Hey All

Starting a first time SR4 game with my local gaming group tomorrow. Any advice for a first timer?

My basic first game premise is to place the players in the midst of a riot as a way to break them into the basics of combat and ease them into variables such as non-lethal combat, fighting in smoke, exposure to hazzards and some basic matrix work ie.. breaking locks, disable drones and locating the cause of the riot.

What are peoples thoughts on the use of miniatures? Are they useful? Are there rules for using them on say a tile map?

Also what are some general pittfalls I should be aware of as a nood SR GM? Ive GMed several games in the past so I know how to move a story but concerned about specific SR4 land mines.

Cheers
Lass

The game will run allot smoother and won't fall into the general broken silliness that people complain about if you and the players remember that Fourth Edition is a world where ( Dicepool 6-8 ) before equipment is what the Runners will be facing the vast majority of the time so they simply don't need to be "World Class" with massive Dicepools.

Well, the main problem is that most of the players will probably be distracted and staring at you. ^-^

Amen Brother....

Right up until they face their first real challenge. Then they'll learn that massive dicepools is the way to go.

Don't make it just a brawl but a way out, with maybe someone actively taking a dislike to them. When SR started in 1st ed the book included an introductory brawl for just the same reason you gave, but it was a gang robbing a Stuffer Shack the group was in. that gave an environment(the store) opponents (the gang) and by standers(other customers) with a way out- fire exits or dead combatants.

It was also -- for some groups -- a murderously difficult adventure, since they were getting ambushed by a group of similarly-powerful characters (most of the gang members were player character archetypes), but the PCs themselves weren't necessarily all kitted out with their usual big guns and heavy armor, and/or might have gone into the Stuffer Shack nursing a few aches and pains.

Ahhh, good times.

I ran that for my SR3 group, and I -- to this day -- remember how shocked they were at the brutal effectiveness of one of the NPC's shotgun, in close, Stuffer Shack, ranges. For some reason, despite several of them also being avid shooters, none of them had every made the connection. They assumed shotties weren't well represented by game stats until they were on the wrong end of one.

Yeah, our very first game, one player had an ork gillette. He thought his hide would keep off bullets so while the rest of use wore armored jackets and lined coats, he had a t-shirt on. One blast from a shot gun redocrated the wall behind him and convinced us all of the need for armor.

Like RL years ago I was in a motorcylce rally, and we were sweating in our leather jackets, wondering if we really needed them. then some nit wit in faux leather went down and the paramedics were plucking the melted plastic out of his shoulder wounds.

When SR started in 1st ed the book included an introductory brawl for just the same reason you gave,
Its called Food fight and there is a 4th Ed Version(with some Goons chasing an Elfin Mother with her Child)
Its my favorite Mini Scenario for Introducing New Players to Shadowrun.I'm still using it for Conventions.
The Pits might be putting all Aspects of Shadowrun (Mundane,Matrix and Magic/Astral) together and Heaving (right word?) them on the Players.Too much too soon is never good !
And Battlemaps ,hmmmm,SR is usually very fast paced with a lot of moving around,etc
Battlemaps are more useful for Melee fighting and give the Players a good overall veiw .If you have a Riot with a lot of People running around,Smoke,Teargas etc its (ImO) inappropriate.

with a Food-Fight-Dance
Medicineman

read up 3 postings

Not really Cain, as DM you just have to remember to keep everything reasonable on your side of the screen too.

In teh end, I have found that most, if not all, games that I have played in have upper dice pools no higher than 14, and the average sits around the 10-12 mark... there is generally no reason for the opposition to be sporting 15+ Dice pools in our games as they are not needed for playability...

You can have some very difficult, even nigh impossible, runs with a hard cap of 15 dice or so as the upper limit... I keep hearing that the fluff does not support such play, but I would have to disagree... the fluff seems pretty spot on to me when you use the skill ratings as provided in the book as a guideline... can you get crazy dice pools... Sere, do you NEED them... no, not unless you just want to push the game to horrendous levels of power, which is not necessary in my experience...

Of course, Some won't agree, but that is okay with me...

As a GM, my concern lies in playability and making the sessions fun. If my players are sporting 10-12 dice, cool. If they are sporting 16-18, good for them. If the are down at 6-8, no problem there. I scale their opposition either at 50%, 100% or 150% of THEIR die pools. I don't need to go through chargen to make my NPCs or mooks, that's a player control.

