Picking Up The Pieces, What do you as a GM do after a run is over? Options

[Phylos Fett]

Okay, the run is over, the Karma and ¥ has been handed out, and the players and packing up to go home and the characters are healing their wounds, having a beer, and whatever else they do in their downtime.

As a GM, what do you do when the run is over?

Personally, I like to go through the run scene by scene and see what would happen after the characters have gone on their way.

Example 1: The runners blasted their way out of the corp facility that they were stealing prototype A from, bodies of security personnel everywhere, alarms blaring, and made their way off into the night. As long as no one is following them, they pretty much don't give a second thought to it.
However, Security Chief Smith gets the alert at home that one of his facilities has been breached, and there is damage to the facility and assets. Smith gets out of bed, dressed, and storms into the facility.
"What the drek happened here?!? Are we run a secure facility here, or an open house?!? Do we have a security team, or did the girl guides do a shift tonight?!?"
He talks to any personnel that are still able to talk, has video feeds checked, has any evidence left at the scene collected, and reports are filed. Repairs are made to the facility, perhaps the security is upgraded, new staff are assigned. There may be promotions and demotions in the security personnel. If it was a big enough prototype, Smith might be doing security for the corps fake dog poop factory next week...

Example 2: The runners have a meet with Mr. Johnson at a bar. After a few drinks before and after the meet, and a chat with the Johnson, they leave to do the run, probably never entering the bar again.
The local gangers notice the flash car that the Johnson was in, and his bodyguard. Not often that kind of money comes into this area. They also notice the runners, as they scope out the exterior of the bar for entry and exit points and any sign of a trap.
Inside the regulars notice some new faces, some of them are out of place for the venue, armed, or otherwise noticed. The bar staff make small chat with those that order the drinks.

I'm not saying that I play out every little part of a scene to see where it leads when the characters have moved on, rather look to see if anything interesting can come from the fallout of the run.
Security Chief Smith might find something that links the runners to another job that they pulled, or one of the security staff that survived might take a desk job in another part of the corp that causes him to run into one of the runners looking to get permits for gear, or one of the teams contacts might be asked for some expertise rebuilding the security system of the facility.
The gangers might see the runners hanging around down the track, and figure that their might be some action or ¥ to be made following them for a while, or the barmaid might run into one of the runners at the local Stuffer Shack, or one of the regulars at the bar might be a cab driver that picks up the runners after a night out.

As I said, that's some of the things that I look at in my downtime as a GM - seeing if there are any interesting bits I can take to throw at the runners later, to make it more of a world they live in, and not just a place the players visit once a session.

[Thadeus Bearpaw]

Okay, the run is over, the Karma and ¥ has been handed out, and the players and packing up to go home and the characters are healing their wounds, having a beer, and whatever else they do in their downtime.

As a GM, what do you do when the run is over?

Personally, I like to go through the run scene by scene and see what would happen after the characters have gone on their way.

Example 1: The runners blasted their way out of the corp facility that they were stealing prototype A from, bodies of security personnel everywhere, alarms blaring, and made their way off into the night. As long as no one is following them, they pretty much don't give a second thought to it.
However, Security Chief Smith gets the alert at home that one of his facilities has been breached, and there is damage to the facility and assets. Smith gets out of bed, dressed, and storms into the facility.
"What the drek happened here?!? Are we run a secure facility here, or an open house?!? Do we have a security team, or did the girl guides do a shift tonight?!?"
He talks to any personnel that are still able to talk, has video feeds checked, has any evidence left at the scene collected, and reports are filed. Repairs are made to the facility, perhaps the security is upgraded, new staff are assigned. There may be promotions and demotions in the security personnel. If it was a big enough prototype, Smith might be doing security for the corps fake dog poop factory next week...

Example 2: The runners have a meet with Mr. Johnson at a bar. After a few drinks before and after the meet, and a chat with the Johnson, they leave to do the run, probably never entering the bar again.
The local gangers notice the flash car that the Johnson was in, and his bodyguard. Not often that kind of money comes into this area. They also notice the runners, as they scope out the exterior of the bar for entry and exit points and any sign of a trap.
Inside the regulars notice some new faces, some of them are out of place for the venue, armed, or otherwise noticed. The bar staff make small chat with those that order the drinks.

I'm not saying that I play out every little part of a scene to see where it leads when the characters have moved on, rather look to see if anything interesting can come from the fallout of the run.
Security Chief Smith might find something that links the runners to another job that they pulled, or one of the security staff that survived might take a desk job in another part of the corp that causes him to run into one of the runners looking to get permits for gear, or one of the teams contacts might be asked for some expertise rebuilding the security system of the facility.
The gangers might see the runners hanging around down the track, and figure that their might be some action or ¥ to be made following them for a while, or the barmaid might run into one of the runners at the local Stuffer Shack, or one of the regulars at the bar might be a cab driver that picks up the runners after a night out.

As I said, that's some of the things that I look at in my downtime as a GM - seeing if there are any interesting bits I can take to throw at the runners later, to make it more of a world they live in, and not just a place the players visit once a session.

