Wageslave PCs in over their heads, RACINEEE!!!! COME HEYAAA!!! Options

[hyzmarca]

I've been thinking of The Hunted staring Christopher Lambert and Yoshio Harada. It has been giving me some ideas. While The Hunted is most certainly a martial arts action movie, Paul Racine (Lambert), the protagonist, has no clue how to fight. In the beginning of the movie, he's a crappy fighter who spends most of his time running and hiding and letting Takeda (Harada) fight for him. After he gets some sword training around the middle of the end of the film, he's still a crappy fighter.
He does kill the ninja assassin Kinjo (John Lone) but is only able to do so because Kinjo is already half-dead and he still almost loses.

So, I'm wondering, why not have a campaign where the PCs are low-end wageslaves with no combat experience and the opposition is ruthless and highly trained with enough skill and augmentations to rival most Prime Runners.
The PCs, so completely out of their league, have no choice but to run, obtain ringers to fight for them, and occasionally shoot a lone generic ninja.


I want to know how people feel about this idea. Would dumpshockers revel in the RP possibilities of such a power imbalance or be stifled by the inability to use any standard tactics at chargen or in game?

[Kagetenshi]

I don't think it's inherently a bad idea—see games like the Silent Hill series or Rule of Rose, where a big part of the point is in being relatively helpless combat-wise. However, I would say it's extremely difficult to pull off—it puts a much greater load on the GM to provide a world sufficiently fleshed-out to permit nonstandard tactics.

~J

[fistandantilus4....]

I believe adamu is running a game along this same vein, starting PCs as nobodies dropped in to the shadows from their SINner lives and working their way up. It's been going on for some time so he must be doing somethign right with it. Try asking him about some of the upsides and pitfalls. All in all, it does sound like a neat idea, but hard to do properly.

[sunnyside]

Actually that would be a great excuse to bust out shadowbeat from first edition! That way the players don't have to just be wageslaves they could be a reporter or rocker in addition to the office tech guy.

In short they could have some skills and contacts that could make them a bit function, despite their combat shortcomings.

[Kyoto Kid]

...kinda sounds like Call of Cthulu. There, even if you are well armed you're pretty much helpless against most if not all the horrors you encounter. Resourcefulness is a good quality to have (& a good pair of feet couldn't hurt).

In an old Champion's campaign the heroine I was playing lost the focus for her superpowers for a while (a large portion of her BP investment). At first it was a bit of a bummer, but after a few sessions it became rather interesting if not even enjoyable to play her as "Jane Q. Normal". Yes it was a big challenge, for raw power wise, she was no longer a match for, say, a villain who could throw city busses around like footballs. Instead the character learned to rely on her wits and mundane skills. On a couple of occasions she managed to defeat her foes in some very ingenious ways. It got to the point that I was having so much fun I was a actually bit disappointed when she recovered her focus again.

In the end this all made for a character who now had some real depth to her personality and more options for how to handle situations than just blasting away at the oppos.

[edit]

[Sahandrian]

I had a similar thought, Kyoto Kid.

But mine was "Wait, doesn't this mean you're running Arcology Shutdown?"

[Wounded Ronin]

This is just like Jack Burton in "Big Trouble In Little China." As such, it is inherently Shadowrun.

[Link]

Jack T "It's all in the reflexes" Burton ain't no wageslave.
He's more the Nomad Philosopher archetype. :cool:

[DuckEggBlue Omeg...]

He's clearly an Adept with Improved Reflexes and Missile Mastery.

[Grinder]

[nezumi]

'Wouldn't you love to'? Some of us already HAVE characters like that.

Actually, amusingly, my wife made a comment on that vein just last night. While on our evening constitution, we found a neighbor who had been evicted. All her stuff was all over the sidewalk and people had been grabbing stuff since noon. We told her she needs to bag what is valuable, toss it in the truck, call her credit cards and cancel, call to see if the local storage place is still open, and secure a place to sleep. What does she do? Watch other people bag her stuff while her truck is parked in the median. My wife said she'd love to play a character who, when faced with a challenge, reacts by 'talking to passerbys and calling his relatives'. That said, it would probably drive the GM batty.

"Your girlfriend has been kidnapped by ninjas! What do you do?"
"Umm... Look around for a bit. Hrm. Maybe talk to some people. Call my brother on the phone. We talk for an hour. I think I'm hungry, I'm going to go get a sandwich..."

I think it's easy for roleplayers, who regularly think on their feet and are forced to react to difficult situations, to forget that the vast majority of people completely fail to respond appropriately when taken out of their native environment.

[Backgammon]

That's sad and funny.

But the problem with Joe Completely Average, who fails to react appropriately, is that he won't make a good character. He's gonna die after the first game. Then you have to make another Joe Completely Average that will die the next game, and so on.

The key is making a Joe Average with hidden potential. The kind of guy that has never been faced with adversity, but when he is, will react well.

So while making a character that is an artful study on the true behaviour of Joe Average may seem interesting, it's a shit storyline. You gotta spruce it up somehow, even if that turns your Joe Average into Joe Above Average.

[Herald of Verjig...]

[nezumi]

There are two alternatives. As Herald pointed out, those first thirty seconds of absolute terror as Deus shuts down the arcology and giant droids come out spraying fire until you're captured, drugged, and wake up hooked to a giant machine can be an absolute hoot (even if your GM doesn't appreciate it). Second, you can talk with the GM and he can actually craft a story that involves a chance for your Average Joe getting pulled out against his will and giving him time to adapt to this new environment without serious risk of death. For instance, if he's successfully extracted, but then they get shot down over the barrens, that would make for an interesting story. He's trapped in this strange place with strange people, but these people have a vested interest in keeping him alive, regardless as to how painfully stupid he proves to be.

I still like the first method better, however. "OH GOD OH GOD WHAT'S GOING ON! WHERE'S MY CELL PHONE!!" *beep beep beep beep* "Uncle Bob, hey, it's me, Joe. Listen, I'm in the arc and there are CRAZY ROBOTS EVERYWHERE KILLING EVERY--- Bob? Bob? Huh, lemme see who else I have programm- *GAK*"

[2bit]

ugh - I stopped reading the OP at "Lambert".

[Kyoto Kid]

[hyzmarca]

[Tiger Eyes]

In our current game, we have a PC who is completely normal. No cyberware, no bioware, no magic, average skills, average stats, boring contacts. The character was caught up in some corporate scheming and had to disappear from her cozy SINner life. And damn, she's the most useful character we have. It's to the point now that if her player can't make it to a session, we don't play.

"Well, we've got to send someone into that ultra-secure building where they scan for cyber and magic..."

or

"Ah, we need to have someone go to that meeting who won't stick out when they're assensed..."

or

"Quick, we need to fly across the country to intercept a package... who here isn't wanted by the law and can fly commercial???... oh, yeah..."
or
"We're in hiding, send the normal person out for Take-Out..."

Don't know what we're going to do when the player has her baby. Our highly capable team of adepts, mage, rigger, hacker and street-sams will collapse without our 'normal' person.

[Kagetenshi]

That's what a pure Rigger or Decker is for. Not so great for sticking out when assensed, but you're plane-legal.

~J