Seriously Pissed Off Yaks, What is the runner team in for? Options

[ShadowDragon8685]

There's a line between "This is what I think could happen" and "This is what will happen, if you don't agree then you must be stupid!".

[knasser]

mfb, you seem to have a hard time distinguishing between "realistic" and "fun".

That's not what's been debated here. As MFB points out, he's perfectly entitled to run his game however he chooses. It is also, and I agree with him, an artificial distinction between realism and fun. Sometimes the two conflict, but they need not.

The argument has always been about what is realistic, and my point of view all along has been that it is realistic for a team of highly-trained infiltrator killers, with access to everything from nano-paste disguises and magic to explosives and 2070 hackers, to wreak untold harm on a basic criminal syndicate. And that it is not realistic for the Yakuza to be 'getting the word out via every drug dealer in every suburb to start watching for the PCs etc. etc.'

It's two people stalking through a maze . One has more guns than the other but what will matter is who gets to shoot the other one. Further, there are different victory conditions. One has to kill the other and remain intact, the other has merely to kill the other or severely wound him so that the rats that infest that maze will smell the blood and come running.

Let's not turn this into realism vs. fun unless it's acknowledged that MFB is not representing 'realism' for all of us.

[mfb]

I'm not busying your nuts because you hold a differing opinion on what should be fun. (Though if your nuts feel busted that way, I'll call it a side benny.)

kid, you're not even a blakkie. Laughlyn would eat you for breakfast. Doc Funk probably wouldn't deign to reply.

I'm busting your nuts because you're arguing long and hard that the Yaks should eat the players for breakfast. Frankly that's assinine. GMHammerings should be reserved for cases where the players inexplicably do something retarded - in this case, the GM escalated the situation to the point of "men with nothing to lose". So he hsould be willing to let them shoot their way free.

so, you're not telling me how to have fun--you're just telling me how to have fun. it's all so clear now!

[ShadowDragon8685]

kid, you're not even a blakkie. Laughlyn would eat you for breakfast. Doc Funk probably wouldn't deign to reply.

Yet you feel the need to point this out. Who's the more foolish?

so, you're not telling me how to have fun--you're just telling me how to have fun. it's all so clear now!

No, I'm not telling you how to have fun, I'm telling you not to tell other people how they ought to have fun, lest ye be told how to have fun. Or in short, applying the golden rule. Ram not thy opinion down other's throat, lest ye find yourself choking on some opinion in turn.

[Fortune]

There's a line between "This is what I think could happen" and "This is what will happen, if you don't agree then you must be stupid!".

You're right!

I'm busting your nuts because you're arguing long and hard that the Yaks should eat the players for breakfast. Frankly that's assinine.

[Jhaiisiin]

Holy crap people. Have you gone back and forth on this enough yet?

There are multiple perspectives and opinions here, and you know what? None of you are going to change the other's position.

Some feel the Yakuza will walk all over the PC's the moment they find out where they are. -- This is a perfectly valid and reasonable position, whether you agree with it or not.

Some feel the Yakuza are destined to be hurt or destroyed by the PC's because they are highly trained at what they do, and they have the knowledge and resources to make that destruction possible. -- This is ALSO a perfectly valid and reasonable position, whether you agree with it or not.

Others are of the opinion that the PC's are nigh invincible and can take down the Yaks simply because of Script Immunity. -- This is a valid position for some people, whether you agree with it or not/ (I don't)

As a whole, we've given Bibliophile a heap of info, ideas and insights to work with. It'd be nice to hear how everything plays out in the end.

That said, can we just agree to disagree instead of going at each other's throats? ShadowDragon8685, whether you intended it or not, you came off as highly aggressive towards mfb, and it's no wonder he fired back. C'mon guys, let's get back to keepin' drek simple around here, alright?

[ShadowDragon8685]

Well, I should hope so. I got tired of wading through his ceaseless attempts to browbeat other people into accepting his views, and so I returned the favor.

[knasser]

As one of the chief arguers against MFBs position, I'd just like to say I haven't felt that he's been abusive. Yes, he thinks I'm wrong which is hard to fathom, but he's entitled to think that if he wants.

Hey, it's the Internet and no-one ever really dies. Who's going to be big and offer to shake hands? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Peace, please. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

-Khadim.

[mfb]

No, I'm not telling you how to have fun, I'm telling you not to tell other people how they ought to have fun, lest ye be told how to have fun. Or in short, applying the golden rule. Ram not thy opinion down other's throat, lest ye find yourself choking on some opinion in turn.

which part of "if your group is having fun, then you're doing everything right" are you unclear on? i don't care how you, or anyone else, plays their game. i do care what you, and everyone else, thinks is realistic, because that's something that--while not wholly objective--can at least be debated with relative objectivity. i won't argue with how you play your game--but i will argue whether or not the way you play is realistic or not. whether you agree or disagree with me, re: the realism of your game, you're free to have fun doing it your way.

edit: hee hee! relative objectivity.

