Interesting.

Wow, it's ShadowExalted with d6s instead of d10s. Not that this is (necessarily) a bad thing!

Well, not quite. You see there're still "modifiers" mentioned that influence dice pool size. Most likely cyberware etc. but still there are two kinds of difficutly modifiers. (Ok, "still" as in opposed to three before...)

Look, a similar mechanic does not make this the same game.

I am an experienced Exalted player and GM. I have also GMed the odd session of nWoD (an adventure for mortal characters in the World of Darkness). The two games have similar mechanics, but in no way similar atmospheres.

In fact, I believe that most people who read the nWoD corebook will come to the same conclusion I have: that it is, basically, Shadowrun at a lower tech level. It is every bit as creepy, dark, and gritty as SR - if not more so.

Fixed TNs are a good thing. You wouldn't believe how much faster tests are to resolve when no TN needs to be calculated. In particular, it removes the hideousness of the SR3 test vs. secret TN (eg, hacking a maglock) where the GM had to personally inspect every single die rolled to determine whether success had occured, and how long the attempt took!

The new mechanic also neatly solves all the difficulty about TN 6 vs 7 and the extremely rapidly diminishing chance of success at higher TNs.

I am somewhat concerned about the 1/3 minimum chance to succeed (assuming a 1-success required task), however.

Well, currently a test is scaled four different ways:

1) How many dice are rolled
2) How many opposing dice are rolled
3) TNs for each set of dice
4) How many successes, or net successes, are required.

This is being reduced to two different scaling methods (dice rolled and successes required), which is certainly inline with the stated goal of streamlining mechanics.

I think the biggest advantage of the change is the removal of Open Tests and the dreaded Secret TN Success Count - possibly one of the most horrible mechanics in games of recent years. The biggest loss is removing a certain amount of the mechanistic flavour of SR, and turning it into Storytelling System with d6s instead of d10s. At least it's still a multiple-die, success-counting, levels of success system!

On the downside, we have the loss of free dice pools that refresh every turn. On the upside, we presumably still have Karma Pool to allow people to decide when they really need to pass a test - hopefully its size or refresh rate will be increased (with proportionate increases in the cost of rerolls) so that it can fulfill the function previously provided by the Combat, Spell, Hacking and Control pools.

In fact, I think that a frequently refreshing Karma Pool with cheap rates to buy additional dice would be a superior mechanic to the old dice pools, as it can be applied to any test. Under SR3, a spell cast out of combat will likely have a ludicrously large number of successes as the entire Spell Pool can be dumped into the Success Test, while there is no similar pool that aids in social tests, Conjuring, use of the Survival skill, and so on.

Nothing has been said about opposed tests yet.

No. SR3 is the only current system which requires a GM to inspect every die that a player rolls, as in the Secret TN Success Count.

In d20, GURPS, and Unisystem, the player rolls against a secret DC, but knows his total result. They can then inform the GM what that total result was, and the GM can inform the player of the consequences.

In Ironclaw, where all checks are against "secret" DCs because all checks are opposed, the players only need to know what the highest roll on their various polyhedral dice was highest. (Exception: damage rolls, which are always against open opposed rolls).

In nWoD, Exalted, and SR4 the player rolls against fixed TN and informs the GM of the number of successes. The GM can then declare the outcome.

Only in SR3 must a player roll a check where they need to know how many of their dice rolled above a secret number! The only way the action can be resolved is for the player to quote how many dice exceeded each number from 2 to their maximum roll, or for the GM to lean over the table and inspect the dice.

The Secret TN Success Count fulfills an essential mechanical requirement (that of a check against an unknown difficulty) but performs it in the worst, slowest, most complicated fashion of any game currently in play.

If there are opposed tests, then the number of successes achieved on the opposed roll will either be the number of successes you require, or directly add to the number of successes you require. No additional complexity of probability scaling, just an additional roll - which will be fast, because the TN is known!

Precisely! A "hidden TN" mechanic for SR that doesn't suck! At last! This is the major advantage of fixed TNs for success-counting mechanics.

Incidentally, I agree with you about the fact that Attributes are going to become more relatively important, especially since they have stated that both Attribute and Skill ranges from 1-6. This is a matter of some concern to me, especially since it is likely that Attributes will be more expensive to improve with Karma, thus encouraging players to load up with Attributes at chargen and buy the skills later as they are cheaper.

One way to prevent this syndrome is to have a character generation system that weights Attribute and Skill purchases at chargen identically to how those traits are improved with experience.

What you say?

Third question.

That post you linked to says that Open Tests have been removed - hooray!

It says nothing about Opposed Tests, which are a completely different kettle of fish and usually an essential component of an RPG's mechanics. I'm told that the Buffy RPG has few to none, but that's definitely the exception rather than the rule.

I don't think you people get it. Further abstraction of mechanics fundamentally distances the player from immersing him or herself from gritty details and nuances of the world. SR3 alredy beats the shit out of you until you fall in line and accept Abstraction as the one true word. It did not need to get any worse. Exalted and the WoD systems are almost insanely abstracted, and the games are really designed around this. To apply that mechanic to a game that did not need more abstraction is a very bad idea.

I'll wait and see, but suffice to say I do not have high hopes.

If you have no skill and the lowest possible attribute score, maybe. And that's assuming you only need one success, which does not seem likely.

So they are taking that into account.

Even though it says that both Attributes and Skills range from 1 to 6, you'll note that later it only states that the maximum rating for Attributes is 6 (+ modifiers) though, and doesn't mention a Skill maximum.

