Help - Search - Members - Calendar
Full Version: Humor in Shadowrun
Dumpshock Forums > Discussion > Shadowrun
Meriss
I realize that SR is pretty dystopian. On the other hand we also have elves, trolls and other fantasy races. We have AIs and Technomancers. Can we have humor? Share your stories of teh funny in SR or debate why humor and Shadowrun must remain seperate.

And remember. Dwarf Tosssing!
Nikoli
My current Saturday Weekly game we have a AmerInd Street Sam named "Whiskey Jack". Who seems to get better, more concise thoughts as he drinks. Current quotes are "It's all coming up Whiskey!", "I won't lie to you, mistakes were made.", "Meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow.", "Let he who is without sin Snatch the first Bander!" and "Here, hold this cat-box."
The running joke behind the last one is that our first run as a team was to snatch a chimera named "Fluffles". (Rabbit head on cat body)
Jacks plan?
Walk up and punch the guy with Fluffles in the gut and run off with the darned thing.
Our spin on it?
Jack is now invisible, levitated (piloted by the astrally projecting mage) and then punches the poor sap in the stomache. Manages to get 11P damage and nearly kills the guy (there was much vomitus ensuing).
The punchline?
The guy was still handcuffed to the cat carrier as Jack was flown away, Jack picked the lock and dropped him off (literally) on a convenient parking deck as he came in for a landing on the next one.

Also, the hacker in the party (played by yours truly) has shot more times with more effect in taking out more goons.

We end up in stitches sitting around the table. It's just hard not to laugh at this point, when every time Jack begins to speak we ask if he's drunk first, and if he's sober, he's handed a drink.
As the invisible, flying drunkard worked so well, he was nick-named "Bandersnatch" and the basic tactic is usually the first thing discussed and how we could apply it to the current run.
With the addition of a physad who has a penchant for booting people in the head until dead (one shot) and destroying vehicles with throwing knives, the nickname has been changed to "Bander" and "Snatch", Jack being Snatch as it's too obvious and uncouth to refer to the female Physical Adept that way.
ludomastro
My favorite campaign in college had very few serious themes. It was 2nd Ed. and our mage had groupies - they were his hos as he sidelined as a pimp. My character only got cyber when his body wore out, he was about 67 when the campaign ended. We had a sammie with a sentient (sort of) cyber-arm that would randomly shoot people (most of them vampires).

Does that count?
Adarael
I've got more than a few:

In the most recent game, we were fleeing a AAA zone after another teams noisly and publicly hit the same EPA-type facility our team did at the same time. Thankfully, this distracted the guards and the KE security in San Francisco from our escapades. Unfortunately it also drove the current heat level in the bay area through the fucking roof, especially after the other team tried to follow and stop us with a helicopter, forcing us to ... well... break the rotors on it.

Que long car chase, narrowly avoiding being picked up by cops a plenty, hot-sim hacking car databases, erasing all electronic presence of our fake idents, et cetera, et cetera. We're tired, and we've GOT to get out of CalFree post-haste. So we drive over to Oakland after looping through San Rafael to lose any tails we might have.

Some punks are out in force, and start taking potshots at our car. I sigh, mime driving the car, rolling down the window, and move my right arm over as though gripping something and extending it out the window. The GM quirks an eyebrow, and I suddenly shout "BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM!" as the GM remembers I've been gripping an Alpha the entire drive. Table dissolves into laughter, everybody realizing, "Yeah, yeah, we're tired of being hassled."

----

Team of spies, free operators, and hitmen introducing themselves by their specialties.
Black Widow, Russian Elf Face and Superspy: "I am Black Widow. I can be anyone, anywhere, and get any information from everyone."
Hammer, ex-Saeder drone rigger: "I am Hammer. I am a decker, a rigger, and your source for all electronics solutions."
The Milipede, ex-GIGN French adept troll: "I am ze Millipede. I make wine."
Hammer: "That's not very...elite."
Millipede, exposing a combat axe under his jacket:"...out of people."
Zhan Shi
The two most funny exchanges in SR, IMO:

Jack Q and Rebecca Constantine, pages 34-35, YotC

The Macmillan Group, pages 15-17, Super Tuesday!

