Power Levels and Balance, how do you gauge them? and respond? Options

[Moirdryd]

Okay, to cease from Hi-Jacking the Mundanes out the Box thread, i`ve opened this one. Serious question though. I`d especially like to hear from all the Long running GM`s i know are sitting out there as they`ve seem (almost) everything i`m sure.

To the question at hand. Power Levels and Game Balance. How do we each gauge these at our SR gaming tablem ? What `game breakers` have you seen? How have you responded? What crushing effects have we seen high Karma pools deliver? and Do Adepts really taste like Chicken?

Just a few to get everyone ranting :-)

[toturi]

I do nothing. Apart from making sure I use the appropriate modifiers, I let the dice fall where they may. Afterall, I have potentially a whole world to throw at my PCs.

[Moirdryd]

Thats pretty much my angle toturi. Thats also the benefit of having a group of experianced roleplayers who`ve gamed across most of the genres out there. The world is almost always wide open in my gamesand alot of the Uber power that can be gained doesnt seem to help much when your SO is seriously pissed at you and you really need her help.

[Clyde]

I've lately begun gaming for a group that's gone for most of the high powered edges out there. My response has been to send them on runs against higher powered opposition, especially if the plot sets it up so that just killing everyone won't help. Even so, it's been quite a challenge.

However, I've been doing some hard thinking in the wake of SOTA: 2064 and realized that all along I've made a few assumptions without really doing any solid thinking.

Firstly, I'd always followed the conventional wisdom that corporations can't or won't shell out the money to put cyberware (especially reflex enahncers) in ordinary security types. Maybe that used to be true, but it just plain doesn't make sense by 2064. Street samurai are just as quick as always, adepts are faster than ever, and even magicians all seem to have their reflexes cranked up with spells. If cutting a few personnel and shelling out some extra capital are necessary then the corps will go ahead and spend the money. It's not like they're poor after all.

Secondly, I'd always played things as if the shadowrunners were going after a target that was unware there was a Shadowrun going on. Certainly, the few published adventures I'd read had been set up that way. Reading about corporate spy agencies in SOTA:2064 really threw that notion out the window. It certainly seems silly that Ares would have some awesome prototype weapon lying around ready to use, but security is just business as usual. From now on, corporate security's on a sliding scale. If they get clues that a run might happen they'll beef up security to deal with it.

As for judging power levels, I tend to look to the "end result" stats: Initiative, Body, Combat Pool, core skills, Ballistic and Impact Armor and amount of damage dealt. I'll try to balance out enemies with a sufficient amount of each to keep things somewhat challenging.

[Tanka]

Actually, before shelling out for 'ware, they'll shell out for drugs. Combat drugs are just as effective as 'ware (for boosting Initiative and Reaction) and a hell of a lot cheaper.

[Capt. Dave]

[akarenti]

[Glyph]

I think that as a group gets better, they should be offered more challenging (and higher-paying) jobs. That is my preferred method of game balance. But I don't agree with the notion of adjusting all encounters to match the runners' "power level". To me, a mall security guard isn't going to go from pistols: 3 to pistols: 6 just because the runners got tougher. Similarly, if a group of newbie runners get too greedy and decide to go after something out of their league, the Azzie Leopard Guards aren't going to suddenly turn from an elite group into an average one.

When PCs get more powerful, you can use more than similarly-boosted opponents to challenge them. You can use common-sense security measures, common-sense tactics, hostile environments, hordes of low-powered enemies, and situations that require subtlety.

[mfb]

indeed.

and, hey. lest people complain that a few high-end badasses taking on a horde of low-end mooks is unrealistic, remember Blackwater's stand in Najaf.

[BitBasher]

[Moirdryd]

The things i write and plan are normally designed to challenge the runners truly. But then as we play `Open world` fashion things are kept respectable to how they would be regardless of player power level.

Even as they stand my player group preferes to hit corp sites when there is less of a chance of the HTR team being about, or fewer sec mages on duty, all the stuff that requires leg work and planning. My balancing factor often comes in the form of such things as those HTR teams and other surprises and the runs are never easy (they decided to jump in at the deep end and so far are still swimming). But it does encourage them to work around the situation and act more and more professionally in doing the job. Doesnt matter to them that they could wipe probably a couple of a HTR easy in a combat round. They dont want to chance it.

[Large Mike]

The only way a player could ruin the balance of my game is by taking the focus from the other players.

That being said, I, as a GM, don't enjoy super high-powered games. There's no challenge to the players, and if there is, it's like watching anime (please don't start on the anime) where my suspension of disbilief goes *right* out the window. And this is from a veteran shadowrun GM. I'd like to think my suspension of disbelief is fairly well developed.

[Sren]

In the games I've played in, the power level of our opponents was as much under the control of the characters, and to a lesser extent, the players, than it was in the GMs control. Not that the GM decided whether or not to challenge us, but as shadowrunners, we could sometimes pick and choose our jobs, and when we had a rigger with an aircraft, running was always an option. So balancing the power level of the game to give us combat based challenges was in in-character and to a lesser extent player-based choice. The characters only chose to go on tougher missions because the rewards were greater, and such were also more fun for us as players. But we always had the option of choosing milk-runs, but we only took those jobs as story notes (rarely RP through them) as they never paid more than basic living expenses and weren't dangerous enough to warrant karma.

Likewise, if we chose to take a job against or initiate a run against something that posed a serious combat threat to the group, the GM didn't hold back. If we wanted military grade gear, then we'd have to pull it from the cold, dead, hands of military personnel, and they'd likely be skilled in its use (and might use up al the ammo tying to kill us).

We were also challenged during less dangerous runs in our legwork. We played in eight to twelve-hour sessions, and more than half that time was spent in RPing legwork, which offered a much different challenge. This is how we went along with the saying "a successful run is when you win without rolling initiative." In which case, the power level of opponents is meaningless anyways, as we didn't confront them.

We did have a really high-powered group; 200-400 kp each, and anywhere from one to fifteen players for any session (I did a one-on-one with the GM once on a holiday, and we had a couple two-player sessions, but average was six to eight players), and we had contacts that could get us almost any gear we wanted (anything less than military grade weapons and armor), so real combat challenges would have had to been kept rare to maintain some believability; as in, every rebel group/gang/corp security force should have cyber zombies with rotary cannons firing APDS round, with missile launchers for backup weapons and be wearing milspec hardened armor just to frighten/kill the characters, but if we were deliberately attacking a military-protected target, or a AAA corp facility of critical importance to the corp, thats the type of thing we should expect.

Another thing this GM did, was when he planned security, he never planned for a weakness to exploit. He reasoned that if he could see the weakness in a security plan, then a security professional could see it, and it would be fixed, so we had to pick soft targets, or prepare for a month's worth of IC legwork to find a weakness the GM didn't see (or brute force if we got desperate enough).

In the end, the power level of the characters didn't affect game balance so much as the IC actions of the characters or decisions of the players. Game balance was more on our shoulder's than the GMs, and that made sense (at least to me) for the setting. No number on a piece of paper has the power to break your game, unless you let it.

Thanks for bringing back memories.
S'Ren

[Wounded Ronin]

I guess my GM-fu is abysmally weak, as karma pool broke my brain, apparently permanently.

[KaOs]

One of my runners, a Razorguy, has always tried to get game breaking cyber ware putting him miles ahead of everyone else. So I started having the enemy use viruses that were transmitted by COM frequency and the like. At one point in the middle of a really funny adventure he wound up running around with his arm locked in a very rude gesture. The servos in it all refused to move and he kept slamming his arm into doors and such. It was a hoot and he spent far more then I thought he would have on repairing it and making sure stuff like this doesn't happen anymore.

Other things I've done is when someone has a really sweet piece of hardware that I find is really being more of a hassle for me, I have one of the corps either A) Try and snag it for research (if it's game breaking, it's big), or B) notice that the ammo for 'Weapon X" Is really popular in 'Sector X" so they ramp up the price. It makes the game breakers much less of an annoyance and more of a plot element.

[toturi]

[KaOs]

[toturi]

Nothing in M & M is broken :cyber: , at least not once it was errata-ed.

What the hell was in there that you couldn't handle? :eek:

[DocMortand]

Eh, I am beginning to figure out what I need to be able to kill PCs, and I try to stack the deck so that I'm close, but not over the top. But I keep my tech level down (on all sides, not just the PCs). If I raise the tech level, I make sure that I keep accurate count on what the NPCs have, because the PCs will get a chance to get it.

This is how I nearly killed the group by having a Panther show up for the first time.

Now they have it. -_- Owch...

Also, if you stack the deck too well, and you tend to let the dice fall as they may, then settle for capturing the PCs and do the "tag and release" program - One of Lina's chars got captured (suffered a D wound and collapsed while staging a distraction for the main group), and now has 1 essence worth of Mysterious Cyberware and a weeks worth of amnesia so that he has no idea that anything is different.

*shrug* I suppose I could have killed him, but now he has A) more chance to RP the new wrinkles in the char, B) Causing paranoia in the group, and C) He might be useful in later missions in the arc I have planned...

[Crimson Jack]

Hmm, never had a "game breaker"... not really sure what that implies. Sounds more like a "Temporary GM Mind Fart".

I have run into slight issues with running a magic-heavy group though. When there's one awakened in a group, there's never a problem. When there's three, there is a propensity for them to not only cover each others' backs with spells, but also those of the non-awakened. They've all been running together for quite a few years, so they're pretty good at watching each others' backs. At times... it sometimes feels that the challenge isn't worth their salt, however when I talk to them post-game I normally hear how they were really worried about their plan failing. So, while I was thinking about their enjoyment of the difficulty level, they were sweating things out on their side of the screen.

[DocMortand]

Hey, if they're sweating bullets and took more than an hour to come up with a plan of action I feel I've done my job right. :)

[Crimson Jack]

[Wounded Ronin]

I don't understand this. Few other people seem to have experienced what they would describe as a gamebreaker.

I must not be thinking about the game on the same fundamental level as the rest of you. There must be some reason that most of you have no trouble inflicting damage on the PCs once the karma pools get high but I do.

Therefore, it would make sense if I asked this question: if you have a powerful PC, how do you cause them injury, inconvienience, and/or death? Or rather, what is your favorite way?

[Crimson Jack]

Normally, in my experience, players get off easy when I don't pay attention to ALL of the rules. For example, if I don't remember to make my rolls for cyber/bio damage, I'm potentially making things too easy. Same goes for magic loss, fully thinking out critter powers, making certain to implement all modifiers, etc. There's a lot of ways of making things tough I find.

[BitBasher]