My first Shadowrun game, Was I too paranoid? Options

[Kagetenshi]

[Critias]

This entire situation -- from the IC gameplay to the OOC reactions to the DS-bystander's reactions to those reactions -- boil down to the fact that there are two extremes of Shadowrun style play.

D&D with guns. Cyberpunk with elves.

Most published adventure (tries to) fall somewhere between the two extremes. Most players, though? Most players and GMs are firmly in one camp or the other (and don't even realize it), based on the level of reality, the flavor of reality, the amount of lethality, the accepted levels of paranoia, the tech vs. magic commonality levels, etc, etc, etc, of their own personal game world. Some people like a Shadowrun game that plays like D&D, involves your average dungeon crawl mentality (just with dusters instead of cloaks, IE instead of archmagi, research facilities instead of dungeons). Some people like a Shadowrun game that plays like Heat, but with a metaracial spread and magic as another factor that a professional team has to account for and use to their advantage.

It sounds like a Cyberpunk with Elves player got tossed into a D&D with Guns game. No biggie. It happens.

[Bandwidthoracle]

[Mr. Man]

[Kagetenshi]

I found a solution, though one that could only be used in spurts: freaky magical drek.

~J

[Bandwidthoracle]

[Panzergeist]

I would definately have been suspicious of the Johnson. After all, if he tells you you are going to a facility owned by his own corporation, he is either lying to you or letting you know who he works for. If you know who he works for, you know too damn much. Either way, he was probably screwing you over.

[toturi]

Just play it like Shadowrun. Shadowrun is neither D&D with guns nor Cyberpunk with elves. At the very heart, SR has a set of rules governing gameplay and gamemastering, just use them.

[Sicarius]

I blame the GM in this case. While ShadowDragon was maybe paranoid, i doubt that he misinterpreted the scene so badly. Ask the GM some time, if the Troll Johnson was gonna be a backstabber. Walking away is an IC reasonable thing to do. The GM, if he wants to run the mission he has planned has to overcome it. In my mind the go to move would be to something like:

"Ah.. I was afraid you'd say that MR. ______ which is why I took the liberty of Kidnapping your precious pet Cuddles."

That might be a little heavy handed, there are probably other (basically similar) ways to effect a similar result.

[Talia Invierno]

[sanctusmortis]

OK, I'm going to call this one two ways:

As a GM/ST: The person running the game has a very odd style. The actual run sounds normal; lots of opportunity for it to be not what it seems, lots of things to pre-run research, interesting Johnsons. Personally, things I would have changed about it as ST:

*Have Johnson react to the "fashionably late" part somehow. No J's gonna let it just slide, even if all they do is quip "ah, so glad you could join us."
*Never assume contacting details. No runner would EVER give a home number for ANYTHING. Hell, IRL I always give my mobile number and I have nothing to hide!
*The Fixer should have told the character "look, the run goes down in this many days. Get your shit together and contact the group on ______ if you want in." That way, there's a way back in, and some time to do research on the run. That regains player confidence, and brings them back into the fold with some handy stuff for the group.

As a PC: You ain't paying me in traceable, likely stolen goods. You pay me by credstick, chummer. No stick, no deal. A nice, no strings attached, blank stick with 30k:nuyen: on it. And I give my home number to nobody, so how my Fixer got it to give to you is beyond me. However, I take it from your lack of reaction the lateness of this slitch is OK. Their attitude, however, is not pro, and I work with pros. Me and my colleagues here will need a few days to gather gear; we'll ring you in 3 days to say if it's on. Leave a 5k:nuyen: deposit at this location along with any access keys you have (hey, you own the place, so we may as well go in legit), and we'll see you a few days after at ______. We'll call you when we get there and when we leave.

That's just me, though.

[arcady]

[arcady]

[Aku]

hmm, i like this...

i might as well step up and admit, wholely, that i'm the GM of this game. However, with SD's charcter "issues" that were were sorting out and helping with, the game didnt get rolling until an hour late, so instead of doing anything "planned" I wing'd it.... and appearently, right into a mountain side.

I will admit, i made more goofs than i should have. One thing i would have stuck with, would have been the payment method. As a point though, i would've made sure they would've gotten enough in telesma/art to make the 30K each, net, not gross. I also offered to let the charactersact as "sellers" for the corporation to sell the works, instead as independant sellers of their own goods. The reason is that i forsee this particular research company (the same the J works for, they're not major, or even named at this point) didn't forsee the need for something this catostrophic as this happening... as they were told in the meet, there are defenses there, so any sort of "natural" occurence should have been able to be dealt with.

As for the reaction, the J sort of expected someone to be late, so the "greeters" outside waited for a bit longer, and this would've been en exchange the others already inside wouldnt have seen.

The J had no intention of backtabbing them, oh and for upfront money, they never asked, IIRC, and if a J can get away with not paying anything up front, and potentially lossing that money to deaths, why would he?

And besides, now i've got a kickin reason to unleash some real hell on the game if i want to.. "so, uh, you guys remember that one run you turned down to investigate that research facility? uhh yea, well, what was there, got out..."

