Shadowrun

Shadowrun General => General Discussion => Topic started by: Vaarsuvius on <01-19-18/1242:05>

Title: Lethality
Post by: Vaarsuvius on <01-19-18/1242:05>
What exactly was the reasoning behind making certain aspects of the game so immensely lethal?

An example of this is there are guns, not explosives, but guns that do 15P -8AP as a random example. Spend an edge and that can put the net damage at 20 or over combined with -8AP. That will one shot even a troll most of the time.

I guess I get that combat is not really meant to be the emphasis of the game, and players are sort of meant to work around certain kinds of combat, rather than through it, but still, this is so lethal as it's unfair to put this against players. What was the design decision behind this?
Title: Re: Lethality
Post by: SpellBinder on <01-19-18/1327:00>
A bit of realism?

In D&D, a fighter can get stabbed by a knife and nearly guaranteed to survive the hit if at full health.  As characters get higher in level, their durability goes up as well.

A quick look through one of my resources puts that 15P -8AP weapon as the Ares Thunderstruck, a military grade, man portable, Gauss rifle that's intended use is similar to an RPG or missile launcher; you shoot tanks with this weapon, it's not really meant for shooting people.  When you get to the more common handguns (heavy and light pistols), the damage is not only potentially lethal but also potentially survivable, just like real life.

But you're also right in that combat is not really meant to be the emphasis of the game, unless Murder Hobo is the theme you're really trying for.
Title: Re: Lethality
Post by: AJCarrington on <01-19-18/1331:38>
Personally, I like it. There is added tension when you know that if you screw things up, you’re done. This edition seems a little more forgiving than previous ones, but I’ve not got as much experience with them.
Title: Re: Lethality
Post by: legionof1 on <01-19-18/1336:14>
Big guns, like snipers and MGs generally speaking wont be used against the players outside of specific situations. Corp sec, gangs, and other groups usually dont have such hardware right to hand most of the time. Threat response or a big bad might have a few weapons like that, but the players will probably be forewarned and can chose to avoid a direct confrontation.

Off at the extreme end of things, like the thunderstruck gauss rifle, your talking about items generally only found in possession of the Big 10s elite forces, and even then in very small numbers as a squad or platoon weapon. If players are facing that sort of opponents they almost always have to chose to do so.

Also keep in mind the uses of edge, notably burning edge.

 
Title: Re: Lethality
Post by: Beta on <01-19-18/1655:19>
And there is always the chance you get that character who has twent soak dice in their underwear and layers on as much armor as they can, and it is nice to have something besides magic that can hurt them :-)
Title: Re: Lethality
Post by: PiXeL01 on <01-19-18/1853:28>
In this game it is so easy to stack tons of armor, making a character neigh invulnerable or at least just faint instead of bleed out. Add the mountain of dodge on top of that and weapons become useless.
Title: Re: Lethality
Post by: ShadowcatX on <01-19-18/2328:16>
Shadowrun has a different definition of fair than a game like D&D. In D&D fair means not throwing the PC's up against things they can't beat. In Shadowrun fair is if you piss off the dude with the gaus rifle you eat a gaus rifle.
Title: Re: Lethality
Post by: PMárk on <01-19-18/2348:51>
This reminded me how people happen to complain about how skewed WoD combat is and who delivers the first significant hit usually wins.

...

