SRM04 FAQ considerations, Before Bull releases something to be set in stone... Options

[Yerameyahu]

Selling loot isn't gear acquisition. It's extra-mission-reward acquisition. Buying gear isn't subject to the 10% looting rule.

[Caine Hazen]

KarmaInferno and Yerameyahu seem to get it. Feel welcome to my table anytime I happen to run Missions guys.

I think Bull made a huge mistake even giving you all a preview without just dropping the whole FAQ on you. Its been vetted and pretty much approved, they're just working the last of the niggling details I think. Some will laugh, some will cry, but its what we'll use and bitch about ceaselessly. I think this is the tip of the iceburg however, there's plenty more that will stir up a storm when is finally approved and released.

[Chance359]

Since the constant theme from the company seems to be "Shut up and pay", I've just stopped caring about how missions are run. I realize that my business will not be missed because I'm just a in the whiny minority so one more dissenting voice has been silenced.

[Fringe]

Its been vetted and pretty much approved, they're just working the last of the niggling details I think.

That's what I'd figured. My feedback was more for the far future...which means it'll be forgotten by then. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

I look forward to seeing the final document. Not that I actually get to play all that much...

[SaintHax]

KarmaInferno and Yerameyahu seem to get it. Feel welcome to my table anytime I happen to run Missions guys.

Obviously a matter of perspective.

The RAW requires a minimum skill and contact to sell loot. I don't play a Face, I play a Charisma 1 (now 2), no contact, no negotiations, combat character. The fact is I saved points and karma not acquiring the skills to let me do social actions, and SRM is going to let me do them anyway. This is as unfair to the Face as it would be to me if they allowed him to circumvent the combat rules. By the rules, my character would never be able to fence loot.

To expand, I have just as many contacts as the Charisma 12 Elven mage in our group that's played the same adventures as me. This makes no sense at all. In addition, you, Bull, and others have taken the system we are endorsing, and then determining which rules (not marked optional) are trivial and not needed. I think this is also insulting to the company and writers of those rules.

[Yerameyahu]

You're overstating things. No matter how ugly and stupid, if you go to the fixer, he could give you 10%. In fact, he's not likely to give you vastly more just because you're pretty. *shrug* It is very odd that you're a shadowrunner who doesn't know a single fixer. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[KarmaInferno]

To say gear acquisition is a downtime activity doesn't do justice to how dependent SR characters are on their gear.

Whether or not this is true, it is completely irrelevant to my post.

Hacking impacts a small percentage of the at-table time.

Irrelevant. It's still part of the mission.

Combat impacts a larger percentage of the at-table time.

Irrelevant. It's still part of the mission.

Selling loot is not part of the mission. It is downtime. In fact, it can even be done at a LATER game. I can play a game where I get a piece of gear. Six real world months later, I go play another SRM game and sell that gear there.

So there's no WAY that it is a part of any mission. Therefore, it is downtime activity.

Not that I did not say that selling gear was unimportant in any way. I am not addressing that point at all. But even if it is important, that does not make it anything but downtime activity.

Short of being railroaded Shadowrun characters are usually so nerfed without their gear that gear acquisition/improvement is a big factor in how WELL they can hack, engage in combat, and can even impact social tests via Tailored Pheromones and other implants. The players desire for their power creep almost always shows in gear improvement.

I believe this focus on gear is why players care so much about 'loot', sellback percentages and swaying transactions via Face characters. Even if performed in downtime it affects the game as a whole.

The difficulty in downtime actions is a separate issue. I believe a 3:1 with a diminishing dicepool is reasonable OR that a 4:1 with no diminishing dicepool is reasonable. If both are to remain in effect then tests like skill training need to be removed and just allowed to happen using a set amount of lifestyle.

Your arguments, while logical, do not address at all the problem that the 10% rule is designed to fix.

The 10% rule has nothing to do with fairness or game balance.

It is entirely a construct to deal with the convention slot time restrictions inherent to Living style campaigns.

If you can suggest a system to allow the dice rolling that will NOT occupy a GM's time more than a flat result, please do so.


-k

[Caine Hazen]

In addition, you, Bull, and others have taken the system we are endorsing, and then determining which rules (not marked optional) are trivial and not needed. I think this is also insulting to the company and writers of those rules.

You know this is all vetted and checked by the line dveloper right? Meaning that it is company approved? Which is why the adventues are sold with the Catalyst logo on them. Missions is no longer a fly-by-night fan run thing. You know all this right? Then why make a statement like that?

