Getting frusterated with SR4 rules..., and I really want to like them Options

[Machiavelli]

Edge costs buildpoints. Buildpoints are rare. And with successes only at a thrown 5 or 6, you don´t have success-rates of 80% anymore. You cannot have so much Edge that you would be able to compensate this.

[Blade]

You can still have enough Edge so that you won't die because of a bad roll which was the point I was trying to make.

[Machiavelli]

I know your point and you are absolutely right about that, but I hope you understand my point, too. Life in SR4 is much more complicated (and less fun) than it was before. Sad but true. And combat pool was way cooler than edge.^^

[hyzmarca]

You're assuming that the player isn't using smart tactics as well. Super characters with smart players using good tactics will beat anything fair a GM can throw at them. The bad part is that this encourages a "Player vs GM" attitude, and you're caught in an arms race to get that next advantage. The GM doesn't have to be doing something wrong in SR4, it could just be that the players are doing everything right.

If the players are shooting the Johnson as a negotiating tactic because they have more SMG dice than negotiation dice, then they aren't using smart tactics.

But even then, that isn't true. The first smart tactic in a high-dice-pool game is diversification of the team. A team that has one solution to all problems will fail fast. The second smart tactic is to put each member of the team where he can do the most good, which often means splitting up. But intelligence is not perfect, and there is always the possibility that a situation that is best suited for one team member will be faced by another.

[Wesley Street]

If I was playing an awakened and I decided to look around at different magical colleges to enroll in, I'd be miffed if I was told I wasn't going to be able to find one untill Joe the street-sam has accrued 50+ karma.

Sometimes, when you GM, you have to delay the ambitions of your players in order to maintain game balance. A smart GM, rather than brushing off that delayed PC, will use that delay as an opportunity to engage him in other ways other than his chosen specialty. I have never seen a game system that had mechanics that allowed for the integration of the equivalent of a level-15 character with it's first-level counterpart. When you work with a game based on statistics and probability it's not possible.

I have read all your statements and after 13 years of running I have to say that I understand the rule-lawyer as well as the handwaving-rulebraking-GM. But IMHO the really big problem with SR4 is, that the developers AGAIN forgot about the developments they made within the 3 previous versions. I mean after THAT time, even if you establish a new rule-basis, you should know about the weaknesses and where you should add further informations so that nobody has to ask for it. But where are all the already solved problems gone?

The SR4 corebook doesn´t even have a summary/index. Some tables with prices etc. are in the section but not in the gear table at the end, finding specific rules is a pain in the ass because some details are covered in endless text-parts and sometimes not even in the part they should be. It wouldn´t be frustrating if it was V.01 but hey....we are in V4, and after all this time, all the topics in several internet forums and i-don´t-know-how-many erratas, especially such things as the runners companion (e.g. Arcane Arrester) are embarrasing.

I don't disagree but there are a couple of items that need to be acknowledged here: 1) if it was one development house that was dealing with the SR property over a number of decades, that would be one thing but the SR license has been passed around quite a bit and isn't even wholly owned by one company. When you get new devs, you often get repeated mistakes. D&D's devs are guilty as are the Star Wars devs. That's the nature of the beast. 2) A lot of what you're talking about has more to do with the layout and design of the books rather than failings in the rules themselves. But I do agree, there's a serious need for a summary/index in the core books. Not everyone wants to purchase a PDF and do searches.

[Cantankerous]

Right, but never forget that GM´s are also just humans, and humans sometimes get pissed off and i never heard that humans are fair at all.^^ So never forget to bring extra chips and coke for the GM, you never know how he´s feeling today.

