First, wanted to say hello to everyone... this is my first post on these forums, and it took me a few weeks to even get on, so I feel lucky to be here.

Now, a bit of backstory. I started playing shadowrun in 1995 with a used copy of the 1st edition rulebook and the GM screen. My first RPG, it has always been my favorite. I memorized that book from front to back, and while I didnt understand alot of the rules, we had a good time.

From there I went to World of Darkness, then to Live Action games (Amtgard, then SCA). A little over three years ago I got into miniatures with Warhammer 40k, then Warhammer Fantasy, and finally Warmachine. Also played Battletech since the beginning, bought that rulebook the same time I did the old SR1 book.


Its been well over 10 years since I ran a SR game. The last time I played 2nd was the most up to date system. Bought all of the books, tried to run a game, and got discouraged with the quality of players I had available. We were all in high school, so I guess age factors into it. Since then, I have just spent my time collecting books, knowing someday I would probably play again.

About a month ago one of my wargaming budies looks at my shelf and noticed I had a ton of SR books. He talked about how he played it once, had a decent time, but had some issues with the guy running it and the story and such. We talked for a bit, and in the end I decided to give running a game another go. We got two other interested players, and have spent the past month working on characters and doing research into the game.


Our first 'test' game was this past weekend, and man.. do I have some questions. I hope this is the right place for this sort of thing, but if not, please let me know and I will move it.

Anyway, let me get down to them. Just wanted to relate my history with the game so I didnt sound like some noob who just bought a book and didnt bother reading it. I still have a bit of a 'tabletop' mindset with some rules, and am having a hard time getting back into the outlook of running a smooth game over 'playing by the rules'. Not used to the power that comes with being GM.


Ok, here goes. I will try to break them up into the situation that is appropriate:

Combat:

- During the combat round, you roll Int, put them all on a list, and go from highest to lowest. That I get. Now, how does the process work? Does everyone declare actions THEN act, or do you wait until your number is up, declare actions, then act? After actions are declared, can someone opt to jump in if they delayed their action?
Situation: Player 1 was facing off with Ganger 1. Ganger 1 went first, decided to hold the action to see if Player 1 would surrender. Player 1 goes next, decided to quickdraw his gun and fire. Can Ganger 1 declare to jump in before Player 1 draws, knowing that was he intends to do (Ganger 1 was only planning to shoot if Player 1 didnt surrender.. would Ganger 1 know that Player 1 wasnt surrendering?)?

- Movement - Can you break up your actions and movement? As in, can a character move out from behind cover, fire his gun, and then move back behind cover with the rest of his movement? Is there a specific time when the characters are allowed to move?

- Melee - Player 2 and Ganger 2 are facing off. Ganger 2 goes first and decides to run at Player 2 and hit him with a Katana. So, they are next to each other and in melee. Player 2 goes next, and wants to move back, quickdraw a gun, and blow Ganger 2 away. Can he do this? Are people 'locked' in melee combat, or can they break away? Is there an attack of opportunity as the person moves away?


There were a few more, but my brain is pretty fried from work. I will get back on here as they come up.

Thanks!

Remembered another one:

- Do the players start with any Karma pool? I noticed that for every 10 a human will get 1 karma pool, and for every 20 a metahuman will get 1 karma pool. I was thinking about giving everyone 1 karma pool to start with, for that 'I gotta pull this off' re-roll.

- How much Karma comes out of a typical adventure? An evening worth of gaming, involving a shootout of some sort, a bit of RP, some legwork, etc? I remember older editions being fairly unrealistic with the karma awards, but I dont want them to get too much too soon.

Are we talking 2nd ed or 3rd ed?

Edit: reposted as new - this got overlooked

60+ Karma for one run? Geez, did you assassinate Lofwyr?

Anyway, there's two different types of karma rewards: team karma and personal karma. It's the EXACT same type of karma and spent the same way, it's just the rewards are split up. Team karma is based on the performance of the team and given to each player. 1 karma for surviving and 1 karma for each major goal accomplished. If the run was to, for example, get inside the compound, extract the kidnapped executive alive, then destroy any information they may have gotten out of her but she accidentally took a shotgun blast and died, that'd be 2 team karma out of a possible three. So each player gets 2 karma.

Then you look at how each individual player did. Did they do something super cool with a smart plan? Did they take a bold and life-risking action to save the team or the mission? Did they do a great job of staying in character? Give them a karma point.

On an average run, my rewards tend to be between 4 and 6 altogether and on insane psycho end-of-a-huge-story-arch, take-on-the-adult-dragon-single-handedly missions 8 to 10. The largest I ever gave out was 11 karma, but that was a VERY extreme case in which it was a complex and dangerous run that killed off one PC and caused the one with 11 karma to lose a leg and most of his right arm. He had come up with the plan that saved the mission and stood his ground against the Renraku Red Samurai (who had murdered his brother so he both hated and feared them). The player stayed in character damn near the whole game...he was like a method actor.

