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> The second session..., .. in which things get worse
hyphz
post Jul 30 2011, 09:28 PM
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So, today was the second session of our new folks campaign. Since the last session, several of the players had tweaked their characters to make them a bit more sensible compared to how they were before. Dawg, the Dwarven mage, was now Low lifestyle instead of Street and had a Commlink. Kane, the Elf hacker type, was essentially unchanged. The fellow who I gave the name "Third" in the last post was actually named Zod (and his fake SIM's name is "Neil Before"), and he had also gotten himself a car (an armored car with two machine gun turrets, to be precise), a cheap Commlink, and a Medium lifestyle. Finally, we had a new player join us who's an intermittent visitor to our (RL) area. He was loaned a character that was made up by Kane's player while he was learning Chummer: a Troll combat generalist called "Mr. Happy Punch".

Before I start with the narrative, two rules questions came up:
- Arsenal has some rules for how Miniguns fire, and specifies the types of gun that can be made into Miniguns. However there appear to be no rules for actually making or buying a Minigun - there's no weapons with that description, nor a modification. So how do they work?
- The rules say that you can spend a point of Edge to "reroll all dice on one test that did not score a hit". We weren't sure if this should be read as "reroll (all dice (on one test) that did not score a hit)" - ie, on any test, reroll all the dice that didn't score hits; or "(reroll all dice on (one test that did not score a hit))" - ie, you reroll all the dice but can only do it if you rolled exactly 0 hits on the test. Which is it?

So, we finished the last session with the players finding a lead to Zipper. They head out to the Cathode Glow in Zod's car, parking it a while away. Zod turns off his cheap Commlink to stop it getting attacked, while the others are confident in their Firewalls. They leave the heavy firepower in the car this time, although they still decide for some reason to turn Dawg invisible and cast Reaction buffs on Kane and Zod before heading in. Kane easily enough spots Zipper in AR, and they head over to her table to ask her about the disk. Zod decides to increase the persuasion factor by drawing his ceramic pistol from his cyber slide mount and holding it to the head of Zipper's friend at her table. She tries to lie, fails, and coughs up Loomis' name and location - as the other group members are getting suspicious looks from the surrounding tables, and the robots are watching them carefully, but nobody really wants to get involved. Oddly, Kane doesn't try to hack anything while he's there, and although Zod was apparently considering trying to hide a small amount of plastic explosive under the table to blow the bar up after they left, he decided not to. This meant that Zipper was able to call through to Loomis and warn him about the group's approach.

The group drives past the Coda with Dawg having Detect Enemies up. Loomis has done a runner and the Trashers are hanging around in the doorway of the Coda. As soon as they see the heavily armored and turreted car they immediately figure that this is who they're looking for, and Dawg's Detect Enemies goes off. Initiatives are rolled. Zod wins first initiative and fires a long burst from one of the turret guns at one of the Trashers, killing him. (The car was being driven by Pilot software.)

Now I did make a mistake here. Namely, I didn't realize I needed to add Body to the Armor ratings for the NPCs - I thought they were already fully calculated. However, in practice, it didn't matter. The skill values the PCs were rolling were so high - and the Trashers only had reaction 3 - that, most of the time, even if the NPC had rolled all hits on the Armor test, they would have died.

Mr. Happy Punch decides he wants to get involved, and jumps out of the car, walking towards the Coda door (since it was a "drive-by" I figured he'd get there that pass) while shooting at a Trasher with his SMG. This seriously wounds him but doesn't kill him, leaving Kane to finish him off with the other turret. Dawg casts another Reaction buff. The Trashers run inside the bar to take cover behind the pool tables, and G-Man - who had been waiting in the bar - moves forward, takes cover behind the door frame, and fires a burst from his cyber machine pistol at Mr. Happy Punch, but misses him.

Next pass: Zod decides that the turret is "too weak" because it takes a Complex Action to fire, and thus sticks his Assault Rifle through the gun port on the car, blowing away G-Man with another burst (yes, even after his Good Cover. I wasn't sure if Zod should get the penalty for firing from cover, but he argued that gun ports were explicitly designed to make it easy to fire from a protected position, and that seems reasonable). Mr. Happy Punch runs into the bar and knocks out one of the two remaining Trashers. The second Trasher surrenders - although technically he shouldn't have had an action in that pass, but I figured better that than having him beaten to death by the other characters who'd assume he was still a threat.