But to get seriuos again. We are talking about SR4. The rules have changed a bit and nowadays it is enough to roll bad dice to get your character out of the living world. The times that target numbers of 2 are possible are over and even with 20 dice you can easily make critical boobs (i swear, this word is a translation of the german wird "Patzer", www.dict.cc says that). The last time that I thought "oh, only 2 successes with an assault rifle, I don´t take a action-phase to dodge" was the day my troll-tank died. and he had way more than 20 dice. So not only stupid GM´s or even more stupid Players are against you, also the dice are evil in SR4.^^

Which is one of the reasons my group doesn't do SR4. I am one of those who LIKE that survivability (since this IS a game) is more dependent upon YOU than your dice, which is MUCH more the case in SR3. We still have guys who are brutal tanks go down to a burst of AK-98 fire from time to time if they walk into it. It happens.

As for the first part, I've learned not to take my frustrations out on my Players... and I'm dieting again anyway. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)


Isshia

[Blade]

I know your point and you are absolutely right about that, but I hope you understand my point, too. Life in SR4 is much more complicated (and less fun) than it was before. Sad but true. And combat pool was way cooler than edge.^^

I understand your point too, even if it's the opposite for me: I like it better now. I had too many experiences with munchkinized SR3 PCs who damaged cars when ramming them on foot, didn't bother to roll when soaking anything less powerful than a burst of APDS ammo and survived naval damage with at worst Moderate wounds.

[Fuchs]

Anyone ever had to deal with SR1 rules, where you bought successes from karma, not from karma pool, as long as you had at least one (with rerolls costing 1 karma too)? One of our players was very fond of hoarding karma, and then spending it to survive/kill the worst enemies.

[Machiavelli]

Sometimes, when you GM, you have to delay the ambitions of your players in order to maintain game balance. A smart GM, rather than brushing off that delayed PC, will use that delay as an opportunity to engage him in other ways other than his chosen specialty. I have never seen a game system that had mechanics that allowed for the integration of the equivalent of a level-15 character with it's first-level counterpart. When you work with a game based on statistics and probability it's not possible.

Aaaah, different country, same problem. In my group, the GM doesn´t allow initiation before a 1-year waiting time. So can I tell him he is no "smart GM"?

I don't disagree but there are a couple of items that need to be acknowledged here: 1) if it was one development house that was dealing with the SR property over a number of decades, that would be one thing but the SR license has been passed around quite a bit and isn't even wholly owned by one company. When you get new devs, you often get repeated mistakes. D&D's devs are guilty as are the Star Wars devs. That's the nature of the beast. 2) A lot of what you're talking about has more to do with the layout and design of the books rather than failings in the rules themselves. But I do agree, there's a serious need for a summary/index in the core books. Not everyone wants to purchase a PDF and do searches.

Right. But from my professional side of view, it is not acceptable to publish unfinished products. I don´t understand that companies doing such things, can still exist on the market. If we would do this in our company, we would have never been founded. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Wesley Street]

Aaaah, different country, same problem. In my group, the GM doesn´t allow initiation before a 1-year waiting time. So can I tell him he is no "smart GM"?

Well, dang, if that poor player is sitting on his thumbs for a year, hell yeah, that isn't a smart GM. No player should be ignored and every player should have his opportunity to bask in the sun.

Right. But from my professional side of view, it is not acceptable to publish unfinished products. I don´t understand that companies doing such things, can still exist on the market. If we would do this in our company, we would have never been founded. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Oh Lord, the things that niche/nerd interest publishers get away with that the rest of the professional world doesn't is astonishing. I collect comics and some of the titles I read are constantly delayed because some prima donna artist or writer had some "personal issues" that got in the way (there was a three-year delay between the release of issues 2 and 3 of Warren Ellis' three-issue Ministry of Space mini-series and the final issue of Planetary still hasn't released... and the previous one came out two years ago!) or he was too busy playing Final Fantasy (*cough* Joe Medieura *cough*).

But it's not as if we nerds have anywhere else to go to get our fix. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif)

[Machiavelli]

Muahahaha....I sense a soul in search of answers....no stop, wrong game....I meant I sense a familiar player in the US of A.^^

Besides that, this poor player is me, but my collegues are not very supportive because they don´t care about initiation...or might...or world-leadership like I do. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[JoelHalpern]

Some of these comments seem to be aimed more at the eggshells-and-hammers nature of SR than at the specific rules problems. (Yes, there are specific rules problems. And yes, those problems would make shared-GMing really, reallly hard. But for most games those problems are easy to cope with.)

