This is what really offends me about this optional rule, because anyone who wants to be good at something already has a high skill, and anyone who wants to be okay has a couple of points in it. The character that gets punished is the one who thinks he'll never have to use a skill (either because it's obscure-- like Pilot: Submarine-- or not part of that character's concept-- like the guy who doesn't use a gun), but then when something comes up in the game that would make it really cool if they did use that skill they know because of the skill cap there's absolutely no point in trying it. (And limiting it to one success does that, because the bulk of the system is either opposed tests or multiple thresholds. Any time someone is trying to stop you or you're doing something other than the easiest thing to imagine, it's going to require more than one success to have a shot.)

If I were playing in a game and something like that came up-- a vehicle chase was the example we were using earlier, but it could be anything-- and the group said, "We can't succeed, let's just let them go and do something else," I would be disappointed. To me, that's the antithesis of tabletop gaming.

If something comes up that's going to be really cool and dramatic because the new guy gets lucky against all odds and triumphs in the face of inexperience and adversity...isn't that kind of what Edge is for? It seems like a self-correcting problem.

We have a guy in our group who thinks the way you do Mercer. He felt that knowing his dice pool was metagaming, and so attempted to burst fire a vehicle, twice.

He had a dice pool of 1. First shot, critical glitch, shoots my character in the back at point blank range. Second shot, critical glitch, shoots a child in the head 2 blocks away. Now, none of us got mad at him for roleplaying his character the hard way, but I know I felt that he should probably know better then to try.

I dont think you should be upset at your characters over such a matter. As Clint said, "A man's got to know his limitations."

Exactly.

Also, if it's a car chase and it turns out that none of the conscious characters know how to drive a vehicle...that's simply a problem to be delt with. I can imagine the group programming the car's autopilot to take them to their safehouse with the hacker desperately attempting to shut down any commands to stop the car, rerouting traffic in front of them at the same time, while the rest of the team is hanging out the windows guns blazing - possibly snatching a pedestrian as hostage to keep the cops from shooting back! Perhaps the mage is oversummoning to get a really bad-ass spirit with Movement and maybe Concealment to help as well. (I predict tons of Edge use for everyone...)

Now, isn't that a much more interesting scenario than a standard 'roll some dice to away' car chase?

As I said before (but will say again), Edge works if it's one roll. But any sort of ongoing scene (vehicle chases being a prime example of multiple tests per round over multiple rounds) means the characters probably won't try it, and will likely fail if they do.



To me, it's the characters doing only the things they are built to do. I mean, the hacker and the mage already use hacking and maging to solve all their problems, so that's not much different than any other encounter they might be in. It's about characters being less likely to venture outside their comfort zone, because they know when they do they'll likely fail.

It seems to me that the idea of the skill cap is to keep high stat characters from running away with the game, but honestly I don't see the problem this is supposed to solve. I don't think of having the 8 or 9 dice as "running away with the game". I think of it as "being okay" at something, and I'm okay with someone who has a hard cap in a stat being okay at something. I wouldn't consider being capped at 1 success being okay though, because it's a likely fail in any opposed test and an autofail at any threshold higher than 1.

I dunno...if you often find that you just have to default in order to accomplish a run, maybe you should diversify? Hit caps make skill (which very often can be a minor part of your dice pool) important.

True, it helps stop the Bod 9, Agi 9, Rea 9, Str 9 crowd from consistently getting at least 3-4 successes on everything they do. That's only part of it.

It also rewards a well-rounded character, giving a bigger benefit to those who don't build little mountains of BP centered around a single ability that they can do better than almost anyone.

It helps reign in the magicians since they get even more things to spend their karma on.

It makes each skill rank actually matter - instead of just throwing one more dice on an increasing dice pool, it raises your maximum potential hits by 2. That's a lot of bang for your karma.

It indirectly discourages from aiming for those ridiculously high dice pools, since you get better returns from spreading your karma.

It makes Skillwires more worth the money.

It makes it a lot easier to throw curveballs at the players and challenge them in ways that aren't unbalanced for some and easy for others.

It makes the game tougher, which IMO enhances the dystopian cyberpunk feel of it all.


But it all depends on the power level, and what you want from your game.
I don't think 8-9 dice is being 'just okay' at something. It's the equivalent of an experienced professional, being consistently able to suceed at 'Hard' tasks (Threshold 3).
I think that 6 dice - consistently getting 2 hits, which is equal to an average task - is being 'okay' at something.
Less than that, consistently getting only 1 hit, is 'being bad'. That's where untrained people was base talent should be, imo.

