Hate of gunbunnies?, Why do you hate them? Options

[Kagetenshi]

[JAG]

[Solidcobra]

yeah, there are rumors.... about people that like to shoot things.....
people that like to play... the gunbunnies....... *everyone: :eek: *
Yes, it is true! I once saw one of them... his exact words were.... "Screw roleplaying, can't we just have a shooting run this time?".....
PH33R!!!!!!

or maybe not.....

[JAG]

I must admit the potential of shooting things is better than the actual shooting.

Theres nothing better than facing down the mooks with your gun out with the "Do you feel lucky" :smokin: face on.

Chances are if you play it well, they'll run for it.

[Tiralee]

Thanks for the praise gknov. :D


And the answer to your query of who to waste first?

The DM answer is "The idiot who got you into the situation in the first place" -which may be you... :rotfl:

But saying things like that can get you showered in dice, so...

The player answer - Depends on the situation.

Prepardness, ability, knowledge of what's going on - these will drive a combat rather than "Looky, that guy got big gun...me waste him first?" (A common mistake that I fully exploit.)

For instance - Back up, got it?
Is your friendly "Geek the Mage" lurking on the sidelines with a control thoughts spell to even the odds a little? Or mob-mind? Or Hell-blast? Or a M-damage pistol?
Never underestimate a bit of friendly co-operation. It will save your ass more often than delta-grade cyber with accessories from the street fair.

Preparation-
Is the rigger about to open a can of whoop-ass on the hostiles with his usurpation of the security system? Have you bribed the right people to look the other way, or to leave a door helpfully unlocked? Is another go-gang trying to muscle in on the area, and can they be "encouraged" to be a bit active on the night of your run? Did you get that personel file from your decker and READ IT?

Please, please... Do a bit more preparation then "Ok, there's an alley here, we'll park the truck there and jump through a window if things screw up." (Hands up those who have heard this once too many times.)

Legwork saves lives.

Knowledge and Awareness of the mess you're in.
PERCEPTION = INT. The mage or decker might spot something out of place, and tell you about it. Try and listen even if it takes naval-class damage to make a dent in your head.

Knowledge - do you have a background skill in a particular topic to help a roll?
Maybe you know enough about Small unit tactics to help figure out what's most likely to happen, or if that Mage is carrying an ineffectual light pistol.
Hell, what mage is going to waste a combat round for an aimed shot when they can dump a power bolt on you?
What Troll is going to fumble for a secured weapon when this tire-iron is, literally, to hand?
What Sammy has enough Will to resist a stunbolt 9? Or 6 (heh, heh....)


Oh, and a GM rant now-

Please note:
Stun gasses can't be shot to death. And tends to be harsh in melee, too.
Wired reflexes don't help resist disease or pollution or shock or cold or fire damage.
8 Stunball is harsh.
Spirits are notoriously hard to snipe successfully.
So is "Toxic Wave".
Specialities work best in their element - try, at least.
Exploit the gaps, fake what you haven't got and misdirect attention like mad. People looking in the wrong direction get hammered 10 out of 9 times. :spin:

L.
"A friend in need is a friend to be avoided, a problem shared is a problem doubled and a stitch in time will leave you sewn up. Have a day."

[Lindt]

[bwdemon]

I just wanted to get a few words in on some big errors I've seen here so far. Some of them have already been corrected, but I can't help myself. :D

First, gunbunnies are not the only high-initiative characters out there. I've seen plenty of mages sporting 4d6 initiatives in my time and I know I'm not the only one. A high initiative character is always going to be effective, regardless of whether they use a gun, spell, sword, deck, vehicle, or whatever. I'd much rather face off against a chrome king gunbunny than a Bear shamanic sorcerer loaded with quickened Health spells.

Second, gunbunnies aren't the only specialists out there. Every character is a specialist, except the most generalized characters out there (skillwires & skills for miles on a magician with lots of low force spells... done) and they're only useful for gap-filling on a small team. A character may have secondary skills, but they should all boil down to one or two very obvious things that they excel at. I know that if I were a decker and I had to go somewhere that put me in physical danger, I'd want a teammate/bodyguard that could handle it. I'd definitely choose the guy who moved like a blur and never missed a shot over the guy who wasn't so quick or accurate, but who's nice to talk to. You want people who can handle their roles first and foremost; everything else is just gravy.

Third, a lot of people seem to have no idea how to handle availability. It's really hard to get most seriously unbalancing items in the game. It's also really hard to get some menial items and amazingly easy to get some that should be difficult. Do the players have the right contacts to get X? Can the contact get X? How much of X can the contact get? What's the contact's markup? Will someone else give X a better price? Is it worth it to someone to kill the contact in order to get X? Despite all of this, if you feel something would unbalance your game, say so and deny access to it. If the player isn't a munchkin, then he'll fit his shopping list to the game. If he is, then he'll whine and cry and flail and leave if you're lucky. If your GM is too thick to notice this, maybe bring it up to him or, god forbid, exercise a little self-restraint.

