Advice Options

[Lass]

Hey All

Starting a first time SR4 game with my local gaming group tomorrow. Any advice for a first timer?

My basic first game premise is to place the players in the midst of a riot as a way to break them into the basics of combat and ease them into variables such as non-lethal combat, fighting in smoke, exposure to hazzards and some basic matrix work ie.. breaking locks, disable drones and locating the cause of the riot.

What are peoples thoughts on the use of miniatures? Are they useful? Are there rules for using them on say a tile map?

Also what are some general pittfalls I should be aware of as a nood SR GM? Ive GMed several games in the past so I know how to move a story but concerned about specific SR4 land mines.

Cheers
Lass
(IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Ravor]

The game will run allot smoother and won't fall into the general broken silliness that people complain about if you and the players remember that Fourth Edition is a world where ( Dicepool 6-8 ) before equipment is what the Runners will be facing the vast majority of the time so they simply don't need to be "World Class" with massive Dicepools.

[Chibu]

Also what are some general pittfalls I should be aware of as a nood SR GM?

Well, the main problem is that most of the players will probably be distracted and staring at you. ^-^

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

The game will run allot smoother and won't fall into the general broken silliness that people complain about if you and the players remember that Fourth Edition is a world where ( Dicepool 6-8 ) before equipment is what the Runners will be facing the vast majority of the time so they simply don't need to be "World Class" with massive Dicepools.

Amen Brother....

[Cain]

The game will run allot smoother and won't fall into the general broken silliness that people complain about if you and the players remember that Fourth Edition is a world where ( Dicepool 6-8 ) before equipment is what the Runners will be facing the vast majority of the time so they simply don't need to be "World Class" with massive Dicepools.

Right up until they face their first real challenge. Then they'll learn that massive dicepools is the way to go.

[Snow_Fox]

Don't make it just a brawl but a way out, with maybe someone actively taking a dislike to them. When SR started in 1st ed the book included an introductory brawl for just the same reason you gave, but it was a gang robbing a Stuffer Shack the group was in. that gave an environment(the store) opponents (the gang) and by standers(other customers) with a way out- fire exits or dead combatants.

[Critias]

It was also -- for some groups -- a murderously difficult adventure, since they were getting ambushed by a group of similarly-powerful characters (most of the gang members were player character archetypes), but the PCs themselves weren't necessarily all kitted out with their usual big guns and heavy armor, and/or might have gone into the Stuffer Shack nursing a few aches and pains.

Ahhh, good times.

I ran that for my SR3 group, and I -- to this day -- remember how shocked they were at the brutal effectiveness of one of the NPC's shotgun, in close, Stuffer Shack, ranges. For some reason, despite several of them also being avid shooters, none of them had every made the connection. They assumed shotties weren't well represented by game stats until they were on the wrong end of one.

[Snow_Fox]

Yeah, our very first game, one player had an ork gillette. He thought his hide would keep off bullets so while the rest of use wore armored jackets and lined coats, he had a t-shirt on. One blast from a shot gun redocrated the wall behind him and convinced us all of the need for armor.

Like RL years ago I was in a motorcylce rally, and we were sweating in our leather jackets, wondering if we really needed them. then some nit wit in faux leather went down and the paramedics were plucking the melted plastic out of his shoulder wounds.

[Medicineman]

When SR started in 1st ed the book included an introductory brawl for just the same reason you gave,
Its called Food fight and there is a 4th Ed Version(with some Goons chasing an Elfin Mother with her Child)
Its my favorite Mini Scenario for Introducing New Players to Shadowrun.I'm still using it for Conventions.
The Pits might be putting all Aspects of Shadowrun (Mundane,Matrix and Magic/Astral) together and Heaving (right word?) them on the Players.Too much too soon is never good !
And Battlemaps ,hmmmm,SR is usually very fast paced with a lot of moving around,etc
Battlemaps are more useful for Melee fighting and give the Players a good overall veiw .If you have a Riot with a lot of People running around,Smoke,Teargas etc its (ImO) inappropriate.

with a Food-Fight-Dance
Medicineman

[Snow_Fox]

read up 3 postings

[Ravor]

Not really Cain, as DM you just have to remember to keep everything reasonable on your side of the screen too.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

In teh end, I have found that most, if not all, games that I have played in have upper dice pools no higher than 14, and the average sits around the 10-12 mark... there is generally no reason for the opposition to be sporting 15+ Dice pools in our games as they are not needed for playability...

You can have some very difficult, even nigh impossible, runs with a hard cap of 15 dice or so as the upper limit... I keep hearing that the fluff does not support such play, but I would have to disagree... the fluff seems pretty spot on to me when you use the skill ratings as provided in the book as a guideline... can you get crazy dice pools... Sere, do you NEED them... no, not unless you just want to push the game to horrendous levels of power, which is not necessary in my experience...

Of course, Some won't agree, but that is okay with me...

[deek]

As a GM, my concern lies in playability and making the sessions fun. If my players are sporting 10-12 dice, cool. If they are sporting 16-18, good for them. If the are down at 6-8, no problem there. I scale their opposition either at 50%, 100% or 150% of THEIR die pools. I don't need to go through chargen to make my NPCs or mooks, that's a player control.

