I also spent a lot of years as part of a gaming "club", on the campus of the nearby university. What games were running and who was playing them changed from year to year, even from semester to semester. That probably colors my approach to such disclosures a lot, too; I'm still used to not necessarily knowing anyone else at the table from game to game.

(And boy, I miss those days. It was as easy to find a game there, as it was in highschool ...)

Be nice to be able to find a few more gamers around here too. We've had lots of attrition the past couple years due to people having to move for work and such. We're down to four people (including whoever GMs) during most sessions these days.

That's one of the reasons I wish I could afford to go to a lot of conventions - once every two months, even. Should be able to find two different SRM modules each con, I could PLAY my way through whole seasons, each year.

Sadly, unless I win the lottery, that's just not going to happen.

Because they go whistling over everyone's heads.

LOL, a lot of times players can't even solve a classic mystery.

I guess all this over the top horror stuff is just a lot more noticable.

Horror can be done effectively without shocking the player's sensibility, psychological horror building on warped perception, uncertainty of trust, jumping at shadows and exploring insanity doesn't require any of that. Heck even a boogey man can be scary if done right.

That's terror, not horror. To briefly explain the difference. Terror is the fear that occurs before being confronted by what your fear. Horror is what happens once you've been exposed to it.

Never heard of terror as a genre

Terror as a genre usually goes by the term thriller.

So H.P. Lovecraft wrote thriller then? That's news to me...
What I'm saying is that your definition is flawed.

The definition is correct. That is what terror and horror deal with. The genres just don't fall in line clearly with the sensations.

Since I was refering to horror as a genre in my original point, what were you trying to say?
That horror can have elements of psychological thriller? Of course it can...
and terror is still not a genre of fiction

Most times, it's probably less "can't" and more "doesn't bother" because mystery-style games are boring as all frigging hell.

From my experience, its a combination of both, having played with multiple GMs, and having GMd MANY games. When I started out or when i played with inexperienced GMs, I noticed that if the GM can't paint an accurate/deep world, players have a hard time wrapping their mind around all the details, and even if all the information is there to solve it, they can't see it. And then they stop trying so it becomes hack'n'slash. Take the same scenario, with a little more experienced GM, who is prepared, and can help give players a better idea of their surroundings and can make events flow well, and everything starts to feel more logical, and that mystery isn't so much of a mystery any more. Now its an interesting challenge.

This scenario is one of those cases. A new, inexperienced SR GM is running the game, giving strange details and events, details lacking in cohesiveness and seemingly arbitrary (shocking powers becouse his name is Voltwhatever? thats pretty dumb) , with some events designed to punish or push PLAYERS (instead of the characters), all to attempt to steer the characters along a specific story arc, and then seemingly letting them ignore that arc.

Done with an experienced GM, all the details needed to pursue this story to an end could have been introduced in a more fluid and logical manner, encouraging players to participate (instead of punishing them for not). And if the GM notified the players about the potential content ahead of time, then that shouldn't have been a problem either.

Determining what themes will be in a game is usually done by the group as a whole, but should still be declared at the start of the game by the GM.
For example, a GM wants to run standard "dark and edgy" SR. When getting players to decide to join the game, he notifies them of the themes of the world, and what may be experienced during the game. The player can then decide whether they want to join or not, without even saying "I have problems with that because such and such." They can just say, "No thanks, maybe next time. Let me know if you decide to run a BESM game." Sometimes a player wants to play a game with a specific atmosphere/setting...like the time one of my players came to me and said "Hey, lets play a Call of Cthulu game." I thought it was cool idea, but thought that I as a GM would not be able to portray the themes well enough since they can be a little discomforting, as did some of the other players. So as a group we decided to pass on that idea for the time. If I HAD decided to run it, before the start of play I would have made everyone playing aware of exactly the sorts of things they MAY encounter (in broad terms) so they could decide whether they were in or not.

You know, on the general subject of horror, and since PTSD has come up a bunch of times in this thread, and seeing how lots of characters in Shadowrun are supposedly former military...

