I see a lot of new players who seem to think that rules and roleplaying are an either/or thing.

And I see a lot of people who think that there's something inherently bad about considering the nuts and bolts of the character. That you should make a "fun" background and stat it out, rather than giving thought to practical considerations such as "Does my character have enough dice to succeed at this thing he is supposed to be good at?" and "If I get shot at, can I either get out of the way or soak the damage?"

Shadowrun is an incredibly lethal game, and a 500-page background won't do your character any good when that security guard fires a wide burst from his Ingram at him.

Let's start with the noncontroversial stuff. Here's a few samples from Uncle Cain's list of problem player types:

The Munchkin: The Munchkin is out to win the game. He's willing to bend and break rules, fudge dice rolls, and even cheat if necessary to win. The combat Munchkin is the most famous type, but there are social munchkins as well.

The Hopeless: This is the player who won't/can't learn the rules. You can explain the rules over and over, and they still won't get it. Generally identified by the plaintive cry: "It's too complicated! I'll never get it, it's hopeless!"

The Drama Queen: Drama Queens are those who show up for the interpersonal action of the gamers, and not the game itself. More common in LARP groups, some do make it into tabletop games. Their in-game actions are driven by the out-of-game social situations. This can be a big problem, especially if the player is an attractive female and involved with another player. Blatantly flirting with a different male player and passing it off as roleplay can cause all kinds of interpersonal strife.

Mr. Overzealous: This is the player who wants his character involved in everything. When the party is split up, he'll run from one to another, just to stay in the action.

And now, for the more controversial stuff. Here's one statement that always seems to bake a few noodles:

THE GM IS NOT MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE OTHER PLAYERS!!!

The GM has more responsibility, yes. But that does not translate into authority. In a hospitial, the people with the most responsibilities are the CNA's and LPN's who do all the scut work, and keep the place running. You cannot have a good hospital without a good nursing staff; but even then, the nurses do not have more authority than the doctors do. A GM has to do more scut work than other players, but that does not equal more authority.

I'm not saying your way is inherently wrong, you can have a perfectly fine game without fudging anything. You can also have a good game when the GM is a little more cavalier with the rules, so long as he's fair about it.

Also, there is no gaming system where bad luck cannot get you killed. Some systems make that harder, but the only way to avoid it completely is to take the dice out of the equation, which SR does not do.

The one that irks me the most as GM, and this may be a subset of the whole separating character and player knowledge thing, is not understanding that the GM is not out to get you.

If you piss off a powerful group, be it the mafia, yakuza, a megacorp, whatever, there are bound to be consequences. I, as GM, did not kill you. You stole a *lot* of weaponry in a bloody, fireball-filled manner, without erasing your astral signature or doing anything about the RFID tags on the guns. That situation will *never* end well for you.

QFT.

The rules are GUIDELINES. A framework for the world to be built upon, tools for the players and gamemaster to use in that world. But the GM is the ultimate arbiter, and the rules work for him, not the other way around.

[Edit]: KurenaiYami hit it square on the nose.

I beg to differ. It can end well - you just walk right up to the local gumi, tell him you are very sorry, here is your property and reparations, please, put me to work so that I may help you save face, and then betray him and hope noone ever finds out.

The GM is not the ultimate arbiter unless the rules say so. The rules work for all players, not just the GM.

I will do my best to sift through it and post the highlights either in this thread, or as a separate thread.

Joe Sixpack thinks he knows about vampires - based on what he's seen in movies, or read about in novels...
..Not the same as reading up on the subject or personal experience - and there's no other way to be sure, especially when you start "science-fying" vampires and other "supernatural" beasties.


Except the rules keep telling the GM to use personal discretion in adjudicating the results of things...
...So the Players have to trust the GM is applying the rules appropriately, without knowing the details.


The primary goal should be to maintain the story and for everyone to enjoy the game they're involved in...
...And random diceroll driven events that mess that up should be tweaked to that end - hopefully not too obviously, and hopefully not too often.

Interestingly enough, such random events are often part of the enjoyment of CoC...
...The big beastie swings it's hideous clawed tentacle in your direction - you die horribly.


Which is exactly how Amber Diceless got started...
...By a young Mr Wujcik, who had a high level, but low HP Thief, and knew that almost any random dice result was going to get him killed, so started describing his actions and not letting the dice determine the outcome.

I have a group of players gathered, with me as the only functioning GM at the moment, some of them downloaded the book yes, good and all, THOUGH no one else then me has freaking read it, is that bad or pretty common?

