Indeed it would be. If someone has actually been called a liar.

Without proof or evidence it would not be helpful to call anyone a liar, but to assume that the person is being entirely truthful is not helpful either.

I was going to comment on this, but I see you've already edited your previous posts so I'll just chuckle and move along.

I admit that my previous post could have been better worded.

Actually, it's entirely helpful, since without any other evidence, it's all we have to discuss.

Meh. Neither side is blameless in this - the thread's been feeling like a 'vindicate my decision', which is dangerous in this kind of country.

It would've been the height of terrible irony to start an argument on semantics when I feel that's what the OP was about anyway.

On a related topic.

How do you think an IP should be resolved:

Highest Initiative Total declares actions/resolves first?
Lowest Initiative Total declares actions first, Highest Initiative Resolves First?
HIghest Initiative Total declares actions first, when all actions are declared, resolve actions from highest to lowest.

some other criteria?

Note: This answer is based on shadowrun having Combat paralysis, using edge to go first, and delayed action. It's an answer for Shadowrun, not all RPGs.

I have to go with "Highest Initiative Total declares actions/resolves first".

Delayed action, to me, really puts a giant hole in simultaneous combat. It feel like it's a simple way to say "nope, resolve what you're doing and then I'll instantly respond to it". Likewise, using edge to go first feels like "Don't even think about what you're going to do until after I've put some holes in my target". Combat Paralysis also makes me not want to declare actions before someone else's actions are resolved. The guy with combat paralysis isn't making a decision at the start of combat. They're reacting after everyone else.

Does any of this make logical sense with real world combat? Heck no. It's theatrical. But the mechanics edge, delayed action, and combat paralysis is theatrical as well.

Just because I really don't understand the rules, if the player going last in the original example had said "I delay my action until the next action phase and then I'll interrupt and go first", would he have then been able to shoot at the wounded character?

I like the way White Wolf does iniative. The slower people declare first and the higher declare last giving them the ability to interupt the slower people and a clearer view of what's going on.

Yeah, that kind of system has worked well for some games. Honestly, I've never had much trouble with 'classic' initiative systems (highest is first, break all ties, etc.). It's so much simpler if people just act when they act, instead of declaring plans or splitting off multiple 'simultaneous' sub-realities. I guess it depends on what game you're playing, and how 'game-y' it is.

I think the OP's ruling was just fine. The real problem is 4es use of initiative passes instead of the older system of initiative scores. The game gives no concept of what an initiative pass means and what happens in the intervening time between when a fast character acts and when a noral one does. At least in 2e you knew how fast somebody was. If their initiative score was 24, they went on 24, 14, and 4. Thus a player acting on 14 would be going simultaneously. That's why I've never been able to accept the 3e and 4e initiative systems. It simply made things more "balanced" and fun for players of slower characters.

The player was displeased with the result because it didn't allow him to metagame his target selection. Easiest way to understand initiative is that the number it goes off on is when the action completes, not when it begins. Choosing a target, aiming and firing didn't all happen on 14, they just resolved there, and there's no reason a character could act on knowledge that occurred at 14.

The easiest way to resolve things like this is to have players declare their actions when or before their initiative pass comes up. Then resolve them in the order that they go. It's not perfect, but then again, 4e's initiative is horribly flawed so nothing ever will be.

Yeah, and high scores can just delay actions, which can be a very powerful move, giving you the opportunity to counter someone.

And honestly, it is just more fun. I like choice. High init chars have to make a choice. Do I act now or do I delay? When an enemy does something threatening, you have to choose if you want to shoot him first, or if you want to continue delaying because some other enemy might try something worse later in the pass. All much more interesting than the omniscience of high init chars in declare backwards/resolve forwards systems.

I think delaying is such a powerful move that should always be employed, that I've been thinking about going from lowest to highest score instead - higher scores can always choose to go first, or when someone declares an action, go before it is resolved. But so far, delaying haven't been employed that much.

I liked the 'roll high, decrease by 10s' system, because you didn't automatically get your 4 IPs.

I hated that fast chars got to act 1-3 times before the mooks got to shoot back.

You think that fast chars getting to act 3 times after the mook makes any more sense?

I liked that mooks got to occasionally have more than one init pass without having been forged out of pure chrome.

