[swliner]

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!

[Stahlseele]

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"

[Makki]

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.

[Dr. Meatgrinder]

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.

[Crash_00]

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.

[John Schmidt]

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.

[Operator]

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?"

[Makki]

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.

[Neurosis]

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."
 

[CanRay]

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.

[Neurosis]

I like that, but still...how does that mechanically differ from a failure? (Which a Glitch is supposed to.)

[Crash_00]

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.

[John Schmidt]

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?

[Neurosis]

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.)

[Crash_00]

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.