Shadowrun
Shadowrun General => General Discussion => Topic started by: swliner on <07-21-11/1232:30>
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We're still trying to get the hang of 4th Edition, and one thing that keeps coming up is how to handle non-critical glitches, since they keep coming up in places that don't really give examples. What could a glitch on a Perception Test or a Knowledge Test mean, for example? Or how bad should a non-critical glitch on an Attack or Defense roll be (ex. attack hits an ally vs damage code is decreased permanently vs .....)? Thanks for your help!
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Normal glitch on Perception:"You don't notice anything important if it's not glaringly obvious"
Critical glitch on Perception:"The GM LIES IN YOUR FACE ABOUT WHAT YOU PERCEIVE!"
You need to remember, that, technically, the GM rolls your Perception pool . .
Normal glitch on Knowledge:"You can't remember what this means"
Normal glitch on Attack/Defense simply means you fail at what you try to do, not that something out of the ordinary happens . .
On Attack:"You miss"
On Defense:"The other guy doesn't"
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I have to disagree with Stahlseele. A Glitch doesn't mean you fail. After all you might have rolled 4 successes and 4 1s. I prefer the interpretation "You did it, BUT..."
on a Perception test: You can hear someone sneaking up on you from the left. (He is actually coming from the right.)
on a Knowledge test: The Mona Lisa is indeed a very famous painting from the 16th century, but as far as you remember it was destroyed in WW2.
on an attack roll: You hit him with your sword very good, but it is now stuck in his arm.
on defense roll: yes, you dodge this bullet barely, but in the process you dropped XY.
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Right. Success/failure is a separate issue from the glitch. If you fail and glitch, that's called a critical glitch.
SR4A, p. 64:
It’s possible to both succeed in a task and get a glitch at the same time.
However, one can use the number of hits rolled to gauge the nature of the setback (same paragraph).
A reasonable glitch with a gun might be a misfeed (for SA, BF, or FA fire): You still get the effect of the shot (which might still be nothing if the defender dodges well enough), but the following bullet misfeeds and jams, forcing you to spend and action to clear it. Or you accidentally hit the magazine release (or cylinder release, for revolvers).
An outright failure (critical glitch) could be anything from a misfire (hot round still in the chamber) to shooting an ally (or yourself) or having a structural failure in the gun (i.e., it explodes in your hand).
Alternate glitch for a Knowledge roll: You misheard the question that was asked, have a brain fart, or whatever, and remember the correct bit of information about the wrong subject. It might be that embarrassing kind of brain fart in which someone has to correct you several times before you realize what they were really asking.
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I agree with Makki, you can have a lot of fun with normal glitches while still letting the player's action succeed.
Firearms glitches:
Bullet exits target and hits a fire extinguisher causing it to explode (treat as a low radius smoke bomb at area
plus has chance of shorting out electronics in its radius) and sets off fire alarms.
Bullet hits a sensitive piece of equipment starting a small fire.
Bullet hits a door control panel sealing the door (Logic + Hardware (GMs Decision)) to open.
Bullet hits, but next round to the chamber stovepipes or fails to fire.
Defense glitches:
You don't get hurt, but your trusty old (rifle, commlink, sensor, ect.) took a bullet.
You manage to get out of the way but lose your footing, you're now prone.
You manage to get out of the way, but you find yourself next to several canisters that read "WARNING
Explosive: Do Not Puncture!"
You've rolled yourself into a bad vantage point. (-1 to attack and defend until you move again).
Perception Glitches:
You noticed the sniper on the roof, but managed to look right into the sun also. You suffer a -2 penalty for glare.
You hear your buddy calling out, but you have no idea which direction its coming from.
You managed to notice security guards pouring toward you out of the smoke, but you gasp in excitement and wind up
with a hacking cough for a few seconds. (-3 dice penalty for next combat phase).
Knowledge test glitches:
The U.S. claimed to land a manned craft on the moon in '69, ya 1969, but that was just a Hollywood hoax. The real first
moon landing was in 1975, well after the Soviets had cancelled their project. This is known.
The Bible was written in english and then translated to Latin to keep it from the masses. The english verse is
(insert bible verse here), but translation hardly matters since that is how it was originally written.
