Great topic! I'm loving some of these ideas.

If you want RL examples of how gangers fortify their turf try to get ahold of the History Channel's Gangland episode about the Gangster Disciples of Chicago. They talk a lot about Cabrini Green, and how for years during the 90's the police were afraid to enter for fear of being killed. Barricaded doors, tunnels through walls, snipers- they basically had a crack-infested gang fortress. And I doubt anyone would argue that those guys were geniuses...

I would argue that being a successful gangster requires a great deal of intelligence, ambition, ingenuity, and savvy.

I had a runner team in a skyscrapper in the Barrens, for along while they lived on the 60th floor with no elevators. Two where fitness freaks and one could fly. They had barricaded three of the four stairwells. Most trouble just waited for them to come down rather than brave the 59 floors of stairs and the occasional rain of concussion grenades.

I had a team trying to go thru a gang of grunts in order to get to the leader of the gang. The instructions were simple go to the gangs hideout which wsa clearly pointed out as being in the basement of an ruined apartment building in the barrens. They were also told not to use the front door. The Gang leader didn't like to be disturbed.

SO of course the team gets cocky and sends the troll down the stariwell to "knock" on the front door. I even gave clues as to what was going to happen by having signs posted all over the stariwell. Especially pointing out one that read "Knock, and we Knock back."

Lets just say two grenades was overkill in getting chunky troll salsa.

No one figured to follow the advice and go to the back. It was a consesus that the grunts would be expecting that. It doesn't take much common sense on the grunts part if the players have none.

heh, makes me think of a merc game i played in. we expected pat-downs so we left the guns out of the way and planned for some way to get hold of them. lets just say we overestimated the enemies cleverness...

Don't forget to use crowds of innocent bystanders. A crowd of pedestrians and one fellow with ten pounds of dynamite hidden under his coat make for a nasty surprise.

Similarly, consider using biological things. Spread feces or dirty needles in places as traps or weapons. Failing all else, it may make your players think twice.

Seriously,

What did your pcs do to make you want to kill them so bad I mean besides being annoying and always ruining the game

-Josh

heh, urban jungle guerrilla warfare, got to love it...

Ahhh, and here is the chance to clear up some of the not seeing eye to eye between you and some of the other posters on here, toturi. So you'd say that a lot of posters here would have that? And do you think any of us has had any training? It's safe to say you could assign the same skills to gangers, especially the ones who have reason to be "holed up" in their safe house. We have that knowledge because we play a game and think it's cool. Your average drug dealer in today's world has to think about that sort of thing as a matter of course, because he actually risks severe consequences for intruders into his sanctum.

Not to say Toturi is wrong, but here is what is wrong with the basic supposition that people seem to be attaching to him.

The guidelines listed are the stats for the AVERAGE ganger. Just like the stats for the average Joe on the street probably won't have much variance in attributes or skills, and won't include specialized skills. However, we all know that in any given group of people, at least some will be exceptional in one regard or another, and some will have some specialized skills. Some may be plumbers, some electricians, some accountants and so on, but ultimately everyone will likely have one or two things which make them different from 'average'.

If you are grabbing only 1 or 2 gangers, most likely they will be like the baseline as toturi indicated, or at least very close to that. On the other hand, if we're talking about a hundred gangers, or a group which has survived for a while and so has been tested by battle and is more experienced, you're more likely to find more variation. One ganger might have a rank or two in demolitions because of past work with a construction company (legitimate or not). Another may have a point or two in tactics after being recruited as a canary for Wolverine security. They may know a particular, static tactic that they learned from somewhere else and has been tremendously successful, and so they kept doing it without really understanding all of why it works, or being able to produce another successful tactic. The point is, the more brains the gang has to draw on, or the more time and pressure they have to refine their techniques, the more likely you are to encounter aberrant tactics, some of which may prove to be very ingenious and dangerous.

Your average ganger in the SR world evidently doesn't have that skill. Even a full on PC archetypical ganger doesn't have this skill. As I have posted many times, you are not your PC.

Nezumi, you would be correct, if you were talking about the real world. In the SR world, however, even the Grunt lieutanent gangers do not have much skills either. If you wish to have a ganger that has a certain useful skills that deviates from the norm, then you'd have to create a Prime Runner. If a ganger were to have such skills, he would however quickly rise up the ranks anyway, therefore justifying his Prime Runner status.

Some great ideas in here.

I like the idea of gangers using their enviroment to kill, maim, or disrupt runners. I have this image of gangers with an underground lair, and old septic tank buried above them. Should the runners attempt to breach in through their tunnel network the gangers can knock a pipe loose and flood a designated kill zone with 30 years of vile shit and used condoms, mixed with a little gasoline to make things extra lively. Molotov cocktail applied for color.

Now you have runners covered in diseased burning ganger shit in an enclosed area. I'm going to wager they probably didn't see that coming.

Hm...how about falling anvils or burning pianos...they do deal considerable damage.

Sorry couldn't resist.

I never had a problem to face players with challenges that are dangerous, but not over the top. Then again... I never really wanted to kill them - but then again, any ST would succeed in that if he wanted. Isin't the game more about keeping your players busy, challenged and enjoying the game?

That's my opinion but players are often gluttons for punishment. Plus I think almost dying makes for more exciting stories than "We walked all over those gangers in a stand up fight".

Or to use my own example:
Story 1: Players do a raid against an underground ganger den and rush through a series of tunnels smashing gangers like fruit at a Gallager show. They shoot the head ganger in 2 IP's, pat themselves on the back and head home.

