Strategic vs Dramatic and my take on SR 4, this is a rather long diatribe Options Track this topic Email this topic Print this topic Download this topic Subscribe to this forum Display Modes Switch to: Outline Standard Switch to: Linear+

[Nerbert]

There are, very generally, two kinds of role playing games and, very generally, two kinds of dice mechanics. There are Dramatic RPGs and Strategic RPGs and there are Hard dice mechanics and Soft dice mechanics.

To define very briefly:
Strategic RPGs - A strategic RPG is one in which the players navigate a series of puzzles and challenges which one must overcome or perish in the attempt. The emphasis is on problem solving, efficiency, resource management and leadership. The best example of this type of game is Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, also known as D&D 1st edition, or simply, 1st Edition. For anyone who has not played D&D 1st ed. its a very different game from 3.x Shadowrun 3e can be played very successfully this way.

Dramatic RPGs - A dramtic RPG is one in which the players navigate a series of stories and challenges which one may or may not be able to overcome. The emphasis of these games is on character development, plot advancement, and dramtic/cinematic scene setting. The best example of this type of game is White Wolf's new World of Darkness games. For anyone who hasn't yet played the new WoD, its a very different set of games from the old. Shadowrun 3e ought to be able to be played this way, but in reality, it is very difficult. More on this later.

A sidebar on dice mechanics. Dice mechanics are virtually the most important part of the act of playing an RPG. If a game's dice mechanics are shady, unpredictable, exploitable or unbalanced, it can drastically change the way a game is played. Nothing is more frusterating then having a character who ought to be good at something, but isn't, because the dice ruin everything he does.

Hard Dice Mechanics - A hard dice mechanic is one in which there is a rule for virtually anything. The focus of a hard dice system is to model, in a realistic and statistically accurate way, more or less everything that can happen to your characters. Pros - Verisimilitude, actions reconcile plausibly. Predictablility, its easy to plan ahead and know your relative strength. Cons - Inflexibility, you can't argue with the rules. Complicated - to play, you have to know what to roll in every situation and you can't fake it, because there's almost certainly a rule.

Soft Dice Mechanics - A soft dice mechanic is one in which the rules are flexible and open to interpretation, guidelines for rolls are given but the Game Master is responsible for both calling for a roll and for interpreting its results. The focus of a soft dice system is to model, in a simple and straightforward manner, the likelyhood of your character being able to perform a certain task. Pros - Flexibility, gamemasters are free to call for rolls and interpret the results in a way that best serves in the interests of the game. Simplicity, Soft dice rules are easy to learn and remember, exceptions are exactly that. Cons - Unrealistic, soft dice mechanics do not in any way model the way in which reality works. Unpredictablity, guaging your relative strength and planning ahead is more difficult.

First of all, I know I'm going to get many people saying that any of these statements aren't true. Particularly my statements concerning dice mechanics. This is not an academic paper, I have done no fact checking. I am speaking only from experience and opinion, and much discussion with fellow gamers. Personally, as far as hard dice mechanics go, I tend to ignore rules as frequently as possible, I call for rolls to get the game moving so I can actually tell a story. So I am biased.

Now, to Shadowrun. Shadowrun 3e is a game with a dramatic presentation and hard dice mechanics. Shadowrun's story is all about character, style, drama, cinematic experiences. It gets all its inspiration from novels and movies. Playing the game is more like CSI.

Characters have to constantly moniter everything they do and say, they have to think about all the possible things that could be going on or could happen to them. Everytime a character takes an action it usually involves at least three rolls. One to activate the action, one to resist, and one to see if someone else notices. In combat it could be more, especially when all the special abilities of all the different character options are operating simultaneously.

What do you roll when your remotely operated helicopter is trying to navigate through a canyon while being simultaneously hacked into by an enemy decker and blown out of the sky by someone else. Not only that by the helicopter is carrying your own decker who's hacking into the network of the enemy decker while being protected by his Mage chummer who's magically defending the helicopter from enemy mages but also suffering cyberware damage. Furthermore, your Rigger who's flying the chopper in the first place is under heavy fire from a group of runners with their own abilities, hackers and mages, and is being defended by two more combat characters.

