lol

Does you bitching randomly about that like they're out to fuck over you all the time help? Also, heed your own advice about personal attacks, maybe, and people will not feel inclined to attack you personally either.

<<<Post Deleted>>>

You do a fine enough job in discrediting yourself. You don't need help, in that regard.

*tries to sidetrack the conflict*

So, um, back to glitching and how it can come up in play:
Well, as a GM I don't think I would like critical glitches to be any more horrible than they already are. I have seen them happen, but since it is quite a low likelihood for any individual player it has never really detracted from the game and has often added welcome tension to the game (Like the Elf Face crit glitching on a damage resistance test vs. light pistol...he had no edge to spend so suddenly was suffering internal bleeding and in DIRE need of medical attention) as suddenly a completely new dynamic is added to the scenario at hand. Glitches I have found to not impact the game too much at the lower levels, and are not exactly sorely missed at higher dice pools. Frequency of normal glitches has never been an issue, and it seems more memorable when it does happen. They are rarely, if ever, game breakers but my players love looking forward to dealing with the consequences. I think the most fun glitch I have had happen when GM'ing is when a PC glitched firing his Shotgun loaded w/gel rounds....apparently he had accidentally loaded a Shock-Lock round earlier and fired that instead, nearly killing the guy they were trying to subdue.

Now, I know the disconnect between skill&situation is not expressly dealt with in game outside of dice pool modifiers, but an easy solution I have tended to employ is to reduce the number of 1's needed for a glitch if it seems relevant. So for example, trying to fire an automatic weapon that has had no maintenance for years and had just fallen into a puddle of mud you would essentially have the effect of Gremlins for the duration of that action. Yes, this is a GM fiat thing, but you just need to make it clear to players when such an instance of "Gremlins" is in effect or likely to take effect.

This accuracy stat really has me excited too.

Something to make weapons of the same class different. Right now just about every weapon in a category does the same damage.

Provided that the MP5 H&K SMG is more accurate than the MAC-10 clone, but the MAC-10 clone has a bit more damage, we actually get a difference in SMGs.

Now if only they'd class each gun's ammo differently... pulling clips out of the MAC-10 and sticking them in the MP5 seems a bit odd to me.

I quite like that idea too. Weapons need more attributes to make different weapons sufficiently different anyway.

No offense... but both a MAC-10 and MP5 are commonly chambered for 9mm parabellum...

So contrary to your view... yes you can pull rounds out of one and put them in the other. You just need to strip them out of one and put them in the others magazines.

Also if the MAC10 has higher damage but lower precision it makes it superior to the MP5 depending on critical details we haven't been privy to. (if precision merely caps damage.. or also limits the number of hits you need to dodge to avoid getting hit in the first place). If the former, then the mac is effectively say a 6-8 damage weapon... while the mp5 is a 4-8 damage weapon.


I'm all for the 'classification' of ammo types... it keeps things simple.. all weapons of the same type share the same type of ammo. Which eliminates a book keeping hassle barring truly unique weapons like the sakura.



Even in terms of the topic... I'm not against reducing chance of glitch as skill improves (you take better care of your equipment... you're more likely to noticed that a rope is going to need replaced before using it... etc.). But there's a huge difference between practically never as dice pools inflate past 10. Really the odds on 11 dice of producing a glitch is less than half of one percent (.00461). Yes less than 1 in 200 rolls produce a glitch for 11+ dice. Below 10 the odds are 1.5% and go up as you go lower.

They're too often for small pools and never seen for large pools. In fact, their rarity in large pools is probably one reason people so often fear them as it's one of the few times for the GM to create 'fun' (in the dwarf fortress definition of the word).

As in SR4, many Mali take directly from your dice pool, you are down below 10 farily quickly. It'S not like everybody always rolls their maximum dice because no negative modifiers exist.

And since I have yet to see a list of possible effects that does not contain something close to instant death, I don't think Glitches are quite as benign as you and bannock like to make them out as.

The MAC-10 also uses .45 ACP as well as 9mmP

I was referring to the .45 ACP variety obviously.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAC-10



I would see accuracy as something akin to force, capping the net hits you can have. So you have a weapon that say starts with 6 damage and can add up to 5 hits to it... MAC-10

or a weapon that starts with 4 damage and can add up to 8 hits to it. MP5

It's that or precision affects the recoil modifier... which might work, if there weren't 600 ways to reduce full auto recoil from a 250mm man-fired howitzer to zero already.

