Shadowrun on RPGX

[auntmousie]

A player in my discord game said a couple sessions ago, "if you're not rolling 15d6 on your signature ability, what's the point?"

[Imveros]

That's pretty tame, and rather easy to hit without too much opportunity cost. I had a group at my LGS PUGS that we're firmly in the 20+ or GTFO crowd.

Had to give one of them the boot after they drove off a newbie with a JOAT rolling high single digits for almost every skill

[Yamaneko]

I'm not a big fan of the whole push to ultra-specialize crowd as they end up one-trick ponies that actually fail as a team.

For starting runners (Experienced mode) having a pool between 11 to 14 dice is all you really need for what your focus is as you need a number of secondary skills that you are competent in as well or you are going to blow it but those who are in the 20+ crowd never seem to get that. Or the fact that in order to balance out against them, you're now making it hard on the rest of the team.

The number of ultra-specialist teams who have failed because the majority of the group didn't have basic skills or one of them went down and no one else even had the skill to make an attempt to cover for them.

But part of the problem with that crowd comes from a) not wanting to grow into the character and b) the current trend that a long campaign is six months or a dozen episodes which unfortunately does tend to get promoted in certain mediums. PbP has its own issues but even there, it can be done.

I know a number of GMs who cannot handle tanks or damage-soakers, one of the main reasons 6e changed was because of that but I have had tanks that could soak 50+ in their dice pool - one was at 50, the other at 55. They didn't start there but grew into it and I let them enjoy that role but there were times they still ended up going down and going down hard in regular firefights. In point of fact the 55 soak troll was taken out by gangers using SMGs and not magic though that happened one time as well.

At the end of the day, the table needs to be balanced which can be hard to do at a drop-up in demo-game/missions public event though it can be done with a touch of improv. In any other medium where the players are set, it is easy to do. And if you GM for the ultra-large dice crowd specialists hit them with basic things like Climbing, Running, Stealth, Perception, Lockpicking or Hardware, and even Computers.

After all, in the age of Shadowrun, most everyone should have at least some ranks in the computer skill. But few do unless a matrix specialist.

It's amazing how quickly those specialists start changing their design philosophy when in a living world that requires more than their 26 dice when firing their H&K's.

[GleefulNihilism]

My favorite Shadowrun character only throws more than 15 dice at damage soak. He is pretty good at weapon maintenance and body armor repair customization but otherwise mostly gets by on jobs on insanity. He once saved the world from mirror spirits with a tactical pants drop.

Skraacha, Smiling Jack.

[Yamaneko]

Originally Posted by GleefulNihilism

My favorite Shadowrun character only throws more than 15 dice at damage soak. He is pretty good at weapon maintenance and body armor repair customization but otherwise mostly gets by on jobs on insanity. He once saved the world from mirror spirits with a tactical pants drop.

Skraacha, Smiling Jack.

Nice. That had to be a wild time filled with a ton of laughs at the table.

[Imveros]

Just a heads up,

Shadowrun PDFs are on sale at Bundle of Holding until the end of the month!

6e is gaining a lot of traction here, so why not pick up all the books for a great price?

[Yamaneko]

Shadowrun 6e Sixth World Companion is up for sale as a PDF at various sites.

The Shadowrun Mission 09-04: Neo-Tokyo Drift which is dual-statted for both 5e and 6e play also went out today.

[Marshmallow]

New 5E game is up