No, making sense they would act "in the middle". But it makes for a better game when the number of mooks realistically present at a scene can actually challenge the players.

That's why they are mooks and the player characters are the player characters. If everyone was equal to a shadowrunner, then being a shadowrunner wouldn't really be that special. Could just call the game "Normal Guys in the Future".

While I'm typically against munchkinism, most "reasonable" samurai and adepts from the older games were ending up with initiatives in the 20s, so they weren't going to be going more than three times. If you had allowed "unreasonable" characters in your game as a GM, then you were stuck I guess.

Besides, I've always maintained that if your mooks aren't presenting a challenge then you're failing as a GM. Even the most lowly of mooks can use tactics and movement to their advantage. And sometimes, they are just there to get beaten. After all, the players should get to have fun with all the stuff they "bought" for their character. What fun is it to be some superhumanly fast guy with wired reflexes if you're really only just "kinda" faster than everyone else?

Definitely liked the older initiative system better when there was a random element and not just a formula for the players to follow.

The point is this - when the samurai can just walk in front of a bunch of guard and gun them all down, it isn't special either. It is just dice rolling. Runners are still way above guards and way faster.

So what was the player doing while the other player took his actions? Since the other player had already taken his simultaneous action I would assume he would know which one was getting shot. Was he getting another beer, and so wasn't at the table while the first player resolved his actions?

That aside, in the case of simultaneous actions I'm in favor of writing down your actions and then resolving all of them as written.

Ha! Thats funny.

I kind of agree with this tho.

Many moons ago someone posted a house rule for SR3 where everyone rolled an initiative score and then sequentially subtracted 15 (iirc) from their score to determine how often they acted. The cool part was the the turn progressed from + [highest initiative score] to – [highest initiative score] with every character acting every 15. So for example, if Sammy the speed-demon street sam rolled a 45 and a mook rolled 23 the turn would go from +45 to -45 with Sammy acting on 45, 30, 15, 0, -15, -30 and -45. Mook would act on 23, 8, -7 and -22. The net effects were:

A.) Each turn represent more of the total combat (the equivalent of 2-3 regular turns) which means rolling/calculating initiative less often
B.) Everyone got more actions
C.) Fast characters got to both act before and act more often than slow characters, but slow characters didn't have to wait til the end of the turn to do anything- they still acted in the midst of everything.

I used this a time a two, and it works pretty well. Not sure how thoroughly play tested it is or how well it would translate to SR4, but it was fun and a rather elegant house rule if you ask me.

Having an idea is not remotely the same thing as knowing. You're saying that you know exactly how a specific person you don't know will act in a firefight. I couldn't predict how people I went to basic with would act in a firefight. Of course, you're also saying that your player could not predict how the person he created whole cloth, including every thought, emotion, and impulse would act in a firefight. I call bullshit.


..and yet, you insist that this fictional character in a fictional setting must do those fictional things in a "realistic" manner. This is especially egregious because you clearly have no idea what is and is not realistic in this scenario.


Bullshit. The GM is never forced to make a player's character act in a different way. Let me spell it out for you" real humans in real firefight actually shoot the farther away target sometimes. You are talking out your ass. I'm talking from experience. When you're in a firefight, you can have a conversation with me about what is a "human" way of acting during one. Until then, shut the Hell up, you don't know what you're talking about.


Again, those same emotions and reaction can just as easily make a person shoot at the more distant threat. Doing so is not always the best action. I can think of a hundred instances where it would not be. If it were always the best action, then wouldn't it be a person's first instinct when the survival reflex kicked in? My point is that your player was trying to portray a living, breathing human being with thoughts and feeling which led him to a specific decision in a crisis scenario. If you aren't willing to let other people play their own characters, what the Hell are you doing playing an RPG!? Just write a screenplay and be done with it.


Who cares whether or not he was trained? It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter that things were happening at the same time, either. What matters is that you took control of another player's character. The only character that person has control over. Apparently controlling everything but that isn't enough for you. I ask again: why are you even playing with other people at all?



