How conservative do you play?, Bob playing Bob Options

[mcb]

So when you play a character in a RPG do you live that character larger than life or do you play real life conservative? My problem is that the three other guys that are playing characters in our present game of SR are unbelievable conservative and don’t take any risk with there characters. I on the other hand am willing to play it a large bit more on the edge; I would rather play my character true to my mind picture of the character rather than worry about working the odd of the game system in my advantage. They play so conservative that you see more of the game system then their actual character if that makes any sense.

So I was wondering how many of you guys out there play what you think your character would do, rather than first looking at the odds of success and then decide if the action fits your character? I guess I am just frustrated with their lack of playing trued to their images of the characters and always calculating the odds of doing a particular action rather than just role playing it and seeing were it goes.

Comments, suggestion, criticism welcome.
mcb

[Fahr]

I GM for a mix of players, one has gone so far as to calculate the likelyhood of damage from every castnig at every wound level...

so I know of what you speak... it can be very frustration to deal with as a GM because it kills story flow and mood. I fix this by putting time constraints on the calculaters... if it takes them longer than about 15 seconds to make up there mind, I skip them... cuts down on the math heavy stuff... I make exceptions if they are being creative and it does not stifle the flow... but generally in combat or any other time sensative activity, they are on the clock.

-Mike R.

PS when I don't ahve Mad Calculators playing, I ditch this as it isn't nessesary for normal RPers.

[Beast of Revolut...]

I usually go pretty wild. In fact, I once had a teammate remind me that "this isn't Paranoia."

[blakkie]

I play with players that make a point of taking no risk. I play with players that seem to make a point of taking "stupid" risk. I personally use roughly calculated risk, depending on the character.

By doing that i can do things that others think is insane, but are often actually no worse than maybe 1 in 3 chance of the character failing. Failure could then lead to death if the enemy succeeds in taking advantage of the opportunity. I find that characters that do this can normally live very long, prosperous lives...in SR terms. This might be because i specialize in characters that can recover from failures, and survive the dangerous situations they get into. Coupled with a "I can't die, i'm better than this, there is a way to live" attitude on my part and it is amazing how deep of a hole can be dug out of. :)

[The White Dwarf]

Depends on what you see as "taking risks".

Do I just say "screw it, we got the guys name lets jump him, Im sure it will work out"? No.

Do I take a rough look at the odds of succeding between two plans, and choose the better one? Yes.

I take calculated risks all the time, its part of the job description of being a SR. Its foolish to just throw caution to the wind. Its also foolish to play it safe all the time, sometimes you have to just go for it.

[mcb]

Agreed White Dwarf, The guys I play will take it to the planning a run and working the odds to the Nth degree. The one player will work out the odds for nearly every skill roll and spell he cast. If the odds are not in his favor he rarely does it unless he is forced to by the situation and its tuff to get his character into those situations.

I just find it boring to play an RPG where the players are not willing to take some real risk with their characters. If I want to be conservative I will just live my life as normal. The whole idea of playing an RPG is to do things with your character you probably couldn't or wouldn't in your real life. Even to die as a character can be a very interesting thing to play out. The guys I am playing with are very attached to their characters. So much so that are nearly paranoid with their character and even against the GM. I have yet to convince one the bunch that the GM is there to facilitate a good story and is not out to take all their Phat Loot!

mcb

[BitBasher]

Since theres situational modifiers to nearly every roll in the game, I don't see the point in working up all the numbers beforehand without all the facts.

[gknoy]

[Solstice]

i do whatever my character would do be it taking stupid risks, calculated risks or playing it safe. It depends on the characters personality.

[The White Dwarf]

Well, calculated risks doesnt have to be literal. I mean attacking sec guards vs avoiding them via stealth is a calculated risk. It doesnt mean you run the math to see if youd win... situational mods would ruin it anyhow.

If theyre just being careful thats different than trying to use math to make sure they always win (which is lame). Just because you feel the point of playing is to take every risk and possibly die doesnt mean its right or that they have to.

Is the issue that they are too math-oriented, or that you just have different play styles.

[mcb]

Definitely the math route. The one player would probably try to estimate if he would be better off attacking the guards or trying to be stealthy rather than actually just thinking about what his character would actually be most likely to try. I don’t mind careful character but I do mind inconsistence characters. If a player is always trying to exploit loop-holes or “features” of the game system rather than playing a well thought out character despite the game system it becomes a very shallow boring character.

