charging for summoning elementals Options

[Konsaki]

knasser gets bonus Karma. I like how you think.

[emo samurai]

Maybe they should provoke GM's girlfriend into attacking THEM instead of attacking him first. Then again, the GM might be a dick about it and punish you anyway for the conflict that ensues.

[Konsaki]

When in doubt, throw another grenade.
Lets make his mom mad while we are at it. :D

[tisoz]

It sounds like the GM put all the loot in the pot intending for it to be split among the entire team, making up for equipment he had handwaved away. However, the new guy decided to call dibs on it all, with the benefit of a slight headstart on finding the loot. Then he decided to exploit his position by IC rationale.

First, I would consult the GM OoC to see if this were true, or if the GM truly hosed everyone but the new guy. If it was good intentions gone bad, I would ask the GM to handwave a similar abduction of the new guy and let the team play the part previously played by the new guy.

If the GM intentionally hosed the majority of the group, I would be tempted to orchestrate an IC solution to the problem. Hire a street gang to kidnap the new guy - borrow nuyen from him to pay the gang if needed. Let the gang ransom him, and turn the ransom over to the group. Hope the gang tries to double cross you so you can eliminate them. If the gang follows your plan, you wind up with the nuyen and can tip off the gang whenever your group decides to "get even" with them. If this plan does not sound that good, try another sting that appeals to you more.

Perhaps the local organized crime groups learn he is playing loan shark in their territory and decide to break his legs and relieve him of his bank roll. Hire a decker to wipe out his accounts and filter them back to yours.

On the original question, make the group pay the conjuring material expense, then do not use left over sevices for yourself. Leave them for the group to use in the future. If you start having too many elementals in storage and you need one for yourself, buy it back from the group - at a pro-rated cost. Say it cost 6000 nuyen for materials and you got 3 sevices when conjuring it and the group used 2 services, pay them 2000 nuyen to use the last service on yourself. Point out you are not charging or asking for reimbursement for anything you are personally using and that you also are not charging for the use of your skill or taking unused elemental services with you - all of which an NPC mage would do.

[Kagetenshi]

Just IMO, do not pay the group for your use of elementals. Once they've done the job they were summoned to do, they're yours—it was your skill and effort alone that resulted in more than the bare minimum services, anyway. If they want more, they can pay more.

Of course, in other groups where there's fair compensation anyway, you may want to be looser about this. That said, when you have to fight for your money already, I'm definitely against leaving anything on the table that you don't absolutely have to.

~J

[Elfwitch]

I talked to the GM about this situation and his take on it is that we choose to cave about the cred sticks when the new guy claimed them we should have argued more to get them in the first place. And now since we didn't we have to accept it and deal with the consequences.

But what he seems to be forgetting or not taking into consideration is what was going on back then. We had just been rescued after a year on ice one of our players the leader of the group had cybered eyes that were fried and he was blind another players cyberware was also malfunctioning and I had been kept with a mage mask on for over a year and my magic was screwed up and I couldn't cast spells.

Also we were on a boat in the middle of the ocean somewhere in the Caribleague where we had no contacts and no way to get around. The new guy is playing a massive troll who made it clear that if we gave him trouble he would kill us. So of course we cooperated. We were busy being smuggled into a place for the cybered guys to get repairs and slowly my magic was coming back.

We were also busy looking for a missing team member and getting new identities and getting set up in our new place in England to be honest during that time we were so busy running here and there the subject of the cred sticks never came up.

The problem is now with troll guy throwing his weight around and having all the perks that comes with having so much money when the rest of your team are basically paupers.

I told the GM my character was tired of it and was going to contact her contacts in Atzlan who happen to be after the troll because he ripped them off and have a huge bounty on his head and turn him in for the reward.

He went through the ceiling reminding me that he does not want to run these kind of Shadowrun campaigns where the team turns on each other and sells or kills each other. That we have always agreed that that is what we want as well and the truth of is that we have played since the end of second edition and never had these issues.

I pointed that out and told him that his best friend is the one who has brought these issues into the game and that if he wants me to stay in the game then he needs to do something about it. Talk to his friend and have him tone it down somewhat I pointed out all the benefits he has gotten besides the cred sticks from being with us and choosing to stay.

It was our powerful ally who paid to upgrade everyone including his cyberware, set us up in a headquarters that is basically having a high lifestyle that we didn't have to pay for provided vehicles including a minisub that he wanted. paid for new identities including sin numbers for us all.

This guy did this for us because of a relationship that had been going on for over five years with the team that did not include the troll. The money spent on us was a lot.

The GM agreed and said he would talk to his friend and point all this out and suggest he view all the benefits he got as repayment for the money he has put out for us there by getting rid of the debt.

We play next Sunday and we will see what the outcome is.

About the elementals I have decided that unless the team pays for them I won't summon them they will have to either pay an NPC mage or buy the summoning material and if they try and hold it out of my share of the run then I would simply refuse in the future to ever summon anything for their use again.

[Dog]

Well done. Best of luck.

[Angelone]

Good luck with that. Hope your GM can settle things with his friend would hate to see any kind of serius fallout over this. I really think the guy was being unreasonable, especially after all the perks he's getting came to light. You should sell him to the Azzies out of principle. Think that's in the rules anyway, that a player's first character gets sold to someone.

