Is looting and pillaging the norm?, Or is there room for some decency? Options

[ShadowDragon8685]

[Crakkerjakk]

My .02 dollars.

1) Looting- A certain amount of looting is okay. Risk vs. reward. Like Shadow just said above, if you don't want them to have it, don't wave it in front of their face. If they're compulsive looters, have something nastier than them show up after a reasonable amount of time, and severely decrease the amount of cash they get for items that are more than likely damaged, connected to multiple crimes(murder + breaking and entering + grand theft larceny), and screw them hard if they don't take precautions to prevent tracking, especially for anything electronic.

2)Destruction- A certain amount of violence is part of the job. Notoriety is a good way to deal with players that act like they're vikings on a weekend holiday. One thing I always thought made sense was from a documentary on police CSIs on the discovery channel. Basically, two rules. Rule One: If a crime is a high enough priority, it can almost always be solved. Rule Two: Murder is always top priority. A lot more resources get devoted to tracking down mass murderers than expert thieves. And no matter how bad ass they are, enough explosives WILL kill them. So don't piss off anyone enough to make them want to detonate several hundred kilos of military grade explosives in the house you're in.

3)Mr. J- Chances are runners can take Mr. J in a one on one fight. But Mr. J controls the cash flow. I think docking the players a few months of lifestyle is a great idea, as is notoriety, or maybe downgrading a few contact's loyalty. And if they actually put hands on Mr. J, especially if he's a "connected" Mr. J(organized crime), they may have just signed their own death warrants. I tend to go out of my way to give my players chances to survive. However, if they're being willfully stupid, let them deal with the consequences of someone who has enough money to hire them. Who knows, they might even survive to have a newfound respect for other people.

Anywho, thats my take on the whole situation. If your players are just looking for an opportunity to be complete and utter dicks to everyone they meet, well, I don't really know why you'd want to GM a game like that, since you're gonna be the person they're being dicks to. Perhaps a game of Paranoia would be more in the cards.

As a low grade example of the stupid player:

Brand new game, friend of mine had just rolled a brand new troll street sammy, got a call to meet a Mr. J. downtown. My friend Dave neglected to purchase transportation for his troll, so he tells me he's taking the bus to the meet. I ask him what gear he has on him. He tells me everything on his character sheet. Which included an AK-98 with an underbarrel grenade launcher. I ask him if he's sure, in the "thats a bad idea" voice. He says yup. So, he tries to get on the bus, and as soon as the bus driver sees Dave, he floors it and vamooses. Not unsubtle hint, I thought. Well, Dave decides to go into the local stuffer shack for some snacks. Everyone in there freaks out, but Dave calmly goes through the motions of buying a few bags of chips and some soda, then emptying the register. He steps outside, and lo and behold there's about three Lone Star patrol cars in a circle, with all the cops ready to shoot his ass. He finally got smart and didn't resist arrest, and went to jail for a few months, picking up a criminal SIN.

Thats all I got. Intentional stupidity should be punished, and your players will learn.

[Kagetenshi]

[hyzmarca]

[Vaevictis]

[Sir_Psycho]

Murder is not always a top priority. If you blow away a few gangers in an alleyway, do you really think the Star is going to devote more than a few glances at the bodies before they're carted to the morgue as John Doe's? Same goes with any lower class character, including most Shadowrunners.

When you're geeking an upper/middle class citizen, you have to more careful about it, of course.

[ShadowDragon8685]

[tisoz]

If the players are not playing according to your vision of the universe, it is pretty much your fault. Give them descriptions that help flesh out your vision. Use their contacts to bestow knowledge of how you think the universe works. Use NPCs to give them hints.

Looting, have a contact explain all the ways they can be tracked or how many different ways this endangers the mission and why it is a bad idea. Have the person they are trying to sell it to reject the loot because of whatever reason you think looting is such a bad idea. The excessive violence - have the contact explain why that was a bad idea. The abusing the Mr. Johnson example - have the Johnson walk out. Then have a contact explain to them why that happened. Instead of cancelling the game that night, roleplay the PCs talking to their contacts trying to find work and their contacts explaining why it ain't gonna happen until they adjust their actions to conform to your vision of the universe. Maybe downgrade or lose that contact if the contact would not want to be associated with the PC. And yes, deduct lifestyle expense while they twist in the wind trying to find the next job.

Keep it all in character and it will be more fulfilling than trying to argue points out of character. Also, have the players roll the PCs skills or attributes to see if the character would know better than to act contrary to the way you envision the universe.

[mrlost]

Well to the OP

Our group which consists of a Japanese-Russian homosexual hacker/rigger racist/misogynistic pacifist (me), an Elf fixer/face who gets us jobs and usually goes along to supervise, a Sammie/Razor-girl, a Dwarven combat mage, and a Trickster aspected illusionist/conjurer Ork ascetic with a mono-whip.

We don't accept assassination jobs (ethical reasons), and our usual M.O. is to case the joint, hire some other runners to create a distraction or as needed, infiltrate and incapacitate, then meet up with our Johnston after to receive the second half of our fee.

Lethal force is a last resort, usually since it tends to be easier to incapacitate rather than kill, and because we have a rep to maintain. Though if all hell breaks loose we do too, especially the Combat Mage and the Razor girl, at the first sign of trouble they usually break out the big spell/guns.

Currently, it looks like we'll be doing a pro bono operation on behalf of the U.C.A.S. S.I.N.less Rights Movement in the very near future, which is really going to piss off some of my Humanis Policlub contacts if they find out (the movement leader is an Orkish trance-hop musician). But my character's husband has been pressuring to be more tolerant.

EDIT: we have as of yet never looted, never pillaged. Although we might take a guards stuff if one of the group members disguises themselves as her, we tend to use our own equipment which is usually as good or better than the opposition, if its worse we tend to retreat as quick as we can (which its usually my job to facilitate). We play as if we we're highly professional mercenaries (who happen to have more than a few ethical members), and not a party of D&D adventurers.

[Vaevictis]

[Kagetenshi]

It's decent for that. You start the jammer, drop it somewhere, then get into cover before it's found and disabled.

Downside is, you're down one high-powered jammer.

~J

[ShadowDragon8685]

You can also use it and a radio-inhibited building to "dissapear". You run inside the building, and suddenly their triangulation goes dead. Depending on whether they were "Locked on" or not, they may know which door you went into, or the may only know which block you were on. Once inside said building, fry out the RFID beacons on whatever it is you stole (If you have to, pull out an arc torch or a Stick 'n 'shock, apply directly to RFID chip) switch the jammer off, and exit.

Or, of course, for decoys. :)

[Herald of Verjig...]

Every plan has room for three small drones with high powered jammers being run on an erratic slow-approach vector to some paranoid location. Sometimes it's better to have them "assaulting" a facility that is completely unrelated to your actual target but is in the same Lone Star precinct or a neighboring one.

[Vaevictis]

I suppose a jammer's better than nothing if you've already got pursuit, given that you can leave the scanner behind while you move.

But in general, I'd rather just have a scanner running in the background looking for the signals or better yet, a Faraday cage of somekind.

[ShadowDragon8685]

[Ed Simons]

[Ed Simons]

[Ed Simons]

[Ed Simons]

[Wounded Ronin]

[Ed Simons]

[Ed Simons]