Arsenal vs. the Denver Arc, The new kids rule the block Options

[Phantastik]

So having played now 7 or 8 SRM missions (yeah, I'm still a noob) I finally had the chance to "give back" and run some SRM at a con.

Now, I ran a table of 5, and it was a Green table; one of the characters was newly-rolled, a street sam, and he'd been built with Augmentation (which I have) and Arsenal (which I have now, just arrived yesterday TWO WEEKS after I ordered it, but I didnt have at the con).

The game was a ton of fun, especially during legwork (i'm an RPer, what can I say), but then it came time to throw-down...

The enemies in the mish are supposedly a bad-ass ex-shadowrun team, but they are all built and equipped core-only, and were frankly no match for a street sam with radar vision, stacked armor, and a rifle that could put out 9P damage with -3 armor piercing. When prepping the mish I had this great scene ready, but it played out as more a "fish in a barrel" encounter, just from technological superiority on the part of the sam.

Now, it's my fault for not being familiar with Arsenal, and if I had been I might have statted out a v2 set of opponents "just in case", as well as added some surveillance countermeasures to the encounter location (a house), but the issue (and every game has this issue as it adds supplements) is the classic "power creep of new supplements" versus "missions written under pre-supplement rules".

So, just something for GMs to be mindful of, especially for a con setting - when prepping the missions, it might be a good idea to have a "arsenal-ready" version if you need it. Ironically, it's not such a problem with higher-karma characters rolled pre-Arsenal, because they actually have to make rolls and spend a lot to get the 5+ availability equipment; it's more an issue with new runners, built from the ground up with modded weapons, stacked armor and the like.

...

Oh, and one important piece of advice for GMs in a con setting - check armor vs. body for encumbrance! Amazing how many Body 3 characters out there are wearing Armor Jackets... without taking the -3 penalty to Agility and Reaction. Perfectly innocently, I'm sure! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)