Yes, and magical compulsions allow you to force the character to act a certain way as well. Nothing like that was in play. If you play CoC, you know you might go mad. It's in the rules of the game. If you're playing SR, you know you might be magically forced to take certain actions. That's in the rules, too. Last I checked, choosing the target of a ranged attack was something the player got to do. What mechanism inside the game allows you to declare which target the player in question could fire on? Was the player away of this before hand and given an opportunity to build his character in a manner to minimize the risk of this? A player of CoC has the opportunity to try to build a character more resistance to madness, right? A SR player may try to build a character more resistant to magical compulsions, correct?


The problem is that your "common-sense" judgement call has nothing to do with the reality of how people act in a firefight. You don't know how people act in a firefight, apparently, and certainly haven't been paying attention while I explained a variety of very real things people do in those sorts of situations. You are no more right in insisting that the player must shoot at the closest scary monster than you would have been if you had forced him to reload his weapon five times and shoot at nothing.

OP, what would your reaction have been if instead of taking the risk of being mauled by not shooting the closest monster (to him) and helping his team by shooting the one closest (to them), if say the situation changed and a grenade landed in the middle of the team and he leaps on it to shield his comrades? History is full of examples of people doing things that aren't the best thing for them or sacrificing themselves to help their buddies out.

Wow. Angry guy Rys is angry.


Of course, he missed the fact that the GM wasn't "controlling" what the player character was doing. He was simply preventing the player from having his character act on information and knowledge he wouldn't have at the point of action resolution. The player wanted to do something he couldn't do. While I agree that perhaps forcing him to shoot at the closest target was not the correct resolution, but neither would have been letting the player wait until his action resolved to declare what it was.

It's easy to create a mountain of "what if" scenarios for this guy, but they're all pointless. You're suddenly creating hypothetical arguments that may or may not even be an issue. The situation was this: Two PCs and X NPCs act on the same number in an Initiative Pass. One PC wanted to wait until all actions on the same initiative number resolved to declare what he wanted to do so he could take an unreasonable advantage. The GM said "no". That's more than fair since the actions are near-simultaneous.

By "do something he couldn't do", do you mean "know which guy was wounded" or "shoot at the far guy"? I understand that unless he delays his action and then uses his delayed action before anyone else acts he may not have known who was wounded, who was dead, and who was unhit because everything was happening at once, but, as far as I can tell, someone in that pile of simultaneous actions was shooting at the far guy, because someone wounded him.


Isn't that exactly what delaying your action does?

Delaying an action is one thing. The player wasn't delaying to go last. He was acting on his initiative and was the last to go. Hence why I used the word "wait" and not "delay".

I explained it above. And this isn't directed at you specifically, just reiterating for clarity and to avoid confusion. The failure of most players is that they don't understand what an initiative score in a game like Shadowrun represents. In the example give in the OP, he stated the players and NPCs were all acting on 14. Nobody was wounded when the character's initiative number came up. The character who got to act "last" on 14 wanted to choose his action based on things that had happened before him on 14 because his character was the slowest.

Focusing on what an action entails, any action, understand that it does not all happen instantaneously on 14. It was begun at some point before that, and simply resolves at 14. The game abstracts the difference between decision and resolution by assigning specific initiative values. Other game systems try and cut down on this abstraction by giving actions a tick cost, or something. Shadowrun does not. No matter what your action is, or how time consuming it would be over the span of a Round, or Pass, it executes on its assigned number.

Whatever the character was trying to do, began well before 14, even though the player may not have declared the action until the gameplay reached 14. In the game's "reality" (not realism, just the reality where the characters exist), the character started his action whenever appropriate to finish at 14. This kind of time retroaction is just something you have to accept as part of the quirks of a non-detailed initiative system. How does this work with Complex Actions and Simple Actions and Free Actions? Very confusingly, which is why Shadowrun's initiative and action system has always been a little weak. You just have to accept the abstraction and move on. The character has no time to change his action based on the results. It's happening just along with every other action resolving at 14. Despite the fact that the GM decides to resolve them in a specific order to give the "fastest" characters the slight edge.

Agreed, still. The GM forcing the player to shoot at the target seems unfair and controlling. But the player created that situation by attempting to metagame. Mistakes on all sides. Like I suggested earlier, the GM should have asked for the players to declare their actions first, and then resolved them in order. The play style of that player isn't among my favorites. He was attempting to exploit the situation to his advantage, which, to me, isn't good role playing. But some players are like that, and as a GM, you need to create situations where they can't exploit, so that they won't be upset about it. In reality, that player just needs to suck it up for being called on his attempt to "cheat", but we can't expect everyone to act like a man.

