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mfb
this is a discussion between me and toturi and anyone else who feels like jumping in. this is not a chance to bash or bait toturi. whatever i or anyone else thinks about his style of GMing, his grasp of the rules and his reasoning skills are both worthy of respect.

the basic question is, should a GM break the rules in order to maintain suspension of disbelief? to answer this question, you've got to first decide what the purpose of the rules are. i define the purpose of the rules in an RPG as being twofold: first, to be a fun game, in the specific sense that Monopoly is a game or Snakes and Ladders is a game--the mechanics should be fun to use. second, to help describe the world that the game is set in. my favorite example for the latter is that it's hard to run a gritty, violent game where the characters constantly fear for their lives if you're playing high-level d20, because the amount of effort it takes to kill a character at that level is generally immense. note that i didn't say it's impossible to do it; you can, with some work, run any style of game in any system. but some systems are better suited to some styles of game than others, and a system that is intended to be used with a single game world--such as Shadowrun--should help reinforce the feel of the game world as much as possible.

now, in order to be playable, the game mechanics have to be abstracted to a very large degree. there have to be lots of things that the game mechanics simply gloss over. how much should be glossed over is a point of some debate, and is one of the reasons i dislike SR4, but that's a discussion that's already been had many times. the problem with glossing things over is, there's going to be something, somewhere, that the rules are wrong about. example: in every version of SR i'm aware of, it takes no time at all to use a scope on a firearm. if there's a scope attached, you automatically receive its benefits--you don't have to spend time setting your scope to the correct magnification, finding your target in the scope, and so on. that's wrong. that's not how scopes work. whether or not a particular group chooses to houserule that is up to them, but it's inarguably a deviation from real life. all of the future-tech in the world can't fix it.

i've personally never made anyone spend extra time when they were using a scope, probably because i've never had any issues with sniper characters breaking the game. it nags at me every time i consider it, but hey. i'm lazy. it doesn't affect my suspension of disbelief enough for me to expend the effort. but what about stuff that does sharply affect suspension of disbelief? the game rules are imperfect, meaning there are any number of instances where a player could exploit them to break the game's reality. what do you do when a player deliberately acts in ways contrary to the dice he's rolling?

toturi, your stance is that the GM should change the game world to accommodate him. i asked you what to do if a character strips naked, paints himself orange, runs around screaming in a well-lit area, and then says "okay, i roll stealth." you said that the walls of the facility would suddenly turn orange, camouflaging him. the personnel in the facility would, i guess, all transform into raving madmen who run around naked and screaming. and, what, nobody else on the team realized that they were infiltrating a lunatic asylum instead of the top-secret research facility they'd intended to hit?

my solution to the above situation, assuming i didn't just simply kick the player out of the group immediately and run his character as an NPC, would be to not allow the player to roll stealth. the actions he's describing are not stealthy in nature, ergo he's not actually trying to be stealthy, and it doesn't matter what skill he says he wants to roll. the guards would not have to roll to spot him, because a naked screaming orange guy is pretty much impossible to miss, barring extenuating circumstances that i refuse to insert into my game just to accommodate an asshat.

social situations, which is how this whole discussion got started, are trickier because social dynamics are a) much harder to track than actions with concrete results, such as shooting a gun, and b) in many cases not something players and GMs want to determine by dice alone, because doing so can limit roleplaying. that said, i still feel it's possible to break suspension of disbelief by acting in ways contrary to the social skill dice one is rolling. a character is invited to a fancy meal prepared by the local don's mom; the character tells the don his mom's cooking tastes like crap while the player rolls 30 etiquette dice. even with edge and all the modifiers in the book, the don can't manage to get enough successes to dislike the character. again, in that case, i would not allow the payer to roll. the character is not acting etiquettey, so he doesn't get to roll his etiquette skill.

bonuses and penalties, i'm less in favor of. i agree that applying a penalty to an action because of how the player described it is tantamount to handwaving failure--and i'm not gonna tantamount anything. if i want a character to fail, i'll either stack legal penalties on him high enough to ensure it or i'll just say "you fail." if i want a character to have a chance but make it tough, i'll create a situation where the penalties that logically apply are tough to overcome. situational bonuses for good descriptions are something i'm more willing to hand out, because i view them as a reward for good roleplaying. i won't do it every time, or even most of the time, but i'm not going to never do it.
nezumi
Doesn't anyone remember that legal form they got with the SR2 main manual? The one that says that, in order to GM, you swear always to enforce the rules as written (optionally with or without the FAQ rulings) and you had to sign at the bottom? No? Maybe I was the only one...

Speaking for myself, I always try to stick strictly to the rules when gaming in a large group (shh people I GMed for two weeks ago, I didn't ask you) because it gives you a common start to jump from. Once we're comfortable, I'll bend rules or bring in house rules, but from the beginning, I feel most comfortable either sticking to the book, or actually writing out any new rules and distributing them so they can be insert into the book, and therefore not compromising my sworn statement above. It avoids confusion, provides a check against GM abuse and just seems to be expected. So scopes don't require an action to aim until the group has a few games under their belt.

In the second example, what happens if a character is acting contrary to the dice he's rolling? I don't think that's a rules question per se. I think it's a basic concept implied with RPGs. The mechanics and the character actions are not two different universes, where you can roll for one action while doing another. If a character says he's rolling stealth, that means he is acting stealthy. In the example given, that means he's being quiet and staying to the shadows, with penalties for being orange (inappropriate camouflage, unless he's in a traffic cone factory). If he continues shouting, that means he isn't trying to sneak, ergo he can't 'roll stealth'.
Chibu
Hoi, just thought I'd drop a response as my group happens to be pretty into reading esseys and theory on roleplaying. (I'm not really, but I'm there when they talk about it)

Well, I think this all is the reason that the term "House Rules" even exists. Obviously many people change something or other about whatever game system they are using, whether inconsequential or world-changing.

I personally believe Suspension of Disbelief is the second most important part of roleplaying (the first being to have fun nyahnyah.gif). Now, since having fun is more important, I say if your players like the orange-screaming-man scenario, then that's what you should do. However, if it's only one player who wants that and the rest of the group wants to be realistic about it, there should be no stealth roll.

I do have a slight problem with the "your food taste like crap" scenario though. I don't know whether you meant it as he literally said that and then wanted to like, apologize for it with the roll, or if he was trying to very politely tell her that her food was bad. And well, I suppose that in both of those situations, that is what the etiquette roll is for.

But then again, in my case, I only let people roll as a last resort. Such things as they're having a bad day, and can't roleplay well, or they just can't come up with the right words to say. I don't like rolling instead of actually talking things out. One GM I ran under used to make us talk it out and THEN roll, which I didn't find to work well, as the rolls and roleplaying rarely fit together well. I can't stand walking into a bar, making a test and then getting whatever I want. It removes ALL suspension of disbelief in my experience as there is no discourse involved.

