All they can do is kill., and not subtly Options

[odinson]

So, I was running some of the SR missions games. For some reason every NPC ends up dead, all the rescue or kidnap missions end in a bloodbath, and as soon as someone starts shooting they pull out grenades. We just did the mission, wetwork, plain and simple, and the pcs got the job, drove to the town in the middle of nowhere, bungled the stealth, got caught on camera, killed everyone in the house before torching it (the hacker turned off all the automated fire suppression systems), when back to town, demanded money form the johnson who then sent his goons (the Red Samurai guys as per book), they killed the goon and stole there gear. So any thoughts on what I should do to them as they are all over the news and possibly wanted by one or two groups in the shadows now.

[kzt]

Depends on what you want. Do you want them dead? Hitting the hideout with a 2000 bomb and turning it into a 30 foot deep crater is certainly an option.

What are you looking to achieve?

[Synner667]

[Black Jack Rackh...]

[odinson]

What would the appropriate response from the law be. You figure there would be a good chance that at any moment that a swat team would roll in through their front doors and arrest them? How would you simulate people looking for them? Perhaps rolling dice equal to the characters public awareness against a TN of 4. Maybe reducing the TN for each month that they stay in the same place or use the same fake SIN. I would figure that the more charismatic types would have better luck avoiding the police. Maybe start with a TN equal to the characters Cha + etiquette and reduce it by one for each contact with a connection higher than their loyalty.

[WearzManySkins]

Well a correct team of NPC's can take this group out.

But the issue to me is more of the players, they wish/want to play death machines. Unless their is an NPC reaction to their characters actions, and severe ones, they will continue and the cycle will continue.

Remember you as the GM has to enjoy the game also, not just the players. If this is what you enjoy then let them continue, if you do not, Stomp on them Hard.

There are many here who can give you ideas/npc's to deal with the Stomping option. :D

WMS

[odinson]

I think I will have a swat team come down on some of them sometime soon. The others will be watching their backs and trying to make enough :nuyen: to keep the low lifestyles coming. I think I'll also up border crossing difficulties. I'm sure that their faces will be forwarded to all the different security forces around. Sounds like their lives will be a little more difficult now.

[Critias]

*shrugs*

Or just relax about the whole thing, realize they think "Shadowrun" means something different than most Shadowrun players does, and just kick back and let them have their fun.

If they want violence to be the answer to everything, let word of that reputation spread, and send 'em on violent, unsubtle, missions. It's a game. They're supposed to be fun.

[sunnyside]

Yeah I think you need to decide what you want, and maybe confirm with one of them what they want.

If they want a kick in the door slaughterfest, and you're fine with that, maybe you just need to give them missions more appropriate to that. Maybe stage a campaign in desert wars or maybe in the Yucatan where they can work for or against the goverment military forces. Then you all can have your fun without having to squash them or fret over spoiled missions you worked on.

[fistandantilus4....]

I agree with Critias. Figure out what sort of game you and your players want to have. Easiest way is just to sit down and talk it out with them.

Were it my game, I would make it clear that screwing a Johnson like that is going to have repercussions. Do ti before the screwing it possible. Then let them do a missio or two to forget about it, then send them on a suicide run. Set them up to move in to a apparenntly difficulut, but not undoable job, then tip off the target so theyre ready for them, and have another runner team or the Star waiting for them once they climb out of the rubble, if they do.

Or if yuo want to go the Star angle, divide and conquer. Usually team members don't all live together. Send a 20 man SWAT team after one guy at a time, and they will go down.

Or just hire them for all demolitions runs. ;)

[hyzmarca]

I also agree with Critias, with the addendum that you should pick up a couple of issues of Nextwave, if you haven't already, and that you should title your next adventure with the group 'Faster Pussycat'.

If they want a Sixth World where they can get away with such slaughter, then it can be darn sure fun if you come at it with the right attitude, that attitude being gleeful anti-social homicidal whimsy.

[TheMadDutchman]

The problem is: what if it's a player thing and not a character thing?

Killing an entire team of runners off isn't going to solve anything if the players are just going to build new runners and go off doing the same damn thing. I'm not saying to abandon ship on your campaign but as a vet GM myself I know that unless you and the players want the same type of game than sooner or later you will have to cut your losses.

My advice, before you start having unmarked helicopters whirl in about thing and men repelling out of them in body armor w/ MP-5's; is to make sure that you understand what the players expectation of the game is and that they are clear on your expectations. Once everyone understands what everyone else wants: then you can throw as much ordinance at them as you want.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Sounds like these guys should be getting the big jobs.

The ones where indiscriminate slaughter is desired. Such as a job to wipe out an orphanage full or orc and troll kids. A job to rape, kill, and dismember (in no particular order) every prostitute in a certain brothel, which somehow seems to contain only elves.

A job to slaughter the board of an upstart company that looks to be broaching it's way into the A territory.

