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Posted by: Dez384 Sep 3 2011, 04:18 AM

My players and I got in a bit of a disagreement about a plot twist and of course, I am seeking the internet as an arbiter.

First the players: an oldman hacker/rigger, gun adept oni, minigun toting troll, voodoo shaman, and a voodoo mystic adept.

My group is running in the city of Havana and has been hired to steal the cyberarm of the city manager without killing him (I won't go into plot reasons much since two of my players frequent this site). By the 6th of September, they had found that the city manager was receiving gene therapy on a private island owned by the Martinez family (who rules Cuba), which he is a member of. The rigger hacks into the main node the compound and looks up the stringent schedule that the city manager keeps and the group decides to sneak onto the island by hiding in the food shipment that arrives daily during the time that the city manager is undergoing gene therapy.

The troll had a contact that he hired to get some explosives for him. The contact said that he could pick up the explosives at noon on the 11th. The runners choose to wait until the morning of the 12th to sneak in because they feel no time crunch, as the Johnson had told them that there was no hard deadline to get the job done.

The campaign started on September 1st and I had set the city manager to be 2/3 done with his gene therapy then. This would have him finish the therapy on September 11th. With gene therapy finished, he would go home that evening.

My players enact their plan flawlessly but are pissed off when they find that their target isn't on the island. They proceeded to show me just how destructive they can be by destroying much of the compound, rather than just leave quietly (which was still an option at that point). They are frustrated that our first two sessions consisted of them doing legwork and when they actually get to the run, their target isn't even there.

My justifications:
1) They didn't keep eyes on the target for the five days between when they made their plan and when they executed it. The gun adept took down the scope hooked to an image link that he had been using for surveillance after the plan had been made.
2) I gave them the daily schedule of the compound and the city manager. They were two daily visits of outsiders to the compound: the food convoy in the morning and the manager's aide in the evening. They didn't ask about how long the city manager was planning on staying at the compound or how long his gene therapy was going to continue.
3) The rigger re-hacked his way into the system before the group began their run. He didn't check to see if their target was still on the island or where he was supposed to be.

My players said that I should assume that they have common sense and that they shouldn't have to ask about every detail or small bit of minutiae.


I didn't think that it would be such a big deal that the target had changed location. Apparently, I was wrong.

Posted by: Halflife Sep 3 2011, 04:25 AM

We also had a Renraku Stormcloud in patrol over the island, and our contacts indicated that the target was "in hiding" which made sense since he just barely survived a mob hit.

Posted by: Neraph Sep 3 2011, 04:26 AM

I'd give time-sensitive information to the group as they hack it: for example, your hacker should have had his itenerary as soon as he first hacked the node.

But yeah, they should learn to double-check things themselves.

Oh, and the hurt should be dropped on them for so much high-profile damage.

EDIT: It doesn't matter how twisted your panties get. Remember - it's a game, and there are supposed to be consequences for your actions. Very few people in real life (even the spec-ops or mercs) would psychotically start detonating things simply because they didn't double-and-triple-check their plans.

Posted by: Dez384 Sep 3 2011, 04:29 AM

The Renraku Stormcloud that he forgot about.

Posted by: pbangarth Sep 3 2011, 04:30 AM

Hmmm.... knowing the target's schedule and keeping track of him during the run don't seem like minutiae to me. Failing to do these things is an oversight.

An important point not mentioned in your OP is whether the players (not the PCs) are experienced or not and whether they have played much with you. Rookie players could use some slack. Their reaction in-game sounds like acting out OOC frustration with you. Have they experienced such frustration before?

EDIT: ninja-ed by further information.

Posted by: Dez384 Sep 3 2011, 04:34 AM

Our group has been playing together for a while now and this is our second shadow-run campaign. I'd like to think that we'd be used to plot twists by now, but apparently not.

Posted by: Tanegar Sep 3 2011, 04:35 AM

I second Neraph on all points. Yes, you should have told them about the mark's itinerary at the outset, including his projected date of departure. On the other hand, the players do need to learn to do proper legwork, up to and including continuous surveillance of the target should it be called for. And yes, they need to feel some serious heat for that kind of high-profile temper tantrum. Blowing things up is occasionally a necessary part of a run. Blowing things up because you screwed the pooch and are losing your shit is the kind of thing that gets runners blacklisted at the very least.

Posted by: Method Sep 3 2011, 04:38 AM

I'd say your players just royally fucked themselves. Now the politico knows someone is gunning for him and his security and whereabout will become that much more difficult to surmise.

