Shadowrun
Shadowrun Play => Gamemasters' Lounge => Topic started by: Opti on <07-29-13/0141:18>
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My shaman player continually summons a force 4 air spirit and uses engulf on everything. It uses the air engulf which bypasses armor, and does a crap-ton of stun damage. Nearly everything except boss-types fall easily within the first round since they automatically take damage again on thier action phase, and cant do anything until they escape. Are we playing this wrong, or is there something I should be doing to remedy this?
Another of my players wants to create and sell spell formula for foci and sell them to his talismonger contact. He created a force 4 power focus (it took 4 days) and now wants to sell it (according to the rules for fencing to contacts) for 18,000 (foci power (4)x 18,000 = 72,000, and sold for 5% x loyalty rating (5) = 18,000) nuyen. I went step-by-step and this seems legit, but also seems like a cheap way to get a lot of money for no real work.
Lastly, one of my players used Mob Mind in the first round of combat to make an entire street gang shoot themselves in the head, since he got 5 successes and their resist pool was only 4 dice each. Help on this stuff?
Thanks.
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The way to counter magic is usually magic. Until you throw a mage in the enemy ranks with counterspelling things like mob mind will probably mess you up. Well.... If I recall telling people to do something horrible to themselves gives them bonus dice. Or they just won't do it. I'd have to check the exact rules on the spell. Now if I recall right mind manipulations are stupidly illegal and for good reason. Some times the athorities will have to investigate half a dozen gangers blowing their own brains out. Who ever caused that is a threat to alot of people.
As far as him pawning of stuff on his talis monger... Congragulate him on his craftiness, but remember that that Talismonger is in buisness to make money. Not alot of people are looking to drop 72k on a power foci. If he's not selling them, he probably won't want to restock on them. And are you looking at the price for the power foci formula, or the actual power foci? I don't recall prices off the top of my head. Also whats the conection rating on this talis monger? The contact rules are kinda wonky but I'm gonna say that a low conection contact wouldn't have the money to drop on power foci every 4 days.
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Gas masks. Also if a tactic is effective, try using it on your players. See how they adapt and respond to the threat. You might learn something new in this manner.
In addition to counterspelling, some tactics can be used to even the odds for mundanes. Smoke grenades and other methods tof limiting visibility work well on mages, although be aware that they can blind fire indirect damage spells. Divide up groups of gangers and come at him from more than one side. Use skirmishers. These are weak troops that are mainly used to tie down or distract a foe, meanwhile the more powerful troops rush in on a flank or the like.
If you want to force him into melee, have the fights start up close and personal. You have an enormous advantage in that you generally set the battlefield, unless they put a lot of work into stealth and setting up ambushes.
Mana barriers and wards can also be useful.
There are some tactics so effective that they have to be used sparingly and very carefully or you end up with a dead team of runners. Snipers are one of them. Combined with open ground and/or towers, it can be especially deadly. An invisible sniper more than 50 metersc away isn't detectable by ultravision in 5th edition by the way. Stun grenades inside a building are another thing I've noticed to be dangerous to players, perhaps overly so. The thing is that even if the enemies miss, there's now a bunch of random stun grenades being lobbed about in a building. Well, even if some guards are hit, it's probaly going to turn out bad for PCs, since there are only about 4 of them.
Explosions. If they are good enough for Burn Notice, they are good enough for you. Now, you generally don't want to use them directly on the players, unless they've been really stupid, as you'll have a TPK on your hands. But they can be useful for guiding action and they send a powerful message as well. I'm fond of having the car they were just in explode to start off some missions.
Regarding the sales. First of all, note that there is possible essence lost in SR5 with foci creation, so your player is taking a risk doing this. Also with any kind of sales scheme/moneymaking scheme like this let it go the first time. If they try to repeat and spam this money making action, then introduce them to Nunzio. Nunzio controls that sort of action in this part of the city and believes the character owes him a huge percentage. Did I mention Nunzio is well connected in the Italian mafia? If a player acts like a shopkeeper, treat them like a Sixth World shopkeeper, with angry competitors (the guy who is now not getting to sell to that Talismonger) and mafia sharks swimming around looking for their cut.
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The spirit part is an easy way to get negative police attention, especially if you're summoning the same type of spirit every time to commit murder. A simple fix next time he does it is send a SWAT team to his apartment, with two allied mages in tow, since if they know it's a mage, they would obviously have mages to counterspell. If he survives he'll be sure to not have a spirit as his go-to murder weapon everytime.
Also remember "geek the mage", spirits can only engulf one target at a time unless they have been invoked. That gives a chance for the other 3-4 mooks to kill the mage controlling the spirit, releasing the spirit from it's murder spree.
Regarding the sale of foci, if this is still 4th edition, there is always the "You require an exotic reagent in [insert random country]" making it take more than 4 days to avoid this very issue. If he wanted to make foci for a living, why is he shadowrunning. You have time for one or the other, no side job drek.
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I had a standing rule with my players...
If tehy started making and selling anything, their characters got retired and became NPCs, because they were no longer Shadowrunners. They were shopkeepers. make a new character, your old one is now a contact.
:)
And if the enemy isn't challenging enough, increase their numbers or increase their stats. Add more mages. have the mages have spriits. Use drones. Have snipers to deal first with the spirits, then with the uppity mage who summoned them. Remember that spellcasting and summoning is not subtle (Force-6 threshold to notice).