[Glyph]

Opposition should be scaled to the players, true, but it should be gangers for low-powered campaigns, security guards for mid-powered campaigns, and stuff like Tir ghosts for higher-powered campaigns - but if the high-powered characters run into a ganger, then that ganger shouldn't suddenly develop a 15 dice pool.

In SR4, you do need high dice pools to be effective - unless the GM is ignoring penalties and pulling his shots. The characters step out into the line of fire again and again - if they don't have an edge on their opposition, then they will get taken out. SR4 is incredibly deadly.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Opposition should be scaled to the players, true, but it should be gangers for low-powered campaigns, security guards for mid-powered campaigns, and stuff like Tir ghosts for higher-powered campaigns - but if the high-powered characters run into a ganger, then that ganger shouldn't suddenly develop a 15 dice pool.

In SR4, you do need high dice pools to be effective - unless the GM is ignoring penalties and pulling his shots. The characters step out into the line of fire again and again - if they don't have an edge on their opposition, then they will get taken out. SR4 is incredibly deadly.

I would disagree about the necessity of extremely high dice pools...

For example, Some top of the line Gangers may indeed have higher dice pools... experienced Members of the Ancients may be sporting 12-15 DP... Same goes for the occassional security or Tir Ghost, whatever...

However, In my experience, with the many, many penalties that can be levied in combat (or out), I have yet to actuall lose more than 8 dice to penalties, and I rarely lose more than 3-5, on any given test... yes, if you cannot compensate for situational modifiers, then you lose dice (sometimes a lot of dice), but if you can cover these penalties (without the need for DP modifiers) then you can mitigate the penalties to your DP and retain more dice... I prefer to go about it this way than to just stack positive DP modifiers until I am sporting a 20+ DP for circumstances... It seems more "organic" (yes, I know, Not a good choice of words) to mitigate penalties than to just accrue crazy amounts of dice to offset... DOing it this way preserves the skill level fluff (my preferrence, as very few people are going to be sporting those skill ratings of 6 and 7)... using the other philosophy, a great many shadowrunners have the 6 and 7 ratings because they think that they Need the Dice (and with this I disagree)...

Not trying to start arguments here... I have played characters with upwards of 200-400 Karma (my current character has almost 200) and yet the VAST majority of my DP's are on the average of 10-12, with Skills ranking arounds the 2-3 Mark (My current Character only has 2 5's and no 6+)... I am constantly challenged, and I have a ready measure against which I can hold myself against (the Skill Rating System)... Not all people will agree with this and I am okay, I just wanted to point it out... and for the record, my GM does not pull punches in teh least... It is not uncommon for us to lose as many as 3 player characters on occassion, sometimes all within the same run... this has taught us the value of intelligence gathering, planning, and cohesiveness of team... when your team functions AS A TEAM, you can overcome a great many things that may be out of your class...

As Always, My 2 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif)



Just my preference though...

[Lass]

Hey All,

I played the game and all together it went really really good!!! I love the setting and possibilites of the game. Some of my observations and mistakes:

1. DPs did seem to balance out when all was said and done. Some of the prerolled PCs in the SR4 book were tossing loads of dice as they came.

2. I know I made some mistakes with Matrix combat. It seemed to me the prerolled hacker was really poorly underpowered (didnt even have a cybercombat skill (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ohplease.gif) )and so I let her do some rigging and other stuff just to move the game along. I commented on this at the end of the game and the player seemed cool with it.

3. I did focus on combat this first game with a few chances at investigation. Next game I want to move in the direction of more RP.

Anyway, Thanks for the advice all! Glad to see how active these boards are!

Lass

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Congratulations ands Keep the Faith...

[Cain]

At dice pools of 10-12, it's no wonder you're constantly challenged!

There's not going to be any common ground between games, so let's look at the core book NPC's. The archetypes are poorly done, and have dice pools in the 12-15 range. Strong NPC's are about the same. Prime Runners aren't statted out by dice pool size, but rather by BP; we can assume they're supposed to be on par with the PC's, for whom we've established that 15-20 is the norm around here.

So, dice pools of 6-8 as primary is clearly underpowered for the game. 10-12 will get the job done, but the game is designed for 12-15+.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

At dice pools of 10-12, it's no wonder you're constantly challenged!

There's not going to be any common ground between games, so let's look at the core book NPC's. The archetypes are poorly done, and have dice pools in the 12-15 range. Strong NPC's are about the same. Prime Runners aren't statted out by dice pool size, but rather by BP; we can assume they're supposed to be on par with the PC's, for whom we've established that 15-20 is the norm around here.

So, dice pools of 6-8 as primary is clearly underpowered for the game. 10-12 will get the job done, but the game is designed for 12-15+.

Difference in playing styles notwithstanding, Primary skills in teh 15 or less range are not horrible, whereas most secondary skills are int eh 8-12 range on average, while learning/tertiary skills are 5-8 dice... Seems to be a good basis for comparison, and I have no issue with these numbers...

