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Glitches, odds and inexistence of critical glitches

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ShadowcatX

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« Reply #60 on: <02-07-18/1032:01> »
The base rule "if more than half your dice are 1s, you glitch." Your rule "add an extra dice. Your extra dice is only counted if it rolls a one. If more than half your dice are ones you glitch. Something, something, hit cancelation." Your rule is 4 sentences long, the base rule is 1 sentence long. That is significantly more complex.

And while yes "every two" shows up in RAW, hit cancelation does not. Adding an extra di that only ever penalizes players again, never shows up in RAW. You are introducing two new concepts to a game that was already difficult enough, and mind you they are concepts that apply to every roll a pc ever makes.

And if you think glitches only happen every 20 to 30 sessions, that's your lack of experience talking. Go play 30 sessions of shadowrun, you'll feel differently.

But you have answered what you wanted. We have different definitions of fun, doesn't make either of us automatically right. Good luck to you and your group.

luizborges

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« Reply #61 on: <02-07-18/1230:03> »
@Marcus, as I was writing my browser refreshed and I lost most of it, I will try to answer you again.
My system is no the same as Anarchy where the Glitch Die alones determines if there is a glitch. Here the Glitch Die is a condition die, if it is 1 then there could be a glitch, otherwise there is no chance of glitching.
This could be rewritten as: "If you have 1s equal or more to the numbers of hits, roll 1 extra die, if it is 1 you glitched." But since I play a lot of The One Ring, Dragon Age, and a few RPG and boardgames other that have a special die roll with your pool, I choose to describe it as a condition die because it was more familiar to me.

You say that Shadowrun is a classic system. I played second edition in the 90's with target numbers (the same way as storyteller system was in the 90's), and it as confusing as hell (with failures happening with a single 1, exploding 6 where standard, etc) this was changed in the next edition, and changed again, and again. The system is changing, the dicepool grew bigger, than was limited, now is bigger again, but with limits. And the system is improving, but the odds are still a mess, who knows how the sixth edition will be? Specially now that we already have Anarchy with an alternative glitch system?

There nowhere in RAW (at least I never found) that says that the minimum pool is 1. Defaulting with atribute 1 could result in a 0 die pool, as a test with negative modifiers. You could say: "but then the player wont do the action to risk a critical failure", but what if this is an opposed test? Now there is a difference between a simple failure and a having a glitch to go with it.

About the half and 1/2 this is being strict, I'm not saying that someone would do that, but if you apply the Rules As Written, there is a rounding done there, and the RAW says to round up unless told otherwise.

You said: "No one rolls a die pool of 1, or a pools of 3, why b/c players know better". Take a look at the previous answers here in this thread. I begin my discussion talking about pools in the 12-16 range as the usual for players in stuff they are good at, and 6-10 in stuff they might have to test sometime. And a lot people here told me: "Ah, but in my game players roll 4 dice pool a lot, you never know the modifiers, and if they are forced to roll, etc, etc, etc". The smaller pools will have mostly the same odds they would have with RAW, the larger ones (the ones players do roll) will have more chance of glitching. Why? Again, because without that there is NO glitch in pools 10 and above, it simply doesn't happen. If the odds are below 1% in a game where each player makes what? 50 rolls at most in a session, it means that they will have a glitch (non critical) with a 10 dice pool ONCE every 2-3 sessions, IF they are unlucky and roll a lot of 10 size pool, and then there is always edge to go away with glitch.

The bell curve of success is still the same, the hit cancelation trims a little bit of it (mostly by turning a few of the glitches in critical glitches) but otherwise you wouldn't notice any difference in the ammount you success you had before vs what you have now. One very important point that is not apparent, is that for 1 hit to be cancelled there is a minimum of 4 dice involved, so it is quite impossible to a large ammount of success to have even one hit cancelled.

Finally you said that there is no jagged curve, I invite you to look at my table of odds: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1jwn8YAhCc39QDQ9mjxEBHVlLnb0APk-pi2UXPtXdM1U/edit#gid=0
This is RAW and my system, below the table there is a graph.
Dark blue is RAW critical
Light blue is RAW glitches
Dark Purple is my criticals
Light Purple is my glitches.

Now I dare you to tell me the blue ones looks like something done on purpose... :/

If you want unlikely glitches and a better curve, you could use my system with a d12 as glitch die.

EDIT: Ops, when I lost the text I missed the explanation of dice sizes.
You can have any size of die for the Glitch Die, from a d4 (more glitches) to a d20 (glitches as rare as RAW). They all have nice probability curves, and all of those fixes the issues with RAW. With a d8 you will have just 75% of my glitches, with a d12 it will cut my system by half, and with a d20 it will be as rare as RAW with 30% of my glitches.