Great stuff.
sinthalix
We're always laughing at our sessions...usually because of me...the GM.

Gus (one of my favorite NPCs), a dwarven physad with amnesia is with the group. They find a mysterious book in the basement of a German castle. They ask him to astrally perceive it and tell them what he finds. His response (unintentional), "It's a book of great ebil!"

The runners find a map of a factory in the bad guy's basement apartment. I toss the photocopy of the map onto the table. All of a sudden one of the players says, "Oh look, we're going to be facing insect spirits." I asked him how he knows this..."Well, it says "The Hive" here in the corner of the map."

I'm not sure if any of my players get on Dumpshock, but I'm sure they can come up with more of my great GMing funnies.
Hartbaine
In a recent game the runners were staking out a Corp Exec who, very soon they were planning to pull a data steal on. They decided it would be best to observe him for a bit and when he's not around get into the house and do what needed to be done.

Dahlia, the team's exotic dancer turned Face whose fond of formfitting vinyl cat suits, was the runner on duty that night, staking out his place while the rest of the team was doing legwork. She made the discovery while crouched in a shady spot that "Mr. Exec" was into some fetish recreational activities with a rented Ork Domme.

The entire house goes dark and the bugs she planted start sounding like there is a struggle or fight. Dahlia dashes from her spot and runs into the house (forgetting to communicate with her team). She finds the Exec's body still barely alive but with his side all busted up and his mistress nowhere around. Now she goes into communication with them…

Dahlia: Guys, problem. His Domme just beat the shit out of him.
AcidTryp (Hacker): Uh, she's a Domme... what's the problem?
Ethan (Sammie): Forget the man; this just went south, go for the package. We're enroute.
Dahlia (No Hacking skill): Okay, uh... how?
AcidTryp: I'll walk you through, but we might want to hurry, you have Five-O on their way. Damn AAA response.
Dahlia: Oh, hell no! I'm gone guys, this spot just got to hot for me.
Ethan: Dahlia, get the package damnit!
Dahlia (giving her vinyl clad self a once over): Oh, so when LoneStar comes busting through the door, how do I explain this? He's dressed like a gimp and his hip is broken! "Um, this isn't what it looks like?"

Her tone at the table and the facial expressions she used were just awesome, we fell out laughing for a good couple of minutes...

Another one...
Ethan our Sammie doesn't track his ammo very well sometimes and while in a bit a gang land fracas he was using a non-smartlinked gun. I informed him that he heard the one thing most runners do not want to hear in the middle of a heated firefight... "Click" "Click, click, click...� His gun was empty. He was aiming at the ganger who, like an idiot was standing in the open but by next Combat Turn would be well behind cover.

Ethan (to the only ganger not behind cover): Stay there! I have to reload!

On a side note Ethan (who would hardly be considered stable) is an Elf Sammie with a spirit mentor (so he thinks). A jester spirit has been keeping itself amused with Ethan by convincing him that it is the god of freshly laundered trousers. The player RPs it flawlessly since he wouldn't know a jester spirit from an earth elemental he just assumes that this divine entity has chosen him for some higher purpose... to keep pants freshly laundered.
Kingmaker
A game I played in about a year ago was possibly the least serious SR campaign ever. Our teams inaugural run was to steal a package out of a NUps depot. It ended with our two chain smoking elf adepts getting into a fight with Mr. Johnson's goons before having our asses saved by Lone Star. Other highlights included a giant, talking jewfish named Frankie, and a ninja master mystic adept who summoned an elemental that swallowed a tank.
hunter5150
I have an example of my players getting the best of the GM. I typically run difficult games. I try to make the runs challenging. On one particular run, the elf adeptin the group needed to make a name for himself in a bar (I dont remember exactly why). He walks up to the bar asks the owner to give him a job as a bouncer. The owner informs him that the large ork in the corner already has that job. The adept informs the owner that he can "take the bouncer out, without even breaking a sweat" (Gm starts rolling up bouncer NPC). The adept walks up to bouncer insults him using many and varied racial slurs, informs him how many ways he is going to best him, and the rather in depth things he is going to do to the bouncers girlfriend afterward. Adept the says to the bartender, "You dont like it? lets take it outside." (incidentally GM still clueless) At the door, he mannerly motions the bouncer to proceed him, which the bouncer does. And then he shuts and locks the door behind the bouncer. Th owner (and GM) were both impressed and irate. But hey thems the breaks. Much laughter (at the GM's expense) insued.
Veggiesama
I have a player who is obsessed with Metal Gear Solid, so he crafted his character on a mix between Revolver Ocelot and Solid Snake.

