Loss of Innocence, A new GM's question Options

[Eggs]

Yeah... that show still gives me nightmares. Nightmares filled with belgian waffle counterfeits and incredibly annoying pink-haired girls... and drop bears.

[DocMortand]

Hey, nothing wrong with drop bears.

*mourns for his poor thread*

[dog_xinu]

[DamienKnight]

QUOTE ShadowDragon8685
Yeah. I'd have walked after that. "Everybody walked away happy. Well, 'cept the dead gal."



HELLO. This is a ROLE-PLAYING GAME, and it is supposed to be FUN for EVERYONE in the game. Not the sadistic DM and his evil PKing punk. I hope she DID give your sorry sack a walk. Or a kick, followed by a walk.

QUOTE FrostyNSO
Seriously. Seems like the GM was just arbitrarily trying to take some toys away, which isn't neccessarily bad in itself except for the fact that they plotted with another player to do it, in a way that pretty much prevented that player from getting to continue playing their character.

I'd be thinking, "What the hell did I do to you!?"

...That one seemed harsh to me, who just deadlied 4 PC's last week!

When the player was making his character, I warned him that giving himself a force 6 weapon foci was dangerous. He was making a sorcerer with a body of 3 and very little armor, with a weapon that costs alot more than most runs pay their entire group. The character was not initiated, so could not hide the power of the weapon from view... every mage and dual natured creature that saw him instantly knew he was a relatively low powered mage (uninitiated so MAGIC attribute of 6) with a SUPER powerful item (force 6 sword, worth more than a million considering street index). I told him he should NOT trust any other mage, and should always be wary of others trying to take his sword. He said he was ok with that when he made the character. Fine fine... his choice.

After that, in a later run from a book, they confronted a team of Renraku Red samurai. With a lucky spell (and even unluckier spell defence... 36 dice TN 6 and not a single success on spell defence!) roll, the players took out most of the Samuari foot soldiers with a stunball. The players chased down the surviving mages and managed to kill one before they escaped. The player with the weapon selfishly palmed a force 4 power focus before the other players realized (they were more worried about dealing with their wounds and escaping). After the run I told him he would be better off to sell the power focus than keep it. It is an item of great power that is desired by most mages and shamans... He ignored the friendly advice and bonded the power focus.

During the run where another player was bribed to ambush and steal the magic items, the player with the two ultra powerful foci treated the other runners poorly... to the point of alienating them. When it came down to it, none of the other runners wanted to help him out... and one of them even decided to go against him after a 50k bribe.

There were no favorites played here... just an important lesson taught. The things the player was aware of but did not consider:

- Never bite off more than you can chew. He was warned over and over that the foci were worth an astounding amount of nuyen, and would be dangerous for him to carry around.

- Treat the other runners professionally... your life could depend on it. He chose to roleplay a jerky character, despite his already precarious situation.

- Last and most important... Paranoia is a runners lifeblood. The player walked into the ambush despite many clues that things were not as they seemed.

The player did not give my sack a 'walk', nor did he give it a 'kick'. (at the time he may have wanted to though (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) He kept playing with us and has since grown greatly in both his understanding of roleplaying, and of the nature of the shadows.

Hell Hound, I think your last example, and DamienKnight's story, both illustrate the biggest no-no for GMs; playing favorites.

I have lost PCs before and not complained, but I would be upset if the GM let one PC off the hook, then let the same situation kill my character. And it's an even bigger no-no for the GM to essentially plot with another player to kill a PC.

Now, I understand that Shadowrun games can involve some paranoia and back-stabbing, but in that situation, even more than others, the GM needs to be impartial.

No favorites were played here. Rolls were not fudged. I merely planted the idea of theft into the mind of a player whose character should have already had the though in her black black heart. The situation of the ambush, the alliances made prior to it, and the results of the combat were all played out by the players. I merely sat back and ensured the rules were followed. Had the player with the power focus and weapon focus won out the fight and killed the ambushing character, I would have been equally satisfied... The lesson of not biting off more than you could chew would be taught to someone else, and the Pimped foci weilding character would have still learned how dangerous his items were.