But anyway... i'm just rambling now... sorry =\

EDIT: I also don't like the term "GM Abuse". AS well, the GM has the final say as to what happens, if he or she continually makes stupid things happen that piss of the group... get a new GM, ya know? rules should mean less to a GM than to the characters. While they should not be ignored, they should be molded to the situation to keep up the suspension of disbelief and to keep the game flowing and fun.
Kagetenshi
QUOTE (mfb @ May 20 2007, 02:05 PM)
what do you do when a player deliberately acts in ways contrary to the dice he's rolling?

He can't. If he rolls a stealth test, he is being stealthy. A player can no more roll Stealth and continue to actively not be stealthy than a player can fail a damage resistance test against 9S damage with no other mitigating factors and not take damage.

There is no contradiction. The player is simply wrong about his description of his character's actions. Likewise, a player who criticizes the Don's mother's cooking with 30 successes on an Etiquette roll does so in an extremely disarming manner—a player who attempts to claim that his or her character is being terse and openly insulting in such circumstances is simply incorrect.

~J
hyzmarca
A player who describes acts that are contrary to his intended actions takes a penalty, pure and simple. We can assume that he is attempting to hide while being bright orange, naked, and screaming. I wouldn't say that being bright orange, naked, and screaming is not stealthy all situations. Certainly, there are some situations where it assists stealth. But, in those situations where it would not assist stealth there would be a huge penalty. Guards would know that he's there because of the sound but may not be able to pinpoint his exact location because he could hide behind stuff if he got very good stealth rolls.

Now, there are other situations where a player might describe something that is impossible by the rules or attempt to make a roll that is impossible from the description he has given. In this case, the player should be corrected one way or the other. For example, it the PC had a zucchini in one hand and a spork in the other, both used as melee weapons, I wouldn't let him quickdraw and fire a pistol without frist dropping one of the melee weapons.
mfb
QUOTE (Chibu)
I do have a slight problem with the "your food taste like crap" scenario though. I don't know whether you meant it as he literally said that and then wanted to like, apologize for it with the roll, or if he was trying to very politely tell her that her food was bad. And well, I suppose that in both of those situations, that is what the etiquette roll is for.

the example i'm trying to get across is a character who tries to get the don to like him by telling the don that the don's mom's cooking is crappy. dons being stereotypically very proud of their mothers' cooking, and very protective and adoring of their mothers in general, this is the exact opposite way to get into the typical don's good graces.

QUOTE (Kagetenshi)
He can't. If he rolls a stealth test, he is being stealthy. A player can no more roll Stealth and continue to actively not be stealthy than a player can fail a damage resistance test against 9S damage with no other mitigating factors and not take damage.

that's pretty much my stance. we actually did have an asshat a while back on SL, who did stuff like this. the most memorable example was when he got into a fight against a dude with a sword, and after rolling a successful counterattack, posted about how his character blocked the edge of the blade with his pinky. the owner of that page simply edited the asshat's post.
Wounded Ronin
Well, MFB, maybe the PC is actually saying that the cooking sucks but puts it in such an artful way that the Don dosen't get it. Kind of like a 1700s French courtier might make fun of someone in a convoluted way so that everyone but the target laughs and the target doesn't realize he's been made fun of.


Anyway, on topic, I feel very strongly that the GM should adhere exactly to the rules as written even if it creates weird and un-believable scenarios from time to time. Basically, there's no point spending hours in writing up a character, purchasing gear down to the last nuyen, and carefully balancing attributes if in the end the rules are not going to apply with as much stringency as they do when you're doing chargen.

I would refer everyone to this old thread: http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?show...1601&hl=fudging

Seriously. It's a good discussion on exactly this issue.
WearzManySkins
To me such a player gets no rolls to see if can recover from such idiocy.

To pull such a stunt like insulting a major NPC...if I am feeling nice about it, NPC and his groups just get up and leave. Idiot player gets no social roll to attempt to cover up is idiocy.

If I am feeling bad, NPC's like a underworld types, just kill him quickly and messily. Then look at the other characters and ask if they want some death too, or was the dead character acting out his death wish, and they did not know.

Only once that the player of said character, has fully and completely explained/atoned for his actions to the satisfaction of myself and the others players does he get a "controlled" next character creation.

In my games I generally do not try to kill characters, but if they do something obviously stupid, some have died, others "learned" from their stupidity quickly.

WearzManySkins
mfb
there's a difference between fudging rolls and not suffering fools. the former is a decision every GM has to make; the latter is something no GM (or player) should have to put up with.
Wounded Ronin
QUOTE (WearzManySkins)
To me such a player gets no rolls to see if can recover from such idiocy.

To pull such a stunt like insulting a major NPC...if I am feeling nice about it, NPC and his groups just get up and leave. Idiot player gets no social roll to attempt to cover up is idiocy.

If I am feeling bad, NPC's like a underworld types, just kill him quickly and messily. Then look at the other characters and ask if they want some death too, or was the dead character acting out his death wish, and they did not know.

Only once that the player of said character, has fully and completely explained/atoned for his actions to the satisfaction of myself and the others players does he get a "controlled" next character creation.

In my games I generally do not try to kill characters, but if they do something obviously stupid, some have died, others "learned" from their stupidity quickly.

WearzManySkins

So the player character automatically dies? He doesn't even get the theoretical chance to put some hurting on the NPCs before he goes down? Even if the NPCs are all as powerful as can be there's a certain percentage chance that they will all fail their init rolls and roll poorly and the PC will roll well and get off one attack.

See, as MFB said, that's the same thing as fudging, but opposite. It's negative fudging against PCs who behave in unexpected ways in your campaign. It's also fudging to insure that major NPC=old testament god.
WearzManySkins
Ok lets put it into perspective then...

You walk up to Mike Tyson in his prime(and on Steroids) in semiprivate location, you then mention his mother, and say very bad things about her.

His being a boxer means that his speed, will trump alot of martial artist and martial arts. Would he give you a chance to pull something out, and just stand there waiting for you to finish? Heck no your arse would get such a beating and maybe an ear chewing too.

You are lucky enough to have a meal with a major Mob figure, whose mother cooked the meal you are eating. You are there due you wish something from the Mob figure. Even if the meal tastes like rancid monkey arse, do you say so, or do you gagged it down?

President Bush is going thru the area, and you in the crowd, make a quick movement reaching into/underneath your coat/jacket. The "men with no eyes" will put a hurt one you so quick and so bad.

Since you are there for a reason, you complement the host(Mob figure) on the meal. If you say something bad about the meal, the chance to get something from the Mob figure goes right out the window. In my game the Mob figure would ask you to leave.

Then the insulting player(s) life gets complicated, police are stopping him alot, contacts seem to be out of contact, your lease expires and you get evicted, utilities get switched off, AR world for becomes a nightmare with all of the "interesting" things hitting you in AR/VR.

If a player does not know what to do, he can ask, I can generally put into perspective, before he makes an arse out of himself. If I explain it to him, and he goes ahead thinking that dice will save him. Then he gets the bulls horns so to speak.