Sorry for the general rant qualities of this thread I guess I am just a bit frustrated by my fellow players. I have been talking to them about it so we will see if they get any better. Suggestion to help us focus more on the characters and story and less on game mechanics would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
mcb

[The White Dwarf]

Ah k.

Best way to focus less on the math is to just make it impossible to predict. Once they realize that even if they did the math the results would be unusable, they are more likley to go off a hunch and be more in character.

Being sure to include things like weather (lots of situational mods), a light that just flickers some (possible situational mod), having the guards eat chips (situational mod in advantage of player stealth) etc etc etc ... by describing more you not only play *up* the story, but also leave a huge space to add situational mods for things the players may overlook. Which in turn makes their math unusable; and ultimatly pointless.

You might try saying "this game im gonna be more descriptive, so realize the situation may not adhere to base tns" up front just so they dont get surprised. Also, be sure that you adequetly describe so you dont run into the "you said it was 'sorta dark' thats not +1153 to shooting!" scenario.

[CardboardArmor]

My players, and myself I suppose, are Neitzche (sp?) poster children.

Whatever doesn't kill us only makes us stronger.

So, um, not very conservative. I mean, my characters are blind to the risk but they're not stupid. Risk big, win big and all but you don't win anything if you're dead.

[blakkie]

[Sunday_Gamer]

Gaming in general has always struck us as a movie. We do what's best for the movie.

We play characters and obviously each of your chracter has a piece of you in his personality, but you do it for escapism so if you're escapism is playing an accountant in SR, then yikes! You want to be the type of person they'd actually make a movie about then you wanna make it a good movie.

So first, it depends what kind of movie you're making. Is your SR campaign epic? the players having access to great power and being invovled in major events that shape the landscape of the modern world? Or are you a bunch of Orkish street punks, struggling to survive in the underground? Ex-cop alcoholic with glitchy cyberwear and a haunting past or genetically engineered corporate assassin?

See what I mean? Figure out what kind of movie you're in, play to the movie. Most of our games in SR are action adventure comedies so we play to that. Taking risks is a daily thing but as the heroes in a movie, we do not fear death nor do we invite it. We know the GM would rather make us suffer and pay for our mistakes, possibly ridicule us rather than outright kill us. If we were playing a corporate assassin, dark political intrigue type game, I'd be more careful since more people die in those films than in the action comedy...

I hope that made sense. To someone other than me I mean...

Sunday

[Anymage]

Having read many of the other responses here, I have to say; Posh!

I have no problem with a player who has a good head for numbers and situations playing a risk-averse character. Hell, even one with hideous math skills can play one, provided they're not so risk averse as to avoid shadowrunning entirely and take a job at the local Stuffer Shack. How happy you are with risk is something that can be talked over, but not something that you can really force others to play along with.

But to me, it sounds more like the game is just so damned boring because of so much time spent crunching numbers. While I've never had to deal with that specific issue, I have had to deal with players who would pile through books in the middle of a game to either make their uberspells, or else to find the specific spell/power/etc for the circumstance. (Think 2e D&D, with free-casting clerics. And many books. I've seen single combat rounds that took more real-time than the fight took in-game, and that's including full-minute rounds!) It's not so much conservative players/characters, as it is pacing shot to hell, if I hear you right.

And if that's the case... well, if the GM and other players allow it, there's not much you can do but leave them to their number crunching exercises. If you're the GM, or if he seems to agree with you and is bored of all this, keep the players on the clock. Institute a time limit for each combat round (one minute per pass is more than generous) or end up doing nothing but thinking, and insist that players who do calculations are actually standing there for that amound of time, scribbling on their pocket secretaries. Also, don't reveal TN's until after the action is taken, and feel free to play a little fast and loose with them to avoid being second-guessed by players until they commit to an action. And stand firm on your decisions no matter how much people whine.

I mean, I'll have my character take calculated risks, and I might give a moments thought to the difference between a force 5 and a force 6 manabolt, but I'm aware that there are other people at the table who won't exactly appreciate my half hour math olympiad in the middle of combat.

[Crusher Bob]

One of the arguements against 'timed rounds' is that they play against the strengths and knowledges of the player not the character. The character will probably know a lot more about combat (as an example) than the player does, thus penalizing the character who has been in 100s of gun fights being run by a player who only knows 'never get involved in a land war in Asia' vs the the girl scout being played by Raygun is a bit too much metagaming for me.

