 Game Masters Bag of Tricks |
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 Jun 6 2007, 09:11 PM
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#1
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Moving Target  Group: Members Posts: 114 Joined: 9-April 07 Member No.: 11,417  |
So I made a reply which got me thinking about those evil little tricks Game Masters like to use on players. Not really plot devices, but the frosting type stuff.
Two example: I have had my group of players come across some really nice gear from a fixer who gave them a decent price. The gear really had a sleeping disable device switch which was set to turn disable the gear if they ever did a run on X company. Four games later they did and it was very interesting to watch them try and get out of that situation. Another time I had them rescue someone for a mission. It was a total milk run. That NPC later gained their trust and joined the group. This time they players got suspicious of him and found out he worked for a mafia and was keeping tabs on them. In the end they got a good paying job out of it with no further issues (as far as they know). |
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Jun 6 2007, 09:41 PM
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#2
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Technomancer Group: Retired Admins Posts: 4,638 Joined: 2-October 02 From: Champaign, IL Member No.: 3,374 |
I've pulled mistaken identity moments with identical twins which is always a good time. Team is sent to find/hire/extract/kill person A but doesn't know that person B is person A's identical twin and, instead, find/hire/extract/kill person B. Good times ....
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Jun 7 2007, 02:45 AM
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#3
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 241 Joined: 14-December 06 Member No.: 10,360 |
One of my favorite things to pull is to make the runners deal with the loved ones of their extraction targets. Or their assassination targets. Or any loved one of any sort. It reminds the players that these are real people their using for money.
Kinda fun. |
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Jun 7 2007, 02:50 AM
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#4
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,537 Joined: 27-August 06 From: Albuquerque NM Member No.: 9,234 |
If they can't/don't do that kind of basic research they are fools. |
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Jun 7 2007, 03:40 PM
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#5
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,451 Joined: 21-April 03 From: Austin, TX Member No.: 4,488 |
I love dragging their past back to haunt them. They're doing a run that goes bad and random guard gets killed in the ensuing firefight when they could've left the guard alive at no risk. Three months later, the guard's brother shows up to make their life hell. I usually only do this sort of thing to punish them in-character, creating situations of their own making.
I also love doing the "too good to be true" kick. In another game that shall not be named because it causes cancer, I gave a 2nd level character a ring of regeneration. He didn't find out for two dozen more sessions that the ring also contained a lich trapped inside that popped out and attacked them. The Abstruse One |
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Jun 7 2007, 04:06 PM
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#6
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 777 Joined: 22-November 06 Member No.: 9,934 |
<slides a hardcopy photo across the table>/<shows video footage of individual> "I need you to kill this person, for <insert price> this is my life savings. and I don't know anything else about them..." what homework are you going to do? they are SINless and all you have to go on is a picture...what you automatically assume that every single person you meet falls into the 1% catagory of having a double? |
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Jun 7 2007, 04:11 PM
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#7
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,537 Joined: 27-August 06 From: Albuquerque NM Member No.: 9,234 |
So, in a city of 6 million people he expects you to wander around until you find someone somewhere (since he can't tell you anything about them) who sort of looks like the picture and kill them? You have players who would take this? |
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Jun 7 2007, 04:16 PM
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#8
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Cybernetic Blood Mage Group: Members Posts: 3,472 Joined: 11-March 06 From: Northeastern Wyoming Member No.: 8,361 |
Oh hell yes!
