Mark Cleveland Massengale (SaveMeJebu5) – Page 5

If a player flashes back to a downtime action, but they used all their “free” downtime actions, should the…

If a player flashes back to a downtime action, but they used all their “free” downtime actions, should the flashback’s stress cost cover the flashback itself and the extra downtime action cost ..or.. do I charge stress simply for the flashback, then also charge coin/rep to squeeze in the extra downtime?

John Harper RE: Recent change to Reducing Heat with an Action roll (replaces Tier roll): Reducing heat is one of…

John Harper RE: Recent change to Reducing Heat with an Action roll (replaces Tier roll): Reducing heat is one of those downtime actions that can carry risks to even get in position to do it as soon as the players want to try something creative. I have always wondered the degree to which we GMs are supposed to enable them to do it: should any criminal easily be able to bribe some bluecoats they’ve met because COIN? Shouldn’t we be having a conversation about the possible effect of the approach they take?

On that note: is the Action Roll for heat reduction only rolled after getting in fictional position to make this Heat reduction without much risk; or when the controlled/risky/desperate action is taken, do we roll that action to simultaneously determine whether those risks come to bear and to find the amount of heat reduced?

Related: a thought I had was “this is downtime,” but I remember early in the Bloodletters, Sean Nittner/Arcy, and some Bluecoats over a canal.. and several risks which I took to mean you adjusted to fit what was going on. Wonder if what you did with the multiple action rolls would go any differently as of 7.1

Crew rules seem to indicate that when a cohort has quality higher than 1 (say..4), and that adding a type (which I…

Crew rules seem to indicate that when a cohort has quality higher than 1 (say..4), and that adding a type (which I can do twice in a single crew advance) means that cohort now has 4d in doing the Things covered by the new type(s) when it was previously 0d.

[Q1] Is that right?

That would make a highly invested cohort a way to get dice in lots of actions. Which, I guess it’s all in the level of detail you want for cohorts too, and I see reasons why this might be intentional design to keep bookkeeping down, but it would stretch the narrative a bit for me for that hypothetical to happen, so I am wondering if all is right here, and if so –

[Q2] how to sidestep or overcome fictional dissonance that if it comes up?

If you tell the players something is illegal in the setting, they will probably want to do it.

If you tell the players something is illegal in the setting, they will probably want to do it. And probably will have more fun doing it than if it hadn’t been outlawed.

John Harper I have a “chicken or the egg?” sort of question. Watching players get exposed to the setting, it always amazed me how they seem most excited about the criminality of Blades fiction. While I could assume that it was cleverly contrived to provoke this feeling, or assume that it was more because the setting demanded it, I’d rather ask and know: From which direction did that come?

That is: when you wrote things like.. that spirit practices are illegal, or that death-seeker crows are dispatched to ensure murders are reported, or that there is sort of standing inquisition in place concerning religions that deal with spirits.. were these elements designed to make use of this reverse psychology (and hopefully make it more fun to engage), or were they more like.. unintentional features of the setting that just also happen to have this built-in?

A small houserule at my tables is concerning the uses for XP arose since my players often end up with a lot of…

A small houserule at my tables is concerning the uses for XP arose since my players often end up with a lot of projects (and wanton XP), but not a lot of time. EDIT: So I’ve been letting players spend XP in exchange for LTP ticks on a 1-for-1 basis.

Observations: This has a side effect of slowing advancement in favor of a surplus in stuff – basically adding another angle of play (“I benefited from my time training by making headway on personal projects instead of personal training”).

Thoughts?

So let’s talk about Hulls.

The Hull PC can get a second frame, and so I feel like any damage taken is specific to the frame in use at the time (and the other is unscathed). I have been running it this way, and the player switches frames often so I am technically having the player keep two Harm tracks. Sounds OP but fiction seems right for it; right?

That seems kind of clear, but what about when the Hull gets another ability like Overcharge or Interface; is it frame-specific, or the character can use it no matter which frame is in use?

Also: who has stories or advice about Hull players selecting a master, or switching them? I have one player who was using another PC in the crew but now that player is gone, and I am wondering what to do with that (and Functions’ reliance on the master’s commands)

EDIT: clarity

So I have one group playing my Shadowrun hack that has lasted 15 sessions.

So I have one group playing my Shadowrun hack that has lasted 15 sessions. We have a finale this Sunday, so over the past few months I’ve been seeking new players for the next group, and want to try something a little different. Five different new groups have all failed in less than a session.

I often begin with describing the basic premise, the role of players, then my role, and move on to a brief on the core mechanic. This includes a transition into Stress and its uses/recovery. I also cover Resistance and it’s versatility. Then I return to the fiction, presenting the starting situation and likely directions for play. We talk about the characters and then—-

brick wall.

They suddenly don’t know what to do. They are suddenly afraid to act. They start asking about which equipment they have. They all seem to have not been listening at all! Like, one person will do something, and as soon as there is a consequence, they stop acting. They don’t ask to resist (they take the beating, and get upset), and others don’t spend their stress (until the end of the session), and still others fail to engage the fiction at all (they just call out an Action name and throw down their dice, then later complain they weren’t engaged). Worst case (and this happened!) a player waited in an imaginary line permanently, never taking meaningful action, thinking I must address them before they could act.

Do I take extra time to cover the concept (like read them the headings from Players Best Practices and briefly explain their meaning ahead of time) or chock it up to bad players. Maybe a list of required reading will alleviate some of this. Little help?

Do you think a score could be used to handle LTP actions?

Do you think a score could be used to handle LTP actions? ie-producing income from your lair, building a machine that flies using spirit energy

In the first example: a score to get the materials, inform the clientele, etc with the payoff being the income equal to (Tier roll – Heat) per downtime like a claim might offer

Recent thoughts on Runners in the Dark: My group wanted to know what they could to Tier up faster, and I responded…

Recent thoughts on Runners in the Dark: My group wanted to know what they could to Tier up faster, and I responded that I think they would get Claims (which are probably things like.. lookouts, fences, advanced notice of authorities, etc)

So what about the Claims which are just.. “Turf”?

In other words, complete this sentence: gang is to turf, as shadowrunner is to ______

EDIT: While fixers seemed to fit at first, shadowrunners don’t usually compete over these things. Rather, a good replacement would be whatever will represent abstracted support and assets for the group. Also it should make sense as a thing that makes it easier to increase their wealth, influence, and scale (Tier) and control over their current position (Hold).

p.

p. 10: When evaluating an action’s effect, GMs are directed to “evaluate the intersection of goal, obstacle, and action”. However, when determining effect, I am also directed to increase or reduce it for the quality, scale, and potency (the “factors”) of the opposition. This sounds a lot like the obstacle that was already considered. I would like more examples of the semantic difference between the obstacle, and the factors of the opposition.

Basically, where this doesn’t jive with me is.. I find myself consciously adjusting my thinking to consider position from the angle of “how well does the action match the goal?” and ignoring the obstacle for the most part (except in terms of how well it applied to it), since considering the obstacle itself when judging position makes it all too easy to accidentally account for the factors, leading to a double accounting when effect is boosted or reduced by the factors.

Thoughts?