Theoretical question, How would you handle this situation as a GM Options

[Kyrel]

The last two gaming sessions have uncovered a problem I really haven't considdered or encountered before, and while I've talked it over with the group tonight about how we might handle this in the future, should it arise again, I'd like your input on this as well.

The thing is that one of the players character got seriously wounded during a part of a run. As the group has elected to press on in in-game time, instead of waiting for the character to heal up. The result has been that we've now effectively had two gaming sessions where the one player have just been sitting there listening to the game, because his character's been too hurt to participate in the next part of the run the rest of the group was pressing on with, and he's had no options in-game for speeding up his healing.
In overlooking this issue, I've messed up as a GM, and I'll be looking out for this pitfall in the future, and the downed player character will be back in action the next time, so at that point the problem is over for now. But...

How would or do you handle a situation where a character gets too hurt to participate in any run activity for several days in-game, but the group wants/needs/decides to press on with the next parts of the operation, effectively leaving the player of the downed character sidelined for one or more game sessions?

[Titan]

Off the hip, if the character was sidelined through no fault of the player (running into a bank and popping off a few explosive rounds would not count), AND the rest of the group chose to press on when it wasn't really needed, I'd award the sidelined character a couple extra karma, and some "free" training time. They had to spend the downtime doing something.

Now, if the group pressed on because of some timeline issue, especially if their characters were reluctant (not just the players), give the sidelined character a session or two of one on one gaming, and make sure to include opportunities to make some quality contacts (for free).

Never be afraid to hand out contacts. Particularly if they are introduced through roleplay. They help tie the character to the world. They can even get the player more invested in the game. And since they are only as useful as the GM (you) wants them to be,they can never come back to bite you later.

[Glyph]

Shadowrun has medkits and healing magic, so badly wounded characters who stay that way should be rare. Make sure that you are not making healing too difficult. If the players don't have this area covered, hopefully they will make an effort to do so after this last run.

If a character got captured or incapacitated during a run, I would probably let the player run some of the NPC's so that he or she would have something to do.

[Titan]

Shadowrun has medkits and healing magic, so badly wounded characters who stay that way should be rare.

The group may not have access to healing magic (What? No Mages in MagicRun? It can happen). And Medkits can be hit or miss. If the group can't - or chooses not to - use the Wireless Bonus, they are practically useless (only adding to the limit). Add to that the fact that only one use of each is effective before the character is left to natural healing only again...

So, depending on the style of game and the characters, "wounded characters who stay that way should be rare," may not fit at all.

[Bodak]

one player have just been sitting there listening to the game, because his character's been too hurt to participate in the next part of the run

Too hurt to participate at all? Or to participate "safely"? Because with a Resist Pain spell made permanent (and all mages will take that spell because there are times Drain can't be avoided entirely) the character will be operating without injury modifiers (although they are still wounded) and won't feel the pain they were causing. So it depends on archetype at that stage: a drone rigger / getaway driver could probably participate with the team without much hindrance. Probably a cautious decker too. A mage / shaman could participate with judicious casting and summoning to not further aggravate the wounds. But a sam or adept would be at risk throwing themselves back into the line of fire with much of their safety buffer in jeopardy.

If the player got too injured to continue due to their own poor judgement (I've had a player successfully notice a landmine in rubble on some stairs and deliberately trigger it) then the downtime is an opportunity to reflect on how a different strategy in the future might end up being more fun. If it was simply unlucky dice rolls then definitely give that cloud a silver lining with (as others have suggested) roleplay rewards, contacts, safehouse locations, intel, possibly even a finger-on-the-pulse for what's going on in the current run if you can work it in (maybe a new contact used to live in that complex and can answer questions the injured player can relay guidance to the team regarding fire escapes, a window whose latch never worked properly, approach route and response time of emergency services, etc.) If the team simply pressed on because "we really don't need you" that might encourage the player to be more generalist, less one-trick-pony, in the future because if you only have one service to offer to the team and (for whatever reason) you can't (or it isn't useful / appropriate in the context) you're superfluous. (As a player) I try to have two primary uses per character with a handful of useful Knowledge skills for tertiary uses. My characters don't aim to eke everything out of one specialisation; their priority is being useful to the team in some way or another in every situation.

