Dealing with Hack 'n Slashers, Making players think Options

[LowKey]

Hi All,

I'm running a SR4 campaign with a bunch of players who's default response to a situation is to hit it with a big stick. While I haven't got a problem with this tactic, as we're all there to have fun, I have noticed that a couple of more 'matured' players and myself are not getting the same fulfillment out of the missions.

The alternative is that I throw runs at the team which involve a bit more thinking, but them the team stop thinking and practically need to be walked through the scenarios. I ended up in a situation where the group spent about 5 hours planning a run that was meant to take 2. I have asked some of the players for their advice as I felt that I was making the runs too complicated, but individually they perfectly understand the mission and what to do.

So I'm looking for some advice on getting players to think in a game setting, and working more in a group setting. Anything that I could try would be good, as I think beating up everything in range is going to get old. Fast.

[Stahlseele]

Either separate them and use them accordingly, or try to pair them up so that hopefully the "mature" players rub off on the Smashers a bit . . or the other way around ^^

[Runner Smurf]

I've run into a similar problem from time to time - planning takes waaaay too long, the players aren't having fun, and the GM is losing his mind because step 1 is "kill everybody" or "we set off the bomb."

I can suggest the following solutions:

1. In game. Throw a run that requires a delicate touch. Mr. Johnson insists on minimal casualties, and tells them up front that each body will reduce their payment by X thousand ¥. Make it a public place or a broad-daylight run to make it even trickier.
2. In game. Combine 1 with a very short timeline, so they just don't have time in game to plan.
3. In game. It's a bit heavy handed, but don't be afraid to overmatch the players. There are always better trained, better equipped security forces out there that deal with runners in very harsh ways. If shooting doesn't always work (or help), they are likely to try something else.
4. Out of game. Player management can be a tough job. It really helps to get one of the players to function as the leader. If not-so-subtle manipulation (like always acting one player what the team is doing), be overt with it, and suggest the players select a leader. In game, you can come up with story reasons why their character is the default leader (fixer only works with them, Johnson only takes call from them, etc.).
5. What worked really well to encourage good plans on the part of the players in one of my games too was to have one work from time to time. It's really easy to get caught in the "something always goes wrong" trap in Shadowrun, and if the players start to assume that the plan will always go wrong because of bad luck or arbitrary fiat, they won't really bother. Having a run well-planned run actually work, so that they get in, get the goods and get out without setting off the alarms or having a firefight makes they aim for that goal. Cheat if you have to in order to make it work. It may seem dull, but the players can get a real charge from it. You can always through Food Fight at them if they get bored with no action.
6. Out of game: I always tell the players the following: I occasionally watch CSI. LoneStar isn't stupid: Do the math. I would always joke about the forensics squad that LoneStar would be sent to figure out what happened. Turned into a story element of the team setting up a blind tab at a local bar if a run involved gunplay as an apology. Lots of laughs, etc. but it did cause a couple of them to start to think about the trail they were leaving. If the Star can start connecting multiple crimes to a single team (via ballistic fingerprints, trace DNA, etc.), they end up on a most wanted list. Contacts can start getting nervous dealing with them. Johnson's start looking for more subtle work...and they start attracting Johnsons with ugly, ugly wetwork jobs.

Just some ideas. Hope it helps. And makes sense.

[vladski]

Both Stahlseele and Runnersmurf offered up great suggestions and I would say implement all or many of them as you go along. The only place I would take care is with the "team leader" idea. This works well with some groups and with others fosters bad feelings because hte non-leaders start feeling like they are being bossed around. Or, maybe I have played with too many alpha dogs in my time. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

What I did with a larger group is sorta break the team leadership down into "parts."

A.) For the meet with the Johnson or with other important folks, the Face sorta took charge once he found out from the group what the general consensus was. This takes a good face that isn't trying to play his own game. And going with the face to the meet, whenever possible was one of the major fighter types (usually one of the alpha dogs). He was there for two reasons: 1. Ostensibly the bodyguard for the Face and 2. He would often confer with the face during the discussion on what hte mission perimeters would end up being, what was feasible and how hard. This kept group over analysis to a minimum because I refused to listen to anything the team sitting at hte table had to say and refused to allow them to coach the two players in the meet during the game.

B.) During the run itself usually one of the gun bunnies took charge of hte on the ground operations, whoever was most suited for the particular run. I tried to make sure it varied a bit so that no one felt like they were being short shifted of command decisions.

