I mean, if there is some "class" that everyone talks about how to make useless, either by a lv.10 manabolt or by FORCING them to go to a party, it's the gunbunnies
Yes it is, don't argue!
I yet have to see a slew of "anti-decker" messages, telling the little nerds to go out and get sniped by ADU (anti-deckers united), noone's telling the nerds "you HAVE to go to the party and you HAVE to be stripped of your deck"
Even though the deckers destroy even more than gunbunnys, the bunnys just shoot, the deckers make the game stop....

noone hates riggers and suggests that they HAVE to go into a anti-drone zone and have a party....

and not a single person hates the mages, not any more than "geek the mage" that is....

why does everyone hate samurai and adepts? why? *sniff*

Because samurai and adepts are generally the least likely/able to fill more than one role. It's pretty easy to make a combat decker, or a shaman/face, or somesuch as that. Adepts and samurai tend to be good at making things die, and... that's about it.

As for riggers, I've never actually had someone want to play a rigger in any game I've run, so I can't comment on that.

Funny. I see way more anti-Decker comments than I do Anti-gunbunny ones.

As Doc said, they are among the most versatile people when it comes to mundane skills. It's illogical to say you can make a good combat decker but cannot make a versatile sammy. A combat decker is basically a versatile gunbunny!

Well, y'see, one's a tail that has a dog attached, and the other happens to be a dog with a tail tacked on...

~J

Postscript: the analogy is mediocre: I'm not implying different valuations. Otherwise, it's the best I could come up with.

Personally, I hate riggers with a vengence. Only 1 I have ever had in a group was HORRIBLE...but I dont' like the whole idea of them in the first place either.
And please, in arm guns won't be confiscated...sure if your all powerful gun bunny carries only an AR...that is not gonna be allowed in a club, but no shit.

And if your character can't socialize at all to the point you think making you talk to a johson is torture, perhaps you aren't playing the game right. Maybe you should stop throwing 52 dice in shooting, and put 2 of those into ettiquette.(not saying you aren't now.)

But really, there is a point in all games where you have to get an assignment in a closed quaters situation, even a party, but you could get a sniper rifle or explosives and take care of that shit without going in at all.

Everybody has a use...yes lucky mages, always having weapons...well what about taking one into an Ares high security building, maybe one with a nice strong astral barrier and dampners, fuck them up real good, only you as the gunbunny can do shit.

Of course you can construct a bad situation for your character, deal with it, everyone has a weakness.

I guess it all comes down to what you think a gunbunny is. If all a character can do is shoot and talk shit, I don't have much use for said character as a GM. I have a tendency to dislike that type of character mostly because of the people who choose to play them. In my experience, they tend to be the people who know the least about guns and how to employ them effectively as well as the type of person who puts as little into character development as possible.

Not that you have to know everything about guns to play a character that uses them, but the sociopathic behavior and bravado that tends to come along with the archetypical "gunbunny" persona makes those characters pretty useless as shadowrunners. It can easily get in the way of good character development, and occasionally, a good game. Personally, I like multi-faceted characters rather than the kind that can be pigeonholed into a convenient title.

Well, I don't hate gunbunnies. Our group's gunbunny takes care of all our guns and is an expert at acquiring specialty ammo. She also has high Shooting skills and Instruction making her an excellent teacher for those of us who run with her that have less than stellar filling things with holes skills.

In our last session, my decker actually used a gun for the very first time! A nice solid hose down with his Ares Squirt loaded with DMSO & gamma scoplamine. Everyone was so impressed that our B&E guy even let me hold his spare pistol loaded with APDS while he and the gunbunny went after the guys in Secuirty Armor.

Gunbunnies have a problem that I see is a major problem, they tend to up the ante of a game.

Ok, you have a nice well rounded team, and a gunbunny, now if you throw combat at the team, one of 2 things tend to happen more than anything else.

1. its up to the strength to chalenge the team, and the gunbunny makes sort work of them before the others get their initiative pass.

2. Its up to the challenge of the gunbunny, while everyone else cowers in corners trying to avoid being hit, the gunbunny gets all the combat.

