Also I think he's new to SR4. I mean very new, like these are his very first runs.

And it looks like he's got a player that has an "optimized" character, and is trying to take over a chunk of the barrens in his downtime while leaving the rest of the team out, apperantly just because he can.

Call the player what you want, but that's a massive headache for a brand new GM.

The problems I see are with keeping the other players involved and keeping a cool head.

Maybe Shadow misused accident a little. Honestly I think we all flubbed something a little in our early adventures if the players weren't on a beaten path. I mean you look up the power you want to use, already feeling like looking it up is wasting game time, and it says "GM discression,"

Until you can site page numbers and stats off the top of your head in situations like that I would suggest either going straightforward (just have the spirit zap him in his bunker), or avoid the situation, such as by saying the gangers aren't interested in a meet. Or send in a single attractive face of the opposite sex to blow them away with social skills.

The point is that a potent character like an initiate gang leader absolutly knows the full extent of all his abilities and probably has a solid idea of the abilities of everything else in SR and has time to plan things out.

At this point you don't, and "certain types of players" will exploit that, because the do.

I think the bunker situation should have been handled much more slowly. So the rigger wants to take over a chunk of the Barrens. A laudable goal, sounds like fun! What do the other players want to do? Would it end up being a secure HQ of sorts? Are they interested in helping the rigger establish it?

Personally, I would rule that nothing short of outright purchasing a Low or better lifestyle (200k+) gets you ownership of a Barrens "bunker" at chargen. Even then you won't have any of the security you'll want -- neighbors too close, no toys, bad infrastucture. So I'd sit down with your players and figure out what they want to do to make this bunker a reality. Use that as springboards for events and problems to solve, rather than just handing the rigger a bunker and then assaulting him with a local gang.

Possible adventure seeds involving finding suitable property:
- You find an idea spot but a free spirit lives there... negotiate, or exterminate?
- Or, a failing corp is using the property... maybe a little corporate sabotage can encourage them to give it up? Maybe another corp is willing to fund said downfall -- make a deal with a devil?

Once you have it, you need to keep it:
- Local gang wants in on your action, just like you started to do. Maybe it's time to enter gang politics and see who needs to be played off of who. Wholesale destruction might attract a lot of notice, even in the Barrens. Gangers aren't stupid either, they see some hardened 'runners digging in, they're going to look to work other angles too. Cut off their power, water, mine the roads, extort nearby merchants to blacklist them, etc. Bunker starts to sound more like tomb.
- The players make nicey-nice with the local gangers, and an enemy gang ups and ousts them. Start over, chummers.
- Your contacts know you have some nice secure digs, and one calls in a favor to hide someone for a while (spring this after the players get a really big favor from them). All sorts of things could get dragged into the game here -- mafia, Lone Star investigators, awakened critter (dragon/spirit/vampire/etc) with a vendetta, you get the idea. If it goes well, you could suddenly become the go-to guy for keeping friends safe. Goody.
- All manner of local politics could start creeping in, since it's a permanent home and they can't just relocate when stuff they don't want to handle crops up. Political/social agitators move into the area, bringing too much attention and chaos. The locals are disappearing (corp abductions? vampire nest? astral rift?) and since they're the Big Bads on the Block, they're harassed into dealing with it.
- However they handled the acquisition step could come back to haunt them. Annoying a corp, making a deal with a corp, vengeful free spirit, something unique about astral space here that attracted the spirit in the first place (cyclical magical weirdness, etc.).

I guess my point is, the bunker rigger needs to be more fully integrated into the group, and into your game plans. Once you approach it that way, your campaign can almost write itself.

Better fingerbullets than fingertip compartments loaded with monowire whips.

Shadowdragon,
next time you want to use accident on drones, go for the essential, have the power supply short out (battery dead - drone not doing anything till the battery is changed; fuel line burst, enging stops). You may want the summoner to instruct the spirit to do that.

If you want to destroy the drone, the accident is that the drone confuses it's IFF and fires on one of the other drones or chars. Or if you are really feeling nasty, switch target and user data, so the drones no longer answer to the PC, but to the NPC (even though the NPC may not know this, specially if they didn't order it(.

