Shadowrun
Shadowrun Missions Living Campaign => Living Campaign Discussion => Topic started by: Jayde Moon on <05-16-18/1636:58>
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As before, please feel free to contribute your comments, ideas, criticisms, gripes, and groans for the FAQ here!
As before, I won't promise anything will change (though we certainly applied much of the previous feedback), but we will definitely consider everything you guys offer.
Thanks!
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Thanks for the hard work y'all put into this!
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If Chicago Prime Runners are still unable (based on the previous conversation) to play Neo-Tokyo PMs, SMHs, and CMPs from 2017 and older, then the wording in the "What is a Prime Runner?" section still needs to be much clearer.
If they are able to play in any CMP of 2017 or older, any PM, and any SMH, then the wording is just fine.
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First off good work and thank you for all that you guys do.
Under addiction Legal-Strength SIM, Ie Cold-SIM, and Skill wires are still addictive. Is this correct. It seems that they should be removed as well.
Thanks,
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If Chicago Prime Runners are still unable (based on the previous conversation) to play Neo-Tokyo PMs, SMHs, and CMPs from 2017 and older, then the wording in the "What is a Prime Runner?" section still needs to be much clearer.
If they are able to play in any CMP of 2017 or older, any PM, and any SMH, then the wording is just fine.
I believe the intent was to make it so that Prime Runners from Chicago can play Prime Missions from Neo-Tokyo, so that is functioning as intended. The only part I'm not sure about is the opening up of playing the newer CMPs as well.
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"A character involved in the Neo-Tokyo Missions campaign who has at least 150 Total Karma Earned (TKE) can choose to take on the Prime Runner designation but will be disqualified from further participation in SRMs and CMPs if they do. "
Emphasis mine. New Character for Season 9-12 accumulates 150 Karma could keep playing SRMs and CMPs if they didn't play any Prime Missions?
Also the section on Primrunners from season 5-8 list no restrictions on what Prime missions / SMHs they can play if I'm parsing that sentence correctly. " ... and all PMs and SMHs." So players can dust off Chicago characters for NT Prime runs?
Also, nice work on the Social Negative Qualities. "Can't I just stay in the Van?" "No. Now get in there and screw things up for the face!" Much approval.
And Adept powers flat out don't create any signature (Adept Spell/Barehanded Adept the obvious exceptions...). Ninja's everywhere are pleased. Thank you for the clarity on the Astral patrols as well.
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Codes of Honor. Can we please have greater access to codes, I would really love to see Wuxia, and Bushido opened up for Neo-tokyo. I know I know the code of Honor book is coming down soon, it could be a good time to get out ahead of it, and clarify codes of honor. Even if you need to reduce the value of Codes, the points isn't nearly as important as the what it says about the character.
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Thanks for the effort put in for SRM!
I too am appreciative and intrigued by the forced enforcement of social negatives at the meet with Mr Johnson/Tanaka-san. A personal real-world pet peeve of mine is players showing up late for a scheduled start time, esp since we're on a 4 hour timeline for SRM. I've toyed around with the idea of penalizing players showing up late by saying their character couldn't be bothered to show up on time for the meet since they themselves couldn't be bothered to show up on time to play, and having Mr Johnson/Tanaka-san react accordingly. Anyway, just an observation. Kind of fun to see inside the SRM team's head in the FAQ feedback process.
Despite my fantasies to that end, I'm firmly understanding of the rationale for and supportive of the hand-waiving involved in Mr Johnsons' paying a team on a per-player basis rather than a lump sum that's then divvied out among the players. And despite my enthusiasm for increased enforcement of negative qualities (and roleplaying in general) I'm gonna go ahead and express a potential concern: it seems like breaking from the meta-standard of a run paying per player is opening Pandora's Box. If you actually give the tongue-in-cheek option to leave the Uncouth PC(s) in the van while the Face negotiates with Mr Johnson/Tanaka-san there'll be cases where players actually pressure other players to do exactly that, and then they'll naturally have a toxic argument about whos characters get paid how much.
It's meta and perhaps not realistic, but I do think it's for the best to not toy at all with the "SRM missions pay X per PC" paradigm. Down the path of deviation from that standard lie inevitable tears. While I love the idea of certain qualities rendering a player unable to decide that "my PC helps the negotiation by shutting up", I do think that for meta reasons the meet with Mr Johnson/Tanaka-san simply should require all participating PCs to be present. At which time the Uncouth/etc qualities can kick in.
Edit: Didn't notice the first go thru: Loving the change to GM credit policy. Yes please make that go thru as official :)
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Can I just leave him in the van?
This is gonna be a problem, i wouldn't open that can of worms. If your in the team your at the meet, and if ya don't like that your team is made up of bunch social misfits, well your job as the Face is to deal. If it was an easy job they wouldn't have called you, and when your done, you can always take out on you fixer. Also stick N shocks are cheap, I said they have to be at the meeting didn't say they had to be awake at the meet.
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Can I just leave him in the van?
This is gonna be a problem, i wouldn't open that can of worms....
That can of worms invariably gets opened up by those players that have created the social misfits in the first place. There are plenty of times when people make the social pariah character and then try to down-play their inept social skills by simply not taking part in social situations.
By applying the rule that those negative qualities cause the person to automatically take part in social tests, it means they can't avoid that aspect if they are present. The logical next step is to say that they just "stay in the van" so that they again avoid the problem. This is answered by the simple response of "sure you can stay in the van, but you won't get paid if you do." If the rest of the team wants to be nice enough to split the final pay (minus your share) to avoid your influence on the social test, that's a possibility. But it leaves that decision in the hands of the players.
Putting the hammer down and saying that every PC must be present at the meet takes that agency away from the player (railroading, which is often best avoided). So this rule is an answer to people trying to trump that rule (the social one).
NOTE To the FAQ Committee: It might also be prudent to include a note that the characters can't hire stooges to come to the initial meet just to try and up the final pay. (Yes, this actually came up in a discussion I had about this topic)
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I'll just say again that opening the door for allowing players to decide how much a character should get paid rather than using a meta/unrealistic/railroady standard where everyone gets paid the same is potentially explosive. In an OOC sense. And maybe IC, if the player of an explosives expert PC doesn't like what the others decided his share should be. You open that door even an inch and you're inviting all sorts of things like killing each other's characters in order to get their share of the pot. You can legislate against it.... or you can just disincentivize it to begin with by saying everyone gets paid the same no matter what... screw "realism".
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Players are limited to 5,000 Nuyen per run from other players. So, if you stay in the Van, even if the other players decide to cut you in, max of 5,000.
So, troll up and get your smelly/racist/ugly/whatever self in there and screw things up for the face.
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So, troll up and get your smelly/racist/ugly/whatever self in there and screw things up for the face.
That's pretty great. Might have to add that to my signature. :)
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Saying it's rail roading is big jump. There is such a thing as industry practice, if the Johnson only pays those who are at the meet, then it sounds a hell of a lot like, industry practice is you haul, your social disabled dumb @ss to the meet and suffer/inflict the consequences of your poor quality choices. Odds are it will become a self correcting problem very quickly if these things start screwing up meets all over the place.
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Why not put a general errata to previous mission templates and change the current run template we use from this point forward. Instead of offering "nuyen each" you offer a flat fee that is calculated as "nuyen per pc at the meet." so you would change the way missions are written from.
She’ll offer the runners 4,000 nuyen each, plus 500 nuyen per net hit (max 4) on a Negotiation + Charisma [Social] Opposed Test.
to this
She’ll offer the runners (4,000 x PCs at the meet) nuyen, plus (500 x Pcs a the meet) nuyen per net hit (max 4) on a Negotiation + Charisma [Social] Opposed Test.
If you want less math then put in a small table that gives #PCs |Offered | Negotiated for 2-6 Pcs. Though I feel that math is unavoidable since this is Shadowrun.
Change the FAQ to match
From this:
Yes. However, Mr. Johnson will only pay out for the members of the team who were present for Negotiations. Further, characters with the Negative Qualities of “Did You Just Call Me Dumb?” and “Uncouth” can’t help but to speak up during negotiations and will always assist the lead negotiator in a teamwork test (forcing one if no one else is assisting). Of course, you could leave them in the van, too.
To this
Yes. However, Mr. Johnson pay based on the number of Player Characters who were present for ....