Without hit caps you get augmented superhumans able to perform above the level of standard professionals at a lot of defaultable things, able to consistently outperform elite squads in most of their base skills, and able to compete with the best in the world in their area of specialization. If that's were you want to be, then perfect! If it's not quite good enough, there's some cinematic option to add, and if it's a bit over the top, there's the gritty options =)

So why not bring in the Rushing the Job rules of glitching on a 1 or 2, and apply them to defaulting tests as well? (SR4, p65)

That way by defaulting you are 2 dice down on someone with skill 1, and also are more likely to make an arse of it.

True, it does reduce the randomness. With all of the DP modifiers, there should still be a lot of dice to roll though.


I guess what I was going for with this idea, is that a skill 7 anything is really, really powerful. Book says 7 is best of the best, outranks anyone in known history. Yeah they can do amazing things. They should be able to, with a 7 skill. And I would see anything other than the actual skill (specs, reflex recorders, mentor spirit, focus, etc) as a DP bonus. Only the actual skill rating is auto-hits.


Your example just brings up how bad other rules are, like how someone with a hold-out could EVER damage an armored vehicle.

But yeah, it's a half-baked (not baked at all?) idea.

It's more that the low end is removed, I meant. If I'm rolling between 3 and 6 hits, I care a lot less than if I can fail. Or, if that's compensated for by Threshold voodoo, it has the effect of simply lowering the DP overall, and screwing the have-nots harder. No worries, playing around with core dice mechanics is the best.

I've long considered translating Shadowrun to the ORE system (One Roll Engine) but apart from making it even more lethal it would likely be a hassle porting over the magic system and still keep the flavor intact...

I think that on the skills that come up every run, or every couple of runs, most characters will have the ranks*. I'm thinking of the skills that come up once in a blue moon (to use the technical term). Unexpected situations, your Pilot: Submarine or Blimp type situations, the things that even the dedicated rigger probably isn't that great at. (If Pilot: Submarine is coming up every few runs, say like in a 'Smugglers of the Carib League' style game, then yeah, it's a skill the characters would be expected to have.)

When these unusual situations come up-- these once-in-a-character's life situations-- it seems like a real missed opportunity for the characters to not want to try something because they know they won't succeed. (And I don't think Edge is the best patch here. It's limited, so it's not going to be useful in any sort of ongoing challenge, and because when a player spends Edge to "do something cool" and then doesn't have the point when they're facing the thing that drops them, the message the player comes away with is, "Don't spend Edge to do cool things.")

I guess what it comes down to, snowRaven, is you believe 6 dice is average and I believe 8 dice is average. Clearly, our differences in this area are insurmountable. (In the context of the system, I agree 6 dice is probably the average for competency. But from a player perspective, 8 dice is about the middle ground for something that I want to do reliably well. For example, my current character throws 8-9 dice on the Stealth group, but 5-6 dice on most social tests. I'd consider him competent at sneaking, but I wouldn't consider him a face.)

*This is probably what sticks in my craw about this optional rule. I don't know that I've ever seen a character who had a high enough stat that they were comfortable defaulting on the things they wanted to do well, or had to do often. I've only had one character hit his racial hard cap, it was in AGL and REA, and I still took points and specializations in the skills that I felt I wanted to do well when they came up. I've never understood the "Mages have extra money, sammies have extra karma" debate, because I play a lot of sammies and I've never felt like I had more karma than I knew what to do with. I love skills and take as many of them as I can. If I were playing in a game that used this rule, it wouldn't impact me that much. The skills I take at 1 I'd probably take at 2 (like Locksmith, for those rare occasions when you find a mechanical lock), and I'd be more likely to start with skillwires (which come to think of it, I've never taken) but that's about it.

But it would still bug me, because it seems like it's a rule that says to the player, "Do what you're good at, or don't bother trying."

Honestly, I think this is a self-regulating issue anyway. At a table where high DPs are normal, the people will have higher attribs; but at a lower-power table, they *won't*. They'll be defaulting with their 4 or 5 stat. So, I don't worry at all about the '+200-300 karma' phase of the game.

I've never seen Edge used for 'cool' factor, really - usually my players use it for 'save my hoop', 'beat the odds', or 'sure kill'.