...is anyone aware of a good guide on the internet on how to role play or portray characters with PTSD??

I'm away from my books at the moment, but I believe WAR! has a section about PTSD... not as a negative quality, but just describing its effects and treatment efforts in the 2074 universe. If that doesn't work the "Flashbacks" quality out of Running Companion is probably a great place to start, probably combined with "Paranoia." Since it manifests so differently in people, at worst you can get away with random negative mental qualities. Combat Monster or Combat Paralysis (or randomizing between the two!) sound pretty plausible.

Fireworks can sound an awful lot like mortars, seeing certain makes of car might remind you of carbombs...
I think active runners have it a lot worse than most prior-service, because there's no respite. A typical run might involve explosions and/or getting shot at, seeing gruesome injuries... which means it'll never fully heal and will probably lead to worsening symptoms as time goes on.

He was asking for a good guide. SCNR.

GOOD guide. He requested a GOOD guide.

Anyway, I think a evaluation sheet for psychiatrists would already be helpful.

Wow. Great minds think alike.

DSM IV Criteria for diagnostics: http://www.ptsd.va.gov/professional/pages/dsm-iv-tr-ptsd.asp

Bear in mind that if you just look at symptoms you will be subject to every disease and mental disorder ever construed. Consistency, frequency, duration and impact to normal function are just some of the criterias being looked at when setting a diagnosis.
Basically, never try to diagnose yourself

Would runners suffer post-traumatic stress disorder? Doesn't it typically happen when the soldier comes home, and has to adjust to a new norm when he is still wired for battle conditions? Shadowrunners pretty much stay in battlefield conditions. Not that that is particularly healthy, either.

Maybe runners suffer from TLD*?

*Traumatic Life Disorder.

Nope it has nothing to do with reintegration into normal society. It is the accumulated aftermath of trauma.

Faelan's right. You can suffer PTSD without ever leaving the theater of operations.

PTSD is not limited to soldiers. They just provide a large sample group of patients that are easier to study than the general population. It was estimated, IIRC, that around 60% of people living in NYC suffered from PTSD for six months following 9/11 and 0.6% of NYC residents still suffer from PTSD from 9/11. It's basically an anxiety disorder where the stress of a high trauma/high stress situation doesn't return to normal levels after exposure to and removal from the incident.

One of the things I've come to learn as I've grown is that mentally, people are extremely fragile or sensitive in some ways.

Kind of wild, when you sit down and contemplate it for a few minutes...

Written by "All For Big Guns"

Tough I haven't played anything alike, I think that the context plays another big role. I mean, it's been forced on you. That's a problem.

Say you play a french game named In Nomine Satanis/Magna Veritas translate (tough deeply changed) in In Nomine on US Market.

I'd be way less uncomfortable playing a demon affiliated to the Demon-Prince of Sex, who rapes some persons sometimes than in shadowrun (which the thing seems displaced).


Some games may fit to deviant/dark characters (Kult?)


But playing a deviant character in a game where my idea is to play a professional shadowrunner, it doesn't fit. And hence looks juvenile and displaced.

Sorry but I can't imagine my sam like Keanu Reeves in Matrix alongside with having a compulsive manner of touching himselves 4 times a day...

just to say but I agree with Pax on the way a GM should handle such subjects.

Yes, find a new GM. Your current one is smoking some very serious crack. What you've described is positively surreal. With just the magic prohibition, I'd have never even sat down to that gaming table – as that alone would have been a major red flag for me right there.

“Experience the Sixth World! Oh, but without any of that magic stuff.” He/she made a fundamental error and picked up the wrong game – they’re looking for Cyberpunk 2020 instead. Direct them to the Talsorian Games website and wish them well.

I'm running shadowrun without magic...

and who would have guessed that all players involved preferred it that way?

Not to say that we won't ALWAYS play without magic, but that we didn't want to for our current game.

Shadowrun is not just a game setting, its also a game system.

