Gm / Player balance, Where's the 'shenanigans' line? Options

[Smiley]

On another topic, this happened:

[The Stainless St...]

I'm sure in your game everything is sunshine and rainbows. Mr. Johnson seals every deal with a hearty handshake and a genuine smile you can trust. Fixers just want to look out for you, and the word on the street is always the gospel truth. Buying contraband is so safe you can leave your guns at home, and the deals never EVER go badly. There's a real camaraderie in the shadow-world, and everyone helps each other out whenever they can, because hey brother, we are all we've got. And I'm sure your players never stifle a yawn as their benevolent NPC buddies look out for them and guide them through the story, protecting them from anything that might lead to dissapointment or *gasp* even injury….

Who the hell are you to start commenting on my GM style? You don't have any idea who I am or how I play. I simply pointed out that a quickened spell with a tgt#24 to dispell can be a hazard as well as a help, and you start coming down on me for bullying my players? Well guess what? Some of my NPC's are bullies because some people ARE bullies - I also have lazy people, crazy people, addicts, killers and whores - and even, now and then, someone who can be trusted (to a point). If you don't reflect that in your game then you're a crappy GM, and I guarantee you that my players would rather play in my world than yours.

[Nikoli]

Well, sadly the rules almost encourage things like this.
Certain astral entities almost hunger for these oportunities, when they find them, they make life hell for the victem. Now, that being the case, running into one should be akin to tripping over Hoffa's shoe while bending over to pluck a 4-leaf clover in the middle of the sidewalk that you planned on pressing between two winning lotto tickets in an original printing of a german grimorim that hasn't seen the light of day since washington was cutting his first teeth. In other words, it shouldn't happen, but it is an easy out for fast drama to let it happen as a gm.

[Jrayjoker]

All I was saying is that the players and the GM can seriously frag with each other in the rules and outside of them quite easily.

Yes, I am going to exploit the fact that they have an astrally active tatoo on them that is unmasked, and every ward they walk through is going to tell its maker what is coming. And everyone on the mage's side is going to ambush with superior firepower from cover.

That is how it is. Its not f-ing the players if it would resasonably happen per the rules.

And no, its not railroading if they die.

[Jrayjoker]

[Smiley]

[The Stainless St...]

[blakkie]

[Supercilious]

Stainless, you really turned what was not a flamefest into a flamefest so damn fast I find it almost funny.

I mean, this is not even two pages yet and everyone is at eachothers throats. Chill out, it was not an attack by my reading, your just mispercieved.

PS: I let my players do what they like, if they want to rough up grandmas for rent money, they will not get much opposition; if they want to steal the new Ares LASERMASTERBLASTER III with integral jetpacks then they will find stronger opposition. Scale the challenge to the job, not to the players.

[The Stainless St...]

[Supercilious]

But why? No NPC wants to kill people for the purpose of just killing them? The gun-dealer wants repeat business. The BTL dealer wants an addict. The Johnson is the one that might screw them over, but that is the once-every-so-often occurance, not the general rule.

If I played your game, and I got screwed every single run I would start killing Johnson's and just keeping the "half up front." Not that I could spend it because the gun dealer wants to shoot me, and the street-doc would rather kill me for organs than install my new cyberware. O right, what cyberware, my CATco friend rigged it with a kink bomb for kicks.

Do you see what I mean by having the NPC's not be evil all the time? Maybe the street-doc will kill me for the new Deltaware level four move-by-wire system I have rigged up, but not for the basic-level datajack.

[Smiley]

I don't see EVERYONE trying to screw EVERYONE solely for survival at all. The 6th world MUST be livable since so many people are living and working without getting killed for their shoes and apartment space. Survival in the 6th world is not as hard as you make it sound. There are families, elementary schools, playgrounds, McHugh's, all that stuff. A good life isn't any farther out of reach than it is now.

Shadowrunners are in a profession where they're in harm's way 24/7 and getting knifed in the back is a common occurrence, granted. But even then it shouldn't be as dire as you portray it all the time. Otherwise, nobody would do it.

[Supercilious]

[Smiley]

I was taking it to a far extreme, but my point's the same.

(And there really is public education. I doubt it's any good, but it's there.)

[BitBasher]

[Glyph]

A GM is responsible for running all of the opposition to the players, and challenging them. Sometimes it is hard to walk the fine line between boring them and frustrating them. And just as there are immature players, there are immature GMs who abuse their power to mess with the players.


But enforcing an existing rule or drawback isn't "throwing crap at the players". If you walk around with high-Force quickened spells, then wards are going to be a big problem for you, and you will run into the occasional hassle from people assensing you. If you shoot up a residential neighborhood, Lone Star will show up. If you play an albino minotaur with a dikoted claymore, your character will be slightly more conspicuous and easy to remember than his buddy, samurai Bob, is.