Oh, and for the record, all characters send every 10th karma point earned to their karma pool no matter what race. Humans start off with a karma pool of 2 and other races start with a karma pool of 1. The only way to change this is with a flaw whose name I can't remember...something like Cursed Karma which makes it every 20th point. Just so you don't think you're crazy, the 20:1 for metahumans was true in 2nd Ed, but was changed for 3rd and the entire karma pool concept revamped into the Edge attribute for 4th Ed.

The Abstruse One

Edited the above post, but it might get missed.

The Combat turn seems pretty confusing. I read into the reverse order delcare actions part, but how does one delay their action, what effect does it have, and when can they jump in? Do you have to skip your action on that entire 'pass' to get an action you can enter into the next 'pass'? What benefit is there to this?

Fair enough. I am ok with awarding Karma on a per-night basis, if they finish the adventure I have planned. At the end of the run, they get the awards.

As for the movement, that is awesome. They just move that much more in each pass? So... your moving still, but can do nothing?

Correct. This is why a quick (Quickness 6) unaugmented (initiative <11) person doesn't beat the pants off of an equally quick (Quickness 6) augmented (initiative >20) person in an 18-meter race--otherwise the unaugmented person would run 18 meters in the first pass while the augmented just runs a mere 6.

Edit: though "can do nothing" is perhaps deceptive. Remember, you get Free Actions during everyone's turns.

~J

Had another one, regarding hand to hand combat.

This last game, I had a player who wanted to 'chokeslam' an opponent. His opponent was an average sized human, he was a troll who was in a pretty good position to do just that.

I had another player who wanted to grapple with his opponent to use him as a shield to prevent being shot.


How do I work these things out? For both, I just said use the melee combat rules and depending on the damage they do (and the outcome) I would decide how much of what they wanted to do was accomplished.

The troll based him pretty good, so I said that his opponent was prone from being pulled off a countertop and thrown to the ground. The other player just grappled with his opponent for a few rounds until he knocked him out. Of course, we thought you were 'locked' in combat, so I didnt even think to have his opponent run and shoot.


Now, you can put the condition in your action that you will be 'spending your movement to stay in melee with your opponent' and even if your out of actions, you will move with your opponent automatically (provided they are not faster than you)?

How do you handle more complex physical attacks, such as slams, throws, armlocks, etc? I wanted to avoid the special combat rules in CComp, but I might reconsider unless I missed something.

I tend to gloss over downtime. I'll ask them if they're doing anything during downtime and if not, I move on. Now downtime is time when nothing's happening -- not necessarily when they're on a run. I might throw a little mini-adventure out there, like they run across a random mugging or something else less cliche.

The Abstruse One

That is a better plan of Mikes behavior.

As for leaving a melee, I think you can just apply the Interception rule on SR3 page 108.

the example on page 103 (left-hand column) of SR3 answers exactly how to handle delayed actions. basically, in every phase, every character who has an action in that phase declares their action, starting at the lowest Init score and working up. waiting to see what someone else is going to do on their phase is very easy--you just delay your action until their phase, and then see what action they declare. if, after hearing their declared action, you want to intervene, you may do so. since you have a higher Init score, you automatically get to go before them on that phase.

I guess the terminology is what is bugging me.

The Combat Turn is the whole thing, when everyone rolls Int at the start.
The Initative Pass is the part where people act from highest to lowest.
The Number on which each character acts is called the Combat Phase.


So, the Combat Turn beings when everyone rolls Int. The Initative Pass is the numbers at which people act. So, lets say it looks like this:

Mike - 21
Goon1 - 18
Goon2 - 7

That would be the first pass. Mike would have his combat phase on 21. Goon1 would have his on 18. Goon 2 would have his on 7.

On the Combat Phase of 21, Mike acts. He says he will delay his action. On the combat phase of 18, Goon1 acts. He declares that he will shoot mike with his gun. Mike then says he will intervene, and shoot both Goon1 and Goon2. Mike will go before Goon1, as he delayed his action.

If Mike chooses not to act, he has to act on Combat Phase 1, or delay into the next pass, in which case he looses his action for that pass.


Ok, it is starting to click now.


I think I will use the Interception rule for leaving Melee.


With movement they have to declare how they are moving at the start of the combat Turn. If they choose to remain stationary at the beginning of the turn and later may change their movement during any combat phase. I think that will help to have them declare when they roll, that way they know what target mods there will be.


Its like a fog has been lifted...

Ok, got the Combat Turn mostly figured out, as well as movement. Thanks again to everyone who helped with that.