Story 2: As above except that about halfway through the run they find themselves boxed in and covered in burning shit. The tunnel they were in begins to fill with thick black smoke and a spattering of automatic gunfire starts whittling away at them. Pulling together they fashion ghetto gasmasks from their medikits, burst through a weakened door and bring the fight to the enemy. A pissed off character double taps the ganger leader for "Shitting all over his day".

And of course I'm trying to avoid story option 3: Players find out it's all a diversion as the FAE goes off under their feet and they die instantly. Their GM giggles uncontrollaby, pats himself on the back for having the biggest paper dick and tears up their character sheets in front of them. Moo Hoo Ha Ha.

But I like option 3. It remind me of DI L--.

Eh?

DI L--: "When I say go I want to see you shower of sh1te move away from here with the speeeeed and grace of a 1000 well greased gazelle and reappear, as if by magic in No 2 Dress - you have two minutes from my word of command"

"G"

"Wait for it"

"GO"

Another one I remember from our Remembrance Day parade: I was Lost Laura after that day.

DI: What's the time?
Me: It's uh, 13.21 sir.
DI:There is only one time on this God's Green Acre and that is 1, 2, 3, 1 !
DI: Get this mong cunt off my ground!

The official title for Drill Instructor in our case is Regimental Sergeant-Major.

Ah... Drill Instructor? That makes a great deal more sense.

No where do the rules in SR indicate that all NPCs must have the exact same stats. Again, these are the stats for the AVERAGE ganger. Average implies there are derivations on both sides. Some gangers will have Logic 1 and fewer skills, some will have logic 4 and more skills. Even most runs with gangers in them show that deviation from the norm. Food fight included quite a range of different characters. All of them had approximately (on average) the same stats and spread of skills, but each had a slight change one way or another. Hence why we have an average across a group and not a group of clones.

Also, I don't think demolitions 2 makes someone a lieutenant, muchless a prime runner. Do you think demolitions 2 makes a character so extremely powerful that he is now capable of running his own gang?

We do have clones. RAW says so.

Common sense?

There is no Common Sense in SR, there is only Zool.

There is no Zool in SR either.

WARNING: LONG POST WHICH CONTAINS MY THOUGHTS ON THE TOPIC, BUT DOES NOT DIRECTLY RESPOND TO ANY PREVIOUS POINTS. FEEL FREE TO SKIP.



I'll take this as a starting point to throw in my 2 cents on this debate (I'm deliberately not responding to any of the current arguments because they're kind of getting out of hand). Long post ahead, feel free to skip past right now if you like (really, I don't mind. Not at all. *sniff*)

So let me start by laying out my assumptions about the game world, just so we're clear:
I believe that the Shadowrun system does not have an "Average" attribute, it has low average and high average, or 2 and 3 respectively. This is supported by the statting for the sample contacts, who all have stats in this range, except in areas where they will have focused on seriously improving themselves. Indeed, Contacts tend to have mostly 3's because most of them are reasonably interesting people, with reasonably challenging jobs (hence, why they make good contacts). The stats for the Janitor are almost all 2's, except for Strength and Willpower, which are the only attributes that his work really stresses (Willpower for working ridiculous hours, one presumes).
If 3 represents a level in an attribute that is used professionally, then the same applies to skills. Anyone who does something professionally should have a 3 in that skill (see the Janitor's Perception, this being the only really applicable active skill for his work). All this seems obvious, but it's good to make things clear.

I use the Grunt rules, but I tend to assume that any given Grunt probably has a few skills different, especially in their Knowledge skills. I just don't intend to actually use any of these skills during a crowded fight scene, because it slows things down. Yes, they are all beautiful and unique snowflakes, I just don't have time to represent that fact directly. The Grunt rules are a deliberate abstraction for this very reason. Where it fits, of course, I'm not above tweaking someone's skill level up or down a bit, if it happens to keep things interesting.
That being said, I also assume, even if they are not present in the fight, that every group of grunts should involve at least one Lieutenant. This Lieutenant's role might just be to organise the group's tactics and tell them how to handle situations. It's pretty much just fair to assume that any group likely to be in a fight will have someone they look to for leadership.

What all this comes down to is that whilst I will use the stats for enemies pretty much as written during a fight (except where I really need someone with an odd skill to throw people off), I do not intend to let a lack of appropriate skills in the write-up from preventing enemies from using interesting tactics, when it's appropriate. I just assume that they have some guy who knows about explosives or medicine or whatever.

Finally, I see the GM's role as being to help the players tell a good story. This often means that I come up with all of the important story elements like the plot and the villains, but it's still not my story to tell. It's their story. Now in line with DocTaotsu's remarks above, a good story means good challenges for them to react to and roleplay off of. Note well that one of the coolest parts of DocTaotsu's story there is the part that a player came up with. The player only comes up with it, however, because the GM creates the right circumstances.

So on to the Grunt tactics:

When running Grunts, I don't focus on making them dangerous, but on making them interesting. Think about who these people are, and how they will react to the situation. Most grunts aren't just there to fight, they're there, as has been remarked by others, to get a job done.