Use wards. Wards are cheap and easy to install, and they stop spirits cold.
Bull
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Another of my players wants to create and sell spell formula for foci and sell them to his talismonger contact. He created a force 4 power focus (it took 4 days)
Hang on - if it took 4 days, the [formula Force] was 4, and those 4 days would be followed by an (Artificing + Magic [formula Force]) v. (formula Force + telesma’s Object Resistance) Opposed Test, without being allowed to use Edge, with the number of net hits you get being the actual Force of the focus.
So for the actual force of the focus to be 4, he'd have to reach the 4-hit Limit while the item got 0 hits on 4+3 dice (the lowest Object Resistance being 3 for things like hand-carved wood) - and the chance of the second thing happening is only 5.85%. You'd have a 20.48% of ending up with a Force 3 focus, 30.73% of ending up with a Force 2 focus, 25.61% of ending up with a Force 1 focus, and a 17.33% of getting nothing for your efforts - and that's only if you're 100% certain of getting those 4 hits.
Now, if we assume Magic 6, Artificing 6, and a Specialty in Crafting the type of Focus that you want, you'll have 14 dice and a Limit of 4, the focus has 7... assuming I'm inputting this right on anydice, that's 27.84% of nothing, 25.44% of an R1 Focus, 26.35% of an R2 Focus, 16.05% of getting an R3 Focus, and 4.32% of getting an R4 Focus. On average, that's about an R1.4357 - and if you only want the R4 Focus, it'll take you 23 tries, or 92 days, on average (if you'll settle for R3 or R4, it's 5 tries, or 20 days, on average).
Also, keep in mind that if you like the result, you'll have to spend [Force] Karma to finish the Focus, which means your alchemist (who I assume has a karma-heavy character advancement route) is basically spending 1 Karma per 4500 nuyen - if you don't allow your characters to trade nuyen for Karma, he's basically hindering his own progress for a quick buck.
Lastly, if this is a chargen contact (I'm assuming you don't make it particularly easy to raise a contact's Loyalty Rating in-game), the highest Connection it can have is 2. So that contact is going to have a hard time actually finding someone to sell the focus to. And of course, with a Loyalty Rating of 5, the player is opening themselves to plot hooks like "Your contact got kidnapped! Go save him!".
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Thanks for all the replies guys. I am running the missions, and so I don't feel like I have the flexibility to add this or that just to counter particular players. But there are some things that you have suggested that I will start to implement.
As for the crafting, he wasn't making foci, in case that wasn't clear, just spell formulas for foci.
Also, where does it say in the book that you can't spend edge on the crafting tests?
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Also, bear in mind that it's not a competition. Of course you want there to be a sense of danger to the game, otherwise it's probably not going to result in very good/immersive RP, but as a new GM (especially if the players are new, which it sounds like maybe not), don't stress too much over mechanical challenges. Use this time to get familiar with what works and what doesn't and experiment conservatively with the mechanics. SR is a really hard game to give just the right amount of mechanical challenge with (and for me, frankly, often involves deciding in the moment that a particular NPC or two or three need to be throwing a few more dice). It's very easy to over-challenge and outright kill a PC or two (or all). Focus on the mood and setting and RP and the story. Turn the easy battles into epic narratives, let your players feel great about their abilities, it doesn't mean you're doing a bad job - you're learning, hopefully they know that. You can humble them later :D I know you said you're doing Missions, so I have no clue how much opportunity you have for this, but put more emphasis on the non-mechanical challenges. If it's a dangerous, conflicted RP scenario, challenge them here with their choices and interactions.
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Always remember Background Count (Street Magic p. 117 ff.).
A Background Count of 1-2 is reasonable for any Urban Area. Very handy to tone down annoying Magicks.
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Nal0n: judging by the "5% x Loyalty" bit, this is 5th edition, not 4th.
As for the crafting, he wasn't making foci, in case that wasn't clear, just spell formulas for foci.
Only a finished power focus costs Force x 18,000, though - a focus formula is only worth 25% of a finished focus (pages 326 and 461), and even assuming your contact doesn't already have it, you can only sell it to them once, since it's like a recipe. So in the unlikely event that their talismonger contact didn't already have a Force 4 Power Focus formula for your character's tradition lying around, but was interested in buying one, they still only would've bought it for 72k*25%*(5*5%), or 4500¥.
Also, where does it say in the book that you can't spend edge on the crafting tests?
Step 5 of Artificing says this about crafting the actual focus (not creating the formula, just crafting the focus):
At the end of the crafting time, it is time for the dangerous part of the process: invoking the power of the focus. Make an Artificing + Magic [formula Force] v. formula Force + telesma’s Object Resistance. This counts as the culmination of all your work over the days, so you can’t use Edge for this test.
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We did something similar once, not in shadowrun, but in another system. Basically we found a way to make waaaay more money intended by selling crafted goods, than doing adventuring stuff. In the end some nasty demon came, because something something about a portal and magic items yadda yadda (a not too solid reason, cant remember details) and TPKed all of us. Later we found out that the GM thought we ruined his game (we did, we just didnt see it at the time) so he decided to punish us all for it, harshly. He could have avoided it all if hed just had a conversation with his douchebag friends, saying\ guys, that magic crap load doesnt really work for me, I know its totally legit by the rules, but its ruining all our adventures, cant we just ignore those rules and get on with the heroic stuff instead?