I like to use calibers to describe ammunition just for fun, but that's something that I and most of my players know quite a bit about. For example I like to describe the Ruger Super Warhawk as firing a .454 Casull round. Heavy pistols are usually .45 or 10mm (approx .40), most light pistols and SMGs are 9mm unless they're based on some real-world weapon that's chambered for something else. AK-type weapons fire 7.62mm, sport rifles fire .308, American or European assault rifles fire 5.56mm, LMGs fire 5.56mm, MMGs 7.62mm, and heavier machine guns (mounted/vehicle/etc) fire .50.

I've played Twilight 2000... and enjoyed tracking 30 different kinds of rounds... not just worrying about 7.62 but 7.62×39mm vs 7.62×51mm NATO

It's not that hard to do... and it could be an optional rule I suppose... so I can either buy say... 3 different Heavy pistols and put some .454 rounds into some of them, some 10mm rounds into others and some .44 rounds into a third... or just bout 600 rounds of heavy pistol

"You need an additional simple action to unjam your weapon" => Firearms glitch, not instant death.
"Ammo explosion! You take your firearms base DV, roll body+impact armor" => Firearms critical glitch, not instant death.
Tell me how a data search critical glitch will kill your character instantly and I'll take that argument seriously

And you can always edge out. These things don't exist in a vacuum. You have a team to back you up and knit you back together, even if you are out of edge. Also, you can still _burn_ edge to survive such an assumed 'instant death' scenario.

Also, your dice luck just plain sucks.

Apologies for the off topic comment, but .454 Casull? Jesus, man. I always envisioned .44 magnum at most, maybe a hot-loaded .357 magnum. I agree with most of the rest, though light pistols to me were more .380 or .22. Different strokes, yeah?

.454 Casull for the Win...
Or maybe even the Ruger .50 (Coure that is only a 5 Shot Cylinder).

What a shame because I was also referring to the MP5 variant chambered in .45. (UMP45 IIRC... mp5 has been made in a bunch of chamberings... 10mm, 9mm, .40)

See the rounds are still interchangeable!

This means nothing as the rounds from a game perspective are the same!

All tracking of individual calibres and rounds is simply add a ton of book-keeping and waste game time. (is that 1911 chambered with a .45 barrel... a .40 barrel, or a 9mm barrel, or a .22 barrel...). Because guns come in many calibres... but now you gotta worry about the whole mess as well. Plus since all this stuff is supposed to be available 'caseless' for most applications as well... all those chamberings are obsolete.



Bannockburn:
Sorry but if you're firing Ex ammo... you better damn well be prepared to spend edge to downgrade a glitch.

That is one result which does make sense. If you're going to use highly unstable ammo to increase your weapon's DV and wipe out ballistics evidence (exploded bullets... good luck tracking back ballistics to the gun). You better be prepared if a misfeed or similar explodes in your face.

Ex ammo specifically only calls for this result on a glitch... any other type of ammo is far safer. It's simply part of the balancing factor of Ex(-ex)

Ow. My wrists hurt just thinking about that. Though you're less likely to bounce the revolver off your face than those weirdos loading .600 or .700 Never understood the need for that, just use a shotgun with slugs.

Falconer: Yes, that is my point. I _would_ spend Edge in such a situation, and a critical glitch _can_ produce a potentially life threatening situation. But I hold that it is not 'close to instant death'. The character in question, even if out of edge, could still roll his armor to avoid the damage and even _if_ he then took crippling damage from his Barret, his team mates could _still_ scrape him up and patch him back together.

Let's just take the crit glitch from the boxed set? I doubt anyone would scrape that character up. Though the explody barret, barring the sniper being paired, also will be character death, since it's seconds (if any, IIRC damage flows into overflow) for help to arrive, and snipers being snipers usually are someplace else than the remaining group.

That's nitpicking on the assumed worst base damage code
And if you're playing someone with no armor, and only 9 boxes of physical damage ... you can still burn your edge if you want that character to live (although, I don't really see why he would have deserved it )

The reference penalty of a crit glitch in the boxed set disallows armour (and the AP of the barret comes to bear anyway, I think), so ...

So burn edge?

Yes. Which is quite a massive effect for a glitch. And you want that to happen once a session ... why exactly?

No. You make it out to be the worst thing ever. It isn't. Here's why:

There are 3 points at which you have a safety line against that worst case scenario of a lone sniper with a barret loading ex-ex blowing up. And I am already disregarding the fact that he will _most likely_ have a lot more than only 10 dice.
Also:


1.) Use edge to downgrade that crit glitch to a normal one.
2.) Your body+armor (that's what 'normal' means) -AP
3.) BURNING edge to _still_ survive.

