Different strokes man. I personally don't like Hero at all. I feel that it is far too heavily top loaded. I find GURPS fully CAPABLE of handling any genre out there, simply not as well as some games dedicated specifically TO the genre.


Isshia

You mean your <sarcasm>sarcasm</sarcasm> tags aren't working in your browser? I'd suggest degaussing your bezier filter.

I played Shadowrun 1st Edition many years ago, right before 2nd Edition came out and I dropped out of RPGing in general. The concept of using the Matrix for Legwork wasn't even there. All those Legwork/Game Information charts in the backs of the adventure modules listed out which appropriate contact could give out what information. In-game, we picked up the phone and started making phone calls to NPCs.

The final threshold for hits required to complete a task is up to the GM, ultimately. But one of the things I think On The Run did right by being an intro product was showing that, while general information could be found on the Matrix, it was supposed to be much harder to find. A threshold 1 Contact bit of info would require a threshold of 2 on the Matrix. Two for a Contact would be 4 on the Matrix, 3 for a Contact would be 8 on the Matrix and then moving it up exponentially. Also, though a Contact may not have the information off-hand the Contact may know someone who does. Which is where the Connection Rating comes in; determining how long until a Contact comes back with needed info.

If the team Hacker is doing all the Legwork, then it's probably because the PCs shot themselves in the foot by not placing any resources into good Contacts and Charisma skills. Sure, not everyone wants to be a Face, but there's more to the game than shooting stuff and casting magic.

Someone on this board mentioned a player dumping a ton of build points into his PC's Contacts and basically having a Rolodex full of the movers and shakers in Seattle. While that would be tricky for a GM to work with, at the same time, I think that's a brilliant move on the part of the player, even if he stinks at combat.

The main set comes with two books, the rule book and the character burner. The character burner contains all the lifepath stuff.

Doc: In order to do a data search, you need the Data Search skill plus a Browse program. This being a Matrix test, you can't default to an attribute. So, running a Matrix search is solely the province of deckers.


I'm flipping through my cursed e-copy of On The Run, and I'm not seeing anything like that. I am seeing that the initial connection between Nabo and the disk requires a contact to make a Music Knowledge test, which most contacts won't have. So, the only way to do it is to go on the matrix. Also, given that no one can have contacts that cover every subject the Matrix does, you're going to have to go to the matrix for a lot of legwork.


It's usually because it's easier and faster to go through the decker. Data Searching is an extended test with an interval of 1 min, in On the Run at least. Getting in touch with a contact is a process that could take hours, and there's no guarantee that they'd know anything. You still have to roll for Contact knowledge as well. The difference is that contacts only get one roll, while deckers get as many as they like.

As far as info being offline, if it's offline it's probably too hot for a data search. Of course, putting everything offline would be cheese.

How can the GM be a munchkin? The GM is God. The GM's word is law. The GM is given authority to bend or break the rules at any given time to suit the story. It's not a contest between the players and the dastardly GM, it's a game of storytelling, and everyone wins if they're having a good time. If you've forgotten that basic fact, you're missing the point.

If people aren't having a good time and the GM is bad, then just don't have that person GM. That simple. Rules lawyering will NOT fix it.

See the heading in the main book: "The Abstract Nature of Rules".

So everything that everyone has said for like the last few pages is totally arbitrary you realize right? It's all arbitrary w/o any guidelines whatsoever so the GM just has to make stuff up. This is a problem since there is nothing tied down to help out a budding GM in how to make tests. You could post up something on dumpshock asking what threshold to set a test at and describe the situation and guess what? It's all arbitrary! Cains argument? Arbitrary! DocTaotsu argument? Arbitrary! Everyone else? Arbitrary! If you are a GM and you need a few guidelines or some suggestions Shadowrun does not really help you all that much. So many passages say "leave it to the GMs whim" w/o giving any kind of help as to what you might want to consider.

So if you want to just shortchange the hacker you can have them make two rolls and find out the links you all need to make and have the rest of the team do everything else as hackers in SR4 are pricey characters bp wise and if they want to be good at hacking it means they suck at most everything else (generally.) There is a balancing issue for the whole game, but the GM has no real guidelines or tips on how to really do this with ease and at speed. Since the hits are capped at program rating sometimes matrix combat seems like everyone just starts busting out the rubber ducks and whales on each other. Sometimes it can be brief and take no time at all, but for what I have seen a hacker can have problems with just 1x r6 ice and that combat took over 30 minutes just because the hacker only rolled 4 more dice then the ice... and the hacker eventually lost. In a actual combat situation even if you don't roll all that well you can still end up whaling on the opposition with all different kinds of tricks. The matrix however does not quite have the same granularity as in the flesh combat, or legwork, or whatever.