You are already editing and laying out the missions this would be a very minor increase on what layout does already. If your PC is not at a meet then since it is nuyen x PCs then the total offer would be less. The players can decide how the split goes then if someone refuses to show up. Want to bump the amount given then show up to the meet. If the PCs decide since you didn't bother to come to the meet that you should get nothing then that is their choice. Circumventing your negatives because you want to power-game/min-max should not be encouraged.
Change it or not, in Missions everyone in the shadows knows everyone else in the shadows, so hiring a patsy to go to the meet for you is a no go the Johnson would know who they are and would not increase pay and it would probably be a notoriety hit. "they thought they could pass off x as a runner, :)" If they did get a runner to go to the meet he would probably charge them there share to show up, they don't get notoriety but they still don't get paid or at least they had to pay several thousand to get a runner to a meet that another runner didn't want go to. I know I would charge extra because it smells lake a trap. You could get a contact to go but it would still cost because they are not your errand boys/girls or your bullet shields and treating them as such should be a loyalty or notoriety hit.
To be honest I feel GMs should be allowed to give extra notoriety to the team if the PCs do things worth notoriety. Since this effects their Street cred and causes negative modifiers to social test that earn them pay it tends to cause players to shy away from wanting to get more of it. If a player at my home table is going to do something I feel is worthy of notoriety such as selling bodies for the cyber. I just tell them you can do that but it will probably give you notoriety for doing so and they decided not to do it.
If a PC feels like it is railroading, well not to be offensive, but the player made that choice. You decided to power game the system and put yourself on the tracks, so choo choo.
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Given the worst that can happen is the Players don't get any bonus pay I'm not sure why anyone would choose to stay in the van when told they're not going to get paid. Played lots of games where all we got was the base pay, somehow managed to stay in bullets and booze.
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I'm with ya Hobbes. I've seen plenty of times plenty of socially belligerent horrible kill monster sit down at Johnson meetings before, and I don't doubt I'll see many more.
But leave them in the van opens up to much chance for stuff to get ugly at the table. An even split is always been the deal, go back on that and I just can't see it going well.
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New Observation/Question for the SRM team:
The nearly dozen or so Missions that I've read all have some mention in the "Contacts" portion of the Picking up the Pieces chapters that loyalty gains are always capped to a ceiling of 4, for both mission-specific NPCs as well as any other Contacts the PCs may have impressed/interacted with as well.
Admittedly it's a small sample size, but I'm getting the impression that EVERY SRM Mission has that same ceiling of 4 Loyalty for any Contact improvement.
question 1) Is this true?
question 2) Perhaps more of an observation... but Loyalty 5 & 6 is possible at chargen it appears to not ever be attainable after chargen? Should Loyalty 5 & 6 be allowed on made up Contacts? Because if they are, the way fencing gear works in SRM where Connection doesn't matter and Loyalty means everything if you don't buy a Fence with 6 Loyalty you're Doing It Wrong :)
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Loyalty gains from Mission rewards capped at 4. Yes.
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I think that begs the question of whether loyalty 5/6 contacts should be allowed to be purchased in chargen, since they're impossible to gain post-chargen.
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Eh I think that's going to far. There's no cause to stomp on that sort of thing. It's not like a loyalty 5/6 contact is actually that much better and in the scope of mission, it has very little bearing on much of anything. Contact roll are well defined in missions play, and it's not going to unbalance the game with something already always been in play.
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Perhaps... my concern is really in how loyalty intersects with fencing gear. It's awkward that the only way you can get 25% or 30% of book price is by exploiting a chargen rules loophole.
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There usually isn't that much to fence, i mean some commlinks and some guns, is generally the take away.
Even 30% book value just isn't going to be that much is it?
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There usually isn't that much to fence, i mean some commlinks and some guns, is generally the take away.
Even 30% book value just isn't going to be that much is it?
It all depends. Most of the time the runners won't have the alignment of circumstances and connections to harvest cyberware from slain opposition, or to claim things like security vehicles intact. But in those cases where they do, the SRM fencing rules ensures they don't totally blow the nuyen rewards out of line with what's programmed to be awarded. Even still: getting 30% of half a million nuyen worth of vehicle and/or cyberware is still potentially gonna be worth more than the 10-12 thousand nuyen they get from Mr Johnson/Tanaka-san.
Now granted 25% or 30% in such a case isn't that much more than 20% that's possible under the ceiling of 4 Loyalty, but as I said it's more of the principle of the thing. Why should 25/30% on fencing be possible with Chargen-generated Contacts but never with Contacts gained afterwards? It's minor and perhaps only applicable in corner case looting, but it still seems "wrong". Rather than raising the Loyalty ceiling, it just seems more elegant to disallow Loyalty 5/6 on made-up Contacts from chargen. The extra percentage points on fenced gear is part of why it's more elegant, but also there's no reason to have 5/6 Loyalty besides fencing because Contacts with that much loyalty must necessarily have super low Connection ratings, which in turn means the extra Loyalty is useless (other than to exploit the Fencing rules).
Edit: Perhaps the problem I'm seeing is better fixed by addressing Fencing rather than Loyalty. If Connection becomes important, the abuse/exploit may simply go away. If Connection 1 becomes insufficient to Fence expensive loot, the 6 Loyalty to gain 30% of said loot isn't incentivized.
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May we please have official stats for a Bokken? It's Neo-Tokyo, we really need Bokken.
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It seems like it should follow the generic "Club" stats.
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OTOH I'd say a Bokken's stats should be identical to a Katana's... other than flipping Physical to Stun. Maybe not the most faithful translation... but thematically appropo and since when were SR weapon damage codes "realistic" anyway :)
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May we please have official stats for a Bokken? It's Neo-Tokyo, we really need Bokken.
A new weapons table with all the asian/martial arts standards would be great, actually.
Blades: Katana, Wakizashi, Kama, No-Dachi, Naginata
Clubs: Tetsubo, Nunchaku, Tonfa, Bo, Sai
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There usually isn't that much to fence, i mean some commlinks and some guns, is generally the take away.
Even 30% book value just isn't going to be that much is it?
Shouldn't even be that much in a Missions game. Mission GMs are specifically told to discourage looting. Most do. I find a "Please don't do that" works. Usually it's newer players who aren't familiar with how Missions works, simple communication is all that I've ever seen needed.
That said, the occasional Yamaha Raiden or fancy commlink falls into a players hands and gets dropped off at Goober's for a quick re-licencing? Yeah, whatever. Just don't ask about harvesting cyberware or stealing cars, enjoy your new toy that is all but mechanically indistinguishable from your old one.
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I would also have to agree that I feel the cap should be lifted on loyalty for some contacts. The reason that I think it should be lifted is for purchasing gear however as it is really hard for some characters to get gear with the current buy hits only rules.
my 2 cents.
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A new weapons table with all the asian/martial arts standards would be great, actually.
A few suggestions, extrapolating from the melee weapons in the core rulebook:
BLADES
Katana: Long blade. Accuracy 7, Reach 1, Damage (STR+3)P, AP –3, Avail 9, Cost 1,000¥
Wakizashi: Short blade. Accuracy 6, Reach 0, Damage (STR+2)P, AP –3, Avail 9, Cost 800¥
Tanto: Dagger. Accuracy 6, Reach 0, Damage (STR+1)P, AP –3, Avail 6, Cost 200¥
No-Dachi: Two-handed blade. Accuracy 6, Reach 2, Damage (STR+4)P, AP –3, Avail 9, Cost 1,200¥
Naginata: Pole arm. Accuracy 5, Reach 3, Damage (STR+3)P, AP –2, Avail 6, Cost 1,000¥
Kama: Sickle blade on a short haft. Accuracy 5, Reach 0, Damage (STR+2)P, AP –4, Avail 9, Cost 500¥
CLUBS
Bokken: Wooden practice sword, may use either Swords or Clubs skill. Accuracy 6, Reach 1, Damage (STR+3)S, AP 0, Avail 5, Cost 100¥
Bo Staff: Short wooden staff. Accuracy 6, Reach 2, Damage (STR+2)S, AP 0, Avail 3, Cost 100¥
Tonfa: Short club with a perpendicular handle. Accuracy 5, Reach 0, Damage (STR+2)S, AP 0, Avail 4, Cost 50¥
Nunchaku: Pair of clubs linked by a cord or chain. Accuracy 5, Reach 1, Damage (STR+3)S, AP 0, Avail 4, Cost 50¥
Tetsubo: Two-handed club with metal studs. Accuracy 5, Reach 2, Damage (STR+4)S, AP 0, Avail 5, Cost 200¥
Sai: Forked metal baton with a piercing point, may inflict either Stun or Physical damage (user’s choice). Accuracy 6, Reach 0, Damage (STR+2)S, AP –1, Avail 5, Cost 300¥
(Note that bladed weapons are not restricted in Neo-Tokyo, so none of the Availability codes are marked R. See Corporate Enclaves, p.85.)