Also, pairing up runners (especially if this doesn't naturally begin happening) is a great device. Each player has a wingman and if they are compatible with each other you will find each beginning to select his own team leader. Then you have a sort of chain of command thing going where a couple or three leaders are starting to be the only ones conferring on making plans. It fosters more trust in the game after a while. What I started doing was pairing up runners who I thought played well together and had supportive skills for each other nad doing some mini runs where they took care of personal stuff... a B&E for one group, an outright assault for another... each designed with the payoff being something the individual players desired. I'd run these in an evening during hte main groups downtime.

Hope these thoughts help!

Vlad

[toturi]

Write their story and let them read it.

If the hack and slashers are fine with it, then you have 2 groups of people who have 2 very different views on gaming. But more likely they would find that brute force does get old after a while.

[HappyDaze]

But more likely they would find that brute force does get old after a while.

So too does subtle 'soft-touch' missions. Sometimes you just want to kill people and blow things up.

[toturi]

Of course, that's why I asked that the story be written and read. If you find it that things are getting old, then you'd change it.

[Wiseman]

Have their violent outbursts garner media attention which pressures the 'star to up the stakes and bring these guys down.

Throw them in prison and have them do a "Great Escape" type run. Make it's security level commensurate with their skill level. Heavy cyber individuals, magic and hackers need to be accounted for (keep the pressure on initially).

Then bring in the social element of inmates, rival gangs, dirty guards, and the truly mentally ill. Let them cook up some basic weapons for clubs and knives, probably get their hands on some decent drugs.

Run them through some basic scenarios: have them establish turf, fend off that guy who got in their face at the chow line when he bribes the guard to let them in one of the cells at night (or worse in the showers), survive a riot (that hopefully they helped ochestrate), and eventually escape...for now.

Then say.."did you get that out of your system? You ready for the big time?" and pick them up from there. Slap a criminal SIN disadvantage, give them the points for it and their karma and see if they're any wiser about staying out this time.

Or just wear sunglasses at the start of the game...oh and what Runner Smurf said =)

[DoomFrog]

One thing a gm of mine did, though I don't know if it was intentional but lead to our group trying to aim for less combat, was after a run that the plan was going in there and shoot everyone. When we were laying low we saw some media coverage about our run. The LoneStar officer said that the perps were obviously amateurs do to their sloppy work and would likely be caught quickly.

In the end we weren't actually caught and the statement was meant more as Lonestar just covering their own asses, but it did lead to us trying to act more "professional" as our Johnson made a reference to the media clip at the next meet.

Basically find an in-game way to grade their last performance on a run.

[KX082]

My current group is suffering from two parts of this same issue, not all players getting to play and the planing phase taking most of the meet time. I have to agree with the comments so far to deal with the string of violence in the game, just because the game isn't reality doesn't mean you have to suspend reality all together. What is more likely to make the news a murder (or 30 of them) connected to a break in of a tech plant or a break in of a tech plant where none of the guards where any the wiser to it. Also don't forget if the runners leave evidence loanstar might not catch on but the child or sibling of one of the murdered guards might. What is going to stop them from taking out a contract on the runners, or what if the guard lives and desides that revenge is the reason he lived?

Now to get all players to play, with my group certain options don't always use every character. The Gun adept with no stealth has no place in a mission that is all about stealth. As stated you can't always walk into a place and light it up with guns...more so for a high end plastic surgery office. So it does befall the GM to help make the option where all players play more appealing, don't tell the player the target hits all the time and from time to time make them 1 higher(ok you might just want to say they failed by a random amount, the player will only fail by 1 very few times 3-4 is a better number) then the player got. This forces the players to rethink ideas or go back to plans that where shot down. If a roll will make the run too easy or will knock a few players out of having a chance to play then force a fail. No one likes being on the GM Rail Road but there is a reason it exists other then to further the GM's goals of world Domination....wait that isn't a GM's goal is it?

Anyway the final problem, planing taking too long and killing the mood of the game. Try to start the run right after you finish the last one, that gives players more time to talk and plan out of the session(if they talk to each other out of session(not as effective if only a few players talk to each other out of session)). Another idea is to have them plan out the run in character. They have a group safe house, maybe the local IHop(not recommended), and they plan out the gear they will need and the timing of events. This also leads to on high profile runs someone finding out and trying to take steps to stop the run before the events start to unfold when the runners are more unprepared to have their safe house(Again or the local IHop) suddenly attacked with smoke grenades and a wall of bullets. This last one won't make planning take less time but it will break it up a bit more and should be used with the in character planing idea. Also if the characters are more violent it is more likely that you can eliminate planing all together and have Johnson sell them out and set up a meet that he never plans to attend. The Troll with the big chaingun will be there and will have a nonpaying job for the runners....

