How should I deal with my DM being an idiot?Ally.., Ally spirit issues...... Options

[Aqua]

I have a water mage I have been playing for a long time, over a year in real life. Of the group of shadowrun players we have together, he is the oldest constant character in use so not surprisingly he has accumulated the most karma. He has had no miraculous escapes from the GM-I've kept him alive when other characters have died with smart planning and being VERY VERY careful. I played other characters a bit but this guy has always been my real character. We've taken some slumps in playing time, but from all the runs this guy has been in he accumulated 32 karma. He is not a twinked mage by ANY means, he is a hermetic mage, a water elementalist. I have never spent any of the karma I have, I have been saving it up planning to either initiate with a group if the opportunity ever came along, or self initiate, or to summon an ally spirit.

I eventually decided to summon an ally spirit. I asked my GM if that was okay and since he did not know about ally spirits gave him a VERY brief rundown. He said it was okay, I even tried to have him watch me roll the dice for it so he knew I was not faking anything(when I rolled for the spell my spirit knew that I knew).... he got mass agony-though in retrospect this is not that useful of a spell, my mage know it at 6 but I never use it. His physical form is a naked human being pretty similar to that of my mage(I have him dress in clothes/armor and almost NEVER have him demanifest on runs).

I somehow missed the little initiation thing in the rulesd that would of allowed me to summon my spirit without loosing a magic point, I asked the GM if I could re-summon him with the initiation ritual since I did not know about it-my GM said no. Fair enough, that is okay-would of been nice but not a big deal.

OKAY so I have my force 3 ally spirit which I manage to summon and rest up a bit JUST before the run.

I give my ally spirit a set of instructions, written down and handed to the DM on a sheet with the intention of making it easy for the DM to decide what to do if my ally spirit is unsure.... as well a a few things the spirit should know, here is what i wrote:

-Do not abuse the freedom given to you to try and harm me in any way or to try to earn your freedom early.

-If I am incapacitated do your best to get me to safety and keep me alive

-Don't do anything to break the law or harms others unless I give instructions otherwise.

-The money you get is your money, the belongings you gain belong to you and I will not compel you to give them up. Do not get rid of the equipment needed for shadowrunning(I got our Johnson to pay my spirit for the run.... on the first run my mage did FAR more then the spirit, he got paid 50k new yen for basically ascenscing a few times and less then 10 aid powers.).

-I will never use you to take drain(Spirits HATE that, it hurts like hell) and I will not put you in harms way unless absolutely necessary.

-When I retire from shadow running, you will be set free.

-Think of yourself as an indentured servant, not a slave.

-Guard me if someone attacks me

-Tell me if you see meta-human awakened, and the nature of their powers.

-Don't tell people you are a spirit unless otherwise instructed by me


I then re-wrote the list and made it more thorough just to be sure... I however left off the first rule about not abusing the freedom, assuming since the spirit INHERENTLY is supposed to want to follow me it would not be an issue. Since I am giving it what is possibly the sweetest and most generous deal a master has ever given an ally spirit, it is not an issue. I think that my GM somehow thought that I wrote this list to prevent him from fucking me via the spirit... this was not my intention. I can't tell if this is what he thinks or not-if it is, I can't convince him otherwise. There was some confusion with this, I did my best to tell my GM and everyone else this was NOT the case. I did NOT make the rules to stop the GM from fucking me, I made them so if my spirit has to act and can't consult me, it has a guideline to go by... I don't think I was able to convince everyone but I adamantly explained this was the case.

EVEN IF it was so the GM could not fuck me(which I explained it was not) it should not make a difference.

I have not done anything even remotely cheesy or overpowered with the spirit, in most combat rolls it ends up just aiding power to me.

The spirit existed for 14 days between our first run and our second run. I had given my spirit permission to do whatever it wanted(within the rules I set down) when I did not need it. So... what does it do?

I didn't find out for a while.... our GM does not like having to worry about stuff between runs so I assumed whatever it was doing was harmless to me. Obviously I would have sense linked it from time to time while this was going on to ensure it did not get into trouble.

