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From:	David Buehrer <dbuehrer@******.CARL.ORG>
Subject:	Dice Pools and Stardom
Date:	Fri, 8 May 1998 11:18:07 -0600

Message no. 1 Part of my gaming philosophy is that the PCs are the stars of the show.
While they may not always be the best, the most powerful, etc, they are
always the stars.

I use NPCs to fill the rolls of supporting characters and extras.
The major villian would be a supporting role. The Johnson that hires
them would be a supporting role. All of the other characters are
extras: guards, pedestrians, civilians, etc.

Anyway, I used to feel that dice pools were a game mechanic that
made the PCs the stars of the game. The supporting cast have threat
ratings. The extras are out of luck, so to speak :)

Now I'm starting to wonder if dice pools are needed. Good GMing and
story writing should be all that's needed to make the PCs the star of
the game, right?

Are dice pools needed? Are karma pools needed? What do you think?

-David
--
"Truth, like a torch, the more it's shook it shines."
- Sir William Hamilton
--
email: dbuehrer@******.carl.org
http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/1068/homepage.htm

From:	Lehlan Decker <decker@****.FSU.EDU>
Subject:	Re: Dice Pools and Stardom
Date:	Fri, 8 May 1998 13:28:09 -0500

Message no. 2 >
> Part of my gaming philosophy is that the PCs are the stars of the show.
> While they may not always be the best, the most powerful, etc, they are
> always the stars.
>
> I use NPCs to fill the rolls of supporting characters and extras.
> The major villian would be a supporting role. The Johnson that hires
> them would be a supporting role. All of the other characters are
> extras: guards, pedestrians, civilians, etc.
>
> Anyway, I used to feel that dice pools were a game mechanic that
> made the PCs the stars of the game. The supporting cast have threat
> ratings. The extras are out of luck, so to speak :)
>
> Now I'm starting to wonder if dice pools are needed. Good GMing and
> story writing should be all that's needed to make the PCs the star of
> the game, right?
>
> Are dice pools needed? Are karma pools needed? What do you think?
>
Hmmm..this one is a bit tough. In the past I've stuck to using
Threat ratings for 90% of the NPC's, and only calculated karma and
dice pools for special cases. I've found (at least in my game), that
usually at the point it would make a difference, I'm fudging die rolls
anyway to keep the story going. :)
The other problem is...My karma rules are a variation of 1st edition :)
(It seems to make the game a bit more lethal, and karma more valuable).
In conclusion, I'd say no. IMHO of course.

--
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Lehlan Decker 644-4534 Systems Development
decker@****.fsu.edu http://www.scri.fsu.edu/~decker
--------------------------------------------------------------------
The universe doesn't have laws, it has habits. And habits can be broken.

From:	Jonathan Andrews <jmandrews@*******.EDU>
Subject:	Re: Dice Pools and Stardom
Date:	Fri, 8 May 1998 12:45:39 -0500

Message no. 3 On Fri, 8 May 1998, David Buehrer wrote:

[snip all the valid arguments--I'm right!]

> Are dice pools needed? Are karma pools needed? What do you think?
>

This goes about along the lines og "Are dice needed", but I do see your
point.

Of course, the question becomes this: are you, as a GM, going to let dice
rolling and target numbers be important? If yes, then absolutely yes you
need pools. If well maybe, then congrats and welcome to my style.

Personally, I feel dice should play the part of the supporting mechanic,
to follow your schema. I _do_ have my players roll the dice. I _do_ have a
TN, which they sometimes know and sometimes don't, but I don't let the
dice rule the game. Which is not to say that I don't follow them. If the
player makes a really bad roll, then his character is having bad
luck--just like he is--and he's gonna have to think fast to get out of it.
But I don't let game mechanics stretch my story too far.

If the player should be dead, well. Let them make that willpower roll to
stay conscious just long enough to save their hides. Fudge the bad guy's
roll and let the smoking gun blow up in his face. Why not? What's
important, the dice roll or the storyline? That's up for you to decide,
and as for me and my gamers, we choose storyline.

Don't crucify me for this, but often I don't roll dice for NPCs. Unless
it's a shot that's directly affecting the PC (and sometimes not even
then--why should the sam know how magic works? You _know_ the vamp
spellcaster with sorcery 8 is going to hit the sam with willpower 4, and
don't you even think otherwise. Base damage is a beautiful thing...),
oftentime I just eyeball the stats and say, sure he hit. Heck, no! Five
miles off. Or, not only did she hit, but the bullet went through his head,
ricocheted off the concrete wall, and hit that pesky spellcaster who tried
to nail your PC with a hellblast...

Either that, or I have a sheet of pre-generated rolls that I use when I
need an NPC's roll. It gives the players more dice and keeps them from
knowing what I'm doing. Which, sometimes, is Officially Cheating (TM).

And as long as I'm fair with the players and reasonably consistent, I've
never had a problem. Yes, I play by FASA rules. Yes, I believe in those
rules. But that doesn't mean I have to ruin a perfectly good campaign over
them.

[remove icon_soapbox]
Jonathan Andrews

From:	Sheldon Rose <scrose@****.COM>
Subject:	Re: Dice Pools and Stardom
Date:	Fri, 8 May 1998 18:44:10 -0500

Message no. 4 Jonathan Andrews wrote:

>
> If the player should be dead, well. Let them make that willpower roll to
> stay conscious just long enough to save their hides. Fudge the bad guy's
> roll and let the smoking gun blow up in his face. Why not? What's
> important, the dice roll or the storyline? That's up for you to decide,
> and as for me and my gamers, we choose storyline.

