"Oh, so this is a Kazu run." Options

[PatB]

I'm all for good storytelling games, but as a player, and from what you said, I would personally not be happy.

1. You screwed the players out of 75% of their payment.
2. You're blackmailing them into free work.
3. You disrupted 2 of their bound spirits, which are not cheap.

Honestly, if I kept playing, I would begin to take a "GM vs the Players" standpoint.

How did the Yakuza know who the players were? While I see the logic of the events, it feels like a big old railroad to me. Unless your players like this sort of plot, of course (and since they are potentially holding a grudge, I think they likely don't).

I removed detailed for the sake of keeping a somewhat short post. To answer the points:

1- Correct. However, the said free run ended up with much more financial gain. It's just that the yaks used this opportunity to hurt an ennemy without paying for it while making sure the balance was brought back - honor demanded it. Like I said, the players almost died in this one.

2- Kinda answered that with the previous point. Also, as seen in many posts and adventure frameworks, there are several ways to make money, so even if a run feels underpaid but runners can find other means to make money (like paydata), that's should be fine.

3- Disrupted spirits come back 28 minus their force days later. The mage just cannot use them during that time.

What happened with this run, and it all depends on the type of game/players/GM, is that this run brought motivation to the team, especially to one runner who decided that no Johnson is going to screw him, so he's taking matters into his own hands, mainly finding the source. The game has been running on a weekly basis for the last 6 months.

As a GM, I believe in the 3 main SR rules (bring back those old novels): 1- Never deal with a dragon, 2- Choose your enemies carefully, and 3- Find your own truth. When the runner was in front of the yakuza who didn't know squat about the run and the runners, the runner had a chance to let his mouth or his gun speak. He chose his gun. Now he needs to deal with the price of his decision.

I'm sure a bunch of GM made runs where runners got screwed by their Johnson. This one was a first for my runners, and I made sure it was going to hit their pride solidly - I wanted to provoke things, give the player the opportunity to drive the game instead of the traditional "waiting for the GM to come up with a run" - and it worked. It left a bad feeling that gave the players game motivation because they care about their character.