As a new GM for SR4, I've just started a home-made module (ongoing development). It's a relatively small group, and I do expect a bit of stumbling from some of the characters before they find their legs, so to speak. I want to be able to challenge my players in certain situations to find creative solutions to problems instead of mana ball, automatic, explosives, and even sexing their way to success. I will admit that some of it is to make sure they stay on track in an adventure. I do know that, as GM, I have final say on anything, though I tend to think of Hand of God as a last-resort, a cop out, and an admission of failure to myself and players. I was curious, what methods some other GMs have to temporarily devalue player resources without removing them (or punishing players for daring to play their characters in a way the GM didn't intend)?

For some background on my campaign, I'm setting it in 2068, and the first mission (over and done now) involved a low-level mission for the players to support a high-level run, which was entirely cracked down on by Lone Star. The mission then shifted to getting away from Lone Star and getting to a rendezvous point. The metaplot intent was to set the game world to newbie mode (high level runs and runners are currently gone, most corps a bit tense, power vacuum for enterprising runners and fixers to fill, et cetera).

I'll share some of my own:

--Magic:
Background Count,
Mana Static,
Wards and Barriers (can disable foci, mages, adepts, and anchored spells or alert guards if knocked out)
Aspected Domains,

--Social
Personal prejudice
disinterest in certain metatypes (you may be attractive, but that Troll really DOESN'T want to sleep with you, EVER).
STDs (including the possibility of HMHVV and, subsequently, a reroll; I already had a possibility of this at the end of the first session).
assigning notoriety when fitting, even if the run went as GM intended (it CAN be used to augment intimidation rolls...)
Openly alerted PCs that I reserve the right to turn them on each other. I prefer for them to trust each other AFTER they have reason to (it makes the betrayal so much sweeter (IMG:style_emoticons/default/devil.gif) )

--NPCs/tag-alongs
Not going to have solutions to most problems. In fact, certain tag-alongs may have the ability but no knowledge to apply it properly.


Ultimately, this is a game for my players to play, after all, and I'd rather not play it for them. I also look foreward to creative solutions to the impediments I throw in their way, rather than penalizing them for not playing my way. I simply want ways to challenge them when they're doing good, and to limit them when they're going overboard on something totally off the wall.

How many players do you have, and what are their characters skill sets?

Currently I have a Technomancer (I alerted him to the hazards in 2068-2070 for such), and a Face. I have another prospective player, a rigger/magician who, irl, has transporation issues.

The technomancer I'm not so inherently worried about; the player is competent, although has been known to cause issues when he gets bored (he single-handedly killed a Changeling the Lost game because he assumed a few wrong things, and I have a standing policy that it's not my fault if all NPCs look the same to players who don't ask if there's a difference; prejudice is based on such thinking irl, after all).

The face, I am worried, I'll have to coach in how to actually be a face. He claimed his concept was high-class call girl, and then plays like a low-class slut. I've devised several methods of removing the character in a way that will make the point without encouraging him (anything beyond simple failure or outright, swift extermination will, likely, serve to encourage him).

The rigger/magician is an experienced shadowrun player who's played in previous editions. I look forward to challenge this presents in a Moriarty/Holmes fashion, although I know he's the kind to play his character in a universally valid (not simply me-valid) way.

However, I digress. I was not asking necessarily for my own group, so much as general-purpose stopgaps and countermeasures that can be used without being too arbitrary. By arbitrary, I mean allowing a character to purchase gear that's integral to their character concept, and then taking it away almost immediately because I'd find it somewhat inconvenient (my first session I had a policy, unknown to the players, that any resources expended would be replenished afterwards; first session was, by nature, a botched run through no fault of the runners). Another example would be letting somebody spend hours pouring through books to come up with a really awesome car for their smuggler, and then having it hit with an RPG because the GM thought an explosion would be really cool in a scene. I don't want to do this to my group; they deserve better until they glitch their Skill: Roleplay check and trigger the countermeasure "GM Wrath-Hammer" for 37P AP/2 AoE

I use a bunch of tactics. The first, is I run a (very) gritty game world. Body-wounds for physical healing and body or willpower -wounds for stun. I also use massive damage, but that doesn't necessarily punish players or keep them in check, especially when it applies to enemies as well (more then once has an NPC died that they didn't try to kill). I also use realistic responses. If an obvious spell is used to infiltrate a public area (a mall, for instance) the public security force will send at least one (prepared) mage, either in meat, or on the astral, to deal with the awakened threat. Also, in the case of those NPC's that were killed (one was security guard), I have had the public record searching for the offender (they didn't even bother trying to hide their astral signature), and due to his role playing choices, brought outside help in the form of an Atzlaner recovery team (the PC was AWOL Atzlan Battle mage, who took the SINner quality. As soon as he popped up on radar, his SIN was updated to Criminal, and he was put on the recovery list) to the aid of the public security forces.