[Herald of Verjig...]

It does help to have multiple characters per player with different priorities and such. That way, when the professional PC you first picked decides to walk, he can comment "I know this ork who is much less picky about his employments. Give me a finder's fee out of his pay and I'll see that he meets up with the rest of your group in time for the planning phase." Then, put away your professional character sheet and pull out "Neil the Ork Barbarian the Player Character" (not to be directly confused with the trid show).

[Kagetenshi]

[Talia Invierno]

And yet the player plays within a group, in a setting that is (professionally!) supposed to be team-oriented.

Edit: Oh, and agreeing with that last part, Kagetenshi: although I'd question any character that is made so tightly that there are some jobs one PC can accept and not another. I'm more of the school of creating a single PC that is compatible with the group (crucial! including the GM) and is flexible across scenarios that the group is likely to play. Creating multiple PCs so as to have specific compatabilities in different scenarios (to me!) feels like cheating your way out of a potentially challenging situation.

Aku: you might remember me better as Sedna.

[Edge2054]

It's the player's job to play his character. If his character if of the attitude that that's not how to run biz then he's within his bounds to look for another job.

Here's an example of a set up for a run a GM tried to do over AIM with myself and a few buddies. The J calls our fixers, tells them that if we don't show up for this meet he'll break our legs. Right off the bat my character is pissed about this, but he shows up for the meet anyway, expecting trouble. After the initial meet, and some quick discussion with the rest of the team, we decide to go back in immediately and show these chumps what's up. Break my fraggin legs? My character laughs, loads up his Ares Alpha, and gets ready to tear this Barrens Bar into a slaughterhouse. Did it ruin the GMs plans for the night? Surely. Was if fun anyhow? It would have been had the GM not vanished completly before we pulled it off.

Aside from that, in our TT games we used to do the whole team at the table thing. After some convincing and with some patiance I've gotten the crew to work more cohesively. We send the team leader, the adept, and the face to the table. We've got a number of high end runs under our belts so we also feel we can afford to be upfront with the J about what we expect payment wise, both upfront, and after the fact. Starting off we didn't work that way, but now we do.

Aku's right though in one regard, it's up to the characters to ask for payment upfront, if they don't the J's within his rights surely to not offer.

[Talia Invierno]

Can't help but notice that your example used the word "we" throughout, Edge2054, and not "I". That's the only point I'm trying to make.

And definitely yes to that last: if the characters don't ask, there is no requirement by the Johnson to give. A recent team of my acquaintance recently discovered this truth for themselves :vegm:

[Lindt]

IMO, it was well played. In the course of the game I ran, I didnt ever have a charcter (IC or even a player in ooc chatter) mention about stepping away. If you think that is what a reasonable professional would do, then thats what should have happend. There was too much that was just flaky about how things where comming tougther.

However, it is also imperitive that you let the GM know (either at the time, or afterwards) that it was something that was just begging for a setup, and your charcter thought hed much rather stay poor and alive.

[Kagetenshi]

"I" becomes "we" when the characters are all compatible enough to stick together for future jobs. It should never be the default unless declared so previously by the GM, which was not the case here (which, incidentally, isn't really a style I'm keen on most of the time—though for one-shots and non-shadowrunning games it's often the best method).

~J

[Talia Invierno]

Possibly focus on individual characters and not team intended then; and possibly not intended but just a side-effect of inexperience. We don't know enough to be certain which.

I'll also link this in: as a Dumpshock cross-section examining creation priorities from a player vs. group perspective.

[Edge2054]

*chuckles* Alright, I'll give you that.

Brandt, my current character, has worked with a few chummers he didn't consider to be quite on a proffessional level. One of them has become a consemate pro over the course of the campaign. Another ended up getting ditched in Vegas.

So for initial party cohesiveness, I agree, be flexible as a player, as a character, give the rest of the team the benifit of the doubt. If they screw you later have a backup plan to take them out, (I know Brandt does).

On the phone call thing, I think that could have been handled differently. Brandt's paranoid about that shit. Uses email and a beeper to let people get ahold of him. Then either emails them back or takes a hike down to a payphone to return the call. If our GM would have said, Brandt's phone rings, I would have said, You mean his pager? He doesn't give his number out otherwise. Now, after the game's gone along, when our GM says, Brandt, your phone rings, I know it's his cell and I know it's his wife calling, which is how I set it up to begin with. Just had to let the GM know that was the case and since then it's been all gravy.

As far as walking Talia, you're right, most teams don't walk, most players don't walk. Still though everyone is in there right to do that. With how our group is now it would be a we thing, but if Brandt would have felt he was getting set up on that very first run, he would have walked. with our without the rest of the team. He would have warned them first, told him why he felt sketchy about it. If they would have walked with him, maybe in the future he would have pulled them together as a crew. If they would have told him he was being paranoid, he would have simply shrugged his shoulders and left anyhow.(As a matter of fact we did get set up, had no clue though, and pulled our asses out of the fire together.)

[lollerskates]

[arcady]