[ShadowDragon8685]

As one of the chief arguers against MFBs position, I'd just like to say I haven't felt that he's been abusive. Yes, he thinks I'm wrong which is hard to fathom, but he's entitled to think that if he wants.

Hey, it's the Internet and no-one ever really dies. Who's going to be big and offer to shake hands? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Peace, please. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

-Khadim.

I was being an ass. That was probably assinine of me, so I appologize.

[knasser]

I was being an ass. That was probably assinine of me, so I appologize.

"Congratulations. You have completed the Internet.
Play again?"

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[mfb]

i'm being an ass, too. you can tell because my fingers are on the keyboard.

[Riley37]

Thank y'all.

For the record, I disagree with mfb's position, but consider it reasonable.

Then again, I consider most PC teams unrealistic. Where, besides RPGs, do people of that degree of lethality band together in teams of 3-6 members, independent of large organizations but sticking together across various missions?

(I'm open to non-rhetorical answers. Curious, even.)

[Fortune]

Small independant terrorist groups (or even individual cells), thieves, survivalists, mercenary squads, hunters ...

[mfb]

i've actually never played a character in SR who was a member of a team. the closest i've come was sharing a team karma pool with two other runners who worked with each other only slightly more frequently than with anyone else.

[Kremlin KOA]

i'm not sure what you want from me. i already said that if you want to play the kind of game where the PCs can take on a Yakuza gumi and win, i won't stop you or even think poorly of you. if your group is having fun, then you're doing everything right.

the people i prefer to play with have the most fun when the game satisfies their sense of realism. we find it more realistic for the Yaks to eat the runners for lunch, if the runners are dumb enough to go to war. in a game where the PCs could take on an OC syndicate and expect to 'win', however you define winning, most of us would have a lot less fun.

i'm not telling anybody what type of game they should run. at worst, i'm telling people what they should think is realistic.

And you would be wrong.
Realistic should come from reality.
Look at someone like Frank Lucas, who used his family to outplay the Mafia in New York and beat them at their own game.
Look at the police force that took him down. It was a special unit thta did not have the backing of the rest of the police. They were without major connections and with a severely limited budget. They nevertheless took out the largest OC gang in Harlem. When you consider how most fo the cops there were white, that makes it that much harder.
Consider the Melbourne Killings.
Consider Vietnam.
Consider how a bodyguard protects his client from an OC syndicate.
Consider that Bin Laden has yet to be found, and still does damage.
Let me tell you a story.

Scene: Hong Kong
Scenario: Bodyguard team protecting a client.
Problem: client is threatened by local Triad boss.
Response: Head of Bodyguard team tells the client to fly his family out of Hong Kong, then has his team do a night of recon. The next day, he goes into the Boss' favorite cafe and sits down at the table the boss is eating at.
He smiles and says, "I know you understand english, so I wont bother speaking Cantonese. Do you know what a blood eagle is?" When the boss replied in the negative, the Bodyguard continued. "A blood eagle is an old Native American punishment. You place the body of the man face down and you cut into his back on either side of his spine. You then pull his lungs out through his back and turn them into wings. They die very slowly and painfully, unable to effectively breathe. Now i really hope we don't have a problem. Here is what is going to happen, I am going to receive a phone call." At this point one of his people called his cellfone, he was watching the cafe with a sniper rifle at the time. The Bodyguard listened to the call and then spoke to the Boss. "Right ynow your wife is just leaving the house to go shopping, she is wearing," He described what the wife wore. "Your son is at school in gym class, wearing," another description of clothing. "And your 8 year old daughter is in art class outside, wearing," za third description of clothing. "We don't have a problem, do we?" He then stood and left the cafe.
The man who did this was not some supersoldier from the future, he was the guest lecturer for bodyguarding at my Security guard school. This kind of shite is common

[Kremlin KOA]

Thank y'all.

For the record, I disagree with mfb's position, but consider it reasonable.

Then again, I consider most PC teams unrealistic. Where, besides RPGs, do people of that degree of lethality band together in teams of 3-6 members, independent of large organizations but sticking together across various missions?

(I'm open to non-rhetorical answers. Curious, even.)