[Haywire]

That is why I always include in my contacts a Street Doc AND a Shaman/Mage... Might not heal at amoment's notice, but in a couple of days those should patche me up. If your players did not take this kind of contact, a fixer should suffice (for a fee, obviously).

[sk8bcn]

I play on a weekly basis (which is not the same as when you play once every 2 month for example) but :

Option A : Talk to the players off-game : if there's no point to press the run, tell them that it would be nice for your friend to delay a little bit. If they can't, logically, then:
Option B : If the sidelined player want to play, propose him to play an NPC. Or :
Option C : Propose him to skip next session and simply stay home (if he doesn't want to listen only).

I did option C on several occasions without troubling any player, but as I said, we play very often (and that factor makes a huge difference).


There is also an option E (which works well if you don't play often, because you have time to think about it):

twist your story in a way that hints toward a delay:

I'll give an exemple: if they want to steal something (a prototype of a piece of gear), do an ellipse "You penetrated the facility but someone already moved the piece of gear and you went empty. Some clues indicated that the R&D team is on the move in direction for Tokio".

That will allow the game to flow in a new direction WITH your sidelined Player

[TBRMInsanity]

While not Shadowrun, in other games I've GMed, when a player is that badly hurt, and there is a timeline issue, then I usually have a short (timeline wise) side quest (usually only taking 1 session at most) where the players seek out medical help (in DnD that would be an alchemist with a healing potion, in Eclipse Phase they would be looking for a rushed clone job, in Star Wars, find the Bacta Tank clinic). For Shadowrun, I would personally use one of two options (but you are not limited to these):

1. Through your contacts, take a one night mission from DocWagon (or some other HMO) in return for your SR getting healed.
2. Slum it up in the Barrens for a Street Mage with sufficiently good enough skill to provide the necessary healing (yeah free contact!).

[Kyrel]

Thanks for the feedback guys.

To give you the context of this particular situation, the players are in very early days of our 4a ed. campaign, and they have very limited funds, and only starting characters in terms of skills and connections. This run will help with that, but so far they they are strapped for cash, and thus paying a local shaman or streetdoc to assist in the healing of the character is out of the question for them right now. At the moment they are being paid by a group of local businesses to basically eliminate a small, local wannabe mafia, who's collecting protection money from the businesses. The group acts like the mafia, but they are not recognized as an official part of any of the major families in Seattle by any of the "real" mafia families, so there won't be any direct retaliation for the attacks from any of the "real" families. The players have dug up the addresses on some of the "mafia" members, and have begun taking them out. During one of the attacks, the group's Hacker came within a couple of boxes of being killed. The group's mage managed to heal him to the point of being able to function again, but even after being healed he was down to 1 box of health. After the first roll to heal up, he was only up to 2 boxes of health. In the player's opinion he was not in functional condition. (In retrospect, he could probably have contributed via the matrix, at the cost of not healing further for a day or two, but no one, incl. the player and I, thought of that possibility.) Now, the group could have waited for a couple of days, before hitting any more of the mob guys, and I told them that at the moment their targets had very limited information on who they might be, and thus they could probably get away with a couple of days break, though it would of course be a gamble, because the more time they spend pulling off the hits, the more time the remaining "mafia" will have to piece together who they are up against. In that light, the group decided to continue their killing spree, in order to take out as many of the mob guys as possible, before they started finding their feet and getting themselves organized. As a result they continued to do one more hit, on the same night the hacker got taken out, and then do another hit the night after, where the hacker was still only up to 2 boxes of health. That was last session.
Following that session, we talked the situation through, and the group have now elected to take several days break from their attacks, partly in order to let the hacker recover, and partly because they believe that they can't take any more of the targets by surprise.

I should also mention that we only play in this campaign once per month, so there's a while between sessions for everyone.