Opposition should be scaled to the players, true, but it should be gangers for low-powered campaigns, security guards for mid-powered campaigns, and stuff like Tir ghosts for higher-powered campaigns - but if the high-powered characters run into a ganger, then that ganger shouldn't suddenly develop a 15 dice pool.

In SR4, you do need high dice pools to be effective - unless the GM is ignoring penalties and pulling his shots. The characters step out into the line of fire again and again - if they don't have an edge on their opposition, then they will get taken out. SR4 is incredibly deadly.

I would disagree about the necessity of extremely high dice pools...

For example, Some top of the line Gangers may indeed have higher dice pools... experienced Members of the Ancients may be sporting 12-15 DP... Same goes for the occassional security or Tir Ghost, whatever...

However, In my experience, with the many, many penalties that can be levied in combat (or out), I have yet to actuall lose more than 8 dice to penalties, and I rarely lose more than 3-5, on any given test... yes, if you cannot compensate for situational modifiers, then you lose dice (sometimes a lot of dice), but if you can cover these penalties (without the need for DP modifiers) then you can mitigate the penalties to your DP and retain more dice... I prefer to go about it this way than to just stack positive DP modifiers until I am sporting a 20+ DP for circumstances... It seems more "organic" (yes, I know, Not a good choice of words) to mitigate penalties than to just accrue crazy amounts of dice to offset... DOing it this way preserves the skill level fluff (my preferrence, as very few people are going to be sporting those skill ratings of 6 and 7)... using the other philosophy, a great many shadowrunners have the 6 and 7 ratings because they think that they Need the Dice (and with this I disagree)...

Not trying to start arguments here... I have played characters with upwards of 200-400 Karma (my current character has almost 200) and yet the VAST majority of my DP's are on the average of 10-12, with Skills ranking arounds the 2-3 Mark (My current Character only has 2 5's and no 6+)... I am constantly challenged, and I have a ready measure against which I can hold myself against (the Skill Rating System)... Not all people will agree with this and I am okay, I just wanted to point it out... and for the record, my GM does not pull punches in teh least... It is not uncommon for us to lose as many as 3 player characters on occassion, sometimes all within the same run... this has taught us the value of intelligence gathering, planning, and cohesiveness of team... when your team functions AS A TEAM, you can overcome a great many things that may be out of your class...

As Always, My 2



Just my preference though...

Hey All,

I played the game and all together it went really really good!!! I love the setting and possibilites of the game. Some of my observations and mistakes:

1. DPs did seem to balance out when all was said and done. Some of the prerolled PCs in the SR4 book were tossing loads of dice as they came.

2. I know I made some mistakes with Matrix combat. It seemed to me the prerolled hacker was really poorly underpowered (didnt even have a cybercombat skill )and so I let her do some rigging and other stuff just to move the game along. I commented on this at the end of the game and the player seemed cool with it.

3. I did focus on combat this first game with a few chances at investigation. Next game I want to move in the direction of more RP.

Anyway, Thanks for the advice all! Glad to see how active these boards are!

Lass

Congratulations ands Keep the Faith...

At dice pools of 10-12, it's no wonder you're constantly challenged!

There's not going to be any common ground between games, so let's look at the core book NPC's. The archetypes are poorly done, and have dice pools in the 12-15 range. Strong NPC's are about the same. Prime Runners aren't statted out by dice pool size, but rather by BP; we can assume they're supposed to be on par with the PC's, for whom we've established that 15-20 is the norm around here.

So, dice pools of 6-8 as primary is clearly underpowered for the game. 10-12 will get the job done, but the game is designed for 12-15+.

Difference in playing styles notwithstanding, Primary skills in teh 15 or less range are not horrible, whereas most secondary skills are int eh 8-12 range on average, while learning/tertiary skills are 5-8 dice... Seems to be a good basis for comparison, and I have no issue with these numbers...

Where I have the issue is the "gotta have 20+ dice to accomplish anything" statements, which tend to abound here, and are very common for the Dumpshock regulars... I think that those who opt for those types of Dice Pools do not play for the challenge, but for the Winning...no offense intended...