I went above and beyond the call of duty for a DM, nearly to the point of coddling the Foci-Pimp character. He was warned over and over... he was given clues to the deceit... he had many opportunities to avoid the ambush... or even leave the run. Even when the fight started, he could have tried to negotiate, but instead he fought blindly... even after it was apparent he was outmatched.

Shadowrun is meant to be a dark place. The players are not super heros on a crime fighting team... they are hardened criminals working outside the law. They are often working with other criminals that they have no ground to trust, and should be ever watchful of betrayal. For many runners, the only things keeping them in line is the purpose of gaining more money and protecting their reputation. When the rewards are suddenly massive, the reputation lost from killing another professional suddenly takes on a price... a price easily paid when pawning off items worth over a million nuyen.

I have a house rule... attacking a fellow runner costs the player 1 good karma at the end of the session. Successfully killing another runner costs 3 karma. Multiple instances of this will buy you the bad karma flaw. Its bad stuff to betray your teammates, but for some immoral characters, it is sometimes still the right thing to do.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Betraying other players is never the right thing to do.

I'd have told you all where you could shove it, and walked.

[Dayhawk]

I felt bad like many do, then figured out that a PC has to die in order for the rest of the players to take your combats seriously.

Now, rarely anyone dies and my players work a system over trying damn hard to not die.

Which leads to all that damn rules lawyering.... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sleepy.gif)

[ShadowDragon8685]

You can't have it both ways.

If the players genuinely fear death, especially in a game where it's not as easy a problem to fix as a pop down to the local Pelor's House o' Ressurections, then players are (rightly) going to invoke any and everything possible to keep their players alive.

Want less rules-lawyering? Play fast and loose with combat and getting dead.

Want to play hardball with combat and make players take combat seriously? You can do it, but the inevitable result is that the players will take combat very seriously. Deadly serious, in fact, and will become walking encyclopedias of all the relevant rules.

[Angelone]

DamienKnight,

You didn't have to let the character have a rating 6 weapon foci. You as the gm could have vetoed it from the get go. As for the power foci you gave it to the opposition and of course a mage is going to jump on it. Why is it such a big deal for the victim to have a power foci but it be perfectly fine for the assassin to have it? Because the victim decided to play a jerk? You said in your first post that the assassin mage created an "evil" character. So "evil" is in your games more desirable than jerky? As for the repeated warnings about the desirability of foci that can be said about all other high end items. Do you give the same warning to deckers? How about million dollar samurai? Do they get PKed in your games for their goodies?

Do you even see how blatent your favoritism was?

[DTFarstar]

Or be my group, they like it lethal, but the trust me not to make it insane, if I say it's a penalty, they trust me to apply it on my side of the screen as well. No huge rules lawyering, but fear of death definitely applies.

Chris

[Angelone]

My mage recently died in the arc (so hate that place (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cyber.gif) ) to a horde of drones and blues.

Had a player in my game sacrifice himself so the others could get away. Feel kinda bad about that one, but I did my best to make his death cinematic.

[DocTaotsu]

I have yet to kill a PC, that's largely because I don't I don't like to kill PC's unless their being stupid or it's for dramatic effect. I for one have long hated the Cancer Causing Game's instant death rules and have strove not to replicate them in SR. That said, if a player tries to run infront of a bus (or a gauss autocannon), their next action should start: "For my next character I want to.."

My personal experience was when my character was convined that KE was going to drop chemical or bio weapons in the Blight. He showed up, MOPPed geared up, and waited, secure in the knowledge that he was ready for ANYTHING.

That's when the fuel air explosives went off.

One Hand of God later my character plummeted out of the sky three blocks over, bounced off the hood of a car, and made unhappy sounds towards the nearest group of PC's.

[Method]

One of the most memorable PC deaths in any game I GM'ed was one that I had nothing to do with. A ghoul PC with the vindictive flaw decided to reveal himself in a swanky hotel lobby because some beefy ork security guards were talking shit about ghouls.