About why I choose the d6:
- A Shadowrun player has lots of d6 and for sure a few of them are diferent to work as glitch die, otherwise just throw it separately.
- The odds for the d6 are nice enough for my taste, not too much, not too little. And since glitches can be anything, it happens enough that I can use it to insert things as minor or as important as needed to the scene.
« Last Edit: <02-07-18/1254:04> by luizborges »

luizborges

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« Reply #62 on: <02-07-18/1243:05> »
The base rule "if more than half your dice are 1s, you glitch." Your rule "add an extra dice. Your extra dice is only counted if it rolls a one. If more than half your dice are ones you glitch. Something, something, hit cancelation." Your rule is 4 sentences long, the base rule is 1 sentence long. That is significantly more complex.
My rule could be read as:
"Roll 1 extra die, if THIS die is 1 and the total of 1 is more than hits, you glitched."
 or even
"If you have 1s equal or more to the numbers of hits, roll 1 extra die, if it is 1 you glitched."

If any of those are still too complex to you I don't know what else I can say about it.

Quote
And if you think glitches only happen every 20 to 30 sessions, that's your lack of experience talking. Go play 30 sessions of shadowrun, you'll feel differently.
That is Bernoulli's law of large numbers talking, and for you is survivor bias. You remember all the time that glitches happened, and none of the time it didn't. I even asked you about your last glitch and this was your answer: "I don't recall but I don't get to play as much anymore either. I can, however, tell you the last time I thought glitching would be fun: Never."
I've played a lot of RPG systems in last 25 years. I like to study, understand, develop and improve systems of rules. I can noticed problems like odd probabilities in a system quite easily just glancing at the method used to roll the dice. So I can say for certain and without doubt: "glitches are rare in shadowrun" unless you are playing with inept characters rolling 4 dice pools all the time, the chance of your character seeing just one glitch in an average 5-10 session campaign is slim at best.

So you might not like glitches, but you definetly cannot say they are common. You also cannot say the system don't expect that, look at how much the glitches are mentioned in the system...

In Shadowrun 2nd edition, you had have all your dice pool of 1's to glitch. Today is just half of it, why this change if not to make criticals happen at least a bit more? Maybe is because of growing dicepool sizes and not seeing glitches anymore. They could have gone further and make it happen if one quarter of your pool is 1, but that is an inelegant solution and a bad one also. My system fixes that. You have a nice curve of glitches/criticals. And as I said to Marcus above you can replace my Glitch Die for a d20 to have criticals as rare as RAW, but at least you won't have problems with odd probabilities.
« Last Edit: <02-07-18/1246:31> by luizborges »

ShadowcatX

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« Reply #63 on: <02-07-18/1326:52> »
The base rule "if more than half your dice are 1s, you glitch." Your rule "add an extra dice. Your extra dice is only counted if it rolls a one. If more than half your dice are ones you glitch. Something, something, hit cancelation." Your rule is 4 sentences long, the base rule is 1 sentence long. That is significantly more complex.
My rule could be read as:
"Roll 1 extra die, if THIS die is 1 and the total of 1 is more than hits, you glitched."
 or even
"If you have 1s equal or more to the numbers of hits, roll 1 extra die, if it is 1 you glitched."

If any of those are still too complex to you I don't know what else I can say about it.

You're using phrases, but in the end it is still multiple parts where there used to be one part. It is a straight increase to complexity, no matter how you want to argue it.

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Quote
And if you think glitches only happen every 20 to 30 sessions, that's your lack of experience talking. Go play 30 sessions of shadowrun, you'll feel differently.
That is Bernoulli's law of large numbers talking, and for you is survivor bias. You remember all the time that glitches happened, and none of the time it didn't. I even asked you about your last glitch and this was your answer: "I don't recall but I don't get to play as much anymore either. I can, however, tell you the last time I thought glitching would be fun: Never."
I've played a lot of RPG systems in last 25 years. I like to study, understand, develop and improve systems of rules. I can noticed problems like odd probabilities in a system quite easily just glancing at the method used to roll the dice. So I can say for certain and without doubt: "glitches are rare in shadowrun" unless you are playing with inept characters rolling 4 dice pools all the time, the chance of your character seeing just one glitch in an average 5-10 session campaign is slim at best.

So you might not like glitches, but you definetly cannot say they are common. You also cannot say the system don't expect that, look at how much the glitches are mentioned in the system...

In Shadowrun 2nd edition, you had have all your dice pool of 1's to glitch. Today is just half of it, why this change if not to make criticals happen at least a bit more? Maybe is because of growing dicepool sizes and not seeing glitches anymore. They could have gone further and make it happen if one quarter of your pool is 1, but that is an inelegant solution and a bad one also. My system fixes that. You have a nice curve of glitches/criticals. And as I said to Marcus above you can replace my Glitch Die for a d20 to have criticals as rare as RAW, but at least you won't have problems with odd probabilities.

