Hello again!

For some time now I've been planning on running freeform games of Shadowrun, which is for two reasons basicaly:
1) It's so much easier to get a spontaneous game together when you don't have to create characters! You all know that when you just feel the urge to play, you get three players for this afternoon and there just isn't any time to come up with characters. It's for the fun game in between...
2) I wan't to get my group's emphasis on roleplaying rather than rollplaying and therefore I want them to play the characters without any rules for one session before they actually generate them.

So I wonder, how could this be done? How could one run decent game without having character sheets and possibly even without any dice and numbers at all! I mean, social situations will be acted out. That's easy enough. But what do you do when it comes to a fight or what when you have to pick a lock or disarm a bomb or search the matrix or whatever... all this stuff that can't be played out. How do you handle damage? I'm not talking about rules and modifiers here, I'm talking about how determine whether the bullet went right through your shoulder without hitting a bone, whether it chipped your spine, blew up your head or didn't hit you at all. What about perception checks? These are just a few examples that popped into my mind just now.

Has anyone here ever done something like this? Do you think this could be done? How?

just make it entirely social and never put them in a situation that requires dice like combat or bomb defusal. make it all social.

No personal experience, but perhaps "Amber" and "Castle Falkenstein"(the original by RTalsorian) may help you.

Both are/were pretty diceless, and should have guidelines which should help you out in your quest.

Or, hell, if you think you've got a broad enough personal knowledge base, rule everything yourself without bothering with any system (if Amber can be called that). Of course, sort of becomes an improv theater RPG at this point, but I think there's a lot of untapped potential in this direction, provided you have a group of people that can carry this kind of game.

That's how I first played all the RPGs I used to play. It was just me and a friend or two sitting down and playing. They'd come up with concepts for their characters or go ahead and actually make them, then I'd just start the game. When they said they wanted to do something, I told them the resuls of the action. You have to have players you trust and who trust you, and you have to be very fair. It can be pretty fun though.

The Abstruse One

This sounds of HERESY!!!

If you just sit around tellingt stories set in the game universe WITHOUT BUYING ANY BOOKS <quickly cross myself> how will the beloved game company stay in business?

Donations could be the answer. Donate now, save our game. Donate much and donate often.

Ever tried enrolling for theatre school?

Anyway, me and my friends had a sort of Shadowrun freeform gaming. Well, sorta. We were trying to steal this really nice car in some prestigous university in manila, but when the car alarm sounded off, we all ran really scared, but we were all laughing like hell, afterwards. Feels like shadowrunning to me, though i wouldnt suggest you try it.

I still bought all the books (how can you tell a story without knowing the setting?), but just didn't bother with dice or anything.

The Abstruse One

When I was younger, my friends and I did not like to deal with what we viewed as the multitudes of rule books & dice. We figured, why, when we had whole worlds made up in our minds & we could depend on the general decency of the DM. We'd create characters, but the only stats we'd have were gold and hit points (and if you were a magic user you'd write down spells). The DM decided everything, drew world maps, town maps, made up items, spells, monsters, and no one ever argued over the desicions. We had one such game go on for 2 years playing everyday at school where the characters became heros of one realm moved to the next, fostered empires, opened planar rifts, etc. This was all some 11 years ago in elementary school.

It's only as I got 'older' that I lost the ability to game like this. I still miss it and consider it a better form of gaming. All the rest is just a crutch. If you and your players can still pull it off without a hitch, I think thats wonderful.

I know some people that engage in diceless Shadowrun games, and usually these people are all about roleplaying, and not in the slightest interested in the mechanics, or dicerolls. The concept of it is something that I like, especially the story/character driven idea behind it. However, personally, I don't think it would work very well for me in the long run. While engaging and immersive, I think I need the structure of a system mechanic. I don't care what kind of mechanic, but there should be something to make the decisions in a situation of conflict.

I remember the first time we decided to play Shadowrun with dice. We got into a huge argument as to whether you had meet a target number or exceed it. I won out mainly because I was right, but mostly because I owned the books

The Abstruse One

I participate in a couple of gaming groups who decided that free-form (or at least 'diceless') gaming was the way forwards, motivated somewhat by the Amber Diceless Roleplaying system. While there was still a qualitative system in place you could readily get rid of this, though in the sessions that we ran it concentrated purely on social interaction since any form of physical 'conflict' would end up in differences in opinion on how the characters 'rated'...

One of the gaming groups rapidly found themselves moving away from the 'free-form' (stat-less) system and, at least for PbeM, turned to things like FUDGE. Indeed for PbeM it was a case of designing characters in the system of choice with a FUDGE overlay (i.e. a 3 becomes 'Average' in FUDGE, 4-5 becomes 'Good', 6 becomes 'Excellent', etc.). Although FUDGE is diced it's pretty easy to get rid of those and move towards a semi-qualitative system. E.g. two characters grapple and both have Unarmed Combat at 'Good' though one has a Strength of 'Excellent' and an Endurance of Good', while the other has a skill of 'Good' and an Endurance of 'Excellent'. Over short conflicts the first will win. Over long conflicts the second will win, etc....

