Too hard vs. too soft GMs, Where to draw the line... Options

[Panzergeist]

If the enemies have expensive gear that they never actually make an attempt to use, the GM is basicly a Santa Claus. If he doesn't let you rip out enemie's cyber and sell it used, he's a grinch.

[Crusher Bob]

I'd normally give out break based on how 'right' the characters have done everything (based either on a procedural sense, ue good tactics, or in a story sense) this is to reward doing this right. If the characters die even when they have 'done right' they will quite possibly remember this and resent it. I've seen a few games ruined by this (exacerbated by different perceptions of what 'the right' thing to do was). If the players are expecting SR to be like Ronin, Heat, Hard Boiled, etc then in their mind, shooting alot of stuff is 'the right thing to do'

On the other hand, I'd give an 'extra penalty' to stupidity. Doing something stupid IRL might not always turn out to badly (like when you stepped off into the street without looking), but once again, you don't want to encourage such activity.

So, for me, the there is a sliding scale 'right action' makes things tend to go your way while 'wrong action' makes thing more likely to go wrong, with 'normal' action being just that.

[MrSandman666]

Yea, I go a similar route.
I give them a break whenever I feel it's not their fault. It really sucks when you're doing the best you can and an (un)lucky dice roll kills your character.
However, whenever the players are being stupid (like trying to shoot someone in a bar full of gangers or don't take cover in a firefight or something similar) I try to show them consequences. If they let their characters die, so be it. I say 'I try' because I hate to kill characters. Especially with newbies I tend to be a little easier on them than I should, thus resulting in a boring game and 'educating' them the wrong way (i.e. 'being stupid doesn't hurt')

[Glyph]

I would try to cut characters a break, but on the other hand, I don't mess with the dice. If you don't have a truly random element in the game, it loses a lot. I think there should always be a chance, even if it's just a slim one, that you can do everything right and still fail, just as I think a stupid character should be allowed to be incredibly lucky if the dice roll that way. Let logical consequences happen, but don't go overboard "rewarding" or "punishing" characters for competence or stupidity - let it take care of itself naturally, and don't worry about the little glitches - they just add more realism.

[LoseAsDirected]

I almost never give my players the time to rip out 'ware.. There's usually either Lone Star quick on the pursuit, or security guards.. Either way, they just don't have the time to do it..

If, however, the manage to carry off the body, then I wont stop them.. But, at best, they'll get mostly already used cyberware, possibly a bit of standard grade, and rarely a few bits of alpha.. I have, to date, allowed players to rip beta grade 'ware ONCE, and it was only a set of spurs..

I've never actually used delta against my players.

Otherwise, I'm usually pretty generous with the gear..

If they have time to search a body, they'll usually find a few weapons, some ammo, and perhaps a credstick or two (with a game average of about 500 nuyen balance).. Again, they rarely have the time to do full searches, let alone do field removal of cyberware..

[nezumi]

I'd say it generally depends on the group. With my little brother, they can do a lot of dumb stuff, but I'll let it slide because hey, they're young and stupid, it's what happens (although they will come away with fewer hospital bills if they're smarter). With the CP game I run of people with 10+ years of experience, the dice generally lie where they fall. They've been around long enough that that real chance of death adds an edge to the game (plus, it IS CP). I will almost always give people extra dice or modifiers for exceptionally cool/well planned things. Cyberware... sometimes. If it's all in one place, like an arm or an eyeball, they can grab it with only a minimum amount of damage. But then they're walking around with a bloody arm or eyeball. Since 90% of the ware is more integrated, the only way they're getting enough ware to sell it is if they take the body somewhere where they have a couple of hours to dissect it. Luckily, none of my players are bloody enough to start chopping off heads for headware memory and the like.

In the end, it really is what makes the game fun. The GM has to be able to appreciate what the players want (as well as what the GM wants). Personally, I enjoy playing such that death is a possibility even when I am doing everything 'right'. I don't want a garauntee, but a fair chance is fun.

