Yeah, I'm immature.

So we're finishing up the boat mission that things have been building up to for months both in and out of game. And I lost one of my bug drones.

Big deal. Drones die all the time. Why is it an issue?

Well, I've fitted out my drones with the best stealth programs in the game, and these things are tiny little buggers besides. So when I get told that it gets shot I say: "At least let me roll stealth." So I roll stealth. 4 hits on 9 dice, plus the -6 to spot a microdrone in the first place.

The GM doesn't even have the decency to pretend to roll dice. I mean, I knew that drone was dead before I rolled, but he could at least have pretended that all the money and effort I put into making it stealthy had any effect at all. I still don't know what killed it (You get used to that. Anything remote scouting, be it drone or spirit or NPC, WILL NOT even catch a glimpse of what killed it in this game), and quite frankly I don't care. I'm down a 1 grand drone in a game where I've got close to a million nuyen sitting in the bank, so that's really not the issue. My only problem is that he didn't even bother rolling.

Should probably amend with a question: How badly have I overreacted?

From your statement about scouting, it sounds as if this is not the only time a similar incident has happened.

Have you asked your GM why scouting always fails? Maybe he has had experiences in which cleverly laid plans were scuppered by reconnaissance. Now, as a GM, I would be proud of my players if they outwitted me, but there could be all kinds of mitigating circumstances that would bring your GM to feel differently.

Is there a general atmosphere of "players vs. GM"? Could some open and frank dialogue bring about a change in this atmosphere?

I played years ago with someone who thought his rigger's vehicles should not be singled out for attack and damage, because in his mind his PC laid out money over and above what other players did, and it was unfair to make him pay to replace vehicles. The rest of us didn't sympathize much, especially since he was the kind of rigger who sat back in his vehicle while we were targets. Is there a bit of that sentiment in your approach?

The game is too much fun to just quit, man. Talk it out.

Honestly?

Maybe a little bit.

Like you said, you are sitting atop a lot of hardware so the loss of a single drone isn't exactly bankrupting you.

GM's Fiat can be a pain, but he is the final word at the table and maybe he had a reason for needing that drone gone and didn't want to risk a roll and lose, revealing something too soon.

The dice are there to help resolve conflicts between two or more forces, but Drama/Storyline can and will trump these at times.

That doesn't mean though that the GM is totally in the clear though.

As he is mysteriously downing everything trying to do remote scanning/spying without any chance to defend or even identify then this is something to look at.

You should be able to ask what is destroying it at least by getting to see the wreckage and see if it was projectiles, sand, whatever that torn it apart.

Which should let you in turn try to devise a defense or choose other options. Maybe his Airborne Drone/scrying/spirit spying Defense is so good you are better off using a ground drone,

Strong electrical discharge? Consider sending one drone out front and have another bring up the rear so you can catch what happens to the lead drone on camera.

Ehh... depends on the table I suppose, but I subscribe to the "we're all friends here playing a game to have fun" theory, and that trumps any GM fiat any day. And Fueldrop was obviously not having fun.
Then he needs to communicate this. He doesn't get off dictating the player's actions without some form of compromise on his part. Even if it's "Hey, trust me for a little bit, the payoff will be worth it."

These little drones are, from what I can gather, central to the character's identity. This is what the character is good at, this is where their pride is invested in. By taking the time to customize his drones, he's telling his GM "These drones are Important™ to me" and by utterly disregarding that implied statement, the GM is communicating back "I don't care, what I want to do is more important than you."

The sulking and ragequitting is likely an overreaction, but this is why communication is so damned important at a table. The GM probably isn't perceptive or reflective enough to understand the implied communications of not only what Fueldrop is telling him, but also what his own response is telling Fueldrop in return. If Fueldrop were to tell him "Hey, you just eviscerated my character's identity" and the GM replies with indifference or worse, that's the point where you walk out, because at that point the GM obviously doesn't care about anyone else's enjoyment of the game but his own.

Honestly if it is the same GM as the GMPC Vampire mentioned in another thread...you are over reacting, but not. You really need to have a long discussion with this GM and bring up all the issues you have, and wait for the f-off, in which case walking out is the right thing, or you might get an actual constructive discussion, I don't know the guy so only you can tell. If you have talked to him about this shit and it keeps happening, and this is just the latest incident, then you have reacted appropriately and you need to find a new game.

Perhaps but he stated he lost only the one drone.

If you are not having fun due to the loss of a single drone, rigging probably isn't the career for you.

Was it heavy handed by the GM? Possibly, but without knowing more of the total situation it is a little early to burn effigies of the GM just yet.


Communication is good, but it can be hard not to overtip one's hand either in the middle of the game. What happened after the loss of the drone?

Sometimes you have a mystery to solve and maybe he is expecting FD to figure out what is happening.

An earlier poster suggested using two drones, cheap front one as bait while the other hangs back and sees what happens.

Now FD does also mention how drone/spirits/NPC trying to recon are being taken out with no chance to know what happens in this game in general and this might be an issue that they need to address, both as characters trying to figure out what is going on just as much as checking with the GM to see if this is really how things are supposed to be working.

It is possible the GM might not comfortable with advance scouting/planning on the players part, whether he feels like it's giving out too much information or it will somehow allow them to bypass whatever he has laid out.

But again until someone talks to him we won't know for sure.


But has the GM totally invalidated the character concept by neutralizing all of his drones or was this an isolated instance? He may not know what killed it but were the other attempts through out the game also without dice rolls or just his one case?


If this is the same GM as his Vamp issues this could be part of a larger ongoing issue and a sitdown is going to be needed sooner or later.

I've only ever had two games that I walked out of.

The first was back in college and the GM was known for being kind of an asshole to everyone all the time. So, taking it with a grain of salt already. He's also one of those "incredibly weird luck with dice" people, so I think the GM ended up rolling stats for 7 of the 8 characters (D&D). I walked out after one session.

Why? He threw us in the underdark (we knew we were going, to be fair), used destricans (sp?)--the blind hound looking things that use Sonic attacks--to railroad us into the first encounter: friendly hospitality of redcaps. Who were nice to us because they were throwing us in the gladiatorial pit come morning. And by "throw" I mean "herded by more destricans" into jumping off a cliff into a giant spiderweb.

Oh, and then the destricans collapsed the edge on top of us. My character got buried in the resulting rubble, which the GM was perfectly fine as "just killing" my character, but everyone else had a problem with it. So I took a tiny bit of damage instead and was given a strength check to dig my way out. Subsequently I missed the entire fight on account of missing the DC (a raw 15 on the d20 was insufficient, I think I finally broke out when I rolled a 17). And it's not like I was some pansy cloth-wearing wizard either. Barbarian.

The wizard ended up getting strength-drained by the "colossal spider so large the redcaps built a fucking tower on its back and manned it with archers." That player also walked out of the game immediately afterwards.

The other game I walked out of was one that was run over VOIP and IRC. That game was run by someone who should never have been running a game at all, much less one as involved as the game he was running. A little history: this group (or some fraction thereof) had...at this point I think four games on hold "because a particular player wasn't showing up and no one could get a hold of them" (not the same player, but rather someone didn't show up, so the group started a new game, only to have someone not show up). So either this game was #4 or #5, I've lost count. Same GM for all of them.

Anyway, I left for one singular reason:

The GM could not be arsed to watch everything going on in the "public channel." That is, the channel one would assume that the game was actually happening in (which was basically nothing as apparently the entire group save me and one quietly moved to PMs). I was told later that I should have privately messaged him if I wanted something done. In four games I had never seen this kind of behavior.

On another occasion out-of-game (I believe this was the week just after the above) trying to get some information out of the GM I asked a rather complex question, two hours later got a response of "yes" and was unable to get further replies. When I did finally get a response, his delay was due to "taking his roommate to the hospital for food poisoning." Which repeated the following day. Attempted to re-ask complex question that does not have a binary yes/no answer, two hour delay, excuse of "taking his roommate to the hospital." Both me and a friend I had brought in to bring our numbers back up to a respectable count both left the game that week.

Now then.

Should you be walking out because the GM didn't even bother faking a spot roll on your drone? Not by itself, no. But given the propensity for scouts never coming back alive, the flagrant BS of not even bothering to roll and not even being secret about it...

That would warrant talking to the GM and bringing up your concerns. If he doesn't do anything to address them, you're totally in the clear to just walk out. If he says he'll address them and then doesn't, feel free to walk out in the middle of the session. If he does actually change and address your concerns, do not hold this situation against him in the future: it was addressed and resolved.

My big thing in situations like this is the fact that everyone has agreed on the game you're playing. By which I mean, if I have to dittle dice for a result, *everyone* has to dittle the dice as well barring extreme (as in the whole session hangs in the balance) circumstances. Full Stop. GM Fiat needs to be explained immediately and the circumstances need to be made clear.

Anything else and you're just being a railroading douche canoe.
.

It's not the one drone, or even the cost of the drone. It's that this drone, or whatever it represented, was Important™ to the player in some manner and how the GM dismissed that importance. Maybe it wasn't the drone, maybe it was issues with the reconnaissance itself, or maybe it was the effort itself in making the drone hard to spot. Regardless, it doesn't matter what it literally was, the important part about it is that the player cares about it, and that care wasn't just not acknowledged, but actually injured by the GM's (probably inadvertent) actions.
As we only have Fueldrop's side, quite probably. I'm sure there's two sides to every story.
There's no card in the GM's hand that's ever worth not communicating and acknowledging player concerns. Usually a "I hear what you're saying, but I think the payoff will be worth it, trust me a little more and we can talk about this after the game if you're still upset" will suffice, but if a player's willing to walk from the table in the middle of play, inadvertently revealing a plot point is the least of the table's concerns.
Maybe, who knows, but a GM needs to be communicating these expectations to his/her players. It's not the player's place to throw darts into the darkness and guess at to what the GM expects/wants. Similarly, it's on the players to communicate to the GM what they want out of the game too.
At the same time, Fueldrop's response to said vampire was not exactly the most mature response either, so I'm pretty sure there's a bunch of issues that need a sitdown and a lot of honest, respectful, communication about the wants, needs, and expectations each person at the table wants from gaming together.

This is why communication is important. This is why being on the same page with your GM matters. This is why groups should talk some shit over -- expectations, campaign social contract, power levels, challenge levels, reward levels -- before a game starts.

I mean, if you were this upset over a drone getting blown up, think of how pissed off your friend would be if you killed his precious vampire GMPC (after metagaming to find out he was a vampire, which was the only reason you wanted to kill him). Metagame-y grudges, taking stuff like this personally (when the other person doesn't expect you to), being flippant about this sort of thing (when the other person isn't), etc, etc? It's all stuff that's toxic, and can wreck a friendship, not just a campaign. Talk it out first.

It's a game, folks. You're supposed to be playing it with friends. Act like they are, and I honestly think about 95% of the terrible stories in gaming vanish.

You need to vent, and that´s ok. If your trouble is really that the GM didn´t bother rolling, consider the max Perception dp possible and buying hits. Not that I think that is what happened.

If you are rolling in dough, your GM is unlikely to be about limiting PCs to watching from the sidelines. I´ve seen games break under the weight of rules-wise legal stuff, maybe your GM is afraid of missions going easy-mode with too much intel in player hands. You should prepare for runs- and be allowed to prepare - as long as there is sufficient time. You should not be stopped cold.

Walking out on the last leg of a major part of the campaign is IMO not fine, too. You know who you are playing with, enable everyone to finish the story, don´t disrupt the experience.

Was that before or after you insisted on nuking a vampire just because? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

That'd have to be 22 dice.

4*4 = 16 + 6 = 22

That's a lot of dice, even on perception.

I'd say "get over it". Just remember how much effort and time the GM invests in making a game for you to play, and remind yourself how much fin it would be if they weren't even there. They're trying to tell a story, and from the sounds of it you have extremely powered characters. Maybe they just need your scout dead to avoid wrecking the story.
I'd live with it or download Shadowrun Returns and play by yourself.


{from the desk of someone who NEVER gets to play, but is always expected to GM for the rest of the party}

Er.

No.

GM: "This'll be a pretty standard game"
Player A: "Alright, I'll be the face."
[sometime later]
GM, without rolling dice: "The NPC doesn't believe you. He presses the silent alarm."
Player A: "I call bullshit. You didn't even roll dice!"
Plasteel: "The GM's trying to tell a story here. Maybe he just needs your bluff to be called to avoid wrecking the story."

^^^
And what's the problem with that?

Do...you understand the concept of "collaborative storytelling"?

If the GM's plans are utterly fragged if [some action] doesn't go his way, then he needs to write a book, not run a game. The players in a RPG are as essential to telling the story as the GM is, and if the GM is going to completely deny the character's actions, then the player is removed from helping to tell the story and may as well just leave.

^^^
I think you're taking an extreme view of GM "forcing" action in the game. If the GM cannot simply tell the players "this happens" without having to beat them in a roll off, then the players might as well just sit around the table and tell each other the story. No need for me to invest all my time coming up with a plot, building NPCs and acting as the referee/storyteller.
To be honest, players that can't take something going against them without demanding a chance to roll out of it are being babies and not actually participating in the spirit of a RPG.

Don't mistake what I'm saying as suggestion that the GM simply rules on ALL situations that would constitute a roll, but if they can't dictate that something simply happens from time to time, then they don't need to be there.

My favorite set of "how the GM plays this game" rules I've seen are as follows:

"GM says 'yes' or rolls dice."

That's it. Either what the players say they want to happen happens or the GM rolls dice, i.e. it's a conflict.

The point is:
If the GM's not rolling dice when his desires come into conflict with the player's desires, then he's being a bad GM. It's not even alright once in a while. One of the best games I've ever been a part of was the result of the players going "fuck the plot, we're going to do this our own way." Said plot then grew out of control (as there was no one to keep it in check) and so the GM started another game (running concurrently with the first) with a different group of people who actually had an interest in solving the original problem (I was in this second group).

Both games were very enjoyable in their own way and the GM was flexible enough to tell the story the players wanted to be a part of. He did not go "Nope, that spell fails. Deal with the problem."

^^^
To each their own.
I don't agree with you in even a slight way, but I have 0 interest in trying to convince you my way works. I'll have to settle for the 20 years experience I have running nearly every game under the sun, and the fact that in the end I'm the one that did all the work building the campaign, teaching the players the rules, assisting them in building their characters and developing a world for them to run around in. If they are so disrespectful of the fact that my own free time was used to run the game and do all the behind the scenes work, then they can go play by themselves. If they wanna be little children and pout and stomp their feet because I didn't let them do anything they wanted with complete disregard to the effort I've put in, they probably aren't my friends anyway.

Feel free to explain again how I'm a BAD GM since I run games differently than you.

You mean:

Do the things that they built their character to do, that you allowed them to build and join the game, thus allowed them tools they expected to be able to use, then took away from them because "it didn't fit the plot at that moment."

I'm with Draco18s 100% on this one. If the GM's plot is porkchopped by a microdrone...on the character sheet for them to note the presence of at any moment...then that GM needs to stop being the GM. If you don't like that the players have a chunk of gear you didn't plan for? Too fucking bad! You improvise, adapt, and overcome. It's not like the players ever really do what you expect anyway, right?

You know that Cthulhu crossover I mentioned a while back? The one with a Force 7 Servant of Yig? It went down like a pencil-necked prize fighter. I spent all this time working it up and I got one player failing his Sanity check and a dead major challenge in the session down in two fucking combat rounds. I even blew edge trying to keep the damn thing alive and it still got punked. And you know what? I certainly didn't tell them "Your 6 success Stunbolt fails". I sure as hell didn't tell them, "Your 5 success attack with a weapon focus katana misses". I fucking told them, "Good Job! Sorry it proved to be such a disappointing fight..." and carried the fuck on with a major plot challenge carved in two behind them.

Yup, you got it.

That's why when I let them build a decker I was actually agreeing they could successfully hack EVERY system out there, and how I let them build a street samurai so I was actually implicitly agreeing they could kill anything they wanted at any time.

Like you said though, I'm a BAD GM....
I'll have to live with that, just like you'll have to live with always being right. It's a tough life.