How do you play SR?, From Street Hustlers to Munchkins Options

[bwdemon]

A few threads here have made me curious as to how exactly everyone here prefers to play the game. This isn't a thread to argue over why X's style is better than Y's, just a nice discussion over what you like. Please keep things civil.

At one end of the spectrum, the players are on equal footing with gangers and other street-level threats. At the other end of the spectrum, the players would be on equal footing with the IE, Dragons, and other Earthdawn leftovers. Where does your personally preferred game fall? What are some of the characteristics of that game?

I prefer beginning at the street-level and progressing slowly upward. Eventually, the characters are respected (or feared) at the local level, and maybe known regionally or possibly internationally (depending on how much traveling they do).

I never have the characters draw the personal attention of any megacorp's board of directors, let alone the Earthdawn leftovers. They may well play parts in the plans of those powers, but they would never know it and the major powers may not even know that those specific runners were involved.

The game difficulty runs the gambit from appallingly easy to impossible. Players are given a wide variety of choices for work and they have the option to choose whatever they think they can handle. Sometimes it's too much, but that presents a valuable learning experience if nothing else.

Paranoia runs high. Everyone is out to make a nuyen and if they can make it at your expense, then you need to watch your back. Contacts are critical and must be properly cultivated and maintained if the players expect any sort of safety. Reprisals should be expected, though how, when and if they actually occur varies. Stealth and secrecy are keys to survival.

Equipment use is limited. Weapons typically have a concealability of 4+ and are mostly limited to SMGs at the high end. Occasionally, it is possible and necessary to use bigger and better weapons, but this is a rare occurrence. House rules are used for burst and full-auto fire, as well as damage codes and availability. Other equipment is limited less by rating and more by how much it will harm/help the game.

Magic is no more or less common than would it would seem from the core book and supplements. However, it is not the unbeatable answer to everything. Magic can be countered and it has been around long enough that the easier counters are commonplace - espescially regarding astral perception and projection.

I've never really been happy with rigging rules, so I rarely use vehicles. I'm happier with decking, but it is also rarely focused on, largely due to how it can bring a game to a screeching halt.

That's a lot of info, but it pretty much covers my take on the game. Now let's see how your preferred game looks or would look... :)

[Diesel]

I've run a few ganger campaigns, where the players use deteroriated priority tables and so on, which are fun.

I'm more of a fan of "green" runners, ~3-6 months in the biz, they know what they're doing, but not really.

Not a big fan of high power, I don't like having to RP dragons. :D

[Kagetenshi]

Characters in my games are streetscum and they know it. A little better than your average bear, but the only reason they'd ever see Harlequin would be because fate and the universe chose them for Harlequin's Back, not because he'd give them the time of day otherwise.

~J

[Glyph]

I prefer campaigns where runners start out as professional criminals and work on improving their reputations and skills. They start out tough, but it takes a good long while before they can even think about tangling with some of the power players. However, as professional freelance corporate spies and expeditors, they will tangle with all kinds of enemies. They may not target a corporate CEO for assassination, but they might extract a hot R&D scientist. They will run into armored security, bug spirits, vampires, and other things that would make mincemeat out of a common street punk, and will win. They will also lose on occasion - the game does have a high lethality. I think the problem of "where do they go from there" or "soon they'll be taking on IE's" are overrated. It's a long way from a beginning character, tough as they can be, and that level.

I use the standard rules, for the most part, allowing bioware, even cultured, if it is less than Availability: 8 and Rating: 6. I would probably use either BeCKS II or the point system, with a slightly higher than average amount of points for either. I would want everyone using the same character creation system, though. I would work with characters with illogical or skimpy backgrounds, or missing essential skills, to make sure they start play with a playable character. People who want to roleplay a weaker character will get told two things: one, this is a game played for group enjoyment, so be sure to make a character who can fit in with a group and contribute to it. In other words, have some useful skills at least - some reason that a group would want you on their team. Two, I let the dice fall where they may. So if you don't have decent armor, or your Willpower is only 2, then you might just be a bloody smear on the pavement after the first combat, despite having a beautiful 10-page background. My game isn't all grim, though. This isn't cyberpunk - there is more hope, more of a sense that some things in the game are parodies rather than grim fables, and the characters can affect the world around them, even if it's just driving the BTL dealers out of their neighborhood.

However, this "standard" campaign would change if most of the players wanted something different. Maybe they want to play street-level gangers, or maybe they want to play a mini-campaign where they are super-runners who take on Horrors and great dragons. The beauty of the game is that it can be adapted to a wide variety of moods, genres, and power levels.

[Sphynx]

Obviously my games are nowhere near Street Level. I've done my share of Street Gang (as a matter of fact, our group started that way and worked their way up the karma ladder).