First it gets a job as a bouncer at the local main shadowrunner bar... and THEN I find out it formed a "political" group called "Spirits United" and this force 3 spirit somehow gathered 300 members to it in a week and a half. This group is for, in the spirits words, to work for spirit freedom. After much frustration and the DM intentionally making the spirit deceptive, I managed to drag out of the spirit that the groups goals was to pursue this cause, legally. He has no social skills and has existed in the game world for 2 weeks, he should barley have a personality at this point, let alone some how finding 300 spirits to join in some political movement he started.... "Spirits United".

I found out everything my spirit was doing all at once when my spirit told me(and my group) when I decided to tell the group he was a spirit.

My DM has rail roaded me to the extreme on this. I telepathically had a little chat with Steve(I named my spirit steve). I asked him to tell me about this group and he said that while some of the spirits are non violent they have been attracting a violent crowd lately. When I asked him if he thought this would likely put me in harms way, he said no.

...........

I asked Steve if he was working towards his own emancipation, I ORDERED him to tell me. The GM said, via steve "The money is good for now" and refused to tell me specifically. Every question I gave to try to figure out what was going on, my spirit gave deceptive half truths, intentionally trying to withhold information from me. Would an ally spirit who was treated well do this, do ANY of this? Would it neccesarily even want to work for its freedom, at this point should it not still be quasi mindless(without a personality)? This whole scenario sounds like something that happens after a mage has had a spirit for a LONG TIME and treated it poorly, that the spirit would rebel... this is a BRAND new spirit and could not have possibly been treated better.

If you think that my DM has some outside force causing this, I know he is not(though I suspect he may now magically invent one, on the off chance he reads this).

.........

Steve told me in so many words that if anything bad happened to him or that if I ordered him to do things he did not want to do, I could expect his spirit friends in his group to come down on me like a ton of bricks. Why the fuck is my ally spirit acting against me, openly?

There are a million logical arguments why all of this is impossible, the most direct of which is one of the rules I set down.....

Don't do anything illegal. Associating with force 8 spirits(somehow steve mystically recruited force 8's into his political organization), since they are above force 2, is illegal.


I kept going back and forth with my GM about asking Steve if he was serving me willingly or trying to backstab me to earn his freedom and he flip flopped on that. I asked him to resolve the situation, which I see is as follows:

An ally spirit HAS to follow orders. If it has been neglected and is of a decent age, it can look for loopholes in the order to screw the master. This is not the case, it is young and has been treated exempleraly.

An ally spirit can not activley work against their master-ever.

An ally spirit, if mistreated and of decent age could work against their master passivley. This is OBVIOUSLY not the case on either account, Steve is young, he SHOULD be barley sentient and has been treated exempleraly.

An ally spirit can not be deceptive from it's master unless it is of decent age and has been mistreated. It has to have sufficient real world age and have a motive for being deceptive, the usual motive being mistreatment-which is not the case.

An ally spirit activley WANTS to follow its masters orders if it has been treated well. The books make it pretty clear treating ally spirits poorly will likley come back to bite you in the ass, which is why I have been treating it well.


My GM tried to take a BS middle ground which does not exist, explaining how he did not think that making this group was working against his master or his wishes. I explained to Steve that this groups very existance was working against my wishes and putting my life in danger and asked him if he would willingly disband it. My spirit said no.

WE CAN NOT HAVE IT BOTH WAYS! Either he acknowledges my wishes that I do not like this group and that now that is has been explained, that this group is obviously a danger to my life(intentional or not) and he should WANT to disband it to protect his master(the inherant desires of the spirit and my orders to protect me) OR the GM makes it clear that Steve is betraying me. My GM is trying to tip toe through a middle grown which clearly does not exist.

My GM refused to even acknowledge the situation. Steve basically is blackmailing me. Shouldn't my spirit INHERENTLY want to work for me and follow the intention of my orders?

