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Dumpshock Forums _ Shadowrun Missions _ Rewards for "Eating" Missions
Posted by: tyweise Sep 6 2007, 03:23 PM
Just curious, as our group here is starting up playing Missions, if there's a policy in place to give Karma and/or 
awards to GMs who run the mission without getting to play it first. Not biased either way about it, just wanted to know if it was out there.
Thanks.
Posted by: the_dunner Sep 6 2007, 06:43 PM
No such luck, sorry!
Posted by: Deacon Sep 9 2007, 02:59 PM
I don't think we have any actual rules about people who, having run the module, being ineligible to play it. It might be an ethical violation, but we trust our players not to be spoiling the adventure for others. Just play dumb and act surprised at the right moments and I don't think there would be any problems, right?
Posted by: the_dunner Sep 9 2007, 08:26 PM
Folks are not supposed to play Missions after having read them. Yes, that's an implicit rule.
Posted by: Alphastream Sep 12 2007, 04:34 PM
| QUOTE (tyweise) |
| Just curious, as our group here is starting up playing Missions, if there's a policy in place to give Karma and/or awards to GMs who run the mission without getting to play it first. Not biased either way about it, just wanted to know if it was out there. Thanks. |
This would be a nice policy. It can be hard to attract GMs, and having a way by which their PCs can advance when they eat or run a mod could increase the number of GMs. Not sure if that is a problem for SR missions.
Teos
Posted by: dog_xinu Sep 14 2007, 04:10 PM
I am in the same boat. I can not play in the missions games since I have read them. It is a small bummer for me.
It is a cost I will pay, to run them for cgl and for my players. which overcomes the shortfall of me not being able to play them.
EDIT: cleaned up the post since posting via BB is not always the cleanest.
Posted by: BishopMcQ Sep 14 2007, 05:41 PM
As one of the Missions writers, I have had to "eat" every Mission except for Tunnel Vision. My official Missions character has a whopping 17 karma, because of some roll-over from the SR3 campaign. On the other hand, I have a carbon copy of the same character for use in "un-official" play in which I've run through all of the Missions.
This has given me the chance to play all of the Missions which always presents new ideas when you are in the moment than when you are helping to troubleshoot and debug the Missions in proof-reading.
One thing I would be willing to do is run games for a batch of GMs. I realize this isn't a perfect situation, but the large cons generally get pre-releases of 2-3 Missions in which GMs could play and when the Missions are released later, they can then run them for their players.
I don't think we have come up with a way to run the Missions digitally yet, so I'd only be able to run GMs at GenCon Indy or local games here in San Diego. If the powers that be can come up with a way for a Mission to be run over the internet, that could become an option for GMs who want to be able to play in Missions before they run them.
Thoughts, comments, flames?
Posted by: the_dunner Sep 14 2007, 05:56 PM
| QUOTE (BishopMcQ) |
| If the powers that be can come up with a way for a Mission to be run over the internet, that could become an option for GMs who want to be able to play in Missions before they run them. |
There aren't any restrictions on this. If folks want to use any of the MANY virtual tabletop programs out there to run a SRM game over chat, I'm 100% comfortable with it. (I'm just not comfortable with being the person to GM in this format.)
Posted by: Regnad Kcin Sep 14 2007, 06:07 PM
There are a number of products that are currently used for online gaming. Many folks use OpenRPG, AIM (it has a die-bot), Google Spreadsheets (for maps), as well as Ventrillo or Skype for voice.
-Greg G
Posted by: BishopMcQ Sep 14 2007, 06:32 PM
There's your answer folks. If there are enough GMs who want to get credit for their games to "fill a table" as it were and we can agree on a time and method, I will run Missions for them.
Posted by: Irian Sep 14 2007, 07:03 PM
The most sophisticated programm I know is http://www.fantasygrounds.com - unfortunatly, the SR4 ruleset for it isn't ready yet.
Posted by: Redjack Sep 14 2007, 07:22 PM
A quasi-live game ran by Bishop..? hehehehe
Let's put that on a calendar!
Posted by: Aaron Sep 14 2007, 08:36 PM
| QUOTE (BishopMcQ) |
| There's your answer folks. If there are enough GMs who want to get credit for their games to "fill a table" as it were and we can agree on a time and method, I will run Missions for them. |
I'm willing to run games for GMs too, if there's overflow.
