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SR6e's caseless/cased ammo & RFID tracking thing

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Marcus

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« Reply #30 on: <08-06-19/0035:30> »

Yes I do. Because not every player plays a really smart and fairly paranoid runner. Someone can play a runner who is too trusting for their own good, and get into exactly that situation.

That sounds like totally hot garbage. It literally creating a mechanic to enshrine 'Gotcha' GMing, which is Bulldrek.

This was meant to be the edition where you needed to track less drek and not worry about fiddly garbage as much. The idea that this exists to, essentially, get new players who don't know about this fiddly garbage killed is so disgusting a design I actually refuse to believe it is real or at the very least intended. The idea of introducing administrative nonsense that purely exists to hurt players who aren't aware it exists, forget it exists, or don't have a decker on team is like... agressively one of the worst RPG design concepts I have ever heard, and I read Cthulhupunk through.

I could literally see that be someone's first experience with RPGs. They have fun, they go on a run. Their GM handed them a street samurai, they got fancy ammo and protected their team, had great banter, fell in love with their character. And then the GM tells them they got arrested and killed and the fun character they enjoyed doesn't exist anymore because they made a mistake not knowing about this stupid admin rule, and they quit RPGs and never play again.

Like... Ugh. I can't express how much I despise this interpretation of this rule. It actively makes my skin crawl.
Yup. I feel the same way.
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Michael Chandra

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« Reply #31 on: <08-06-19/0150:08> »
I should point out there is a gun where you can change ownership in a Minor. Combined with this it's the perfect way to frame someone.

Anyway this is another rule you can easily ignore at your table but can also be used to awesome results. So I rather like it. If you don't, just ignore it. Nobody's going to ban you for it.
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BeCareful

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« Reply #32 on: <08-06-19/0316:30> »
My first reaction to this: "So every gun & bullet-producing corp in the world agreed to take a big step backwards, and include tiny bits of hardware in these bullet casings (that can survive the heat & pressure of discharge) in order to what? Catch the runners they hired? Data mine anyone who fires any of their bullets? Won't this just make Arms Laundering an extra step nobody had to do before?"

Then later, reading counterpoints: "Oh, then this probably would've worked better as a bit of background info: SINers use tracked bullets so you can't just steal theirs, but runners use laundered/caseless ones so you don't have to worry about that."

Now, my idea is: "Before going on the run, I call up my contact and give him my TMP with three clips/mags of Ares SlugsTM. The gun's his if he heads out into the middle of nowhere and uses up all the ammo. That should distract KE long enough."
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Moonshine Fox

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« Reply #33 on: <08-06-19/0538:15> »
My first reaction to this: "So every gun & bullet-producing corp in the world agreed to take a big step backwards, and include tiny bits of hardware in these bullet casings (that can survive the heat & pressure of discharge) in order to what? Catch the runners they hired? Data mine anyone who fires any of their bullets? Won't this just make Arms Laundering an extra step nobody had to do before?"

Then later, reading counterpoints: "Oh, then this probably would've worked better as a bit of background info: SINers use tracked bullets so you can't just steal theirs, but runners use laundered/caseless ones so you don't have to worry about that."

Considering the sidebar that comments on this tech existing has no real rules other then the TN to wipe them, that’s exactly what it seems like to me. Guns with wireless have been registered to their owners for several editions now and stealth tags have been commented to be used in high value items or as ways for corps to track people and things. They just figured out how to put them in bullets now. Hell, it’s even been commented the cloths have tags in them that send messages to your com when they are in need of a wash. It’s just a part of the background who’s relevance will vary from table to table.

Also, guns themselves already had linked owners unless they were throwback weapons, so erasing the tags and ownership files was just another aspect of taking a file to the serial numbers.


Yes I do. Because not every player plays a really smart and fairly paranoid runner. Someone can play a runner who is too trusting for their own good, and get into exactly that situation.

That sounds like totally hot garbage. It literally creating a mechanic to enshrine 'Gotcha' GMing, which is Bulldrek.