But more to the point, it sounds to me like your players are acting out because they were disappointed in the direction the game went or had expectations that were not met. Personally, I think complications are what make the game fun, but apparently your player feel differently. Or maybe they just don't appreciate the plot you are trying to develop. At any rate it sounds like you all need to have an OoC chat before your next session and make up.

Edit: Holy ninja-attack, Batman!

Posted by: CanRay Sep 3 2011, 04:42 AM

After my tech support scars, http://my.spill.com/photo/common-sensedeadpool-style?context=user.

Posted by: LurkerOutThere Sep 3 2011, 04:51 AM

I forsee this thread will produce an arbitration that all parties will be happy about. I also have a variety of bridges for sale. I'm always a little leery about folks coming to internet forums looking for ammo to win an table argument, but here are my thoughts:

You really can't win on this one, as a GM if you portray a game world where nothing moves independent of the players action it's not very good story telling. THe flip side to that is as a storyteller when you see your players cruising on merrily towards disaster you have to give them a chance to avert it ahead of time, because to be honest the characters should be way better at tracking details from moment to moment then the players are with session brakes and what not. What I would have done had I see this is call for a sort of "putting two and two together" test if they are not putting together all the information they've gather correctly. Maybe someone who reviewed the files should have been allowed to make a logic + medicine roll to know that by now the target would be pushing the maximum amount of time gene therapy would have taken, or something similar.

While I do think the team might have done better over watch and relied less on events not changing on the whole if the information would have reasonably been gained by them you should have given them some chance to put it together.

In short: If the players have done recon and might have reasonably come across the details in question to make a proper decision you should try and provide opportunities to do so. If they don't perform recon or just go about things in a way that won't solve the puzzle you shouldn't hold their hands and pave the road, but you should accept close attempts.

In other words, it would be kind of a jerk move to tell someone that they are ejected from a vehicle after a crash because they didn't specifically tell you they were buckling their seatbelt when they got in the car.


So final thoughts: As a compromise see if you can come up with a roll to get the data they need and then if they're amenable to it consider just rewinding back before the point of failure.

Posted by: Critias Sep 3 2011, 05:08 AM

Amen. Especially when more than one person from the argument are here, and adding to/changing the story as the thread progresses.

Guys: fuck Dumpshock (and all the rest of the internet). You're friends. Talk to each other, instead of using the internet as some sort of "appeal to authority" fallacy to win an argument.

Posted by: Shinobi Killfist Sep 3 2011, 05:32 AM

Like most situations blame probably can be found on both sides.

Should the players have kept surveillance, generally yes. But that is a yes dependent on their skills at shadowing people.

On the other hand when asking for a targets schedule a GM should not treat questions like that like the players are making a wish with a genie. They should have got the full schedule including when it would be wrapped up.

This is more general and not tied to what was given in the OP but as a GM I think it is a good idea to remember that your players probably are not members of special forces so playing gotcha because they forget to X while otherwise having a solid plan is just being a bit dickish. If they seem to be overlooking something basic it isn't a bad idea to drop a hint. If they seem to have a good plan I am going to assume they remembered to tie their shoes, look for a tail or whatever basic features a trained professional would be doing without expecting the players to always remember to say it.

At the end of the day though acting out is never cool, it just a grownup version of a temper tantrum. Just talk with each other, and work it out.

Posted by: onlyghostdanceswhiledrunk Sep 3 2011, 06:19 AM

Tbh there is a common sense quality in the books for a reason; if your players didnt take it they dont get it. Especially if you play mirror-shades type campaigns like I do then you need to keep up on general details like that. You ofc dont do the rocks fall routine on them now but they just made a multi-million nuyen dent in someones bottomline... it is now cost-effective to send hitsquads after them. Meta-gaming at my table ends up getting players killed very quickly and totally legitimately. Fortunately Ive only ever had to boot one actual player before because of this.

Posted by: Loch Sep 3 2011, 07:47 AM

Running to dumpshock for an answer isn't going to fix the problem. Talk to us about it.

Posted by: Traul Sep 3 2011, 08:10 AM

Probably not, but it sure is entertaining

*grabs popcorn*

Posted by: Ascalaphus Sep 3 2011, 11:19 AM

Isn't that just a little bit harsh?

That said, I dislike those Common Sense qualities. What exactly constitutes "Common" sense varies a lot from GM to GM. Also, I think it's a very adversarial player-vs-GM kind of quality. Often if players are doing something that seems extremely stupid, it's because they misunderstood something the GM told them, or because the GM forgot to share information that wasn't as obvious as he thought.