Back in 2nd ed, we had a gentlemans agreement saying, we didnt use assault cannons, unless we wanted the opposition to do the same. an arms race in GM vs players alwas ends with both sides as loosers.
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I didn't mean to suggest that he was making full talismans, just the formula. And he ended up selling them for about 4,500 in between each job. Does that sound more reasonable?
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But it seems like people are suggesting that any given talismonger may not need many "force 6 power focus formulas," right? So selling one each week might not be realistic?
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Focus formulae are basically really complicated recipes for making foci, and they aren't lost when making a focus, so once a talismonger obtains one, they can just make copies and sell the copies. Selling even a single force 6 power focus formula to your contact ever is already unrealistic: selling more than one doesn't make any sense at all.
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Excellent, that is just what I needed. Thanks, ZeConster!
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I am with Bull on this one: As soon as you earn real money by building and selling stuff you become a NPC.
Avoids LOTS of discussion and problems.
Building stuff for one self / the team is ok though.
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I am with Bull on this one: As soon as you earn real money by building and selling stuff you become a NPC.
Avoids LOTS of discussion and problems.
Building stuff for one self / the team is ok though.
Instead of taking the player's character away from them, why not take a look at your payouts and increase them? That is generally going to be the reason they bother trying alternate methods for making money.
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I am with Bull on this one: As soon as you earn real money by building and selling stuff you become a NPC.
Avoids LOTS of discussion and problems.
Building stuff for one self / the team is ok though.
Instead of taking the player's character away from them, why not take a look at your payouts and increase them? That is generally going to be the reason they bother trying alternate methods for making money.
The two things don't have anything to do with each other, and increasing payouts won't magically cause PCs to stop playing shopkeeper.
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If he is playing shopkeep he may find your payout too low.
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Well, honestly, my players are veteran powergamers from other systems, and they are very new to shadowrun, so they are looking for every advantage, regardless of how much pay I give them or not.
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Ah. You just said the magic woids. Veteran powergamers. Okay! Right, what you've got to remember is anything they can do, you can do better. Set another team of runners against them, remember that the bane of the summoner is the banishing specialist, remember that in a given group of gangers, there may be an magically active NPC, if they had such a go in with a group of gangers, well, their buddies are gonna be real upset about what happened, and the way it happened, so hit them during downtimes when they're seperate, and do it via ambush. Geek the mage first is always the way, so the moment that your spirit goes on its murder spree, all the other guards or NPCs focus fire on that mage - preferably with either APDS or stick and shock. (Yes, I am aware that this is a vicious, hateful set of solutions.) And if he gets the stick and shock option (because you're being nice) now he gets the joy of being a corporate prisoner - use your imagination about what they might do to a prisoner unless he escapes or gets rescued (this can be the focus of a whole run.) Remember, NPCs aren't dumb - they 1. prepare for contingency. 2. Adapt and respond. These two things mean that Lonestar or Knight Errant both have mages in employment, and many corporate branches likely have at least one mage in their employment - not to mention drones. Suffocation does nothing to drones, same with mind control.
As to shopkeeping... as others have said, supply and demand, and quite frankly, there just isn't the demand, since on top of you only being able to sell formulae once to someone, they may already have it.
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I feel like the "I'm the GM and i say NO" option gets used alot and its valid in many circumstances but perhaps another way of looking at it is that if your players want to make money by running a buisness, let them...
However, this is both a role playing game and shadowrun so it would make sense that in doing so they need to play a role and run the shadows. Your players want to make cash out of selling formula. Great! but they need a place to sell from, they need people to sell too and they need a product worth paying for. All of these things need to be worked out and it makes sense to me to weave these into the way you play. So now the team is doing legwork to make contacts in thebiz and to rustle up potential buyers. They are running to earn enough to expand thier buisness or to get hard to find or unique ingredients/materials. In fact they probably also need to do some runs to steal ideas or gain inspiration for new ones.
Here's what i would present to the players (before doing the hard yards of course). If you would like to continue selling formulae we can go a few different ways. First, we can turn this into a buisness and ultimatley this will shape your character and thier goals to revolve around it. Secondly we can drop the whole thing and go back to "calassic running" or finally you can spend time creating formula and trying to shop it around in your spare time but be aware that this is not going to be the cash cow you expect it to be. you will most likely be spending much of your downtime each month to pull in a few hundred nuyen.
If they dont get the concept of the above i would use examples like the storage wars/pickers guys as people who devote there liife to it to make a living or the guy who tries buy cheap stuff off of ebay and make a small profit in his spare time (having done this myself in the past, it is a great way to help support a gaming habit but not enough to live on and yes it does chew up far too much time. If you look at the numbers you might earn $2-3 an hour, unless you devote alot of your time too it so really just get a job!!)
Any way hope thats helpful!!
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You're complaining that your mage is wiping the floor with people who are rolling 4 dice? Those were mooks... their job is to die spectacularly.
Also, in regards to Mob Control, et cetera. Its untenable in actual play, I don't think you are running it correct...