Ordinary Gangers: Nothing special, just a regular street gang. These guys aren't interested in fighting, they just want to push their supply, make a few bucks and get out. Now at the top of the gang there is guaranteed to be a smart guy or girl who really knows how to a turn a profit. Average gangers are likely to pull a pistol, fire off a few rounds, and run like hell. They're no threat, and their tactics will generally suck, because they have no interest in tactics. On the other hand it's a fact that most serious drug gangs tend to funnel money back into their communities in order to generate good PR (seriously, look it up). Attacking a drug gang won't exactly piss of the Star too much, but it will leave the Runners with a bad rep in that community. Now that being said, these guys are street smart, they know the area, and they can go to ground anywhere. With the afforementioned investment in the community, and the kind of extended families that you're often likely to see, they can easily hide out in some spot where people will cover for them. The other way that these guys can be dangerous is sheer numbers; if the Runners really stir up the hornets nest they will be getting attacked from all sides. I make liberal use of the Knockdown rules as a way of putting low Professional Rating mooks out of the fight quickly. I just assume that any mook knocked down is going to think better of getting up and just lie there playing possum, or crawl away when nobody is looking. They're also likely to be pretty winded and generally feeling shit. When these guys do actually come looking for payback they won't be looking for a straight up fight. One of the most damaging things I ever did to a group of Runners was have a street gang track them to their hideout, and burn it down with a few molotovs. Obviously then the fire service turned up, along with the police, who had some interesting questions about the sheer amount of military hardware in this burned out rubble.

"Professional" Gangers: We're talking named gangs here, the stuff from the various city write-ups. These guys are the heavyweights of the gang world. They take attacks very seriously, and they respond with deadly force. Automatic weapons are common, as are guerilla tactics. Most of this stuff has already been covered. I'll add that Go Gangs should always be making use of hit and run tactics to avoid retaliation. IED lobbed from a passing back is pretty damned effective at making the Runners duck and cover. Another thing to consider is that reasonably well armed gangs have no qualms about breaking out automatic weapons, include subbies and AK-97s. Make liberal use of the suppressing fire rules; no recoil makes it much easier for the ganger with the dice pool of 5 for automatics to actually score a hit if he's lucky. A couple of guys laying down suppression whilst someone else throws a molotov can be very effective.
(Re: the molotov discussion, yes cooking off isn't such a huge issue, but you're still on fire. I'm sorry, but I don't care if you happen to be a twelve foot Troll, being on fire is really scary. The lizard brain is going to take over here, and you're not going to be thinking about who else might be attacking you while you put the flames out. Call for composure tests to keep their cool, if they fail then treat at least the next attack as being unexpected, so no defence roll).
As we move up into the serious big-namers like the Halloweeners and the Ancients, we'll see scarier hardware, more cyberware, and commensurate tactics. Once your gangers are toting wired reflexes and rocket launchers, they're going to much more upfront about attacking the runners. They're also going to be braver about attracting police attention with open warfare as they gain notoriety. At the low end these guys can still be paper-tigers (which are useful for reminding the players that they are still pretty damn badass). At the top end, and if sufficiently provoked, they can be very scary; after all, groups like the Ancients have dealt with Runners before, and they will again.

Beat Cops: First things first, these guys know about Runners, and they know not to take them on without backup. A single patrol car is going to have a couple of cops with L36's or Thunderbolts, and a couple of Remington 990 shotguns, probably with either smartlinks or laser sights, depending on how well funded they are. They'll likely be packing gel or stick-n-shok ammo. Each of them has an inhaler of Jazz, which they'll be huffing as soon as the shit goes down. Now one patrol car taking on Shadowrunners is going hunker down, take cover, and call for backup. They'll return fire, but only to try to keep the Runner's heads down. Also remember that cops are going to try to keep any civilians safe. If the Runners talk, the cops will talk. They won't negotiate directly, but will offer to bring in a police negiator who will discuss their demands. Depending on the officer in question, they may also be willing to let the Runners walk if it keeps a fight from breaking out in a crowded area; no point in them getting killed along with a lot innocents if they have no serious chance of catching the gang of heavily armed psychos with special forces level combat skills.
Once they have numbers on their side, cops will still fight defensively, using cars to block off streets, pen the Runners in whilst keeping civilians out. They'll make good use of cover, they'll use pistol fire to suppress (chew up Defence pools) whilst the guys with Remingtons line up takedown shots (aimed shot, holding action until guys with pistols have opened fire). Again, remember the Knockdown rules here: Shotguns with Gel might not hurt a Runner much after armour, but they will put him on his ass.
All this is a holding action to keep them in place whilst the SWAT team gets there. For SWAT tactics, see Rapid Response Team below.