I like some of this. I'm planning to ease into the harsher stuff, but I do believe, as a GM and a player, in realistic response. In a prior game, I even spent a few months warning my fellow players, as a player, that I would team kill if given provocation. In fact, it took beyond reasonable provocation before I team killed, but it did happen. Think twice before you stab at a half-dragon bard that uses Alter Self to try saving your sorry hide! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

I will admit, though, that I try to adhere to the rules when at all possible; the only major injunction I've set thus far is to limit Initiation Levels to base magic limit (Essence rounded down to nearest integer), and I'm loathe to allow an infected of any variety. Otherwise, I find creative uses of rules and NPCs can compensate for most situations. I'm also not afraid to bring a PC's (or NPC's for that matter) Negative Qualities into effect. Finally, I agree with you about real-world response; even when I was a new player to Shadowrun 4e, I followed a somewhat paranoid tactic of choosing qualities and skills that would cover my magician's kiester both magically and physically, with a low-matrix signature. Even now I find low-rating commlinks to be effective bottlenecks to protect a hacker's systems.

One thing I do to get my face characters to think outside the box is to make them negotiate with someone in a text only interface. In that kind of setting it still lets them use their primary skill but makes them have to think a lot harder about what they say and how they say it as things like mood and body language don't work over text. This also takes away a bunch of their bonuses without crippling them.

As far as the TM is concerned I have never had any of my players try to play one so I have no experience with dealing with them. Something you could do is set up a situation where the TM cant hack his way through something because they set up good old non-technological security measures (Dead Bolts with physical keys, a needed pass phrase is only know by one person and they don't write it down), this will make it so your TM has to use other skills to get through the door or the face has to get the key some how but the TM first has to figure out who has the key.

RFIDs and sniffers. I'd remind players to sweep themselves, but there is just so much that could cause them some grief that I just let them go along their oblivious way.

How about designing your campaign to be more flexible? It's silly to demand from players to follow YOUR game - it isn't your game, it's your scenario, but the players should be free. It's also bad to box them in when you need a plot-point to happen, rather let them discover the plot points. Let go of pre-designed drama where the PCs are involved. It just won't work. You have to create drama FROM your PCs' actions.

For example (a bad example, how not to do things:)
In my latest session I had designed a three-way fight between the runner team, another runner team, and a johnson + entourage to screw both teams over. The johnson put a briefcase with the payment for the job on a rotodrone and flew it towards both teams who were waiting there for him. They were supposed to fight it out, and the J's entourage would pour fire on whoever was winning. Now... I made the mistake of imagining that the other team would hack the drone and get ahead in the game, but of course that didn't work, because my runners just shot it down, and had a spirit retrieve the case. Now they have to fight basically both enemies, whereas in my design they would have had to fight only one at a time, with the other also hard-pressed by the third party. My pre-defined solution didn't work, and I should have designed this differently.

So: don't create solutions to problems when you design a scenario. Let the players worry about how to solve the scenario. Just put realistic stop-gaps in, challenges, and realistic responses. What you can think of, basically. They should get used to that, and play smart. If they get too smart and always find a cheap solution that bypasses your drama, well... you have the shape up, there's no way around it. Make the challenges harder, basically.

If they always seduce a guy to get a keycard or something? The next guy holding the only card will be gay, or there won't even be a guy like that, or you need two cards, etc.

Look on http://www.thealexandrian.net/creations/creations.html for Node base adventure design and Scenario based adventure design.

