Printable Version of Topic

Click here to view this topic in its original format

Dumpshock Forums _ Shadowrun _ What are you favourite sneaky tactics against your

Posted by: The Question Man Jul 22 2004, 09:53 PM

A Hit Man with twin cyber guns loaded with Gamma-Scopolamine, Neuro Stun-X, etc… He was dressed as a bus boy. He sprays both the Troll Street Samurai and the Physical Adept from Hell. Draws Ruger Super Warhawk with EX Explosive rounds and empties it into Mr. Johnson/the Principle then leaves. I have never had a more frustrated group of players.

The Runners killed almost every Security Guard in the Corporate Facility and the Last Security Guard activates the Neuro Stun-X Gas through out the facility. Knocking every one unconscious. (They even new about it.) Very frustrating for the team Decker who hired another Shadowrunner team to Extract (Rescue) them. Minus their toys. 

The Runners gunned down a Security Guard Patrol. Then were surprised when the Security Emergency Response Team and alert Security Guards. They refused to surrender and finally went out in a blaze of glory.

Posted by: Luke Hardison Jul 22 2004, 10:19 PM

My players were quite surprised when I got Cannon Companion an d my NPC's started to use searching and suppressive fire. It made standing up and wading through autofire much less of an option, and frusterated my munchkin to no end. He finally took a light wound from simple gangers because two had machine pistols; the face and shaman were smart enough to get down when the lead started flying.

I don't really think that's devious, just unexpected.

They can regularly expect to meet sec guards with tasers and Defiance T-250's with stun shells. SMG's with gel rounds are also common in the heavier defended areas. It's rare to find guards with specifically lethal gear, for reasons discussed in other threads.

For more advanced security, gas in corridors (neurostun or such), astral wards or FAB filled walls, and (this one is pretty new, as I just realized the value of them) guard dogs and paracritters.

Posted by: Zazen Jul 23 2004, 02:47 AM

A couple times I had a tricky NPC throw fake grenades at the players. They deliver an electric shock to anyone who picks them up to try to throw them back. They used to always try to throw back grenades, now they're a little more discretionary.

Posted by: Cain Jul 23 2004, 03:09 AM

For extreme situations: putting them up against clones of themselves, using similar tactics, usually fits the bill.

Posted by: BitBasher Jul 23 2004, 03:21 AM

One of the few times I have had players get really pissed off and surprised was a run in which the Johnson had a clause in the run agreement thet the johnson was to be given everything they aquired during the run. They agreed. When the absolute hell whirlwind of death run was over, after they got karma the Johnson reveals himself to be a free spirit and asks them to prepare for the beginning of the (karma) donation ritual. They after all aquired it during the run.

It was a Kodak Moment, the looks on their faces was priceless.

Posted by: Necro Tech Jul 23 2004, 04:09 AM

I like throwing grenades a little short or just outside of cover. When the players run out to scoop it up, the guy with the delayed action shoots them.

Posted by: Odin Jul 23 2004, 04:23 AM

QUOTE

One of the few times I have had players get really pissed off and surprised was a run in which the Johnson had a clause in the run agreement thet the johnson was to be given everything they aquired during the run. They agreed. When the absolute hell whirlwind of death run was over, after they got karma the Johnson reveals himself to be a free spirit and asks them to prepare for the beginning of the (karma) donation ritual. They after all aquired it during the run.

It was a Kodak Moment, the looks on their faces was priceless.

I'm surprised none of your players didn't physically attack you after that one

Posted by: Necrotic Monkey Jul 23 2004, 04:35 AM

I never get over how a purely thought-based game mechanic became an actual "thing" in the game that can be traded, sold, and purchased. Karma donations completely blow my suspension of disbelief during the game.

"Hey, I just donated to the poor." "Cool, now give me the karma you received for that donation." "What?"

Posted by: BitBasher Jul 23 2004, 05:50 AM

Er then don't call it karma in first person, there's no reason to.

Posted by: Necrotic Monkey Jul 23 2004, 06:21 AM

Then feel free to explain how you have a Johnson demanding you perform a magical ritual to feed it this imaginary construct called luck/lifeforce/experience/whatever they "acquired" on the run.