Immediately after the game is finished we do ratings and critiques on each other's performance as a group. We find it really helps people improve week to week. Than I usually find that a complete break from the game is good. So whoever is sticking around for the last bowel of shisha and I usually end up playing magic or a LAN game or something to that extent. I don't start narrowing down the consequences of the game until the next day when I have a clear head and can start preparing for next week.

[Draco18s]

Immediately after the game is finished we do ratings and critiques on each other's performance as a group. We find it really helps people improve week to week. Than I usually find that a complete break from the game is good. So whoever is sticking around for the last bowel of shisha and I usually end up playing magic or a LAN game or something to that extent. I don't start narrowing down the consequences of the game until the next day when I have a clear head and can start preparing for next week.

Similar here. We usually end a run at 10:30 or so (the building we do our games in closes at 11) or the session runs over into next week. After runs we give out Nods, that is, each player picks two things they thought someone else deserves recognition for and that person gets 1 karma. No one's allowed to Nod a previously Nodded event.

D&D games get Nods also, exp being 1/100th of the amount it takes to level, of course, they were tracked differently and could be spent anytime (for 1/100th of the current need to level rather than some being 10 exp and others being 20 or 30). Worked out that if you saved up and HAD 100 you'd "instantly level," so it was a little better than spending them right away, but most people did a combination ("Oooh so close to leveling, just need 100 more exp! Ah! I can spend 2 nods (of 18) I level!").

[Dream79]

Well you could always come up with follow ups any way you want. One way to do it is think of any lose ends the group might have not covered. Did the PCs make an attempt to disguise there appearance on the run? Did any of them forget to erase the RFID tag on the <fill in blank here> they picked up before the run? Does the target make an offer to the fixer (likely not knowing he set the job up) for information about who's responsible? Did the runners get photographed running a light when leaving the facility? Did the mage leave her astral signature all over the place? Did the runners decide to lay low for awhile or do they start throwing around nuyen like there pockets are on fire? If they do, does anyone make the connection? I can go on all day with this, I think you get the point though.

[Blade]

- Go through the run and see if everything was ok and how people will react to the event.
- Check my notes to see what happened, update the situation and take notes of what will/could happen next.
- Post the messages of the day on the city's Shadow network.

[BIG BAD BEESTE]

Well, first up I normally go home and then immediately update the character sheets on my PC and whack in any downtime details to the campaign calendar. Yup, I also stick in any GM notes on each character that are pertinent, say that they've pissed off a contact or left something behind that could come back and bite them. I can then review the game and the occurances/consequences of their actions and then hack out a few news items that will later be seen or heard of by the runners. (Remember the good old Seattle News-Intelligencer reports Darth?)

So, pretty much like you I try to keep the gameing environment alive and vibrant. Actions will have consequences - maybe not immediate ones, and maybe not always heard of by the same group (I also have had several different groups running in the same timeframe and sometimes they come across the results of the other group's actions). I also try to keep a realistic event planner as to weather, festivals, social situations/trends etc. so that the world is more believeable. Plus these things make for interesting opportunities/flavour to the runs - nothing like knowing its winter to put off swimming across Lake Washington to the target or hot humid summer days to get the team to strip off all those heavy unbearably warm kevlar layers or start taking stun fatigue. Heh. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

One recent occurance was the resulting end to a certain scenario from 1st Edition (#3105). I tinkered with the overall threat level and altered a few things about it - in the end scene the bad dude had tracked down the missing artefact to a Talismonger buddy of both the combat mage and raccoon shaman players. (The combat mage had originally taken it to them for astral analysis and hadn't told them to keep it quiet, so the Talismonge had stuck up some queries about the artefact on the Matrix, including a full 3d holographic image in an attempt to find out more information. this led the bad dude to the Talismonger's ranch in Snohomish whereupon he subdued them and then got them to call in their runner friends to return the artefact. yup, the good old hostage brings you to me ploy.

Well, the runners responded mainly by the face and ex Lone Star SWAT weapon specialist calling in their own contacts and thus imparting the whereabouts of the big bad dud to the Lone Star detective hunting him down with gusto. They then pulled out of the area waiting for their buddy's SWAT team to handle the situation (seeing as the Talismonger was a legit citizen), meanwhile the mage and the shaman were having a heated tete a tete about returning the artefact to save their buddy's life (big bad dude had strapped a liquid explosive bomb to the Talismonger's chest y'see). Of course, the mage being more "exposed" to the artefact wanted to keep it and let the SWAT team sort it all out. The shaman eventually knocked him unconcious, retrieved the artefact and then went in to do the trade off on his todd just as the SWAT team were moving on the ranch.

He tried to con the bad dude and his remaining mage accomplice with an empty case and fluffed it. Just at that moment the SWAT team are converging on the ranch's back doorstep, the unconcious combat mage is still in the shaman's van parked out front, and the vengeful LSSS detective chooses that exact moment to turn up with his fully armoured FRT bullyboys in a panzer. Well, needless to say it all went horribly wrong for the Talismonger.