Thanks for the advice. I know where you're coming from; my last GM had a horrible habit of foisting his concept of what he thought would be cool for our characters to do onto us, despite what our characters REALLY were like, wanted, and would do. The biggest fiasco was when he tried to have my character (hermetic mage, functionally sociopathic) kidnapped for plot purposes (by another, more powerful mage). My gun had explosive rounds, so I shot point blank range, giving myself some damage to make sure the mage carting me off took it too. When he brought up where my character was, I brought up the fact that I wouldn't have been there IN THE FIRST PLACE because I knew there was some bad vibes between my character and the particular mage from an extremely recent incident. If he hadn't let me fight my way out, then his NPC that BROUGHT me to that bar, KNOWING what just happened a couple sessions ago would have met with what I would consider a very fortunate end ; I would not have bothered to make the death painful. Realizing exactly how far against characterization he was going, and that one of his favorite NPCs was very much at risk, he let me fight. However, he didn't even let me counterspell the enemy's pocket nuke, so while I got away, it was Pyrrhic.

I do try to be somewhat flexible in my game. I allow for multiple paths, and I reward my players for stumping me. One player even pulled a get-out-of-reroll card after getting picked up by Lone Star while they were looking for him. Long story short, they had a description, and he was performing the roll of Tiffany from MiB one.

And for that, we thank you.


As far as limiters, the inevitable overwhelming response from LoneStar or other security force tends to be my biggest limiter. If you make noise, people with guns will come a try to find you.

Hear hear. *Raises cup for a toast*

Ok, so basically mostly the problem seems to be that you can't challenge them anymore? That IS a problem in itself, and a hard nut to crack.

Now basically, even without unpacking the cop-hammer (and really, compared to the duration of a normal fight, cops take a LONG time to get to a scene), there is actually a counter to most things in SR4.
Hackers? Up the numbers on the target systems, smartly design them.
Gun-bunnies? Get some mercs or elite security with MBW, or worse, a biodrone with a Stirrup, and fat body armour. Suddenly they won't hit nearly as good, nor as hard.
Mages? Patrolling spirits, patrolling mages, glow-moss, barriers, mage shackles, ultra-sound, radar, etc. etc.
Faces? Shoot them, or play the counter-card. Who says a runner can't be affected by a pornomancer?

These are basically many methods, and I don't even pretend that the list is in any way complete.

I found email is really good for helping keep characters focused and cutting down on the legwork, I give my players one free contact, Smiley the Fixer. It makes things a lot easier so everyone knows whats happening before they even sit down and can discuss the run with each other. This is an example of an email I've used. I sent it to all the players a few days before the run.

Encrypted Message from Smiley

Pass Code SM1LEM0TH3R******....ACCEPTED

Decrypting Message...

Hey Chummers, I have a Johnson that wants to arrange a meet with you. I've worked with him in the past, his cred is good. Message me if you want me to set up a meeting.

-SMILEY

Sometimes I'll even give them details of the run if it seems appropriate. The feedback I get from the players on how they are going to approach it, helps me customize the run. One of the biggest complaints I've had about my GMing, was players thought my campaigns were too linear, so I've really tried to design runs a lot more open ended.

This was something I did to help characters get used to combat system, I posted it a few days ago...

One of my first times GMing 4th ed, to get the players used to the combat system, their fixer (everyone starts out with the same fixer, found it makes things a lot easier) sent them a Beta Matrix Game to try out before selling copies. (He didn't want to be responsible for frying some kids brain). So everyone hooked up and Played Dungeon Run. (I took a D&D adventure, and used all Shadowrun rules and creatures, I premade 8 different characters. Monk (Unarmed Phys Ad.), Elf Archer, Thief (Edge 8, Perception 6), Paladin (Mystic Adept), Cleric (Magician), Ork Barbarian (High Pain Tolerance 3), and a few others. It was nice because Arsenal has armor and weapons perfect for a medieval campaign. I got to use all sorts of critters GM's almost never get to use, Goblins, Ghouls, Naga, Hellhounds, Each Uisge, Gargoyles, and a Dzoo-no-qua. The players all had fun, and I had fun making the premade characters.

My old group from "that other game". They were very adamant about social skills not affecting PC's. But then, they prefer the "hit first, if someone is still standing, hit them again" approach to everything.

I love it!

THanks ), I debated doing a UV node, and having the characters play themselves, but scratched that idea. Partly because UV nodes are still pretty rare even in 4th ed. and also, one of the characters was awakened and would have had been at a disadvantage.

No, my problem is that they're inconsistently genius. I'm coaching the one playing the face on basics of socialization so that he doesn't exclusively try slinging his character's girly parts and direct insults as his only two stratagems. The other one is playing a technomancer and is doing alright, though they can both be as oblivious as any player at times.