In this case, the planned end date for the gene therapy is definitely that should've been on the schedule somewhere. It's a bit naive for the players not to ask for it, but since the GM doesn't mention it, they might just assume the GM meant that "the therapy will take long enough that the end date is not relevant to the adventure", and that the GM specifically didn't intend for the target to leave soon, because he wanted to force them to extract them from the vat and not while he's on the road to home.

That's a reasonable assumption for the players to make, so what seems obvious to the GM wasn't to the players. Said differently: if you're the only who seems to "get it", then your "common sense" apparently isn't common.

Posted by: suoq Sep 3 2011, 11:33 AM

Why do they have the city manager's schedule and yet are ignorant of when he's going home?

There are times when a player may have forgotten something that the character would have remembered, especially with missions that go over a few sessions. What was a detail in a game a couple weeks ago is not as important to the players as the central focus of their job that they've been working on for the past couple days is to the players.

1) At some point, assuming you informed the players that the schedule contained a departure date (which I'm still not clear on), you should remind players of things their characters should remember, such as the schedule and the stormcloud.
2) Was there some reason why you didn't want the explosives to be available on-time?

Now it may be that your goal here is to play an adversarial campaign (see the intro to this month's KODT), in which case, this is what you should expect and the character's actions are completely believable.

One last note: The player didn't ask should NOT mean the character doesn't know. If you insist on going down that path you will train your players to ask, and ask, and ask, and you're going to start hating your campaign because the players will be trained to look for minutiae.

Posted by: Seth Sep 3 2011, 11:53 AM

This kind of thing happens all the time when I am playing. It depends on the style of the GM.

One reason I like having NPCs around the players when I GM is so that the NPC can remind the players that they have forgotten something obvious, and I'll do that in the interest of having a good time. There are many reasons to play the game, and having a good time is high on the list. Some peoples definition of "having a good time" is different, so based on knowing the people, I will tune how much help they get.

Example: I'm running a game for a bunch of 14 year olds: the NPCs give them a lot of help, and in the original example would have reminded the players to check. I'm running a couple of games on Dumpshock, the NPCs wouldn't of reminded the players to check.

Posted by: Hound Sep 3 2011, 12:25 PM

My two cents: if it was my campaign, I'd probably have just said the guy sticks around a bit longer. Or better yet, have him leaving just as the runners are starting to enact their plan, in some way that they totally notice it. I don't normally like fudging, but I agree with the people that say it seems likely they would have found out what day he was leaving on. GMs make mistakes too, but the key in my opinion is to fix them in a way that doesn't feel like you're boning your players. Cause honestly, it would suck to do all that work/preparation, then basically have to start from square one.

Posted by: Dez384 Sep 3 2011, 01:01 PM

Firstly, I wasn't running to Dumpshock to get ammo to use for winning a table argument. I came here to get others opinions if what happened was unreasonable, since the majority of my other friends in real life don't play Shadowrun. My real life friends would agree with me, but that's because we're in Army ROTC and would get our butts handed to us if we didn't leave eyes on the objective. If our paranoid gunbunny was still playing with us, this wouldn't have happened. Again, I didn't come to dumpshock for arbitration, merely to see if I was out in left field with my thinking. This will have to be settled with my players, but that couldn't have been done last night as even the one who swears by reason had lost his marbles.

Secondly, I try to favor a fluid approach to my world and have told my players this. I have told them that jobs will change depending on when they take them and some will pass to someone else if the runners don't take them. This isn't a video game where the end boss is always sitting on his throne, just waiting for a group of adventurers to come kill him. I wanted to have choices matter. The explosives, which didn't really matter, were a choice. I had the contact get the explosives on a certain date to see how my players would react. Would they wait? Would they strike immediately after getting them? Would they wait until the next day to carrier out their plan? They chose to wait until the day after. That wasn't a bad choice per se. Once finding that their princess was in another castle, they could have left with little to no commotion. Rather they made the choice to [s]maim/[s] kill and burn. These choices will have consequence.

Thirdly, I do believe myself to be a lenient GM in many regards and as this is the first run with new characters, I didn't try to set them up for failure. I don't make the awakened tell me explicitly that they perform their geas ritual every morning. I let the minigun wielding troll intimidate without making checks (only on weak willed people). I let people use their landlord similar to a contact for knowledge and let contacts act a bit out of what you would expect from them (IMHO a fence wouldn't go find explosives for you or set up a meeting with the mafia, but I wanted to keep the game rolling).

Fourthly, in order to address some details that came up: I told them that they had the daily schedule that the manager keeps and didn't mention about the end date of the therapy. They didn't ask so I didn't tell them; they looked at one day and didn't ask about the future. I didn't conveniently remind the rigger about his stormcloud, because I didn't remember it either.