[Neurosis]

Hey, when I roll a Face with lots of contacts and fences, can I simplify the part of the game I'm not good at... e.g. combat and simply say I beat all the bad guys and take 10% damage while doing so? That sure would save time; and I think all those rolls and combat options are very time consuming.

EDIT: Oh, I think hacking is very complex and time consuming-- can we circumvent the RAW on this also? I like the more simplified approach to SR4A that SRM is taking. We can probably fit 2 mods into a 4 hour slot if we can get rid of all the dice rolling.

Your analogy is flawed.

Hacking and combat affects the success or failure of a mission. They definitely affect everyone at the table. They are an integral part of the game session.

Selling off gear affects only the player involved. It more or less is external to most missions, being a "downtime" activity. Having it be more involved or complex means eating up player and GM time, which can be precious especially at conventions or game days that have rigid time slot schedules.

If you were to have hacking or combat somehow occur in "downtime", sure, those should be abstracted to flat results too, for the same reason that selling gear is - it's a campaign structure necessity, not a game balance thing.



-k

Now hold on a second, k. The truth is, fencing really does effect the whole team and their chance of success. Everyone on the team should be doing all transactions through the Face--that is part of what makes being the Face important, and the Face can even charge the other players commission or a vig. If everyone can just sell stuff for 10% (that's the floor and that's the ceiling) then that shits in the Face's cheerios.

If you remove fencing, you save time but you prevent the face from contributing to the team's success. It is akin to choosing to just abstract hacking or combat.

The RAW requires a minimum skill and contact to sell loot. I don't play a Face, I play a Charisma 1 (now 2), no contact, no negotiations, combat character. The fact is I saved points and karma not acquiring the skills to let me do social actions, and SRM is going to let me do them anyway. This is as unfair to the Face as it would be to me if they allowed him to circumvent the combat rules. By the rules, my character would never be able to fence loot.

To expand, I have just as many contacts as the Charisma 12 Elven mage in our group that's played the same adventures as me.

SaintHax has a point, and that point is that there is a strong disincentive to play a social specialist in Missions. You get a chunk of your resources taken away and your role reduced by the exclusion of contacts and fencing. In terms of effect (not intent) it is like saying "okay guys, no assault rifles or heavy pistols".

Your arguments, while logical, do not address at all the problem that the 10% rule is designed to fix.

The 10% rule has nothing to do with fairness or game balance.

It is entirely a construct to deal with the convention slot time restrictions inherent to Living style campaigns.

If you can suggest a system to allow the dice rolling that will NOT occupy a GM's time more than a flat result, please do so.

This is hard to argue with. But I have a suggestion. If anyone from Missions actually took note of it, I would jump for joy. Well, unless they stepped in to say how retarded it was. Then I would cry like an infant. Here goes:

Hot loot is fenced for Negotiation x 5% (minimum 5%).

1. Charisma is obviously not underpowered. It can be used during the mission. So can Negotiation...but not as much as other Social skills. In any case, that's why Charisma has no effect on how much you fence for in this case.
2. No dice rolling.
3. Faces get to fence loot more efficiently.
4. Faces get to contribute something more to the team. And may charge them for it.
5. No dice rolling. No downtime inflation. No GM time issues.
6. Allows for use of Contacts to fence. They use their Negotiation...and charge a percentage.

Now on the outliers, this gets a little strange, but it only allows a character with Negotiation 7 to eke out a lousy extra 5% beyond RAW, and considering how many valid character options you'd be wasting to get Negotiation 7...yeah. (I'm ignoring wonky things like 'Improved Ability: Negotiation'. You could cap at 40%. Hell, you could cap at 30% if you really wanted to.).

Disadvantages:

15% is harder to calculate than 10%.

Note that this doesn't 'break' Negotiation as a skill. It's still going to be less important, than, say, just as a for-instance, every combat skill.

[RobertB]

KarmaInferno and Yerameyahu seem to get it. Feel welcome to my table anytime I happen to run Missions guys.

I think Bull made a huge mistake even giving you all a preview without just dropping the whole FAQ on you. Its been vetted and pretty much approved, they're just working the last of the niggling details I think. Some will laugh, some will cry, but its what we'll use and bitch about ceaselessly. I think this is the tip of the iceburg however, there's plenty more that will stir up a storm when is finally approved and released.