Hate to say it, but if your GM needed to be told it was the new guy causing the problems after how he was acting, you may need to find a new GM.

[Elfwitch]

[Angelone]

Umm... I'm sorry. I truely hope it's just a case of the newbie player trying to show off, and things will settle down. Maybe his vision of Shadowrun is different than the rest of the groups and can be fixed with "the talk".

[emo samurai]

[Elfwitch]

[eidolon]

Man, I speak from personal experience on this one. If you have to actively think about "what's wrong" with a game to get down about it...just don't. :)

I know that sounds flip, but think about it for a second. If (other than needing to "break in" the new guy) you generally have more fun than not, and you get to play SR with friends, focus on the positive rather than the negative. You'll thank yourself for it later.

[fistandantilus4....]

Sounds liek a pretty touchy situation. We've had a player that mostly plays for a distraction from all the crap he has to deal with the rest of the time, much like your GM. He has a tendency to really take it personally when something goes wrong with his character as a result. Your GM may be coming form the same angle, so try some patience with the guy. he's at least willing to listen, which is more than some I know.

This new guy, is the issue with him, or with how he plays his character. I know myself, there are a couple of characters that I have that I prefer not to play too often because the character concept I had for them was arrogant, or antisocial, or whatever. I thought they'd be interesting for a bit, a divergence from my other characters. Unfortunately since we rotate GM's, and the current GM usually requests the PC's we play, I end up playing them a lot more than I'd like. perhaps just a new character for the player would be the way to go?

[Kagetenshi]

[knasser]

There's clearly a lot going on here. It can be difficult to work through this stuff during a game, and as it's a long running campaign that's very precious to you, it might be better not to risk it.

I know that you said you don't have time to run a game, and it sounds as though your GM is fraying a little. Perhaps several of you could stretch to one-shots. Get the On The Run module if you haven't played it, or create some straight forward mission-focused games, knock up some disposable characters - which are always fun - and just have a laugh. Heck -anything can be used in a one shot. The data chip was stolen. It's the only copy in existence. The thieves have hidden the data chip in the an Urban Brawl ball and are going to make the handover when, as is traditional, the ball is hologrammed and given to the winning team. The opposition's star players are paid off to lose and the player's only chance is to take their places before the match and win! See - it's easy. Draw a map of a derelict city block. Hide some caches of weapons about (including the jackpot box of grenades) and have the troll brothers substituted onto the opposition at the last minute. Bingo - crazy tension relieving game session. Oh, and don't forget to overact like Billy Crystal and Carmen Electra's love child. :D Have a few weeks of this and it will put everything into perspective and just might stop the real game getting damaged whlie you work out current problems. Suggest it to your GM in the right way, and he'll probably be greatful for the break.

Hope this is useful.

-K.

[Fortune]

Nah ... I still maintain that you should kill him and take his stuff! :D

[knasser]

[eidolon]

[Kagetenshi]

Why would identifying problem areas cause the game to fall apart?

~J

[eidolon]

Because of the inherent fact that not everyone is going to agree that said things are "problems". So one person's identified "problem" is the preferred method of play for another person. Argument ensues, escalates, and becomes the focus in place of playing the game and having fun.

I'm not saying it happens with every little issue that exists. I'm just saying that overall, there's a certain amount of compromise that you have to be willing to make to support the continuance of the game, as in any social activity.

Of course, if the "problems" are such that you feel you can't ignore them, then you're left with the choice to attempt to work them out, or leave the group (or in the reverse situation, ask another person to leave). That's obviously a choice to make on a case by case basis.

[Kagetenshi]

I'm still confused. Are your players telepaths? Is one of them going to peer inside your brain and uncover your analysis of the game?

I mean, I at least usually try to answer questions like that before I bring anything to general discussion. Maybe you're assuming that wouldn't happen?

~J

[eidolon]

You're talking about "just thinking about it", as I realize now. That's never what I was talking about.

I'm talking about "thinking about it too much, and then taking your over-analyzed 'problems' to the table and discussing them with people that probably haven't the slightest notion that they're problems".

[Kagetenshi]

Well, the idea is that if you identify a problem (even a problem that isn't a problem for everyone!), you give it a good think, let it rattle around for a few days, and then bring it up at the next session. I mean, sometimes you can't bring up a problem because it'd make things worse, but that hardly seems like a reason to not bring up the others that wouldn't.

I've had both kinds, but my old Saturday games got better (if not totally fixed) after I recognized that two of the players were not meshing with the game well. Granted as a GM I was in a better position to make changes, but ignoring the problem wasn't going to cause anyone to have more fun.

~J

[eidolon]

I agree. I was never advocating ignoring every problem regardless of it's severity.

I simply said that if you have to sit and analyze things in order to pick out problems, it's probably not worth doing so. That's a completely different scenario than already having a few problems on your mind.

If they already exist, sure, decide whether they're worth discussing with the group. But for the most part, in between sessions, during down time, etc., I advocate enjoying yourself and having fun over playing Gamer Psychologist.