First, roll spellcasting vs resist. If successful, note net successes. Nothing has actually happened yet. On their action, instead of doing something, they resist again, whittling away at your successes. Then on your turn, you issue a command. On their turn, they roll again, whittling away again at your Hits. If they don't, then they perform whatever your command was. This is three resistance rolls against your one roll... if your dicepools are -that- much better than the opponent's, then you deserve to instantly win.
Second, the rules do what they say they do. There is no "commit suicide" action. Miscellaneous actions are allowed if I feel they are appropriate. While I will houserule in random stuff that makes the game better--you are not entitled for me to houserule actions into the game. Now, shooting yourself in the head is a an action and something the NPCs can be made to do. This is a called shot. They roll their attack with a -4 penalty (no defense, I'll give them that). It deals the listed damage, and they soak it normally. That is how it works because that is how the rules says shooting anything in the head works. If your players complain it should be instantly lethal, explain that you're the GM and that sticking to a strict reading of the rules makes the game better, and to please go along with it. If they still complain, tell them to read up on Beethovan's relatives, also anatomy books. If they -still- complain, have an as-before-unseen NPC perform a called shot on their head, then politely ask them what should happen. After the results of the fight make sure to build rapport later and have one or two positive interactions before your next game.
Get used to banning incidental power in your game. The faster you learn to do this, the easier things will become. Just make sure you also implement the "Rule of Cool" as well. Lateral thought is allowed as long as it is interesting.
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i have run on both sides of the "mage´s spirit are OP" so i suggest that:
1) if you are not a very experience DM dont throw more enemies as micro manage them is a nightmare. Instead make every security guard to throw 10 dices per attack min. with assault riffles as weapon and 1 or 2 mages.
2) Cheat. Fudge the dices in a realistic way. And/or get rid of the limits for the enemies not the PC if you are dming 5th
3) The spirit enters the combat and every singles security guard should full auto on it.
I dont say to use this in every single combat, let him enjoy the first two encounters but by the third his tactics should bite the dust
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2) Cheat. Fudge the dices in a realistic way. And/or get rid of the limits for the enemies not the PC if you are dming 5th
No. No. No. The only time it is acceptable to "fudge" is when a PC is going to be killed merely through dumb luck of a really good dice roll on the part of an enemy or a really bad one on their part. Character death should only occur at a dramatically appropriate moment, NOT simply dumb luck.
Basically, if you're going to "fudge", make sure it's for the benefit of the campaign as a whole rather than just because of some notion that a "challenging encounter" requires the PCs to come away severely depleted, injured or dead.
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2) Cheat. Fudge the dices in a realistic way. And/or get rid of the limits for the enemies not the PC if you are dming 5th
No. No. No. The only time it is acceptable to "fudge" is when a PC is going to be killed merely through dumb luck of a really good dice roll on the part of an enemy or a really bad one on their part. Character death should only occur at a dramatically appropriate moment, NOT simply dumb luck.
Basically, if you're going to "fudge", make sure it's for the benefit of the campaign as a whole rather than just because of some notion that a "challenging encounter" requires the PCs to come away severely depleted, injured or dead.
Two questions pop in my mind. Are you stalking me? It seems i cant sneeze in this forum without you coming under a rock to counter argument my posts. Is kinda flattering :-* and anoying. Second question who died and make you the authority about whats aceptable or not in a game? Is there a huge rock tablet somewhere that has the "thous" of Dming?
if he is saying that spirits are way to powerfull for him to handle and that he is a new GM. Instead of having to micromanage 15 goons (wich is difficult) he can just make 6 or 7 very powerfull goons and just fudge the dices to amp the difficulty so they hit the spirit or dont get inmediatly knock out.
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You micromanage 15 goons by not micro-managing them. You make them all have the same dicepools and then speed roll.
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You micromanage 15 goons by not micro-managing them. You make them all have the same dicepools and then speed roll.
thing is, and this is only my experience could be different for other people, that if all enemies are grouped on one big block of initiative it just drags a lot the combat.
example
player1-----player 2-----player 3-----player 4-----spirit-----goon1-----goon 2-----goons 3-----goon 4-----goons 5-----goon 6-----goon 7-----goon 8-----goons 9 to 15-----player 5.
There is a big block of time on each phase in wich the players are gonna be just listening to me throwing dices without them having any effect on the combat. And is more that anything the rolls on the attacks as if i roll one attack roll for all the enemies is not the same damage i want to dish out to the troll samie with 9 body than to the puny decker elf with 2 body.
And on the example of the spirit being too powerfull while 15 goons could concentrate fire and eliminate him quickly another problem arrise them. Once the big bad spirit is banish there still 15 goons and the players are probably dead. While with only 7 enemies and fudging i can tilt the balance in favor of the enemies while dealing with the spirits and once its gone tilt it again in favor of the players.
This is of course my opinion and experience, i know dms who can micro manage 25 npcs without a problem or use more other ways to resolving this.
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Because you don't do it one after like that. You do it like this
Player 1 -> Player 2 -> Player 3 -> Player 4 -> Spirit -> All goons simultaneously -> Player 5.
When it gets to the Goon's turn, you describe what they all do. End it with a note of how many attacks of what type are going to what players. One player at a time, you roll all of the attacks as they roll all of their defenses quickly. Determine what hits, tell them the damages. Move on to the next player as the prior player rolls soak and notes the result on their sheet. This has another advantage of blocking all of your PCs together. That lets them all take their turns at the same time, which speeds combat even more.