So, to paraphrase, "We really weren't interested in any of your input on the perceived shortcomings of the system. We've got it all worked out. No, don't worry about the fact that we're on our fifth campaign organizer in 6 years. Kthx."

Next time, don't even bother with posting "suggestions" threads. Just release the changes to the FAQ, and damn the torpedoes. It would be a lot more honest.

Robert (aka Spanner)

[SaintHax]

You're overstating things. No matter how ugly and stupid, if you go to the fixer, he could give you 10%. In fact, he's not likely to give you vastly more just because you're pretty. *shrug* It is very odd that you're a shadowrunner who doesn't know a single fixer. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

You are clever there at the end, but overlooked the fact that what you stated isn't what's done. I'd be happy to include a system where everyone CAN fence for a flat 10% through their fixer, or have the option for the 30% through their contacts using the rules written on pg. 312. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Selling loot is not part of the mission. It is downtime. In fact, it can even be done at a LATER game. I can play a game where I get a piece of gear. Six real world months later, I go play another SRM game and sell that gear there.

...

Your arguments, while logical, do not address at all the problem that the 10% rule is designed to fix. ... It is entirely a construct to deal with the convention slot time restrictions inherent to Living style campaigns. If you can suggest a system to allow the dice rolling that will NOT occupy a GM's time more than a flat result, please do so.

(edited for length)

First part of your argument can be disputed by replacing all occurences of "mission" with "game". We do play this as a game, not just as a mission. Note that we do not spend karma as part of the mission, yet it's a major appeal of the SRM campaign.

The second part I find more valid, and I believe on page one or two we suggested requiring fencing to be done at the end of adventures if there was time. As you pointed out, it can be done at a "LATER game,". This coupled with the option in my reply Yerameyahu seems like a fair way to do this all around.

[Yerameyahu]

If you're fencing through a contact, that's a fixer. If you're fencing through a fixer, that's a contact. I meant that it's kinda impossible that you don't have a single contact, and still function as a shadowrunner. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Caine Hazen]

You are clever there at the end, but overlooked the fact that what you stated isn't what's done. I'd be happy to include a system where everyone CAN fence for a flat 10% through their fixer, or have the option for the 30% through their contacts using the rules written on pg. 312. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Which in turn, shows that using a contact is handled on p.287, which the contact subtracts 5% for every point they have in connction rating. So your uberFixer has a connection of 5, menaing you sold the item for 5% of its value, insted of 30%. This is what you're angling for now?

It breaks down really really simple. The rule is 30% value, + or - factors that the GM determine. The roll that the Face gets just reduces that time tofind a buyer. So instead of having a system wherein the Con GM hs to make up all that shit on the fly; tosave time Bull gave us a system that allows you to do it all as downtime and have no worries.

And Spanner, did you ever take ito account that perhaps all of the input you guys gave on the forum may actually have been taken into consideration? Perhaps a majority of the info came direct from repors fromother Con goeres and GMs and that perhaps the disagreed with the assesments made here on the forums?

[KarmaInferno]

First part of your argument can be disputed by replacing all occurences of "mission" with "game". We do play this as a game, not just as a mission. Note that we do not spend karma as part of the mission, yet it's a major appeal of the SRM campaign.

The second part I find more valid, and I believe on page one or two we suggested requiring fencing to be done at the end of adventures if there was time. As you pointed out, it can be done at a "LATER game,". This coupled with the option in my reply Yerameyahu seems like a fair way to do this all around.

There's no "first part" or "second part". They are both functions of the same argument. They both relate to the time impact of the loot fencing.

Here's the crux of what I was saying:

You cannot take a combat or hacking roll from one game session and decide to do it at at a different game session at a convention six months later. It is integral to that particular game session, MUST be done at that table and is therefore "in-game".

A loot fencing activity CAN in contrast be done at a later session, so it's effectively "out of game", or a downtime activity.

In-game activities must by nature be played out. They affect the success or failure of a mission.

Individual downtime activities should certainly be doable, but their degree of success has little or no impact on the success of any given mission. They also primarily only affect an individual player rather than the whole table.

As such the intent of the 10% rule is to minimize the impact one player's loot fencing has on the time of GM and the other players.

Even in cases of "group loot", a flat percentage is faster and simpler than calculating every modifier out and rolling skills.

