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Wounded Ronin
Yesterday I got a bit introspective when posting on these forums and thought a bit about the things that made me like GMing SR3 and not like GMing SR3. With the music from Bloodsport where Van Damme rides the bus and thinks about Chong Li in the background I thought about beefy Asian men on busses and finally came up with some revised 80s type guidelines for GMing.

These are just my thoughts about how to balance difficulty level and payoffs so that the PCs don't get too powerful but at the same time are able to maintain their chosen lifestyles and be challenged each week at the gaming table. I think a big mistake I made early on when I was GMing years ago was awarding karma according to the guidelines given in SR3, which tended to end up being ~10 karma per run if you followed the guidelines and gave points for things like "Right Place, Right Time" and "In Character", since these mini bonuses really added up. The problem is that this, combined with my too-low difficulty levels, lead to karma pool snowballing which ruined the game for me faster than anything.

I also decided to take cues from the Genesis and SNES Shadowrun games. I reasoned that the video games represented the image that FASA wanted to present to the world of their game. If I can convey some of the atmosphere and setting detail from these games I may be closer to finding "the real Shadowrun".

With the 80s to inspire me in the quest for the "real" Shadowrun, I sketched up the following guidelines where I've classified difficulty levels and mission types. Please let me know what you think, or if I've finally permanently lost it.
=======================

Street Level
Theme Music: Beat It (Michael Jackson)
Types of Jobs: Delivering illegal packages of moderate-low value (like drugs or BTLs), escorting two-bit criminals through hostile neighborhoods (where legit bodyguards would be more expensive)
Types of Opposition: Normal metahumans with "average" stats and combat skills from 0-2. Light pistols abound. Hardly any cyberwear. Just like in real life a lot of str33t confrontations can be diffused because people usually want easy prey. Hardly any magic.
Payoff: 1 karma point, 100-200 nuyen per team member.
Notes: The point of these runs is to familiarize the players to the system and describe the atmosphere of the world. Since opponents are weak GMs can invest a lot of time and energy in flavor to flesh out the world in the imaginations of the players. The GM should describe big hair, Michael Jackson, leather jackets, and elves with permed mullets. Perhaps a disturbing amount of inspiration can be found by looking at archived Playboy magazines from the 1980s regarding big hair and big glasses and Barbie-like women of horror.

Another point is that since SR is supposed to be disutopian the majority of NPCs are bitter, grumpy, and impolite. It's the big city and most people are afraid or resentful of everyone. I remember my personal experience living in New York City as a child back in the 80s; my mom was afraid to walk outside on the street after around 7:00, the subways still had graffiti on them right out of The Warriors, the crime rate was high, and angry service-sector employees liked to glare at you and wait 20 seconds before doing what you asked them to do.

Think also of the SNES SR game where people are almost universally rude to your character. My favorite example of this was the "gay" bartender at one of the shadowrunner clubs who would say, "Nice aftershave! Very street level!".

The PCs should be able to get a job like this every other day or so so that they can theoretically maintain a Low lifestyle working full time at low risk.



Corporate Level
Theme Music: "Running With The Night" (Lionel Ritchie)
Types of Job: Stealing items from corporate offices, annhilating a small/medium neighborhood gang, annhilating a community of ghouls, assassinating or extracting a corporate officer.
Types of Opposition: Ranges from "average" stats and skill ~3 in large numbers to skill ~5 or 6 with a reasonable suite of cyberwear and a mage or two. Reasonably nasty security mechanisms should protect corporate offices so that carelessness will result in casualties. If the PCs do something indiscrete the GM should give them 5-10 minutes of in-character time before pelting them with ~20 Lone Star officers and 2 LS mages, and after that give them another 5 minutes before the SWAT team shows.
Payoff: 3 karma points, 500-1000 nuyen per team member. If the PCs squeeze in around 3 per month and fence a lot of loot they can maintain a respectable mid level lifestyle.
Notes: Thisis a basic mission which should tax new players but which good players should be able to perform flawlessly. The time crunch is introduced to make injuries actually matter in the next mission, rather than just amounting to nothing but a cash deduction. Security guards should be hostile and looking to bully anyone who looks (or smells) "street level". The GM will probably spend a little more time crunching numbers and rolling combat and less time describing the 80s hairdos which the players should by now assume.



Asian Level
Theme Music: "Japanese Boy" (Aneka)
Types of Job: Assassinating or extracting a VIP or one of a kind item, springing a high profile convict from a Lone Star convoy, annhiliating guerilla camps in the jungle, annihilating special forces teams, tangling with the yaks.
Types of Opposition: Plenty of initiated mages, rating 8 spirits, sammies with 0.1 essence, or ~30 "medium" opponents from the last difficulty level who are all hiding and ready to blow you away in a giant VC style ambush. Enemies may have vehicles, artillery, advanced riflemen, support weapons, and plenty of magic. Ninjas may begin to appear and stab you when your M16A1 jams like in American Ninja 1; being rushed by 50 melee physads at once is quite a challenge.
Payoff: 5-7 karma points, 10,000 nuyen per character. Only one of these jobs should be available per month but the runner who can succeed every time through meticulous planning and professionalism can afford the coveted High lifestyle.
Notes: In the 80s everything asian was magically better. Therefore, only really good players with hyper asian levels of meticulousness, fighting spirit, and magical powers can pull this off. Just look at Bloodsport. If Van Damme didn't have super magical asian blindfighting powers, he totally would have been pwned by Chong Li's beefy asian powder throwing ninja-fu.



Drop the Hammer
Theme Music: "Girls Just Want To Have Fun" (Cyndi Lauper)
Types of Job: Dying
Types of Opposition: See above. Every 10 minutes. Also, constant sniping when out in the open. Unlimited enemy air and magical support.
Payoff: Your war is finally over
Notes: Should the PCs do something so flagrant that a corporation has no choice but to make an example out of them they just keep getting pelted until its all over. There is a way out of this, though, and it is steeped in the wisdom of pretending to be asian. The Way of the Tiger ninja gamebooks included a "Ninja no Chigiri" which had a line to the effect of, "I will die many times, yet I shall live again." Perhaps if a PC is killed and his body falls into an inaccessible location he can Hand of God to survive and then work on changing his identities. Ninja creeds, as usual, offer rays of hopes in otherwise insurmountable situations.
Sharaloth
Not my type of game, and you jump from 10K per run to dead. The advancement would go at a snail's pace and high-maintenance runner types would be left fairly useless without enough money and karma to keep them going. If you're getting paid only 10K per person to assassinate a VIP, you're being horribly ripped off, like by a factor of 10.