I mean, yeah, things work like that IRL. :D Some games are meant to be heroic, when the characters are shrugging off punishment and keeps going, because they are fragging heroes. Other games, like SR, or WoD took a more "realistic" approach to combat, which means combat is deadly. For myself, I like both, depending on the game and setting.
Title: Re: Lethality
Post by: farothel on <01-20-18/0426:41>
If you want really deadly, play L5R or even better, Alternity.  In Alternity, no matter how good you are, a lvl1 nobody with a lucky headshot can easily one-shot you, even with a 9mm pistol, just as in RL.  Shadowrun is not the most lethal game out there, at least not how we've been playing it.  The amount of armour you can get, especially if you're an Orc or Troll, sometimes borders on the ridiculous.
Title: Re: Lethality
Post by: Ghost Rigger on <01-20-18/0904:31>
Lethality cuts both ways. The same lethality that makes it easy for you to be killed by high-grade corpsec hiding in machine gun nests makes it easy for you to take out a room full of unsuspecting streetscum with an assault rifle or a grenade.
Title: Re: Lethality
Post by: Jack_Spade on <01-21-18/0725:16>
Actually, high lethality benefits the players and furthers their ability to survive:
Assuming a character is build for combat and has the necessary initiative, defense and attack pool to one shot lower level mooks, they should be able to take them out before they take damage. As long as they aren't fighting masses of opponents they will be able to stay in good shape instead of getting taken out in a war of attrition.
If the dice fall bad, Edge can be spend or burned to prevent death with relative ease. This has the overall effect that combat is tense and needs proper tactics instead of being a resource minigame with remaining hit points and a predestined end to the adventure day like D&D often has.
Title: Re: Lethality
Post by: Magnaric on <01-22-18/1538:57>
So, back in the day there was a guy named Blackjack who posted various thoughts on Shadowrun, GMing, etc. Really good resource, very insightful even now with 5E out (he GMed mostly for 2E I believe).

Anyhoo, he wrote a couple very good pieces I think are pertinent to the question at hand.

http://web.archive.org/web/20010816174416/http://archive.dumpshock.com:80/bjcorner/ShowBJ.php3?page=panther.htm (http://web.archive.org/web/20010816174416/http://archive.dumpshock.com:80/bjcorner/ShowBJ.php3?page=panther.htm)

http://web.archive.org/web/20010617122409/http://archive.dumpshock.com:80/bjcorner/ShowBJ.php3?page=hurt.htm (http://web.archive.org/web/20010617122409/http://archive.dumpshock.com:80/bjcorner/ShowBJ.php3?page=hurt.htm)

The first is about heavy weapons (since you mentioned that obscene damage code) and the second is about getting hurt, wounds, etc. But the TLDR is this: in the real world, it us EXTREMELY easy to injure someone, if not outright kill them. The gun doesn't need to be big, the knife doesn't need to be long. You take a tiny little .22 calibre handgun, press it to someone's skull and pull the trigger, they're dead. Or that little 3-inch Swiss Army knife doesn't seem too bad, but you jab it into someone's neck and good night.

And as people mentioned above, since Shadowrun tries to be more on the realistic side, that's a good thing. Because the best way to survive a bullet is to NOT GET SHOT. You ever see CCTV footage on YouTube of a police shootout? People run and duck for cover, or hide behind things, because the best kevlar in the world still won't help if that one lucky bullet goes up your nose.

The other side of that is, the (meta)human body is a remarkable machine, capable of surviving and recovering from all types of horrible injuries. That's reflected in the damage code of most guns not being bigger than the standard health pool of 8+body/2. The average human with 10 hp can survive a single 6P damage round. Even a grievous 8P-10P gunshot, they have a good chance to survive if they get immediate medical attention.

A lethal system means getting into a firefight has real danger and consequences. Ice personally seen too many games where the tanky character is facing down 3 guys with machine guns and their first instinct is to draw their own gun. In real life, that guy may fight back(say he's military or police, most regular people will just soil themselves), but he's sure as fuck going to seek cover before he does so.

Because trying to stay alive in a dangerous world is smart, and Shadowrun is all about rewarding smart play.
Title: Re: Lethality
Post by: Vaarsuvius on <01-29-18/1839:23>
Hey guys, I sort of forgot about this thread, and now coming back to it, I really appreciate the comments. I guess I'm more used to "heroic" games, and you guys are right the lethality is generally in their favor (that Gauss rifle is on a player's drone).

However grenades and shotguns are pretty common. In the current run my players are on someone threw a grenade past our mystic adept melee chick, and she decided to grab it, hoping that it wasn't a contact grenade. It was it blew up in her face, but of course she took no damage as she was in a suit of hardened armor (the run encouraged absolutely no subtlety). If She wasn't in said armor she would have taken one of those 15P+ damages to the face, and as I said grenades are common.

