Hello, you might (not) remember me for trying to write a new ruleset based on shadowrun.

This time is initiative passes, which I feel aren't nicely done. I think they slow down gameplay to a crawl, especially considering the turn last only 3 seconds.
SO! Here's what I have.

Each players rolls initiative, which is just like in shadowrun. Inititative roll + initiative score = current initiative for this round.
Depending on each players' initiative, they will be given a bunch of action points. The average character will have 3 or 4 AP.
The player have one movement option, and one action option. Both may each a variable amount of AP, depending on the player's decision.

EXAMPLE:
Player A got 4 action points. He spend one to run. He then spend 3 on shooting with his pistol.
With these 3 AP spent on shooting, he could do one aimed bullet, a called shot, or just fire 3 bullets.

As for shooting several bullets in a single turn, I was thinking of merging them all into a single attack. Instead of resolving 3 separated attacks, the player would do a single attack that is significantly more powerful.
Each extra AP spend on the attack would use an additional bullet, add +1 damage, +1 attack dice pool, +1 recoil. Melee attacks don't care about recoil, obviously.

What do you guys think?
Also, am I clear on these rules?

sounds good, but I think the action cost need expanding.

So adding an action point system is supposed to simplify things and make things quicker? I don't see it.

Hmm. Given that you have to build a sequence of actions anyway, I don´t see how using the same order multiple times slows you down. Maybe you can explain your goal some more?


You tie everything to Initiative, disregarding IP modifiers. Those with high INI will act earlier and for more effect. You need to watch the balance of unaugmented vs. augmented chars here. You also need to rework all initiative-enhancing augmentations, possibly by replacing IP with AP.

Define action costs. SR has simple and complex actions on an 1:2 ratio, which follows KISS.

Your integrated attack combines the effects of aiming for DV and dp. Add SA/FA modes and lethal is putting it lightly. Automatic pistol 4 + Burst 2 + 2 added AP... 8 DV base for a small weapon. Do you want to resolve multiple bursts as one attack, too?

Okay, imagine you're GMing for someone who is playing Shadowrun, or any RPG, for the first time. They encounter some baddies.
You say "Roll Initiative!"
He says "How do I do that?
You say "Roll your Initiative score. Add the number of hits to your score and that is the number you go on. When I call out that number, that is when you do the thing you want to do.
He does and goes on 10. 10 comes around and
You say "What do you do?"
He says "I shoot it."

Explain to him, in a simple, non-run on sentence how to shoot it, as demonstrated above. If you can do this, it works. If you can't it doesn't.

You'd probably need to define the number of AP every action takes, and define firing a weapon in each mode as a separate action. SS taking 3. SA taking 1.5, rounded up. BF taking the same for 3 bullets. FA taking 1 per 3 bullets with a minimum of 2 spent. Or somesuch.

Can't say I really see the point though. Would you care to elaborate how such a system would actually drag the game down less than the IP system?

Personally, I think this adds even more work to the game system. We have to figure the number of AP each person, Take what moves their going to make, figure the ap total of it, subtract from their current ap, then go forward with the turn. Seems too convoluted.

Another approach:

1. Roll Initiative

2. Declare actions (lowest INI result first)
Characters get 1+IP simple actions per turn, spending 2 in place of a complex action. One unspend simple can be carried over to the next turn.

3. Resolve actions (highest INI results first)

Action points, as others have said, seem to be overly complex.

The problem with defining actions is that you need clear categories of things. Not everything takes the same amount of time, and many things can be multi-tasked by even the most unaugmented person (walking/running, talking, while fiddling with something in their hands like a gun). Hence the need for movement/simple/complex actions.

I sense the APs are meant to replace simple/complex actions?

The bonuses for combining APs to attacks is too high (recoil penalty for example is pretty much subsumed by the attack bonus).

Eclipse Phase makes a distinction between mental and physical actions, which I find useful.

The downside to this approach is that everyone has to remember what their action was when it finally resolves back to them.

Yeah, I've never liked 'reverse' systems in actual play.