Street Level: fine, looks okay, deserves a higher Karma reward variable.

Corporate level: standard-looking. Still too low a karma variable and the money should show more fluctuation (in the upward direction). Perhaps 1K-10K per run per runner, depending on the job.

Asian level: Too high level opposition, too low payoff. From what you're describing and the types of job listed, runner's aren't going to be going for these jobs, because they're too high risk with no reward. Up the Karma level considerably and the pay even more (20-200K depending on the risks of the mission), and you might be closer to reasonable.

drop the Hammer: Why even include this? Player's royally screw up, they die in-mission. This looks like a GM deliberately out for a TPK, and that's not cool.
Wounded Ronin
QUOTE (Sharaloth)
Not my type of game, and you jump from 10K per run to dead. The advancement would go at a snail's pace and high-maintenance runner types would be left fairly useless without enough money and karma to keep them going. If you're getting paid only 10K per person to assassinate a VIP, you're being horribly ripped off, like by a factor of 10.

Street Level: fine, looks okay, deserves a higher Karma reward variable.

Corporate level: standard-looking. Still too low a karma variable and the money should show more fluctuation (in the upward direction). Perhaps 1K-10K per run per runner, depending on the job.

Asian level: Too high level opposition, too low payoff. From what you're describing and the types of job listed, runner's aren't going to be going for these jobs, because they're too high risk with no reward. Up the Karma level considerably and the pay even more (20-200K depending on the risks of the mission), and you might be closer to reasonable.

drop the Hammer: Why even include this? Player's royally screw up, they die in-mission. This looks like a GM deliberately out for a TPK, and that's not cool.

Hmm, you're right about Asian Level. If the reward were too low, no one would take such a job.

Drop The Hammer is actually a reference to a phrase used by someone on DSF (I forgot who) to describe what is supposed to happen if the PCs go nuts and do something stupid like fire an assault cannon into the lobby of a corporate headquarters in Downtown Seattle or something. It's real CLUE files material fallout. Maybe I didn't make that clear enough in the original description.
James McMurray
QUOTE
Drop The Hammer is actually a reference to a phrase used by someone on DSF (I forgot who)


That'd be me. I've been immortalized!!! wink.gif

I'd double or triple the payouts at street and corporate level. Massively increase the payouts at Asian level, and get rid of the ninja swarms. smile.gif

Also, despite being an advocate of dropping the hammer when the group does something that deserves it I don't agree with the "no way out" scenario. There's always something that they can do, assuming they can escape the initial assault. I also wouldn't have snipers take them down, but mainly because it's no fun. smile.gif
emo samurai
Plus, there's the whole issue of game balance. If near-impossible missions paid only about nuyen.gif 10,000, then they'd never buy anything but guns; cyberware would be too damn expensive. It's nuyen.gif 100,000 for a basic cyberarm; everything above that's just unattainable. It's actually kind of evil and petty to keep pay scales at that level.
Backgammon
I love you Wounded Ronin love.gif

Your posts crack me up every time, and you get that Shadowrun = 80s
hyzmarca
QUOTE (emo samurai)
Plus, there's the whole issue of game balance. If near-impossible missions paid only about nuyen.gif 10,000, then they'd never buy anything but guns; cyberware would be too damn expensive. It's nuyen.gif 100,000 for a basic cyberarm; everything above that's just unattainable. It's actually kind of evil and petty to keep pay scales at that level.

That is absolutly correct. It's why I always used the cheat cose that lets your pocket secretary spit out several huundred thousand nuyen when playing the Genesis version of Shadowrun.

emo samurai
I used the frame skip on decking jobs to do the same on an emulator.
eralston
A pretty good guide for threat/reward I've used before is asking the players to set out some sort of financial goals for their chars. Just a sophisticate name for: What do you want to buy? Usually it goes something like this:

mundanes:
AV rounds
Big Gun
Upgrade all ware to alpha
Significant Piece of Cyberware

magicians:
Materials
Expensive focus
Very expensive focus
Hunk of orichalcum size of head (AKA ludicrous focus)

Then just plot out how quickly you want them to attain it per level.

That's a bit of a top-down approach to payment so it might not work for everyone
Glyph
Rather than limit payouts, I would favor an "easy come, easy go" approach. Yeah, you get the big bucks - you are in demand, a highly skilled deniable asset who stands out from the expendable street trash by being discreet and getting the tough jobs done. With all of the risks involved, and the well-paying, safer legitimate work that most SR characters could be doing, being a professional shadowrunner should be lucrative. But you should also have to shell out a lot of that money on bribes, upgrading your toys, replacing those drones that got shot to hell, getting a new place after your old apartment gets firebombed, buying fresh fake IDs, etc.

If necessary, follow Blackjack's law of "having money without spending it". smile.gif
Wounded Ronin
OK, it makes sense to boost the payments up. I guess the question is, "realistically", how much would a Johnson pay for a job? If a Johnson pays a five man team 200,000 nuyen apiece to do something, he'd be shelling out a million nuyen on a given mission. Do you think that's reasonable? Personally, I have a gut feeling that a Johnson wouldn't want to pay a million bucks to possibly accomplish a given objective, but I don't really have a basis for that, so maybe I'm mistaken.

The other issue I want to ask about is karma. I definitely made the karma rewards smaller than "cannon" because I feel like too much accumulated karma pool messes up the game. Ideally, I'd want the PCs to burn karma at roughly the same rate they accumulate it, since I feel like once a pool gets around ~10+ dice the character gets too powerful. Opinions on that?

eralston
Well, metahumans screw with the pool a lot. I generally play with an alternate hand of god rule:

"Any player can hand of god if they die a meaningful death and they have non-zero karma pool. This act resets karma pool to 0. This can be used whenever applicable [no limit on number of time]"

Under that rule, the biggest KP ever achieved was ~5

The big thrust on economics would be that the more you pay the players, the most dangerous they become so you go down a bit of a slippery slope because you will have to pay them more for them to up the ante on challenges (because the challenges will become inherently more difficult, requiring more incentative to undertake them)
Wounded Ronin
QUOTE (eralston)
Well, metahumans screw with the pool a lot. I generally play with an alternate hand of god rule:

"Any player can hand of god if they die a meaningful death and they have non-zero karma pool. This act resets karma pool to 0. This can be used whenever applicable [no limit on number of time]"

Under that rule, the biggest KP ever achieved was ~5


Hmm, so that would kind of lead to a Rainbox 6 III effect. The entire team (except for Ding Chavez) gets blown to kiddie kibble on one mission but they're all back and ready to support Ding again in the next mission. You don't get the cool effect from the first Rainbox Six game where you actually empty a roster as your characters die but on the other hand this would let people keep the same character for a while which some people really like doing.