So, the remaining runners enter the bar. The Trasher explains that Loomis ran out the back, and told them to mess with anyone who came for him. Zod shoots the knocked-out Trasher, knocks out the remaining conscious one, ties him to the winch on the back of his car and uses it to slam his body into the wall of the bar. They then proceed to loot the bodies, and the bar, including chopping off G-Man's cyberarm and - when one of the runners noticed something unusual about the hands of the Trashers - hacking off their fingers to extract their hand razors. They dump their grim haul in the smuggling pocket in the car.

The group then announced they were driving their car through the fence surrounding the junkyard. Now, since they had been messing around mutilating the Trashers for quite a while, I decide to go with the first scenario suggested in the book - Loomis has a good start, but he's fallen over and injured himself in the junkyard, so he's not actually gone yet. Meanwhile, the Shangri-La team is moving into position. (By the way, I couldn't find a "Shangri-La Corporation" in the books - is it one that's changed since? I randomly guessed it might be Horizon, but I'm not sure..)

So, the car smashes down the fence, and the runners start to circle the junkyard looking for Loomis. Sure enough, they see him. Zod announces that he wants to run Loomis over, but a quick check reveals that his car is on Slicks which wouldn't run well on the messy, bumpy floor in the junkyard. With some grumbles from the player, he instead decides to continue circling the Junkyard, while Dawg casts Improved Invisibility on Kane and Kane walks over to Loomis and decides to start whispering his name in his ears while invisible, followed by "Come with me if you want to live". This, naturally, freaks the hell out of Loomis, who assumes it's a spirit or some other nasty astral thingy.

Meanwhile, the rest of the time is still circling when they happen to spot the Shangri-La team headed into position. Zod commands the Pilot program to stop, surprises the grunts in the party (although not the Mage or Lieutenant), and fires a burst at the Shangri-La mage, killing him. The lieutenant responds by skinning his AK-47 and firing at Zod in the car. After some confusion about the rules for doing this, he manages to hit the correct area, but the car's armor soaks all the damage. The grunts fire at the car too, but most miss, except for one who shoots out one of the tires. Unfortunately, when I check the rules, it seems that shooting a tire gives a penalty to Handling Tests but does not actually force one to be made, so the runners aren't bothered. Zod blows away the lieutenant and one of the grunts on his next pass, and commands the other two grunts to throw down their guns and surrender, which they do.

Meanwhile, Dawg - during the battle - for some reason stopped sustaining the Improved Invisibility to cast another Reaction buff, so Kane appears in front of Loomis and offers to help him up. This suddenly puts a new spin on the whole thing - it seems like, played right, the runners will be able to make it look like the Shangri-La team were the group "coming to get the disk" that Zipper warned him about, and the runners have come to his aid. Kane helps Loomis over to the car, where Dawg is now interrogating the surrendered grunts - one of whom has had Mob Mind cast on him (the other one resisted) and both of whom have been tied up. They find out about the corporation and what the grunts were after. As soon as they see Loomis, they shout out for him not to trust the runners, as they attacked the strike team unprovoked. Zod reacts by grabbing the pistol from the dead grunt and shooting one of the tied-up ones in the head. He then asks the other grunt "Do you like cyberlimbs?". When the grunt replies that he doesn't have any cyber limbs, Zod shoots off all his muscle joints and says "You've got plenty of space for them now."

Loomis is now thoroughly terrified, and hands over the disk on condition he won't be harmed. He also gets Mob Minded, and told to tell the truth about the disk, and he pours out the story about K-Dop and how he obtained the disk. The team decides to throw Loomis IN THE TRUNK OF THEIR CAR (!) and then to hack up the bodies of the Shangri-La troopers for their cyberware (including asking if they can extract the Wired Reflexes from the lieutenant). They throw the mangled bodies of the Trashers and the troopers into the Coda bar, and then set the bar on fire. They then decide to head off to Carrion Studios, and I end the session for the week.

So... yea. I'm just worried at this point. First of all, I'm bothered about the whole business about Zod killing everyone in a single pass. Honestly, the problem more seems to be that Zod wins fights far too easily, yet if I force him into non-combat situations the player will (quite correctly) object that I'm pushing him to do things that I know he doesn't enjoy. Even he said that he felt Shadowrun was "broken" and wouldn't play properly.

