity to play, I never feel at a loss of power. I might run into situations beyond my ken or skill, but that happens in any game system. So yeah, enough of my rambling. What do you mean by disempowerment exactly? |
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Jan 20 2008, 07:12 PM
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#419
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Grand Master of Run-Fu Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 6,840 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Tir Tairngire Member No.: 178 |
That interpretation is very much still up for debate. What's turning against the example is the fact that all called shots require GM fiat, which is another point I've raised that hasn't been discussed as heavily. Fixing one mistake with another is not usually a good thing.
People asked for a non-extreme example, I provided one. I might add that I calculated Fastjack's use of Edge into the example; it's simply irrelevant. And Mr. Lucky could rush the job as well; the odds against him botching or critically botching are still pretty high.
I don't get what you're trying to say. You're arguing that mfb's original example is invalid? Or my exaggerated one is? When no one, including you, has been able to invalidate it? You seem to be saying the example is too extreme, but at the same time, it's not problematic because it's not extreme enough. That Non Sequitur is really puzzling me. Oh, and for the record: The "highest penalty only" rule is listed as an optional rule. Once we start allowing in optional and house rules, we open the gates to all kinds of problems. We're having enough trouble with canon rules, we don't need to add soft rules into this mess.
Never said there was. Another Straw Man.
You wanted a less extreme example, we can go back to the pornomancer pissing on the Don's mother. Even at a whopping -20 penalty (and the only way you can get there is by stacking smaller ones, otherwise this example gets even worse) the pornomancer's dice pool of 32 is going to sail through it, with or without edge. He's going to convince the Don that pissing on his mother is kinky. High dicepools break the game, and the counter for that-- high dicepool penalties-- also break the game. The discussion has moved on somewhat past the extreme examples, which I pulled up to demonstrate the principle. Now that they've been accepted as problems, I intend to show how smaller cases are still a problem. Why are you stuck on them? |
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Jan 20 2008, 07:38 PM
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#420
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Grand Master of Run-Fu Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 6,840 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Tir Tairngire Member No.: 178 |
What he's saying, I think, is that oWoD and other games are based on the principle that the GM's story is paramount. It's the GM's sandbox, he just tolerates the presence of players as someone to play with. Compare this to Adventure!, another White Wolf game that has a Dramatic Editing mechanic. Players have the ability to add elements to the scene, as either bonuses or complications. Instead of saying: "Please, Mr. GM, is there a chandelier I can swing from?" you can simply say: "Here's an Inspiration point, I swing from the chandeliers, do a backflip, and grab the girl." Or Exalted, where the better you describe your actions, the more of a mechanical benefit you receive. Basically, you get the same flourishes that add so much fun to a game, that you can only get in SR4 with a critical success. Serenity and Battlestar Galatica also have Plot Points, which act in a similar manner to Dramatic Editing, plus have more tangible mechanical benefits. Going onto less traditional games, Faery's Tale also has a Dramatic Editing mechanic, where players are rewarded for increasing the challenges they face, and and are encouraged to help tailor the story. Dogs in the Vineyard, which I've never played, apparently has something very similar, plus has many other Forgite touches. The much-mentioned Wushu is based almost entirely on an Exalted-like stunting system, where the better you describe your actions, the better off you are mechanically. Additionally, in Wushu, you never say "I try to hit him" and roll to see if you succeed; instead, you say: "I shoot him in the shoulder, watching him rock back on his feet, almost falling to his knees, as blood comes spraying from his shoulder" and roll to see how effective it was. So, oWoD was heavily GM-biased, even for its time. Nowadays, the trend is towards games the reward and encourage player input on a story level. Not on a plot level, which is what you're describing-- on the level of story and world. |
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Jan 20 2008, 07:56 PM
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#421
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Bushido Cowgirl Group: Members Posts: 5,782 Joined: 8-July 05 From: On the Double K Ranch a half day's ride out of Phlogiston Flats Member No.: 7,490 |
...except this has also come into play with experienced players who I had gamed with before, either when I was starting a new campaign or they were bringing in a new character into an existing campiagn (for whatever reason - PC death, PC undergoing surgery/recovery, player bored with previous character etc.). In fact the one troublesome player I had used to test my limits a lot by trying some of the things I mentioned. Some people just do not get it sometimes. True, it doesn't have to be an ultimatum, but to some people that is the way it still sounds. |
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Jan 20 2008, 07:59 PM
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#422
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Prime Runner Group: Banned Posts: 3,732 Joined: 1-September 05 From: Prague, Czech Republic Member No.: 7,665 |
No. What's turning against the example is that there is not the slightest shred of evidence that the Citymaster works the way you are suggesting it works. Shooting through barriers does not allow called shots. At all. Those two rules do not interact in any way. You are completely wrong and totally making stuff up. It's a busted example, and I have no idea why you are clinging to it. We can move on to the other ones once you accept that this one is not "technically legal" or "in dispute" - it's just wrong. It's is based on using the Called Shot rules to negate armor on a completely different subsystem which uses similar mechanics. This is like wanting to add Will to Live dice in against Mana Bolts. No better and no worse. Drop it from your argument or continue to be made fun of. -Frank |
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Jan 20 2008, 08:24 PM
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#423
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Shadow Cartographer Group: Members Posts: 3,737 Joined: 2-June 06 From: Secret Tunnels under the UK (South West) Member No.: 8,636 |
I really think the Citymaster example is dead. Let's look at the following:
There you have it in your own words. There isn't a problem if the rules say "if a vulnerable point exists." Now consider this excerpt from the rules:
Now that should have been the end of it, though we then had to endure a long twisting argument that this was bad because it required "GM Fiat" to decide. Short of detailed schematics of the fictional vehicles of 2070 and three nights of studying them, it's hard to see what else we can possibly ask of the rules. I've normally only heard the term "GM Fiat" to refer to more heavy-handed GM abuses of power along the lines of "Well he was wearing armour underneath his clothes that you didn't check for so the villain's still alive so there!" I really, really don't agree the citymaster example qualifies and I don't think anyone else does, either.
