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My issues with 6th edition: "suspension of disbelief" vs. "the uncanny valley"

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Rift_0f_Bladz

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« Reply #300 on: <07-28-19/1517:55> »
Apparently some are not convinced so maybe this is going somewhere.

Look Weapons function as a component of a system. A castle was a weapon system just as much as Missile is today. It's not a coincidence that every basic military training begins with strength and conditioning train.  Strength matters, speed matters, endurance matters, skills with arms matters. But 5 barely trained guys will beat 1 well trained guy, thus we have armies.

How hard you hit someone with something does matter, and strength directly effects that. I have fenced and practice various martial arts just like plenty others on here. In fencing speed is great but strength is important to, sure every fencer can give you the it take less the 1lb pressure on a point line. However when it comes to a beat, if you want it to work better be strong enough to move their arm.  You want that parry to work, mechanical advantage is very helpful a weaker person can block a stronger one, but if they are enough stronger they will still hit. I've seen it plenty of times. Saying strength has no application is wrong, just as wrong as saying strength is everything to melee.

It's fairly obvious these changes were made b/c cause they painted themselves into a corner on damage codes. You can't argue they don't think str matters b/c unarmed is str based. Thus we are left with ridiculous system reality of a str 9 troll picking up a great axe and suddenly doing less damage then when he punches someone.  If that doesn't bug you then there is just no helping you, cause you ether just won't admit it and/or you're going to blindly follow the system regardless of what is said.

Hey there fellow fencer. For almost 3 years now have been doing HEMA and learning German Longsword. And, ironically it takes less Str than most would imagine, because it is a two-handed weapon that ways ~3lbs. Rapiers, hell even lighter sabers, are actually harder to use, because all their weight is in one hand, 1-3 lbs depending on the weapon. Anyways, yeah no system deals with actual melee fights well, but having any unarmed build do more damage with their fist than a knife is weird must less when they use something that does require even more Str to use effectively, like a combat axe. Sorry, that is crap. Hell, SSDR also agreed this is a borked rule. That is all everyone else has been saying. It is a bad rule.

Either have fixed DV for unarmed based on Metatype augmented by adept powers and ware or just run melee of off Str for dice pools with the monowhip being a exception, because exotic weapon. This is what ShadowRun Returns does and it works great actually.
Quote- Mirikon on 7/30/2019 at 08:26:51
Agreed. This looks like a 'training wheels' edition, that you can use to introduce someone to the setting, and then shift over to something like 5E or 4E. Like how D&D 5E is best used as training wheels for D&D 3.X.

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adzling

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« Reply #301 on: <07-28-19/1528:22> »
“ It's good enough for RPG purposes”

This is the actual discussion we should be having as it’s clear you can’t argue against physics.

My repose to “its good enough” is “no freaking way, not even close”

Why?

It’s inconsistent internally within 6e itself due to unarmed.
What’s worse is it did not have to be this way.
We can all envisage fixes for this.
So why did they stick with this clearly borked rule that doesn’t even match the rest of combat in 6e?

Stainless Steel Devil Rat

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« Reply #302 on: <07-28-19/1540:35> »
Well, honest to god realism isn't what we should want, either.

Something I read once about game design that stuck with me is an old quote from L5R RPG game writers... iirc it was a discussion about how the 1st edition was designed.  The game designers, being game geeks with more rule of cool knowledge than actual practical martial arts knowledge, commissioned a real life kendo instructor try to give them a baseline idea of how much damage a skilled samurai could dish out in a 3 second turn (which is a notable coincidence with SR combat, btw).  They learned it wasn't a question of how lethal the damage someone might suffer in 3 seconds, but how many times over a skilled swordsman could kill a foe.  They had to figure what was a playable rules mechanic and let realism take a back seat to playability. I'll look for this source and link it if I can find it... it was a remarkable read. In my case it was one of those things you read 20+ years ago and still remember.

Regardless... the direction 6WE is going is clearly away from one-turn eliminations that were (generally, barring insane soak pools) easier to accomplish in 5e.  Realism is fundamentally going to be fighting uphill here.  The proper location of a "happy middle ground" is inherently opinion based, and you can't convince someone of an opinion.  Not on the internet, anyway :D
« Last Edit: <07-28-19/1546:39> by Stainless Steel Devil Rat »
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Michael Chandra

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« Reply #303 on: <07-28-19/1546:39> »
I've one-shotted multiple foes in 1 turn in L5R before. But my best kill-count was throwing a bench that threw a whole bunch back into a very painful barrier.
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Moonshine Fox

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« Reply #304 on: <07-28-19/1601:16> »
Well, honest to god realism isn't what we should want, either.

