How much common sense to expect from Players Options

[Dez384]

My players and I got in a bit of a disagreement about a plot twist and of course, I am seeking the internet as an arbiter.

First the players: an oldman hacker/rigger, gun adept oni, minigun toting troll, voodoo shaman, and a voodoo mystic adept.

My group is running in the city of Havana and has been hired to steal the cyberarm of the city manager without killing him (I won't go into plot reasons much since two of my players frequent this site). By the 6th of September, they had found that the city manager was receiving gene therapy on a private island owned by the Martinez family (who rules Cuba), which he is a member of. The rigger hacks into the main node the compound and looks up the stringent schedule that the city manager keeps and the group decides to sneak onto the island by hiding in the food shipment that arrives daily during the time that the city manager is undergoing gene therapy.

The troll had a contact that he hired to get some explosives for him. The contact said that he could pick up the explosives at noon on the 11th. The runners choose to wait until the morning of the 12th to sneak in because they feel no time crunch, as the Johnson had told them that there was no hard deadline to get the job done.

The campaign started on September 1st and I had set the city manager to be 2/3 done with his gene therapy then. This would have him finish the therapy on September 11th. With gene therapy finished, he would go home that evening.

My players enact their plan flawlessly but are pissed off when they find that their target isn't on the island. They proceeded to show me just how destructive they can be by destroying much of the compound, rather than just leave quietly (which was still an option at that point). They are frustrated that our first two sessions consisted of them doing legwork and when they actually get to the run, their target isn't even there.

My justifications:
1) They didn't keep eyes on the target for the five days between when they made their plan and when they executed it. The gun adept took down the scope hooked to an image link that he had been using for surveillance after the plan had been made.
2) I gave them the daily schedule of the compound and the city manager. They were two daily visits of outsiders to the compound: the food convoy in the morning and the manager's aide in the evening. They didn't ask about how long the city manager was planning on staying at the compound or how long his gene therapy was going to continue.
3) The rigger re-hacked his way into the system before the group began their run. He didn't check to see if their target was still on the island or where he was supposed to be.

My players said that I should assume that they have common sense and that they shouldn't have to ask about every detail or small bit of minutiae.


I didn't think that it would be such a big deal that the target had changed location. Apparently, I was wrong.

[Halflife]

We also had a Renraku Stormcloud in patrol over the island, and our contacts indicated that the target was "in hiding" which made sense since he just barely survived a mob hit.

[Neraph]

I'd give time-sensitive information to the group as they hack it: for example, your hacker should have had his itenerary as soon as he first hacked the node.

But yeah, they should learn to double-check things themselves.

Oh, and the hurt should be dropped on them for so much high-profile damage.

EDIT: It doesn't matter how twisted your panties get. Remember - it's a game, and there are supposed to be consequences for your actions. Very few people in real life (even the spec-ops or mercs) would psychotically start detonating things simply because they didn't double-and-triple-check their plans.

[Dez384]

We also had a Renraku Stormcloud in patrol over the island, and our contacts indicated that the target was "in hiding" which made sense since he just barely survived a mob hit.

The Renraku Stormcloud that he forgot about.

[pbangarth]

Hmmm.... knowing the target's schedule and keeping track of him during the run don't seem like minutiae to me. Failing to do these things is an oversight.

An important point not mentioned in your OP is whether the players (not the PCs) are experienced or not and whether they have played much with you. Rookie players could use some slack. Their reaction in-game sounds like acting out OOC frustration with you. Have they experienced such frustration before?

EDIT: ninja-ed by further information.

[Dez384]

Hmmm.... knowing the target's schedule and keeping track of him during the run don't seem like minutiae to me. Failing to do these things is an oversight.

An important point not mentioned in your OP is whether the players (not the PCs) are experienced or not and whether they have played much with you. Rookie players could use some slack. Their reaction in-game sounds like acting out OOC frustration with you. Have they experienced such frustration before?

EDIT: ninja-ed by further information.

Our group has been playing together for a while now and this is our second shadow-run campaign. I'd like to think that we'd be used to plot twists by now, but apparently not.

[Tanegar]

I second Neraph on all points. Yes, you should have told them about the mark's itinerary at the outset, including his projected date of departure. On the other hand, the players do need to learn to do proper legwork, up to and including continuous surveillance of the target should it be called for. And yes, they need to feel some serious heat for that kind of high-profile temper tantrum. Blowing things up is occasionally a necessary part of a run. Blowing things up because you screwed the pooch and are losing your shit is the kind of thing that gets runners blacklisted at the very least.