Small squad level mercenary operations.
Freelance bodyguarding teams
Security consultant teams.
that is all i can think of

[bibliophile20]

Well, I have to say thank you to everyone for their opinions on the situation

There's also the fact that all of you kept my players amused with the rapidly increasing post count; one of them commented that what they need in their AR displays are counters for:
Body count
Current bounty
Post count on this thread

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Anyway, so here's the deal; my campaign has lasted for about six/seven months by this point; it was my first campaign, and I've learned alot from it, both what to do and what not to do. Between those facts and my workload this semester, we're going to be wrapping up the campaign in the next few sessions.

[Critias]

And you would be wrong.
Realistic should come from reality.

Neat stories, but not terribly on topic. Why? Because "reality" in Shadowrun is a far fucking cry from "reality" in, well, reality. It's a simple fact that the organized crime syndicates in Shadowrun have been presented to us as being altogether nastier, more efficient, more powerful, and more respected than they have in real-life. They are the mobs and mafias of the heyday of mobs and mafias. Just like the gangs we're shown in Shadowrun are the mid-80's nightmares and over the top oversimplifications of what gangs are (and what they might grow into in a dark future), so are the criminal organizations.

Everyday schmucks don't go on successful anti-crime family rampages in Shadowrun, because in Shadowrun the ability to go on a truly successful murderous rampage is dictated by die pools for attacks and soaking damage and what quality of weapons you have and a million other things that aren't, truly, quantifiable in real life. Some schmuck without any real skills at all and a light pistol will not successfully slaughter a room full of chipped-up or magically active Mafia hitmen in Shadowrun's reality, simply because that's the way the dice are very, very, unlikely to fall.

We know that in Shadowrun's reality criminal organizations are full of lethal, trained, augmented, and bloodthirsty professionals. We also know that in Shadowrun's reality criminal organizations are ridiculously wealthy and powerful, running, openly running sometimes, entire sections of major urban centers. We also know that in Shadowrun's reality criminal organizations are the big dogs which the little dogs (street gangs) hurry to obey, and that (as presented to us in canon) even those little dogs are nastier and more influential within their realms than PCs generally are.

That is the "reality" of Shadowrun. In real life, lots of zany things happen (like everyday schmucks going nuts and murdering a bunch of organized criminal thugs). Heck, in real life I know of at least one case where an untrained granny shot and killed an entry team officer that was serving a warrant on her house (with a wrong address). In Shadowrun, granny would have a pitifully low skill level, face penalties from darkness and then from glare, the Lone Star SWAT samurai would make a badass dodge with his chipped reflexes, and probably would've gone before granny aniways and pasted the bitch without even needing combat pool for it. REAL LIFE IS NOT SHADOWRUN. "REALISM" IN SHADOWRUN REFERS TO THE SHARED REALITY WE ALL ACCEPT BY PAYING GOOD MONEY FOR CANON SOURCEBOOKS.

The game, as presented, is largely about small groups of criminals that slip through the cracks in society for fear of those larger and more terrifying groups that pay them to do jobs for them. The Yakuza is, as presented, one such larger and more terrifying group.

In some games, that may not be the case. PCs might outgrow their status as errand boys and lapdogs, and grow to threaten or intimidate those larger groups. Those games are perfectly fine. If anyone gives a fuck, they can go back and find mfb and I saying that over and goddammed over again. They are just not the same games we play.

[mfb]

And you would be wrong.
Realistic should come from reality.

yes, and in reality, stories like American Gangster are told precisely because they happen so rarely. if every young black hustler with guts and spirit in the 70s had gone on to run a major crime family, do you think they'd be casting Denzel for that movie? do you think they'd have made a movie at all? no, they wouldn't have, because nobody would have cared. that movie, and movies like it, was made precisely because the events were so extraordinary. same with the dude in Melbourne.

Viet Nam proves my point, thank you very much. a relatively small, elite, well-armed group of fighters invades the turf of an intelligent enemy who has a wide reach and lots of bodies to spend, and what happens? the small, elite group shits its teeth.

and Osama proves what i've been saying about influence this whole time. during the 80s and 90s, maybe even the 70s, the US phased out a lot of its human intelligence operations and began relying mostly on electronic intelligence. instead of infiltrating enemy organizations and learning what they were doing from the inside, the US got this dumbass idea that it could just monitor the whole world via satellite. they lost their influence in the middle eastern black market/terror community, while Osama and company went on to be war heroes because they 'beat' the USSR in Afghanistan. yet again, the US is the small, elite force of asskickers, but they can't beat the big, wealthy, well-connected bad guy because the bad guy is big, wealthy, and well-connected.

good for your bodyguard buddy. i'm happy for him. i'm proud of him. in SR, he would be one of many operators at his level of expertise, and the Yaks would employ lots of guys like him. he wouldn't, in all likelihood, have been able to find the syndicate leader's family, much less put a sniper on them after only a night of recon; nor would he have been able to grab a seat at the leader's table at some cafe. more to the point, he didn't actually have to follow through on that threat. he walked in, made a quiet threat, and walked out. that the syndicate leader believed him is a testament to the bodyguard's personal skills, not his ability to gut a large crime syndicate single-handedly.