Secondly, it seems like it's come to a rather harsh choice. Basically, either I decide they get away with all this stuff - which seems a bit unreasonable - or they'll basically get hunted down and killed. I wasn't sure people were enjoying the session, either.
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Aku
post Jul 30 2011, 09:35 PM
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For your second question: It's really ambiguous and a GM call. I would go with "you get to re-roll any dice, on one test that werent already hits"
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UmaroVI
post Jul 30 2011, 09:57 PM
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It is generally accepted to mean that you reroll only the dice that failed; apparently in the German edition, the grammar makes this unambiguous (if you needed further evidence).

Miniguns: There are AFAIK only 3 miniguns. The GE Vindicator from Arsenal is a minigun, but its use is ... questionable, since you have to blow a simple action to start it up. I'm sure it's not outright useless, but I can't see any way to make it really useful with no innate recoil compensation and that nasty drawback. Much more useful are the two vehicular mounted miniguns: the GE Vigilant Light Autocannon and the GE Vindicator Heavy Autocannon are both very nice. The light autocannon can go in a Flexible mount slot and while it is 5000Y (more than a LMG) and harder to find, it's also better. The heavy autocannon needs a Fixed mount slot or a Heavy Turret, but it is probably the nastiest weapon PCs can reasonably expect to get on a vehicle (the 20000Y price, while steep, isn't out of the question) and it will REALLY shred people.

Other than these, it's not possible to make a minigun RAW.
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UmaroVI
post Jul 30 2011, 10:04 PM
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Now some GMing advice. I think you should do a few things:

Talk to the players, specifically, the people who aren't Zod. Are they enjoying the sessions? Ask them this individually (so they don't feel peer pressure). One possibility is that some people want to play Black Trenchcoat And Mirror Shades shadowrun but Zod wants to play Pink Mohawk Shadowrun and either you will need to not have them all in the same group or you will need to make some compromises.

Another possibility is that everyone actually is ok with playing Pink Mohawk Shadowrun and there's nothing wrong with that. It's totally fine to run a game of Shadowrun where the PCs are loose cannons who are bad enough dudes to take on fairly tough strike forces - DO have people come after them, but not "screw you guys, rocks fall everyone dies;" instead, make the PCs being on the run from / fighting off / blowing up with excessive plastic explosives the people who come after them a source of fun gaming. I suggest beefing up the opposition in numbers and quality some if the PCs are tough, but try to avoid "random gangers now roll 18 dice!" and instead have it be people who are in-universe supposed to be tough coming after the PCs - like maybe a more elite Shangri-La team. Or maybe that one guy Zod shot up, back with a bunch of cyberware and a thirst for vengeance.

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hyphz
post Jul 30 2011, 10:28 PM
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QUOTE (UmaroVI @ Jul 30 2011, 11:04 PM) *
Talk to the players, specifically, the people who aren't Zod. Are they enjoying the sessions? Ask them this individually (so they don't feel peer pressure). One possibility is that some people want to play Black Trenchcoat And Mirror Shades shadowrun but Zod wants to play Pink Mohawk Shadowrun and either you will need to not have them all in the same group or you will need to make some compromises.


At no point was Zod acting against the wishes of the player group. He was perhaps a bit over the top in a few places but generally the desire to "kill that guy" was pretty present in all the players.

The worry about not enjoying the session more came from the fact that there was little apparent challenge.

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HunterHerne
post Jul 30 2011, 10:37 PM
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The challenge in Shadowrun isn't necessarily in the combat. But, that seems to be what the players want.

I second UmaroVI's suggestion of the Shangri-la coming back for revenge, after a few weeks, in game, with enough cyber that he almost resembles a cyborg. Also, use some more tactics against the players (I know it's hard when they start a fight in random, but it's a good idea to try, I think).

Another thing you can do is try moving them out of their comfort zone. The PC's vehicle will work in the barrens (unless someone strips it for parts, but that's another discusion), but they'll be harrassed and possible have the car impounded if they go into a better nieghbourhood. If he can't use his usual weapons, he'll be at a slight disadvantage, but still have a use.
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UmaroVI
post Jul 30 2011, 11:17 PM
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In that case, yeah, I would fix it by upping the challenge somewhat. It is important to do this in a way that has the tone of "you are impressive enough at murdering dudes that people respect you enough to send serious threats after you" rather than "screw you."

