Brutal GM'ing, aka, Am I evil, or just Misunderstood? Options

[Nerf'd]

My campaigns have always been earmarked by a tone of abject brutality to the players. I admit this freely, and even warn prospective players of it. I'm a stickler for well thought-out actions, and unintended consequences of player actions play a HUGE part in the way I build plot lines.

For example, that technomancer who climbed up on a roof and decided to go Full VR without stating that he was sitting down? He rolled down the roof and got his belt caught, leaving him hanging 3 stories above the street by his belt. The gunbunny who built his character with a strength of one? You'd be amazed how many things require strength checks when your dead lift capacity is 30 lbs.

I take the concept of a realistically run world far more seriously than most other GMs find to be appropriate, and I'm completely unrepentant about it.

That being said, a couple of weeks ago I sat my players down and asked them for their honest opinions on my performance. Without exception, the players told me that they were enjoying themselves thoroughly

I know this is always a bit of a risk, but in over 10 years of GMing I've found it to be the best way to make sure that everyone involved is having fun. As an added bonus, it gives me a very solid check point as to my blind spots.

So I thought I'd do that here as well.

Thoughts?

[VivianDQ]

Personally I would have walked on the first session, I'm not too interested in trying to play a game where the GM running it is literally out to kill or maim my character every week solely for their own enjoyment.

Although on the flipside if your players are enjoying themselves everything is fine and technically you are succeeding as a GM. So to each their own, world is full of masochist.

[Adarael]

The guy with a strength of 1 had it coming. The technomancer who went full VR? That's just dumb. Funny, but dumb. That's like having a player make agility checks not to fall and crack their face because they didn't explicitly state they were tying their shoes. Certain actions related to basic behavior can be taken for granted, such as sitting down when going full VR, eating and buying food during downtime, and wearing clothes when you leave the house.

[Nerf'd]

You seem to have missed the point. Throughout the two most recent campaigns I ran, exactly 3 characters have died. 2 of those were the result of abject stupidity, and the other was just because he was being carried in a sack, over the back of the biggest target in the group.

Those little "life lessons" are more for humor value.

Hell, I even asked the TM :

"So you're just going to go full VR?"

"Yes"

"Standing up"

"Yes"


Actions have consequences. I don't demand that people state that they are eating, or putting on clothes - but if an action is directly related to what they are doing I do want them to think it through.

[Rotbart van Dain...]

It still would allowed him to make a Agility+Gymnastics-4 test to keep balance.

[Rifleman]

[Rotbart van Dain...]

[VivianDQ]

By that example with the TM your not actually punishing players for stupidity or short sightedness. Your punishing them for not personally knowing something their character knows?

One can assume the TM "character" was well aware that you should sit down for full vr but obviously the player wasn't. Which again shouldn't be much of a surprise, odds are they are not actually a technomancer in real life. So players should be penalized for not memorizing every single line of every shadowrun book ever written?

[Rifleman]

[sunnyside]

Actually one of the things I really like about SR4 is the ability to put away the kid gloves with characters.

I know back in older editions I'd occasionally be sitting behind the GM screen, looking at an absolutly ridiculous number of sixes. And I'd think to myself, I, as a GM, really like this char, he really didn't do anything wrong, but he's about to die by sheer luck. And sometimes I'd let it slide (maybe just enough damage to require a trauma patch or something).

Anyway in SR4 the "burn edge permanently to save you skin" mechanic is right there in the BBB. So if you're in a risky situation at all you always run the risk of it going south. Dying before running out of edge is probably the result of something grossly stupid.

However I do cut my players slack for bad decisions, especially if their characters would honestly know better. This also cuts down on pissed off players after a miscommunication.

[Nerf'd]

OK, let me tell you a little story.

In the process of a run, the players run across an Ares delivery van full of ammo. 3 cases APDS, 3 cases EX-EX.

They end up using 1 case of EX-EX as part of an improvised bomb, and one of the players (yes, same guy who later played the TM) says:
"I'm going to put the extra cases in my car."

Me: "Just as they are?"

"Yes"

Me: "GOing to do anything else to/with them?"

"Nope"

He then proceeded to park his car within 2 blocks of the site of the run (where said improvised bomb was going to be set off), and drive the delivery van (now an integral part of said improvised bomb).

