Planning pool, One of the best houserule I've seen Options

[sabs]

I think that this could be cool to use in conjunction with actually roleplaying out a lot of the legwork/planning/etc.

The GM can even use it behind the scenes. If the plan is good, he spends legwork points to show how good. it bridges player expertise, and character expertise. I think it has some good potentials.

I'll see if I can translate it as well. I'm fluent.. mostly.

[Paul Kauphart]

The whole idea of the thing is not to remove the planning part, or let the GM play with himself. The whole thing is to cover points of the plan player didn't though about, but the character must have, because it's there job. Once you're playing the action, if the GM put some challenge to the player/characters, the players can use the plan points to come up with a solution that doesn't involve plan A to end in the bin. Good example in the file is that scene in Ocean Eleven, when Clooney is locked in that small room with the big bad guy, about to get raped, and surprise, the guy in question is a friend and will have his share of the cake.

This doesn't mean you allways have to use it, in front of a closed door, you can still use your locksmith skill, or shoot down that security guard with a silenced pistol. It also mean the price in point for getting the players out of a bad situation will depend on how bad it is. And once you run out of points, well, jump to plan D.

I'll try to come up with a decent translation, and ask the author if he hasany problem with it posted here.

"I spend a planning pool point (social engineering). My mother is the head of Interpol and springs us from jail." (IMG:style_emoticons/default/indifferent.gif)

That would probably cost a few hundred points (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

[Social Reject]

Having been told by several GM's that legwork/planning ruins games because its' boring and takes too much time. I suspect people think the roleplaying is when you go in and shoot people.

Haha.

[Karoline]

Try the Leverage's pool size.

Ocean's team accumulated a massive pool to pull off a single job (going so far as to build full scape replica bank vaults (which I'd like to point out they should not have had accurate plans to)), but Leverage pulls of almost equally well planned jobs on a weekly basis.

Though...to be honest...
"I spend a planning pool point (social engineering). My mother is the head of Interpol and springs us from jail." (IMG:style_emoticons/default/indifferent.gif)

Why shouldn't they have had the plans? They had a direct video feed of the vault, they could see exactly what it looked like. This of course raises the question of why they didn't add in the logo that tipped off Bennet (or whatever his name was).

Yeah, was a somewhat cop out ending.

As to the rest of it, I don't see it being a problem with roleplaying, it injects the fact that your character is better at this than you are. They likely spend hours and hours and hours planning a job, while you as a player spend maybe a couple hours (And at that point the GM is ready to kill you most likely (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif) ) and of course don't have nearly the amount of experience and knowledge that your character does.

Edit: Was she actually the head of Interpol or just conning that she was? I figured it was the latter, just like his dad in the last one.

[Draco18s]

Why shouldn't they have had the plans? They had a direct video feed of the vault, they could see exactly what it looked like.

"It's a top secret security system, state of the art, we have duplicated it exactly. Including the unique rotating foyer."

[Fyndhal]

This is pretty awesome. It turns what can be tedious into an exercise of collaborative story-telling.

The key to using it, I think, we be to have each character role play the set up to establish their part of the pool, and for key encounter areas within the mission to have a "Counter-Pool." Just as it takes the Leverage guys a lot of extra effort to do something when Nathan's arch-Nemesis shows up, there should be obstacles that require more expenditure of points to bypass -- and, of course, each and every point spent to bypass an obstacle, has to have it explained in RP terms how it came about (with the GM having Veto power.)

[Method]

Which brings up a good point: as the GM you may have to up-regulate your level of challenge for certain objectives to keep the game interesting challenging and fun.

[Ascalaphus]

We've used this in reverse, sorta; a situation came up, and it seemed logical that we would've prepared for it. So the GM made the relevant player roll a check to see if his character had. (CritGlitch time.)

Everyone liked that way of resolving the question; we also agreed that this particular problem wouldn't normally arise again, because our characters had learned from the event, and added it to SOP.

[Cheops]

yoink!

[jakephillips]

Seems like it could be good for some of the matrix work if your team doesn't have a hacker. Using the social engineering or other thing to get passwords or stolen key cards to bypass locks. My group likes roleplaying with NPC's but not hours of endless looking at maps.

[LFG]

Seems like automatic successes are a bit much. Like the idea, but more as a dice modifier or secondary pool. For example, say a snag hits- something that might not be expected. Roll the applicable pool to see if the plan is able to cover it.

[Synner667]

Seems like automatic successes are a bit much. Like the idea, but more as a dice modifier or secondary pool. For example, say a snag hits- something that might not be expected. Roll the applicable pool to see if the plan is able to cover it.