There's nothing wrong with upping the challenge by taking the PCs out of their comfort zone, but don't go overboard - the classic example is GMs who have every single adventure include a shoehorned-in overly large background count to screw over mages, but similar stuff (overuse of Millimeter Wave Scanners to shaft everyone but mages, etc) can also be done and also sucks. That said, stuff like "and now you need to take on this gang (who normally wouldn't be a threat to you) without your guns!" is perfectly fine so long as you don't overuse any one thing, and it gives people with more diversity (ie, having both gun skills and unarmed combat skills) a chance to shine.

To sum it up: up the challenge level, but make it more "enemies that are tougher and are in-universe supposed to be tougher" rather than "the GM kicks you in the balls over and over."
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Faelan
post Jul 30 2011, 11:24 PM
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QUOTE (hyphz @ Jul 30 2011, 05:28 PM) *
Even he said that he felt Shadowrun was "broken" and wouldn't play properly.

Secondly, it seems like it's come to a rather harsh choice. Basically, either I decide they get away with all this stuff - which seems a bit unreasonable - or they'll basically get hunted down and killed. I wasn't sure people were enjoying the session, either.


I have read your other posts related to starting a game, and realize that you are coming from a D&D mindset. In Shadowrun you have to have consequences. There is not a "level appropriate monster", an encounter with the right "CR", but there are consequences. Zod wants to run around making a target of himself, put a sniper round through his brain pan with love from Shangri-la. They call the remaining runners and explain that they want their shit back, or they have similar messages to deliver to them. You want to play a psychopath expect to get treated like one. Act like a rabid dog and you will be put down like one. Did the town guard let them off the hook in D&D? Send a runner team after them, nothing is broken when they are dealing with equals, but when you send mooks against them they are going to mop them up without breaking a sweat.
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CanRay
post Jul 30 2011, 11:25 PM
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Bugger. Wrong window!
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hyphz
post Jul 31 2011, 12:27 AM
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QUOTE (Faelan @ Jul 31 2011, 12:24 AM) *
I have read your other posts related to starting a game, and realize that you are coming from a D&D mindset. In Shadowrun you have to have consequences. There is not a "level appropriate monster", an encounter with the right "CR", but there are consequences. Zod wants to run around making a target of himself, put a sniper round through his brain pan with love from Shangri-la. They call the remaining runners and explain that they want their shit back, or they have similar messages to deliver to them. You want to play a psychopath expect to get treated like one. Act like a rabid dog and you will be put down like one. Did the town guard let them off the hook in D&D? Send a runner team after them, nothing is broken when they are dealing with equals, but when you send mooks against them they are going to mop them up without breaking a sweat.


Well to some extent I am limited by what is in the sample adventure, and later on they DO have a runner team sent after them. But right now they're potentially in a lot of trouble if anyone happens to object to them having turrets and gunports on their car. Given that they'll notice the knocking coming from the trunk, and find a guy covered in Dawg's magical traces who says he was kidnapped from the Coda, and oh look that's been burned down and is full of dead guys one of whom has the same magical trace on them.

Problem is.. basically all these things come down to ending the campaign.
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Faelan
post Jul 31 2011, 12:35 AM
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QUOTE (hyphz @ Jul 30 2011, 08:27 PM) *
Well to some extent I am limited by what is in the sample adventure, and later on they DO have a runner team sent after them. But right now they're potentially in a lot of trouble if anyone happens to object to them having turrets and gunports on their car. Given that they'll notice the knocking coming from the trunk, and find a guy covered in Dawg's magical traces who says he was kidnapped from the Coda, and oh look that's been burned down and is full of dead guys one of whom has the same magical trace on them.

Problem is.. basically all these things come down to ending the campaign.


So let it end, and start a new one. The characters they made sound like something straight out of a bad comic, or a hack and slash game. You have your Thief, your Wizard/Cleric, and your Barbarian. They screwed the pooch. If you really want to keep it going, capture them and implant some cortex bombs and watch them squirm. Violent criminals don't just get to go on killing sprees without paying the piper.
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Sengir
post Jul 31 2011, 12:58 AM
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QUOTE (hyphz @ Jul 30 2011, 10:28 PM) *
- Arsenal has some rules for how Miniguns fire, and specifies the types of gun that can be made into Miniguns. However there appear to be no rules for actually making or buying a Minigun - there's no weapons with that description, nor a modification. So how do they work?