/Kyrel

[TBRMInsanity]

If I was in your shoes, I'd give the players a couple of options:
1. Try to negotiate with either a streetdoc or urban shaman to find additional healing for the Decker (sorry I've always hated the term Hacker (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif) ).
2. Relegate the Decker to remote support, similar to Oracle from Birds of Prey. Have him/her hack their way along the Matrix to keep track of the group as they track down the "mafia" and assist in whatever way possible (lock doors behind the SRs, turn off lights on "mafia" goons, coordinate communication, etc). This will mean you need to incorporate more wired elements to your run so that your Decker is more useful (have fun with it).
3. Allow the Decker the downtime he/she needs to heal while the rest of the team is doing info gathering. In fact, the Decker can be a part of this info gathering by checking the matrix for leads (again, have fun with this).
4. Have a heart to heart with your Decker's player and see what he/she wants to do. If they are willing to play a temporary NPC while their Decker heals up, give them that option, if they just want to skip the next session or two, that is also an option.

Playing should be fun for everyone, and unfortunate circumstances during gameplay shouldn't kill the flow of your game, but instead, add unique flavour and challenges to your players. As long as everyone is having fun, you are playing Shadowrun correctly. Whatever choice you choose (either the ones everyone is presenting in this thread, or something else), you will need the backing of your players, and what they think will keep the game fun for everyone.

[Lionesque]

1. Through your contacts, take a one night mission from DocWagon (or some other HMO) in return for your SR getting healed.

Or beg, borrow or steal some funds from the real mob. Better yet, let the real mob know what you are up to, and convince them to reward you for it - with a nice advance of, oh, say, enough to buy a decent Heal spell..

[Bodak]

The decker got First Aid prior to getting magical healing, surely?

2. Relegate the Decker to remote support, similar to Oracle from Birds of Prey. Have him/her hack their way along the Matrix to keep track of the group as they track down the "mafia" and assist in whatever way possible (lock doors behind the SRs, turn off lights on "mafia" goons, coordinate communication, etc). This will mean you need to incorporate more wired elements to your run so that your Decker is more useful (have fun with it).
4. Have a heart to heart with your Decker's player and see what he/she wants to do.

(In retrospect, he could probably have contributed via the matrix, at the cost of not healing further for a day or two, but no one, incl. the player and I, thought of that possibility.)

Right. It's quite revealing that decking never occurred to the decker. If the decker wants to be in the thick of the action, they are going to need better armour, better dodge, better stealth, better cover (tactics). Some of that requires a little nuyen, a little karma, or a little brains on the part of the player. If they want to play team coach and coordinator, have them start tracking down cracked pirated Battletac / Tacnet software while they're healing up, and then scrounge up a few sensor suites. With the Battletac bonuses the decker should have a better chance of surviving on the front line in the future if that's where he wants to Run.

Otherwise as TBRMInsanity says, embellish the opportunities decking has to offer. If the usurpers are trying to track down who is picking them off, rather than hiding or killing faster, the decker can surely hack into their pocsecs / commlinks and erase any bookmarks that are a little too close for comfort, and add a few spurious leads. That way the usurpers waste their time tracking down false leads and have lost any info they had on the player characters.

let the real mob know what you are up to, and convince them to reward you for it - with a nice advance of, oh, say, enough to buy a decent Heal spell..

Too late for that now; the character has already been subject to magical healing.

[JanessaVR]

Too late for that now; the character has already been subject to magical healing.

Another rule that never made any sense to me. Healing spells come with lockout tags that prevent any future healing spells from working? Like that made any sense. Time for some new spells: "Healing (lockout tag functionality disabled version)."

[Bodak]

At least in 3rd Ed only a successful casting of healing magic precludes further magical healing (SR3.127). From what I've seen of 4th Ed, even an attempt at magical healing precludes later attempts to magically heal. So if you're fleeing from a firefight, just toss a custom designed Area LOS heal Force 1 at the enemy, and they'll all have to recover the manual way (no First Aid after magical healing, of course).