I compare skill level to the NPCs, really - because that's what PCs has to overcome.
I agree that 5-6 dice wouldn't be a face, because a face can't really be 'just okay' at social skills. He should be 'very good' (10-12 dice), at least. See, if I find it very cyberpunk-y and realistic that characters wouldn't want to try and steal a sub on their own unless it was their very last option, instead kidnapping a suitable NPC and forcing/convincing/intimidating/mind controlling him. The character's aren't really heroes, and if they end up in a situation where they are forced to rely on something no one knows (like Pilot Submarine for city based runners) they didn't do their planning well enough...

Maxed-out, or near-maxed out racial maximums are quite common at my table - In the current team, 3 out of 5 has one stat maxed out and one or two above racial maximum. The other two are the mage and the rigger - both focusing on a broad skill-base and stats in the 3-6 range. There's only a single skill among them at 6, though - and not more than 9 or so at rating 5 (each of them has earned between 160 and 200 karma). Only one of them has fewer than 16 skills (he's at 10 I think), and he tends to rely on his high Edge for anything that matters and quite a few things that don't...

Their average skill+spec+stat DPs are 7-10 for most 'support skills' and 10-16 for their fields of expertise (not counting foci, smartlinks, and such), with a smattering of 5-8s in other 'good to know' stuff.

This is where the disconnect is, for me at least. (1) How often do you want the guy with no skill in a given thing to routinely, consistently, carry the party through the thing he's no good at? I mean, if you want the dorky Hacker to climb behind the wheel of the Rigger's sleek sports car and drive circles around people, more power to ya, but I think that if people expect to beat the bad guys in an extended scene (with multiple tests per round over multiple rounds)...well...buy the skill.

And (2) is, for me, what the hell kind of group of PCs just looks at the math, shrugs, and doesn't try something? I mean, what sort of position are they in where (a) someone is repeatedly, over a long scene and with multiple rolls, defaulting on something, but (b) the party isn't so desperate for that to work that you think they'll "not try it" at all? What other options do they have? How do you imagine that sort of scene playing out? I don't ask to be snarky, I ask because I'm genuinely baffled by that train of thought. If folks are going to be defaulting, isn't it because they're in a backs-to-the-wall, no other way out, type of situation? What do players do, if not try, in that sort of scene? I mean, do they just pack up their dice and call it a night, or demand a do-over, or what?

It seems like people should either be defaulting and failing, defaulting and trying real hard (Edge) to succeed, or not in a situation where defaulting feels like their only option.

Then why even have defaulting? I always assumed it's *supposed* to show that raw talent matters a lot, though still with a penalty. There's certainly no reason to think that defaulting should require Edge, or that it's assumed to fail (nor only minimally succeed).

I'm not saying it should be assumed to fail -- heck, I'm not even necessarily defending the "cap of 1 hit for defaulting" rule -- I'm just confused by the logic here, I guess. I don't use the hit caps optional rule, I'm not sure how often it would have come up in my own games (defaulting-wise) even if I did, so I don't really have a dog in this fight (and I'm sorry if I'm sounding like I do, just for the record). I'm really not just out to be difficult, here. But it just feels weird to me, the way the argument's going.

I'm getting a vibe that people are expected to default and succeed every time, same as when they're playing to one of their character's great strengths. I mean, if one character's not a trained driver, and he's getting chased by a bunch of cops...shouldn't the cops probably catch him, or at least make it likely he's spending Edge to pull off a lucky escape? A chase scene keeps coming up as an example of something a defaulting character should still succeed at, and that just makes me kind of scratch my head. If someone defaulting can routinely get away from the cops without having to spend Edge, what the heck does a team have a Rigger -- or anyone with a Pilot skill -- for, then?

But, even moreso, I'm just confused at the trope of players not even trying. I'm genuinely trying to picture how such a scenario would play out, is all. It seems like a GM would have to work very hard to balance a scenario so that (1) a player has to default, but (2) that players has to default routinely so that Edge isn't an option, but also (3) the situation has to come up in such a way that the players "won't try it" if it ever comes up.

I just don't get how players can be in such dire straits they're defaulting left and right, but could still feel like "don't try it" is an option. I can't imagine the scenario, is all. I can't think of an example of this coming up in gameplay, and so that it would be an issue, basically.

I don't know that anyone has been saying anything remotely like that, Critias, so I'm not really sure where to begin. I think I've been pretty consistent and clear that defaulting is a rare occurrence that characters do in unforeseen and unexpected situations. I certainly haven't been advocating a game in which characters don't take skills and default on everything and do well at it.

Here's my point: When a character has to default (either because they think its the cooler action even if it's not what they're built for, or because they're stuck and have no other option), if they're capped at one success and need more than once success (because it's an opposed test or a threshold of [2] or higher, which in my mind is most tests), then they know they cannot succeed.