NPC's in my games are part of the realm of the game, they have friends etc. They are not cookie cutter characters. Yes you can abuse the "bum" you see next to the dumpster. But he has friends, what goes around comes around. It might mean the "Bum" drops a dime on you at a very inconvenient time. Every time you go into your favorite bar, you come out and your vehicle has "interesting" things sprayed on it.

In my games, the players characters are not the Alpha's or the Prime Runners. Random acts of violence with no purpose in game, have retribution come to them.

If a player has his character jump off the Seattle Space needle, with nothing to slow his fall. No dice are rolled he dies. Stupidity does not get a dice roll to escape it.

Once long ago, a player did something extremely stupid. I told him that if he rolled 100 three times on percentile dice, he would survive it. Guess what he did it, I even had him change the dice for every roll, but he succeeded. My mistake, but it will never happen again.

WearzManySkins
Kagetenshi
QUOTE
If a player has his character jump off the Seattle Space needle, with nothing to slow his fall. No dice are rolled he dies. Stupidity does not get a dice roll to escape it.

Tell that to Ms. Vulović, or anyone else on the list at the bottom of that page.

~J
Pendaric
For me realism is the defacto measure of a good story. A good story is the ultimate rule. That being said I do adere to the rules 99% of the time. That final 1% however gives me the freedom to make a good story.
Perhapes the medics make it to the dying PC one turn ealier than they should so the character lives, maybe the car gets a flat and skids during the chase so the villains escape as planned etc
As a GM you can stack the realism high enough that a lack of realism will fail, to take MFB's example if said orange nude lunatic got into a firefight he would not get to shoot back as he has no gun. By that logic if he is not being stealthy he does not get roll stealth.
WearzManySkins
QUOTE (Kagetenshi @ May 20 2007, 06:37 PM)
QUOTE
If a player has his character jump off the Seattle Space needle, with nothing to slow his fall. No dice are rolled he dies. Stupidity does not get a dice roll to escape it.

Tell that to Ms. Vulović, or anyone else on the list at the bottom of that page.

~J

A bit of a difference there chummer, she did not jump from the plane, it was blown up.

In that case she would get a roll since it was not a "voluntary" action on her part. In her case she obviously made the roll.

People get their Darwin Awards all the time. Here is one from the Darwin Awards web page

http://www.darwinawards.com/darwin/darwin2001-18.html

http://darwinawards.com/darwin/darwin2006-06.html
Kyoto Kid
...mfb, thank you.

Following is a response that I was originally going to make to the Playing a Face thread but is more appropriate here.

One thing I feel is that player attitude and behaviour also plays a role in this issue. Often as GM I was forced to make adjustments for a player who frequently treaded the edge of the rules and constantly took an antagonistic approach to the other characters and NPCs. Yes, telling this player to leave was the proper solution, however, For a long time it appeared there was a dearth of SR players in my community and if I wanted to play I just had to make the best of the situation.

In one of my posts on the Face thread I illustrated the potential scene below.

Face Character deliberately insults Johnson & his associates during the "set up" phase of the meet. Johnson politely stands up and looks at the team, bids adieu and walks out [no negotiation test, basically the game session is over before it begins. Time to break put the cards]. Behind the scenes the Johnson gets on his/her grapevine puts out a word about the team he/she just spoke with. This word gets around to the team's fixer(s) who in the process may have lost a bit of street cred with this particular Johnson and anyone else the J may network with. Suddenly the runners are lucky to get milk runs for the next several jobs that barely cover even lifestyle expenses...

This would have been handling the situation within the scope of the game and rules but it has two inherent flaws...

1. The session is over in the first fifteen minutes & everyone packs up and goes home for the afternoon/evening.
2. The other characters/players end up paying the price for the one PC's/player's uncouth behaviour when it comes to future runs.

First of all, as others have echoed, the game needs to be fun for everyone (including the GM). When it is not, why bother playing? Sometimes it takes bending the rules a bit to keep things moving and enjoyable for the players. In SR3, I shortcut much of the matrix rules to keep Decking from dominating a session. For pursuit scenes I used diecast cars on a battle board and determined from the relative positions the vehicles if someone could get a shot of at the driver instead of consulting the cumbersome (or in the case of SR4 nonexistent) pursuit combat rules. I found my players like this kind of thing and it still presents them a challenge.

When player intent and character concept collide (as with the disruptive player I dealt with) I almost wish it was like in the cartoons where the character walks "offstage" or turns to the camera and addresses the writer, "now you know I wouldn't do that sort of thing." If it is a player who is simply unawares or new to the game, I will help them, sometimes by stepping OOC or through bending the rules for the moment at hand. If on the other hand it is a player who I know knows better and is just doing it to yank my (or one of the other player's) chain then it is a different story. That becomes an OOG (out of game) situation that intrudes on the session. As mentioned above, I have tried my best to deal with these in order to keep the story flowing for the other players, but sometimes it just gets impossible, and drastic measures need to be taken.

Toturi commented about my action of "bringing in the Big Gun NPC" as escalating the affair or being a "one trick pony". Out of context of the scenario it may appear so however this NPC was a key personality from the get go. For one, the player in question had been doing the escalating and I the GM was the one playing "catch up" (I don't have the time to just sit around & read rulebooks from cover to cover nor do I wish to which is why I frequently comment on & ask questions here on the Forum). After having the PC run roughshod over Mundane Johnsons, I attempted to level the playing field even a bit (if only to make the negotiations test even remotely a challenge), only to have the player up the ante. Looking back at it all now, yes it only sufficed to add fuel to the player's ego.

As to GM "laziness" I have succumbed to this before just to keep the action moving rather than bringing the session to a screeching halt with rules discussion/debate and research. More often than not these decisions tend to go in favour of the characters. For example, in one scene of the run I am currently doing, the question came up about the possibility of a background count while the team was in cellar of a large Cathedral. We were short on time (one of the players had to leave early and I wanted to get to a good stopping point without leaving everyone hanging in the middle of a combat for two weeks), so I said, I'm sure there may be something mentioned about it in the core rules or Street Magic, but it would take too long at the present to look up.

After a session I review the situation, and if there is a rule that would have a major impact, mention to the players at the outset of the next session that we will be using it for all future situations. In a sense, they got away with one for now.

QUOTE (laughingowl)
(from the Playing a Face thread) If character is purposly being oboxious (for some reason) then modify dice rolls as appropriate (or even deny dice rolls). 

...in a round about way, this is what I did. In and out of sessions this player would often boast about the character's attributes and dice pools talking in sheer numbers instead of persona traits. Since this person appeared so wrapped up in the power of the numbers no matter how the character acted (ie. "the dice don't lie"), that is when I felt pulling out the 36 ct. dice cube and saying, "OK you're on" was an appropriate response. Heck, for the time being it worked since I was now apparently speaking the player's language.

Now as others have mentioned, I could have just sucked things and up throw in the "by the book" modifiers, but it would have done nothing to resolve the underlying issue further stroking the ego of the disruptive player. You really needed to be there. Which leads me to...

QUOTE (laughingowl)
(from the Playing a Face thread) Now from some of the later comments it does sound like the player in this direct example IS trying to be obnoxious. In which case there is even a better solution than not allowing them to make rolls. 
 