As you say, the chances of Mr. Lucky botching are not pretty high - they're actually 50/50. We have to ask what your point actually is? That both a very skilled person and a less skilled person can both accomplish a trivial task? Of course they can. That they both take the same time? Not really - if Fastjack wants, he can reliably accomplish the task in half the time, whilst half the time Mr. Lucky will cock it up. The example also breaks down when attempting less trivial tasks. Your example just isn't seen as anything that breaks the rules by most of us.
Well there are a number of things to say about the Rainy Day Shot. The first of which is that whether or not it is a problem is very subjective. After all, the example relies on the luckiest man alive hunting down a wage slave so nondescript that he has to be the survivor of a group of zero-rating grunts. If you don't like luck being an actual attribute of a character in a game because you feel it stretches belief, then house rule it as I have done with my fixed Edge progression rule... but recognise that the house rule is based on your own flavour preferences, you're not required to make the house rule because it's unbalanced. A combat specialist will be consistently outperforming Mr. Lucky and HIS skill doesn't run out if he uses it too much. Mr Lucky's edge (pun sadly not avoided) over the combat-based character only shows up if the GM piles on very large negative modifiers, too. -5 is normally more than enough. -15 being a little unusual. Mr. Lucky simply isn't a problem from a rules point of view.
Well these so called "soft rules" would resolve your entire problem, so the only way it would complicate things would be to make it even harder for you to argue your example. And it never actually says "optional rule" just for reference. It's listed as a suggestion to GMs. Really, your arguing that the rules are broken on the basis that you deliberately refuse to use the suggestions given on the very same page of the core rules, well, it's not really fair, is it?
Woah - thread breach! When did the Pissing Pornomancer suddenly appear in the list of examples? We had a good old debate on this in another thread and the general consensus was that if a player says he's doing something that is obviously not using their skills, then there's no reason to roll those skills. Just like the ninja in the same thread that said "I'm going to sneak past the guard by painting myself orange and screaming in his face." The player is deliberately creating a contradiction between stated action and stated intention. You don't say "-10 dice for that" you say "you're not actually trying to use your skill so you don't get to roll it." And wasn't that pornomancer build an adept that used magic anyway? Isn't magic supposed cloud the mind and mesmerise?
Woah! They've been accepted as problems? By you perhaps. But not even Mr. Lucky using the Longshot rules could convince me that they'd been accepted as rules issues by many (any?) other people here. -K. |
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Jan 20 2008, 08:31 PM
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,416 Joined: 4-March 06 From: Albuquerque Member No.: 8,334 |
Okay, excuse my indignation, but what the crap hell kind of GMs have you been playing with? A GM "just tolerates" the players? That's so far beyond idiotic it's insane. Without the players, the GM doesn't have a game, he has a piece of fiction he can write down on a piece of paper. I think you're assuming again. Our GM's (myself included here) don't hand the players some sort of script and then veto any changes that are suggested. They do the SAME THING any GM in ANY game does. They come up with a storyline, present plot points and adapt based on player/character choices/actions. The players can choose to pursue all, some, one or none of the plot points. I've had GM's completely have to rethink their plans because the players went down when the GM only thought of left and right. oWoD also specifically states (multiple times I might add) that every single thing in the books is considered optional, and that if the GM needs to alter things to make an interesting story that the players can ENJOY, then so be it. Not once does it state "Railroad your players and take away their free will!" You obviously have a downtrodden opinion of the Storyteller system, and my guess is that it's due to horrible GM's not a failure in the system. One of our players had a similar opinion until he played with us. He still prefers other systems such as Rifts [he's a powergamer extraordinaire], but he even offers to GM storyteller based systems on occasion. That should say something. EDIT:
How the hell is that a "less extreme example"? You've used the rules to make the highest statted face character you can possibly come up with. 32 dice is *not* a typical dice pool. This example is nothing BUT extreme. "Less extreme." I don't think this phrase means what you think it means. EDIT 2.0: Frankly, if a face character pissed on the Don's mother in my game, the Don would shoot him in the face before he had a chance to so much as say "I'm sorry." I'm sorry, talking is irrelevant at that point. Bang, you're dead. Stupidity is fatal in our world. |
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Jan 20 2008, 09:16 PM
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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 |
Actually, one of the main features and selling points of the Storyteller system is that it is different from other RPGs (at the time) if played the way it is presented in the books. Even the name says something about the game system ... Storyteller System ... where the story is the most important thing. Admittedly there are myriad ways of playing, but Cain's comment was quite valid, in that White Wolf set about creating a system that puts the emphasis more on telling stories than other games. |
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Lo-Fi Version | Time is now: 19th February 2025 - 05:29 AM |
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