[magmcbride]

Hello all, great forums you have here -- I have been reading, lurking, and absorbing what I can from previous posts.

A little background about my situation: I am a software engineer by trade and a lifelong gamer/PC hardware guy. I fell in love with the Shadowrun video games for Genesis/SNES, but Pen and Paper never sucked me in because I didn't have any fellow friends willing to play. That never kept me from reading about things, and I particularly enjoyed reading the DND 3.5 books. Well now I have someone to play with!  Recently my girlfriend and I play all sorts of video games together from WoW to Mario. Naturally a bookworm, she fell for the artwork and writing of Shadowrun.

Last night we set up the Quick Start Rules scenario with the Food Fight "scene". She enjoyed our play-through with it, but we hit a few snags that I fudged as GM to keep things moving. The biggest one is as follows:

  1) She wanted to stealth kill an unaware individual she had infiltrated up to with a knife. This seemed a logical role-playing option, but I couldn't find any rules for or against such an act in the 20th anniv. core book or Quick Rules PDF. Any thoughts on garrote kills or other throat attacks with knives or other weapons? I allowed her to roll using her sizable blades dice pool against the thug's reaction + 4 difficulty modifier(I made this up). I don't think this would be accurate or appropriate in the long-run, but like I said to keep the gameplay going I just made a decision and went with it.

The above example is surely one of the more FAQ from newbies to Pen and Paper, but unfortunately the people at my local hobby shop are anything but friendly to beginners. =(

Also, does anyone out there have advice for just two people starting out a game? Ideally I'd like more players, but can good games/campaigns be played with just a single player and Game Master?

Thanks, and I look forward to reading more posts here!  =)

EDIT: I changed the name of this thread. The previous one seemed obnoxious an demanding: Two traits I frown upon. 

[Zilfer]

Hello all, great forums you have here -- I have been reading, lurking, and absorbing what I can from previous posts.

A little background about my situation: I am a software engineer by trade and a lifelong gamer/PC hardware guy. I fell in love with the Shadowrun video games for Genesis/SNES, but Pen and Paper never sucked me in because I didn't have any fellow friends willing to play. That never kept me from reading about things, and I particularly enjoyed reading the DND 3.5 books. Well now I have someone to play with!  Recently my girlfriend and I play all sorts of video games together from WoW to Mario. Naturally a bookworm, she fell for the artwork and writing of Shadowrun.

Last night we set up the Quick Start Rules scenario with the Food Fight "scene". She enjoyed our play-through with it, but we hit a few snags that I fudged as GM to keep things moving. The biggest one is as follows:

  1) She wanted to stealth kill an unaware individual she had infiltrated up to with a knife. This seemed a logical role-playing option, but I couldn't find any rules for or against such an act in the 20th anniv. core book or Quick Rules PDF. Any thoughts on garrote kills or other throat attacks with knives or other weapons? I allowed her to roll using her sizable blades dice pool against the thug's reaction + 4 difficulty modifier(I made this up). I don't think this would be accurate or appropriate in the long-run, but like I said to keep the gameplay going I just made a decision and went with it.

The above example is surely one of the more FAQ from newbies to Pen and Paper, but unfortunately the people at my local hobby shop are anything but friendly to beginners. =(

Also, does anyone out there have advice for just two people starting out a game? Ideally I'd like more players, but can good games/campaigns be played with just a single player and Game Master?

Thanks, and I look forward to reading more posts here!  =)

EDIT: I changed the name of this thread. The previous one seemed obnoxious an demanding: Two traits I frown upon.

Don't worry I'm sure your Girlfriend doesn't expect amazing wonders of a story when your both learning it.

However I believe if she snuck on them it would be under "Surprise" part of the main book.

Which I'm still new but i'm going to do the best of my ability to tell you what I think it entails. Forgive me if i'm wrong, i'm still new. XD

Surprise, the person does not get a reaction roll. (aka all the net hit's she rolls go through and they have to resist the weapons base attack and the net hits.) For a knife it's what str / 2? So whatever hit's she got on top of half her str would have been the damage. After that then you roll initiative and she could get a second turn.

<.< That's what I believe would be the correct way to do that.


I was lurking until a little while ago. Now i'm hopefully going to learn quite a bit.

[Cass100199]

If you want to house rule it, go for it, to put it more in line with the video game expectation. Remember though, an attack from behind involves several movements: 1) the burst of speed from hiding, 2) the grab, and 3) the kill. SR rules don't really go that in depth, but there is a lot more to it than just sneaking within a certain range.