If a character dies, then a character dies... the only thnig that I really care about was whether I was able to tell the character's story or not... it is not uncommon for me to change a character, assuming that he is still alive, when his story has been told... sometimes you need the specialized, hiogh dice pool character to tell a story, but I do not believe that that would be the norm... even Highly Skilled character can have a minimal Dice Pool of 16-18, and would be among the best in teh world at their profession with that Dice Pool per the fluff, so why is it required to have DP's in the 20+ range?

That is my only disatisfacrion with a great many of the Dumpshock "Uber" Characters... I just think that you can BE Uber without having Dice Pools in the High 20's or higher... I mean really, with a maximum Human Attrribute of 9 and a Maximum Skill of 7 (representing the absolute pinnacle of human achievement) with a specialty only rolls 18 Dice... How do you define/compare Greater than Human Achievement to Greater than Human Achievement... I just think that you (the generic You) have a different definition of Competent than I do...... Mine, however, works with the RAW for Skills and General Fluff... Yours works for High Powered Games where every one is SIGNIFICANLY less powerful than the HEROES (Player Characters)...

Neither of us are Wrong... As I said, Different Playing Styles...

To the OP:

I'd say the most important thing when it comes to dice pools is making sure everyone is more or less on the same page so to speak. You've already spotted the problem with the Hacker. Tweak it in such a way so that it is more "on par" with the other characters. The system works best when all your players are in the same dice pool range and you can then plan accordingly.

Offense taken nonetheless.

People opt for these kinds of dice pools for all kinds of reasons: to see if they can, to see how it works in play, or just to see what happens. The pornomancer was an experiment in character building, pure and simple. Additionally, sometimes you have "Killer GM's", where if you don't min/max to the extreme, you die. I know I learned to min/max as a survival trait

There's lots of good reasons to opt for big dice pools, and "winning" at the expense of the other players isn't necessarily one of them.

Plus, high dice pools aren't always the result of min-maxing. I don't consider a dice pool "broken" when you can get that dice pool by simply making a few logical choices at character creation. Start out with a typical human street samurai. Agility is the main combat Attribute, so take it at 5. Now, with a 5-point quality (restricted gear), you can buy relatively cheap muscle toner: 4, raising Agility to 9. This is a good choice, because Agility is also used for many other active skills, so pistols won't be the only thing benefiting from this. Now, for skills, you can have one 6 at character creation, or two 5's. Supposing that this guy is more range-oriented, taking the 6 in pistols. Then specialize in semi-automatics, the most commonly used kind of pistols. This sammie is getting cybereyes, so one of the mods he takes is smartlink. Also, since this is his primary skill, it makes sense to get a reflex recorder for pistols. Add it all up, and you have Agility: 9 + pistols: 6 + specialization: 2 + smartlink: 2 + reflex recorder: 1. So we have 20 dice. And that's without being an elf, or an adept, or getting any aptitudes or exceptional Attributes. And this guy is hardly gimped in other areas - he still has plenty of room for other specialties.

Nothing wrong with dice pools in the 12-14 range if that's how you like to roll, but it's so easy to get higher than that, that it seems you almost have to intentionally gimp your character to keep the dice pool there. And that's starting to get into Stormwind Fallacy territory.

Fixed for you.


15-20 dice is expected in my games, where we play with significantly more powerful characters (500BP, approximately).

No.
The game was designed for a maximum pool of 12, with an exponential rise of the costs for each additional die in the pool. That's why the max threshold was 4. (That's what a freelancer/playtester told me).
Then came the munchkins who, sometimes with the help of the new books, got their dice pool up to 20+. That's why the max threshold was raised to 5 in SR4A.

So the game should actually handle 10-12 dice pools correctly. I've had some characters manage things correctly with 8 dice and I even have a GM who caps dice pool at 12 (the additional dice can only be used to remove negative modifiers). It's up to the players to decide on the level of their game and to design their characters and the opposition accordingly.

Glyph's example is exactly why it is so important to make sure all your players are playing the same game. Dice pools can get ridiculously large very quickly.

To the OP: I'm assuming you guys are currently only playing with the Main Rule Book (aka BBB)? I'd actually suggest sticking with that since the game actually runs much better with that and some imagination rather than all the "splat" books.

Fixed that for you. Non-optimized, non-munchkined characters easily hit over 12 dice thanks to the material that got published after the BBB.

