I think the whole point I'm making, and that everyone is making, is that there is no "non-lethal" part, when firing a gun. "Less lethal" maybe, but stuff can still happen. And in this case, something did.

Instead of complaining about how "that's not what I meant to happen!", why not roll with it and see where it leads? A new enemy, a new character trait / flaw...it's supposed to be fun and not about "winning". I'm sure I'm not alone in saying I've had some great games happen precisely because stuff didn't go quite the way we expected.

I think I'm ranting again, sorry (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Low Lethality. LOW lethality. Not Non-Lethal.

If someone says Non-Lethal, they're working for a PR Company or Liberal agenda.

I believe runners companion has the big regret negative quality.

Yes, indeed.

Sure, shooting someone is always risky. But it can be done in real life, and it can certainly be done in the movies. So it should be possible in Shadowrun. Of course, it's harder than just shooting to kill.

So, here's how it should go:
Player: I want to shoot her in the legs to disable her, but not kill her.
GM: That's pretty tricky - you'd have to get 5+ net hits on the To-Hit roll. If you hit with less than that, she's taking full damage and might die!
Player: Ouch! I'd better make sure I have lots of dice to succeed at this trick shot. I'll take aim and use Edge!

Did the character have the Common Sense quality? Did the character have Gun Safety as a KS ? Maybe then the GM can give a cautionary statement to the player.

If not, at some point, the player has to be responsible for the character's actions. Otherwise next game I'm going to say "My character is an experienced runner. He breaks into the lab and steals the plans....What's that ? How does he do it ? I don't know, HE'S the runner, not me!"

Incidentally, this thread reminds me of the Infiltration-while-painted-orange-with-bright-orange-streamers thread.

There's a vast gulf between your hyperbole and petulantly antagonistic games mastering. Or rather, it's the same thing, in the opposite direction. If the players and the GM are working against each other outside of the game as opposed to strictly within it, you're going to have a shitty time and feel stupid for bothering, whomever's fault it happens to be.

Yes, it is not wrong to punish the player for HIS actions.
But it is wrong to punish the player for actions, only wrong by the mechanics.

Lets put it plain simple:
Would you consider it a wrong action, if the player would have shot down the girl with a Stoner-Ares M202?
Game wise, he could have done it and he would have achieved the wanted result. Girl knocked out and only a bit hurt. (He would just have needed to fire 20 bullets in her direction)
As a matter of facts the risks involved in this action would have been minimal compared to any other.
Why? She would get her dodge test with edge and reaction, thus reducing the possibility of a critical glitch. (Which could inflict additional damage)
Thus it would be even superior to graping her. Because by graping her, you would risk a critical glitch on her part. Which would leave you open to everything rulewise. (Up to sliped and broke her neck)

I think there's a vast gulf between antagonistic games mastering and what went on here. If anything, it sounds like the opposite of antagonistic game mastering. The GM took what could (should?) have happened and tailored it to what the player wanted.

Yes, I realize what I said was hyperbole, but at what point is the player assumed to be responsible for actually controlling the character? Besides the fact that actually shooting an already-injured little girl with a heavy pistol to subdue her is a bad idea right from the start...

...
(looking up the Stoner-Ares M202)
...
Sorry, I'm really not following here. What is it you're saying? I think you're saying he would have less chance to kill the girl if he fired suppressive fire from a MMG at her? Maybe the rules make it harder to kill someone like this. I don't know - seems it would need some number-crunching.

But this ignores the basic premise that shooting an injured little girl with a heavy pistol to "subdue" her is a bad, bad idea. So something bad happened, this one time.

Where the frak do you get this idea.
The player desided that shooting the little injured girl was the best route to go(first beyond moronic move) then he spend 3 turns aiming and spend edge to boost his dice pool becouse he's usually unlucky and for some moronic reason wanted to make sure he would get as many net hit as possible.
Not a single part of that moronic decision chain give any indication that he was trying to minimise the damage to the girl, it actually very clearly shows he was trying to make very sure that he hits the girl as hard as possible.

Because a nonlethal, disabling shot is much harder to do than just shooting to kill. And most of the time you need more hits to do something difficult.
If you're trying to shoot someone in a nonlethal spot, of course you need to aim much more carefully.
If you're trying to shoot someone in a nonlethal spot, of course you need more luck (Edge).

If you're trying to shoot to disable, then this is the logical way to do it, from an RP/Realism viewpoint. The game rules should adapt to logic, instead of trying to adapt logic to the game rules.



Fixed.