The player said "I'll whip off my disguise and attack the nearest one in an attempt to tear out his throat with my teeth, at which point the other orks will drag me into the alley out back and shoot me in the head." Then he matter-of-factly tore up his character sheet and got out the rule book to generate a new one.

He took his role-playing very seriously. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[DamienKnight]

DamienKnight,

You didn't have to let the character have a rating 6 weapon foci. You as the gm could have vetoed it from the get go. As for the power foci you gave it to the opposition and of course a mage is going to jump on it. Why is it such a big deal for the victim to have a power foci but it be perfectly fine for the assassin to have it? Because the victim decided to play a jerk? You said in your first post that the assassin mage created an "evil" character. So "evil" is in your games more desirable than jerky? As for the repeated warnings about the desirability of foci that can be said about all other high end items. Do you give the same warning to deckers? How about million dollar samurai? Do they get PKed in your games for their goodies?

Do you even see how blatent your favoritism was?

You didn't have to let the character have a rating 6 weapon foci. You as the gm could have vetoed it from the get go.
Yes, I could have, but a starting character with a rating 6 foci is legitimate. I am not in the habit of disallowing features of the game because they are dangerous for the players. I like the danger... as do the players in my group. If their characters were not in danger it would be a different game. I warned him of the danger and sincerely hoped he would be able to pull it off.

Why is it such a big deal for the victim to have a power foci but it be perfectly fine for the assassin to have it? Because the victim decided to play a jerk?
Really it is not safe for ANY character to hold onto an obvious item worth so much, but that is the way of the shadows. Big risk but big reward. The point was not that one character was more suitable for the item than the other... I did not bend rolls to pull any special outcome that I secretly desired. I merely pointed out to the self-professed evil bastage character that his running companion was sitting on more than a million nuyen worth of gear and had no apparent ability to keep it. Contacts are dangerous, missions are dangerous, and your fellow runners are dangerous. That is the way of the criminal, and the nature of the shadows. I really enjoy a group of tightly bonded runners who always have each other's backs, but that is not always the situation.

Oh, and not that it was the reason for what happened, but the other player (the assassin) WAS more suited for items for three reasons. First, she was initiated and capable of masking the foci, so she would not be advertising it like the other character did. Second, she wasnt greedy. She sold the sword to her talismonger on that very same day and only kept the power focus, so that she was not sitting on more gear than she could protect. And third, she was wary of others. She never would fall for the kind of trick she pulled on the victim.

You said in your first post that the assassin mage created an "evil" character. So "evil" is in your games more desirable than jerky?
Evil is not desirable. It is punished with a reduction of karma. People who save old ladies in back alleys gain extra good karma that evil characters lose out on. Characters that attack or kill other players lose karma. Repeat offenders get the bad karma flaw. Clearly I am not rewarding Evil. Evil is simply the way some players decided to role play, and I am not for stifling peoples role playing.

In a general sense, I think evil criminals are more rewarded that jerky criminals. Evil affords you conscience-free doublecrossing, while jerkiness just makes people not like you.

Do you give the same warning to deckers? How about million dollar samurai? Do they get PKed in your games for their goodies?
I do. Just like its dangerous to wave around a wallet stuffed with cash in bad part of town at night, it would be unwise to walk around brandishing a 1 million dollar deck while going on illegal missions with morally corrupt associates.

I would say the thing that makes this situation extreme, however, is the runner's inability to hide her foci. She had a force 6 sword that she brandished proudly wherever she went. And a force 4 power foci... and since she had no masking, she could not conceal either of them. As expensive and rare as those two items are, when they glow like a christmas tree on the astral plane jealous mages are going to lust after them. At least a decker can hide his deck in a case or backpack, or a street samurai doesnt carry around a price tag stamped on his forehead.

Do you even see how blatent your favoritism was?
As much as I warned the foci hoarding victim about the dangers, and with all the hints I dropped that he was about to get doublecrossed, and with the hints I dropped during the fight that he might wanna try and negotiate a comprimise (or bribe other players to save him)...
Yes, I think you are right. I was a bit too kind to the victim. Two or three warnings should have been enough...

[Glyph]

I merely pointed out to the self-professed evil bastage character that his running companion was sitting on more than a million nuyen worth of gear and had no apparent ability to keep it.

And that, right there, is the crux of the problem.

But I love how killing someone, looting an expensive magical focus from them, and selling another one for big bucks, is described as "not greedy." (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rotfl.gif)

[wind_in_the_ston...]

The evil mage was offered this by a talismonger: Ill let you in on a job if you promise to kill this sorcerer and bring me her weapon foci... you can keep her power foci.

This is the problem. It didn't simply occur to the other teammates that this one item was worth more than they make in a year, it was very directly pointed out to them that someone would make it worth their while to do so. It wasn't a natural occurrence, you provided the Johnson with the job.

[Cardul]

I remember my first PC kill....I was playing the rigger, and the samurai pulled a gun on me while I was jacked in. Admittedly, I was a bit paranoid, so I had bucket ejector seats instead of the bench seats that te Eurovan came with. And, so, I just triggered his ejector seat...That time, it did not kill him, but he got captured by Lone Star and "lost" in their facilities. This happened two more times, from the same player, playing a Samurai. The third time, though, his ejector seat, dubbed the Samurai Seat, was loaded with explosives and ball bearings, and a delayed explosion so that when I ejected him, it would blow up halfway to the ground....

This has become a common factor for all my Riggers since. I always have "The Samurai's Seat."

Now, for GMing...well...right now, te other players in my group are glad I am not GMing..our current GM is a killer GM....me? I am a Serial Killer GM. I like to end games with a run on a Zero Zone...

[Ravor]

Bah, Runners should always be at least somewhat paranoid of their "friends", everytime I see a ( Loyality 6 ) Contact, especially a Fixer who "would die for us" (From the Living out of a Airplane thread.) I want to vomit. If the slitch was flaunting around extremely rare magical foci then she got what she deserved, sounds like a good game to me.

[DamienKnight]

But I love how killing someone, looting an expensive magical focus from them, and selling another one for big bucks, is described as "not greedy."

I know this is a hard concept to get for you, but I am persistent so I will keep trying.

Having a million dollars in your bank account... not dangerous.

Carrying around a million dollars that glows like a small sun on the astral without any way of hiding it... DANGEROUS.

It wasn't a natural occurrence, you provided the Johnson with the job.

Well, first of all, I would not consider a Talismonger who offers to buy a foci if you get ahold of it a Johnson. Lets not throw the word around needlessly. If I pay my neighbor's kid to mow my lawn, I am hardly considered a 'Johnson'. It seems like you are trying to overemphasis your point with language.

I think its perfectly reasonable for a Talismonger to point out that there is a cocky runner with more gear than she can handle running around, and that if someone procured one of the items she would pay good $ for it.

What is not reasonable is to assume that someone could be waving around two powerful foci while hanging out with criminal mages and expect to never have anyone notice.

If the slitch was flaunting around extremely rare magical foci then she got what she deserved, sounds like a good game to me.

Thanks Ravor. I glad to see someone else is enjoying Shadowrun for what it is... a game where a team of criminals get paid by untrustworthy people to go commit crimes.

If you people want heroic players performing heroic missions given by honest employers, you need to go play D&D. SR was meant to be gritty cyberpunk, and is better when played that way.

Just try reading Buzzkill, the short story at the front of the SR4 book. Its a great story to introduce you into the type of game Shadowrun is... and includes players getting killed because the Johnson screwed them.

My games are going to play out more like 'Heat' and 'Resevoir Dogs', where paranoia is the lifeblood of the runner, and gritty is the strongest flavor.

[Wounded Ronin]

I'm glad this thread got going again.

My new thought: one player betraying the other players can be okay, as long as it's understood that the given campaign would probably be a dramatic short term one, as after the betrayal it would be tough to keep that campaign going long after either the death of the traitor, or the deaths of all the other player characters.

One time a GM I knew ran a steampunk style campaign using SR rules. My character was an evil Anglican priest whom was arranged as the one who would betray the party and who was secretly working for the bad guys. The GM approached me before the game and explained to me that I would be playing the traitorous role.

So we played through the campaign, and my character was doing his best to act helpful and trustworthy so that he could betray the rest of the party in the coming final battle. However, since we were using the SR rules, as soon as the final battle started the guys with the best initiative scores blew away my character's evil boss before he could do anything, and by the time my character's turn came around in fact almost everyone was leaky and bleeding on the floor. I decided that my character, being overcome with despair, would cast a really big Manaball on himself and kill everyone in the room as a final nihlistic gesture. And he did.

I thought it was a pretty fun one-shot campaign. And an example of how you can have player vs. player betrayal work.

[Glyph]

I know this is a hard concept to get for you, but I am persistent so I will keep trying. <chuckle>

I never said having a Force: 6 focus wasn't dangerous. I said killing another character for their stuff is the very definition of "greedy". Whether they are sensible about it or not is another matter entirely. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

So Angelone, Glyph, wind... you guys go play your rosie games filled with dandelions and happy trustworthy contacts and runners that alway got your back. As me for me, my games are going to play out more like 'Heat' and 'Resevoir Dogs', where paranoia is the lifeblood of the runner, and gritty is the strongest flavor.

You're assuming an awful lot in flamebaiting everyone else's playstyles, based on their disapproval of something very specific that you did. Namely, abdicating the impartiality that all good GMs should have, to essentially collude with one player against another one. No one has posted anything decrying grit, or paranoia, or in-character backstabbing. It sounds to me like you have a guilty conscience. You brought back a thread that had been dead for about half of a year to make another pleading attempt to justify yourself. It's really not working, and your shrill ad hominem attacks aren't doing anything to prop up your argument, either.

[DamienKnight]

You're assuming an awful lot in flamebaiting everyone else's playstyles

Not everyones, just the people that suggested player betrayal should not be perpetrated by the DM. Good point about flamebiting though. I removed the comment. It was a bit rude and that is not constructive.

I never said having a Force: 6 focus wasn't dangerous. I said killing another character for their stuff is the very definition of "greedy". Whether they are sensible about it or not is another matter entirely.

I am not sure where you are going with this. Maybe you should state your point again. It seems like you are disagreeing with symantics and ignoring the actual discussion at hand.

Killing another runner for their gear is definately Greedy. My point was:

the other player (the assassin) WAS more suited for items for three reasons. First, she was initiated and capable of masking the foci, so she would not be advertising it like the other character did. Second, she wasnt greedy. She sold the sword to her talismonger on that very same day and only kept the power focus, so that she was not sitting on more gear than she could protect. And third, she was wary of others. She never would fall for the kind of trick she pulled on the victim.

The point being, one character was greedy in a dangerous way, the other greedy in a safe way... reinforcing my point that one character WAS more suited for the item than the other.

And I do think that as a mage, binding every powerful item to yourself that you come across is a kind of 'Power Greed' as opposed to knowing what would be more than your character can handle and selling the rest off. Still greedy to steal, but not the kind of 'power greed' that is going to get you noticed by other mages... the kind of problem that started the whole issue.

It sounds to me like you have a guilty conscience. You brought back a thread that had been dead for about half of a year to make another pleading attempt to justify yourself.

No guilty conscience, just a desire to show my side of an argument. Its a pretty rudimentary and ineffective method to accuse someone of feeling guilty if they defend their position. As far as not posting for more than a year... you will notice I did not post -anything- for more than a year. I submitted my rebuttal as soon as I read your reply... which just happened to be a year and a half later.

It's really not working, and your shrill ad hominem attacks aren't doing anything to prop up your argument, either.

Are we even talking about the appropriateness of DM's aiding in PC death now, or are you just arguing for the sake of arguing? I dont see that this comment is appropriate or helpful to the discussion. Please stick to discussing the topic, not attacking the other participants.