The problem with it is that you're stuck there in most games. Reading the threads, you see that most games never get past a 50 karma game... ever. That's SOOO sad as you never once feel the true advancement of the game. It's like an AD&D game that never gets past level 5. We started out unable to have any military grade cyber, no spells over Force 3 and no skill over 4. That was 8 years ago.

All the starting characters have died long long ago, and we got to keep our karma to build new characters with fewer limitations, and once all the limitations were removed, we started only getting back a portion of earned Karma and now it seems nigh-impossible to get past the 250 karma mark for most of us (due to deaths).

Now, of course, we're all pretty Bad-Ass, and have little to fear from anyone less than highly skilled. (though, no matter how bad-ass you are, a skill-6, Assault Rifle on a person with a SmartLink can take you out).

However, 250 karma is nowhere near Dragon or IE (There are no IE's in our world). So, no, we're nowhere near that power level. But think on this... if that is an attainable Power Level that we're not even halfway too, why are people getting stuck in 'ganger' level games when there's so much of the game mechanics to explore? Afraid to learn all the rules?

Sphynx

PS, that last comment isn't intended as an attack. I just honestly can't imagine any other reason to consisitently play only Level 1 (if given reference to AD&D) type games, when there are so many other levels and things to do.

[Traks]

Gotta agree with Sphynx on this one, surprisingly.
My team started recently (about 1/2 year back) and they have earned something like 20 - 25 karma.

I intend them to grow karmawise and also profesionally, at least till those 250 points that Spynx mentioned. I am also slowly introducing weapons from Cannon companion as "state of the art newest weapons", and other stuff.

I enjoy long campaigns, and this one will continue until players are burnt out or I am. So far it seems that they enjoy show, so it will keep rolling :)

[phelious fogg]

The difference SPhynx is that in D&D level one characters are mincemeat. In shadowrun, a biginning character has lived in the shadows for a while to gain his important skills, therfore he is already capable enough to not be mincemeat, at least for a while. I do agree that you shouldnt limit people by karma. And so long as they enjoy whatever it is they are doing its all good.

[Sphynx]

I'm aware of the vast differences in the games Fogg, that's not the point I'm making. It's not about how weak/powerful you are at the beginning, it's about never seeing advancement. 50 karma is practically the same power level as a starting character. Sure you may be a -little- more powerful, but probably not. It's character growth that you miss out on by limiting yourself. And even if you start at a low-powered gangwar type scenario, if you never exceed 50 karma, you'll not be that much more powerful than you started (especially since people who do gang-style games tend to follow the inane optional rule about spending time/nuyen to learn skills). But that's a whole different thread... :P

Sphynx

[nezumi]

I generally jump between the standard starting rules to about half as powerful as that. Either way, my games are rarely combat intensive, so death is slightly less of a concern. Plus, at low levels I bump up the karma given (because I agree with Sphynx, if you don't feel like you can advance, it gets boring). I haven't earned my Evil GM badge, since I have a nasty habit of letting players' plans work. However, no matter what, I try to make sure that the players know they are always a small fish in a big pond. I like it gritty and depressing, but I would like characters to at least WANT to have a moral code, even if they can't afford it.

[Abstruse]

I personally like games that start out with "green" runners or a little bit better than that (IE starting characters, fresh out of the corp/military/Lone Star/gutter/whatever) and move their way into the power circles where they know at least one (non-Great) dragon well enough to be on a first-name basis, they've worked for IEs and GDs, and have put at least one A or maybe even a AA corp out of business. Of course, I never get past that second or third run unfortunately...but I like the idea of really powerful characters but with another level or three of power still beyond them. Basically they could pick a fight with Lofwyr and survive a full combat round at least before he slaughters them...

The Abstruse One

[Kurb]

In my real life game I'm playing, my characters started out with however they could manipulate the priority system in their favor. Now (about a year) they are around the 100 karma mark, and are loving every minute of it. So just to keep them off their high horses I toss in somebody quite a bit more powerful then them. That seems to work as they see their characters layed out and a DocWagon en route. Luckily they've never suffered any perm. damage from deadly wounds, or I'd have the "Evil GM Badge".

Their runs usually consist of assassinations and extractions, cuz that's what they like. Sometimes I mix it up and give them something so easy they sit and wait for something bad to happen, and sometimes I give them missions in which cannot be accomplished (i.e. retrive this briefcase from X spot, they arrive and nothing is there, you should see the look on their faces I LOVE IT! :D ) But so not to damage their reps they'll catch some sign of another team there, then they start the hunt. It's all about the hunt baby! But they love it and it keeps them coming back twice a week.