He took one 4/4 contact named "The Colonel".

He carries a revolver and consistently reminds the group of how "exhilarating" it is to reload it.

Whenever he gets a call on his commlink, he bends down on one knee and puts his finger in his ear.

For a time, I even rewarded him 1 karma per game session if he would refrain from making a single MGS reference (that means no "You're that ninja", nor "Colonel, what's a Russian gunship doing here?", nor even a simple "Huahhnn..."). I can't remember if he ever got that free karma or not.

---

Another character is an ork mage with a Bostonian accent and the biology knowledge skill with a specialization in abiogenesis. Think upper-class east-side liberal wielding two SMGs and a powerball spell. Basically, the player figured out that the Discovery Institute was based in Seattle, so he wanted his character to be the goblinized bastard great-grandson of William Dembski. Since his character was kicked into the woods for being the "spawn of Satan", he has resolved to... um, well, we're not really sure exactly, but I was really hoping to do some serious behind-the-scenes shadowrunning in the evolution vs creationism scene. Blowing up churches, vandalizing public schools, threatening prominent biologists: you name it. Oh yeah, did I mention the character's shadowrunning alias was Darwin?

The character's also got a pet cybered-to-the-teeth cheetah. He saved the cheetah from near-death and brought it to the local cyber-veterinarian (just so happened to be named "Dr. Moreau"). Anyway, in one mission where the group broke into a cyber-clinic disguised as janitors, Darwin hid the cheetah in a garbage can they were rolling around. When the drek finally hit the fan, he tipped over the can and the cheetah charged out, ripping into doctors and security guards alike. Using the cat as a distraction, Darwin immediately yelled (in a thick Bostonian accent) "Ah my gawd, thah's a cheetah in thah sahgery room!" They were able to make their escape, and the cheetah made it out too. Since then, that line has become classic in our group.

---

As for other characters... somehow, whenever a hacker/rigger comes into our game, they always have to be adolescent and still living with their parents. First we have the MMOG-addicted "Lt. Xtreme", who would borrow the family's station wagon to go shadowrunning in. Once they used his home as a safehouse, and the other males in the group couldn't stop hitting on his mom. The other character, "Night Fever", is a disco-crazed hippie-hating psychopath, though he hated whenever his grandmother would call up his commlink during a run and call him by his real name, Francis. He even designed a BTL that included the torture of hippies.

---

Last game, we had our knife-throwing adept chuck a blade into some dude's tire while on the highway. The subsequent Crash Test caused the dude to veer off the road and slam into a light pole, throwing the poor guy out the window and into the grass (who needs seatbelts?). The group then proceeded to pull over, cast a Bind spell on him to keep him from running, psychologically interrogate him, and then patch him up with First Aid before sending him on his way.

---

Oh yeah, I can't forget the Grand-daddy Guild (or GG, as in "GG nubz"). It's a clan of 60+ hackers who get together and smack-talk each other while playing retro games. Couple of the names for them: Grandmaster Smackdown (guild-leader), Ancient Assassin, and Diuretic Dominator. They had something the group wanted, so they challenged the group to a game of "Toader", a simsense bastardization of Frogger. Something about a street sam, a hermetic mage, a hacker/rigger, and a bunch of old farts crowded around an arcade machine (some in VR, some not) made me laugh.

