Oh those pesky PCs, Or, how to bring them all together. Options

[Jrayjoker]

Hi all,

I could use some help getting everyone in my new campaign on the same page. We plan on starting our campaign this weekend and so far I have come up with no rationalle for their working together except GM fiat. I am sure that would work for them, but I am reluctant to start that way unless absolutely necessary.

So far I have:

An Elven hermetic combat mage with the amnesia and hunted flaws (oh yeah, she's gonna regret that),
a Troll berzerker who feels no pain (What do you mean I'm unconscious?),
an Elven face/negotiator (go figure),
a Human infiltration decker (Samwise, "What are you doing Golum?" Golum, "Sneakin'!"),
and a sneak sammie.

[ Spoiler ]

The base of opperations is Seattle, and I plan on slowly revealing the fact that they work for one very influential patron. They will think they are independants working for a variety of Johnsons, but in reality they are trying out for their "patron". Think Kaiser Sose from The Usual Suspects, OK maybe not that evil.

[Dog]

Maybe they're related, or they came from the same gang or something. I would expect the players to help you out in determining why they work together, it's good for character development. That's my off-the-cuff answer, gimme a minute...

edit: Maybe give them a bonus contact, a fixer. The same fixer for all of them. They've all done small jobs for him in the past and he thinks they'd work well together. The fixer could turn out to be a toady for whoever you want then.

Maybe they choose to work together because they all happen to belong to the same rare ethnic group.

Did they all work together before entering the shadows, maybe?

Maybe the mage called them all together for his own reasons, but now forgets why...

[Talia Invierno]

Okay -- but I'm going to need a bit more about their personality and their motivations for running first. You've only given me what they are, not who they are.

Also, what contacts do each of them have? Contacts in common is one of the easiest ways of doing this.

[Backgammon]

If they all get hired for the same job, presto, a team.
Give them a common enemy. Someone is trying to kill them all. United they stand divided they fall.
They all have some weird thing in common: all served time in the same jail (yes' I'm readin SOTA64 right now ;)), all went to same grade school, etc. That should get them curious as to who hired them and why the strange connection.

[Solstice]

I usually have one or two of them be the "established runners" and the rest being kina "newbies" and have the fixer(s) of the "established runners" make them take the "newbies" with them as a favor. Or you could simply have the job need special skills thereby the johnson specifically asks for a certain runner and the fixer put them all together.

[Dog]

I feel for ya, though. How often has this come up in your games:

GM: "Okay, you hand over the loot for a reward and Mr. Johnson walks off. Whaddaya do now?"
Player 1: "I'm going to the pub."
Player 2: "I'm taking my car into the shop."
Player 3: "I'm looking on the matrix for the location of my sister."
GM: "Sure, then what."
Player 1: "What do you mean?"
GM: "Well, the next time you get together. What do you do?"
Player 2: "Next time we get hired, you mean?"
GM: "No, I mean do you go celebrate your victory at the bar, or meet to discuss what happened? Or plan your own run?"
Player 3: "No."
Player 2: "Why would I hang out with these guys?"
Player 1: "How would I know his sister?"
GM: <sigh>

[Garland]

That kind of situation is why I like to have a ringer in the group. I usually tap one of the players to help keep things together; arrange a mutual interest in something, offer to buy drinks for the group after the run, suggest "hey, let's head to the Stuffer Shack, I'm getting hungry." That sort of thing. In play it actually seems pretty low-key and natural. And it promotes good role-playing and I'm all for that.

Another good idea might be for the Johnson to offer to hide them after a run. That way they're all stuck in the same safehouse. Make it a dreky safehouse, so there are a myriad of small problems, like lots of canned-food but no can-openers, a bit nest of devil-rats in the basement, some gangers coming around to collect protection money (hey, no one told them it was a safe-house), a weird spirit in one of the upstairs bedrooms that won't stop making noise, the trid is locked onto Neo-QVC, the tap shoots out only scalding-hot rust-colored sludge, etc.

Make 'em stay for a couple days, and spring a problem on them about twice a day. The idea is to tailor the problems so that each of them has something to do (the techie can try to fix the trid, the decker can arrange better trid service, the troll can twist open those cans with his bare hands, the mage can try to get that spirit to shut the frag up, etc.) They'll either kill each other or end up as friends for life.

Just some thoughts.

[DarkShade]

the easy way? and it works REALLY well, is just ask the players to create a TEAM of runners as opposed to each his own character, they will interweave their backgrounds in ways that would be disruptive to them if you meddled with their backgrounds. then you just have to tweak it a little and presto! end result will be better AND the players will be happier.

dont give yourself more work than you have to, a gm`s life is overworked enough!!

DS

[Edward]

I admit it is a form of GM feat but I still like “your fixer calls you, a Johnson needs a teem and I think you will work well together, take 15 min to get to know one an other before the meet”.

