Ok everyone knows that one should geek the mage first and be paranoid in Shadowrun, the former is a habit my players have had since long before I met them the latter is a quality I have actively cultivated. However I feel I have surpassed a point where their paranoia about the dangers of magic and their desire to geek the mage first has reached an almost absurd level.

You see they were hired for a simple sabotage job on a factory, basic job for fairly basic reasons, the only way I was really screwing with them was by having the job be unnaturally straitforward so their own paranoia could run with it. Well they find out that there is indeed a security mage on staff but only one due to lack of funds. It was made clear to the players that the overall best time to run coincided with when the mage was going to be on duty (they did inordinate amounts of legwork including getting the scheduals for all the guards) but they could just run when the mage wasn't there and accept some associated dangers. They had opted for second option and I was going to make the run just slightly more difficult then was neccassary as an object lesson that sometimes it's OK to just take the mage on. Especially given that the street shaman in the group just initiated to grade 4 and can smoke most magical troubles I throw at them relatively easily.

Well they were going with their plan then one of the players says "What happens if the mage stays late because he wants the overtime or changes his schedual so he can get the day off for his daughter's recital or some other such bs?" I was amuzed by this as I'd done similar things to them before. That's when they formulated a plan that made me do a double take. When the Street Sam took over the observation post he brought his sniper rifle, and then geeked the mage as the poor bastard walked to his car. The day before the run.

All the players were pretty pleased with their "geek the mage the day before" and I have to admit it was a 'holy shit' moment for me. I mean yeah geek the mage first but to me that's just a whole other level of crazy. Now the company wasn't able to get anouther mage on a day's notice but they did MASSIVELY beef up security as they didn't know if the mage had pissed off the yaks or what they hell had happened. All they knew is that bob the mage when boom just walking to his car.

Well they go ahead with the run and long story somewhat shorter the bad ass cyber troll of doom almost died and the physad of whupass required some burnt karma to live. They players knew quite well that security would be ratcheted up with them blowing away the mage onsite but they didn't have the time to arrange an accident as they saw it and they flat up admited to me that they would rather deal with beefed up normal security then a mage.

Now I know they game somewhat irregularly with a GM from hell who GMs for the sole purpose of screwing them over but by and large they've kept in mind that I'm a lot nicer in my games. But their growing fear of dealing with anything magical has become what I view to be absurd. Now should I just run with this and let them get their chars killed? Or is there some way short of PC death that'll make them realize that magic isn't that nasty. Well at least not as nasty as putting the facility you're about to hit on high alert. And especially when the worst the poor wagemage could have done was make one of these guys woozy, they're extremely experienced characters.

Though I have to admit it does amuze me to say that the team geeked the mage the day before.

ha ha ha ha ha ha!
Man thats perfect, there fear of a security mage makes things far worse.

Why not just break into an army weapons depot, steal a Davy Crockett nuclear bazooka, and blast the plant from several miles away?

Wow, and I thought I was paranoid.

I guess you can either run with it and see how they do, or maybe throw in something that will amke them see magic as less of a threat. On that end I have no idea.

As far as running with it (and possibly teaching them a lesson or 2 along the way):

Have a them hired for a series of runs for humanis or the human nation. Don't let them find this out until they have already completed several runs for them.

Have them run against the Azzies. A lot. This is esspessually cruel depending on WHEN they are playing, but you've got a grade 4 initiate so they could handle it.

Really use it and have them get a rep as drek hot mage assasins. Send them on a bunch of kill the mage missions. Wet work usually pays well.

I don't know, personally I'd run with it. I like how you were already doing that by playing into their paranoia. Keeping them on their toes like that adds to the realism of the game, IMHO, anyway.

hope this helped.

you could always send them on run dealing with Toxic Avenger Mage. Plenty of Bound Spirits/Elementals serving the Mage. Or bugs, bugs are always fun. Sure geek the mage first. Help the Hive and the Queen.

I had a similar situation, where the team demolished a house with grenade launchers and automatic weapons fire just because they noticed "one guy who is sitting, cross legged on the floor apparently meditating." They assumed he was a mage astrally projecting. (He was actually, so they assumed correctly, but it still seemed like over kill) although in their defense, their team HAD no magical talent, so geek the mage was practically religious dogma.

I wonder, Kozbot, about the opposition that your group faces. Do they have the same policy and go after the team's shaman?

Geek the mage first is generally a good precept, but sometimes as you tried to teach them, its un-necessary.

What you need to do is set up a run where they need to be completely silent in their work, I dont know which mission it is, but one of the early adventure modules has you robbing a beer formula and the samples from a research facility. As i remember the mission, they had nothing but dogs for security but we couldnt kill them. This is when the team found the uses of Gamma Scopalamine, especially in silenced pistols and also soaking the stuff into meat. In and out in under 10 minutes, plenty of pucker factor, but otherwise absolute milk run
Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance

Sometimes I really wish Shadowrun had a morality system....

