Ganger suggestions Options

[killerjoel]

Okay, so my group started playing SR4 a few months ago. Barring a brief period noodling around in SR3, this is the bulk of my Shadowrun experience.

My group wants me to run a game centered around gangers. Since this would be my first time running the game, I thought I'd ask you guys for advice on how to scale the power level down. I understand this idea is in no way new to the SR community, so I'm hoping for lots of wisdom regarding possible BP limits, cost alterations, etc.

Thanks, guys!

[FrankTrollman]

SR4 handles gang-level operations fairly well. Just ask each character to try to do more than one thing, and they'll end up spread so thin that they'll be running with dice pools in the 8-12 range in their chosen fields. Ganger dice pools run in the 4-6 range for the teen agers, and the 6-10 range for named and/or heavy goons. That puts the PCs in at the optimum "slightly better than the mooks they are fighting" range.

-Frank

[stevebugge]

My take is that the 400 point build represents a pretty entry level runner, so maybe only slightly more powerful than the average ganger. The 395 point Sprawl Ganger sample character probably represents an established 'senior' ganger, based on that 350-395 probably would work, depending on how low level you want to go. Then if you and your players agree to a reduced list of skills and gear you could put together a credible street level campaign.

[Reprisal]

First, I would limit lifestyle to low or worse and limit access to cyberware and bioware. Street-level grit is best enforced collectively, and great care should be taken to enforce the feeling. Once power creep starts to set in, things can get ridiculous:

"Why wouldn't I have an AK-97?! He's a ganger!"

"If he can have an AK-97, I can have grenades!"

I would caution my players to self-censor their equipment and tactical choices after everyone takes the time to define just what they mean by "ganger" or "street-level." Some may think of it as baseball bats and light pistols, others may think of it as uzis and drive-bys, while others may think of "block wars" with assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades. Establish a style, and stick to it as long as everyone still thinks it's cool.

If it's street level, make sure that you clearly define the lines of power. Are the law-enforcement officers overstretched and incapable of enforcing the law?Are the criminal syndicates hands-on and street-level themselves, or are they the fear-inspiring Great White Sharks to your street-level barracuda and morray eels? If syndicates are Great Whites, then corporations are the seas themselves: several orders of magnitude more powerful than your street-level boys and girls.

I would advise you make conflicts personal -- the local bunraku slaver just took the girlfriend of a PC's friend/contact as payment for a heavy debt, another gang is trying to muscle in on your territory, etc.

Make sense?

[Guest_MK Ultra_*]

If you want weaker chars/non-shadowrunners, you schould consider lowering the BP for creation.
Anyway you schould limit the startingmoney, maybe 10 BP (50k :nuyen: ) max. and probably allow only gear with lower availability, I don´t know whats apropriate here, possibly max. 6 or 8.
Another way to make the pc´s less specialized and more streetlike, is limiting the max. skill level at chargen. maybe nothing higher than 4, or even only one or two on 4 and the rest 3 or less.
You should especially consider limiting technical and magic skills. (no skill higher then 2 or 3 i.e.). I´d allso suggest limiting magic in general. Either have them pay more, don´t allow it in the first place or limit Magick Attribute to, say 3 max.
All of the pc´s should logically have some gang contacts and not to elaborate other contacts.
No Pc should have more than low lifestyle! (except it´s a rich kid gang)

[FrankTrollman]

Lowering equipment options seriously screws mundane characters. If you limit everyone to 50k :nuyen: you're going to end up with a Wiz Gang. Nothing wrong with that, I suppose, but it's probably not what you were looking for.

Rather than lowering BP, you should probably give people mandatory contacts. The net result is similar (characters end up with less points sunk into Tanking), but they end up knowing a lot of people, which fits the gang concept pretty well. You might also limit the Connections rating on Contacts to 3.

-Frank

[Lagomorph]

I believe that the gangers listed in the SR4 book (under goons) are built at about 250 points. I was bored and counted one day. So if you want to give your characters a better list of skills than "shooting and dodging" like the listed gangers have, then give them 300 points or so.

[Space Ghost]

Heavily control what gear they can start with. If they go to a fixer to get a pistol, they don't necessarily get to choose what kind. They just get a pistol. An Ares Pred IV has the same availability as an AK-97. Should gangers have AKs? No.

Also, note that things will escalate pretty quickly when the karma starts flowing. For instance, 2 karma gets you a specialty, and suddenly you have considerably more dice than other gangers. It doesn't take many sessions to turn thugs into competent killers. So take appropriate measures. Some suggestions:

1. Limit Combat skills based on the availability of proper training. A cop or military grunt has a skill of 3 when shooting. Where would your ganger get equivalent training? Consider removing specializations for combat skills.
Or
2. Plan for the inevitable. As things escalate and thugs become pros, up the ante to match. They could go from low-level street toughs to smugglers, then to an established crime syndicate. Just remember to bring the NPCs (both good and bad) up in level too. It doesn't work if just the PCs become badass.

[FrankTrollman]

Remember that while goons are built on very few points, their list of skills is also not comprehensive. Noone gives a damn what Social or Technical skills a thug has, and the grunts listing for them often as not leaves that off.