The only thing is that they would then grab the first person they saw who looked 'close enough' to the target, engauge in some forced body-sculpting, then after he healed from the surgery, deliever his head to the Johnson. After all, you know the saying about a fool and his money... |
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Jun 7 2007, 04:24 PM
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#9
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Slacker Extraordinaire Group: Retired Admins Posts: 337 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Ashburn, VA Member No.: 997 |
I've done this a few times to "punish" players who have taken their character on unecessary killing sprees. The surviving members of a gang the runners got into a tangle with (and subsequently finished off after incapacitating them) stalked the runners for a few weeks and killed (or attempted to kill) several of their contacts. On another run the runners captured someone who was getting in their way but posed no real threat (in fact he was trying to do a good thing, although maybe in a radical way)... they questioned and beheaded him. A year later the character (an adept) who did the deed learned that the radical's wife had undergone several implant surgeries and was taking combat training to prepare to eventually avenge her dead husband. This was especially potent to the player in question as avenging the death of her character's husband was the primary background plotline for her character. She had become the monster she was chasing. |
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Jun 7 2007, 05:47 PM
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#10
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Shadow Cartographer Group: Members Posts: 3,737 Joined: 2-June 06 From: Secret Tunnels under the UK (South West) Member No.: 8,636 |
I got an idea from a film for a twist on that. Have them come across the loved one of the person they killed and be aware of who that person is... but they are not aware of who the PCs are. So the PCs get to associate or work with the person, all the while knowing that they are the anonymous murderers who took away that person's mother/father/sibling/partner/child. I haven't done this yet, but I think the potential is great. (The movie, incidentally, was a very weird 1996 film called Children of the Revolution) -K. |
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Jun 7 2007, 05:48 PM
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#11
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Bushido Cowgirl Group: Members Posts: 5,782 Joined: 8-July 05 From: On the Double K Ranch a half day's ride out of Phlogiston Flats Member No.: 7,490 |
...I did this as part of a protection/bodyguard job. Didn't involve twins, but the PCs reacted on info from a news story they saw before the meet & ended up shadowing the wrong two girls for nearly 2/3 of the session. The young women they followed were both celebrities while the two girls they were supposed to shadow were daughters of a wealthy Russian who owned a shipping firm. Both pairs of young women were on the dance floor at the same time at the club where the met took place. When the PCs asked who they were supposed to watch, the Johnson simply pointed to the dance floor below and in a thick accent commented "they are so beautiful, nyet?". Since nobody knew Russian (or any other slavic languages), the PCs assumed he was indicating the two celebrities (one of them mentioned as being Croatian in the news story). Needless to say it was fun to sit back & watch the PCs dig themselves deeper and deeper. Had the PCs continued on their folly, the Russian girls they were supposed to keep a watch over would have been abducted by the Vory to use as leverage for getting to the father. The mission would of course have been totally hosed. |
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Jun 7 2007, 06:00 PM
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#12
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 777 Joined: 22-November 06 Member No.: 9,934 |
so when the news says that Bob the mechanic was brutally murdered, and the SIN of the guy you brought is verified your group just lost all credability in the shadows and no one wants to work with them... especially because the johnson does know more, AND that isn't his life savings...good job now roll new characters... a simple database search in a lonestar facility will give you a facial recoginition when you scan and you get a general area of town to start looking, especially if he frequents any location. |
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Jun 7 2007, 06:24 PM
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#13
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 324 Joined: 18-July 06 From: Charleston, SC Member No.: 8,911 |
I like your style, specifically how it tied back to similar circumstance to the character in question. I love the whole "whats really evil anyway" plots that constantly forces characters to question and judge their own morals. Best i've come up with so far is the players are contracted by a johnson to take out a high powered corp exec Mr. X. Except he's the one who sent the johnson to hire them so he can "defect" from his employment to go work for the competition (it also helps if one of the runners hates the corp in question and make the reward big nuyen but mostly delivered at completion). Everything seems to go well but his death is a double or other ruse. The johnson contact turns up dead (blamed on the runners) and Mr. X's corp of course spares little expense on revenge trying to hunt the runners down. Then to make it worse, Mr. X leaks the runner's information in an attempt to tie up loose ends. Finding out the double cross and watching their attempts at payback was hilarious, and of course he did owe them the second part of the payment, though they technically didn't really finish the original job, and there is the matter of their names to clear. :twirl: |
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Jun 7 2007, 06:58 PM
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#14
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Street Doc Group: Admin Posts: 3,508 Joined: 2-March 04 From: Neverwhere Member No.: 6,114 |
I once had a player create a really creepy wakyambi houngan PC. The guy was a great role player, so the character ended up being really cool. He wanted a blackberry cat as a side kick, so I gave him one.
What I didn't tell him was that the cat was possessed by a shadow free spirit.... :evil: |
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Jun 7 2007, 07:21 PM
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#15
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Cybernetic Blood Mage Group: Members Posts: 3,472 Joined: 11-March 06 From: Northeastern Wyoming Member No.: 8,361 |
Well firstly if done correctly there wouldn't even be a news report since tabs aren't kept on how many SINless there are even are much less how many goes missing. Secondly, even if the guy they yanked off the street had a SIN, well, at worst you'd have a missing persons case, and if I remember correctly DNA Alterations are possible in the Sixth World which would render using biometrics moot. And lastly the DM pulling that stunt had better be a real fast talker as he tries to explain why a Johnson who presumely wanted the job done suddenly managed to come up with all this data when the players didn't want to travel down the DM's Rail. ... Good job, now go find another group ...