[Wounded Ronin]

I still think the best way to get people to play SR tactically is to make them play one of the old and clunky Rainbow Six games where you planned the whole raid out beforehand, arranged your snipers, specified which rooms would be flashed, and so on. That really tends to emphasize the planning aspect and de-emphasize the "sociopaths on patrol" aspect.

The best part of doing this is that when the cops manage to kill one of the PCs you can say "Tango down!" and everyone will get it.

[Taran]

23rd of January? Ohshitohshitohshit I'm late how the hell did this...oh.

Wounded Ronin, you're a dead man. :P

[Mr.Platinum]

[Mr. Unpronouncea...]

[Wounded Ronin]

[Critias]

It's from '04. Not just '05. '04.

But, I agree. Rainbow Six, Ghost Recon, whatever. There's plenty of good FPS games you can run someone through, to try and get them into the "small unit tactics can be your best friend or your worst enemy" mindset of the game.

[Kagetenshi]

Ok, this thread is so old that I needed about ten minutes to dig up the memory of it the first time around, but it needs to be said:

[Wounded Ronin]

Yeah, I never really fully understood why some GMs really seem hell-bent on punishing bloodthirstyness per se, as if some vengeful Old Testament god watched over the actions of all Shadowrunners and stood ready to stack the deck of fate against them as soon as they took a single innocent life, especially in the context of a dark setting like SR where human life is devalued by the system in the first place.

I had a GM once who (admitted that he did) railroaded the whole party to death and capture because my character killed a homeless bum who was a witness to a murder we committed. He told me after the game that killing civilians would have "hell to pay". Granted, this was many years ago, and we were all relatively new at RPGs, so I don't mean this as a criticism of that individual. Still, it's an example of how in some cases GMs really seem invested in the idea that your shadowrunner, as a "professional", will utterly minimize collateral damage, even at risk to him or herself.

I would also like to point out that not all PC bloodthirstyness is necessarily going to be some kind of extension of munchkinism, since one accusation I see flung about sometimes is that a player who goes for a huge body count is only concerned with the "power" of his character and not with the "story" or whatever. I think it's very possible for a character to be aggressive and destructive but still be a well developed character. An example of this would be the character Conan in Conan the Barbarian. Conan racks up an impressive body count over the course of the film, killing others in gladitorial combat, seeking revenge against Thulsa Doom, and using tactics to slaughter Thulsa Doom's raiding party towards the end of the film. But that dosen't mean that Conan is a two-dimensional character. On the contrary, Conan represents certain philosophical ideals, concerning Zen buddhism and Nietzche, that director John Milius had adapted at that time in his life.

As http://www.barbariankeep.com/ctbds.html puts it,

[Ed Simons]

[Kagetenshi]

[Ed Simons]

Yes, it's a lot of maybes. And if even one applies (and most are probable) the bum is no threat to you.

But lets say he did get a good look at you and he was sober and he decides to go to Lone Star and they bother to listen to him and they decide he's a credible witness. How does that get the investigation looking at you?

[Critias]

Who says he's only gonna go to Lone Star? Who knows how the group killed, or why, or when, or over what? We're (without knowing better) assuming the murder was of a relatively innocent civilian, who was killed as part of a job... but who knows? The guy might've had Yak ties, or Mafia, or any other organization. Maybe Lone Star wouldn't've listened to a bum, but if someone's trying to see who killed the oyabun's nephew's college buddy, or something, different questions will get asked, in different ways, and to different people than LS would ask them.

Why leave the link, if there's no need to? What benefit is there to leaving the witness alive (aside from the psychotic GM who decided, after that fact, to call down the wrath of God on anyone who did anything "evil" in his professional-criminals RPG, apparently)?

[IAmMarauder]

What's to say the bum wasn't an undercover Lone Star, and there was a bound spirit keeping watch who tracked the runners and reported their details? It's a bit out there, but it is possible... Or maybe the voices that the bum heard in his head was a free spirit.