The fundamental concept I was getting at with this thread is ways to challenge players if they start really becoming powerful or skilled at their jobs. A mage with 5 magic & 6 sorcery will be rather potent. When you need to temporarily decrease (or increase) the mage's capacity for a scene or area, you can rely on Background Count, Object Resistance Threshholds, and low-essence metahuman targets. This same concept is one near and dear to a good heroic tale. Having exceptional powers does not make a person a hero. What a person does with, or especially DESPITE their power, is what leads to an epic or heroic tale. If you want your players' characters to be epic, then you need to be able to place them in situations where they are either deprived of their strength (to some degree) or they face their weaknesses. A magician who's too used to relying on his magic finds himself dealing with an unhelpful background count, so he has to either try harder, or find an alternate solution to what he's attempting. Somebody snuck up on the sniper and broke his rifle, so how will the sniper survive long enough to get help, or did he already train in melee or small arms to use them in such an instance? A player without a challenge will grow bored. A game without boundaries is anarchy. A good story needs boundaries with which to define itself.

If a player finds a way to break those boundaries while not taking from that story, then the player has contributed something more than some dice and a few numbers on some paper.

I can't remember how many times I've heard GM's say this and it bugs me every time. It's obvious to you because you're the GM and you create the world and the NPC interactions. Essentially, the world works the way you think it should, unfortunately, very few players know what the GM is thinking. For example, say you're players pissed off a Yak boss,
Player thinks "Jeeze, this guy has connections, I don't want this hanging over my head. Better sit down and have a meet, try to work this out"
GM thinks "Man, they've really embarrassed this guy. He needs to kill them just to preserve his rep in front of the other Yak bosses. They should just lay low"
Neither is really incorrect but those players are gonna do something the GM thinks is really dumb. Yep, sometimes players just do dumb things but generally I've found these things happen because of communication problems between the GM and the players.

Ok, OT mini-rant that really has nothing to do with the poster done.

A couple things you can do on the Matrix:
#1 Psychotropic options on Blackout/BlackHammer programs, if cybercombat is a problem.
#2 Running multiple nodes is always a good idea because it generally kills OTF hacking and forces hackers to find other solutions.
#3 Move around access logs. Hackers gets into node 1, finds out the access log is stored in ice cold node 2. Does the Techno risk punching into node 2 or leave the target with an intact access log to track him with.
#4 Dissonance Technos might be fun for the Techno.
#5 Have the corp run telematics infrastructure with their tacnet. Basically, that allows them to track any wireless signal within their area, including their exact physical location. And technos always emit a wireless signal. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

While I agree that a character can only grow if you beat him down, now and then, I think it destroys the fun if you actively disable a character all the time. (Not that I think you want to do this.)
Every character has some things they do well, and it's a point of principle to use those abilities. Now depending on what that is, it's harder or easier to disable them temporarily. I caution against suddenly dropping a BC of 2 or more everywhere, and flooding the city with gay men, but you are right that occasionally you need to take a character out of his element - if you do it right, your players will in fact enjoy these experiences. However, it's really not necessary to do that just to challenge a character - simply face him with bigger numbers. The players should know the risks. Look at it this way:
It's ok to stick a wizard in an AMF now and then for kicks and giggle. It's not ok to put him in the AMF all the time, because ultimately he won't be having fun. I've seriously quarrelled with GMs in SR3 for putting high BCs everywhere, because it destroyed the point of playing a mage. I would have liked it if they had just given me opposition I could test my strength against, rather than first using outside influences to effectively debuff the character, and then bringing their "normal" mooks again.

I must say, though, that normal point-buy generation doesn't do well at breeding characters who are a little versatile, so if you like this kind of diverse game, then I recommend switching to karmagen, and encouraging less hyper-specialisation, but rather a normal specialty with some room for diversity.


The story doesn't need any boundaries. But it's true that characters who can do everything will not be having fun, and no drama will come of it. I dislike expressions such as anarchy in this respect, because you are giving it a connotation that doesn't belong there. I am also wary of how you define this: It is NOT anarchy if players have their characters do things you had not anticipated for them, or even walk away from your plot entirely. If that's what makes sense in the situation, then that's what should happen. If you scare them too much, then it's even smart to run away. And that's still the story, because the story is not what you envisioned, it's what the characters do. If you're a good GM, then that story will be fun for all. And if your players are good players, they will forgive you the occasional lapse, because they should know it's pretty hard to be a good GM. But the bottom line is, you're not writing the story, ALL of you are, together.
This goes in line with not writing plot for an adventure. Plot will ALWAYS be disrupted, unless you are a fricken genius, or a power-tripping GM. Write scenarios, which can have any number of solutions, and link them with a versatile mechanism such as the Three-Clue-Rule. Just don't make it too obvious.