Player Characters, on the other hand, actually have to purchase their Ettiquette, Artisan, and such-like. Further, they have to purchase lifestyles, vehicles, and surveilance equipment - their character sheet needs to have (and pay for) a lot more than the armor and weapon entry that a grunt listing can get away with.

In short, a 300 BP PC is quite likely to be inferior in combat to a 250 BP ganger grunt.

-Frank

[September]

Make sure they realize that gangers have very little power, and that's why they care so much about. So they can beat up the corner Stuffer Shack...any syndicate man or shadowrunner worth speaking of can lay them on the payment in six seconds flat. Make sure they don't get to big for their britches. You take on the rival gang slowly, calling out individuals and gaining an advantage. Incremental stuff. Not blowing up yakuza.

Of course, if you want to have an overdone gang-wars campaign, go ahead.

[Serbitar]

I am gamemastering a ganger campain for about one year now.

My Gangers start with 550 Karma in the SECKSY system. Maximum starting availability was 6. Sometimes 8. I restricted starting money to 20.000.
Only one skill at 5 (if at all). None at 6.

On retrospection, I think I should have limited magic to 3 or 4. We have a gang shaman (PC) who maybe too powerful.


Any gamemaster leading a gang campain should know that it is a lot of work: YOu have to have stats/looks/quirks/names/behaviours for about 30 gangers. KNow what they do, when they do, how they do it.
You need to have a gangturf with lots of locations, bars, whatever.
You have to know the economy of the gang. Where des the money come from?Drugs, callgirls, taking money from locals for "protection".
There has to be a hierachical structure in the gang.


The gamemaster has to manage it thus, that the PCs dont allways call the rest of the gang, but do stuff themselves. On the other hand, they should not be ordered arround by the gangboss all the time. And so on.
You need information about the sourraounding gangs, their leaders, their attitudes.
etc . . .

I have stats and comments for about 30 gangers, 30 "special" people in the turf, 20-30 locations. Maps of the HQ, the turfand others. A detailed account of how much money is gained by selling which drugs, bulliing up wich shops and pretecting which callgirls.

[TinkerGnome]

Yeah, definitly cap off magic and probably halve the max number of spells, to boot. For gear, keep in mind what kind of gang they are and their location. If they're in the depths of the barrens, an AK or two floating around is probably just fine. If they're a defensive gang in Tacoma, then probably not.

[killerjoel]

Awesome. This is really good stuff. I'm definitely limiting the Magic severely. . . wiz chars have too much 'oomph.'

I like the idea of them not getting their weapons off a grocery list like 'runners do. And I definitely don't want them carrying AKs. I'm thinking pistols, the occasional shotgun, baseball bats, crowbars, etc. I want to see a street-raised illiterate ork swinging a chain Road-rash style from his stolen bike, not a walking army lobbing frags and laying on the autofire. Yakuza-killers they are not.

It sounds like 350 or so BP should do the trick. I want them slightly better than average. That'll give 'em enough muscle to back their climb up the hierarchial ladder without making it too easy for them. I'm already cooking up the gang, its members, enemies, goals, etc.

Good advice, guys. This is sounding more fun by the minute.

[Aku]

dont suppose this is gonna be a forum game, eh? Unfortunately i suffer one onetrackitis, so my characters are generally rehashes of each other (when i get to play) but something like this i could feel the vibe for

[Shrike30]

The one thing to note about weapons like the AK-97 is that part of the reason they're so easily available is the total lack of any serious "tricking out." No venting, no sighting options... but inexpensive and not hard to get. Personally (and I can totally see why you'd want to avoid that level of firepower, but this is just me), I can see an AK in a ganger-level campaign.

You're talking about a weapon that's not concealable in any way and is too big to carry conveniently, but puts down the serious hurt. The kind of gun you keep under the floorboards somewhere, and break out when you're going to drive up to some place and spray it down, or have a bunch of people jump out of the back of a van and storm a building with. Anybody dragging one of these around day and night is going to have issues to deal with... he's not in a war zone.

The day to day stuff your gangers would carry? Handguns. Probably light pistols, maybe holdouts because you can hide them easily. Heavy pistols are better in pretty much every way, but they're harder to hide, heavier, and just more annoying that way.

Submachineguns and shotguns fall into that range of "small enough to tuck under a coat if you're careful" where you've got a little of both worlds, but honestly wouldn't want to do it unless you had a reason. And you know, some days it's just too damn hot out to wear a lined coat and a cut-down shotgun.

The trick would be, more than simply forbidding the characters access to this kind of "street level" firepower, simply putting them in situations where it's untenable or ill-advised to bring something like an AK along at all. Don't say "you can't have that," just make them think "Do I really want that today?"

[Halabis]

ammo restrictions. Make the players earn each bullet they have. bullets dont grow on tree's you know. where the heck do kids get bullets anyways?

[Space Ghost]

There are loads of pistol rounds. i think i read somewhere that you can buy them out of a vending machine if you have a valid SIN. Of course, that leaves a datatrail. AR rounds would be more difficult. Since SMGs load pistol rounds, they tend to become the best thing going.