Uhm, the Vindicator should be on the same page plus or minus one (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)
Then there are the two aforementioned vehicle guns, and the German edition adds another one *points to signature*

QUOTE
- The rules say that you can spend a point of Edge to "reroll all dice on one test that did not score a hit". We weren't sure if this should be read as "reroll (all dice (on one test) that did not score a hit)" - ie, on any test, reroll all the dice that didn't score hits; or "(reroll all dice on (one test that did not score a hit))" - ie, you reroll all the dice but can only do it if you rolled exactly 0 hits on the test. Which is it?

Most players and the German RAW agree on the former

QUOTE
Secondly, it seems like it's come to a rather harsh choice. Basically, either I decide they get away with all this stuff - which seems a bit unreasonable - or they'll basically get hunted down and killed.

A local underworld bigwig is indeed rather not pleased with having psychopathic killers loose on his turf. In addition to making people wonder who is holding the reins, the resulting police attention has already caused serious extra costs for his organization -- which is why he has decided against simply killing these freaks and putting their mangled bodies on display as a reminder for anyone with similar ideas. Instead, he will kindly ask them to make amends for the damage they have caused to his reputation and business totals.

[Insert some side quests here. And some cranial bombs (0 Essence, so no problem even for Awakened/Emerged) into the players, so they keep a lower profile this time. Oh, and the truck is kindly accepted as a down payment.]
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hyphz
post Jul 31 2011, 01:28 AM
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What is the deal with Germany and Shadowrun? Is it a German game?
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noonesshowmonkey
post Jul 31 2011, 02:12 AM
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Do not despair!

Shadowrun takes a long time to get right, both playing and GMing. Everyone's first few SR games look like a crappy, slasher heavy version of Heman meets Conan meets Big Trouble in Little China meets Mad Max. Good SR looks an awful lot like that, sometimes, but is really satisfying... I don't really know if I made any point there, but I'll let it stand.

Tuning your challenges to meet player abilities is really, really hard. For one, I would try and normalize your table's dice pools by further tweaking characters or starting over. Set a dice pool range for the character's primary skills - hacking, social, gun bunny, melee, damage soak, rigging or driving (and whatever else) - and make sure that everyone has one or two things they are good at. I'd suggest 12-16 dice, with 16 being on the top, top end. Do whatever works for you. Then, when you are designing your encounters, make sure you dry-run your opposition.

By dry run your oppositions dice pools (attack and defense!) against the players dice pools you will make sure that you have a handle on how dangerous the encounter will actually be.

I recently GM'ed a Barrens car chase where I sent a Mad Max go-gang and a Dune-esque Sand Worm was spitting acid after the player's tricked out Tata Hotspur... It was really cool until I realized that the HMGs on my go-gang wouldn't scratch the paint on the player's vehicle. And the rocket launcher attacked with a Dice Pool of 8 with a scatter that would never hit anything ever... And the player's tweaked out rigger did 2/3rds of the Sand Worm's life in a single burst on the first turn, using a second burst to kill it the same turn... And the beast's base attack wouldn't really do much but melt the paint... Point is, it can be really challenging to figure out what is just enough and what is too much. I'd said to myself 'maybe Body 14 is too high?' when, in point of fact, the thing needed more body (it was huge!) as well as some armor. What I REALLY needed to do was send a wolf pack of sand worms...

Never rely on single enemies of any kind, Sand Worms or not, to challenge players. The Rock-Paper-Scissors factor of SR4 - as well as the innate frailty of any one entity - makes the Boss Fight of most other gaming systems pretty much impossible.

Lastly, Shadowrun challenges a GM raised in the traditional gaming systems to think way outside the box. Any encounter can exist in three or four dimensions incredibly easily: astral space, meat space, the matrix / drones / vehicles and social challenges. This is a huge amount of information to synthesize. Shadowrun also boils down to 66% or more people skills. Players generally spend an inordinate amount of time talking to people, be it their contacts, whoever they meet and are trying to get information from or just John Q Law (or Johnny Go-Ganger et crew) who happens to have pulled over their wildly illegal car along the 405. The idea that thrusting a blood-thirsty cyber samurai into social conflicts would be 'gamesmanship' is rather spurious and erroneous. Combat in SR4 is measured in 3 seconds rounds and rarely goes any longer than 15 seconds. What the hell is your samurai doing with those hundreds of thousands of other seconds?
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Glyph
post Jul 31 2011, 02:14 AM
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QUOTE (hyphz @ Jul 30 2011, 06:28 PM) *
What is the deal with Germany and Shadowrun? Is it a German game?