Here's the thing, you've based your arguments on dice pools of 12 or more. People have told you that half of playing shadowrun is when you roll things you're not great at, but you don't listen, you just keep throwing numbers for dice pools of 12 or more. But whatever, you have very little experience, you'll learn over time. Or you won't, it doesn't really matter to me.

luizborges

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« Reply #64 on: <02-07-18/1339:59> »
@ShadowcatX, last Marcus post had this sentence: "No one rolls a die pool of 1, or a pools of 3, why b/c players know better, if you take a look at how we recommend creating characters it will ensure such things don't happen, and if someone comes across such a situation then its ether edge time or just accept that you failed and try something else. "
So it is not me who is saying the players rolls what they are good at.
And besides, 12 is an average. Anything above 7 dice in RAW has no chance of glitching to me (less that 1%). In any game RPG or Boardgame, if something has less chance than 1%, it simply isn't worth considering...
This is my table of comparison for the odds https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1jwn8YAhCc39QDQ9mjxEBHVlLnb0APk-pi2UXPtXdM1U/edit#gid=0

PS: Above 11 dice in my system there is less than 1% chance of criticals too, this is by MY design :D

Spooky

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« Reply #65 on: <02-07-18/1530:18> »
Luiz, I think you just need to stop arguing that your system is better than RAW, and simply go develop your own complete game system. If your only answer to my actual experience, and those of others, is to say "this guy would argue" or "that can't happen, because math" then I submit that you have fallen victim to what I call 'Mathematician"s Digression". Explained simply, MD happens when mathematically inclined people try to prove that math on paper explains everything that can possibly happen in the real world. There's always an example given as refutation that is simply not explainable by the given math, and the presenter just ignores it in favor of expounding their hypothesis. So here's my question to you: Are you actually willing to listen to the advice and opinions of the people here, or are you simply listening to your own voice? If you are willing to listen, whether you accept what is said or not, please keep going. If you are not willing to listen, then my response will be to ignore you.
Spooky, what do you do this pass? Shoot him with my thunderstruck gauss rifle. (Rolls)  8 hits. Does that blow his head off?

luizborges

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« Reply #66 on: <02-07-18/1626:09> »
I was just reading some passages in the book and found this example of glitch and critical glitch when Quick Drawing a weapon:
If he glitches, the gun is stuck in the holster or dropped, and no more actions are allowed. On a critical glitch, a drawn blade may be fumbled out of the character’s reach or a pistol accidentally fired while still in the holster; the gamemaster decides the exact nature of the screw-up.

Again, how is that disastrous? You are trying to do two actions at once (that can be done using 2 simple actions in a single initiative pass) and the worst that can happen is dropping the weapon or firing in the holster?

PS: Fine by me Spooky. But if you allow me one last message:
If you paid attention, I just answered each and everyone that questioned my method (as someone should when inquired), even when the other person just tried to say: "it is not needed" with a rethorical question. I'm not saying that my method gives a better gaming experience, read all my messages and I never said that. I even said that each can choose what he pleases. What I DID say about my method it that it is better from a statistics point of view, and honestly, if anyone said otherwise it would be lie. You might not like the frequency of glitches, the extra die, the hit cancelation and everything else, but no one can say that RAW odds (like odds for odd pools are worse than even pools for no reason) is better! Also frequent is very subjetive, and I asked more than once, how often people glitched in their games. And from the responses I don't think it frequent to me, but this is subjetive. I might not be very experience with SR5, but I played a few sessions of it to notice the problem right away (again a problem to me), I played SR2 also a few decades ago, an a whole lot of other systems (most of which I know the odds for the rolls so I know what to expect from them).

You can argue all you want about "math", but unless you have crooked dice, the odds apply to you as well as too me. And I make a bet with your right now, using fair dice tape yourself getting a critical with a dicepool of 16, if you do I buy you a colletion of shadowrun products or anything else you want. :o
Just kidding, this happens once in 46.729 rolls, it could happen on the first one and this wouldn't invalidate the odds in any way... :D

I also argued that the glitches and critical glitches are not as harsh and terrible as many people where saying, and to do that I use the rules and description from the book, like the example that I just gave here. And I think (this is opinion talking, and I tried to make sure to always say when I was talking opinion) from all that, that glitches should indeed be more frequent. One of my last answers what regarding ShadowcatX complaining about the frequency of glitches, which can be solved by using a die with more faces.

Later there was some complains about my method, and I address those the better I could. One was about the frequency that I told above, another complain was about hit cancelation, again, you don't need to use it, your critical odds will drop a little. And finally: "this is bad, I like the RAW better", fine! I'm not trying to convince anyone on the right way to play the game, nor that there is a right way to play.