Fifthly, I honestly didn't think that they'd flip such a shit about the guy not being where they thought he would be. On the scale of twists, this was simple, practical, and could have been found when error checking the plan. Dickish moves could have been: he's not a real person, he doesn't have a cyber-arm, it was a trap etc. If my players had attacked when he wasn't in a gene therapy session, he would have probably made it through the escape tunnel (which they knew about). Now I am wondering if they could have even handled that much of a twist.

Posted by: LurkerOutThere Sep 3 2011, 01:33 PM

All I know is the answers to these questions are not here.

However my follow up thought, is there any reason the targets check out date wouldn't have been available on the system for the hacker? Do you give your players a file directory fold out and ask them what files they are going after (don't laugh, i've done this always leads to hillarious episodes of "What's the paydata actually named, and how many of the other files have databombs on them?") to which the answer is always: All of them.

I guess at first blush it does seem like while your ideas are valid you did deliberately obfusicate data the runners otherwise should have gotten during their leg work. They should have kept eyes on the package in the lead up, but that has it's own risks as well as the surveillance team can be discovered blowing or prematurely starting the op.

Posted by: Dez384 Sep 3 2011, 01:42 PM

They check out date would have been available to the hacker had he looked, but he didn't look or ask for it.

Posted by: UmaroVI Sep 3 2011, 01:45 PM

I think you're focusing on the wrong question.

Did this make the game more fun for everyone? If yes, you made the right call. If no, you made the wrong call.

Actually, I posted before you replied to Lurker. I agree with him and suoq: that was a bad call.

Posted by: Neraph Sep 3 2011, 01:46 PM

My group was once on a Shadowrun to kidnap old people from an old-folk's home (for use in cyborgs, but nobody did the hacking to figure that out...). Not only did they end up kidnapping like 20 people over the age of 75, they also killed like five orderlies/security guards, Powerballed the loading dock door (and some of the dock), kidnapped the holistic shaman on-premises, and dragged a few bodies with them. There were 11 drones used (which is how the first security guy died [the rigger had all 11 drones on one subscription and told that subscription to shoot the guard once with SnS - 11 shots hit the guard for 99S(e) that he heroically reduced to 77S with only 3 Bod and 6 armor that was reduced to 3]), nobody hacked the security cameras or edited/deleted the feeds, and nobody wore masks or helmets.

The way I didn't TPK the group is I created a rival Johnson from the corp that owned the old-folk's home who got their info first and started redirecting info so he could capture them himself. He sent an elite sqaud after the team (I used Tir Ghosts that I reposted http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?showtopic=25754&st=0&gopid=783369&#entry783369 with Capsule Rounds and Slab) while they were doing downtime in their "saferoom" while monitoring the scope of the 'run they had just done. When they came to they were all strapped and constrained in BC for the Awakened facing the J who started on a spiel about how they cost his company a lot of money. As he was monologuing some medical staff took blood samples from the whole team. He went on to say something about liking their more unorthodox heavy hand and how he may have some use for them later. Then they were knocked out and held for a few weeks.

Half of the blood samples were used to force-grow full clones of the team that were placed in a car, had a chase on live-feed Matrix sites, and was attacked and detonated, after "weeks of expert detective work" - the company had the bodies of those responsible they were looking for. The other half was kept as a ritual sample so the J could Ritual cast Dream to contact them at any time to do any thing for free, as many times as he wanted. Since they were now dead, they lost all their contacts from their old life and had to get new SINs and all that, but the group "survived."

Posted by: LurkerOutThere Sep 3 2011, 01:47 PM

He shouldn't have had to in my opinion. Your turning it into a game of genie questions and to be honest that's a not a very fun game. THe only representation of the data they have is the one you build for them in their minds eye. Some things that would be obvious to you sitting down at a computer or just going through a sheet of papers arn't going to be a forthcoming to them as you regurgitate. Did you provide a hand out visual aide?

Posted by: suoq Sep 3 2011, 01:51 PM

Congratulations. You have just trained your players to play "200 questions". Hopefully, this was your goal. On the other hand, their blowing up of everything indicates to me that "200 questions" is not the campaign they're looking for.

This has nothing to do with "common sense". This has everything to do with different play styles and an inability (and possibly refusal) to find a middle ground.

