Ghost Cartels, ...are they completely nuts? Options

[Brazilian_Shinob...]

Why am I playing with people like that, again?

Because it's either that or don't play at all.
Mind you, there are friends of mine that I don't play with anymore exactly to not end the friendship.

[LurkerOutThere]

I tend to strongly discourage PVP at my Shadowrun tables through in character means. The biggest reason is not all character choices are as valid from a combat standpoint but all have varying degrees of usefullnes in a game standpoint. In a face to face initiative drops conflict the street same might beat the mage, the mage might beat the street sam, both will kick the living shit out of the hacker. So what do we have, we can either play in a world where we freely allow PVP and one of two things occurs, the person with the biggest combat beat stick runs the table until the other players decide to backstab them at an inopportune moment and various vagaries that go with that: The deckers never leave the decker bunker and keep blackmail on everyone, the mage keeps ritual samples etc etc.

The other alternative can basically be summed up as this: Professionalism, the players and characters know that no matter how the conflict goes down everyone looses, their rep suffers, they'll be out a resource they can't replace mid job etc.

Now I have had some PVP, a couple of times i've had characters who by backstory hated each others guts, but worked together for one reason or another (money and revenge against a common enemy) and I have had a player do something that he knew the other characters were going to respond extremely badly to if he was caught and then got caught.

So all things being equal I think having a gentleman's agreement of no PVP has served me very well. It's not universal, but the sixth world is already hostile enough without having to worry about your team mates shooting you in the back.

[Fatum]

I think that the stimuli for characters' in-game decisions should only come from in-game sources (for the reasons provided above).
Yeah, killing a valuable team member cripples the team. What were you thinking shooting that hacker, then? Yeah, constant in-team paranoia is taxing, and doesn't make running an enjoyable experience. So here's one more reason not to shoot your teammates. Etc.

Actually, come to think of it, a prearranged agreement everyone's consciously submitted to is not that bad, and the storytelling continuity doesn't get broken because of it (since the issue is never even mentioned).
However, when a player declares his action, and the GM replies: "No, you can't do it just cause", this is obviously not the case.

After all, there's always the Internet for finding the players you can play with...

[Blitz66]

Pre-deciding to have an in-character reason to not have PC-on-PC violence is often a good call. The GM can invoke that later, telling the players that their characters' loyalties or whatever ought to be kicking in right about now.

[Elfenlied]

At our table, we have the following Gentleman's agreement between each player and the DM:
No torture, rape, FA grenadelaunchers from WAR! and PvP will be used on a PC unless one of them starts it first.

[Warlordtheft]

Silly Yama King should have edged the defense roll instead. : )

He did, but the GM (me) rolled poorly... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/spin.gif)

[Fatum]

At our table, we have the following Gentleman's agreement between each player and the DM:
No torture, rape, FA grenadelaunchers from WAR! and PvP will be used on a PC unless one of them starts it first.

No torture? What happens if the corpers happen to capture a runner?

[Cain]

Honestly, everyone at my table knows how I feel about PvP, even before I had this conversation. It did help, though, when I reminded everyone of how I felt about it in my games, said I didn't like it. I gave them the option of keeping it and dealing with the ensuing TPK that'd follow (the mystic adept was the only Awakened one, so only he had a chance to hurt the Yama King) or taking it back and negotiating, allowing for extra stress in their characters. Since a half hour of real time later, they were in hell, I think that was a fair tradeoff.

I think the next time I run a game, I'm going to include "No PvP" on my advance warning list, instead of hinting at it. The players can justify it however they like. The simple fact is, I don't like the drama that comes with it, and I don't want to deal with it unless I'm forced to. And since it's my game, I can ban it for no other reason than I say so. I usually give the players a short list of expectations, house rules, and banned rules before the game begins; this will just be another one of them. There's no harm in any house rule, as long as it's clearly communicated in advance.

[Cain]

No torture? What happens if the corpers happen to capture a runner?

