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Glitches, odds and inexistence of critical glitches

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ShadowcatX

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« Reply #15 on: <02-04-18/0817:22> »
Here's the thing, you are new and have very little to no experience with the game. You came seeking advice and the advice you have received from players with years of experience is that your idea is unfun and you should not do it.

Glitches are rare. They are meant to be. No one wants to play the guy who constantly fucks up. Once in a while is fine, it's a threat that hangs over people's heads, but it needs to be a rare one.

Your dicepool of 12 example that you keep insisting on, that roll shouldn't glitch. The player put a lot of resources into that. But I am telling you, we are all telling you, in games of Shadowrun not every dice pool is going to be 12 dice.

Now you have said you aren't wanting to use it as a crutch, what are you wanting from it?

luizborges

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« Reply #16 on: <02-04-18/0825:45> »
ShadowcatX, may I ask you when was your character last glitch, how big was the pool size and what happened due to the glitch?

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« Reply #17 on: <02-04-18/1006:35> »
  Also, 2 is a really low dice pool, it is basically as low as you can get, so  the chance a glitches and botches should be a bit higher for those. And on another matter, how often do you throw a 2 dice pool in your games?
You'd be surprised.

It just needs to be a skill you don't have, and usually you don't roll more than 3 or so dice. And not always do you have the choice of "No I don't want to roll my sneaking dice now!"

Sometimes people with a Cha of 2 and no social skills try to out-face the face and the GM makes them roll that one die.

Some test, highest dicepool is 5 or 6, 2 other decide to help with teamwork tests, but they only roll 3 and 4 dice each.

Mage runs around in an area with a nasty high background count, they sustain two buff spells on the team and suddenly their 15 dicepool on casting spells has shrunk to 5.

We're not talking about things the Characters are GOOD at. We're talking about things they are NOT good at.  Not always is there a chance to let the "expert" in that field make the roll. That's where glitches matter.

Btw, fun fact: The chance for a glitch/critical glitch on 3 dice is about 3 times higher than with 2 dice.

luizborges

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« Reply #18 on: <02-04-18/1012:30> »
Just to comment on your fun fact. This is bad. If your pool increase how come you chance of failure increase as well?? This is the purest sign of bad design in the glitch mechanics. With is around 2% with 2 dice, 5% with 3 and 1% with 4... This is not a probability curve, this is a zigzag line onto nothing...

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« Reply #19 on: <02-04-18/1015:34> »
You still need two 1s same as with two dice, but you get to roll one more die that can be a 1. The big difference is: With 2 dice any glitch is a critical glitch. With three dice there's a fairly good chance that it's just a normal glitch.

luizborges

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« Reply #20 on: <02-04-18/1024:12> »
Not really... If 2 of 3 dice are 1s then you have 1/3 of chance of having a regular glitch, most of them would be critical. And 2/3 of those glitches which are critical is more than than the 1/36 of just having 2 dice.

Marcus

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« Reply #21 on: <02-04-18/1030:29> »
Glitch can happen, it VERY, VERY Unlikely in large end pools, it's reasonably possible in secondary pools, and from the game design stand point that is what they want. The mechanic that govern's high die pools, is Limit. Keeping you from being too successful without an element of luck. If you want more glitches there is a very easy way to get them at first, and that is simply force checks with skills Characters aren't good at. That will work for awhile, and eventually they will find a solution, it not actually that hard to develop character that will roll something like 10 dice for almost everything, but it takes time and effort. After that there are at least one other way to force glitch, there spirit power that can do it. However using that trick more then a couple times will get old very quickly, and believe me your players will start stomping on such spirits and their casters so hard.

But keep in mind, everyone has who play long enough has the seen the truly unlikely happen, 20 dice all come up 1's or 2's. Yeah it's really, really unlikely but shit does happens.

If you just want to turn up the heat on players for tech, send hackers to start bricking things guns and implants, and for magic, just introduce low to moderate background count with some regularity.  That will get most players to start paying attention to the little details.
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Mirikon

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« Reply #22 on: <02-04-18/1120:19> »
Glitches aren't meant to be common. They're generally rare things, unless you're dealing with low dice pools and characters without the edge to reroll 1s. Honestly, I've only run into a couple of them, since 4th ed when I started playing. Glitches are basically carte blanche for the GM to screw with players. Crit Glitches take away the lube. This is something that is not supposed to happen except once in a blue moon, and when it does happen, it hurts a helluvalot more. TPKs are more common because human stupidity plays a larger role in those.
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luizborges

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« Reply #23 on: <02-04-18/1127:58> »
@Mirokon, this is not what the book says about glitches...
The guideline for a glitch is that whatever happens should make life more difficult for the particular shad-owrunner while not disastrously interfering with their work. For example, a runner who rolls a glitch while working to defuse an explosive may drop his wire cut-ters, or may call up the wrong augmented reality win-dow of information about the nature of the device. The gamemaster should not, however, decree that the player abruptly cut the wrong wire so that the explosive blows up in their face. As an additional factor, the gamemaster may decide to make the glitch more severe if the player only had one or two hits along with it.

Dropping your wire cutters, a stumble on the pavement, or droppig your gun (considering you probably had a backup or can readily pick it up), is not something bad. As a general rule a glitch is a -2 penalty.