Posted by: Lanlaorn Sep 3 2011, 02:27 PM

Look, the fact is this "you didn't ask about X" thing is actually really common among GMs of any tabletop game and I'm pretty sure it annoys everyone. The classic D&D example of course being "I check for traps" followed by a trap going off and "You didn't check the ceiling for a trap!". It's like the GM is playing "gotcha!" with his players and really just leads to super artificial interrogations every time they talk to anyone or do anything.

Because, in this specific case, when you say the rigger hacks in and gets his stringent schedule, the players think they actually have his schedule. Not his "daily" schedule and they have to specifically ask for his "full" schedule or whatever adjective you want to use. It's not a semantics game where you win the debate on a technicality, and there's a huge "my character would know this even if I don't" trump card that the players would use anyway.

I mean ultimately it's a matter of miscommunication, but since you as the GM are omniscient and actively know when the players are working on a bad understanding of something you need to clear it up, not watch the train wreck unfold. To be fair any veteran player really shouldn't be too annoyed by it since, like I said, this is a super common occurrence lol. As an example from a game I'm playing in recently, we were looking to buy passage on a boat in order to intercept a NPC we were chasing. We discuss what kind of boat would be most motivated by speed (delivering fresh fruits, etc.) and the characters ask the harbormaster where we'd find ships to match our needs. There are apparently four suitable candidates and we begin negotiating. But only when my character is superfluously checking with the third (we're pretty obviously going with the first guy but just to check all four) do we realize that it turns out "we didn't ask" where the ships were going. The players assumed that the ships the harbormaster pointed out were the fast ships going where they wanted, not just the fast ships. The GM knew they were working on a bad assumption and let it unfold. It ultimately didn't matter but can you imagine if we had gotten on the wrong boat and ended up going in the opposite direction what the reaction would have been to "you didn't ask"?

Posted by: HunterHerne Sep 3 2011, 04:21 PM

I've got a similar thing unfolding in my game, maybe, and wonder if your opinions could be had. One PC has been included in runs I've done before, but the other characters are fresh (though one player was also in another run), and has a little bit of story unfolding. That bit involved an NPC breakout from custody that involved 3 awakened NPC's (an Adept and 2 mages), who have otherwise no real connection to each other (The mages are part of a NPC runner group). I have provided them with that information, through the Hacker's data search, as well as indicating the current job, which will involve capturing the Adept, only has one awakened NPC as opposition.

Now, the way I do my games, the players get the information from me (the exacts necessary are as mentioned), and they relay it to the other players, how they see fit. The problem, they seem to be preparing to assault with the assumption the mages, as well as the tech support the mages were observed to have, would be present. I don't know if I should tell them outright what they are doing wrong, or let it go, as they are over-planning, and the surprise may be a relief.

Right now, they probably figure I pull out all the stops to hurt them. In a previous run, the PCs ran into a Jason Voorhees wannabe. In another, a rigger got his drone hacked and confiscated. And in this one, the current rigger got his EW drone blown up by a mil-spec Nimrod.

Posted by: suoq Sep 3 2011, 04:33 PM

Our team seriously misunderstood the nature of the opposition on our last run with the end result being a lot of dead bodies (not ours). I did a nice torture job on an innocent(?) cop and didn't have a clue until it was too late what was going on. (Yep, I completely blew it.)

I really enjoyed that run.

Personally, as a player, being wrong when I'm given all the hints gives opportunity for growth as a player, as a character, and as a campaign. It's kind of like what made "Sixth Sense" so good. It doesn't matter that some people got it, 5 minutes into the movie. It was that so many people didn't get it until the end but all the clues were there.

Posted by: jaellot Sep 3 2011, 06:18 PM

Sounds like your players did a lot of thinking, and legwork (2 sessions worth by your own posting) and in all that effort the leave-date wasn't there because it wasn't told to them. Not from a lack of asking, which it sounds like they didn't explicitly do. As mentioned elsewhere, this sort of move is akin to the "you didn't say you were buckling your seatbelt, so you're all sorts of goo from the car crash"...

Quite frankly, it sounds like you had him gone because they did too good a job of thinking things through and you got pissy. That may not be the case, but it reads that way to me. And I can dig it. I've put time and effort into sessions, too, for all manner of games, and the players decimate them in moments. Moments.

You also mentioned ROTC. And how you would get in trouble for overlooking things and blah, blah, blah. But are your friends in the ROTC? You didn't mention them, so I must assume no. They aren't trained in that way of thinking and looking at things, so it's completely unfair of you to expect their PC's to somehow do so. It would be like an Iron Chef running a game where one of the PC's is a chef, but their player clearly isn't. The character would know how to fillet a fish, and fish it into a million dishes in under an hour, but the player wouldn't. Just because you know something, or think something, because of your own training and experiences obviously doesn't mean the players are the same way.