It seems to me that this optional rule would lead to situations where the characters never try anything other than what they've built towards. And it's worth pointing out that when we say, "Well, the character should have bought the skill," what we're saying is, "The character should have bought every skill," because the thing about unforeseen and unexpected situations is that they're hard to see coming.

When a situation comes up that is completely out of left field and the characters are unprepared for it, they can still default. I mean, that's pretty much what defaulting is. And in my opinion, if you cap it at one success you make defaulting pretty much worthless, because there aren't a lot of important tests where one success matters.

*shrugs* Okay. Just misunderstood the ideal situation you're gunning for, then.

IMO, it's for managing very basic stuff in fields where people could logically be able to scrape by in without training. Not for stuff like combat and critical situations, really.

I agree that there are situations where defaulting to 1 success won't cut it - but very few of those are situations where I feel it's realistic for someone without training to manage.

But like I said before, I don't think hit caps should be the default rule - it's fine as an optional rule, because for one-shots and 'slower' campaigns it would suck donkey logs to have a cap of 1 hit for defaulting (and even a cap of 2 for skill 1).

Messing with core mechanics of the game is never a good idea. Att/2+Skill would just make defaulting more glitch-prone and risky, even for characters with attributes at racial max (even assuming no -1DP for defaulting with said mechanic). Att+Skill*2 would lead to hits galore. In both cases Threshold tables, weapon DV and the magic system among other things would have to be totally reworked.

The optional rule is simple, elegant and does not mess with core mechanics at all.

I am not sure why you find stealing a sub by defaulting on reaction and, if you need more than 1 hit using Edge "not cool", seems pretty icy to me.

As you say, players will tend to only default in unforseen situations, more often than not when everything has gone to hell and their backs are against the wall. As Sir Alex Fergusson famously said, "It's squeaky bum time!". The sammie defaulting on Pilot Submarine because the rigger is unconscious and the only other way out is through a CorpSec army might be the best of a bunch of bad options, even if you need to use a bit of Edge to get through.

Trust me, when "don't bother trying" means getting mown down by CorpSec or walking out slowly with your hands up, defaulting and where necessary using Edge is the option most players will take.

Which optional rule?

Limiting hits to Skill Rating x 2, and 1 hit for Defaulting.

Ahh, ok. I thought there was a specific one for defaulting he was referring to.

Not sure I like it myself, as this would some tasks impossible, where i'm not sure they should be.

Midas, making defaulting more glitch-prone and risky is presumably the point. (Also, I never… ever see anyone glitch at my games; more'd be nice.) I agree that core mechanic overhauls are rough (I said so), but I'd never call hit-capping 'elegant'. It's hamfisted at best. Definitely simple, though.

Whoa, it's like the whole thread just went back in time with new people; quantum leap! Hehe. A lot of this is, as always, opinion and table-specific. Some people are fine with hit capping, and with decreasing the relative power of the lowest end (defaulters, Skill 1). That's not bad, it's just what's right for them.

For me, I have several negative reactions: hit-capping is messy and mean (to put it non-technically ), defaulting/Skill 1 should be encouraged, and I'm worried much more about the *high* end. I'm also not worried at all about what happens 200+ karma into the game. That's just me.

I don't expect anyone to be convinced from being one way to being another. The interesting thing is identifying the issues people are trying to fix, and comparing suggestions that address them.

Aye, agree with this. I'll roll with glitching on a 1 or 2 when defaulting and let my players run wild with hits from their skills I think.

Let me know how that playtests? I'm very interested in the idea that defaulting is 'risky', not because you'll fail (and not because you'll be capped to 1 hit), but because your success is never as good as a 'real' success (marred, instead, by glitches).

Will do. Campaign kicks off next week now that pesky chargen is out of the way. On an unrelated note, BP building doesn't half take a while to get your runners ready!

The main reason is that virtually every test you make in a vehicle requires more than one success. Only the simplest things are threshold [1], and then only open terrain is a +0 modifier. So if you're doing anything other than the simplest thing in open terrain, you fail and have to make a Crash test (which is threshold [3]) to keep from crashing. And if the vehicle combat lasts three rounds (which admittedly is as long as I've seen tactical vehicle combat go), the characters would have to spend Edge every round (to control the vehicle), and every time something else made them make a crash test.

That's the reason I chose vehicle combat as an example. It's one of the areas of the rules where basically everything requires more than one success. (Honestly, even if you had a Pilot: Whatever 1, with the success cap you probably shouldn't try anything beyond parallel parking.)