I want to make sure I understand this. If he had acted on 13, would he still have had the same restriction since his action was begun at some point before 13? I've never seen shadowrun resolved that way, but if that's how everyone else plays, that's cool with me.

If that's the case, does everyone declare what they're doing and then resolve in initiative order, regardless of when they're actually going? I'm used to knowing what happened on 15, shooting one round on 14, seeing what happened, shooting another round on 14, and then having the guy at 13 do his thing while I listen in as I get a cold one to drink. Am I cheating when I do this?

1) If he had acted on 13 instead of 14 would the action "I shoot at the wounded guy" have been valid?
2) If so, would declaring (writing on paper before everything happened), "I delay my action", being cheating or not? Is delaying knowing you're on the same round as everyone else but slower "metagaming"?
2) What valid action resulted in the wounding of the far guy and was that done on 14?

Was this, in any way, called for or necessary?

You're tunnel visioning on the wrong part of the concept. Shadowrun's inititative is abstracted. So yes, there's a disconnect between what happens on 15 and what happens on 14 because there's no specification as to how long individual actions take. Does it make 100% sense? No, of course it doesn't.

But I see where you're confused. I didn't say have everyone declare all actions for the whole turn, just all the actions for 14. So yes, even though it doesn't make 100% sense, if his action was on 13, then he could react to the wounded guy, because at least the actions on 14 would have been completed and he could have some rational chance to react. The player was trying to respond to actions that were happening simultaneous with his own and thus had no results for him to reasonably react to.

As you your first #2? Yes, if you're attempting to react to knowledge your player wouldn't have, you're meta-gaming. If you've decided to delay, ahead of time before any other actions were resolved, to a slower initiative number so that you can react, then no, you're not meta-gaming. Delaying to 13 could easily have consequences. If you're hit on 14, then you'd suffer wound penalties to your action on 13, for example.

Your second #2? No idea. Not my game. One can only assume that the wounding happened as a result of the faster player on 14's actions since the TS described it that way.

I can't tell you what the wrong and right way to play is. Maybe you like to play a bit faster and looser than others with "realism". But what the player described was trying to do was very clearly meta-gaming. And if the GM decided that meta-gaming was inappropriate for his table, then yes, the player was wrong, for that game. He'd be wrong at my table too. Despite insistence to the contrary, it is okay to tell players "No" sometimes. GMs should always look fr ways to allow things, but any good GM guide, including those for Shadowrun all the way back to 1e, will tell you that being firm is also part of running a game.

The bottom line is that nobody will force you to play his way. But, by the same token, you can't force him to play yours. And that's what way too many people in here were doing. A lot of insults being tossed around in here at the TS, and you're upset because I commented on the poor behavior of somebody who isn't even a member here and was described anonymously?

In 2e it could have. Vincent would have had a much higher Reaction score than the mooks (say, 5 or 6 based on his represented Intelligence and Quickness in the film), and rolled high on his Initiative, which could have allowed him to act multiple times before them. Or, one could easily interpret the first shots as a Surprise Round since the thugs did not expect him to have a weapon. Then it's kosher in 4e. Off topic, but everything is a matter of interpretation.

However, the examples of "el Presidente" and other stuff like IPSC are pointless. Those competitions are made against targets the shooters already know. It's an exercise in mechanics, not a combat simulation.

While I find your approach to initiative intriguing (I've never quite thought of it that way, but I might start), how do you reconcile this with the fact that the rules explicitly state that a combat turn is 3 seconds?

By not playing 4e. lol

In all seriousness, you just have to try not to think too hard about it. Because the more you do, the larger the blast radius when your head explodes.

If you do think about it, at 3 seconds, un-augmented players are moving very fast. Then you're giving players even more actions making them super-human. Wired reflexes increase your reaction times, sure, but do they also convey the muscle strength to propel your limbs at a faster rate? See how the equations are piling up? Haven't even started yet. Just how fast is somebody with Wired Reflexes 2? So somebody gets 3 Passes in 3 seconds, that's one second per action. For super-humanly fast Street Sam, that's "believable".