Simply having the bad GM not GM isn't always an option. I burn out as a GM fairly frequently, so either someone else GMs or no game happens.

And you've apparently never had a munchkin GM. The sort where the GM tells the story, and the players are along for the ride. The sort where it doesn't matter what you do, the Mary-Sue GMPC can do it better. The sort where if you do anything except what the GM wants you to do, it's negated by some twist of the rules, or by: "Because I'm the GM, that's why."

Here's a concept that is a little hard to grasp, but makes a huge difference:

THE GM IS NOT MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE PLAYERS

The GM is not god, he is just another player with more responsibility. He does not need to be the final authority on anything; you can have a fun game without the slightest trace of GM fiat. In short, the GM is not granted special powers based on his position; he is just one among many.


Here's one example, for those of you who don't get what he's saying. Take a look at all the actions you can take in combat. Now, look at what you can do in cybercombat. You can only attack or go full defense. That's it! So, cybercomat can rapidly devolve into a case of "I try to hit him again."

Page 208, under matrix Tests; You use the program rating instead of an ability score, so I assume that you default to the program rating-1



Pages 49-53.



It takes all of 3 seconds to call a friend, and the Contact can dig around, rolling a Charisma+ Connection extended test, with an interval of 1 hour; so both get infinite rolls.

Really? I've ever actually played a Decker / Hacker, and yet more than half of my characters have those two things. The ones that don't typically have an Agent to do that kind of thing, which according to the books is a somewhat common occurrence among those less matrix-savvy.



There is always defaulting for this type of thing. Or you could use the Networking rules.

A little late, but Cain, where are you getting 'you cannot buy Hits on Data Search' from?

There is no such restriction anywhere under RAW. & do not start spouting that bullshit about "you can glitch/fail = you cannot buy Hits". Under that ruling, you could never buy Hits, & there would not be a section in the rules for it.

Yes, it's arbitrary, and that's a good thing. The GM has to make judgment calls. That's why these rules lawyering arguments are so stupid- because ultimately the GM's word is law. Of course a good GM will come up with something that seems fair to everyone and heightens the game's tension, but really it's an imagination game and the GM creates the world that the players interact with so all the power rests with the GM. That simple! If you want the rulebook to hold your hand and tell you how to make every test, you should probably play a strategy game like Warhammer, or a video game, instead, where there's no ambiguity.

Shadowrun is a complicated world with a lot to keep track of, but at its core it's just group storytelling. Back to basics. If the storytelling is good, everything else follows from that. If the most fun your group is having is rolling dice and arguing about the rules, I think you're really missing out on something. It also makes me sad how many people have called the plot and storyline and setting "fluff" as though the real game is combat and rolling dice for legwork.

You know what's funny about these games? They have so many rules for rolling dice, but the only real reason to roll dice is if there can be some uncertainty as to the result. Taking the legwork example, if the players absolutely need to have certain information, give it to them! And if they absolutely shouldn't have certain information, don't let them have it, no matter how high they roll! Sure, make a show of rolling the dice, but the storyline should never be held prisoner by dice rolls. The only time that dice rolls should be important are in cases where the result COULD be a failure or a success, and the game could still go on. Hopefully the GM is flexible enough that the vast majority of rolls are these kinds of situations, but there are some situations where the dice rolls should be fudged in service to telling a good story, and that is fine.

Any GM who complains that the Decker/Hacker is getting too much information is being a pushover and not keeping good control of the game. Period.

In the back of On The Run, look under the Legwork/Cast of Characters section. For each Legwork topic (Nabo, JetBlack, etc.) there are two columns, one listing for Matrix thresholds (2, 4, 8, 16) and one for Contact thresholds (1, 2, 3, 4). I have a published print copy so I can't speak for the eBook version.