[ThreeGee]

At least in 3rd Ed only a successful casting of healing magic precludes further magical healing (SR3.127). From what I've seen of 4th Ed, even an attempt at magical healing precludes later attempts to magically heal. So if you're fleeing from a firefight, just toss a custom designed Area LOS heal Force 1 at the enemy, and they'll all have to recover the manual way (no First Aid after magical healing, of course).

Don't think so.

First Aid may only be applied to a character once (for that set of wounds), and it may not be applied if the character has been magically healed. - Shadowrun 4A page 252

Has been magically healed not has been the target of a Heal spell. If I was DM'ing I'd also rule the healing has to have been made Permanent.

[Bodak]

One day I'll dig through the 4th Ed I've got and see if I can find a reference, but I believe somewhere it refers to an attempt.

Healing spells come with lockout tags that prevent any future healing spells from working?

No. It's not an attribute of the Healing spell design (like the "glow" on the Armour spell is). It's a limitation imposed by the damage and healing system as a whole. Presumably the system designers didn't like the idea of a player reasoning "Why would I ever invest anything in Biotech when I can just apply First Aid 15 times to the character, healing one box each time? Why would I ever cast Heal at a decent Force and risk taking Drain if I can just spam Force 1 and heal 1 box each time, sustain it for minimal duration and fire it off again? Safe, and quite a bit faster than maintaining the duration for a Serious Drain Permanent spell." This is just the way the damage and healing system as a whole is built: you get to do First Aid once and Heal/Treat once and natural healing after that.

You can always houserule it to allow chain-spamming of Heal, allow Heal to cure Stun damage and Drain and Essence Loss while you're at it - of course - but the limitation in the standard rules does make sense.

[ThreeGee]

One day I'll dig through the 4th Ed I've got and see if I can find a reference, but I believe somewhere it refers to an attempt.

Oh and your custom Heal spell has a Drain of at least DV+2, so casting at Force 1 you can't generate enough successes to make it Permanent...

[Sengir]

Right. It's quite revealing that decking never occurred to the decker. If the decker wants to be in the thick of the action, they are going to need better armour, better dodge, better stealth, better cover (tactics).

Even remote hacking is not a good idea with only one or two CM boxes...unless the hacker wants to do cold sim only, and who ever did that?

[JanessaVR]

You can always houserule it to allow chain-spamming of Heal, allow Heal to cure Stun damage and Drain and Essence Loss while you're at it - of course - but the limitation in the standard rules does make sense.

Already did that, years ago (for Physical damage). This is just a case where I especially think the canon rule is stupid.

For Stun damage from Drain, we've imported the Recover Energy spell from GURPS (sit quietly for a while and do nothing but sustain this spell, and you'll heal spellcasting Drain at a faster rate).

[Adhoc]

The last two gaming sessions have uncovered a problem I really haven't considdered or encountered before, and while I've talked it over with the group tonight about how we might handle this in the future, should it arise again, I'd like your input on this as well.

The thing is that one of the players character got seriously wounded during a part of a run. As the group has elected to press on in in-game time, instead of waiting for the character to heal up. The result has been that we've now effectively had two gaming sessions where the one player have just been sitting there listening to the game, because his character's been too hurt to participate in the next part of the run the rest of the group was pressing on with, and he's had no options in-game for speeding up his healing.
In overlooking this issue, I've messed up as a GM, and I'll be looking out for this pitfall in the future, and the downed player character will be back in action the next time, so at that point the problem is over for now. But...

How would or do you handle a situation where a character gets too hurt to participate in any run activity for several days in-game, but the group wants/needs/decides to press on with the next parts of the operation, effectively leaving the player of the downed character sidelined for one or more game sessions?

Give him another charactert to play while his main character heals up.

Let him pick one of the archetypes.

A.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Even remote hacking is not a good idea with only one or two CM boxes...unless the hacker wants to do cold sim only, and who ever did that?

My Decker does that ALL THE TIME, as well as performing AR Hacking... BEING IMMUNE to the ice is always a good idea if you are hurt (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)