Not going to argue with you, fatedtodie. I'll just say this: your PM onslaught was enough last time, it was unreal. I kept them in case the mods need to be involved. I think sometimes you don't know how rude you come off, you might want to consider that. And when you feel slighted, you go overboard. Since PMs are private, I thought it only fair to let at least knasserII know he's not alone, and you might want to rethink this tactic of yours.

If you want to continue discussing it, you'll do it alone.

Edit: and of course now you edited your fairly rancid post, another fine tactic.

Otherwise, you have plenty of good advice and I often agree with your game insights. I have no problem continuing to discuss purely gaming issues with you.

Knasserll, I appreciate that you are mad. I don't know or care why it is with so much animosity that you can't breathe.

That's actually not how I feel. I was just bothered to see multiple digs at me now appearing in the thread. I also kind of dislike your trying to cast yourself as defender of the thread when I'm actually responding to your own attacks on what I wrote. As to your summation of my response, I'm more than happy for you to share our entire conversation here. I've only brought it up because I'm now seeing attacks on myself in this thread.

I hope you can "stop" like I asked several times. I even disabled my messenger trying to get you to stop. Please just drop it.

That's not actually what happened as you know. You initiated the PMs with me, I never sent you anything that wasn't a direct reply to your own aggressive PMs to me and I explicitly said several times in my responses that I was only replying to your PMs and that if you didn't want a conversation stop sending me them. There was no need to block me as you well know, and I honestly think your doing so is just an attempt to make it look like I'm sending you unwanted PMs. Well, I suppose they may be "unwanted", but they're not uninvited. You kept sending me PMs which detailed my character flaws and then said you would report me if I replied. As I said, it's silly. And now you've dragged it into this thread as well with your comments. You ASKED me to say what I found wrong with your post in this thread. I answered as you requested. That's pretty much it. There's no great anger here, btw. You're wide of the mark with your "spewing hatred". I don't feel like that at all. I just don't like being attacked in the thread after a succession of aggressive PMs. You also no full well that your PMs weren't the friendly enquiry as to why I made my comment that you paint them.

Anyway, if as you claim you really want to drop this then, as I kept saying in the PMs, drop it. I'm not pursuing this. I'm only replying to your comments at or about me. Make none and I stop replying to them. Simple as that.

Words that the trolls things confirm their bias.

Great. Then I'm done too. Let normal service resume!

Peace to all and back to the topic!

K.

EDIT: Huh! I see you've removed all your comments. Oh well, doesn't matter. My sentiment above still stands - this tangent is now thankfully closed as far as I'm concerned.

I may use rather unballanced skill tests as an oportunity to give a Destiny back to my players. Of course there is some risk for the player making the roll and as such it works out well for the table.

I may use rather unballanced skill tests as an oportunity to give a Destiny back to my players. Of course there is some risk for the player making the roll and as such it works out well for the table.

I have learnt to fear unlikely successes. I once, during my Shadowrun campaign, had the PCs in a helicopter that had a missile shot at them. They were low over water avoiding radar, I expected them to jump. One player asked if they could try and shoot the missile down with their pistol. I said that was silly but the player wanted to have a go. Following decades of indoctrination on how a GM should always let players try, I said "fine" and set some absurd number of successes required. I don't recall now, but I'm pretty sure I remember working out the odds afterwards of being something like over five-hundred to one. And the player made it. They scored something like eight successes on about nine dice. I've never seen anything like it.

So basically - yeah, you're not kidding it can happen!

As a GM for a group with some equally-skilled characters, I did find it difficult to present challenges for my players in their fields of expertise, and I suspect this is what your GM is experiencing too. While it's easy to add minions for combat encounters for the burly tank, it's not so cut and dry for the rest. Making common tasks more difficult isn't the answer, although adding conditions that add setback dice certainly is!

However, for some tasks it makes sense to even hand-wave a roll; for example, that average difficulty lock-picking check. If a roll isn't going to advance the story, why bother picking up the dice?

How would I handle it? I'd let you excel at the tasks for which you spent your hard-earned experience. I'd present you with challenges outside your wheelhouse to enable you to excel at your task. You can fix a starship, but can you climb a rope?

However, for some tasks it makes sense to even hand-wave a roll; for example, that average difficulty lock-picking check. If a roll isn't going to advance the story, why bother picking up the dice?

Well it depends because a die roll isn't just to determine Success and Failure or even the degree of Success of an individual action, it also represents what happens within the Scene during the action. There is of course no need to roll for everything but any actions you would normally roll for you should have the PC roll regardless of their Skill level. The PC could still roll results that change the outcome of the scene such as a Despair or Triumph or enough Advantages to affect further rolls or such. So rather than skipping rolls or arbitrarily increasing the difficulty or forcing the PC to make rolls on every little thing, change the scene by adding a time restraint or environmental effects, or make it an antiquated or other unfamiliar version of whatever, or in this case have it biometric (requiring living tissue to activate). Basically something that makes sense and doesn't break the immersion but is kinda cool and justifies some Setback dice. Also, don't/don't let your Player's min-max...

@ imperial spy. I have only just skimmed through this wonderful mine filled thread .

i have not read all the posts, and some don't even seem to be to you or about you.

First off Imperialspy, welcome to our little corner of hell. Glad to see you have joined our little community, I hope you enjoy your time here among us.

Now to your original post.

Regardless of what kind of character you have created, be it a one sided skill monkey or a powerful uber soldier, some GMs do have that tendency to over inflate the difficulties. This can happen as a result of a player making his one sided character, but I have seen it lot due to the characters getting "too high" in levels. Oh, your a 20th level rouge guy, every trap you now come across is super super hard, well, because, you need that challenge...

I do not agree with this type of GM style. I feel this is story telling at it's worst. It is an easy trap to fall into as a GM. You no longer have to think why something should be more difficult, you just "make" it become more difficult. I know I am guilty of this before, and it can be easy to use, but it is about the worst way possible to deal with the characters.

This past weekend one of my players joked that the difficulties were getting harder just because they had more XP now. I admit, I took a little offense to that remark, because I try really hard not to that to them. I did not get mad though. I just explained the reason the difficulties seemed harder to the group, and they were ok with that.

Just because a character is more skilled or better trained in stuff, they should not have to roll against a larger or higher difficulty. The task should have a set difficulty that should not change just because someone else is doing the task. Yes, you may a have toolkit or what not that can help you, or a talent that can remove a setback die, but the task difficulty should never change based on the character.

I suggest you talk to your GM about this, and see if you can get him to change. Perhaps he may not see your character the way you do, and he may have some issues with it, and may ask you to change as well. Remember the number one reason we all get together and do this hobby is to have fun. If we are not having fun, then why even play it? The GM has to enjoy your characters just as much as you do. If the GM does not like a character, he may unknowingly make things harder for you.

I have to say, hacking into a bank would be a formidable task with a few setbcaks in my opinion.

But sit down with your GM and ask him why he is making all the checks so hard. You had to roll to turn on a light? GM can get over zealous when it comes to rolling too...I have had GM that required rolls for about everything before, needless to say, I didn't stick around too long. Remind your GM that you guys are there to have fun, and let him know that you are not having that much fun anymore, and see what you guys can do as a group to help this.

Good luck and clear skies Imperialspy.