Important Lessons for New Runners, what newbies need to learn, and how to hit where it hurts so they do. Options

[Krishach]

As mentioned in another post, one of our GMs came up with the idea to school some of our newbies hard-knock style for refusing to get with the program despite an enormous amount of leniency by GMs in 5+ runs. So, the carrot is going away, and we shall employ the stick.

Now, there is a storyline reason for this. I mentioned in another post: the team strongarmed a Johnson who sent us into a nightmare far above and beyond what we were paid for. I played my character on this, who is generally thick-headed, but our group both extorted him, and left him alive. Johnson is now wanting to regain dominance and honor and all that jazz.

The true purpose, though, is to make a run that will screw them for their blitheness. Not their mistakes: everyone's dice fail, but for out-and-out ignoring good runner sense. The hardest part? It has to be REALLY obvious in hindsight how badly they stumbled, and where, without metagaming. People at the table pointing it out has left no lasting impression. Most importantly, I want the characters to have a chance to survive the affair, even when being stupid.

Next step after this is a lot of character remakes. No more freebies.

I would like to ask the community some GOOD shadowrun habits (things they SHOULD do), and how to make it painfully obvious that they missed it. I would like to ask BAD shadowrunner habits (stupid obvious bad) and how to make it painfully obvious to the unaware they should stop. How would you educate a thick head without breaking it? I've got a list, but there has to be a lot I haven't thought of.

[Warlordtheft]

Try the search function, threads like this pop up from time to time. Some of it comes down to GM style and the level of pink mohawk in the game.

Base lessons of running from my perspective:

1. Don't screw the Johnson. Bad for rep, bad for business, and the J probably has more assets than you.

2. If a run goes south, cut your losses and run. You're here to make money, not die gloriously (most of the time).

3. Don't screw with your fellow players. PVP in PNP roleplaying is generally frowned upon, but in SR it has to be there. Double crossing team members or endangering them due to stupidity are 2 of the many reasons I allow PVP.

4. Always be aware that the johnson may screw you. Contrary to rule 1, when the johnson screws you refer to rule 2 and ignore rule 1. You can bitch out your fixer later.

5. Don't deal with dragons. For you are crucnchy on the outside and chewey on the inside....(IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

6. Killing people should be avoided if possible. Dead people result in dead peoples relatives/friends/associates getting upset and looking for vengence. It also involves the LEO.

7. Secure your comms. Slave everything to route through the hackers comms. He usually has the best one.

8. Disposible commlinks. Use them during the run, dispose them later.

9. Be subtle, going in guns blazing results in HTR teams on your door step. THe first HTR member on scene is the astral mage (with their spirits) and their hacker.

10. Contacts are there for a reason. One is to gather information. Everyone should have contacts and use them (just watch their loyalty).

11. Treat your contacts well, they will return the favor.

12. Milspec weponry is a bad idea--if you need it you're doing something wrong. If the opposition has it you did something wrong.

13. Don't go around in full battle dress. Be inconspicious as possible.

14. Going in blind is a sure fire way to get killed, gather information on the target first.

[SpellBinder]

Regarding numbers 10 and 11, a few things to add:

When doing legwork, check all of your contacts and take notes. Information from your contacts is not 100% God's honest truth. Some will know more than others, some will give you wrong information because they themselves got it wrong (they're only metahuman, after all, and not omniscient), and some (especially for low loyalty) may deliberately give you wrong info because they're more loyal to the other guys (especially if you didn't treat them well).

In a manhunt run, I had the players for half the night trying to figure out who to hunt down. They had little info from their Johnson for the start, and the little bit of legwork they did (and I mean little) had turned up the target's street name and real name, but not enough clues to say both belonged to the same person. For most of the run, no one had bothered to check with additional contacts to figure that a few had wrong info.

In a run a friend of mine told me about, he had them running all over Seattle for their target. As I was told, one of the players had the target's brother for a contact. In that contact's case, blood was most definitely thicker than water and he deliberately gave wrong information to the team, and the team took it as the truth. I don't know if that player ever figured out the familial relationship that time or not.

[VykosDarkSoul]

In a manhunt run, I had the players for half the night trying to figure out who to hunt down. They had little info from their Johnson for the start, and the little bit of legwork they did (and I mean little) had turned up the target's street name and real name, but not enough clues to say both belonged to the same person. For most of the run, no one had bothered to check with additional contacts to figure that a few had wrong info.