I don't understand that. A character can't take from the story. A player can, but mostly by bitching and moaning, or by simple sabotage - doing intentionally disruptive things. However, it all boils down to what your players like to do.


So, bottom line: I think what you should have called the topic is "How to take characters out of their element?". That would not have triggered all the anti-power-trip-GM response, and also been more clear with what I believe you really want.

There are four ways to challenge a character:
- Challenge his weaknesses: the social skills of the troll street samurai, the physical skills of the weak mage... You just need to find a situation where the character will have to expose his weakness rather than rely on one of his teammate (or use his strengths to get out of trouble). Sometimes, the player's intelligence is the biggest (and easier to abuse) weakness: no matter how powerful a mage is, if he doesn't understand that he's being manipulated by someone or if he can't solve the crime he's been hired to, his powers won't help him that much.
- Challenge his strength: the character is able to shoot anyone and anything without getting shot? That's why Mr. Johnson hired him rather than someone else. Find a situation where the character will have to give all he's got.
- The kryptonite: the character loses what makes him so good and has to win despite this.
- Challenge the human: The most powerful Shadowrunner is still a (meta)human and when his sister has uncurable VITAS, there's not much he can do.

That's pretty much what the GMs mean. However, I'll give an example in my game. After avoiding the initial SNAFU, they wound up at the Troll Underground for public showers (they'd been in the sewers) and to get up top to proceed to their rendezvous point. They found Lone Star blockading the stairs, and a large group of disgruntled looking Trolls and Orks. Their first attempt at solution was to spoof a request for help for a nearby unit. The techno's digging on the commlink betrayed that these guys had orders from the top man in the city specifically. Their idea was good, and normally would have worked, but I'd left evidence that it would likely not work on them even if it was a real request. They tried it anyways (it could have worked), but the techno rolled too low to pass it off properly. Then I had to recite twice more exactly what they were dealing with: Lone Star blockade, and disgruntled Trolls and Orks. I could have been a real tool and put agents on the offices' commlinks.

There were no marked exits that they could have used besides the one the Lone Star were blockading that would let them reach the rally point in time (they did ask, and the Troll Underground is always changing, being excavated, and new paths being discovered). They could have tried to hobnob and find an unmarked route; the face could have tried actually socializing instead of acting like a catty cheerleader. Before too long the techno figured out another solution: to start a riot. Some issues the players would not have actually known that were affecting them: When they initially left the site of their run, they had been chemically marked by Lone Star and were being tracked (until they took showers), Lone Star patrols (not the blockade) had been given descriptions of them (they weren't the only runners in this predicament) due to the run being compromised beforehand (details still sensitive so I can't reveal yet).

I do understand that there can be 5,10, or 100 solutions to any given situation in Shadowrun. I don't try to force my players into a particular solution (shoot them, hack them, slip them a slap patch, talk/bribe them into submission, etc.). I try to arrange situations for them to play through, and allow the world to act and react as 2070 likely would. Could a combat-focused or larger runner team have shot up that Lone Star blockade? Sure, but they'd have to deal with the fallout from it. Could the face have talked the teams way through? Sure, if he rolled well enough and lowered the threshold by mentioning certain topics that the NPCs would react to (I'll sometimes broaden this definition if the players are particularly ingenious in what they think up).

Something they didn't seem to pick up on throughout, that they were told after one reached the rally point, was that they specifically (along with plenty of others around the city) were being HUNTED by the person running the operation, either somebody high in the Star, or somebody pulling the higher-ups' strings. The player ignorance is founded on the thought, "This is impossible! The only way they could possibly do this is if they had some inside knowledge about what was going on!!" And the GM is basically making an obvious show that the antagonist "has a lot of inside knowledge about what was going on." In other words, the player is WRONG that the scenario is impossible. It's made possible BY that qualifier at the end. It's a series of red lights and red flags that the player ignores. In my case, not catching people red-handed during the allotted time meant that those people not ratted out by their friends go free from that attempted crime.


