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Kagetenshi
I'm not saying that it's untraceable, but it's apparently good enough for the Shadowrunners with the most economic know-how.

~J
Charon
Wow, lots of debate about certified credstick.

My 2 cents.

---

First of all, nowadays, a monetary transaction that went through a Swiss or Cayman Island bank is hard to track to its source, right? Not all financial institution are equally forthcoming with information about their clients, especially if asked by a law enforcement agency that has no jurisdiction in Switzerland or Cayman Island.

In SR, I doubt an Extraterritorial bank would answer Lone Star's questions with more grace than a Swiss bank does today. Especially since most large banks belong to a megacorporation in the first place. As long as the bank that cover your financial interests doesn't belong to the people you pissed off, you're as fine as you can be with powerful enemies. For example, don't count on the Swiss Bank Corporation to protect you from lofwyr (ultimately, that bank belongs to him), but otherwise they probably would stonewall everyone else.

"This is outside your jurisdiction" would be their mantra.

But just to be safe, you could use more than one of these banks and tranfer credits around a bit.

If I've been paid with a certfied credstick...

1 - Issued by the PacRim Bank (on behalf of a Renraku Johnson)
2 - That I cash the credstick at the Swiss Bank Corporation (Belongs to S-K)
3 - Transfer that money to an account in BANCOMEXT (Belongs to Aztech.)
4 - Use that money to buy bearer bonds to Dassurn Investment under a false ID(In Seattle)
5 - Sell the Bearer Bonds to a Yakuza money Launderer at 95% of their value.

Good fucking luck tracking me down.

In fact, where do you even start? How do you know the money that I got for the run came from the PacRim bank in the first place?

Which leads to point 2...

The whole point of hiring runner is ultimately to break the link between the guy who commits the crime and the guy who profits from it.

Right after the run, you have no idea where the money used to pay the runner came from. How do you even begin to track them through their certified credstick?

You need to establish who paid the runner, then you need to find where the money came from. It's not like a corporation makes one or two transactions a day, they make hundreds to millions depending on the size. And they got good accountants to keep such transaction of the book.

All in all, I don't see how you could track down a runner crew through the money trail faster that you could through good old fashioned leg work. After all, if the runner are goods, they are rare. It's probably a lot easier to use street contacts to identify which team pulled the run than wasting time with the money trail.

Especially if all you want to know is who hired them! By doing the money trail approach, you need to know who hired them to even start!



Nikoli
Well, to be fair, the fabled swiss banks do actually turn over information to any duly authorized goverment official. This was the swiss idea of lending aid to the war on terrorism. I doubt that this goes away in 60 years. Most banks would, cause it's ultimately intheir best interest to assisst in tracking down criminal elements.
Charon
QUOTE (Dawnshadow @ Mar 25 2005, 11:19 AM)
Certified Credsticks do, mfb (they're like cash, but not as bulky).. other credsticks on the other hand.. those have ID built into them.

Always felt credstick was misnomer.

The only real credstick are certified credstick. These are literrally cred on a stick.

Standard Credstick are driver license, keyring, credit card, debit card and birth certificate all rolled into one. There is not even credit on the card, just the financial information required to access your bank account.

Runenr don't get paid with these, they have nothing to do with certified credstick.

I refer to these as your SIN in my campaign. Equally a misnomer but less confusing IMO.
Charon
QUOTE (Nikoli @ Mar 25 2005, 02:50 PM)
Well, to be fair, the fabled swiss banks do actually turn over information to any duly authorized goverment official.

Duly authorized officials from their country with duly obtained warrant or at least more than a polite smile, I wager. Otherwise there would be a capital exodus from all the millionaire hiding money from taxes.

And it's not in every bank interest to turn over criminal elements because tax evasion is the whole point of certain banks which means that technically the majority of their clients are criminals.

In SR, with extraterritoriality, I bet that more banks would stonewall authority than ever before.
Nikoli
True, but that's also true of the banks in the US.
Due process being what it is.