I'm not so sure. Let's take the example of the MBW.
In SR4 MBW wasn't made to be the ultimate initiative booster for street samurais but (from what I recall reading on Dumpshock) to be the ware you could install in any basic metahuman to transform him into a nearly competent opponent with the help of a few activesofts. Of course, nothing prevents a street samurai to get it and have the dodge bonus add to his already ludicrous dodge dice pool.

Same with the various genetech treatment and some ware that cost a lot of money and/or that aren't available at chargen. It looks like most of them were designed so that the streetsam will still have a way to enhance their character after some games: they cost much more than other ware and/or are unavailable at chargen and their effects are about the same as the effect of other ware that can be bought cheaper at chargen. But with the 'Restricted Gear' quality, nothing (except GM approval) prevents a player from getting it at chargen to get the ultimate dice pool at chargen.

I'm not saying the authors have no responsibility but I think that it also depends on what players do with what the authors give them.

/signed.

They're more like enablers. Hence why most games have a tacit agreement on size of dice pools.

Someday you'll be one yourself, and you may discover how wrong it is to lump all of us together like that.

Glyphs example shows that if that's what the designers intended, they failed miserably. Additionally, the poorly-done archetypes frequently have dice pools in the 12+ range. I believe the Street Sam, for example, has a primary dice pool of 17. And this is all from the BBB, so don't go blaming "munchkins" for design failures.

And yet, when this topic coems up, as it always does, if you don't have these types of dice pools, you are "intentionally gimping" your character and are "not efficient"... Implication is that we are wrong and you are right...

To this I call Foul...

Yes... You can get dice pools to the extremem without a lot of difficulty, that does not mean that that is how the game is meant to be played... apparently, that is how the game is to be played at your table, but please don't assume that everyone else agrees with you... a vocal few do, but they do not speak for the majority however...

First... The Example you give above is indeed logical, but is very unnecessary, and a little implausible as well, in my experience, especially for a starting character...

Dice Pools are always "logically chosen", if you follow the posts here on Dumpshock, according to those who post the characters... and as a result, The Pornomancer (for example) is Broken... Now I know that that character was more an exercise in optimization than playability, but that does not change the fact that the character is broken, even if the choices were logical... It is exceedingly easy to acquire abusively high dice pools... the only thing that keeps this in check is the GM and the Players reigning in their instincts to go for the gold and using the rules as they are written to limit such abuse...

There is nothing "intentionally gimped" if I choose to follow the rules as outlined for skill ratings and competency (most people on htese forums obviously do not do so if the posted characters are anyu indication)... If you like being the BEST IN THE WORLD... good for you, but that still doesn't explain how you are the best in the world and yet are somehow anonymous... Individuals with those levels of skills have made an extreme name for themselves, and are generally world renowned in their fields... and yet, you are a nobody at character creation for all intents and purposes... seems to be an irreconcilable paradox to me...

And before you say that it does not have to be that way, sure you can attempt to patch this inconsistency with a possilbly plausible backstory, but in my experience these generally fall flat as it is very hard to be world renowned and anonymous at the same time (of course, your backstories may be different, I don't know as I don't play at your table... I can only speak from experience)...

AS a result, I prefer to use the definitions of skills to determine my competence...

Of course, this topic never actually goes anywhere, as we have so far been unable to reconcile our differences. So, that beoing said, I am going to Agree to Disagree for now...

My 2

I may only have 20% of your posts there Dire Radiant, But having lurked here for some time before joining, I consider myself one already... I just often have differing opinions... no harm in that...

I'm not the one who pointed out that this is falling into Stormwind Fallacy terrain, but it's something to consider.

I'd also be careful as to what assumptions you make about my table. I have a suggested cap, something you've opposed, IIRC. We could assume you invite munchkinism by not having dice pool caps.

As for rather or not everyone disagrees with me, I'll just point at the BBB again, and show how the dice pools we've been discussing are more in line with what the core rules suggest than what you do. Agree or disagree all you like, the fact is that's how it was built. You may not need dice pools of 40+, but 15-20 is a logical goal, considering the ease of achievement and the suggested power levels in the core rules.

If I remember, you SUGGEST a cap of 20 Dice... I assume that is at character creation... IS it enforced? Even after Creation?

