Playing Shadowrun (4th Ed) has gotten me thinking about the contrast between leveling up in traditional D&D and its derivatives (Pathfinder, 13th Age, etc), and completely different games (Numenera) in contrast with Shadowrun. Shadowrun has a very unique economy with the gaining of karma points over time.
Numenera and Shadowrun both have a mechanic that allow a player to accumulate a few points each session and you can use these points to make you character better. The D&D sphere and Numenera both also have significant level ups that occur after many sessions, unlocking all sorts of new things. Where Shadowrun is substantially different, is that once you are really good at doing something, getting even a little bit better requires some significant hoarding of karma points over time. It simply isn't easy.
So for example, I was a bit of a dunce and didn't put much into my perception at the beginning of Shadowrun. To make up for this and other skills that I've got nil in, I can take a good session's worth of points (4 points) and bump those up a notch. However, if I want to bump up something that is already a strong suit, it can easily cost 20 to 40 karma points. Now I am saving up for a month of two (assuming a session a week).
This is an interesting economy of points. Those impatient will slowly become moderately skilled in lots of different things except for what they specialized in during the upfront build. Those with a personality for saving points, can become masters at what they are good at. This, however, can cause some big problems.
As a GM, I know that deconflicting characters is an important part of keeping a game fun. I want my character to be the absolute best at X, and if someone else comes in and is better than me at X, my character loses its appeal. This is a major design consideration in parties, and why D&D has the typical fighter, cleric, rogue, wizard group engrained in everyone's brain. By design, the party mix deconflicts the characters.
However, with Shadowrun, everyone starts out happy, but the impatient players keep getting broader and broader, and patient players keep getting more and more focused. Now with Shadowrun in particular, the dice mechanic makes this a big problem. Getting a rank in a skill in a d20 style game increases all your rolls by 1. It is a definite increase. You are better. In Shadowrun, getting a rank in a skill only increases the probability that your roll will increase on average by 1/3. What this means in practice, is that a moderately skilled character with good rolls can easily beat a highly skilled character with bad rolls. And so one can see how someone's character suddenly becomes a drag, because their thunder got taken away. The impatient player can actually take away the gameplay from the patient player with a well planned out character.
Numenera, on the other hand, moves skills in chunks of 15% of probability, aka 3 numbers on a d20. And, the most you can ever scale your rolls with skills is 30%. What this means is that ultimately skills can only have a 30% influence on the outcome of a situation. In d20 and Shadowrun, these influences are much larger, having a 95% shift in d20, and per the rule of 20 in Shadowrun, a mean shift of nearly 7, which is pretty much the whole range (aka 100%). Of course Numenera has other pieces that figure in: do I have the right equipment, do I have help, do I put extra effort into doing this thing. Edge in Shadowrun is sortof like effort, in that you can add it when you really need it. The resulting alternation in probability is a bit more muddled though.
So which system is better? Which system is right? It is hard to argue with the hybrid, simplified approach that Numenera takes. It balances between both approaches and yet simplifies the mechnic for easier, faster play. D&D, being the old classic skill base (aka d20), is also elegantly simple and hard to say is wrong. How can you beat a mechnic like 'you just add'. Shadowrun, on the other hand, really seems like a much more complex formula that can ultimately cause character conflict problems. It does, however, fit with the general feel of Shadowrun. In Shadowrun, there really is no balance. Every character is going to be different; everyone's goal is to stay alive and munchkin up as much as possible. From this perspective, which really meshes well with the video gaming generation, Shadowrun has its place. It just is a different place than a lot of other RPG systems.
Numenera and Shadowrun both have a mechanic that allow a player to accumulate a few points each session and you can use these points to make you character better. The D&D sphere and Numenera both also have significant level ups that occur after many sessions, unlocking all sorts of new things. Where Shadowrun is substantially different, is that once you are really good at doing something, getting even a little bit better requires some significant hoarding of karma points over time. It simply isn't easy.
So for example, I was a bit of a dunce and didn't put much into my perception at the beginning of Shadowrun. To make up for this and other skills that I've got nil in, I can take a good session's worth of points (4 points) and bump those up a notch. However, if I want to bump up something that is already a strong suit, it can easily cost 20 to 40 karma points. Now I am saving up for a month of two (assuming a session a week).
This is an interesting economy of points. Those impatient will slowly become moderately skilled in lots of different things except for what they specialized in during the upfront build. Those with a personality for saving points, can become masters at what they are good at. This, however, can cause some big problems.
As a GM, I know that deconflicting characters is an important part of keeping a game fun. I want my character to be the absolute best at X, and if someone else comes in and is better than me at X, my character loses its appeal. This is a major design consideration in parties, and why D&D has the typical fighter, cleric, rogue, wizard group engrained in everyone's brain. By design, the party mix deconflicts the characters.
However, with Shadowrun, everyone starts out happy, but the impatient players keep getting broader and broader, and patient players keep getting more and more focused. Now with Shadowrun in particular, the dice mechanic makes this a big problem. Getting a rank in a skill in a d20 style game increases all your rolls by 1. It is a definite increase. You are better. In Shadowrun, getting a rank in a skill only increases the probability that your roll will increase on average by 1/3. What this means in practice, is that a moderately skilled character with good rolls can easily beat a highly skilled character with bad rolls. And so one can see how someone's character suddenly becomes a drag, because their thunder got taken away. The impatient player can actually take away the gameplay from the patient player with a well planned out character.
Numenera, on the other hand, moves skills in chunks of 15% of probability, aka 3 numbers on a d20. And, the most you can ever scale your rolls with skills is 30%. What this means is that ultimately skills can only have a 30% influence on the outcome of a situation. In d20 and Shadowrun, these influences are much larger, having a 95% shift in d20, and per the rule of 20 in Shadowrun, a mean shift of nearly 7, which is pretty much the whole range (aka 100%). Of course Numenera has other pieces that figure in: do I have the right equipment, do I have help, do I put extra effort into doing this thing. Edge in Shadowrun is sortof like effort, in that you can add it when you really need it. The resulting alternation in probability is a bit more muddled though.
So which system is better? Which system is right? It is hard to argue with the hybrid, simplified approach that Numenera takes. It balances between both approaches and yet simplifies the mechnic for easier, faster play. D&D, being the old classic skill base (aka d20), is also elegantly simple and hard to say is wrong. How can you beat a mechnic like 'you just add'. Shadowrun, on the other hand, really seems like a much more complex formula that can ultimately cause character conflict problems. It does, however, fit with the general feel of Shadowrun. In Shadowrun, there really is no balance. Every character is going to be different; everyone's goal is to stay alive and munchkin up as much as possible. From this perspective, which really meshes well with the video gaming generation, Shadowrun has its place. It just is a different place than a lot of other RPG systems.
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