[wylie]

you are pretty close, Zilfer

not every possible situation is covered in the books. if not sure, just wing it until you have time to read over stuff so you don't slow the game down.

yes, good games can be played with just 2 people. it is ideal to have aleast 2 or 3 players, so it is not just you vs her. saying that, most of the SR novels are about one character and the people they happen to interact with. Is it gonna have the same interaction such as Leverage or A-team? no
It is more likely to be like Dark Angel, Dollhouse, or Alias. At the end of the day, one person makes the choice on what they want to do, not a group vote.
gameplay will change with the number of players you have.

on the stealth kill, I would have her roll inflitration, maybe letting her add the net successes to her melee skill, or to use them to keep everyone else from hearing her slit the guy's throat.

at the end of the day, are you both having fun? sounds like it to me
on finding players, either check around  your local gaming shop, or try checking out a convention that will have gaming.

good luck to you

[nakano]

Good to hear that you are finally getting the chance to play tabletop SR.(I apologize for the formatting of the post, but I didn't leave enough build points for a decent commlink    )  Suprise rules as previously stated cover the  "stealth kill."  One on one campaigns can definately be a blast.  I have run several with my wife.(The joys of jobs/kids/etc)  Honestly my advice would be to run a "sandbox" style game where you flesh out the world as need be and simply let her drive plot.  Throw jobs her way as needed but really let her experience the world.  Side note if you have access to the runners toolkit it is fantastic for new GMs and players.  Know your setting, know your NPC motivations and then dive right in!  The rules will come in time.  Enjoy, and don't lose the GF.  Gamer girlfriends are priceless.

[XelosUchiha]

What I've done in the past for knife situations like that, or anything where they're going to the throat is have them use a simple action to "take aim"

If the character has infiltrated successfully, which is sounds like she has in this case, then give her the surprise round and make the attack. Since you can assume she's skilled enough to strike the fleshy part of the throat, I assume the attack is able to bypass armor and so I don't let the opponent have any armor reduction, just their body.

Hope that helps!

[magmcbride]

Enjoy, and don't lose the GF.  Gamer girlfriends are priceless.

Don't worry, she isn't going anywhere!  =) We've been together for 18 months now and have a blast together!


Also, a big thanks to everyone who posted and made me feel welcome. It's great to see such an enthusiastic community, and your posts inspired me to start creating content last night while checking forum post updates.  =)

Cheers, "chummers"!

[Zilfer]

Haha! great. Love to hear when relationships are working out. been with my girlfriend going on 5 years. ^.^ Met in highschool so it looks like we are in it for the long haul.

[Walks Through Walls]

One thing I would add is that if you really want to go for a "kill" shot in this type situation or even with a firearm you can aim for a vulnerable spot (in your example the throat). You take a dice pool minus (up to 4 dice) and get the equivalent bonus to damage. The surprise attack would make it so they don't get to dodge at all. The base damage with the knife is str/2 then you add in the successes to stage up damage each hit +1 damage. Then the target gets to make a body roll.

So say the character has a 5 body. Base damage would be 3. So if you went all out for the 4 dice trade it would then be 7. Now if you get 5 or 6 successes then you are at a killing attack unless the target gets two or three successes to reduce damage. Depending on the size of the character's dice pool for blades this could be easy or down right not possible. If it is more towards the later then you could always spend edge to add those dice and get the exploding 6s.

Hope all of this helps

[k_night]

my gm houserules such attacks as instant kills, but you would have to roll another infiltration test to see if you did it silently or the guy was screaming

[magmcbride]

Even more great ideas! One of the seductive things about Pen and Paper to me is there are so many legitimate ways to handle that kind of situation. I was taking it easy on her though because it was a four on one fight. I'm still not sure how dangerous NPCs are to her player.  =)

[JoeNapalm]

As was previously stated, they'd get just a Damage Resistance roll, with no Defense roll. It can be pretty devastating, actually...

And good job on your GMing! I'm always happy to see when a new GM has the sense to just wing it, and sort it out later. The story is the most important thing. You don't have to tell your player(s) that you're fudging it (I almost never do), but when you are in a bind, adapt and overcome. As I always say, the dice and rules are just props to help you tell the story.

(And congrats on the gamer girlfriend.  )

-Jn-
Ifriti Sophist

[Cass100199]

I was taking it easy on her though because it was a four on one fight.

Absolutely nothing wrong with applying the standard of cinematic cool to a game. Sometimes you just gotta let things happen because they make the story better.

[Ranger]

There have been times when in order for the story the players rolls were pretty much predetrimined on hits or misses before they picked up the dice - as long as it wasn't blatant.  Plus if the players come up with something cool (as in cinematic) I have been know to give extra dice to hte tests for 'cool factor.'