...which is quite true for someone who's had about a week or two of driving practice.

It's quite true of someone who has a low dice pool, but we're in two camps about whether or not that's the same thing.

Real life, how many people have you heard of who can pull of parallel parking the first time they ever sit in the driver's seat of a car?

Real Life... I have heard of, and seen, a few. *shrug*

Tsk tsk.

That way danger lies.

Ha, that was my exact reaction.

I'll agree with the general consensus that comparisons to real life are of limited value in gaming discussions. (Not that many people I know have supernatural Reactions or the ability it control a vehicle in VR, but it would seem to me that if they did they might be better than your average schmoe.)

That said, my objection to the optional rule is still this: Unless it's really simple (threshold [1]) or they're willing to spend Edge, if the characters don't have the skill, they cannot succeed at the action. I don't have a problem with the odds being stacked against them, but being unable to succeed because they took a skill at 1 instead of 2 irks me a little.

The other thing, Edge is nice way to represent luck mechanically, but I also like actual luck. Occasionally a character with a low or no skill with roll their 4 dice and get 4 successes. That's a nice, unexpected moment in the game and it doesn't happen all that often. I would hate it if when it did come up, it was meaningless.

I mean, continuing the vehicular example, a crash test is threshold [3]. If our superhuman Reaction guy is piloting the vehicle, he still needs to be able to get 3 successes on 8 dice every time the bad guys force a control test, meaning he still has to be pretty lucky to succeed. And we're still using the hard cap maximum as our example. Someone with simply a really good Reaction would only be rolling 5 dice. These are not odds that players seek out or feel comfortable with.

Yeah, yeah - I know



Just the reply I was looking for! Now, how many of those did it in the space of one tactical combat turn?

The text states that a driver should only make a test at all if time is a crucial factor or there's a chance of crashing. Also, a failed test won't necessarily result in a crash - it may just mean he failed the maneuver and can try again. (By RAW this goes for all skills - don't make a test if it's something the character can perform without difficulty - unless you need a degree of success, of course)



...which is why you raise those odds by getting Pilot Ground Craft, or don't attempt to drive a car in a chase situation when you barely know which pedal is which.

It's impossible for every character to have every skill. That's pretty much why defaulting is an option, even if it's a poor option-- even for superhuman stats. If you cap successes at 1 in a system where 1 success often isn't enough to actually succeed, you take that away from the players. And I think the game is poorer for it.

And the expected Answer, None. Took longer than 3 seconds, to be sure.

Real life is a mistake, though. It typically takes experienced drivers more than 3 seconds, as well.

Yep, this is also true.

As SnowRaven says, in my experience most high REA characters will get at least 1 or 2 skill ranks in Pilot Ground Vehicles to act as secondary wheelman or even primary wheelman in a group without a rigger.

As for the Pilot Submarine (Water Craft) example, more than likely there won't be pursuit once you have dived ... if there are two subs, you probably want to blow up the other one as a matter of course, but especially if you are planning to pilot it by defaulting, you don't want to have to fend off pursuit by a skilled rigger. This way, one success per turn might be all you need unless you need to dive fast or manouvre in a tight spot to get out of the dock ...

As for your assertion about multiple vehicle control tests per round, usually you only have to roll to control the vehicle, and if you use Edge to make sure you can beat the necessary threshold you will probably not have to make a crash test as a result of failing that test, taking enemy fire notwithstanding.

Of course life is a mistake!

Most experienced drivers wouldn't have more than 6-7 dice (remember that Pilot Ground Craft 4 is the level of Formula one and NASCAR drivers...), and so couldn't perform a high threshold maneuver in a single combat turn. The ppl with a Rea 4-6 and Skill 4-5 can be fairly sure to accomplish a 'back-up, turn-wheel'-parallell park in roughly 3 seconds.

Maybe. I have no reason to accept or not accept your random claim about SR4 mechanics in real life.

Oh, I switched entirely to SR4 mechanics there - didn't you notice? They simply happen to correlate roughly to real life examples in this one (rare) case

Haha, oops. That was a subtle change. Yes, assuming parallel parking is a simple and standard Pilot test, anyone can do it in 3 seconds (including defaulters, unless you're giving it a higher threshold; hard to justify). So… that tells us nothing.

Especially since ANYONE can do that in Shadowrun with a Skill of 0, by default; since it actually requires no roll, in my opinion. I would classify that as an everyday driving event. *shrug*

We're assuming they're being shot at, or the car will explode if they park badly. Obviously they'd let the Pilot do it, normally.

What he said ^