[PirateChef]

One of my GMs had us go on a pretty simple run that involved rescuing a woman's kidnapped daughter. We didn't do a lot of legwork, just went in and did the job as quickly as possible. Of course, afterward we found out we had been misled, and we had actually kidnapped a magically active young girl and handed it over to Aztechnology's blood mages. Made us stop and think a bit more about the runs we took from then on.

[Traul]

Fed up with big sticks? Give them machine guns (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Just use the notoriety rules. By now most of their game should not be about running but escaping the Lone Star. It should also get harder to find a well paid job: any cheap gang will work as good as them.

[Mäx]

Out of game: I always tell the players the following: I occasionally watch CSI. LoneStar isn't stupid: Do the math. I would always joke about the forensics squad that LoneStar would be sent to figure out what happened. Turned into a story element of the team setting up a blind tab at a local bar if a run involved gunplay as an apology. Lots of laughs, etc. but it did cause a couple of them to start to think about the trail they were leaving. If the Star can start connecting multiple crimes to a single team (via ballistic fingerprints, trace DNA, etc.), they end up on a most wanted list. Contacts can start getting nervous dealing with them. Johnson's start looking for more subtle work...and they start attracting Johnsons with ugly, ugly wetwork jobs.

Have their violent outbursts garner media attention which pressures the 'star to up the stakes and bring these guys down.

What is more likely to make the news a murder (or 30 of them) connected to a break in of a tech plant or a break in of a tech plant where none of the guards where any the wiser to it.

What you have to remember is that many targets that runners are hired to hit won't be calling LoneStar(a rival corp) nor are they gonna say a word about the run to the media(bad publicity).
hey will just cover it all up and possibly have their own security personel try to track down the runner, if they think that will positivly affect the bottm line.

[toturi]

What you have to remember is that many targets that runners are hired to hit won't be calling LoneStar(a rival corp) nor are they gonna say a word about the run to the media(bad publicity).
hey will just cover it all up and possibly have their own security personel try to track down the runner, if they think that will positivly affect the bottm line.

Unless the runners' actions bring them to the mass media's attentions, the corps may well want to keep things under wraps. Bear in mind that even rival divisions hit within the same parent corp may not want to share their information either.

[HappyDaze]

Just use the notoriety rules.

With RAW's terrible Public Awareness rules, you actually want some Notoriety to help burn away excessive Street Cred. A few atrocities help hide you from the public's eye per RAW...

[Neraph]

I had a run where the group ran onto Evo corp land and started tossing Powerballs and firing volleys of ammo from 11 drones, punching things with Sonic Fists and cutting down SecGuards with swords. There was a 'Star officer doing his beat patrol near the building, saw the smoke and noise, stopped, called for backup, and just waited. True, they were on extraterritorial grounds, but there was only one entry/exit, and as soon as they crossed it than the group was continuing a crime onto 'Star grounds.

That run ended badly. They completely overlooked the security cameras, so 3 days later they got Slab (capsuled) by Tir Ghosts (used them, different name) sent by a rival Evo corporate guy. He took blood samples from everyone, had a full-clone made up for them, put the clones in a car, destroyed the car (thus 'killing' the group), and kept some DNA on file so he could call on them through Ritual Dream-casting to use them as his personal attack animals on rivals.

The group really cleaned up their act after that run.

[The Jake]

My general strategy is to throw in a random mission once in awhile where indiscriminate violence is required.

However, I am finding limited success with this as the planners of the group are more numerous and vocal than the hack-n-slashers.

- J.

[CodeBreaker]

My general strategy is to throw in a random mission once in awhile where indiscriminate violence is required.

However, I am finding limited success with this as the planners of the group are more numerous and vocal than the hack-n-slashers.

- J.

That has been what our GM has been doing. We do a few runs that are dark, dirty and gritty as hell. Then we do a run or two that are basically "How many people did you kill!" competitions. The street sam always wins (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif)

My group is not bad for the Hack'n'Slash, but sometimes after a big long stretch of making sure you did not leave any evidence at the scene its nice to have a mindless orgy of blood.

[Kerenshara]

If you own the digital coppies of the book(s), and are willing to take the time and effort, clip all the little fluff vignettes from the first page of the books/chapters and clean them up, then give the packet to the players to read. It's a wonderful primer on the feel of the world, and should help get them in the right mindset. It's a particularly "fluffy" and soft answer, but everybody else had nice hard ideas, so I figured to throw this in. It worked pretty well in our group, anyhow. Good luck!