Our GM really hates dealing with the stuff our characters do between runs so I never had any time to deal with what Steve was doing. I confronted the GM with this and he said I "Should of read a newspaper to see what was going on"...... .....is it so unreasonable to assume while all of this crap was happening with him building a political movement of powerful spirits, I never used sense link to FIGURE THIS OUT and nip it in the bud while it happened? That my mage, whose sole goal in life is to gain more magical knowledge and power, would not be paying VERY close detail to his ally spirit, his newest toy who he has worked forward to making for a long time? My GM is punishing me for actions that did not happen.... and realistically should not have happened.


WAIT! It gets better.

One of the players who I am not sure has it out for my mage IC or not, told Steve if we could get a distraction for a part of the run with the help fo Steve's new friends he would reward him. Steve got force 8(against my mages desires, even though I did not order him to not bring them, I made it pretty clear I did not like it) spirits to cause some havoc for our enemies on a run.

At the end of the run the player goes to Steve on his own(I used sense link) and the player told Steve he would give Steve his freedom if he wanted, and kill my mage. The player asked Steve if he wanted to be free, to which Steve responded "The money is good for now."

..............

WHAT THE FUCK DO I DO???


I've treated my spirit with FAR more respect on our runs then I have treated the other players-though I never really mistreated any of them either. I have never even ordered him into any sort of danger, even when it could have saved my mage from damage-I had him sit back for concern of him.

My GM is rail roading me, he is having my spirit actively working against me and he knows it. Either Steve is working against me and he should declare it, like when I ordered him to, or Steve is working through a loophole in the rules I set down.... which he shouldn't do since it goes against the "spirit"(no pun intended)of my wishes. My spirits intelligence is 6, he would damn well know this political movement is a danger on my life, if he is persuasive enough to gather 300 spirits in his first 2 weeks of existence(He has ZERO social skills) then he knows enough about social interaction to know his actions are directly putting my life in danger-which no spirit should do, let alone one that is being treated great.

I have not done anything remotely cheesy with the spirit, i've treated him with respect and now the GM is fucking me with him. I have no idea why my GM is doing this, maybe he thinks it is funny? I don't and I made that pretty clear.



I have considered going to my GM and telling him to either resolve the situation somehow in a way that gets me back my magic point and at least half the karma I put into it or I am permanently done with shadowrun. I am REALLY REALLY pissed off but this is going to step on lots of social toes. I highly doubt he would resolve it. I have a feeling this whole thing is because I killed one of his previous character in a very embarrasing way but I am not sure.

Something in game is best, something that does not force me to directly confront the GM out of character but he can always railroad it(if he does do that I AM going to simply say "Fix this, or I am out."

Other possible solutions:

Order Steve to, to the best of his abilities permanently distance himself from the spirit group and tell him he is to stay with me at all times unless I say otherwise, to communicate with no one in any fashion unless I say otherwise. If any of his ex-spirit friends confront him, he is to lie to them as convincingly as possible that he can that he has decided he has put his master in danger. I'll have him explain how he does not feel like a slave, that his master treats him with great dignity and respect and he genuinley decided to leave because his master has treated him so well and he appreciates it. I've considered working in a mind wipe somehow(Pay some high level mage to do it... I have almost 200k new yen to burn from all the money I accumulated on the mages run).

Try to somehow integrate my mage INTO the spirit group "Spirite United". This is, insanley dangerous since most of the spirits involved are free spirits. If my GM was not rail roading me I think this might be viable-even interesting but with the theme he has had in this whole mess(Which seems to be "Fuck the water mage") I think any venture down this path is guaranteed to fail unless I have a great plan.

Banish Steve, loose the 40 something karma I have put into him(I raised him from force 3, to force 4 after the first run with him). Have spirits chasing my ass for eternity.

Now for the most sadistic scenario.... let steve try to emancipate himself through his spirit contacts, or sell him to any mage who will buy him for magical equipment equivelant to half the karma I paid. If I sell him to the spirits for self emancipation, I will banish him to regain the lost magic point, then self initiate and change my astral signature-making it IMPOSSIBLE for the spirits to indentify me.