This in turn creates another problem, most players of shadowrun enjoy mixing it up in combat, now if this is the case, when either of the above happens, the rest of the players try to catch up to the gunbunny, usualy failing miserably and becoming mediorce at whatever they were before. while the gunbunny keeps on making himself a better gunbunny.

Now a Gunbunny isnt a real problem untill he becomes a Min-Maxed Gunbunny, usualy with reflex enhancers so high that you must put the entire teams of chipped cyberninjas with dikoted katanas against the team just to even register as a threat. I dont mind a Pistoleer with Smartlink -2 Boosted 2, and cybereyes packed with all the goodies, because although he may be able to peg people at any range with a TN of 4 He can be outclassed and outgunned, the problem is with the Wired 3 and Smartlink 2 Ares Alpha combatgun with Gasvent 4, custom grips, shock pad, and Mag3 scope with thermal and lowlight vision wielding gunbunny




Deckers dont realy pose a problem if the GM knows his rules, the Decker knows his rules and the GM dosent spend all his time with graphic depictions of the matrix. Same as rigging.

I have to say, I have seen what he's talking about on these forums, although if you read more carefully you will notice a lot of slams about awakened characters as well.

I think the problem that I've seen is when a GM complains that he can't handle a cybered character who shoots up all of his security guards. You will have posters explain rules for things like cover, as well as reasonable tactics for guards to use, but you also get... stronger replies. See, whenever someone brings up problem controlling their game's power level, a lot of folks seem to automatically assume the the problem character must be some twinked-out munchkin who must be punished.

At that point, half of the posts seem to be things like "See if he's so tough if someone snipes at him with a Barrett from the roof, or hits him with a Force: 8 Manabolt" or "Have the Yakuza get mad at him and assasinate him" or "Make him go to a party and see how well he does without his Ares Alpha and his piddly Etiquette skill" or "Have a decker mess up his savings accounts".


I don't think it's any bias against gun-bunnies. I think people are just too quick to assume someone is a munchkin any time the GM has trouble with such a character.

If in your game there are many combats, gunbunnies tend to hog all the glory.
That leads to situations
a) gunbunnies are only types that players make, or some combat mages/adepts;
b) there are many enemies that gunbunny cannot fight effectively (immunity to normal weapons,regeneration,concealment)
c) there is group that takes on gunbunny and another group that ambushes team;

Oh, and gunbunnies that clean buildings "because they can" do not live too long, if there is proper GM who do not let slide such things. I personally dislike not gunbunnies, but players who try to hog all the spotlight. And I think that is what others meant.

P.S. There are no real gunbunnies in my group, but one is aiming for that position.
Good luck to him, and he will not be hindered in any way.

Why does everybody hate gunbunnies?

Well, as the old saying goes "Artillery does not know friend or foe, only targets"
(Gunbunny is IIRC slang for the artillerymen aka Redlegs)

As for hating them personally - I don't. I hate mages and data criminals with a passion but weapons experts are totally okay (That's why I run CP far more often than SR)

If there's a class that unbalances the game it's Maggie Joe the spellslinger. Ruins 7 out of 10 plots and talks the rest to dead for fear of a scratch.

Gimme a group of HMG toting Troll mercs anytime!

Michael

I have no real problem with Gunbunnys, or Deckers (although I used to before I read the idiot's guide to the matrix thread), or Mages, or Adepts, or whatever.

I have never seen anyone play a pure Gunbunny... Gunbunny/Cvops was about the closest one I've seen.

Mages can take a fair bit of the game time, but then-again mixing magic with cyber/guns is the whole reason I play SR really... That and the kickass backstory.

[edit]Well: I actually have a DND Axebunny in another game I'm running right now, although he refuses to play anything but combat characters I'm hopeing that will decrease with time.

DND is also far worse for dedicated XYZ bunnies as it penalises you heavily for making your character versatile. Multiclassing? XP PENALTY![/edit]

I hate the corporations that make gun bunnies, I think they have gone to far. How do they do it though breeding rabbits with guns. When will the arms race end? At first it was just nasty sharp pointy teeth that will rip your head off, and now they have guns, I don't think I have enough Holy Handgrenades to hold out. It is all a plot by the NRA to make people like guns more. You see guns are ugly and and impersonal killing machines, but now with that cute furry face and floppy ears, how can hate such a cute little bunny? Can I get one a Petco?