[martindv]

Isn't a blood eagle a Viking ritual?

Anyway, the exception almost never proves the rule. That's why it's an exception. Like I said, anything can happen once.

But when it comes to OC, I keep thinking about how Paul Castellano was gunned down during the Christmas rush in the middle of Manhattan and yet no one saw a thing.

In this case, destroying even one of the Seattle Yakuza rings seems to me like, and especially seems as realistic, as Hudson Hawk robbing a priceless artifact from the Vatican with less than a day's (more like a couple hours, at most) planning. Amusing, but completely ludicrous.

[Guardian]

Don't leave us in suspense, bibliophile, what happened?

nothing is more important that satisfying the group. the group includes the GM. if the GM isn't having fun, he's not going to keep GMing.

That's absolutely true. Everybody needs to be having fun.

[Kremlin KOA]

yes, and in reality, stories like American Gangster are told precisely because they happen so rarely. if every young black hustler with guts and spirit in the 70s had gone on to run a major crime family, do you think they'd be casting Denzel for that movie? do you think they'd have made a movie at all? no, they wouldn't have, because nobody would have cared. that movie, and movies like it, was made precisely because the events were so extraordinary. same with the dude in Melbourne.

Viet Nam proves my point, thank you very much. a relatively small, elite, well-armed group of fighters invades the turf of an intelligent enemy who has a wide reach and lots of bodies to spend, and what happens? the small, elite group shits its teeth.

Small elite group? You are referring to the US military as small? and as elite? There were more marines in vietnam than there were VC soldiers.
They had better equipment, they had the money, the international contacts and all the big bombs. they were not the Shadowrunners in the analogy.

and Osama proves what i've been saying about influence this whole time. during the 80s and 90s, maybe even the 70s, the US phased out a lot of its human intelligence operations and began relying mostly on electronic intelligence. instead of infiltrating enemy organizations and learning what they were doing from the inside, the US got this dumbass idea that it could just monitor the whole world via satellite. they lost their influence in the middle eastern black market/terror community, while Osama and company went on to be war heroes because they 'beat' the USSR in Afghanistan. yet again, the US is the small, elite force of asskickers, but they can't beat the big, wealthy, well-connected bad guy because the bad guy is big, wealthy, and well-connected.

Australia, Britain, Japan, etc. These are countries that are part of the 'COalition of the willing' and some of them (notably australia) did not phase out their infiltration operations. ANd you really need to be educated on the relative strengthsd of nations militaries if you think of the US armies as a small elite force.

good for your bodyguard buddy. i'm happy for him. i'm proud of him. in SR, he would be one of many operators at his level of expertise, and the Yaks would employ lots of guys like him. he wouldn't, in all likelihood, have been able to find the syndicate leader's family, much less put a sniper on them after only a night of recon; nor would he have been able to grab a seat at the leader's table at some cafe. more to the point, he didn't actually have to follow through on that threat. he walked in, made a quiet threat, and walked out. that the syndicate leader believed him is a testament to the bodyguard's personal skills, not his ability to gut a large crime syndicate single-handedly.

In the real world he is one of the many operatives at his level of skill, he is not unique. and the point of the story was to remind you that the Yauza in the OP's scenario still have things to lose, things they MUST protect.

[martindv]

You're right, Kremlin.

Half a million Americans with better weapons, training, and logistics killed 3 million Vietnamese, and yet still couldn't beat an enemy with better familiarity with the environment and better intelligence.

Way to support your argument.

[toturi]

Actually the Vietnam war proves Kremlin's point on both sides of the conflict. When either side had the smaller but better trained elite force, that force forced a larger, better equipped, supposedly better informed force to run in circles looking for them(even when intel was leaking like a burst water main from the other side).

From my point of view, it is evident that the runners should be able to inflict some damage to the Yakuza and that the Yakuza has to allocate some resources to apply pressure on the runners in the first place. How much resources and how much damage can be caused is up to the dice gods and in the hands of the GM. I have already stated that with baseline canon, unadulaterated with even RAW NPCs, the RAW PCs should be able to hurt the yakuza very badly. Yes, I am aware that "nobody" plays like this, but it serves as a basis for comparison.