But, the fact remains that what you described is in essence money laundering. It works, very well in fact. But there is no mechanic for it in the game. It is presented to us in the form of the Certified Credstick. My beef is that it is traceable, even if unreliably, to a person. Because someone somewhere with a valid (at the time) ID had to put the money on there.
That is a starting point to finding the person that used the stick to purchase illicit goods or goods legally for illicit purposes. You find who put the money ont he stick in the first place, ask them some questions. Based ont he answers you track down the next lead. Eventually, you'll have a set of faces that belong to the people a particular stick has been used by, if an officer were so inclined to pursue the matter. I never meant to imply that it's an instant jail term for a player, just that they gloss over it without so much as fluff text describing what's going on. I'd like to see that rectified. It makes the banks and law enforcement look like incomptent boobs that hide behind their 'perfect' system yet don't know how to catch criminals abusing it. I think threat of being caught adds something to the game personally.
Also, not every runner knows how to launder money, how many of you put knowledge skill points in economics, laundering, etc.?

I think the system, when applied logically, would severely hamper criminal activity (what it was designed to do) but they cut out stuff without patching it and that makes it illogical (soemthing I can't stand personally). With a return to a cash based society, even if it's only to the point that a minority (say 20%) went back to cash so that criminals could deal in cash and not get too many side-glances, that'd be fine. Cash is, for most purposes, traceless (until you rob a bank, they have those serials marked down).
Nikoli
Actually, those off-shore banks you speak of are very illegal and when folks are caught in using them, their US assets get frozen and pressure is put on the country with the bank to turn over the records. It just takes time to catch them in the act.

Think abuot it, for all his crimes, Al Copone went down for tax evasion, the one thing they were able to make stick. I think, if properly motivated, that can be done to any runner. I'm not saying any Joe Runenr that knocks over a B corp is gonna do time if he doesn't launder his illgotten gains 5 times to Sunday, but if a Runner knocks off Villiers right Hand man, you bet his shit is gonna be dug up and right fast.
Kagetenshi
QUOTE (Nikoli)
Well, to be fair, the fabled swiss banks do actually turn over information to any duly authorized goverment official. This was the swiss idea of lending aid to the war on terrorism. I doubt that this goes away in 60 years. Most banks would, cause it's ultimately intheir best interest to assisst in tracking down criminal elements.

In SR, that isn't true any more. The biggest corps gain more than they lose from Shadowruns, that being the whole reason the business exists. They have a vested interest in keeping the ability of runners to operate safe.

~J
Nikoli
That's a good point. And not one I had thought of, I'll admit. But the sticks should not be this quicksand of data that the current ruleset makes them out to be. It is a trail, even if it's not always 100% accurate.
Siege
Oh and let's add rules for "genuine" SIN foul-ups.

As it stands, no matter how good a fake SIN is, a character still gets to roll to determine the validity.

Whereas a genuine SIN automatically passes. That's not right - some right funny stories come from mistaken identities. grinbig.gif

Sorry, resume serious discussions.

-Siege
Charon
QUOTE (Nikoli @ Mar 25 2005, 03:09 PM)
Think about it, for all his crimes, Al Copone went down for tax evasion, the one thing they were able to make stick.  I think, if properly motivated, that can be done to any runner.

Do what to runners, catch them for tax evasion? rotfl.gif

Kidding.

A pays B to kill C

For cops to follow the moneytrail of B, they needs to have a fairly good idea that A paid B and be able to demonstrate it otherwise they will never get anywhere.
It's possible. If a crime involves financial transaction as a central piece of evidence, resolution rate are around 25% I think (extrapolating from white collar resolution rate).

But essentially, they must pretty much have already booked A for hiring a killer in the first place before following the money trail to B.

Now...

If A is a megacorp in Japan.
A asked executive B working subsidiary company C in UCAS to handle the operation.
B recruited independant Johnson D to handle the recruitment.
B asked special accountant E to procure him necessay funds.
E called company F in Hong Kong, client of C, and tells them that a special arrangement on their current debts toward bank G (belonging to A and located in Malaysia) would be considered along with a 5% reduction in shipment cost for future delivery in the next year from subsidiary H (belonging to A and in France) if they are willing to hire "special consultant" I for a sum of 300K.
I takes that money, take his cut and deposit it in extraterrial bank J (belonging to A and in England) and transfer it to bank K (friendly but independant from A and located in Switzerland but with an office in Vancouver) in the account of L, a contact of D.
D then asks his contact K to get a certified credstick (after taking his cut) and giving it to him.
And then D meet with the runner crew M and pay them with the credstick.