---

Yeah, we shift between seriousness and absolute ridiculousness at the drop of a hat. Shadowrun works really well for our type of game.

(sorry for shifting tenses; it's late)
bishop186
We've had several in my Saturday SR game, even though it's only been around for about 4 sessions.

Our first session was a recon/data mission, which was supposed to be pretty straight forward. Anyway, we botched it more or less, and ended up with the only option left open to us was for me, the gun bunny and rigger of the group signing up as a bodyguard for the badguys while our hacker/"infiltration expert" attempts to find out what the frag is up with the hackers and steal the data.

Anyway, while he's infiltrating he rolls a no-hitter and makes a large clamor in the back. Since we're communicating via AR, I automatically get what happened and opt to investigate first. I run to the door before anyone else gets there, open the door, and loudly scream "Holy drek look at the size of this cat!" Our GM was being lenient that day, and let me get away with it without a con check.

All the other people start walking back to the posts while I'm going on and on about this cat. Another faux-pas (literally) by our "infiltration expert" and the major bodyguard comes running and stabs me in the chest for a giant wound. I fire back at the guy, completely missing him. The hackers come running as the "infiltration expert" dives in the bushes, and I exclaim "This madman is trying to KILL me!" An amazingly good con, a horrid screech from a bodyguard (whom I found out later was tongueless), and initiative pass later the hacker is on the floor in a bloody mess, as are two of the hackers.

A little bit of talk between me and the infiltrator via AR and we decide to take out the remaining low-level hackers and take the target (who we were supposed to be finding information on) directly. The hacker, using my AK with no skill whatsoever, jumps out of the bushes and screams "SAY HELLO TO MY LITTLE FRIEND!" and fires. The AK jumps from his hand and he shoots himself in the arm and tumbles back into the bushes.

The hackers look at themselves as confused as ever and I take the two non-targets out. Our infiltration expert jumps back out with a bullet wound as I explain the situation to the hacker, and a couple very-scary words later he's soaked in his own urine and in our van.

---

Second mission. We infiltrate an Ares complex and are sneaking around when we hear the corpsec, who is responding to an alarm we tripped when we exited the sewers, coming. Looking around, there are only thin trees (too thin to hide behind) and trashcans to hide behind. Our lovable infiltration expert finds a good place behind the cans while I survey some trees and climb one like a madman, sitting in the branches.

The corpsec comes around and looks around, then looks straight at me. "What the, they're in the trees!" he screams as I drop him. A heated gun battle later, the corpsec are all dead or dying as I sit in a tree, completely unscathed.

Through the whole mission, I took more damage from the devil rat I encountered in the sewer (which gave me a nasty bite before I shot it) injured me more than any of the corpsec.
Sterling
I think my best moment was a total game derail that happened years ago in one of my games.

We had a house rule (this was back in second) that your 'natural' initiative die could open-end, a la the rule of six. This let people with no 'ware or spells have occasional high initiative scores.

A firefight ensues (and they always do) and at the beginning of the pass people roll dice. I'm behind a screen, and as the players finish rolling, they hear me rolling one die... over and over and over.

I call for initiative scores, and the highest is around 20-30, if I recall correctly. That player begins to tell me their action, but I hold up my hand. I point at the map, and say..

"At 46 (possibly higher) this random passerby sees the beginnings of a firefight, and runs away like a bat out of hell."

The party sat, stunned at the insanely high reaction. The bad guys were forgotten, ignored completely in the face of this amazing display of reaction. The party, on their actions, take off after the guy, reasoning he must have some amazing spell or cyberware that they HAD to find out what it is and get it from him.

It was just some poor schmoe who open-ended his lone natural die eight or so times. I had a hell of a time reining in this hunt for the incredibly fast pedestrian (and they reasoned no 'ordinary' person could EVER go so fast without some sort of nifty killer wiz gear or something) and getting the game back on track.

