Some issues that popped up at a session

[Dinne]

In order to save time during game play we have delegated conjecture for between time of game sessions. I love you guys and you are always a great help with dealing with any issue I've ever had!! I'm thinking that I may just keep bumping this thread so that I don't have a weekly topic from myself popping up with just random questions. I'll take advice from the forum, on whether I should keep it in one thread or just keep posting a new topic weekly (if needed).

1. The first and most heated was that I had a player fined by a police officer on the spot. He was thinking I was unfair because the police officer saw him and demanded credits upfront and not him report to a court house. Mind you, this city is large with a standing army and currently at war with another city. There is a semi-marshal law kinda going on. The military and police should be a little sensitive. The characters make about 30k-60k per mission/bounty and around 100k for completing bonus material for said bounty/mission. There are 4 ppl so the money is usually split 4 ways. That all being said he and the police know that he walked up and knocked over a bunch of bikes to this gang for no reason with his Samson armor. The cop saw the whole thing. So the cop was fining him with destruction of property. I said, basically, that the fine was 10k, because the city was at war and it was to deter fighting in the city since guns and weapons are allowed in the city. I would like some feedback, because he was very upset / felt it was unfair and I thought that 10k would be the right amount to deter ppl in rifts. (less than that and who cares if I go around destroying stuff)

2. The second thing that I wanted to inquire about is tear gas. Should it be treated as normal gas? Where leaving the affected area alleviates the debuff or should tear gases debuff stick to them and it dissipates? There is only one duration and I assume it is for the effect and that the cloud is not substantial enough to stick around.

3. I know it exists some where... Does anyone know where the MDC for Guns, vibro-weapons, etc. are? <3

4. I know that missiles are 5 and up on a 20 sided for it's hit. I assume this is because of the impact explosion and not because of shrapnel(which has a radius and 1/2 damage). I was wondering if grenades take on this special hit die??

5. So rolling a 20 or a 1 is an auto hit or miss, but what about a skill check like prowl vs perception where you had the number of tens to a 20 sided die and roll? I assume skills don't have an auto hit, but just curious.

As always thank you guys!! YOU ARE AWESOME!!!

[Mechghost]

Well I'll take a stab at some of these for you Dinne

1 - it's what you as the GM decided wad the fine, the player didn't have to knock over the bikes, right? It was a dumb move on his part and he has to live with it, maybe he won't do dumb things like that again.

2 - I would say the duration is how long the tear gas is affecting the target, not how long the gas lingers.

3 - Have seen it but damned if I can remember where lol

4 - No they don't. sorry

5 - You would roll the prowl skill check (on 1D100) with a penalty based on the situation. I usually use a roll of 01 as a "perfect job" and a roll of 100 a really bad fail, but depends on situation.

All of these answers are IMHO of course, feel free to disagree or point out if I'm mistaken (always possible lol)

[FatherMorpheus]

1. Based on situation, perhaps it was pay the fine or be press-ganged into military service. Or because of the martial law, anyone doing anything was fined heavily or shot. Law and Order at all costs. The player's character kind of lacked situational awareness to me.

2. Tear gas does effect someone after they leave the cloud, it really does linger. Though, as soon as some clears the gas cloud they would slowly start feeling better. Kind of up to you how you want to play it.

3. 15 to 30. I don't remember the reference, but it isn't a lot.

4. While all you need is a roll greater than 4 for missile or melee, and roll of 8 or better with range. Grenades are basically thrown weapons. So they need an 8 or higher to hit.

5. 1 critical success, 98, 99, or 100 auto-failures. Prowl Skill check vs Guards Perception. The opposed checks for Palladium games are hard to pull off. Especially considering Perception is only half built into the systems. One idea would be to roll a Guards Perception roll, and use that as the penalty for the person Prowling?

[Killer Cyborg]

1. The first and most heated was that I had a player fined by a police officer on the spot. He was thinking I was unfair because the police officer saw him and demanded credits upfront and not him report to a court house. Mind you, this city is large with a standing army and currently at war with another city. There is a semi-marshal law kinda going on. The military and police should be a little sensitive. The characters make about 30k-60k per mission/bounty and around 100k for completing bonus material for said bounty/mission. There are 4 ppl so the money is usually split 4 ways. That all being said he and the police know that he walked up and knocked over a bunch of bikes to this gang for no reason with his Samson armor. The cop saw the whole thing. So the cop was fining him with destruction of property. I said, basically, that the fine was 10k, because the city was at war and it was to deter fighting in the city since guns and weapons are allowed in the city. I would like some feedback, because he was very upset / felt it was unfair and I thought that 10k would be the right amount to deter ppl in rifts. (less than that and who cares if I go around destroying stuff)

You can have the cops behave however you like when you're in a city/kingdom/whatever that you made up yourself. They could have called in backup, and shot the guy.
One thing that people have to keep in mind is that Rifts earth is NOT the USA, nor any other modern nation with our level of infrastructure. There are mobile populations that can skip to the next kingdom over, and there might not be anything that the kingdom you just left can do about it unless you happen back their way.
Giving out tickets doesn't seem as workable in that context. Paying out fines on the spot makes more sense.
For that matter, even in our world, it's perfectly normal and acceptable and common for corrupt cops to demand fine payment on the spot as a kind of bribe. They don't enter the crime into the official records, and the criminal gets away with whatever he did. If I has been a player, and I'd thought it was unusual, I'd have just assumed that the cop was dirty, and would likely have been glad that I didn't get caught up in the local court system, because courts in Rifts Earth are more likely to resemble the courts in modern third-world dictatorships than they would be to resemble the kind of courts you see in Europe and the US.

