Why the hostility?, GMs vs. Players Options

[Luddite]

I've been lurking here at Dumpshock for a while, and posting a bit, and I've started to wonder why there seems to be so much hostility from GMs towards their players. Every time I browse a topic there are at least one or two GMs who chime in about how they plan to take whatever idea/item/NPC/whatever is being discussed and shove it up their player's asses. Sideways. Without lube. Now, a certain amount of metaphorical playerfucking is built into Shadowrun. It is, after all, a dystopian near-future Cyberpunk game, so the players should definitely feel that they live in a hard, unforgiving world. That being said, the hostility that GMs express towards their players almost seems personal at times.

One particularly odd expression of this hostility is the "okay, you can have the ______, but prepare to die for possessing it." Be it a powerful Ally spirit, a high-grade piece of cyberware, the best deck on the market, or the dreaded Panther Assault Cannon, GMs seem very, very opposed to their players even thinking about procuring top-notch gear. Now, if your players are either hard-core powergamers or utter idiots I can really see how any of these articles could lead to serious issues with your game. However, all of the aforementioned products are perfectly understandable purchases for characters in the appropriate professions. Further, they are very difficult to get a hold of, and in my opinion once a character has acquired the requisite contact network, done their legwork, and cobbled together the :nuyen: , they should get the goods. (I understand how contact inquiries, especially into restricted goods, can cause trouble for a character, and that is as it should be.) If they go on to use these goods intelligently, where is the problem? In my opinion access to top-notch weapons, 'ware, decks, spells, and spirits is part and parcel with being prime runners, which is what most PCs aspire too. Of course, even more important is knowing when not to use your impressive toys.

Personally, I've been running SR for years and only had trouble with such things early on, when my friends and I were adjusting ourselves to the differences between, say D&D and SR. Back in the day my players simply thought of a PAC as the equivalent of a gun +5, and yes I was a bit heavy-handed in disabusing them of this notion. Is that what a lot of the more angry GMs are going through? If that is the case I can definitely understand the hostility.

[Demerzel]

I firmly believe it is entirely due to the existance of this smiley: :vegm:

[The Entropic Wiz...]

[Wraithshadow]

I'd be hesitant to say that it's due to any one thing. There's a broad variety of possibilities. I'll offer a few:

The Competitor
This sort of GM looks at the game not so much as a cooperative storytelling as a competition between himself and the players. Can he come up with a situation they can't beat? Can he get enough rocks and hard places involved that the players are simply overwhelmed? It's worth noting that this isn't so much an attempt by the GM to win, as it is the belief that a GM's reputation rests upon how much he can challenge his players. A GM who's able to present major challenges is good at what he does- after all, he's outwitted the group allied against him, right? The Competitor avoids simply striking down the PCs; sure he could just declare them dead, but that's not a challenge, that's twinky. He may, however, throw things at them that in his mind could be beaten if they do things just right.

The Counterweight
Every player spends countless hours pouring over the latest supplement, trying to find new tricks that will give them an edge. There's no way the GM can put as much effort into this as the players, so the best way to make sure they don't get out of hand is to balance anything nasty with something equally so. The problem is, if you don't know what's nasty, you have to guess. And the more blatant something is, the more likely the GM is going to come down on it. These GMs are struggling to maintain game balance in the face of overwhelming odds. They expect they're outnumbered, outgunned, and outmaneuvered before the dice ever hit the table, so they're working to rein in the players. The problem is that their expectations of doom and gloom might be overestimating things- much like the way the USAF vastly overestimating Soviet nuclear weapon stockpiles.

The Gritty Dark Futurist
The book makes mention of PCs getting screwed over repeatedly- Mr. Johnson probably isn't telling them the whole story. That gun's probably not as good quality as it should be. Your cybersurgeon might take a bribe to do a little extra while you're under the knife. Life never cuts you a break, and neither does the GM. The Gritty Dark Futurist looks at Shadowrun as being Film Noir crossed with a country song crossed with a 'Nam war film: you're going to end up losing everything by the end of it, through no fault of your own. If you manage to make it out as well as you came in, you're doing great. The problem is that most players want rewards- not losing what they've got might not be enough to keep them happy, and they might want to push towards goals as well. This sort of GM probably also makes use of 'realistic' tactics, borrowing methods that the players can't counter but are used in the real world for just that reason.

The Light In Dark Places
Rare, but not unheard of, this sort of GM believes that people- and PCs- are at their best when things are at their worst. The more hopeless the situation, the more the players will shine, and the better the roleplay will be. The Light In Dark Places truly does want the PCs to succeed, and may be rooting for them the whole time, but much like the saying about sparing the rod and spoiling the child, they're making things harsh For Their Own Good. This sort of GM is positive that when it's all done with and the PCs have survived, it'll be one for the ages, and everyone will be happy with what happened. The problem, much like with the Counterweight, is when the GM overestimates the PCs' ability to rise to the occasion. This can be especially difficult when the GM puts severe consequences (such as death) with what should be an easy hurdle. What might seem quite easy to the GM may be anything but for the PCs.

[Cakeman]

Ohh, new totems!

[cetiah]

The Light In Dark Places. Wow, that descriptions sounded a little like me...

Nice list. Did you get this from somewhere or did you make it? If you made it, could you make more? I really appeciate it.

[cetiah]

[fistandantilus4....]

:notworthy:

[Garrowolf]

I think that light in dark places describes me as well.

Now please describe all the major types of players and cross reference the GM type list with this in order to show why certain players and GMs will have problems. This will be 30% of your grade.