It's interesting that the game actively encourages these sort of situations.
Title: Re: Lethality
Post by: ShadowcatX on <01-29-18/1851:05>
The game  actually actively encourages players to avoid violence.
Title: Re: Lethality
Post by: Ghost Rigger on <01-29-18/2335:03>
The game encourages players to avoid violence that isn't heavily tilted in their favor; it is a subtle but very important difference.
Title: Re: Lethality
Post by: Reaver on <01-30-18/0223:46>
Please, fair fights are for suckers. 
Title: Re: Lethality
Post by: Marcus on <01-30-18/0619:53>
Please, fair fights are for suckers. 
LOL so true.
Title: Re: Lethality
Post by: Mr. Black on <01-30-18/0641:17>
Shadowrun is “semi-heroic”. Yes, a single round from a heavy pistol will drop the average, unarmored joe. But the game gives everyone a defense roll. Spend a point of edge, and you can dance through machine gun fire. So every player can be a hero for a little while. But dance too long in front of those machine guns, and you’ll be dogmeat.

Add in Full Defense, and body armor and you can dance a little longer. Just don’t stand there too long. All the dodge dice and soak dice won’t last forever.
Title: Re: Lethality
Post by: Mirikon on <01-30-18/0725:51>
Please, fair fights are for suckers. 
LOL so true.
A wise man once said, "If you're not cheating, you're not trying."

Leave fair fights for boxing matches and other professional competitions, or keep it to the sparring mat when training. When things are actually going down, cheat as early and often as possible, in every way you can. The dead can't complain about your methods.
Title: Re: Lethality
Post by: Ghost Rigger on <01-30-18/0957:00>
Please, fair fights are for suckers. 
LOL so true.
A wise man once said, "If you're not cheating, you're not trying."

Leave fair fights for boxing matches and other professional competitions, or keep it to the sparring mat when training. When things are actually going down, cheat as early and often as possible, in every way you can. The dead can't complain about your methods.
See? These guys get it. Lethality is your friend, you just have to go out of your way to make sure it's on your side first.
Title: Re: Lethality
Post by: ShadowcatX on <01-30-18/1221:48>
The game encourages players to avoid violence that isn't heavily tilted in their favor; it is a subtle but very important difference.

Even violence in their favor can result in a lucky bullet to the head.
Title: Re: Lethality
Post by: firebug on <01-30-18/1228:53>
The game encourages players to avoid violence that isn't heavily tilted in their favor; it is a subtle but very important difference.

Even violence in their favor can result in a lucky bullet to the head.

Yeah, but that's what Edge is for.  One of its best uses as bullshit insurance.  I know I only use Edge in two situations.  The first is where I want as overwhelming a success as possible (like negotiating payment or trying to get stupid numbers on a buff spell or to get as many services as possible on a binding roll), and the second is to make sure I don't get screwed over by a luck, whether it's "this ganger somehow rolled 8 hits with 12 dice" or "I actually rolled a critical glitch, the devil is real".
Title: Re: Lethality
Post by: Ghost Rigger on <01-30-18/1315:05>
Even violence in their favor can result in a lucky bullet to the head.
If that's your attitude, why are you even playing a chance-based game?
Title: Re: Lethality
Post by: firebug on <01-30-18/1316:29>
That seemed a little unprovoked, Ghost Rigger.  He's just saying that there's always a risk involved, even if you think you're set up for a landslide victory.
Title: Re: Lethality
Post by: Mirikon on <01-30-18/1427:48>
The game encourages players to avoid violence that isn't heavily tilted in their favor; it is a subtle but very important difference.

Even violence in their favor can result in a lucky bullet to the head.

Yeah, but that's what Edge is for.  One of its best uses as bullshit insurance.  I know I only use Edge in two situations.  The first is where I want as overwhelming a success as possible (like negotiating payment or trying to get stupid numbers on a buff spell or to get as many services as possible on a binding roll), and the second is to make sure I don't get screwed over by a luck, whether it's "this ganger somehow rolled 8 hits with 12 dice" or "I actually rolled a critical glitch, the devil is real".
Agreed. That is the only reason I ever use Edge. Hell, the only time I ever have more than 1 Edge usually, especially with the damned Priority system, is when I'm playing a Human. The only time I have more than 2 is when I'm playing a Mundane Human, and still have those points.
Title: Re: Lethality
Post by: Magnaric on <01-30-18/2133:21>
Please, fair fights are for suckers. 
LOL so true.
A wise man once said, "If you're not cheating, you're not trying."