Seconded on the jackpot. Tons of interesting ways this could go, even if the kid doesn't die. Maybe she has brain damage, maybe she goes into shock and has to be rushed to a street doc, maybe she's bleeding internally and dies a day after she's returned. And this is SR, a dystopia crapsack world based on the worst of the 80's multiplied by 5 and magic. The quest givers want to shoot you in the head, your allies are all psychopathic drug addicts, and the opposition is a soulless corporate entity that finds more profit in exploitation than productivity. It's not quite Cthulu but the GM certainly should mess with the players a bit.

Of course, it looks like the OP decided not to have the girl die and honestly, I really can't find anything wrong with that. I don't like the idea of "punishing" or "teaching" players, it's ludicrous if you ever been a player in one game and a GM in another. This is a bunch of adults (hopefully) sitting around playing make-believe, it not "serious business" and you're not going to teach anybody anything, just piss them off if you try. I would recommend that the OP take this opportunity to have some consequence of the overpowering shot, it just seems like too good an opportunity, but having her suffer something like memory loss seems like it'd be more fun than just having her be fine.

Don't stress out, it's a cool opportunity to throw a curve ball into your game, nothing else.

Using extremely granular rulesets as a completely literal interpretation of the laws of physics is probably going to lead to absurd outcomes. As was mentioned, the mechanically optimal tactic would have been to hose the little girl down with an automatic weapon. That is, for lack of a better word, stupid. And, at the risk of venturing into personal attack territory, failing to differentiate between rules-as-necessary-abstraction and rules-as-impartial-adjudicator inspires confidence in neither the wisdom nor fairness of your decisionmaking.

Having a high pistols dice pool means you have a better shot (so to speak), given the circumstances, of minimizing the lethality of your attacks, among other difficult and exotic applications of the skillset; if this is not so, then I defy you to define any other parameter in the mechanics as presented that serves this function. By any rational interpretation of the rules, more successes at a given task mean something other than MOAR MURDER AND NOTHING ELSE.

The player explicitly intended to take the prisoner alive, and got the nod from his GM to attempt to do so. It may not have been clear (we have no access to the context of the story given, though it would be helpful to knowhint, hint) in what spirit the campaign was being played; were the runners competent, heroic operatives (admittedly unlikely, given that the crew was kidnapping a small child in broad daylight) in a world in which Judo chops and tranq darts worked as reliable nonlethal takedown methods, a la any number of pulpy spy flicks; or were they violent, ill-qualified thugs in way over their heads trying to accomplish any task more delicate than cutting a swathe of murder through the streets? And if the player's impression was different from that of the GM, why did he have to wait until after he'd murdered a child to find out?

It's hard to accuse the player of being particularly clever, but unless this was only the last in a long history of excessively violent decisions made against the spirit of the campaign, this an uncalled-for "gotcha!" moment. Hell, even if it were, the single instance in which the player took extra care in playing it safe and got lucky is not the right moment to call him on his bullshit.

Honestly, if this scenario were the result of an obviously stupid decision and/or an egregiously unlucky roll, I would support your ideas and add more of my own.

If.

No the non moronic tactic would have been to not shoot at the injured girl.

Bad things don't happen only when you screw up. Sometimes they happen if you do everything right. And a bad thing that leads to a cool story is the essence of SR and noir in general.

Having said that, from a rules standpoint it seems pretty stupid. From a real life standpoint, shooting the girl with a knockout gun seems fairly reasonable, presuming the guy isn't a RL cop or something and therefore familiar with the dangers of non-lethal weapons. Lets face it, tasers were sold as a non-lethal option, cops bought the line, and it's only now coming into question as evidence mounts that tasers aren't as non-lethal as people thought.

Not what I said, or even implied... But in this case, his actions do not mesh with his intent. There is this great mechanic in the main book called "Called Shots". If you want something special, you use that mechanic, and then the GM determines teh outcome based upon your level of success. You LOSE dice to make that called shot, and then excessive successes mean very little other than to have accomplished your goal. Unfortunately, teh OP's issue is that he did not use such a mechanic, but the mechanic for increasing Damage, regardless of his stated intentions. His Tactics did not match what he wanted, and he should pay that price. Happens all the time in the Military in fact. Overkill is a fact of life, let alone a fact of the Shadows.



At which point, you reward the player/character for pooor preparation and execution. Consequences now have no meaning, as you shape your world around the intent of the Character, regardless of actions. Boring...

Stun is exceedingly less-lethal, as long as you remember that you can still kill someone by continuously beating them with a weapon that does only stun damage.

And yes, Better skills means you should have an easier time utilizing less-than-lethal options. Unfortunately, the OP chose not to do so, and opted for an option that had a high chance of killing the target, considering the Target. AGAIN, you do not shoot a waif of a Girl, who is already injured, with a Troll Stopping Round, unless the end result is to actually treat that waif of a Girl as a Troll Target. Basic Common Sense.