Interesting idea, actually.

It's interesting because my sort of built-in, taken-for-granted idea is that as you continue with a series of games every now and then a PC will die and be replaced by a new one. Under your system PCs need not die every now and then but on the other hand they don't get too powerful, either, at least not in the karma pool department.




QUOTE

The big thrust on economics would be that the more you pay the players, the most dangerous they become so you go down a bit of a slippery slope because you will have to pay them more for them to up the ante on challenges (because the challenges will become inherently more difficult, requiring more incentative to undertake them)



Hmm. Well, one thing about gaming in the past is that I never really imposed expenses on the players beyond hospitalization bills, the cost of equipment, and things like that. No Fallout 2 style, "Pay 10,000 caps for this picture with a map on the back, lol." Maybe I could focus on hitting the PCs with more storyline-related expenses they have to pay somehow and try and trim the cash flow that way. Perhaps a bit of the "easy come, easy go"? It's not a concept I've tried out before, but I can't think of any other way to simultaneously have big payoffs *and* keep the PCs from becoming multimillionaires who nevertheless inexplicably continue to run the shadows while buying dikoted deltaware with permed hair sticking out of it.
eralston
Well, if they get a grenade chucked down their throat and they are rendering unrecoverable, then I have never brought them back. The general case is, they get mortally wounded leaving a complex, the guards drive you away from them before the team can render help. Their fate is largely unknown.

Hand of God == always available ressurection does kill the game quite a bit, so you have to be harsh with that "meaningful" part.

Yeah, if you can keep profit margins constant while still making big payoffs, that will keep the team invested. Lord knows my friend who's GMing right now could stand to figure that out.
James McMurray
My group has never had a problem with multiple Hand of Gods. The removal of the one-time restriction in SR4 was one of my favorite changes. Who wants to make a new character every other session? Some people do, but my group doesn't have anyone like that currently.
eidolon
Meh, I've always been on the fence about them having even one HoG. I would never allow it as a constant "insta-rez" though, that much I'm sure of.

If I want to play a game in which dying is something you just roll your eyes over and go get raised, I bust out D&D. (Not a dig, I love both games.)
James McMurray
Hand of God, if done "right", is far from an instarez. It's more of a trials and tribulations thing then a get out of jail free.
Aku
personally, i never saw HoG as "insta rez" in that sense, sure it saved your hide, from the damage, but if you're buried, it dont matter much cuz you're still likely to die.
James McMurray
I would never put a player who just HoG'ed right back into an instant death situation, like taking the damage and then still being there in the firefight ready to take the same damage from the next sec gaurd's turn (or the same sec gaurd's second simple action). HoG should be a story altering event.
hyzmarca
Hand of God is related to the old "if you haven't seen a body then he isn't really dead" television and movie trope. One of the bad guys says "no one can survive that", thus ensuring that your character not only survives but eventually comes back to haunt them.
James McMurray
Nah, that's the easy way out. wink.gif
eidolon
I never said that I ran it as "ah, you're dead, better blow that karma and respawn back at home base".

The last HoG I had a player do, the character had done something really stupid in a high class restaurant. She killed the head of thier security and two other goons with her fingertip monofilament whip, and proceeded to run out across the main restaurant floor in her blood covered dress. She ran for the kitchen doors, but before she could fly through them, another security guard hit her with his taser for D stun. I informed the player that given what he had done, the character was going to go to court and receive the death penalty. (There was no way around it. Killing three people on camera with multiple witnesses, etc.) Since this was effectively character death, I allowed a HoG.

The result of the HoG? The taser trodes impacted the kitchen door as she ran through. Continue scene. Due to the ingenuity of the player, the character made it out. However, she also became severely indebted to her fixer after he helped her arrange a face/fingerprint/voice/eye/new identity.

It was great, and I liked the character, so HoG was a good thing in that instance.

Even given that, however, I still don't really care too much for its existence. The main thing that lets me leave it in the game is that it's restricted to one use. That, to me, is the balancing factor. Therefore, in my opinion, allowing it more than once is the equivelant of "insta-rezzing", because regardless of how "hard" on the player/character you are afterward, they still get another chance.

And like James said, I'd never bother giving the player a HoG if they were just going to die again. (As was implied by Aku's "HoG but you're buried" comment.) To me, that's just stupid.
hyzmarca
Remember the SNES shadowrun game? Armitage wakes in in the morgue with full amnesia and the attendants are peeing in their pants and locking temselves in the closet because they think he's a zombie.

I beleive that he did use HoG to get to that point.
Kremlin KOA
Kitsune == god?
eidolon
I've still never played the SNES version. I played the Sega version and didn't care much for it, but the SNES version usually goes too high on Ebay. (Read: I refuse to pay more than $10 for any SNES game. smile.gif)
hyzmarca
It involved a heavily cybered human Decker/Street Samurai/Shaman wielding an assualt cannon in public while utilizing a metaplanar gateway in an oil rig to find and bind a toxic Free Spirit, breaking into the volcanic island lair of an Adult Western Dragon and killing it, destroying an AI, and assasinating the CEO of a Megacorp for some reason.

And getting away with all of that.

Good stuff.
Tiralee
Well....considering all the good Karma I'd recieved from slaughtering those Vampires & Ghouls, uh, about 50 BILLION times, the cash-for-karma rule could have let me buy my way out of any earthly hell.

Never did remember to return those strobes though.

/Obscure?


-Tir grinbig.gif
James McMurray
QUOTE (eidolon @ May 1 2006, 01:12 AM)
Even given that, however, I still don't really care too much for its existence.  The main thing that lets me leave it in the game is that it's restricted to one use.  That, to me, is the balancing factor.  Therefore, in my opinion, allowing it more than once is the equivelant of "insta-rezzing", because regardless of how "hard" on the player/character you are afterward, they still get another chance.

Cool. Different philosophies I suppose. Whatever their next character ism he/she/it will end up having a hard time with their life, but without the character continuity and the karma cost of the HoG (or Edge replacement in SR4). I know when I play I'd rather have another chance then have to make another character.