Metagaming completely neutral in and of itself. Remember all collaborative storytelling is actually metagaming. If you ask who is the working the to door at a club, and the GM is taking a moment and obvious doesn't have anyone specific in mind, it is metagaming to suggest that the GM bring back some random NPC that would be awesome. It's a good move, but it is totally metagaming.

One common mistake is to put a character's quirks over the group's fun. If you're hearing "I am just playing my character", then it's usually time to check if it isn't actualyl a personal thing of the player.

Good and piecing weapons? Only cause I've played D&D

But that is the thing - my character is far, far, far more likely to know the ins and outs of actual monsters than I would, as he lives in a world in which there are actual monsters and kills them for money.

Knowing how to kill various is for a hero the same as a tax accountant knowing the tax law. He's going to know quite a bit, and may occasionally need to tap into a shared resource for a particularly rare or esoteric monster. Btu shape shifters are not rare or esoteric.

That is why it is so weird that people object to level 5+ characters knowing quite a bit about monsters. It is like objecting to a character playing an accountant using metagame knowledge about accounting.



Sure sure, but in D&D land, there is going to be a huge body of people that have personally killed hydras, or dragons, or mindflayers or whatever it is this week as their are metric buttloads of these things wandering around burninating the countryside.

I'd also suggest to you that as vampires are fictional reading a novel is exactly the same as reading up on the subject.

Unless you think that vampires are real or something. And remember, unlike joe sixpack, characters above level 1 are professional monster slayers, not just joe six pack.

I agree - characters should have knowledge above of what players have. It's bad if a player metgamaes, and uses his knowledge of a particular adventure to make his character decisions, but it's not really better if a character that grew up in Seattle doesn't know that the pyramid is owned by Aztechnology, and the Arcology was built by Renraku just because the player missed that.

There are several that work this way. Spirit of the Century, Burning Wheel/Burning Empires and Dogs in the Vineyard to name a few. None of those games require either house rules or GM fudging. Such things were taken into account when those systems were designed.

You do that in Shadowrun? Where there's a built-in mechanic for getting out of those situations? And of course I've had nights where either a player or myself has bad rolls. That's what happens when you use a method of determining success based on random numbers. That's part of playing the game. And if failed rolls screw up the story, then either the mechanics don't support the story you're trying to create, or you're railroading to get the game you, as the GM, want rather than the one that's actually being played.

Adjudicating the results of dice rolls isn't the same thing as altering the rolls themselves. Or giving an NPC a few extra boxes on the Physical track to prolong a fight, which would be robbing the players of an earned success.

The point is, all the players should be able to know what to expect at the table. Knowing you may get a shit roll is part of playing the game. Being able to mitigate a shit roll with Edge is part of the game. Getting a lucky one-shot on a bad guy is part of the game, too. Those should be expectations of everyone at the table. It's not any one person's prerogative to decide what's going to be fun for the entire group. Everyone is responsible for everyone's fun. But letting one person steamroll you with his or her vision of the game is, indeed, a mistake that new or unskilled roleplayers make.

And as for the metagaming thing, if you're playing a premade module, like On The Run, reading ahead would be cheating, I agree. That's not what I was referring to when I said metagaming isn't necessarily a bad thing. Fuchs and WeaverMount have already made good cases for it. I don't think I need to go any further.

I'm not familiar with those systems, but if they have in games mechanics for fudging rolls or setting house rules then it soudns like the instumentality of doing so proves my argument. Again, I'm not sure and I'm not saying that they support my claim emphatically.

Yes it is part of playing the game, that doesn't refute the "it fucking sucks" clause. The argument that a system doesn't support a created story in a game with X players and a GM because of a small exception here or there is bit over the top. Its not like this is a universalizable case. There are instances where it increases the fun or makes the situation more intense when you're fudging rolls one way or the other. Again, especially in a game like Shadowrun where one hit kills are very possible getting capped because say one person in your group fucked up sucks ass. It doesn't contribute to the fun of the game and it certainly doesn't make the player who died feel like they got a fair shake. Yeah that's probably realistic, shit happens all the time. Yes the system operates as such, does that means we should throw the baby out with the bathwater because of small discrete instances? I don't think so.

You should look them up. They don't support dice fudging. Quite the opposite - everything is rolled in the open, so fudging can't happen. House rules are fine, so long as they aren't decided upon unilaterally. The group sets houserules, and once they're set, everyone is subject to them, the GM included.

