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Kyleigh Wester
I was wondering if anyone had any exciting stories about catching their game master off guard, or doing something that he didn't expect. Have you ever thrown off your game master? Forced him to think or did something hard to Debunk? Or, as GMs, has this ever happened to you? For example, I have a few stories myself.

I remember once my GM had set up a multi sub level complex we had to get to the bottom of, and he made it so we had to go level by level via the stairs. However, with some well placed toying with the broken elevators we got them open and went down the shaft, effectivly skipping half the prepared run.

Or, whats more, I was once able to defeat one of the "Bigger foes" early on in the campaign. The stats made it feesable impossible, but with a good all sixs roll, and my opponent rolling all 1s and 2s, I beat him early on.

Come on, share your stories, when was the last time you made you messed with your GM, outsmarted a villian, or do something utterly awesome?
Ravor
Well after deciding to interduce some weirdness with alternate universes ala "Sliders", after a sucessful completion of a series of rescue missions the group's Technomancer decided that the vaguely "Horror-like" beings that existed in the universe they has just returned were the devils that her A.I. cult whispered about so she hacked the lab (It was still in the process of being rebuilt so had some serious security holes yet.) and "jammed" the portal open to allow them to cross over.

For whatever reason the rest of the team decided that the best course of action would be to "cross the streams" ala Ghostbusters (In their defense they were getting their asses kicked at the time.).

After thinking for a moment I decided the end the session there after describing a blinding blue flash.



The next time we met the players were greeted with new character sheets and a city thrown into utter panic as a sizable protion of downtown simply vanished, leaving only a strange void hover right where the lab once was.
Vaevictis
My GM once spec'd out a church where one of the magic users in it had done something worthy of revenge.

I think I was supposed to go in and question them, but my character was less concerned with figuring out why they had done what they did than getting some revenge.

So, he called up his fixer, and asked for canisters with enough of the following to fill the church:

1. CS Gas
2. Nausea gas.
3. Pepper punch.

The night before we raid the place, we have one of the people in our group infiltrate the roof of the building and install the canisters into the HVAC system (using the HVAC skillsoft my character purchased.)

So, we set them off, go in in our chem-sealed armor, and GM immediately tells me that one of them is rolling to hit me, and asking me if I want to dodge. I say, "nah." GM says, "Okay resist such and such damage."

I say, "Wow, he actually hit me after all those target number modifiers?"
"What target number modifiers?"
"Um... for the CS gas, +3 - 1 per Body(5) test success, for the nausea gas, +5 - 1 per Body(5) test success, for the pepper punch, +5 - 1 per Body (5) test success."

"Oh."

Yeah, my character didn't get hit. None of our characters got hit.

The folks in the church? They all died.
Wounded Ronin
Yeah, nothing is worse than a GM who doesn't know the rules!

As a character in Knights of the Dinner Table put it, it's often helpful to spell out verbally (or type out) the logic behind what your character is doing in a role playing game. That way, if the GM is going to make it fail for whatever reason he or she must fly in the face of your logic. The way I figure it if there was a legitimate reason you failed then there will be no problem; the GM can easily spell it out. But if it's just the GM not knowing the rules (duuurh pepper punch? wots taht?) then it's less likely to just go down.


When I GM, I realize that it's unlikely the PCs will approach the problem in the same way I'd think to do so and therefore I try not to make situations too complicated or too requiring of a specific approach or response at any given time. I make the situations simpler but try to have a lot of pieces in play in no specific set way so that the PCs can mess around and try a variety of rules-fuled solutions.
Vaevictis
Eh, I try not to be so hard on the GM.

There are enough rules people in our group that when the GM misses something, they point it out. And we prefer to make it easy on the GM anyway, and let the GM just figure out the storyline.
John Campbell
Well, there was this one time that we got hired to take down a cell tower for a specific period of time. The GM had a whole bunch of stuff about its defenses prepared, and I think she expected us to sneak the decker in through its physical defenses and have him suppress it Matrix-side for the necessary period while the rest of us kept physical watch.

I levitated up to the top of a building where I had LOS to it and lightning bolted it a couple of times from well outside the range of its perimeter autoguns. Then the decker checked to make sure it was down, and we went home, confident that there was no way in hell that the cell company was getting the charred remains of the cell back online before the necessary period was up.