Even as a setting, it can be ok.

It's like going:

"What, we play Vampire and we should all belong to Tremeres! You're an heretic!!!!"
"What! You want to play Call of Cthulhu, but with a pulp feeling! Heretic"

You could even imagine to play a campaign where all shadowrun characters runs mages from the same Magical Group.


You usually explore new ways to play a game when you already did explore the game in depth.

My view still hasn't changed. I still say that the OP and his group should excise that GM from their group entirely and permanently--giving no regard for "feelings", just say "GTFO".

*sigh*
I still don't get how you guys can advocate that, you don't know the guy, you don't know the relationship, you don't even have the other parts view of the whole deal.
Still you bring out pitchforks and torches.
Excommunicate? Expel? Shun?
That's the kind of thing you do when you found out that someone was beating up their wife, not fumbling his way around trying to become a decent GM... Which is hard!
Making mistakes is human and friends don't let friends down because of silly things like that.
People are to quick to judge and damn...

Especially when its on the internet when they don't have to see the person face to face....

Well, if things aren't as the OP states, then the GM needs to sign up for the forums and tell his side. Though there is no GOOD reason to pull that kind of shenanigans on one's players.

There's no good reason to stop talking to a person because of some bad decisions in a bloody RPG

And we're just saying to tell the guy to GTFO from the gaming group, not out of the "friend circle".

its hard to do one without the other happening as a result.

And if he stops being their friend for removing him from the gaming group, then he wasn't a real friend in the first place.

Yeah... That's not how social dynamics tend to work.

Finally have an reply to this. Two of them actually.

First : Little Girl Lost (Introduction of Shedim into our campaigns)
Locale : Sioux Nation (Idaho territory)- old small church with associated small cemetery.

Little girl is lost I church and can't get out. Group is tracking paranormal events and winds up here and decides to go in and save girl. Group of 7 is quickly separated into smaller groups with the odd-man-out evicted to the cemetery. All sorts of suspense moments with the two largest characters in the group (Tempest and Padre) in the main chapel fighting some kind of magical darkness and silence (rarely at same time) powers. Out of nowhere, we get hit. Tempests adept combat sense gives him a warning, missile weapon. He deflects it, but nothing happens. Can't find what it was. Wait a few more seconds ... Another incoming ... This time a bit more prepared, he deflects it so it lands near me (ignore the grenade placement jokes of landing unknown is sole objects at the feet of your friends to get a better look at it). With some light, it appears to be a small wooden ... Leg. We start looking around the chapel, and, there off to one side, sure as shit .. Is the source. Just in time for a third missile weapon.... Small roundish. This one catch, it's a wooden head... The source of the attack... mother Mary pulling parts off of Baby Jesus and hurling them at us.

We literally, as a group erupted into the worse combination of horror and laughter when we realized what was happening. This doesn't count the endless other things happening to the others around the building. None of the players were "afraid" per say, but we all agreed we felt like we had a sudden urge to dodge a "Blue Bolt from God" for the sheer blasphemy levels.

Second Instance : Don't Drink the Champagne
Locale : Paris France, the Grand Tour

Party has been invited to join the tour in Paris because a rich Arabian Prince has taken notice of one of the party members of the mercenary company's medic and wants to woo her and have the permission of all her highly protective and dangerous male counterparts. While in discussion, bottles of champagne and such are being drank (ignoring alcohol and Islam for a moment). Suddenly, the medic ... Has a twinge. Another member of the party, sees a flash in her aura. A Diagnose spell quickly applied informs us she is pregnant ... By moments.

Everyone is suddenly really panicky. Memory Checks. Decker s/technomancers start looking for erroneous data in gear for time/date information manipulation. Nothing wrong. No one blinked. No temporary unconsciousness. With some more effort into the diagnose, overlap some other efforts... The father is... The Arab Prince. Who by the way is still with the group, his guards are going over things as much as they are. And he's as shocked at the discovery as everyone else.