And you know, this isn't even an implausible scenario. Whats even more plausible is having a team of runners actually cripple their own strategy to avoid having to play this out. I don't want to deal with all of the rules. This is a dramatic scene, why should it take four hours of rolling to reconcile. So break it down in to a couple of general rolls? Isn't that softening the game?

I love Shadowrun, but I don't play it any more. There's too many rules, the rules that exist are self contradicting and confusing. Everything is an exception. Everyone I play with loves the Shadowrun story, they love the universe, they love the presentation. They don't want to play. Playing that game is work. If you're already an expert, you have my applause. I'm sure one day I could be an expert too. But in the mean time, I can have a lot more fun playing another game completely.

The way I see it, Shadowrun 4 is going the way of a Dramatic Game with Soft Rules. Instead of having your Troll Street Samurai kick down the door and mow through a Grocery Store with his assault rifle, he'll be doing exactly the same thing in two rolls. The mortality rate of a starting Shadowrun character won't be 66% anymore.

I've run out of steam. I don't really expect anyone to agree with me.

[Ellery]

Good summary. It's not clear to me that the SR4 rules are going to have enough flexibility to really be "soft + dramatic". My guess is that they will be "hard + nonstrategic", in that there won't be as much strategy because they're too simple, but you'll still die dead when you are shot.

But you could be right. That would probably be better, actually, than a hard nonstrategic system, because at least you'd have drama, and you wouldn't have to worry as much about getting the dice right, since the GM can mostly ignore them when the mechanics are messed up.

[Cain]

Actually, the core Shadowrun mechanic is pretty straightforward, and can qualify as a "soft" system. If you leave out disasters like Open Tests, Rigging/Decking rules, and so on, you end up with a pretty decent "soft" system.

[The White Dwarf]

Two comments.

One: EVERY rpg eventually becomes strategic. Even in dramatic theres eventually a point you have to roll something to do something. Without a dice/random mechanic, it would simply be you telling the GM stuff, and him telling you what happened, and thats more like ad-lib acting than a rpg. So when you hit the strategic point, you have to roll dice, and Id rather have a hard system than a soft at this point. Why? Because theres no grey area for people to get upset over if a judgement call doesnt go their way. I know, wed all like to be mature adults, but ppl can get into things and get emotional and if its spelled out it makes for a more appealing game because its arbitrarily fair.

Two: The other good thing about hard systems is that theyre easily made soft. Example, decking. Yes Ive read it, yes I understand it, no unless were doing a group of deckers where everyones on the matrix I really dont want to roll it all out. But since you know how it works, its easy to simplify and come up with something that approximates the intended ruleset with something everyone agrees on. And because everyone agrees on it, it gains the same advantages of a hard system, ie no bias. Now soft systems are very difficult to make hard, because adding in rolls for specific situations is much harder to gauge than breaking them down, and also much more difficult because you typically have less of a ruleset to adapt from. Id rather have a published set be hard and house rule it soft than the other way.

In conclusion, I hope SR4 turns out to be a hard system because of the above reasons. However, from whats been said so far it seems its going towards soft. I really hope it doesnt wind up in the middle, defining each roll but having little complexity, relying on a single basic mechanic. One that will likley work in all situations but model each one less accuratly because of its generic nature. Ideally it will simply be a unified resolution method, eliminating the different shifts in probability in the current system between different areas, but leave each 'sections' slight variance in rules intact. Thus magic and decking may use the same mechanic to roll out, but work slightly differently in the manner in which they call for and resolve said mechanic.

[Nerbert]

[Nerbert]

[The White Dwarf]

The first quote is (or would be) true if people did understand whats going on and didnt like the GM call. Ive gamed for a long time and seen it come up on several occasions. Ive even see teams drop out of a con' game beacuse they didnt like it (yea, they were really 3 yr olds disgused in 20 yr old bodies...). Anyhow, never played WoD but when its clean cut it is better, no one ever gets upset over Uno rules.

Second quote may well be opinion, I just find it easier to create/add/subtract rules with the same feel as the base system when theres more of it to go on in the first place, and less areas where it needs to be done. I suppose there may be people who feel the other way, fair enough.

That last quote didnt refer to how the game stands now. Its what I hope SR4 will be.

Cheers.