How do the cops track down M through that credstick? They need to guess that A was the initiator and then what? What do they do?

This does not even account for what the runners will do with that credstick. Most don't have bank account so even if they know crap about money laundering they hand it over to a fixer who do and open an "account" with him or get the stick's value worth in gear and cash.

So frequently, runner will not have made a single recorded transaction with the certified credstick.

Really, money trail is not the primary concern of the SINless. I'm not saying they are untraceable, but if money trail is a major concern of runenrs, they must have hit the major league big time.

---

Runner who know economics and finance? In my experience usually one per team and the other listen to him very carefully. So he better be the honest one on the team. biggrin.gif
Kagetenshi
Really, I think it's plausible to assume any cred coming from a non-traitorous/incompetent Johnson to be pre-laundered. Further laundering should primarily be to hide trail from the Johnson.

~J
Charon
Indeed.

The kind of above scenario is what I'd pull out of my ass if a player pressured me on the question but my guess is that every runner payment is thoroughly laundered. Even if it's laundered to leave the wrong impression for purpose of double cross.

As a result, even if the cops guess who corp A is, they have no idea where the money to finance the crime might have come from and thus have no moneytrail to start on.

In my example, the credstick was ultimately issued by the bureau of a Swiss bank in Vancouver.

How the heck are the cops confronted with a crime in Seattle gonna guess that the money came from that particular bureau in Vancouver even if they suspect that Renraku was the employer of the runner?
jklst14
Although I have nothing against credsticks (and we use them in our games), cash has an important role to play as well.

While runners and Johnsons are able to thoroughly launder their money, how does the typical pedestrian do that? Having cash makes it so much easier for Mr. Wageslave to buy some BTLs, gamble illegally with the local bookie or hire a streetwalking joygirl.

I know their are canon references to strippers carrying credsticks but I just find it hard to imagine petty drug dealers and hookers carrying credstick readers and performing all their transactions electronically.

mfb
whoah, whoah. who uses certified credsticks more than once or twice, max? you don't carry certified cred around and spend it on things, you put it into a bank. and then, when you decide you want to buy something illegal, you find out how much it will cost and issue yourself a different certified credstick for that amount. for legal purchases, you use a forged SIN linked to a different account. if you're running around using the same credstick for every illegal purchase, yes, you're going to get caught. but that's because you're an idiot who's not taking the most basic steps towards covering your own tracks.
Charon
QUOTE (jklst14)
While runners and Johnsons are able to thoroughly launder their money, how does the typical pedestrian do that? Having cash makes it so much easier for Mr. Wageslave to buy some BTLs, gamble illegally with the local bookie or hire a streetwalking joygirl.

It's true that many people would still prefer cash.

It's also a fact that the currency system doesn't really care about the preferences of drug addict, prostitute clients and even organized crime.

In Canada we used to have a 1000$ bill which made it the most valuable single bill in the world. Nice, huh? We phased it out a few years ago. It was mostly useful for organized criminal activities and who gives a damn about the preference of these folks?

For example, why would Renreku, a mega that pays its wage slaves in corp scrip, make it easy for its employees to acquire illegal BTL and expose itself to blackmail by hiring prostitute? It's up to the criminal elements to adapt to the situation in order to get paid, not the other way around.

So a BTL dealer that wants to get paid by a Renraku wageslave better have a gimmick ready to handle corp scrip. Like having links to a contact who set up a front of legit business where the wageslave can log his corp scrip. Then that legit business must be able to get the corp scrip changed into nuyen. As for prostitute, if the wage slave doesn't use corporate sanctioned joygirl, he needs to find escort service that can do a similar gimmick has the one above. If he positively needs a street worker, he may have to barter.

50 years ago we only had cash and check, essentially. Today, Credit and debit card are over 50% of all transaction. 60 years from now, it will increase. In a Cyberpunk environment, it must have increased even more than it probably will in RL.