Where I have the issue is the "gotta have 20+ dice to accomplish anything" statements, which tend to abound here, and are very common for the Dumpshock regulars... I think that those who opt for those types of Dice Pools do not play for the challenge, but for the Winning...no offense intended...

If a character dies, then a character dies... the only thnig that I really care about was whether I was able to tell the character's story or not... it is not uncommon for me to change a character, assuming that he is still alive, when his story has been told... sometimes you need the specialized, hiogh dice pool character to tell a story, but I do not believe that that would be the norm... even Highly Skilled character can have a minimal Dice Pool of 16-18, and would be among the best in teh world at their profession with that Dice Pool per the fluff, so why is it required to have DP's in the 20+ range?

That is my only disatisfacrion with a great many of the Dumpshock "Uber" Characters... I just think that you can BE Uber without having Dice Pools in the High 20's or higher... I mean really, with a maximum Human Attrribute of 9 and a Maximum Skill of 7 (representing the absolute pinnacle of human achievement) with a specialty only rolls 18 Dice... How do you define/compare Greater than Human Achievement to Greater than Human Achievement... I just think that you (the generic You) have a different definition of Competent than I do...... Mine, however, works with the RAW for Skills and General Fluff... Yours works for High Powered Games where every one is SIGNIFICANLY less powerful than the HEROES (Player Characters)...

Neither of us are Wrong... As I said, Different Playing Styles...

[Cheops]

To the OP:

I'd say the most important thing when it comes to dice pools is making sure everyone is more or less on the same page so to speak. You've already spotted the problem with the Hacker. Tweak it in such a way so that it is more "on par" with the other characters. The system works best when all your players are in the same dice pool range and you can then plan accordingly.

[Cain]

I think that those who opt for those types of Dice Pools do not play for the challenge, but for the Winning...no offense intended...

Offense taken nonetheless.

People opt for these kinds of dice pools for all kinds of reasons: to see if they can, to see how it works in play, or just to see what happens. The pornomancer was an experiment in character building, pure and simple. Additionally, sometimes you have "Killer GM's", where if you don't min/max to the extreme, you die. I know I learned to min/max as a survival trait

There's lots of good reasons to opt for big dice pools, and "winning" at the expense of the other players isn't necessarily one of them.

[Glyph]

Plus, high dice pools aren't always the result of min-maxing. I don't consider a dice pool "broken" when you can get that dice pool by simply making a few logical choices at character creation. Start out with a typical human street samurai. Agility is the main combat Attribute, so take it at 5. Now, with a 5-point quality (restricted gear), you can buy relatively cheap muscle toner: 4, raising Agility to 9. This is a good choice, because Agility is also used for many other active skills, so pistols won't be the only thing benefiting from this. Now, for skills, you can have one 6 at character creation, or two 5's. Supposing that this guy is more range-oriented, taking the 6 in pistols. Then specialize in semi-automatics, the most commonly used kind of pistols. This sammie is getting cybereyes, so one of the mods he takes is smartlink. Also, since this is his primary skill, it makes sense to get a reflex recorder for pistols. Add it all up, and you have Agility: 9 + pistols: 6 + specialization: 2 + smartlink: 2 + reflex recorder: 1. So we have 20 dice. And that's without being an elf, or an adept, or getting any aptitudes or exceptional Attributes. And this guy is hardly gimped in other areas - he still has plenty of room for other specialties.

Nothing wrong with dice pools in the 12-14 range if that's how you like to roll, but it's so easy to get higher than that, that it seems you almost have to intentionally gimp your character to keep the dice pool there. And that's starting to get into Stormwind Fallacy territory.

[Muspellsheimr]

There's not going to be any common ground between games, so let's look at the core book NPC's. The archetypes are poorly done, and have dice pools in the 12-15 range. Strong NPC's are about the same. Prime Runners aren't statted out by dice pool size, but rather by BP; we can assume they're supposed to be on par with the PC's, for whom I've tried to establish that 15-20 is the norm around here.

Fixed for you.


15-20 dice is expected in my games, where we play with significantly more powerful characters (500BP, approximately).

[Blade]

So, dice pools of 6-8 as primary is clearly underpowered for the game. 10-12 will get the job done, but the game is designed for 12-15+.

No.
The game was designed for a maximum pool of 12, with an exponential rise of the costs for each additional die in the pool. That's why the max threshold was 4. (That's what a freelancer/playtester told me).
Then came the munchkins who, sometimes with the help of the new books, got their dice pool up to 20+. That's why the max threshold was raised to 5 in SR4A.

So the game should actually handle 10-12 dice pools correctly. I've had some characters manage things correctly with 8 dice and I even have a GM who caps dice pool at 12 (the additional dice can only be used to remove negative modifiers). It's up to the players to decide on the level of their game and to design their characters and the opposition accordingly.

[Cheops]

Glyph's example is exactly why it is so important to make sure all your players are playing the same game. Dice pools can get ridiculously large very quickly.

To the OP: I'm assuming you guys are currently only playing with the Main Rule Book (aka BBB)? I'd actually suggest sticking with that since the game actually runs much better with that and some imagination rather than all the "splat" books.