This is NOT a no-win scenario, even in an assumed worst-case scenario.

I don't want that to happen once a session. It happens regularly to YOU once a session, which is weird coincidence, and quite frankly, it sucks to be you.
I haven't critglitched with my characters in a long time, nor did I see it in my regular sessions for a very long time either. So yeah, fluke of the diceluck.
Maybe you should start letting someone else shoot if your dicepool is 2.

Unless I missed or misremember, something, it was when you burned Madeleine's edge at Gwenny's place two (three?) years ago. But you're more regular GM than player, so less chances to roll one.


Like your character who managed to get himself knocked out in that unnecessary fight he started? Just saying, you know.

And I see no "win" among your scenarios. At best, the sniper loses an expensive and hard to replace weapon. -6 AP means you are unlikely to have significantly more than 9 dice to resist (say, 6 body + 12 armour, would be 9 flat) - good luck with soaking (you can take edge, but unless you're Mr. Lucky or Madeleine, that'll not suffice). And burning edge is a win? Maybe you should have remembered that when you moped about that invincitroll. Your possibilities are different kinds of FUBAR. Loss of expensive gun, loss of expensive gun and (nearly) dead, dead and loss of edge (still a full track of physical damage, unless you have DocWagon and are in a place where they'll rescue you, good luck).

.... and, Dodge comes into it too. If one gun is Accuracy 5, Damage 6P ... and the other is Accuracy 7, Damage 4P .... both theoretically cap out at 11 damage.

But the guy who throws 6 hits on his dodge roll takes nothing from the 5/7P gun, while still taking up to 5 damage from the 7/4P gun.

"Your shot passes through a small spam-drone on the way to your target's brain-case, and people in the area are beginning to panic" => Firearms glitch with a sniper rifle. Also, not instant death.


Yup. In my sniper scenario, "I'll use a point of Edge - so, the drone doesn't fall onto the walkway; it falls into a (deep) decorative koi pond on the bottom level. The only things panicking are some fish, and one little girl complaining about being splashed." (I'm in favor of players being able to add to the narrative like that, as long as it follows the diktat laid down by the dice, and doesn't conflict with anything the GM has already put into the narrative.)

So using edge means people forget a firey explosion of a drone they were watching? Also, how is retconning that explosion out not changing GM narrative.

What fiery explosion? It was only the light of Venus bounced off of a weather balloon and refracted through the exhaust from the troll restrooms.

That was my point of pride. I burnt edge to get a critical success against the no-win scenario troll of doom
Not to survive.


More actually. Especially in combat, where I'd deem critical glitches to be most threatening.


Hu? The one referenced above? I honestly can't remember if that fight was unnecessary, but that was basically the GM saying "Oh you missed the one way where you could have avoided a fight, so here's a possessed troll adept in milspec grade armor with insta-heal and an invisible mage. Have fun."
Fun was had by ... none?

Edit: Also, the dicepool was closer to 20 than to two, and I didn't critglitch? Where are you going with this? Is this from misremembering at what opportunity I decided to burn edge?



Point was: Not "close to instant death". Which you claimed was about every crit glitch that might ever happen. We took an extremely unlikely example to the limit and got ...
So yeah. The 2 DP "sniper" rolled snake eyes and got punished for it by taking 6 boxes of damage on average (in your example, which is _not dead_), and lost a gun he had no business shooting with and a point of edge. Your point?
We also assumed that this person had no edge left and thus went into a dangerous situation in full knowledge of this. You see, why I'm raising a bunch of eyebrows here?

Incidentally, the character you're referencing would have less dice to soak with, but would also be much more likely to be actually close in. Aaaaand you were quite unhappy with the GM, too. So I don't really see where you're going with this.


So, I'm challenging you: Give me a believable scenario where 3 safety lines to avoid the worst possible outcome (a firearms with ex-ex or dodge crit glitch) isn't enough and the character in question doesn't have friends.

Your main argument, and correct me if I'm wrong, seems to be:
"I roll a glitch. I die."
This is simply not true, not even when modified to "I roll a critical glitch. I die."

When did I say "firey explosion" ...?

Think: we're talking a small, low-budget "spam drone". That means, more likely than not, an LTA. It also means, no volatile fuels, so no "fiery" anything.