I have a lot of fun with glitches and my group seems to enjoy their complications. A few rules of thumb that I use is that
damaged equipment is never damaged beyond repair, they always succeed if they role the successes (It is possible to
glitch a Critical Success even), and I never give them more than a -3 penalty for a glitch. On Knowledge and Perception
tests, I always give them the key info, but distort the surrounding information or add a complication that wasn't there.
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Glitches are one of those things that don't thrill me about SR 4. It strike me as kind of the designer saying...by the way...please feel free to fuck with the players for your own amusement. Highlighted, I might add, with the "we feel your pain" snarky comment included in the book.
My aversion to that mentality was derived from overhearing a prick of a DM (at a convention) talking (with absolute glee) about how he was able to kill off all of his players. I hadn't played in his D&D game but I had seen some of the looks on the players face as I wandered through earlier, it seemed that only the DM was having fun. This resulted in two things for me. First, I don't like roleplaying at conventions. Second, I don't like screwing with the players and I derive no pleasure from doing so.
If you feel the need to include glitches in your game, I would suggest down playing their impact. For myself, glitches are filed in the same circular bin along with Technomancers.
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If you feel the need to include glitches in your game, I would suggest down playing their impact.
I'll support this statement. I believe glitches can be used appropriately, but they require precision. I tend to plan ahead for glitches that are directly related to the shadowruns themselves and ask myself "Does this particular glitch make the roleplaying experience better or worse?"
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Glitches are one of those things that don't thrill me about SR 4. It strike me as kind of the designer saying...by the way...please feel free to fuck with the players for your own amusement.
well, at our table, glitches are the punishment for bad rolling. They usually bring huge fun and laughter to the table.
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This is an excellent topic, actually, and I'd like if we can to focus on the 'succeeded but glitched' area because that's the hardest to define. What does this mean? Technically, the test has to have been fully successful, but with unforeseen consequences. Well, that's easily defined for some tests (on a Pistols test, you hit your target but the gun jams or the clip falls out, bullet overpenetrates and wounds an innocent bystander, etc.) but very very difficult to define for others, like Perception!
Some of the non-critical glitch examples listed for Perception really don't work for me.
Normal glitch on Perception:"You don't notice anything important if it's not glaringly obvious
This doesn't work for me because that's not a glitch, it's just a failure.
Normal glitch on Perception:"You don't notice anything important if it's not glaringly obvious
That's not a glitch, it's a regular failure.
on a Perception test: You can hear someone sneaking up on you from the left. (He is actually coming from the right.)
This doesn't work for me, even though it's closer, because in a situation where it doesn't matter what side he's coming from, this is just a success, and in a situation where it does matter, this could be as almost as bad as a critical glitch. It's a valiant effort, though.
Crash_00's list of example is a good start.
Anyway, for me, non-critical glitches tend to lead to hilarious results that are amusing and entertaining for everyone at the table, but tend to break the tone of a serious game. One memorable example is when the team was meeting each other and the Johnson for the first time, the Elf hacker non-critically glitched a Perception or Etiquette test being made in the context of the meeting (can't remember which). I ruled that he didn't do anything to fuck up the meet, but he did become inextricably and unwaveringly convinced that the Dwarf samurai (PC) was actually Mr. Johnson and in charge of the run, regardless of what anyone else said. It became a running gag for the test of the game, with Quip repeatedly calling Smithy "boss". Because really, if a glitch is not stupendously fucking the players over or inconveniencing them, then it's embarassing or...hilarious. I often rely on equipment malfunctions, things like that. "You see the guy sneaking up on you, but then the firmware on your night vision goggles crashes."
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My group actually has a term for perception glitches in every game: "Sorry, too busy contemplating my own navel. ... Why do we have these things anyhow?"
It's very zen.
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I like that, but still...how does that mechanically differ from a failure? (Which a Glitch is supposed to.)
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I like glitches, they really play into the cinematic feel of the shadowrun rules. That said, I don't really care for
critical glitches, but that's a topic for another time.