Corpsec: We're talking the same deal here mostly; the difference is that Corpsec rarely have vehicle, and they're working in their home ground. Their primary interest is still going to be protecting Corp assets, including employees. Their job, as concerns the Runners, is to pin them down until Rapid Response arrives. Now a lot of this shouldn't actually involve the grunts at all. They'll be shutting down as much of the facility as they can, shutting off areas using fire-doors (I mean the huge mechanical kind that block off a whole corridor) or other security doors, and making use of whatever defences the facilty has. Don't go overboard with the traps; people have to work here. Eventually the compensation payouts to families of workers accidentally killed by the ACME DEATH-O-TRON 5000 is just going to cut too deep into your profits. Try to avoid the "video-game-ism" of huge areas of a facility that only exist as places to put more automated weapons. A few "kill zones" designed specifically to protect very sensitive areas are perfectly reasonable, but use them in proportion to the value of whatever the Corp is looking to protect.
When Corpsec does get into a fight they'll be huffing Jazz, making use of cover, and using their knowledge of the facility to arrange crossfires. Remember, if a runner is being attacked by an opponent he can't see, he doesn't get a defence pool. Use one group of Corpec to pin them and draw fire, whilst another group sneaks round behind them and attacks from a hidden position. Even a dice pool of 6 to 8 will do fine when the target can't dodge. This surprise attack is also a good place to spend some of the grunts edge pool. It'll make the Runners sit up and listen.
If they have a mage on staff, they should probably just summon a spirit to tie up the runners, and then use their magic, or another spirit (either the first or the second will be a bound spirit, naturally) to buff up their team-mates. A group of Corpsec rocking concealment or silence becomes a whole lot scarier, especially with the afforementioned tactics. Using spells to boost Agility makes a sniper much scarier (by sniper, we could just mean the dude with the shotgun here). These tricks work for cops too, if they have a mage with them.
Spider back-up will mostly handle many of the aforementioned tasks, as regards shutting off parts of the faciltity. They will also provide Corpsec with constant intel on where their targets are. Feel free to have any Corpsec with access to their internal CCTV making liberal use of blind-fire; shooting through internal walls, lobbing grenades around corners, that sort of thing.
My rule of thumb with Corpsec is that they should provide enough of a challenge that avoiding a fight is a legitimate option in the player's minds. If they do decide to duke it out, they will do fine so long as they have a solid plan of attack, and so long as they get in and out before reinforcements show up.

Rapid Response Team: At this point law enforcement and corporate security become one and the same. By the time a SWAT team is on site they will have full plans of the facility, and will probably have been given control of any security systems that can be handed over; the same can obviously be expected of Corporate Rapid Response.
Here we're looking at three stages; The first is intel. Use microdrones, internal cameras, astral mages, spirits, their own files (plus anything they can get through inter-agency co-operation), data-searches, divination, and whatever else. Depending on the Public Awareness of the Runners, they may well be going in with tactics and weapons suited to what their targets are using. They should certainly at least have an idea of what kind of firepower the runners are packing, roughly how much ware, and possibly magical potential.
An RRT will go in with reasonably heavy armour; around the 8/6 mark at least, possibly more depending on how you handle high levels of armour vs body. I reccomend using the "Custom Fit" rules from Arsenal, and not counting helmets towards encumbrance (though feel free to assess a Perception penalty instead), allowing Body 4 SWAT officers to actually wear SWAT armour. They'll be using SMGs (occassionally assault rifles, but usually only if the targets are heavily armoured, as rifle rounds can penetrate walls easily and cause collateral damage), and they'll be carrying Flashbang grenades aplenty. One guy will be toting an ArmTech MGL-12 loaded with smoke, gas, or splash rounds (experiment a little with what chemicals to include in these, but don't go overboard. These guys still work on a budget). They'll very likely order a spirit to manifest from a different angle of attack just before they go, distracting the targets from the real avenue of attack. Spirits see in astral all the time, so they can happily fill the room with thermal or regular smoke. Cook off Flashbangs, ordering the spirit to go astral just before they lob them in. Again, the mage is likely running concealment on the team, or possibly an illusion to cover their assault. The important thing here is that even when the shooting starts, the Runners should have no idea where the attacks are coming from. A lot of the time they are going to be denied their ridiculously enhanced defence pools.

The RRT is clearly going to be using a TacNet, which will be giving them all pretty ludicrous bonuses, on top of their Smartlinks. The Lieutenant should have high Leadership skill to keep the team working together.
If the Runners actually get the drop on part of the RRT, they'll use suppressing fire and smoke to cover their retreat, whilst coordinating with the rest of their team to encircle the Runners and launch an assault. If the RRT is ever on the defensive like this, make use of all the tactics we covered for Corpsec. One part of the team will "play defence", holding the Runners up, whilst another part acts as reinforcements, coming from an unexpected angle.
The rule of thumb here is that actually being caught by a Rapid Response Team should be a very scary experience, unless the Runners are actually prepared for them and have found some way of entrenching. Generally groups like SWAT will not even enter a building until they have every part of their attack plan worked out in detail. Their attack will be swift, coordinated, and absolutely brutal. For the players, this is pretty much the result of really screwing the pooch on a run. The objective is not to kill them, of course, but to force the players into fighting a retreat, and generally getting the hell out of there, or coming up with a brilliant counter-attack. Even a counter-attack is only a way of buying time to escape, because by this point there will be more reinforcements coming.

