"That low-down dirty fragger!", all too common? Options

[Crimson Jack]

I was looking through some old modules today and after about the 10th one, I started noticing that there were quite a few double cross runs. It's a timeless gimmick. So, how often does it happen in your games?

[Quix]

It doesn't happen to often in my games. Usually only when I want to make a point to the players. Unfortuately they don't seem to catch my drift. At least not the ones who need to catch it. Of course it doesn't help that my team just recently lost its major source of corprate security info. Very few of the other players seem to believe that leg work is their concern. And the one who does realize this, the team stckbroker, has his assets in the wrong places for most of the team's needs. :wobble:

[Aesir]

I make it a rule to double-cross my players. Maybe I should give them a clean run some time, to ease the frustration? The thing is that I tend to try and help them to get by in the end, finding some blackmail material or something like that. But until then they are more often than not in deep shit. I run multiple scenarios at ones too, so they usually have more than one 'lowdown dirty fragger' to deal with :grinbig:

[Voran]

Oddly, not too often for me. The published adventures had their share of that kinda stuff, but it starts to get really cliche and annoying to players if you do it too much. Its also a cliche, but it sometimes works just as well to make the Johnson ambiguous, almost looking like they'll pull a double cross, but actually plays it fairly on the level. Churns the stomach acid up :)

[toturi]

I almost never double cross my PCs nowadays. Back when they were new, yes, about 3 to 4 times. But not now, only the occasional fool Johnson, whose replacement quickly apologises and offers a substantial bonus.

[Aidley]

they tend not to doublecross aidley - she's too darn friendly, and her partner scares the frag out of them.

luusi..... well, if there remotely attractive, she drags them home. (oh the joys of being extremely attractive and having letcherous as a flaw.)

sonic..... well, that remains to be seen...

I guess i don't have enough experience to say so, but from then til now, 'other' seems to be the catagory that fits. Especially in the case where aidley & co were semi-johnsonish for a gogang.... weird....

[TheScamp]

Depends on what you consider a double-cross. Johnsons should be somewhat deceptive in their dealings on a regular basis, IMO. However, they should only rarely be out to completely screw the characters over. Most of the time it should be something along the lines of the PC's being a destraction for something bigger, omitting certain facts about the situation, or any number of various other things which aren't outright malicious, but also aren't done in a friendly "hire the neighborhood kid to shovel my driveway" type way. Trying to figure out exactly what's off about the situation is a big chink of the run.

[Apathy]

My PCs double cross their Johnsons way more than the other way around. Of course, the Johnsons never really 'tell it to them straight', and much of the time they find out that they've been working for 'bad guys' (bug/toxic/shadow spirits or shamans etc.)

[ShadowGhost]

An once-in-a-blue-moon double-cross is OK, providing you hint that it's coming. Simply double-crossing the players for having completed a run successfully kills the fun for players.

[Squire]

How often the team gets double crossed depends on a few things.

1. The team's fixer.

1a. Is the fixer a good fixer or not?
A good fixer looks into things for his teams at least a little bit. A bad fixer doesn't care, he just makes the connection and collects his money.

1b. Is the team valuable to the fixer?
If the fixer values having the team in his stable, he'll take better care of them. If the fixer doesn't trust the team, or thinks they're fools, he won't mind sacraficing them to a double-cross.

2. The team's reputation.

2a. Is the team known for getting things done, getting them done quietly and correctly?

If so, Johnson will value the team and want to keep them around for later.

If not, Johnson won't mind sacraficing them.

Remember, Johnson thinks of the teams as resources to be exploited. Corporations may not mind destroying resources, but they'll still protect the resources that are valuable to them, and a good team is.

2b. Is the team known for being trustworthy?

Is so, Johnson will value them more highly.

If not, Johnson will not trust them, and will prefer them dead from a double cross.

2c. Is the team known for surviving a double cross and successfulling seeking revenge on those who screwed them?

If so, Johnson will think twice before setting the team up.

So,

As long as the team in my group maintains their reputation and takes good care of their contacts, double crosses are fairly rare (they still happen, but not often). Once reputation and contacts are sacraficed, all bets are off- double crosses may happen every run, depending on how bad things got.

So far my players haven't screwed up their reps too badly and they have a pretty good fixer who they've taken pretty good care of. They're not first tier in the fixer's mind, but he considers them to have a lot of potential, so he checks into Mr. Js (not as closely as he would for a first tier team) and he doesn't set them up with Js he knows are untrustworthy. Also, he's up front with them about how much he trusts J.

[John Campbell]

Double-crosses should be common enough to keep the PCs on their toes, but not so common that the PCs always go in expecting to be double-crossed. I mean, really, if you're expecting to be double-crossed, why would you even take the job?

[Mr. Man]

The last time a J double-crossed my current character he smiled politely and took the drastically reduced payment.

Then during the next month or two of down time he had his fixer hire a team to extract the amount of missing nuyen in senseless destruction to one of the corp's facilities.

Of course this did cost additional money and the corp will probably never find out it was him, but they'll certainly be left wondering why someone would want to fire a bunch of rockets into one of their facilities then scram without even leaving a calling card.

[Shockwave_IIc]

Most of the time i don't. However to stop them getting complacent or to wake the up, i thrown in bubba and a bar of soap.....

[The Synthcat]

I voted other, as I'm currently GMing a game of corporate goons... Not company men, but wholly corp-backed security/black-ops types.

This, however, doesn't exclude the possibilities of intra-corporate backstabs and jockeying..... :evil:

[lodestar]

Every fraggin chance they get! ;)

[Quix]

Mr. Man
I have a player who is planning something much like this for next week. Except that the ensueing fireworks will put the PC out approx 4.5 million :nuyen:

[Mr. Man]

[sidartha]

The last time my team suffered a backstabbing was right after a very difficult deep cover run carried of quite well if I do say so myself 8) .
So we were all felling pretty good about ourselves when at the meet we get the screw. This resulted in five dead delivery mooks and one rather high-powered, professional, very pissed off team hunting down every member of the humanis policlub we could find :mad:.
It turned out we stole some biowarfare agent and hand delivered it to them so we were doing the right thing by committing mass murder right? right?! guys.. ;)

[Rajaat99]

I ran a game every week, or nearly so for three years. They were double crossed twice, surprisingly that's not what killed them.

[Seven Deadly SIN...]

Your not a Shadowrunner until you've been screwed by the Johnson at least once...

[Crimson Jack]

[Mr. Woodchuck]

are you counting only johnson double crosses, or are fixers, corp VPs in charge of johnsons, various evil magical entities, and runner backgrounds also accounted for as sources of backstabbing. this is shadowrun, everybody has an agenda and the desire to get away alive and with as much nuyen as they can carry.

[Wolfgang]

I think Squire summed things up really well.

In my game, if the characters work with a reliable fixer, maintain that relationship and their reputation the double cross is a pretty rare thing, it does happen, but not often. If they start screwing one or more of these things up, or they make a lot of powerful enemies that can identify them, well then things get a lot tougher...

[Diesel]

Only when I get to play. :\

[Seven Deadly SIN...]

Yeah having a quality reputation and a good relationship with your fixer (try and keep them a lvl 2 contact) and things should go smoothly. Meet up with a Johnson and have a character threaten a Mr.J or otherwise be rude to him and your asking for it.

I've warned the other players in this new campaign that if they do any such thing that they won't have to worry about being around for long enough to worry about Mr. J doing anything, that my character will take them out herself.