Posted by: nezumi Jul 23 2004, 01:20 PM

QUOTE (Necrotic Monkey)

I don't know what you're talking about. I donated a box of old clothes to Goodwill last week and they gave me a receipt for 1 karma. Good deal!

Posted by: toturi Jul 23 2004, 01:27 PM

QUOTE (BitBasher @ Jul 23 2004, 11:21 AM)

It was a Kodak Moment, the looks on their faces was priceless.

So what else did the runners acquire on the run?

Did they get hit? Did they acquire wounds? Acquire new enemies? They must turn all those over to their Johnson too...

Posted by: Abstruse Jul 23 2004, 08:12 PM

A ganger loading Grandpa's old shotgun with slugs tends to ruin their days pretty well...my favorite was watching them scramble and waste the remaining actions in their round when a stun grenade was thrown into the room and a guy with an SMG was blocking the only exit. Ah, fun times...

The Abstruse One

Posted by: LaughingTiger Jul 23 2004, 08:27 PM

QUOTE (BitBasher)

...after they got karma the Johnson reveals himself to be a free spirit and asks them to prepare for the beginning of the (karma) donation ritual. They after all aquired it during the run.

It was a Kodak Moment, the looks on their faces was priceless.

Wow, that's devious. My other point was addressed by Necrotic Monkey.

I'd just say that if you were my gm at the beginning of the night, you weren't afterwards. Did you really screw your pc's out of everything they earned that night?

Posted by: UpSyndrome Jul 23 2004, 08:36 PM

I nearly wiped out my players when they were tailing a mage and he had his force 6 air elemental manifest inside of the group's van and start breathing away. I had never used the noxious breath critter power before, and was startled by how effective it was. Needless to say I aborted my round-by-round tactics and just had it keep doing that.

Another fun surprise was the orc ganger with the human looking edge...When players are expecting a certain set of stats, small changes such as racial modifiers can catch them off guard.

I also like "wrong place at the wrong time" encounters. One time, the group was just coming up from the orc underground, where they had tracked down and killed the hidden life vessel of a free spirit that had been troubling them (the vessel was a poor housecat that they had to manabolt 5 or 6 times before it's regeneration finally gave out). Anyway, they pop out of the sewers and into the middle of a full blown turf-war, and each gang mistakes the runners as ringers brought in by the other gang to tip the scales.

Fun times.

Posted by: SirKodiak Jul 23 2004, 09:16 PM

QUOTE

It was a Kodak Moment, the looks on their faces was priceless.

So what else did the runners acquire on the run?

Did they get hit? Did they acquire wounds? Acquire new enemies? They must turn all those over to their Johnson too...

If karma counts as a possession, then so do the memories accumulated during the run. Clearly the spirit will have to read everyone's minds to acquire those, otherwise they'll be in breech of contract.

Anyways, the rules clearly state that "Karma is awarded at the end of the adventure" [Core Rules, page 242]. If their contract hasn't been fulfilled, then the adventure shouldn't be over, so they haven't accumulated any Karma to hand over.

In addition, the spirit has no way to determine what Karma, if any, the characters possess. It isn't listed as being visible under astral perception, so the characters could easily claim they don't have any. It isn't even clear if the characters know they have any Karma either.

And that assumes that Karma is anything more than a game construct, instead of being like Combat Pool or breaking up contacts into levels. The spirit has about as much business asking for Karma as it does asking for the dice the players roll.

Posted by: BitBasher Jul 23 2004, 09:52 PM

Rationalizing does no good when there's an entire mechanic in the game devoted specifically to donating good karma to spirits. Rationalize all you want, it still happens. Any character with a skill in magical background at least has an idea how that works. The adventure was over they got paid (an assload) of cash. Metagaming and rules lawyering will not resolve the issue.

I only did that once to my players, and they were quite annoyed with it but at teh same time were a little impressed because it hadn't ever even been considered by them, and that's hard to do. In fact, they still get bitter about it if it's brought up today.