This gaming group then went back to diced systems. There's something just 'nice' about getting the correct system for the correct universe. It adds a whole new flavour or 'spice' to things. (Plus in terms of Shadowrun, as D&D1 and then AD&D players, they just loved being able to roll all those dice! It was such a novel experience!)

The other gaming group? They still dabble with free-form systems. But then again they avoid any form of game that doesn't involve daemons, vampires or some other form of supernatural entity... Ah well.

So, yes it is do-able. With a qualitative system the GM makes all the choices with regards to damage, situational modifiers or whatever. In a system-less game then it is an interaction between the players and the GM... just be sure that everyone knows what is going on to prevent 'glitches'...

Kage

Freeform works well with a group which is comfortable with lack of strictures and which trusts each other and the GM well enough to appreciate that everyone is working together - the GM is not not not out to kill the PCs! - to create a memorable adventure.

Those factors exist, freeform - even in combat - becomes a simple thing. Those factors are missing, and freeform in anything is very nearly doomed.

I guess it is. So how do you decide who gets hit and who wins? Ive never really heard or tried freeform rpg. Is it like you all have a script in your head that you follow and play, like acting and stuff?

Well, I'd cite the infiltration challenge as one possible example, which (apart from the emphasis on discussing out possibilities even in the middle of a run) isn't too much unlike the way we game in real life. Numbers will still exist: I don't think there's too many Dumpshockers here who can't estimate approximate odds on the fly? There was a major controversy on the other forums over the requirement of making a player act out negotiations and other social skills. Depending on the exact situation, our version is to either roleplay it in detail or to sketch the outline of the talks after a quick roleplayed intro and occasional jumps back to fully IC for the odd interjected phrase ("Ten for that? You must be mad!")

Routine is just that, in combat as otherwise: things described by player and GM but not needing to be rolled for (where the stats suggest the PC has the necessary skills), with the GM tweaking and baiting with plot hooks as necessary. Maybe occasionally one pulls out dice for that one action in a million (maybe you'll get lucky?). If you fail that kind of thing, it will be a cinematic failure.

You use a bit of logic and keep the story in mind. If the player says he shoots the man tied up in the chair, logic dictates the guy will probably die. If the player says he jumps out of the window to land in the helicopter while firing his SMG at the pilot, logic dictates he's going to die. If the players suggest something very farfetched, you generally let them fail. Every once in a while in a climactic moment, you can let them get away with shooting the detonator off the large bomb, but you save those moments for special occations.

The Abstruse One

So its all up to the GM, i guess. You musta put AAALLOOOTT of trust for the GM not to make a lame story out of your character. What if the GM think its cool, and you dont?

GM: With one fluid stroke, you swing your arm and hit the attacker with the back of your fist...

Player: No, no, you see i jumped and did a round house kick...

you know, that sort of problem.

You could just keep one die handy, use a d10 or d20 rather than a d6, to give a better range of variation.
Then you can play almost entirely diceless, but for situations like defusing a bomb just arbitrarily assign a chance of success, based on the character concept and current circumstances. Make one roll, then get on with diceless play again.

Or my favourite option, the Luck die. Only in things which constitute that kind of chance interpretation, though. Player and GM both roll d10 (or whatever d-size you like). The closer it is to the same number, the closer the player ends up with the result they wanted. If it's the same, the result is spectacularly in the player's favour. If it's more than 5/6 apart, it goes against the player, and if it's as far apart as it gets, well ...

oookkkaaay. ummm, it might work, but it should involve players who are also potential GMs, i guess. Its storytelling with one another.

Essentially, yea. Freeform RPGs are more like interactive theater than a game. If someone has problems visualizing or describing their actions... well, they're not going to have much fun.

Also, it becomes difficult when a player doesn't fit the character well. How about someone who wants to play a Face, but they have no experience with negotiation or fast-talk themselves?

"Erm... yeah... I tell the guy what he wants to hear, and he gives us the stuff!"

Yeah, but I don't think someone who has problems visualizing or describing their actions wouldn't really have much fun with role playing games in general - with or without dice.
Of course, not everybody is as good in describing and visualizing. That's why I'm trying to go the freeform route, to give them some training. That way, maybe, they won't cling to the rules that much. If they say, "hey, we don't like this. It was more fun the way we did it before, without describing and imagination and all that" we can still go back to what we did before... But they'll probably have to get another GM since, for me, role playing is not about rolling dice and bickering about rules. It's about visualizing and describing. It's about imagination and phantasy. It's storytelling!