That doesn't mean we should stop trying to find one.

There are many such games that cover every mechanical situation. Most of them are narrative/storytelling games, which have different goals than a tactical game like Shadowrun, but the trend in RPGs is to borrow from the narrative games and adopt some of their innovations.

What you describe here aren't rule decisions, but story decisions. And all that can be handled well before the game even starts. Those shouldn't require on-the-spot decisions, they should have been well established long in advance. Suddenly handing down a ruling that destroys a character's backstory is just as bad as destroying a trick he may have built his character around.

[Edit]
I've seen many interactive storytelling sessions, pure RP games, that had no rules but still required a GM (or equivalent). A CRPG can't make up a story on the fly. You cannot have a RPG without a story to it. But here, I'll offer you a challenge. I defy you to have a game where the GM does nothing but hand down rulings. Meanwhile, I'll run a game where I won't make a unilateral ruling at all. Which one of us do you think will have a more fun game?

there are mechanical elements to those as well.

and no, there aren't games that cover every mechanical decision, unless they explicitly close all of the mechanical decisions they don't cover.... welcome to CRPG land. we hope you enjoy your stay, but if you don't that's too bad, because we didn't feel like including the option for you to enjoy it, so we're just going to treat everything as if you enjoy it anyways.

the GM has to make choices. that's what he does. those choices include rules decisions as well as story decisions. any system which promises the GM will never have to make a rules decision is full of crap. there is no system where someone will understand it perfectly, where none of the rules contradict each other, where there will not be dispute as to how the rules work, or where the GM shouldn't change how the rules work to improve the game in some way. it simply isn't possible.

now i'll allow that in some cases, more completeness is more desireable. but it isn't some sort of horrific calamity when the GM makes a judgement call. that's a significant part of what the GM does.

No one ever said it wasn't part of the job description, but "the GM has to make judgement calls anyway so why bother making any detailed rules" seems a bit too far on the other extreem...

There are always going to be a lot of bugs when a system pushes the 'reset' button. SR3 had (I think) over a decade of material piled up. The SR4 people had to understand and digest all of that stuff, figure out what the problems were both numerically and tactically, streamline the whole thing, balance the whole thing, and try to make it a better game.

The real question is not whether they did it perfectly. The question is: are we better off under SR4 than we were under SR3? If you think the answer is no, then why are you bothering with SR4? I am NOT saying "if you don't like it get out." I hate when people accuse me of saying that, because it's one of the most obtuse things someone can say. I'm just saying that if you dislike the system, what is your reason for using it anyway? Could it be that, while you dislike the ambiguities the SR4 team left in the rules, overall the game is much better than SR3 and worth playing?

I'm not saying don't complain. But recognize what we have: a pretty nifty new game system. We traded the well established clusterfuck of SR3 rules for the inevitable uncertainty of much simpler, though relatively untested SR4 rules. Was the trade worth it? Hell yes. We are better off now than we were. While there might be cause to complain, I don't think the complaints hold a candle to the good things SR4 has accomplished.

I think everyone that is arguing here likes SR4...
But it's because of people with no life like us that RPGs improve...
(See how I made myself important right there?)

The SR3-4 debates are banned, so I won't go there

And I'll repeat my challenge.

I'll run a whole Shadowrun game without making a single unilateral GM decision. You try and run a game without making a story. Let's see who has more fun.

Heck, if you like, I'll run a non-SR game this weekend, without GM calls. I'll bet that my players will have more fun. Care to make the wager?

if you do that with the 'right' players your game will be over before the chars are created and you can sit back and enjoy the group arguing with each other for the rest of the night.

There is and thank you for providing the answer.

In two weeks, I'm scheduled to run a Shadowrun Missions with total strangers. I'm confident enough in my storytelling abilities that I doubt I'll need to make many rules calls, if any. Are you so confident in your rules-decisions that you can go without a story?

Anyone willing to take the bet? I'll be at Fantastic Games on the 8th. I'll run a SRM story with no unilateral rules calls. Anyone want to run a game in the second slot with only unilateral lrules calls, and no story?

Sounds hard. Can we instead load your game with crazed rule lawyers, blood mages and trolls with bows?