Psychotropic programs or "Fade To Black" works for me. Just say: "You're being tortured", and let the player's imagination stew on it.

I refuse to describe torture scenes, but I will describe the aftermath: like finding a guy in a room with a car battery, a set of jumper cables, a bottle of conductive lube, and a life-sized Bubba the Love Troll doll. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Megu]

Maybe I'm the odd one out here, but I've had good experiences with "PvP" in Shadowrun. My players are smart enough to realize their rep goes down the toilet if they hit each other openly, but there's a lot of plotting and backstabbing, up to and including attacks on contacts, hiring lower level runners, things of that nature. We did Emergence recently and had a team split on their allegiances re: technomancers, resulting in a lot of emails to the GM with people moving their pawns, so to speak. Eventually one player's allies revealed another player, a hardcore Islamist, as an adept, and she checked out to do the Hajj and find herself, so I guess the player that pulled that off won? Anyways, just trying to kill your teammates openly is dumb, but there's absolutely a place for betrayal. It's so in genre, and it helped that everybody was on the same page about that going in. You're criminals, that shit happens. So my players were ready to treat it as Diplo with mirrorshades.

[Mäx]

We are just running ghost cartels and reached the clash-site in Honk Kong (Kowloon Massacre). At the end of our last session i entered the "Yama King is standing between you and your escape-helicopter"-situation and i really have to say that the authors either seem to be completely insane OR they don´t have the slightest clue how SR4 works. I had similar thoughts before, as we the GM told us the story about "attach a water-mine on a boat that is surrounded by masses of sharks" and i agreed to my feeling as we were attacked by 7!!!! shedim onboard. I don´t know how often the GM had to save our asses so please tell me which kind of runner-team is capable to survive this book? Ryanthusar and his expert team of super-runners? One shedim is doable, 2 are heavy but 7 at the same time? Nuts. I play a really strong mage, rating 3 initiate with magic 6 and now i am standing in a rating 3-4 domain. The Miniguns of the helicopter don´t harm the big demon, my comrades obviously can´t do more damage than this and every magical character is castrated by half they magic-rating. Is this a big bad (and expensive) joke?

All you need to him down is a pair of Defiance ex Shockers and someone who can shoot them.

[Bigity]

The problem with PvP is that it easily destroys a tabletop campaign. When your players all kill each other in the middle of Emergence, you can't exactly just make new PCs and start over, without much hassle by the GM.

So, it seems pretty reasonable to disallow it. If you, as a player, don't like that, you could always find a new table or GM a game instead.

It's one of those things that you accept in order to keep a GM happy I guess, just like house rules.

[Warlordtheft]

PVP---I let it happen so long as the agressor explains to me why he was doing it and is not just doing it to be a #$@!. It is one thing if it advances the storyline, quite another if the person is just doing it cause he thinks he can.

[Brazilian_Shinob...]

At our table, we have the following Gentleman's agreement between each player and the DM:
No torture, rape, FA grenadelaunchers from WAR! and PvP will be used on a PC unless one of them starts it first.

You forgot to mention the use of atomics against each other.

[Fatum]

I think the next time I run a game, I'm going to include "No PvP" on my advance warning list, instead of hinting at it. The players can justify it however they like. The simple fact is, I don't like the drama that comes with it, and I don't want to deal with it unless I'm forced to. And since it's my game, I can ban it for no other reason than I say so. I usually give the players a short list of expectations, house rules, and banned rules before the game begins; this will just be another one of them. There's no harm in any house rule, as long as it's clearly communicated in advance.

Fair enough, when agreed upon in advance.

Psychotropic programs or "Fade To Black" works for me. Just say: "You're being tortured", and let the player's imagination stew on it.
I refuse to describe torture scenes, but I will describe the aftermath: like finding a guy in a room with a car battery, a set of jumper cables, a bottle of conductive lube, and a life-sized Bubba the Love Troll doll. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

No torture [...] will be used on a PC unless one of them starts it first.