That was a short session.
Wounded Ronin
QUOTE (John Campbell)
Well, there was this one time that we got hired to take down a cell tower for a specific period of time. The GM had a whole bunch of stuff about its defenses prepared, and I think she expected us to sneak the decker in through its physical defenses and have him suppress it Matrix-side for the necessary period while the rest of us kept physical watch.

I levitated up to the top of a building where I had LOS to it and lightning bolted it a couple of times from well outside the range of its perimeter autoguns. Then the decker checked to make sure it was down, and we went home, confident that there was no way in hell that the cell company was getting the charred remains of the cell back online before the necessary period was up.

That was a short session.

This is a perfect example of how the GM can think on a totally different level than the players. (Personally, my first instinct is to use those cheapo disposable LAW rockets to blow it up from a safe distance as well.)

As a GM my policy would have been to just try and think of everything a cell tower "realistically" might have guarding it without even thinking of how the players might approach it. By doing it that way I try to keep the scenario open for all kinds of approaches. Instead of, say, laying on very detailed matrix stuff because I expect that's the way the players will go and then not having any reason why the team couldn't just physically disable the tower and flee the scene.
Snow_Fox
I tried to think of things that just devistated play and realized the three I came up with were the same player.

1) A D&D game, the team trying to take out a mage. most of the team was down from spells, one fighter cleared that and got intercepted by the bad guy's muscle. The DM said "OK You've got two trolls on you."
Player:"No, they've got me on them" and he took them apart.

2) SR we were going into a marine arcology, a guard saw us and before we could stop him he let fly with AP ammo on full auto-2 of us made it to the air lock

3) running Mercurial- the GM did such a great job of showing the psycho personalities that after the first meeting we were fed up with her. The player said "We gotta keep her alive, do we have to keep her conscious?" as he reached for a narcojet.

Kyleigh Wester
Heh, a lot of the times where runs are messed with it's my fault as a player. I have a tendency to look at every little detail and find my way out of situations that i'm really supposed to be stuck on. Last run we did involved stealing a case of experimental cyberware, more specifically, cybernetic wings. Wooo! Well, the badguy was supposed to jack them from us before we could do anything with his all sorts of maxed out stats and insane unstoppable-ness.

Well, I caught onto the trap ahead of time and held him off for two solid hours, half an hour of which was only me as everyone else was caught in an illusion. Eventually my entire team got fed up with the almost pointless struggle and let him have the case.

.....

Later my character (A combat decker) devised a plan to sneak into the place where he was going to have them installed and steal them back whilst he was under......
tisoz
It has happened often enough.

One new group just killed the Johnson after getting the down payment. Another time, they subcontracted the job for half price (which the subcontractors flubbed; you get what you pay for.)

Playing Dreamchipper, we decided Junior got a raw deal and got most of his share of the company back for him. GMing Queen Euphoria, a player had a bound free spirit possess Euphoria to control her during the kidnapping, so Euphoria was immune to the insect spirit inhabiting.

I had a shaman character call upon his great form spirit posse to use confusion on a humanis army. All the PCs were metahumans, so the command was to use confusion on all non-metahumans in the building.

Last game/group ended with having 3 great form spirits use the storm power in succession. (I got a little frustrated. wink.gif)
Ophis
The latest player curve ball I've received was a little odd.

Firstly the team had ended up in a shadow war with a dragon (western non great), along with their fixer. The fixer and some allied runners got blown up good, so the team went after the dragon (not that they knew that...). They managed mostly by way of the samurai's nerves to kill the dragon with no losses (well the face had to spend edge). The dragon did a Haesslich into Puget Sound.

Okay I probably should have expected this, it changed my next session completely (the team after escaping the first fight with the dragon were meant to then hunt it with full knowledge...)