2. The second thing that I wanted to inquire about is tear gas. Should it be treated as normal gas? Where leaving the affected area alleviates the debuff or should tear gases debuff stick to them and it dissipates? There is only one duration and I assume it is for the effect and that the cloud is not substantial enough to stick around.

Good question.
I'd say that the duration kicks in starting from the LAST exposure. If you keep sitting around in a cloud of tear gas, you're going to keep on getting exposed. If you have a brief contact, I'd use the duration listed. If there's stuff that sticks around, I'd use the duration listed... starting from when you escape the cloud.

3. I know it exists some where... Does anyone know where the MDC for Guns, vibro-weapons, etc. are? <3

CB1 pages 14-15

4. I know that missiles are 5 and up on a 20 sided for it's hit. I assume this is because of the impact explosion and not because of shrapnel(which has a radius and 1/2 damage). I was wondering if grenades take on this special hit die??

It might be safe to assume that missiles hit on 5+ in RUE simply because Palladium forgot to update them from the previous rules where ALL ranged weapons hit on a 5+.
But it might be something deliberate on their part, due to the kind of reasoning that you came up with.
If grenades aren't addressed, then officially they would fall under the same general rule as any other ranged weapon (8+ to strike).
I don't think that it would be unfair, though, for a GM to house-rule that grenades follow the same rules as missiles, OR that missiles follow the same rules as other ranged weapons.

5. So rolling a 20 or a 1 is an auto hit or miss, but what about a skill check like prowl vs perception where you had the number of tens to a 20 sided die and roll? I assume skills don't have an auto hit, but just curious.

Officially, the Natural 20 thing only applies to strike rolls.

[Dinne]

Cyborg you are awesome, man. (..or woman) lol you are almost too familiar with these rules!

Thanks everyone so far for the insight. Sometimes it is hard to know if you are being unfair. I know sometimes I over look things. I really want to make sure I'm not being unfair about the whole fine for knocking over the bikes. I was thinking about maybe letting him hire a lawyer and/or trying to appeal it himself without sponsor or with a sponsor.

[The Ruiner]

5. 1 critical success, 98, 99, or 100 auto-failures.

I was under the impression that 98% was still passing, while 99 and 100% were failures, assuming the character had 98% in the skill to begin with.

[FatherMorpheus]

5. 1 critical success, 98, 99, or 100 auto-failures.

I was under the impression that 98% was still passing, while 99 and 100% were failures, assuming the character had 98% in the skill to begin with.

Darn it, I believe you are correct. My mistake.

[McFacemelt]

For the OP's last question:

When working perception vs skill checking players this is my system. PC wishes to prowl with the skill at 80%, roll d100. If he passes he gets a +8 to a d20 roll vs whoever might perceive him. If he fails he rolls a d20 with no bonus vs whoever might perceive him. This allows for some leeway either way and can add humor at the same time.

Same would go for Trust/Intimidate but whoever is the target would roll with an ME bonus added to the d20 instead of a perception bonus. Just because someone has a Trust/Intimidate at 80%, imho doesn't mean they can just automatically get away with it.

For both the OP and what appears to be the player in question:

It sounds like a little nonsense on both sides. Go kick some bikes over at a bar sometime, see what happens. Are you sure they are MDC bikes, even if they are lets say you cause 10 MD to just one that's 10,000 credits worth of repair automatically. Seeing has how you knocked over more than one while in power armor, there is a possibility that at least this much damage may have been done. I don't know the specifics but it is one possibility.

I don't normally recommend arguing with the law, particularly without a lawyer present, and in a time of martial law I really wouldn't recommend it period. Having served in a war zone I can tell you it wasn't pretty when one of the locals decided he didn't like what we told him to do or how things were gonna be. Even in a time of martial law, death is not usually the first or second punishment for crimes. They will still confiscate your belongings, lock you up, and maybe put you in front of a judge though it would take a lot longer to get that court date. Bribery and extortion are more than common, and it's almost expected.

I would say that at least from the player's perspective the GM may have been bending the rules though not being there I cannot be for certain whose story is more accurate. I wouldn't think anything that happened would call for death unless he resisted arrest to the point of firing at the police or the military. Martial law doesn't mean all laws are out the window.

[Glistam]

Sometimes corruption and lies get out of hand. If you have Rifts: Mercenaries read the background for Lieutenant Paul Konrad of Larsen's Brigade. It starts on page 50 and continues into page 51. It only took one corrupt officer trying to save his own skin to completely destroy the lives of Paul, his teammates, and their entire families. The scenario you described may not be exactly like this, but it was similar enough that it made me think of it.

[arouetta]

In a city with martial law and a fair amount of transients, it wouldn't matter if the PC had all the intention in the world of showing up. Many people in that situation wouldn't show up to a court date, wouldn't show up to pay a fine, so all criminals would be treated as planning on skipping town. So the two choices are punishment on the spot or held without bail until the court date (effectively taking the PC out of the game for an extended period of time) and hoping there's no snafu with the witnesses/arresting officer. In a post-apocalyptic society, punishment on the spot would probably be preferable, and the guards/police superiors would have indoctrinated the troops enough that a high MA would be virtually useless. The guards/police would have seen enough to have nerves of steel dealing with the civilians.

Going out of the game, the GM works hard at setting up an adventure and is the referee, charged with making tough calls while at the same time keeping the story going. He or she deserves respect. If the player has a counterpoint, express it nicely. After the GM listens to it and considers it and issues a final ruling, then don't argue. It's counterproductive and takes time away from the fun, especially at the other players' expense.