If you use either of the above, remember that players will use it on your NPCs.

I would also suggest doing that audit on that PC.
Read up a bit on magic.
Read over the Missions adventures, even the old ones, as they have a lot of good ideas/runs.
You can always let a player roll dice, just don't tell him the number of successes needed before he has finished rolling (edge used or not). You can adjust what happens on the fly (from saying he needed one more success than needed, to him getting partial success, to him wildly succeeding - rolled all 6s, the dice ended up stacked one on top of the other).

You may want to note that accident does not direct damage.

Shrugs,

then the fuel line came unconnected, the wire from the battery slipped and is no longer connected.

I was going for the intent of what Shadowdragon wanted to do, providing suggestions that won't have the players yelling, but still allow him to run his game the way he wants to.

I tried saying that the Accident power caused a blip in the power supply.


Then he started screaming at me that that was not a "normal" accident. I then said "fine, the guns jam!" So he pointed out how many dice he gets and calculated the odds of a critical glitch, again, to claim that it was not a "normal" accident.

Sorry, but , of course it's not "normal." Isn't that the point?

Serisouly, you two need to sit down and talk about what you expect from the game. This scenario is past, and you can both learn from it. Think of it as geting some exp of your own, and upping your GM and PC levels. now you're 2nd level. yay. OR, for a system that doesn't give you cancer, your knowledge skill in RPG:Rules Debates has just increased to 3. hazzah!

He knows that the spirit should and would be able to waste him. You know that the spirit should and would be able to waste him. So , have the spirit waste him, he wakes up after a sound beating, and hopefully learns from the experience.

He's likening a drone's fuel line/battery to a beating heart.

Point 1: A drone may be easily repaired with about a minute. A human may not be.
Point 2: I said the power blipped not failed. As in, it shorts for one combat turn, then boots back up. Then gets shorted again, or something else happens, when the spirit continues to Accident it. Etcetera.

Leading to point 3: An Accident certainly could cause a heart palpatine* that would make a runner stumble and need to take a pass to recover, unless he could manage a nice high BOD roll.




*Yes, I know, it's "Palpatation".

The point is that Accident itself is a directly revertible effect. It may have lasting consequences, but that another story.

How it happens that the vehicle is forced to crash is irrelevant - but that pretty much sets the guideline how 'long' that effect lasts: Not at all.
If it would cause it to reboot, the rules would say so, as there are rules for rebooting... and those really take their time.

Accident is great for stopping somebody on the move - but it's not intended to subdue anything. You simply chose the wrong tools for the task. Learn from it, choose more wisely next time.

On accident since some of the vehicles are stationary a crash test probably wouldn't do.

And while a wire coming lose is something I could see accident doing having it shut down a vehicle is a bit beyond the scope of what accident is supposed to acheive.

I guess you could roll something vs power surge or somesuch. That has the "permanent effect but you get a roll" mechanic in.

Actually I'm not 100% sure how engulf would work against a drone. The strength+ body mechanic doesn't seem right. But otherwise electric engulf (using energy aura) would probably be rough on vehicles.

Elemental attack would probably be easier to use.

Rotbart von Dainig doesn't accept olive branches. He'll try to make one final comment, be sure of it.

I don't know MitS so well. Wasn't there some kind of EMP spell? A spirit could have that as an innate spell, if it does something relevant. That would be more mechanically sound.

Street Magic has both a Pulse and Interference spell. Pulse can fry the non-hardened RFID tags and knock out electronics (albeit very temporarily) and Interference is basically just a magical version of a signal jammer. Yet another reason why Spirits of Man are just plain versatile.

Frankly it seems that at this point, the RAW with regard to Accident are really beside the point. The problem here isn't really the GM's interpretation of the rules.