Even if no runner has Music Knowledge as a skill, surely one of them was smart enough to have a fixer for a contact. The point of a fixer is to be at the center of a web of information. So even if the fixer doesn't have the answer, he's going to know someone who does. Or someone who knows someone who does. That's where the Connection rating comes into play. The lower the roll in comparison to the threshold, the longer it's going to take the player to get the information through a contact's string of sources. So in terms of game mechanics, yes, there is a guarantee the player will get the information he needs from a contact. It only depends on how fast he'll get it. Just like a Data Search Extended Test guarantees the player will eventually get the information (if left unchecked by the GM). Yes, it may take more time in-game (a few hours instead of the few minutes that it takes to do a Matrix search) but for the players sitting around the table it's the same amount of time spent rolling and asking questions. And it doesn't become "spotlight the dude with the high Data Search and high-rated Browse Program" time.

With On the Run, the PCs could have contacted the Johnson as well as he was in the entertainment industry.

Now, if a job requires the runners complete it in an extremely short amount of time in-game, sure, Matrix is probably the best way to go. But in most fair games a game master will give the players a little more leeway.

Uh-oh, Shinxy! You missed the "I should be able to kill Harlequin screw the story" bru-ha-ha. There's some fun reading if you have a few hours and your eyes don't roll right out of your head.

Sorry, it's been a while since I've played with jerks with personality problems who see the need to make themselves feel cool through overpowering their friends as GM in a roleplaying game. Hmm... maybe that's because I wouldn't spend time with a person like that anyway, while playing a roleplaying game or otherwise.

And yes, the GM IS granted special powers- he makes the whole friggin game universe! How much more powerful can you be? That's why, again, the GM needs to remember that it's not a contest, it's cooperative storytelling. The GM is granted vast powers but uses them to challenge the players in a reasonable way so that everyone has fun, NOT to compete with the players to see who's the toughest, my NPC or your PC. I'll give you a hint, it's the NPC, because the GM has the resources of every single other thing in the game universe at his disposal, potentially. The GM will come out on top if he wants to, at the expense of everyone else's fun. The point is, if the GM were worth a damn, he wouldn't care about that, he would be using his powers to create a game everyone can enjoy, and you guys wouldn't be having to keep an eye on him to keep him from "cheating."

I see your point, but I'm just sorry that you have a GM like that. Trust me, there is a better way!

That presumes A) That you have the program, B) At a rating high enough to be useful, and C) You have a commlink powerful enough to run it.


I have those pages pulled up as we speak. There is *nothing* suggesting that a matrix search is more difficult than a contact search. In fact, there's discussion on how it's easier, and what you can do about it-- which doesn't, of course work. Limiting players with 6 dice to 6 rolls still takes forever.



Yeah, but those aren't search thresholds, they're search modifiers. Here's what the book has to say:

So, you actually get more dice for doing an online search. I'll grant you that my copy might be cursed; if you read the link above, you'll hear all about it. But that's what I see.

That may be some poor writing on the part of On the Run as I believe that in every other SR4 book I have modifiers are always listed as (+1, +2, -1, -2, etc.). My print copy just had straight numbers, no pluses or minuses.

I have a pretty big stack of older SR1-SR3 adventure modules and on the Legwork/Contacts tables, I've always run those numbers as thresholds, not modifiers. Unless I'm completely whacked out of my gourd. Which is always a possibility.

Cain, are you taking into account that thresholds for extended tests by RAW are 4, 8, 12, and 16 for tests? Instead of the usual 1,2,3,4.

It's not always just cooperative storytelling-- there's also a fair bit of collaborative problem solving involved on the part of the players, (my groups have at times been very gamist and we still have a blast) and in such instances the GM is as much a referee as he is a creator. A ref is supposed to be impartial and make decisions based upon the rules and spirit of the game being played. A big part of being a good GM is realizing what hat to wear at what time, and recognizing when to reward player ingenuity and when to deny it for the sake of the game-- and you don't have to be a malicious asshole to fail that test from time to time. Rules lawyering in and of itself isn't just plain stupid, it's a natural consequence of players interpreting the game world through the filter of the rules. You have a rough idea of what your character is capable of due to the rules and as such it's not unreasonable to expect the GM to stick to those rules or at least communicate well enough that you're all viewing the world through the same prism before the game begins. For example, houseruling a powerful spell so it's not quite so dangerous may not be a grave crime, but a player should certainly know about it before they spend the bps/karma on the spell.

I agree with most of what you said, Whipstich.

