| From: | korishinzo@*****.com (Ice Heart) |
|---|---|
| Subject: | The new SR4 map (removed spoilers) |
| Date: | Fri, 19 Aug 2005 08:53:57 -0700 (PDT) |
> Basically, we have here a discussion about different gaming styles:
> On the one side the "Physics-Of-Real-World"-faction, as I dare to
> call them ;), and on the other the
"To-Heck-With-Physics-Let's-Get-> Gaming"-faction, as I name them.
Actually, this entire thread started from somewhat less extreme
viewpoints. One side said "wait, earthquakes can't do that... wtf?"
and the other side said "oh, quit whining, it's a game not real
life".
Kieth pointed to the fact that sniper rifles have ridiculously short
ranges. Someone else keeps picking on the damage system, the
"Moderate" wound abstraction. Now, one side of this debate would
say, "sniper rifles ranges are short and that's that. Don't question
it, don't apply real world knowledge, because the rules define the
laws of ballistics." To which I say, "Malarky! Change the fragging
sniper rifle ranges to something more accurate!!!"
I keep harping on this, and I always will.
The rules are an abstraction of a reality, not the reality itself
(reality used here to mean world - in this case an imaginiary one).
When a PC in my game get's shot, I do NOT say "you take an M wound".
Once the dice are all rolled (damage resistance, knockdown test, etc)
I say something like this: "The round slams into your chest, high up
on the left. The slug itself fragments across your armor, one piece
of hot lead scoring a furrow in your cheek. The shock wave sends you
staggering back a meter or so, and you feel bone and tendon give a
bit in your ribes and shoulder." Then, either by note or as a quick
aside, I say "Moderate wound".
The game designers did NOT delineate laws of physics when they said a
heavy pistol does 9M. DID. NOT. What they did was make some
decisions about probability and game balance. And how to make their
resulting model kind of fit what they knew about physics. A heavy
pistol should be, relative to a light pistol, THIS hard to resist and
do THAT much damage on average. In other words, they made the
mechanics try and represent a set of physical laws abstractly. And
the physical laws they were trying to represent were the same ones
that operate in the real world. Period. They did the same thing
with every rule they set to paper. Looked at the world, and tried to
approximate it with abstract mechanics. And extrapolated from the
real world where fantasy elements were introduced. And they
sometimes screwed up. Case in point, sniper rifle ranges. And
vehicle acceleration rules. And the metahuman height/weight tables
(TSS 13 anyone?). You don't have wave the screw ups away by saying
it is magic. It breaks the whole paradigm of a near future earth
that works pretty much like ours with some spiffy tech, magic, and
really unjust socio-economic structures.
Which is why some of us were crying foul about California drifting
out to sea (exagerated for effect).
It is not like my gaming table has a physics book on it. Hell, I
barely passed physics in college. I am a system administrator
working on an MBA. Science is NOT my topic. Believable
storytelling, OTOH, is my bread and butter. I don't hand wave
bulls**t, I fix it. If the NPC in the car needs to live, and the PCs
just fireballed the car, I solve things within the framework of the
game. Maybe the car has a built-in fire suppression system becasue
the owner has a phobia about being trapped in a burning wreckage.
Maybe a passing squatter coyote street shaman initiate decided it
would be funny to have a great form city spirit watch the battle and
run magical interference for random individuals. Maybe I *gasp*
rewrite my story to accomodate the player's actions. That is, after
all (as someone pointed out), the focus on the game. To let the
players play. What I do NOT do is make the fireball fail for no
apparent reason. That is Deus Ex Machina crap. That makes the
players lose all faith in the game and the gamemaster. "Oh, the
story is more important than the characters in it." Plotline
snipping is the ultimate player privelige. Fragging the storyline to
hell is going (and needs to be allowed) to happen. I once ran a
Werewolf game where the plot called for the characters to tromp
around northern Arizona seeking a lost artifact. Second session, one
of the PCs blew a cop away. The entire group fled the country. Kind
of screwed the whole Arizona thing. The "storyline-over-realism"
school of thought would have me making the gun jam and cop
oblivious... even though the cop was looking at the PC, and the
firearms roll did not botch.
Hand waving realism and consistency away whenever it is inconvenient
makes your players look to you for answers to everything. Not just
because they know you'll advance the story no matter what they do,
but also because they no longer know what they can expect to happen
when they do something. If the player does not think they can
interact with the TV, the sammie will ignore it. Eventually, every
prop and person in the game world gets ignored. The game devolves
from storytelling to dice rolling and rules jargon.
Player: I got 5 successes on my Pistols roll.
GM: The guy takes a Serious. He uses his SMG.
Player: I rolled crappy on my Body test, can I use Karma?
GM: Yea, it refreshed after the end of the last fight.
Player: Cool, okay I rolled 4 successes.
GM: Okay, you take a Light.
GM: The Johnson tells you he'll pay 4K for the data.
Player: I use Negotiations, and I got 8,5,5,3, and 1.
GM: Okay, he gives you 4.5K for the date.
(I've sat in on these sorts of sessions. Blah.)
======Korishinzo
--(Storytelling) Gamemaster
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