And AS far as I can see, Highest Dice Pool per Archtype (BBB - SR4, only book available currently:

Bounty Hunter: 10 (unarmed COmbat: Subdual)
Combat Mage: 10 (Spellcasting)
Covert Ops Specialist: 10 (Athletics: Option for Gymnastics Dodge) or 10 (First Aid with Medkit)
Drone Rigger: 12 (Pilot Aircraft, +/- Aircraft Mods/Software, Situational)
Enforcer: 7 (Piloting) or 7 (Close COmbat)
Face: 10 Etiquette) or 10 (Negotiation)
Gunslinger Adept: 13 (Firearms)
Hacker: 9-10 (Hacking, due to multiple programs at 4-5)
Occult Investigator: 10 (Perception)
Radical Eco-Shaman: 10 (Summoning) or 10 (Binding)
Smuggler: 12 (Pilot Groundgraft +/- Vehicl Mods/Software)
Sprawl Ganger: 8 (Close Combat) or 8 (Pilot Bike) or 8 (Urban Survival)
Street Samurai: 14 (Firearms, Assuming that the Muscle Replacement added, it does not show on the Character for Agility)
Street Shaman: 10 (Summoning)
Technomancer: 9 (Tasking)
Weapons Specialist: 10 (Firearms)

Now, exactly which examples are in line with the 15-20 DP range?... not one archtype is even in that range per the printing I am looking at (though the Street Samurai may be there in the erratta, I did not bother to look), and in fact the average is around 10 dice or so, which falls more in line with what I was pointing out...

Are these "corrected" in the Anniversary Printing, in some ways, probably (I have neither the inclination or energy to dig deep to find out tonight, maybe tomorrow), but I would be willing to bet that there would be fewer than half that fall into the category of dice pools that you espouse... with the BBB printing that you discussed (and the one that I looked in), it is obvious that the developers intended the shadowrunners to be around the 10-12 range for competence... using the decriptives for skills in the book... as you see, there were no archtypes that sported a 6 in Skill (and in fact, most were in teh 3-4 range with a few 5's thrown in from time to time), and only a few that were OPTIMIZED for stats (though not Maximum Stats)... can it be done, sure, was it intended that way, I would argue not...

And I will not argue that 15-20 is a logical goal, with experience and gameplay...

Anyway... My 2

A character "intended" by the rules is any character that falls within the range set forth by the rules. A character with 20 dice is just as viable, and logical, as one with 12 dice. The rules have hard limits (can only spend half of your BP on Attributes, can only max out one Attribute, can only have one skill of 6 or two skills of 5), and costs designed to make certain choices more costly (you have to pay 25 BP to max out an Attribute, you need a 10-point positive quality and have to spend double points if you want to start out with a skill of 7). You can get a dice pool in the 16+ range fairly easily within the rules, without any exploitive tricks, indeed, without even running into the costlier end of it (aptitudes, etc.).

How powerful your character is, and how powerful that character is in relation to the game world, varies from table to table. But I'm not going to argue which is "better" any more, since it is a waste of time. I can see where Ty is coming from, with the way he envisions skills - I see skills, and define "starting" shadowrunners, a lot differently.

Hey Glyph... I can get on board with that...

Keep the Faith

If you mean, do I deny PC's positive dice pool modifiers that exceed the cap, the answer is no. If someone racks up enough positive modifiers or spends Edge, there's no reason to deny them.

There was a time when I thought a combat monster needed 4 passes and 20+ dice.

Then I discovered air-burst grenades.

2 passes and defaulting is more than enough to kill anything that moves.

Hmm, a couple of things that randomly popped into my head.

( 1 ) Yes, the devs were smoking large ammounts of crack if they thought for one moment that the char-gen rules matched up with the fluff. Personally I tend to assume that the fluff is more apt to have the correct "vision" given that it is harder to fuck up when writing story fluff then it is trying to crunch number based rules.

( 2 ) The pre-gen characters in the books are very poorly written and don't even follow the rules of the game unless they were changed since the last time I checked and should be avoided at all costs when trying to prove a point.