So, let's break the Combat Round down further. If the fastest player (let's assume the aforementioned samurai, based off the SR4 achetype with R9) is going three times and beginning on Initiative number 14. That means the each pass is 14 ticks in duration, and with 3 passes, that makes 42 ticks total. A tick is now .071 seconds long. Yep, less than one tenth of a second difference between Initiative 14 and Initiative 13. And remember, this is just assuming that the 3 seconds starts exactly when Pass 1, Initiative 14 goes off.

There's different ways to do the math (like assuming the 3 seconds ends with the absolute last action). If you assume that Street Sam is the only character acting in Pass 3, then it could technically end at 14, leaving only 29 total ticks in the 3 seconds (.103 seconds each).

You just have to roll with it because it would take pages and pages to hash out every possible variable. If you're going to use Shadowrun's abstract initiative as written and intended, then actions on a specific number have to be declared simultaneous, or near simultaneous. Allowing Initiative 14 to become Initiative 13.25 changes the way it works.

I find that fascinating because knowing that everyone is acting at once but you're getting resolved last sounds like knowledge the character wouldn't have.

I can't find a way for the player to make an intelligent decision and not be accused of metagaming/cheating. I'm really at the point where he might as well let the GM or the dice play his character for him under these conditions. (Which is basically what he's being told to do anyway.)


I'm not sure, given the GMs stated desire for simplicity and his comments about the complexity of adding up modifiers that wound penalties wouldn't affect the character moving last. It's an interesting question. If wounded on 14, would the GM/player have applied a wound penalty to their action on 14 when he resolves his attack?


At this point in the thread I still don't understand why, with all the actions happening at the same time, the faster player was allowed to target someone but the slower player was not allowed to target that same person.

Have you ever seen the video of the Worlds Fastest Gunslinger?
Shoots 2 Targets, 6 feet apart from each other, at a range of about 7 meters

The targets are destroyed simultaneously, from any indicators of what you can see... slow the action down and the draw, and both shots are completed in 6/100ths of a Second (Faster than the Blink of an Eye)... Insanely fast...

3 Seconds is a LONG time... Believe me, In combat, time really does begin to stand still...
Just sayin'

Shadowrun has a mechanic to regulate how combat works... it has changed over the editions. I actually prefer the system in play now, as it is more fair for everyone involved, at least in my opinion... Second Edition was boring for me as a Player, both as an Insanely Fast Street Samurai, and as the slow "Any Other Character"... Now, every one has the chance to interact with the scenario, not just those who get three or more actions before any one else can actually act.

The scenario given by the OP was heavy handed and did not need to occur. I have to concur with those who think that the Player should have complete control over the character's actions, unless circumstances have changed that (Mind Control being the given example above). The GM has more than enough to handle without having to micromanage the player characters. Does it really change anything to let the Players handle their characters? Not really...

Let the Player control their characters...

Real combat is not as fast as competitive target shooting. People move and miss and trip and even have to reload on occasion (something I rarely ever see in SR). The fact is that SR combat is ridiculously fast and considerably more deadly than RL. Trying to make any meaningful comparison is an exercise in futility.

The further one got injured by another character that was closer to it.

But, I agree: this thread is now going nowhere....

It's all very interesting, but the competition still involves static targets that they are able to anticipate and in many cases, have preexisting knowledge of. Shooting stunts are totally irrelevant to a combat scenario, believe me. I did and taught the stuff for a living. But we can argue over the intricacies of combat shooting all day and never get further from "your experience was obviously different than mine" and I'm not about to get in a measuring contest over whose resume is more relevant.


You're right, Shadowrun has a mechanic for how combat works. That player wanted to act outside that mechanic. In no way is that GM heavy handedness to use the rules as written and as intended. And it's hardly micromanaging to require players to abide by the rules.

Like I said to suoq, if you want to play faster and looser with the rules, then you're free to. Still, after all these years, no gamer police around to tell you what to do. But at the same time, you're completely wrong to try and tell the OP that the way he did things are wrong. Especially since his interpretation is much closer to the rules as written than yours is. The rules say that characters with the same Initiative Score go at the same time. Since it is entirely impractical for every player and the GM to all talk and roll simultaneously, then it stands to reason that the actions should be declared first, and then resolved.