For coming up with good glitch results, I use a method similar to that used in the Food Fight scenario for determining
what gets hit on a shelf. I think about whats in the area that could affect the roll in question, what the effects are, and I
roll with it.
Glitches are different from failure in that they should add a complication other than failure to the scenario (my opinion of
course).
For good glitch ideas I recommend watching bad action movies. How often do they manage to when the gunfight only to
be left with the smoking remains of the terminal they need. Or release a virus/plague/unique killer creature with a
random shot.
Then again, I let my players use a similar method with their critical successes and describing their actions. If I would
toss an item into the environment for a glitch effect, I'll let them use it for a critical success effect.
With all that said, remember that the Shadowrun system is a set of rules used to represent a fluid environment. Just
because a burst was fired earlier in the combat turn doesn't mean the spray from the can of soda it hit can't be just now
spraying into the players face. Possibilities are limited only by your, and your players', imagination.
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Because really, if a glitch is not stupendously fucking the players over or inconveniencing them, then it's embarassing or...hilarious.
I guess if your players enjoy that...give them what they want.
Running a game session is improvisational social art. Sitting there at the table you have to set the tone and pacing for the story but you also have to gauge how your players are reacting to it. Maybe lady luck has turned on a player (a fugitive from the law of averages), their boss crapped on them that day, and now they roll a glitch...what do you do?
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That's an excellent point an excellent question.
It's why I prefer a silly glitch that everyone can laugh about (aforementioned 'boss' misunderstanding) or one that is dramatically poignant and tragic (bullet overpenetrates into next room, hits nine year old girl in head, killing her instantly) to one that is spectacularly fatal.
That goes for critical glitches to.
That said, if a player rolls one or more critical glitches after voluntarily entering into an extremely dangerous situation (sidling along the ledge of a building 100 stories up, trying to defuse an I.E.D. etcetera) well, I won't hesitate to pull any punches. (Unless they've told me that their dog died and they got fired and their girlfriend cheated on them etcetera etcetera, then maybe I might have some mercy. Although of course there is always the option of spending/burning edge to negate a glitch/score an autocrit success.)
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Well I don't really like critical glitches as I already stated, but I've had many horrible days followed by nights of lousy rolls and I don't let it get to me. I guess I expect my players to realize that its a game and act mature, my players are all adults and if they can't be as mature as I was when I started playing at 13 then they're really isn't a spot at my table for them.
That said, I see many GMs look at a botched roll (my instinctive phrase for a crit glitch) for an attack and instinctively say alright you shot yourself/Buddy Bob/the extraction target without giving it much thought. They're are many other options that could happen on a crit glitch:
- Bullets spray through the wall and nail an undercover cop/corporate agent.
- Weapon physically breaks down.
- Underbarrel weapon launches instead of primary weapon.
Even crit glitches don't have to be deadly if the GM doesn't want them to be, just really bad.
As for normal glitches. If a player gets pissy about a minor inconvenience then they'll get really pissy when my door inconveniences their ass on the way out. Its a game, if they don't enjoy it there are many other flavors out there.
I've literally played a session of Deadlands where over the course of three combat turns my character managed to have three separate heart attacks and gain four phobias by botching four times in a row. I loved every minute of it. Roleplaying is about having fun with your character when he succeeds and when he doesn't. There are no winners (at least as far as the players know ::) ).
Surgeon General's Warning: Some RPG products have been known to cause cancer of the mind.
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I've personally had some fun with Glitches in my games and like some other posters I treat them as "you succeed BUT", they add flavor and allow me to screw up a flawless plan without having to pull something out of my backside. My players have learned how to think on their feet and adapt to situations quickly so that when the disguise glitch accidentally has them wearing gang colors in the wrong part of town they can adapt to it.
On a side note, when a player rolls a glitch/critical glitch, try just jotting down some notes on when the glitch happened, what the player was trying to do etc. Then you can make your players sweat about it while you think something up and play off their paranoia.
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A great example of that would be The Big Hit. Wait, we just kidnapped boss/fixers god daughter...drek.
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I really am not a fan of the mechanics of the glitch, critical glitch in SR4. Odd pools are better than even, small but supposedly somewhat competent pools have a really high glitch rate etc. So I generally tone down the effects as much as I can, I trend more towards the amusing set back than to the you are screwed.