But first, let me ask you a question-- who is more important, the ref or the players?

The GM does not need to be the rules arbiter. In fact, sometimes it's better that way-- someone with good GMing skills doesn't have to learn a whole rules system in order to run a game.

I've run games in systems I didn't know that well, but I had experts help me along. Within the game, if a rules call came up, I'd turn to him and ask. We'd figure it out together. It worked, because the players got involved in that aspect of the game. Heck, I've played in games that didn't require a GM at all!

No, they are threshholds. Only One of the tables has a modifyer, which is clearly listed, and that is K-Spot, which has looks like this



Sometimes I think that purposeful choose to interpret the rules in the most bizarre way possible.

Then why make such a big deal about the Search modifiers?

At any event, the legwork can still be more easily accomplished by a decker, simply because they get Extended tests. Contacts do not.

Again, extended tests, at 4x the thresholds.

Contacts need 1-4 hits to get all info.

Data searches need 4-16 to get all info.

So, unless you're rolling (over the course of the extended test) at least 4x as many dice, you're losing out. Even then, I'm pretty sure you're compounding the chances of glitching at least one of those tests by having multiple rolls.

I don't see there being a great deal about the modifiers. One sentence isn't normally considered a big deal.

Both Get Extended tests

QFT!

The single worst idea in the history, of RPGs, IMO, was the idiocy of using the term Master in relationship to the position that the person running the game holds. Too many people with delusions of grandeur took it as license to act like pricks and FAR TOO MANY people who held the position let it subconsciously color their thinking.


Isshia

Yes and no. I think having one GM making final decisions for rules tends to make having a cohesive game world much simpler. Not that a group of people working together can't make agreements on how the game world works, but having one person with the vision of the gameworld that is consistent definitely can help out.

Hells Yes!

I run the game as best I can, but I expect that I'll screw up at some point, and I expect my players to call me on it.

After all, we are all playing the game to have fun.

Final decisions, in game, yes. In game though is the key. That's how we've run our games in any system or genre for more than twenty years now. In game the GMs word is law. Between games his decisions are open for challenge and/or review and discussion. He also sets the scene and the scene is immutable in game. But outside of it, if there is a situation that just blows up for some reason, it as well as open to discussion and modification. If the Players know their voice holds equal weigh they tend to work harder too, they do some of the GMing job. They find new angles or pics, or resources, they buy the MOST of the books the GM uses, their characters have vastly increased depth and detail and focus; their creativity keeps things fresh and wards off GM burn out.

Attitude is such a huge part of being a really top notch GM. If you can put your own ego on the shelf and act like a manager instead of a master the games always, from my experience, improves, with EVERYONE involved having a better time and the game complexifying and becoming deeper and at the same time running faster and smoother. There is no such thing as rules lawyers in such a group. Likewise, munchkins are almost certain to become extinct quickly. Games stop being adversarial and become fully cooperative.

And all this without anyone feeling their opinion doesn't matter or that they are being treated unfairly.

It is almost impossible for a dictatorial GM to run a game that everyone REALLY enjoys or enjoys as fully as cooperative games simply because the GM then doesn't need to be a mind reader.


Isshia

Dude, if you have people like that in your gaming group, then you need to either a) have a "Come to Jesus" meeting or b) bar that type of person from GMing and be frank about it.
If necessary, drop their ass.



Um, no.
Not just no, hell no.
How about some no with no suace and maybe a little helping of NO on the side? With no spice for zest?
If the GM is 'just another player with more responsibility', than any ol' player who has a beef, personal or otherwise, can run over him like a tank rampaging through suburban San Diego. I'm sorry, but personally I disagree with people in any game who are prone to rules lawyering. There's only one good solution:

Rule Monkey: "Well, according to pg 67 of Blackwell's Indisputable Combats I get a +7 modifier to my range and he gets a -23 due to cover and you're not taking into account the electromagnetic frequencies of the area while hyperblasting..."
Me: Rocks fall. You die. Door's to your left. No, stop rolling up a new character. Door's to your left.

In any power structure there has to be a leader, someone who can say "The buck stops here." If you're trying for "everyone must be in agreement" committee-style gaming, the game is going to fail each and every time.
If the rules get in the way of gaming, you throw out the rules, not the other way around.

Whoa whoa whoa! Your Kink Is Okay!