In spite of being suspiciously similar to “you all meet in a pub” or “the town sherif posts a job advertisement” it dose actually make the most sense for a teem of shadow runners.

Your playing professional criminals in a big city. Unless there is some artificial reason to do so it doesn’t make sense for a new teem to trust one another, and they my well not cross paths between runs. I mean aside from work what dose my pacifist intellectual hermetic with a taste for classical music and an interest in alchemy have in cowmen with a troll street samurai that attends thrash mettle consorts and has a subscription to guns and ammo.

One character of mine has an innate dislike of shadow runners, he wants to spend his down time with his family and he isn’t going to let any runner trash near them.

Beyond the job and a drink to celebrate a job well done in the early parts of a campaign don’t expect much interaction. Once the teem trust each other (and trust takes a long time to earn) they may set up a communal safe house or start going on social outings (we had a party wedding but she participated in her husbands murder 2 sessions latter)

Edward

[wagnern]

Hire them for a run, I don't know common fixer exc. Then have the victum of the run frame them for something bad, I don't know, killing a cop or something. Now they must band together and prove there inocence / get back at the framer. The party is the only one they can trust, for all their contacts have 'hung them out to dry' not wanting to get messed up with a group of cop killers.

After this experience, they should hopefully have developed trust and bonds. Also, this would be a great diversion from the shadowrun formula (meet mr jonson, get job, haggel over payment, do run, meet mr jonson agian, mr jonson tries to double cross charictors, exc)

[Weredigo]

Sounds like you just need to set up a firefight at the "local" bar. Group is generally located in same area as some poor street sammy who's got a lotta nuyen on his head. other side of bar is a large group of "punks with predators" type opponents who all decide at the same time "Hey, there's a pretty fat paycheck sittin right there, let's collect." If the ensuing spree of gunfire and grenade tossing doens't pull them together the frantic run from the law afterwards should.

[Charon]

At the beginning of a campaign I usually give the the PCs a free common fixer contact.

And that's all there is to it, really.

[torzzzzz]

[Zephania]

One of my pet player hates is PCs picking amnesia so they don't have to give their character background. Or saying they're "hunted" and not putting any effort into defining it.

The next player that come to me with one of these is in for a shock, they can do the background but I'll do the rest, they really wont know if they're a mage or a samourai untill they try. It will make for an interesting game and encourage them to be more creative "I think I'm a street sam but don't know why I woke up knitting a jumper?"

[TheWinningLoser]

For god's sake people, it doesn't matter anymore. Now you're all just being incompetent. I just thought it would be cool to hover around. That's all. I'm not using the focus to let me fight better, I'VE STILL GOT FEET! I don't need to fly everwhere. The whole reason me and Akai started this thread was to get some suggestions on how it would play out in a game if I wanted to use the spell on something. I don't exactly think I'm gonna need all this referencing, cross-referencing, cross-cross-referencing etc... I could do without the continuous debates and insults, all I needed was an idea or two. Find something better to do. Seriously. Look, if I wanted all this crap about whatever you guys are talking about now, (You lost me in all the quoting within quoting and quoting beyond that.)You only need to say whatever your idea is and SHUT THE HELL UP. If someone disproves you, oh well, it's not ripinng your balls off. Just accept the fact someone has a different idea, and if you want to argue about it, do it elsewhere. Stop wasting everyone's time.

In short.

I GET THE POINT, LEVITATE SHOULDN'T BE USED IN A FOCUS. IT'S OVERLY COMPLICATED AND UNCLEAR IN THE RULES. LET'S ALL GO POST SOMEWHERE ELSE. STOP RAVING ABOUT SOMETHING THAT WAS OVER TWO DAYS AGO.

[Zephania]

UH? Are you in the right thread?

[Fortune]

[kevyn668]

[Dog]

I'm confused. Entertained, but confused....

[Solstice]

That Loser guy is on BTLs for sure....he doesn't even know where he is.

[Solstice]

[CanvasBack]

[Dog]

Oh, I get it.
WL is suggesting that the mage is hunted by a guy with a levitation focus, who is so clearly hostile that the team must bond against him. :P

[kevyn668]

Eh, cut the dude some slack. He's apparently new here.

It's still funny, though. :D

[SuperSpy]

Have someone hire the Troll Berserker to kill the Mage with amnesia.

Make it so that the Face overhears the deal going down. Subtly suggest to the face that he/she might be able to make a little money by warning the Mage of his/her impending doom.

Make the Decker a contact of the Face that he/she can team up with to track down where the mage lives (or at least his/her phone number).

With the Mage properly warned, the three set up a (hopefully non-lethal) trap for the Troll.

The Mage will want to know who is behind the assasination. Try to make it obvious that with the little information that the Troll knows about his employer, all four of them can track down the Johnson, kill him/interogate him, and retrieve the money that the Troll was supposed to be paid for the run.

Obviously would take a bit of prodding from the GM to make it all work out in the end but could be fun.