Killer GM anonymous Options

[toturi]

My experiences with being a killer GM have been bizarre.
By this point, they're so relieved that they now have a means of contacting their employer again, that, although they're overdue to get in touch, they immediately go out for a night on the town. In the wee hours of the morning, while they're enjoying mondo-stacks of pancakes as a late night snack, they decide they should call him now to arrange a meet now, rather than later, because they might crash soon and be too hung over later to remember. They ring him up at his upscale private home in Belgium at 4AM, address him by his actual name, and inform him that things went off without a hitch - which is actually news to Johnson, as he expected them to fail spectacularly and for word to get out - the fact that no one yet realizes what happened made him think they'd bailed on the job or something. He's a bit unnerved about how much they know about him and how blasé they are about it all - maybe the idiots he hired to run his tailchaser and take the fall aren't actually idiots, and maybe they're toying with him.

He plays it cool, pretends to shrug things off, all the time sweating bullets, and arranges to actually meet them to deliver their pay, instead of giving them an address to a trap as he originally intended. The runners show up on time, express an interest in working together again, express seemingly genuine goodwill and unshakeable confidence, and utterly freak out Johnson who at this point has critically glitched on two separate occasions and is now convinced these guys are some sort of spooks, probably working for a dragon.

~Umi

So in this case, the wrongs combined to make right?

[sk8bcn]

If they walk into an obvious Trap with minimal preparation and minimal recon they deserve what they get.
They might get out alive burning some serious "Hand-of-God™" Edge but even then they deserve to lose a major part of their equipment!

Just my 20 NuRin

To be honest, as written, it's the original GM that has made himself stupid.

As a GM, I must take several things in account:

1-Did they had the opportunities to get the evidence that it will be a trap?

2-if not I must remember that
2)a) curiosity might make them go despite they feel like it's a trap
2)b) they play a (roleplaying)game. Hence, there will be a driving force that will induce some reaction: "is it what we are supposed to do to make the game go forward?"

3)You expect the GM to be willing to make the thing fun. So you feel like: "'kay it's probably a trap. We got our guns, let's see how it turns out". Then get the nasty surprise of having 40+ goons to kill ya... wow, thank you GM... Just add to that a remark about how stupid I was...actually you (GM) are.


I don't know but if that GM next time get at his Johnson's offer or plot a simple "we retreat from this shit" he will have gotten what he deserves.



(ps. the original GM from FuelDrop may have had created the strings to unfoil the trap and the players may just have been stupid and starightforward. I'm not judging him, I wasn't at his table)

[Draco18s]

When did RPGs become about "punishing" "stupidity," anyway? I thought the point was for everyone to have a fun time.

There's a difference between stupid and blindingly, painfully, obviously stupid.

Which of the following deserves to get a character killed:

1) After setting the fireworks factory on fire* one character stays behind in order to "set booby traps" for the arriving police and fire response teams in order to "make them think twice about coming after us." After leaving the building he attempts to steal a car, fails, spots the rest of the team, kidnaps the mage, and attempts to hijack a car that has been stopped by the active crime scene in broad daylight in front of the cops.

*Yes, this happened.

2) Firefight breaks out in a bar-like establishment with the PCs towards the back and the four aggressors at the door. One guy charges the shotgun wielding attacker, two other PCs exchanging full-auto fire with the three remaining baddies, the fourth takes cover behind the bar audibly telling his team how stupid they're being (with the last two PCs are in a backroom performing an interrogation).

Both are stories from my table and in both cases a PC was lost. In the first instance the question is: at what point was what the player doing move from "stupid, but recoverable" to "stupid and deserves to die/go to jail forever"?
In the second case, which of the four PCs involved in the combat deserve to get shot up so badly that they go into overflow?

[Umidori]

So in this case, the wrongs combined to make right?

It's what I refer to as the Captain Tylor effect. Any reasonable person would assume their actions would lead to catastrophe, but they somehow end up being Super Effective™.

~Umi

[Draco18s]

It's what I refer to as the Captain Tylor effect. Any reasonable person would assume their actions would lead to catastrophe, but they somehow end up being Super Effective™.

I love Captain Tylor. At one point in the series people are rather afraid of him because either:
a) he's stupidly lucky
b) a fucking genius (and he only acts dumb)
And in either case, you don't ever work against him.

[Grak]

I love Captain Tylor. At one point in the series people are rather afraid of him because either:
a) he's stupidly lucky
b) a fucking genius (and he only acts dumb)
And in either case, you don't ever work against him.

Tylor is astoundingly good. I love how he dealt with finding out Harumi was a Raalgon spy.
The Irresponsible Captain actually started feeding her information to make her appear to be a good spy. Tylor! For once in your life act responsibly! Or the time he "surrenders" to the Raalgon empire, who are known for taking no prisoners! That kid had a fair few screws loose.

[Draco18s]

That kid had a fair few screws loose.

More'n a few, but yes.
I still think my favorite thing he did was how he got recruited in the first place.

[Kruger]

I dunno, I just try to help my PCs out. Often times, there's the "Common Sense NPC" along to point out faulty plans, or I just flat out tell the players "Uh, maybe not a good idea".

After all, the characters are Shadowrunners. The players are just regular joes. Help them out from time to time if they're going to try something that is probably fatal. I ran Twilight 2013 (that game had a phenomenal ruleset, even if it bit complex), and the characters were former special operators. I was a Marine, sure; a trainer in weapons, patrolling, infantry tactics etc to boot. So I have a background in the kinds of basic thought processes that go into approaching modern combat. My friends don't have that, lol. The same philosophy will apply to my new Shadowrun campaign. I'd rather help nudge them in a smarter direction and have the scene come off memorable for everyone, than just kill someone off who did something no shadowrunner worth their salt would have done. And, to be fair, I'd probably have tried to stop any player who was making decisions that were going to adversely affect the rest of the people playing and their ability to have a good time. GMs are arbitrators, and it's your responsibility to make sure the game is a good time. Which, for some of you, seems like perhaps extends into ret-wrangling.

But, then again, I've been blessed with playing with good people, and never had to deal with the "unmanageable lunatic". And I'm far more concerned with telling a good story. I can imagine if I was dealing with the kind of characters/players as in the first post, I might not hesitate to sacrifice them. You know, in the interests of telling a good story of course. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[ShadowDragon8685]

I dunno, I just try to help my PCs out. Often times, there's the "Common Sense NPC" along to point out faulty plans, or I just flat out tell the players "Uh, maybe not a good idea".

The players in my Star Wars game wound up inadvertently recruiting one of those. It's the year 23 ABY and they found Mace Windu alive (barely) and very elderly, deep below the streets of Coruscant. He asked them to help him do something, and, to make a long story short, they wound up breaking into one of Palpatine's old out-of-the-way apartments from back when he was a Senator.

It was absolutely filled with droids, and swimming-pool based deathtrap involving butler droids (that my players have come to loathe,) liquid soap pouring from the ceiling, and liquid nitrogen. Mace went into a severe cardiac arrhythmia after the first fight and couldn't continue fighting on, but he kept in contact, seeing what they saw on his datapad headset and talking over the commlink. So they had a common sense NPC Voice with an Internet Connection who was also a snarky old guy.

And, did I mention they hate butler droids? Because they loathe the damn things. It's not that they're extraordinarily lethal, they're not. It just seems that the last butler droid always takes forever to kill.