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<blockquote data-quote="Cerebral Paladin" data-source="post: 5397619" data-attributes="member: 3448">Nifft, I'd love to hear your solution to the heist problem, either here or in a separate thread.&nbsp; I've been batting around some ideas for a heist focused RPG, but I haven't made enough progress to share yet.&nbsp; Part of the key is that the planning needs to be part of the fun, but it can often go on too long--the first time I ran this game I had to actively say &quot;enough already, time to start the run whether you're ready or not.&quot;Re: PC's questions about the skill challenge during the planning phase:&nbsp; I don't really see any way to avoid it within a normal style game.&nbsp; I mean, the players have to be able to get some information, but it's lame to just get handed all the info up front (and that eliminates the possibility of figuring out the twist early, which I want to be possible but not a given).&nbsp; I feel like the skill challenge aspect avoids the problem of &quot;now one player interacts with the GM, doing a variety of information gathering while the rest twiddle their fingers,&quot; but it may slow down the process a little relative to a more free-form approach.&nbsp; Still, I would do it the same way next time.I think fights in Shadowrun often are fast, and they're very often supposed to be fast, even if they're not in practice.&nbsp; Next time I'll try the reduce hp/increase damage option--I bet it will make things better.&nbsp; It makes things swingier and makes ambushes and first actions more important--but that's very true to the Shadowrun feel.invokethehojo, we didn't track ammo (etc.) at all.&nbsp; To be honest, counting every bullet always struck me as pretty lame in Shadowrun, too, and I typically just hand-waved it.&nbsp; I tend to prefer &quot;buy a bunch of clips up front, buy a couple more between runs, don't sweat the details.&quot;&nbsp; The only exception is if the PCs have things that are really limited in numbers (like they only have one, or two, or three), where counting them makes sense.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Cerebral Paladin, post: 5397619, member: 3448"] Nifft, I'd love to hear your solution to the heist problem, either here or in a separate thread. I've been batting around some ideas for a heist focused RPG, but I haven't made enough progress to share yet. Part of the key is that the planning needs to be part of the fun, but it can often go on too long--the first time I ran this game I had to actively say "enough already, time to start the run whether you're ready or not." Re: PC's questions about the skill challenge during the planning phase: I don't really see any way to avoid it within a normal style game. I mean, the players have to be able to get some information, but it's lame to just get handed all the info up front (and that eliminates the possibility of figuring out the twist early, which I want to be possible but not a given). I feel like the skill challenge aspect avoids the problem of "now one player interacts with the GM, doing a variety of information gathering while the rest twiddle their fingers," but it may slow down the process a little relative to a more free-form approach. Still, I would do it the same way next time. I think fights in Shadowrun often are fast, and they're very often supposed to be fast, even if they're not in practice. Next time I'll try the reduce hp/increase damage option--I bet it will make things better. It makes things swingier and makes ambushes and first actions more important--but that's very true to the Shadowrun feel. invokethehojo, we didn't track ammo (etc.) at all. To be honest, counting every bullet always struck me as pretty lame in Shadowrun, too, and I typically just hand-waved it. I tend to prefer "buy a bunch of clips up front, buy a couple more between runs, don't sweat the details." The only exception is if the PCs have things that are really limited in numbers (like they only have one, or two, or three), where counting them makes sense. [/QUOTE]

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