In a run a friend of mine told me about, he had them running all over Seattle for their target. As I was told, one of the players had the target's brother for a contact. In that contact's case, blood was most definitely thicker than water and he deliberately gave wrong information to the team, and the team took it as the truth. I don't know if that player ever figured out the familial relationship that time or not.

hehe....

Who is Keyser Soze?

[CanRay]

Who is Keyser Soze?

Exactly.

[Krishach]

Regarding numbers 10 and 11, a few things to add:

When doing legwork, check all of your contacts and take notes. Information from your contacts is not 100% God's honest truth. Some will know more than others, some will give you wrong information because they themselves got it wrong (they're only metahuman, after all, and not omniscient), and some (especially for low loyalty) may deliberately give you wrong info because they're more loyal to the other guys (especially if you didn't treat them well).

This is an excellent point. At least two of our 3 GMs like to use this principle regarding mouth to mouth information and second hand written info. It's only as reliable as the person from first. But third hand? It's as reliable as the person and the other person and the other other person...

However, I am also looking at ways to slap them with what they are missing, so it becomes clear. Some of these, like abusing Johnson, are obvious. 12 and 13, however, are easy for thick-headed people to just assume I will use mil-spec ALL the time.

Part of them not playing safe is one of the players is a troll who can soak an absurd amount of damage. Off the top of my head, I believe he was rolling 30 dice to resist bullets.



Here is the run idea so far:
Our original pissed of Mr Johnson (let's call him Jake) is going to use an employee (let's call him Bob, a temp Johnson) to ask the idiots of our team to clear a series of connected buildings in the Puyallup Barrens. They will be contracted to remove all squatters, critters, and spirits, and secure the building until support arrives.

Our 2nd GM, who created the run where our team screwed Jake, is going to play a close-combat NPC specializing in Nerve Strike and non-lethal takedown. Lets call him Leo. This char concept should be able to immobilize the super-troll as well.

The buildings will be inhabited by squatting ghouls, and a few paracritters. As the PCs enter, I am going to trash their vehicles (or steal them) since they fail to ever secure them. As the team splits up to secure the location, PCs will start to go missing as Leo begins to quietly take the team down (or they may die to ghouls as well). At this point, I am going to try to push some paranoia buttons as things fall apart for the players.

This will all be on dice: the players will have ample opportunity to catch all this (like doing backgrounds on Bob Johnson) but I anticipate they will ignore it as always. Should they fail, Leo will do his job taking them down, and they will wake up in a room where Jake Johnson will decide some comeuppance. This will likely be leverage for a future run, as The Man holding sway decides the objectives (think Burn Notice Michael Weston chores).

Any thoughts on what to add to slap them upside the head with? Any gross mistake to exploit as they brazen through this? Keep in mind, we are doing this because they fail to play it smart so often.

[toturi]

When doing legwork, check all of your contacts and take notes. Information from your contacts is not 100% God's honest truth. Some will know more than others, some will give you wrong information because they themselves got it wrong (they're only metahuman, after all, and not omniscient), and some (especially for low loyalty) may deliberately give you wrong info because they're more loyal to the other guys (especially if you didn't treat them well).

I agree. Except perhaps the last. If the contact was a low loyalty freebie who owes greater loyalty to another party, or the information did not come from a contact in the first place, then the information need not be true and could even be false.

Generally I wouldn't have a low loyalty Contact (that the player bought) deliberately pass along wrong info, I would simply have the Contact refuse to give him any info. If the contact was being forced(somehow) to pass along misleading info, then I would allow the character at least to roll some Test to ascertain the truth of the matter. And I'd allow my players to do the same, to have contacts in common with their target pass along false information and my BBEG may well not know that it is false.

Now, there is a storyline reason for this. I mentioned in another post: the team strongarmed a Johnson who sent us into a nightmare far above and beyond what we were paid for. I played my character on this, who is generally thick-headed, but our group both extorted him, and left him alive. Johnson is now wanting to regain dominance and honor and all that jazz.

I do not know the whole story behind this but from your post, this is what I gather:

A Johnson had dealt with the team in bad faith as he had sent the team on a very difficult mission that he tried to accomplish on the cheap. The team survived and strongarmed him into paying what the run should paid and after getting their moneys, they left their Johnson poorer than if they had not tried to get their fair pay but alive.