[Method]

I'd say your players just royally fucked themselves. Now the politico knows someone is gunning for him and his security and whereabout will become that much more difficult to surmise.

But more to the point, it sounds to me like your players are acting out because they were disappointed in the direction the game went or had expectations that were not met. Personally, I think complications are what make the game fun, but apparently your player feel differently. Or maybe they just don't appreciate the plot you are trying to develop. At any rate it sounds like you all need to have an OoC chat before your next session and make up.

Edit: Holy ninja-attack, Batman!

[CanRay]

After my tech support scars, I only have one thing to say about common sense.

[LurkerOutThere]

I forsee this thread will produce an arbitration that all parties will be happy about. I also have a variety of bridges for sale. I'm always a little leery about folks coming to internet forums looking for ammo to win an table argument, but here are my thoughts:

You really can't win on this one, as a GM if you portray a game world where nothing moves independent of the players action it's not very good story telling. THe flip side to that is as a storyteller when you see your players cruising on merrily towards disaster you have to give them a chance to avert it ahead of time, because to be honest the characters should be way better at tracking details from moment to moment then the players are with session brakes and what not. What I would have done had I see this is call for a sort of "putting two and two together" test if they are not putting together all the information they've gather correctly. Maybe someone who reviewed the files should have been allowed to make a logic + medicine roll to know that by now the target would be pushing the maximum amount of time gene therapy would have taken, or something similar.

While I do think the team might have done better over watch and relied less on events not changing on the whole if the information would have reasonably been gained by them you should have given them some chance to put it together.

In short: If the players have done recon and might have reasonably come across the details in question to make a proper decision you should try and provide opportunities to do so. If they don't perform recon or just go about things in a way that won't solve the puzzle you shouldn't hold their hands and pave the road, but you should accept close attempts.

In other words, it would be kind of a jerk move to tell someone that they are ejected from a vehicle after a crash because they didn't specifically tell you they were buckling their seatbelt when they got in the car.


So final thoughts: As a compromise see if you can come up with a roll to get the data they need and then if they're amenable to it consider just rewinding back before the point of failure.

[Critias]

I forsee this thread will produce an arbitration that all parties will be happy about. I also have a variety of bridges for sale. I'm always a little leery about folks coming to internet forums looking for ammo to win an table argument...

Amen. Especially when more than one person from the argument are here, and adding to/changing the story as the thread progresses.

Guys: fuck Dumpshock (and all the rest of the internet). You're friends. Talk to each other, instead of using the internet as some sort of "appeal to authority" fallacy to win an argument.

[Shinobi Killfist]

Like most situations blame probably can be found on both sides.

Should the players have kept surveillance, generally yes. But that is a yes dependent on their skills at shadowing people.

On the other hand when asking for a targets schedule a GM should not treat questions like that like the players are making a wish with a genie. They should have got the full schedule including when it would be wrapped up.

This is more general and not tied to what was given in the OP but as a GM I think it is a good idea to remember that your players probably are not members of special forces so playing gotcha because they forget to X while otherwise having a solid plan is just being a bit dickish. If they seem to be overlooking something basic it isn't a bad idea to drop a hint. If they seem to have a good plan I am going to assume they remembered to tie their shoes, look for a tail or whatever basic features a trained professional would be doing without expecting the players to always remember to say it.

At the end of the day though acting out is never cool, it just a grownup version of a temper tantrum. Just talk with each other, and work it out.

[onlyghostdancesw...]

Tbh there is a common sense quality in the books for a reason; if your players didnt take it they dont get it. Especially if you play mirror-shades type campaigns like I do then you need to keep up on general details like that. You ofc dont do the rocks fall routine on them now but they just made a multi-million nuyen dent in someones bottomline... it is now cost-effective to send hitsquads after them. Meta-gaming at my table ends up getting players killed very quickly and totally legitimately. Fortunately Ive only ever had to boot one actual player before because of this.

[Loch]

Running to dumpshock for an answer isn't going to fix the problem. Talk to us about it.

[Traul]

Running to dumpshock for an answer isn't going to fix the problem.

Probably not, but it sure is entertaining (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

*grabs popcorn*

[Ascalaphus]

Tbh there is a common sense quality in the books for a reason; if your players didnt take it they dont get it. Especially if you play mirror-shades type campaigns like I do then you need to keep up on general details like that. You ofc dont do the rocks fall routine on them now but they just made a multi-million nuyen dent in someones bottomline... it is now cost-effective to send hitsquads after them. Meta-gaming at my table ends up getting players killed very quickly and totally legitimately. Fortunately Ive only ever had to boot one actual player before because of this.