( 3 ) Playing with reasonably small dicepools is hardly "gimping yourself" or turning into that stupid Dragonlance Character if everyone sticks to the fluff, it does however change the way that the game is played, you no longer have "glowing screaming naked men" sneaking into high level corp buildings, or Mr Talky being able to piss on the Don's Mother at dinner and remain the Don's best friend, Troll Archers taking out citymasters, or deadeye street sams who can still hit their target almost every time even in the worse of situations. Instead the game becomes more about trying to take away the other side's dicepool through modifers while squeezing every last mod you can for your side because you really fracking need every last edge you can get to survive a firefight. Yes, this means that people will actually have to spend time aiming and won't be shooting every IP they get. Presonally I find the latter style to be more realistic as well as more in line with the fluff we have.

No Problems Mate... I prefer this manner of play myself...
Keep the Faith...

Personally, I prefer flexibility to the One True Style.

Some people prefer smaller dice pools and nothing wrong with that, but his point #3 is just hyperbole. The problems he lists don't have anything to do with dice pool size for the most part. The first two examples are a GM who doesn't adequately define what actually using a skill is, and the troll archer has been nerfed (bows and the long shot rule have both been changed). As for the deadeye sam, he's still going to miss occasionally.

*shrugs* Then replace Mr Talky pissing on the Don's Mother with The Pornomancer and the stunts he is able to get away with if you'd like. And even I mentioned that Deadeye Sam will miss once or twice in a blue moon, but it doesn't change the simple fact that large dicepools do not follow the examples of the Sixth World that we are given.

Now with that said, if you enjoy playing a gritty supers game then more power to you, but it doesn' change the fact that Fourth Edition's ruleset breaks once dicepools start becoming large.

Forgot point 4:Street Sam is a combat monster with 14+ dice in all his attacks. But ask him to con the door man and his SOL. I find this in alot of the builds on DS as specialized-which on a 4 or 5 person team could lead to disaster. Namely-what happens when you need a skilled and the specialist is down or otherwise unavailable.

Alot of this comes down to playstyle-and it not who can drop whom quickest. In that contest, the GM wins (Re:cows from outer space).

OT:Does anyonw reallly believe that there is a winner in an RPG?

It's not hard to construct a Sam with 14+ dice in his attacks who also has 14+ dice in his Con skill. Charisma 3, Con 3, Fast Talk specialization, and a rating 6 Emotitoy.

Specialization is not a bad thing in Shadowrun. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Shadowrun is about teams of specialists, working together. Having backup skills is fine, but you should have specialists.


Yes. In a good game, everyone wins.

And as always I'll have to disagree, Shadowrunners should be generalists with an area of expertize.

*EDIT*

You have to remember that the concept of having a standard "team" that always works together was largely put together for meta-gaming reasons, by looking at the fluff it seems to me that most of the time teams are assembled on a per job basis so any given Runner will never know what bases will be covered by his teammates and which ones he'll have to make do himself.

From a meta-gaming standpoint, if I'm using the term correctly, you really need specialists. It's much easier to run a game if you have niche protection. From a fluff standpoint, some teams are ad hoc, some are longstanding; but even in the ad hoc teams, the Johnson should endeavor to have all his bases covered.

dear OP,

I find that In SR. the tricky part is keeping a diverse team busy. when planning a Run, you need the matrix for the hacker, the asteral space for mages, and something for street sams to shoot at. If you give the runners time or distance you'll get the hacker on the net , the mage "scouting asterally" and maybe a rigger sending in drones, this leaves any other team members sitting in a van for an hour of real time, when in game its been a minute or two. so plan carefully.

edit: and on dicepools, I try for 12+ in my main skill set, but I also take ettiquette, infiltration, dodge, perception, pilot, maybe unarmed combat, most of these end up at 6 or less. so I think at chargen 12 is awesome , but I work to improve in future. I do feel that the fluff is a little off. mathmaticaly it makes sense, but the odds on dice can be cruel, and 6(being an average skill and attribute) tends to fall short

I agree with Cain-the occasional runner can be a jack of all trades- filling in a bunch of skills but most people are going to specialize. Think of it for criminal skills. Someone is gonigto go with what thye do best. some may argue this cuts dfown on the jobs available but conversly as you gain a rep' you are going to be able to pick andchoose jobs. Maybe you're the go to guy for B&E or or chummers got the fastest fists you've ever seen or you know just the gal for sniper work or that dwarf who's an absolute wiz at getting drones going etc. Sure those people can all do other stuff but they quickly can be known for a particular skill set.