The Unwritten Laws of SR Gaming Sessions, A good-humored jab at cliched situations Options

[Habzial]

I was inspired by a similar thread on D&D I saw elsewhere. These are the rules that dictate player and GM activity during a session. This is a joke and feel free to add.

1) All teams will have at least one gun bunny and one compulsive looter.

2) The more explosives a player amasses, the sooner s/he will eventually force the GM to improvise demolitions rules for bringing down a building full of dead corpsec.

3) The more important an unknown NPC is, the more likely s/he will be brutally killed by your team prior to identification.

4a) There are no easy jobs.

4b) If the action of the job was easy, your fixer and/or Mr Johnson will be dead 20 minutes before you arrive for the final exchange. If the killer isn't still lying in wait, the police are probably on their way.

4c) If your Mr Johnson is polite, you'd probably be better off shooting him/her in the face now. S/he's going to betray you.

5) The information you receive will either be wrong, filled with omissions, or entirely right because you're screwed anyways (see: blueprints of facilities infested with insect spirits).

6) The more breadth there is to decking/technomancy, the further it will be from even resembling actual computer science.

7) The stupider the street handle, the more murderous the character. This rule applies to both PCs and NPCs.

8) Your GM will either never have you interact with anyone important or have you regularly meet people who could destroy your character's homeland. There is no in-between.

9) All law enforcement/security NPCs are faceless cannon fodder.

10) Any module that hinges on someone getting away (usually so they can be followed) will be broken as soon as the players sit down.

11) Any media entertainment discussed in the setting will have names directly taken off of RL shows and movies. Those that aren't ripoffs will be remakes or sequels set 3 - 6 roman numerals after what exists in the present.

12) Characters who follow a classic religion will not appear in a gaming session, unless that religion has gone corporate. None. That includes PCs, NPCs, and sometimes VNPCs.

13) The less your hirer knows about a "package," the more likely it is that the package will turn out to be a person.

14) Coffin motels will only be visited as part of a mission. The team will never stay at anything under a 3-star hotel, and at least one party member won't have clothing that fits in there.

15) There will be at least one incident of several players acting at the same time per session. This will not be even remotely coordinated, and one player's actions will totally negate everyone else's.

16) Runner teams are a collection of people doing their own thing at the same time to get the job done. Leaders are a myth. Plans are the stuff of legend.

[eidolon]

Pretty funny. I especially like numbers 7 and 16. :D

[Kyoto Kid]

...funny and sad because many of them are so true to the sessions I've been in and ran.

#2, in our group known as the Leela Groznek rule.

#6, way too true.

#7, ibid

#9, add "ganger"

#12, Jesus™

#13...or a bomb

[MaxHunter]

number 7 is soo true!! And look at my handle here at ds!!!!

Cheers,

Max

[Nostalgic Jester]

For Christ sake, why #3 has to be so God damn true? And it would happen just as brutally as unjustified... :dead:

[Habzial]

Yeah. Sadly, #3 was my fault the last time it happened. We were playing Take-Out Food. The short story is, I "negotiated" with the Triad lieutenant's aura in astral combat. I had surprise, high charisma, decent astral combat skill, and a power axe as my force 2 weapon focus.

He died before his first initiative pass. The first hit dropped him to 1 Phys. The GM didn't even roll resistance after my second attack because I had so many successes. Whoops...