What the OP GM did was not ideal because he should have had all the actions declared first to avoid confusion. What the player did was also not ideal because he attempted to change his action to reflect simultaneous events. Like I said, twice prior now, was that the resolution is that in the future, the GM should have all actions on a single number declared prior to resolving any of them. He made a mistake. People and the world are imperfect. It's within his providence as a GM to reasonably correct it, and within the scope of being a good player to accept that reasonable correction and move on.

Your sarcasm is noted and appreciated, but you're transitioning from something we call a "simism" (as in an unavoidable factor of a simulation versus real life) compared to a conscious decision to circumvent the simulation.


He'd have to answer that. I'd say no, as everyone is acting on 14 not 13.5 or 13.25.


I can't help you understand, I can only attempt to explain and hope for the best. The slower player was allowed to target someone. He was simply not allowed by the GM to use meta-game knowledge to do so. The GM made a mistake by not requiring all actions to be declared before he began resolving them. So he attempted to correct that mistake in a way that he felt fit with the level of realism he intended for the game.

And that's what GMs do. They adapt to the game's events and make decisions. If the way he decided to adapt and correct the mistake isn't your preferred way, that doesn't make him wrong. The only way to be wrong in this thread is to say that the OP was wrong.

I dislike the thought that when the GM makes a mistake, he's imperfect but when a player misplays as a reaction to that mistake, he's cheating, metagaming, and should "suck it up" and "act like a man".

The GM's decision (to declare/resolve/declare/resolve) put the player in a bad position. I don't see any need to blame the player for declaring an action that is normally permissible under declare/resolve/declare/resolve rules when they're declaring/resolving/declaring/resolving, especially when it's essentially the same action one of the other people appears to have taken that round, just phrased badly.

The impression I got was that the player argued with the decision the GM made. I set it out very clear that the player needs to accept reasonable corrections made by the GM. As there was nothing unreasonable about the correction, he was just being argumentative and disruptive if he continued to harp about it. That, to me, is a conscious decision, and a negative player characteristic. Making a mistake as a GM is just something that happens. The GM didn't set out to make a mistake. That's why he's imperfect. The reason why I very specifically put "cheat" in quotations was to emphasize that it wasn't a malicious intent by the player, but that was in essence what he was trying to do. What drew my negative response was that the player apparently chose to make enough of an issue out of it that it warranted being posted here.

At this point, we're at an impasse because you have no problem with meta-game knowledge being used, and I do. I believe there was no perfect resolution to the situation, but I also believe that if the GM's intent was realism, the choice he made was acceptable. If one were to toss up what instinctual reaction would be made between shooting the closest target and the further target, it is fair to assume the closest one. There isn't a whole lot of study into this as combat is pretty hectic and combatants rarely remember too much of what happened in detail.

This whole thread is some of you taking an anthill and turning it into a mountain.

Actually, the most common reaction would be to stand there with your damned fool mouth hanging open and die. There's a wealth of knowledge on that score.

However, let's set all that aside for the moment. I'm going to propose a hypothetical, and I want to see who thinks it's a cool idea, and who thinks it's an unacceptable level of metagaming. I have a concept for a character who seems like a badass to people who know him in passing or are only familiar with his results. He's ice-cold an in command, always in the right place at the right time with the right equipment doing the right action. Those who know him well, however, know that he's an incompetent buffoon. He's always doing the right thing, but for the wrong damned reasons, and sooner or later, he's going to get himself, and probably everyone around him killed. Somehow, that never seems to happen, though. He shoots the mage first because he's utterly convinced that you should always take out the useless goons first. He tosses flashbangs into the guard shack because he thinks it will interfere with their electronics, shutting off their smartlinks and scrambling their coms. He prefers to use his customizes Ares Alpha over the AK-97 on any run where he's not going to have to ditch his weapon and it's unlikely to be damaged because the thinks "those damned commie assholes" sabotage every weapon they export to North America.

He is full of the most insanely dumb concepts about strategy, tactics, technology, magic, politics, and pretty well everything else, but somehow, he always lucks out and does the right thing for the wrong reasons.

Me, I think it's cool as Hell, and if a player showed up at my table with that concept, I'd be happy as a clam. Yeah, it requires a lot of metagaming and post hoc rationalizations for his actions, but I don't care in the slightest. It's an interesting character with a real ticking time-bomb of a flaw who is nonetheless a useful member of the team.