"Hey bub, we all here are trying to have fun, If you're not having fun, or your fun is in antagonizing the rest of us then your are more then welcome to not come to the game!"

...this is the "Final GM Option" and where it all ended up. To make a long story short, in the week after the session after speaking to the rest group members, I informed the disruptive player of my decision. I have since been gaming with the remaining players from the group and needless to say things have been going quite smoothly.

QUOTE (laughingowl)
(from the Playing a Face thread)  Players [bent on] causing problems are not welcome in my games...

([added comment] mine).

...and will no longer be tolerated in mine either.

To this end, I now hold meets with prospective players to gauge where they are coming from. In a way, it's kind of like an meet with a Johnson. I lay down the basic ground rules, any house rules, give a brief background on the setting, and work out individual character details. Yes it is more work on my part but if it insures that everyone is there to have a good time it is worth it.

...sorry for the long ramble.

BTW: in my game, tiddling on the don's mum would be quick way to have Guido and Tony show up in the middle of the night (while the character is asleep) with Narcojets and a couple bags of quickcrete in the boot of the car. biggrin.gif
Darkest Angel
Looks like this is turning into another 'kill the character' post.

From the examples given here, orange shouty man, well, he'd get his roll, but so what? He's doing enough stuff to put the guards on straight 2s to spot him whatever he manages to roll up. If in the unlikely event they don't spot him, then obviously they were looking the wrong way, or were otherwise destracted, he got lucky. Crazier shit happens in real life, and people miss it.

The mafia Don, again, the PC put a few modifiers on the Don's roll to not get offended, but again, in the unlikely event he fails his roll, then you put it down to the character being sufficiently eloquent that he somehow managed to not offend him, and/or he simply takes it as a joke.

Personally, I feel that if at any point you decide not to make the roll, then you're railroading things. I'm not a fan of the plot train, and I'm not a fan of vindictive GMs. If the dice say it happens, then you work with it, not the other way round.

That's not to say all the rules in the book are spot on and to be used all the time without exception, but there should be a definate seperation of Player and Character. That's why we have dice rolls in the first place.
Kagetenshi
I do still have to object to that idea. To clarify my earlier position, if the orange nude screamer rolls stealth and rolls well, the character immediately stops screaming and hides. At the character's next action they can stop being stealthy, but the player cannot override the character's action as implied in the dieroll.

I'd also apply modifiers based on the difficulty involved in going from screaming and orange to hidden, but I see no problem with allowing a character to attempt the transition. The player may not, however, both attempt to transition and decline to transition. When these two things conflict, the one that involved a game mechanic wins.

~J
Darkest Angel
But then you're eliminating the possibility of an NPC botch. That's a bad place to go.
Kagetenshi
QUOTE (WearzManySkins @ May 20 2007, 06:51 PM)
A bit of a difference there chummer, she did not jump from the plane, it was blown up.

In that case she would get a roll since it was not a "voluntary" action on her part. In her case she obviously made the roll.

Missed this one: how exactly does that change the lethality of the fall? And even if we accept your standards, you've still got Mr. Alkemade to contend with.

Darkest: how am I eliminating that possibility? An NPC can botch while attempting to observe a Stealthing character.

~J
hyzmarca
Or maybe the Mafia Don is tired of sniveling lackies who tell him that his farts smell like potpourri and his shit tastes like chocolate and is impressed by the character's honesty.

QUOTE (WearzManySkins)

In that case she would get a roll since it was not a "voluntary" action on her part. In her case she obviously made the roll.


So you're sacrificing realism and fair play for a sense of cosmic justice.
Why not just have the gods strike the PCs down for performing non-lawful deeds?
Darkest Angel
If you don't let the player make the Stealth roll, then there's no observer roll to spot. It's either a straight perception test, or The GM Says So. Perception is fine, but Stealth is more appropriate. GM Says So is not a good answer.

Stealth involves more than hiding, or sneaking, it's involves awareness, it's not inconceivable that Orange Naked Man may well have simply made sure he was fully aware of what his potential spotters were up to, and what else was going on around him (machinery noise, passing vehicles etc), and used various opportunities to seriously take the piss, by doing his dancing and shouting at the right moments when the guard have their backs turned, or he'd be drowned out by background noise. Obviously, it's risky, hense the modifiers, but you should never say it can't happen. Again Character =/= Player.
mfb
QUOTE (Darkest Angel)
Personally, I feel that if at any point you decide not to make the roll, then you're railroading things. I'm not a fan of the plot train, and I'm not a fan of vindictive GMs.

it's not about railroading the plot or being vindictive. if a player manages to think of a clever way around my well-planned plot, he wins--i'll roll with it, and even give him bonus karma for being smarter than me. but that's not what this is. this is about a player trying to break the game, in which case he's probably the only one having fun. it's not being vindictive to prevent him ruin everyone else's fun.

QUOTE (Darkest Angel)
Stealth involves more than hiding, or sneaking, it's involves awareness, it's not inconceivable that Orange Naked Man may well have simply made sure he was fully aware of what his potential spotters were up to, and what else was going on around him (machinery noise, passing vehicles etc), and used various opportunities to seriously take the piss, by doing his dancing and shouting at the right moments when the guard have their backs turned, or he'd be drowned out by background noise. Obviously, it's risky, hense the modifiers, but you should never say it can't happen. Again Character =/= Player.

why should i as a GM go to all that trouble to explain away this character's crazed actions? i have several other players who i need to pay attention to in order to make sure they're having fun; i can't be spending all my time mopping up one jerk's mess.

QUOTE (Darkest Angel)
Looks like this is turning into another 'kill the character' post.

this is the crux of why i disagree with the points you've made: the problem has nothing at all to do with the character, and everything to do with the player. the player is acting out of character, and i refuse to accomodate him by bending over backwards to explain away the antics he's producing through his character. he does it once, i'll veto it and warn him. he does it more than once, he's not going to be gaming at my table anymore. i'll run the character as an NPC.

look, all these justifications that people are coming up with? if the player thinks of them, and he's genuinely thinks that they make sense in-character, and the situation is right? then the justifications will work. the don will laugh and say, "you know what? mom's cooking does taste like crap. sorry, ma, but it's true." but that's only if those justifications are the result of genuinely playing the character.

this is also the crux of why i disagree with toturi's stance. toturi is saying that out-of-character conflicts should be resolved in-character. i don't feel that's true at all. the gaming table is a place for in-character drama, not out-of-character crap.
Kagetenshi
QUOTE (Darkest Angel)
If you don't let the player make the Stealth roll, then there's no observer roll to spot. It's either a straight perception test, or The GM Says So. Perception is fine, but Stealth is more appropriate. GM Says So is not a good answer.

If this was a response to me, you're missing my point. The player can absolutely make the stealth roll. If the player makes the stealth roll, however, and achieves a non-pathetic result, then the character is no longer shouting and dancing in the open, no matter how much the player may protest otherwise (at least until the character's next action, when the player may abandon stealth if he or she wishes).