I like to play a game with nice odds, just that, and the subject of this thread is: "Glitches, odds and inexistence of critical glitches" and this is the what I talked about. At first I was hoping to just find a house rule or a solution for that (for ME  that is a problem), when this didn't happen I proceed to develop a solution that was pleasing to me and could help others. I tried my best to explain how it works and to ease any doubts about it.

Nelphine

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« Reply #67 on: <02-07-18/1728:28> »
 I actually agree with you on the idea that glitches do not occur often enough with large dice pools.
However, I dislike adding more dice to rolls. While it seems straightforward, the most intuitive part of Shadowrun rolling is that dice pools follow a very simple formula: stat + skill + intuitive modifiers.
Your proposal, while simple, detracts from the intuitive nature of Shadowrun rolling. Given that Shadowrun is extraordinarily complex, and already has numerous modifiers, even given the heading of intuitive, adding any more dice to this system that are not immediately intuitive, for me, is a big hindrance.
Therefore, I'd like to see a proposal that does not include a new dice.

Additionally, while it does depend on the table, having penalties to dice pool size of up to -6 can be fairly common (multiple times per session, potentially many times depending on environment).  Importantly, this applies to mooks, not just PCs. I find it fairly common to have 4-6 sized dice pools.

Further, and this is very table specific, I do use the gremlins quality for gear. Especially found gear - that gang who likes to custom mark their guns? Yeah it actually damages the guns, and the whole gang has gremlins 1.

So I find glitches overall actually do occur a fair amount. The issue is that they don't occur for players rolling large dice pools, who plan well enough that they avoid penalties.

And for me, the specific problem here is that of regaining edge. I really LIKE that rule, as I like mechanical conditions (as opposed to roleplay conditions) that renew special resources such as edge.

So, I'd like to see a proposal that doesn't add more dice, and that still noticeably affects large dice pools but not small ones.

Unfortunately this has been low priority for me, as I'm working on chargen changes first, so I don't have a proposal of my own.

(However as a note: if you do use gremlins for gear, and use a lot more environmental factors, you will get a lot more glitches, which for the OP, may actually be enough.)

Marcus

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« Reply #68 on: <02-07-18/1745:23> »
I am sorry you lost that post due to the reload I have had that happen to me many times and it's super annoying.
Anyways, I am very surprised folks roll pools of 4 regularly i can't recall the last time I did such a thing, but not everyone agrees on making optimzied characters, so such is life i guess. You are correct about min rule, while there are plenty of place where mins do come in there isn't min 1 specific rule, I really though there was such a rule, but i may be recalling something from 4th, or maybe I'm just fooling myself.

Anyways SR is classic to me, 3rd target number issue and dmg codes were a bit obscure at first, but keep in mind that was part of the industry back then everyone was messing  with TNs. (The old 6=7 thing was always super amusing to me, but that's where we were.) Luckily sanity arrived and 4th edition came down and put in end to that nonsense, which exactly why it is a classic system. Lots of time has gone into SR, and over time it has steadily improved.

Even if you look at DnD 5th, it's a hugely improved system even over (3rd/3.75) and don't get me wrong I'm one the few who really liked 4th edition DnD.

Well it's pretty clear you have considered your house rule, and certainly argued it from ever angle I can see, so carry then. Please come back and report on how it plays.

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luizborges

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« Reply #69 on: <02-07-18/1756:02> »
Nelphine, I have an idea for not having "extra" dice that does work for what you want but that involves either:
- replacing one of the dies from your dice pool with a d12 and considering it like a regular dice with hits on 5,6,11,12 and considering it like my glitch die on 1 (it has to be 1 and more 1s than hits to glitch).
- considering the first die throw in the pool (or having a d6 with different color) as the glitch die, this works the same, but the odds are higher.
The main problem with those is: this is a "replacement die" so you MUST remember to replace it in your pool. And this is bad. This is the reason that I wanted an extra die.

If you forgot to roll it with your pool, just roll it as soon as you remember. One added benefit is that it easy to see if it will be needed, if you have less 1s than hits you don't even have to bother rolling the glitch die because you will never have more 1s than hits in this case. So after you roll you notice you have a lot a of 1s roll the glitch die, otherwise it won't matter if you forgot it (only if you got no success, but then someone at the table will remember to roll the glitch die to see if you critically glitch).

I promise you, I looked really hard into this and I would like to get a solution that doesn't involve ANY extra dice, unfortunately, as it is this is possible due to how the pool is formed and the odds of the d6. If this was d10 (like storytelling system, it would be a different story and more manageable)...

So, as far as me (and a few other people that helped me think about that that are quite knowledgeable in statistics and rpg) can think of, the least amount of impact with the most (beneficial) change to the system is adding one condition die in a form of another. :(

@Marcus, thanks :) will do test it on the table. A few people in Brazil said they were going to test it as well, and I already got a very positive feedback from one gm where two glitches happened in his session (but no Crits yet).