They have German translations, and a decent-sized fanbase. The German stuff often seems to have slightly tweaked rules, or extra stuff that doesn't make it to the English version.

I agree with UmaroVI's overall advice. Make it more challenging, but keep it fun. The advice of the others might be technically correct from a "Shadowrun purist" approach, but if you did it in your game, you would probably have the players walk away in disgust. Sniping someone in the head, or getting the crew outfitted with cranial bombs to be some underworld boss's personal bitches - can you really see the players accepting that? Especially if it came out of nowhere; it would be a pretty dramatic switch in gamemastering style to spring on them. Do start gradually introducing them to consequences.

I think part of the problem is that you took a bunch of combat-oriented asskickers and tried to run them through a pregenerated adventure designed for less hyper-focused characters. These guys like fights, so give them fight-oriented runs (take out this ghoul gang, be overwatch at this underworld meet, because the crime boss who hired them thinks the other guy is going to try something - only what happens is that a third party crashes the scene, etc.). Ramp up the power level a bit - logically - and have your mooks use cover and a few other elementary tactics; you would be surprised what a difference it makes when they aren't simply standing there like targets. Oh, by the way, you can still use pregen adventures - just don't be afraid to tweak them for your group (make combats harder, lead them by their noses a bit more on plot and legwork).
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hyphz
post Jul 31 2011, 03:15 AM
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Oh, sure. I knew they were combat monsters. If they're enjoying it, I'm happy with them playing that way. It's just that working out how to fudge it so that they don't end up with Lone Star impounding their car after somebody heard the frantic knocking coming from the trunk is a bit of a stretch, and if I do (hey, armour 20 could be soundproof, right?) then the game loses a lot of its colour. Every player might as well make their own Zod in that case, and go back to Street lifestyles while they're at it. At the same time, if I don't fudge it, I'm pretty sure the PCs won't want to shoot it out with the police (in fact, Zod's player specifically checked with me that the guys he saw in the junkyard were not police officers) and if they get busted, campaign over. Even if we start another, the players will probably still feel they've been bitchslapped by me for just playing in the way they enjoy, and that would suck.

I also spent a bit of time preparing the combat, hoping that the players would enjoy it, and was just shocked when people started going down in single hits. I had several strategies planned for their Mage and he was toasted before he could act. Plus, if he's going to carry on driving his car off-road into combat encounters, that means I have to either put the other guys in armoured cars too or give them stupidly huge weapons. (Actually, maybe a car chase with an armed Shangrili-La combat vehicle would be a neat thing to throw in at some point in the future). What I guess I'm really afraid of is that it'll become "kill or be killed", so that any combat encounter is either a walkover or results in the death of a PC.

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hyphz
post Jul 31 2011, 03:33 AM
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Holy crap. I've just realised that they didn't take away Loomis' commlink before throwing him in the trunk.
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Aku
post Jul 31 2011, 03:37 AM
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QUOTE (hyphz @ Jul 30 2011, 11:33 PM) *
Holy crap. I've just realised that they didn't take away Loomis' commlink before throwing him in the trunk.


"Hello, 911, what's your emergency?"

"Yea, i just got snagged by these clowns driving a sedan thats loaded with weapons and they stuffed me in the trunk I dont know where I am, do you have my gps signal? please send someone to help me!"
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Mardrax
post Jul 31 2011, 04:01 AM
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QUOTE (Glyph @ Jul 31 2011, 04:14 AM) *
Oh, by the way, you can still use pregen adventures - just don't be afraid to tweak them for your group (make combats harder, lead them by their noses a bit more on plot and legwork).

For example, what I did with that encounter was to tweak the strike team with two points of Infiltration (Urban), have the mage hide out in some thermal damping, ruthenium suit, on top of the crane, coordinating the team. The rest were sneaking among the stacks of cars, having a delicious cat and mouse game with two physadepts who would have outclassed them easily without. Surprise is hell, and so is eletrical damage. They're using nonlethal means? Go to town with tasers, which are fairly silent to boot. Use gel rounds to knock people down. (and add the possibility of falling from the top of car wrecks piled 3 meters high, when players insist on climbing up and playing sitting ducks for, well, everything) Oh, and these are corpers. Don't forget the TacNet. Or a hacker, or even just a jammer to deny communications to the players when they split up. If you really want to turn up the pink mohawk, have the teams evac chopper fly over, with a board gunner doing some suppressive fire.