With the 10% rule, a GM merely has to glance over the sales notation before he signs the mission log. No dice rolls, no figuring out modifiers. Just two seconds to look at one box on the sheet.

Again, this has nothing to do with "fairness". It is an artifact of the convention-based campaign.

If your system has the same time impact as this, great. Does it?



-k

[KarmaInferno]

And Spanner, did you ever take ito account that perhaps all of the input you guys gave on the forum may actually have been taken into consideration? Perhaps a majority of the info came direct from repors fromother Con goeres and GMs and that perhaps the disagreed with the assesments made here on the forums?

Yeah, Bull takes a very personal interest in the opinions and comments of the player base.

I don't get how people think he's making decisions in some ivory tower.

Is it because he hasn't personally come to each and every person who has presented an idea, shaken their hand, and told them, "Thanks for the feedback! I will consider it carefully!"?



-k

[SaintHax]

Which in turn, shows that using a contact is handled on p.287, which the contact subtracts 5% for every point they have in connction rating. So your uberFixer has a connection of 5, menaing you sold the item for 5% of its value, insted of 30%. This is what you're angling for now?

There is a serious math issue on the fourms currently: a 25% finder fee on the price of the item. If you sell a 100 nuyen item at 30% cost, and pay a 25% finders fee, you net get 22.5 nuyen from the sell-- not 5%. The fixer get's 25% of what you get. Seriously, this is how it works, I'm 100% positive.

Regardless, you quoted a piece of my post, but disregarded my actual suggestion. I stated that 10% for those that have to use a Fixer (or swag rule) made sense, but allow a person that actually has the skills to do it themselves to use the rules in the rule book... when... time... permits.

And Spanner, did you ever take ito account that perhaps all of the input you guys gave on the forum may actually have been taken into consideration?

No idea who Spanner is, nor do I remember who suggested anything to which you refer.

Individual downtime activities should certainly be doable, but their degree of success has little or no impact on the success of any given mission. They also primarily only affect an individual player rather than the whole table.

...

If your system has the same time impact as this, great. Does it?

Stating that you'd only be able to use the RAW for fencing if time permited... yes it does. However, it's only fair to point out that you missed my point, or chose to not reference it: we are not playing this solely as a mission. And I challenge you to state that spending karma (a downtime activity) has little effect on the success of future missions. We play this not for a part, but for the whole of the game. If we just wanted a "mission", we could play a one shot with pre-gens.

I don't get how people think he's making decisions in some ivory tower.

I dont' think that anyone thinks that any of the directors of SRM does this. However, when a rule that is in the book is changed, there is going to be some controversy about it.

[Bull]

Ok guys, please, lets not argue. Everyone has opinions. Everyone has reasons for these opinions. Most folks reason are good ones. But not everyone's opinions or reasons always agree with each other.

Here's the deal, from my end...

1) Missions takes up a crazy amount of time, especially since I barely get paid.

I'll be upfront and honest. I get $50 per published adventure. That's it. All the time I spend writing up documents for the writers, the FAQ, in meetings, writing up ICAs for contracts, doing development work with the writers, meetings, generating art notes, giving feedback on the art and maps, all of that good stuff? That all amounts to $50 per published adventure. I spent 6 hours today doing emails and the like, and on average I spent about 20 hours a week, probably more, working on this stuff. Our schedule for 2011 calls for at least 24 adventures. If we stick to our schedule for 2010, I'll have personally worked on and gotten released (CMPs are considered released when they hit the convention circles) 15 adventures. In theory, it works out to about 2 a month, though the CMPs muck that up a lot because they're worked on in batches.

The point of the above is that I'm not doing this for the money. I'm doing this because I love Shadowrun, and because I want to make Shadowrun and Shadowrun Missions be the best that it can. And everything I do, I do because I very strongly believe it will be for the betterment of the game, and to increase the enjoyment levels of all the players as a whole.

2) I have a lot of venues for input.

There are three public venues online: Here, the official forums, and Facebook. Besides the public postings, I get several PMs from all three each week as well from folks.

I get emails through the Missions Coordinator email address.

I read and discuss things on the CDT Agent forums with Demo Team Agents.

I frequently discuss things with members of the Missions Freelance team as well as the general Shadowrun Freelance pool.

I spent a LOT of time this year talking with players at Origins and Gen Con, especially those that aren't active on the message boards. Along with that, I talked quite a bit with Chuck and Kai about how the games went, and I asked the GMs who ran events to send me feedback on how they went and what comments the players had.