It isn't used very often in our games though, despite how "easy" it is. Losing your karma pool or a point of edge is a high price to pay, and the group is usually pretty good at running away when things get too hairy.


SNES game: didn't he also face down Harlequin at the end? Despite all that it was a great game and a much better rendition of SR then the Sega game from what I hear (I never played the Sega version). They probably should have had you switch between multiple characters, but it was good taht they managed to get most of the various aspects of SR into it (magic, matrix, and gun bunnying).

You can probably find it on an emulator for free. I'm pretty sure I had it at one point.
ShadowDragon8685
For what it's worth, I played the Sega one on the real sega, played it on an emulator, and played the SNES one on an emulator, and except for the very end, the Sega game was totally better.
damaleon
QUOTE (Wounded Ronin)
OK, it makes sense to boost the payments up.  I guess the question is, "realistically", how much would a Johnson pay for a job?  If a Johnson pays a five man team 200,000 nuyen apiece to do something, he'd be shelling out a million nuyen on a given mission.  Do you think that's reasonable?  Personally, I have a gut feeling that a Johnson wouldn't want to pay a million bucks to possibly accomplish a given objective, but I don't really have a basis for that, so maybe I'm mistaken.

I would say it depends on what a successful run will do. For a VP extraction where all they get is the guy/gal, probably not, but if that VP also brings along 50 Million nuyen.gif a year in business, a million is only a little over a week's worth of profit. A similar situation might be a run that damages a competitor, letting the Johnson's company gain a noticeable market share for their products; a 1% or 2% increase could mean millions of nuyen.

I would see the highest level runs requiring more than what a 5 man team could reasonably expect to do on their own every time, so have them spend some of their cash hiring extra hands to do things outside of their focus, like a gang to slow down or thin out the LS response (Holloweeners wreaking havoc in the business district) or some deckers to screw with their system's you don't need to draw their security deckers' attention while you make the run.

I would make it incentive based though. An example: 50k nuyen.gif each for a successful extraction of a VP, 25k each if he is mostly unharmed, 25k nuyen.gif if they can't link it to the Johnson's company (or the runners), and 100k nuyen.gif each if you can get his private files from the company system without the target company knowing it (requiring a hacking of the system or getting the VP into the office, and possibly through a fight). Of course, I would start it at half that or so and have them negotiate it up.
hyzmarca
QUOTE (James McMurray @ May 1 2006, 09:50 AM)
SNES game: didn't he also face down Harlequin at the end? Despite all that it was a great game and a much better rendition of SR then the Sega game from what I hear (I never played the Sega version). They probably should have had you switch between multiple characters, but it was good taht they managed to get most of the various aspects of SR into it (magic, matrix, and gun bunnying).

Not Harlequin, Laughlyn, a Free Spirit with the same insane clown trope. However, you do kill Aneki anddestroy an incomplete AI which was probably a fetal DEUS, thus preventing the Arcology Shutdown storyline.

Harly did have a cameo in the Sega version. The SEGA version actually had multiple archetypes and essence loss for cyberware.
Wounded Ronin
QUOTE (Tiralee)
Well....considering all the good Karma I'd recieved from slaughtering those Vampires & Ghouls, uh, about 50 BILLION times, the cash-for-karma rule could have let me buy my way out of any earthly hell.

Never did remember to return those strobes though.

/Obscure?


-Tir grinbig.gif

I went through the trouble to go all the way back to the club and you couldn't give them back anyway. :/
Wounded Ronin
QUOTE (eidolon)


The last HoG I had a player do, the character had done something really stupid in a high class restaurant. She killed the head of thier security and two other goons with her fingertip monofilament whip, and proceeded to run out across the main restaurant floor in her blood covered dress. She ran for the kitchen doors, but before she could fly through them, another security guard hit her with his taser for D stun. I informed the player that given what he had done, the character was going to go to court and receive the death penalty. (There was no way around it. Killing three people on camera with multiple witnesses, etc.) Since this was effectively character death, I allowed a HoG.

See, I never interpreted cannon HoG that way. I always saw it as something that only kicked in when the character had literally died. I remember I had a situation GMing where some panickey player was screaming "hand of god, hand of god" after taking a basic D wound, and I had to explain that you had to be clinically dead before HoG could take effect.

Come to think of it, though, the HoG kicking in when you literally die might be less effective than it only kicking in in situations where "there's no way anyone could have survived that". The cannon SR3 HoG has very little reason to not be applied every time your character dies, unless you really want to start a different one. But if the rule is instead, in effect, that it only takes effect if the bad guys can't get to your body and "verify" but at the same time it dosen't necessarily only happen X number of times that could have better dramatic flow.

Maybe HoG could benefit from additional written-down penalties. Like every time you HoG you lose some attributes due to extreme mangling or something. If you write the guidelines down ahead of time no one can complain when it happens.
eidolon
How was that character not effectively dead? She was in restraints (the "can't use your hand/arm cyber" kind), drugged to keep her passive, and sitting in the back of the LS car listening to the cops take statements and talk about how she was going to fry. That's as good a reason to HoG as taking a shotgun blast to the face at point blank range in my book. Both effectively end the character's participation in the game. That's my reasoning, in a nutshell.

And again, the best reason (for me) not to allow HoG multiple times is that doing so would create the idea, real or perceived, that all you have to do to make up for doing something really, really stupid that gets your character killed is blow some karma. The reason I mention "real or perceived" is that the end state of either state is the same: the characters don't take as much care to preserve their characters and to play "smart".

I also disagree that the "soap opera" interpretation is one that can be inferred from the text. "Verification" of the death by the "bad guys" has nothing to do with whether you're "allowed" to HoG.

As far as HoG needing more written rules, I also disagree. The more you try to alleviate the need for GM interpretation, the more the game becomes a VGoP. For an example, see D&D 3.5.

For "manglings" and such, see the permanent injuries section of M&M. Them are some nifty rules. smile.gif

As a final (for this post) thought: "Interpretation" is indeed the key word here. In the end, it doesn't matter in your game what my interpretation of HoG is. Even "canon" is open to interpretation, and that myriad of interpretations is just one more reason that I love roleplaying games.

