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Ammo and the games
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MrNexx
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 24, 2016 1:36 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

CRMcNeill wrote:
Dredwulf60 wrote:
Those who might not want to contaminate their D6 game with strange other shapes could likely work out something with D6s if they really wanted to do something like this.

Here's a D6 take on this concept:
    All Blaster Weapons have an Ammunition Rating, listed as 1D, 2D, 3D, etc...

    On a Wild Die result when firing the Blaster, roll the Blaster's Ammunition against Very Easy Difficulty.

    On a Success, the Blaster can continue firing; on a Failure, it runs out and must be reloaded.

    However, each Success increases the Difficulty for the next Ammunition roll (from Very Easy to Easy, and so on).

    As a result, even on a Success, the shooter will know his weapon is starting to run low...


My only issue with this is the shifted bookkeeping... you now have to track how many times it has gone out.
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 24, 2016 1:46 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yes, but that just amounts to making a hash mark next to ammo every time you get a Wild Dice failure, as opposed to 100 hash marks for every shot fired. Very few weapons would even make it as far as 5 Wild Dice Failures (which would bump the Ammo Difficulty up to Heroic), and 5 hash marks is far easier to track.
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Dredwulf60
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PostPosted: Sat Oct 29, 2016 4:24 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:

The problem for me is the SHEER BULK of "sh*t to keep track of". You'll eat a half page of paper crossing off a blaster rifle's rounds from 100 to 0. It just eats TABLE SPACE.

This DISCUSSION just affirms for me how different we all are in the way we run our games. Some folks like to mix real world science in with the SWU and in most cases those unions are pretty cool. Other folks like pure fantasy.


THIS.



To be clear, the method I suggested works for us because of a peculiar case of cause and effect.

One of the 'crunch' elements of my mandalorian game focuses on each mando building his custom kit, including ammo bandoliers and other 'stuff'

But as others have observed; whats the point of carrying extra ammo if you can never run out?

But i did NOT want to keep track of blaster bolts.

Solution 1: greatly reduced capacities.
playtest: still too much book-keeping.

Solution 2: the rules variant I described earlier (ammo die)
playtest: initially felt 'weird'. But since we use Roll 20, it was easy enough for the players to have a macro that rolls the ammo die automatically on a wild-1
So...no fuss...no muss.
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Naaman
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PostPosted: Sat Oct 29, 2016 5:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I, too, hate bookkeeping.
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Error
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PostPosted: Sat Oct 29, 2016 9:33 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

If the PC's want to keep track of ammo for their OWN GUNS (and I would expect them to with guns like rocket launchers) then right on! I would tend to let them. You can ALREADY ASSUME they're not going to cheat because they want to keep track. And if they do cheat, they've got problems.
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jmanski
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PostPosted: Sun Oct 30, 2016 6:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Oh Lord, don't let Ghark hear that.....

Laughing
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PostPosted: Sun Oct 30, 2016 7:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

jmanski wrote:
Oh Lord, don't let Ghark hear that.....

Laughing

Laughing
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Sun Oct 30, 2016 8:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Error wrote:
If the PC's want to keep track of ammo for their OWN GUNS (and I would expect them to with guns like rocket launchers) then right on! I would tend to let them. You can ALREADY ASSUME they're not going to cheat because they want to keep track. And if they do cheat, they've got problems.

Assume they don't cheat?

Ask me about the Mystery of the Incredible Self-Healing Mech some time...
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Error
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 31, 2016 9:23 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

CRMcNeill wrote:
Error wrote:
If the PC's want to keep track of ammo for their OWN GUNS (and I would expect them to with guns like rocket launchers) then right on! I would tend to let them. You can ALREADY ASSUME they're not going to cheat because they want to keep track. And if they do cheat, they've got problems.

Assume they don't cheat?

Ask me about the Mystery of the Incredible Self-Healing Mech some time...

I meant that if PC's are clambering to keep track of their own ammo, you can generally assume they're not cheating. Otherwise why would they want to keep track?

Also, you should direct me to the thing about the Mech some time.
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 31, 2016 12:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Error wrote:
I meant that if PC's are clamoring to keep track of their own ammo, you can generally assume they're not cheating. Otherwise why would they want to keep track?

And I meant that, if a PC is clamoring to keep track of their own ammo, I get suspicious, especially when it comes to something that can directly affect their character if they run out. Case in point:
Quote:
Also, you should direct me to the thing about the Mech some time.

The very first RPG I ever played was Palladium's Robotech. One of the players ran a Destroid Pilot character (for the uninitiated, Destroids are the non-transformable Mecha used alongside the Veritech transformable Mecha in Robotech). We all tracked damage to our Mecha; I went through several Veritechs over the course of a dozen games. This player's Raidar-X anti-aircraft Mecha proved remarkably resilient to damage over the course of several games. The GM got suspicious and started tracking damage independently. Turned out that, between sessions, the player had been erasing hits, so his Mecha would "magically" heal itself between games.

Next session, the GM singled out the cheater's Mecha for an overpowering attack, basing the damage on what he, the GM had recorded the previous sessions.
    GM: "Your Mecha takes a hit to the Main Body for 120 points of MDC Damage, and blows up.

    Player: "What!?!? I still have 87 MDC left!"

    GM: "Oh, really?"

There are few things uglier or more entertaining than watching a cheater get caught and called on it in public.

Bottom line, if a player wants to track something their character possesses that is in limited supply, I trust them about as much as I trust politicians when their lips are moving.
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Error
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 31, 2016 1:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Right on Smile

Much of it for me has to do with if I trust that person independently from the ROLE-PLAYING circle. If it's a newcomer and we are tracking ammo, I might remind them, "Remember to mark off an ammo". But like I said before, that stuff is rare because I don't much care if they take care of it or not unless it's a BIG GUN (like an RPG launcher or the pump-action blaster shotgun a poster above me wrote of which uses one power pack per shot and can hold 7).