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I would greatly prefer if the option existed to use Blades (Swords) for bokken. Just saying.
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I think for a lot of stuff, just "reskin". Do you really need a dozen or two new stat blocks for weapons that are nearly identical to things already in the game?
That's what I'm doing. My Missions Character, Usagi Bop, is going to have a bigass two-handed mallet/hammer, and I'm just planning to reskin a Combat Axe for it.
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I would greatly prefer if the option existed to use Blades (Swords) for bokken. Just saying.
Good idea. Edited below.
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Along the lines of what Bull said, how about something like this?
Katana - Same (duh :) )
Wakizashi -Sword
No-Dachi - Highland Claymore
Naginata - Pole arm
Naga - Combat Knife
Bokken - Extendable Baton
Bo Staff - Staff
Tonfa - Sap
Nunchaku - Extendable Baton
Tesubo - Staff
Sai - Sap
Edited to make changes to Wakizashi and Naga made by Kiirnodel
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Wakizashi = sword
Tanto = Combat Knife
In my opinion. Wakizashi are more of a short sword, not quite short enough to be a knife.
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I think for a lot of stuff, just "reskin". Do you really need a dozen or two new stat blocks for weapons that are nearly identical to things already in the game?
That's what I'm doing. My Missions Character, Usagi Bop, is going to have a bigass two-handed mallet/hammer, and I'm just planning to reskin a Combat Axe for it.
For my Hammer Adept from Chicago, I just used the Sledgehammer from improvised weapons listed in the core book. Str+4P, Acc3, reach 1
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I the next updated FAQ could we get a ruling on this https://forums.shadowruntabletop.com/index.php?topic=27292.0 in the FAQ as well as what SRM defines as the area of detection?
I would just like to be consistent for the players.
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I the next updated FAQ could we get a ruling on this https://forums.shadowruntabletop.com/index.php?topic=27292.0 in the FAQ as well as what SRM defines as the area of detection?
I would just like to be consistent for the players.
No. The area of detection does not exist. What you want a ruling on is, if the classic interpretation is correct, and you can only detect spell using perception at casting (Or one other small list of exceptions), or if they other side is correct and you can always see them. In which case you open up the epic headache. As has been clearly argued for 8 or 9 pages.
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Wakizashi = sword
Tanto = Combat Knife
In my opinion. Wakizashi are more of a short sword, not quite short enough to be a knife.
In Kiir's favor i think it is listed as an example sword.
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No. The area of detection does not exist. What you want a ruling on is, if the classic interpretation is correct, and you can only detect spell using perception at casting (Or one other small list of exceptions), or if they other side is correct and you can always see them. In which case you open up the epic headache. As has been clearly argued for 8 or 9 pages.
No, what I want is a ruling for how we are going to use it in SRM so that players have consistency between tables. If it goes one way or the other is not relevant to me. I will play it either way, there are many rules that I don't like in Shadowrun but I want to give the players a consistent table so I play by those rules. If the final word is we are not defining Area then so be it and we will just have to rule on it at the table GM by GM but my time in many other world spanning shared games has taught me that sometimes rulings have to be made on things that have no rules, until the company makes a ruling, to give the players a fair game everywhere even if we don't like the rulings. This is why we had a hot patch errata when 5th first started out.
I know that it has spanned several pages of debate, which is why I linked to that thread. I don't see any reason to rehash the debate here. The SRM FAQ committee can just look there and make their decision. I am happy to follow it either way.
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No. The area of detection does not exist. What you want a ruling on is, if the classic interpretation is correct, and you can only detect spell using perception at casting (Or one other small list of exceptions), or if they other side is correct and you can always see them. In which case you open up the epic headache. As has been clearly argued for 8 or 9 pages.
No, what I want is a ruling for how we are going to use it in SRM so that players have consistency between tables. If it goes one way or the other is not relevant to me. I will play it either way, there are many rules that I don't like in Shadowrun but I want to give the players a consistent table so I play by those rules. If the final word is we are not defining Area then so be it and we will just have to rule on it at the table GM by GM but my time in many other world spanning shared games has taught me that sometimes rulings have to be made on things that have no rules, until the company makes a ruling, to give the players a fair game everywhere even if we don't like the rulings. This is why we had a hot patch errata when 5th first started out.
I know that it has spanned several pages of debate, which is why I linked to that thread. I don't see any reason to rehash the debate here. The SRM FAQ committee can just look there and make their decision. I am happy to follow it either way.
Red the point of the debate is the area does NOT exist, b/c for it to exist the interpretation that you can ONLY detect spell with normal perception when they are cast (As it has always been across previous editions) has to be ruled as wrong. At this time it is uniform, across all tables. Because it doesn't exist. If a ruling comes down the other way, only then does that and long list of other questions have to be Answered. Should that happen it will be serious hot patch to the rules.
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Marcus. It would have been better to leave the arguing in the thread devoted to that topic. Since you've insisted on bringing it here, here we go.
For the purposes of SRM, I'll go ahead and second Redwulfe's suggestion that we get a clarification on the following text in the core rulebook, pg 280: 1st paragraph of the rules on Perceiving Magic:
Magic is rarely subtle. Any form of magic (conjuring,
spellcasting, enchanting, magical lodges, spirits, etc.)
changes the world around it. Sometimes it’s obvious
through a magician’s gestures or incantations (magicians
seen by non-Awakened people are sometimes
called “twitchy fingers”). Spirits sometimes cause the
air to shimmer, even from astral space. People have reported
feeling chills, dread, or other unnatural sensations
they can’t quite put their finger on when magic is
in the area.
For the purposes of SRM play, it'd be nice to know if this paragraph is saying that Sustained spells are meant to be excluded from the relevancy of the rules for noticing "all" magic mentioned in the opening two sentences... and therefore if they're meant to be exempt from the rules that follow the paragraph governing how to resolve whether magic is noticed.
Although honestly it probably needs dev/errata team attention, but I'll happily take a SRM answer if we get one. And honestly, the measure of being close enough to get a perception check was left completely up to the GM without any guidance so there is indeed a bona fide role in SRM chiming in on "how close is close enough" to get a perception roll.
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Marcus. It would have been better to leave the arguing in the thread devoted to that topic. Since you've insisted on bringing it here, here we go.
I didn't bring it here. Red did. So if you have something you wanna say about that, then say it to him. Red asked for something doesn't exist, I simply pointed out that obvious fact. It's that simple. Why you feel like there needs to be massive rule change and the head aches that will comes with it is beyond me SSRD.
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No, Redwulfe brought up the totally undefined "in the area" language. Which is fair for SRM, given the core rulebook left it completely to GM discretion. He's absolutely right that it'd be nice for SRM to set a standard for our shared organized play campaign... whether it's touching, Force x meters, in the same room... it should be standard across SRM.
Arguing that Sustained spells shouldn't be noticeable based solely on whether they had been in prior editions isn't appropriate for this thread. It's not SRM related and we've already got the lively thread dedicated more or less to that exact thing. You brought THAT here, so I obliged you and asked SRM team to say if the paragraph that doesn't have an exclusion for sustained spells is going to be understood for SRM purposes as if it did have an unstated exclusion for sustained spells. We'll get an answer, or we won't.
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No, Redwulfe brought up the totally undefined "in the area" language. Which is fair for SRM, given the core rulebook left it completely to GM discretion. He's absolutely right that it'd be nice for SRM to set a standard for our shared organized play campaign... whether it's touching, Force x meters, in the same room... it should be standard across SRM.
Arguing that Sustained spells shouldn't be noticeable based solely on whether they had been in prior editions isn't appropriate for this thread. It's not SRM related and we've already got the lively thread dedicated more or less to that exact thing. You brought THAT here, so I obliged you and asked SRM team to say if the paragraph that doesn't have an exclusion for sustained spells is going to be understood for SRM purposes as if it did have an unstated exclusion for sustained spells. We'll get an answer, or we won't.
As you're very well aware I'm not arguing it solely upon that bases. The language of "in the area", only matters if you change the accept definition so at best that's a meaningless distinction. If you honestly think this inappropriate place then don't argue it here. I'm pointing out the simple facts. I didn't post the thread referencing it here. I didn't start this whole mess, and I didn't make the two threads already covering it.