Either that, or you really should have included the leave date since their plan hinged on getting him while on the island. Regardless of who asked what exactly. It was their plan, and it should go without saying that the leave-date would have been of at least interest to them, if not being the single most important piece of information concerning the whole thing. Unless your goal was to set up a run, let them bust their humps for a couple of sessions planning it out, then screw them over on a technicality because of information only you could provide.

So it looks to me it's either deliberate on your part that they not succeed, or you as the GM made a mistake, and you are holding them responsible instead of owning up to it. Even if it doesn't seem like a mistake to you, it is. The game isn't about getting the whatever the target is, it's about having fun. Some of the most fun can come from screwing up a run, if it's the players' fault, and if they really screw up. These guys did put a lot of thought into the run, but you're holding an extremely minor thing against them.

Now, does this excuse their reaction? That depends, really. I don't blame them for being pissed and lashing out. Considering the omission of the leave-date being something their PC's should have known, their OOC anger being channelled into IC is understandable at least, if not completely justified. They were probably thinking eye for an eye, or some such, considering. You screwed with them in the game, and they were going to screw with you right back.

I'd personally consider the whole session a wash, a bad dream, or a simsense they were watching together one night. Everybody learn from it, and leave it in the past. Hugs and kisses, or manly shoulder punches, all around and keep on playing from there. Look back on it ten years from now and laugh at how stupid you all were. It'll be great.

Posted by: Irion Sep 3 2011, 06:22 PM

But there are two extreme. There are also the player saying nothing or just the wrong thing or just beeing plain general.
Because if you check everything it takes time, too.

Posted by: Falanin Sep 3 2011, 06:31 PM

I agree with swoq and LurkerOutThere. While the team may have been stupid, (and I'm not saying they weren't... losing surveillance for multiple days and not checking before going in? Ouch.) you have an obligation to describe CLEARLY what the problems are that the team has to overcome.

Unless you describe it to them, the team knows literally nothing. In this case, you needed to make crystal clear that they only knew what the target did on a typical day, and did not in fact have his actual calendar. You also needed to tell the players that this was an important omission, and that, as professionals, they should worry about not having the actual calendar.

As professionals in a job that requires a degree of paranoia, you NEED to let the players know when something triggers the paranoia reflex. If not having the complete schedule may be an issue, the players shouldn't have to ask whether it might be an issue. This shit needs to be spelled out, because it's too much for the players to keep track of on their own, and YOU are the only one that can clue them in. The books will not do it for you.

The reason I'm being so hard on you about this is because Shadowrun in particular has TONS of consequences and little details that can totally screw over the players. Little things in the setting like the implications of RFIDS or the surveillance society, or the commonality and legality of certain types of cyber, the way that fake SINs work, or how common hackers are, and the reason that people keep their commlinks on despite that. A lot of this shit isn't spelled out clearly. In my opinion, the detail adds to the setting, but it can throw even experienced players for a loop. Therefore... if you're planning on making a plot point about RFIDS (for example), you'd better let the players know that it's not just background information.

Springing a "gotcha" like this on a team that has been doing good planning otherwise is the kind of thing that ends games. I know, because the time I fucked it up as GM, it ENDED THE GAME. It wasted months worth of prepped runs and plot, and it's been really difficult to convince that group to let me run SR again. You don't screw over your players for little shit that their characters clearly would have gotten.

Posted by: suoq Sep 3 2011, 06:46 PM

I wanted to toss this out there, because it's been nagging at me.

What, exactly, IS a "daily schedule" and how do you look at it?

I've owned way too many planners in my life, from Franklin Planners to simple calenders to Lotus Notes my current Android phone. All of them had one thing in common, each day's schedule was on it's own page. Even when I had an automated way to enter daily tasks, it simply put those tasks on each day.

So can someone please explain to me how they managed to find out the target was doing the same thing every day but not notice that he would be leaving the island soon?

Posted by: Mardrax Sep 3 2011, 06:59 PM

Buckling your seatbelt, however, can be quite an important choice. The difference from not having to take that simple action when getting in and out of your chair can mean life or death, as much as taking the time for it can.

In the case of legwork information though, I'm assuming the characters Data Searched the compound system to get his schedule. I'm assuming they Data Searched for anything containing his name. Date of arrival, start and end of treatment, and departure should be the first things they find. Similar to looking up what he's there for: "Mister MacGuffin, Gene Therapy, 6/5/2072-9/11/2072."