The kind of shit where the reward is high, the risk is high, the blood on the walls is ceiling-high, and where Mr. Johnson stops existing after they've done the job, much less pays them.

[Critias]

Seems like you might be better off just running Feng Shui or something for them, if all they're after is wanton slaughter (and looking cool while doing it) and a mixture of magic and badass guns.

*shrugs*

If you want Heat or Ronin and they want Desperado or Kill Bill, what'cha gonna do? Sure, you can kill all their characters to try and teach them a lesson, lashing out with the grim, precise, reality of the Sixth World, and blah blah blah blah to "get them in line."

But, well, if it's not the sort of game they want to play, what's the point?

[Jack Kain]

Kill them, let them know that the psycho killer runners get dead.

Have their fixer call them and tell them to meet the Johnson in some abandon building in the barrens. Or at the end of a job they royally screwed up.

They arrive and are presented with a hologram of there Fixer saying.
"You've fragged your last run and ruined by rep, I'm sorry I ever trusted you guys, goodbye"

Then boom, high explosives go off under there feet. And they suffer the chunky salsa effect.

That group sounds to far gone to recover, there history would mean almost no one would work for them They aren't shadowrunners there hired thugs. And hired thugs don't get paid nearly as well.


If all they want is hack and slash, kill off there runners then tell them to roll 4d6 six times.

[Aaron]

It sounds like they just want a dungeon crawl. Run 'em through Tunnel Vision. Again, if necessary.

[odinson]

[odinson]

[WearzManySkins]

Well if they love maximum firepower, just run them thru a few Bug hives.

Then just sit back and watch the action, and see who gets a dirt nap first.

Bug Spirits are/can be VERY bad things to fight in short term engagement, but long term, the body bags will get filled. :)

WMS

[hyzmarca]

Nextwave is an out-of-continuity 12-issue Marvel comic series crated and written by Warren Ellis. It uses 2-issue story arcs to intentionally buck the current trend of decompression and is filled with both violence and satire.

The team called Nextwave was assembled by Dirk Anger, director of Highest Anti-Terrorist Effort (H.A.T.E) for the purpose of combating the Beyond Corporation (formerly the terrorist cell known as S.I.L.E.N.T.) and consists of former A-list superheroes who have faded into obscurity including Monica Rambeau (the first African American woman to lead the Avengers), Tabitha Smith (formerly Boomer of X-Force, who makes things explode), Aron Stack (aka Machine Man, an alcoholic robot), Elsa Bloodstone (Super-Badass monster-hunting Laura Croft rip-off who possess the super power of being British), and as original character known as The Captain (formerly known as Captain Fuck (or possibly some other four-letter word), before Captain America washed his mouth out with soap, he represents every generic character ever called Captain [Something]).
After learning that H.A.T.E. was actually funded by the Beyond Corporation for the purpose of testing their Unusual Weapons Of Mass Destruction, Nextwave stole a state-of-the-art aircraft and left the organization with the intent of actually fighting Beyond instead of just testing their weapons for them.

A quote from Warren Ellis on Newsrama pretty much sums it up.

[Sterling]

It sounds like you could reform them if you could figure out what it is you need to stop them dead in their tracks.. and then lower it a notch.

If they can take out a team of Renraku Red Samurai, then send two teams. Equip one with sniper rifles (or stick-and-shock for the secondary modifiers, aka neg dice) and have them help soften up the team. If the runners rely on heavy hardware to survive, remember, any door to a business that's NOT in the barrens has a chemsniffer and MAD detector. The bouncer will inform them that heavy weapons and grenades are not allowed on the premises. Once they realize they can't go to a decent bar to drink, they'll cave. No runner wants to go through the horrors of... (shudder) sobriety!!!

The best way to make them realize that gunbunny hijinx aren't the end-all be-all is simple and easy and fun (for you).

1) Send them on a run that involves the Ork Underground or a city dump or other very isolated area that's not populated. Let the runners get to the middle of this place, where there's no one around within a mile.

2) Send in the devil rats. Hundreds of them. Hell, thousands of them if you need to.

3) Watch the runners go full-auto and throw grenades like they're confetti and nod sagely and tell them the devil rats keep coming. But keep track of their ammo. At some point, they'll be trying to melee devil rats. Remember the 'friends in melee' bonus, and use it against the runners. If you rule that each character can be attacked by ten devil rats at once, then each devil rat only has to bite for one box of damage in order to kill or knock out your average person. But space it out. Nickel and dime them for a while, making them sweat. They'll be in shock, big bad runners like themselves being ambushed (devil rats have innate concealment, -3 to detect them) and beaten up by RATS? Once they're surrounded (which was at the very beginning) and halfway to death/unconsciousness... that's when they'll realize there was probably 'a better way™' to handle this. Keep at them, let them roleplay it if they want; "Ohfragohfragohfrag, Louie's down, I think he's dead!!" "We're done, chummer! We're rat food! Game over, man, game over!!" "Aaaiiiiieeee!!!" "Get them off meeeee!!!" "Aren't these things like, disease-ridden fleabags? OW, it bit me!! That really hurt!"