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Everything you argued about Sustained spells shouldn't be perceptible is moot if "all magic without exception" is ruled/clarified to not give an exception to Sustained Spells.
So pretty much everything hinges on whether "all magic without exception" gives an exception to Sustained Spells.
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Everything you argued about Sustained spells shouldn't be perceptible is moot if "all magic without exception" is ruled/clarified to not give an exception to Sustained Spells.
So pretty much everything hinges on whether "all magic without exception" gives an exception to Sustained Spells.
SSRD if what you were purposing wouldn't wreck half of magic, I would try my very best to meet you half way with it. But the changes you're advocating for have serious consequences. I don't know what they all would be, but I know it will wreck all subtle magic as we know it. That's not hyperbole or any kind of exaggeration, it's just a fact. So I will continue to argue against it where ever and for however long I have to. I seriously didn't have any interest or intention of bringing that thread up in here, or reviving it.
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I didn't bring it here. Red did.
I feel that I need to clarify, once more. I don't feel rehashing this debate here is appropriate. My intention was to clarify my intentions.
you said:
No. The area of detection does not exist. What you want a ruling on is,
I said:
No, what I want is a ruling for how we are going to use it in SRM so that players have consistency between tables.
This is true:
Marcus. It would have been better to leave the arguing in the thread devoted to that topic.
This was bringing the debate to here.
No. The area of detection does not exist.
As well as this.
Red the point of the debate is the area does NOT exist, b/c for it to exist the interpretation that you can ONLY detect spell with normal perception when they are cast...
I know what the debate is. The fact that it is a debate means their are more than one side to it or else it would be called an agreement instead of a debate. What I would like is to leave the debate in the debate thread.
Like I said here:
I don't see any reason to rehash the debate here. The SRM FAQ committee can just look there and make their decision. I am happy to follow it either way.
and I fully agree with this:
Arguing that Sustained spells shouldn't be noticeable based solely on whether they had been in prior editions isn't appropriate for this thread. It's not SRM related and we've already got the lively thread dedicated more or less to that exact thing. You brought THAT here, so I obliged you and asked SRM team to say if the paragraph that doesn't have an exclusion for sustained spells is going to be understood for SRM purposes as if it did have an unstated exclusion for sustained spells. We'll get an answer, or we won't.
Though I would just cut it down to this.
Arguing ... isn't appropriate for this thread.
and leave it at that.
Sorry for modifying your quote SSDR, and +1 you understood me perfectly.
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I the next updated FAQ could we get a ruling on this https://forums.shadowruntabletop.com/index.php?topic=27292.0 in the FAQ as well as what SRM defines as the area of detection?
I would just like to be consistent for the players.
Quote me in Full or Don't Quote me Red. You can intended what you like, but you Asked and that is where it began.
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I will apologize for only quoting part of the posts from you I simply did not want to fill the post with a ton of block for only parts of messages, but under that same note I would ask that you do not assume my intentions in the future.
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I will apologize for only quoting part of the posts from you I simply did not want to fill the post with a ton of block for only parts of messages, but under that same note I would ask that you do not assume my intentions in the future.
I can't read your intentions. I can read your posts. I keep my responses short for a reason, your method is purposefully misquoting and I'm not OK with it. Fix it or just admit you're distorting my words.
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Further discussion of that topic in this thread will be deleted. If you guys want to quibble over stuff that's actually in the FAQ, by all means!
But you already have a thread to quibble about sustained spells and bickering about who raised the issue can be done on... I dunno, discord or something.
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So back on topic, is there any movement on the Code of Honor stuff? With hooding come out soon(TM), can we get ahead and see if we can find a away to fix the issues with Codes in Missions play. Folks have any thoughts on the subject?
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Alright, so with everything coming down to crunch time, its been really busy. We needed to get everything Origins ready. But I've definitely been keeping an eye on things here and, without further ado:
If they are able to play in any CMP of 2017 or older, any PM, and any SMH, then the wording is just fine
The wording is just fine. :)
Under addiction Legal-Strength SIM, Ie Cold-SIM, and Skill wires are still addictive. Is this correct. It seems that they should be removed as well.
We'll look at it, but I'm inclined to agree.
New Character for Season 9-12 accumulates 150 Karma could keep playing SRMs and CMPs if they didn't play any Prime Missions?
So players can dust off Chicago characters for NT Prime runs?
Also, nice work on the Social Negative Qualities. "Can't I just stay in the Van?" "No. Now get in there and screw things up for the face!" Much approval.
And Adept powers flat out don't create any signature (Adept Spell/Barehanded Adept the obvious exceptions...). Ninja's everywhere are pleased. Thank you for the clarity on the Astral patrols as well.
Yes, Yes, Thank you, No problem.
Codes of Honor.
Maybe. The reason some were allowed and others weren't have a lot to do with applicability of the mechanics to SRM. Some Codes of Honor end up being freebies that provide little risk while others might be overly punishing. The rest were allowed. We can relook some of them,
But, for example, take Bushido 2.0... in any given Missions scenario, who is your superior? Mr. Johnson? We presume everyone wants to get the job done. Another character? Which one? How do you decide? Maye this could work when you sit at a Missions table with the same 4-6 people and one is the Face and you accept them as the leader. But what about a Convention Table where it's 6-8 people randomly thrown together?
Wuxia. Um. Have you ever worked for Mr. Johnson?
Others, like Code of the White Hat are perfectly fine for you to RP, but since the downside is negligible in Missions (you'll never have an enemy decker looking for vengeance if you left him alive, for example) it's not going to be worth any points.
If there are specific Codes of Honor you think should be allowable, feel free to open up a thread in this forum and bring up your arguments.
Leave him in the van/Social Neg Quality concerns
The intent here is that all characters are in the meet and that all characters are contributing as applicable. GMs are expected to manage their groups in such a way as to keep metagame issues from spoiling the fun. Missions is targeted at getting players playing the game, especially newer players.
If you want to run your homebrew campaign using Missions runs, by all means play it how you like. But at a CDT Missions table, you don't exclude anyone. So if it was unclear, there is no choice. EVERY player character will be at the meet. You don't get to leave someone out and dock any/everyone's pay accordingly. The In Character handwave that "the team at the table is the team doing the job" is just that, a handwave. If that needs to be clarified for folks who don't understand the applicability of Wheaton's Law, we can add that in.
It's a touch railroadey. But again, Missions is a different beast than home brew play. Some metagamey measures are taken to keep things even across the board and to ensure that there are repercussions for certain choices.
Contact Loyalty Caps
We will look at this. There may be some possibility for higher than loyalty 4 Missions contacts.
I am looking at codifying a means of raising the loyalty of your self-chosen contacts as well. Just another means of keeping things even.
As for the chargen loophole, the way to close that is not having a catch-all fence. We'll look at it.
Traditional Japanese Weapons, please!
Bull has the right of it. That said, I'm not opposed to adding a little fancy chart into the FAQ if you guys want to open a thread and quibble on the details. We're talking reskins, so don't make up new stats, just figure that a wakizashi seems like it would be equivalent to... Cougar Fineblade or whatever. You can start with tequila's list and roll it around for a couple weeks.
I'm OK with a bokken using blades.
Detecting sustained spells
So I made my stance fairly clear in the thread where this was discussed. But, i'm just one man and I have a team that I will check back with. But I suspect they will be of relatively the same mid. Detecting 'sustained' spells in the same way as perceiving spellcasting is beyond the scope of Missions and there is no test for it.
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Alright, that brings us up to date. Again, thanks for all of your input.
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Any talk on getting Bloody Business goodies legal ? I really want to nab Body Sculpt for my Adept. Some other fun things in Bloody Business that arn't legal as well.
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Thanks for the update!
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Are we posting questjons here or on the stickied questions topic?
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I hope it's not too late for another suggestion for the Combined FAQ.
I got to thinking at least one of the regulars at my SRM table is pretty well an evil "go die for me, spirit!" overlord to the things he makes his spirits do. And that in of itself is fine.. if the game mechanics allow you to literally conjure up a resource-free NPC to go do any hazardous task you'd rather not, why not make use of them?
In a home game I can eventually have the spirit world start to decide this guy has too many "black marks" and have potentially have conjuring start to get a little more interesting. Not so much in SRM.