Leave fair fights for boxing matches and other professional competitions, or keep it to the sparring mat when training. When things are actually going down, cheat as early and often as possible, in every way you can. The dead can't complain about your methods.

I actually agree with this basic idea, but I disagree with the term "cheating", at least as it's used in this case. It's just plain smart to try and stack the odds in your favour, since in real life bullets, knives, headbutts, tax audits, and your girlfriend leaving you because "she needs time to find herself" all suck. The Art Of War by Sun Tzu can basically be summarised as "use every advantage you have, and deny the enemy every advantage you can".

Even violence in their favor can result in a lucky bullet to the head.
If that's your attitude, why are you even playing a chance-based game?

This kind if strikes me as a shirty outlook, tbh. Every situation, no matter how things are stacked in your favour, has an element of risk. If you and the enemy are pointing guns at each other, and you're behind cover, from a higher angle, and they're out in 5he open, and you have a bigger gun, and the sun is in their eyes, and...they could still get lucky.

Real life is stranger than fiction, and you don't have to look very long to find stories of people dying to random stray shots, or the luckiest soldier ever having a bullet hit his pocket watch instead of his kidney, or stuff like that. You CANNOT predict/prepare for every single variable.
Title: Re: Lethality
Post by: Glyph on <01-30-18/2201:41>
The game kind of encourages an action movie feel, but it is more like a John Woo movie, where the main characters are not guaranteed to survive.  You can make an array of combat mysads, speed sammies, tanks, etc. to rock out in combat, but they are not invincible.  It would be a boring game if they were.  Such characters are optimized for fun (for those who enjoy combat), not survival.

If you are more interested in surviving, you can play a long-distance sniper, or a stealthy type, or a rigger or summoner who sends in spirit or drone mooks, or a face who has the rest of the group protecting him like linebackers protecting their quarterback.  Or be a support character (medic, mechanic, etc.) who rarely even sees combat.
Title: Re: Lethality
Post by: Rosa on <01-30-18/2221:12>
While I agree on everything being said about stacking the odds in your favour being sensible, I don't think SR is slanted towards non combat play.  I mean just look at the sheer number of combat skills,  weapons,  combat magic. ....etc. and you could easily think that SR was a very combat oriented game,  which is of course not true either.  I rather see it as a game that hands us a wide variety of tools and then challenges us to come up with the best use of those tools in any given situation. But it is definitely more realistic in its approach to combat than a lot of other games,  but that's part of what makes combat in SR so fun and rewarding when it does happen. That being said some of the most memorable runs for my part are the ones where we managed to pull it of with no one ever knowing we were there.
Title: Re: Lethality
Post by: Mirikon on <01-30-18/2225:28>
Please, fair fights are for suckers. 
LOL so true.
A wise man once said, "If you're not cheating, you're not trying."

Leave fair fights for boxing matches and other professional competitions, or keep it to the sparring mat when training. When things are actually going down, cheat as early and often as possible, in every way you can. The dead can't complain about your methods.

I actually agree with this basic idea, but I disagree with the term "cheating", at least as it's used in this case. It's just plain smart to try and stack the odds in your favour, since in real life bullets, knives, headbutts, tax audits, and your girlfriend leaving you because "she needs time to find herself" all suck. The Art Of War by Sun Tzu can basically be summarised as "use every advantage you have, and deny the enemy every advantage you can".
There's also the Evil Overlord List, which states: "I will be neither chivalrous nor sporting. If I have an unstoppable superweapon, I will use it as early and as often as possible instead of keeping it in reserve," and "I will instruct my Legions of Terror to attack the hero en masse, instead of standing around waiting while members break off and attack one or two at a time." And this one is a bit dated, since it came from the age of 3.25" floppies, but the sentiment remains: Any data file of crucial importance will be padded to 1.45Mb in size.