Posted by: Dez384 Sep 3 2011, 07:52 PM

So here the rub: Hacker hacks in. Hacker asks about the security Hacker asks about the regular shipments to the island. Tell him about the food delivery in the morning and the target's aide in the evening. Hacker asks about the target schedule. I give him the security's copy of the daily schedule of the target. The group decides on a time of day to attack. Hacker leaves and deletes his account on the system.

Nothing that the players said made me think of the end date for the gene therapy. Therefore, I did not mention it.




And Mardrax, the did their business on 9/12, not the eleventh.

Posted by: Critias Sep 3 2011, 07:55 PM

So now what?

You've asked Dumpshock what they think (whether you've agreed with the assessments or not is another story). So what do you plan to do about it now? In-game, out-of-game, what's your plan for dealing with the situation? Did you get the answers you wanted from this thread, or did your players? Has it influenced your thought process at all?

Posted by: CanRay Sep 3 2011, 08:01 PM

Does Dumpshock have any thought processes at all?

Posted by: Dez384 Sep 3 2011, 08:04 PM

I'll need to talk with my players and hope that they've calmed down by our next session tomorrow. We'll discuss what kind of game they want to play and how much hand-holding is necessary.

As for the story, I'll probably do a retcon of sorts, otherwise this will become a game of GM vs Player very quickly and no one will have fun with us just trying to kill each other.

Posted by: Infornography Sep 3 2011, 08:04 PM

If I learned one thing from Shadowrun,
it's never to expect any common sense from my players.
Especially if explosives are involved ...

Posted by: CanRay Sep 3 2011, 08:04 PM

Get more players from Mining Country. You learn to be REAL careful with explosives almost from the womb.

Posted by: Critias Sep 3 2011, 08:21 PM

Good luck with that.

Posted by: Mikado Sep 3 2011, 08:26 PM

Ok, I will agree with your players in that they asked for the “schedule” so you should have given them the schedule. They did not ask for his daily schedule… they asked for the schedule, which includes his daily routine, how he is getting to and from the compound AND when he is leaving. Unless the hacker did not have access (maybe due to not hacking an admin account) to the whole schedule they should have been informed that there was no treatment end date slated. If the hacker had access to the full medical itinerary then they should have the information that he will be leaving.

On that note… in the 45 minutes it took me to read all of the other posts I am left a little confused… Your group has two mages, yes, one is a mystic adept but he can gain access to assensing but the use of spirits. Why the hell did no one view him astrally? If the hacker had access to the guy’s medical records why did he not look at them? How is it that under whatever surveillance the team was using did no one find out that HE DID NOT HAVE A CYBERARM? They did not even question which arm was the replacement? You may not have given them the guy’s departure time but they still would have blown the place up because they would have claimed that you did not tell them he did not have a cyberarm.

It did not matter that you did not give them information they asked for because you also did not give them information that they did not ask for… Also, why did they feel it was necessary to have enough explosives to level the compound when all they had to do was steal an arm not vaporize a city block?

Both, the GM AND the players are at fault for this debacle. The GM may not have given out information that the players asked for but the players did not ask for information that should have been asked… But I fault the players more for the childish behavior of blowing up the facility instead of coming up with another way of completing the mission.

Posted by: Mardrax Sep 3 2011, 08:37 PM

...Waitwut?
I think you're misunderstanding some hyperbole.

Posted by: Ascalaphus Sep 3 2011, 08:40 PM

Consider it from the players' perspective:

They asked for a schedule, and they got "the schedule".

They then spend two sessions preparing a run, with you in the room.

Then when they do the run, you tell them they've wasted that effort, because they should have asked for his day-to-day schedule instead of his daily schedule.

How would you feel if a GM did that to you? I'd feel screwed.

---

You say you didn't think of giving that information in the first place. Okay, that's an accident. But they did ask for such information, because they searched for schedules.

So then when they make a plan that won't work because of the timeframe, you should tell them about the timeframe: "Hey guys, I forgot to tell you earlier, but when you hacked the computer, you read that he's there only until day X. So you need a faster plan."

Posted by: Dez384 Sep 3 2011, 08:42 PM

Some hyperbole was misunderstood. He did have a cyber arm. The notion of him not having one would be an idea of a ridiculous twist.

Posted by: Mikado Sep 3 2011, 08:53 PM

Ah, in going back and rereading... you where pointing out that it could have been a possibility. My mistake. I retract that bit of ranting.

*That is what I get for reading this at work...

***Still does not explain the use of explosives (still confused as to why they thought it would be nessissary to begin with) instead of a discussion like it should have been.