IMO, the new wave of d20 and D&D 3.5 type "standard gaming" has done far do much damage to people's ability to accept different interpretations of game rules and settings. There seems to have been, over the last few years, a steady diminishing of gamers' ability to play a "non-standard" game. In the push to "balance" rules and to "fix" roleplaying games, diversity and novelty are dying a horrible screaming death.
Calvin Hobbes
I completely disagree. D20 modules are entirely built around the idea of the toolbox. I can play a game with as much D20 stuff as I want to include. I can run Solid, or I can run a blaxploitation game with just D20 modern, I don't think that having options open for how other people see new interpretations of a basic system is bad. Nothing is canonically required by the GM besides the D20 modern book. You like an idea, make it work in your game. I don't think the problem is that people are taking all of these books that are d20 compliant and turning them into d20 mandatory, I think the problem is that you need to find less stupid players to hang out with.
hyzmarca
With the HoG you can easily handwave "and then a miracle happens" because it is the Hand of God, not the Hand of Spock. It is a miracle and it can defy logic. Every HoG use should be subject to investigation and confirmation by the Roman Catholic Church.

It can be as simple as having the speed sammie's gun jam instead of delievering a killing shot, thus allowing the targeted mage to make his head explode with a powerbolt. It can be as complex as a point-blank range shotgun blast propelling someone off a cliff without causing any physical damage, that person hitting the water feet first and somehow missing all of the jagged rocks, a humpback whale swallowing him for no apparent reason and then regurgitating him, safe and sound, on a beach several hundred miles away.

No mater what it should take the character out of danger even if there are consequences. Permenant wounds and Flaws both make decent consequences.
ChuckRozool
QUOTE (Wounded Ronin)
Asian Level
Theme Music:  "Japanese Boy" (Aneka)
Types of Job:  Assassinating or extracting a VIP or one of a kind item, springing a high profile convict from a Lone Star convoy, annhiliating guerilla camps in the jungle, annihilating special forces teams, tangling with the yaks.
Types of Opposition:  Plenty of initiated mages, rating 8 spirits, sammies with 0.1 essence, or ~30 "medium" opponents from the last difficulty level who are all hiding and ready to blow you away in a giant VC style ambush.  Enemies may have vehicles, artillery, advanced riflemen, support weapons, and plenty of magic.  Ninjas may begin to appear and stab you when your M16A1 jams like in American Ninja 1; being rushed by 50 melee physads at once is quite a challenge.
Payoff:  5-7 karma points, 10,000 nuyen per character.  Only one of these jobs should be available per month but the runner who can succeed every time through meticulous planning and professionalism can afford the coveted High lifestyle.
Notes:  In the 80s everything asian was magically better.  Therefore, only really good players with hyper asian levels of meticulousness, fighting spirit, and magical powers can pull this off.  Just look at Bloodsport.  If Van Damme didn't have super magical asian blindfighting powers, he totally would have been pwned by Chong Li's beefy asian powder throwing ninja-fu.

You always make me laugh... *sigh*

Does this level of play also include "gay hentai tentacle monsters", in warehouses even?
Or is that an entirely different kind of level altogether?

Kick'n it 80s style since 1975
Wounded Ronin
QUOTE (eidolon)
How was that character not effectively dead? She was in restraints (the "can't use your hand/arm cyber" kind), drugged to keep her passive, and sitting in the back of the LS car listening to the cops take statements and talk about how she was going to fry. That's as good a reason to HoG as taking a shotgun blast to the face at point blank range in my book. Both effectively end the character's participation in the game. That's my reasoning, in a nutshell.

Well, I always try to interpret the rules as literally as possible. When you're dealing with something that can upset someone like their favorite PC getting decapitated by a shotgun and dying if you are extremely literal then it reduces incidence of players blaming pdeath on GM fiat.

So, because of my literalist thinking, I'd always reserve HoG for clinical death. It's actually kind of funny because this morning I was just reading a medical textbook from the 80s that defined do-not-resucitate conditions as decapitation, rigor mortis, and physical decay of the body. I really cracked up.

But, seriously, the way I would have handled the situation is the PC would have been out of action for a while in police captivity. She would have clinically died in the electric chair and then been carted off to the morgue. *Then* she'd be able to HoG and wake up in the morgue disfigured and naked and with hefty psychological trauma. Think one of the crappy The Crow sequels.

That is, of course, my literalist thinking. HoG spares you from clinical death but the PC could still be taken out of action for a long time.




QUOTE


And again, the best reason (for me) not to allow HoG multiple times is that doing so would create the idea, real or perceived, that all you have to do to make up for doing something really, really stupid that gets your character killed is blow some karma.  The reason I mention "real or perceived" is that the end state of either state is the same: the characters don't take as much care to preserve their characters and to play "smart". 


Fair point. This is something I'm still mentally debating today. I'm not sure what the "best" practice is yet.

QUOTE
 
I also disagree that the "soap opera" interpretation is one that can be inferred from the text.  "Verification" of the death by the "bad guys" has nothing to do with whether you're "allowed" to HoG.   
 
As far as HoG needing more written rules, I also disagree.  The more you try to alleviate the need for GM interpretation, the more the game becomes a VGoP.  For an example, see D&D 3.5. 


What is a VGoP? A video game?

If so, since I've been a fan of literalist GMing, that's actually my ideal. When I play Fallout, I call it "playing with the iron GM", because the game engine administers the rules flawlessly and correctly every time, except in the case of a bug. My ideal is to be the iron GM who is literally correct about predefined rules in each situation.

That also tends to make my GMing slower since sometimes I'll have to take the time to look up a specific rule. But I feel very strongly against improvising or making something up except as a very last resort because inconsistiency can really ruin the tactical value of a game. I hesitate to make things up if only because I don't want to introduce inconsistencies in the future if I find out later that the way I made something up was dumb.

QUOTE

For "manglings" and such, see the permanent injuries section of M&M.  Them are some nifty rules.  smile.gif 


Hmm, here's an idea regarding permanent injuries and unlimited HoG. Maybe each time you HoG you automatically take organ or attribute damage as is articulated in SR3, *and* a random mental flaw. The HoGs could be unlimited but if you do it maybe 4 or 5 times your PC gets reduced to a blubbering piece of trash. What do you think?

QUOTE

As a final (for this post) thought:  "Interpretation" is indeed the key word here.  In the end, it doesn't matter in your game what my interpretation of HoG is.  Even "canon" is open to interpretation, and that myriad of interpretations is just one more reason that I love roleplaying games. 

IMO, the new wave of d20 and D&D 3.5 type "standard gaming" has done far do much damage to people's ability to accept different interpretations of game rules and settings.  There seems to have been, over the last few years, a steady diminishing of gamers' ability to play a "non-standard" game.  In the push to "balance" rules and to "fix" roleplaying games, diversity and novelty are dying a horrible screaming death.