Honestly though my currnet character plans on the gun bunny being around, I can use more of my karma on B&E skills and spells. And the money I save on ammo, now goes into my wardrobe for those nice parties. The only time my character was in a fight broke his hand knocking a guy out. Haveing a gunbunny drawing all the fire lets me get away safe. My character doesn't like the gunbunny because my characters personality is a perfectionist and a neat freak and the gunbunny is a slob that doesn't give a shit about anything but beer and pizza. But uses him because he can see the usefulness of him, for no. Our current gunbunny is my little brother and has only been playing SR on and off for about 2 years, he came from the D&D crowd (which I got him into ). He is slowly learning that he needs to diversify his character since we made him sit out a few games. Well he sat in the car waiting for all hell to break loss. He had a very boring day. When we play we take into account what the team is made of. I don't know I have never had a problem any character in the game. We ahd some strange characters also an aspiring televangelist, an udercover narc who was addicted to novacoke, a guy who spent 7 years game time in a bar then had an epiphany one night while drinking and decided to be bigger then Al Capone, a guy who was extremely homophobe but got his ass in a sling and had to go to a gay fixer for help so was in complete misery taking orders from a person who he would rather kill, and list of oddities goes on.

I would like to second Glyph's post, and add a little cynicism of my own. Whenever anyone complains that they have a problem handling characters, everyone assumes that it's some munchy character or a bad player. I've seen an awful lot of GM's post that they don't seem to have any trouble dealing with character X, or archetype Y. Personally, I've never had problems with gunbunnies. They have a role, they do it well, and if they don't diversify they spend a lot of time bored. I don't have a problem with deckers. I don't have a problem with riggers. Magic offers a lot of very clever solutions to problems, but never once have I had it derail an adventure (probably because my adventures have no rails). All i'm saying is sometimes...SOMETIMES...the GM just sucks, and needs to get back on the other side of the screen. (this does NOT apply to inexperienced GMs who are working hard to improve, only to GMs who have consistently sucked for years) I'm not saying that this is the case here, but there's always posts on here about people complaining about how to deal with something in their campaign. And usually they're good questions about ligitimate problems, and the people on here give a lot of really helpful answers. But pretty consistently, about once a week, I see one that just makes me conclude that maybe that person just can't handle the job.
(reading over the post) Wow, that was kinda nasty. I must be in a worse mood than I thought. I guess I'm sticking up for the gunbunnies, in my own bitter way, and I'll try to be more cheerful in my next post. That's just been building up and had to be said. Cheers.

As Glyph pointed out, it's not the character type nearly so much as the "hack 'n' slash" player who does nothing but fight and gets obnoxious when there isn't fighting.

Creative players can make any character type interesting and multi-faceted. Narrow-minded, personality-challenged players can make any character type dull and frustrating.

-Siege

I'm the GM of an 8 person (including me) group.
Our best role-player is playing a complete gun-bunny. She is such a complete gun bunny that she has 0 points in social skills. And it's played out.
She's hyper and twitchy and completely impatient with people all the time. Every time she opens her mouth on a run, other than to give orders in a fight, it costs the party money. And everyone loves it, because the character is played well. Her player is forced by the party to wear a ball-gag whenever they go to meets, and they try to find ways to leave her "pulling security". But she always wants to go.
Sure substituting rolling for role playing is bad, but there's nothing wrong with both.

What Siege said, plus class: gunbunny tends to attract a lot of the incompetent players. I think it's because it doesn't require as much imagination or thought as the other classes.

I started up my grunge game saying no less than 5 times, this is grunge, you will suck, you will have no money. I set the weapons at nothing with a SI greater than or equal to 1 (YES! Street Index. So predators, some hold outs and knives. I kinda missed that availability column, oops). Colt Manhunter is a 'nice' gun and these people are using shotguns made out of PVC pipes and bags of nails. Nevertheless, one character set his primary skill at assault rifles. *sigh*

slay all blatantly stupid people. (He did eventually die, but only because he posted all of 4 replies in the online game, all in the OOC thread. Maybe there wasn't enough random violence?)