And yes, I fully endorse calling all of that cheating. You can shorten it to 'winning', I guess, but it is far better to just own the fact that you shamelessly cheat in a fight, instead of wasting time trying to defend your actions to people who disagree with your methods. They'll complain a lot less when they've been fed to the ghouls.
Title: Re: Lethality
Post by: Ghost Rigger on <01-31-18/0813:08>
This kind if strikes me as a shirty outlook, tbh. Every situation, no matter how things are stacked in your favour, has an element of risk. If you and the enemy are pointing guns at each other, and you're behind cover, from a higher angle, and they're out in 5he open, and you have a bigger gun, and the sun is in their eyes, and...they could still get lucky.

Real life is stranger than fiction, and you don't have to look very long to find stories of people dying to random stray shots, or the luckiest soldier ever having a bullet hit his pocket watch instead of his kidney, or stuff like that. You CANNOT predict/prepare for every single variable.
I'm aware that the enemy can always get lucky. My issue is that if one thinks that Shadowrun is about avoiding violence because the enemy can always get lucky, why even play games of chance at all?
Title: Re: Lethality
Post by: Marcus on <01-31-18/1031:25>
I think this is getting thought through too far.

So saying Shadowrun is about or isn't about violence is very one of those things, ask 10 people get 10 different answers maybe 20 different answer if they start talking about their various characters.  In the end it comes down to the character your playing, in the game your character is running in. Some GM like a good fight, others just think combat gets in the way of the story. Actions must have consequences, Lethality can be a consequence of actions.  Is killing this PC/NPC going to advance the story in meaningful way? If so then great.  If not then move on, and go with something else.

There isn't a right or a wrong answer to how lethal your game should be. But Shadowrun is never about a fair fight. Regardless of what side of that equation your PC is on, have fun with it. 

Title: Re: Lethality
Post by: ShadowcatX on <01-31-18/1212:23>
Even violence in their favor can result in a lucky bullet to the head.
If that's your attitude, why are you even playing a chance-based game?

1) Because I enjoy it.

2) Because there is more to Shadowrun than violence.

3) Because I was unaware I needed your permission to play my game my way.
Title: Re: Lethality
Post by: Ghost Rigger on <01-31-18/1221:30>
And how can one enjoy a chance-based game while holding an attitude of "avoid violence because the other guy can always get lucky"? It seems contradictory; how can you hold that attitude and not also think "avoid hacking because the ICE can always get lucky", "avoid magic because the roll to resist drain can always get unlucky" and so on and so forth? Shadowrun is a game about taking high-stake risks and mitigating them by being clever, so why should one think that the game is about avoiding one risk in particular? Nevermind that violence itself is a possible consequence of erring in some other aspect of shadowrunning...
Title: Re: Lethality
Post by: AJCarrington on <01-31-18/1226:41>
To All - friendly reminder to keep discussion civil and courteous.

Thank you

SR Mod
Title: Re: Lethality
Post by: ShadowcatX on <01-31-18/1257:34>
And how can one enjoy a chance-based game while holding an attitude of "avoid violence because the other guy can always get lucky"? It seems contradictory; how can you hold that attitude and not also think "avoid hacking because the ICE can always get lucky", "avoid magic because the roll to resist drain can always get unlucky" and so on and so forth? Shadowrun is a game about taking high-stake risks and mitigating them by being clever, so why should one think that the game is about avoiding one risk in particular? Nevermind that violence itself is a possible consequence of erring in some other aspect of shadowrunning...

I don't have to explain myself to you but since you asked so nicely I will give you an example. Let's take your decker and ICE. Do you as a decker go looking for ICE you can engage in cyber combat or do you actively try to avoid it?
Title: Re: Lethality
Post by: Ghost Rigger on <01-31-18/1330:13>
No, but neither should the decker be so terrified of cybercombat that he refuses to go onto any host that might have ICE on it. The name of the game is risk mitigation, not risk avoidance (or rather, the name of the game is Shadowrun, not Wageslave).