Any way we could add for SRM a 4th tracked "social tally" akin to Street Cred, Public Awareness, and Notoriety that's applicible to interacting with denizens of the Astral? (The kind of "Black Marks" discussed in SG on pg 186) so that one GM to the next has a bit of an idea about how big of a jerk a PC has been to his spirits in the past... so that "karma can indeed be a complete bitch" as warned by SG? :)
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Any way we could add for SRM a 4th tracked "social tally" akin to Street Cred, Public Awareness, and Notoriety that's applicible to interacting with denizens of the Astral? (The kind of "Black Marks" discussed in SG on pg 186) so that one GM to the next has a bit of an idea about how big of a jerk a PC has been to his spirits in the past... so that "karma can indeed be a complete bitch" as warned by SG? :)
This is exactly what Spirit Index does, isn't it? See Street Grimoire, p. 206.
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I'm guessing SSDR is suggest we implement spirit index or a version of it for SRM?
Which i don't really have a problem with. But i am concerned the mechanics outlining reducing spirit index aren't going to be easily handled in the SRM setting. So that would need to be addressed somehow.
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I'm guessing SSDR is suggest we implement spirit index or a version of it for SRM?
Which i don't really have a problem with. But i am concerned the mechanics outlining reducing spirit index aren't going to be easily handled in the SRM setting. So that would need to be addressed somehow.
Indeed.
And yeah it may be more trouble than it's worth, but I think adapting it for SRM is worthy of consideration (if that hasn't already happened at some point in the past)
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I'm guessing SSDR is suggest we implement spirit index or a version of it for SRM?
Which i don't really have a problem with. But i am concerned the mechanics outlining reducing spirit index aren't going to be easily handled in the SRM setting. So that would need to be addressed somehow.
Indeed.
And yeah it may be more trouble than it's worth, but I think adapting it for SRM is worthy of consideration (if that hasn't already happened at some point in the past)
I think it could worth while, in the sense that NT has been pretty hands off magic, and so I expect to see a fairly strong magic showing, so having something that keeps spirit abuse down strikes me as very worth while. Having force 12 spirit do everything on a run just isn't that interesting. I just think we need to have a mechanic that ensures that players can spend time or something to lower that index, in such a way that won't be disruptive at the table.
My first suggestion would be something lower the score by 1 ever third mod, or something along those lines.
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I'm guessing SSDR is suggest we implement spirit index or a version of it for SRM?
Which i don't really have a problem with. But i am concerned the mechanics outlining reducing spirit index aren't going to be easily handled in the SRM setting. So that would need to be addressed somehow.
Indeed.
And yeah it may be more trouble than it's worth, but I think adapting it for SRM is worthy of consideration (if that hasn't already happened at some point in the past)
I think it could worth while, in the sense that NT has been pretty hands off magic, and so I expect to see a fairly strong magic showing, so having something that keeps spirit abuse down strikes me as very worth while. Having force 12 spirit do everything on a run just isn't that interesting. I just think we need to have a mechanic that ensures that players can spend time or something to lower that index, in such a way that won't be disruptive at the table.
My first suggestion would be something lower the score by 1 ever third mod, or something along those lines.
Spirits cost Force *500 Nuyen to bind. A Force 12 Spirit would run 6,000 Nuyen worth of Reagents to bind and have 24 dice to resist the binding. I guess I haven't seen much Spirit abuse in Missions play (generally). Once in a while you'll see a summoner build that can whistle up a Force 9 Spirit with a couple of services, I'm not sure I've seen mages with that Force of Spirit bound to them.
And honestly those were at tables where the GM was/could/did push the envelope frequently. Because... Force 9 Spirit...
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Of course noone would treat a F12 bound spirit with the same cavalier attitudes they treat a F12 spirit they got for free (not bound, simply conjured).
But the one free spirit you can have that's unbound? It's literally free. Usually doesn't even cost drain at high Force, so long as you're playing an optimized character. (and the sorts of players who'd use a high force spirit as a personal trap-finder/suicide-charger rather than risking his own mage tend to only play optimized builds)
Of course the mage sitting back and sending the Spirit in as his personal proxy into harm's way isn't fundamentally different than the rigger, but the rigger at least pays for his drones. And of course the rules put high force spirits out of any league a drone could be in, but that's a complaint for the errata team rather than the SRM team :)
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In a normal game they'll have to convince the Spirit not to use Edge when oversummoning but in SRM you'll end up with a big debate if you use that legal counter.
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IME the dice are swingy enough to keep mages from causally using High force Spirits for trivial reasons. Missions are often short enough time frames that recovery from Drain isn't always a given before the next scene starts.
Can it be disruptive? Yes, but mission GMs have the option to push the envelope. Is the risk/reward for summoning balanced? No, at least not compared to other non-magic options. But balancing Summoning (and magic in general) is way out of scope for Missions.
"have faith in the Mission GMs" isn't a great RAW argument, but for some of the Meta issues it's probably the best option. Also "Please don't break the game". : )
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'I got 2 services on a F12 Spirit that can obliterate the final fight for me' is hardly something that faith can easily compensate. If the Spirit uses Edge, then odds change, but without anyone with a bit of centering can easily Edge their way out of significant drain and ruin the balance.
And therein lies the rub: Edge against oversummoning is a legal counter but will face complaints and arguments it isn't. 'Don't break the game' isn't going to solve that. Dumping all responsibility on the GMs doesn't suffice either. Don't forget we've had cases of players blackmailing GMs and filing false reports when they didn't get their way. We run the same risk here. Not to mention the players that force a GM to either cripple the game or allow an exploit. Merely leaving this to GMs won't help when a GM is put under pressure.
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Personally, at our local tables, we almost always pre-edge on the spirit's behalf when oversummoning. Even so with our core group, Force 15-18 spirits being summoned with little to no drain damage taken is very common.
When you have spirits of that Force, those things are epic beings easily on par with standard dragons. The risk vs. reward factor should be skewed, both for game balance purposes, as well as setting flavor.
That said, I think the better game design option would be to limit the Force of spirits summoned to Magic rating or rating +1/+2 at most. That solves a lot of issues with lower-karma groups abusing the mechanics.
Edit: Or perhaps a general rule than spirits higher than Force 9 cannot be summoned by player character's without using the spirit ally option.
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there are two huge problems with spirits & binding as currently implemented in srun.
1). as you note using edge and centering to oversummon
2). binding 8 high force spirits because you're an elf shaman
taken together those two things above can completely break the game.
heck the mage doesn't even really need a party with 8 force 6 or higher spirits at his call.
our table uses a houserule to prevent spirit armies:
(Magic + Initiate Grade)x2 is the maximum total force worth of spirits you can have in use at any one time (material AND astral plane).
i also like the previous poster's idea of a hard cap on spirit's force limited by caster's magic rating.
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In general Magic users as a whole are more efficient in the game. But I don't feel they are broken. I do think conjuring being free has been something that has been needed looked at for several editions as buffs have been given to magicians over time, but magic even in 1st edition was powerful. Sprit index and reputation is something that does go a bit to give something to offset some of this but looking at it it is lip service at best and not really in the scope of SRM in my opinion. Most table GMs will not know how to reward spirit index and it will just add more complexity on their plate. you will find that most GMs will just not do it and at index divided by 25 to get a die pool penalty it doesn't effect them significantly enough to balance over summoning.
personally i have always thought that spirits should have some sort of availability rating like gear as powerful spirits should be hard to find and that they should cost nuyen in the form of gifts that need to be used to seal the deal, but luckily I am not the designer of the game. :) and I am not currently advocating for the creating more rules for an already complex game now.
What I do like is Lormyr suggestion. Just put a magic cap on the force of the spirit allowed to be summoned and encourage GMs to pre-edge resistance as spirits don't want to be summoned. I will be pre-edging from now on for all rolls for summoning at my tables. I would suggest putting the magic cap at the characters magic rating + grade. This does mean that a magician that initiates will be able to summon spirits above his magic rating but I am good with that since they payed to initiate.
for example: Carlos has a starting character. He maxed his magic at 6 and can summon spirits of force 6 or lower. latter he initiates to grade 1 and now he can summon more powerful force 7 spirits, if he raises his magic rating to 7 he can summon force 8 because his magic rating(7) + grade(1) allows it.
To me I think this is simple and easy to use. It isn't going to make spirits more balanced but i think it is something that will at least keep massive abuse from happening as often at low tier tables.
Adzling capping total force available to magi + initiate grade x2 is also a great thing as well.