If the gun bunny is being a glory hog, it isn't their fault. The GM just needs to get a bit more creative in how to keep all players involved in the game. The GM simply has to think like a movie director. intermixing scenes works quite well to keep the game moving for ALL players.

EXAMPLE A:
gun bunny + decker = Obviously the gun bunny can be taking on the security guards and drones to cover the decker's meat body. Switch on and off between combat rounds and matrix activities.

EXAMPLE B:
gun bunny + mage + rigger = A security blast door closes separating the gun bunny from the rest of the team. 2 separate groups of security guards close in on the area from each side of the door. In this situation, the mage and the rigger can fight without the gun bunny there to help them. To make it interesting, perhaps the rigger needs to work on security rigging the door's system to open it up again while the mage struggles to protect them until the door is finally opened to reunite the team.

EXAMPLE... The possibilities are endless.

That's one thing I love about riggers. They make [the stupid, munchy type of] gunbunnies obsolete.

~J

How is that? I want to be prepared, if someone takes the rigger

Skim the Rigger 3 book.

-Siege

Drones. Lots of drones.

~J

Thanks. I prefer Kagetenshi answer, because I haven't memorized even main book yet. So taking other books is kinda hard. I just do not see what makes say 5 drones so better than gunbunny.

5 Drones means 5 targets, and it also means all five can concentrate their fire on one target, or they can disperse their fire between five targets.

1 Gunbunny means 1 target, and it also means that it can only fire at one target, generally.

I didn't understand the basic question of this thread. I like gunbunnies, they usually have a low enough willpower that an influence spell will keep them loyal and once the grenade launcher starts going "geek the mage" is no longer the first thought amid the opponents.

I've tried to play all of the archetypes, and while I'm partial to Riggers, my gunbunnies filled needed niches.

Yea, someone who's all guns does have a limited usefulness (only when you're shooting things), but when the drek does hit the ventilator, they're very handy to have in the area. The troll with the LMG does wonders with supressive fire (targeting those five people with one person... which makes is simple for the rest of the team to hit them), and all you have to do is drop a bullet-barrier on him and he's (mostly) safe. But as others have said, it doesn't take all that much to make a diversified character: Sure Gunbunny knows everything about guns (three weapon-classes, build/repair for two of 'em, has the firearms fixer to get everyone the mil-spec ammo, etc), but they also are handy when something happens, and you need to get your own gun repaired. Or when you need to fence the guns you looted from the Yak corpses. Or when you co-opt a street gang to protect your doss by giving 'em access to something better than zip-guns.

They're niche characters, but then all of the 'archetypes' are, if they're static in those archetypes. With a bit of diversification, they become people, rather than 'classes', and then they develop some character. Until then, they are just 'things'.

But I think that's a bit too much philosophy for the time being

To expand on what Tanka said: from kilometers away a rigger can control six MMG-equipped rotodrones flying around and killing everything right out of the gate at chargen (I believe 30 kilometers is the best I've done for range). For subtlety, they've got microdrones that can crawl around and spy on everything. More than a few GMs have houseruled that you can't mount rifles on drones because they make snipers obsolete otherwise (a Sensor 5 drone flying around in the sky with a sniper rifle will eat everything in its path, if used intelligently). And worst of all, as I said at the start, you can have multple drones going at it at once. They're not unbalanced as long as the GM is sharp, but they will eat a combat-dedicated sammy any day.

~J

Plus they make thousands of Juilenne fries! What gunbunny can claim that?

Hey, don't forget monowhips.

~J

I yet have to see a fighter character (AKA gunbunny, AKA samurai, basically the same thing, shoot the target, repeat as necessary) with a willpower of less than 5, the smart ones get willpower 6 and magic resistance 4, to make sure that the pesky "friendly" (yes, most mind-controlling magic comes from the asshat mage in the party that wants to be the GM for the party, controlling their every move...) mage will have a slightly harder time to screw them over.....

and, with the rigger part: That's what i mean, a rigger can be himself in social life and he can be the 4-5 drones with MMGs and mortars during the missions....

but does everyone reply "A little gigantic maximized übarEMP field should force him to eat quite the dumpshock... BWAHAHAHA! Look at me! I can screw riggers over!" if someone asks for help with a rigger?
didn't think so..... because riggers are for "Better" players, the ones who's characters won't touch a gun, only his foci/cyberdeck/VCR/whatever as long as it's not a weapon......