That's comparing apples and oranges though, as taking out ICE is a Sisyphean task, whereas with violence it's typically a finite number of enemies, not to mention that sometimes killing people will actually accomplish something beyond just taking out an enemy. The more accurate comparison is with magic: is playing a mage all about avoiding casting spells because you could always roll poorly on drain?
Title: Re: Lethality
Post by: ShadowcatX on <01-31-18/1410:55>
If it is a poor comparison you shouldn't have made it in the first place. But I'm done with this, you asked and I answered, now you are just willfully ignoring my answer.
Title: Re: Lethality
Post by: Magnaric on <01-31-18/1512:22>
Shadowrun is largely about mitigating risk, yes. But avoiding a situation that has HIGH RISK written all over it is perfectly fine, so long as there is another less-risky way to accomplish your goals. It's all situational.

If you're hired to break into a guarded facility and steal the plans for a prototype MacGuffin, you have a few options. You could storm in, wipe out everyone you see, and take it. Obviously high risk depending on who you're going up against, how quick HTR backup is, if you'll puss off your Johnson by attracting too much attention, etc.

You could go halfway, sneak in, use non-lethal methods to incapacitate any guards, edit camera footage afterwards, and sneak out again. Medium risk, maybe you'll get spotted, maybe a guard will call for backup before you can knock him out, etc. Still lots of variables.

Or the other extreme, you take time to use some social engineering to schmooze the secretary, find out who their custodial staff is, hack fake credentials and have your infiltrator be the "new guy filling in for Steve", scout the place, locate the item, pull a fire alarm, hide while they lock the place down, wait until night, steal the item, then exfiltrate while no one is looking. Much longer con, more variables and risks but individually they're all more manageable.

Now, which one of those is the "right" way to finish the run? It all depends on variables: how well can you pull each of those off, what does the Johnson want, who is on your team, how much time do you have, how well do you know the target, and many, many more.

Shadowrun, and nearly every tabletop game for that matter, is a game of chance at its heart. If it wasn't, they would bother having dice to roll at all.
Title: Re: Lethality
Post by: RuleLawyer on <02-01-18/1450:30>
Anyone who is afraid of a game, because the book has a "15P -8AP" weapon in it, is really afraid of their GM, not the book.

The GM and the books work hand-in-hand to provide the players with a challenge suitable to the skills and abilities of the characters. The book, or an advanced supplement, should contain things that the GM can use to strike fear into the hearts of prime runners with prime gear, but its up to the GM to use those things in the right place and the right time.
Title: Re: Lethality
Post by: firebug on <02-01-18/1637:28>
That's true.  It wouldn't be "against the rules" for a GM to have a team's first run end up on a complex where High Threat Response is next door with an actual tank and a mage who's initiated 12 times and has a F20 Blood Spirit bound read to just explode the blood out of every PC's body all at once.  But doing so would be objectively douchey and the wrong way to play.  The same goes for less extreme cases.  You present the players with a compromise of the levels of challenge everyone at the table (GM included) wants and is prepared for.
Title: Re: Lethality
Post by: Shadowseer Kim on <02-03-18/0321:45>
Great discussion! 

Good reminders to be a fair and fun GM. Assuming the players are doing their part to accommodate and participate in the mutual story telling fun.

Bad runners who don't think things through get shot.
Title: Re: Lethality
Post by: Glyph on <02-03-18/1606:33>
Lethality-wise, players can fail at two areas.  First, at character creation, the wide-open build system can let you make characters who will have a hard time surviving in the shadows.  Secondly, characters can be played with poor judgement.

The second one can sometimes occur because there is a disconnect between the GM and the players.  What would be fine in a cinematic game might crash and burn in a grittier game.  One of the SR franchise's strengths is that it can accommodate a wide variety of playing styles.  This can let a group play exactly the kind of game they want.  But... it can be bad if everyone is not on the same page.  Reading the GM-player exchanges at the end of the second linked Blackjack article on the first page of the thread, I thought, "Okay, ha-ha, players are clueless, but if the GM had sat the players down before the game and said 'This is how I run wound damage', this could have all been avoided."