Like I said before, I cling to predetermined rules and consistiency like a drowning sailor clings to driftwood. Making things up without at least planning them out and discussing them extensively beforehand (see my Diseases and Torture thread) just sets the stage for the game to become un-tactical and for players to complain about said inconsistency whenever their PCs die. On the other hand, if you are a literal "iron" GM no one can accuse you of that.
Wounded Ronin
QUOTE (ChuckRozool)
QUOTE (Wounded Ronin)
Asian Level
Theme Music:  "Japanese Boy" (Aneka)
Types of Job:  Assassinating or extracting a VIP or one of a kind item, springing a high profile convict from a Lone Star convoy, annhiliating guerilla camps in the jungle, annihilating special forces teams, tangling with the yaks.
Types of Opposition:  Plenty of initiated mages, rating 8 spirits, sammies with 0.1 essence, or ~30 "medium" opponents from the last difficulty level who are all hiding and ready to blow you away in a giant VC style ambush.  Enemies may have vehicles, artillery, advanced riflemen, support weapons, and plenty of magic.  Ninjas may begin to appear and stab you when your M16A1 jams like in American Ninja 1; being rushed by 50 melee physads at once is quite a challenge.
Payoff:  5-7 karma points, 10,000 nuyen per character.  Only one of these jobs should be available per month but the runner who can succeed every time through meticulous planning and professionalism can afford the coveted High lifestyle.
Notes:  In the 80s everything asian was magically better.  Therefore, only really good players with hyper asian levels of meticulousness, fighting spirit, and magical powers can pull this off.  Just look at Bloodsport.  If Van Damme didn't have super magical asian blindfighting powers, he totally would have been pwned by Chong Li's beefy asian powder throwing ninja-fu.

You always make me laugh... *sigh*

Does this level of play also include "gay hentai tentacle monsters", in warehouses even?
Or is that an entirely different kind of level altogether?

Kick'n it 80s style since 1975

Heh, it could, just so long as the tentacle monsters are statistically very dangerous. Heh, better hope your players are all comfortable with t3h hentai. biggrin.gif
ChuckRozool
and not pretty elven faces
eidolon
QUOTE (Calvin Hobbes)
I think the problem is that you need to find less stupid players to hang out with.


First off, insulting a person's friends over the internet is poor form. You know neither myself nor those that I choose to hang out with, and that statement succeeds at nothing but making you look like an idiot. Second, someone having a different opinion or take on something does not make them stupid. Third, you're resorting to assumptions to prove your point, which isn't the safest bet. (your assumption being that I don't know "how" to use the d20 system, for starters) I gave my opinion on what d20 is doing/has done, based on my personal experiences. I'm glad you seem to have had a different experience. Kudos on your ability to disagree, negative points for not being able to do it without looking like a jackass.

QUOTE (hyzmarca)
No mater what it should take the character out of danger even if there are consequences. Permenant wounds and Flaws both make decent consequences.


Eh, it usually depends, for me, on what the player/character was doing at the time. Some that I've granted have taken them completely out of harm's way, but usually not by preemptive methods. For example, if a character were to get hosed by heavy machine gun fire and go down, and died before someone could heal them, then the HoG ruling I would give might be simply that they had managed to hang on for medical attention by force of will or something, rather than ruling that the weapon had missed or jammed. To me, the HoG isn't a miraculous get out jail free card, it's "you're not dead, be thankful". Since that's my way of handling it, the "penalties or consequences" are usually whatever they would have suffered as a result of the conditions that made HoG necessary. In my little scene there, they'd be rolling on the "sustained a deadly? look what we have here for you!" charts. In the one I described above, she went to her fixer for a new full-blown identity, which at market rates is enough of a penalty. smile.gif

QUOTE (Wounded Ronin)
When you're dealing with something that can upset someone like their favorite PC getting decapitated by a shotgun and dying if you are extremely literal then it reduces incidence of players blaming pdeath on GM fiat.


I'm as literal as possible when dealing with rules that are best applied literally. So if the PC took a point blank blast to the face from a shotgun, I'd make sure that the shot, the damage, and the results were applied within the bounds of the rules. In areas where the rules are left open to interpretation, or where I've specifically chosen a different interpretation than the one given (fewer, but does happen), I interpret them and then try to be as consistant as possible in the application of my decision. HoG is one of those areas. There simply isn't any way that the designers could cover every instance or possible cause of character death, and so by default, it's up to the GM to decide how, when, and if to allow HoG.

QUOTE
But, seriously, the way I would have handled the situation is the PC would have been out of action for a while in police captivity. She would have clinically died in the electric chair and then been carted off to the morgue. *Then* she'd be able to HoG and wake up in the morgue disfigured and naked and with hefty psychological trauma.


That could work. Just as further contribution to the discussion, here's my takes on that. First, if I had let the police cart her off, I would have basically taken that player out of the game for the entire time that this scenario was playing itself out. (And while yes, I could have done some story stuff with her in court, yadda yadda, it would have been too labor intensive to be worth it, since I would be doing that at the same time as running the main game for the other four players. To me, it wasn't an option.) Therefore, it was in the group and the players' best interest to keep the character in the present game. (Now yes, the character "died" from doing something stupid, but it was in character, and so it wouldn't be fair to punish the players for it.)

As far as the waking up in the morgue thing, it's a bit too soap opera for my tastes. There's just too much there that makes me roll my eyes. wink.gif
QUOTE
Think one of the crappy The Crow sequels.

Exactly.

VGoP: Video game on paper. You got my meaning though. Personally, I'm of the mind that if I wanted to be playing a video game, with its harsh absolutes and lack of flexibility, I'd play a video game. I don't roleplay for that. When I'm GMing, I follow the rules to the best of my ability, but I'll only stop the game completely to look something up if it's absolutely necessary. Usually, I do one of two things: make something up for the moment, tell the players that I'm making it up, and look up the "right" way later, or, make something up, tell the players, decide that my made up way is better/faster/easier than the "right" way, and continue using it. I don't (and wouldn't) worry about looking dumb. If a player wants to call something that I'm doing as GM "dumb", they can take over and do a better job.