[killerjoel]

The comments about the bigger guns is true, but I'm still imposing a strict availability limit on my players at character creation. These are the kinds of things they get as they progress. Maybe they're on their way to do some aggresive negotiation with someone and he pulls an AK from under the floorboards, who knows?

[killerjoel]

[imperialus]

very cool idea. I might yoink some of this if I ever run a street level campaign.

[Guest_MK Ultra_*]

Shrike30 is absolutely right about that weapons issue. I had 2 gang-games until now, one played one mastered.

In the game I played (a store sponsord multiple group SR3 champain) there were only limitations on skill max (no tech or magic skills above 3), money (no more then 90k) and availability (no higher then 4 or 5 IIRC). Allso we had to pay hafty operation fees for cyber.
We only ever packed mele arms and some pistols, only one had a SMG and one a Sport Riffle (usually in the HQ) and I had a Roomsweeper. Only one had a sporn, my pc had plast bone laceing and a datajack (he was the only chipper). Half of them were Adepts though.

The first time we encountered another Gang in combat all of them (or at least most) were Adepts or Honguan, packing SMGs and up (one had an AK, one a heavy Ranger-X Bow). They smoked us with ease. 2 of us died (+2 NPCs of ours).

The next pc´s we built were all adepts (which were the ultimate powerhouses in this low cyber game) and packed SMG´s and sawed-offs. The first thing we ordered from our arms dealer were ARs and Granades.
I liked the game much more before that fatal incident (though it was still fun afterwards).

The game I´m running now started with 6 Kids (12-16) only two from the streets, that stumbled into the famous foodfight without weapons of there own (except one of the street guys, which was actually part of the raidingparty but changed sides after the gang killed his brother, who was one of the bystanders). They survived by hiding and than picking up the the Defiance of the Manager, after he went down.
They were build on very low points, but advanced very fast, due to many smal scenarios. They built a gang of there own, had 3 gangwars (they lost 1/3 of thair members each time, but merged with allyes afterwards) and had a deacent income after taking over two brothels from an indipendant.
Now they are breaking into the shadows and the next thing that will happen when they return after 1 1/2 months on some out of town jobs will be the mobs noticing thair profitable little venture, so theyd eventually have to give one syndicate a big cut, for protection against the others and will depend on the extra cash from runs.
Non of them was magic in the beginning, though I told the interested players, to make thair pcs especially young and low powerd. Now (10 in-game months later) the shaman is awakened (he was for 3 months now and only has a Mentor Spirit, Magic 2 and 2 Spells, but no skills yet, he gets a Mentor Bonus for both spells, so he´s got 2 dice without Edge), the Adept doesn´t know that he is awakened yet (I secretly changed some of his advantages into powers without telling him, so hes got some mystic armor (thinking it is toughness), fexibility (doublejointed), iron will (instead of guts) and quick healer; he gets the points saved to spend on skills, etc. as soon as he realizes he awakened months ago).

So far I had much fun, though the players seam to be less enthusiastic as thay are starting to be small fish in a big pond, while thay were quiet powerfull gangers befor (not quiet as combat heavy as the ganger archetype, but wider skills). Thay are used to high-power runners, and some have a bit (or more) of a munchkin under thair skin.

[Guest_MK Ultra_*]

Now I actuall forgot, what I wanted to post in the first place :oops:

Remember, war is bad!

A runner can hide from the heat or at least run from it, Gangs have turf and bussiness to protect, so thay´ve got to stand the heat. And gangers have families and friends to loose mor often than runner have! Unlike runners´, a ganger´s enemy knows were he lives and whome to hurt to hit the ganger.

If you are a Ganger packing an AR, every other Gang that spots you, knows it´s war!
If you are a ganger drawing any firearm in a fight against another gang, it´s war!
If you shoot a cop, it´s war!

So, while you can pack heavy stuff (though probably only of low quality, like AK´s and Uzis), actually using them means war and you normaly don´t want that.

War means, drivebys, firebombings and much blood in the gutters. And war is bad for bussiness.

[killerjoel]

That sounds great, MK. I really dig the ideas. I also plan on making them start as nobodies and letting them work their way up.

The points people are making about big guns are good ones. Brawling with street weapons puts you on the gang list. Pulling guns escalates the conflict. The bigger the gun, the bigger the battle you just committed yourself to. The bigger name you make for yourself as a serious street threat, the bigger the fish (Lone Star, Yaks, etc.) that will want to eat you.

That about sums it up. What do you think, Halabis? Does it sound like we have a game?

[Dale]

First thing I'd do as a pc in a ganger setting would be to make sure I got the heaviest concealable handgun I could find as soon as possible. I'd have stopped fighting with baseball bats at age 13, guys.
Second thing, do anything neccessary to get the cash for Wire Reflexes 1.
ANYTHING.



p.s.I also would get with that Food Fight Stuffer Shack elf cashier girly.

:D

[TinkerGnome]

Who needs wired reflexes? Jazz and Cram do the job well enough for a street punk.