Fourth, SR is completely about combat or, more accurately, conflict. Whether it takes place in the astral, the matrix, the highways, or the alleys, SR is all about pitting X against Y and duking it out. This could be a conflict between stealth and perception, deckers and databases, guns and armor, whatever... the whole thing comes down to conflict and resolution of that conflict.

Finally, SR *requires* dice. I know, "perish the thought", but dice are what allow for resolution. If you aren't good at a thing, then you probably shouldn't attempt it unless it's an emergency. Some say a good GM doesn't need dice. I say that a GM who doesn't use dice where they're needed fails in his job. The various numbers on a player's sheet, along with suitable background material, should always determine how the character is played and how others react to them. They don't represent absolute ability to function exactly the same way under any circumstances at any time, though. They represent a general scope of ability. The dice show how a given character does at any specific time in any specific situation.

Examples:

1. A player comes up with a wonderfully stealthy plan, but their character has no clue how to do so, I'll flat out tell them that they don't know how to do that and they won't until they get the appropriate skills. I may let them try to implement it anyway, but it'll fail.

2. A player comes up with a wonderfully stealthy plan and their character has the ability to do so, but the others don't have the ability to implement it. They'll all still be rolling for themselves and it's likely that it'll go to hell. Still, for the good planning I'd give a mod to the players to help them along.

3. A player comes up with a wonderfully stealthy plan and all characters have the ability to do so and implement it. They'll all still be rolling, again with a mod for good planning, but failure is still failure. One lucky guard and one unlucky character makes for a blown plan.

Basically, nobody ever gets a free ride. All the planning you do won't overcome bad luck/information for you and/or good luck/information for them. It never has, it doesn't now, and it shouldn't in the game. Just because a person is good or even among the world's best at blackjack doesn't mean the house bends over when they walk in the door. The game still has to be played and the cards may not favor them that day. Same goes for everything else. Potential is all well and good, but show me results before I applaud.

[spotlite]

I think what SolidCobra has also been getting at is: why is the gun bunny always the target? Well, here's some thoughts on that.

The average gun bunny of the ilk we're talking about here looks like a threat. Often the biggest threat the bad guys are immediately facing. Lots of GBs sport obvious chrome, often obviously offensive chrome. They may have all silver cybereyes which is just odd, especially after Deus, they're probably sporting guns or other weapons.

Now, if the gun bunny is a human with no obvious ware except maybe a chance to spot reflex enhancements because of how he moves, ostensibly bearing only a pistol or an SMG, but there's a big fraggin' troll lurking behind him with an LMG, the troll is gonna cop for the first burst in my game. If there is a mage mid spell or with obvious spells sustained already then the geek the mage first 'rule' comes into play, then the troll will get it, assuming the GB hasn't leapt over there and torn them all a new drek hole.

Its about perception. If that same human was a total body conversion complete with macdonalds-pepsi sponsorship and an articulated arm mouting a chainsaw clutching in his hands his favorite assault cannon with 'betsy' stensilled on the side in his own blood (and not forgetting the multicoloured optic fibre mohican), then I'm afraid Mr Gunbunny has just earned himself twelve to eighteen round of hypervelocity lead as the bad guys freak out completely and ignore the possibility of the mage or the troll or anything except making whatever that thing is die. Giftwrapped, sir?

if you go somewhere inbetween with a GB who's wired, maybe a cybergun or other discreet, internal cyber, but is covered in body armour with a skillsoft jukebox maybe strapped to his leg, with a belt with spare clips, and general kit, and with his assault rifle or combat shotgun in his hands and almost certainly another back up gun or gun for a different job, then it becomes a more difficult assessment. As a GM, I'll make that assessment on an instance by instance basis. If the character does in fact scream 'target' at the bad guys, then he should expect those bad guys to deal with him if they can. If the player doesn't learn from this, then they can expect to be the ones usually shot at.

I had a player complain in my game a while back that they were the only ones getting shot fully auto at. The reason? they were an LMG wielding troll. The only other character in the group who looked like a threat (with an obvious cyberskull) got shot every bit as much as the troll, with the exception of if cover or range was a factor, since the troll didn't really hide so well...

The other characters in the group were adepts, or not-obvious magic users. they didn't look like a threat. once they cast a spell or somehow revealed the fact to the bad guys, they often DID get the geek the mage treatment.

Maybe it is your group that sucks, Solid, I don't know them really. But its my feeling that unless you're doing something to justify drawing fire more than others in the group, then you obviously shouldn't be drawing it.

[Kagetenshi]

[bwdemon]

Why is the gunbunny shot at most?