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I really hate the mechanics of the critical glitch and think that it pops up way to often for professional skill level dice pools RAW. I've gone back to the old SR3 way of thinking with them, and only have critical glitches occur if all the dice come up 1s. This makes it incredibly rare for anyone competent to actually completely botch. I think their is little to be gained from a botch feature in an RPG as it hurts players far worse than NPCs (which characters make the most roles in a game).
That said, as long as the GM doesn't treat every glitch as a "your dead now" effect, I'm all for them. I don't think normal glitches are meant to be deadly so much as inconvenience. I do vary the glitch according to the degree of success and the nature of the roll.
Runner is running down the sidewalk in pouring rain chasing a ganger and glitches his athletics test.
On a Crit glitch he may have sprained his ankle (-2 pain modifier to all rolls where he's moving for 2 days), or maybe he slipped and sprawled into the latino gangers next to the alley. Now he's being chased by gangers while hes chasing a different ganger.
On a normal glitch he could bump into an old lady (who then remembers that damn orc that made me spill my cat food) or smack his elbow on a mailbox (-1 pain modifier for two minutes).
The mechanics are not fairly distributed on every dice pool, but I don't really see them ever being in a system that uses dice (especially restricted to only D6s).
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Ya know, I've been using "glitiches" for years in other games and havent found any real adverse effects to my players. Now granted, the glitch/whatever usually is the result of a players bad choices. For example, I had an old Star Wars D6 game with a house rule concerning the "wild die". Long story short, player rolls a 1 on the WD, they tell me. I roll a d6. On a 2-5, its usually something that will complicate things like a blaster powerpack going bad, etc. On a 1, its considered a catastrophic failure. On a 6, the player succeedes despite themselves.
One example, a Jawa player is running from CorSec through an alley, decides to dive through a conveniently open window. He failed his roll and roled a 1-1 on his wild die: the result: his aim was off and smacked the side of the building. And he only had a 1d+2 for strength to resist damage...and rolled a two. Night night.
Second example, something more SR-ish. PC is in a club, chatting up a hottie he homes to schmooze for some info (and maybe something more). He's too busy trying his spheel and the club is to noisy that he misses that the hottie in question has been trying to tell him she has a boyfriend....a very BIG boyfriend who is now standing behind him about to put his fist into his face.
Third example: Sammie Ben Strong is trying to jump on a moving remote-controlled tractor trailor as part of an infiltration. Now, he misses, and misses BAD. He falls to the ground, absorbes the damage, but glitches. OK, how to handle this. Hmmmm how about the SMGs he was carrying suddenly go off because the impact had that one in a million thing happen where the smartlink egaged the remote firing command and now an entire mag had been emptied. Think of that scene from Im Gonna Git You Suka.
Fourth example: group of runners makes some INSANE stealth checks to remain undetected in a warehouse, but realize their ride is now compromised and have to secure alternate transportation. They hotwire a van, but glitch. The result: the vehicle reverse alarm, you know that BEEP BEEP BEEP, goes off and every sec-guard knows where they are. Oops.
Thing is, I use glitches not to punish the players, but most often as comic relief unless the glitch in question is something that would REEEEEEALY F-up the senerio. Its like in every TV show or movie where the hero has a "oops" moment. I can see how it could be abused, but if you have a good GM, then they can be quite entertaining for everyone.
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My first game I ran for the group I'm GM'ing now.
A Troll Bouncer at a club doesn't let the party in, until he notices a female Troll wearing a slinky Zoe dress in the party. She decided she's going to seduce him.
She defaults on her charisma for not having any con skill, and I give her an extra die for the dress. She gets a success, but glitches.
The troll lets her in, nobody else. I decide that the troll was really enamored with her. After her gets off his shift, and she's long gone, he actively seeks out her commcode. The glitch just means he found it.
Now, she doesn't know this yet, but I'm gonna let her roleplay it out. Hey, her glitch might actually get her a contact. Or a stalker, if she's not willing to pay him any mind whatsoever.
So, I personally think that character glitches should be something that modifies the story.. maybe sometime offering a bit more challenge.