So the next session another dragon sends a team to challenge them for the horde (that they don't know they've won. The enemies kidnap an ally and offer to return her if the team agree to an honour fight in neutral territory. The team think about it and the Face (who is sick of being in fights) and the Samurai (who refuses to kill other runners on a dragons whim). They contact the bad guys and offer a series of tests of skills, the other team being intelligent agree (this way they are less likely to die). Most of the group picked their specialty and did a challenge based on that. The stealth adept in each team had to steal a set of rfided dice from a casino (the teams adept lifted the dice from the bad guy). The Sams had a shooting match (first round draw, second round the teams won by 1 success). The teams 2 hackers did different challenges against the bad guy decker. The Face in a show of nerve I have to respect (and almost caused another player to have a fit) challenged the bad guys at Backgammon. So we played it out, no cheating just a straight game. the Face won, just. The player who looked like having a fit almost died ooc. Marvelous fun. The team won every event and won a dragon's horde (in this case a criminal network) pretty cool I got the end result I wanted just not the way intended to...
Wounded Ronin
QUOTE (Ophis)
The latest player curve ball I've received was a little odd.

Firstly the team had ended up in a shadow war with a dragon (western non great), along with their fixer. The fixer and some allied runners got blown up good, so the team went after the dragon (not that they knew that...). They managed mostly by way of the samurai's nerves to kill the dragon with no losses (well the face had to spend edge). The dragon did a Haesslich into Puget Sound.

Okay I probably should have expected this, it changed my next session completely (the team after escaping the first fight with the dragon were meant to then hunt it with full knowledge...)

So the next session another dragon sends a team to challenge them for the horde (that they don't know they've won. The enemies kidnap an ally and offer to return her if the team agree to an honour fight in neutral territory. The team think about it and the Face (who is sick of being in fights) and the Samurai (who refuses to kill other runners on a dragons whim). They contact the bad guys and offer a series of tests of skills, the other team being intelligent agree (this way they are less likely to die). Most of the group picked their specialty and did a challenge based on that. The stealth adept in each team had to steal a set of rfided dice from a casino (the teams adept lifted the dice from the bad guy). The Sams had a shooting match (first round draw, second round the teams won by 1 success). The teams 2 hackers did different challenges against the bad guy decker. The Face in a show of nerve I have to respect (and almost caused another player to have a fit) challenged the bad guys at Backgammon. So we played it out, no cheating just a straight game. the Face won, just. The player who looked like having a fit almost died ooc. Marvelous fun. The team won every event and won a dragon's horde (in this case a criminal network) pretty cool I got the end result I wanted just not the way intended to...

That was a nice and unusual way to play.
DuckEggBlue Omega
Backgammon? Surely all faces play Baccarat?
Enigma
No way - since the new Bond all faces play poker.
Ophis
No poker would have given him a chance to use his skills, backgammon is (between players of equal skill) very much luck of the dice based, which is probably what caused the fit.
Kagetenshi
QUOTE (Enigma)
No way - since the new Bond all faces play poker.

LIES.

~J
eidolon
But you have to keep in mind that the "new" Bond is actually an old Bond, and thus Bonds now play Baccarat.
TheMadDutchman
I don't think the new Bond should even count as a Bond.

The game of choice for faces in my game is Dominos.
eidolon
Or, if your face has HONNAH, Mahjong.
CyberKender
To a point, doing the unexpected is the norm for us an our GM. Thankfully, Sterling thinks fast on his feet. He'll figure out three or four ways out of a situation that he wants to put us in, and plan how to deal with them, and we often find way number five. :>

The worst moment of this, I think, was way back in the day. We were playing with a GM who is very good at telling a story, but not quite so good at keeping us in line. He set up a job and involved the runners, us, stealing the passcodes for a secret account that Mitsuhama had with Area to order products 'under the table', so that we could obtain a certain item for the Johnson. Well, when we manage to get away with the code and attempt to use it, we discover that it's essentially a connection to Ares' entire catalog with unlimited credit. I asked the GM if that's what it really was, and then asked if other things could be added to the 'order' besides the item in question. He said that I could, and that it might even be a good cover. So, I asked everyone else to give me a list of what toys they'd like and give them to me. I took theirs, then added mine, and handed the list to the GM. His eyes bugged out. Looked at me and then realized what he had done, and that he even said he was sure about it. The truck containing all the goodies, including five Smartgun-variant Ares MP lasers arrived at the delivery point and we high-tailed it out of there.