There was a rigger in the group.

so he glitches on the athletics roll to jump from the van as he is driving it up the stairs of the target, which I interpret as he gets out, but is nicely catapulted across the street by the swinging front door of the van as it hits the building. instant hospital visit.

So, what would Lone Star do after an explosion in an inhabited area? You better be damn sure that the will lock down a 2-3 block perimeter and go over it with a fine-toothed comb - during which time they find the tracer tags on the ammo crates, and confiscate the car.

The same car that the player put something like 10 build points worth of equipment into. This is really the first (and hopefully last) time that I have truly nerfed a character.

I let him start fresh

[DireRadiant]

To me it sounds like you are giving plenty of warning each time. And you're not doing instant kills, just painful lessons.

[Kyoto Kid]

...I don't go out of my way to make life miserable for the PCs, the world itself is already pretty dismal. However, if a PC hoses it, or leaves themself open for a failure, then yes, there will be consequences. I have even gone as far as eliminating several flaws such as Hunted (one character's flaw usually ends up biting the entire team in the bum) and Amnesia ("waitiaminute! Broadway Musicals 6? Specialised in Rogers & Hammerstein?). for life in the shadows is already unforgiving.

I do agree about having the characters state exactly what they are doing and let them know that what you say you're doing "In Character" is binding, so if something goes awry the player can't say "wait I wouldn't do that" (one of the Edges I tossed out is "Common Sense" for it is too much of an easy way out). In RL People sometimes say and do stupid things so PCs are not immune to this. Ever watch the show Maximum Exposure (or as I like to call it "Stupid Human Tricks")"?

As to characters with glaring deficiencies, when I first designed my Namesake KK for SR4, she had the Uneducated NQ. The GM had her roll just about every time she used her commlink or did anything remotely technical in nature. Rough on the character? Most certainly, but I thought it was quite fair and it did lead to some rather amusing situations at times.

[Rotbart van Dain...]

[Rifleman]

[Rotbart van Dain...]

[Whipstitch]

Heh. Poor strength 1 doofus. I can't imagine taking a natural strength of one AND passing up on a rating 1 or 2 muscle augs. My GM claims to have taken down a twinked out gunbunny minimum strength elf samurai with a burly dwarven housemaid. Apparently wired 2 and monowhip isn't too terribly helpful when Aunt Bea has you in a headlock.

[Rifleman]

[raphabonelli]

[Rotbart van Dain...]

[mfb]

Nerf'd's players are having fun, so there's nothing wrong with the way Nerf'd's doing things. that said, there are a lot of games where having a character fall off a roof because they forgot to mention sitting down would cause some problems.

[Ikirouta]

I had a very brutal GM for a long time. It wasn't like that but it also seemed that if we didn't do like he had envisioned we didn't have a chance to succeed.

Me, I like tough GMs as long as they are fair and consistent. If you ask to be specific all the time then there's no problem to me. On the other hand if you would be more harsh to other players than to others then it would be a different thing.

I am pretty unforgiving GM myself but so far only complaints have come from giving too little money :)

But in the end if you are having fun and your players are having fun, you're doing things right.

[Buster]

Personally, I like GMs who aren't afraid to kill me if I make a serious tactical or strategic error. It makes the game more realistic and rewards me for being smart. What's the point of being clever and thinking things through if a carebear GM is just going to let me slide no matter what a dumbass I am?

However, when sitting in the kitchen around the dinner table, sometimes it's hard to visualize the situation your characters are in. In a lot of cases when I was a GM, I would give a player a quick heads up if he's about to do something his character would find obviously insane like forgeting that an enemy is right in front of him or the fact that he's standing on a slanted roof when about to go full VR.

If the player was just careless though, I would let him learn from his mistakes. For example, I probably would not say anything if the character was about to enter a room before peeking around the corner first to see if the room is safe. I might give him a hearing perception check right before he enters to let him hear the dragon inside or whatever, but otherwise he's free to make his own mistakes.

It's hard to make a blanket rule, but in general I would say: (Obvious Insanity = A Free Reality Check) but (Carelessness = Death).

[Synner667]

"Treat 'em mean, keep 'em keen" !!

[Backgammon]