Otherwise, yeah, good old sex and ultraviolence are better done off-screen, unless you happen to be into Scandinavian larp or something.

You forgot to mention the use of atomics against each other.

Why ban something you just got the rules for? The writers put effort, and you want to just throw those stats for nukes away?!

[CanRay]

At our table, we have the following Gentleman's agreement between each player and the DM:
No torture, rape, FA grenadelaunchers from WAR! and PvP will be used on a PC unless one of them starts it first.

No torture? What happens if the corpers happen to capture a runner?

"After the slowest elevator ride that ever happened, you stumble out of it in a bloody heap. The security guards all are shaking their hands as if they hurt. 'He fell down the stairs. A lot.' the highest ranking one says, and there are only nods in the room as everyone distinctly works diligently at their work."

Damn I miss SPD. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif)

[Brainpiercing7.6...]

Fair enough, when agreed upon in advance.

Otherwise, yeah, good old sex and ultraviolence are better done off-screen, unless you happen to be into Scandinavian larp or something.

What's scandinavian larp?

[LurkerOutThere]

What's scandinavian larp?

I'll tell ya' when your older.

[Megu]

What's scandinavian larp?

Are we heading for a camping in Norway joke?

[Fatum]

You can just google it. Or, say, "Fat Man Down" as an example.

[Elfenlied]

No torture? What happens if the corpers happen to capture a runner?

Happened only once. If they don't set this kind of precedent, I'm kind enough to only Mindprobe them. In this particular instance, a spoon, a car battery, some devil rats, a bucket, a handheld flamethrower and Bubba the love troll were involved. In a graphic description.

Otherwise, yeah, good old sex and ultraviolence are better done off-screen, unless you happen to be into Scandinavian larp or something.

Well, I for my part like Jeepform, and for that matter, Fiasco.

[Machiavelli]

their are lot's of heroic stories about the yama king. Again, you're not alone against him. therer are hundreds of gang grunts invading the complex across the roofs so, he will be interested in their hopeless souls, too. I banished him with two Edge-boosted attempts, btw.

however, every adventure is just a guideline for the GM. I don't think we had 7 Shedim, as our Runner Team was only 3 guys.
I think it's not the book's fault, but the GM. If he has to save your ass at the climax he should have adjusted the problem from the beginning.

btw, I'll be in Stuttgart soon (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Ah, how´s that? Business?^^
Of course an adventure is a guidline, but it is much too detailed to be only a "rough" guideline. We are talking about --- i don´t know ----20-30 bucks with informations and detailed NPS. People put work, time and sweat into the production and not only because they get paid, also becaus we pay for this work, it should be a workable, playable result. If i have to adjust every part of the adventure because the devs either don´t know what they do or they simply don´t care, i don´t need to buy a complete hardcover-book. In this case a half-page-sized summary would be enough.

The book says that the adventure is for experiences runners, but we ARE experienced runners and if you play it realstically you are toast on every second page of this adventure. Magical combat with a spirit rating 9 in his own domain rating 3...tell me one mage that can handle this. You can use edge, the spirit can do that too. He is rating 9, so he should have more edge than you. His ITNW is unpassable for mundanes and we don´t have an adept with death-touch. Even if he would have it, he probable has less than 19 dices the monster has for unarmed combat. There are so many things that makes no sense, that i can´t point them all out.

[Cain]

Force 9 spirits can be beat. My first time through, we were using the 4.0 rules, and the troll archer with EX-arrowheads did a lot of damage on his first shot. The second shot pretty much finished it off.

[Machiavelli]

We are 2 Sams with Ares Alphas and Exexplosive, a mage with (now) magic rating of 3 (Sorcery 5+Specialisation combat) and edge 5 plus a rigger with a small rotordrone. Tell me how to survive.

[LurkerOutThere]

Run