Honestly, I feel sorry for Cain. He has had nothing but GM's who would allow nothing, so his attitude is to allow everything. Since his GMs all stomped on everything he tried to do, most likely due to some sort of personal vendetta, he will not try to challenge his players. They will throw around BloodZillas and Strength 100 bows, using their amazing 8 Edge to take out tanks, heck, even some hardened bunkers, because the rules do not specifically say you can't.

For myself, and my GM..we prefer a "One argument per person for or against", and then weigh their reasoning, and make the ruling that makes the most sense in setting. For instance, while Cain would allow someone tied up, bound, and blindfolded to get the +2 bonus for Capoeira Martial Arts specialization, I wouldn't allow it unless there was room to maneuvre.(Note that, technically, the bnus COULD still apply to the bound character if the player gave me a good description of what he was doing..but Cain would flat out allow it...which, BTW, is a a GM ruling, so Cain will actually not actually be even telling players what to roll, since that is a GM Ruling...and he said that he is not going to be making any rulings)

Heck, actually even describing a scene is a ruling, because you are stating what sort of visibility modifiers, the people around, etc, are, creating a unilateral and arbitrary ruling on what IS.

The description of the scene is not necessarily a ruling.

I concede that the option of running every rules conflict by group consensus is possible. I´ll happily hold the position that GM decisions are faster, and are implicitly used whenever no objections are raised, but that is on another page.

@Cain, are you a missions GM for the same group all the time, or is each time a fresh batch of players? Those who do the latter deserve high praise for advancing the hobby, but miss out on the real-world part of "SR-group".

Actually, it is. When you describe a scene, you are setting what rules are applying to it. If you are on a street corner, at dusk, with the lights not on, in rain, you have just made a unilateral and arbitrary ruling on vision modifiers. When you describe the cars, you have made an arbitrary and unilateral ruling on what cover exists. When you tell the runners about the street gane approaching them, you have made an arbitrary and unilateral ruling on the threat they are about to have to overcome. If you describe the gangers as with weapons ready, or walking up weapons stowed, you have made an arbitrary and unilateral ruling on their starting intentions to the PCs, and thus establishing immediately penalties or bonuses to the Face's negotiations with them.

Not if that description is canon/RAW. As in the Tell It To Them Straight portion of the SRM or an published adventure module. Then you are following canon or RAW and not making a ruling.

In fact a description of the surroundings and environment can come under the Premise portion of the Creating an adventure, as part of the RAW.

You jut described my last game.

Seriously, replace "blood mage" with "Agent Smith army", and you pretty much have it. And everyone still had a good time. The only rules call I had to make, which I declared before the game started, was that I took a vote amongst the players: to simplify the Agent Smith army rules, or to roll each one out individually.


More or less a fresh batch of players each time. I usually run at the Puget Sound Roleplayers Meetup. While there are some semi-regulars, there's never a guarantee as to who'll show up at my table. What's more, since this is Shadowrun Missions, there are no house rules allowed. (I bent things to deal with Agent Smith-- everyone agreed that rolling 500 times for all the agents flying about was a bit much-- but that was simply to make the rolls as a group, not as individual entities.) in SRM, GM calls have to be minimized, since you never know where a character will go to next.

I've run home games of SR4 as well, and had to deal with high-powered tactics there too. There, you have to be ever more careful, because these are your friends. You don't want to cause any hurt feelings. On the other hand, it's much easier to reach group consensus that way, so your unilateral GM calls are also minimized.

That's an interesting point, Cain. I tend to run SR like I run my larp: large, over-arching story lines where the PCs are in over their heads and the majority of the game is social-based rather than tactical/combat based. There's always some combat because combat and action are good storytelling devices. I wonder if my specific style is what might have resulted in the dearth of actual problems with respect to GM rulings.



But only those games such as SRM have those sections and I, for one, choose not to use them when I run missions events and/or published modules. If a GM is designing a story and describes a scene in one way or another that is a ruling on that scene. I could rule that the weather today is cloudless with a bright full moon resulting in only partial visibility penalties when outside or I could rule that it's a blizzard. Outside of cooperative storytelling systems (e.g., the Everlasting), that's a choice the GM makes in order to challenge the players. And, thus, it could be construed as a ruling.

As before I have to throw my hat in with toturi and Cain.
Specifically regarding description of scenes as ruling:

As toturi put it, description of a scene is with-in RAW. The vision modifers are in RAW, cover, and settingis all in RAW.
However, modifying the RAW rules is a GM rules fiat.