I can see how a corporate affiliated employee could have a very hard time obtaining cash. For the rest of the world, I'm guessing hard cash isn't nearly as plentiful as it used to be. I could see how gathering 100K in hard cash to pay a runner team could be very hard for example.





Eyeless Blond
QUOTE (Charon)
For example, why would Renreku, a mega that pays its wage slaves in corp scrip, make it easy for its employees to acquire illegal BTL and expose itself to blackmail by hiring prostitute? It's up to the criminal elements to adapt to the situation in order to get paid, not the other way around.

I can see how a corporate affiliated employee could have a very hard time obtaining cash. For the rest of the world, I'm guessing hard cash isn't nearly as plentiful as it used to be. I could see how gathering 100K in hard cash to pay a runner team could be very hard for example.

The thing you may be missing though is that these go hand in hand. In the 2060s shadowrunning is not only a common business practice (and at least acceptable enough to have permenant employees to *hire* such people), but is one that the bigger corps would like to encourage, as it basically lets them throw money at lesser corps to make them go away in a more direct route than undercutting people in prices works today (see: Wal-Mart). I can easily see such megacorps working, at least a little, to facilitate the existence (and therefore payment) of shadow groups. This would extend to either "untracable" credit, with extranational banks flat-out refusing to cooperate with law enforcement, or cash. In fact, the extranational banks refusing to cooperate would be even more likely in the situation of the 2060s, where law enforcement is typically run by a (rival) corp and not the slightly-more impartial government.
Charon
QUOTE (Eyeless Blond @ Mar 26 2005, 04:43 PM)
The thing you may be missing though is that these go hand in hand. In the 2060s shadowrunning is not only a common business practice (and at least acceptable enough to have permenant employees to *hire* such people), but is one that the bigger corps would like to encourage...

Check back to my earlier money laundering scheme for certified credstick used by a Johnson to pay runner.

Megacorporation really don't need hard cash. A certfified credstick does just as well. Or bearer Bonds. Or share certificate.

A dollar bill is essentially a legal piece of paper that allows the owner to exchange it against an equivalent value to that inscribed on it. Its value is enforced by the government that issued it and it has a unique serial number.

A certified credstick is essentially a legal piece of plastic that allows the owner to exchange it against an equivalent value to that recorded in it. Its value is enforced by the bank that issued it and it has a unique serial number.

I can easily see criminals passing 1000$ certified credstick around as if it was cash. It's functionally the same thing as hard currency.

So , bottom line, I don't see why Megas would waste influence and annoy the governments by trying to dictate monetary policies when they don't have to and in fact shouldn't.

In case you missed the obvious : hard cash is issued by governments while certified credstick are issued by banks that for the most part belong to megacorporation.

Now if I were a mega, I would prefer handling dirty monetary transaction through a system I own rather than one I influence.
DrJest
QUOTE
In case you missed the obvious : hard cash is issued by governments while certified credstick are issued by banks that for the most part belong to megacorporation.


That leads to the interesting conclusion that governments probably wouldn't manufacture certified credsticks - they want paper trails for money, and no honest citizen needs to conceal his financial paper trail. However, because of megacorporate extra-territoriality, certified credsticks enter the economy because nobody can tell the AAA's what to do. To a certain degree, this trickles down to lesser but still powerful corps, who also issue certified credsticks.

But, and this is an interesting point, nobody says the government has to accept them. State banking institutions might decline certified credsticks; payments made to the state for whatever reason (do you have road tax in America?) might not allow certified credsticks as an option.
Club
QUOTE (Charon)
QUOTE (Dawnshadow @ Mar 25 2005, 11:19 AM)
Certified Credsticks do, mfb (they're like cash, but not as bulky).. other credsticks on the other hand.. those have ID built into them.

Always felt credstick was misnomer.

The only real credstick are certified credstick. These are literrally cred on a stick.

Standard Credstick are driver license, keyring, credit card, debit card and birth certificate all rolled into one. There is not even credit on the card, just the financial information required to access your bank account.

Runenr don't get paid with these, they have nothing to do with certified credstick.

