[X] My Assistant

[Birdy]

[Protagonist]

Perhaps send them some problems that they can't resolve with combat?

Like have an enemy screw with them socially/economically. Loved ones can be kidnapped, assests can be stolen, reputations can be ruined. Sure, there will probably be combat eventually as a result (they'll probably be just itching to kill whoever did it), but in the meantime, their dear old mum is in a secure basement somewhere (or even better, put her in space!), missing half of her fingers, and if they don't want her to lose any more . . . :eek:

[Wounded Ronin]

[Smiley]

Hey, if your runners can reach that level of bad-assery, others can too. Why not pit them against another runner team of equal level and see if they can take it as well as they dish it? Also, megacorps assuredly employ talent of that magnitude... and enough to outnumber your team. AND they equip them with SOTA gear. :dead:

[Rajaat99]

[SL James]

[Smiley]

[Rajaat99]

It was the first Japanese name I could think of. :D And no, I didn't think anyone would catch it. I thought most of you would be too young, or too old.

[Rock]

There was something that a GM of ours did once that I hadn't even considered: Instead of placing them against something unbeatably huge like a living god type spirit, just throw a bunch of little things at them until they are worn down.

Example: Our PCs had been travelling through the seweres and stumbled onto a devil rat community. 100 dead devil rats cost us a bunch of ammo, a few wounded characters, and a drained mage. We get where we're going, and we still hadn't had time to fix our characters or replenish our ammo, and crap, it's a few squads of Lone Star on their dinner break right across the street from us. We get that taken care of at the expense of some more ammo, a few more wounds, and more fatigue for the mage. Only then do we get to start our run.

Needless to say, we got messed up on the run and it was a failure.

Our GM didn't need to do much more than throw a lot of low level threats at us and wear us down. What was it the Soviets said, quanity takes on a quality of its own?

[SL James]

I...

What... the Hell?

"Hey, let's not bypass all of these cops by being sneaky. Let's kill them instead." Yeah, the GM really showed you.

[Tanka]

[Rock]

[James McMurray]

[SL James]

[Tanka]

[Rajaat99]

[Tanka]

[James McMurray]

[Rajaat99]

[James McMurray]

why would you think the rules lean towards combat? Is it because combat is covered in the rules? The game itself is meant to be about interactions, primarily social ones. It even tells you flat out that stories (i.e. adventures) should not be about fighting, but that fighting should be used when necessary to enhance the plot. Someone wanting to turn the majority of situations into combat will probably die at their first pack meet, prince's gathering, or cabal's meeting.

I'd love some examples about how the rules lean that way. Maybe you're right and that's just not how my group has played it, but I'm sitting here poking through my WoD collection and the only things that jump out at me as being combat oriented are the werewolf books.

[Tanka]

[Rajaat99]

[James McMurray]

I never played Mummy or exalted, but huge amounts of vampire disciplines were dedicated to avoiding combat and/or social situations. While a game could focus on the Jyhad, there were tonsof sourcebooks that had nothing to do with it, and many printed stories as well.

[hyzmarca]

Second Edition Mummy was far more combat oriented than First Ed. First Edition Mummies had some absurd world-altering munchkin scale powers. However, these powers took a very long time to use. They were really only good for campaigns that panned several centuries. It wasn't very popular. Apparently, people prefer more combat-oriented games.

[Edward]

18D, that has to be a bloody big gun, make it difficult to move around with it, if he takes it where he shouldn’t then SWAT will show up, just a 6-8 man team including at least one mage (with shielding if they know about the dwarf)

6D 9 successes, a spell I assume (if it’s a gun then he cant take it everywhere either).

A magician of that caliber will be hired to go up against high magical security (where anybody else would arbitrarily fail) so mages with spell defense or even shielding become more than justified. And don’t forget background count, an office that is unpleasant to work in has a background count of 1-3

To be honest I am confused how he gets 9 successes and then makes drain on a deadly spell regularly. Especially against targets worth the effort. It is rare to get the target number on a spell below 4 unless your power bolting a wage slave (so what if he can KO wage slaves) or your target has unusually low willpower. 18 casting dice is achievable of cause (skill 8 pool 8 focus 4 being a easily achieved example) but he will run out of pool fast, be unable to provide spell defense and have to deal with deadly drain (serious if its a touch spell if so show him the knife at a gunfight) so he needs 8 successes to avoid drain and if he wants 18 casting dice he isn’t going to have much left for drain.

Hell just give them a zero profile assignment.
Mr J says at the end of the meat “I want you to obtain this data but it is imperative that the target is not aware anything’s missing, if they become aware of your attack in any way you will not be paid.”

Don’t do what Muzzaro said, arbitrarily making them usles is not going to make anything fin for them.

If you cant deal with it give them one last run with a 2milion nuyen payout for each member of the party, if they succeed they get paid and retire from active running. You start a new game with new characters but they get to take pride in the fact that there characters lived to retire.