4) When they're all nearly dead and preferably unconscious, fade to black. End the session, and let them sweat what's happened.

5) Start the next session with your new NPC, the guy or gal you'll write to teach them to run the way YOU want them to run. He's your Ben Kenobi, the kindly old man who wants to take the runners under his wing and help them be real runners, not a mil-spec version of a street gang. If the players aren't ready to learn a new trick (since their last one led to them almost being reduced a substance that's been processed by meter-long naked and wrinkly rats) then there's very helpful advice in the posts preceding mine.

6) Don't mention to the players that the Ben Kenobi is a physical adept with the 'animal empathy' power and 20 dice in 'train devil rat' or a mage with mob mind/control. Hell, maybe one of the runners prefers a cologne that (coincidentally) happens to smell just like a horny female devil rat. Or the devil rats are hungry. Who cares, there's plenty more where those came from.

7) It helps if you have a bartender or other contact mention your new NPC before the devil rat project starts, reminiscing about how "Old Ben, now there was a runner. Did I ever tell you how that guy broke into the Aztechnology Pyramid, the Renraku Arcology AND the Mitsuhama compound in the same night? Didn't even bring a gun with him, just a taser and a dozen throwing knives! Man, you don't see that kind of skill in runners today..." >POINTED LOOK<

There, that's a quick-and-dirty method that might reform your wayward runners. But hey, if they LIKE running like that, then tell them they need to move up to the big leagues and take over a section of town and defend it against all comers while they live like kings. As I said, they sound like a mil-spec gang more than runners, and maybe that's the game you should play.

[odinson]

So we were playing warhammer the other night and one of my players tells me a story of how he was reading dumpshock forums and read this thread. He was all excited because he thought that they weren't the only group who bungled the assassination attempt and just resorted to violence. Then he thought it was funny how people were saying that the pc's should get killed and stuff. Then when he got to the last post he went back and klicked on my profile and then realised that I was the original poster. I had a good laugh when he told me that.

[tehbighead]

a team like yours needs a combat heavy story:: thrusting them into the middle of a mob/gang war or merc campaign would do the trick and keep your PCs happy. they need to be hunted, ambushed, and greatly outnumbered to be challenged, not hired for a standard run which holds no interest for the team [and they're probably not at all qualified for, so it seems].

fix the campaign, not the players.

[Demon_Bob]

Part of a run we had once involved going into a condemmed building to find someone who had intel. While there we were meet by the local gang held up there.

The rigger opened fire with full auto, the Gun Bunny shot some grendaes out of his Ares Alpha, the Troll Enforser lobbed a grenade as well, the Mage manaballed the group, the Street Sami opened fire with an assult rifle wishing he had grenades, only the Face ran for her life.

When the cealing crumbled a bit, we kept on shooting, after all the gang hadn't been wiped out yet. When a wall fell down, we kept on shooting, again the gang wasn't quite dead.

We managed to finnaly kill the gang because the collateral damage caused the building to collapse, killing the gang, our edge, and the informant. Mission failure.

[kigmatzomat]

I'm going to buck the trend and suggest that maybe the GM should look at his play style to make sure he isn't encouraging this.

Before you get all up in arms, lemme tell ya a story. I've been playing Sr since it first came out and have done so under multiple GMs and all editions. I've been a player in some adventures a half-dozen times. I'm pretty good at keeping player knowledge from game knowledge so the GMs were fine with it, but the key thing is that I've seen the same runs handled a half dozen different ways.

GMs have their own knee-jerk reaction. In shadowrun they tend to fall into 3 categories:

1. The fog of war. The GM has all kinds of random crap happen that keeps the game chaotic. non-combat NPCs panic, things catch fire, and in general its like being in a Michael Bay movie. The first wave or two of bad guys are cardboard but the reinforcements use hovertanks and bazookas.
This can encourage bloodbaths when the players panic but if they learn to channel the giant explosions & such, they can actually get away with fairly low casualties (but rediculous property damage). Think Mission Impossible. All sneaky until everything goes boom.

2. Never retreat. Every NPC, down to the lowliest janitor, will fight to the death. They will spit in the eye of shadowrunners who just gunned down a mass of red samurai. Frustrated players will get in the habit of killing everyone at the first chance they get just so they don't have to deal with the secretarial pool trying to recreate the last scenes in 300.

3. Quasi-realistic. There's still magic, trolls, and cyber stuff but people without combat skills tend to be terrified and either run or freeze in place when people with guns show up. Gangs that lose a half dozen guys in the first eyeblink will turn tail (excluding the one or two testosterone poisoned gunbunnies) with the intent to make life difficult for the players later. Security guards facing heavy fire will be more than satisfied using supressing fire to try and trap or slow down the 'runners until someone with heavier gear shows up.


I prefer GM type 3 but can have a lot of fun with a type 1. Type 2s irk me and I'll eventually leave the game.