Any situation I come up with is almost certain to fail. I can handle for the known factors but not for the unknown so unless I have a 20 page typed plan outlining EVERY possible scenario, my GM can still fuck me if he wants to.

I've come up with a ton of ideas, these seem like the best.

In any case I see no good solution for what to do with the other player. He will be very angry IC and OOC should I kill him but *HE* is the one who fired the first shot by telling my spirit he would take me out.... killing him should be easy if I had to, I can think of a dozen scenarios to make a synch. I could PROBOABLY take him out in direct combat, however i'd rather not have to do it in combat, planning it out of combat would make it almost a guarantee. My character knows this player is out for my players blood. He might not realize that threatening my character makes him fair game in turn, i'm pretty sure he will be VERY angry should I kill him, how the hell do I resolve this?



Any ideas on what the hell I should do, or even some way to turn this situation to my advantage, any way to get out of this without loosing my life, or all the karma I sunk into my spirit?


J, if you do read this *shrug*, tell our GM if you want, I don't care-maybe seeing it written down will let him know how truley pissed off I am by this.

[Nikoli]

That's messed up.
Seriously messed up.

Though to be fair, just because it has no human social skills doesn't mean it won't know how to talk to other spirits.

You did create a loophole in the legality thing. It's a spirit, with no concept of the laws of man, it cannot learn teh laws of man from what I understand unless you teach it. It is already breaking the law (it's a force 4) therefore it might not be bound by that rule of yours.

Spirits, generally speaking, have no sense of honor (certain Ancestor Spirits not withstanding). It might not see itself as accountable for the actions of it's brethren, however, if "Steve" told the other spirits "Hey, if I get destroyed, go kill my master." then the GM violated the precepts you set down. If however it's more of a "Uh, look Master, the other guys have asked me to tell you that should something happen to me, they are gonna frag you good. I don't have any control over that, I'm sorry." then techincally the spirit hasn't violated anything, but the GM did seemingly set out to screw you there, regardless of the method.

From how you've laid it out, I doubt your GM will accept changing your signature, using some lame ass excuse that a spirit you didn't dtect watched you perform the ritual and reported the new signature to the others.

I'd say make a new character or leave find a new gaming group.

[Aqua]

I'm on a college campus, everyone in our group are friends from our floor. My GM is my friend from across the hall and I can not even begin to fathom why he is doing this. The ONE thing I will not do is simply make a new character-if I stop playing this guy, I stop playing with the Gm period... I'm not going to be shat on and ignore it. But I don't want to just walk away!


Edit: For clarrafication on seattle/ucas law... I was worried about it not understanding UCAS law and getting me in trouble. I asked my GM if I needed to give it a UCAS law knowedge skill, he said it was not needed, that I didn't have to worry about it and the spirit would understand.

Double edit:

His skills are as follow:
Assault rifle/Ak93[3/5]
Biotech/First Aid[1/2]
Sorcery[6]
(My mage was Joe Wage Slave turned shadowrunner when his company downsized). Being able to talk to spirits is one thing, he has *NO* skills or abilities that lend towards any kind of charismatic contact, let alone getting the firm support of lvl 8 spirits he essentially commanded in combat on our run(much to my mages displeasure).

[Mr Cjelli]

I personally would just leave this group flat out, no explanation. The GM and the one other PC you mentioned do not sound like people I want pooching my conjurer.

There are three major reasons why I think your GM is completely in the wrong. First, ally spirits start out as barely sentient; it's unlikely that a two week old force 3 ally spirit would even understand the concept of "freedom" and "slavery". Second, it's completely unfair that the GM will allow what is essentially an extension of your character to do things during downtime but not your character. Finally, force 3 ally spirits do not convince force 8 free spirits to do anything, let alone a political group. Force 3 ally spirits are lucky not to be devoured whole by force 8 free spirits. If a force 8 free spirit thought joining an astral-being civil rights group was a good idea, they would have started one on their own already.

Seriously, does the GM screw with everyone's karma expenditure? I'll bet your mundanes don't have to deal with their skills wanting to be "emancipated."