I would say that these two things are within the scope of SRM to accomplish.
The Maximum force of a spirit is limited to the summoners Magic Rating + his Initiation Grade and the maximum total force of spirits in service to a summoner no matter where the spirit is at, is twice that amount.
and maybe add: Bound spirits only count half of their force round up against the total limit of summoned spirits a character is allowed to have at any given time.
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For missions play, maxing spirits at magic (or magic plus initiate grade), and being open about it being for balance reasons, sounds totally sensible.
And to be honest, it not only keeps a very powerful spirit from rendering much of the adventure meaningless, it also reduces randomness. Even in summoning a force six spirit, occasionally the GM will roll five successes -- it happened in my home game last night, and even with edge the summoner took four drain. In a home game you can work around it somewhat more easily, I think. But I'd imagine it could kind of ruin someone's experience if they made it to a convention to play a game, summoned a force nine spirit, the GM happened to roll seven successes for the spirit, and the players edged soak roll didn't come out very well. (and it could partially ruin everyone else's experience if they did succeed .... )
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For missions play, maxing spirits at magic (or magic plus initiate grade), and being open about it being for balance reasons, sounds totally sensible.
And to be honest, it not only keeps a very powerful spirit from rendering much of the adventure meaningless, it also reduces randomness. Even in summoning a force six spirit, occasionally the GM will roll five successes -- it happened in my home game last night, and even with edge the summoner took four drain. In a home game you can work around it somewhat more easily, I think. But I'd imagine it could kind of ruin someone's experience if they made it to a convention to play a game, summoned a force nine spirit, the GM happened to roll seven successes for the spirit, and the players edged soak roll didn't come out very well. (and it could partially ruin everyone else's experience if they did succeed .... )
Yeah, if you have 10 drain dice, odds are approx 1/25 that even with a reroll you take 4 drain if you have 10 drain dice. Meanwhile, if you have 20 drain dice thanks to Quickened Attributes and Centering, a non-edging Force 12 faces about the same drain odds (and average drain taken is 0.5). So non-optimised characters get hit with this once in a while ('wait I took how much drain, okay I'm gonna be a 100 meters away this fight y'all, let the Spirit handle it' in Dragon Song), and an optimised heavy character can quickly face just that amount of random luck if we don't edge. Math is wonky like that, and averages don't always apply. Sometimes it's easy, sometimes it sucks like hell.
As long as we simply make the option explicit for Edge, or put a limit on the Force 'because Spirit consensus is they don't like this within Missions', that would help balance things out. But we kinda can use something explicit to block abusive players, other than just a no from the GM.
AnyDice code:
SN: {0:2, 2}
RR: {0:4, 1:5}
N: {0:2, 1}
output [highest of 0 and 6dSN-10dRR]
output [highest of 0 and 12dSN-20dRR]
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So lots discussion, but I don't feel like we are any closer to consensus on a Spirit Index.
Most what was said, seemed like we would do better to have it then not.
So specifically what's everyone thinking on that?
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Edgelord the Elven Mage smiles as he looks at his foe. He grins cockily at his runner team and says "I got this" as he makes an arcane gesture and eight spirits materialize. A broad spectrum of spirit types are represented, and even the non-awakened can feel the power radiating off of these massive spectral creatures. Edgelord was proud of his Force 8 spirits, even if they did take a bunch of downtime to summon and were a little expensive.
Finally, Edgelord closes his eyes and concentrates, power leaking from him as he summons up one final, massive spirit. He grips his lucky dice that he wears around his neck, a non-magical item that he swears alters the probabilities of success for difficult tasks like this. A soft tearing sound is heard as a fiery claw tears its way out of the astral plane, followed by the monstrous form of an elemental from the plane of fire.
"What is thy bidding, my master" it hisses, steam pouring out of it's mouth as it speaks.
"Follow me, spirits. Destroy any Renraku security personnel we encounter."
Edgelord strides forward, confidant in his spirit army. Suddenly an alarm sounds as they cross the outer edge of Renraku's land. Confused, the elf looks at his teams decker. "I thought you said there wasn't any sensors!"
"There's not! I don't know what we tripped! Let me scan again." A moment later, Plughead the decker looks perplexed. "Ok, something under the ground is sending out a signal, but the only thing its connected to is a photovoltaic sensor? But it's about 2 meters under ground."
"Crap. Glomoss." Edgelord muttered. Glomoss was an annoying magical plant that glowed in the presence of magic. "Well, I wasn't really planning to use much stealth anyway, so lets rock."
Across the Renraku compound, Renraku Security Mage Matt Anderson looked out the window in the direction of the alarm and scanned astrally. With a sigh, he grumbled to himself. "Don't they realize how fragging long it takes me to resummon these things? Seriously, this is nearly a week of overtime right here." With snap of his fingers, six force six spirits appeared. "Contain the spirit threat as best you can, and counterspell the mage. Backup will arrive shortly."
As the spirits sped off to delay the incoming spirit army and their shadowrunner backup, Matt mentally called a number on his commlink. "Dispatch, I have 9 high powered spirits coming in. Yeah, shadowrunners again. I need backup. How many spirits can you send on short notice? 18 more Force 6? Excellent. Yeah, 30 seconds should be plenty of time, the runners have just barely broken the outer perimiter. Thank you sir. Yeah, I'll summon another on the fly as extra support. I should be able to handle a Force 10 without too much trouble."
Matt sat back and took a sip of coffee. At least the company paid for the summoning reagents and paid him time and a half for the hours he spent summoning. He didn't understand how shadowrunners could afford to burn through those so fast.
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The above is an example of something a GM can and should do to counter an overwhelming threat from a Shadowrunner team that threatens to trivialize what should be a difficult fight.
Add more spirits. Counterspelling. Banishing. Adding more mages to the fight. Make sure the enemy units have access to high powered weapons with plenty of Armor Piercing. Background Counts.
GMs have a million tools in their arsenal. Munchkin Min-Maxxing Players are annoying top deal with, especially if they're trying to trivialize the game to the point where other players may not be having any fun. But GMs have ways to lock them down and handle their crap, and most importantly, maintain the appropriate challenge for the scenario.
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I take your point Bull, but where I might say adding Glomoss security traps or APDS rounds where the module doesn't specify they're there is just "tailoring to the table" someone else might say "you're cheating/making drek up".
Granted I've only got about 7 months of experience in SRM in what's a fairly small pond, but that's the sort of thing that I think maybe needs more guidance for new/would be SRM GMs. E.G. examples of what's being a dick to the players and what's instead fairly tailoring.
A spirit related example: I recently ran a SRM mission (that'll go untitled so as to not spoil) that features a fight with honest-to-god Red Samurai. Milspec power armor and everything. Stats didn't say whether milspec power armor is hermetically sealed or whether gas masks are built into the helmets. Players insisted that if it doesn't say it is, it isn't. And rather than argue with them I let them trivially win a fight they were supposed to run in fear from due solely to a high Force Air spirit's engulf power. Turns out I should have said "of course they have unlisted gas masks or are otherwise protected from your spirit's power!"?
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That's a lovely example Bull.
But was that a Yay or a Nay on Spirit Index?
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Our locals in Columbus contain a good portion of min-maxers, but I have never seen anything like that happen personally. Most of them are more interested in character building, so play pretty responsibly in terms of not trying to trivialize the Missions.
Out of curiosity Bull, how would you handle that sort of thing if it was just one min-maxed and disruptive (which I feel is a more key element than just min-maxing) player at a table with more cooperative and average PCs/players? For the sake of argument, lets establish than a simple request to ask the player to share the lime light was meeting with obstruction.
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@Marcus: I am indifferent on the spirit index issue.
@SSD: For me, the issue of cheating/making drek up is pretty straight forward - are you doing it to make the Mission/fight/game experience better, or to punish a player for making an efficient character? The first is ok, the second is not.
Mil-Spec does not innately come with chemical seals, but can certainly be upgraded with them.
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@SSD: For me, the issue of cheating/making drek up is pretty straight forward - are you doing it to make the Mission/fight/game experience better, or to punish a player for making an efficient character? The first is ok, the second is not.
Where I've only got 7 months or so experience in SRM, I've played in Paizo's organized play league for Pathfinder for some 7 years now. Pathfinder is fairly different in its approach to the rules where everything has to be explicitly codified, and organized play is MUCH more strict about what sorts of changes a GM is allowed to make to the scenario as-written. Essentially: none. From the PFS mindset coming in to SRM, if the mission doesn't say the mooks have APDS ammo it's a High Crime for the GM to give it to them. So I probably have a skewed perception on what's allowed in SRM compared to someone who's coming in to SRM just from playing SR home games.
