| From: | cmd_jackryan@***.net (Phillip Gawlowski) |
|---|---|
| Subject: | The new SR4 map (removed spoilers) |
| Date: | Fri, 19 Aug 2005 21:28:01 +0000 |
Hash: SHA1
Ice Heart wrote:
> Don't get me wrong, I like SR. In 24 years of gaming, it remains my
> favorite system to run and play.
Same here. I have my criticism, too. But that usually results from
knowledge I gathered, that isn't common knowledge.
> I've GMed every edition of SR to
> date and made it work. House Rules are wonderful things. However,
> not everything the game designers give us fits well. For example,
> SURGE will probably never see the light of day in my games. Seems a
> bit hokey. I have never and will never sic Harley S. Quinn on my
> players. And I still clearly remember 1st edition scenarios like a
> motorcycle helmet rendering a sabot round from an MGT ineffective.
> :) The game designers have always delivered, overall, but the devil
> is in the details sometimes.
Same here, basically. I have my own set of House Rules, too (Targeted
shots to the head make D, for example), to fill or eliminate conceived
errors. Usually that means for me making things easier: I don't have to
look up stuff, and thus we have more gaming than ruling time.
I try to be consistent in my rulings, though: I go for a more cineastic
style of gamimastering. For example: We had following situation in
combat: a PCs armor reduced the power level of a bullet to 1. 4 success
were required to stage down the damage to nothingness. I ruled (much to
the horror of one player, who's a Rules Lawyer in the bad aspect of the
term) that no role was required to soak the damage: With a body of 6,
all dices are automatic success, statistically at least one die hast to
be >1, and body tests cannot be botched (at least in my sessions ;)).
Not entirely realstic, since the bullet had hit, but to heck with it, SR
is deadly as it is, and my plot making it even more so: One error, and
the players are Lofwyr's next lunch. *eg*
> I have found that the more plausible one's storytelling, the more the
> player's are willing to forego the nitpicky rules like percentage
> chance of breakage. By keeping the cause and effect relationships if
> the game reasonable and believable, the GM earns the player's trust
> that things will be fair. Maybe not pleasant all the time, but fair.
Nothing more to be said, really. I guess, my players trust me, as they
still wnt to play with my plot.
> Actually, I prefer to keep things even more flexible. I don't make
> storylines often where one mistep (destroyed computer, torched NPC,
> etc) makes everything come unhinged. The ease of accomplishing their
> mission may get altered in unpleasant ways. But, there are
> alternative methods available. On those occasions when a single NPC
> holds the key, and a trigger happy PC wastes the NPC, well... failure
> is a realistic part of life too.
True. Same here. I'm the Bastard Gamemaster from Hell, and I love SR for
making it easy for me. But not in terms of rules, but in terms of the
gameworld. It is so easy to screw players, they don't always register
it. They even took my bait to work for Lofwyr. They could have turned it
down, but they were desperate for allies, after (3 of them) escaping
their contracts with Proteus (German AA con), and drawing everybody they
work with with them. I love SR. :)
> Yeesh, that sounds so final. :p The game ran for 9 months, every
> week, 8 hour sessions on average. The artifact turned up in some
> nasty bad guy's hands. The group had forgotten a lot of the early
> mission... even buried most of the original pack. I was not invested
> enough in the plot to see it as "fscked". I tell a story that
> involves a world full of plots, not a single plot. Snip one
> plotline, another is bound to come along. :)
Yes. But most of the time, my players want to follow the "main" plot
line, that is: mine.
I have to, er, educate them, that I don't want to have all the work. :)
And yes, it was meant to sound final ;P
> Except for this. Plotlines shouldn't need saving. They should be
> dynamic, allowing for even failure. :)
Mostly, they do. But us GMs work with the most thankless, ignorant and
fscking smart customers in the world: Players. No plotline survives
contact with the player. Thus, sometimes there is only this one
possibility left. And if you don't want to let them hang out and dry (3
players in my group are newbies to SR and cyberpunk in general), you
have to take them by their tiny little hands, until they can handle to
concept of the world intent on screwing them.
And at other times, you want to get the plot you intended to move a
long, because it is going to be a major, world-altering event.
Hm, about time I re-read Brainscan, and Threats 2.
> I much prefer the players actually try and roleplay the social
> interaction.
That is what I meant.
> Depends on you and your players. I find that by making the world as
> believable as possibe, cause-effect relationships as plausible as
> possible, I get a game where the players always come back for more.
But that is not automatically realistic, just plausible.
Consider: Ether was a plausible explanation why radio waves get from
emitter to receiver. But now it doesn'T seem to be realistic.
> Your math seems to have varied. Beautiful thing about pen-and-pencil
> RPGs over computer RPGs... our math can vary without any problems.
> :p
Yes. Although I enjoy Computer RPGs. The only nuisance are NSCs. *g*
- --
Phillip Gawlowski
Bastard Gamemaster from Hell
"We are proud to deliver any round in under 24 hours"
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