Posted by: Caine Hazen Sep 14 2007, 10:58 PM
| QUOTE (Aaron) | ||
I'm willing to run games for GMs too, if there's overflow. |
Line the GMs up (and some of us artists too...)
Posted by: BishopMcQ Sep 15 2007, 09:11 PM
I put the post over in the GM Player Registry...Any GMs who want to play before they run, drop a line there with name and time zone so that we can start coordinating efforts.
Posted by: the_dunner Sep 15 2007, 11:53 PM
In the interests of convenience, here's the http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?showtopic=19088
Posted by: Alphastream Sep 17 2007, 04:36 AM
Just a thought, but to the extent that SR Missions will be re-initiated with a new story arc, it may be a time to consider GM rewards. The Spycraft system had some of the best I've heard of: when you ran a game and ate the mod, you received full credit for the mod, as if you had done all the right things. Basically, it means there is no penalty to advancement, just not having been able to play the mod. Pretty cool. Then, if you judge the mod again, or have played it and judge it, every one of those grants a smaller pool of experience. For SR Missions, you might do something like reward Full Karma and contacts/etc. for eating the mod, then maybe 2 Karma for each time you run it.
Just a thought. I'm for anything that makes more judges!
Teos
Posted by: Casazil Sep 17 2007, 05:27 AM
The idea of getting full karma and contacts is cool but additional karma just for running it several times I think would make gm characters way too powerfull.
My SRM adept has something like 175 karma after having done all the SRM 01's and 20 of the SRM 02's and that's just me playing.
Add in an additional 2 karma per time I have GMed and wow.
Most of SRM 02's I have done twice with something like 5 or 6 three times.
Toss in that I played and ran each SRM 01 for at the least a total of twice per SRM 01's and my guy would have what 360? karma.
That's way too much I'd be a level 10 initiate with all attributes maxed.
However like I said the idea of max karma and contacts for the initial playing/running of the module is cool although that might still make my guy have like 200+ karma.
Posted by: Cain Sep 17 2007, 05:48 AM
| QUOTE (Alphastream) |
| Just a thought, but to the extent that SR Missions will be re-initiated with a new story arc, it may be a time to consider GM rewards. The Spycraft system had some of the best I've heard of: when you ran a game and ate the mod, you received full credit for the mod, as if you had done all the right things. Basically, it means there is no penalty to advancement, just not having been able to play the mod. Pretty cool. Then, if you judge the mod again, or have played it and judge it, every one of those grants a smaller pool of experience. For SR Missions, you might do something like reward Full Karma and contacts/etc. for eating the mod, then maybe 2 Karma for each time you run it. Just a thought. I'm for anything that makes more judges! Teos |
Full contacts and extra karma per run sounds like an awful lot. I'd say one-time full karma would work as well. Maybe allow a cash-for-karma tradeoff so they can afford nifty gear.
Posted by: BishopMcQ Sep 17 2007, 05:56 AM
The problem I see with a payout system, is currently we don't have a tracking system for who has played/run what. As it stands, I could forge all of my documentation and sit down at a Con. As long as I had spent a decent amount of effort, no one could tell that I cheated. Now it may come out later, but by that point I've already ruined the game for several people.
There are solutions and workarounds that put a lot of extra work on a handful of people (like online archiving and character creation), or we trust each other and use the honor system. So far with very few exceptions, the honor system has worked. We are putting a system in place so that GMs can get credit for SRM 02s, it's my hope that it will address the majority of our needs. If not, then Dunner and the folks at Catalyst have a few ideas here to work from in developing a system.
Posted by: Casazil Sep 17 2007, 06:10 PM
Thankfully I get to play but that is a bonus for me not everyone gets that bonus.
Posted by: Alphastream Sep 17 2007, 11:08 PM
I'm just throwing ideas out there. First, you really can cheat at any time. No matter what system you develop, in the end, catching cheating is just about impossible. So, we can only take minimal steps.
What you would do for documentation is fill out a copy of the logsheet for yourself (as judge) and have all players at the table sign it. Then, theoretically, you could use that. (It's just as good/bad as a normal log sheet is). In a notes section you would write "Judged mod" or "Ate mod".