Military: Now this is a completely different ball game. Let's be clear; regular military does not have the experience or the specialised training that Rapid Response has. SWAT are very good at what they do, and their weapons and tactics are much better suited to urban threat suppression. Military deal with warfare, which has very different rules. Now militaries do include units trained for "counter-terrorist" actions and the like. These units will operate a lot like Rapid Response Teams, and the same tactics should apply. Similiarly, specialist forces like the Rangers and Royal Marine Commandos (or their 2070 equivalents) will have the same kind of close quarter battle training that SWAT teams have. If the runners find themselves taking on regular infantry, the tactics they face will be quite different.
The advantage conventional military have is in their hardware, which means frag grenades, assault rifles, underslung grenade launchers, and light machine guns. Soldiers will take advantage of the superior range of their weapons; they will attack from a greater distance, preferably with their targets in the open and themselves in a fortified or well covered position. They will use camouflage, both natural and magical, as well as stealth skills to cover an approach as they move teams into positions that will deny their targets any cover. They will fire 3-round wide bursts, using smartlinks or tracers (and possibly TacNets). Machine guns will be set down on bipods for extra recoil comp, firing long bursts and suppressing fire. With 100 round belts they can afford to suppress often. They will cover advances and squad movements with thermal smoke, and they will use explosive grenades (lobbed and launched) to deal some serious damage to their pinned targets. Incendiaries are a nice update to the old "set them on fire with a molotov". Marksmen, probably armed with equivalent to WA-2100, though many sharpshooters use regular assault rifles, will line up shots on areas where targets are likely to expose themselves, with held actions to fire as soon as a target is available.
This trick of held actions to cover an area is worth considering for any of the tactics above; even untrained gangers can point a gun at a door and shoot the first guy to come through, even if twitchy trigger fingers mean they're as likely to end up killing a friend. Getting the initiative on the Runners like this can make a big difference to whether they flatten a fight, or come through with a few knocks, and may make them think twice about kicking down every door.
Held actions can also be used for bounding fire. One soldier puts himself in good cover, with a held action to shoot any target that enters his kill-zone (usually a street that they are trying to cross at an intersection). His team mates then run past one at a time. If anyone reveals themselves to shoot at one of the running soldiers, they must first beat the guy in overwatch on a surprise test, or he gets a pop at them as they lean out to fire. A three-round wide burst does the trick nicely here.
Finally, whenever possible, conventional military will make use of vehicles, from hummers to tanks. A hummer with a drone operated big fifty on top will really ruin a runner's day, and rightly so. If the Runners aren't packing anti-tank firepower or armed vehicles of their own, they should be making plans to get the hell out of dodge very quickly.
Trying to take on serious military hardware in a stand up fight should not be any player's first choice. By isolating a few enemies here and there, striking from ambush (most soldiers are actually not likely to be in anything heavier than about 8/6 armour jackets, as custom fitting is expensive) and not letting themselves get surrounded or caught in a cross-fire runners will do fine against soldiers. The problem is the sheer amount of suppressing fire and area attacks that soldiers can bring against them. Don't forget flamethrowers here either. They're a good way to flush anyone out of cover.
Remember, the goal here is not just to up the ante, but to make the fight interesting. Fighting conventional infantry should be a very different experience to fighting a SWAT team or a bunch of guerillas, requiring very different tactics on the part of the players.

Militant Freedom Fighters: Again, the rules change here. These guys have little or no funding, but probably have ways of getting their hands on crappy military hardware. Their training generally sucks (though this can change if a foreign power is backing them), as does their professionalism, but they are passionate, possibly even fanatical (though remember that these days many militant groups have lost their original cause after discovering how much money their was in drugs and kidnapping. It's hard to be pissed off about how shitty your country is when you're rolling in moolah. Of course most of the grunts are still indoctrinated and led to believe that it's "all for the cause" because it's cheaper than actually paying them. More money for the guys on top). They will make liberal use of explosives and suppressing fire, partly as a way of making up for a lack of real weapon skill, and partly because out in the jungles of wherever collateral damage is much less of a problem, as is alerting the cops. They will generally make good use of cover, and stealth. With their knowledge of the terrain hit and run tactics are in good supply here. Where they have the home-ground advantage, or just a little time to prepare, expect lots of use of booby traps. Just google "Vietcong" for ideas here; pits with spikes, grenade in a can, claymore mines, deadfalls, you name it. While you're at it, watch "Predator", and steal anything that Dutch uses; even tricks like slapping on wet mud to beat thermo can be very effective. Think of the Predator as the Runner (very likely stealth suit and all) and Dutch as a guerilla lieutenant of some kind, and you could really give the runners a bad day. Also, a lot of the more narrativist players will get a real kick out of realising that they've ended up playing the role of the villain.

Special Forces: Take a moment to glance over the Tir Ghost stats in the core book, and you should have a clear idea of how this works. Basically, if the Runners actually get ambushed by properly trained special forces, they're probably dead. First off, each of these guys is about equivalent to a very experienced Runner. Secondly, they are incredibly professional, coordinated, disciplined, and they have access to vast resources that the players probably don't. They will have numerous specialists (indeed, I feel that a special forces team should be statted entirely as lieutenants. There are no grunts here), covering matrix, magic, transport, sharpshooting, support, and anti-armour. They will have TacNet, Smartlinks, top of the line weapons, APDS ammo, various pieces of manatech, numerous bound spirits, whatever vehicles they need (including Banshees), four ranks in a martial art, high level encryption and firewall on their comms, and probably drone support.
Of course not every team is going to wheel all of these out. Ghost go in light and fast, but by the time you realise they're there, you're probably full of holes already. Other special forces, like Firewatch, use more in the way of milspec armour, support weapons, and underslung grenade launchers. Competence, teamwork, and overwhelming firepower will win the day. What all special forces will have is a depth of training and experience that will allow to draw on any of the tactics we've already discussed, as appropriate to their situation, as well as the ability to instantly adapt their tactics as a situation changes. For a team of Runners, going up against a special forces team should be like taking on a group of experienced, well equipped, and well connected shadowrunners. It's not impossible, but it even for experienced PCs it should be a huge challenge. In a game of glass-cannons like Shadowrun, the winner of this fight is likely to be determined long before the shooting starts.
A fun idea to consider, however, if you want to do something with special forces, would be to put them undercover, or cut them off from their supply train. No hardware, no backup, no vehicles. A special forces team working only with the weapons and gear that they can rustle up from their surroundings would an interesting challenge for a group of Runners, and might be a way of showing your players some neat tricks. It also promises to be a different kind of fight, one that will provide interesting new challenges, which as I've said already is what this is really all about.