Well, not actually a flaw, at all. An interesting joke, sure.

Sounds like a cartoon character. But that doesn't make it a bad thing. He'd fit right in if the campaign is a little more light hearted and casual. Heck, that sounds like every Pink Mohawk character ever invented. Even if most of them aren't intentionally doing that.

Well, I figured we'd assume that the shadowrunners get the benefit of the doubt on being able to perform at least some kind of action, lol. Whether through conditioning, or through the rule of fun. Unless they fail a surprise check, in which case then the result is likely the one you describe.

All I see is "He thought I was wrong by not letting him choose his target" and "Most didn't care one way or the other, with the only one not liking it being the one player affected". I don't see that as arguing or harping but I might have missed something. I didn't think how the player reacted was an important part of this discussion since Rand doesn't seem to go into it much.

It's interesting because the injured guy was injured by "another character that was closer to it". I think it's significant that shooting a target close to your teammate isn't considered a possible instinctual reaction.

I'd also like to note the Bernhard Goetz method of targeting. "Left to Right", which makes a certain amount of sense, possibly more than "whomever is closest". There seem to be a few different ways that split second decision could be made.

Although this thread has been going for a while and seems to have wandered a bit, I still feel compelled to comment as I am the player that is being talked about in the outlined situation. Just a couple of clarifications from my point of view. When it got to my turn to choose my action, and Rand asked me what my action was going to be, I said that I was going to attack my chosen target, which initially seemed to be acceptable. However as I started picking up my dice to roll, I added the reason I chose my target as an after-thought, at which point I was told that it was meta-gaming and that I shouldn't/couldn't choose my target based on that. Also, it was not clear to me that there was one "looming" up close on me, and from my understanding, initially, that one was behind me and one was in front of me. The one that was behind me had just executed attacks against another party member who had been behind me in the marching order the entire time. The one I chose to target was injured, but more importantly to me, it had also seriously injured another party member and (as I understood it) was also close to another party member that was already injured. Both of these party members had been ahead of me in the marching order as well. At the point where I added why I was choosing my target a somewhat heated discussion about positioning, meta-gaming and a player's ability to choose his actions ensued, which was brief. At which point, I decided in the interests of not causing further issue, I would simply roll a die to randomly choose my target, and we moved on.

For additional information, I am a mage and was casting a spell. I was magically augmented to have 4 initiative passes. I don't recall that I knew the amount of damage the creature had sustained, just that it had been damaged, the other had not been damaged. What I did know for certain was the amount of damage my team mate had taken, and that these creatures had been more vulnerable to magic in previous encounters.

Where I took issue was that initially, when I chose my target, before voicing the reason, it seemed ok. When I voiced my reason for my choice is when it became "meta-gaming" and I was no longer allowed to make my own choice. Had I simply kept my mouth shut and rolled my dice, there would apparently have been no reason. While I was irritated at the time, I did not remain irritated and I was surprised to see this huge thread on the subject.

I haven't played a PnP RPG in nearly 15 years and had just recently returned to it, and was for the most part enjoying getting back into it. When last I played the whole issue of "meta-gaming" wasn't ever an issue in any of the games I had played. It was before forums such as this were so common as it was 1988-1993 or 1994 when I was last playing, so it might not have become a concept or area of concern in those days. This particular group was the first time I had heard of "meta-gaming." Once when Rand asked us to submit a list of 5 goals our characters had, and he said mine were very "meta-game." And the second time was in this particular gaming session. In all previous games I had played back in the late 80's and early 90's, choosing targets or using information that the player would have wasn't an issue. I come straight from that point to now.

My rationale for choosing my target was based on these 4 factors. The target had already been wounded (Rand did not tell us the amount of damage the targets had), my team mate had been seriously hurt (this I did know, 8 boxes), my understanding was that the target was in front of me and visible, and finally, the other target was behind me and not visible (and magic requires you to see your target). Some of this may be meta-gaming, some of this was my misunderstanding the positions of targets, and lastly the fact that meta-gaming (that it is even an issue) is new to me.

So yes, I did not agree that I should not be allowed to choose my target. I suddenly felt like I should just hand over my dice and my character and let the GM decide what my character was going to do, as I wasn't going to be allowed to make that decision. I still do not agree with the decision, but I did not plan on making an issue of it in future sessions. However, I had decided that I would refrain from providing my rationale for choosing the targets that I choose, as it had created an issue in this case.