I doubt the player in question took 'extra care to make sure the girl survives'. From what I heard, I can only come to the conclusion, that his top priority was to make sure he will hit and knock-out. Apparently he thought the gel/capsule ammo would make sure of the not-killing-her part. That´s as much as I can tell, from the little information we have. Asking to use the excess hits to make sure the damage is not too high, after they already made sure the target will be hit and there will be enough damage, is doubledipping!

Pulling your punch does make it less likely to hit! Shooting at the legs is harder then shooting at the body! If a player wants to make sure he does not do too much damage, he should ask for that specifically. Then the GM can suggest a ruling* and appropriate penalties. The player dosn´t have to know all the rules, but neigther does the GM have to considder all the players possible intentions, if they are not clearly stated. What´s more, combat situations leave little time to think, so somtimes your PC will overreact or not make the ideal choice.

*As stated above, my ruling would be, that the attacker can voluntarily reduce the DP, to limit the max. possible number of hits. A Called Shot to reduce damage would be another possibility (Base Damage -1 per -1 Die). Another idea I got was to modify the rules for Called Shots to avoid armor, to add damage resistance dice instead of reducing armor. These are all solutions that give some amount of controll (although at a price, as it should be IMHO) and need a minimum of houseruling and still contain an amount of uncertainty.

Actually, the mechanically optimal task would have been to chase her down and put her in the car approaching/waiting at the end of the alley. Shooting her, with any weapon is not optimal mechanically. I think that is where the disconnect is. Everyone seems to be arguing that a better skill with a weapon makes it easier to take that non-critical shot, when the plain fact is that being shot can Kill you, regardless of where and how you are hit, in suboptimal situations. This is one of those situations. The character chose poorly, and regardless of his intent, the situation proves to be something other than he expected. Expectation and Outcome do not have to match, and often do not, in such circumstances.

My 2 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif)

Agreed, the guy shooting the girl was a moron (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Being shot in the back of the thigh or heel will not kill you, unless the "suboptimal condition" is "you're standing on the edge of a cliff/rootop" or "there's a car coming your way full speed." Especially with gel rounds with little to no penetrative ability. You'll haemorhage, probably, perhaps draw some blood even. There isn't enough blood by far going through any branch of the calf arteries to kill you within the space of a combat turn.
You might chip the bone if you hit in the heel, perhaps inflict some cartiledge damage, but niether is going to kill you.

I'm sure I don't need to point out dying from being shot in the pinky toe is about as likely as death by drowning is in space. In the space of hours, anyway.

I think the entire discussion hinges on him having said "I wan't to inflict minimal damage to the girl". If he didn't use the Called Shot rules after that, it's the gm's fault.
OTOH if he hasn't specifically said so, out of being unaware, it still is the GM's job to point him in that direction.

No, I'm not. You just can't grasp the fact, still, that actions have consequences. Even if the Narcoject is taken out of the situation, if it was a heavy pistol, light pistol, or an MMG, it does not matter - and here I will use small words so even you can understand them - He. Shot. Her. With. A. Gun.

Did you understand that? I used single syllables. I'm afraid my interpretive dance coach isn't available so it's the best you're going to get.

Stun damage is just another track to fill first before it goes physical, with the added benefit of knocking the target out before it goes into Physical overflow. It makes things nice because hey, people can wake the taret back up afterward. It's nice!

I don't see where someone 'forgetting' what they're packing is even relevant. "Oh I forgot the gun was loaded when I was cleaning it!"

Still a manslaughter charge if it takes someone out. Still a fucking boneheaded move, and I'm not about to hold someone's hand. People do stupid shit in SR, people do stupid shit in RL.

Frankly, I'd be happy saying someone with the apparent skill levels this guy had would know enough about the gun he's so good with that it kills people and wouldn't do something this fucking stupid. This entire argument is fucking stupid. I'm stupid to keep pressing my point to a couple of people who just don't listen and seem to believe that just because you're really good at aiming you can inflict a potentially lethal wound and everything is okay.

You just shot an unarmed waif. Congratulations. Live or die, you go down as a complete fucking moron.

Again another jackpot.
Specially with the "teaching lessons" part. I mean, I've learned lots of things from RPG's and for RPG's, but I don't take the "master" part in GM in the same sense as a martial artist does inside his dojo... I don't want the GM being my father/mother. She/He is not.

Here's my problem.

It's a common 'thing' in certain types of shadowrun like TV shows to have the really good shot shoot someone in the chest (just missing their heart) to make it look like they killed them, and then rushing them to the hospital.

How do you represent doing that in Shadowrun.

Wouldn't more skill which is represented with a bigger DP mean you're MORE likely to pull this shot off?