"Fifteen" is an arbitrary number. It is pretty close to the upper limit of what I'd do before handling them as a swarm. You, of course, gauge the combat by what the PCs can handle. Personally, I'd use a smaller number of stronger enemies, because even with this method 15 takes a rather long time.
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Four signs of a good GM (in this order):
1- Provide a fun game for the players.
2- Ensure that the PCs survive unless they do something unbelievably stupid (something on the level of taking a piss on Lofwyr's claw)
3- Provide an appropriate level of challenge (severe depletion of resources and severe injury of a PC--as in very near death--is a sign of an encounter that is either too much or needs an extra experience reward)
4- Have fun yourself. (While you should be enjoying the game as well, the players' enjoyment should be priority over your own.)
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Four signs of a good GM (in this order):
1- Provide a fun game for the players.
2- Ensure that the PCs survive unless they do something unbelievably stupid (something on the level of taking a piss on Lofwyr's claw)
3- Provide an appropriate level of challenge (severe depletion of resources and severe injury of a PC--as in very near death--is a sign of an encounter that is either too much or needs an extra experience reward)
4- Have fun yourself. (While you should be enjoying the game as well, the players' enjoyment should be priority over your own.)
... 2 and 3 are highly subjective. There are some players who don't consider it fun if they're not being pushed to their limit and if there isn't some risk of character death for taking the wrong action or getting a bad roll - and many more players find that the game is more fun in such circumstances.
There is 1 sign of a good GM - the ability to read your players to know what they want in a game, and to be able to provide that in a game you're able to enjoy yourself.
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The bad roll...no. Bad dumb luck should never be what leads to a PC death. The other part, possible depending on unanimous group decision.
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The bad roll...no. Bad dumb luck should never be what leads to a PC death. The other part, possible depending on unanimous group decision.
That is your preference (and, to be fair, mine) - but it isn't the only way to play. In some groups, mechanics like Edge exist specifically as a sort of "second-chance" because risks like that exist, and some players like that.
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Four signs of a good GM (in this order):
1- Provide a fun game for the players.
2- Ensure that the PCs survive unless they do something unbelievably stupid (something on the level of taking a piss on Lofwyr's claw)
3- Provide an appropriate level of challenge (severe depletion of resources and severe injury of a PC--as in very near death--is a sign of an encounter that is either too much or needs an extra experience reward)
4- Have fun yourself. (While you should be enjoying the game as well, the players' enjoyment should be priority over your own.)
What authority would compel me to follow this i ask, just because you/someone else wrote something it doesnt make it law. But that aside
2) Is very subjective. I follow it but is subjective. I know Dm who play the way of "whatever says the dices happen, it happens" and their players are happy with that approach.
3) Is very subjective and it doesnt say "No fudging is acceptable". "Provide an appropriate level of challenge" could mean put more enemies, make enemies thougher or fudge the dices. And i never said to almost kill the players i just say fudge the dices a little in favor of the enemies when dealing with the OP spirit of that player.
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If you fudge in favor of the enemies it can very well get to the point where the players don't feel there is any point in doing anything anymore because no matter how well they do, the enemy will always "miraculously survive".
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If you fudge in favor of the enemies it can very well get to the point where the players don't feel there is any point in doing anything anymore because no matter how well they do, the enemy will always "miraculously survive".
That would take a very extreme case.
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If you fudge in favor of the enemies it can very well get to the point where the players don't feel there is any point in doing anything anymore because no matter how well they do, the enemy will always "miraculously survive".
That would take a very extreme case.
Not really. Fudging like that is a rather slippery slope. Do it once and get away with it and it just gets easier to get yourself to do it over and over again.
I have seen players that will walk out on a game the moment a screen hits the table because of bad experiences with GMs fudging.
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But just because you fudge some stuff doesn't mean fudge creep (that sounds like a really strange dessert...) is gonna happen. Those bad experiences are with extreme cases.
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But just because you fudge some stuff doesn't mean fudge creep (that sounds like a really strange dessert...) is gonna happen. Those bad experiences are with extreme cases.
Having encountered such players, I'm still going to advise keeping any fudging to being in the PCs' favor and keep it to that end myself. Less likely to cause a real problem that way.
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You should never, ever fudge the dice, regardless of which way you want to fudge them. The risk of a bad die roll is part of the game, and if you start coddling the players, the game becomes less fun (unless you have a group of players that just wants to kick ass all the time and never have to worry about dying, in which case I'd say they should maybe play something else). Plus there's plenty of ways to get the players out of a bad situation without taking away the challenge part - all you have to do is attach strings to whatever escape route you provide them with.
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"Challenge" does not mean "high chance of death". Character death should only come at dramatically appropriate moments. If a player's character can die just because of dumb luck in a game, it just ends up creating the Revolving-Door-of-Characters where everyone keeps stacks on hand for when that bad roll hits, not really giving a damn about any of them.
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1- Provide a fun game for the players.
2- Ensure that the PCs survive unless they do something unbelievably stupid (something on the level of taking a piss on Lofwyr's claw)
3- Provide an appropriate level of challenge (severe depletion of resources and severe injury of a PC--as in very near death--is a sign of an encounter that is either too much or needs an extra experience reward)
4- Have fun yourself. (While you should be enjoying the game as well, the players' enjoyment should be priority over your own.)
