QUOTE (Pyritefoolsgold @ Mar 5 2008, 02:15 PM)

One thing I've noticed: If you buy a lifestyle free and clear, no matter what, it will find a way to get blown up.
My character's shack in the barrens in which he had his permanent low lifestyle, got hit by an airstrike. Then a magical sword that he buried nearby turned the entire area into a pool of lava, which then hardened into a circle of obsidian.
lets just say I'm renting from now on.
This made me laugh out loud!
I feel sorry for you and your character and I don't know but the GM could have been way out of line both times.
On the other hand, as a GM, sometimes you jsut have to take back stuff. Sometimes you give out too much. I tried to handle this fairly.
Example:
My group was a bunch of professional Shadowrunners. No real "theme" to the bunch, tho individuals had some ongoing backstory stuf that would pop up now and then...more and more as time went along.
Anyway, they fnished one of hte pre-gen runs.. the one where they took down the powerful ghoul that had a cover SIN (I can not think of hte name of it now) It was a fun run and had many , many tense moments, but in the end, they managed to defeat the ghoul and assumed his (fake)identity. He had a small waste management facility cover company and they took this over as well, letting it run along and generating money. I let them do this. It was partially my fault, but they had worked up to it. *shrugs*
Eventually, I used this "assett" of theirs to get at them. In antoher adventure they had killed (as in executed) the human assassin partner of a dragon and hte dragon knew they had done this. I let that lie for a few adventures. No reprocussions.
So... as the introduction to having them start the Arcology shutdown adventure, I lured them to the building for a supposed job meet. It was actually representatives of the dragon and they showed the pc's a live feed of of their waste company blowing up... taking out the facilities, their stashed goodies, and their NPC hirelings and a contact or two they had invested in. Then they were given the message by the dragon that he considered the issue "done."
Watching their faces as the company blew up on that little trid scene was priceless. They had gotten complacent. Now, I didn't wipe out their savings, or their little stashes all over Seattle of arms and cash and such, but it was a big reminder to them that they were still pretty small fish in a big, big pond. Then, as they were sitting at the table having made the wise decision to let the dragon's reps leave first, sorting out just what the hell were they gonna do now, the lights went down. Renraku was going offline. That group of runners is still finding their way out.
So, I like backstory; I like for the characters to have defined living places. All my PC's have drawn out plans of their abodes and locations pinned on the map where they are located. Not all of them have ever come up to any great detail, but it's nice having them there for when I need to. If they blow it and get followed home, then we can have them attacked there. At the same time, if they have created intelligent defenses, I don't try to "avoid" them. Sometimes the bad guys are stupid, sometimes they are surprised. Sometimes they are really good. Just depends on a bit of dice and the story. Which, is how RPG's should be in my mind.
Vlad