[Aqua]

No he does not. I explained out of character to him in private how the spirit is essentially a part of myself and vital to my character(I.e. I can no longer cast force 6 spells without it, without taking physical damage and all the other things/places where a force 6 magic is better). I tried to explain how the physad in our group did not have to worry about his powers trying to become free(the physad was the character who threatened me to my spirit).

It might be in part because everyone was tired.... it was pretty late but I was not sleepy, he didn't seem to care about the explination I gave however.

[Nikoli]

Simple, your GM is an asshat.
Now that this is established, you have 2 choices as far as I can see:
Suck it up, make a new character, avoid ally spirits like the plague.
Stop playing SR with these guys, take your ball and go play in a different sandbox.

[Arethusa]

Holy fuck. I'll second that. Leave this group and never come back. Your GM is pretty clearly sadistic. I'm not going to guess at his motivations, but they're all pretty clearly personal. Do not waste your time on this bullshit.

[GrinderTheTroll]

Might want to get a handle on summarizing once you enter the business world.

[Nikoli]

It's right up there with the old 2nd ed D&D bs of "He's an evil Kender. I know Kender aren't evil, but he was raised away from Kender..."

[vapor]

before you leave do your best to screw over the physad.



turnabout is always fair play.

[Critias]

Just talk to the dude, man. When you're both awake and coherent, when he's listening and you're being calm and explanatory. Toss him an email and let him know you gotta talk to him, seriously, about the game. Don't spring it on him right before the game's supposed to be starting, don't blow up in the middle of the session, don't mention it in passing and then get pissed if he forgets. For lack of a better term, make an appointment, and make it clear this is an issue for you. Don't ambush him with it, don't go into it with your arms crossed and glaring or waving a rulebook at him and calling him stupid and wrong. Go into it as concisely as possible, lend him your book and ask him (don't tell him, ask him) to read over Free Spirits, and let him know that his handling of the situation thus far has you to the point you're about ready to leave the game.

Talk to him, not a bunch of people on the internet. Do it maturely and reasonably, keep a level head, and just see what happens.

Then think about leaving the game or not.

[Botch]

Kill the adept, in fact, kill everybody.

If you think hard enough your ally spirit's F8 and 300-odd other friends should be forced to commit a Total Party Kill or expel their new and inexperienced, uncharasmatic spirit leader from their political group, thus restoring your ally spirit to its place by your side.

Seriously, take the GM aside, bring them here and then see if the 2 of you can set up some OOC dialogue to bring the ally spirit back on track as a side-plot that only the 2 of you are intially aware of. Its that or back to step one, TPK.

[Jrayjoker]

Friends or not, you are getting railroaded in a bad way, and it sounds like it is a team effort.

Tell you GM you feel he is railroading you and you feel upset about it, but do it outside of the game. If you get a, "it's for game balance," answer, shrug and give your spirit its freedom, no strings attached. You have then effectively given the game the balance the GM wants by losing Karma, a magic point, and an ally spirit all at the same time. If the GM is reasonable and feels like it, he can give you a free spirit (Steve) contact with a 300 member policlub at his beck and call. If not, oh well. If you don't get an answer you like, do the same thing anyway. You aren't really punishing yourself if you consider playing the game with this character a reward in its own right, and you can take a lot of the wind out of the GMs sails if you do this and deprive him of a tool to screw you with.

If you want to keep playing with this group, with this character, then you are going to need to communicate your concerns clearly and soon and in a non-judgemental way.

Take the high road and you'll only regret it when you think of a great way to screw then all over in four or five years. ;)

[mmu1]

Clearly explain to the guy that when you spent 40 karma, you didn't realize you were actually buying a major disadvantage and a large group of enemies, that this has ruined your enjoyment of the game, and that it's unacceptable.

Then, if he still doesn't get it, or understands but decides to continue to be an asshole, walk. Or, if he alienated anyone else and you feel up to it, see about getting him kicked out of the game, or just getting those people together and walking out on him.

[Tarantula]

I thought only shamen could get ally spirits?