Different folks different strokes! etc etc


Seriously, while I typically agree that my best gaming experiences have been with strong GM's I've been on the flipside where unaccomodating GM's hurt the fun quotient on my games.

It goes both ways and it really depends on who you are playing with and what your collective play style is like.

Sorry man, but this is utter bollocks. In more than twenty years in about as many genres, over thousands of sessions we've proved this not only wrong, but HUGELY wrong. Hell, I've had waiting lines to get in to the games I've GMed running everything as I layed it out previously.


Isshia

As an example my player often throw in ideas for complications and other gaming elements. If it's fun I run with it but they're also accepting of my decision to ignore them. All done respectfully of course.

Respet gets you a long way, and a gaming table is hardly a fire team. I and my players hate rules arguments so we typically differ to the GM after only a couple seconds of debate.

There are some games that are based totally one comittee gameplay, (Polaris springs to mind), it works for those games because it recognizes that gaming is an inherently communal experience. A GM who believe he's the sole arbiter of plot, fun, and otherwise, is depriving himself of a richer experience.

In my opinion of course.

If you are able to do everything by committee, I highly recommend letting the CPUSA know. Heck, even the Soviets couldn't pull it off.

Wait, you can do sarcasm on the internet?!

Seriously though, it's wierd, I (almost) always recognise sarcasm / irony in written text. It often baffles me when people take it seriously.


See, that sounds reasonable. Sure, it's probably on the internet, but it's a lot easier to just ask someone who knows. I know in real life I only resort to my Data Search skill if no-one I know knows anything about the subject.


Data Search tests so should not have a duration of 1min. If you can find it after a minute of browsing the 'net, you shouldn't be rolling for it. Ever tried to find out info about an obscure topic online? The interval is more like 10mins to 1 hour.


The GM can become a munchkin in the same way players can: when he starts 'cheating' (read: applying the rules differently to himself than they are being applied to other characters) so that he can enjoy feeling 'better' than the players.


QFMFT.

Also, the cybercombat example is a good point.


Yeah... no.

'The GM's word is law' only really works if the GM is intimately familiar with the rules system, so that mistakes are few and far between. If the GM is not the most familiar with the rules at the table, then it's not only perfectly reasonable, but desirable as well, for the GM to defer to superior knowledge. The GM controls the world, and all of the story elements that are not directly under the PC's control, but the players deserve a certain amount of consistancy with the rules - something a less knowledgable GM will not be able to provide.

I know at our table, if a rules question comes up, whoever knows most about that particular system will usually let everyone at the table know the answer, and that person is rarely the GM. If no-one knows, we'll wing it and look up the specific rule later (or someone will do it during other people's turns in combat >.>).



*ahem*

Um, no.
Not just no, hell no.
How about some no with no suace and maybe a little helping of NO on the side? With no spice for zest?

Remind me never to game with you. I wouldn't even consider sitting down at a table for an RPG if the GM thought of it as a 'power structure.' It's a social activity, usually enjoyed by a group of friends, not a military unit. There is absolutely NO NEED for some jerk to decide they have to be the alpha male leader.

Let me clarify slightly - I'm not trying to say your way wouldn't work (it can, and does), but you presented it as the only option, which is bullshit. The games I've most enjoyed are the ones where (as Cain mentioned earlier) the GM is simply a player with more responsibility. The games I've least enjoyed (read: found mind-numbingly boring) are the ones where the GM was a 'leader' in alpha mode. Note that the one or two times I've been in a game where the GM was the be-all and end-all of rules calls were also the games filled with mary-sue DMPCs and all the scenarios were basically just wish fulfillment on the GM's behalf - in other words, he was a munchkin, as Cain described earlier.

Communism works for small groups of people (generally no more than 50-100 at the upper limit, more likely 5-20). Soviet Russia collapsed because they tried to do it for groups of people orders of magnitude larger.

Anyone who thinks people can't live as equals on a personal level isn't trying hard enough.

In recent years (as well as certain occasions in the last 30 years or so) I've played in cooperative games. Nowadays, they're quite trendy, as games like Wushu show. Heck, there's a few games like Capes, where there's no GM at all. I've played a game of Capes, and it was a lot of fun-- certainly more fun than any game I played under a munchkin GM. I've played a goodly amount of Wushu, and it was a blast. I'm too lazy to look up the links right now, but if you want them, ask and I'll get my carcass moving.