1 and 4 are the only one of those I agree with. But I'm a brutal GM. I make sure the PCs have a means of understanding the challenges ahead, and then leave how to tackle them in their hands... as well as whether or not to tackle it at all. After that, its on them. If they die, they die. I actually consider severe depletion of resources and severe injury of PCs to be a good sign most of the time, unless its unexpected by everyone. That means the challenge was real, it was difficult, and the PCs won on their own merits--I handed them nothing. The other trick I use is that I make the major antagonists not give a rat's ass about murdering the PCs, with few exceptions. Usually, I plan for a "bad end," where the PCs fail everything. I plan for a "good end," where the PCs accomplish most of their goals. And I often plan for a "best end," which includes feelgood sidequests.
Hrm. An example. Last month I was running a Changeling Game. In it, they were trying to rescue some children stolen by goblins. Throughout the story, I kept foreshadowing that the Big Bad Wolf was going to be let loose. I worfed my current antagonists and made sure the PCs understood the basics of the Wolf's trick--that he can just murder people who aren't being watched. The PCs decided they could control line of sight and free the girl anyways. Of course this was messed with, and for a split second one of the PCs wasn't being paid attention to--they almost died. The PCs took the girl and ran. They escaped, saved the kids (good end), but the Wolf followed them into the mortal world (not the best end). Fun was had by all.
Re: Fudging
I proffer to build trust with my players. Most of my rolls are in the open. I've even found ways to not have to fudge perception rolls per say. I find that building this sense of trust helps me when I want my NPCs to not play by the rules. The PCs are confident that my NPCs are playing by a set of rules, even if they don't understand what they are yet. On top of that, it helps the players feel like they are what accomplished things.
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"Challenge" does not mean "high chance of death". Character death should only come at dramatically appropriate moments. If a player's character can die just because of dumb luck in a game, it just ends up creating the Revolving-Door-of-Characters where everyone keeps stacks on hand for when that bad roll hits, not really giving a damn about any of them.
This reminds me of the Bard in "Gamers2: Dorkness Rising".
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"Challenge" does not mean "high chance of death". Character death should only come at dramatically appropriate moments. If a player's character can die just because of dumb luck in a game, it just ends up creating the Revolving-Door-of-Characters where everyone keeps stacks on hand for when that bad roll hits, not really giving a damn about any of them.
"Really bad luck will kill you unless you burn Edge or the GM provides you with a plausible escape route" does not mean "high chance of death", either. If all you have to plan for is the average case, the game isn't challenging.
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I actually consider severe depletion of resources and severe injury of PCs to be a good sign most of the time
Perhaps for the very last encounter of an adventure. Others should be rather easy so that the PCs aren't too drained before getting to that point.
To use a D&D reference, if the wizard and/or cleric only have their lowest level spells left when reaching the final encounter of the adventure and the fighter is down to less than half health, the initial encounters were probably too much.
"Really bad luck will kill you unless you burn Edge or the GM provides you with a plausible escape route" does not mean "high chance of death", either. If all you have to plan for is the average case, the game isn't challenging.
That's the whole point. You can't plan for bad rolls, and if bad rolls are the only reason a good plan fails then things need to be adjusted.
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"Really bad luck will kill you unless you burn Edge or the GM provides you with a plausible escape route" does not mean "high chance of death", either. If all you have to plan for is the average case, the game isn't challenging.
That's the whole point. You can't plan for bad rolls, and if bad rolls are the only reason a good plan fails then things need to be adjusted.
Sure you can - it's called "planning properly". Plus even if your players don't, you can always try to offer them a way out that doesn't involve cheating. Having to fudge the die results is a sign of a bad GM.
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"Really bad luck will kill you unless you burn Edge or the GM provides you with a plausible escape route" does not mean "high chance of death", either. If all you have to plan for is the average case, the game isn't challenging.
That's the whole point. You can't plan for bad rolls, and if bad rolls are the only reason a good plan fails then things need to be adjusted.
Sure you can - it's called "planning properly". Plus even if your players don't, you can always try to offer them a way out that doesn't involve cheating. Having to fudge the die results is a sign of a bad GM.
I'm not going to screw my players over when they had a good plan to start with just because one of my rolls came up as a "god roll" or one of theirs was crap-tastic. The PCs are the heroes, and as such they should be special and things should tend to work out in the end for them. A good game is like a good action movie--the characters come out maybe a little bit bloodied but they're alive and have won the day.
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Not really. Fudging like that is a rather slippery slope. Do it once and get away with it and it just gets easier to get yourself to do it over and over again.
I have seen players that will walk out on a game the moment a screen hits the table because of bad experiences with GMs fudging.
im talking about fudging a little not about using heroin o_O
And by that same logic whenever i consider playing in a table and they tell me they dont use screens (meaning that what the dices say happens, happens) i walk away. Some people go for the "i throw the funny shape dice and you tell me what happens" approach to gaming.
But just because you fudge some stuff doesn't mean fudge creep (that sounds like a really strange dessert...) is gonna happen. Those bad experiences are with extreme cases.
it sound like this creepy guy who lives on alleys and approach people saying "Hey little man, may i fudge your dices?"