Something I read once about game design that stuck with me is an old quote from L5R RPG game writers... iirc it was a discussion about how the 1st edition was designed.  The game designers, being game geeks with more rule of cool knowledge than actual practical martial arts knowledge, commissioned a real life kendo instructor try to give them a baseline idea of how much damage a skilled samurai could dish out in a 3 second turn (which is a notable coincidence with SR combat, btw).  They learned it wasn't a question of how lethal the damage someone might suffer in 3 seconds, but how many times over a skilled swordsman could kill a foe.  They had to figure what was a playable rules mechanic and let realism take a back seat to playability. I'll look for this source and link it if I can find it... it was a remarkable read. In my case it was one of those things you read 20+ years ago and still remember.

If you could that would be awesome as I'd also like to read it.

Since the topic of baseball was brought up earlier and realistic physics is being bandied about, here's something on the physics of hitting a baseball. This level of equation and figuring shouldn't come anywhere near a game that you want played by anyone outside of the math and physics departments of a college. https://www.real-world-physics-problems.com/physics-of-hitting-a-baseball.html

Iron Serpent Prince

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« Reply #305 on: <07-28-19/1605:56> »
This level of equation and figuring shouldn't come anywhere near a game that you want played by anyone outside of the math and physics departments of a college.

Good thing no one brought up that straw man besides you.

Marcus

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« Reply #306 on: <07-28-19/1648:16> »
Adzling isn't advocating realism, he's asking where is the acceptable medium between simplification for game purposes and what breaks our collective suspension of disbelief. I think we all are prepared to agree we are not going to have anything super simulationist. But we also aren't ok with a 9 str troll doing less damage with a great axe then their fists. Some where between those points there is a line that is "It's Good Enough for RPG purposes." Consistence is a real issue when the system isn't consistent it makes you stop and be like what?

Fixed damage is a thing we have seen for a long time, shock sticks, mono-whips, Guns are all fixed damage.  But something really strong with a melee weapon should do more damage something really weak with the same melee weapon. So find a way to make that true without breaking the system. Str divided by something, weapon damage + a modifier based upon a range strengths. Or make a weapons not strength related. Mono-whip, shocks sticks, plasma cutters, maybe a chain sword? Certainly no one would blink about not adding strength to the first 3, maybe not so much the 4th. I'm just saying the issue we are having is going to get amplified when thousands of copies of the CRB get opened after gen con. Having an answer would be good.

   
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adzling

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« Reply #307 on: <07-28-19/1652:15> »
Thank you Marcus.

If I was advocating for full realism I’d be asking you guys to play Phoenix Command.

I did not, and I am not.

Marcus

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« Reply #308 on: <07-28-19/1702:26> »
It could literally be as simple as due to a wave of something in popular culture or some humanitarian backlash against combat axes and katanas in the new 80, everyone has switched to designer shock sticks. Make 3 slightly different shock stick to give players some choice and your problem is solved. 

It doesn't have to be this complex thing it just has to be "Good Enough for RPG Purposes."

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Lormyr

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« Reply #309 on: <07-28-19/1840:21> »
I find melee damage unreasonable not only due to the divorce from strength, but also because unarmed aside guns do significantly more damage. Combat axe is DV5, and monofilament whip is DV6 on the melee side. RPK HMG is DV6 and panther assault canon DV7 on the ranged side, but that is also before ammo and firing mode are taken into consideration. Best non-unarmed melee vs. best ranged is a DV difference of 3 in favor of ranged.

For me, that knowledge by itself invalidates any reasoning of needing to tone it all back for the new system's mechanics and to remove armor soak, ect. First of all, melee is always harder in games. It leaves you more exposed, takes more resources to do (move and attack), ect. From a game balance perspective it should have something to make it at least as attractive as ranged, and in my opinion more so.

So in our present situation it takes more resources to use, does less damage, and is divorced from our expectations and logic in regards to the strength portion specifically. If it were me, my change would be simple. Melee damage is half strength plus weapon bonus. Weapon bonuses would come in three categories. First is small weapons that just change the damage to lethal from stun (knives, clubs, ect.). Second is one handed weapons that add +1 and lethal to value. Third two-handed that add +2 and lethal. At best that would make DV9 on a troll with 14 strength, on par with top tier ranged.
"TL:DR 6e's reduction of meaningful choices is akin to forcing everyone to wear training wheels. Now it's just becomes a bunch of toddlers riding around on tricycles they can't fall off of." - Adzling

Marcus

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« Reply #310 on: <07-28-19/1957:03> »
From risk reward stand point, making melee damage lower then ranged is not a good idea. But without more knowledge of how both can or cannot be boosted I don't think i can make a compelling case on the issue. But I agree ranged should not out damage melee, as melee is rendered pointless if that choices is made.
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Stainless Steel Devil Rat

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« Reply #311 on: <07-28-19/2127:16> »
Total anecdote and all, but I just did an informal "trying the rules out" mini-game for the first time tonight.  I played a 3 strength covert ops elfy ninja thing wielding a humble combat knife.  I wanted to play a decidedly non-big melee type to get a feel for what you can do if you're NOT a big bad troll.