Players who MYSTERIOUSLY HEAL between sessions are way easier to detect than someone who neglects to write a hash mark. I usually remember (or even better, write down) the dispositions of each character after each session. It doesn't take up much table space (6-8 lines total, for me).

I trust most of my guys to tell me when they need to stop to get power packs.
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garhkal
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 31, 2016 1:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

jmanski wrote:
Oh Lord, don't let Ghark hear that.....

Laughing


You summoned! Evil or Very Mad

CRMcNeill wrote:

Next session, the GM singled out the cheater's Mecha for an overpowering attack, basing the damage on what he, the GM had recorded the previous sessions.

GM: "Your Mecha takes a hit to the Main Body for 120 points of MDC Damage, and blows up.

Player: "What!?!? I still have 87 MDC left!"

GM: "Oh, really?"

There are few things uglier or more entertaining than watching a cheater get caught and called on it in public.


Right on!! Sounds like one of my earlier intro games to the newer 2e skills and powers system. Someone was playing a spell point like caster, and the gm caught him three times straight casting and NOT subtracting the spells.. So the very next encounter they happened on, the enemies were all protected by spell turning..
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PostPosted: Tue Nov 01, 2016 8:02 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm sorry to all of you that have had so many dishonest players that you've had to GM so defensively.

However, I try to minimize even the temptation to cheat and honest mistakes from occurring. Each player and I both have copies of each PC. At the end of a game session or in between sessions, we compare our copies to reconcile any differences.
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 02, 2016 5:47 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Whill wrote:
I'm sorry to all of you that have had so many dishonest players that you've had to GM so defensively.

However, I try to minimize even the temptation to cheat and honest mistakes from occurring. Each player and I both have copies of each PC. At the end of a game session or in between sessions, we compare our copies to reconcile any differences.

Dishonest players are rare. This is mostly because the other players will catch him or her doing something shady long before the GM does.

You just ask them to ammend their behavior, and if not, see ya!

I could trust my current playgroup with just about anything. It's a blessing.
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Dredwulf60
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 02, 2016 8:15 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Not to de-rail; perhaps a thread needs to be made for the stories of player cheating.

What follows is an e-mail I sent out to my players. This was about 10 years ago. I suspected one of the players of cheating...but we were all mature gamers and no one, not even I, wanted to believe someone was cheating.

And it's hard to prove unless you do the work to prove it. Politeness being what it is...you don't want to call someone out unless you *know*.

I had a copy of each players character as they were when the game began.

I also had a look at each of the characters as they were after 16 sessions. I then did the calculations of how many CPs would have been spent to get the skills raised to the current levels.

I then sent out my findings.

The e-mail: (Names changed to protect identities)

Quote:

Star Wars Audit.

You know how revenue Canada can do an audit; basically check things over to catch people who think they are getting away with something?

Ive conducted an audit of star wars characters and my findings make me somewhat upset.

How many character points does a character get per game, on average?

Well the numbers have been increasing somewhat steadily. (As characters increase in power they tend to earn more.

The first game, each player earned 3 basic, plus a couple more for personality traits.

The last game I awarded 8 basic points plus the personality traits. So I figured I was awarding an average of about 5.5 per game, with the ability to earn extras here and there for special training and learning with masters and such. Ive been pretty fair-all around with these bonuses I think.

Now the following calculations DO NOT take into account character points spend to aid rolls. Some people use a few more than others but the results should average out.

**** C****'s character KLeb played in 11 of the 16 episodes.

Based on his skills and powers increases since the character was made, he has spent 47 character points.

Therefore, he earned an average of 4.2 character points per game. (yeah C**** spends a lot on re-rolls, so we know he actually earned more than this, which would bring him into the projected average range.)


S****s character Krel played in 13 of the 16 episodes.

He has spent 68 character points improving his character.

Therefore he has earned an average of 5.2 per game. (Pretty near the suspected average. I know S**** does NOT spend a lot to assist in rolls because he tends to spend them as fast as he gets themwhich is why Krel is often getting hurt.)


T****s Character Jaksyn played 13 of the 16 episodes.

He has spent 97 points improving his character.

Therefore he has earned an average of 7.4 per game. Thats higher than the projected average, but not by that much.

D***s character ZAl played 16 of 16 episodes.

He has spent 215 points improving his character. More than double the next highest spending character.

Therefore he has earned an average of 13.4 per game.



Thats an average people.

So, not including points spend to aid rolls, for every game I awarded 5 points, somewhere I must have awarded 21 points, and for the one game I awarded 3, then I must have also awarded 23 to have an average of this magnitude.

This is not possible. I would have remembered giving everyone 5 points, and D*** 13 game after game.

And this would be if ZAl had never spent a single character point to aid a roll.



So...everyone got this e-mail. And the players basically had the WTF?!? reaction.

The cheater realized he'd been called out and threw himself on the mercy of the group.

He said it had become like an addiction. Just spending a CP here and there without deducting it. He always wanted to be just a little better. He said he always felt badly about it afterward...but found it hard to stop.

So, naturally his character was neutered; as they were all playing young jedi, his character was deemed to have gone to the dark side. (NPC)

He had to sit out several sessions, but the group voted to allow him back in, though as a supporting character.

Integrity is like virginity. Once you lose it...you can't get really get it back.

But forgiveness is a virtue; just because you lost virginity doesn't mean you have to end up in the red light district the rest of your life.

Suffice to say that my group keeps an eye out for abuses now.
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