Perhaps you can tell us what is the smart thing the players should have had their characters do?

[mister__joshua]

Should they fail, Leo will do his job taking them down, and they will wake up in a room where Jake Johnson will decide some comeuppance. This will likely be leverage for a future run, as The Man holding sway decides the objectives.

Given what has gone before, I'd guess that after all this the players would try to hunt Jake Johnson again rather than be lorded over by him. Therefore, if you're going for leverage, make it cranial bomb leverage (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[TheOOB]

7. Secure your comms. Slave everything to route through the hackers comms. He usually has the best one.

8. Disposible commlinks. Use them during the run, dispose them later.

I agree with most of of your points except the ones I've quoted, but matrix security is a complicated topic that requires a good understanding of the world to truly understand. I don't think those are always good advice, and certainly not the advice I'd give new players

Slaving devices opens up new security vulnerabilities, and I would never slave my 'link to someone else. Better advice is that if you don't need wireless, turn it off

As for disposible commlinks, good links are expensive, and it's much better to have a good 'link that you reuse that to use crappy disposable 'links. It's better to have a 'link you only use while on a run, and a "public" 'link you never take on a run(in fact my more matrix savy runners usually carry three links, their normal John Q Public Link, the one they use for shadow business/contacts, and the one they use on runs).

Other advice,

* Always take out magicians first.
* Never be the one to betray someone, but always get revenge on those who betray you(important for rep)
* The metahuman link of security is almost always the weakest link, focus on that
* Never be caught without a weapon
* Never be caught without a backup weapon
* Remember that combat is usually won by the side that gets surprise, if that doesn't work, than the side that wins initiative usually wins, if THAT doesn't work, the side with more initiative passes usually wins. Ergo, stealth, perception, and initiative are important for everyone.
* Don't steal anything extra on a run you can't fence immediately. The only reason the corp isn't coming after you is because they think their product is long gone. If you still have corp property once they release they've been robbed, you're a target.
*Always know where the closest relatively friendly extraterritorial area is for a quick escape.

[Xenefungus]

Part of them not playing safe is one of the players is a troll who can soak an absurd amount of damage. Off the top of my head, I believe he was rolling 30 dice to resist bullets.

This is quite common. And 30 is far from the top of the line. I really hate that the system allows for building characters this resilient.

Plus, I think things like this are really the root cause for a lot of the "mis-playing" indeed. The solution:

Have him fail.
Badly.

This means anything that halves Armor (Electricity, Laser), ignores it (Gas, Stunbolts) or just disables him (webs, trap leading in a hole, foam that makes him unable to move).

Take away his feeling of invulnerability. People need to know that the world is deadly, not a playground.

[Warlordtheft]

I agree with most of of your points except the ones I've quoted, but matrix security is a complicated topic that requires a good understanding of the world to truly understand. I don't think those are always good advice, and certainly not the advice I'd give new players

Slaving devices opens up new security vulnerabilities, and I would never slave my 'link to someone else. Better advice is that if you don't need wireless, turn it off

As for disposible commlinks, good links are expensive, and it's much better to have a good 'link that you reuse that to use crappy disposable 'links. It's better to have a 'link you only use while on a run, and a "public" 'link you never take on a run(in fact my more matrix savy runners usually carry three links, their normal John Q Public Link, the one they use for shadow business/contacts, and the one they use on runs).

True that slaving means if the hackers comm gets compromised, all the links are compromised. However, given the varying levels of protection and ability with hacking, slaving the dedicated hacker is better than not. You can still be spoofed, but that can be done with or without slaving. At least with slaving the node to another node they'd have to go through the better security of the hacker first. This assumes you trust the hacker. Disposable comms are good and cheap way to go for the john Q public link and the ones they use on runs. THe most secure in my opinion should be the one with shadow business/contacts.

[Jericho Alar]

This is quite common. And 30 is far from the top of the line. I really hate that the system allows for building characters this resilient.

Plus, I think things like this are really the root cause for a lot of the "mis-playing" indeed. The solution:

Have him fail.
Badly.

This means anything that halves Armor (Electricity, Laser), ignores it (Gas, Stunbolts) or just disables him (webs, trap leading in a hole, foam that makes him unable to move).