We also have a small pool of playtesters who run through the Missions, and I get some good feedback from them as well.

Trust me when I say, I take a LOT of feedback into account. Dumpshock is but one of many sources.

3) Nothing I do is in a Vacuum.

I have a lot of leeway with Missions, but at the end of the day everything I do goes through Jason Hardy. Almost every idea I have, and almost every document I generate (Such as the Promotion rules and the FAQ) goes through Jason Hardy, Brent Evans (Our Art Director) and Matt Heerdt (Our main Layout guys) first for comments, since they're all big Shadowrun fans. I meet weekly on Skype with Jason, Peter Michelenka (The eBook developer) and Mike "Southpaw" Miller (Demo Team Coordinator and the new Convention Support Manager) where I update them on everything we're doing and get both feedback and approval.

4) Shadowrun is a tricky beast.

Pure and simple, there is no "right way" to play Shadowrun. Every group has a different idea of how Shadowrun should be run. Hell, even in a single group you'll have several different ideas. With the Missions format, it makes things even trickier, but Shadowrun leaves a LOT of things up to the gamemaster to implement through roleplaying or simply through judgment calls. With a living campaign, you have to be very careful how much is left strictly up to the individual GM, because every GM is different.

Right now, I'm at the hardest part of my job, because with the new Season starting up, the decision was made to review and revamp everything, taking the experiences learned through 3 seasons and attempting to refine those experiences and clean up the rules we use for Missions to balance the game out as best as possible, and to try and increase everyone's fun level as much as possible. Everything that I commented on above goes toward this end.

It starts with me. I review and read and reread and re-review. I take all the feedback I get, and I distill it down. I not only look at the suggestions and comments and opinions, but where possible I look to see the reasons behind those. I've found that there are a lot of misconceptions about how things work, and a lot of misconceptions about why we do the things we do. That has to be taken into account as well.

From there, I work up a draft, writing up what I think we need to do, and most importantly why. Any time I tweak a rule, remove an optional rule, add in an optional rule, whatever, I note it and the reasoning for it.

This then goes to review by Jason and Company. It also goes out to the Missions freelancers, sometimes before (If I feel I need more input than I already have), sometimes after (Jason and I are both fallible and we miss things, so more eyes helps). Jason makes notes, sends it to me, and we bounce it back and forth a couple times.

There's a reason why a lot of this stuff isn't out yet, despite the fact we've been working on it and even talking about it since July. It's a long process, and we want to make sure we get it right, and do it the best way possible.

Everyone's input is important, and I think you for taking the time to give me that feedback. I rarely have the time to respond to everyone, so I hope you don't think that just because I don't respond personally to each post that I'm ignoring anyone. It's hard to find enough time to do everything that needs done, let alone what I want to do.

So thank you to everyone that's responded to my inquiries both here, elsewhere, and privately. Thank you for playing Missions. I hope that you'll continue to play in the future.

Steven "Bull" Ratkovich

[KarmaInferno]

Stating that you'd only be able to use the RAW for fencing if time permited... yes it does. However, it's only fair to point out that you missed my point, or chose to not reference it: we are not playing this solely as a mission. And I challenge you to state that spending karma (a downtime activity) has little effect on the success of future missions. We play this not for a part, but for the whole of the game. If we just wanted a "mission", we could play a one shot with pre-gens.

I only mentioned the in-game vs out-of-game to illustrate that in-game activities HAVE to be played out at a game session, whereas out-of-game downtime activities can be figured out at home between game sessions and simply added to a Mission Log for a GM to sign off on.

I do not address the potential impact of those downtime activities on future games because it is irrelevant to my point.

My point, and ONLY point, is about time.

ALL downtime activities need to be streamlined to not eat up too much slot time. That includes karma expenditures, loot fencing, purchasing, etc. All of it.

I dont' think that anyone thinks that any of the directors of SRM does this. However, when a rule that is in the book is changed, there is going to be some controversy about it.

I've been involved with no less than a dozen convention-based "living" style campaigns. They all have one constant that regular home games do not have - the convention format. As such every single one has had to modify their "book" rules to account for the contraints of the convention format.

One of those constraints is time. It is a hard constraint and cannot be ignored.


-k

[Neurosis]

Ok guys, please, lets not argue. Everyone has opinions. Everyone has reasons for these opinions. Most folks reason are good ones. But not everyone's opinions or reasons always agree with each other.