Isn't that just a little bit harsh?

That said, I dislike those Common Sense qualities. What exactly constitutes "Common" sense varies a lot from GM to GM. Also, I think it's a very adversarial player-vs-GM kind of quality. Often if players are doing something that seems extremely stupid, it's because they misunderstood something the GM told them, or because the GM forgot to share information that wasn't as obvious as he thought.

In this case, the planned end date for the gene therapy is definitely that should've been on the schedule somewhere. It's a bit naive for the players not to ask for it, but since the GM doesn't mention it, they might just assume the GM meant that "the therapy will take long enough that the end date is not relevant to the adventure", and that the GM specifically didn't intend for the target to leave soon, because he wanted to force them to extract them from the vat and not while he's on the road to home.

That's a reasonable assumption for the players to make, so what seems obvious to the GM wasn't to the players. Said differently: if you're the only who seems to "get it", then your "common sense" apparently isn't common.

[suoq]

has been hired to steal the cyberarm of the city manager
..
looks up the stringent schedule that the city manager keeps
...
The contact said that he could pick up the explosives at noon on the 11th. The runners choose to wait until the morning of the 12th to sneak in
...
This would have him finish the therapy on September 11th. With gene therapy finished, he would go home that evening.

Why do they have the city manager's schedule and yet are ignorant of when he's going home?

There are times when a player may have forgotten something that the character would have remembered, especially with missions that go over a few sessions. What was a detail in a game a couple weeks ago is not as important to the players as the central focus of their job that they've been working on for the past couple days is to the players.

1) At some point, assuming you informed the players that the schedule contained a departure date (which I'm still not clear on), you should remind players of things their characters should remember, such as the schedule and the stormcloud.
2) Was there some reason why you didn't want the explosives to be available on-time?

Now it may be that your goal here is to play an adversarial campaign (see the intro to this month's KODT), in which case, this is what you should expect and the character's actions are completely believable.

One last note: The player didn't ask should NOT mean the character doesn't know. If you insist on going down that path you will train your players to ask, and ask, and ask, and you're going to start hating your campaign because the players will be trained to look for minutiae.

[Seth]

This kind of thing happens all the time when I am playing. It depends on the style of the GM.

One reason I like having NPCs around the players when I GM is so that the NPC can remind the players that they have forgotten something obvious, and I'll do that in the interest of having a good time. There are many reasons to play the game, and having a good time is high on the list. Some peoples definition of "having a good time" is different, so based on knowing the people, I will tune how much help they get.

Example: I'm running a game for a bunch of 14 year olds: the NPCs give them a lot of help, and in the original example would have reminded the players to check. I'm running a couple of games on Dumpshock, the NPCs wouldn't of reminded the players to check.

[Hound]

My two cents: if it was my campaign, I'd probably have just said the guy sticks around a bit longer. Or better yet, have him leaving just as the runners are starting to enact their plan, in some way that they totally notice it. I don't normally like fudging, but I agree with the people that say it seems likely they would have found out what day he was leaving on. GMs make mistakes too, but the key in my opinion is to fix them in a way that doesn't feel like you're boning your players. Cause honestly, it would suck to do all that work/preparation, then basically have to start from square one.

[Dez384]

Firstly, I wasn't running to Dumpshock to get ammo to use for winning a table argument. I came here to get others opinions if what happened was unreasonable, since the majority of my other friends in real life don't play Shadowrun. My real life friends would agree with me, but that's because we're in Army ROTC and would get our butts handed to us if we didn't leave eyes on the objective. If our paranoid gunbunny was still playing with us, this wouldn't have happened. Again, I didn't come to dumpshock for arbitration, merely to see if I was out in left field with my thinking. This will have to be settled with my players, but that couldn't have been done last night as even the one who swears by reason had lost his marbles.

Secondly, I try to favor a fluid approach to my world and have told my players this. I have told them that jobs will change depending on when they take them and some will pass to someone else if the runners don't take them. This isn't a video game where the end boss is always sitting on his throne, just waiting for a group of adventurers to come kill him. I wanted to have choices matter. The explosives, which didn't really matter, were a choice. I had the contact get the explosives on a certain date to see how my players would react. Would they wait? Would they strike immediately after getting them? Would they wait until the next day to carrier out their plan? They chose to wait until the day after. That wasn't a bad choice per se. Once finding that their princess was in another castle, they could have left with little to no commotion. Rather they made the choice to [s]maim/[s] kill and burn. These choices will have consequence.