[Sahandrian]

Our game is basically a big mess of contacts, and more or less average characters. I let players get away with a lot of stuff in chargen, so we have things a bit more powerful that the archetypes right out of the books, but not by much. Some of them are still afraid of meeting a mercenary group they've run into a couple of times before.

Anyway, we rarely do corp runs, and the business the group tends to get is from other runners, ex runners, crime syndicates, or contacts who need help. The "team" are just a bunch of people with various problems, and the game tends more towards resolving personal issues than running for cash. And the reason they're a team... Let's see...

The fixer used to date the covert ops, who's currently dating the moon shaman who has a small magical group. The covert ops also had a short relationship with our only hermetic mage, who lived on the same floor of the apartment building that the troll, decker, and adept did. The covert ops guy also wound up meeting the cat shaman during an argument on the matrix (both are british). The cat shaman lives with the coyote shaman, and neither of them are going to admit their love for each other until they deal with their own issues. The ninja adept guy lives next door to the covert ops, who also used to run with a mercenary. The mercenary hired the rigger for a few things, and he stuck around after that. Finally, the fixer hired Foreigner for a job, and gave him the Matrix BBS they all use to keep in touch as a contact method. He posts occasionally.

...that was confusing.

Edit: And that's not even going into the contacts the players have...

This post has been edited by Sahandrian: Nov 10 2003, 06:03 PM

[Siege]

Oh goddess, sounds like "Friends" meets "The A Team".

-Siege

[easytohate]

I like to play in the middle ground. Ready and Able but with a lot to still be afraid of. I like to build long stories that influence the shadowrun world on a larger and larger scale.

[Bira]

I haven't had a chance to run or play Shadowrun for quite some time. Studies keep getting in the way, and when I do have time to run something, my group prefers other games.

The way I'd to it, given the opportunity, would be with characters who are not far from average, and who are stuck doing semi-legal odd jobs to make ends meet. They haven't hit the bottom yet, and are doing what they can so stay above it. They'd probably know each other from somewhere, and more or less work together.

Then something very bad happens, and after the dust settles they realize they've changed the fates of the world forever. Shook the pillars of heaven, and now it's all falling on their heads.

It would be interesting to see how they deal with this. Combat, when it happens, is a confusing and even nightmarish affair, where it's almost impossible to keep your cool through more than a few minutes of continuous fighting, and the aftermath always leaves you shaking. Character growth and advancement is based more on psychological changes and story events than Karma explosion. Nothing is set in stone and there isn't a fixed plot. There's only the actions of the characters and those of the people after them.

[smilbandit]

The characters in my campaign are the same ones that were created in the beginning 10 years ago. They have been from 1st edition to 3rd. We are pretty high power now adays. I always let them out of sticky situations when it looks like they are not going to make it. We mostly get together to hang out and this gives us something to do rather just sit and bs forever.

Sometimes they get the feeling that there invincible but then I trash something of theirs and they get the point. I trapped them in chicago during the containment zone thing and the rigger thought he could just barrel through the blockade. He got half way and then I let him know that there were a bunch of missles coming his way from multiple directions. He tried tons of ways to get out his car being trashed but in the end I was like "Dude, you got to upity, thought you were invincible, the cars gone, just exit the vehicle and run back to the CZ and i'll let you live." Actually I was glad he did that because not having transportation made them work a bit more smarter.

A couple years ago I had them make secondary characters so we could just do some simple runs and not the more complicated ones that I was having to come up with regularly.

I tried to tally up the karma that they were worth and it worked out to be about 300 in most cases.

[Dun Fe'Ran]

I prefer to have characters start out beyond the level of gangers, if only slightly. After five or six runs, depending on what they run into, they should be able to fear very few street level threats. I dont think that characters should ever be on par with GDs or IEs, but I dont see any problem with commanding a healthy amount of respect. No laying waste to armies, but characters should be powerful enough to give a johnson pause when considering whether or not to screw over the runners, regardless of who he works for. :grinbig:

[John Campbell]

[Sphynx]

Come now John... how can you honestly say that stuff? Seriously....

The enjoyability in ANY RPG is not just playing weak. As stated, I played, and enjoyed playing, a low level ganger campaign which has progressed because we didn't lack the creativity to get past ganger. Don't preach to me about weak games, and definitely don't suggest that I lack imagination. :P

Half of the fun for any player is Character Advancement. Hardly being able to wait to reach an objective you've set in your own mind for your character.

Secondly, don't you dare suggest that because you have a nice set of numbers on your sheet after playing for 8+ years that you suddenly lack personality for your character. OR that because you have nice numbers, you don't know how to "role" play. That's about the most idiotic thing a person could suggest about roleplaying. Nice numbers on your sheet means you have a GM that can keep a game interesting, regardless of power level that you don't burn out, but instead consistently look forward to the next game. A lack of creativity and a lack of personality is a cause for games never breaking the low-power level, not anything to do with high-power games (unless you just start as high-powered).