Whoa the evil politics of rich inheritors of lucrative transportation barons in Africa and the Middle East. Younger brother managed to much previously extract from his brother healthy semen, Preserve it via magic, and then using level two nano carcerands (additional program to seek out via the blood stream an ovary, deliver their package. to be impregnated without ones permission ... In public ... With your friends present ... Unbeknownst ... And nigh defenseless ... With the father in the room but not touching the woman even.

You people presume "Rape" ... Medical science in Shadowrun can, and will, literally rewrite the definitions of such actions. It made for an immense party scenario, that eventually unfolded into some absolutely fantastic games .... And the baby girl? Well her parents did actually get married. The child is named Shasra. The Arab Princes younger brother was found to be the culprit (huge khopeshes were used there). The girl was "adopted" by one of the shaper tigers in the plethora of player characters (the younger brother), who visit the family and the girl in Morrocco frequently.

But not before going through the Shock and Numbness of realizing that "Evil" is the primary trump-card of the GM.

Our group? At the time of that game, ages were 24-39 I think. I wasn't 40 yet.

Agree with Lionhearted here. The game is quite possibly one of the unifying and or bonding forces of the people in many instances. Such eviction can often have incredible repercussions.

Still a case where FULL DISCLOSURE should have been given of what the game would contain as far as content--the second any way. A GOOD GM does not make a change to a player's character without first consulting them and ensuring that they are okay with it. If they do, the player has full right to tell him where to shove his game and say where his head is and walk out--the player does not have the right to violence, but some times it will go that way.

That wouldn't lead to a pregnancy, but an ovarian pregnancy. Just saying.

I've been trying to get this through. Good GMs aren't good because they were gifted by the spirit of Gygax and had unicorn farts sprinkle cross the sky.
Good GMs are made! they learn with time, with experience, with mistakes!
Simply bashing a guy to the ground because he's not a good GM yet, is simply ludicrous.

Yes, dialogue is good.
Yes, a change of direction is good
Taking the guys GM hat away and excluding him from the gaming group is nonsense!

Again! Good GMing is hard, as such people are less prone to assume the position and when someone do, but makes mistake... You don't burn him on the stakes for it!

I've been GMing for 7 or 8 years now. I know for a fact that it took me a good year or more to learn how to cope with the common GM traps and provide an enjoyable experience.

Plus, Hawke said the GM was new to the GMing business. Probably indeed less trying to be a jerk and more being a noob. And given how Hawke doesn't update on the situation, I think they found a satisfactory solution. So maybe just leave it be.

I haven't really dabbled in Evil™ in my own campaigns yet, but I do have a story arc I was planning on running eventually which makes deliberate use of a classic evil trope - a very charming, silver-tongued human changeling with Striking Skin Pigmentation: Red Right Hand.

Mr. Lucas Bell hires the runners to deliver a package in person, requiring them to hand it to the target personally. The trouble is, the target is a paranoid Russian mobster (fortunately estranged from his criminal colleagues) who is quietly holed up in a fortified compound guarded 24/7 by his goons. Whichever way the runners decide to get inside, they have to hand the object to him personally.

What they don't realize is that the object (a stainless steel butane lighter) is actually a masked set of anchored spells, tuned to go off when they come in contact with the mobster's aura. The first three are an area immobilization, which prevents anyone from acting, a targetted Fear effect which terrorizes the mobster, and a realistic area illusion which depicts the gruesome murder-by-immolation of a woman and her infant child at the hands of the mobster many years ago. The fourth and final spell is a maxed out force Ignite, targetted at the mobster, so that while he's forced to relive his crimes in a wave of all consuming horror, the ignite spell is slowly becoming permanent, until he simply goes up in flames like a quivering slab of greasy bacon, still immobilized, still screaming, his voice echoing with the cries of the woman and child he killed. The spells end, his melting corpse slops to the floor, and everyone can move again.