Even SR1 had the problem that it was very easy to kill the players even when you didn't intend to and they did everything right. It does seem more fragile that way with SR4. (From where I sit, handling that is a bit harder for the GM now than when I ran an SR1 game.) But that does not mean that the rules are broken. it means that the GM has to be a lot more careful about how he handles things.

Yours,
Joel

[Machiavelli]

So we should summarize this topic to: It´s the GM´s fault if somebody dies. ^^

[DocTaotsu]

What! No! Unheard of! GM's can lie, cheat, and fake as long as the players are having fun? Unspeakable!

[Cantankerous]

So we should summarize this topic to: It´s the GM´s fault if somebody dies. ^^

No, no. It's the Players fault if their character dies...and you've got to keep telling them that and telling them that and so forth until they believe it. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)


Isshia

[Floyd]

What is the problem with characters dying? I have avoided a character death to make sure information was shared, but A senseless death can be very telling for a story. I recently, and impetuously, performed an action that almost got me killed. The rule read:"If the overflow exceeds the characters body, then the character dies..." or something to that effect. I had even erased the permanent edge, buying my ass out of limbo. Lucky for me, a team mate had made the acquaintance of a nice street doc who wanted to check his bones, moments earlier. One stabilizing role (and a week of rest) later, and I'm back running the shadows.

Edge prevents death, nothing prevents failure. I find that more players are more worried about "losing", or failure than death. Usually death is the consequence of failure, but not always. I believe the OP was angry over the rules not allowing him to succeed at his goal. But at the heart of the argument is that fear of failing. Role-playing is often described as a game where there is no win point. But the opposite is also true. Play a strong character, gain experience if not experience points, live a good story, and have fun. Do this and you can never lose, whether you survive 1 or 100 sessions.

Remember, the challenges that kill a character are the corner stone of the next one.

[FlashbackJon]

...all that and a bag of net hits...

After reading this entire fascinating thread, my only input it that this idiom is so awesome I'm going to start using it in everyday life.

[DocTaotsu]

Oh god what have I done... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[cREbralFIX]

ACK...too much lawyering for my taste.

Players just need to learn to let go and play the damn GAME.

If there's a rule conflict, I just go: "GM, what do I roll?"

A decision will be made and I don't worry about it.

Of course, this comes from a guy who thinks Karma and XP should be optional. Stuff should just go up when they're ready. Unfortunately, most players cannot handle that much leeway.

***

As for "cheating" and lawyers:

It's a game, not a competition. Sheesh.

If you're worried about cheating, you're hanging out with the wrong people. It's kinda like dating a crack whore: you'll have to learn to accept an occasional missing wallet and an extra STD or two.

[Cain]

If you're worried about cheating, you're hanging out with the wrong people. It's kinda like dating a crack whore: you'll have to learn to accept an occasional missing wallet and an extra STD or two.

I frequently play with people who are new to Shadowrun, and often new to gaming. Like I was at that time, they're often at an impressionable phase in their gaming development. If the GM takes things a certain way, the new players will learn that Shadowrun is about fair play, cooperation, and having fun within the rules. If the GM goes another way, the players learn that Shadowrun is about powergaming, rules-lawyering, and shooting everything that moves.

When you're GMing for new folks, you're teaching them about Shadowrun. You're representing Shadowrun to them. And it doesn't take much for them to get the wrong lesson. If they catch the GM cheating, they'll learn to cheat as well. Whatever you model for them, they'll learn to do. If you're being forced to challenge the team with Force 12 spirits and Dragons, that's what they'll think is normal for Shadowrun, and they'll make characters accordingly. I certainly didn't start munchkinizing characters in Shadowrun until I ran across a GM who played it like a urban form of Rifts.