Most people wouldn't see the drone anyway - they'd only be looking at the holographic display, or the various AROs - a dozen, among scores of the things (a mall strikes me as a good place to presume it's a Spam Zone). So if the drone's holo display goes out, at the same time it's lift bag ruptures and fails catastrophically? The odds are that none of the wageslaves five meters below it even notice. Maybe, maybe, some of them note that one of the myriad of holograms winks out.

And all that? is without spending Edge. The glitch isn't really "you murdered an innocent spam-drone" (because honestly, who gives a frag); the glitch is "... and it's mangled plastic corpse hits the pavement down amidst the crowd, scattering parts and sparks everywhere". It's that second bit, you're spending the Edge to undo.

" Your Browse program has found a document that matched all of your search criteria, and you immediately access it. Happens you somehow found a bad scan of the Necronomicon. Since you're in Hot Mode, the sanity loss is replaced by physical damage to the brain. "

Admittedly, I expected the drone to be an LTA.


What.


So it only explodes/electrosplodes on impact then. Why doesn't it explode on contact with the Koi pond, frying all the fish and two children touching them despite a no fish touch policy with electrical shocks?


... in combat. That crit glitches in data search rarely are instant death is conceivable (however, they'll most liekly ruin your rep and run).


Snow and Perry decide to talk to bikers. Snow decides to randomly attack bikers. That's what I'm referring to, not InvinciTroll.


How does an unconscious character holed up whereever get out of whereever by themselves? I'm assuming the sniper was somehow vital to the group's plan before he exploded because glitches are fun. the sniper'll fill up all overflow and die. That's that.


Okay, I should have stated much clearer that I refer to two separate things; on one hand, InvinciTroll and the shadowrailroad of doom; on the other, Perry and Snow try to find girls in oil cans.


Sniper has no edge left to normal-glitch the crit while providing covering fire for his group breaking out of Standard Corp Facility #31, chased by guards, so Sniper explodes, taking 9P damage with -6 AP, for a total of, let's say 13 soak dice. He has some previous damage because he fought off a patrol before, so even soaking 2 damage puts him over the edge (the run's not been going that well, we all know those). He now lies there, a mile outside the compound, and slowly bleeds to death instad of insta killed, having spent Edge not to immediately die. Unfortunatly, without the barret, his group has little to fight the guards effectively with, and are captured, one badly shot up. End of Sniper, nobody'll come for him in time.

And you don't need DP2 to crit glitch. You can do that well enough with a larger pool.


Well, or 'I am unable to do anything meaningful for the rest of the session (fun!)", or "I'm unble to use the character for several ingame months due to extensive recuperation necessary (fun!)" or "I can build a new character because botching my SIN test got the character into federal custody for years" ... yes, I think glitches rarely are fun. The best you can hope is to lose an attack/an avenue of research/equipment.


Funny, I had that situation once when your character randomly attacked bikers because ... I don't know why really. Because Snow's taken his name a bit too serious? You don't always get to choose your battles.

Thank you
I will SO use that, if it ever happens.

... that's the Hindenburg, which used Hydrogen as it's lifting gas - and the sizing on the cloth used a mixture of aluminum and iron powders (in a lacquer base, IIRC). Both of which ar ingredients in explosives, and which resulted in the skin of the craft rapidly combusting once a sufficient heat source was applied for ignition.

Whereas modern LTA craft use helium, which is not at all flammable. They also use nonflammable skins for their lift-bag, or else, treat the skin material with a flame-retardant chemical.

Which is to say: LTA craft do not burst into flames like the Hindenburg did.


Do people hit pavement from 10m up, the same way they hit water from 10m up? No ... and perhaps you should ponder why?

So nobody noticed a Helium LTA (which, thanks to the lower lift of Helium, is arguably more than a few meters in diameter) flying at 10 m overhead and then crashing?

If you want a small LTA, you use hydrogen and damn the explosiveness. You don't need to coat the LTA in additional explosives for explosions then either.

Nope, that's not how SR does it.

They use Helium lift, and shape them as lifting bodies.

Even if it was filled with hydrogen, you need a source of ignition. Simply shooting the drone is not likely to provide one.

~Umi

The heat from a bullet would be more than enough. oxygen and hydrogen is very explosive. you'd likely get a sharp flame first, then an explosion depending on the lift body's hull.


While you're at it, check a condor drone's dimensions.

Also, if you don't terribly mind, a source on the fact they use only Helium.