IE: (extreme example)
heavy fog affecting one side and not being accounted for the other side just to make things more 'fair'. Sure if the PCs don't know they can't argue. But, all it takes is one player who does know the rules to throw some quick numbers together and say, 'are those guys reall that badass?' or somesuch.

Tight rules alleviate in-game problems for the GM. They alleviate the PC from bringing up something that he can do because of the ambiguity of RAW but you adn he know is not the intent of RAW. vs. versa, if you have ever been on the player side and realize that the GM is pulling numbers out his ass just to fuck with the characters. It doesn't give a player confidence and breaks the immersion. All any player has to do is think that *even from a fair and just GM* to sour a game.

I don't think I (or others who like the looser rules) are advocating that GMs pull numbers out of nowhere when he or she wants to "challenge" the players. That's just cheating and that person should no longer GM (I, personally, wouldn't play a game with them again or at least for quite some time).

I guess my point is that I haven't seen any in-game problems for SR4 as a GM with respect to the loose rule set. I like that they're loose. It gives me the flexibility I feel I need to tell my story. I appreciate that IC programs, for example, are now simply an Agent given orders to patrol and protect within a system. I didn't like in SR3 that IC programs were very specific. It resulted in a longer list of IC programs that I had to try and remember. SR4, on the other hand, just asks me to remember the various programs and their uses. Thus, I can create a team of IC working together, one that attacks the target's stealth program making it easier for others to find him, another that engages him in cybercombat, and a third which tracks him when stealth goes down. Yes, I could do all that in SR3, but I always had a hard time remember the exact different IC programs, the different ways to use them, which ones were active and which were passive, etc. Now, I just have three agents and the following programs available to them: Armor, Track, Attack. That is, for me, easier to handle.

Well I guess my feeling mostly is that this system works great when you know it well and can make a ruling on the fly that is both reasonable and tolerated by your players. No amount of help will do anything for you if your players are not willing to accept a ruling and move on to keep the game flowing.

That said, I feel I am a reasonably experianced GM, having run games for over 15 years and a 60+ person LARP for 4 1/2.

But there are just many ambigous things in the system.

The armor spell.

Increases the Ballistic/Impact rating of the target.

Player figures it works on vehicles. Makes sense that it should. But because it says "Ballistic/Impact" I have to come to the conclusion that it doesn't work on them as vehicles only have a single "Armor" rating.

Then their is Reinforce.

Player figures it should work on Armor.

But it talks about structure (thanks to whomever pointed that out to me here) so I inform him its just the Vehicle version of the armor spell. But the rules don't really just come out and say that.

I have encountered this time and time again in the books.

Fact is for someone trying to learn the

1) Lore of the world
2) Gamble Balance issues
3) Dice System
4) And trying to make a decent campaign

I find it almost too much.

Perhaps if I had played SR3 or 2nd edition (Longer then 3 weeks when we quit because it was too much dice rolling) then I would have less to learn.

All I can say is that if not for the great support of the forums... we would have moved on to something else.

BUT

It really is one of best game systems when it comes to very cool settings and feels of the game world.

Sorry, kind of a rant. (And bad spelling.)

Time to get back to work heh.

See, here's where our experiences differ. I've found the rules too loose to adjudicate easily, while also being too restrictive to really tell a story. It may just be me, since I've been experimenting a lot with narrative games lately; but at least some of the narrative concepts should transfer over. And the fact that I mostly do SRM probably has something to do with it. But I personally find that SR4 isn't very good at either end of the spectrum, and isn't that great in the middle.

Fair enough. With all respect to the_dunner and the rest of the SRM crew (myself included), I think you may be right. I find published modules, SRM included, to be very restrictive over all and, unless I'm at a con and running an SRM game for paying customers, I tend not to use them as they're intended. Instead I usually adapt, alter, use, and abuse the crap out of them until such a time as I'm more comfortable with them. Names, places, characters, targets, plot, etc. are all up to me and the players and not some published module.

My games are very highly sandboxed. I don't actually plan anything out before hand and I just have a stable of NPCs, Drones, Spirits, etc. that I use as opposition. That way, the players can pretty much do what they like and I roll with it. I rarely make adjudications probably because I let the PCs walk all over me more often than not

The social rules for a group of people to get together and play any RPG <> SR4 Rule book