The point here is that making mooks dangerous should not be a universal thing. Mook tactics should be situational, and should depend on both the level of threat you want the players to be facing, and to the particular goals of the mooks. If they're looking to protect corp property then leaving the runners with a clear exit is fine. If they know they're outclassed then there's nothing wrong with just protecting civilians and minimising damage. If they have access to military hardware, they should adjust their tactics to fit. Some fights should be easy, others should leave retreat as the only real sensible option.
This has two effects on your game; it keeps the players interested, as each fight presents different challenges for them to adjust to, and it makes the mooks more than just a bunch of numbers. Mooks don't have to have better stats to be more of challenge, they just need to be using better tactics. They don't always have to use the best tactics either; that's like giving your mooks 6 in every stat. It's unreasonable, and it just pisses the players off.

For anyone who got this far, I envy your patience. Hopefully some newer GMs might actually find some of these thoughts useful. In part I'm putting them down just to organise them, and this seems like a useful place to do it.

Perhaps this is why I don't play SR4.

I am really absolutely floored that they would make it a rule that all grunts use the same stats.

Not like I'm one to talk but...

HOLYSHITWALLOFTEXT!!!


Lot of interesting points although I would mention that gangers with access to military ware might not exactly be shit hot when it comes to using those new weapons in an appropriate manner. A drugged up troll who's used to wading into combat with a tire iron might not adapt his tactics to using that gyromounted MMG properly. Gangers with access to a weapon with SA/BF/FA might leap right to FA because... fuck yeah man that shits awesome!

Of course if you're using the mook rules you can always look at their professionalism rating to figure out who will and adapt and who won't. A 20 year Tir Ghost vet is probably 12 kinds of deadly with everything that's pointy. A 20 year beat cop is probably very intimate with his duty gear (reflected in extra dice via specialization, possibly signature weapon) but might not adapt well to milspec or some ganger streetline special. People usually like to do what they know, even if that's not exactly the best idea.

But it's all situational and they might find some innovative uses since they're coming from a different perspective.

Yeah, I did warn you

Trouble is, I find that my thoughts flow better when I sit down and just start writing. I'll try not to inflict that on people again any time soon.

Agreed on the gangers with milspec. That's very situational, depending on the experience of the ganger, and the level of professionalism in the gang. It's still generally a good rule that gangers will not apply military hardware as well as most basic infantry (though it's not unreasonable to throw in the odd ganger lieutenant who did a tour of duty). Similar to the deal with most militants and guerilla fighters. They have the hardware (not the best, but it's still milspec), but they often don't have the training or the experience to use it effectively.

There are many more examples than those I gave (and I'm bet everyone is glad I didn't elaborate them). Varying tactics between different militaries, looking at corp military vs regular military, looking at mercenary companies, desert wars veterans, military police, Humanis goons, Triad hit squads, angry mobs. Really I was just trying to illustrate the depth of thought that you can apply to grunt tactics, and particularly to making different grunts behave differently. Where this should come up is in the preparation for the run; when you write down the stats for the various mooks you expect to use, sit and think about how each enemy will fight. This will often lead to small adjustments to their skills or equipment, as appropriate to their combat tactics, their supply lines, and their environment.

Feel free to post more long text, your postings was very cool.

Standing in enlightment induced awe!!!
No I'm not the patient type but there is SO MUCH good stuff in your post that the game is well worth the candle!
I envie you for putting it together!

If this is the quality of what you inflict feel free to go on, you should go on!
This thread is for the exact porpouse of doing what you did, sharing ideas and tips about making opponents that are not just WoW style cannon fodder; go on with those exemples and lets hope that someone from CGL compiles theme as free web enhachment on shadowrun4.com, it's REALY great stuff so far.
(Ops forgot the please)

Playing lots of America's Army has taught me that apparently nade spam is t3h r34l pwn.

Just do an iraq and pass out the RPGs and mobile phones. Its not even unrealistic, you could just tape some CNN and have it playing in the background for when someone complains about 'poor gangers' having 'missiles'

Keep it realistic, have teams of 3, 2 guys with RPGs and one guy with an AK. His job is just to spam wildly so the RPGers can lock it down.

I'd argue against going over the top with that. Remember gangs and militants are very different things. Militants are less like (not "less", I'm not saying it doesn't happen) to steal each others weapons, because they have a common cause and a common enemy. Gangs have to worry about other gangs, so rocket launchers would lead to some very dangerous escalation. This leads to the second problem, which is that as soon as gangs start running around somewhere like Seattle with RPGs, you're going to see a huge upscaling in police presence. And by "police" I mean national guard, followed by regular army, and then UCAS Army Rangers. It's the same reason that runners will have trouble waving around that kind of heavy firepower, only on a much, much, bigger scale. Even out in places like the Redmond Barrens I don't really see this stuff getting all that out of hand.
Modern insurgent fighters also live in areas with plentiful access to black market firearms. Now we'll grant that North America clearly has some great black market pipelines, but probably not that great. Just because a runner can get ahold of a rocket launcher, doesn't mean every ganger on the street will be toting one.