Yes, they had to donate their karma, but they were well financially reimbursed for it. In a game where the aberage pay was 15-25k each they made over 100k each.

That actually stopped them from kicking my ass. And started them doing more research on their Johnsons.

The rigger had no real complaints at all.

Sometomes IC, shit just happens whether you like it or not.

Posted by: Necrotic Monkey Jul 23 2004, 09:57 PM

QUOTE (BitBasher @ Jul 23 2004, 03:52 PM)

Fascinating paragraph considering you just used metagaming and rules lawyering to excuse the trading of a purely metagaming construct. Especially since wounds, enemies, and memories are all way more tangible commodities than karma.

Posted by: BitBasher Jul 23 2004, 10:06 PM

There are rules for doing it in game. Not house rules, I used what the book offered me.

Posted by: Necrotic Monkey Jul 23 2004, 10:09 PM

I'm aware of that.

However, you (contextually) claimed that it would be easy to rationalize it away by calling it something else, and I was hoping you could enlighten me to a more plausible scenario that would explain it as it occured in your example. Because otherwise it's a prime example of metagaming rules lawyering in an actual game, which is even more odd since you just attempted to chastise everyone else for doing that by not wanting to metagame or rules lawyer (can you actually use that as a verb?).

Posted by: BitBasher Jul 23 2004, 10:12 PM

A piece of your soul, the memory enegrams you aquired while doing the job. The memories then be came faded, like a dream, and felt empty and shallow as if a part of their life had been stolen from them. That's the general description if I remember it right, it was around 7 years ago. The "piece of your soul" came from the shaman, and the "memory enegrams" came from a hermetic trying to explain it to the other players.

Edit I can use a lot of things as a verb. Example: "It worked fine when it happened in my game but on a messageboard someone DocFunked all over it".

Posted by: Necrotic Monkey Jul 23 2004, 10:14 PM

How do you acquire more soul while on a run? And if their memories were sucked away, how do any of them remember it?

Edit: And I see. Even when I ask a straight question in a calm tone, I still get insults hurled at me by the very person who complains about the opposite behavior. So very fascinating.

Posted by: BitBasher Jul 23 2004, 10:15 PM

Like I said, the soul part (as was the memory enegrams) was a PC trying to explain it to other PC's. And I never said their memories were sucked away. Sucked away is thematically different than I just described it.

Posted by: Necrotic Monkey Jul 23 2004, 10:19 PM

The way the players rationalized it is meaningless. They were simply trying to cover your hoop for metagaming.

You receive Karma for playing your character well. How did the spirit rationalize acquiring that Karma? You receive Karma for making the GM chuckle. How did the spirit rationalize acquiring that Karma? You receive Karma for figuring out a clue. How did the spirit rationalize acquiring that Karma? You receive Karma for getting everyone else to play the game and really get into it. How did the spirit rationalize acquiring that Karma?

I can almost come up with a few decent reasons for why a free spirit could require karma in exchange for a service rendered. But requiring all karma you earn doing something? That just doesn't make any sense to me.

You also never answered toturi's question. Did the spirit also take all of their wounds? Their enemies? Everything else they acquired on the run? Why didn't it keep the money? Afterall, they acquired that for the run, too. And at least those things are tangible commodities.

Posted by: BitBasher Jul 23 2004, 10:27 PM

QUOTE (Necrotic Monkey @ Jul 23 2004, 10:19 PM)

You receive Karma for playing your character well. How did the spirit rationalize acquiring that Karma? You receive Karma for making the GM chuckle. How did the spirit rationalize acquiring that Karma? You receive Karma for figuring out a clue. How did the spirit rationalize acquiring that Karma? You receive Karma for getting everyone else to play the game and really get into it. How did the spirit rationalize acquiring that Karma?

The spirit doesn't rationalize Karma. The spirit may not even identify it as Karma. it's unlikey in fact that he does. All the spirit know is that by putting employess in life threatening situations that they gain something he can use to advance himself. In fact, by taking things from humans is the only way he can advance himself. It's entirely unnecessary for a spirit to even know what that is. All he has to know is the cause and effect necessary to get it. After all, that is the only way in the game that free spirits can raise force and gain spirit energy is by having others donate it Karma. That's absolutely necessary for a free spirit.