I'll also add that being able to quote chapter-and-verse from any rulebook, let alone the multiple systems a group is likely to play, is a special talent in and of itself. But when ranked on a scale of "Necessary talents for a GM", it goes down to near the bottom of the list. "Ability to create fun stories" is at the top. Now, if we have a hypothetical GM who can create fun stories, but can't remember rules very well, why should we bar her from GMing? She'd certainly be better than the reverse.

There are always different play styles. This is a good thing. A good RULE SYSTEM will allow for both sides to have their way. This generally means that the rules are not overly complex, they have been tested and streamlined for things to play, there are guidelines, and there is nothing that easily exploitable.

Now off the cuff GMing is fine, and so is collective gaming. I think it is also a matter of maturity for different games. There are a lot of games where someone wants to just dominate everything and be a total dill hole and they do not have to be rules lawyers. I'm sorry but they come in all shapes and forms. It's the extremes that generally suck ass to deal with. The guy who just can't take no for an answer, or the person that always demands everyone else RP every single second of every single moment, or the person who always wants to hog the spotlight, or the person who wants to bog down game play by telling you about his personal life during the entire game no matter what anyone else is doing, or the munchkin who always wants to be so far ahead of the curve why are you playing the game at all. These people can be players or GMs. Generally it is worse if they are the GM however because it means that the game will no longer be fun no matter what the players try to do.

I have been in "off the cuff" types of games where the GM just set you on a platform and told you to board the train. If you wanted to do anything particularly brilliant during the combat to end it a lot quicker per say the GM would give you a stupid high threshold (even though it was totally doable.) For instance there are a whole ton of people in a bunker and the door was blown off its hinges. You attempt to throw a grenade through the frame and the GM doesn't expect that move so if you are rolling a D20 you need a 19+. My jaw dropped when this was done. I said "but we are suppressing fire on the area." The GMs response was "No it's difficult 19+." It was a total dick move and when I rolled a 20 I felt all better for blowing his plan to shreds. The flat out WORST RP experience I have ever had has always been with the "off the cuff," + "my word is law" munchkin GMs.

I'd argue that the GM in your example is not really playing off the cuff. To me "Off the cuff" implies that the GM is making things up as he goes along and as such, doesn't have a clear end or "correct" solution to the problems he sets before the players. "Off the cuff" GMing done correctly means that you have a vibrant and adaptable world such that the players never feel like they've "walked off the map" or "broken" the game by doing something you didn't anticipate (because you haven't structured your plot around predicting their actions or reactions). In my experience, as a mostly off the cuff GM, the problem with shooting from the hip is that you sometimes don't develop the complexity that most gamers hunger for. The other weakness is that you have to avoid doing things that make it glaringly obvious that this is all being made up as you go along. Doing so reminds the players that they are a bunch of (usually) single adults sitting around a table eating pizza and playing make believe on a Saturday night. It absolutely annihilates the suspension of disbelief that allows gaming to be such an enjoyable past time.

Of course I'm one of those GM's who fears his players wrath (They have no problem playing other games ) and has a very "Let the wookie win" mentality.

You know, even though my group knows our GM mostly makes up the actual details on the fly, we know she has an over-all plan. It is why we never directly run into the "big bad" on a run, for instance. Yet, despite doing many of the runs very much on the fly, she still is getting them so each one is part of the over all story, and we, the players,are eager to see what the next part of the story is, because we are trying to figure out where she is going. Is that a bad thing? Seems most people on these forums think so

Our GM tends to present things as a problem to be solved, and, has even revealed that she generally does not even have a set solution, but tends to go with the one that sounds the most creative from the players, provided it is plausible. I got to see her notes for run..they were literally just where the target was, and some notes on IC in the systems, and what the building was like. Beyond that, it turns out, the details were based on what the players asked. In fact, SR4 is veryy good for this style, as you can just slap down : Agility, Reaction, Intuition, and Body, slap on some light armour, and Firearms and dodge skill, and, viola, you have a security grunt. Throw down Magic, Sorcery, Body, Willpower, Reaction, Intuition, and whatever spell you want to use, and, you have a sec mage. Grab a drone, grab some skills appropriate to it, and, you have an Opposing Rigger. Over all, quick and easy and flexible system...

No offense, but you've got to be kidding.