My character was not attempting to be heroic or self-sacrificing or courageous (as was all asked in one of the posts). However, neither did I feel "imminent threat" by the second target, as it was not conveyed to me as such. Considering I thought it was behind me (albeit mistakenly), and I pointed out that in my mind, pivoting around and choosing a different target, that was not already in my line of sight, in a split second didn't make sense to me. When I was told that they were both in my line of sight, I then said, "Fine, since I can't choose what I will do, then I will just roll a die to choose randomly."

The whole situation just seemed over-blown for a pretty minor situation, that really seems to have been blown way out of proportion by the appearance of this huge thread. For me, the entire point of getting together to play a game is to have fun, be social (as MMO's aren't the same thing). The group I played with for several years way back then had a different approach. If the GM didn't like a rule, game mechanic or whatever, he'd go with the "official" rule for the moment and then it was discussed as a group before being implemented. Usually any changes were made to enhance the fun of the game, and streamline something that was cumbersome in the mechanics. Changes weren't made to make it harder on the players, SR is already a pretty freakin lethal game if a player isn't careful. This whole thing just seemed pointlessly nit-picky to me, but I let it go.

This type of character you describe reminds me a lot of a "Maxwell Smart" from the old "Get Smart" TV show type of character. "Would you believe he missed me by that much?" *hold fingers a finger width apart*

@suoq

Action cards.
Or simply writing it down on a list and handing it to the GM.
For example.
First pass: Shoot Mook one with 2 shot bursts(narrow)
Second pass: Shoot Mook 3 with 2 short bursts (wide).


As a matter of fact I guess this would even make the game go faster. Because every player would have to make his decision at the same time and silent thus disabling the discussion about any action taken or not taken between players. (Why do you? Why don't you? Can I..? Why can't I?)

IMO, Mordoth settles the entire issue. Rand's decision resulted in less fun being had at the table, therefore it was a bad call. QED.

Disagree. The game is a group effort. Everyone seems to adopt this story as if there were but two people present at the table.

The game trumps the player. The player does not trump the game. Everyone is there for the game, not just one person. And sometimes, you sacrifice the little things for the better of the whole. If the better of the whole is that the game be played without meta-gaming, then the overly melodramatic feelings of "handing over your character" should just be dealt with and probably shelved. We're not drama queens. We're gamers, are we not? The GM puts a lot of effort into running a game. Are his feelings on how it should be played not at least equally important? Ignorance of meta-gaming isn't some excuse for it if it isn't allowed. Its cool that Mordoth has returned to PnP gaming. Don't know how old he is, but if he's taken a fifteen year break, he was much younger when he played before. The style of RPG that gets played evolves as groups get older. What we did in games when I was in high school sounds silly as hell when I look back on it now. Regardless, if breaking his own rules resulted in him having "less fun" at the table, would that not also make it a bad call too? What causes less fun at the table are players taking minor things like this too seriously. It sounds like the situation was explained pretty clearly, and then became an argument.

Focusing on the player as the only entity at the table who matters is a clear sign of people who are always a bridesmaid and never a bride trying to rule on what is acceptable for a GM. It's everybody's game. Dog-piling on the GM for making a fair and impartial judgment call is pretty immature. Part of being a mature gamer is understanding that everyone is there to play, not just you and that in the end, if you don't like the way a particular game master plays, nobody is forcing you to stay or come back. Obviously it sounds like the game was fun enough that Mordoth hasn't quit the group, so it's hard to say how much "less fun" was had.

How would letting Mordoth make his own decision resulted in Rand having less fun? Moreover, Rand was metagaming at least as much as Mordoth: recall that he did not force Mordoth to switch targets until Mordoth explained his reasoning. If a player cannot make decisions based on information his character doesn't have, the GM cannot make calls based on what's in a player's (or character's) mind. Mordoth listed multiple reasons for wanting to target a the wounded foe, in addition to the fact that it was wounded, all of which were perfectly valid and non-metagamey. Yet as soon as he mentioned the fact that he also wanted to target that specific enemy because it was already wounded, suddenly it became unacceptable. Where is the impartiality in that?