That's similar to the way Tactics is used in Traveller [IIRC], where the skill level is used as a modifier that can be applied to ny of the relevant characters in a tactical situation.

I think I like that idea even more, because it's not guaranteed success.


Isn't using this team based pool similar to what Team Karma was, pre SR v4 ??

[Mäx]

The leverage RPG has a similar style of mechanic where the player gets to give a description of a flashback scene(like they have in the series) to show what he did before hand to cover this situation and get the team out of a bad situation.

[Blade]

Here is a translation of the Scams & Intrusion part (the rest of the document is about something else). I've used Platinum's extraction and partial translation and cleaned it up.

-----

It starts with the mission statement: Mr. Johnson wants to extract a scientist from the laboratory of a certain corporation.
The GM gives some general information, rubbing his hands.
And that's when the players give themselves a distressed look, knowing they will once again spend two hours to assemble a cheesy plan, which will not hold beyond the first three minutes and will end anyway by a not so quiet shoot'em up on the premises of the corporation or even in the streets. Why bother? They might as well rush directly guns blazing, after checking the available amount of ammunition.

But this isn't the only solution. If you like movies like Ocean's Eleven (and its sequels), The Sting, The Thomas Crown Affair, The Spanish Prisoner, Experts, or series like The Unit or Mission Impossible, here's a way of getting the excitement of such works, with complex plans which work despite the inevitable surprises!

The Old-Fashioned Plans

The players aren't the characters.
They do not think at everything, aren't specialists in the same areas and, especially, don't have the necessary time and resources.
This makes it impossible to design, evaluate and implement a comprehensive plan that could lead to a break, a scam, or even a paramilitary operation worthy of the name.
Generally, plans that players try to put up, just to make their little brains think and to show they aren't just mindless brutes, are doomed to failure in the short or long term.
Indeed, the GM is not neutral.
He's not even deterministic because he can't thing of everything either. That leaves him with two choices when the characters begin to unfold their operation: either that the plan is good, in which case ten minutes later it's done without a hitch (and without any hassle), or he identifies vulnerabilities, exploits and the plan can then be thrown away because the characters can not cling to any rescue plan, except for their firepower.
Neither case is satisfactory, either for players or for the GM. The rising tension, the stress setting in, but also the pleasure to see a plan succeed -or not- that's what players won't feel without a great amount of good will.

From good preparation...

Fortunately, there is a relatively simple solution: do not plan.
More precisely, planning isn't the players' job but the characters'.
They are the one on the front line, after all. It is their blood that will be shed if it goes wrong.
And what do they know about the ground truth, those players who control them, well protected with their feet under the game table?
So the characters are the one preparing the plan. They call their contacts for information, resources or equipment, technicians to prepare the ground, their skills or experience to think of everything.
And only then, they embark on the operation itself!
The guiding principle is elementary: the characters will try to accumulate mission points by moving their bodies and planning.
This is not about predicting things in detail, nor about obtaining accurate information from the GM.
They must use their own resources in a rather mechanical way, for example by involving their skills or their background.
They can therefore:
• Build on their contacts to learn more about the targets.
A broad information is worth one mission point, a specific or complete can yield up to five points.
Everything depends on people contacted or resources used, and their affinity with the target.
• Use their skills (Engineering or Computer to provide the necessary equipment, Survival or Street Knowledge to know where they will set foot, or Influence or Con for social engineering, etc.).
It is impossible to detail all possible actions - it always depends on the initial conditions, the universe and the characters.
Each skill test takes time, of course, but can bring a number of mission points, depending on the number of hits or a scale of difficulty determined by the GM for the game's system.
What is important is that the GM will never detail the information, assistance or material obtained.
It must always be evasive information: listing of employees, access to a computer system, obtaining property or vehicles (without necessarily specifying which ones), etc..
It's up to the players to decide, in the time before the operation itself (which is often limited), what their characters give priority to, according to their expertise and the nature of the operation.

... To good implementation

Because it's only when implementing the plan, during the adventure, that the information or resources will be precisely described ... and used by the players.
Thus, during the resolution of the operation, each time the GMconfronts the characters to a new obstacle, they can spend one or more mission points accumulated during the preparation phase, to cause a last-minute change.
The underlying idea is that if players can not predict in advance the script, the characters themselves are able through their experience, their knowledge and adaptability!
The evil guard who surprised the characters in the middle of the lobby of the corporation turns out to be the cousin of one of the characters (2 pts).
The keypad of the lift has been obtained thanks to a discreet camera installed in the lobby (1 pt).
Surveillance cameras have been offset by a prerecorded loop inserted into the main computer room (3 pts).
The cops, alerted by the silent alarm, who will surprise the team on its way out, won't find anything compromising about the characters because since the beginning the exfiltrated researcher had to use another way out (5 pts).