Posted by: CanRay Sep 3 2011, 08:55 PM

Explosives are always part of Plan B.

...

Or Plan A, if I'm working on the plans.

Posted by: Dez384 Sep 3 2011, 08:59 PM

The Troll's Mentality exactly.

Posted by: Mikado Sep 3 2011, 09:00 PM

Not questioning the use of explosives for a job (go go gadget breaching charge)... Questioning the need to have enough to blow up the entire facility when that was not the job or blowing up the place out of spite.

Posted by: Lanlaorn Sep 3 2011, 09:10 PM

Ok but here's the thing, they think they've looked at his actual schedule, you know they've only actually seen a small segment of it. They then make a lot of plans based on that misinterpretation and you're the only one who knows there's a failure in communication, and do nothing about it. This is basically directly analogous to "Hey, want to see a movie on Sunday at 10?" "Eh that's pretty late but yea sure, I'll meet you there" wherein you meant 10 am and they assumed 10 pm, neither party actually made any errors in communication but nevertheless you've failed to get the right content across. And it's true it's based on an incorrect assumption by the other party. But you know the correct information, you know the other party believes incorrect information and you know that this situation is currently heading for disaster. It's really on you to actually make things right, and the players are just as frustrated as the hypothetical moviegoer would be.

Also you really can't be condescending about this. Don't patronize your players and call it "handholding", you need to effectively communicate. Once you realized the fuck up you could have said "Ok and just to be clear you guys have only seen one day of his schedule". It's something their characters definitely know (the difference between seeing one torn out page from a dayplanner and flipping through the actual book) and that the players clearly think they know but are mistaken. As the GM it's really your job to make yourself understood. To quote xkcd http://xkcd.com/169/.

Posted by: Traul Sep 3 2011, 09:13 PM

That does not sound so complicated to deal with:

1° chop his arm off
2° implant a cyberarm
3° chop his arm off

You even get a free snack for your Tamanous friends

EDIT: post written before seeing the xkcd link...

Posted by: Mardrax Sep 3 2011, 11:21 PM

Remember your Shadowrun ABCDE!

D stands for Demolitions.

Posted by: Miri Sep 3 2011, 11:42 PM

After having spent two entire sessions doing legwork and planning, which is how much RL time, and then however long it took in session three to get to the point they realized he was gone by a day. That is a lot of time spent essentially wasted. I as a player would have been royally steamed. As a GM I would have simply found another reason for the guy to have stuck around for one more day.. maybe one of his labs came back abnormal or something. Anything to keep two and a half sessions of game play from getting tossed out the window, which is no fun at all.

Posted by: Traul Sep 4 2011, 12:35 AM

Air-fuel
Breaching charge
C4
Demolitions
Explosives
...

Posted by: Mardrax Sep 4 2011, 12:54 AM

Awesome
Backup
Combat
Demolitions
Escape

Unless I'm recalling wrong.

Posted by: Tanegar Sep 4 2011, 12:57 AM

You're all forgetting one. Check my sig.

Posted by: Mardrax Sep 4 2011, 07:58 AM

Failure is not an option.

Posted by: PresentPresence Sep 12 2011, 04:30 AM

Whoah.

Posted by: CanRay Sep 12 2011, 04:38 AM

Aren't you supposed to use children for Cyborgs, not the Elderly?

There's also less security at grade schools/school busses. http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/1545250/images/1208394851520.jpg

Posted by: Dahrken Sep 12 2011, 04:50 AM

Both options are technically possible, each has it's advantages and it's drawbacks.

Posted by: CanRay Sep 12 2011, 04:59 AM

*Gun drone turns on the Shadowrunners* "Are you the mailman?"

Posted by: Bodak Sep 12 2011, 06:10 AM

But... you said...

Posted by: CanRay Sep 12 2011, 06:11 AM

Don't bother looking for logic on the Internet or in any computers. There isn't any.

EDIT: As one of my friend is wont to say, "I think I saw a TWO!"

Posted by: raben-aas Sep 12 2011, 08:24 AM

This. And only this.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Sep 12 2011, 08:39 AM

Nothing pisses me off more than the GM doing something like this. Obviously the information about the end of therapy was a given in the schedule hack, and they're right to assume you would have mentioned it if it was relevantly soon. My GM has done things like this before, and it's terribly frustrating. The reason is because your *character* knows this stuff, and is a careful badass. For him to make a silly oversight is out of character, and ruins everything.

If the guy had legitimately left *early*, unexpectedly, that'd be fine. That's something they couldn't have known without the eyes-on updates they apparently neglected. But don't wreck things they believe they've already done.