Sure you can - it's called "planning properly". Plus even if your players don't, you can always try to offer them a way out that doesn't involve cheating. Having to fudge the die results is a sign of a bad GM.
all aboard the hubris train cho cho.
Seriously though, this you wrote
You should never, ever fudge the dice, regardless of which way you want to fudge them. The risk of a bad die roll is part of the game, and if you start coddling the players, the game becomes less fun (unless you have a group of players that just wants to kick ass all the time and never have to worry about dying, in which case I'd say they should maybe play something else). Plus there's plenty of ways to get the players out of a bad situation without taking away the challenge part - all you have to do is attach strings to whatever escape route you provide them with.
is a very valid point of view. I dont share it and i avoid those kind of games. But i have meet DMs with group who follow it and they have as much fun as i do with mine. But in the end is a point of view
With fudging IMO the 3 things one has to know is that:
1) It work both ways. If one fudge for the enemies one also should fudge for the players.
2) There is a limit for players. If a player rolls the D&D equivalent of double 20s. One should never fudge it. The player won that super success and he should feel awesome while killing whatever he kills. If the enemies should survive for some reason he should do that but be severely affected by what happened there.
3) Subtlely is the key. With the example of the spirit. If a force 7 beast spirit appears and starts wrecking havok on the corporate security. If i just fudge it like "1 security guard shoot and does 8 damage to the spirit" yeah the players are gonna feel cheated. However if there is 15 enemies and every security guard it kills he get 3 damage even though he shouldnt it gets more challenging for the player. Or in my example of less but thougher enemies, beast spirit enters and probably kill one of the 7 enemies and the second one starts combating that one. So that leaves 5 enemies vs 5 runners.
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Mrah. Rewrote this post a few times. Trying to get my thoughts just right.
The issue with fudging dicerolls and hiding behind a screen is that every time you do that, it puts a barrier of trust between the GM and the Players. It is the GM's job to put on a show for the players. Choice and randomness, or at least the illusion of choice and randomness, is important to that show. Hiding your dice behind a screen and fudging rolls is like a magician asking the audience to turn their back during a trick. Sure, it's not "wrong" exactly, but the trick is much less impressive (thanks to Jess for that analogy, in case you are reading :p).
There are a whole host of tools you have at your disposal. You can retroactively change stats of your enemies. You can decide the DC after you roll. You can function off of "degrees of success" rather than binary pass/fail. You can stagger your encounter. You can foreshadow your encounter(s) to place choice on the PCs. Fudging the actual dice should be the absolutely last thing you should ever do.
Perhaps for the very last encounter of an adventure. Others should be rather easy so that the PCs aren't too drained before getting to that point.
To use a D&D reference, if the wizard and/or cleric only have their lowest level spells left when reaching the final encounter of the adventure and the fighter is down to less than half health, the initial encounters were probably too much.
Counter-intuitively, that is incorrect. Or rather, it isn't always correct. It depends on the story you are trying to tell. Also, since you probably aren't making the BBEG before the PCs are about to face them, you can adjust the BBEG's stats to match where your players are at right now, to feed into that story.
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Back to micromanaging issues: There's a reason I got a sheet of paper with rolls pre-rolled by a computer program. All I had to do every time was check the number, check the table, then I'd know if it was a hit and if it was a glitch. Makes managing a lot of goons much easier.
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Oh yeah, that's an old trick, specifically for systems with buckets of dice, like Shadowrun is. Calculate their average number of successes. Roll a single die to represent their pool, and they gain Average-3+1d6 Hits.
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"Really bad luck will kill you unless you burn Edge or the GM provides you with a plausible escape route" does not mean "high chance of death", either. If all you have to plan for is the average case, the game isn't challenging.
That's the whole point. You can't plan for bad rolls, and if bad rolls are the only reason a good plan fails then things need to be adjusted.
Sure you can - it's called "planning properly". Plus even if your players don't, you can always try to offer them a way out that doesn't involve cheating. Having to fudge the die results is a sign of a bad GM.
I'm not going to screw my players over when they had a good plan to start with just because one of my rolls came up as a "god roll" or one of theirs was crap-tastic. The PCs are the heroes, and as such they should be special and things should tend to work out in the end for them. A good game is like a good action movie--the characters come out maybe a little bit bloodied but they're alive and have won the day.
Except a situation like that has a high enough chance of occuring that someone should have prepared for it. It should take several awful-from-players and amazing-from-NPCs rolls to endanger the party.
Oh yeah, that's an old trick, specifically for systems with buckets of dice, like Shadowrun is. Calculate their average number of successes. Roll a single die to represent their pool, and they gain Average-3+1d6 Hits.
No, he actually made a java class spit out a whole bunch of numbers, printed it, and checks off the next number of hits for X dice when needed.
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And any number marked with an exclamation mark is a glitch. Copy-paste, print, done.
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I have seen players that will walk out on a game the moment a screen hits the table because of bad experiences with GMs fudging.
Frankly I hope they don't let the door hit them in the ass. They can have good luck finding another GM.
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I haven't used a screen much myself due to a lack of table space, but when I start rolling checks for NPCs, or hidden Perception checks, I'd rather be able to do those in secret. Not to mention the whole "wait, he rolls only X dice? Easy then."
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For whatever it is worth (just providing another datapoint) I am fine with a "screen" but that is because due to time constraints my team and I tend to play over Skype so none of us can really see what the other rolls.