As long as you are prepared to live with the changes that this ruling would have on your world then sure, personally I like it better when Shadowrunners aren't forced to hide in the deepest bowls of Z-Zones or the depths of the sewers, but I supose to each their own. |
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Jun 7 2007, 08:37 PM
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#16
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 777 Joined: 22-November 06 Member No.: 9,934 |
if the runners spent the time to find a sinless, that's one thing, but he's not going to be the first bloke they find. they are going to have to look for him.
hey if you want to spend more money doing the job than the job pays be my guest I'd even allow the runners to get away with it. missing persons? with a SIN, lesse where's his comlink? there it is what RFID tags were in his PAN when he got nabbed? where did they go? where are they now? if you can't find them you can alwayus activate the stealth tags in the wage slave and find him...whos to say he didn't do that himself? it's a whole lot easier to find someone whos missing in shadowrun than you realize.
first off if the characters don't know it the GM doesn't need to explain it to the characters, and here's right off the top of my head. a johnson isn't going to hire a group of disreputable people to do a job then take their word they did it right... second, if your group wants to screw over everyone they come into contact with and then gets mad when they have to pay for it, yeah you need to find a new group.
change? what change? that's the way it is, news footage, and drone surveilance everywhere, you get a picture wherever you go practically. lonestar is so backed up with warrants and new cases that they can't go out and handle every tom dick and harry on the street, that's where bounty hunters come into the picture, and even then you don't have enough manpower to get them all. even today the police department has warrants and knows where these people live but they don't send an officer out to arrest them because it's not high profile enough to waste the money to get it done. |
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Jun 7 2007, 08:38 PM
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#17
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 834 Joined: 30-June 03 Member No.: 4,832 |
Beautiful! |
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Jun 8 2007, 02:49 AM
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#18
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 511 Joined: 24-March 05 From: On a ledge between Heaven and Hell Member No.: 7,226 |
Gave an amnesiac a run to kill herself once. When a player wrote a background for their character that said they had wealthy parents, I created 2 background additions. The first on which I spent more time was, if the player went and asked Mom for oodles of cash, the second was if he wanted to make his own way in the world. As a result the Orc Shaman player got a Step-Brother. The Elf-Sami from a well-to-do family got to live in interesting times. Turned a character who threatened a Street Doc to treat him, without backup from other runners into spare parts. Had police post a kill-happy runner's face everywhere. His response was I will wear a motorcycle helmet everywhere I go. Like that was not suspicious. Had group chase Illusions into a cross-fire. Created different sub-missions for each character inside a multi-run adventure that the players would be hard pressed to succeed at all of them, unless they; broke requested secrecy, talked to the others about their additional missions, and carefully explored the situation. Ya like that happened. |
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Jun 8 2007, 04:57 PM
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#19
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Technomancer Group: Retired Admins Posts: 4,638 Joined: 2-October 02 From: Champaign, IL Member No.: 3,374 |
This post originally ended up in a different thread, not sure why:
You're probably right with respect to know doing enough work, though. In fact, the second I mentioned a twin in the game they got all paranoid about problems this could cause, but then I mentioned he was in Miami and they ignored the hook for the rest of the run, to their detriment. Had they not sniped the twin from distance with narcoject to knock him out and, instead, spoken with him, it would have been clear he was the twin and not the target. Such is life. |
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Jun 8 2007, 05:57 PM
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#20
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 324 Joined: 18-July 06 From: Charleston, SC Member No.: 8,911 |
Poor guy. Hell if he was smart he'd wear a latex mask or use nanopaste disguises. If he was really clever he'd hack (or get a friend) lonestar's criminal profile and edit the picture to look like someone he didn't like. Assuming by "post" you meant through AR wanted posters, it would immediately change the face throughout the city. Could even be funny if he put up a lonestar's face (specially the guy responsible in the first place) |
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Jun 8 2007, 06:03 PM
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#21
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Cybernetic Blood Mage Group: Members Posts: 3,472 Joined: 11-March 06 From: Northeastern Wyoming Member No.: 8,361 |
I just wanted to add to the chorus. That's Style. 8) <><><><><>
Priceless and classic, I love them. 8) <><><><><>
*chuckles* Are you actually serious? Commlinks and external devices are easy, one of the first things you do is rip out the batteries. Tags aren't nearly as formable as you seem to believe either. Every serious Runner group should have the following items on hand anyways: Radio Signal Scanner -Lets you find those pesky RFID Tags as well as Security Tags fairly easily. Tag Eraser -Burns out RFID Tags as well as any discovered Stealth Tags. Hammer -Lets you handle the Security Tags, Caveman Style. Cyberware Scanner -Implanted Stealth Tags? Bah! Jammer -Even the best Tag on the market is defeated by Rating 4 Jammer. However, once active you've got to work fast. Combat Knife & Leatherman -Implanted Tags? Not for long. However, before I forget, the most important tool in every Runner's toolbox is the following... Van outfited with Wi-Fi Blocking -Works just like a Jammer, except that it doesn't scream out "Please Kill Me!" and gives you the time you need to use the rest of your tools. (I would also assume that unlike a Jammer, it'd be perfectly legal.) (Mind you, this list was just banged out, it might not be complete, but its a good start and should get the point across.)