Everyone needs a backup weapon.

"In other news today, a vegetable-cutting accident at the local Ichiban restaurant left three dead and two more hospitalized in critical condition yesterday. Witness reports that one of the deceased cut vegetables with a monowhip have not been confirmed."

~J

that's possible, but when i said "gunbunny" when i started the thread....
i meant anything that shoots and is meant to do it well
now, for some strange reason people come from d&d and robocop and seem to think that "ooh, look.... guns.... höhöhöhö......" and they play fighters (whatever, that's the new general term for the shooting people)...
this is NOT their faults
it is YOUR faults for not telling them the truth, and how a character should be made.... you could do that but NO! you prefer to hit them with a force 10 manabolt.....

fighters are my favourite characters, i love the thought and feel of going max payne/joe zombie/robocop on a couple of security guards/drones/gangers/that stupid prat mage that wanted to controll your mind, jumping from box A to box B, shooting on the way, of course with bullet time

but alas, i cannot do this without taking many security precautions.....
Step A: Get max willpower and magic resistance 4
Step B: Get negotiations/etiquette/both at force 4-6
Step C: Get the "Charisma Phermones" to get your effective negotiations/etiquette to 6-8
Step D: Get biotech at force 4-6

after having done all that i can start creating my character..... otherwise the GMs i've had thus far would like nothing better than throwing a manabolt at me if my character looked at a guard in the wrong way...
and if my negotiations/etiquette/both doesn't suck my GMs never seem to "force" roleplaying on me in the same way.... strange huh?
Even stranger: if the mage has a body of 2 and is about as finesseful as a spasmatic rat, and about as charismatic as well, the GM won't snipe him for manabolting his main nemesis, he won't force the mage to roleplay, and strangely he won't shoot the mage with even a predator as well.....

oh well, i guess it's the fighters destiny, to be ever hated by the "better" players, the ones that plays the way "better" and more "role-playable" and "less munched" deckers, mages and riggers......

why us? why not the mages? the pesky asshats that love to controll you because it's fun.....

bleh....

Ok, I've finally figured out what you're trying to say.

You're saying that your group sucks. Fine. Great. Slap your GM a few times for me, and shoot the players. I have yet to encounter a mage that tends to CT the other players, and anyone who tried would probably get smacked around anyway (remember, magic is pretty easy to notice).

In the meantime, I'll keep right on making gunbunnies' lives a living hell, because they deserve it.

~J, leaving quiet the fact that he makes everyone's lives a living hell.

Interesting -- no mage has ever controlled my character more than once.

It sounds like you've been in a slightly biased crew.

-Siege

but WHY does the fighters deserve to die?

and i've played with many groups.... most GMs (when i wasn't) tried to make my life a living hell.....
after i added the holy steps i mentioned earlier my survival rate has more than quadrupled......
because i managed to destroy the GMs "BWUAHHAAHAHAHAHAHA! POWER TRIP!!! BWAHAHAHA!!!! FORCE *1 higher than i can survive* MANABOLT!!! BWAHAHAHAH!" moments, if he DID throw a force.... REALLY high.... manabolt at me it would be even more obvious than it is that he's after me......

my question is: Why is the holding and proper using of a weapon a reason to die a gruesome death?

Like Kage said, your crew sucks.

Granted, I've never been present to watch you play, but based solely on your posting, I'd say your crew is just obnoxious and is targeting you specifically.

Which means you may need to find another crew.

Now, if they happen to treat any and all fighter-types like that, then take heart -- it's not just you. Their hearts, if at all possible.

-Siege

well, as i said: i've played with many groups, most of the time i'm the fighter, and most of the time i'm the one to be targeted..... by everything.....
but after having used my 4 steps on the character it just becomes ridiculous, with the extreme power rush that the GM seems to find necessary to make it fun, this ruins for the whole group and after a short while i either leave or am forced to GM.....