But this is Dumpshock. It is made of bickering even by internet standards. I've only been here a little while and even I can see that.

One of those constraints is time. It is a hard constraint and cannot be ignored.

If your system has the same time impact as this, great. Does it?

Trying not to get too bent out of shape that my post was overlooked...it's better than being flamed!

But what is wrong with the system that I provided at the end of my post at the top of this page? As the creator and GM of a long-running LARP, I have a fair bit of experience with creating diceless systems that can be 'resolved' in about a second, so I understand the time constraint concerns you're addressing. The system I posed has the same metagame 'time cost' as the 'Everyone Gets 10%' system, and gives the Face more to 'do' without creating more dice rolling. The biggest fault with it that I can see is that it is nothing like any other mechanics in SR, but then again, neither is 'Everyone gets 10% and that's that'.

[SaintHax]

But what is wrong with the system that I provided at the end of my post at the top of this page? ... The biggest fault with it that I can see is that it is nothing like any other mechanics in SR, but then again, neither is 'Everyone gets 10% and that's that'.

I skipped it b/c it is nothing like the SR4A mechanics. Despite the tension, I think this thread has proposed a good solution as a compromise-- though no one seems to agree on it.

1. Anyone can fence loot through their Fixer at 10%, using the swag rule. (no dice)
2. If you have enough skill you can sell it at the book listed 30% price.
2b. If we are not allowed to roll, and must be forced to use 4:1 buy and diminishing returns, then you'd need a (Char + Negotiation) pool of at least 10 to sell an item in 42 hours using your Negotiations.


This keeps the quick diceless action, but still gives the Face his bonus.

For those interested: a dp of 20-16 takes 18 hours, 15-13 takes 24 hours, dp 12 is 30 hours, 11 is 36 hours, and then 10 is still 42 hours.

[Neurosis]

What qualifies as enough skill?

[Redjack]

What qualifies as enough skill?

(Char + Negotiation) pool of at least 10

[Wraith235]

I really dont see this as that hot button of an issue ..... but sure I'll weigh in

seems like a lot of ppl dont like the fencing rule .... ok fine ...

but its nothing but bickering on how to handle it

I have a suggestion from my years in other living campaigns

take the Value of all Items obtainable in the mission .... and give them a flat rate "Bonus" if you will based on the Sale price of the Items ...

THEN at the end of the mission give them the option to buy Item X for say ... 50% of the cost untill their next mission ....

I know my #'s are not accurate .... and hopefully this post will come off as more "the spirit of whats being said" Rather than" This is exactly what Im saying"

the issue at hand is .... not every group will have a face ... and sorry but I doubt that the face character wants to spend all of his downtime selling the groups loot when there may be things he wants to buy for himself and this is something I think that is being missed in this convo ...Faces are Charachters too

[SaintHax]

take the Value of all Items obtainable in the mission .... and give them a flat rate "Bonus" if you will based on the Sale price of the Items ...

THEN at the end of the mission give them the option to buy Item X for say ... 50% of the cost untill their next mission ....

You are missing part of the problem: SRM is supposed to use SR4A rules, and the problem is that the loot rules are circumventing this. My latest proposal goes inline with the "quick, table time saving" aspect that is mandated, and the SRM 4:1 rule, but still allows almost all of the RAW to be used. I understand your intent, and this works better on big, hot ticket items. It sucks to have one awesome weapon found, and three characters that want it.

the issue at hand is .... not every group will have a face ... and sorry but I doubt that the face character wants to spend all of his downtime selling the groups loot when there may be things he wants to buy for himself and this is something I think that is being missed in this convo ...Faces are Charachters too

I agree, but that has nothing to do what we are talking about. No where are we stating that the Face has to fence your loot. We are talking about getting rid of an ad hoc rule that was introduced.

[Neurosis]

SaintHax I must say I really dislike the "all or nothing" nature of your suggested patch. Negotiation + Charisma Dice Pool 4 is 10%, Negotiation + Charisma Dice Pool 9 is 10%, Negotiation + Charisma Dice Pool 10 is 30%, and Negotiation + Charisma Dice Pool 18 is still 30%?

It just doesn't seem right. When you turn it into a boolean there's a disturbing lack of granularity. I almost prefer "Everyone gets 10%" to "my face gets triple because he has one more die".

And it is ALSO nothing like the actual SR4 rules.