I wholeheartedly agree. Let them be awesome much of the time (if they can hack it). Give them the opportunities.


I agree with you here. One D&D game I was allowed to play a pixie rogue. For some reason, most everything we went up against could see invisible and always spot me. The other players abused my character, and ultimately my character was captured by the antagonist and tortured to death. It was not fun for me and I said to hell with that group. There's no point in taking level adjustments if everything you go against negates everything you're taking a level adjustment for, and pixies have a big strength hit, and their small size reduces their physical damage quite a bit. I'm sensitive to my players in regards to such situations. However, when it comes to Background count, there's more than one use for it. Say your magician is facing a more powerful shaman. You try to get away, but the shaman has somehow marked you (an obscure spell?) and tracks you every step of the way. He chases you into a building, and your spirit shuts and blocks the door as he realizes that he's just stepped into a BC 4 aspected towards YOUR tradition and against his.


Boundaries also equal dimensions. 1 dimension is basically just flat (left/right). 2 dimensions ads a top and a bottom. 3 gives depth. So on. Without those boundaries (dimensions), there is no definition, there's no motion, no story. The rules of shadowrun offer some boundaries, and the GM's job is to arrange those for the players to explore. Like erecting a wall that allows your players to speculate on what's behind it or why it's even there. A door to open, a window to look through, etc. As I wrote above, I don't try to invent solutions for the players, I try to invent situations and I let them go from there. Even if an idea doesn't pan out, I give credit and try not to penalize them for the attempt. 1 extra karma for an idea that might have worked, or maybe some street cred for attempting to protect somebody insignificant but failing. Now, if the player insists on hijacking a jet and flying it through Loftwyr's personal suite with guns akimbo, and does NOT get killed by security before they manage it, they should NOT be surprised when they wind up as a tasty dragon treat. Granted, they had guts to do that, but honestly it's just being a jerk player.

One of my current players previously derailed one of my Changeling: the Lost campaigns. He was playing a street-doc type, and the players were in a club. Previously in this club, they'd had a meeting with somebody high up in the local changeling scene, and were given a wetwork mission (killing a fetch). He decided that he wanted to check the room they'd met in one more time and went up to the bouncer who was watching the door and asked him to get inside. Bouncer said no. Then he tried a bribe. Bouncer took the money and still said no. Then this non-combat character pulls a scalpel out and attacks the bouncer (a competent combat NPC). Bouncer restrains him while another bouncer calls the cops. The player decides to use an obvious changeling power, which the mundanes misinterpret as a failed chemical attack from some sort of terrorist. Player's character is carted off to Gitmo, and he's told he'll have to reroll but there's no time in the evening for him to finish and introduce his next character. It is only at THIS point that he mentions how upset he is that the bouncer they'd met when they went to the initial meet didn't let him through the second time. I told him it WASN'T the same bouncer the second time. He gets upset at me for not telling him, when he never asked. I've brought up several times since that it isn't MY fault that all NPCs look the same to him (the bigot!), and that he assumed without asking. Now, the story could have carried on a bit more, but the other players just sat around doing jack afterwards, and the game never carried on.

THAT is how a player can detract away from a story. This same player is currently the technomancer.

Perhaps, although sometimes it's not merely about taking them out of their element. While I don't intend to permanently gimp them, per se, I do have to consider what law enforcement and corpsec would potentially bring to bear, and demonstrate on NPCs of similar nature to the players in order to remind them of what might happen. I also need countermeasures for countermeasures, because the player of the techno has been known to, erh, 'procure' some of these countermeasures all on his own in previous games. Kind of like in the running list of no-nos, "I will not make a character with Astral Hazing and move within one block of the target simply so that we do not have to worry about astral barriers and wards."

Ok, so basically, players do stupid things. Well, they will always do that. But world description IS your job, and if the world doesn't feel right to the players, its because you are not giving enough details. The CHARACTER would have seen that it's a different bouncer, for instance, and should have reacted differently. No kidding, describing the world is also pretty hard, and I won't say I'm good at it at all, at least not at the table. But that is why you give leeway for actions based on incorrect information. Players can't ask about everything, because some information should be self-evident, and YOU have to make it self-evident as the GM. It actually IS your fault if all your NPCs look the same, because they are YOUR NPCs. The players are allowed to make assumptions about everything you haven't mentioned, which should be self-evident.