Yes, it was gross. I dumped most of the haul from the character, but since he was a rigger, there was a lot of stuff I could sink money into, (Permanent lifestyle, full shops, fake SINs, etc.) that didn't make the character too over-powered. The character is now (IC) semi-retired and enjoying life watching the newbies tell exaggerated stories about him. (500+ lifetime karma earns a lot of rep.)
warrior_allanon
i've got two that i can think of off the top of my head,

1: I think it was dream chipper, whichever the mission was with Alpha Blue in it anyway: The melee adept and our cybered human who could be and usually was mistaken for an orc meet with AB in the Hellhound B&G in the barrens. As is usual they are asked and hand in their weapons at the weapons check, except that the dwarf at the check doesnt notice the fanny pack the sam is wearing. Once they sit down and AB shows up the sam sets up the claymore mine that had been hidden in the fanny pack, he arms it first then goes to set it on its mini-tripod when the dwarf sees him doing this. Dwarf takes the mine and the GM forgets that it was already armed to a radio detonator that the dwarf didnt confiscate. Junior walks in with his buddies planning on killing the two team mates and AB and the players for the Adept and the sam share a look before the sam's player holds up his hand to the GM and makes a button pushing motion with the ink pen in his hand.

CLICK CLICK BOOM!

GM shakes his head but takes it in grace, he had stated that the dwarf had placed the mine in a bin full of grenades, of course the explosion of the mine, sets off the grenades, which sets off whatever ammo is in the room, killing the bad guys and the dwarf.

2:Forget the mission, but we were going after a vampire in the barrens and were accessing the building via the sewers. All we hear is squeeking, now the GM has just found out that while we have plenty of ballistic armor to handle gunshots, no one has much in the way of impact armor, so we're fair game for animals, so what does he do but send a wave of devil rats at us in the sewers, forgetting that yours truly had a AS-7 and two 50rnd drums of flechette ammo. So what do i do but take point and set the damn shotgun to burst, 6 rounds a turn on open choke as the rats come down the tunnel, i simply plowed the road.

3: Same mission as 2, we've breached the house that the vamp is in, and are clearing it, i run up the stairs to the upper level and kick the door open and just blast the creature on the other side, at this point the GM takes and just tosses the module book behind him over his shoulder, i had just kicked the door down and wasted the Vamp with a double burst of flechette rounds, ending any drawn out fight sequence he expected before it could get started
Mercer
I think a good rule of thumb for the GM is never include swag for the runners to "split", since one guy invariably finds it and keeps it. That's how my first SR character cracked a million, breaking into a jewelry store safe. The rest of the group were off fighting security guards and causing distractions, so I was the only one in the room when I finally got the safe open. The thing we were after went into one sack, all the other jewels went into another.

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Paradise Lost was a module a friend of mine tried to run two or three times, but it always ended in some sort of debacle in the first session. My favorite, the group gets hired and is sent to Hawai'i, and the Johnson tells us to give him a list of all the gear we need. So we pass around a sheet of notebook paper and write down what we want. (I think we were on a commercial airline, and couldn't bring contraband.) In addition to all our normal stuff, one guy in the group puts down 20 kilos of C4 and about a 1000 rounds of APDS.

I don't know why he showed restraint in not asking for C12, but it was kind of funny because the Johnson was able to get the C4 but not the APDS. Anyway, my character was the first back to the hotel and sees the big box, so I get my stuff out of it. The GM hands me the piece of notebook paper with all the gear on it and tells me to cross off whatever I'm taking. Looking at it, I can see the APDS wasn't there. So I get my guns and my armor and whatever the hell else I'd requested, and go to hand the list back to the GM when that other player says, "You better not have taken my APDS."

I don't know, it rubbed the wrong way. So to be funny, I got the list back and made a big show of going through everybody else's gear (even though I didn't take anything that wasn't mine) and give the list back to the GM. By this point, the other character is racing back to the hotel room, comes in, opens the box and asks the GM is the APDS is there. The GM hands him the list and says only the stuff not crossed off is in the box.

So the guy puts a detonator in his 20 kilos of C4 and demands I give him his APDS ammo. By now, all the pcs were in the room and had their gear, so another runner quick draws his Colt Manhunter and Hold Action's a called shot to the head on the guy with the detonator. I decide to leave the room.