~J
Glyph
I have a lot of respect for the rules, and tend to have a philosophy of "let the dice fall where they may". The rules give you a way to make quantifiable choices in character creation, provide a mechanic to determine success or failure of a player's actions, and add a genuin random factor to the game. I don't have a problem with house rules, as long as they are understood before play begins.

But a roleplaying game isn't simply rules, like chess is. It also has roleplaying in it, where the players try to assume the roles of their characters and immerse themselves in the game world. The dice are good for resolving things such as combat, but can disrupt the flow of the game in roleplaying moments - although they can also be used to gloss over unimportant or uninteresting scenes. Generally, for social interactions, I would rather have it be roleplayed, and keep the character's skill and Attributes in mind. In other words, a low-Charisma character will have to do a lot of talking, and slip the bouncer a bribe, to get into the exclusive club that they hand-wave the high-Charisma character into.

I don't mind, though, if a face simply describes what they want to do, such as "I try to seduce the barmaid" or "I try to get the Johnson to go up 20% and give us a third in advance". But social skills, and other skills, represent the character trying to actually do something. If a character is trying to do something but is going about it the wrong way, I will clue them in, for things that their character would know. But if a player is trying something impossible, I will either pile on heavy modifiers (for nearly impossible tasks), or state the consequences of failure (for impossible tasks). For the first case, I will, obviously, have to adjudicate a modifier on the fly - I don't consider the list of modifiers in the book to be an exclusive one, merely the most common ones.

In the case of the screaming naked orange guy, I would have the security guards open up on him. In the case of the face insulting the don's mother's cooking, I would allow the character to make an Etiquette test against threshold: 4 (disastrous) to negate the gaff (per pg. 121), since it is a gaff that a player could make, that a character would be unlikely to make. However, if the player wasn't interested in retracting the insult, then the character would suffer the consequences.
hyzmarca

QUOTE (mfb)
bonuses and penalties, i'm less in favor of. i agree that applying a penalty to an action because of how the player described it is tantamount to handwaving failure--and i'm not gonna tantamount anything. if i want a character to fail, i'll either stack legal penalties on him high enough to ensure it or i'll just say "you fail." if i want a character to have a chance but make it tough, i'll create a situation where the penalties that logically apply are tough to overcome. situational bonuses for good descriptions are something i'm more willing to hand out, because i view them as a reward for good roleplaying. i won't do it every time, or even most of the time, but i'm not going to never do it.


And here's the thing. There are legal perception modifiers for being bright orange and screaming loudly.



QUOTE
this is the crux of why i disagree with the points you've made: the problem has nothing at all to do with the character, and everything to do with the player. the player is acting out of character, and i refuse to accommodate him by bending over backwards to explain away the antics he's producing through his character. he does it once, i'll veto it and warn him. he does it more than once, he's not going to be gaming at my table anymore. i'll run the character as an NPC.


If the player is intentionally trying to screw with the other players passive-aggressively using a PC then the correct response is not to passive-aggressively screw his character as GM. The correct response is to beat him upside the head with a hardcover BBB then wipe the blood off the book using a dry lint-free towelette.

WearzManySkins
QUOTE (hyzmarca)
Or maybe the Mafia Don is tired of sniveling lackies who tell him that his farts smell like potpourri and his shit tastes like chocolate and is impressed by the character's honesty.

QUOTE (WearzManySkins)

In that case she would get a roll since it was not a "voluntary" action on her part. In her case she obviously made the roll.


So you're sacrificing realism and fair play for a sense of cosmic justice.
Why not just have the gods strike the PCs down for performing non-lawful deeds?

biggrin.gif

Realism and fair play? biggrin.gif

If a character gets on top of a very high place, does some role playing, rolls some dice in the process of getting up there, gets trapped up there due to things beyond his control, then jumps off the very high place for good IC reasons, like does not want to be captured and interrogated, then he might get a roll.

But me I would let that character die, if the death was reasonably IC for the character to commit such a suicide, then I would let him create another character with some "bonuses" to the creation of such.

If the character "just" climbs/run to the top of the very high place and "voluntarily" jumps off. Then expects his mega amounts of dice to save his arse, WRONG answer.

Realism biggrin.gif do you know the odds of those people who did survive those falls? I would have a better chance of winning three back to back Mega Lotteries, than live thru those falls.

This is Shadowrun smile.gif , realism has a place but not a very large one. biggrin.gif We will not get into the incorrect application of genetics, physics, mechanics, and technology that Shadowrun uses in average game play. We will not go into Magic, which does not exist in RL to any degree unlike in Shadowrun.

But if you wish to earn your Darwin Award in any of my games, it is there for you. biggrin.gif

FYI as a player I am far more forgiving.

Example in a DnD campaign I was playing in long ago. Our party of three, Monk, PaliDumn, and Rogue were in jungle setting.

We came across a large cleared path, a trail created by some very large giant ants. Giant ants were traveling the path. My monk levitated, carrying the rogue over the ant trail. Before I could get to carry the PaliDumn over the ant trail, the PaliDumn decides his full plate armor will protect him for the ants.

So he crosses the giant ant trail, swinging one of the "only" four holy avenger longwords that world had. He got surrounded by the giant ants, the ants bit into the joints of his full plate armor, restricting his movement. More and more giant ants came with giant warrior ants. Myself and the rogue were still levitating above this.

He had ants up to his waist, his legs were unmovable, his fate was coming soon.

The rogue and I were discussing how we could recover the holy avenger longsword, after the ants took him apart. But the player of the rogue and myself felt the GM would "punish" us if we did not try to save the PaliDumn's arse.

According to game rules I was at my limit for levitating, the PaliDumn with his full plate armor and the ants attached to him were way past my levitating limit.

Fighting the giant ants was out the question. So we hovered over the PaliDumn and lifted him out of there. The Gm allowed that to happen.

My monk was Lawful Evil with strong neutral tenancies and the rogue was Chaotic Neutral. So saving the PaliDumn was OOC for our characters.

So to save a "Stupid" character, who routinely did stupid things like this, we acted OOC for our characters.

To this day I wished we had let the PaliDumn die and role played the aftermath.

But is one of my flaws as a player, I am very reluctant to kill or assist in a kill of another players character despite the player being stupid on a continuous basis.

As a GM due to such behaviors of the PaliDumn, I save everyone the misery, if a players does something really stupid, he gets results that hopefully he survives but I will not go out of my way for him to survive.

The exploits of the PaliDumn are legion, and in the long term made the campaign not much fun for me and other players. So we left and started our own campaign.
Kagetenshi
My interpretation of "roleplaying", at this moment, is "taking the results of the mechanics and describing them". Obviously there's more to this in areas not covered by rules, and in the bits leading up to the areas covered by rules (like deciding whether to roll Negotiations (Fast Talk) or Heavy Weapons (Panther Assault Cannon)), but that's the general idea.

I'll put it this way: how many of you say "Jim-Bob, Expert Shadowrunner takes aim with his Predator-III, leads his opponent by five meters, elevates 30 mm for drop, and fires into the heart of his foe", and only then roll Pistols? Then why does it make sense to roleplay out a social interaction when you don't even know how well you're doing at it?