Certainly. We use the standard system for a reason. The upside would be that the faster chars can react more dynamical to the slower chars, trying to interrupt their actions. (That´s why I´d only hand out a single action per IP.)

They slow-down the in-game-world-elapsed-time, which is the WHOLE point of augmented characters. A street-sam is supposed to be able to shoot 3 different people dead by the time the first shell-casings hit the ground. That's one of the cool things about SR. If you want to speed something up, speed-up the real-world table-time, not the game-world time.



As others have said, if everyone has their FULL action points as soon as their initiative number comes up, suddenly that same Street-sam gets to do all of their actions before anyone else can react. 1st and 2nd ed. had this problem, SS's could clear whole rooms. It was a major balance issue.

My idea behind giving AP system where you spend lots of points in a single attack is to simply make everyone roll once per attacks. The default rules makes some character acts only once per turn while everyone else gets to act up to 3 or 4 time. That's lots of rolls. What I simply want it to make a system where everyone gets the same game time.

Of course I realise that allowing a character to spend all their action points in a single "timelapse" would have been too powerful, and this is why I'm trying to make it less deadly. Hence the extra damage per AP spend instead of just extra attacks.

Does it make sense?

me no english speak good

Also, I certainly don't want to increase the time lapse per round. That would be ridiculous : "This unaugmented elite marksman can shoot two bullets every six seconds, and that's as good as he gets."

This is not really functionally different from the Sr3 Initiative..
Instead of Action Points, you take your initiative roll you get to go X times based on your initiative roll.

So, in your game, combat is the only thing that happens?

Go play a different game.

This is the kind of comment you should keep to yourself.

I'm rewriting a game based on shadowrun's system. It's not shadowrun, so what happens in it is up to me. Right now I'm focusing on the battle aspect of it. I never said combat would be the only thing.

That being said, I'm curious to know how you managed to conclude that combat is the only thing in my game...

This, with the solution being "fixing" combat. Basically says combat is the only aspect of your game worth anything. Or do you honestly expect a combat monster to have equal game time during social interactions, or investigative work? Or any number of other aspects or moments in the game?

The game is setup so that combat favors players who built their characters for combat. The same applies to social favoring social, legwork favoring legwork, etc. The game was designed in a way that all of those should come into play during a 'balanced' run, and thus total game time is roughly the same for everyone involved.

Again, if you can't handle that, go play another fucking game (or in this case, use another system as your base).

/facepalm

Ok right, so...

anyone else have an opinion?

I admit I might have omitted that I'm rewriting the whole game. This is one of the rule in that rewriting.

I'm interested in seeing the final product, although I have nothing to offer input-wise

Ok, I would suggest instead of "merging" all 3 attacks into one killer combo, that the character could spend AP on an "aim" action, so 3AP spent = 2 aims, 1 shot. Aim can increase accuracy or damage.

I was already thinking of doing something like that. Basically 1 AP here is roughly one simple action. So you could spend a bunch of AP just to aim, and get extra dice. Or do a called shot to get extra damage much like how it goes in shadowrun right now.
I'm just debating giving the option of spending both extra bullets and action points for extra oomph. (+1 recoil, +1 dice, +1 damage, one bullet spent)

Like I said, the idea here it to make the turn runs faster by making everyone act just once.

I can appreciate wanting to speed things up by people just getting one action per round.

However if you're already rebuilding maybe just free yourself from the idea of all sorts of different actions. Maybe in your game, the slow motion affect of bosted reactions is simply represented by getting to do their one action soon, and a bonus to things you'd deem relevant to the world moving in slow motion, which would be most things really, certainly firing a gun.

So you could give out an initiative boost as now, but extra IPs would instead give extra dice to a whole lotta stuff.

Actually that seems to have a better "feel" to it in a way. Especially in hand to hand combat.

I'll reiterate. Your new player says "I shoot it." Explain to me, simply as possible, how I shoot it.

Previous versions of SR have dealt with the same problem differently. One solution which builds off of previous editions is roll a number of dice equal to your IPs. Add the sum of the dice to your Initiative. Highest score goes first. Every 10 points equals another action.