I refer to these as your SIN in my campaign. Equally a misnomer but less confusing IMO.

SINstick

Doesn't work all that well, but it is... Descriptive. Makes you wonder about optional 'stick designs
Penta
Like taxes.

Sales tax, vehicle fees, etc., etc.

Which is how the Social Security Number got to be ubiquitous.

Employers need it, banks need it...All those have to report your income to the government.

However, these days, even the IRS takes credit cards.
RunnerPaul
QUOTE (Penta)
However, these days, even the IRS takes credit cards.

And I've heard rumors they even give the card back when they're done.
I'm not sure that I believe it though.
Penta
Not like that.smile.gif

But they do take your CC number...Although they charge a 2.5% convenience fee, since that's what the companies charge them and Uncle Sam ain't about to eat card charges on your taxes. (Would kinda defeat the point, eh?)
DrJest
QUOTE
SINstick

Doesn't work all that well, but it is... Descriptive. Makes you wonder about optional 'stick designs


Damn you! I was being all good and not making the obvious double entendre nyahnyah.gif
mfb
i think the most accurate comparison for certified cred would be bearer bonds (assuming i understand bearer bonds correctly). basically, you give the bank X amount of money, and then the bank gives you a piece of paper that says "whoever has this piece of paper can exchange it for X amount of money at any time". the money on the credstick is in no way linked to the person holding that credstick--instead, the money on the credstick is linked to an account owned by the bank.
Commiekeebler
QUOTE (mintcar)
If dice pools go, theyīd have to put something else in there to keep the strategic factor. Dice pools are problematic and raises many questions, but they donīt slow the game down.

Empirical observation: Yes, they do slow the game down.

As a GM I use the old-style 'threat ratings' instead of dice pools to at least keep my side of the rolls fast-paced and easy (and sometimes I don't roll, and just figure the roll was average: if the NPC rolls six dice vs. TN 5, he's likely to get 2 successes; I roll a random number of dice to keep the players guessing, but I don't bother to count the successes, taking the average and going with it). Systematic cheating by the GM is one way to keep the combat fast.

Players, on the other hand, take forever to move their dice around the table, arranging them this way and that...
mintcar
Youīre right of course. But I think that dice pools are worth the extra time. "Slowing the game down" implies more than the time it takes to shuffle a few extra dice, I think.
Commiekeebler
Oh, but those seconds of the new player going 'How do I roll for drain again?' - they add up! Compare that to D&D which allows the player to roll attack and damage at the same time. He might have to roll again if he scores a possible crit, but it's a no-brainer. Pick up the dice, drop the dice - fast.

What SR could benefit from is a reduced number of dice rolls. Reduced number of pools (down to one dice pool or none at all!) would go a long way to simplify the decision-making process, especially for new players.

Currently we've got:

Attack rolls.
Body rolls.
Knockback rolls.
Cyberware stress rolls.
Drain rolls.
Maneuver rolls.
Tactical computer? Ugh.

It's a lot of rolling and some of it requires 'dice allocation'. Dice allocation takes time. Unless you're a veteran gamer, and even then, throw in a couple TN mods and you go 'wait a sec' before figuring out how many dice you need for that drain to go down to nothing.

Here's one way to eliminate damage rolls:

Figure out the TN, then roll your attack dice. Figure out the number of successes.
Add to them the Strength/Power of the weapon, the total is your Attack Damage.
Subtract enemy's Body + Armor. Net Result=Damage in boxes.

Knockback: Attack Damage > Body + Strength of the enemy.
Knockdown: Attack Damage > Body + Armor + Strength of the enemy.

One attack, one roll, one corpse. smile.gif
I'm sure other rolls can be simplified in a similar manner.

Drain rolls, for example:
Figure out the TN, roll your spellcasting dice (you withhold some to resist drain).
Add successes to the Force of the spell, the total is your Spell Damage/Result.
Subtract enemy's Willpower + Spell Defense. Net result = Damage or other effect.

Drain: add withheld dice and your willpower (don't roll them, just add together).
Your drain is a standard number, figured out in advance based on the spell's Force.
Add +2 to the drain, if the spell failed (due to zero successes or enemy spell defense).
Drain damage = drain (+2?) - willpower - withheld dice.

