I was one of the people who was drug kicking and screaming into the realm of fixed TNs.
However Frank does make an excellent case for why the old system "didn't behave as advertized"
http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?show...st&p=902606
So I'm pondering what I might like to do when I next have a game (presuming I'm the GM, which is more likely than not).
The thing I've found I really dislike about how the current system players out is mostly.
#1 All the tactics I enjoyed in earlier SR editions seems to have gone out the window. Going from TN3 to TN5 instantly halves the expected number of successes and going from 5 to 6 halves it again so even skilled characters respect conditions and modifiers. Not only does this make for more interesting tactical play, but it seems to fit reality. Take the best shooter on the planet and than make them shoot while running, there will be a significant degredation in their performance. Under the current system if you have a pool in the high teens modifiers like that are essentially negligable. Players with sufficient dice pools stop bothering with things like getting better angles, firing while stationary, or bothering to look where they're shooting (OK, that list bit might be an exageration, but not by much)
#2 For people with lesser skills, things quickly become impossible that shouldn't be impossible physically. I'm guessing that edge usege is supposed to be the patch for this, but in Franks example for some tasks some people will just manage it MXC style. I.e . the good shooter may notably degrade their performance if they're firing while moving, but it doesn't suddenly become impossible for granny to hit a target just because she's moving while firing. She'll just need more tries.
And finally a problem from both systems (and most game ssytems really)
#3 You know that weapons in the hands of a lesser skilled user can only do so much damage in a given period of time. I find this annoying because it removes the option for a lot of the interesting standoff situations as well as removing tension in general. I.e. if an enraged girlfriend pulls a gun on the teams hacker while they're out of their body armor, they still know they can make a break for it and just soak up the damage for a certain number of turns.
What I was wondering is what people might think of something closer to maybe variable target numbers, but a constant dice pool.
If you always throw, say, twelve dice than you should have a pretty reasonable distribution most of the time. There is always a chance of a whopping 12 successes. And TN variation can make a big difference. The skilled player acheives better results because their TNs will be lower.
But I don't quite like that either. Especially if we're still using d6s.
Any thoughts?
Maybe having some base number of dice you always throw, then adding skill/stat numbers onto that and having sitautional factors modify the TN?