[Smiley]

He gets the Distinctive Style flaw by default.

[Kagetenshi]

[DocMortand]

The trick with Johnsons are that Shadowrunners by default are expendable assets (whether they like it or not.) and it is easier to throw away expendable assets than to keep them around.

Generally a Johnson won't screw you if he's honest (it DOES happen occasionally) or if he needs you for multiple runs (Easier and cheaper to use the same people...also establishes a pattern for Lone Star!)

Frankly, in my game the Johnson has usually been pretty straightforward with the occasional backstab. But that's because I am who I am...I've already made them paranoid as it is, they don't need the extra layer of complexity. (That comes later, when problems old come home to roost)

But I never set out to kill my players - I set traps and situations which are deadly, yes...but they always have solutions which can result in no injury if they're clever, and death if they're stupid.

[toturi]

By Canon... (I'm sure the regulars on this board has heard this from me many many times, so say it with me my Dumpshocked brothers and sisters),

[tisoz]

[Cynic project]

If every deal goes south, then the player will either stop makign deals, prepare for everydeal or be stupid.

Deals should and go south from time to time. If you are a smart or mean GM you would make the deals go south at random, and in in some ways that the player wouldn't be think of.

So, the team is talking to Johnson when a go gang sees the players wearing the wrong colors...Look sometime the police are chaing soemthing else. or any number of other things.

Now, here is something that many bad GMs do. They make it so that not matter what the players do, they lose, or win. These things are bad on both sides. For diffrent reasons. Always lossing or winning takes away the point of either. Oh look we won.Oh look we lost.

[hyzmarca]

A GM must always follow a single golden rule when screwing over players. The GM is omniscient in the game world. The NPCs are not. God does not talk to his pupets. Information only flows to them from the PCs or other NPCs.

The GM should never play NPCs as if they have knowledge that they couldn't have. If he does then he ceases being a Game Master and becomes a Munchkin Master.

This means that quickened spells should set off wards, but targets should not install wards just because obtained a quicken spell.


As for Johnsons who screw Runners over, they should be few and far between. Most, if not all, Johnsons should be willing to screw over runners when it benefits them. However, it will rarely benefit them.

More importantly, if they do it too often they will get a rep for it. They will be unable to solicit runners because no one will be stupid enough to work for them. They will lose their careers and most likely their lives.

Independant Johnsons who screw over runners too often will not have to resources to escape all of the enemies they earn.

Corporate Johnsons who screw over runners too often will be stuck in a limbo. They can't work, will never get a promotion, will never get a transfer, and will have a hard time getting demoted. Most likely their replacements will turn them over to some angry runners to help build a good rep.

[Kagetenshi]

[sanctusmortis]

In the example of the first example, yes he should get screwed over. A TN of 24 to stop it should mean he's lit up astrally like a bloody Christmas tree - and there are a lot of nasty spirits who could use that sort of power.

It is important to make sure that sort of behaviour has repercussions. There's no fun in a cakewalk. For example, one of my players has powergamed his character to his opwn admission. I've told him it's fine. I have plenty of ways to teach him the error of his ways, and he knows it. His character, although quite tooled up, is not infallible. Taking nightblindness knowing full well you were taking cybereyes with night vision, flare compensation et al may look like there's no way for your GM to get you back - but then that stray hit catches them, and the vision mode isn't reliable. So you balanced all those neat edges with the Hunted -4 flaw, eh? A level 4 enemy can wreak havoc, especially when your Resources mean you already had one.

And you can never fully rely on any equipment; illegality can lead to Lone Star problems, guns jam, little problems can destroy equipment (such as fire setting off ammo or explosives, melting electronics, etc...), and magical equipment is highly prized. Remember, the game is for fun, and the fun is the challenge. If every run was a milk run, would you keep playing? Conversely, if every job you got handed blew up in your face, would you?

But that's not to say that Stainless was wrong. Things SHOULD go wrong. Hell, the last campaign I played in, the Coyote Shaman was going out with a Ghoul and hadn't even thought to check, my entire apartment block was blown up by Sony, who put a bullet in the head of our ork leader, our Gator Shaman had passed out and found himself in an underground sewer temple infested with gators, our night elf was in hospital recovering from having been set on fire trying to get his revenge on me (vengeful, and the Sony thing was my Dark Secret coming to call)... and it was the best fun we'd ever had. That was ONE SESSION. The fun was getting ourselves out.

The balance is keeping interest for them while keeping your own as well.