Look ma, no second roll. smile.gif Cheers.
GunnerJ
QUOTE
One attack, one roll, one corpse.
I'm sure other rolls can be simplified in a similar manner.


And I personally would be overjoyed if such simplifications were confined to your own personal house rules.
Dawnshadow
Seconded GunnerJ.

CommieKeebler, you just made my Street Sam nigh invulnerable (more than he started), and killed my shaman-adept, all in one fell swoop.

The system right now is not particularly slow. Yes, D&D is faster, but D&D also gives hit points instead of damage levels, and, once you're a moderately high level, everything but a critical hit is a light wound or less in Shadowrun terms.. and the fights last a LOT longer, because of all those hp.

If you want to speed up Shadowrun rolling.. switch to D10s or D12s. Most TNs don't reach 12, so it removes the need for rule of 6 99% of the time to use a D12.
Critias
Or you could find some competent players who don't take all day to figure out how they're gonna allocate their die pools. It's never considerably slowed down my table top SR group. The flexibility and options given a character by die pools are one of the best things about the SR system. Instead of standing there feeling (and being) helpless during your enemy's action, there's normally something you can do to feel like you're able to keep yourself from dying. That's a good thing, in my book.
Dizzo Dizzman
I agree with GunnerJ and Dawnshadow that D&D isn't faster. Some of the most tortuous battles I have ever had the displeasure of sitting through have been in D&D (especially "epic" level fights).

I will agree Commiekeebler that knockdown tests are an added level of complexity and dice rolling that doesn't add much to the average combat. Most of the time when I played everyone ignored knockdown tests. One solution for SR4 (assuming that they still exist in SR4) is that there is an automatic success rule so players only roll when they get hit with something powerful.

For example: A player can automatically succeed on a knockdown test if his strength is higher than the target number for the knockdown test.

Minor modification, but it makes combat run a lot quicker and keeps knockdown for those times when it makes sense (i.e. getting hit by a big troll bouncer).

GunnerJ
Oh, I didn't say D&D isn't faster; having never played it, I can't form a comparison. I'm just saying, the options presented now, while they can take a while for new players, give so many tactical options and a sense of control over combat that once you have it down, it's golden. There's no need to sacrifice too much of this in the name of simplification.
Charon
QUOTE (Dawnshadow @ Mar 27 2005, 09:11 AM)
Yes, D&D is faster, but D&D also gives hit points instead of damage levels, and, once you're a moderately high level, everything but a critical hit is a light wound or less in Shadowrun terms.. and the fights last a LOT longer, because of all those hp.

Oh no. I'm not gonna say D&D combat is better, it's not the same genre and doesn't have to the same requirement. You can say a lot of thing about D&D combat, but you can never say it gets slower than SR combat.

I'm playing a campaign right now at level 13-14 and it's still a helluva faster than anything SR. If you think everything is a light wound at a high level, it's just not true. Average damage per round increases drastically too at high level. Last friday we did a fight against a 300hp adult dragon. It was over in 4 rounds, thank you very much. Dragon was dead at 4th and the fighter (who has the most HP) was out of it in 2.

SR4 can't dip much into D&D for inspiration, but anything they can do to make fights faster they should because it is probably the slowest fight system I've ever played. Fun, but slow.
GunnerJ
QUOTE
...anything they can do to make fights faster they should...


Anything they can do?

Really? Anything? Because there's potentially lots of really bad ways to make fights faster, and lots of ways that just aren't true to SR's style. Personally, I'll take "fun" over "fast" if it came down to a choice.
Kagetenshi
Amen. If anything they can do they should, just make it one die roll. Highest wins, tie goes to the attacker. If you want to slow it down, there's an advanced rule where you roll again to see how many people die and how many escape.

~J
Dawnshadow
QUOTE (Charon)
QUOTE (Dawnshadow @ Mar 27 2005, 09:11 AM)
Yes, D&D is faster, but D&D also gives hit points instead of damage levels, and, once you're a moderately high level, everything but a critical hit is a light wound or less in Shadowrun terms.. and the fights last a LOT longer, because of all those hp.