Now, about physical combat. How do you represent moves more involved than "I puch/kick him in the (insert random location here)"? Using the example on the previous page, I had a player who wanted to get into melee with an opponent and slam him to the ground. I had another player who wanted to do something like a full-nelson and use the other person as a shield.


Another question for you, dealing with damage. When does someone get knocked over as a result of their wounds? I mean, I figured a light wound was little more than a graze. You will have a nice scar from it, but nothing vital or even that serious. A moderate wound would be a deeper flesh wound, with a nice chunk missing or a non-vital area of the bosy. A severe wound would be very serious, with a bullet going clean through, broken bones, etc. A deadly wound would either kill outright or put them in so much pain they pass out (and will probably bleed out if not taken care of).

How do you handle stuff like blood-loss? If you have a (insert wound type here) does it 'get worse' if not treated. Do all wounds do that (light, mod, serious, etc)?

Would a very powerful attack knock someone down? I would think if it was power 10 or more (or perhaps 12?) even if your armor stopped the attack and you soaked the damage, you would be knocked down from the force of impact.


Thoughts/opinons?

knockdown rules are in the combat section. people don't use them very often.

there are no rules for blood loss, or for bleeding. in the advanced healing rules in Man and Machine, i believe it's possible for a wound to get worse if it's not properly treated--basically, if you fail your healing check, there's a chance you could take further damage.

There are sorta rules for bleeding--specifically, the bleeding-out rules for Deadly damage. Not really broadly useful.

That said, Omar, you should reevaluate your view of wound levels. A Light wound is enough to make everything you do meaningfully harder--think a stab wound or a small-caliber gunshot to a non-vital body part. It is most certainly not a graze.

~J

mfb - Thanks. I totally missed that. Not sure that we will use them (I can see how they would add a layer of complexity to the combat), but its good to know they are there.

Kagetenshi - Looking at the healing table is what made me think that. A base time of 24 hours and a minimum of 2 hours to heal light would would lead me to believe that the wound is superficial. Annoying, distracting, but not deadly by any means. I would say a stab is more of a Moderate wound, at best. As would a gunshot that did anything more than graze. A light wound would heal on its own with a bandage of some sort. A Moderate wound or better probably requires stitches.

Herald - Called shots! Thats a great idea! If they want to do anything fancy, its a called shot, and if they manage to do it it might add something (such as knockdown, as one wanted to do, or movement and a resisted stregnth test with the other).


Thanks!

My view comes from the wound modifier combined with the difficulty numbers table on page 92: a Light wound is sufficient to turn an Average task into a Challenging task, for example. Also note that healing time is until you no longer have modifiers, not necessarily until the wound has vanished completely.

As for wounds healing on their own, there's already a roll in the Healing section to determine whether or not healing requires medical attention.

~J

To each his own, I suppose.

wound modifiers are a tricky thing. in real life, being hurt is generally either going to stop you completely or not affect you much at all. specific injuries might affect certain tasks--broken fingers aren't disabling, but they'll make it just about impossible to fire a gun--but in generally, getting hurt in the middle of a fight is a no/no-go proposition. you either go down, or you go on.

I'm going to disagree with that—my experience is that people generally don't fight as well after they take a few solid but non-disabling blows, and my old knife instructor always claimed that after a few cuts people tend to slow down. My experience is not vast, however.

~J

maybe it's just hard to notice performance degradation in the heat of the moment.

Thanks for all of the replies! About to head out for the weekend, but I have a few replies.

- The way I re-read the rules for the combat turn is that you only declare from lowest to highest if you both act on the same phase. As in, two people roll a 12, there are steps to determine who is the 'lowest' person, and they declare first. Otherwise, it goes from the top down.. and the fastest person should probably be smart enough to go for cover, or hold their action until they get targeted.

- I want to imply the +4 mod because they want to add 'other' things to the attack. The chokeslam would be a melee attack that would result in knockdown. The 'human shield' would result in damage and moving them between the player and the other goon with the gun. Etc. I favor creative descriptions of fights, but when they want to do more than damage their opponent, I have to put a limit in there. I might lower the mod because it isnt a true called shot, but probably just to +3 or +2.


Thanks!

A penalty on the order of 2 or 3 is still significant. I think you have to approach the problem in this way: you have to decide whether you want specialty attacks to be effective in general against equal opponents, or if you want them to only work against weaker opponents. 2 or 3 would ensure they're only feasible against weaker opponents. If you want them to work against enemies who are equally tough and skilled as the characters you really don't want it to be higher than 1 or else it basically won't work. 1 is still significant but it's the smallest penalty you can apply.

Since your group seems to like hand to hand combat (and cool tricks therein) you might want to look on eBay or something for the Cannon Companion book. Despite the name, it's not just a big book of cool guns, it's also got advanced combat rules (including an overhauled melee combat set up, with martial arts styles, rules for grappling and throwing, etc).