Ok what makes the person an idiot and how does it slow the game down?
We normally played with 4 to 6 people in our games, sometimes we averaged 8. Yeah there were moments were the player was playing a new type of character and slowed the game a bit, compared to the usual decker and GM whipping through a hack in minutes. Or the occasional mass brain fart and then everyone scrambles for a rule book. But even then its not a modd breaker or somethign to get bent over.
One summer back in high school we had roughly 20 people per session show up. We played 3 to 4 times a week from sundown to sunup. We had one GM run the whole thing, I and another guy would play a referee. Never made any game calls, just mediated rules disputes and simple things like buying gear or rolling for tasks and other rolls we didnt deem was absolutley nessecery for the GM to witness, but at lest a ref had to, like summoning elementals and writing progs even PC to PC combat. We made it clear to the players learning the rules was a priorety they had to set to play. Babysitting every player isnt fun, so it was a rule they had to live by. Of course we didnt kick people out of the group because they didnt learn the rules in a certain amount of time, but it was a hazing thing. Eventually everyone learned combat by memory and what they loved most, magic, rigging or decking. Some players learned as much as they could about it all.
Amazingly it was some of the best games we have ever had. Very little was OOC and the runs were awsome. The group dynamic of 20 players all playing different levels of runners was just crazy. We had plenty of Sams/Mercs, riggers, deckers and magical types. We mostly broke up into small groups, depending on what sort of character you had, background and who was your buddy at the time (not all my friends liked each other, but played because they liked it).
The funny thing is during that summer we played so much and with 20 different players I still hear stories about things that happened and I had no clue because I wasnt in their crew during that run.
With that many people there was no chance in hell that we all could do runs everynight or all be involved in a run at the same time (what johnson is going to hire 20 runners for a simple data steal lol ). But since we basically RP everything about our characters everyone had things going on. The players couldnt wait to play again, they would be at my house hours before we normally started to look through the limited amount of books we had (one of the reasons I started buying 2 of each, I liked having my own copies while the GM and group needed a copy). To double check with the GM that what they had done the night before was accounted for, to set up secret plans with the GM. It was crazy. The group loved it. Even when I run into old players I hadnt seen in years, if SR comes up (usually does, theyll see if I have a game going) theyll start talking about those nights.
Never once did I hear the game was moving too slow. About the only complaints I have ever heard of bout those games was the result of player/character squabbles. But you are going to get that with any group that has players that dont like each other.
My favorite story of one player hating another player and them taking it out on each others characters was a guy playing an Ork was caught by the Humanists. One of the other players happened to be driving by and seen them with him. Instead of just letting the Humanists "take" care of him he wanted to do it. Thats what the player was out doign anyway, looking to killt he ork. He peeks into the Humanist clubhouse and sees they have the ork in the front of the building all beat up and barely standing there. The Human player runs back to his car grabs a MAW then runs back to shoot the Ork and kill the humanist (the human hated the humanists too, he hated the Ork for personal reasons). He fired the rocket adn killed a dozen humanists, brings the crappy wooden buildign down around everyone. Some how the Ork lives, adn the human is now on the ground. They both crawled out of the rubble, seen each other then started to beat each other with parts of the building. They both were arrested on the flaming rubble by Lone Star, God that was awsome. Mean while 18 other people were doing things.
The only time everyone in the game stopped playing was when a new player said he was redy to play. When a person expressed interest in playing I would (or who ever, anyone could invite a friend to play) tell them when and where. When tey got there we gave them a BBB and showed them what chapters to read. When they were done we gave them some paper nd a character sheet. When they were done that one of the refs would sit down with them to answer questions and help them double check their cahracters to get them redy for play. If they were ready they would tell the GM. If not one of the refs would stay with them to help them move along. Once the new meat was ready the GM would bring them into the game. We call them the Pizza Boy Chronicles. Generally it was some sort of person knocking on the door of the player and sometimes it was just the pizza boy with the wrong address sometimes it was an armed mugger. It was a single moment of one on one time with the GM to induct the player into the game. Everyone watched it, it was was very entertaining to watch, a new player being baptised by fire. In fact they are some of the best stories of the summer.
I had a character that was an assassin (cliche I know, but everyone has one
![smile.gif](http://forums.dumpshock.com/html/emoticons/smile.gif)
). I was hired to by the players to kill another player. His character was a pain in the ass and he was asked multiple times to retire him. He was a high karma filthy rich character. We dont know why the player insisted on playing him with starting off characters. I had another player with me, I hired him to help me out with killing the player. I knew this would devistate the player if his character was killed. I could have killed him at the begining of the night and then had to listen to him whine all night about it, and generally ruin the game. And I figured he deserved to play one more game with that character. So me and my partner sat in the back of the game room for about 6hours while this guy and the rest of the group played. We played cards all night, black jack mostly. When the night came to an end and everyone was ready to call it a night I killed the character. Sure enough the player went nuts. After taking him outside adn discussing teh situation, he agreed it was needed and came back in to borrow books to make up a new character. The point being is me and my friend sat in the back of the room only giving the GM notes about things we were doing through out the night and entertained ourelves with out disrupting the game. I played all of 15 minutes in a roughly 6 hour game session and have no problems with it. The group had fun (for the most part) I had fun and everyone came back the next session and was talking about the session before. They thought it added to the game and was kind of cool. Thats how SR is, no matter how stronger or "bad ass" or rich you are. Someone out there can still smoke you. I mean my assassin had only done a handful of runs before that one. So it wasnt like I was playing that assassin elf, Teachdare or something or a member of Chimera.
Sorry for the long rant, just showing where I come from with RPing. Getting together with my friends and sharing a casual game of SR and having fun is our utmost goal. Making uber characters or winning at SR isnt. So I dont understand this slowing things down arguement.