[Ellery]

I personally find it very annoying to play a character in a system with too soft of rules--the GM may want to do things to my character that ought to be impossible, or where I at least ought to have a chance, and there are no rules protecting my character from GM whim.

If your GM is your best buddy, soft systems are great. But I'd never take a character I cared about at all into a random gaming group with soft rules. At best it would likely be an exercise in frustration. ("My agility is 6, but I'm tripping on yet another root?!")

[hermit]

I personally prefer harder rules, both from a player and GM side. At least, I know there is a standard all have to meet, whether NPC or PC, and that the game will neither end up being various ADD style mook killfests nor GM tyranny (you're all dead, cause I SAY SO; MWHAHAHAAH!!!).

[Wounded Ronin]

I find myself liking hard-nose rules the best. No bullshit arguments, just the rules.

[hobgoblin]

and boiling down a grocery massacre to two rolls is like boiling down oil to water. basicly, where is the imagery? one test pr target/action, minimum :P (maybe except actions the person should not fumble for whatever reason)

this is the one path i dont want to see SR go. less targetnumbers, ok. less modifiers, ok. but not one roll for a whole sequence of events. if this happens ill be one sad SR fan...

[The White Dwarf]

Exactly. Streamlining the mechanic isnt the same as streamlining the system. At least it doesnt have to be. Hopefully itll be just as comprehensive as it is now only with an easier to resolve mechanic that yields similar results. Which basically means its the same thing but easier for newer people, and perhaps more balanced across different areas.

[mfb]

like boiling oil down to water...?

[Cain]

[The White Dwarf]

mfb I didnt get the grocery massacre part either, but hey we all knew what he implied right =)

[Ellery]

I've always had an even greater problem with the feeling of decking than the rules--it doesn't feel right for anything related to computer science now or in the future. For example, accumulating security tally is weird (it requires all hosts to trust each other regarding the threat level of a link). The difficulty of leaving programs running without you actually controling them yourself is weird. The distinction between execution on the client and server is peculiar (i.e. what happens on your deck vs. on the host), and so on. If I didn't think decking actually had anything to do with computation, I'd only complain about the rules, but for now, I like the idea of what they do, but not the implementation of how they do it.

One thing I will say for soft systems is that it can reduce the demands on the author to understand what they're writing about. If you leave some flexibility for the GM to decide what a roll corresponds to in the game world, they can add their own knowledge to fix oversights and give their personal flavor to the action. (On the down side, when you play with another GM, suddenly reality has changed.)

[Gambitt]

Nice post Nerbert.
SR is all about the feel of the world for me, as u say a dramatic RPG.
As to the present hard rules, i dont mind them at all, but thats only because we had a GM whos played and studied the game for more years than he would care to admit.
With over 100 years (ouch never looked at it that way :eek: ) roleplaying between us, only that one player felt comfortable GMing.
Im hoping the new rule set isnt soft, but i do hope they integrate decking/rigging/magic etc. into a more "core" system, an less like separate rules systems.
By the way this is just an opinion of someone who hopes to GM SR for the first time when the new systems released, and by no means do i think it is a general board point of view

[hobgoblin]

[blakkie]

[Nerbert]

What I should have said, instead of "two rolls" is "half as many". Although, and I could be wrong about this, you could easily look at mowing down a grocery store as a suppressive firing action.

[Critias]

If you kicked in the door fast enough, beat the people inside on their Surprise test, and suppressed? Yeah. Lots of dead shoppers for clean-up to handle in aisle three.

[hobgoblin]

that still dont count the cover factor of the aisles. depending on what goods are in the shelfs im guessing that you may have hit people in the closest three but no more. tin cans and basic shelf material can send the bullets in any direction but where you want them...

hmm, thats one thing i dont think is coverd in the sr rules pr date: can you do suppression fire thru cover to overcome blindfire rules?

[mfb]

yes. it's covered by the fact that no modifiers besides those listed apply. granted, you have to include the square meter your unseen target is in, with your suppression. that can be tricky.

[hobgoblin]

ah true, normal cover mods dont count for suppression fire. still, there is the shooting thru barrier thing. alltho, can a normal shelf filled with avrage grocery items be defined as a barrier?

[Wounded Ronin]

Well, if Shadowrun firearms were more realistic, we could answer that intelligently. However, as Power sucks, we can only say "Yes."