Eh, I think that's a bit iffy, to be honest. Seduction is a function of Con and given that most joygirls aren't going to be too thrilled about trying to geek shadowrunners (risky business indeed,) I would likely give the runners in question at least a behind the screen Judge Intentions test to realize their new playmate seems a trifle nervous. Were I to bother with such a stunt it'd likely be from an opponent I'd give more screen time to than I would your average grunt.

You mean hacking? Easy.

I think the best stuff doesn't involve skill rolls at all:

Putting pressure on one of a PC's contacts.

Randomly being a nuisance around a PC's residence or safehouse - not as in attacking the place, but as in having a drunken party or something in a sufficiently odd way to attract unwanted attention, get the player's interest, and be annoying to the characters all at the same time.

Putting some sort of simple but sturdy barricade across some route the PCs want to use for some reason (either because they were paid by more clueful enemies of the PCs, or for some reason of their own unconnected to the PCs).

Doing something stupid that draws law enforcement at the wrong time in the wrong place.

Offering misleading information or putting together a lynch mob out of some prejudice or something connected to one of the PC's race/religion/affiliation/something else everyone forgot about in a character background.

Commenting truthfully about some obvious friction between two PCs - perhaps as a cynical attempt to divide an opposition that obviously vastly outguns them.

Surrendering - as low power grunts, they may cause more problems this way than by simply fighting. It takes time to secure people. Fail to secure them and they can be a problem, but killing or even roughly incapacitating them may lead to reputation problems.

Similarly, running away (assuming cover is available to make that sane). The threat is still there, and may come back at a far worse time, possibly with reinforcements. Grunts don't have to come back with a vengeance every time they run. They just have to do it once...

Threatening to make a phone call or some such to someone that would cause the PCs trouble. Ideally, of course, this threat is made from behind cover. In desperate enough circumstances for the grunts, this could even be a bluff, hoping the PCs don't know whether or not the grunt can carry through on the threat.

None of that is the kind of thing to do very often. But, if it gets mixed in with some of the combat heavy stuff, and diluted with more normal challenges, and this kind of stunt might help prevent monotony. I definitely have to see if I can use some of the other ideas in this thread, if only to see what the PCs do in response.

Again, this isn't really a "Get Back At PC's" thread - it's a survival guide on how to use Grunts effectively and to devastating ends.

So here's a vaguely unrelated thought I was having the other day about the proper use of grunts in Shadowrun. This is more of a mechanical thing than a clever trick or tactic, but: Lieutenants. Use lots of lieutenants.

More often than not the problem with a grunt fight is not so much that it isn't challenging, and more that it's just boring. When the GM says "OK, so 20 gangers come running at you," that just isn't interesting. Normal thinking on lieutenants seems to be that they're the leader of a squad, the unnamed but clearly identified adversary. I'm thinking that numbers wise they should be more like 1 lieutenant for every 2 regular grunts. So if you're sending 6 cops at the players, make one of them the veteran cop with slightly better skills, some heavy duty cyber, and a custom gun, and make another into a UFC obsessed troll who has a bunch of martial arts skills and constantly refers to his baton as a tonfa, much to the annoyance of his coworkers. Now we've got an interesting fight.
Squad of eight soldiers? OK, 5 regular grunts, one heavy weapons guy, one combat mage, and the sarge.
A dozen yakuza? Pick 4 of them, give them a line of background, and hand them some cyber, or make them a physad, add some martial arts, or give them a cool gun and some extra skill with it. Get creative.

There are two reasons for doing this. First off, lieutenants provide more challenge, because they tend have more specialised hardware, and the skills to take advantage. A well placed marksman can do more damage to a sammie than twenty grunts running at him guns blazing. Second, they make combat encounters interesting. Each lieutenant has a story, something implicit in their description, that gets the players interested. It gets them engaged in the scene, instead of just rolling to hit a lot. Even making a lieutenant slightly ridiculous can be effective (see my UFC nutter example). That sort of thing often gets a one liner out of a player, or some similar response. Now the fight scene has become memorable, because you got the players to actively engage with it, instead of just pushing through it.

Grunts are a useful convenience, and they make life a lot easier for us GMs, but I for one know that I've been heavily over-using them. A little more time spent tailoring your combat encounters, just bumping a skill up here, changing out a weapon there, quick, small, easy changes, can make things much more fun for you and your players.

Amen to that brother.

Since this thread was ressurected, I'll talk about stuff that was posted 2 years ago. The Rio's favelas DO HAVE some gangs with RPG's and machine guns HOWEVER they were never, AFAIK, used. There was a police helicopter that was brought down by a gang, but they used assault rifles and someone got a lucky shot at the engine. The Rio's favelas are the close we have to day what Z zones look like in SR and they might have heavy weapons just to show off or intimidate but they know better.
The instant a rocket goes down to a building or car, there will be so much civil unrest that no politic simpathizer of the gangs will try to talk people down of a military response.

It seems to me they have that gear in the favelas for the possibility of a haevy response, then.

That makes me wonder then - would gangbangers have training to use RPG's? They'd have them, yes, but what kind of practice would they get?

Make for a lot of unintended damage rolls. Heeh.

Well, I know those in Rio have zero training, except if you count Counter Strike and Call of Duty practice
Perhaps the ocasional ex-military grunt that fired once or twice could have a better chance though.

Just remember, the government has offically given up on Shadowrun Z-zones. They do not provide services and the residents inside have no legal rights and are not citizens or even people.



This is wrong. The closest we have to a Z-zone today can be seen here. http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&safe...ved=0CCIQ8gEwAA

Remember, it's not totally insane out there. They even have hotels, hospitals, universities, and there is a government in theory, and markets and stuff. But they also have really big guns and staff and a demonstrated track record of using them on each others and intruders.

Favelas have government services and stuff. You can get electricity! The police occasionally go there for something other than the a massive riot or invasion! There isn't regular outbreaks of open warfare involving light vehicle units and massive civilian casualties!

That was done in an episode of Burn Notice, he traps a car with some thugs inside and then pours gasoline over them and then threatens them, it's a great intimidation/negotiation scene. I think it was a 2nd season episode.