Once again, there is already a system in place to mitigate bad rolls or getting killed in one hit. It's called Edge. It was put in the game specifically so that the players can have options beyond getting killed. If you cheat the rolls, you've made Edge useless. Making Edge useless means you've cheated your players out of BP. Altering the rules on a whim can have unforseen system consequences, and if you do it behind a screen, the other players at the table are suddenly in a position where there's almost no point in rolling because they can't know whether or not the results even matter. You have a situation where one player's desires take precedence over those of remaining players and the one objective source that they could go to - the rules - are rendered moot because the GM can change anything at one time.

That doesn't mean that you, personally, do this. I'm saying it's a bad precedent to set, and inexperienced players tend to just let it happen, and don't say whether or not it's actually fun for them because, "that's the way RPGs are played."

I've always thought of the GM as the referee. Granted he has alot of leeway in setting up stuff and putting the characters in bad or good situations. If he does well people show up for more, if he does bad, they don't. He also has the added responsibility of knowing the 50+ NPC actions and reactions to the PC's antics.

I agree that it should be handled differently but I suppose we're going to have to agree to disagree. I find it best if the GM abides by the rules but has that option on bending them in a way that will tweak the mood and social atmosphere of the metagame at the expense of the rules to some extent. Again I'm not saying this should be done constantly, or without player knowledge (that is to say the players know you do it very ocassionally) but that it should be there. I appreciate the debate but I don't think either is going to prove anything more to the other

Yeah, I guess that depends on where you draw the line at what would be common sense/knowledge and what constitutes something the PC would not know. I agree with the werewolf/vamp analogy. But for the mage player to try and give detailed matrix tactical advice to the hacker....arrgh giving a good example of metagaming beyond reading the adventure beforehand is tough. But I know it when I see it.

Well if you or your group use notes, and you as a GM are trying to particularize information to one player because its meant to be a surprise to the group and the player is trying to influence the group on the grounds of that information when their character isn't in a position to do that. That's metagaming. When the players who used to play the mage is ordering the newbie mages around during a fight that's metagaming. When the players are not taking into account there own characters in communication that's a really big metagaming thing. So you have the secret humanis policlub hater mage in the group with an Orc hacker (shadowrunning makes strange bedfellows) and that player's giving out advice to the Orc on the best proggies to buy or best way to do legwork? Pfft, I don't think so. If there's an ideological conflict or one character lacks the technical expertise, I'd say that's metagaming to some extent.

With that said though, sometimes metagaming is necesarry as it can suck if you play the Sasquatch who lost his AR gloves who therefore doesn't get to participate in strategic planning.

Common mistakes I see:

- Forcing non-gaming significant others into the game. "Just try it, honey, you'll like it!" No. Just... no. Leave him/her at home.
- Not paying attention.
- Playing characters that are flawless.
- Not respecting the other players' and the GM's time.
- Treating IC and OOC like they're the same thing.
- Treating RPGs like something one can "win".
- Chewing with your mouth open.

<shrug> Might have been 89. I know we had found 1st Ed on the shelf the day it was released and started that campaign the same day. The same characters (some of them rebuilt several times) still run the shadows under the same players.

OMFG, this drives me bananas!

Deliberately introducing a PC who is obstinate, difficult and violently opposed to some major facet of another PC or the whole group just so that you can act that way in game and call it 'role-playing'.


Argghhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!

(I have more than a little experience with this.)

There is a meta-gaming version of this where the player persuades the GM to house-rule major facets of the game in such a way as to de-buff every character except their own. Particularly aggravating when it's done on the sly behind the backs of the players it effects after the game is established and characters have been built.

We have a guy that does both in our long term PnP game and another who occasionally does the second.

This is why group character creation is a really good idea - stuff like this can be shot down before play even starts.

Unfortunately, in this instance, group character creation just gives the player in question more ammunition to create the most irritating character possible...

Or ensuring that all characters are made with the same system... BeCKS, for example... and with the same program (ie: NSRCG).

Group character creation can be a headache when players don't know the game as well as the GM has to.

Or if the GM doesn't know he game as well as the players do...

Do none of the other players go, "Uh, dude. No. That would suck. We need a reason for all of us to be on the same team."?
Really, it's got nothing to do with mechanics, just making sure all the players are on the same page. You could always peer-review characters, too.

In this case we don't need a reason to be together we have been flung together by 'Destiny' and must co-operate to 'Save the World' etc.

It's actually been fairly fun coping with the mis-matches and alignment conflicts.