Of course, there were other good ones. The priceless one is when, way back in the day of 1st ed, I ran a game for some new players. Predictably, they unleashed a solid rain of lead at every problem, and when the cops arrived because of the ensuing firefight... one of them had the idea that Shadowrunners, being necessary to a 'functioning' society, could appease the cops.

He held out his hands, and shouted to the police; "It's okay, we're Shadowrunners!!"

And a really good friend of mine once declared he was going to 'slap this person until she stops twitching.' I nodded, and then told him.. "Okay, it's a couple of minutes later, and your shock gloves are out of charges."
CyberKender
This, of course, has absolutely nothing to do with a GM who uses plot devices like Dragons who think they're Tom Petty as the Mad Hatter with Ally Spirits that look like the Cheshire Cat. Or runs where we need to steal a John Denver *record* collection. Or have bars where the recording of the Cat shaman in the bubble will randomly replay from the jukebox. Or characters who talk to their hand...Oh, wait. That one's me. ;>
WhiskeyMac
I have a couple funny situations from a long SR3 campaign a few years back. However, my favorite involves our Aztlan decker, Flames. He had the Adrenaline Surge edge, which allowed Rule of Six for natural initiative rolls and the Impulsive flaw, which required a Willpower roll with 2 or more successes to not be impulsive.

We were running Supernova from the First Run module and we just finished the encounter with Richard Villiers. On our way out the Red Samurai ambush us and we roll initiative. Flames managed to get his Adrenaline Surge (first and only time in the history of the character) and killed one of the Red Samurai with some well placed shots. But, Flames then failed his Impulsive flaw check. This resulted in Flames running from cover, screaming at the top of his lungs, punching his fist through the chest of the downed Red Samurai and standing in the open holding the Red Samurai's heart in the air while the rest of the Red Samurai fire at him (and miss, amazingly).

We also had 2 people in our group who had Weirdness Magnet flaws and also a very large troll who had the running commentary of "That's a huge slitch!" every time he went somewhere. So, we had some fun times.
Blade
Deep inside a high security corp facility, some patrolling guards getting close to where the runners were. The runners needed a few seconds more to finish their work. They ask the mage to do it with some illusion spell. The mage's player takes a long time wondering what'd be the best illusion to use. The GM warns him that the guards are getting closer, that he has to decide quickly.

GM : "In a few seconds they'll be there, if you want to do something, do it now!"
Mage : "Ok, ok! I'll put a panda in the corridor!"
Everyone : "A panda?"
Mage : "Yes! A panda eating a bamboo stick"

Guards, deep inside a high security corp facility: "Command, I think we have a problem here."
Command : "What's the situation?"
Guards : "Err, there's a panda in sector 3C"
It trolls!
In a run I was mastering, my players wound up hitching a ride with a ghoul rigger. A basically blind lifeform rigging a car through the less fortunate parts of Greater Frankfurt. He was called "The Captain", wore two eyepatches and listened to pirate hip hop. He drove by astral vision and "sonar" and sometimes a runner pulling the steering wheel at the last second so the car wouldn't hit a lamp post.
And of course he kept shouting insults out of the car window, calling everyone landlubbers.
My players were completely paranoid he'd either ram something or shout at a police car or worse a squad of go-gangers biggrin.gif
treehugger
In a game, my players stole an Armadillo egg (sort of gargantuan crocodile). The orc sam ended up with the egg after the run, with no clue about what to do with it.
He soon realised he had to get rid of it, since the authorities where looking for it as these eggs are damn rare, espeically in captivity.
So he did the only thing intelligent (in his mind) to do : ask his room mate (an orc poseur named Crab) to cook it and invited his neighboorhood (in the Orc Underground) for a huge Egg Party.
I decided the egg was extremely spicy, so it had some "lavatories issues" following the party, but it was truely a success with the participant making contests of who'll eat the most in bite without spiting it.
From that day, he has a good reputation in the Underground, and i let him bribe some orc bouncers with an invitation to his next Egg Party.
-----------
One of my players has an humorous but excellent character concept. He's a Ninja finishing his training in the world (not that humorous, and clearly not original).
BUT
He's a troll. (quite funny to imagine a troll in black pyjamas)
His nickname is "Viet-Ninja" (stupid uh ?)
Since his sect is secret, he needs a cover so he took the best one : he's supposed to be a teen physad that has seen too much trids and thinks he's a ninja.
So whenever he proposes a plan its something like "ok so lets disguise ourselves as pizza boys like in Cyber Ninja 23, and once they oppen the door we kick their asses.
Of course, on the other side he just writes down everything, try to keep every information on his targets and/or costumers, and send it right back to japan to his sect smile.gif
No one has a clue about his true identity or loyalty : best way to hide is in plain sunlight.
neko128
In a game last year that I was GMing, my group was breaking into a compound by the docks to get some crates out of a warehouse. They encountered a number of Hellhounds in the process (well, four, really); however, after the third showed up, the Rigger made some comment along the lines of "Why do they keep coming? I'm ordering my Drones to kill all the damned dogs."