QUOTE

The way the players rationalized it is meaningless. They were simply trying to cover your hoop for ~~metagaming~~ following printed rules.

Better

Posted by: KillaJ Jul 23 2004, 11:19 PM

QUOTE (BitBasher)

That sounds just like the kind of underhanded bullshit my gm would pull.

I kinda like the idea...

Posted by: SirKodiak Jul 24 2004, 04:11 AM

QUOTE

If they had gotten paid, why did they bother actually giving the Karma to the free spirit? This isn't an attack on your idea, I'm just curious.

Anyways, if they haven't fulfilled all the terms of their contract, I don't see how you can claim the adventure was over. I understand you call this metagaming and rules lawyering, but that's exactly what you're doing. Karma is a metagame concept, not an in-game concept. Just because players can give up Karma to increase the power of spirits doesn't make it an in-game concept.

Consider, if Karma is an in-game concept, and not just a way to allow for some level of control over the progression of PCs. Then that means that everyone, including NPCs really has Karma. In addition, as given in the rules, Karma is the only way to improve skills. In that case, no one would be able to improve their skills in anything without being an adventurer. Karma exists to limit the amount of gain that PCs can get from training. Otherwise, players would just train constantly and the game would become unmanagable. Karma is a metagame tool to balance the game. Any scenario which results in Karma being used in-game is metagaming.

QUOTE

Rationalizing does no good when there's an entire mechanic in the game devoted specifically to donating good karma to spirits. Rationalize all you want, it still happens.

There's an entire game mechanic devoted to designing new characters. That doesn't mean it would be appropriate for an NPC to tell players that if they die, they have to make their next character a Troll. Would you consider it acceptable for the spirit to tell players that they have to burn their Karma Pool in order to get a success? Giving good Karma to spirits should be roleplayed just like increasing stats/skills is. Good Karma is used for this purpose to limit the PC's ability to arbitrarily increase the power of spirits. It is an attempt at game balancing.

QUOTE

I only did that once to my players, and they were quite annoyed with it but at teh same time were a little impressed because it hadn't ever even been considered by them, and that's hard to do. In fact, they still get bitter about it if it's brought up today.

Yes, they had to donate their karma, but they were well financially reimbursed for it. In a game where the aberage pay was 15-25k each they made over 100k each.

That actually stopped them from kicking my ass.

So they're bitter about what you did and the only reason they didn't "kick your ass" was because you bribed them. That's not exactly a selling point. Stealing something from the players simply because you can, because you're the GM, isn't good GMing. Being smarter than your players is good. Abusing the fact that you decide the rules isn't. If you made it clear to them, before the start of the mission, that Karma is considered a real, in-game item, equivalent to credits, so that the characters themselves know how much Karma they have and how they got it, then what you did is fair.

The GM is the final arbiter of the rules. That's the way it has to be. But it works much better if you address nonconvential rule interpretations before you hang players with them.

QUOTE

There are rules for doing it in game. Not house rules, I used what the book offered me.

There are no rules in the game for one entity to determine the amount of Karma that another has. It's not listed as something you can learn about under astral perception, or anywhere else. Show me, using book rules, how the spirit knows how much Karma someone has, and you'll have convinced me.

QUOTE

All the spirit know is that by putting employess in life threatening situations that they gain something he can use to advance himself.

That assumes that Karma is an in-game concept, which the book never claims. It makes much more sense to treat it as a metagame concept. From page 242 of the core rulebook: "Karma measures the experience characters gain when they go out on an adventure." Karma is not imprinted memories. Karma is not spiritual energy. The only thing the characters acquired was the experience, which there are no rules for spirits taking. Show me anywhere where it says spirits can take experiences. When spending Karma to help free spirits, the rules say nothing about that character losing his experiences.

Posted by: Dragonslayer Jul 24 2004, 05:35 AM

Yeah, nowhere in the process of donating Karma does a character lose their experience, but they do lose the Karma. I think the idea is that losing Karma has to be felt somehow. If a character were to be drained of Karma I would expect him to somehow feel it, I don't know if I'd go with memories fading, I probably go for something more along the lines of the character feeling emotionally drained.