One thing I don't like as a GM are players with a "kill 'em all" attitude. I give my players a fair amount of freedom, but there are times they need to be kept in line. Like when they are going to a meet in an higher class area and think it necessary to take an assault rifle, or the troll decides to wander around a metahuman-unfriendly suburb wearing full combat armour (after the 5th house slammed the door in his face, they let the human character have a go).

I try to play a softer gm; if I know they can't handle a situation I tone it down, and I quite often fudge rolls to help them survive. But if they do something blatantly stupid, well, what can you do :)

[Wounded Ronin]

Decided to make a new thread.

EDIT: http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?act=...=ST&f=7&t=11601

There it is.

It concerns never fudging ever again.

[SL James]

[Critias]

[IAmMarauder]

Actually, the two things weren't related... I should have put "In regards to the original topic..." at the start of the second chapter... My bad.

As for the situations being linked, in a way they are. All of them show that the team was ill-prepared... If they were prepared properly, then there would be no reason to worry about the witness. If they were doing a job, surely they would have disguises or some sort on. Also, they should have planned on things going wrong, and be reasy to deal with what's coming. Depending on what the bum has witnessed, depends on what will happen.

Then again, there are other ways of dealing with the bum... Have the teams mage cast an illusion spell, making someone look little the classic little green man. Whilst that character pretends to examine him, cover him with rum and give him the bottle. Maybe move him somewhere where he will be noticed (avoid being noticed yourself), and might get arrested for being drunk in public... Instead of worrying about his testimony, strip the credability out of it... Like they'll believe anything he says when he starts talking about the little green men).

Also, you can make the witness work for you... Drop false info. Go through the pockets of the guy you killed, and drop a lines describing how the local mob boss ain't gonna like how the job went, he wanted noone to die. Call each other by false names. Make comments saying how you'll be glad to get the disguise off and hope that those stupid cops get the wrong guys like planned... So the bum saw eveything, at least he'll take the cops on the wrong path.

Of course, it may all be a moot point depending on the situation. If the runners got jumped, it was self defense. The bums evidence backs that up. The runners may be in trouble for leaving the scene of the crime, but they will most likely just close it off, no point wasting resources tracking down someone who doesn't need arresting.... If they ambushed someone in front of a witness, well maybe they deserve whatever their going to get...


As for your last paragraph: The GM cannot make the characters do anything, except maybe regret their choices. They cannot make the choice for them, that is for the players to do. To follow up the consequences of their choices, that's for the GMs to do. Granted, once they been arrested for wearing armour in town (and had their armour seized), they will think twice about doing it again. They are still free to do it again, and the GM shouldn't stop them. The GM shouldn't even remind them, unless they can do it "in game" somehow...

[Dawnshadow]

Cost-benefit analysis says screw that, to put it bluntly.

2 nuyen -- no answers will be forthcoming.

Drain, cost of the bottle of rum/whatever, and you're still at risk. Long term, beyond just the trial that there's no credible testimony. You've got someone who KNOWS, even if they can't prove it. And you can bet, if they're someone that dedicated, they'll be paying attention to you. And you'll end up either with them having lots and lots of evidence over time, or having to shoot them instead.. and they're people that will be investigated. A lot, by many different interests -- the few good cops, the multitude of bad... there's reasons galore to investigate, even if there's not much evidence. You might get away clean on the hit, and then find out that he left a folder full of hard-copy in his desk drawer at the 'Star Office'.

"I wonder why Bobby got wasted the other night?"
"Probably got too close to something -- I bet he's got a good case. Think we can haggle a promotion if we can figure it out? Let's raid his desk."

Then there's the time factor. If you've been shooting, you can assume they know you're there.. and have people coming. Takes a single action to blow away the bum; takes a full turn or two to sow disinformation; takes a minute or more to convincingly discredit him as a drunk, and remove the evidence (like.. astral signatures)

[Ed Simons]