Oh no. I'm not gonna say D&D combat is better, it's not the same genre and doesn't have to the same requirement. You can say a lot of thing about D&D combat, but you can never say it gets slower than SR combat.

I'm playing a campaign right now at level 13-14 and it's still a helluva faster than anything SR. If you think everything is a light wound at a high level, it's just not true. Average damage per round increases drastically too at high level. Last friday we did a fight against a 300hp adult dragon. It was over in 4 rounds, thank you very much. Dragon was dead at 4th and the fighter (who has the most HP) was out of it in 2.

Since I expect most people don't want to read lots of stuff for that other game, that stuff is in the spoiler tag.

[ Spoiler ]


In short, my own experience has faster fights in Shadowrun. Yours is obviously different.
Charon
QUOTE (GunnerJ @ Mar 27 2005, 11:00 AM)
QUOTE
...anything they can do to make fights faster they should...


Anything they can do?

nyahnyah.gif

Don't be so litteral.

I think it was implied that the end result must still be a shadowrunesque system. If not, I said it now.
Charon
QUOTE (Dawnshadow @ Mar 27 2005, 11:25 AM)
In short, my own experience has faster fights in Shadowrun. Yours is obviously different.

Well, I can't say I have experience playing at 25th level. Nor do I have experience playing SR with initiates level 7+ and Street sam routinely rolling 15 to 20 dice for that matter. So, I'll reserve judgement. Let's just say the D&D fights I've seen are faster than the SR ones.
Dawnshadow
erm.. 15-20 dice is the adept.. the Sam just rolls 10 at TN 2..

It's very possible for either fight to be faster, it just depends on the people involved.. it's not nearly as system-dependent as it may seem at first glance.
Eyeless Blond
QUOTE (Dawnshadow)
Since I expect most people don't want to read lots of stuff for that other game, that stuff is in the spoiler tag.

[ Spoiler ]


In short, my own experience has faster fights in Shadowrun. Yours is obviously different.

[ Spoiler ]
Charon
QUOTE (Eyeless Blond @ Mar 27 2005, 12:01 PM)
[ Spoiler ]

[ Spoiler ]
Grinder
As i'm used to the looooong fights in ED (playing it once a week), i always find the fights in SR very quickly. Sure, there a lot of dice rolls to be made, but always with the same dice. Once you find out which dice to use you always use them. And adjusting the TN is pretty simple. I love the way combat goes in SR, so there's no need to change it much. Maybe the melee, which is kind of unbalanced imho.
DrJest
QUOTE
Currently we've got:

Attack rolls.
Body rolls.
Knockback rolls.
Cyberware stress rolls.
Drain rolls.
Maneuver rolls.
Tactical computer? Ugh.


Hmm.

Attack, Body resist. Knockback? Never use it except for dramatic reasons. Hollywood aside, guns don't send you flying. In melee, maybe, but it's easier to dramatise it. Drain rolls, fair enough, although I generally find they don't slow things down much.
Manouevre rolls? You mean for vehicles? I've not used that much vehicle combat, to be honest, so I couldn't comment. And nobody I know ever used the tac comp, so likewise.

As for cyberware stress, the last time I played we were still using the system where a big enough hit could potentially damage cybersystems, so pass. I would usually make checks during a natural break in the game, such as if someone popped out to the toilet, and then if something went wrong hit them with it at an appropriate moment.
Commiekeebler
QUOTE (Dawnshadow)
Seconded GunnerJ.

CommieKeebler, you just made my Street Sam nigh invulnerable (more than he started), and killed my shaman-adept, all in one fell swoop.

Guys, this is something I came up with in the 15 minutes or so that took to type up that post. I'm sure the designers at Wizkids have more time for this, and their system will be much better. Even I would be able to come up with something more balanced than that thing I just threw up, given enough time.

All I'm saying is that it doesn't need to have (too) many dice rolls.