This was meant to be the edition where you needed to track less drek and not worry about fiddly garbage as much. The idea that this exists to, essentially, get new players who don't know about this fiddly garbage killed is so disgusting a design I actually refuse to believe it is real or at the very least intended. The idea of introducing administrative nonsense that purely exists to hurt players who aren't aware it exists, forget it exists, or don't have a decker on team is like... agressively one of the worst RPG design concepts I have ever heard, and I read Cthulhupunk through.

I could literally see that be someone's first experience with RPGs. They have fun, they go on a run. Their GM handed them a street samurai, they got fancy ammo and protected their team, had great banter, fell in love with their character. And then the GM tells them they got arrested and killed and the fun character they enjoyed doesn't exist anymore because they made a mistake not knowing about this stupid admin rule, and they quit RPGs and never play again.

Like... Ugh. I can't express how much I despise this interpretation of this rule. It actively makes my skin crawl.

This has been able to be done for quite some time now via whoever the gun itself is registered from, or stealth tattletale tags fit to literally anything else you were given. The tags have been a part of the game since 4th, more then a literal decade now.

If a GM pulls this kind of stunt that isn’t a rules problem, that’s an asshole GM problem. If this sidebar comment didn’t exist there are tons of ways to screw over players in the exact same manor. I was more surprised to see the sidebar because with the ubiquitous nature of everything, even down to your socks and underwear, having tags built into them I figured this was already a thing.

Marcus

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« Reply #34 on: <08-06-19/1113:25> »
Sure having training times as an optional rule is annoying and at best lazy game design but whatever. This is different, this isn't under optional rules; use if it fits your game. Sure a GM can always ignore a rule, but this is intended to be used. Which means it will be live in official play. It also was never mentioned in any live play example I saw, which means this is something was that was purposely hidden under NDA. Clearly folks knew this was not going to be well received. Further the facts that it's being defended is just insane to me. I'm done with this nonsense. So I'm out. Continue to add input on this forum is useless. Several of you aren't interested in making change to improve 6e, only in justifying the nonsense that is 6e. This edition isn't about SR as I know it. It's about petty gotcha game design.

Best of luck to those whom are remain.


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Iron Serpent Prince

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« Reply #35 on: <08-06-19/1143:56> »
Anyway this is another rule you can easily ignore at your table but can also be used to awesome results. So I rather like it. If you don't, just ignore it. Nobody's going to ban you for it.

More enabling of lazy game design....

"If you don't like it, ignore it!"

I bet you're hoping that people don't take that to heart for the entire edition, aren't you?

More directly, this is the best defense you can muster?
The mere addition of this rule violates two proscribed goals of Sixth World.
  • Streamlining:  This edition was supposed to be about removing unnecessary rules.  Can you honestly claim that this was required for the Core experience?
  • Self imposed page limit:  The Core book was supposed to be the bare minimum needed for the game.  Thanks to the HotFix, we know that required tables were cut, in part, to make room for this rule.

And that cuts to the heart of the matter.  Customers are tired of CGL handling Shadowrun.  Part of that is that they never seem to have a clear vision for what they want from the game.  As this shows, even when they do - they frag it for the lulz.

Well played.
« Last Edit: <08-06-19/1205:12> by Iron Serpent Prince »

incrdbil

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« Reply #36 on: <08-06-19/1846:09> »

I could literally see that be someone's first experience with RPGs. They have fun, they go on a run. Their GM handed them a street samurai, they got fancy ammo and protected their team, had great banter, fell in love with their character. And then the GM tells them they got arrested and killed and the fun character they enjoyed doesn't exist anymore because they made a mistake not knowing about this stupid admin rule, and they quit RPGs and never play again.

Like... Ugh. I can't express how much I despise this interpretation of this rule. It actively makes my skin crawl.

I want blame the rule for that. a GM who would  do that is a dirtbag GM, and they are going to screw players and make a game miserable whatever the rules are.

The rule, as wirrten, is sort of a waste of space. it makes a sort of cool background thing. But it seems better expressed as "Normal ammo costs are X. But Runners pay X*(insert percentage) more for all ammo because they have to acquires illegal, scrubbed ammo.

the rule works best as a "you are out of ammo, and all you have left is ammo stolen from a guard, and you cant risk firing it until you scrub it--and this is how you do it."