With regards to rewards, fair enough. If that's too much Karma, cool - I haven't played yet, just judged one mod in SR4, and I haven't read how Karma is used. What I was thinking is this:
- You could have played a mod. That would have gotten you X Karma and contacts and so on.
- Instead, you judged.
- If you ate the mod, you are out those benefits. So, if you get to keep those benefits, you then only lose out on playing. This is a good solid reward.
- If you did not eat the mod, you still could play something, so long as there were mods left to be played. So, what we need is a cap that keeps rewards from being excessive.
Some thoughts:
- Make rewards for judging mods part of your calendar. Thus, you cannot gain excessive amounts beyond the calendar concept (which, by the way, I am confused about: Is it a real world calendar and I only play up to once a week... or is it a SR-world PC calendar and each time I play I use a week, starting with Jan 1?).
- Place a cap on judging mods. Maybe you get X karma per mod, but only for the first two times you run a mod. This encourages GMs to judge different mods, which brings in more players and advances the campaign.
- Maybe you get X karma per mod, not to exceed some amount for total judging Karma. This would be hard to monitor, but it could be done. for example, on the log sheet you could place "Judged mod. Earned 2 Karma. Total from judging 4" (if you had judged one other mod. The cap would refresh each real world calendar year.
Just ideas. I'm assuming more GMs are needed and that we want to promote the campaign. But there may be better ideas and I'm totally new, so this is really just to generate ideas.
Teos
Posted by: Casazil Sep 18 2007, 03:35 AM
Don't get me wrong your ideas are great and I love that your tossing out some.
But yeah I would have to say we would need to be carefull on the amount of karma by the end of SRM 02's which for me is 5 more at say an average of 4 karma each thats 20 karma. Add that to my 270 or so and my character is good to go so I'll more than likely start a new guy in SRM 03's.
Besides karma and contacts though we would need to give nuyen as some character types need money more than karma.
Hats off to those of you who are willing to run an online game at least other GM's will get to play.
Posted by: the_dunner Sep 18 2007, 11:35 AM
Folks,
I don't want you to think I'm ignoring this thread, because I'm not.
However, I despise, with all my being, the notion of GMs having PCs in the campaign. I feel, strongly, that this is the path that leads to GMPCs. I hate GMPCs with the burning passion of 10,000 fiery suns. If I thought it was reasonable, I'd specifically add a rule that forbids folks who GM from having PCs in the campaign.
It's going to take one whopper of an argument to convince me that GMs should get a reward for "their" PCs for running the events. I don't think it's a rational addition to the campaign world, and I don't think it's a good direction to take things.
IMO, folks should be running the games because they like GMing, or because they're good people and willing to do it for their fellow gamers. I don't want to bribe folks to do that. Because, really, this is the path that leads to reluctant GMs and crappy game sessions. (I am, conversely, willing to bribe folks to run PUBLIC games at PUBLIC locations. See http://www.commandohq.com for information on that.)
Posted by: DireRadiant Sep 18 2007, 01:07 PM
I'm with the Dunner here as far as the rewards for GMing Missions.
That doesn't take away from my natural desire to play, but I don't need karma to have fun or feel rewarded for GMing or playing.
Posted by: tyweise Sep 18 2007, 02:14 PM
| QUOTE (the_dunner) |
| However, I despise, with all my being, the notion of GMs having PCs in the campaign. |
By that, do you mean that you would prefer that those who GM Missions would never play them? Or those that would play would never GM them?
Here's our situation, and why I asked about this in the first place: We've got a handful of people who are interested in playing SR Missions. One of us has volunteered to run the first one. However, he would also like to get to play Shadowrun, so others (including myself, possibly only myself) will likely step up to run other Missions.
My concern was that having 2 people GM half the Missions each, those GMs will have characters at roughly half the karma and
level as the rest of the characters, and that those 2 characters will be overshadowed by the others and have less chance to shine.(Now, my concern is that having a GM play at all is going to be frowned upon.)
