My players don't loot., Am I blessed? Options

[FrostyNSO]

Reading these boards has led me to believe that with shadowrunners, looting is the norm rather than the exception. I didn't know this until now.

I don't pay my players all that much, but more than they could make doing something safer. Generally, they don't have problems keeping cred in their wallet, and are still able to buy certain toys/luxuries when they need to. Every once in a while they run short of cash, but they tighten their belts and get by.

One run we went on, they had a few opportunities to snag some SMG's and credsticks. They passed them by, even though the loot would have made for a decent boost to their income for that run.

After the run, I asked my players why they didn't grab the loot. One of them said:
"We're not getting paid to loot."
I was like, 'Oh, cool.'

They never loot. There have been times when due to badluck/malfunction/no ammo, a PC has had to 'liberate' a piece of equipment from an NPC in order to complete the run. After the run is completed, the equipment in neatly disposed of rather than kept. These guys have weapons that they've had since character creation, and don't hassel their contacts every week for Ares Alphas.

I guess what it comes down to is that I have frugal players, and I love it. Good roleplayers, no munchkins, and believable.

Though I've never left a crate in a facility clearly labled 'Fairlight', so we'll see when that comes up.

[Siege]

How many paranoid runners will actually stop and inspect a crate clearly marked "hey, runner - open me"?

:grinbig:

-Siege

[toturi]

My players loot, but usually it is not for the cash. They usually pick up the (caseless) Predators and Brownings that the sec guards have (if they have them) and the ammo they have. They seldom loot, but when they do, it is selective and it is more along the lines of survival than greed. Physical looting is minimal in my campaign but Matrix looting or looting an off-line data storage is rampant. My decker and otaku loot as much as they can lay their virtual hands on.

[FSBO]

I played Shadowrun at a convention one time w/ 3 players from our usual group and a couple people we had never played w/ and a GM we didn't know. We ran circles around this guys adventure because it was built with looters in mind which had built in time for response teams. We just focused on mission and stole the helicopter in question. After the game the guy was amazed that we just passed on all the goodies he had loaded it with, but he was also amazed at how we had circumvented most of his traps. If you keep your eye on the ball you are less likely to get fragged for doing something stupid fallowing a tangent. If something absolutely falls in your lap then I would still think twice about it. After all when you final try and cash in, you now have something else to tie you to the Job.

[Die blaue Reiter...]

Well, in my gamin group, no one used to loot places, except for one player who was so inclined. Ultimately, it led her character to a gory death. See, she loved dnd and always wanted to play roguish characters - she just didn't seem to understand when enough was enough.

Anyway, it seems to me that most of the time, there are better and safer ways to make cash than to try to take everything that's not bolted to the floor and try to sell it... anyway, unless you really need the gear, why bother ? If the gear is worth a lot, many people will rather kill you than pay you for it ( if they can get away with it - reputation, y'know...). And if the gear is *not* worth a lot, then it's not worth your time.

Personally, I like keeping small souvenir of places we visited or people we met. For instance, some NPC ( located in Seattle ) wanted my technologically-impaired character ( located in Rhine-Rhur ) to put her hands on some nifty encryption program. He sent it through snail mail on a small chip hidden in the circuitry of an off-the-shelf computer. Of course, the computer was, well, an ordinary, legit, as normal as can be, 2000 nuyen laptop. Nonetheless, I decided to keep it and use it, but that's not really looting, now ? Gifts are rare to come by.

One thing that puzzle me however is about trolls and orcs. We've never had any ( non comedy-relief ) troll nor orc characters. There isn't a single shadowrun player I know who wants to play them. When I asked why, I was answered that they didn't want to play metahuman characters at all, or that trolls were unbalanced and munchkin, or that they couldn't find a single character concept involving those two races that interested them, or that the penalty to cha and int was too limitating. Many people on this board seems to hate elves, but among the people I know, it's against orcs and trolls. Well, at least we don't have game balance problems with munched-out troll sammies. :S

[SimpleRunner]

I agree with Siege. Runners won't go for things that are described to well. Scale down the detail then you can nail them to the wall with traps!

With loot though I have said a few times in the past it really keeps a game low maintenance if the players do not add a degree of difficulty but looting everything, selling everysingle body that could fetch a few cred. Just keep them happy with cred flow in the right direction and you should have a great game.

[Kremlin KOA]

Hey a little looting is ok, excessive looting leads to traps admittedly pay runners well and no looting occurs

[Ezra]

My group doesn't really loot, except for the oh-my-god-I-am-out-of-ammo-lets-use-the-guards-weapon kinda looting.

The way I see it, I am not against my players pilfering the odd bit of stuff here and there. But anything very valuable, unique, or secret is either going to be protected, or will be hunted down and retrieved. Which is never a good thing for the player holding the brand new doodab. :D

[Axe]

My players loot, but I think it's cause they are too used to D&D still (their first SR game, with all the fun that brings "wait, you brought your Ingram valiant and grenade launcher into the bar?"). One event which I found amusing was when the rigger happened to drive past the location where a fight between the other characters and a go-gang had occured. He just stopped his truck, pilled the go-gang's bikes on and went over to his chop-shop contact.

As a side note, I actually like playing orks and trolls, though I tend to stay away from the clichés.

[Guest_Crimsondude 2.0_*]

I guess it depends. I haven't looted... yet. And most looting I've seen is usually out of some sort of necessity rather than being opportunistic.

[FrostyNSO]

Heh, I can't get a PC to play a Dwarf to save my life. Nobody likes being short I guess...

[Eyeless Blond]

I love dwarves in SR. You couldn't pay me to play a dwarf in D&D, but for some reason the SR ones just aren't as annoying. Maybe it's the lack of inbred alcoholism; I don't know.