Take away his feeling of invulnerability. People need to know that the world is deadly, not a playground.

Adding to this:

if it's different in 4 I haven't come across it at my table yet, but generally any troll with 20+ dice to soak physical damage is going to fall over instantly if a mage even looks at them funny.

mages/magical resources (spirits, etc.) in SR combat are generally for three things: 1) magical interdiction (my mage prevents your mage from messing with my team), 2) a hard counter to high physical soak characters. 3) drawing fire so the rest of the team can operate with some freedom in protracted fights.

if the target is supposed to have competent security, and magical defenses aren't doing all 3 of those things when the runner team encounters them, you need to re-work your defenses.

while it's a popular rule of thumb to always geek the mage first, generally the first thing a mage should do is geek the trog first. (or go for a banish if their primary muscle is an F4+ spirit).

[Xenefungus]

The bad thing about stunbolt is just that it feels like cheating. Because let's be honest, no one will stand through that Force 12 Stunbolt, Troll or not. So that's kind of a mood point.

Plus, i kinda think that mundane characters should be able to deal with Mr armor trog. Mages are rare and all that.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

The bad thing about stunbolt is just that it feels like cheating. Because let's be honest, no one will stand through that Force 12 Stunbolt, Troll or not. So that's kind of a mood point.

Plus, i kinda think that mundane characters should be able to deal with Mr armor trog. Mages are rare and all that.

Depends upon whether the target has Counterspelling benefits or not. I have seen Shadowrunners survive the Force 10+ Stun Spell (Yes, with judicious usage of Edge Dice and a Good Counterspelling Mage on their side), and bring the pain to said Spellcasting Mage. It can happen.

[Xenefungus]

Yeah, mages can counter mages. But no one else.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Yeah, mages can counter mages. But no one else.

Magic Resistance... Up to 4 Levels of it. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)
And besides, if your team is running without a Mage, you deserve to get your asses handed to you by the opposition's mage. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Xenefungus]

Those 4 dice really wont help against any competent mage.

Point is, realistically MOST shadowrunning crews do NOT have regular access to a mage - there're just not enough awakened people statistically.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Those 4 dice really wont help against any competent mage.

Point is, realistically MOST shadowrunning crews do NOT have regular access to a mage - there're just not enough awakened people statistically.

My experiences say differently, on both counts... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Wakshaani]

My experiences say differently, on both counts... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Well, obviously almost all PC groups do, but, they're the minority of Shadowrunning teams.

Most have to get by without the Talent and hope that the opposition's in a similar boat.

[Stahlseele]

"If the GM is smiling, you back yourself and your character up against a sturdy wall and hope for the best."

[SpellBinder]

Yeah, mages can counter mages. But no one else.

If you use the SURGE qualities in RC: Magic Resistance 4 (20 BP) & Changeling Class III (15 BP) with Arcane Arrester (25 of 30 bonus BP for metagenetic qualities) and Astral Hazing (-10 of the required 15 for negative metagenetic qualities). If I remember my math for this right, that Force 12 Stunbolt just became Force 4 (first -4 to Force for hitting the astral haze to be Force 8, then halved for Arcane Arrester), and the character is resisting at Willpower +4.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Here is the run idea so far:
Our original pissed of Mr Johnson (let's call him Jake) is going to use an employee (let's call him Bob, a temp Johnson) to ask the idiots of our team to clear a series of connected buildings in the Puyallup Barrens. They will be contracted to remove all squatters, critters, and spirits, and secure the building until support arrives.

A reasonable job. Is Bob Johnson in on the doublecross, or does he genuinely believe he's hiring them for realsies, and will he pay if they manage to beat the odds and come looking for their nuyen?

Our 2nd GM, who created the run where our team screwed Jake, is going to play a close-combat NPC specializing in Nerve Strike and non-lethal takedown. Lets call him Leo. This char concept should be able to immobilize the super-troll as well.

Use the Beardy Cheese sparingly, especially when you decide to build an overpowered combat munchkin who specializes in doing things your players can't reasonable be prepared for and aren't built to resist.

Give him flaws. Flaws your players could reasonably exploit and use to terminate him with extreme prejudice. For instance, have him be as negligent with his own astral security/scent security as the players are with their vehicles, resulting in Leo needing to fight off the ghouls, giving the players a chance to spot him when he's not in "stalking them" mode.

