OOPS! Options

[Wailer]

Okay. Allright. Oopses are cool. At least, it seems to me that they're a cool concept. Correct me if mistaken, but Ooops is like, ALL Ones, right? In all my years of playing SRun, I've yet to see that happen.

Is this somthing other groups have House Ruled, to a majority of ones maybe? Is this something that I've misinterpreted? Is my game dangerous/deadly enough without it happening? (Wah, I took a box of Liiight ... I suck now)

Also ... the good part. What're the best(and worst) stories of Oopses that you Dumpshockers have otu there to share?

Wailer

[Kagetenshi]

It's all ones. It's meant to be rare; rare and catastrophic.
Worst I've heard about is that guy in the CLUE files who Oopsed on something like 27 dice. Hey, only a 1/2^27 chance...

~J

[Nikoli]

=)

Was bringing in a new character into an existing game. He had been hired to find out who had tapped this one guys credstick account to rent various vehicles that had been involved with crimes all over Seattle. He was doing a search in the rental host and scored all 1's. He stumbled accross a code trap the former party decker (who was being phazed out, he was an NPC that was only used to speed things up) had left behind. The former decker, Ikarus, traced him and locked down the coffin hotel room he was jacked in from then told the party to pay the guy a visit. Ya see I knew the guy playing fairly well, and if he didn't have a darned good motivation to work for the party wouldn't have.

[Cain]

I have multiple witnesses to the fact that, not only do I roll all 1's on a semiregular basis, but that I only do son when rolling at least 4 dice, and have done it on as many as 12.

Some groups have houseruled it so that you score an "oops" if you roll more 1's than your skill; others have used a modified White Wolf system, where every 1 cancels out a success. Given that I fumble so often, we've never felt the need to implement either of these-- there's plently of fumbling every night.

[Lantzer]

I've heard that the White Wolf system causes a slight _increase_ in the chance of a total botch when skills are high. I've not played with the system myself much.

Thinking about it, any system which took off a success for every one rolled would be a bad idea in SRun, as TNs of 6+ would become nearly impossible, rather than just darned difficult. You have a higher chance of getting a 1 than an 8, per die.

The version where you get an Oops if you get more ones than your skill doesn't seem too bad - it folds back into the current rules if no pools or bonus dice are used for the test.

Oopses do appear to be fairly rare. I can't remember one off hand.

I don't modify the Oops rules in my games - haven't seen the need. Pcs can fail all the time - they don't need _my_ help to fail more.

[last_of_the_grea...]

The "Oops" rule is why nobody ever has a skill rating of 1 in anything!

[Rapid Fire]

Of course, an 'oops' with a skill of 1 shouldn't be as bad as an 'oops' with a skill of 8.

We had one shaman that rolled all ones on a summoning attempt. He got a spirit all right. :vegm:

[Lilt]

Only 'Oops' I ever had in one of my games was on a perception test for an astrally projecting character to find the group on the docks.

He found them, and helped them kill the spirit that was attacking them, then realised that he had just helped a completely different set of runners who were on the docks that night and killed an ares elemental that belonged to ares.

[Dog]

Had a guy roll an oops on a computer test looking for answers about his mysterious background. "Yep, you definitely know now that you were born in Australia somewhere!" And off they went for about six hours game time of hopeless searching.....

I love it when there's an oops on a perception test. One guy oopsed to notice the bad guys sneaking up on the group as they camped out in the woods. Me:"Forget it, man. It's probably just the wind." Him:"Okay, I'm going out into the trees to take a leak."


When a good player role plays his oops, it gets very fun.....

Me:"The elvish dude in the robe is shouting at you in Sperethiel. He sounds pretty desperate."
Him:(rolling an oops on his sperethiel skill of two. Looks up angrily.) "Suck WHAT!? Eat this, buddy!"

... but when a character plays out the oops himself, I will usually bail them out as a reward....

Me:"You tackle him, ready to punch his lights out, and feel a rush of air where you were just standing. Looking up, you see a low flying LAV that would have decapitated you. An elvish bystander mentions that he was trying to tell you to duck."

[Jari_Kafghan]

I have had to many bad experiences with bad roleplayers and Ooopses.

Ex: A rigger trying to expand into a decker with only a comp skill of 2 rolled two 2's on searching for a person's location via matrix.

Another roleplayer saw the roll and wouldn't accept what I was saying looked like convincing proof of where this person was simply because of the roll.

[BitBasher]

We use the rule where if the number of ones is equal to the skill then it's a botch. This is from the 2nd edition companion.

I have had a player botch a percetion test while wearling light amp goggles in a lightning storm. Ouch.

I have had a player botch a perception test and not notice the enemy lining up the shot with a SAM on the group's rigger's Ares Guardian.

I have had a group of players botch a roll for metaplanar contact while trying to form a magical group. There was a moment of realization, then them burning karma to beat back whay it was they made contact with, and I think one of them ending up hospitalized. That was by far the most horiffic example.

I have had NPC's botch casting and blow themselves up.

I have had NPC's botch damage resistance and die when they shouldn't have.

[spotlite]

Never seen all 1s on any skill higher than 3 in ten years playing SR!

fwiw, we use the 'more ones than successes' rule, but we also use 'ones and no successes' - if you get no successes but a handful of ones, its worse than getting more ones than successes. We also use the standard 'oops' rules, which are worse than getting a bunch of ones and no successes. Basically this helps the GM determine the extent of the oops on a sliding scale, reducing the chance of an unintended overly harsh call.