The other meta races can go to hell though, especially those nancing elves. :P

[Sandoval Smith]

I would really try and discourage layers who full body cavity every sec guard they kill, and grab everything that isn't nailed down (how exactly are you carrying all the pilfered equipment from a dozen NPCs again). In game reasons are because it's unprofessional, sloppy (you're stealing cyberware, how do you expect to do it cleanly). It's going to make a whole lot of people want to drop the hammer on the players very bad, and an MO of butchered corpses and pilfered desks is not the kind of thing most Johnsons want in a team. I'd aslo enforce certain consequences, such as the increased leaving incrimanating evidence (you cut out his head wear with your barehands, of course you left fingerprints; or No, the sec armor can't be converted to fit you. You took it off a human, you're a troll).

Of course, that's only what you use if the first way doesn't work, and the first way is, "This isn't D&D. There are no hoards to pilfer, and your characters don't depend on the spoils of battle in order to outfit themselves. Give the grabiness a break."

[Icarus]

I am ashamed

I'm no munchkin, but i've played a troll, does that make me a bad man?

Please someone forgive my sin...

[Lilt]

When I play, I do loot. However, I only really loot the things that are valuable or useful to me.

IE: Ammo, Cyberdecks, Foci, and other useful or similarily expencive gear. The most risky one of them is probably the foci, which'll have a built-in link back to its owner('s corpse) but some foci are worth the risk (good-force power and weapon foci, for example) and it is possible to guard against linking back to it.

[Edward]

What archetypes are thay playing and how much do you pay them.

If a 1000K rigger goes on a run for 5K and has ether 1 high lifestyle of 2-3 medium lifestyles (home, garage, safe house) he will need to loot to pay the bills (and remember by the rules even if you don’t use a drone all month you still need to pay its maintenance and I did not include vehicle repair in that).

Unless I am a melee awakened I rarely replace primary weapons (weapon focus is a special case).

Most of my characters don’t loot unless they have hit hard times (when the rigger is only able to get a 5k job) or see something valuable that can be easily handled and grabbed fast. It isn’t worth a side trip. It is worth pausing for 10 seconds.

Edward

[Abstruse]

I had 4 players in my last game and they would loot things obviously worth money (guns, grenades, obviously-displayed fetishes, certified credsticks if they can be quickly found). However, they got into a habit of "trophy collecting". There was a yakuza boss they had to capture alive who was famous in the underworld circles for using two katana. The troll basher (titanium bone lancing + maxed Str) who knocked him out kept them as a trophy.

Then again, this is the same group that, during Food Fight, had two members head straight for the simsense porn, one head for the Synthi-Scotch, and one head for the cute blonde from the gang (though he didn't know it at the time)...and I mean they said this within 3 seconds of walking in the store.

The Abstruse One

[Siege]

Performing a body-cavity search on the corpses and melting them down for any and all 'ware is...well...a bad idea, but like anything else, it's all a matter of timing.

If you're penetrating a live, hot target with a timetable, you won't be able to stop and melt down corpses.

I'm not adverse to doing a quick frisk to find potentially useful things like: credsticks, security cards and assorted whatnot.

If a ganger and his buddies decided to jump you and your runner buds while going from one bar to the next, well...it's a slow night and that cyberware will pay for the next round of drinks.

-Siege

[Ed Simons]

[Skeptical Clown]

The game slows down too much if the players are looting everything in sight; shadowrun is meant to be a bit fast-paced, I think. I regard the idea that runners are too professional or ethical to EVER loot, however, with incredulity.

[Siege]

Looting is a perk of the job unless expressly noted otherwise.

Evaluate the opportunity costs and make your decision on a risk-versus-return model.

-Siege

[Edward]

Cyber surgery on a run is always a bad idea.

I have one character that has a drone designed to collect damaged vehicles primarily his own.

He also uses it to extract injured allies from a line of fire (heavy armour) and collect downed enemy drones for his collection. In a lean month some heavily cybered guards would look enough like drones he would take them. But you take them intact and let the meet market and hope the cutter is honest.

In the end it comes down to one question. “Will I be able to afford to feed my family and maintain my business assets (drones in this case) for the foreseeable future” when the chips are down and I need money I am not adverse to looking unprofessional especially if the character has more than himself to consider. (and if you don’t what is the point to being so professional).

Edward

[Luke Hardison]

This is something I have to address every game. Recently, my resident munchkin made something other than a combat monster after his third was killed by his own stupidity. I was elated that he was trying something new, and even more happy when I discovered that his concept was a combat medic, a super smart ork with limited combat ability (only owned pistols! No assault rifles!) and high biotech, with all the neat gear and his own concealed ambulance. Then I found out why he chose a combat medic; he had decided to become an on-site organ legger and cyberware hocker. He honestly couldn't understand why he couldn't 'loot' smartlinks, boosted reflexes, and bone lacing on scene. I'm not kidding about that .... His response, basically, was, "Why not? I have biotech 6, a rating 6 medkit, microscopic vision, enhanced articulation! Just let me roll! ..."

My flavor of the game would be to include things like the occasional fetish for the shaman, or a hot cyberdeck for the team to fence; anything to give a random boost of cash in small, easy to carry, relatively easy to fence, and valuable items found on scene. However, I don't know if I can ever do that ... the one player just wouldn't understand the difference.

[Siege]

Uh...um...

For much the same reason he can't pick up a tank.

Just by the description of boosted reflexes, there isn't enough 'ware in the body to salvage.

Bone lacing? Exsqueeze me? How, in the hell, did he think he was going to remove laced bones and expect to salvage them in any meaningful fashion or form, beyond a chewtoy for a pet hellhound?

-Siege

[RangerJoe]

Once he's done extracting the bone lacing, he can suck the bones for marrow...

"It's all in the dice"