| From: | mattgbond@********.com (Matthew Bond) |
|---|---|
| Subject: | SR4 Conversion |
| Date: | Thu, 28 Jul 2005 06:00:11 +0100 |
> I'm going to weigh in here. I do the same as Kori, ie, I don't tell my
> players their target number until the dice have stopped rolling. At
> that point, they will pull their hands away so everyone, including
> myself, can see the results. If they need to reroll sixes, I tell
> them to. I'll tell them what the TN is at this point, too, and they
> can make the choice to reroll for karma or not.
>
> It doesn't help or hinder to not know the target number. Actually,
> it's more reflective of real life, since you don't always *know*
> you're going to succeed (and sometimes, knowing the target number is
> enough to have someone say "nah, I don't think I'll do that").
That's fair enough, my GM often doesn't tell us the TN (especially if it
would be difficult to evaluate independently, e.g. a casting a spell on
an unwilling target... until you cast you don't know their willpower),
but for general combat most participants should be able to have a
general idea of how hard a shot is. You know the rough range, the
light/weather conditions, the cover you and your target are taking,
whether anyone is moving, yiour cyber/sighting mods, recoil, your wounds
etc a reasonably skilled shooter (or halfway competent player...) should
be able to work out the TN instinctively and know whther they are on a
hiding to nothing. Most of our group can work out the TN in a second or
two, especially in an ongoing firefight as generally only cover and
wounds change from shot to shot.
In anycase, rolling your dice while the GM is looking at you, having him
then tell you what your target number is (usually by saying "how many
x's", where x is the TN) then asking if you are spending Karma, and
doing any rerolls, then determining the final outcome of the total
successes is straightforward and takes about 10 seconds to resolve. The
GM then moves onto the next combatant in initiative order (PC or NPC as
the case may be).
But requiring players to scrabble around for not only their dice from
their dice box, but pencils that have fallen on the floor, post-its that
have become hidden under a charactersheet or a pizza box etc, write
stuff down, hand it over then come back to them if the want to reroll
etc, all the while while dealing with other characters doing the same
rigmarole acting later in the initiative order seems a recipe for
disaster... either that or you need well-disciplined players and given
they apparently are incapable of learning what dice they can roll they
don't smack of well-disciplined players...
Maybe I'm wrong and we are missing out on the nirvana of gaming styles,
but it just smacks of a control freak GM and players who have given up
bothering to learn they system as the GM either forcefeeds them, berates
their ability, or likes to throw in mysterious modifiers so as to make
any attempt to discern the 'true' TN unfathomable. (Ok, I may be wrong
on that last one, but it only takes a couple of sessions of
transparently working out TN's for common situations for players to
grasp the modifiers and work it out for themselves in my experience)
Matt
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