Edit:

QUOTE
Realism  do you know the odds of those people who did survive those falls? I would have a better chance of winning three back to back Mega Lotteries, than live thru those falls.

And, by some miracle of fate, we have a system that can reflect those odds! For example, to survive a drop from the top of the Space Needle, a player needs to roll at least two successes (to stage down from Deadly) on a damage resistance test against 92D. The odds of that are, unless I'm mistaken, (1-((1-((1.0/6.0)^15)*(5.0/6.0)))^15)^2. For 50 dice, that's 7.07e-22. For the Massachusetts State Lottery, for example, the odds of winning twenty million dollars are a mere 1:4,000,000, or 2.50e-7. Doing it three times would have odds of 1.56e-20, which if you'll note is two orders of magnitude more likely, and also is only permitting one ticket.

Also, what hyzmarca said.

~J
hyzmarca
QUOTE (WearzManySkins @ May 20 2007, 08:16 PM)
Realism biggrin.gif do you know the odds of those people who did survive those falls? I would have a better chance of winning three back to back Mega Lotteries, than live thru those falls.

Statistically untrue. Many people play the lottery but no one wins it three times in a row. Few people jump out of airplanes without parachutes but some have survived the fall. Obviously, the latter is far more probable than the former.

As for the PaliDum. You should hit your GM upside the head for not enforcing the rules. His God should have struck him dead for associating with Evil characters.
Kagetenshi
I believe the usual response is to just take away your powers, not to actually kill you.

~J
Wounded Ronin
QUOTE (WearzManySkins)

You walk up to Mike Tyson in his prime(and on Steroids) in semiprivate location, you then mention his mother, and say very bad things about her.

His being a boxer means that his speed, will trump alot of martial artist and martial arts. Would he give you a chance to pull something out, and just stand there waiting for you to finish? Heck no your arse would get such a beating and maybe an ear chewing too.

The fallacy in this example is that the player character is incapable of boxing with Mike Tyson regardless of what his stats on paper are. Even if your physad Body 9 and Strength 9 and Unarmed Combat 12 by your example that would never be enough to go a few rounds with Iron Mike. As Hyzmarca says you're not being realistic but instead projecting a sense of cosmic justice onto events.

Or, what if your character is an athlete who trains MMA? Mike Tyson certainly has a chance to KO him but there's probably at least a small percentage chance that the MMA athelete is able to grapple Mike Tyson and fight him in a way that he isn't good at defending against. Even if it's unlikely it would at least be possible. You're trying to tell us that Mike Tyson could never ever be surprised by a wrestler or BJJ player who picks a fight with him.


QUOTE

You are lucky enough to have a meal with a major Mob figure, whose mother cooked the meal you are eating. You are there due you wish something from the Mob figure. Even if the meal tastes like rancid monkey arse, do you say so, or do you gagged it down?


Yes, if we assume that you want the mob figure's good graces, then yes, it would probably be counter productive to curse out the meal. This, however, is a seperate issue from stat free instadeath and your intentions making a difference whether or not it's stat free instadeath.

QUOTE

President Bush is going thru the area, and you in the crowd, make a quick movement reaching into/underneath your coat/jacket. The "men with no eyes" will put a hurt one you so quick and so bad.


Which is why President Kennedy wasn't assassinated. Oh, wait...

QUOTE

Since you are there for a reason, you complement the host(Mob figure) on the meal. If you say something bad about the meal, the chance to get something from the Mob figure goes right out the window. In my game the Mob figure would ask you to leave.

Then the insulting player(s) life gets complicated, police are stopping him alot, contacts seem to be out of contact, your lease expires and you get evicted, utilities get switched off, AR world for becomes a nightmare with all of the "interesting" things hitting you in AR/VR.


Assuming a successful mob boss has nothing to do but devote a lot of his time and energy to harassing this one guy, sure. He's going to spend all this money on enforcers and computer experts and instead of directing them to make him more money he tells them to focus on harassing one particular snot nosed punk.

QUOTE

If a player does not know what to do, he can ask, I can generally put into perspective, before he makes an arse out of himself. If I explain it to him, and he goes ahead thinking that dice will save him. Then he gets the bulls horns so to speak.

NPC's in my games are part of the realm of the game, they have friends etc. They are not cookie cutter characters. Yes you can abuse the "bum" you see next to the dumpster. But he has friends, what goes around comes around. It might mean the "Bum" drops a dime on you at a very inconvenient time. Every time you go into your favorite bar, you come out and your vehicle has "interesting" things sprayed on it.


That's extremely unrealistic. How many people in, say New York City, abuse and demean bums every day? How much bum revenge have I seen? Zero.

I'm sorry. That's just completely at odds with everything I've seen in over a decade of growing up in New York City. Let alone the assumption that a homeless man who is likely to have some kind of substance abuse problem is going to get organized and call on some vast legion of friends and associates for the purpose of writing dirty words on one particular guy's car.

QUOTE

In my games, the players characters are not the Alpha's or the Prime Runners. Random acts of violence with no purpose in game, have retribution come to them.


So you're telling me that random acts of violence need to be conducted by super special forces phantoms to not invariably end in disaster?

Your world sounds pretty utopian, actually.

QUOTE

If a player has his character jump off the Seattle Space needle, with nothing to slow his fall. No dice are rolled he dies. Stupidity does not get a dice roll to escape it.

Once long ago, a player did something extremely stupid. I told him that if he rolled 100 three times on percentile dice, he would survive it. Guess what he did it, I even had him change the dice for every roll, but he succeeded. My mistake, but it will never happen again.


People never survive doing "stupid" things? Wait, so Paris Hilton is actually an undead zombie? That explains a lot...
Kagetenshi
QUOTE (Wounded Ronin @ May 20 2007, 08:36 PM)
Which is why President Kennedy wasn't assassinated.  Oh, wait...

And in more modern times, why President Ronnie wasn't kidnapped by the ninjas shot in an assassination attempt.

~J
Wounded Ronin
QUOTE (Kagetenshi)
QUOTE (Wounded Ronin @ May 20 2007, 08:36 PM)
Which is why President Kennedy wasn't assassinated.  Oh, wait...

And in more modern times, why President Ronnie wasn't kidnapped by the ninjas shot in an assassination attempt.

~J

And also why the PCs aren't bad enough to save him, apparently.
WearzManySkins
QUOTE (hyzmarca)
QUOTE (WearzManySkins @ May 20 2007, 08:16 PM)
Realism biggrin.gif do you know the odds of those people who did survive those falls? I would have a better chance of winning three back to back Mega Lotteries, than live thru those falls.

Statistically untrue. Many people play the lottery but no one wins it three times in a row. Few people jump out of airplanes without parachutes but some have survived the fall. Obviously, the latter is far more probable than the former.

As for the PaliDum. You should hit your GM upside the head for not enforcing the rules. His God should have struck him dead for associating with Evil characters.