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I take your point Bull, but where I might say adding Glomoss security traps or APDS rounds where the module doesn't specify they're there is just "tailoring to the table" someone else might say "you're cheating/making drek up".
Granted I've only got about 7 months of experience in SRM in what's a fairly small pond, but that's the sort of thing that I think maybe needs more guidance for new/would be SRM GMs. E.G. examples of what's being a dick to the players and what's instead fairly tailoring.
A spirit related example: I recently ran a SRM mission (that'll go untitled so as to not spoil) that features a fight with honest-to-god Red Samurai. Milspec power armor and everything. Stats didn't say whether milspec power armor is hermetically sealed or whether gas masks are built into the helmets. Players insisted that if it doesn't say it is, it isn't. And rather than argue with them I let them trivially win a fight they were supposed to run in fear from due solely to a high Force Air spirit's engulf power. Turns out I should have said "of course they have unlisted gas masks or are otherwise protected from your spirit's power!"?
It's been a couple years since I've run a Missions adventure, so not sure if this has changed, but as of Season 5 the Missions had this as part of the Boiler Plate:
GMs are encouraged to use their own judgment, and to adjust the difficulty of the encounter to take into account the abilities of the players. If the players have no magical support, replace magical defenses with mundane ones. If the players are weak on combat, reduce the number of enemies by one or two. Conversely, if they’re steam-rolling the opposition, add one or two enemies to the fight. Missions should be a challenge to the party, but should never be insurmountable for a team playing it smart.
The adventures are not really intended to be run 100% as written. SHadowrun simply has too many moving parts to take every possible scenario and remember every option and piece of gear and list it on every NPC.
Plus, it's worth knowing that the poor Missions writers get paid a pittance for a massive amount of word count. I believe they're still paid a pretty small flat fee regardless of word count, and it comes out to far, far less than what the freelancers get on the main SR line. Which in itself is pretty paltry, honestly.
This is not to say that the writers half-ass it. The writers I worked with, and I'm sure the writers on the adventures now, work their asses off to create fun, well written adventures. But it does mean that it's not worth investing hours into researching and looking up and writing giant stat and gear blocks for mook NPCs.
Plus, I always used the guideline when writing adventures to keep it simple and basic and a baseline of "fairly easy" unless it was supposed to be a hard as nails fight. My reasoning was that it's far easier for GMs to scale a fight up, to add bigger guns or extra mooks or whatever, than it is to scale it back. And better overall for the fight to be easy than to TPK the group by accident because you had a team with a technomancer, decker, two faces, and an non-combat focused adept.
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Our locals in Columbus contain a good portion of min-maxers, but I have never seen anything like that happen personally. Most of them are more interested in character building, so play pretty responsibly in terms of not trying to trivialize the Missions.
Out of curiosity Bull, how would you handle that sort of thing if it was just one min-maxed and disruptive (which I feel is a more key element than just min-maxing) player at a table with more cooperative and average PCs/players? For the sake of argument, lets establish than a simple request to ask the player to share the lime light was meeting with obstruction.
1) Don't give them the option. I'm a big fan of focusing one on a time on players. So I will go around the table and individually ask each player what they're doing, how they want to act, etc. This helps keep one player from dominating the actions.
2) If it's simply a massive power discrepancy... Honestly, I fudge things a bit. My goal is for everyone at the table to have fun, and I know from experience that sitting there with effectively a Level 1 character while everyone's running around with Level 20's and awesome gear sucks balls. So I roll a few less soak dice to resist damage for the less powerful characters, or roll a few less dice to hit, or whatever. More enemies target the high powered foe, because he's the bigger threat. Etc. YOu finesse your way around it as much as possible.
3) This assumes that simply talking with the player and explaining things doesn't help. If you've tried that, tried the above, and nothing really helps or the player throws a fit? Either help him find a new game where his power level fits in better, or you may have to ask him to not play. It sucks, you never want to do that if you can help it, but at the end of the day, you have to weigh the fun of everyone at the table. And if one person is making the game not fun for several others, then sacrifices must be made for the good of all :(
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Where I've only got 7 months or so experience in SRM, I've played in Paizo's organized play league for Pathfinder for some 7 years now. Pathfinder is fairly different in its approach to the rules where everything has to be explicitly codified, and organized play is MUCH more strict about what sorts of changes a GM is allowed to make to the scenario as-written. Essentially: none. From the PFS mindset coming in to SRM, if the mission doesn't say the mooks have APDS ammo it's a High Crime for the GM to give it to them. So I probably have a skewed perception on what's allowed in SRM compared to someone who's coming in to SRM just from playing SR home games.
Pathfinder is a very different system. Being a D&D clone, it's level based. That makes power levels much, much easier to work with. When you write a D&D/PF adventure for Levels 5-7, you generally know what you're going to get, and you know what to set your enemies and challenges at.
Shadowrun doesn't have that. You can have a fresh off the boat newbie character that's min-maxed enough to be holy hell in a gun fight or who can negotiate the socks off most Mr Johnsons. Or you could have 1000 karma and just be a dead fish in a game because most of your points went into maxing out knowledge skills and various Performance skills, and you blew all your nuyen on hookers, novacoke, and a permanent luxury lifestyle.
Total Earned Karma gives you a ballpark idea of a characters potential, but doesn't give you any real solid idea of how good that character will actually be.
Plus outside of Prime Missions, SRMs and CMPs don't have a suggested Karma Value to them. So you can easily have 0 karma characters riding with 1000 karma characters by the end of a campaign. So when writing adventures, we have to write with everyone in mind.
But that's easier said than done, and thus the onus of difficulty and adjustments is left up to the Gamemaster. We trust our Gamemasters to do what is best for the group and the game.
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Out of curiosity Bull, how would you handle that sort of thing if it was just one min-maxed and disruptive (which I feel is a more key element than just min-maxing) player at a table with more cooperative and average PCs/players? For the sake of argument, lets establish than a simple request to ask the player to share the lime light was meeting with obstruction.
To add to what Bull said, speaking from many decades of GMing all sorts of RPGs:
Like participating in a Tango, it actually requires the GM to allow a player to hog the spotlight. I've learned "I'll come back to you" is a great thing to say to a would-be spotlight hogger. In my experience RPGs tend to attract a disproportionate share of introverts/soft spoken personalities. There are a lot of players who are more comfortable responding to stimuli rather than proactively offering their ideas or input. Particularly so with strangers, and playing with strangers is the nature of the beast for organized play such as SRM. It helps me to remind myself that *I* as the GM am the one shining the spotlight, and I have full control over who I'm giving my attention to. It takes almost no time to identify who's the extroverts and who's the introverts as players are milling at the table before the game begins, so you usually have a good idea of who you're going to have to tell to "wait for a bit, you've had plenty of opportunity" and who you're going to have to elicit participation from.
And yes, I AM saying leave the drama-seeker hanging right in the middle of shit he wants to do. Particularly if you can leave him on a cliffhanger. "Well we'll see if the guard noticed you sneaking past when I come back to you. So other player, what are YOU doing while spotlight-man is doing his thing?"
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and you blew all your nuyen on ...hookers, novacoke, and a permanent luxury lifestyle...
Hold on, Hookers and Blow isn't min/maxing?
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So lots discussion, but I don't feel like we are any closer to consensus on a Spirit Index.
Most what was said, seemed like we would do better to have it then not.
So specifically what's everyone thinking on that?
With Spirit Index I think it is an all-right mechanic that will not be used at every table simply because most GMs will forget about it. This would mean changing the boiler plate for missions to add spirit index and I am not sure it would be something the higher ups would be willing to do. That being said, if they are willing to put it in I support it.
I think it is much easier to just limit total force of spirits both individually and together.
The above is an example of something a GM can and should do to counter an overwhelming threat from a Shadowrunner team that threatens to trivialize what should be a difficult fight.
Add more spirits. Counterspelling. Banishing. Adding more mages to the fight. Make sure the enemy units have access to high powered weapons with plenty of Armor Piercing. Background Counts.
GMs have a million tools in their arsenal. Munchkin Min-Maxxing Players are annoying top deal with, especially if they're trying to trivialize the game to the point where other players may not be having any fun. But GMs have ways to lock them down and handle their crap, and most importantly, maintain the appropriate challenge for the scenario.