Obviously a good deal of this down to your interpretation of the game. If you want a more Robocop / Judge Dredd inflected version of the Shadowrun world, go nuts. There are also plenty of places where this stuff is much easier to pull, like pretty much any of the "Feral Cities" we're hearing so much about. You'd probably get away with a fair bit in Caracas too, given the abbysmal law enforcement presence.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viet_Cong_and...egy_and_tactics

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viet_Cong_and..._battle_tactics

Enjoy-- I know I did.

I'll just throw in that any kind of mega-owned facility with extraterritoriality is likely to have an armory of some kind. Guards who start off with light pistols and tasers are going to emerge two to three minutes after the shooting starts with SMGs and body armor, and an essentially unlimited supply of ammunition. It's a great way to reward a fast, stealth approach. Hang around too long and the threat from relatively low-powered security forces starts to escalate.

If you can find the books... Grimtooth's Traps (there's a whole series of books).

Linkie: http://www.flyingbuffalo.com/catalyst.htm

While the traps have a high fantasy bend to them, pretty much all of the trap ideas can be expanded to SR. Some of the traps I've used out of that series were highly dangerous, yet easily exploitable by low level opposition.

At the same time, many of the traps are hysterical to use. Just reading through the books is grounds for a laugh filled evening or two. My old gaming group spent several evening reading the books we had and laughing uncontrollably at some of the traps.

Have fun with them if you buy them. Now that I have a link, I'll have to put them on my Christmas list.

Good thought there. The more little "real life" details like these you throw into your games, the more interesting your players tactics become.

The other option is the whole facility goes on lock down.

Fire doors lock, windows are shuttered, all key cards are revoked. You can exit the facility easily without a keycard, but every door leads to one central corridor to the exit. The guards use laser cut mag striped keys to get into general staff areas, but do not have access to server rooms or labs.

All doors are hollow plaster board with an inch of steel in them, all windows are plexiglass. The guard station over-looks the central entrance/exit.

If security is such an issue:
http://vulkan.files.wordpress.com/2006/12/panopticon.jpg

Right on. A medium-level facility might even switch over to a remote security rigger, who would have to buzz teams through doors until the security alert is canceled. Matrix-based security is more of a passive, access-based setup, whereas high security facilities like prisons would run anything security-related off of a rigger station.

Yeah, comes down to real fundamentals about how you think it works. I take the view that if they actually built walls around it they don't care.

I think you are giving militants to much credit. They are fundamentally the same sort of organizations (small tight core group with a large number of hangers-on, fight each other for turf, if your not black/white/yellow/fascist/communist/whatever enough and go into the wrong areas they will kneecap you. The difference is that their were huge cache's of weapons lying around in iraq, afganistan and russia, but much less so in Australia.

However there is clearly loads of firearms running around the barrens, so heck.

Ever played Vietcong on Vietnam level difficulty? It's funny because whereas in the normal difficulty settings the bad guys with the Mosin Nagants are the non-scary beginning-of-the-game opposition, on Vietnam difficulty they strike you dead so instantly and frequently that they are in fact scarier than the bad guys with SMGs.

Also because gangs rely heavily on the loyalty/respect/fear/protection of the communities they infest. Its the old "don't shit where you eat" rule. RPGs invariably cause massive collateral damage. You might kill your enemy, but if you blow up Mr. Chan's hardware store you alienate him (if he wasn't inside at the time), his family, everyone he knows and possibly everyone they know. Eventually that community will turn on the gang and they're fucked.

Open warfare on the other hand is a different animal. Sometimes you have that dynamic (Viet Cong in South Vietnam 1960s). Sometimes you don't give a fuck who you piss off (Somali militia during the Battle of Mogadishu 1990s) because you have all the power/guns/food.

I think this brings up a point that has been addressed elsewhere but is probably worth looking at again.

The prevelance of military weapons amongst gangers.

Generally speaking I'd say that it's a bunch of AK kids with a smattering of grenades, RPG's, and other cheap weaponry. But I think I'm ignoring vast amount of history that has passed between present day America and 2070+.

Let's take Seattle as an example. If my memory is serving me correctly there have been at least two major arme conflicts in the area over the last 30 or so years. Beyond that there's definitely been something of a cold war brewing between the Metroplex, Salish-Sidhe, Tir, and any of the other major powers. Go back even farther and we have a series of "conflicts" between NAN and UCAS/CAS forces both before and after the Great Ghost Dance. In other words I'd argue that nearly 60 years of conflict in the area will mean that there's a substantial stockpile of weapons floating around. Add to this the fact that the Barrens and the Ork Underground act as a vector for disbursing drugs and guns (thereby attracting the attention of organized crime and their very deep pockets) and I think you have a recipe for a vibrant trade in milspec weapons. Maybe not Azzie strikers with rating 6 seeker heads but definitely crates of "surplus" grenades, rockets, and assault rifles. Organized crime and even the corps have a major stake in keeping Z zones off the grid. It's a market for selling their drugs and their guns as well as a place for them to conduct business without having to worry about too many prying eyes.

I don't that's just my thought. Historically military build ups have always had a hard time keeping their books straight and I don't see that getting better anytime soon. Plenty of chaos and destruction for all sorts of things to go missing... all within a couple hundred miles of the Seattle Metroplex.

Good point. Its always difficult to apply a historical perspective to a hypothetical future, but you're probably right. Seattle 2070 is probably more like a war zone than any city in North America today. But I would maintain that a gang that blows up their own turf isn't going to last long. Now, if you happen to be rollin' through your enemies turf with a RPG in your Impala... all bets are off.