The buildings will be inhabited by squatting ghouls, and a few paracritters. As the PCs enter, I am going to trash their vehicles (or steal them) since they fail to ever secure them. As the team splits up to secure the location, PCs will start to go missing as Leo begins to quietly take the team down (or they may die to ghouls as well). At this point, I am going to try to push some paranoia buttons as things fall apart for the players.

Be careful on this as well. Vehicles are very expensive. If they've been completely lax, it's fair to fuck with their ride(s) or even steal them, but if they're stolen or trashed beyond recovery, well... Even a modest ride with no options costs two or three runs worth of nuyen to replace. If you do this, you will create players who are desperate to get more nuyen and/or replacement vehicles - desperate meaning they'll take more chances to extract every last nuyen they can from their missions, up to and including (especially including) selling the corpses and generally being far more ruthless in the future. If that's the kind of escalation you want in your game, so be it.

This will all be on dice: the players will have ample opportunity to catch all this (like doing backgrounds on Bob Johnson) but I anticipate they will ignore it as always. Should they fail, Leo will do his job taking them down, and they will wake up in a room where Jake Johnson will decide some comeuppance. This will likely be leverage for a future run, as The Man holding sway decides the objectives (think Burn Notice Michael Weston chores).

Any thoughts on what to add to slap them upside the head with? Any gross mistake to exploit as they brazen through this? Keep in mind, we are doing this because they fail to play it smart so often.

A lot of players would quite literally rather fight to the death than be captured, so don't be surprised if a lot (or all!) of them decide they'd rather make new characters than live under coercion. If they're determined to play Pink Mohawk, you're either going to have to run Pink Mohawk, or find a new group.


That said, don't be surprised it the very first thing they do after Mr. Johnson lets them go is track him down and exact bloody revenge; give him the hood-and-bag treatment, crack his commlink, find out where he is, shoot his wife, steal everything he has, kidnap his daughter and sell her to a bunraku parlor, and then, at the end of it, throw him, alive but bound, to the ghouls. Or something equally vicious.

I do not know the whole story behind this but from your post, this is what I gather:

A Johnson had dealt with the team in bad faith as he had sent the team on a very difficult mission that he tried to accomplish on the cheap. The team survived and strongarmed him into paying what the run should paid and after getting their moneys, they left their Johnson poorer than if they had not tried to get their fair pay but alive.

Perhaps you can tell us what is the smart thing the players should have had their characters do?

As I understand it, they bugged out on the run rather than finish it. Typically, you don't get to combine both of "cut and run" and "I do a job... And then I get paid."

Given what has gone before, I'd guess that after all this the players would try to hunt Jake Johnson again rather than be lorded over by him. Therefore, if you're going for leverage, make it cranial bomb leverage (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

No, don't do this. They probably will just refuse to play their current characters if they wind up with cranial bombs, treating that as being the same as the character being killed or rendered unfit to play.

At least, don't do it the first time.

Johnsons aren't omniscient either. Have him get cocky, and believe that he can keep them in line by threatening their contacts or something. If it works, great. If they choose to go after him directly again, well... Play it out, but honestly? Let ferocity work out this once - he never actually got around to setting up his promised revenge-if-you-kill-me, and they find the plans for how he was going to, but didn't get around to it before they grab him and revenge themselves upon it.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

If you use the SURGE qualities in RC: Magic Resistance 4 (20 BP) & Changeling Class III (15 BP) with Arcane Arrester (25 of 30 bonus BP for metagenetic qualities) and Astral Hazing (-10 of the required 15 for negative metagenetic qualities). If I remember my math for this right, that Force 12 Stunbolt just became Force 4 (first -4 to Force for hitting the astral haze to be Force 8, then halved for Arcane Arrester), and the character is resisting at Willpower +4.

Astral Hazing does not help against incomming Combat Spells AT ALL.... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)
It is a Negative Quality, not a Positive one.

[SpellBinder]

Yeah, I know it's a negative. It's not like the haze can be turned off and on at will.

Hmmm, and here I thought that casting into a BC impacted the spell just as if you were in the BC. Makes astral hazing feel over priced and cyberzombies less scary now.

[CanRay]

The Johnson is going to screw you in the end.

...

What? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)