BOOM! The ranch went up taking out several of the SWAT team who were inflitrating their way into the kitchen. The bad dude started running for cover whist popping off highly accurate caps at the LSSS FRT troopers. The shaman ended up in a one on one magical dual with the bad dude's mage associate, eventually only defeating him by grabbing the artefact and channeling its power to fry the bugger with one awesome Powerbolt. At that point his totem went oopsie and he saw the thing he'd released from the artefact's ancient prison (a wraith actually that had now fed enough on the death energies around it to go free). He promptly passed out via drain overdoseage.

Wrapping up: Shaman severely wounded and in custody of the local authorities (LSSS) who want answers to what happened and why so many of their troops and SWAT team got killed there. He gets off charges with his false ID and a convincing story backed up with his tribal connections that he was just there to visit the Talismonger on business. Besides, he didn't really commit any crime that they could prove and the magical analysis of the associate mage's (RE: terrorist's) corpse was inconclusive due to strange background count and spiritual interference. He was then sequested away by his local tribal connections to recuperate in their care and eventually understand via their shamanic lodges just what he'd done in using the artefact. (His jaw dropped open when I mentioned a reference to Earthdawn Horror Marks!)

The combat mage had it a little worse. Well, not only was he effectively Horror Marked by his association with the artefact, he'd also been picked up by the Star for "questioning". Unfortunately, they'd previously raided his high class apartment earlier that weekend and although he'd escaped and then remembered to use a water elemental to erase the hermetic summoning circle chalked out on his floor, and thus eradicate his astral signature from it before LSSS forensic mages compared it to the corpse of the other bad dude's associate mage he'd wasted with a force 10 Manabolt three days ago. Yup, that's premeditated murder and they got his astral signature from that cooling corpse. They definately wanted answers to how he was involved with the terrorists who killed many of their FRT troopers during that previous sting operation. The fact that he'd also left behind a fully decked out (and unlicensed) AK-98 assault rifle under the bed along with enough APDS and EX-Explosive ammunition and IPE offensive minigrenades to severely "disturb the peace" was merely icing on the cake for sending him down. He's currently doing time at a local high security detention facility that specialises in magically active inmates. Oh yeah, lots of waht-me-worry, magehoods and experimental weird stuff for this cop-killer. The player has now got a rigger character instead. He hasn't asked as to what happened exactly, but did originally tell the team to waste him if the Star got him as he knows the rumours of what they do to mages.

As for the face, she's hale and hearty and managed to get a payoff from certain acquired goods. The weapons specialist had some explaining to do to his SWAT contact, but they saw it all got fluffed up because of the impetuous arrival of the rogue detective. The Star have now demoted him and shuffled him off to a more appropriate posting (Chicago traffic cop) because the bad dude managed to pull out a diplomatic immunity ID and walk off scott free leaving the whole mess in his lap.

Meanwhile there's a wraith free in Seattle and it's very hungry...

[Wesley Street]

1. If the adventure went badly, I offer what advice I can to players on what they could have done differently. I want to make sure the game ends on a good note and while they usually do, there have been occasions where I sensed the players may have felt they were cheated.
2. If the PCs picked up a new contact I stat up an NPC sheet and put it in my Shadowrun binder.
3. I send an email to the group in the form of a world-building Jackpoint conversation. Right now we're running Emergence so I've been pulling bits from that after each adventure.
4. I take a shower and decompress my brain. I GM while standing up and am very animated but I'm also a natural introvert so I'm usually exhausted when I'm done.

[nezumi]

drink

[BIG BAD BEESTE]

Well, I've normally imbibed a 2 litre bottle of Irn Bru during the session and have enough of a sugar/caffine fix to keep me awake for the next 6 hours straight. Occassionally get the sore throat syndrome from taking too much or putting on strange and wonderful accents for the NPCs. Yes, Strange and Wonderful I said, definately not weird and terrible. No matter what my player say.

[Draco18s]

4. I take a shower and decompress my brain. I GM while standing up and am very animated but I'm also a natural introvert so I'm usually exhausted when I'm done.

Oh yeah, I know what that's like.
(I hate big social events)

[Chrysalis]

Oh yeah, I know what that's like.
(I hate big social events)

Showers?

[Draco18s]

Showers?

No. Being an introvert.
The act of merely interacting with another human being wears you out (mentally and/or emotionally, rather than physically, but one feels much the same as having run a mile or three).
Notably, this is only noticable when either a) it's someone you don't know, b) someone you don't like, or c) huge masses of people (parties, etc.).

[Adarael]

Drink myself into insensibility and cry myself to sleep over the ruins of my life.

Or did you mean in-game? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[DireRadiant]

I make sure none of them follow me home.

[Matsci]

1. Take a player home
2. Go back to my home
3. Sleep.

[Phylos Fett]

(Remember the good old Seattle News-Intelligencer reports Darth?)

Geez - now that is showing my age...