Running for Dummies, tips for players Options

[Thain]

I wrote this for my group a few years ago, I think its funny still.

[ Spoiler ]

Ladies and gentlemen of the class of '57,

Never Deal with a Dragon.

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, avoiding Dragons would be it.

The long term dangers of associating with Dragons have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience...I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your tres chic clothing; oh nevermind; you will not understand the power and beauty of your clothes until they have faded. But trust me, in 20 years you'll look back at wanted posters of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked.

You're not as fast as you imagine.

Don't worry about the Awakened World; or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to summon a spirit by chewing bubblegum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind; the kind that are 2 metres tall and want to blind you on a Tuesday at 4am.

Do one thing everyday that scares the neighbours.

Shoot straight.

Don't be reckless with other people's heavy machine guns, don't put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Conserve Ammo.

Keep up with SOTA; sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind; the race is long, and in the end, it's what keeps you alive.

Remember the secret pay data you retreive, forget the loused up runs; if you succeed in doing this, tell me how. Keep your old cyberdecks, throw away your old credsticks.

Stay Low.

Don't feel safe if you don't know what you want to do with that hot merchandise, the most wanted people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their illegal wares, some of the most dangerous 40 year olds I know still don't.

Get plenty of soykaf.

Be kind to your knees, they're expensive to replace.

Maybe you'll goblinize, maybe you won't, maybe you'll have HMHVV, maybe you won't, maybe you'll retire after 40 runs, maybe you'll dance the funky chicken on your 75th ;what ever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much or berate yourself either. Your survival is half chance, so is everybody else's.

Enjoy your Ares Predator, use it every way you can; don't be afraid of it, or what other people think of it, it's the greatest instrument you'll ever own...

Deck, even if you have nowhere to do it but in your own living room.

RTFM, even if you don't understand it.

Do NOT read Slashnull, it will only make you feel ugly.

Get to know your parents, you never know when you'll need some extra cash from them.

Be afraid of your criminal record; it's the best link to your past and the thing most likely to stick with you in the future.

Understand that Johnsons come and go, but for the precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle because the older you get, the more you need the money.

Live in Seattle once, but leave before it makes you hard; live in Chicago once, but leave before you turn into a bug.

Travel.

Accept certain inalienable truths, the weirdness will increase, runners will sell out, you too will get old, and when you do you'll fantasize that when you were young the streets were normal, runners were noble and elves were trustworthy.

Never trust an elf.

Don't expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a stolen bank account, maybe you have a wealthy Johnson; but you never know when either one might be eaten by insect spirits. Don't mess too much with your wired reflexes, or by the time they're 40, they will be out of warranty. Be careful who's BTL's you buy, but, be patient with those who supply it.

Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth.

But trust me on the Dragons

[sunnyside]

@KK

If you're one of the GMs who doesn't like dealing with people with high social skills in the future just tell your players that. Similarly for hackers or any other special class of skills. It just isn't fair to the player to screw them over because they didn't make a troll cybermage.

Still there are limits to what social skills can do, and there are other ways to reward them. Obviously a Johnson can only pay so much, typically printed adventures will give a limit, and the Johnson will expect their nuyens worth. But a highly social character might also figure out that the Johnson is holding back info/telling half truths etc and may be able to talk some extra info out of them. Additionally, with good RP and character may make the Johnson like them, which is often the point of social skills and extremly usefull. And that's the kind of task you need a social adept for as most Johnsons consider runners to be skum.

[sunnyside]

@ Garrowulf

On the subject of helping players grow common sense. First use in game NPC interactions and such to tell them about your world. Few GMs run everything the same and even if they did you can't expect your players to read all the sourcebooks and retain everything.

A key example of this is Lone Star. How GMs handle them is all over the place. Sometimes after raising nine kinds of hell the Star will send Barney Fife and Captain Dunksalot after them in their squad cars. Sometimes they've got competent officers, and the odd rotodrone and Condor surveilence miniblimp. And sometimes someone will have read the sourcebook and been inspired to try out that LS modified Harpy LAV with the special "Land Shark" missles they read about.

Also I find how much Hackers can get away with is all over the map.

You have to let them know.



Secondly usually your group will have an uneven level of stupidity. Make sure the other players see how the smartest guy is rewarded for those smarts. At the least they may gravitate toward letting them be the leader, but if you're lucky they'll start playing smarter and make the clever player have to up their game to keep ahead (and many are competitive enough to do so).

[ShadowDragon]

[Slump]

[Cynic project]

Never worry about losing tools. you can replace tools. You can't replace yourself.

[ShadowDragon8685]

[Rotbart van Dain...]

Which brings us to the point: Burn everything you don't take with you.

[fistandantilus4....]