Of course, screwing over someone else's team by sneaking tagged ammo into their 'scrubbed' stock could be a mission of its own.

dezmont

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« Reply #37 on: <08-06-19/1927:55> »
I think anyone who wants to think on any remotely deep level about RPG game design, they should really become aware of the Oberoni Fallacy (Yes, its a 1d4chan link, and it sucks that that is the only place that hosts a detailed rundown of the concept, but its so important you should power through).

"A GM who wants to ruin the game can use any rule" and "If you don't like it you can ignore it" are BOTH invoking the Oberoni Fallacy. Good rulesets can be abused by bad GMs and bad rulesets fixed, but there is an objective quality to rulesets and systems.  You can't imagine a hypothetical terrible GM or a good GM, you imagine what kind of GM behavior will naturally occur with the system.

This system naturally seems to create abusive Gm behavior because it encourages your Gms to try to catch out runners who forget admin details by pushing those rules to the forefront and creating a mechanized system to avoid them. Compare to 4e and 5e, which outright said 'runners just tag errase everything or own their tags' and DIDN'T push the idea that this would catch anyone. One of those 'naturally' creates bad behavior, one does not.

This, combined with the fact apparently HTR is now a 'deniable asset' and that 'a single drop of blood can catch runners out when the cops have a mage on the payroll' tells me quite strongly this game encourages "gotcha" GMing: There is a focus on having the GM look for ways for the runners to be screwed in the course of normal play, which... sucks. Like maybe those passages aren't real but I don't think the people who told me about em would lie.
 
Doesn't matter that a good GM will just realize this isn't good and will ignore that, because that indicates to a good GM the system sucks.

Doesn't matter a bad GM will do that anyway, because the system in this scenario TRAINS GMs to be abusive.

The reason this fallacy is dangerous is because it basically posits the entire concept of RPG design doesn't exist; like many fallacies it doesn't depend on the actual quality of the argument, it instead recontextualizes the discussion to make it so that there is no ability to come to any truth, and thus the fallacy can apply to literally any RPG system regardless of how good or bad it is. Ex: "Yeah, FATAL is a mess of design but bad GMs who want to be misogynistic creeps would be anyway and good GMs can just fix all the problems."

And yet it is very obvious that FATAL is a terrible RPG. This isn't to say this rule is on par with FATAL, but the exact same argument applies to FATAL's rules that encourage abusive behavior as this rule. If you accept this logic as true for SR, you have to accept it as true for FATAL, which is why this is a fallacy. It also is circular: It posits a problem isn't a problem because one will by default fix the problem, which in reality admits the problem exists while attempting to deny the problem exists. Obviously that is nonsense, a rule or mechanic is still broken even if the patch is easy.

You can argue how much something encourages bad GMing, or if it does or doesn't, but you can't just say 'the GM overrides my design anyway.' Which is the main defense that seems to be in play here: People aren't talking about how likely it is to encourage bad GMing, they are just saying bad GMs are going to be bad GMs and the design is independent of that.

I think the concept is fine, again, the idea that runners are unique in being untracable is cool. But the fact that the rules and some people in the thread pushed it as a way to 'catch' players out kinda indicates that it isn't meant for that, which is sorta why its getting dragged. Good ideas can have bad implementation.
« Last Edit: <08-06-19/1930:46> by dezmont »

Typhus

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« Reply #38 on: <08-06-19/1947:19> »
Shadowrun has a history of training GMs to be abusive.  Tailchaser missions, and other such unsatisfying endings were a big part of 1E and 2E.  The life of a shadowrunner was expected to be imperfect and reflect an abusive society (and also to feel more like Cyberpunk, I expect).  It had the unintended effect of teaching GMs bad habits, and I shudder to think how many good "big" moments I failed to deliver as a rookie GM back in the day trying to meet that standard and not script in a satisfying ending.

I also used to let players fail through lack of understanding of their game world.  They make errors most often because they aren't immersed enough in the world to realize what they are up against.  I used to let my world beat on them for that, instead of saying "as an experienced shadowrunner, you would know..." and then letting them make an informed choice.

