[X] My Assistant

[swirler]

I was curious, does anyone have any good examples of ways you've handled (or would handle) glitches of various types in various situations?

[Dashifen]

I see probably between 3 and 5 glitches (some of them critical) per session. What are you looking for, really?

I've had guns jam, weapons get dropped, drones misunderstand commands, a spell's force increase or decrease, some one fall off a wall they were climbing, and another one start choking (not to death, just breathed at the wrong moment) while swimming. I've had spirits lose control of powers, blink back to the astral plane by accident, car skid out, cars crash into each other, friendly fire, and collateral damage. Sometimes people step into a bullet when trying to dodge or they might dodge the bullet but trip and fall prone (critical vs. non-critical glitches).

Basically, I just roll with it.

[Adarael]

Gymnastics:
-When diving behind a couch for cover, the couch tipped over, giving less cover.
-While dodging, player slipped and fell behind a crate. Dodged succesfully, gained cover, but had to spend a simple action to regain footing the next round.
-Rappelling character slid too fast, got rope burn on hands. No damage, but -1 to fine manipulation rolls due to tenderness.

Firearms:
-Gun fails to cycle properly, feed ramp jam.
-Stray bullet shatters some fragile stuff, creating extra noise (been known to do that when people are using suppressors)
-Smartlink camera fritzes, bonus is only +1 for the next shot.

Magic:
-(Sorcery) Spell goes off with extra 'wiz-bang' - easier to notice for everyone around.
-(Conjuring) Spirit summoned, but is "quirky". I.E. the anti-semitic (and by that I mean 'fearful of zionists') earth elemental, the guardian spirit who knows all about reality TV shows, the beast spirit who has pink fur and insists on telling people how fabulous they are. They do what they're told, but they're...unusual.

Just by way of examples.

[Whipstitch]

Misinformation and false positives are great for perception, data search and intimidation/interrogation rolls.

[Aaron]

Just remember to try to make the glitch non-life-threatening (unless it's a critical glitch). And appropriate to the activity for which the glitch was rolled; try to avoid "you fire your gun and your wife leaves you" scenarios.

[hobgoblin]

heh, i think i ones had someone that was to study a video file instead end up looking at some porn because of a glitch. spur of the moment and his first session so...

[Serial_Peacemake...]

Wait, a pink spirit is a failure? I'm fairly sure that my players would love it if I gave them those sort of thing. Heck the Geunie Pig ended up being made into a great form beast spirit.

[Adarael]

Well, it's a glitch not a failure. It's successful, but strange!

[swirler]

[FriendoftheDork]

Aura reading critical glitch: He's a dragon! He's dual natured. Etc. (actually fooled my player several times with this, to the point when Simon says something is (insert strange being) no one believed him anymore ;)

Critical Glitch gun firing around corner (with smartlink): Wristbone breaks, hand unusuable, takes damage as well as an extra penalty from the pain.

defense critical glitch: armor is ignored.

Glitches on data search and perception yields some false information (possible as well as some correct).

[Fuchs]

Well... there was this "let's bind a free spirit, and make him produce wealth for us" ploy... team mage rolls the control test, uses edge, all nice... then comes his flaw check... 1 in 6 chance that all successes from edge are treated as 1s. And he rolls a "1".

That was a nicely timed critical glitch, leading to some ad-hoc and involuntary astral quest where the spirit tried to bind the runners.

[Eryk the Red]

My favorite glitch in my game was a time when the mage created an illusion that the roof of the building some of the characters were in was on fire. He told his teammates it wasn't real. One of the characters, however, critically glitched spell resistance. The result was simple. She didn't believe him. It was pretty cool.

Another fun one was a critically glitched disguise roll. I told the player, "You look at the disguise. It's perfect." Later on, the moustache fell off. While the people being fooled were looking.

I also use glitches as a way to keep the game moving quickly, at times. When an enemy mook glitches defense or damage resistance, he's generally dead or unconscious, regardless of damage.

[bibliophile20]

I had a critical glitch on a composure test once; the med student that one of my players was... questioning (with a knife at his throat) rolled four ones out of five dice; I told the player that the guy fainted and lost control of his bowels at the same time.

The player's grumbling when he had to wash the stains out of his camo suit were entertaining.

[DireRadiant]

Glitches are fun!

I usually go through a series of checks of things I'd like to introduce to the game environment. Does the PC have a negative quality that can come up? Sudden unexpected exposure to rare allergens is a classic. Does the PC have an important contact that might suddenly call or show up at that moment? (You bought Dunkie as a contact, can you really not accept his call right now just because the sec guards are shooting at you? Or, an old mage friend sends a watcher to contact you and it appears and speaks to you at just the wrong moment.) Does the PC have some silly incompetence of lack of an important skill that could be entertaining to expose right now by having them try and make a simple test?

I like to look for things that make the game world more real for the players. Like sudden influx of AR spam, smart material equipment turning into somewhat embarrassing sex toys, spirits mistaking you for someone else during a negotiation and attacking for a moment before leaving. There's all kind of stuff, just like life in the real world.

[FriendoftheDork]

[Ravor]

Personally I liked the example, it would be embarassing to the NPC, and possibly even life threatening depending on how the Runner reacted to being soiled upon.

[Xane]

Perception Critical Glitch

I had the character's Cybereyes suddenly just go out, and he had to go through the rest of the mission blind until he could get to the doc to get them fixed.

[Method]

Firearms

[Stahlseele]

[Ravor]

I don't remember, but I do remember a bit talknig about how Critical Glitches are supposed to be, very, very bad and possibly even life threatening.

[bibliophile20]

[Jeremiah Legacy]

On a meet with a Johnson, one of the PCs did a critical glitch twice on observation rolls. Once when checking for people watching, and she saw that someone who I intended to be an troll girl extra was watching them intently. Bacame more interesting when the second roll, an observation of one of the two Johnsons glitched, and so she thought that the Johnson was sending signals to the extra.

So when she called him on it ... it wasn't pretty. Especially because she was underage and he was a racist.

[djinni]