I know this sounds weird but I want to implement bowling into my game. My main fixer for my group has an office in the back room of a bowling alley. I am totally amazed at the talent on this board and I know that someone could help me on fleshing out the rules.

This is what I have so far. If someone can come up with a better way of doing this, I will probably go with that person’s idea, but this is what I got so far.

What I had in mind was actually having a Bowling skill and it would fall under the Strength attribute in the Active Skills category. I thought that I would (here is where everyone rolls their eyes) also have a Bowling pool (Strength + Intelligence/2) to enhance the rolls. The pool would refresh I figured at the start of every frame.

I also came to the conclusion that I can’t make this a standard unopposed test because the number of successes would be extremely high (10 successes for each pin). Also if I went with an unopposed test, those individuals without the skill the target number would be too high to realistically see more then lets say 4 to 5 pins get knocked down each time up. So I thought they should roll their Strength or Bowling skill + Bowling Pool. The highest number rolled would be how many pins knocked down subtract 4 from the total if they are using their Strength instead. Any modified totals higher then 10 would be ignored.

I would like to also figure out how to implement splits and weird pin combinations that make it actually harder to pick up a spare. How could I make a system that is easy, somewhat realistic, and not bog down play? There are a lot of people on this board who totally impress me with their knowledge of the game, imaginations and intelligence and I really need some of you to help me out with this

Probably just be easier to take your players Bowling in some alley IRL.

FIELDTRIP!!!!

hehe that'd be awesome, time to talk business. wanna go a few frames while we pound out the details? Everyone to the car!!

I don't know Mel, you're asking for alot, especially with the notion that you "don't want to bog down play". If you ask me, having characters go bowling is kinda weird and I'm tempted to say that it would constitute bogging down play in and of itself. But, for the moment, I'll grant that there might be something to this idea of bowling in Shadowrun and concentrate on making it easier to deal with.

First off, don't make it a separate skill, make it a specialization for Athletics. That way, one of your players might actually take it.
Second, allow Throwing Weapons as complimentary skill dice.
Third, don't make a new pool, just let players use the combat pool if they want to put some finesse on the ball.

As far as TN go, make it TN 5 to hit the pocket by putting a hook on the ball and give the best chance of a strike, give TN 4 for just rolling the ball down straight and taking what you can get. After the test is made, roll 2d6 and add 1 for each success the player got, but halve the total for a person who threw a straight ball. The final total represents how many pins were knocked down, a strike indicated for 10+. If there are pins left, break out a ten-sider and roll it for as many pins that are left standing, ignoring duplicates until each pin has a unique number. Break out your local bowling center's scoring sheet and check the numbers against pin placement, those numbers represent where the pins are standing. Give a player who threw a hook a +/- 1 modifier to one roll after the result for all pins standing is known to better reflect their ball control. When you get a split result, you'll have to assign new TNs (example: a baby split =TN 6 vs 7 - 10 split = TN 24), one success makes it. For other types of spares, you should follow the same procedure as with the first ball thrown but only roll 1d6 to see how man pins fall.
A failed roll may get some pins, but subtract 6 from the pin rolls, again halving the result for a straight ball, a result of 0 or less is a gutter ball, a botched roll is an automatic gutter ball with some GM inspired hilarity thrown in. You may want to only allow folks who specialized in bowling to put a hook on it.


Hmmm, I think that should be pretty easy to implement, you'll have to assign TNs to a whole bunch of different split combos on the fly, but you can probably come up with some for the most common ones. Hope this helps.

Eerily enough, I was bowling last night and had a very similar idea (a couple of bothced athletics tests, and I was very far behind the rest of the lane). Purely for humor value, I like the idea of having bowling as its very own skill (with throwing weapons as a comp skill) or as a specialization of throwing weapons (mmmm... bowling adepts).

Much as the bowling community would disagree, I have a hard time seeing bowling as an athletics skill.

Having bowling as a rolled portion of the game could lead to a variety of very entertaining role-playing situtations. GMs should be encouraged to put their players in "ordinary" situations, as well as extraordinary ones.

Ranger Joe's -- neat shop in Columbus.

Anyway, yes -- some of the best humor can come from putting cranked up shadowrunners into relatively normal situations.

Can you imagine the late-night crew in a Seattle Waffle House at 02:30?

-Siege

I'd say just role-play rather than roll-play the bowling. If the players really want to know who wins, just roll randomly. Don't put yourself through extra work if the players don't want that level of detail too.

The Abstruse One