Thirdly, I do believe myself to be a lenient GM in many regards and as this is the first run with new characters, I didn't try to set them up for failure. I don't make the awakened tell me explicitly that they perform their geas ritual every morning. I let the minigun wielding troll intimidate without making checks (only on weak willed people). I let people use their landlord similar to a contact for knowledge and let contacts act a bit out of what you would expect from them (IMHO a fence wouldn't go find explosives for you or set up a meeting with the mafia, but I wanted to keep the game rolling).

Fourthly, in order to address some details that came up: I told them that they had the daily schedule that the manager keeps and didn't mention about the end date of the therapy. They didn't ask so I didn't tell them; they looked at one day and didn't ask about the future. I didn't conveniently remind the rigger about his stormcloud, because I didn't remember it either.

Fifthly, I honestly didn't think that they'd flip such a shit about the guy not being where they thought he would be. On the scale of twists, this was simple, practical, and could have been found when error checking the plan. Dickish moves could have been: he's not a real person, he doesn't have a cyber-arm, it was a trap etc. If my players had attacked when he wasn't in a gene therapy session, he would have probably made it through the escape tunnel (which they knew about). Now I am wondering if they could have even handled that much of a twist.

[LurkerOutThere]

All I know is the answers to these questions are not here.

However my follow up thought, is there any reason the targets check out date wouldn't have been available on the system for the hacker? Do you give your players a file directory fold out and ask them what files they are going after (don't laugh, i've done this always leads to hillarious episodes of "What's the paydata actually named, and how many of the other files have databombs on them?") to which the answer is always: All of them.

I guess at first blush it does seem like while your ideas are valid you did deliberately obfusicate data the runners otherwise should have gotten during their leg work. They should have kept eyes on the package in the lead up, but that has it's own risks as well as the surveillance team can be discovered blowing or prematurely starting the op.

[Dez384]

They check out date would have been available to the hacker had he looked, but he didn't look or ask for it.

[UmaroVI]

I think you're focusing on the wrong question.

Did this make the game more fun for everyone? If yes, you made the right call. If no, you made the wrong call.

Actually, I posted before you replied to Lurker. I agree with him and suoq: that was a bad call.

[Neraph]

My group was once on a Shadowrun to kidnap old people from an old-folk's home (for use in cyborgs, but nobody did the hacking to figure that out...). Not only did they end up kidnapping like 20 people over the age of 75, they also killed like five orderlies/security guards, Powerballed the loading dock door (and some of the dock), kidnapped the holistic shaman on-premises, and dragged a few bodies with them. There were 11 drones used (which is how the first security guy died [the rigger had all 11 drones on one subscription and told that subscription to shoot the guard once with SnS - 11 shots hit the guard for 99S(e) that he heroically reduced to 77S with only 3 Bod and 6 armor that was reduced to 3]), nobody hacked the security cameras or edited/deleted the feeds, and nobody wore masks or helmets.

The way I didn't TPK the group is I created a rival Johnson from the corp that owned the old-folk's home who got their info first and started redirecting info so he could capture them himself. He sent an elite sqaud after the team (I used Tir Ghosts that I reposted here with Capsule Rounds and Slab) while they were doing downtime in their "saferoom" while monitoring the scope of the 'run they had just done. When they came to they were all strapped and constrained in BC for the Awakened facing the J who started on a spiel about how they cost his company a lot of money. As he was monologuing some medical staff took blood samples from the whole team. He went on to say something about liking their more unorthodox heavy hand and how he may have some use for them later. Then they were knocked out and held for a few weeks.

Half of the blood samples were used to force-grow full clones of the team that were placed in a car, had a chase on live-feed Matrix sites, and was attacked and detonated, after "weeks of expert detective work" - the company had the bodies of those responsible they were looking for. The other half was kept as a ritual sample so the J could Ritual cast Dream to contact them at any time to do any thing for free, as many times as he wanted. Since they were now dead, they lost all their contacts from their old life and had to get new SINs and all that, but the group "survived."

[LurkerOutThere]

They check out date would have been available to the hacker had he looked, but he didn't look or ask for it.

He shouldn't have had to in my opinion. Your turning it into a game of genie questions and to be honest that's a not a very fun game. THe only representation of the data they have is the one you build for them in their minds eye. Some things that would be obvious to you sitting down at a computer or just going through a sheet of papers arn't going to be a forthcoming to them as you regurgitate. Did you provide a hand out visual aide?