[LowKey]

Wow, thanks guys, loads of great ideas (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

I've been talking to one of the team about a leader position and it went along similar lines as discussed here, so that's a definite implementation.

I do like the idea of putting together the stories from the books to get in the mindset, didn't really occur to me before but most recent role play experience has come from Monte Cooks WoD (Word of Darkness meets D&D) so those who took part have probably bought that line of thinking with them. That would definately get them thinking more in the new system.

I also think throwing them in prison for a while is a brilliant solution that could lead on well to a few other ideas i've got lined up. It'll also be a perfect response to the crazy stunt they're thinking of pulling at the next gaming session. A less that subtle way of showing them the error of their ways.

[Kerenshara]

Another idea I liked was one presented (Sorry, I can't remember who did it) in another thread, where the GM offered a wetwork assasination job, and the group failed to do much legwork since Johnson provided such detailed information on the target. The name of the target was gender-neutral, and the players went foward on the assumption the target was male. They decided on a car bomb as a sure fire method.

The GM described the next morning how a VERY pregnant and lovely young woman got in the car and died horribly in a massive explosion. The players were literally open-mouthed shocked and horrified. It was brilliant, and they never looked at jobs the same afterwards. Get them to start seeing NPCs as people, rather than (to quote Belkar, shoeless god of war) "meaty bags of loot and XP".

[toturi]

Another idea I liked was one presented (Sorry, I can't remember who did it) in another thread, where the GM offered a wetwork assasination job, and the group failed to do much legwork since Johnson provided such detailed information on the target. The name of the target was gender-neutral, and the players went foward on the assumption the target was male. They decided on a car bomb as a sure fire method.

The GM described the next morning how a VERY pregnant and lovely young woman got in the car and died horribly in a massive explosion. The players were literally open-mouthed shocked and horrified. It was brilliant, and they never looked at jobs the same afterwards. Get them to start seeing NPCs as people, rather than (to quote Belkar, shoeless god of war) "meaty bags of loot and XP".

Or you could simply be desensitising them. Some players would have said,"Maybe we should have asked for more. We were doing 2 lives for the price of 1." It might encourage them to view NPCs as high and low value "meaty bags of loot and xp". Your "lesson" could backfire on you.

[Kerenshara]

Or you could simply be desensitising them. Some players would have said,"Maybe we should have asked for more. We were doing 2 lives for the price of 1." It might encourage them to view NPCs as high and low value "meaty bags of loot and xp". Your "lesson" could backfire on you.

That's a pretty hardcore and, IMHO immature player if they take that particular lesson away from the encounter; I would probably have tried to screen for that level of calousness ahead of time.

[LowKey]

The problem I find with NPC's is that they are treated like generic faceless masses (to the point where the magician in my group actually referred to them as "meat puppets") unless these is a personal connection to them.

If the players have interacted with an NPC then they seem to have a bit more of a connection to them, maybe because they've seen the character porprayed by another person. There's been one fantastic instance where the death of an npc has bought out some fantastic role playing.

A couple of member of my team weren't getting on so well, to the point where the slightly derranged, augmentation addicted samurai was held at gun point because the rigger didn't want to "go on the stupid mission". At this point the sam decides that he's going to nip back down to the riggers contact/friend (an old buddy from a war or something like that) and kill him, then plant evidence that makes it look like the corp that the group is after did it. On finding out that his pal is dead and that the corp seemed responsible, the rigger is on-board with the mission and interrogating everything with a pulse that works for the corp within 10 minutes of getting on site.

Not the most productive/professional way to go on a run, but definitely realistic and undeniably human response.

Moral of this story: making your NPC's human gets them treated like humans. Unless your group like to mow down anybody within line of sight, in which case there may need some pyschological help (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

[Kerenshara]

Not the most productive/professional way to go on a run, but definitely realistic and undeniably human response.

Actually, not only was it realistic, it was apropriate to the darker parts of the shadows and the way the 6^th World actually works... though it's usually JOHNSON who pulls drek like that out of their hoop.

I think I would have had to have a couple serious heart-to-hearts with a couple players after that one, not because it was unrealistic or thematically inapropriate, but that level of party/group strife is not something to be encouraged in most cases, due to the disruptive harmonics it tends to set up around the table that will tend to get worse over time if things like that continue. No matter how dark the shadows are, Shadowrun is supposed to be a mostly-cooperative game.