In Savage Worlds, you don't have to go through all that rigamarole to stat up an NPC. Even the Big Bads use a simplified creation method-- and character creation in Savage Worlds is pretty damn fast to begin with. In Wushu, it takes seconds to assign stats, and the mook rules are even quicker.

SR4 has its strengths, but quick, easy, and flexible aren't among them. By RAW, you need to build your Prime Runners with the BP system, and they tend to have the same restrictions as starting characters. Compared to many other systems, SR4 is slow, clunky, and rigid. You still need to fully stat NPC's out.

No you do not need to fully stat out NPCs. In a firefight, you can simply pick the stats you need when you need them, and there's a baseline already set for them.

And after the fight, what then? If one's captured and interrogated, you've got to make up some more stats for them on the fly. How can you know what they know, if you don't assign a few knowledge skills to them? What happens if they need to make a Composure test in the middle of a combat? Suddenly you need their willpower and charisma, which I'll bet you ignored when you were only sketching them out. Or maybe they need to carry something away-- now they need a Strength stat, which you also probably ignored. What happens when the bodies are looted? Do you come up with equipment lists on the fly?

You see where all this is going, right? In SR4, you need more information on NPCs than you do in other games. For mooks, you need a full set of stats set against a baseline. For Prime Runners, you need to build them just like a normal character.

Yes, yes, yes and yes. Coming up with those stats on the fly is easy. I don't understand how any can have any trouble at all with simply makeing up a stat at the moment they need it - we've got the baselines for them already (aka 2-4).

Knowledge skills? Usually the runners want information that is not tracked by skills anyway - I don't let a guard roll knowledge to remember where their security central is, or when his shift changes. If not - if they really want to know from the guard what they know about history or pop culture, I'll roll 4 dice.
Composure test? If in doubt, it's 2 per stats for mooks, 3 for leader types. Same for strength, 4 if I think they work out often, 2 of they are clerk types.



No, I do only need the stats that actually get used, and those are easy to add on the fly. And for prime runners, I don't need to build them like normal characters at all, I can either use the examples, or make the stats up on the fly with the PCs as baseline.

(If I really cared about it that much to build them I could simply take my pick of the dozens of characters on Dumpshock, ready to be used.)

That's how you do as a GM, and that's probably how most GM do it (except maybe for some GM who prefer to stat out everything, but I've never seen a GM do that for very long), but Cain is right when he says that by RAW you have to create Primer Runners with the character creation rules. I know I don't do it (I don't even have Prime Runners, Lieutenants and mooks), and I doubt that many GM do it.
There's a difference between the rule and the use, just like the law says you shouldn't cross the road when the light is red, but everyone does it (here at least).

For me, the rules are more like guidelines rather than laws set in stone. I understand that some people can prefer to have everything written down in an immutable way with no leeway for the GM, but I don't think the SR system is good for that. Let's just consider actions modifiers: I think we all agree that SR needs them. There are three ways to handle them: the first would be to have tables with absolutely all possible situations taken into account (shooting while eating yoghurt: -4, shooting while dancing: see dance style table), the second one would be to have no tables at all and just let the GM deal with it, maybe with some guidelines. The third way would be something in the middle, with a list of the most common modifiers and guidelines for giving other modifiers. SR chose the third way which, in my opinion, is the best one. This means that SR is written with GM discretion is mind.
I know some people hate that and they have the right to do it. But I don't think they can blame the system for being this way more than you can blame a drop bear for being cuddly and eating people. That's just the way it was designed, a way that's as valid as any other with its own strengths and weaknesses.

First, I'm no munchkin GM.

However, a GM IS de facto more important than the PC. If he's not available, the game session can be cancelled. It's over. He spends more time on his game than any PC preparring the scenario, rereading the rules...

He is granted powers du to his position because he has final decision on things. A good GM try to be fair. But, if he says that the spotlight directed on the PC face penalyse him, and if an argument doesn't convince him otherwise, then the penality is applied.

Whatever you believe, his decision superseed (spelling?) the rules in the gamebook. For exemple, if I find a combo beeing destructive for the fun of the game and overpowered, I may nerf it, likewise I may boost some other parts of the game. So after all, the GM is the referee of the game.


The real problem about the GM autority is his fairness. Running the game fair makes it fun and cool.