[Jrayjoker]

Don't just go off on him/them. Talk about it, and if it doesn't work out at least you tried.

And heck, you're in college, there have to be other gamers around if you feel the need to leave.

[Capt. Dave]

Jesus. I wouldn't game with that guy if you paid me. I GM, and the only way an ally would ever do something like that is if you spent a goodly amount of time making it want to leave. You'd have to piss it off pretty badly, and even then I'd let you know what was going on. Whether you specifically stated that you were sense-linking or not, I'd assume you were, from time to time.

If it were me, I'd call him out on this BS. Shadowrun is supposed to be a fun game, and while nobody runs for too long without someone screwing them over, that someone shouldn't be their ally spirit. If a rigger put a Rating 5 pilot in his car, would it decide to drive away? Would the decker's semi-autonomous knowbat go all Deus on his ass? ( I do realize neither of these is sentient enough to do so, but I've never heard of this kind of ally spirit, either.)

Try the options listed above (Talk w/the guy, etc.). If those don't work, pee on him whilst he sleeps. It won't help your mage, but you'll feel better. ;)

[torzzzzz]

God they have pulled one on you here, I would tell them to stick it. By your explanation you have been honest and fair with your spirit and you have had the piss taken out of you! Sack them off and play with another group!

torz x :)

[Belle Anderson]

Dude...I haven't seen a GM with this kinda hate for a char/player in a LOOOOONG time.

Now for my advice, talk to your GM tell him, rationally and calmly that you feel that you are being railroaded, that you didn't intend to spend 40 karma to buy what is basically 300 plus arch enemies. If he still stonewalls, try to ask if there is something you did to upset him, is he upset, what happened, cuz it sure looks like you or your char did something to piss him off. My guess from what you say here is that maybe the GM thinks that your Mage is getting too powerful and needs to be tamped down if not killed/retired. Had this actually happen in a game, the GM decided that a certian players chars were too powerful for the game and decided to systematically dismantle them and render them unplayable the GM got sadistic and drew it out for months, it was painful to watch the player squirm and him not having a clue why this was happening.

Well the truth finally came out the the group basically imploded, many players grabbing their chars and running to the hills fearing that their chars would be next if the GM got 'tired' of them too. It's still there, but only a fraction of what it was.

Get blunt if you have to sounds like your GM is trying to pussy foot around it and trying to fob you off with excuses, say something to the effect of 'If you think my char is too powerful, you think it's time to retire him ect then TELL me now and lets work something out that we BOTH can have fun with and agree on.'

If that fails, then run, don't walk away from that game.

[Charon]

I have trouble imagining that you've played one year with this group and suddenly, out of the blue, this kind of behavior pops up.

I'm missing something here.

And you say you've confronted the GM on the issue and haven't gotten a straight answer? Well, you can either talk some morem with the whole group, or walk. What can we say. There's not a dozen solutions to your dilemna.

Maybe he just realized after the fact that he disliked ally spirit. I know I've been a real jerk toward things I didn't want in my campaign when I was younger (as opposed to refusing them upfront or learning to live with it).

[Vuron]

So let me see you summoned an Ally spirit with the assumption that he's just going to be a fully independent entity that gets a share of the loot when you go on the occasional run and you're bent out of shape when the GM decides to invent some plots that revolve around the ally?

While I doubt the Ally is going to neccesarily start organizing the spirits of seattle from a metagame reason it's not entirely reasonable to assume that it's suddenly cognizant of human laws and capable of functioning in society without the constant supervision/direction of the mage/shaman.

Conceptually it seems that neither of you were really ready for an ally in the game. Perhaps the best solution would be to split the difference say that you accidentally temporarily bound a free spirit in some bizarre accident rather than a true ally and credit you with the 40 karma you spent. That way the plot remains developed the problem gets resolved and you gain a sideplot (maybe push for a little bit of karma if the GM decides to make the spirit an enemy).

That way everyone wins and you don't have to reboot to a previous point in the game.

[iPad]

I've just walked away.

We could start a support group.

[Fortune]

[kevyn668]

[FrostyNSO]