All in all I think its a good idea. My groups never did legwork on their Johnsons and the characters were compensated quite well for the Karma. I think I would allow the ad-hoc awards for making the group laugh and stuff like that stick, since those seem more of an out of character award, but any of the Karma awards that were earned from the run I would consider open game. and really I think the point was to show the runners they should be at least mildly interested in who's hiring them and for what ulterior motives. I've had groups bring chaos to cities and not bat and eye when they find out they were behind it, but taking some Karma, that would stop them up and make them take an interest. Plus its probably one of those runs that even now 7 years after it happened they still talk about. All because the Johnson was a free spirit.

Posted by: Odin Jul 24 2004, 06:17 AM

the thing is if they had a mage they could have easily got some payback if they had bothered to try to find out the freespirit/johnsons true name after he so indiscreetly revealed himself to be a freespirit, or better yet find out his true name and reveal it to every magician the runners know that would make him sweat.

Posted by: Voran Jul 24 2004, 11:03 AM

Its certainly tough not to go overboard on being sneaky. Offhand I can think of a bunch of different ways that would result in Total-Party-Kills that are pretty much unavoidable, and well within rules and even on a not too expensive budget.

Not sure how fun it would be to the players and their characters I subject it to though.

The original poster's hitman idea was nice though. Sometimes in order to make a story point, and prevent playerchars from saving the day, you need to hit your npc target with a cocktail of lethal stuff beyond the typical bullets or magicblasts. Radioactive poisons lacing bullets do the trick

Posted by: Adarael Jul 24 2004, 01:37 PM

Part the first:

QUOTE

How do you acquire more soul while on a run?

Answer: listen to a whole lotta James Brown. Everyone knows that one!

Part the second:
So, supposing I'm playing 9/10ths of my PCs, and I sign that spirit's contract... sure, well and good, supposing I'm dumb enough to sign some kind of physical contract anyway. Verbal? That's much more common, I can run with that. So I do the run and some free spirit thing pays me asstons of money and then says, "Okay, time to cough up all those tricks and finesses on your skills, spells, general MO that you learned during that run," I ICly say, "Say what?" And he says, "You know - part of your aura. Like... life energy, or soul, or thing that makes you a sentient being capable of learning."

What's my response? What's the sane response?

"No."

Spirit says, "But the contract says..."

"Uh uh, spirit boy, I'm a professional criminal. I break ten contracts before breakfast. Hell, sometimes I use 'em for toilet paper, just for laughs."

If he says, "It's magically binding, you HAVE to..."

I say, "Pop-pop, take two in the head/I cut off your limbs/I lightning bolt you to crisps/any other thing that may or may not kill said spirit."

I mean, honestly. Your players didn't just straight up kill the thing? Nobody I play with makes characters that would stand for being jerked around like that by a Johnson, and I don't think the shadows would miss a johnson that A) steals 'life energy' or B) jerks a team around that hard and tries to hold them to a magically binding contract. The shadows don't like that kind of heavy-handed authority for a reason - they're give and take.

Posted by: Apathy Jul 24 2004, 06:03 PM

QUOTE

All in all I think its a good idea. My groups never did legwork on their Johnsons and the characters were compensated quite well for the Karma. I think I would allow the ad-hoc awards for making the group laugh and stuff like that stick, since those seem more of an out of character award, but any of the Karma awards that were earned from the run I would consider open game.

I agree with Dragonslayer on this. Also, since the PCs earned a butt-load of cash on this run that they wouldn't have gotten if it had been a normal run, they could always just trade it in using the Cash for Karma rule and get their enough Karma to leave them satisfied. It does seem a little odd that they were offered 5 times as much money as normal and they weren't the least bit suspicious that their Johnson might plan to screw them over somehow.

Ultimately, it boils down to the question:

QUOTE

Are the players having fun?

For me, it's fun to try and think my way through the elaborate plot twists that a GM can come up with, and I'd appreciate something this devious as a challenge.