Ass always I think that your example is great and your idea is sound but at a 4 hour table slot adding all of this in means more to track and more time spent on a single encounter. I personally would prefer to limit the total force and try to get the whole module done so the players get the full story.
Obviously you could add these elements and an experienced SRM GM could as well, but it may be daunting for the rest of the GMs. I always find that the "masterful" are smaller in number than that of the "passionate but still trying to wrap our heads around all of these variations."
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@SSD: Oh yes, I've played more than my share of PFS as well. It was my primary game before I began to grow frustrated with the way the campaign managed melee resources vs. magical resources in the allowed Additional Resources, which led me the move to SRM.
My personal experience with random PFS GMs at Cons is that enough of them are petty, confrontational, and/or possessing of a punitive mentality (how dare the player have fun with his/her style of play, I have to teach them a lesson!) that allowing them to alter the scenarios would have been disastrous. Fortunately, I have not had that experience with SRM. On the whole, the community seems a lot more relaxed.
@Bull: Those are reasonable steps. I personally never fudge my dice rolls, because I rarely make them when running Missions. I usually just have the other players at the table roll for my NPCs when necessary. My experiences have shown that to help keep the players engaged when it is not their turn, and also makes it clear that I believe in letting the dice fall how they will.
@Redwulfe: Do combats often run long for people? Other than two combats in all of the Missions line (the finale of Dragon's Song 4 and A Holy Piece of Wetwork), we've never had a single combat make it past 2 initiative passes.
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while bull's example is awesome fun to read it doesn't actually fix anything.
your order example to the spirits (kill/ attack all renrauku guards) is laughably simplistic and counters all of my 20+ years of srun experience with real players.
is this really something your players would do?
in reality a player who knows the game well enough to build a high force spirit army would know exactly how to use them effectively. issuing specific orders to each one to maximized their Concealment, spirit of man spells (to bypass security) et. al.
you may not have considered this but i (and our table) has in detail.
with a spirit army as i outlined a competent summoner really doesn't need a party, at all. he can solo any mission run by himself (his high charisma makes him a natural face).
this is a srun design problem (along with many other things).
missions has attempted to plug the most egregious holes / exploits and this one should be fixed imho.
moreover as it's been said elsewhere missions GMs are of varying caliber and may not have the knowledge to understand how to effectively counter a spirit army or huge spirit.
finally, the extensive mission editing required to forestall a one man spirit army goes well beyond the scope of missions sessions.
i strongly suggest the missions team fixes this.
if the errata team's purview included fixing poorly balanced rules (it does not, alas) we would fix this as well.
gluck!
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Spirit armies are probably the most extreme example of a problematic player-type. My Missions character ended up with hundreds (and hundreds) of karma and would occasionally end up at a table with people playing pregens. Keep them alive, nudge them towards situations in which they'll succeed, mop up as needed. At the end of the day, I'm not sure there are viable mechanical fixes to patch all these possible holes (and God knows the FAQ is unwieldy enough for people new the game). Open play is always a mixed bag when it comes to spotlight hogging vs self-restraint, but it's likely the most realistic option.
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but you're not a dick Kincaid.
and the spirit army has a simple fix. as previously noted.
(Magic + Initiate Grade)x2 is the maximum total force worth of spirits you can have in use at any one time (material AND astral plane).
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Magic + Initiate Grade is the maximum force spirit you can summon
the only reason NOT to implement such a rule would be because you actually WANT people to be able to make spirit armies and summon very high force spirits.
if that's what missions wants, fine.
but imho it's rather contrary to all of the other reasonable "house rules" missions has adopted.
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@SSD: For me, the issue of cheating/making drek up is pretty straight forward - are you doing it to make the Mission/fight/game experience better, or to punish a player for making an efficient character? The first is ok, the second is not.
I try to make efficient characters. I resent GMs who imagine when and where to 'help' out- unless they have audited all of the characters ahead of time and can ad-lib, on the fly, what needs to be changed and when in that Mission. A big problem with this is that many GMs haven't had the time to read the Missions before they come to the table, and could not audit characters anyway.
Lots of advanced players/characters sandbag, quietly try to assist newbies, or just wait until they may be needed (if at all). Very few, in my experience with Missions (70+), have been blatant upfront.
I have seen overpowered character types of all kinds at Missions tables, not just Mages. Whereas my own Mage is overpowered, it's with Spellcasting rather than Summoning. I don't believe I had Summoned a Spirit higher than F6 until in one of the PMs.
I like the idea of a Spirit Index. If a GM might ignore it, he might also ignore Notoriety and Public Awareness. Goodness knows, my character has used a disguise for some time, and bought off mucho Notoriety.
If I were a 'Dick', I could have come to the table with double digit Notoriety... for years. If Missions mechanics need to be changed, it's to look at players coming to the table with Notoriety that they could easily have bought off much earlier.
(Magic + Initiate Grade)x2 is the maximum total force worth of spirits you can have in use at any one time (material AND astral plane).
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Magic + Initiate Grade is the maximum force spirit you can summon
Unless you are going to modify/limit all of the other classes, I oppose this... even if I can use my Power Focus in the equation too. :)
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then why bother to have any houserules in missions at all (see prototype transhuman, edits to other qualities, etc, etc, etc)?
sorry but this argument seems weak.
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Unless you are going to modify/limit all of the other classes, I oppose this... even if I can use my Power Focus in the equation too. :)
You can't. :-\
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@Redwulfe: Do combats often run long for people? Other than two combats in all of the Missions line (the finale of Dragon's Song 4 and A Holy Piece of Wetwork), we've never had a single combat make it past 2 initiative passes.
Combats in games I have played in usually only last 2 IP when we only have 1-2 antagonists with more they are roughly 2-3 turns. and no mater what they last about a half an hour to 1 1/2 hours. putting two of these combats in an SRM cuts the module too short.
This is probably because, out of all the games of SRM, which I started at the beginning of Denver, that I have played or GMed for over the years I have only ever came across two to four cheesy builds. This is not including the primes that I have ran for or with, as I assume they are going to be powerful. most characters are built averagely with some efficiency but would not be able to run in season 7-8 stuff because they are not powerful enough to handle the threat.
To me the current way that SRMs are built are out of balance, but that is just my opinion, and we should go back to table variance but I am not sure how that could be accomplished in this edition easily. It has been awhile but I think we moved away from it due to the skewing that happened when a higher Karma character sat with low karma characters. Maybe if we listed the games tier when listing the slot people could only sign up for the modules that are appropriately tiered to them. I don't know it would probably work but it would take a restructuring that wouldn't happen for this to come into effect. Maybe next black change.
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To be clear there is no serious lose if the GM ignore the Spirit index. If they do then we have the situation we have now. But giving them the option means GMs can send a definitive system based message. Slow your roll or, you might not like the consequences, and so long as a mechanic is in place for them reduce their index, like reducing notoriety. Real consequence can occur if the behavior doesn't change. Mr.Super Summoner will be really said when no spirits show up when he tries summon them. At which point lesson learned super summoner can changes his ways and behavior moderated and problem is solved.
I totally agree that we don't wish to build a situation where GMs and players are hostile, but at the same time the notoriety system is intended to punish certain behaviors. That said Street Cred is pretty easy to come by, so if notoriety gets out of hand there is fairly easy fix. In my play and running experience Spirit index isn't overly likely to effect the majority of mages. SOP is usually summon up something in the 6ish force range just have them chill for when situation arise that they can assist with, and most of the time it's legwork stuff, or something goes wrong on mission phase.
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I looked up in the FAQ the ruling on Spirit Reputation and it seems that the reason is because exposing a spirit to a mana Void incurs a Background count per/hour raise in spirit Index. the SRM FAQ seems to take this as all Background count means that their is a void. Looking at mana void however it appears to be a place that has a significant void of magic which usually has a background count of -13 or higher.
Was the ruling on reputation put in on a misinterpretation of the rules or is the misinterpretation mine?
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That is certainly a very real issue, it seems like there is a tendency to get very trigger happy with background count mechanics.
Oh well just a thought.
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The Dropbox is being phased out and moved to Google Drive
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The link will be repaired soon. Thanks for bringing it up.
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(Magic + Initiate Grade)x2 is the maximum total force worth of spirits you can have in use at any one time (material AND astral plane).
Magic + Initiate Grade is the maximum force spirit you can summon
Sounds like a pretty reasonable missions rule to me, should solve the worst of the summoning abuse I've seen.