Shadowrun

Shadowrun Play => Gamemasters' Lounge => Topic started by: Seras on <04-15-20/1647:37>

Title: Handling large dice pools as a GM
Post by: Seras on <04-15-20/1647:37>
Hi guys,

part of the huge appeal to shadowrun players is they get to roll a ton of dice. However for me the GM rolling 8 differnt goon is an absolute pain.

How do you handle your mook /NPC dice pools ?

What experiances have you made with dice roll programs/ programable calculators ?

Any advice is appriciated.

Thanks  Seras
Title: Re: Handling large dice pools as a GM
Post by: Banshee on <04-15-20/1648:51>
Honestly I usually don't even roll ... instead I either buy hits or make up a target number based on how challenging i want to be to the players
Title: Re: Handling large dice pools as a GM
Post by: Michael Chandra on <04-15-20/1658:45>
I have colored sets, either in sets of 6 or in sets of 9. This makes it quite easy. Also, usually I only have a few different kinds of grunts, so I won't be needing many different pools. Worst case I just have a few piles. The one massive fight I had once, had 8 different pools ready for me to pick up and roll. Fortunately SR6 has Grunt Group rules, I'm loving those.

The commercial Shadowrun dicerolling App (free, microtransactions for extra dice-type+background packages) doesn't support Edge rules, but for grunts it would be perfect. You can program various rolls, or just tap a whole bunch, or reroll a previous roll in its entirety. Perfect.

I did use dicerolling apps on rare occasion, but it misses oomph and a bad player could easily cheat, with the Shadowrun app it can be harder because you can agree to keep animation on to prevent rerolling. One good thing coming out of the new crisis might be that Google + Apple are now going to make their bluetooth libraries better, so I'm considering restarting my bluetooth-diceroll-sharing-app project in the future, where your phone would request a roll from the GM's and both phones would display the result. Perfect against cheating, and useful in a loud situation.
Title: Re: Handling large dice pools as a GM
Post by: Stainless Steel Devil Rat on <04-15-20/1710:37>
the buying hits mechanic works wonders. if there's a whole bunch of mooks, and they all have 8 dice pool?  Great. Assume they just get 2 hits rather than rolling.
Title: Re: Handling large dice pools as a GM
Post by: Michael Chandra on <04-15-20/1745:25>
I once printed out tons of dicerolls with a program (noting #-hits and an exclamation mark if it was a glitch) and just scratched them off 1 by 1. Didn't work as well as I'd liked, though.
Title: Re: Handling large dice pools as a GM
Post by: Tecumseh on <04-16-20/1302:31>
Didn't work as well as I'd liked, though.

What went wrong, or what could have been better? I've thought about doing this myself.
Title: Re: Handling large dice pools as a GM
Post by: Michael Chandra on <04-16-20/1401:14>
Forgetting a modifier could massively change the number of hits, which just feels weird.
Title: Re: Handling large dice pools as a GM
Post by: Seras on <04-25-20/1624:01>
Thanks guys...I'll try the buying hits thing. I somehow missed that in the rules :-[
Title: Re: Handling large dice pools as a GM
Post by: Michael Chandra on <04-25-20/1857:49>
Tbh it's not meant for combat. I think you'll find it turns combat quite dull.
Title: Re: Handling large dice pools as a GM
Post by: BeCareful on <04-25-20/2237:09>
A virtual tabletop like Roll20 can make rolling lots of dice easy. They can also take care of most of the math for you as well.
Title: Re: Handling large dice pools as a GM
Post by: Reaver on <04-26-20/0111:57>
There are times it is useful too.... like when dealing with that insufferable NPC....

Player: "fuck this asshat, I pull my pistol, and shoot him in his insufferable face! I Auto success it in at 8..."
Title: Re: Handling large dice pools as a GM
Post by: mcv on <05-11-20/1107:49>
Thanks to the lockdown, we're not playing online using roll20. Rolling for lots of mooks has become a lot easier.
Title: Re: Handling large dice pools as a GM
Post by: Sir Ludwig on <07-15-20/1519:13>
Seras,

I think the grunt group rules are nice.

SRC: p107 (example)
SRC: p114 (rules and example)

If it's a big battle, use different color dice for each grunt group.  I am not a fan of the dice rolling programs, they seem to have patterns when I use them.

Best,
SL
Title: Re: Handling large dice pools as a GM
Post by: DigitalZombie on <07-21-20/1800:24>
Alternatively you could combine normal dice and buying hits as a houserule.

Say you can at max roll between 8-10 dice, the rest has to be bought.

So say you have 22 dice for something , så you roll 10 dice and have 3 auto successes ( the remaining 12 dice are turned into 3 auto successes)
Title: Re: Handling large dice pools as a GM
Post by: Alrician on <10-01-20/0917:51>
I am really, really, really, really... really satisfied with buying hits as a GM. I did that 3 month ago and didn't ever look back! It speeds up fights amazingly.

Every three edge my npc gain during a fight I turn into an additional success. Thats super easy, too. And of course my NPCs share one common edge pool.
Title: Re: Handling large dice pools as a GM
Post by: Mustakrakish on <10-01-20/1444:44>
I do it also. But, it reduces the chances of really crazy "critical" hits. Also, some characters are so good at dodging and soaking that it's really hard to hit them with 3-4 hits.

I figured I can still roll for NPCs, but if many NPCs attack one target I just play it like the drone "Swarm" software, I roll once, and add one die for every other NPC that shoot at the same target. That way I can have varient in the rolls, but I also eliminate few NPC turns at the same time.
Title: Re: Handling large dice pools as a GM
Post by: Alrician on <10-29-20/0853:58>
Thats about combat mostly:
As already described above, I let NPCs buy hits. They share an edge pool and every 3 edge one NPC gets an additional hit.
I am now considering giving the NPCs hits in a ratio of 3: 1 and leaving out the Edge on their side. Do you think that would be an acceptable approach? Fights last long enough without me rolling the dice, on the other hand I want to increase the risk for the runners a little.
Title: Re: Handling large dice pools as a GM
Post by: Reaver on <10-29-20/1733:48>
The issue with just buying hits is tgat it removes the randomness of dice  and just sets a threshold that players can easily game.

Consider:
If an NPC usually throws 9 dice to attack, a player must contend with attack rolls that range from 0 hits (a miss) to 9 hits....

On a static 'hit buy' that randomness is reduced to a TN of 3.... which makes the players' choices infinity easier...

If you are looking to challenge players, throwing MORE npcs into the meat grinder that is PC combat is not the answer...
Think smarter, not larger.
Title: Re: Handling large dice pools as a GM
Post by: DigitalZombie on <10-31-20/1755:15>
There is still randomness in the Dice often.- as the runners must roll to Dodge or hit anyway.

IT reminds me of one of the variant rules for dungeons and dragons-in reverse.
To add more randomness in the game the defender rolled 1D20+5 for his AC, instead of having an AC of 15. And the attacker still rolled hos D20+bonus as normal.

Its not about challenging players more, its about speeding up Combat. - challenging Them would be to increased the oppositions dicepools/autosuccesses.

Although in my experience the GM is usually pretty fast with his NPCs anyway.