I see no problem with the term. I can see why (in France, no clue about the rest of the world) it was problematic as RPG were for a time associated to sects (Master/guru bahhh).

But beside of that. You can have a Master degree when you study.

You are supposed to master the rules and the universe. So why not call you gamemaster? The rest is just fluff: the dungeonmaster, the storyteller, the weaver, whatever...


I don't think that the munchkin attitude finds his origins in the name.

okay, just a question. Ingame, you argued about something as your GM said, "no you can't stack this + this" (for exemple).

Game's over. Back to the topic. You point out that the rules doesn't deny you to stack this+this, even internauts agrees that nothing contradicts it. But your GM says: "No, I am not confortable with it. I don't find it realistic/too overpowered/I do think that it doesn't fit with the spirit of the game/whatever".

What's next?

Start a revolution?


Point is, he is the law. Then after, if he's fair, everything run fine. And you don't see him as the final master.

By RAW (pg. 277 BBB for those of you playing the home game) It says GM's can, if they so choose, cheat to keep their super NPC alive (one of my most hated gaming tropes. I have yet to meet a single uber powered NPC that was so awesome they deserved to live after the players smoked them.)

More importantly we should refer to pg. 272 BBB under the section "Non-Player Characters (NPC's). To wit:
"There will be situations where roleplaying alone can't resolve these encounters. The following rules provide guidelines for gamemasters in resolving these cases."
To me, and I may very well be dumb as all hell, these two sentences highlight two very important aspects of the NPC generation rules:
1. If you don't need stats for these characters than it's not vital for you to come up with them. As stated earlier in the BBB, the execution of day to day activities do not require a roll. (pg. 54 BBB) Asking a security guard where his office is should not elicit a roll, nor should asking him any other basic questions about his job. Furthermore hit buying for NPC's seems like a fairly logical rule to use in this situation. Provided the guard has a dice pool of at least 4 he should be able to tie his shoes without making a test.
2. Guidelines, it says it right there on the box.

Everything in that NPC creation section is basically a crutch should you need some stats but not have any on hand. It is SUGGESTED you stat out "Prime Runner" NPCs not because they're some sort of vital component of the game experience but because they're recurring characters who the players will interact with repeatedly (If by interact you mean shoot or burn). Alternatively they're major players in a scenario that players could conceivably stumble across.

I think we all use more or less the same techniques to generate on the fly NPCs. We write down BARSILW E and mentally plunk down three next to all those letters (correctly for meta type). Next we write down a couple of relevant active skills and knowledge skills. What constitutes a relevant skill? Jesus I don't know? He's a guard so he probably knows how to use the weapons he's carrying, doge, perceive, and enjoy something he does as a hobby. After that we take half a second to run down the list and evaluate in these terms:
Is this guy completely retarded? Yes? 1
Is this guy not very good at <stat/skill>? Yes? 2
Is this guy slightly better at <stat/skill> than the average person? Yes? 4
Is this guy pretty fucking good at <stat/skill>? 5
Is this guy going to spank the players up and down the street? 6+
If we get confused we can look at pg. 62 BBB for stats or pg. 108-109 BBB for skills. If the examples don't sound like they belong in the same sentence as the NPC's name than it's probably not the right number. Hank the security guard is a... legendary pistol shooter. Hm... Novice? Ah! Professional!

And now you have a more or less completely stated up NPC in case you needed every stat or skill they could possibly have. Will you need all those to resolve an interrogation or a gun fight? Good god I hope not!

Or do like Fuch's says and roll 4 dice (I usually roll 6 for NPC's going up against PC's... just doesn't seem like much of a challenge otherwise). There's absolutely nothing in the rules prohibiting you from doing that nor do I see any inherent moral conundrum associated with making shit up in world you made in up the first place. Granted you could be a total retard about this but your players will happily vote with their feet and you'll be gaming with yourself for awhile.

That's the DP for a guard's knowledge skill check. Not his DP for firearm tests, or dodge. Those are usually 6-8 in my campaign (including smartlink).

You're right but like to think they know their job about as well as they can shoot a gun. Not always true of course

Looking at it from your angle I think that the 4 DP is appropriate for any esoteric skill they should have but you didn't think of.

That's what I think knowledge skills are appropriate for in this case - I don't make guards roll to know where they work, when they stop working, or who their boss is, or who has the codes for the weapon storage locker.