Your team has a grade 4 initiate, and they're terrified of a single rent-a-mage? Throw them up against a similar team, with combat monstrosities, and a single weak mage, and watch the fun.

Once they get notoriety (and geeking the mage the day before the run just because he might be there is going to get them notoriety), people will begin to know their MO. And then they'll have one dude in full body armor underneath a red robe, with all the magical defenses he can manage. Or even better, a possessed vessel that's hiding a steel frame and an earth spirit. But something that causes them to focus their fire for several rounds, ignoring everything else.

But really, man.

Maybe I'm not gritty enough, but killing the rent-a-mage on the way to his car because he just might be there the next day, and might interfere, is way over the line.

If he was an elite Azzie mage who was known to respond to invasions with lethal force, sure. But he's just a guy, doing a job. Actually, just a guy *not* doing a job, since he was gonna be off at the time.

I'd want something like that to filter out and cause a hit to their rep.

And on top of that, it wasn't even a demolitions run. It was a sabotage run, which, theoretically, meant that the run was intended to disrupt the target, and cause a loss of faith. I'd think that making it publically obvious that the place was hit by a runner team would cause some disruption, but wouldn't have nearly the same effect. It also escalates the reprisal a lot. If someone breaks in a throws a cog in the magical machines, that's one thing. If they're killing your employees, that's another.

Seriously, who cares that he's just a guy doing a job? He's a mark, and those aren't even like people.

No, the fact that it totally (and predictably) backfired should be a hit on their rep. Taking the mage out ahead of time because he might be working late is just fine.

~J

Sanity Checks are a good tool to remind players that even their cold-as-ice runners sometimes experience things that leave a mark on them.

Oh man, thats was good. Like, a real, old school Clueless file, where the GM did everything right, it's just the players that went collectively insane. Man, that's some solid hilarity right there.

Completly disabling a part of security before a run - very good.

Doing so onsite, so the target is alerted - very bad.

Had they shot him at home, his employer would have assumed private reasons and had likely accepted that hiring a new mage takes a week. They´d still have assigned a FRT mage to the facility.

The best way to make them fear magic, but to less extend, is weakening magical security. If they are attacked by low-level spirits and spells, the mage might be the less dangerous enemy, compared to the full-auto-armed guards. Most players develop this kind of paranoia when they repeatedly face magical threads that are planned for a team mage, not a mundane. Most campaigns feature security mages with middle degrees of initiation, and those should be taken out at all cost. Tell them that from now on most on-site magicians will be rather weak, but FRT mages might still rock. Tell them that killing the mage immediately results in an FRT being called, or at least response times being shorter.

Back from Thanksgiving and glad to see the replies.

I'm most deffinetly factoring their murderous tendancies into their rep. They've started to notice that they get called into do pretty horrific things. For example their most recent job was to cover up that an exec got his kicks with kids. They're starting to realize that being slaughter happy perhaps isn't the best route.

I do cut them more slack because I know the other GM they play with will have mages that can toss force 10 powerbolts like nothing on a supposed 'milk' run. However with them escalating things in my game I think that slack has backfired. I've already done the out of character "That's his game and things are different in my game". Though their built in paranoia about magic is still pretty hardcore.

to Dog> Generally yes. He's been perforated a couple of times now and tends to spend the first part of the firefight casting defensive spells or if the opponents seem to have no magical backup just hiding until he can finish them off and not have to worry about the 'geek the mage' reaction.

The weird thing is they can do runs where they don't kill anybody, but if they're on a zero body count run and someone/thing magically active notices them they either just leave or shoot their way out. Their apparant logic being that a blown run is better then being dead.

As for the morality of it I'll have to admit that's partially my fault. They don't think much of wasting wage slaves as I've had them run into many a middle manager that doesn't care that the failure rate of their tires will kill a lot of innocent people, he just wants the data covered up so he can get his raise. Or that the stuff they put in their new sports drink will cause cancer in 20 years or whatever. I somewhat over stressed the dark, depressing, no one cares attitude of Shadowrun and now they assume most everyone is a heartless bastard that'd murder a child if it got them a corner office.

I think the effort I'm most solidly going to run with is weakening mages to where they get moved down the threat list enough so that the team doesn't lose all tactical sense the second someone chants or throws a ball of fire. At least then they could form a plan and plant some evidence that he was cheating on his wife and his wife went berserk and took him out. Anything besides
"So is he at his car?"
"yeah"
"I blow off his head"
"Ummmmmm..... did I mention the security cameras on the parking lot?"
"Yeup, but at least the mage will be dead"
"Ok then"

You have a curious definition of "horrific".

Also, why should they think much of wasting wageslaves? They're not running a soup kitchen, you know.

~J

Well feeding kids to ghouls generally falls into the horrific category for me.

Kids to ghouls is good clean fun, or the ultimate "fat camp". Feeding ghouls to kids would be a kinda funny, but is more horrific than the other way around.

Barbarians! It's only horrific if you don't have just the right wine.