This is heavy duty magic, beyond the scope of the runners, and Mr. Bell is clearly no normal Johnson. He's pleased with their work, even offers them a bonus, but the idea is they're supposed to be put off by everything. If they want to confront him, they're gonna have a hard time about it, but he's perfectly prepared to continue "offering" them jobs which get increasingly evil with each new task, the idea being that eventually they HAVE to confront him, since he's not going to let them walk away. Fortunately, he's the kind of evil that doesn't perform its deeds directly - all his powers are based around fear, illusion, manipulation, and fire. So while he's frightening for his influence, he can be opposed by direct force and it'll be a relatively fair fight. Naturally he has to slip away at the final moment, beaten and weakened but still out there, a knife in the shadows, waiting for the right time to strike once more...

*twirls moustache*

~Umi

I would class that guy as ruthless with an overblown sense of poetic justice... Torching an arsenist?
Nope... No readings on the evil-o-meter

That's just the first job, though. I guess I didn't really elaborate properly, but the idea was that with each mission, he'd be extracting poetic "justice" in more and more terrible ways, against people who were less and less terrible monsters. Add in the fact that he's not disclosing all the relevant facts, and even the most mercenary of runners will start to question a little.

One thing you might be missing, though, is the somewhat osbscure tradition that when the Devil walks in human form, he has a red right hand. Mr. Bell is supposed to be at least a devil, if not the devil. He's charming and polite, he dresses sharply, he's a flatterer, he offers you power and money and fame and fortune, and he does so gently, gradually, making it feel natural, proper even, until you're happily signing on the dotted line and giving up your eternal soul.

So the first job is to deliver an item, but secretly you're unwittingly the instrument of a revenge killing. Okay, the scumball had it coming, but still, why not just hire you to kill the slime in the first place? Why the deceit? And why the magic? The very powerful, anchored magic, with a layer of powerful masking to make all but the best mages see the lighter as a completely mundane object? Chalk it up to a flair for the dramatic?

So what about the next mission, where you're again asked to do a simple task that again secretly results in something far more sinister? Maybe you're delivering something again, unwittingly helping to infect someone with HMHVV. But they later turn out to have been a prominent anti-Infected political leader, so... serves them right, yeah? Except that after you exposed them to the virus, they turned into a ghoul and ended up killing their family, the maid, the chauffeur, the next door neighbors, and a couple of KE officers who responded to the disturbance. And then, after all that hit the news, it sparked a paranoid regional witchhunt to avenge the popular leader's death, with "suspected" infected (chiefly SINless) being the primary victims of a "shoot-first, test for HMHVV later" policy.

Each new task would be progressively more unnerving. Your employer seems to know things no one else does, or he can predict events with startling accuracy. He's constantly lying to you, keeping you in the dark, reassuring you that your part in the scheme is simple, so don't worry about it, you'll be well paid. And when you do find out what the bigger picture is, what the ramifications of your "simple act" truly were, well what's it matter if a few people die here and there, they all deserved it in the end, right? The maid and the chauffeur were secretly stealing from their employer, the neighbors kept a twelve year old girl in their basement as a sex slave whom the police have since rescued, and those two KE officers moonlighted for Humanis and just last week beat a homeless old ork man to death. Now, don't you feel better knowing the world is rid of those kinds of people?

That hospital I had you unwittingly burn to the ground? They were involved in illegal experimentation upon the public, headed up by Aztechnology. That little girl I had you kidnap? Her father is a war criminal, and you lured him into the open so I could have a "chat" with him. Oh don't worry, she's being looked after, you don't need to know the details. Hmm? You say she told you her father was innocent? Well of course she did, why wouldn't she want to think that? The man was a monster, he lied to his own child, you see. Or perhaps she really did know about him, and was simply lying to you - why wouldn't she, after all? She has everything to gain and nothing to lose by playing on your sympathies.

Hmm? You say she had evidence of his innocence? Ah, how wonderfully naive, it's obviously fabricated, here let me show you... oh, how strange! It seems to have burst into flames... a pity. Oh well! Now, let's talk about your next job, shall we?

~Umi