You have to play on the predicatble elements but also on the reversals - numerous in Ocean's Eleven, for example: when Danny Ocean finds himself alone with the wrestler in a small room, it is expected that he'll get his ass kicked! Nay, the guy is a friend ...
The important thing is to estimate correctly the price of mission point, and especially to force the players to explain how they can spend it at this time. Of course, when all the mission points are spent, the characters have to improvise with what they have left.

Please not that all obstacles don't need to be circumvented with the mission points.
The characters still have their skills available and players can continue to think.
In front of a door with a lock, no need to spend a point of mission when a locksmith roll may be enough; in front of an angry (and mustached) secretary, no need for a mission point when you can get away with little blah-blah, a few winks and the promise of a dinner for two.
The mission points are limited and powerful resources to be reserved for the most difficult moments, those in which there is no apparent solution - when the characters are cornered in a dead end, without light nor hope.
Note also: the mission points are not miracle or random luck.
They are strongly linked in one way or another, to the capacity of the characters to expect the worst.
The characters have always foreseen the event and the players must explain when, how and why - the famous explanatory flashbacks in the series of Ocean's when they discover that everything was planned and organized.

Assessing expenditure
Circumventing an obstacle: 1 point

Minor obstacle (involves a single NPC or a local system): +0
Middle obstacle (involves a NPC team or a global system): +1
Major obstacle (involves authorities, an elite team of NPC, or a particularly tough system): +2

Obstacle that could trigger a combat situation: +1
Obstacle allowing the authorities or the target to trace the PC or their employer: +1

Surprises and mischief!

For the GM, the work is both simpler and more complicated.
Simpler, because he does not need to describe all elements of the mission to the players.
They just need the bare minimum.
Everything else can be more or less improvised.
Moreover, he can also provide lots of obstacles and difficulties, without wondering whether the characters can overcome them (or how), and balance it out during the game.
More complicated, as players can also improvise!
The GM must know how to fit their requests, their ideas, to force them to think carefully about the use of their mission points, and clearly describe the desired effect.
He must also assess the price in mission points of each element of the plan that is improvised (see our table indicative).

Creating a complex plan is now within reach of any gaming table No more hours and hours of talking in a vacuum, and ready for the action!
All it takes is to spend time and money in order to accumulate mission points.
Then it's during the game, by being clever and thoughtful, that the players can prove their expertise.

[Garvel]

I remember a convention, when we were spending hours for planning how to get into an office building, and still weren't satisfied with our plan. It was kind of frustrating, and the GM was despairing. Finally I risked sneaking in on my own, although it was risky, because the team couldn't back me up since I was the only one with fitting stealth skills.
Only to find out that the damn building was completely empty and left. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ninja.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/mad.gif)
And than the real adventure started because we had to find out what was going on. It was really a good run from that point on, but all the former planning time was completly wasted.
The GM told me later, that he was happy, that finally someone tryed something. This could have taken even much longer, since we thougt breaking into the building would be the whole run, and we wanted to be prepared for all contingencies.

With this system this would not have happened. The result would have been the same, but without having wasted so much time on it.
And that something happens that negates hours of planning isn't that rare. Being detected to early can ruin a plan that relies on stealth easily, and than it's plan D again anyway.

I really like the idea. Especially at planning the details you can save much time, that wouldn't have been that interesting otherwise. You can proceed to the interessting part sooner. And due to the time you saved, you should be able to accomplish more plot.

Also, you can spend hours for planning the details, and still be at a big disadvantage towards your character that has days to plan it. He wake up at night and says "Damn, I forgot to buy a wire cutter to get through the wire mesh fence. I need to go to the DIY market tomorrow.", but you simply forget it.

It may be sightly different from the normal shadowrun game, but it surely has some advantages. It is an interesting option at least.
I think the GM should decide for every run, which planing mode should be used. Especially for runs that are less challenging for the team it is handy, because the planning work is still relativ big here, compared to the the challenge.
When I am going on a run where I think, it is likely that I might die, on the other hand, I would prefere to know what my exact plan is, to be able to judge the situation, and know when its time to retreat.

So it could adjust the planning effort to the challenge level.
But in the end playtesting will be better than speculating.

[Paul Kauphart]

My opinion is that system should be used with the usual planning, because it's fun to put a plan together, and because there is no way that every players and the game master have though about everything, while the character surely has. Somehow that system is a good way of filling the holes in the players plan.

Nice translation by the way.