Without some prior personal hands on play experience, I hadn't grokked how important judicious edge use really is.  The DVs were almost besides the point in our combats.  Yes, we played full-blown shadowrunners taking on low-threat halloweener scrubs, but my pixie had little difficulty eliminating NPCs with one DV 3P attack each.  Went three for three on one-shot-one-kills.  It absolutely can be less about the raw DV value than how your spend your Edge (and how often you can generate it to fuel more of those expenditures).
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.

Marcus

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« Reply #312 on: <07-29-19/0121:03> »
Total anecdote and all, but I just did an informal "trying the rules out" mini-game for the first time tonight.  I played a 3 strength covert ops elfy ninja thing wielding a humble combat knife.  I wanted to play a decidedly non-big melee type to get a feel for what you can do if you're NOT a big bad troll.

Without some prior personal hands on play experience, I hadn't grokked how important judicious edge use really is.  The DVs were almost besides the point in our combats.  Yes, we played full-blown shadowrunners taking on low-threat halloweener scrubs, but my pixie had little difficulty eliminating NPCs with one DV 3P attack each.  Went three for three on one-shot-one-kills.  It absolutely can be less about the raw DV value than how your spend your Edge (and how often you can generate it to fuel more of those expenditures).

I'm glad you enjoyed it. If you go again and fight something higher threat then some Halloweeners I'd be interested to hear more about that. Just to be clear you said Pixie. Were you referring to your elf as a Pixie or did you play a pixie? Beyond that I'm more interested to hear what you thinking on Adzling argument. What are your thoughts on It's Good Enough for RPG Purposes? I'd also be interested Fox's and Bladz thoughts on it.
« Last Edit: <07-29-19/0123:00> by Marcus »
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Michael Chandra

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« Reply #313 on: <07-29-19/0147:04> »
Total anecdote and all, but I just did an informal "trying the rules out" mini-game for the first time tonight.  I played a 3 strength covert ops elfy ninja thing wielding a humble combat knife.  I wanted to play a decidedly non-big melee type to get a feel for what you can do if you're NOT a big bad troll.
So jealous that it was outside my timezone... :<
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Stainless Steel Devil Rat

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« Reply #314 on: <07-29-19/0158:33> »
Sorry, yeah I meant pixie as a slang term for elf.

As for my thoughts on Adzling's point... I think we both recognize we've just got different perspectives and likes/dislikes.  But, specifically, I presume you mean you're curious about my thoughts on this:

“ It's good enough for RPG purposes”

This is the actual discussion we should be having as it’s clear you can’t argue against physics.

My repose to “its good enough” is “no freaking way, not even close”

Why?

It’s inconsistent internally within 6e itself due to unarmed.
What’s worse is it did not have to be this way.
We can all envisage fixes for this.
So why did they stick with this clearly borked rule that doesn’t even match the rest of combat in 6e?

Taking as read that I DO indeed think static weapon DVs are "good enough for RPG purposes"... I simply don't know the answers as to why the rules got written the way they did.  I'm not a fan of having reasonably-attainable Unarmed DVs that are higher than melee weapon DVs, but like I said in light of my very brief "playtest" I had earlier tonight my concerns are diminished somewhat. I mean, you can build a scarily ridiculous unarmed DV but does it truly matter if a scrawny elf is taking people out with 3DVs as well?

Net hits (i.e. skill) and edge effects simply count for so much more than DV does, that altering DVs by a number or two up or down pales in relative importance.  Possibly, that's what was also felt by the thorough playtesters/designers as well.  In theory, lots of things could be done to make weapon and unarmed damage less abstract.  No dispute.  But the theory could easily get in the way of the practice... and I don't think making damage "more realistic" is necessarily worth the trouble.  A) 3P or 4P DVs, for example, are really in the end not so different anyway, so who cares if for all the effort put in a 3P becomes a 4P.  B) Adding complexity for realism's sake isn't something I agree is necessarily a good thing.  I still think that high strength unarmed DVs are "off" in comparison to weapon DVs.. but what I think should be done about it (if anything) is something I'm not comfortable discussing publicly.  I will say that I'm slightly less concerned though than I was before the playtest.  I don't *like* a big troll being less dangerous with a combat axe than without, but what should be done about it is elusive.
« Last Edit: <07-29-19/0209:21> by Stainless Steel Devil Rat »
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.