"I'm sorry, what? Exactly how are you phrasing this?"

"I'm sending an order to both my drones to kill all dogs that they see."

He'd forgotten that their current standing orders were to do circuits of the compound until further notice; so yeah, they killed the last hellhound, but they both ended up getting distracted and wandering off-base to hunt down dogs in alleyways.

Now, every time someone gives even a slightly open-ended suggestion or command, someone else in the group calls out "Kill all dogs!"
bjorn
This one is from the first time we ever played Shadowrun. My older brother played back when he was in college, so he got us into it about 10 years later.

Anyway, we are breaking into this tall apartment building to get some data on a shipment we were supposed to stop. Anyway, this is the first time using any of the rules, do our decker hacks in and get caught. There are red lights and stuff going off in the node, so he jacks out. Then the telephone in the apt. rings. My younger brother says he is going to pick up the phone and all of us start yelling at him not to. He picks it up and hears "password please sir" and just freezes. He quick hangs up the phone and we all start to run down the backstair case and make it outside just in time to see two cars coming around the corner with guys wielding AKs from the sunroof. We all make it away, but my brother had to burn a point of karma to keep from dying. Now when anyone does anything stupid, everyone at the table will shout "don't pick up the phone!".
Hartbaine
QUOTE (It trolls!)
In a run I was mastering, my players wound up hitching a ride with a ghoul rigger. A basically blind lifeform rigging a car through the less fortunate parts of Greater Frankfurt. He was called "The Captain", wore two eyepatches and listened to pirate hip hop. He drove by astral vision and "sonar" and sometimes a runner pulling the steering wheel at the last second so the car wouldn't hit a lamp post.
And of course he kept shouting insults out of the car window, calling everyone landlubbers.
My players were completely paranoid he'd either ram something or shout at a police car or worse a squad of go-gangers biggrin.gif

This is pure awesome... I'm still laughing.
Kyoto Kid
QUOTE (Hartbaine)
QUOTE (It trolls! @ Sep 19 2007, 04:38 AM)
In a run I was mastering, my players wound up hitching a ride with a ghoul rigger. A basically blind lifeform rigging a car through the less fortunate parts of Greater Frankfurt. He was called "The Captain", wore two eyepatches and listened to pirate hip hop. He drove by astral vision and "sonar" and sometimes a runner pulling the steering wheel at the last second so the car wouldn't hit a lamp post.
And of course he kept shouting insults out of the car window, calling everyone landlubbers.
My players were completely paranoid he'd either ram something or shout at a police car or worse a squad of go-gangers  biggrin.gif

This is pure awesome... I'm still laughing.

...should have played Grand Funk's I'm Your Capitan in the background during this scene grinbig.gif
This is a "lo-fi" version of our main content. To view the full version with more information, formatting and images, please click here.
Dumpshock Forums © 2001-2012