So a very tense ten minutes of real-time negotiation goes on with one character pointing a gun at another character with a radio detonator. The third character (a troll phys ad or sam, it turns out not to have mattered) stayed to watch. ultimatiums are batted back and forth, until the character with the gun loses patience and shoots the mad bomber. But doesn't kill him. The mad bomber detonates the 20 kilos of C4. To be helpful, I look up how much damage that comes out to (16 or 17D if memory serves, been awhile since I've looked at demo).

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There was a module where the runners are hired by an evil shaman and a shapeshifter to go to the tribal lands to stalk some band, or something. I'm not sure, because we never got through the opening meet in the shaman's penthouse. This was the backup group, me and another player, that the GM would run one-shots for nights the whole group couldn't make it, so we played those character's pretty fast and loose.

We ended up doing or saying something that pissed the shaman off, and it goes to a bloodbath. The shapeshifter almost had us, but my character was carrying a Superwarhawk with EX rounds (this was before EX-EX) and blew the guy's head off, and we got lucky with the Regen d6 roll.

Actually, now that I think about it, every one of those one-shots for those characters turned into GM-Head-Explodes moments. The time we were offered 200,000 nuyen to kill the Johnson on a run, who happened to be sitting in the front seat of the car we were in, and I drew and shot him in the back of the head. The time the phys ad ended up with a booby-trapped bomb in a briefcase and we hit the guy's apartment and the phys ad spent the whole fight right on top of the guy with the detonator so he wouldn't set the bomb off. There was a certain purity to those games, because the GM just wanted to kill us, and we kept barely surviving through a combination of complete ruthlessness and foul language.

Sorry for the long post. But good times.
Enigma
I like the new Bond!

Anyway, just so it looks like I'm on topic, I can recall a catching the GM out moment. There was a period where I ran every game for the group for about three years. I was vocal about my views on having to run the game every time, so one of the most munchkinish players said he'd run a one-player game when everyone else was passed out from drink or asleep or something.

The game rolls around. We're playing the Shadows of the Underworld game blatantly based on Die Hard, ie terrorists take over a skyscraper etc etc. So my character is in a fancy resturaunt, terrorists come in and take over and so on.

Unfortunately, this GM had spent a long, long time going on about how he could make the coolest characters and so on. This had come to a head recently when, as I was stuck for an NPC in a fix, I had used one of my former characters and this GM (as a player) had killed the NPC on sight to prove he was more badass. This GM also hadn't read the then-fairly new "twin weapon" rules in Fields of Fire.

Terrorists bust into the small meeting room in which I'm meeting the Johnson. I beat all three in initiative, quick-draw my ceramic knives and kill all three in one action. The dead include a main character, a mafia-princess type who is important to the plot. I go outside the room, and manage to kill two more terrorists before we get to initiative. I do well on initiative and take out all three remaining terrorists in a single action because the GM puts them all close enough together to melee attack in a single action.

So, the terrorists don't get to announce their plans or anything. Other terrorists are in the building, and I basically hunt them down. The plot hinges on their demands and their explosive fetish (I know because I have since run this game a few times), but they never got the chance to make demands or set explosives, because I hunted them down too quickly.

That GM immediately demanded to be able to play a new character in the game I was running, one who was ambidextrous and who used knives.
Mightyflapjack
I am the GM of my group but they did once catch me in a good bind.

I was running them a campaign where they needed to smooth over some issues with a yakuza boss. The arranged the meet at a luxury resturant that one of their "friend" contacts named Peter owned.

The issue was that none of the players were good at negotiations, they sat down at the table with the Yakuza and you could cut the tension with a knife. I was slightly concerned so I sent in Peter to pour coffee and tea and lighten the mood.

Then one of my players got the bright idea to sit Peter down and have Peter do the talking for the players.

So for the next 45 minutes real time.. Basically I had to do both sides of the difficult negotiation BY MYSELF with the players just grinning at me.

I did get them back however... At the end the Yakuza asked for a small "Favor" from the group and to the groups horror Peter said "It will be their pleasure to assist you free of charge."

Well.. Peter thought... it was the polite thing to do.
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