And regarding critical glitches (which should be bad):
gamemasters and players will likely have more fun if the roll keeps the players alive but forces them to improvise, test the limits of their skills, and develop desperate plans to help them stay alive.

Again, nothing tpk or disastrous about that...

ShadowcatX

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« Reply #24 on: <02-04-18/1257:52> »
I don't recall but I don't get to play as much anymore either. I can, however, tell you the last time I thought glitching would be fun: Never.

Mirikon

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« Reply #25 on: <02-04-18/1321:05> »
@Mirokon, this is not what the book says about glitches...
The guideline for a glitch is that whatever happens should make life more difficult for the particular shad-owrunner while not disastrously interfering with their work. For example, a runner who rolls a glitch while working to defuse an explosive may drop his wire cut-ters, or may call up the wrong augmented reality win-dow of information about the nature of the device. The gamemaster should not, however, decree that the player abruptly cut the wrong wire so that the explosive blows up in their face. As an additional factor, the gamemaster may decide to make the glitch more severe if the player only had one or two hits along with it.

Dropping your wire cutters, a stumble on the pavement, or droppig your gun (considering you probably had a backup or can readily pick it up), is not something bad. As a general rule a glitch is a -2 penalty.

And regarding critical glitches (which should be bad):
gamemasters and players will likely have more fun if the roll keeps the players alive but forces them to improvise, test the limits of their skills, and develop desperate plans to help them stay alive.

Again, nothing tpk or disastrous about that...
Ah, spoken like someone who must surely believe that the IRS taking an interest in you is no problem if you have nothing to hide, or that the BTL junkie is completely honest when he says he's going straight.

A mediocre GM would impose a -2 penalty on a glitch. A good GM would make the glitch personal in some way, so that it does something to rankle the characters in a noticeable way. As for crit glitches, sure, they might not insta-kill you (unless you crit glitched to disarm the bomb, in which case it just might), but you damn well better believe that it can put you in positions where the GM is going to fuck with you, and (depending on where and when the glitch happened) you usually end up wishing you died, instead of whatever happened.
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Sphinx

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« Reply #26 on: <02-04-18/1332:06> »
Even with large pools, "statistically unlikely" is not the same as "impossible." I've seen some really weird rolls over the years. I've seen a pool of nine dice roll all 1s. I've seen thirteen dice roll six hits and seven 1s, for a result that was both a glitch and a critical success (four or more net hits made a "critical success" in SR4). Dice can always surprise you.

luizborges

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« Reply #27 on: <02-04-18/1340:43> »
Sorry, my mistake I mean it is generally EQUIVALENT to a -2 penalty, meaning it is something minor like a small blunder at a social test or "dropping your wire cutters" (check all the glitch examples in the book so you can check for yourself).

Again, you can play like that of you want, but I opened this thread thinking about what the book says and if it match the mechanics provided. What the book says is not to fuck the players, but to force them to improvise and make desperate plans. Make the players wish they were dead is kind not in the vein as suggested use of critical (again, they are guidelines, but this is what is in discussion here).

As the book described, it nowhere says glitches should be rare. It even has TWO mechanisms to deal with them, so it does expect them to happen. Also one of the ways to recover Edge is to endure a critical glitch. One edge is recovered every day with proper rest, so endure a critical glitch might be something stressful and hard, but as mentioned not something "rare as a blue moon".

AGAIN, I'm not accusing anyone of "playing wrong" I'm just put into question the Rules As Written.

@Sphinx, if the whole system of glitches is based on something as unlikely as rolling more than six 1s in 13 dice (a 0.24% chance), then why have the system in place? It is mostly a waste of time, and from what I can see from other replies here, reason to kill a character or the whole group due to a rare roll... Is that why glitches exists??

Stainless Steel Devil Rat

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« Reply #28 on: <02-04-18/1404:10> »
...

@Sphinx, if the whole system of glitches is based on something as unlikely as rolling more than six 1s in 13 dice (a 0.24% chance), then why have the system in place? It is mostly a waste of time, and from what I can see from other replies here, reason to kill a character or the whole group due to a rare roll... Is that why glitches exists??

Well as pointed out glitches are extremely unlikely on anything a character is good at.  Glitches are only a realistic worry if you're rolling a small pool of dice.  Such as when secondary or tertiary skills are being rolled.  Heck, without the possibility of glitches, there'd be little reason to NOT have everything done outside of combat done as a teamwork test where everyone at the table contributes even 1 or 2 dice to the task.

Besides glitches don't kill or cause TPKs.  A GM making that directly happen is kind of being a jerk.  Now if a PC is unable to deal with the glitch/critical glitch and that in turn causes a death/TPK, well that's a horse of another color..
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Sphinx

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« Reply #29 on: <02-04-18/1437:43> »
@Sphinx, if the whole system of glitches is based on something as unlikely as rolling more than six 1s in 13 dice (a 0.24% chance), then why have the system in place? It is mostly a waste of time, and from what I can see from other replies here, reason to kill a character or the whole group due to a rare roll... Is that why glitches exists??

On average, I see probably 2 or 3 glitches per session. They tend to happen to NPCs more often than players. When they happen to a nameless grunt, I often invite the table to decide what happened. Players can be fiendishly clever thinking up embarrassing but essentially harmless blunders to afflict hapless NPCs. Everyone has fun with that. And of course, the best ideas can be filed away for future player glitches.