And it works out, because (usually) my players are totally fine with it. (As I assume yours are with your methods.) Otherwise, we wouldn't be GMing. biggrin.gif

QUOTE
Hmm, here's an idea regarding permanent injuries and unlimited HoG. Maybe each time you HoG you automatically take organ or attribute damage as is articulated in SR3, *and* a random mental flaw. The HoGs could be unlimited but if you do it maybe 4 or 5 times your PC gets reduced to a blubbering piece of trash. What do you think?


It could work I suppose. I would prefer that to a straight up "HoG as much as you want" approach, certainly. However, a little up my post you'll see my way of handling "consequences" of HoGing. (Haha, hogging.)

QUOTE
On the other hand, if you are a literal "iron" GM no one can accuse you of that.


Nope. Then they accuse you of being a literal "iron" GM. wink.gif
Wounded Ronin
QUOTE (eidolon)


That could work. Just as further contribution to the discussion, here's my takes on that. First, if I had let the police cart her off, I would have basically taken that player out of the game for the entire time that this scenario was playing itself out. (And while yes, I could have done some story stuff with her in court, yadda yadda, it would have been too labor intensive to be worth it, since I would be doing that at the same time as running the main game for the other four players. To me, it wasn't an option.) Therefore, it was in the group and the players' best interest to keep the character in the present game. (Now yes, the character "died" from doing something stupid, but it was in character, and so it wouldn't be fair to punish the players for it.)


In social work they say that the silences are the most important part of a discussion because that is when the client is thinking things through. I haven't posted on this thread for a while but the truth is it's actually been on my mind constantly since I'm trying to think of how to revamp my GMing style so that I can GM successfully in the future.

I was just reading over the court-and-prison part of this last post and it occured to me that the last time a PC got arrested I handled it in a *harsher* way than even just handwaving across a HoG.

A PC got arrested by the Star. Since the PC wasn't going to be executed but at the same time had no possibility of escape, that PC was simply out of the game. There was some time for the other PCs to intervene if they wanted while the Star was carting said PC off but no one wanted to take that risk.

The player was never offered the option of HoGing out of that by me and even had he done so I would have said that since the character wasn't dead HoG was inapplicable. As it was, the character wasn't technically dead, but was still pretty much irreversably removed from the game.

Now, later on, I hatched a storyline which involved that PC being removed from prison by the Humanis Policlub to be tied up and tortured on a live Matrix feed, so the incarceration turned out not to be permanent after all. But, I hadn't planned to do that. At the time that the incarceration happened it was for all intents and purposes equivalent to pdeath from a rules standpoint, since it amounted to the removal of a particular PC from play.



QUOTE

As far as the waking up in the morgue thing, it's a bit too soap opera for my tastes.  There's just too much there that makes me roll my eyes. wink.gif 


Really? It's precisely that hackneyed cheese factor that makes it fun for me. If I were GMing such a situation I would really ham up the cliche factor, and maybe even crack a regeneration joke.

("You look in the mirror, and raise your hand to your face in disbelief...you think your scars are regenerating...

*dramatic pause*

...but then you realize that you're not The Crow and instead you're covered with hideous burn patterns. Your CHA is bumped down one, since I rolled a CHA loss on the wound table for your D wound.")

QUOTE

It could work I suppose.  I would prefer that to a straight up "HoG as much as you want" approach, certainly.  However, a little up my post you'll see my way of handling "consequences" of HoGing.  (Haha, hogging.) 


I've been thinking a lot about this particular point as well. In World War I and World War II mangling was a really common outcome of battles. In the Vietnam War US soldiers had what was at the time the best medevac in the world due to helicopter support but there was still a lot of mangling. Today, really excellent armor tends to prevent lethal torso shots but a lot of casualties come from Iraq either having been ripped up by a IED or having been shot in the limbs. The thing that violent conflict inflicts on combatants tends to be mangling, loss of DALYs, and psychological trauma.

Therefore, it make a lot of sense for HoG to be survival (more feasible due to advanced medicine, which is capable of replacing organs and tampering with the CNS and nervous system) at the cost of some serious mangling. It's both gritty and realistic, I think.

The psychological trauma aspect is nice and gritty, too, and it's pretty much been a cliche since the Vietnam War.

I thought about using the following mechanic for HoG in light of these thoughts:

1.) HoG can technically be used unlimited times although it may only be invoked in the case of clinical death.
2.) When HoG is used, first roll through the permanent injury tables in SR3 as per normal and inflict damage as necessary. Next, go through the tables again, but treat each outcome as if the PC had failed to stave off attribute, limb, or magic loss. In other words, if HoG is used, you will automatically lose either a limb or an attribute point, and a point of magic when applicable. It's possible to lose twice if you're unlucky with your initial roll.
3.) In addition to this, the GM picks a random mental flaw from the SR Companion but tailors it to reflect the situation in which the PC is killed. For example if someone was lit up by a flame thrower and died they might get a phobia regarding fire.
4.) And of course, as usual, your karma pool goes bye bye.

This way, a truly battle seasoned character may lose multiple limbs, body integrity, and sanity, especially if he or she keeps going back into the meat grinder of combat more times than is really healthy. I think that the potential for a character "degrading" with combat stress adds a realistic incentive for retirement to the game, also.

That's another thing that tends to annoy me; how some PCs never retire, and instead chose to continue a dangerous and brutal lifestyle, even when there's no reason for them to do so. Part of this is because if a PC keeps getting more and more powerful the player dosen't want to go back to square one with a new character. But if the power of a character is counterbalanced by injury-related degradation there's a least some incentive to either quit while you're ahead or change characters when your old one gets too chewed up.
eidolon
QUOTE (Wounded Ronin)
Now, later on, I hatched a storyline which involved that PC being removed from prison by the Humanis Policlub to be tied up and tortured on a live Matrix feed, so the incarceration turned out not to be permanent after all. But, I hadn't planned to do that. At the time that the incarceration happened it was for all intents and purposes equivalent to pdeath from a rules standpoint, since it amounted to the removal of a particular PC from play.


Without knowing the exact circumstances, I'd still say you handled it just fine. After all, you say yourself that you never intended to use the PC again. When you take a PC from play in a game, they effectively become an NPC for you to use as you see fit (within reason of course). When I say "take a PC from play", I'm of course talking about stuff like incarceration and the like. Things that, in game and in the story, render the PC unplayable. Now, generally I'd say that abusing this notion would lead to irritated players, if you do it right (only when it makes sense in the story), you can get some great situations. For example, I bet it was really interesting when the player's current character met the player's former character (well, I assume it was...did it actually happen that way? I'm just guessing).