Arsenal, p139
"Lighter Than Air (All):The vehicle is mounted on a zeppelin or blimp frame, so that it can now loiter over an area for days. The gas bag is filled with non-flammable gas, and is compartmentalized so that no single puncture will deflate the whole bag. "

I only had this on hand because I had just looked it up myself...

No, it wouldn't. Not even a Tracer (which is coated with an incendiary substance) would do it. Won't light a gas tank on fire, either. The heat just isn't applied to the "fuel" long enough for ignition to occur.



Can't just now; still have to pull the old HDD out of the bricked computer, and try to recover my PDFs that way.

But I'm certain it's not "several meters" across, in any direction. Because I'm pretty sure it's a MEDIUM drone, not a Large (or bigger).

This is a thing of beauty.

The MQ-1 Predator is a medium drone. And the Condor is listed as large (This Old drone, p. 11). The somewhat comparable Renraku Stormcloud has no type listing, though, given both are listed as "mini-blimp" in the fluff, it is conceivable the Stormcloud qualifies as a large drone, too.

Really, it all depends on the weight. With 2070's high tech materials, it could be rather easy to have a very light payload, which is what determines balloon volume.

~Umi

You do realize that even though Helium is about twice as dense as Hydrogen it is only about 8% less buoyant and since LTA's are based on buoyancy there would be little difference in size.

The Stormcloud is a medium drone, and is a direct successor to the Condor series (in that it fills the same niche/role, and is an LTA craft).

Also: take a Lockheed Kestrel. Add a Holo-projector and the Lighter-than-Air modification. Poof, you have a small LTA drone, costing only 2,900¥ (including projector).

Or better, an MCT Fly-spy with the same mod and gear, and you've got a minidrone sized LTA, for only 2600¥ (again, including the projector).

Add Suncell, and both gain functionally-indefinite operating times (20x normal, at least 40 and as many as 120 hours on a single charge IIRC), costing 3900¥ and 3100¥ respectively. Eminently suited, IMO, to the task of being "roaming holographic billboards" ...

I'm no pro, but I play basketball and I had once an achille rupture. 1 in nigh 15 years, with around 5-6h a week playing. It's pretty uncommon.

Anyway, the only point is about the occuring rate.

For me, anything over 2-3% is too high.

And I rather have a glitch/fumble beeing included in the roll mechanic instead of extra dices.

True, that kind of injury is uncommon, but if you broaden the range, and narrow the focus, let's look at basketball, as an example. A glitch could be:
You pass to the opposing team.
You shatter the backboard.
You crash into another player, removing you (if opposing team) / them (if same team) from the game.
You slam the mascot.
The ref calls you on a penalty you didn't cause.
The ref calls you on a penalty you did cause, but tried to hide.
You try a fancy move to sink the ball, and blow it badly.

Now, mind, basketball I could see as an extended test, where the team pools their dice vs the other team, and the first person to the goal # of hits wins. So then you need to figure out what's the odds of anyone on a team having one of these errors, and calling that a glitch.

Hell, I watch MMA all the time, and it's surprising how many people slip on the mat when trying to throw a kick, how many people break a hand or foot landing a blow, and how many people completely screw up a technique and get totally dominated. I'd call a number of those glitches, and decide they happen more often than one might hope for.

And that's the only time anything unexpected, unplanned-for, and non-positive ever happened to you while playing basketball, for fifteen years ...?

Shenanigans.

Remember, "glitch" != "failure". Nor are all glitches critical glitches (which is what I would say a ruptured tendon would nicely represent).

Well somewhat, failing a shot, a pass or several of those things are just failed actions to me.


"Hell, I watch MMA all the time, and it's surprising how many people slip on the mat when trying to throw a kick, how many people break a hand or foot landing a blow, and how many people completely screw up a technique and get totally dominated. I'd call a number of those glitches, and decide they happen more often than one might hope for."

Even those, most of them are just one beating the other no?

"And that's the only time anything unexpected, unplanned-for, and non-positive ever happened to you while playing basketball, for fifteen years ...?"

Of course not. Had once a drunk referee, a fight into the public and so on.

I'm not arguing about the existence of glitches, mind you, just that any system going over the 2-3% likeliness rate is too high at my taste.

Most of the times, when I GM, I decide if there could be a complication or not. I make a roll (with no rules backing it) to make it seem fair. Ofc it's not, it's what you (english speakers) seem to call "GM fiat". But that "GM Fiat" is illusionnary anyway. 80% of the game is decided by the GM anyway. It's up to me (the GM) to writte the scenario anyway or to adapt the written scenario I play.