From:	korishinzo@*****.com (Ice Heart)
Subject:	SR4 Conversion
Date:	Thu, 28 Jul 2005 12:31:21 -0700 (PDT)

[SNIP]

> 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.

I disagree, actually (surprise surprise :> ).

Knowing your rough range to the target is not going to give you a
measurement in meters. Having spent time on a firing range, I can
tell you that a difference between 20 meters and 50 meters is not
something you can calculate at a glance. Yes, you know one target is
farther away, and can thus guess that it will be harder to hit. But
how far? Are the targets the same size, or is one bigger? That
little optical trick all by itself can throw off your range
estimates, especially if you are shooting without spending a lot of
time aiming. Consider an open parking lot at night with very little
illumination. Is that an ork standing 30 meters away, or a troll
standing 60 meters away? Unless I take the time to gather some other
visual clues to establish perspective, I stand a good chance of
guessing wrong. Especially if he is running, I am ducking, its
raining, I've been shot once already, and adrenaline is ripping
through me so hard I have to think to breathe even remotely normally.
Hence, I don't tell people TN's straight up. Now, if they spend
some actions to gather clues, which also tends to quiet the mind and
body a bit, they can get a good idea of their TN. As I stated back
in my initial post. You ever run a paintball course? That is the
closest I've gotten to simulating a firefight. I've got 15 years of
martial arts experience, so I have much better reference for melee
combat. Adrenaline, all by itself, can fog your judgement of a
scenario terribly. Realistically, combat in Shadowrun is not taking
place under conditions where anything is particularly obvious.

> 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...

Some of them are decidedly not. We game around a 4x8 dining room
table. Each player is allowed their character sheet, their dice,
their Post-It pad, writing implements, and a coaster (for beverages).
Books, extra dice, and extra pencils occupy the center of the table.
Anyone puts a pizza box on the gaming table get their head bitten
off. We have a side table for snacks, and small fridge around the
corner for ice and beverages. I like a fairly uncluttered gaming
surface. Players who "scrabble" when their initiative number is
called have their character act later in the pass, when they are done
scrabbling. The same is true for players who wait until their
initiative number is called to think about what their character is
going to do. This includes knowing what question you need to ask the
GM before you make your final decision. For example:

GM: 16
Player: ummm... wait... should I use mana dart again or use my
shotgun... ummm..
GM: 15

As opposed to:

GM: 16
Player: I've had a few seconds for the shock to pass, do I feel like
I could safely risk more drain? Yes? And you said the guy is far
enough away that his features are blurry... probably out of effective
shotgun range. I'll do another mana dart.
GM: Roll, remember your spell pool refreshed.
(player decides how many dice to roll, rolls, writes the roll down
while...)
GM: 15
Next Player: Ummm, well, wait... is it an action to start my
motorcycle...
GM: (while catching notepad from first player...) 14
(GM glances at numbers, crosses off non-successes, tosses it back to
player - has already rolled the NPCs Resistance test and written it
down)

So, some players in my group are very undisciplined. And if that
does not change, they suffer for it. But, a 10 Turn combat scene can
be resolved in a reasonable amount of time.

> Maybe I'm wrong and we are missing out on the nirvana of gaming
> styles,

Unlikely, everyone's math varies, and "nirvana" is a somewhat mutable
achievment. :)

> 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)

Actually, I very rarely berate my players. Roughly once a year, and
almost always about getting into character. I do lecture about
mechanics, but only at the end of a combat night. When I am handing
out yet another summary of Shadowrun combat, typed up and annotated
for individual players based on the areas they seem to have trouble
remembering.

The "mysterious modifiers" is just laughable. I have enough to do in
my head without adding obfuscation to the mathematics. :)

As to forcefeeding... what do you mean by that? If you mean I am
"forcefeeding" the TN's, that's my job. In that sense, whether it is
raining, the streetlights are all shot out, and the NPC decides to
sprint are all arbitrary decisions of mine. I am responsible for
generating the world the characters act in. So Target Numbers are
arbitrary. How I arrive at them is consistant, and not at all
arcane. I don't change environmental conditions randomly during a
scenario. And I use the modifiers listed in the rule books. And
some players do quickly figure out most of the modifiers. The third
time you roll 1,3,4,4,7,10 and the GM crosses out the 1 and the 3,
you better be able to figure out that the TN is 4. :) And if she
crosses out everything but the 7 and the 10, then you should be able
to guess that the TN is higher than a 4, natch.

Somehow, I think you are taking issue with the fact that I don't do
something like this:

"Okay, short range so 4, raining and bad lighting so +6, lowlight
vision so -4, smartlink II so -2, target running so +2, aiming once
so -1... roll Pistols and combat pool, tell me how many 5's you get."

And the rest of your objections all seem to stem from this
fundamental difference in our gaming style. My preference is to tell
them the guy is running, its raining, and their lowlight is doing a
decent job of offsetting the lack of good street lights. They
already know if they are hurt, but perhaps not how badly. They know
if they want to aim or not. But, knowing all this in a vague sense,
and knowing that they have to roll 5's versus 7's are two different
things. The latter turns combat into math, and if you've ever been
in simulated (or real) combat, math is the farthest thing from your
mind. If I am crouched in cover, bleeding, and I notice someone
dashing across the open ground in a rainstorm, I know the ballpark
feasibility of shooting him with a pistol, and that is about it.

======Korishinzo
--control freak/GM



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