Shadowrun 3E

kzt · Post by **kzt** » Sun Jun 05, 2011 6:40 am

SR pregens have always been awful, I don't know why.

SR3 has issues, but I've played games that were fun using it. I missed SR2, but SR1 had much bigger issues with the mechanics.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Sun Jun 05, 2011 1:38 pm

Why are exploding D6 stupid?
Why is variable TN on a D6 stupid?

SR can be a pretty deadly system, if you do not know the rules for certain things and if you are using the pre made characters and NPC's.
I recommend the NSRCG for building characters. You don't need to know too much about the rules of character creation to get some numerical advantages out of one single character with that tool.

It works both ways, if it's played by the same rules for both NPC and PC . .
If you have a +6 on your to hit TN, then usually, the other side is not better of by much . .
If they don't have something that really helps with the situation you are in.
Partial lighting, Cover, Range, Wound modifiers . .
Of course, if the other side is built to negate one or more of those variables, it is a pretty one sided battle, just as one would expect . .
Also, what about Armor?
Did you use that correctly? O.o
Armor lowers the number you have to roll with your body to soak damage.
Combat Pool, you roll this to dodge, any hit counts just like a hit on your body roll to soak damage . . and if you had more hits than the other guy, you don't even need to roll body because the other guy flat out missed . .

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sun Jun 05, 2011 6:52 pm

Stahleele wrote:Why are exploding D6 stupid?

Because changes in TN don't mean even remotely the same thing at different TNs and anything that requires a 6 and then another number is six times less likely to show up. This makes the game scale extremely badly, since you have to multiply your dice pool every time you increase the dicepool to run a Red Queen scenario with advancement.

Why is variable TN on a D6 stupid?

Variable TN on a dicepool system is stupid. Period. Die and TN modifiers simply can't be written in a way that makes sense because the number of dice that represents success is going to scale (and scale weirdly) when the TNs are varied.

It's simply not possible to write rules that generate results that make sense when the dicepools and TNs both scale. Conversely, making rules that generate expectable and acceptable results with a fixed TN and varying the dice pool and the number of required hits (SR4) or having a fixed dicepool and varying the TN (d20) is easy and fun.

SR3 is a clunky and shitty system because it's not even possible to write rules that don't generate stupid effects using the basic system chassis.

-Username17

CCarter · Post by **CCarter** » Sun Jun 05, 2011 11:58 pm

A target number on a die pool will give you a random result that's a proportion of the dice pool, while shifting the TN changes the proportion. There could be applications for this in a system, but yeah not good as a core resolution mechanic.

I have seen workarounds for exploding d6 that were less bad; there's an obscure RPG called 'Junk' (about hillbilly mecha fighting) which gives 6s a second 'confirmation roll' against a higher target number rather than directly just adding another d6. If you roll a '6' on your d6 and the TN is higher, roll a d6 again and it needs something like 3+ roll on the bonus die to get a hit against 'TN 7', a 4+ roll to hit 'TN 8' and 5+ roll for 'TN 9'. (Or something like that).

TheFlatline · Post by **TheFlatline** » Mon Jun 06, 2011 4:36 am

Err you're describing SR3's system. Except that they make the TN higher than the actual TN.

Why say the target number is 7 when you need to roll a 6, and then a 3 or higher? That's basically SR3's TN9.

The problem with SR3's system is that there is no difference between TN6 & 7, 12 & 13, 18 & 19, etc etc... If you roll a six and it explodes, you *will* roll a 7 minimum. Which fucks the numbers curve all up.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon Jun 06, 2011 7:00 am

What Junk does is roll a d6-1 as its explody dice. This solves the TN 6 == TN 7 problem, but it doesn't change the fact that variable TNs and variable dice pools do not play nicely together as a resolution mechanic that has discreet modifiers for specific circumstances.

-Username17

Murtak · Post by **Murtak** » Mon Jun 06, 2011 7:21 am

I guess the idea was to have a fixed (per character) dicepool, representing how good your character is at the task and then to have a variable TN to represent the difficulty of the task. At face value that seems reasonable. But there is really no way to work out a sensible TN progression with dice. On a computer you'd just use a logarithmical curve and have each step be 10% or 20% or whatever harder than the previous step. But you can't model that using dice, or if you can, no one will be able to use it.