I feel the gang really aren't supposed to be a worthy fight. Generally, groups at that kind of level tend to form more of a social/moral dilemma for the runners than anything else. Sure, you can kill all of them. Heck, line them up, and a proper physad could probably have them all down for the count in two attacks total. Any decent shot with an smg should rip them to shreds. But what do they gain from it? And what do they lose? As a wise man here once said: everyone has friends, families. You go after people like that, you stand a good chance their friends come after you. Or after your families.

Since it's all done though, what to do? I'd say play up some background. Have one of the players watch the news, where the team's faces get a full frame shot, as Zod mutilates the corper's limbs, sound playing in full. Have Lone Star issue a bounty after that. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) 20.000 for anyone who provides information that leads to the arrest of this socially depraved madman, or any of his associates. A round 100.000 for information leading to the entire team. To cut to a half hour special mourning service, where the man's wife and kids bemoan the dangers of the evil, evil world outside their precious corp compound walls, roamed by madmen, and ruled by nothing but violence. Have them run into pictures of them being AR-spammed in public places, with the usual "Do you know anything that could lead to this man?"
You're fighting Horizon? Don't fear dodging the less than lethal weapons. Fear dodging public opinion. How's your Disguise pool folks? You're going to need it.
And then, that loyalty 1 contact might well call someone up to have a beer. You know? "Hey man, where are you? Cool. Care if I came over for a beer in half hour?" Or just the downstairs/across the street neighbour. And that nice little lady at the pizza place who always deliver for free. And what actual enemies do you already have? How many of these people are prepared to sell the players out?

And then see how good the rest of the team is at breaking a heavily beat up Zod out of prison. And him breaking out from the inside. They want spectacle and violence? They've got it.

About your other questions, I'm AFB right now, but from memory:
I do believe Shangri-La is described as being a subsidiary of Horizon's, not Horizon itself.
I also do believe the minigun description isn't so much about the minigun itself, but the HVAR mod, which I also do believe is described in Arsenal. This mod is what the Vindicator guns all have on the standard models.
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LurkerOutThere
post Jul 31 2011, 04:39 AM
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Be prepared for them not being willing to break Zod out, or even being willing to sell him out, that is very shadowrun.
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Mayhem_2006
post Jul 31 2011, 09:53 AM
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QUOTE (Mardrax @ Jul 31 2011, 05:01 AM) *
Long detailed breakdown of perfectly reasonable consequences


MAdrax has teh right of it..

Maybe as a group they hadn't recognised the difference between Shadowrun and D&D - Shadowrun has instant communication and wide-reaching law. Their violent actions have long reaching consequences.

You have a group of characters who have committed atrocities - outright murder, torture, mutilation of corpses etc etc AND who have given the authorities ample opportunity to gather pictures and audio of them and their vehicle. They should now be wanted criminals, both by the police, the Horizon Corporation and by the Shangri-La Teams for who it is now personal.

Hit them with the full force of the consequences, making it clear that these are legitimate consequences not just you dropping the GM hammer on them. If they and you can figure out a way for the game to continue with these characters after that, then so be it.

/maybe drop them in a warzone.
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Mardrax
post Jul 31 2011, 10:59 AM
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QUOTE (Mayhem_2006 @ Jul 31 2011, 11:53 AM) *
/maybe drop them in a warzone.

Read Punisher Max issue 1 through 5 for inspiration (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)
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UmaroVI
post Jul 31 2011, 01:06 PM
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You could just ask your players "Yo, you know Turrets are illegal, right? How do you plan on driving around without getting stopped by Lone Star?" Hopefully they will figure something out. Alternatively, they could stay in places where Lone Star doesn't care enough to patrol (eg, Barrens areas).

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HunterHerne
post Jul 31 2011, 03:35 PM
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True, they could do that. It all depends on the game, but honestly, I think I would get bored of Pink Mohawk after a few sessions.
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Tymeaus Jalynsfe...
post Jul 31 2011, 03:42 PM
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QUOTE (HunterHerne @ Jul 31 2011, 09:35 AM) *
It all depends on the game, but honestly, I think I would get bored of Pink Mohawk after a few sessions.


Amen to that... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)
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