If they walk into a room and decide to sit on the floor, and then you tell them that that's really dumb because there is a giant red blood stain on the floor they should have asked about, then that's still your mistake, because it should have been self-evident.

So basically, players need to have an idea about how their characters can interact with the world, what their standing is, and what makes the game world tick. And you have to give them that idea, because unless you take everything out of a book that they have access to, too, then it's YOUR world, because you are creating all the scenarios. If your scenario is a grand scheme with the runners as the victims, and they fail to see it, or to accept it, then you're not dropping enough hints.

The other thing is if you fail to make your scenario limiters work, in the way that try as you may they still manage to shoot/magic/sex/whatever their way out of the entire scenario. In that case... I don't know, let it slide. Because if they MANAGE, then it's good. If they fail, well, they started the fight. The fine line to walk is not pissing them off in the process, because they thought they were fighting donut munching street cops and you thought they were fighting commandos in milspec gear.

So the key is to reveal all the obvious stuff on your own - and if you tend to forget to do that at the table, then give yourself some hints: prepare descriptions that you simply read out. Put post-its on your notes with reminders. Stuff like that.

Essentially, don't say "a cop walks into the room", say "a guy in a street-cop uniform walks into the room, he's a little fat around the middle and has a double chin". Or don't say "the doors are busted down and 5 lonestar guys storm in", say "the doors are burst inward, and you're looking down the barrels of 5 FN Praetors attached to full-body armour suits with Lonestar emblems across chest and back. If you're paying attention, you can hear the Gyro-stabilizers from under their armour."

And then give them hints about whether it's a) an automatic surrender situation or b) a let's talk about this situation, or c) a REALLY HARD FIGHT situation. Because some completely mechanical things usually trigger an automatic response into a certain direction. If you immediately ask for initiative, they'll probably start shooting. If you have the cops say too much, the face will start sexing again, and if you have the cops say too little, they might decide it's a rigged fight, and they can't win. AND give yourself the leeway that every reaction/solution is possible, and every reaction moves the story forward. Granted, that might be hard if they all die (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) . So... use gel or S&S by default. That equalizes options a and c, and should lead to something YOU have planned for them, but doesn't completely rape their character concepts. Option b is pretty unlikely to work, but if the dice say otherwise, let them. Make a show of adding up the modifiers that are stacked against the entire thing working, and roll it. If the player wins, he'll be the hero of the day, if he loses, at least he'll know why, and know better, next time.

Ok, quite simply, that's an issue of trust. A lot of GMs do use cheap tricks to push their plot and it's fricking poison to a game. The moment players suspect that the GM is quietly screwing them, then they start to view every situation in a metagame light. It's pure poison.

I'm not saying that you've done anything wrong, I'm saying that there are a lot of poor and even good GMs that do this and therefore it's become the default assumption for a lot of players. If something funny seems to be going on, most players are going to assume the GM isn't playing fairly. It takes time and skill for GMs to overcome it and I know very few who can.

So if the players think that it was unfair, it means the players lack trust. It doesn't mean you've done anything wrong, it means they've been screwed over before and they're cautious. And that's something that needs to be overcome before you can run some of these more complicated/political setups.


http://www.darthsanddroids.net/episodes/0353.html

I find this really interesting.. I've observed myself that occasionally players immediately make certain assumptions. Knowing more about it would let me either avoid accidentally steering them into the wrong assumption, or help me manipulate them when I want to.. (I GM a lot of Vampire. If the players don't think most of the NPCs are trying to manipulate them, something has gone wrong.)

Idk, that sounded like the PCs were being a bit stupid. I mean me and my friends thought the same thing. Why didn't he just turn on the lightsaber.

As for the OP I think you have it right and wrong. Obvious things the character would notice should be pointed out to the players. How are they supposed to know otherwise? Your average person doesn't go around asking obvious questions because they're just that, obvious. So it's not unlikely that the player would assume you would mention a drastic change such as a different bouncer.

More on the Shadowrun topic. If you want to challenge your players you don't need to weaken their stuff. A better option would be taking them out of their element. The rigger who usually sits back has to be closer to the action because of jamming, the combat mage needs to be subtle, and the face has to infiltrate a gang by passing some very out of character initiations.

Those are probably better then the classic "background count" whether that means the normal definition which pertains to magic or a broader definition which means weakening any character of any type for whatever reason.