That’s why you just roll your own die as the runner.
Sure, if you have enough psi-games over the course of a game. Unfortunately, this usually doesn’t happen, and instead you have 2 or 3 psi games whose result decides a game.
A high variance mechanic needs a lot of instances, and with psi games this doesn’t happen.
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Exactly, but @xiebelvoule is adamant that it is random.
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And then the corp bids 0 to save money. If you force the game to be random, you’re giving your opponent a small advantage in that they can bid 0. If you change your distribution to take advantage of that thought, then suddenly you’re into a play and counter-play of guessing how the other person is adapting their random distribution.
I agree with this criticism. It can become cool playing with a particular person over several games, though. I’m not disagreeing with the idea that Caprice (and TFP) in RP is not a fun combination, I just don’t think it’s a problem with psi-games in general but rather an issue of RP wrapping it all up in an annoying package designed to make runners worse at the fun part of the game.
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It might be cool if there was a (Criminal?) resource that narrowed non-ICE Psi games to be only two options, instead of three (we want Nisei Division to be cool). 
If you wanted it to include ICE, then make it a current.
@linuxmaier I think hit the nail on the head it’s a very oppressive card which seems to kill the fun of the game.
My friend said that Netrunner is like a combination of poker and chess and he dislikes caprice because she suddenly turns it into rock, paper, scissors.
I think to if you look, it’s not her alone that’s the problem, she’s more like the straw that breaks the camels’ back. Caprice combined with mk2 tokens, ash, TFP and soon Batty.
All of them coming to create a very difficult, stressful and unfun situation for the runner. Hopefully film critic alleviates some of this trouble.
I guess my point is I never heard anyone complain about ash or mk2 until Caprice.
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And if you suck at psi games, this is still probably better odds than actually playing!
Well, sure, but that doesn’t make Caprice unskillful, it just means that she exploits a skillset that you’re not strong in (yet?).
Honestly, if they’d made psi ice a bit better and not printed TFP or made caprice worse, I don’t think there’d be nearly as many complaints about psi games even if they happened more often. It’s the low occurence, high-stakes nature of them that really rankles.
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I never said Caprice was unskillful. My only complaint is that she makes the game super boring. It’s also not a skillset I’ll ever be particularly great at, so it’s a good thing Vamp has been my favorite card since before Caprice even existed.
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I think part of what makes psi un-fun right now is that it feels like the runner is being denied something that they’ve already earned. They ran the server, broke the ICE, saw the agenda and then didn’t get to take it home with them. When you run RnD and don’t see an agenda, you don’t feel like you’re being deprived of anything. If you actually see the agenda and can’t steal it, then you feel loss and that sucks. Caprice and TFP both create that effect in the situations that they’re the most irritating.
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I’m willing to bet that if he is that good at psi games then his dice rolls are probably just a feint. I too hated psi games until I started asking the top players how they did so well at them and I realized there is a very large skill factor. Here’s a trick you might try against him…
- Roll a die and look really serious about getting the right roll, then bid 0. You’ll be surprised how often this one works. Especially if you do it 2 or 3 times in a row.
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Here’s another trick, announce to your opponent that you’ve been doing bad at psi games all day and are just going to bid 1. Then bid 1.
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IMO, fighting a Caprice server very accurately captures the feeling of playing limit hold-em. Which, admittedly, is not to everyone’s taste.
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i think endlessly quoting that salt pic is the way to go
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Seems like kind of a mediocre play.
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I can’t shake the feeling that most of Caprice’s issues would be solved by having her derez on corp win. It rarely costs the runner less than 2 cr to get to play her game, this way he’d at least get something for his effort, reducing the frustration at least somewhat while also pushing the board state towards the “corp money not unlimited” state where Psi Games are actually interesting.
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And cost 1 cred? If she cost 2-4 creds for the corp to play psi it’d be quite weak I think. Maybe not?
Nah, keep her at 2 - that way, you disincentivize the most bullshit kinds of uses while keeping the needed function that @erinrockabitch pointed out.
Also important is that she’d only derez on Corp win, not after each use. That way, some semblance of intriguing decision-making is preserved in credit-strained situations on the runner’s side.
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Increase trash cost then. I’m not totally convinced. I like it as an idea, but it’s not quite right. I don’t want to make caprice bad. I don’t think that would help the game.
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