I stated "I" would have that chance, seems me and lotteries are more cursed than most.biggrin.gif

As for the Palidumn, well his use of the Holy Avenger as a dispel evil "dipstick", had issues for me and most of the other players.

As for the alignment, that is a "very very old" argument, that was settled by the GM and the other players minds long ago. I have been RPing for over 30 years, I have seen the alignment issue discussed at length and so on.

As for players short cutting or derailing my plots and or plot lines, my players did it so much, that I really did not try and plan things too in depth. But on the same note, the player's characters caused themselves more trouble than most could, so plots ideas were easy to come up with. biggrin.gif
WearzManySkins
As for Mob Bodyguards I always think of "Habib" and "Labib" "the Stones That Speak", from a very nice of books in a near Shadowrun type of setting. The books are by George Alec Effinger, very good reads.

Wounded Ronin and Kagetenshi if you go for a Darwin Award in my games, you will get it. biggrin.gif

IMG Mob figures do not allow non Mob types to bring weapons into the meeting areas. Trying to get a weapon into such a meeting is extremely hard but not impossible.

The Mob figures make sure they have the "Home Ground" advantage.

The Mob figures do their homework about the non Mob figures meeting with them. So even if the non mob characters get a weapon into the meet, if they pull it out, the net results will be like at the "Little Big Horn" with the players characters being the ones in Blue. Yes some of the Mob types will get hurt/die but for the players so will their characters.

Mob figures if insulted, the meeting comes to an end, Mob leader leaves and player characters leaves.

Mob figure leader says to one of those around him, "Make their life not as good as it could be." Ie he has people to deal with such issues/matters.

Mr. Johnson's get messages and credit sticks, runners are hired etc, hackers get hacking. Remember Mob figures have a bigger NY bank roll than most players have.

Actually that would be an interesting idea for a run, Mr Johnson hires some runners to make life interesting for some other runners. No death just life becomes much harder to make ends meet. smile.gif
mfb
QUOTE (hyzmarca)
And here's the thing. There are legal perception modifiers for being bright orange and screaming loudly.

and, especially in SR4, they're not big enough to stop someone from remaining undetected if they put some thought into chargen.

QUOTE (hyzmarca)
If the player is intentionally trying to screw with the other players passive-aggressively using a PC then the correct response is not to passive-aggressively screw his character as GM. The correct response is to beat him upside the head with a hardcover BBB then wipe the blood off the book using a dry lint-free towelette.

flatly disallowing someone's character to act in a certain way isn't passive-aggressive. as i've said, i'll let a player act that way once. i'll warn them, and if they try it again, i'll boot them from the table then and there.
Shev
If a player deliberately tries to wreck my game, I will let him know, as gently as possible, what he is doing. I will delicately outline what I (and my other players, because I take care to GM only for a group that likes how I GM) expect out of a player. I explain that he is ruining my and other people's fun, which is a big nono.

If it continues, I will have one of two things happen:

1. His character suffers the consequences of his actions.

I usually reserve this for when bringing down the smack can benefit the rest of the group. Screaming Orange Man provides a vital distraction, getting perforated by guards while the rest of the group sneaks into the facility, or some such.

2. The player is asked to leave.

Pretty much what it says. I don't care if I'm down to two players, I'd run a solo campaign before I put up with unneeded garbage.

I'm happy to say I've never had a player act like this, and thus have never needed to take either of the above actions. However, I know it's certainly a possibility, and it's a bit of unpleasantness I'm prepared for.
Demon_Bob
It is just a game, so what does the group enjoy.

If you accept bad behavior, then the person learns that it is acceptable.
The amount of bad behavior increases.

Do you want to run your game or let your players run it for you? Both can be fun, at times.

Sometimes random acts of violence have no Karmic backlash, besides notoriety.
Now the screaming orange naked man isn't being stealthy, but that doesn't mean that he will be noticed. He can stop screaming, and wash off the orange paint, get dressed and start sneaking, just not in the next action phase.

If a player blindly steps in front of a bus, does he get hit, or does superman suddenly show up to save him. What kind of game you want is up to you, but it might not be Shadowrun.

Now the player can Burn Edge to save his tail. So the Mob Boss laughs and silently agrees with you and let you go while acting insulted. Something happens that distracts everyone from you while you run your orange naked ass out of there, screaming with the rest of the crowd. ect. Oops wrong version forun, sorry.

Correction. An orange naked screaming man might actually be stealthy. If the scene somehow progressed to contain a bunch of running orange naked men screaming, but that needs to be determined BEFORE not after.
Demon_Bob
QUOTE (Wounded Ronin @ May 20 2007, 03:20 PM)
Anyway, on topic, I feel very strongly that the GM should adhere exactly to the rules as written even if it creates weird and un-believable scenarios from time to time.

Really not trying to be rude, but!

There are not enough rules in the current shadowrun books to cover every conceivable possibility that might come into play, nor will there probably ever will be. No point in reprinting texts on Psychology, Sociology, Physics, Chemistry, or whatever else might come into play.

I'm not saying that the player should be able to do what is character does. However, sometimes the player will impose penalties or bonuses upon his character by what the player says the character does.
Some things the players should believe are impossible if for no other reason than the odds are so high that there is statistically no chance of success.

Some people will still not be convinced or swayed regardless of the argument, regardless of how convincing or persuasive it is, expecially if it goes against their world values.
Konsaki
If the books did have rules for every event that came up, would you still need a GM?
hyzmarca
QUOTE (mfb @ May 20 2007, 09:18 PM)
QUOTE (hyzmarca)
If the player is intentionally trying to screw with the other players passive-aggressively using a PC then the correct response is not to passive-aggressively screw his character as GM. The correct response is to beat him upside the head with a hardcover BBB then wipe the blood off the book using a dry lint-free towelette.

flatly disallowing someone's character to act in a certain way isn't passive-aggressive. as i've said, i'll let a player act that way once. i'll warn them, and if they try it again, i'll boot them from the table then and there.

I would disagree. Not allowing a character to attempt that action because the player is being an ass is a passive-aggressive attack against that player. Any in-game retaliation to player assery is, by its very nature, a passive-aggressive attack against the player.
The only valid reason for disallowing an attempt to perform an action is that the attempt is illegal according to the rules. Note that the rules don't have to explicitly outlaw the attempt. Implicit denial is enough justification.

In the case of the man painted orange and screaming, there is no explicit or implicit denial. In fact, there are explicit perception modifiers which apply in this case.

Likewise, in the case of insulting the mother's cooking before making the etiquette test there are explicit modifiers relating to the change of disposition that this would produce in the target.

I'm going to agree with Kagetenchi on one very important point. Neither player nor GM should describe the test before the test is made. The player should only say what he is attempting to do. Exactly how he succeeds or fails is left for after the test is made.
If a PC talks to an NPC before making an etiquette test, then that conversation is seperate from the etiquette test. However, it may alter the NPC's disposition or/and invite "nervous, agitated, or frenzied modifiers".
Garrowolf
As far as I'm concerned the rules are subject to my whim! They were the best they could come up with because they didn't have my input!