The problem is that once things reach a certain level in SR4, there's no fair way to challenge the characters. If they're decently smart, you can't bring in the opposition to properly engage them. Even if they're doing crazy stunts, like using their SMG skills in negotiations with Johnson-- by, say, shooting the cigarette out of his mouth-- they might be able to twist it into something beneficial or at least neutral for them. Players will learn what kind of tactics work. And so long as they're sticking to the stuff that works, it's damned hard to bring in forces that will be a challenge to them.

[Wesley Street]

No game is immune to power-gaming, rules-lawyering and shooting everything that moves Game Masters, be it played in the 3rd or 4th Editions. Singling out 4th Edition is hardly fair as that GM naughtiness can, and most likely will, ruin campaigns played in 1st through 3rd Edition rule sets.

[cREbralFIX]

I frequently play with people who are new to Shadowrun, and often new to gaming. Like I was at that time, they're often at an impressionable phase in their gaming development. If the GM takes things a certain way, the new players will learn that Shadowrun is about fair play, cooperation, and having fun within the rules. If the GM goes another way, the players learn that Shadowrun is about powergaming, rules-lawyering, and shooting everything that moves.

When you're GMing for new folks, you're teaching them about Shadowrun. You're representing Shadowrun to them. And it doesn't take much for them to get the wrong lesson. If they catch the GM cheating, they'll learn to cheat as well. Whatever you model for them, they'll learn to do. If you're being forced to challenge the team with Force 12 spirits and Dragons, that's what they'll think is normal for Shadowrun, and they'll make characters accordingly. I certainly didn't start munchkinizing characters in Shadowrun until I ran across a GM who played it like a urban form of Rifts.

The problem is that once things reach a certain level in SR4, there's no fair way to challenge the characters. If they're decently smart, you can't bring in the opposition to properly engage them. Even if they're doing crazy stunts, like using their SMG skills in negotiations with Johnson-- by, say, shooting the cigarette out of his mouth-- they might be able to twist it into something beneficial or at least neutral for them. Players will learn what kind of tactics work. And so long as they're sticking to the stuff that works, it's damned hard to bring in forces that will be a challenge to them.

Any game can be like that.

Often, I find it comes down to: "Mr. GM, you're interfering with my fantasy!"

Players seem to forget that the GM is a player too. Instead, they take the attitude that the game "belongs" to Mr. GM. The game "belongs" to all the players. If one player isn't having fun...guess what...they leave. Next thing you know, it's a "competition"...GM versus [subset of players], player versus player versus GM, etc.

I find that having these rules really helps:

1) The GM is a player too
2) Your character shall work well with others
3) One other player character shall be a foil for your character (ie: can do something you cannot)
4) Your character has something he or she cares about

As for power levels: that's an easy one to fix.

It just requires a departure from the expectation of numbers representing the character. The focus has to be on the character's journey, not the result. It's easy to "build" a character and focus on the points; it's difficult to build a multifaceted, interesting character personality over time.

When the players don't ask for XP anymore, you know you're there. If the conversation goes something like this, you're good:

Player: "Hey, I think Glitch is getting pretty good at Pistols."
GM: "Oh? Why?"
Player: "Well, he's gotten in 25 gun fights, scored at least 40 hits while on runs. That's pretty good! I figure I can raise it up to a three. Current value is 1."
GM: "Well, that's certainly reasonable. Most cops only get in a few fights over their entire careers. That hit ratio is good, so go for it."

[Malachi]

The root of all RPG evil is an attitude of antagonism between the Players and the GM. If a Player is designing his character so that he can "beat" all of the challenges that the GM throws at him, this is going to cause problems in any game system. I will agree that this attitude is exacerbated in SR4 because the rules are so much "fast and loose" and leaves much up to GM discretion. I think this sticks in the craw of these "oppositionalist" players because they can't find the rules they need to trick the GM so they can "beat" his opposition. Because so much is left up to GM fiat they are left without the ability to beat him. Conversely if the GM is just out to defeat the players, no one will have fun either. RPGing (to me) has always been about telling a story. If one wants to play SR in a mode of opposition to the GM I suggest they convert the rules to a miniatures style game, or just go play a stock miniatures game entirely, they will be far happier.