Sphynx

[John Campbell]

You totally missed my point, Sphynx. I'm not trying to say that you can't role-play a good character with high stats, or that a high-Karma game can't be interesting. What I'm saying is that a game does not have to be high-Karma to be interesting, and that a good character does not have to have high stats to be role-played. It's possible to have just as much fun playing gutterscum as it is playing prime runners, and that's reason enough to do it. So kindly can your, "Oh, poor low-power gamers, afraid to learn the rules, and can't even play a game well enough to earn ridiculous amounts of Karma and turn into super-shadowrunner," drek. People play low-power because they're having fun doing it. If you can't understand how they could, the problem is yours, not theirs.

[Sphynx]

So... do you just prevent them from ever advancing past low-level gutterscum then? Playing gutterscum is fun if you can get out of it, but the depressing realization that you are and always will be gutterscum is cause for suicide, not gaming. :P

I never said low-power gamers are afraid to learn the rules (after all, we started as low-power gamers), I'm saying that people who don't let the game evolve, Ie: characters advance before 1) losing interest or 2) being killed because the GM is afraid they're getting powerful, are the ones missing out.

Sphynx

[Synner]

Yes, John is guilty of overgeneralization, but so are you Sphynx. Whereas he mentioned your pet peeve, the high-karma/no personality thing, you keep harping about how low-level and normal scenarios simply can't be interesting.

As I've mentioned before, the problem GMs find in most high level campaigns is that the opposition (in the broadest sense of the term) required to maintain the level of challenge for those high-karma players skews the way they think the Sixth World should feel. Plus many of us believe that fighting the big boys or even just regular magical threats is in fact less challenging than facing a bunch of gangers on a street corner or outwitting the corp sec bodyguards of an intended target or helping out the local community-minded Dog shaman clear his 'hood of chipdealers (and having those 'opponents' present credible threats).

There's nothing wrong with "taking down Lofwyr campaigns", if that's what your group likes, but you have to understand that the very nature of the opposition you face in those situations is significantly different from the street and mid-level threats that are present in most campaigns and canon lore.

There are many ways a game or story evolving without the character necessarily "advancing".

Furthermore you keep mentioning Character Advancement as a goal in itself. All I can say to that is in my 12 years plus GMing this game I've only ever met one player whose character was in the shadows to better himself and to be the best at his game (not unlike certain gunslingers of the Old West). The rest of them have been normal and not-so normal joes who have fallen through the cracks and found themselves living in the shadows... most of them are just waiting for that one big score to accomplish their goal, retire rich or get their revenge, most of them just want to survive that far. Very few are in it for self-improvement. There are much more logical, less deadly and better ways to do that than running the shadows even in the Sixth World. Want to be the best swordsman that ever lived? Go study with a Bushi master or a Kandong monk for 10 years. The survival rate is better and you'll exclusively hone those skills. Don't go running the shadows.

[Sphynx]

First off, you're mistaking character for player here. Yes, a character would go to the Bushi Master, but that's not fun for the player. A player wants a storyline that's fun and interesting, and at the end of the day gets to ask how much karma he got so he can go spend it. Character advancement is a VERY important part of playing.

Secondly, I've NEVER said low-power games lack interest or are uninteresting, I don't even think that. I love the games, but one of the main reasons I love them is the story (karma spending) of how they get out of that. To remain in the gutter, or get pushed back into it whenever a character pulls himself out is depressing, not fun.

For a GM it may be just 'about the story', but for a player, it's just as much about 'gaining power for my PC'. Ie: spending karma.

Lastly, what's with the 'take down lofwyr' comments people make? In all honesty, I'D be scared to death to face him, and he'd kill our group in a single round. I'm not talking about world-conquerer level games here. I'm talking about groups high enough to take on major scenarios like a high force Bug Spirit and its hive/shaman. A Toxic shaman. A group of professional Mercs. Something more than the local street gang. Seriously, if that's the definition of a challenge, the game is lacking alot of its potential.

Sphynx

[Synner]

[Namer18]

I would say half of the characters in games I play in would retire on the money that would probably come along with 250 karma. They prefer the part of the game dynamic where its a group of individuals learning to work as a team and feeling out the field. Also if a character dies in our games you get a new starting character at 0 karma. That seems to be an incentive for players to work hard to keep their characters alive. It seems Sphynx that since your GM lets your new characters start with 250 karma that your not playing the working your way out of the streets aspect of the game. Just because you can't enjoy yourself unless you have a highpower character does not mean everyone else thinks the same way.