Only when dealing with someone who doesn't understand what countermeasures are needed to go missing in the first place.
Yeah, and a DM can also drop cows from orbit on the characters. Changing your world in mid-stride to 'punish' the players is just as bad.
True, however a Johnson also isn't going to just hand a group of Shadowrunners a picture/video of an assassination target and claim that its all the data he has when it isn't either. He wants the job to get done, otherwise he wouldn't have taken the risk in hiring the Runners in the first place.
If that were what happened here you'd be right, however what we have smells like an example of a DM deciding to change the world in mid-stride with the express intent of punishing the Players for doing something that he didn't like. It'd be far more honest just to drop a Thor Shot on them and be done with it.
If thats the case then the Runners should never be able to get away with stealing that fancy prototype or extracting that lead researcher, because if the Runner's Decker can hack into Lonestar and find people that easily using a photo then so can a Corp Decker. *Edit* I really hate how one broken "Quote Tag" beaks them all... :grr: |
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Jun 8 2007, 06:43 PM
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#22
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 192 Joined: 13-July 06 From: Long Beach Sacrifice Zone Member No.: 8,885 |
Yeah, that's art, right there. My bag of tricks usually involves (and I mentioned this on another thread) setup work. Have the runners complete a few runs, say runs numbered 1 2 3 4 5. But every odd numbered run was against the same corp. Not every building or security guard was wearing Ares logos, but with shell companies and such Ares (or whomever) will eventually realize there's a group of runners they really really don't like. In my current game, I've started a 'ghoul spike' where the Metroplex offered bounties on ghouls. Ghouls aren't always mindless ravening beasts, and the easiest hook in the world is to have random encounters where the runners spot Joygirl/boy/whatever being menaced by a ghoul or six. Now, if your runners just jander on by (as has happened) they risk losing a free contact in the making (when you save someone from being eaten alive they tend to be somewhat grateful) and the bounty money (which pleases the 'I'm only in it for the cred' types). If they stop the attack, well, somewhere nearby is a ghoul lieutenant that's probably a physical adept and he's going to be watching for those familiar auras in the future. A few more botched lunch runs and those are some pissed off ghouls. A ghoul physical adept with an affinity with devil rats and a drekload of ghoul minions is a pretty serious enemy. Once the team discovers a few contacts that are basically carcasses picked clean they'll begin to sweat a little. These are just tools, though. Their best use is when there's a lull in gameplay, or things are going just a little too well. Having an Ares Strike Team roll up or a pack of ghouls erupt from a nearby sewer increases the pucker factor considerably. Now, here's a nice hook for you that'll prove I'm not such an evil mean bastard of a GM. You have a dwarf approach the team (and this is a great 'middle of the run' derail hook) that asks for help. See, the dwarves still have isolated enclaves in the ork underground (since they built it) and one of these enclaves is a pretty peaceful crafter community. But they're under siege by ghouls, and the last 'raid' took out the last of their frontline fighters. Now they're screwed and need help. If you've been offing contacts for fun, this is a nice way of setting things right. The catch is these aren't ghouls, it's a pack of humanis thugs who discovered their meeting room (2 blocks away) has access to the old sewers... which led right into one of the dwarf enclave's primary air shafts. So once they did some cheap makeup work and equipped forearm snap-blades, they can go in, off dwarves, and laugh about how the 'stunties' thought it was ghouls. Of course, your team will go in expecting ghouls, find no evidence of HMHVV infections, no chewed up corpses, etc, and suspect a problem. My team set up a crossfire at the access point and then showed me how truly gross the burst fire and full auto rules really are. Plus you can always have a fun exercise in calculating the overpressure of grenades in a two meter diameter pipe. And everyone likes kicking the Humanis Policlub around, right? This kind of 'middle of the run crisis' is great when half your team has a heart and the other half has bills to pay. Nothing spurs roleplay like a moral dilemma. |
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Jun 9 2007, 09:14 AM
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#23
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Runner Group: Members Posts: 3,009 Joined: 25-September 06 From: Paris, France Member No.: 9,466 |