Seriously, any rules set is just a way of resolving actions that are vague from a role playing stand point. If the result is clear from a role playing stand point then it should be resolved that way. If a player wants to be an asshat then I have no trouble making him suffer the effects of such, killing his characters, then asking him to leave from my houser and never return. I have gotten too old to deal with fools.

The idea that any rules set is important and inviolate is ridiculous. The fact that there are so many rules sets and versions of rules proves that. What matters is what you and your group can deal with. I consider the rules to primarily be the providence of the GM and the players should only deal with what is on their sheets.

Now personally I despise being treated like a video game machine and running games for other people just based on what is in a book. If they want to have that they have stick quarters in some other sucker. I have interesting stories to tell and that is what I am trying to do. If they are based on an existing setting then they are based on it in that way of movies being based on a book.

I would rather run a game for two people who enjoy a good story then run for five people because there is nothing good on TV that night.
mfb
that depends on why you're denying them the roll. in this case, it would be because allowing the roll would be disruptive to the game. how the player feels about being denied the roll isn't the point. i'm not denying the player the chance to roll in order to punish the player, i'm denying it in order to not punish the rest of the table. granted, they have to deal with the consequences of that player's action, but the people i play with are pretty resourceful.

part of the problem i'm describing is the idea that the player has built a character who can, according to the dice, reliably accomplish the things i'm talking about even if all of the applicable modifiers are levied against him. if he couldn't, there wouldn't be a problem--his character would be dead or dragged offscreen, the player would be excused from the table, and the game would go on. afterwards, there'd be a talk with the offending player about game-appropriate behavior, but the immediate problem would solve itself.

re: before or after, if the problem started cropping up frequently, i might start forcing everyone to describe their actions after their rolls all the time. for maybe a week or so, before i just booted all the troublemakers and started over with good players. as it stands, it's only ever been a real problem once.
hyzmarca
I fail to see how a character who is capable of remaining unseen while orange and loud is any more problematic than a character who can reliably shoot a target at extreme range on a foggy night while wounded with a light shining in his eyes.
The same is true about a character who can reliable get a favor from a Don who is hostile to him.

If the character can accomplish it then the character is just that good, period. If you don't want characters to be that good then place restrictions on chargen.



Or, just play SR3 instead of SR4.
mfb
it's not about what the character can do, it's about how the character acts. this is true whether i'm using SR4, SR3 d20, or Deadlands. as i said above, if the player is legitimately playing his character and really believes that such actions are appropriate, i'll let him roll without any modifiers beyond what the book lays out. it's when the player is engaging in these behaviors for the purpose of breaking with the game that i'll step on him.
Wounded Ronin
QUOTE (Demon_Bob)
QUOTE (Wounded Ronin @ May 20 2007, 03:20 PM)
Anyway, on topic, I feel very strongly that the GM should adhere exactly to the rules as written even if it creates weird and un-believable scenarios from time to time.

Really not trying to be rude, but!

There are not enough rules in the current shadowrun books to cover every conceivable possibility that might come into play, nor will there probably ever will be. No point in reprinting texts on Psychology, Sociology, Physics, Chemistry, or whatever else might come into play.

I'm not saying that the player should be able to do what is character does. However, sometimes the player will impose penalties or bonuses upon his character by what the player says the character does.
Some things the players should believe are impossible if for no other reason than the odds are so high that there is statistically no chance of success.

Some people will still not be convinced or swayed regardless of the argument, regardless of how convincing or persuasive it is, expecially if it goes against their world values.

Right, you're not going to get rules for every possible situation. In that case the GM is forced to improvise. Ideally you'd create consistient rules as needed. I don't think anyone is trying to argue that the rules cover all possible situations.

However, the rules cover many of the common situations PCs would find themselves in, such as in a firefight. In that case I'd want to be as consistient as possible and deviate as little as possible from the printed rules for the reasons outlined in the other thread I linked to.
toturi
Wow. A thread discussing rules and here I am stuck at work. With a f-ton of work, nevertheless, the great toturi™ will endeavor to make a hash of things.

Seriously, what Kage, hyz and WR has posted have already taken the words out of my mouth. In the event that the player has described the event before the roll, I'd use the description(at the very most) as an indicator for determining modifiers and thresholds and editorise the PC's action if necessary.
mfb
that answers the basic question i was trying to ask, which was "do you allow players to do stupid things simply because they have lots of dice?" the answer appears to be no. i still think that not trying to solve OOC problems with IC modifiers is a better solution, but that's just preference.
toturi
Do I allow players to do stupid things simply because they have lots of dice? Yes. I do. But there will be modifiers and thresholds that are adjusted to fit those actions.

The physics of the game world may produce results that do not fit in with the Real World. When I play SR, I think in SR, not the real world. Reality in a game world is defined by its rules.
mfb
the rules are not there simply to arbitrarily define how things are done, they're there to provide a framework within which games can be played, and to reinforce the game world's reality. there are 'rules' that govern the game's reality that aren't in the book--for instance, walls do not spontaneously turn orange.

and you just said you wouldn't allow players to do stupid things simply because they have lots of dice.
QUOTE (toturi)
In the event that the player has described the event before the roll, I'd use the description(at the very most) as an indicator for determining modifiers and thresholds and editorise the PC's action if necessary.

that, right there, is exactly what you should be doing. if some player wants his character to paint himself orange and run around screaming as part of his stealth roll, you either a) make the roll fail through your preferred use of GM fiat, or b) make the player change the description of his actions. you don't just go with it, and say that the walls of the facility he's "sneaking" through turn orange in order to camouflage him.
Kagetenshi
QUOTE (Konsaki)
If the books did have rules for every event that came up, would you still need a GM?

That depends on what you mean by "every event". Unless you're including extensive random interaction, shadowrun, and environmental tables, absolutely. GMs do more than adjudicate places the rules don't cover, you know?

QUOTE (Garrowolf)
I consider the rules to primarily be the providence of the GM and the players should only deal with what is on their sheets.

Bad! Bad! In a serious RPG (not, say, Paranoia, which is meant to be frenetic chaos), it is critical that the players know the rules and that those rules be strictly followed, as that is the only way they can estimate the consequences of their actions. Take that away, and the players can no longer judge the effect of anything they do, rendering their choices essentially meaningless.

QUOTE (Garrowolf)
I have interesting stories to tell and that is what I am trying to do.

Even in pure fiction, that is, the kind you write by yourself, not involving players, stories are more interesting when they follow an internally consistent set of rules.

That said, in this specific example there's no point to saying "what about situations the rules don't cover", because the rules do cover this.

QUOTE (SR3 p95)
The Sneaking specialization covers moving quietly as well as tailing someone without being spotted. Hiding refers to physically hiding from view, camouflaging your appearance, blending into crowds, and even disguising yourself.

In general, when a player announces they are making a Stealth test, they are making a Sneaking test. Neither of the uses for Sneaking allow the character to, barring other considerations, be making loud noises (even other considerations won't allow a character to make loud noises while "moving quietly").

~J
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