With only one variable (number of dice rolled) or two (number of successes required, which is only kind of a variable, and not a very scalable one), you basically end up seeing everything in terms of that one variable. I'm not saying I loved the SR3 mechanic, but it did at least have more to work with in terms of variables and resultant details.

Here's the rub:

To many people I've played with, much of the appeal of SR is the ability to play someone who's competent and effective right out of chargen (same with Exalted). If that is lost, it would be a disaster. Who would want to play a level 1 d20 character (especially a magic user) in a SR game? Horrible.

And yet, we need to prevent front-loading the system so that buying anything other than high stats at the start is a waste of future XP.

You are of course correct. I was aware of that fact, and blame any misunderstanding on myself for lazy phraseology.

However, the actual point of my comment was that Attributes and Skills are in an approximately equal range. Thus, they contribute *equally* to chance of success. Thus, the core mechanic is no longer skill-focussed, or even skill-emphasising, although in the long term skill could come to dominate the issue.

EDIT: Clarification: I believe that this a bad thing for Shadowrun, although it would be just fine in many other settings.

that's one thing i'd be really uncomfortable with, honestly. there are too many cases where no amount of awesome stats can make up for a lack of training.

This is nothing new. Character generation in previous editions of SR also limits attribute and skill selection (to 6, for the most part). But the emphasis on increasing your attributes will be far greater than even in SR2 (when attributes only took the amount of Karma equal to the new rating), because the effect is far greater if they directly add to your dice rolls (especially if they govern multiple skills, like Intelligence or Quickness). The concern is that either they make attributes so static that it takes a boatload of Karma to raise (read: 4 or 5 times more Karma than the equivalent skill), or the system encourages players to load up on attribute-modifying 'ware/Magic rather than 'ware/Magic that makes sense within the context of the game world (or possibly a little bit of both).

I'm still in "Wait and See" mode... there are several fairly obvious solutions to this dilemma that can adequately address this issue (hint: White Wolf doesn't do it).

Agreed. The character-generation paradigm, when combined with the core mechanic, has a lot more to do with a feeling of realism or lack thereof.

However, I am a fan of bucket-loads of dice and success counting mechanics from a visceral, "Look how many dice I've got" perspective. The number of dice rolled does slow the game down a little, though, compared to fixed-die systems (GURPS, almost d20) or games with only a few dice (Ironclaw).

…And takes five to seven seconds to do so. Seriously, I do this all the time; my players just read off their die rolls from highest to lowest and I increment while they're reporting greater than the TN.

Seriously, if this is your example of a slow mechanic, then we must have a damn fast system for this to be a meaningful slowdown.

~J

Well, it's my example of a very, very, slow single-roll mechanic - especially compared to the exact same equivalent mechanic in every other game system in wide play, and most that aren't, as my examples have shown.

Obviously when we get into the whole question of multiple-roll mechanics, such as a ranged attack, things can take longer. Then it's a question of which rolls can be eliminated while retaining the spirit of the game.

Well first thing is, i've not raad past this post so i don't know if it's been mentioned already.

Not strickly true, now i know not the actual system but, if it was to work a bit like this (for example) then it wouldn't be much different then it is currently.

Example shooting test.
Pistols skill 4 (gives 4 dice to the pool)
Quickness 4 (gives 2 dice to the pool. 1 Per 2 say)

This way it only makes sense to have (thus pay for) a high skill if you have multiple quickness based skills just as it is in the current rules, it's more effective to increase the skill over the attribute if it's the only one you have thats linked to it.

It would make more sense to increase your attribute if you had 3 or more skills linkined to it as it would be a more effective "pay off" but that can be adjusted by making it cost more to up your quickness, thus the "payoff" would only be worth it if you had 5 or more skills, which (at least in my eyes) would make sense.

I really can't see there being a problem. though i kind of like the idea. Just hope they get the right balance for the "outside" effects ie, smart links, adept powers and such like.

I don't think it'll work like that. If it did, you'd suddenly see a whole lot more even attr ratings and a lot less odd attr ratings. But I'm confident they'll figure out some way of reducing the importance of the attribute.

I'm personally a bit worried for the Average Guys, like Joe Secguard with his QUI (or whatever) at 3 and Pistols at 2. Were there no modifiers to the basic rolls other than those mentioned, his chances of success would never exceed 86.83% -- compared to the 99.92% chance of success he could squeeze out under SR3. I'm also a bit worried about how the opposed nature of combat tests will work out, ie. what will replace Combat Pool and the Dodge Test.

Still, there's plenty of time for them to figure out the details. I'm sure they've run into all the problems I can think and a lot more of during design and playtesting. I'll be giving them the benefit of the doubt either until August or until very specific information surfaces on how different basic tests will work.

Oh i agree and i almost said as much but didn't as i was working with a guessitmated example and nothing more. Just wanted to point out that Attributes wouldn't become all dominating as people fear, at least in my opinion.

Heh. You're probably right, I'll try to keep better watch for that.

Then again, in this particular example I really don't see it being all that complicated. Does it really take years of experience to get a player to read off results from high to low?

~J

No, it doesn't.

But that doesn't change the fact that a "typical" roll will require 5-8 dice.

Rolling, re-rolling sixes, doing any necessary mental arithmetic, mentally sorting the results, and then reading out 5-8 different numbers is, compared to any other system's "secret difficulty" mechanic, amazingly cumbersome.

But it's just bad, not insurmountably unplayable. It's the SR equivalent of AD&D2E's THAC0 mechanic: unnecessarily complicated and unpleasant to use. It's not like I'm comparing it to Spawn of Fashan or anything...