Posted by: the_dunner Sep 18 2007, 02:38 PM
| QUOTE (tyweise) | ||
By that, do you mean that you would prefer that those who GM Missions would never play them? |
That's exactly what I mean. However, in this case, that's a personal opinion and a preference, not a rule. If your group wants to split up GMing duties, then be my guest. Don't worry about offending me. It's your game, not mine.
| QUOTE |
| My concern was that having 2 people GM half the Missions each, those GMs will have characters at roughly half the karma and nuyen.gif level as the rest of the characters, and that those 2 characters will be overshadowed by the others and have less chance to shine. |
Shadowrun characters start off at a fairly high power-level, and a difference of 20-50 karma is much subtler than the difference between a well-optimized and a poorly-optimized starting character. In the course of a 25 session story arc, if each of your GMs are miss 1/2 the adventures, even by the end of the campaign, you're only looking at a maximum difference of 70-ish karma. (A more probable difference of 30-ish karma.) That's not a difference that's really going to stand out.
Posted by: Cain Sep 18 2007, 05:44 PM
There's also the matter of money and gear and contacts. I saved up more than enough for an attention coprocessor, which does make a huge difference. While I can't see any fair way of distributing these, except for a karma buy-in, they can make a bigger difference in character power levels than karma alone. Combine the two, and you've suddenly got a huge gap.
Posted by: Alphastream Sep 18 2007, 07:26 PM
I've generally found few people that just want to DM in a living campaign. A home campaign is different, of course, because the GM is creating the world. You can't really share that. In a living campaign, the GMs are only aware of the plot for that particular mod. They may know a few things more than the average player, but there is no reason why they should know too much (the mod where it matters is where you explain it to the GM, not the preceding one).
For a living campaign, and here I have played Living Greyhawk and Spycraft mostly, I find that very few GMs want to just judge. They want to play a bit as well.
If you are low on GMs, then this is a big problem. You are trying to talk people into either:
- Come in brand new to the campaign and start judging, or
- Switch from being a player to being a judge.
The first will bring inexperienced judges. The second will generally bring in cautious people who want to try it out and see how it goes. This is where rewards really pay off. When they know their PC isn't taking a hit, sure, they'll eat a mod. And eating mods is generally what happens in the 90% of the US that doesn't have some super-dedicated person that knows everyone and attends all the cons.
Maybe the real question out there is whether people would judge more if they had rewards. If they would, then you have to balance the desire for having 'pure' judges that are dedicated because they want to judge, and bringing more judges into the system.
I am not sure that the quality of judging has anything to do with whether you like to play. In my Spycraft and LG experience, there is no link. There are great GMs that only judge and great GMs that have 18 characters.
Teos
Posted by: warrior_allanon Sep 18 2007, 09:24 PM
suggestion, and since we used this one I can tell you it works so long as none of the GMs flake on you, is that each GM run a different set of runners, this not only lets your players experiment but it keeps the karma equal all across. Now granted each player will have a number of characters to keep track of equal to the number of GMs but thats not difficult so long as they keep them filed in the same place, (IE their book)
Posted by: the_dunner Sep 18 2007, 11:39 PM
| QUOTE (Alphastream) |
| In a living campaign, the GMs are only aware of the plot for that particular mod. |
Unfortunately, that's not really our model. There's enough continuity between adventures that it would be, to put it mildly, problematic, for a GM to play in an early adventure after running a number of the latter ones.
Posted by: Alphastream Sep 18 2007, 11:41 PM
I added a poll just for fun. I'll be quiet on the topic now, just learning the ropes and seeing what's what.
Teos
Posted by: tyweise Sep 19 2007, 02:36 PM
@the_dunner
That's an interesting (and wholly foreign to me) perspective on the Missions campaign. Like Alphastream, I come from a Living style campaign background, so I suppose I have "that kind" of mentality about public/organized campaigns. I gather from your latest post that SR Missions runs a bit differently. With a strong continuity (which I like) I completely understand not wanting to GM a later mission before playing a previous one. My main concern would be playing a Mission and then GMing that same mission for others; something that I feel would help the campaign grow.
From my perspective, discouraging players from GMing and GMs from playing severely limits the growth of Missions in popularity. It would seem (from what I've read in this thread) the ideal model is to run Missions like a home game campaign, with one GM and the same set of players throughout. But that to me runs counter to the whole point of a public/shared campaign, where players from different areas get together and conventions and participate in a common game world.
Also, if not playing half of the 25 Missions in this campaign means you're only out about 30 karma, then you're getting an average of 2-3 karma per mission? That seems like a quite slow rate of advancement; if I were to miss out playing half the missions, then with my ~30 karma, I could just barely up my Firearms skill group to 5, and up Perception to 2 by campaign's end. Slow advancement is fine, by itself, but it may also serve to discourage players from GMing missions (and spreading the campaign) without playing them first, if they like the idea of seeing their character improve throughout a campaign.