Yes some decisions must be made quickly but when you must run the entire 'game simulation' in your head (how far away were those gangers? how far away is the cover?) will tend to make evertything much slower.

[Tom Collins]

I play the character. when I was running a smart mouthed decker, I had no problems telling lonestar just what they could go do to themselves. Hell, I left a small calling card program in every system I broke into. Did it get me into trouble, most certainly. I missed 2 games because I had him run to ground at one point when the heat got turned up on him. Not even the other PCs knew where he dissapeared to.

My last character was much more consrevative. He'd take risks, but they were calculated risks. It all depends on the character.

[Voran]

[Fahr]

as long as the time limit is only used to keep the action moving it will be ok, the problem with timelimits ALL the time is the metagaming one, but it sounds like the player here is so focused on the numbers that he can't see the charechter, this would force him to think omore of a what what my PC DO rather than what do the numbers suggest is the best statistical chance of success.

another option, is (and this means more work for the GM) take away the dice. give them no more than a description and pointedly ignore metagaming questions. take away the books as well, and make them describe what they are thinking and doing in the first person. harsh, but it can be halpful (helped my uber-cruncher focus on charechter)

what ends up happening is that the uber-cruncher focusses all that math crunching at chargen, and then just plays the charechter during the game, hoping that there earlier planning pays off. which is much more acceptable.

I prefer time limits for these situations but that is just my opinion.

-Mike R.

[Darkest Angel]

Depends on the character and importance of the situation. I like to stack the odds in my favour one way or another most of the time to keep out of trouble, but if the situation calls for it I'll be the first to take the most implausable action.

[ondali]

i'm a mathematician, but i play the game for the roles: so i do the math upfront and during the game I try to guess if it will succeed.

[mcb]

The problem with always calculating the odds, even if it’s just a quick approximation, is the path that has the best odds of success does not always fit the character’s personality your playing. I have always believed that a role-playing game is to create a story and for that story to be a good one the players must create interesting and well-defined characters and stick to them.

If as a player your always thinking about the odds then you are not focusing on what your characters personality would dictate in that situations. This is especially true in high stress situations; over thinking and analyzing an action can lead to lobotomizing your character’s personality. Sure your character is going to have some idea of his odd of doing things and this may affect the character’s choice of actions but to over analyze the situation can quickly lead to dumbing down the personality of your character.

Another issue this addiction to playing the odds leads to IMHO is that if you are always working the odds then you rarely let your character make a mistake. I know I have had a few situation in this present SR game where the wisest and smartest thing to do in a situation was X but X went against my characters personality so I did Y knowing full well as a player Y was probably a bad choice but it was the choice that the character would have made in that situation despite the odds. I think that player/characters that always choose the optimal solution in a given situation become very shallow boring characters.

More aimless ramblings
mcb

[Darkest Angel]

Well logically, a person knows their limits, and knows when he's pushing his luck. Most people will 'guess the odds', and work to that - people seldom intentionally bite off more than they can chew. By playing that way, and guessing the odds is hardly out of character - it human - only the stupid, the driven and the faithful will push their luck on a regular basis, if you're playing one of them, knock yourself out pushing yourself. If it wasn't so ingrained in people, it wouldn't be so uncommon for players to want to push their luck on a regular basis.

[mcb]

Personally I think most real people ignore the odds in real life. Criminal still attempt to run from the cops but if the looked at the odd of out running a cop with a radio they would realize how hopeless the odds were. People still try to robe banks despite the fairly public statistic that 90-95% of all bank robbers are caught. People are always saying that would never happen to me despite the odds. In more mundain life people still smoke, drive drunk, and play the lottery. How many people out there are hooked on gambling despite the odds always being stack in the houses favor. How many people live unhealthy life style despite medical research showing that particular aspect of that life will lead to certain problem. How many people refuse to wear their seat beat despite the fact that seat belt save lives.

People in general are optimist when it comes to playing the odds on day to day things. We are good at ignoring the facts if we think/hope we can beat the odds. If we had spent our live training to be shadow runners we would ignore a lot of odds pertaining to that day to day profession also just like we ignore a lot of other thing in our own mundane lives. Odds are a funny thing and our minds will often twist them to enable us to get what we want.

mcb