RP reasons: Looks most dangerous/scary of the group, enemies have a thing against character's race/look/whatever, gunbunny is in front of everyone else, everyone else is behind cover

Metagame reasons: can take the damage (best armor, highest body), GM just doesn't like gunbunnies

Random reasons: the dice said so, gunbunny is at the top of the "who gets shot at first" list

[Ol' Scratch]

There shouldn't be much of a question as to why the gunbunny gets shot at most. It's like wondering why deckers are the ones who get targeted by IC more than mages, or why mages take drain when they cast a spell while a rigger doesn't. It's what they do.

But I don't think that has anything to do with the topic at hand. The topic is a metagame "hatred" of them.

[Solidcobra]

take my current RL gunbunny as a example...
Ware that can be noticed: Wired Reflexes II, Dermal Sheat (is that spottable?), that's it!
and yet i get shot at the most, even if the Adept uses dual SMGs and i only use a single AR/SMG/Shotgun, even if the Troll wields a LMG, even if the mage just fried half the enemy squad and he shines with his nice "Armor" Spell.... and i just shot 2 of them (OMFG! The adept shot 3 and the troll shot 2.... the mage fried 5....)
Who gets targeted?
Is it the obvious mage that screams "I'm a mage, kill me!"?
Is it the troll with a LMG that just ripped their friends skulls out?
Is it the adept with dual SMGs that is keeping the survivors behind some boxes with suppressive fire?
NO!
It is.... you guessed it! The only one in the team with a essence lower than 2......
Sure, i survived, but why do they use APDS ammo on me? and not the mage or the troll?

gah, i guess all my GMs just plain suck (not my current online GM, he seems nice....)

[Kagetenshi]

Another reason is that because gunbunnies generally tend to be the simplest character type and the one most inexperienced players tend to start with, more people probably have memories of runs going horribly wrong as the result of the actions of a gunbunny than any other character type.

~J

[Tiralee]

Kagetenshi, Excellent point.

L.

"Uh, how come your magic 8-ball says "die?""
"That's because it's a Magic 8-Ball, cretin."

[gknoy]

[Kagetenshi]

It was quite an impressive mistake. Still, I'm partly to blame; never again will I try to make burst-fire dartguns! Fellow GMs, nearly killing characters with Narcoject overdoses is not a good idea for what is not intended to be the main fight of a run.

~J

[last_of_the_grea...]

Gunbunnies rule!

That said, there's more than 1 type of gunbunny. I'm assuming the problem is with gunbunnies that are really, really good at what they do but are out of line with the group's capabilities

I have found that a lot of these issues solve themselves if the GM tells the group before the campaign starts what the game concept is. That tends to make characters think about what they'll need as well as what they want. It also helps if they players make their characters at the same time and talk to each other about what they're making. But if ya try and mould the game to the characters after they're made and no player knew what any other player was making? Gah! Headaches!

[Tanka]

For one of my paused long-term IRL campaigns, we each had a niche to fill. We had two randoms, one mage, one rigger, and two meats. You made three characters to fill your niche, and stuck with one until it died or you felt it was time to retire it.

That can help resolve the "gunbunny" issue, since then the GM can make games around the niches working together. However, that is entirely up to the GM, and not the gunbunny. If the gunbunny takes the spotlight during combat, guess what...

IT'S HIS JOB!

Yell at the GM for making you fight, not the gunbunny for being good at what niche he's filling.

Make the gunbunny take Intimidation (Which, IMHO, shouldn't be linked to Cha, since most of the time you're trying to scare them, meaning you should have lower Cha than anything else).

[mfb]

Cha represents force of personality, not just luscious gams.

[Tanka]

True, in a way. Low Cha, as I see it, can either mean really hot and really arrogant, or really ugly, or he just can't talk to people without acting like an idiot.

High Cha could mean ugly and is just really good with people, or really hot and people just like to be around him because of his looks.

But this is all based on your own thoughts and views. To each their own.

[Kagetenshi]

[mfb]

doesn't she, though!

[Dim Sum]

Solidcobra, it looks like it's just your GM! :) So far, no one posting has said anything negative with regards to their own attitudes towards gunbunnies. And in view of your example of that firefight in which you were singled out for attack despite the more obvious threat posed by the others, especially the mage, I'd say your GM either has it in for you or your character, or has a bias against gun-toting sammies.

[Tanka]

*looks at all his Trolls wielding LMGs*

None of them ever died/were targetted because he was the gun-toting Sammie.

One did get put in jail for 10 or so years. He was fun.

[Ol' Scratch]

That's just bad GMing then. I know the first thing I would shoot at would be the huge ass monster with an equally huge ass weapon in his hand. I don't care if there's a freaky mage glowing blue standing next to him, the monster's getting my first clip of ammo.