On the other hand Shadowrun is a system which tends to avoid "massively good rolls" since we're rolling a veritable pound of dice when something important happens. Also no matter how bad an attack is most ussulay give two chances to just spend (as opposed to burn) edge, once for dodging and once for soaking.
It is at least better than D&D where I recal my frien spending three hours planning out a strategy then resolved the entire combat with only four rolls being made between one hero and the dragon he was fighting. (Everyone rolls initiative, hero wins. Hero runs up to dragon ands slaps it with chilling touch attack. Hero rolls and hits. Hero rolls for damage, attack deals enough dex damage that dragon can no longer move. Dragon defeated, GM calls mercy rule on dragon's minons who stand zero chance without their boss.) The sad thing was that due to how dragons work in D&D if this plan had not worked killing it would have taken like three hours of fighting as it made one fly by after another, at least Shadowrun Dragons put you out of your misery quickly.
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I have seen players that will walk out on a game the moment a screen hits the table because of bad experiences with GMs fudging.
Frankly I hope they don't let the door hit them in the ass. They can have good luck finding another GM.
The worst one isn't with the group right now, but mainly because he's in a slump of unemployment and needs to concentrate on finding work and a place to live rather than anything dealing with gaming--come to think of it, haven't heard from him in a while, wonder if he's still breathing...
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I have seen players that will walk out on a game the moment a screen hits the table because of bad experiences with GMs fudging.
Frankly I hope they don't let the door hit them in the ass. They can have good luck finding another GM.
The worst one isn't with the group right now, but mainly because he's in a slump of unemployment and needs to concentrate on finding work and a place to live rather than anything dealing with gaming--come to think of it, haven't heard from him in a while, wonder if he's still breathing...
Frankly, if the players don't trust the GM, or the GM doesn't trust the players then there's really no point in playing. Find another group.
As a GM if a player pulled that level of rudeness with me they'd never be welcome in my game again and good riddance.
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Frankly, if the players don't trust the GM, or the GM doesn't trust the players then there's really no point in playing. Find another group.
As a GM if a player pulled that level of rudeness with me they'd never be welcome in my game again and good riddance.
Of course one should discuss previously with the DM what kind of game is gonna be happening. One can always discuss it and said "look, is not the kind of game i enjoy thanks anyway but it would better if i pass"
Back to micromanaging issues: There's a reason I got a sheet of paper with rolls pre-rolled by a computer program. All I had to do every time was check the number, check the table, then I'd know if it was a hit and if it was a glitch. Makes managing a lot of goons much easier.
thats another valid method of handling micromanging NPCs. However whats the difference between that one and fudging the dices? Does the players have access to the rolls, meaning they can see if the next bad guy is gonna fail or succeed? or is all behind the screen? I ask because i never see that in play
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thats another valid method of handling micromanging NPCs. However whats the difference between that one and fudging the dices? Does the players have access to the rolls, meaning they can see if the next bad guy is gonna fail or succeed? or is all behind the screen? I ask because i never see that in play
I'd imagine it's not rolling specific dice pools, but rather using the program to roll like 1000 dice and record the results, and then when an opponent needed to roll, drop a few dice to obfuscate and cross out a number of the results on the paper equal to the dice pool.
If it's done right, you'd never know if someone was doing it.
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thats another valid method of handling micromanging NPCs. However whats the difference between that one and fudging the dices? Does the players have access to the rolls, meaning they can see if the next bad guy is gonna fail or succeed? or is all behind the screen? I ask because i never see that in play
If it's done right, you'd never know if someone was doing it.
whats the difference from fudging the dices? One normally dont make obvious the fudging
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thats another valid method of handling micromanging NPCs. However whats the difference between that one and fudging the dices? Does the players have access to the rolls, meaning they can see if the next bad guy is gonna fail or succeed? or is all behind the screen? I ask because i never see that in play
If it's done right, you'd never know if someone was doing it.
whats the difference from fudging the dices? One normally dont make obvious the fudging
Are you seriously asking what the difference is between fudging the die rolls and having a computer program pre-generate them? How about the fact that only one of them is cheating?
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thats another valid method of handling micromanging NPCs. However whats the difference between that one and fudging the dices? Does the players have access to the rolls, meaning they can see if the next bad guy is gonna fail or succeed? or is all behind the screen? I ask because i never see that in play
If it's done right, you'd never know if someone was doing it.
whats the difference from fudging the dices? One normally dont make obvious the fudging
You're still letting the digital dice fall where they may. The pregenerated numbers, for example, could have 14 6's in a row.
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thats another valid method of handling micromanging NPCs. However whats the difference between that one and fudging the dices? Does the players have access to the rolls, meaning they can see if the next bad guy is gonna fail or succeed? or is all behind the screen? I ask because i never see that in play
If it's done right, you'd never know if someone was doing it.
whats the difference from fudging the dices? One normally dont make obvious the fudging
You're still letting the digital dice fall where they may. The pregenerated numbers, for example, could have 14 6's in a row.
ohh i see. Its a nice idea for dealing with a lot of NPCs
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My advice for running a game is the same every time.
If you were a player in the game, what would you like to see happen?
That gives you an awesome starting point. From there, you just adjust to the different tastes of your players.