Hopefully gaming has evolved to aim at letting a good story take the place of rules and advice that wreck the experience for players. 

dezmont

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« Reply #39 on: <08-06-19/2014:24> »
I also used to let players fail through lack of understanding of their game world.  They make errors most often because they aren't immersed enough in the world to realize what they are up against.  I used to let my world beat on them for that, instead of saying "as an experienced shadowrunner, you would know..." and then letting them make an informed choice.

I find that just flatly telling players things they 'should' know or that you think are 'obvious' is the best practice. In reality punishing players for 'obvious' mistakes is kinda weird and mean because like... it is a fictional world you are imagining and your really just punishing a fellow human being trying to engage with your world in their own imagination for not imagining things exactly the same as you.

Stainless Steel Devil Rat

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« Reply #40 on: <08-06-19/2140:34> »
The default assumption is that chargen PCs are in actuality experienced and established shadowrunners, which makes giving "you know THIS" and "you know THAT is a bad idea" tips very reasonable... borderline UN-reasonable if you fail to do so.

OTOH, in a street-scum campaign? Full-bore Paranoia RPG GM shenanigans are called for, imo :D
RPG mechanics exist to give structure and consistency to the game world, true, but at the end of the day, you’re fighting dragons with algebra and random number generators.

Shinobi Killfist

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« Reply #41 on: <08-06-19/2144:22> »
Every GM started out as a rookie at some point. Rules should ideally be written to guide them to success not failure.

Hobbes

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« Reply #42 on: <08-06-19/2146:15> »
Every GM started out as a rookie at some point. Rules should ideally be written to guide them to success not failure.

+1

Midnight_Creeper

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« Reply #43 on: <08-06-19/2301:47> »
Pretty clear these bullets are playing by their own rules, but I'd laugh if you could just turn them off.
By the first rule (i.e. that Shadowrunners exist) you can throw this rule out.  There is no mechanic where RFID tags exist and work where they don't end the existence of Runners.  Just as a hint from 60 seconds thinking about it... RFID tags have been used in shoplifting prevention, all it takes is a sensor on the door that reads ammo coming into a building or area followed by armed response and Runners no longer exist.  By logical extension, that means that anyone who manufactures ammo must also share the RFID tag so that the other guys can look up the tag and track it but since runners take inter-corp jobs all the time that means that corps have a vested interest in not sharing RFIDs with their targets.  There is no world in which RFID works and runners exist.

Midnight Creeper and his crew are planning a run against a local Mitsuhama R&D lab. They have sourced Mitsuhama security outfits, proper Mitsuhama security equipment, and ammo. Creeper rewrites the RFIDs embedded in the various items based on Mitsuhama RFIDs he gleaned from the Matrix. When the time comes, the runners slip in, the door sensors registering the arrival of an expected Mitsuhama security detail (thanks to some tinkering Creeper did to the R&D labs schedule via the Matrix).

I think assuming that the corps would use off-the-shelf RFIDed ammo is shortsighted, I could totally see them RFIDing every round they purchase and using a custom internal ID, not only will that allow them to ID their own spent shells from intruders, it also makes inventory keeping easy. I mean, many if not all the corps keep track of their employees via the RFID in their clothing, thanks to dress codes. Wouldn't surprise me if they did the same to even minor office supplies ("whoa, Tim, I'm going to have to ask you to leave that stylus in your pocket at the desk before you leave the building, it's corp property").
« Last Edit: <08-06-19/2316:56> by Midnight_Creeper »

Typhus

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« Reply #44 on: <08-06-19/2320:05> »
The default assumption is that chargen PCs are in actuality experienced and established shadowrunners, which makes giving "you know THIS" and "you know THAT is a bad idea" tips very reasonable... borderline UN-reasonable if you fail to do so.

Absolutely.  It's my default now in any game.  There's a lot of "grab and go" type game play now, so it's pretty mandatory anyway.  Plus its so fragging cool to see them really start to get it, and get more into it.  They always find some way to surprise me.  Then it's like I get to play too.