QUOTE

The psychological trauma aspect is nice and gritty, too, and it's pretty much been a cliche since the Vietnam War.


That's true. I prefer to let the players handle their characters' pshyche. I'm not beyond "awarding" flaws, but I can't recall any situations in my last few games in which I handed out psyche flaws for simulating traumatic reactions to events in the game. That might be something I'll look into the next time I run.

As far as your proposed rules for HoG, they do invoke a very harsh/gritty atmosphere, but I wonder if perhaps it goes a bit far? As I said, I tend to stick to just letting the player roll up D wound results when they would be applicable. Generally, they end up with something that pretty well reflects what happened to them (if it seems too mismatched I'll have them reroll; like they got shot in the head and lose a foot, etc.). Throw in the fact that in my games, they can never HoG again, and you've got yourself a pretty good set of consequences. Also, there's the in-story reactions to them surviving. On top of that, you have to keep in mind that by the time something goes so badly that you're dead, things are going badly for you anyway. biggrin.gif So between story, the standard "one HoG", and the wound tables, I'm generally content with the level of grit.

As to character longevity, I guess I'm fortunate in the player aspect. I've never had a player that doesn't recognize the "signs" that the character should retire. I do tend to let them go on for quite a while, but I've never had a situation in which I thought a character had become too good/too rich, etc. I've had them start that way...that's a different story. Having issues with characters/players not knowing when to retire, I might have different views on this, so I can see where you're coming from.

That's the best thing to keep in mind during these discussions. It seems like sometimes people lose sight of the fact that their methods/standards/procedures/ideas/etc. are really only applicable to their gaming situation. If I had a different group of players, I'd have to learn to do some stuff differently. I've been gaming with the same core group of players for around 3+ years now though, so I can be comfortable in how I do things. I'm moving away from them in a couple of months, and chances are I'll be relearning how to GM all over again. It's part of the fun.

On that note, thanks for the great discussion btw. It's all too easy for things to become a "you're wrong I'm right" fest on the internet. Stuff like this reminds me of why I started posting to forums in the first place. [/sap]
Wounded Ronin
QUOTE (eidolon)


Without knowing the exact circumstances, I'd still say you handled it just fine. After all, you say yourself that you never intended to use the PC again. When you take a PC from play in a game, they effectively become an NPC for you to use as you see fit (within reason of course). When I say "take a PC from play", I'm of course talking about stuff like incarceration and the like. Things that, in game and in the story, render the PC unplayable. Now, generally I'd say that abusing this notion would lead to irritated players, if you do it right (only when it makes sense in the story), you can get some great situations. For example, I bet it was really interesting when the player's current character met the player's former character (well, I assume it was...did it actually happen that way? I'm just guessing).

Actually, I let the player resume control of that character. The character he was running in the intervening time must have died or something. I honestly can't remember the details as this was years ago.


QUOTE


That's true.  I prefer to let the players handle their characters' pshyche.  I'm not beyond "awarding" flaws, but I can't recall any situations in my last few games in which I handed out psyche flaws for simulating traumatic reactions to events in the game.  That might be something I'll look into the next time I run. 


Since I'm a realism junkie this gives me the idea of researching PTSD and adding mental flaws that resemble PTSD. Perhaps there needs to be a flaw reflecting acute depression, which is something I understand some combat vets get.


QUOTE

As far as your proposed rules for HoG, they do invoke a very harsh/gritty atmosphere, but I wonder if perhaps it goes a bit far?  As I said, I tend to stick to just letting the player roll up D wound results when they would be applicable.  Generally, they end up with something that pretty well reflects what happened to them (if it seems too mismatched I'll have them reroll; like they got shot in the head and lose a foot, etc.).  Throw in the fact that in my games, they can never HoG again, and you've got yourself a pretty good set of consequences.  Also, there's the in-story reactions to them surviving.  On top of that, you have to keep in mind that by the time something goes so badly that you're dead, things are going badly for you anyway. biggrin.gif  So between story, the standard "one HoG", and the wound tables, I'm generally content with the level of grit. 

As to character longevity, I guess I'm fortunate in the player aspect.  I've never had a player that doesn't recognize the "signs" that the character should retire.  I do tend to let them go on for quite a while, but I've never had a situation in which I thought a character had become too good/too rich, etc.  I've had them start that way...that's a different story.  Having issues with characters/players not knowing when to retire, I might have different views on this, so I can see where you're coming from. 


Yeah. I can't tell you how out of my mind I've been driven by characters just not retiring.

QUOTE

That's the best thing to keep in mind during these discussions.  It seems like sometimes people lose sight of the fact that their methods/standards/procedures/ideas/etc. are really only applicable to their gaming situation.  If I had a different group of players, I'd have to learn to do some stuff differently.  I've been gaming with the same core group of players for around 3+ years now though, so I can be comfortable in how I do things.  I'm moving away from them in a couple of months, and chances are I'll be relearning how to GM all over again.  It's part of the fun. 

On that note, thanks for the great discussion btw.  It's all too easy for things to become a "you're wrong I'm right" fest on the internet.  Stuff like this reminds me of why I started posting to forums in the first place.  [/sap]



Thanks for your glowing compliments.

Personally, I like discussion, but I also like argument. I used to play model UN so a good adverserial debate can be great fun for me. I guess that's why I like bullshido.net so much. I suppose I'm lucky that I can enjoy both a great discussion and a hard-nosed argument.
eidolon
Ha. Yeah, arguing can be great. In truth, I think a lot of us post to forums to pick fights half the time.

James McMurray
No we don't! Arguing sucks, and you'll never convince me otherwise! N00b!

Someone had to do it. wink.gif
eidolon
No they didn't.

biggrin.gif
Wounded Ronin
QUOTE (James McMurray)
No we don't! Arguing sucks, and you'll never convince me otherwise! N00b!

Someone had to do it. wink.gif

Heh, you should share your "drop the hammer" fu on this thread.
James McMurray
Okay, here goes:

If they kill cops and leave any traces whatsoever, drop the hammer on them.

How's that? smile.gif
Wounded Ronin
QUOTE (James McMurray)
Okay, here goes:

If they kill cops and leave any traces whatsoever, drop the hammer on them.

How's that? smile.gif

Well, what's a typical thing you'd send after the PCs to drop the hammer on them? How do you keep their inevitable death believable in terms of the amount of firepower being brought to bear? (For example, it might be considered a bit strange for Lone Star to start firing off guided missiles in a dense urban setting.)
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