As to dice pools, I believe that one is enough per player character, and NPCs make do just fine with threat ratings. At least, in my games smile.gif
Wireknight
The problem inherent in eliminating dicerolls is that you eliminate the variable nature of combat while doing so. Under your conceptualization, Commiekeebler, you dramatically increase the odds of things in combat being certain, rather than just merely being highly likely. This is a slippery slope, because, unless you are prone to the bad GMing habit of changing the rules at every turn to suit your intended outcome, players well-versed in the system will come to realize that, given their particular character's attributes and skills, they can resist (weapon A) or (spell B at force C) one hundred percent of the time. Most smart players think twice even if success is highly likely, while less canny players tend to act without real concern for their actions. When smart players can guarantee success is certain, you'll start seeing behavior from them that, from less canny players, makes you want to tear your hear out (or start a thread here about it).

Likewise, what if you could cast spell D at Force E, and never, ever, even if you rolled all 1's, suffer drain? In Shadowrun, while it's unlikely a character with Willpower 6 and Spell Pool of 6 will prove incapable of resisting a 2L drain spell, they might just, as a manifestation of God's hatred for them, suffer a complete botch. Likewise, a character with sufficiently high attributes would, in combat, need almost no skill to really do well. With a katana and Strength 10, you're looking at a base "attack damage" of 13. A character with a katana and a Strength of 4 has a base damage of 6. The latter character would have to achieve full success with a skill of 7, to match what the former could achieve the first time he picked up a katana with no skill at all.

With "simplifications" like that, virtually eliminating the utility of the degree-of-success model, it's easier and cleaner to just port the SR setting to a d20 rules system.
Paul
I likee the dicee.
Commiekeebler
Wireknight, you're absolutely correct in your analysis. I'm glad to hear from someone so versed in shadowrun probabilities and game mechanics!

Anyhow, in the past, Shadowrun devs always chose to err on the complex side of things, and that made for a lot of rolls (and confusion) for the players. I'm hoping that they see, with the 4th edition that this route, too, is a dead end, and choose the wise compromise of flexibility and simplicity.

Now I can't help but ponder up a single-roll attack+damage test that preserves Shadowrun's variable-success paradigm. Hmm...
mintcar
I think the best way to handle this would be to keep the amount of rolls, and the modifiers, and the combat pool. Because itīs a fun system that allows for tactics and gives everybody a fighting chance, given you have resitance rolls and karma pool. The way it works in combat should be the core of the system everything revolves around. In order to limit the amount of rolls you make you could let every roll signify more than one thing. A "shoot" action should signify more than one shot being fired, similar to the way melee combat works. Now, many of you will not like this idea, but bare with me. I talked about this in another thread. Here.
QUOTE
Of course you can calculate what a mundane character can accomplish in a combat round and say "hey, I can easily do more than that myself", and come away with the conclusion that the rules are unrealistic. But what about the problem with every second being utilized with optimal efficiency by everyone in a combat situation? You need time to think and plan too, people. Does it sit well with you that a fire-fight almost never takes more than 10 to 15 seconds to complete in game-time? Would you really want to reduce that time? I for one would like to see an even more abstract system, were every "shoot" action could result in a few missed shots as well as a hit and every "dodge" action could mean sitting behind cover for a few seconds, cathing your breath. Make every roll account for more in-game action, so that you can resolve longer fights in a shorter time.

Wired reflexes could mean you can make more choices in a combat round, that is change your actions, instead of it meaning you are given more actions. A gun has a rate of fire depending on mode, period. The reason you want more actions is that you want to be able to change your target or throw yourself in cover when itīs called for. The skill roll could determine how many rounds have hit and how many are wasted. There could be an action called "planning" or "focus" in wich you take time to evaluate the combat situation when itīs in progress, and then get a few extra actions when you finaly take action.

What I want is a system that is fun and tactical with a lot of choices and rolls being made. But were you donīt go into details about every single bullet, so the total amount of rolls can be lowered. You have a gaming part of the round, were things are resolved with rules that simulates the different participants choices and abilities in an abstract but statisticly viable and highly entertaining way. Then you have the discription part, where the players and GM discribe in detail what has been simulated. I donīt like the thought of making the rolls a simple question of luck and stats, just so you can roll for every single bullet fired. No. More abstraction I say. Leave the details to roleplaying!
Patrick Goodman
Hey, Wireknight, check your private messages.
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