Reading people here posting about 250+ karma characters is mind-boggling to me; unless the rollover karma from the previous Missions campaign accounts for a huge chunk of that.
Posted by: DireRadiant Sep 19 2007, 03:32 PM
| QUOTE (tyweise @ Sep 19 2007, 09:36 AM) |
| It would seem (from what I've read in this thread) the ideal model is to run Missions like a home game campaign, with one GM and the same set of players throughout. |
There is a story arc and a metaplot and a common background, so it would seem to be the case. But in practice if you did have a "regular" campaign, the Missions aren't what would want to run for the full story arc. For almost any mission the players can easily "break" the metaplot and thus throw out the other 24 modules.
It is however intended to give that regular campaign feel when run at the FLGS or conventions, which is a great way of demonstrating the game and introducing RPG players to SR4.
The idea is that I as GM running Mission 15, can ask if any players have done Mission 6, and look at their log and based on the result tilt the response of NPC accordingly. Can vary by PC (Different players will have accomplished different things during their missions).
Posted by: the_dunner Sep 19 2007, 03:36 PM
| QUOTE (tyweise) |
| It would seem (from what I've read in this thread) the ideal model is to run Missions like a home game campaign |
I'm not sure about basis for the logical leap you're making here. While Missions works fine in a home campaign, that's only a part of the target environment.
| QUOTE |
| Also, if not playing half of the 25 Missions in this campaign means you're only out about 30 karma, then you're getting an average of 2-3 karma per mission? |
| QUOTE |
| seeing their character improve throughout a campaign. |
If character improvement is key to someone's enjoyment, then the Missions campaign might not be the best campaign for them. There are two key reasons: 1)Character advancement in Shadowrun *is* comparatively slow. 2)Shadowrun is deadly. While the adventures aren't constructed around PC mortality, every single one of them has scenes that can easily lead to a TPK.
| QUOTE |
| Reading people here posting about 250+ karma characters is mind-boggling to me; unless the rollover karma from the previous Missions campaign accounts for a huge chunk of that. |
It's mind-boggling to me as well. There were 14 SR3 Missions. (SRM00 & SRM01 combined) That works out to a maximum of roughly 84 rollover karma. There've been 20 released SRM02 Missions. That gives a further maximum of roughly 120 karma. There've been 2 Shadowrun Scrambles at GenCon. Each of those might have netted another 7 karma.
That still leaves a maximum total of well under 250. If a player sits down with a Shadowrun Missions character at a table today and has 250 karma, I'd posit that there was a mistake made somewhere.
Further, if a PC is consistently receiving the maximum awards for every adventure, then I'd posit that his GM(s) is/are being WAY too nice.
Posted by: tyweise Sep 19 2007, 05:23 PM
| QUOTE (the_dunner) | ||
I'm not sure about basis for the logical leap you're making here. While Missions works fine in a home campaign, that's only a part of the target environment. |
What I meant by 'home game campaign', was having one GM and the same set of players play through each of the missions in order. I admit that probably isn't the best term for what I meant. "Adventure path" would probably be a better one.
If you have a population of GMs, and a completely separate population of players, I feel that there's little reason to look outside of a single local group of a GM + players to play Missions. If you have overlap between those populations, then I would have an incentive--letting everyone here enjoy the experience of playing a particular mission--to go to Cleveland (it's not that far from Pittsburgh) and play a Mission, and then run that mission for the folks here.
I know that there's nothing stopping me from doing just that, but you've indicated here a personal preference against that. I just feel that if it was instead encouraged, you could see a greater increase in the Missions playerbase. (And I don't mean encouraged in terms of rewarding GMs, but just making statements like "Come and play, and if you enjoy it get a few friends together and run them through and let them enjoy the experience too!")
Posted by: the_dunner Sep 19 2007, 06:34 PM
| QUOTE (tyweise) |
| And I don't mean encouraged in terms of rewarding GMs, but just making statements like "Come and play, and if you enjoy it get a few friends together and run them through and let them enjoy the experience too!" |
As I said -- I don't discourage that. I personally find it distasteful, but that's entirely my opinion, and not something that I move to enforce.
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