Per the descriptions in the books, the Z-zones are exactly like Mogadishu. Its not even clear how they get food because they live in walled compounds where everyone inside is an 'unperson' that isn't even allowed to have a bank account.

They certainly don't have a government, law and order or anything else other than thuggery 'might makes right' style stuff. So, yeah, in essence its Somalia. Hell, their are even gangs of people cruising around in africa style technicals shooting people up. They are called go-gangs

Plus I think people are over estimating how big a hole RPGs make. They tend not to really blow (big) holes in buildings. Thinking about something comparable - bazookas in WWII - it actually took several shots to make a hole big enough to climb through. RPGs are probably more like grenades in terms of effectiveness - just a bit more accurate and longer range.

Also, yeah, RPGs are what.. 40 years old? at this point. So you'd be dealing with tech that rolled off the production line in 1961? Earlier? Its going on 50 at this point. So the gear they'd be running around with in 2070 would have been made in 2020. It would be old stuff.

Just an FYI there.

Again, I think you guys are right as far as the canon-fu is concerned. Z zones like the Rats Nest are basically like Mogadishu. But I maintain that there is a fundamental difference between gangers and militants. Your run-of-the-mill street gang is, for all intents and purposes, a business and one of the cardinal rules of the Sixth World is "War is bad for business". This has played out in numerous gang wars in recent history. People just don't come out to buy their crack when they are afraid they're going to get shot.

Psychotic drug-fueled ork/troll go-gangs are obviously an exception.

I wasn't trying to say that Z-Zones regularly have rocket parties... I'm just saying that they could, you know... for a major holiday or something

I also agree that Seattle's Z-Zones are full of gangs, not militants. I've never gotten the impression that the Ancients or even the Cascade Ork's really have a violent revolution or coup detat in mind. They just want to keep making money and the things they're doing now seem to do a decent job of that. All the heavy artillery is for intimidation and the occasional out and out gang war. Of course, as has been pointed out earlier, the difference in firepower between your average gang and militia might make the distinction fairly moot (execept to point out motivation).

As to the whole relative damage thing. Last time I checked RPG stands for rocket propelled grenade which, not to be a total dick, does imply a certain amount of... grenade-ness. It's true that there's only so much damage you can with an RPG but shooting grenades strapped to rockets tends to telegraph the whole "We aren't fucking around" vibe a major gang or militant might want to express. A grenade through the window of your house is going to make you unhappy regardless of how much structural damage it actually produces. Gangers with crates of 30 year old dumbfire rockets still have an edge over gangers without.

What I'm trying to say is that RPG's are a pretty big deal today even though the tech is damn near 50 years old. The RPG equivalents that rolled off the lines in the 2020's and 2030's (you know, for all the ripshit crazy fighting that was going on during that time) are probably a big deal for gangers in 2070. They aren't shooting these things at Lone Star, they're usually shooting them at each other. Worst case scenario they rip all the rockets out and use the explosives for IED's... that's a tech I don't see going out of style either.

This, however, is counterbalanced by the other Cardinal rule: War is good for business.

The guys in mogadishu are gangs running protection rackets and everything!



Source: BBC



Source: National geographic



Brittancia



More gangs. Source NYTIMEs



Protection rackets. Source: Time Magazine.



The 'militants' thing in somalia was just the islamic courts rose to power recently ish, but got booted out again. It really is gangs with gang bosses and protection and turf and everything.

So rest assured, any Lonestar cowboys charging into the barrens are going to be heading for extreme pain, unless they use tanks. And even then, holding it is going to be a problem.

Each individual lone star trooper will be able to achieve 50:1 kill rates vs drugged out gangers who don't understand recoil, but it will go bad.

Okay, mogadishu has/is run by gangs. ya happy now? I don't think anyone was debating that particular point.


Back to Shadowrun. Is there a difference between rebels or "militants" in say, the Yucatan or Amazonia and the gangers who are likely to beat, shoot, and shoot you again in the Barrens? I believe yes, yes there is. Is that difference administrative in the long term? Probably. The end result is you have a bunch of people with lots of guns in areas with very little governance. The why and wherefores are different. A ganger is likely to mug you with an rocket launcher and scream "HOW ABOUT THAT DREK FUCKER?" whereas a Yucatan reb might at least give you lip service about "Forced donations to the cause." I would continue to argue that the motivation is different between a Yucatan reb vs a ganger as is what they are likely to do with their weapons and power. Yucatan rebs probably launch raids against Azzie outposts and convoys whereas Lone Star probably doesn't have to worry about that kind of shabby shit. Do Barren ganger launch raids against LS police stations? Probably not all that much because LS will have helos and worse in the air within minutes and it'll be time for a little "Collective punishment party."

Besides! Why would LS want to kicks the gangers out of the Barrens? The continued threat of violence from those areas keeps the paying citizens of the Metroplex making those balance transfers. If the gangers actually did overwhelm LS, the Metroplex Guard, the UCAS military, and all those corporate interests... what on earth would they do than? Run the joint? Who will manage the fat wage slaves that help pay their bills?

Again, I say it's a different deal. There are places on the Earth in 2070 that have no law and lots of guns. Those places can be roughly divided into:
-Places analogous to Brazlian favallaes
-Places analogous to Mogadishu

The difference for day to day affairs is minor, cops get shot at with RPG's in both places. But they aren't the exact same situation.