E.g., all ones on a firearms check probably means either you shot a team mate, or your gun exploded/backfired for some reason. No successes but some ones would indicate a miss (no successes) and shooting the wrong target (the ones). More ones than successes would probably just be a jam. If you got three successes and three ones you'd succeed as normal.

Works for us, anyway.

[Fahr]

as gm:
body score on an APC botched (being shot at with a HMG), I figured they hit the ammo bins, and lit it up. too bad they were supposed to bring the guy driving it in alive...

-Mike R.

[RangerJoe]

There is the old story of the epic-level run where a combat shaman was attempting to throw a force 20 powerball at an approaching column of soldiers. Between totem bonuses, foci, fetishes, etc., he ended up dropping something like 27 dice on the table. When the shaking stopped, the silence was profound. All ones. The GM politely folded his screen, stacked his books, and announced that he'd see everyone next week. New characters.

There is also the classic tale of the solo run of an elven street sam who announces his plan to the GM thus:

I'm going to leap across the alley from the roof of the warehouse I'm on, landing boots first onto the skylight of the warehouse, tuck out of the way of the broken glass, land on the table in the middle of the room, and hose the gangers--I know where they are and the layout thanks to my decker, right?"

GM: "Okayyyy... Roll atheltics. Good. You make the jump. Roll it again. Alright. You land feet-first on the glass. Athletics, please. Okay. You dodge the glass shards. Again. Good. You stick the landing on the table. Ready to shoot? Roll pistols." (the player was using machine pistols)

Player: *rolls... all ones*

GM: "You whip out your pieces, begin a slow arc around the room, and squeeze the triggers. The safeties are on."

Player: *gulp* *dies*

[sidartha]

During the Harliquin module a buddy of mine started to learn Magic knowledge skill. But instead of saving karma and just buying it at three he started with one and was to build up from there :| . Needless to say when he tried to determine the nature of one of the more powerful NPCs he botched.
He spent the rest of the adventure outfitting for the eventual showdown with a Vampire 8)

[Rapid Fire]

Had another instance where one of the PCs opened a door to reveal a baseball pitching machine. He botched his damage resistance test with his 2 Body, which was then ruled that the baseball had impacted his privates. Ouch! :dead:

[Kagetenshi]

I like it. If the player talked in a high-pitched voice for the rest of the run, he should've gotten extra karma.

~J

[broho_pcp]

I have been playing for four years. I have only oopsed once and I have only seen one other person oops. However, they were both on the same run within about 4 hours RT.

My oops was during combat with a sewer rat. The rat somehow jumped onto my face, scratching and gouging my eyes, and managed to knock me down and submerge me into the river of sewage on the floor.

Due to a small bit of GM pity, I managed to eventually escape the sewer one box under deadly from rat bites and scratches. After some magical decontamination and healing I swore to never again go into a sewer.

The other oops occurred on a perception test a buddy of mine had to notice a person sneaking up to attack him. I believe the person got a free (no resist melee)called shot punch to the face and knocked him out cold.

[ShadowGhost]

I was GMing a game Sunday night when one of the PCs Hobgoblin attacked an NPC with his knives. Due to injury mods, the poor Hobgoblin was getting his butt kicked.

After rolling initiative, the ambidextrous Hobgoblin attacked with his 8 dice plus full combat pool, resulting in a mere 1 net success. Unfortunately, the poor NPC rolled all ones on his 3 body damage resistance test against an 8 Light, resulting in a lethal, 5 mm nick to the carotid artery.

Poor sap couldn't understand why something that felt like a mere pinprick could cause massive arterial spraying.

[Traks]

[Glav]

One rule I've seen used often is if you roll more ones than the base skill/attribute being tested. IE, totem dice, pools, cyberware bonuses, all are considered fair game for ones, but not required to get ones. Of course, in these games, since oopses happened much more often, (about once per session rather twice per campaign) they were treated much less harshly. Of course, the more ones you rolled the more catastrophic the outcome, all the way up to the granddady official Oops. :grinbig:

[Reaver]

We had one guy in one of my gaming groups who did it more than once. When it came to rolling dice, he was extremely unlucky. Talk about Bad Karma flaw. ;)

[Finbar]

I have never rolled a single oops as a Player, but as a GM, i seem to roll either incredibly well, or absolutely horribly. Including a 40ft Scarab Boat, Oopsing the soak roll from a Grenade.... the chars were dodging bits of pirates raining down on them, to a unit of Renraku Soldiers in Desert wars, with the 3 Officers all Oopsing their perception tests to notive the PC's lining up an ambush...
bloody dice

[TechnoDruid]

One of my players had a creative idea to accelerate into the back of an APC the party was chasing, and in turn, try to propel himself to a more advantagous position "on" the APC. He made his Bike roll, but gloriously botched an athletics roll. I look at him, "Dude, I dunno. Guess the APC driver slammed on his brakes. Oh, here's a new record sheet. Get started."

[Fraust]

had an otaku with one body upset a heavily armed troll merc way back in second edition...luckily the troll stated "I aim for the *****'s legs first"...wasn't my first oops with that character, and it wasn't my last...but it was one of the more memorable ones...