The problem, as Fist pointed out, is the relationship between the GM and the player. Until the relationship gets worked out, this situation is just a bomb waiting to explode. At some point in the future, the GM will make another "bad" ruling that likely will have a detrimental effect on the player. If the relationship has been patched up, then the player will/should politely point out the error (perhaps even out of game) and the GM will realize the error and thank the player for pointing it out. If the relationship hasn't been patched up, the player will assume that once again, the GM is trying to screw him over.

As for the actual encounter, I find plenty of faults with both the player and the GM. As to the player, it does appear that he is trying to make the game about him as opposed to being about the team of runners. Then, when things don't go his way, he cries foul.

As for the GM, my first question upon reading the scenario you set out is why the heck did Sticks agree to meet at the rigger's bunker? As you pointed out, Sticks knew that the rigger had a killer drone that was both very efficient and very nasty about its business. Add to that the fact that Sticks is presumably fairly street wise to have been able to build and maintain his little empire, its really hard to imagine that he would agree to go to the bunker. Rather, it would have been more along the lines of "Well, I'm always interested in acquiring new toys, but I'm really not interested in walking into a potential deathtrap. If you want to do business, you (or your representative) will meet me at Location X. And if you want to do business, you'll leave the drones at home."

Now, in all likelihood, the player will be upset as this will potentially foil many of his plans. He can try to negotiate a better location, but I imagine that Sticks is a pretty good face as well. A player's goals are not always achievable at the outset. Still though, you should allow rolls to be made so at least you can point to the dice and say "Sorry, but he's not willing to meet your request."

As for the railroading bit, anytime a GM says "YOU ARE NOT WINNING THIS ONE!" it is going to sound like railroading whether you intend it to be or not. Like some of the others here, I agree with what the GM was attempting to do, but his implementation needs work.

In the end though, all that really matters for now is whether or not the GM and player can work together. The player needs to consider that the GM is new, and be understanding of that. The GM also needs to make sure that he doesn't confuse this with a "Them against me" situation. The GM can't beat the players because the GM is not competing against the players. Talk it out between the two of you, share a couple of beers (or colas, etc.) shake on it and try to see things from the other perspective. If you can't do this, then you should just go your separate ways.

I can see Sticks going, I'm so BA, fuck common sense.

But yeah, I agree that by RAW accident can do anything up to summoning a can of beans, but me and few others seem to agree that causing drones to malfunction seem to be a bit too "convenient" for the GM.

I see where you're coming from Sterling, but I don't believe that players necessarily have to follow a GM's lead on the universe if it makes it unfun for them. For me, the GM's goal should be to make sure the players have a good time, not to enforce his view on where a story should go (Though strong story telling does help most players have a good time),

As bad as the GM went, I can't say that the player's post makes me feel any more sympathetic. Am I thr only one who finds the "Choo Choo" comment to be more than a little immature?

Things like that is why I love my GM. It's hard to find people who believe their role is to mostly be an amoral arbiter of the RAW. I've ran into one too many GMs out there who feel their role is to defend the sanctity of their npcs, for whatever reason.

Heh, I remember one time when the GM set out to screw us because we were half-assing the run. (What do you expect when you offer a pack of runners with 3-500 karma each some milk run for chump change).

Our antics in that run involved: using physical mask to look like a polar bear, then using improved invisibilty on top of that and taking a walk though a hospital emergency room, looking for clues. Our reasoning: if anyone managed to see through the invisibility, they would then be confronted with a polar bear wandering around the hospital.

Mr. death-sam is breaking into an apartment we though was empty for some reason. But is surprised to find a plumber with his head under the sink, working on the garbage disposal. The sam thoughtfully considers this, then takes the time to put on his stylish new sap gloves (from NARGL? the same thing that had all the stylish armors in it) before hitting the plumber. Due to stun overflowing to physical damage, the poor plumber is maimed, and we forever after started calling our sam "plumber slayer".

It does sound like your game is far more story telling based than the lateral thinking challenges my group has gotten used to, must be all the Heroscape and Descent we play.

The point is, the game should be fun for everybody involved, GM and players. That clearly wasn't the case with ShadowDragon8685 and Jtuxyan. At least, they sorted it out now.