[Ascalaphus]

A blend of Player-planned plan and Pool-improvized plan seems like it'd be the most fun yeah. I'm going to test this soon.

[Mäx]

A blend of Player-planned plan and Pool-improvized plan seems like it'd be the most fun yeah. I'm going to test this soon.

Just have them descripe as a flashback what they did before run that now allows them to circumvent the "opposition" and you pretty much have an episode of Leverage. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Nifft]

I love this idea. I was trying to work out a similar system, and seeing this one -- and the comments in the thread -- really helped crystallize my thoughts. Also, I'm stealing the name outright, since it's better than anything I came up with on my own.

My idea was to allow hits earned in the planning phase to be used to buy hits during the run (to change a failed roll into a success). I hadn't thought of a whole "obstacle" subsystem, and I'm not sure how much I like it... I have no idea what kind of "obstacle budget" should be used for a run, so I have no idea what "minor obstacle" means.

On the other hand, having a pool of save my ass points (which you can spend after you know the results of your roll) -- I know exactly what that's worth.

- - -

So, here's how I'm planning to adapt the excellent ideas in this thread:

1/ The team picks someone to lead each leg of the legwork: Social, Magical, Legal/Historical, Matrix. Use teamwork rules: helpers roll and each of their hits add +1 die to the leader's pool. As usual, glitches of helpers don't penalize the team effort, but glitches of the leader do.

2/ Decide what knowledge skills and contacts can contribute to the leader's roll.

3/ Roll for each type of legwork. Save the hits from each roll in their own separate pools.

4/ Now proceed to go on your mission. When you fail a non-combat test during the course of the run, you can spend hits from any single pool to turn your failure into a success. You should try to justify this expenditure through some narrative or role-playing in a manner which entertains the group.

Thoughts? Thanks, -- N

[DireRadiant]

7th Seas used a drama dice system very similar to what you are describing Nifft. Build up a pool of dice in the early part of the game from good roleplay and characterization, that you get to use in the final dramatic scene.

[Nifft]

7th Seas used a drama dice system very similar to what you are describing Nifft. Build up a pool of dice in the early part of the game from good roleplay and characterization, that you get to use in the final dramatic scene.

Interesting, I'll give it a look.

Thanks!

[Draco18s]

I love this idea. I was trying to work out a similar system, and seeing this one -- and the comments in the thread -- really helped crystallize my thoughts. Also, I'm stealing the name outright, since it's better than anything I came up with on my own.

My idea was to allow hits earned in the planning phase to be used to buy hits during the run (to change a failed roll into a success). I hadn't thought of a whole "obstacle" subsystem, and I'm not sure how much I like it... I have no idea what kind of "obstacle budget" should be used for a run, so I have no idea what "minor obstacle" means.

On the other hand, having a pool of save my ass points (which you can spend after you know the results of your roll) -- I know exactly what that's worth.

Sorta reminds me of a 1 hour panel on RPG game design, and while what we came up with would never fly, we designed a cyberpunk system that had rules that enforced the style of various literature and movies, namely that players could "chose to fail" a roll (basically they'd get just their skill, and no dice*) and get a "karma point." Karma points could later be spent to add +1 to a roll. The idea being that the main characters of a lot of cyberpunk fiction fail a lot, right up until the "save the world" moment and succeed beyond all odds.

So yeah, reminds me of that quick and dirty thing this group came up with.

*System was a 1d6 + skill type system

[Nifft]

Sorta reminds me of a 1 hour panel on RPG game design, and while what we came up with would never fly, we designed a cyberpunk system that had rules that enforced the style of various literature and movies, namely that players could "chose to fail" a roll (basically they'd get just their skill, and no dice*) and get a "karma point." Karma points could later be spent to add +1 to a roll. The idea being that the main characters of a lot of cyberpunk fiction fail a lot, right up until the "save the world" moment and succeed beyond all odds.

Huh, that mechanic sounds like "compelling" from FATE. Basically, the GM picks one of your flaws and offers you a choice: pay a fate point and ignore the flaw, or get a bonus fate point and play into the flaw, which may include failing a test. You can spend fate points later (at any time) to get a +2 to something.

Parallel evolution in action!

Cheers, -- N

[X-Kalibur]

Can I spend this planning pool towards Plan B? "I use my planning pool to detonate the explosives at the structural weak points of the building".

[Method]

I think you could go lots of different ways with this, but the basic idea of abstracting the planning phase of a run is a great idea for some groups. I still think that I would have my players come up with a plan in broad strokes and do the important legwork in advance, but using this mechanic for the small details to keep the game moving makes a lot of sense.

As another idea, successes for surveillance could add to the team's AR pools, which uses a canon mechanic. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)