[Ravor]

<Stolen from another Thread>

Whenever a chance to geek a cop with little chance of it being traced back to you presents itself, take it. After all the pigs tend to get cocky when their average life span raises too high.

[Sir_Psycho]

[Spike]

I'd say it was stolen from Chris Rock, but what do I know?I don't even know who baz lurhumen is... :eek:

[Teulisch]

Look like you belong. The best way to hide is in plain sight, as something everyone expects to see. while you can use illusions, a non-magical disguise is more practical when you can do it.

gel rounds are great for people. bring something more lethal for para-critters and drones.

You can open any door, any lock, any safe. the only real question is time. dont assume you will have enough time to do it the hard way. those cameras and gaurds are there for exactly that reason.

[ornot]

@KK... An idea presents itself. Have the Johnson meet them online. That way most of the social adepts powers are limited.

If your players are bullying you by refusing to play if you don't offer them uber goodness, then you're probably better off finding a group who are a little more mature.

Refusing to play unless you win is a tactic adopted by 5 year olds.

[Garrowolf]

What would be funny is if your social adepts started loosing jobs because the johnson liked them TOO much! Basically they get to know each other over the meet and he decides that the mission is too dangerous for his new friend. Basically they keep on getting contacts but no one will send them on a run!

[Kyoto Kid]

[Mistwalker]

@KK

A few other options that you can use are:

Meet is done by their Fixer, as the Johnston does not want to be known to them or deal with them (their rep is gettign around). Their fixer won't take nearly as much abuse as they seem to be dishing out to the Johnston. And have better ways of indulging in a bit of revenge vs the players.

Have word get around about them, so the Johnstons start offering 50% of what they are willing to pay, expecting to be beat up to 75 to 100%. The chars will probably never know, think they are soo good....

Have a second run set up one night, so when they turn the first one or the Johnston walks, you run the second one. Then have them "hear" about the first one that they turned down being done by another crew, who made out like kings.

Have the Johnston turn into a Dragon, who is annoyed at the threats. Just make sure that the room is big enough. :D

[Jack Kain]

Bargaining for a higher pay is a part of shadowrun life, if the Johnson can't handle that then he's not worth working for and the team should never speak or work with them again. There is no good reason to deny the PC's the chance to negotiate for a higher pay.

You can easily still set limits say up to four hits and each hit increases payment by 5%. Then throw in the Johnsons opposed roll.

If the runners keep refusing missions, well the need to eat and pay rent will catch up with them.

[ShadowDragon]

[fistandantilus4....]

[ShadowDragon8685]

KK, it may be hard, but here's what you do.

Go back to them, and have a J planned out with a nice mission, with generous pay and leeway with how much he will pay. But obey the three-step rule:

75% is his opening price
100% is what he wants to pay
125% is the very most he'll pay

Part of the problem is that we don't know what your group is. If they're a tech-heavy group, they may have such expenses that the runs you've been offering them simply don't pay enough in their minds. So here's what you do.

Offer them a big lump sum pay. 75,000 :nuyen: is his up-front offer, and he can be bargained up to 125,000 :nuyen:

Split four ways, that's not so bad - 31,250 :nuyen: each. Enough for a nice shiny new rotodrone.


Anyways, the J simply cannot go above 125,000 :nuyen: . Have him explain this to them if they try to bargain him up from there. "I'm sorry. That's as high as I'm going to go. It's not worth more than that."

If they persist, have the J stand up, politely say "I appologize, but I see I have contrated men who are simply too good for my needs. I cannot pay you what you are worth, and for this I am deeply shamed. I must go to find lesser men than you."

And then he leaves. Pure and simple. Then say, "Okay, guys, this is me. You've just chased off a good deal because you got greedy, and you're not gonna get another one that good for a long time. You're aquiring a rep for being far too greedy. So, that's it. Goodnight."

Put your book in your bag, then pause, and look at them again, and say "OR, we can pretend that didn't happen. We can pretend you believed Mr. Johnson when he said that was the absoloute most he could pay you. You can take the job, we can have a Shadowrun tonight, and you guys can stop doing this from now on. Your choice."


Sometimes an OOC soloution works best. OR, you could just have the Social adept roll, the Johnson roll (of course it's going to come out for the social guy), and say "You get him up to 125,000 :nuyen: . If you never quoted an original figure, they may think they're squeezing him for every last :nuyen: he has - which they are.

[djinni]

[ShadowDragon8685]

Oh, yeah. You can do a lot to a Mr. J, because he needs you almost as badly as you need him, but you can't threaten him. That's what bodyguards are for.

Have about six guys materialize out of the woodworks, carrying Ares Alphas, and "advise" the runners to leave. Immideately.

[cetiah]

[fistandantilus4....]