[Rotbart van Dain...]

[Konsaki]

I'd like to think of myself as a "Dim Flickering Light in a Dark Gritty Place" sorta person.

[hyzmarca]

I find that light in the darkness works best if one of the PCs is Rodimus Prime.

It is about the challenge, of course. A game that is easy really isn't worth playing.

[nezumi]

I think you forgot a type...

Bored GM

The GM pours over his plot, his facility and NPCs all week for the PCs to run through it in a course of hours, all without so much as a word of thanks. As the months wear on, the GM realizes that ultimately, planning out complex runs is time consuming and boring, and without many rewards, however now and again things get hot and he gets to watch the players sweat.

The bored GM doesn't really want the PCs to all die, or at least won't admit it, but the game is its most enjoyable when there's the real possibility of him having to roll on the 'lost a limb' table. There's no real challenge in it, but it breaks the tedium.

[deek]

I don't see myself in any of these categories. I do spend a decent amount of time planning scenarios and/or incorporating pre-mades into our campaign, but I often get as much fun reacting to the unexpected decisions as the players get while gaming...

I've played with a GM who was a competitor, and it kinda sucked after a while. We had to talk to him about us not having fun and after that, we made new characters and switched campaigns and all was good.

I think as a GM, you have to allow players to do what they want, but in return, you have to keep the reality of the setting in their face and meet the players with the consequences for their actions.

I mean, in my current campaign, due to the jobs the players have completed, in a relatively short amount of time, their contacts are kinda holding back giving them jobs, as they are getting way too hot to run the shadows. A couple players have had mafia "visit" them and their homes, the Star has profiles and while they don't have enough evidence to arrest them, they are certainly building cases. They have crossed a couple higher power antagonists, one two many times, so that is another thing they occaisionally have to deal with. And finally, one of the group, ex-military, has been "found" and has a couple assassins in the area looking to take him and his group out...

So, in a way, I find myself regulating their desires to find a panther cannon or the lates deltaware by keeping them busy in multiple storylines and giving them a reason to keep a low profile and stay in the shadows. This group is getting ready to relocate from Denver to Seattle, so they will somewhat be starting fresh again, as I am thinking of forcing them to leave all gear behind and start building again in the new location, with new contacts and so forth.

So, I put the onus back ont the GM if you are allowing players to get all sorts of high-end equipment. I mean, the power you give the players, they are going to use, and if they have always gotten away with not worrying about corps or really any reall opposition, they are not likely to back down from much of anything.

With there being real threats out there that they have to deal with, they will be much less likely to incite more attention and focus more on surviving!

[Wraithshadow]

[deek]

The Bored GM, I think, is something that every GM ends up getting a turn in. At some point in every campaign, the GM either gets stuck writing a storyline or has found s/he has rehashed the same thing too many times...

Normally, this is either close to the end of a campaign, or the time where a change, maybe a player takes the GM reigns for a bit, or a short break happen, then the GM comes back with a renewed vigor.

I don't think its really a type of GM, like the other examples, as someone that is all the time a bored GM, usually doesn't last too long.

[cetiah]

[Lagomorph]

I think another thing that can happen is that sets the GM off balance is that Runners tend to "think out side the box" or generally plan an attack that is tangental to every thing a GM has planned for. Entrances and plans for roof and front door attacks, runners will drive a truck through the wall. A GM can't plan for everything, and it seems that a lot of runners take advantage of that and do something that the GM obviously didn't plan for. When the GM is off balance, the run can either go too easy, or too hard on the players.

[deek]

[Kyoto Kid]

[Lagomorph]

[deek]

Honestly, I would say that if the players come up with something to make the run really simple, you reward them by keeping it simple and then try and learn from that, as a GM, for the next scenario. Over time, you will get more in tune with your players and the ebb and flow will take care of itself. Just on the flip side, a relatively easy run, the players may make decisions that make it a lot more difficult than it needs to be, so there is your balance.

As a veteran GM (not just SR, but in general), I get the most enjoyment out of truly having to react to my players and its that unexpected outcome that really gears me up to run the next session. It allows me, as a GM, to act like a player and venture into the unknown.

The best advice I can give is to do everything in your power to set up the sceanrios, but allow yourself to not be close-minded when the players come up with an unforeseen solution. Allow them to really take control of a sceanrio and make it their own and just enjoy being along for the ride. The more you focus on setting up the scenario and really feel like you can react how it would "actually happen" the better. Leave the outcome to the players and allow the details to unfold as they may. That leaves you, as the GM, with a lot less stress and everyone seems to have more fun accomplishing the goals, even if you weren't specifically ready for their reactions!

[bigdrewp]

From a player point of view I would punish anyone for coming up with a creative idea, unless they are doing it just to spite you. Look at it from a more realistic stand point. A corp is going to try to plan for every type of security breach, but they can't plan for everything, that is why runners have to think outside the box. You want to stay alive long enough to spend your hard earned money and going through the front door, so to speak, isn't the best way to ensure that.

[Ravor]

Well in my opinion the answer is it depends, if the players find a resonable hole in the corp's security and exploit it to pull off a perfect run then yeah, give them their cookies with bonus icing.

However, if the hole is big enough for a troll to drive a truck through and was "created" simply because the DM had a brain fart that your average village idiot would have noticed then I'd figure something out to even the odds if at all possible without breaking the 4th wall.

Of course, after word got out that security design X had a fatal flaw then the corps would all upgrade to X+ as soon as possible so the runners had better enjoy their cookies while they can. :vegm:

[deek]