So we have John (J) with a 31, Mark (M) on 22, Guard (A) at 18, Guard (B) at 17.

J shoots on 31, M shoots on 22, J shoots on 21, A goes on 18, B on 17, M on 12, J on 11, A on 8, B on 7, M on 2, J on 1

Yes, this means that the Street Sam can be so fast as to annihilate everything before they've even had a chance to react. I'm okay with that, though YMMV. In my experience, it speeds up combat though.

I always liked the old 10s method. Definitely some old threads about that and this topic.

To shoot someone with a gun:, spend one AP, roll agility + [weapon skill] against his defense pool. Check damage after.

Now theres all shots neat options you can do to modify your attack. I just switched "simple action" to "action point". The main idea is to make it an "attack". Think of it as some kind of burst fire option that uses 3 or 4 simple actions.

Okay, so if an action point is a simple action, why are you changing it?

And what is the difference between a "burst fire" using multiple Action Points to shoot something and just shooting them multiple times with a regular gun, if shooting takes one Action Point?
If it takes, say, 3 Action Points to burst fire your SMG, and it takes one Action Point to fire your pistol, then how is an SMG better than a pistol? It's fine if it's not, but if that's the system you are designing, I wouldn't use Shadowrun as your base.

It seems like you might be better suited for an OGL type thing, where the skill of the individual allows for a greater range of action. It seems like having more Action Points allows one to have a better or more varied "attack." Whereas in Shadowrun all attacks are available to all individuals regardless of skill, but those more skill have a greater chance of accomplishing what they want to do.

Moreover, it seems like combat is the bread and butter of your system, leaning more towards the Super Mario Brothers end of the spectrum rather than the improv. Shadowrun tries to do a lot with a little, and as such, made it's mechanics with more than combat in mind. A lot more.
This leads to combat purists and grognards denouncing it as "broken" while simultaneously seeming overwhelming and rules heavy to new players.
I, personally, think Shadowrun hits that sweet spot in the middle. It requires a little more work, but it also allows for greater range of gameplay.

What you are looking for is probably something less ambitious. Like I said, try for something like an OGL. Re-writting Shadowrun is a feat unto itself and you aren't going to get a consensus on this board.
We can't even get a consensus on the rules as they are.

Aw cmon, why is everyone thinking that combat is the only thing in my setting? I'm only talking about ONE rule here...

Anyway, no, I compared it to a burst fire because I thought it would be easy to understand. Firing any firearm cost one AP whether or not it's a burst fire. The thing here is that you can basically fire fast as if you were firing a burst fire, spending more bullets for a nastier attacks.

Comparison: spend 1 AP to do a 3 bullet burst fire with a SMG. Or spend 3 AP to shoot 3 bullets with a pistol.

Also, I'm changing it because I think that initiative passes slows down gameplay. I want everyone to have one turn and one only. The turn is resolved with a single movement option, and a single action. Single action can be firing repeatedly but it's still rolled as a single action. It can be about reloading and firing. Or opening a door.

As a note, of course this rule only concerns combat. I do not need initiative to see if the locksmith beats the door in term of speed, or if the face speaks faster than the listener.

As another note, I enjoy writing RPG material. It's my hobby. However I have rules I am unsure, so I try to talk about it. I think it's not working.

Just have everyone use all their actions from their various IPs in the first go. If I have 3 IP, I get 6 simple actions or 3 Complex ones on my go.
No need to add something arbitrary like Action Points. It's just adding more rules to an already rules heavy system.

Me too. There was something extra fun about having a random number of actions per combat turn.




This is certainly workable - although new players will need to think about the cost/benefit of each possible action, rather than the more straightforward simple/complex action. You're also going to run-into balance issues, as suddenly the super-speedy street-sams are going to be shooting LESS during a combat round - something they're rather used to doing.

I'm not saying these are impossible to overcome issues, its just that these systems are complex - changing one thing has many unintended consequences.