[X] My Assistant

[Cantankerous]

I mean, if I've got 3 players approaching a facility, where there's a sniper, how do you choose which character he sets his sights on? And worse, if there's an NPC on the team, how do you resist the temptation to have HIS head blown off first and give your pals/players a chance to dive for cover?

I've got a dice roller now days, so with it I just use a combination of common sense and do the proper Stealth vs Perception tests. There is a splendid mechanic in 3rd edition with "open tests" and those usually do the trick for the first question. For the second, the NPC might well get chosen by fiat. THAT is something that can't be seen, if you don't do it all the time.

Also, a good GM doesn't SIMPLY spring the attack on unaware PCs unless they have a reason to be aware and have chosen not to be.

Unless Mr. Sniper KNOWS that they are coming, why does he spot them without the proper tests. Sure, if it works for the NPCs it should it bloody well better work for the PCs as well, but vice versa is also the truth. If the PC would have to make said tests, so does the NPC ... period, full stop.



Isshia

[Speed Wraith]

Honestly, I can't give an opinion at all without knowing the specifics of what it is you have in mind. A GM asking when it's okay to "cheat" is such a vague question, that can mean so many different things, I genuinely can't anwer the question without knowing what you're wanting to do, exactly (and, of course, even then I can only tell you whether I'd do it as a GM or not, or what I'd think of it as a player were it to happen to me).

At any rate, don't worry about "boring us." If folks don't want to read it, they can scroll down (we all do it all the time).

Er, geeze, yeah okay.

MY PLAYERS BETTER NOT READ THIS! 'Specially you! You know who you are! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)



So one of the characters is a 14 year old technomancer that suffered greatly at the hands of MCT researchers up until she was liberated by a team of runners, who have her pulling hacking work for them to earn her keep (good short version of the background!) The plotline I want to involve the group in would pretty much wreck some conventional SR stuff, and I'm pretty sure it blatantly breaks the normal rules. During a run that is unrelated to the larger story, I'm going to have the techno encounter a very unusuall icon/persona that seems vaguely familiar to her. As things go on for the group the anamolous persona will hound the group with minor problems and weird occurances, hopefully the players take the bait (knowing my group they will without much prodding...so long as it does something to affect their bottom line (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) ) and begin investigating. They'll eventually discover that the weird persona is actually a spirit (start your head shaking now) inhabiting in a unique way another technomancer who was also in the MCT lab when the other character was. The spirit and the original vessel have merged in such a way that it has access to the technomancer's resonance and has been exploring the virtual world looking for an escape and has fixated on the one person that the vessel was familiar with.

I'm hoping that this will evoke a feeling with the player and character of, "Oh god, that could have been me, I was one of the lucky ones!" I'm also hoping to make this my 'First Season Finale' with the second part of the story being an attempt to free the spirit from the kid and doing some serious jet-hopping to the dark heart of Africa (lions and tigers and ghouls, oh my!)

So, yeah, I plan on stressing that this is a one-time event that isn't normally possible etc., and yeah, it really does screw with a lot of rules and long, long established conventions. No, of course the spirit won't have access to any of its abilities, even in the physical world. I wouldn't worry so much about it if it weren't so...totally against everything I've ever thought about or done in SR before (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

[Jaid]

as u thought, everyone who was throwing a fit about railroading were all barking up the wrong tree.

he asked for an opinion on whether it was ok to say "well, the rules tell me this is impossible, but it's more cool if it is possible", not "how can i force my players to accept the runs i hand to them?"

yeesh, talk about overreacting.

[masterofm]

It was a suggestion about what people generally notice, but where is the flaming? No. Was he doing anything wrong? No. In fact many of us said that we broke the rules, but just tried to stay away from forcing a story on a player. Why is that so wrong?

[Cantankerous]

The problem isn't changing the rules anyway. The problem is changing the rules and then changing them back instantly so that the same rules that apply to the NPCs do NOT also apply to the PCs. That IS railroading on a very straight and single line track.

The other possibility here is the more attractive one if you want your Players to feel that they actually DO have any control over their own interactions in game. Simply, allow the PCs to do ANYTHING that the NPCs can do, but make it as bloody difficult as it should be.

Hey, the Corps that spawned this project didn't spend (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) 50,000 on it and call it a day. There are probably thousands or tens of thousands of man hours and tens of millions of (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) involved. The PCs may be able to steal or reverse engineer allot of the process. Why not? The corps do that to one another all the time. But that only helps catch them up a bit. They still need resources beyond pretty much anything they might have available without outside help to bring the pay data to realization.

ALWAYS allow the PCs and even break. Always allow the NPCs an even break.



Isshia

[the_dunner]

[ Spoiler ]

I'm pretty sure it blatantly breaks the normal rules. ... The spirit and the original vessel have merged in such a way that it has access to the technomancer's resonance and has been exploring the virtual world looking for an escape and has fixated on the one person that the vessel was familiar with.

First off, I wouldn't call this cheating. What you're doing is describing a special scenario which may violate the rules, and may be inconsistent with the setting. That's a horse of a different color from cheating. Honestly, I'm not sure off hand if you're violating the rules. I'd need to re-read the Possession section of Street Magic, and check and see what it says about Resonance. My gut instinct is that it was not addressed. However, my gut instinct could very well be wrong. Either way, it's certainly outside the realm of what's normal.

Having said that, it's a bit of a bait and switch. You're venturing into things that don't really fit with the canon Shadowrun world. If you and your players are cool with exploring new things (I've certainly involved Cthulhu in SR before, and that's venturing into a whole 'nother realm), then it's not an issue by any stretch. However, if your players are expecting very explicit by the book SR, then this is probably a bad thing.

Either way, though, it's not a railroad, which was the biggest immediate concern from your initial vague description.

[Vegetaman]

I have been known to bend the rules from time to time for the sake of the story, good role playing, or what have you. Like I had another character eat a bullet for another PC that was going to get murdered. It was our first game out, and it's cruel to murder someone with no hand of god on the first mission, you know. I had to keep them interested enough to keep coming back for a few missions before I dropped the hammer on them. :grin: