How intensely tactical is your group of SR players, "Tango down!" - last thing I heard Options

[Wounded Ronin]

I was having a conversation with a friend on AIM about shadowrun. He told me that he thought that our shadowrun group would play very in a very "conservative" manner, with respect to engaging the enemy. People would tend to hang back, be cautious, and use either rules-based numbercrunched strategy, or overall positioning based strategy.

I replied, "That's because it's Shadowrun. If you charge out ahead everyone shoots you and says 'Tango Down'. I mean, like, there's a reason that a few snipers can pin down a platoon for hours. Because no one who is intelligent is going to jump out in front of everyone without a lot of support. Do you actually see other SR players striding boldly forth as if they were Neo? I'm genuinely curious."

My question to DSF is to what extent do you feel that your players behave in a cautious or strategic manner? Does your combat unfold in a slow, deliberate, and planned manner? Or do people just charge in and rely on their init boosts to let them shoot everyone first? How dangerous are the encounters that are designed for the group?

Thank you very much for sharing with me.

[Crimson Jack]

My group plays pretty smart for the most part, although they do rush things sometimes. They have the skills and firepower to keep things even... again, for the most part. Every once in a while they get in over their heads though. :evil:

They never use mil-speak though: "Blue Dog, this is Papa Bravo. Send in the feather duster. I repeat, send in the feather duster." ;)

[FrostyNSO]

My group can only seem to be "tactical", when one of my characters briefs them on how to be. We only have one guy who is cautious, but cowardly is probably a better word for it. Aside from that guy, we have fairly high character turnover rate.

They never learn...

[Nikoli]

With the changes that were put in with 3rd edition initiative, that "charge in and rely on high init" doesn't work as well. But, I've done it once, relying on a very good sniper for support.

[algcs]

The group I currently game with is more of a gangbanger style. Some run, some shoot, no tatical planning.

The last Cyberpunk group I played with was extreamly tatical. But we where a combination of ex military guys and wargammers. Mil speak was common. We also did a lot of hand gestures when sweeping buildings.

[Quix]

Usually my runners are pretty cautious. They would much rather avoid a fight then have any fight at all. But I can't go calling them cowardly, they find the heaviest fire power they can reliably conceal/bring along and when they think the s&@! will hit the fan they make sure to shoot first and ask questions after they are well away from the scene.

[algcs]

I missed the questions

[The White Dwarf]

Depends on the characters we are playing in some respect, but basically we are tactical. Now that doesnt preclude a tactical charge when the situation warrents it. But we do engage the enemy on our terms 90% of the time, usually with an overwhelming advantage. As for that other 10%, well, you cant always pass a stealth roll =). But its rare for a team of skilled shadow operatives to not act this way, youll get shot. Fights tend to be one sided in the players favor, but thats part of the nature of the game.

[RedmondLarry]

Tactical. They use the terrain, cover and delayed actions extensively to achieve the objective with the least amount of risk.

We always use a battle mat (www.chessex.com). As a general guideline (97.2%) we don't kill characters unless a battle mat has been placed. We place toy cars on the mat as vehicles, we have a couple houses to place, some plastic 'rock piles', and carved erasers for dumpsters and other terrain.

I am amazed when anyone tries to run a Shadowrun combat without a playing mat, because I don't know how you can use tactics without it.

I run the opposition as using tactics or not, depending upon who they are and their level of training.

[Garland]

In the past, it's generally just been the party and their opponents blundering into each other, then standing and shooting until one side or the other were dead.

In my current campaign, however, we just had one extended combat when the player characters charged into a situation very brash (like usual) and then as things began to get bad for them (outnumbered, enemy gunman using cover and aiming) they got wise and tried using the same tactics. That gave me a lot of hope for this campaign.

[James McMurray]

It really depends on the day and the player. If someone is having a rough day and just wants to blast something (or if they think their troll can't be hurt) they'll wade in.

If the group has taken the time to sit back and prep the run strategy, they'll usually stick to it until situations force a change.

We've only played 2 SR sessions, but this is the general way things have worked in other games.

[Kagetenshi]

In my mind it usually makes a lot more sense to just dash in and start mixing it up in most situations. Your typical combat runner crew will have the advantage in combat pool (dodging ability), initiative (number of actions), skill, and quickness (ability to cover ground), so a slow engagement will often favor your opponents by minimizing your strengths as compared to theirs.

Though this is a lot less clear-cut than it was in SR2.

~J

[Cynic project]

Well, the best fights in shadowruns are the ones you don't get into.

The fact of the mater is that most fo the time you are sent in to get item "x". You achive your goal and get out without getting caught. Now, seeing as you are taking "x" from a company, or group you are costing them resources. Now, when you enter into combat you will most likely cost them more resources and put yourself in harms way. Now when combat is unadovoidable, you need to hit hard and fast.

[Arethusa]

I'm going to have to disagree, here. SR3 has a lot of coherency issues, but it's still generally pretty clear that tactical realism was generally left in the corner to cry itself to sleep and adepts that can walk into a lobby a la Neo were intended to be commonplace (at least commonplace for runners, anyway), and that's just the style of the game. Certainly, there's more lethality in SR than, say, DnD, but a lot of absurdly unrealistic things can still happen (and are, at least half the time, intended to happen). If Doc Funk were here, he'd probably be saying the same thing with more insults.

Though I will also say that from my limited experience with SR2, it's been reined in somewhat, as Kage pointed out.

[kevyn668]

[The Amazing Myst...]

I'd say, for the most part, our group is fairly good at infiltration with decent stealth skills, magical backup and matrix assistance. But the problem I have noticed is if we unexpentantly run into a guard and fail to grease him before he can call for backup, it gets ugly fast.

Does anyone know any tactics that could counter this? I have seen jammers in the book but as of
yet have not tried them, dont even know if they would work in this case.

[Kagetenshi]

Don't fail to grease him before he can call for backup.

~J

[The Amazing Myst...]

Thanks :talker:

[Arethusa]

[mfb]

hey, my physad could take those girl scouts.

my physad does what Neo would do if Neo had SUT training. he's fast, he's very hard to surprise, he's an incredible shot and a very good melee combatant, and he can take a six-round burst to the chest without slowing down. so, when he kills half of the people in the room in the first round and gets the other half to concentrate their fire on him, it's because, well, that's his job.

[Kagetenshi]

[kevyn668]

[Kagetenshi]

The rules don't make it hard at all to play a tactically savvy group. What they do do is clearly separate real life tactics from Shadowrun tactics. In real life, moving at most twice as quickly as any one of three opponents, I would never try a tactic that I might if I, say, could run three times as fast, reacted about four or five times as fast, and was able to get typically three to four times as many solidly aimed shots off as they could.

Real-world tactics do not take Move-By-Wire into account.

~J

[kevyn668]

Hence my "action" game comment.

[mfb]

that's what the guys i game with normally do. we use the rules to their best effect, spanking the bejesus out of most bad guys. then, in-character, we describe that spanking as being the result of our characters' tactical savvy.