Except when one player insists on being a **** for no reason other than he can and justifying it by making up more and more irritating characters.

Peer review works if the CHARACTERS know each other. Once again we delve into metagaming if one player ends up knowing secrets another player has embedded in a well thought out character. Good roleplayers can do this... but this thread isn't about good roleplayers

The characters are the players' interface with the game. It isn't problematic for the players to know what's going on with eachothers' characters, and, generally, are more willing to facilitate what each player wants out of the game if they have a good idea as to what the player is trying to do with his character.

But you're right, this isn't a thread about good roleplayers. It's about unskilled roleplayers. The only way to build up a skill is to practice it, and to make sure that they have good habits that will help any group they're playing with have more fun.

Being the referee is a good example. Who is more important to a game, the referee or the players? You can have a soccer game with no referee, but you can't have a game with no players. The ref does have more responsibility than the normal players, but he isn't actually any more important.

Not to say players aren't important, because obviously without some players the game is dead (unless you can play RPG in your head in which case, see a doctor). But the importance of the GM versus players debate comes down to numbers. If you have a group of six players and a GM and an ongoing narrative. In games without alot of stuff going on in a character's life that aren't generally the focus of plot (paying rent, day jobs, contacts, hobbies, etc etc) than its usually pretty easy to write a given character out of a session for a time or two whereas if the GM isn't going to be there its a lot harder to facilitate a game and and that difficulty is made stronger when the players want to run their own characters. A new GM has to be decided, prepare content etc etc all on possibly a moments notice. Obviously this is a problem on both sides of the screen but when 1 out of 5 players drops out the game goes without too much problem, when 1 out of 1 GMs drop than you've got a much bigger issue.

The point is that the players are all important but they're only half the group. You need a GM as much as you need players and this technically makes GMs more improtant though any GM worth a damn will not take advantage of this importance. I know this importance on the GM makes me feel a lot more pressure to show up to games, know the rules, have stuff prepared and be ready to roll.

Actually that's a crappy example. Unless you're making the players face off against each other, the GM is the other team and the referee.

Nobody has to MAKE players face off against one another.

There are GM-free games out there, so I'd hesitate to say that you can't play your own character without a GM. It just leads to a different kind of experience.

As far as the rarity of GM's goes, I've been playing on RPOL.net recently. Over there, as of right now, there are 1952 requests for GMs. In comparison, there are 4536 requests for players. Tough as it may be to imagine, sometimes good players are at more of a premium than good GM's.


In soccer, players do face off against one another. However, in a RPG, there's no reason why players cannot take on some of the roles traditionally ascribed to the GM, including the referee position.

Well, sure, you can have an entire game where the players do nothing but interact amongst themselves. You can have an entire game where there is no GM and the players control all the NPCs. But that's not really how most people play Shadowrun, or RPGs in general.

Exactly, there's a reason the GM position exists and that its an important one. Cane with your example about the player requests. There are alot more players and alot more players are generally needed for a game than are GMs. You have one GM, you can have three to how many you can deal with players.

True, but it proves the point: The GM is not as necessary as some people might think.

At any event, it's not an all-or-nothing thing. You can have a game where someone else is the referee, leaving NPC's and setting elements to the GM. You can also hand off setting elements to the players, leaving the GM free to concentrate on the NPC's. I can think of many games that pass off at least some of the setting elements to the players, so it's an increasingly popular choice.

Common mistakes? I'll name Video Game Syndrom, which to me identifies through three key symptoms which present in the form of assumptions by the players:

1. What's not explicitely described isn't there (this goes for scenery as well as alternative solutions to situations)!
2. Shooting "evil" NPCs has no consequences whatsoever (because they're evil, right?).
3. Life is a series of quests (and when you're done with the Johnson of the Week™ you go to the Inn and log out to gain rested XP).

It completely depends on how you play and what kind of game you enjoy. If some people think the GM is extremely necessary, he probably is, for the games they're used to. It's like debating whether or not a car is necessary. If you're a guy whose friends all live down the street and you do all your shopping within half a mile of your house, then no, it isn't really necessary. If you're a guy who likes to take cross country road trips all the time, then it's very necessary.

While you're right to an extent, even then, the GM probably isn't as necessary as you might think. Certainly not enough to give them more authority than they deserve, and definitely not enough to put up with a bad GM. When discussing average GM's (which most people here, myself included, are) then the GM isn't nearly as important as they'd like to believe.

If we're going to be discussing "average" GMs here, then yes, GMs are exactly as important as most people believe. