Technically, a driver with MBW or SA gets his initative bonus while driving in SR3, as RAW only excludes spells, adept powers, and the specific implants in the main book.

AAAAHHHHHH!!!!

Response? what response? the officers get sleepified from a concealed ambush position, then have their gear nicked
they don't get time to call for backup

...not that I recall, unless that was buried somewhere on a back page in Rigger 3 I missed seeing. They do get their full Reaction but not the additional initiative dice.

Kremlin, I just assume that all officers are equipped with external biomonitors because it is a lot cheaper to do so than have things like what you described happen all the time. All the officers go to sleep at once and suddenly another team is sent to investigate, or possibly a HTR team depending on the cities political climate and what else is happening that night.

Chris

Nah, a mage and a set of spirits arrive astrally 15-30 seconds later, with concealment. At the same time a drone gets directed to loot at the area and all the cameras around it get looked at to see if they have a view. Mage stays high, sends a summoned spirit in to use their assensing to look at the cops and people around. If anyone hostile is there mage bounces back to office, leaving heavily concealed spirit on watch, makes a call and lots more mages from the local office with spirits show up a few seconds later to start the party. Followed by the heavy hitters from regional and national, who start arriving a few minutes later if needed, about the time the HTR units arrive.

Carrying out high profile attacks has its drawbacks. LS or KE can apply a very large amount of firepower rapidly once a threat is localized, and can apply an overwhelming amount within several minutes. They do this for a living and have 50 years experience in how to do it right.

lol. Okay, your group's just awesome then. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

...thought you'd like it. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

My "what wouldn't you do" varies wildly from character to character, but normally only the extreme ends of it. Pretty much all of my Shadowrunners, ever, are a-okay with everyday Shadowrunner junk; killing for money, stealing for money, looting, burning, sniping unsuspecting targets, forced extractions, the occasional bit of torture, yadda yadda yadda. Because, well, they're Shadowrunners, and in much the same way you don't get a job delivering pizza if you're morally opposed to driving or findind street addresses, you don't get a job as a Shadowrunner if you can't get your hands dirty. I've long been of the opinion that (much like the murderous hobos that D&D players call "adventurers") there is just something fundamentally wrong with most Shadowrunners, somewhere deep in their psyche and/or background, and I create my characters with that in mind. There has to be some reason they're working the side of the shadows that they're working, so most basic "roll up your sleeves and fuck over the innocent wageslave" work is not beyond them.

When GMing? There's pretty much nothing that's off limits. Because I (and most of the people I play Shadowrun with) believe what we do about the innately flawed/scarred/dark nature of professional criminals, the opposition in my Shadowrun games is a little bit worse than that. I'm from the Frank Miller/Sin City school of GMing Shadowrun (and CP:2020, when it comes up); in order to keep fundamanetally dark player characters as the protagonists, the antagonists have to be even worse. There's nothing like breaking up a bunraku ring to make hired killers feel like they're still good guys, y'know?

Metagaming preferences:

No missing persons.

In character preferences:
I'm one of those sick bastards who usually tries to play a "good guy" in Shadowrun. As such my characters usually don't jump for wetwork or other such "black hat" affairs. Although I've been known to go in for the Sin City style revenge kill if my team gets particularly boned. I have no problem being screwed because I didn't ask enough questions. One of my favorite games more or less ended when my angelic white hat doctor character took part in a Humanis sanctioned fire bombing of a metahuman squatter hovel. Poor guy never did get over that.

As a GM:
-No rape RP. If players want to go to that place they can go there on their own time and without me moderating. I've occassionally used it as a thematic device but I've never RPed it.
-Torture I'm less squemish about but I've never played with a group of people who wanted to spend 2 hours describing exactly what sort of surgical tools they apply to what parts for how long and at what temperature. I'm usually fine with players saying "We do very very very bad things to him for no less than 4 hours and make first aid/medicine rolls to make sure he doesn't die. If we can get bonuses here is a list of the things we purchase at the hardware store." If I torture players (in game, not out of game because I've written some really awful flavor text or didn't bother to learn the magic rules) I usually just give them a general idea and have them roll a series of willpower checks. I'm also a big fan of 'The villian lowers the trodes over your head and slots a chip that appears as a cackling daemon in your AR" Mangling someones body seems so much less efficient than mangling their mind with some modified Black IC and a hot sim of being fed into a meat grinder turn by turn.
-Creepy sex stuff. If your character has creepy sex needs, just give me a general idea and I'll let you know how much all those gerbils add to your lifestyle costs. As a former MUX administrator I can tell you that my interest in reading 20 page tinysex logs evaporated after I got out of puberty. Now if you're knocking boots when a Firewatch team burst through your door, I find that intensely amusing and encourage you with karma.

That's just wrong.

...DocT, I'm pretty much on the same bus with my PCs. Maybe the hats turn a few shades grayer at times but never black.

As to GM-ing, About the same too, though I do do love intrigue mixed with a healthy dose of suspense. One thing I try to steer completely clear from is the whole GD & IE metaplot. Based on the experience, when they show up, the PCs tend to become rather superfluous as the GD or IE usually always wins.

hehe, I'm sure that, given the right situation, my players hats could be turned very very dark grey indeed. I look forward to providing those "opportunities".

GD or IE?

I'm not sure if it's what you're asking, but "GD" is Great Dragons, "IE" is Immortal Elves. Some big conspiracy/behind-the-scenes metaplots (mostly from previous editions) that some people feel were overplayed, or just don't fit in very well. So some folks ignore 'em, while some folks adore 'em (just like everything else).

Great Dragon or Immortal Elf.

Or Immoral Elf, if you happen to play with Fortune.

Chris

EDIT: Scooped of course, dammit.

I wear the black hat a lot of times, with shades of grey and rarely a white hat. As a GM, I've had an NPC who was a sexual sadist before becoming infected with HMHVV--the players got to relive a moment as a joygirl got what she was paid for and a whole lot more. PCs have called in contracts on other PCs, they've sold their souls to Threats and Corps to gain more power, but there are always consequences.

Ah... I usually shy away from putting those into my games. They need a fine touch and they are by definition, not a fine touch.

Unless my players trounce traditional corps/orgs they probably will never come into any sort of meaningful contact with that sort of thing. And if you they do it will probably be the last thing they see.

I don't think there is anywhere I wouldn't go. I've had targets of wet work be Down Syndrome patients, I've had Mormons show up in the middle of a run attempting to proselytize, I've had the players attempt to forcibly abort a pregnant woman using drugs fired at range from a modified rifle. While I've never really gone in for rape, torture, etc. that's more because I don't see those as being interesting plot developments. I like my morality to be a bit ambiguous and rape/torture/molestations/etc. are all pretty nasty and reasonably difficult to justify (well, torture can be justified, but it's just not very reliable in my games).

...dealt with the scaly ones on several occasions. The worst experience was Survival of the Fittest (3rd ed). In that one the Dragons win no matter what the PCs do.

Although it sucks to for the player, at least it is fitting that in the Sixth World the Dragon always wins. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cyber.gif)

...which is why they remain as background color in my campaigns. I want the PCs to feel they have some relevance.

True, but I figure that Cyberpunk is supposed to be at least somewhat hopeless, so I don't ahve as much of a problem which dashing the Character's pitiful illusion of freewill when it makes sense. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cyber.gif)

But then again, as I've said before, I sit my players down before I agree to run a campaign and explain what it means to live in a Cyberpunk world.

As a player I am typically reserved. My charactes always seem to have a healthy dose of morals, however, they are also reactionists. In such a way as though I wouldnt think about skinning someone, but say if situations occured to piss the character off enough he would lose it and do such a thing. But really that is such an extremely rare case that It may have happened 3 times in 15 years of playing. And each time was a GM twist to make me lose it in character.

As a GM though, I will stoop to any depths to make the players/ characters feel how I want them too. Whether it is making a potential vamp pawn (player) prove his loyalty by capping a child in the street and carrying his little sister to the vamp for food. (and the player does have a little girl)

To describing in detail a torture session where Tamanous dismembers a character and feeds his limbs to the ghouls infront of him. One piece at a time while concious (it took awhile). Finally delivering his still oozing body in a burlap sack to the bar in which his runner friends were hidding.


Overall, I can be quite evil, but largely I do not want to kill the players, just journey with them to create a very memerable story. Positive and negative for the characters.

GM: I ran some games where the team was sent to rescue children being held by organ leggers. After they deliver the kids to the Johnson and get paid and he leaves they find out he's actually a pedophile who thinks he's santa "claws" (arm claws and all). I was proud they actually went after him and rescued the kids again. I had left it up to them to decide.

I had a nemesis in a game for awhile who was a "runner killer". He would get hired into runs and take out the team during the job.

as a player I usually go the good guy route, can't help it.

actually in the D&D campaign I'm running atm the players haven't realized it yet but they may actually be figments of the main villains imagination. He's essentially a "frankenstien's monster" and his parts are rebelling against him, creating enemies for him. IE: the players.

...ahh but hopelessness is one thing. You can put someone in a setting that appears hopeless but they may still feel there is still that chance, as small as it may be, that they can still achieve some sort of goal. Now uselessness (which was how I felt while running in SotF) is another matter as it tends to discourage the player by letting them know they will have no effect on the final outcome and are nothing more than pawns in a chess game between "superior" beings.