Funny little ideas:
The small detail that matters: Widely used in novels or movies, but I don't know the exact english name of that one. At one point of the story you introduce a small detail that the player will notice but quickly forget. A classic example is something in the news, hidden between other headlines. Much later, when everyone has forgotten about it (can even be many runs later), something big comes up that the player will trace to that detail, discovering that it was there all along. The traitor: One of the PC is abducted and replaced by someone who looks exactly like him. The funny thing is that the player is still the same. The GM explains the situation to him beforehand and gives him a specific goal (such as luring the team into a trap). Because the character is still played by the same player, most of the time the other players will fall for it. Two bad choices: Being a runner isn't funny everyday. Some players like to see their characters as heroes or good guys. A nice way to remind them that they're just lowly criminals in a rotten world is to have them choose between two bad choices. One day, I had such players discover a ship full of street childrens who had been taken there to be used as guinea pig for a research about using elves genes to give elven longevity to all metahumans. After killing those responsible for this, they wondered what to do with 300 childrens (some of them in a bad medical condition because of the experiments): end their suffering or let them live a pitiful and painful life? (For the record, they decided to call Lone Star, the childs were sent to a new orphanage. A few weeks later, they officially died in a bus crash. A few days later the children's organs black market was suddenly flooded with new offers.) |
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Jun 11 2007, 01:17 AM
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#24
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 403 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Kill Em All Member No.: 2,018 |
Four words that strike terror in the hearts of anyone who has played in one of my campaigns long enough...
Huggy the Love Troll |
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Jun 11 2007, 02:37 AM
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#25
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,451 Joined: 21-April 03 From: Austin, TX Member No.: 4,488 |
My players have experienced the following in various gaming systems:
Orbital Bovine Bombardment (I had put it on my random encounter table as 3 on 3d6 and it hit. I just did damage as a catapult.) A frozen turkey killing a random grunt in the middle of the fight (everyone had to make a willpower roll or be stunned by the absurdity of the moment for 1d3 rounds...and yes, I stole that) They were given half of an antique coin when they were given aid during a mission. They were told that the favor would need to be returned when they received the other half of the coin. The man who gave them the coin was subsequently killed, so they had forgotten all about it. Later they were asked to help do something really, really bad and all but impossible to do, and they were going to refuse...then the person hiring them flipped the half coin on the table (for which I had obtained a real-life prop). I also stole this from a thread on here a few years back. The players were entered into a gladiatorial combat contest against their will and were forced to fight in what they thought were fights to the death. It wasn't until the first match that they found out the entire thing was staged WWE-style. An ancient "evil" god (what they were told by the NPC cleric) was going to destroy the world unless the "Champions of the Planet" could survive several tests. So after going through hell for five or six gaming sessions and failing by the skin of their teeth, the cleric gave the god an "ancient artifact" which would allow the evil entity to destroy the world. It turns out it was just a trophy and it was an regular contest between the temple and the temple of the other god. The cleric thought if the PCs thought they were fighting for the world, they'd be more likely to fight harder to win and give them their fourth victory in a row. The PCs are thrust into a strange world and I took great care in describing the world...evil mushrooms, lots of pipes, turtles with throwing hammers...I was very careful in describing it until they ran into this Italian plumber in red overalls. Then there's the time I talked my friends into playing Paranoia...everyone got into it after a while and I think the average over a 6 hour session was 3 complete sets of clones killed per player with one player managing to kill off 7 complete characters (of six clones each making his deathtoll 24 after he'd lost a couple of his eight character's clones). The Abstruse One |
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