I am a well-seasoned veteran of SR2, SR3, and now SR4 and it is my firm opinion that SR4 is the most playable as a fast-past storytelling vehicle. With a few aids such as a spreadsheet for doing combat calculations, you can really make the game zip along. The point is: players should be focused on what the rules allow them to accomplish from a story or "objective" perspective.

Example: The team's objective is to infiltrate a corporate facility. The teams Hacker proceeds to hack the security host in order to subvert the security system. Now, this action could easily be boiled down to 2 or 3 die rolls. Is the player going to be upset because the rules didn't allow him to show how cool he was while throwing his dice ("Look how awesome I am at this!"), or is the player happy that he completed his task of subverting the security so that the team can achieve its objective and advance the plot?

Some RPGs have been drifting over time in their rules rigidity that they now much more closely resemble a board game or tabletop miniatures game. Personally, I like the direction that SR is going much more.

[Riley37]

Some RPGs have been drifting over time in their rules rigidity that they now much more closely resemble a board game or tabletop miniatures game. Personally, I like the direction that SR is going much more.

RPGs came from tabletop miniatures, and to tabletop miniatures they return.

[Cain]

The root of all RPG evil is an attitude of antagonism between the Players and the GM. If a Player is designing his character so that he can "beat" all of the challenges that the GM throws at him, this is going to cause problems in any game system. I will agree that this attitude is exacerbated in SR4 because the rules are so much "fast and loose" and leaves much up to GM discretion. I think this sticks in the craw of these "oppositionalist" players because they can't find the rules they need to trick the GM so they can "beat" his opposition. Because so much is left up to GM fiat they are left without the ability to beat him. Conversely if the GM is just out to defeat the players, no one will have fun either. RPGing (to me) has always been about telling a story. If one wants to play SR in a mode of opposition to the GM I suggest they convert the rules to a miniatures style game, or just go play a stock miniatures game entirely, they will be far happier.

I agree here. The issue here is that the antagonist can be the GM, a player, or even both. If it's both, there's no hope for you. But if it's only one, you have a chance to salvage the game and develop future gaming skills, so that later games will be about story and fun, instead of beating each other.

I am a well-seasoned veteran of SR2, SR3, and now SR4 and it is my firm opinion that SR4 is the most playable as a fast-past storytelling vehicle. With a few aids such as a spreadsheet for doing combat calculations, you can really make the game zip along. The point is: players should be focused on what the rules allow them to accomplish from a story or "objective" perspective.

I have to disagree on one major point. If you need a computer spreadsheet to play a game, it does not "zip along". A cheat sheet or two is fine; but if you're needing a spreadsheet to keep track of everything, you may as well be playing a computer game. The thought that using a computer to make a pen-and-paper game move smoothly as a good thing is just silly.

Example: The team's objective is to infiltrate a corporate facility. The teams Hacker proceeds to hack the security host in order to subvert the security system. Now, this action could easily be boiled down to 2 or 3 die rolls. Is the player going to be upset because the rules didn't allow him to show how cool he was while throwing his dice ("Look how awesome I am at this!"), or is the player happy that he completed his task of subverting the security so that the team can achieve its objective and advance the plot?

Those two things are not mutually exclusive. In fact, IMO the best games come from when they both work together. A good story is filled with good descriptions, and a "cool" description is almost always a good one.

I'm also a well-seasoned veteran of SR1-4, as well as being one of the guys who was gaming in the 70's. While I like the idea of where they're headed with SR4, they didn't do it well enough. The made a play for a more narrative approach, and failed. They tried to eliminate some of the crunch, and succeeded, but only far enough to piss off the simulationists. The lack of flavor made it non-narrativist, and the lack of crunch made it non-simulationist. It's still pretty gamist, but that's as much a double-edged sword as the others. What we ended up with was a poor man's WoD clone, ported to d6.