As do I and I've used the same things to make the storyline work.
What comes to mind on this is an old says it's not the teller but the
tale. PRG's should be interactive stories in which folks are having fun.
If numbers and number crunching become an ends and means of themselves.
The storyline all to often suffers IMO...

>

From:	Jacob Engstrom <sabredanz@****.COM>
Subject:	Re: Dice Pools and Stardom
Date:	Fri, 8 May 1998 21:45:16 EDT

Message no. 5 On Fri, 8 May 1998 18:44:10 -0500 Sheldon Rose <scrose@****.COM> writes:
>Jonathan Andrews wrote:
>
<SNIP>
>As do I and I've used the same things to make the storyline work.
>What comes to mind on this is an old says it's not the teller but the
>tale. PRG's should be interactive stories in which folks are having
>fun.
>If numbers and number crunching become an ends and means of
>themselves.
>The storyline all to often suffers IMO...

I personally have the view that a story is created in during the telling,
not from a pre-written script.
Perhaps I am over influenced by Gaelic Folklore and Literature, or
perhaps I just deride the american film and "$4.95-dreadful" industry.
While I enjoy them on their own, I do not wish them to be recreated in my
games.
While characters are supposedly "larger-than-life" I, personally, draw
the line at "larger-than-reality".
yes, this means that sometimes your Street Samurai Combat Monster DOES
get put flat on his back by a 14 year old ganger with a shotgun. To me,
shadowrun starts with characters getting out of the gutter or down from
their Ivory tower beginnings and by taking great risks put it all on the
line to make their fortune and survive on the streets. Sometimes that
means dieing on the streets. Does that detract from a character? In my
opinion, no. Its the way reality works, even the altered reality of
shadowrun.
No, I do not Live To Kill Characters. If a character dies against
overwhelming odds, one of three things happened.
1) The character forgot they WEREN'T invincible.
2) While dieing, the rest of the party figures his survival isn't that
important. Remember that SR damage rules almost always leaves characters
with an hour before they die.
3) I screwed up and overmatched the party. My fault Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa,
Mea Maxi Culpa.

Does this mean that I let the Arch-villain die early in a story due to a
lucky shot etc. ?
If I was dumb enough to let him be exposed that early on, Damn right I
do. Remember, he has friends, connections, allies, and the same chances
at survival as characters do.
Killing a character or villi an doesn't end a story, it just takes it in
a different direction.

If I explain this with my players and let them start with some of their
second string disposable I don't care about this character that much
characters, they often find they like it. The sense of urgency,
desperation, how much these guys are REALLY putting on the line, is
better captured.

If anyone would like to contact me about this philosophy or ways to
"save" characters without Fudging, feel free to contact me at
sabredanz@****.com

Sabredanz

From:	MC23 <mc23@**********.COM>
Subject:	Re: Dice Pools and Stardom
Date:	Fri, 8 May 1998 23:06:04 -0400

Message no. 6 Once upon a time, David Buehrer wrote;

>Are dice pools needed? Are karma pools needed? What do you think?
Yes! NO! A lot. B>]#

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

"I know
I GOTTA BELIEVE !"
-Parappa the Rapper
I am MC23

From:	losthalo <losthalo@********.COM>
Subject:	Re: Dice Pools and Stardom
Date:	Sat, 9 May 1998 04:02:36 -0400

Message no. 7 At 11:06 PM 5/8/98 -0400, you wrote:
>Once upon a time, David Buehrer wrote;
>
>>Are dice pools needed? Are karma pools needed? What do you think?
> Yes! NO! A lot. B>]#

Um, please don't take this sarcastically, but -why- are dice pools needed?
I have to admit, they're a mechanic that I'm not sure why they're needed in
2nd ed (where you automatically get your skill to defend in melee, for
instance, and just add combat pool to augment that). Now, maybe they're
needed for ranged combat, for dodging...

Hmm. But perhaps they're just seen as nifty and more 'cinematic', rather
than being necessary? What would happen if you played SR pool-less? Well,
you'd have less to pull your arse out of the fire, but at the same time,
less could be thrown at you (no "I'll pump up my attack with five more dice
from the handy CP").

Now, in magic... Magic pool is fairly necessary to Sorcery as the rules go
now. But it could surely be written out somehow, and the game would be
easier to deal with. It'd speed mechanics up in combat, less time spent
worrying over how to divide that pool up (though also the 'first strike'
advantage would be a little less, without pool dice to make the first shot
hurt more).

Food for thought?

losthalo@********.comwhileyouarelisteningyourwillingattentionismakingyoumore
andmoreintothepersonyouwanttobecome.

"Some things are true whether you believe in them or not."

From:	Gurth <gurth@******.NL>
Subject:	Re: Dice Pools and Stardom
Date:	Sat, 9 May 1998 12:45:29 +0100

Message no. 8 David Buehrer said on 11:18/ 8 May 98...

> Are dice pools needed? Are karma pools needed? What do you think?

IMHO yes, they're needed. They allow a degree of flexibility that you
don't get if you only get to roll skill tests -- with a dice pool, you can
put some extra effort into a test. Also they (well, the Combat Pool
anyway) allow a way for high attributes to afect a character's performance
in a system that's otherwise very much skill-based.

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html - UIN5044116
Just passing time.
-> NERPS Project Leader * ShadowRN GridSec * Unofficial Shadowrun Guru <-
-> The Plastic Warriors Page: http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/plastic.html <-
-> The New Character Mortuary: http://www.electricferret.com/mortuary/ <-

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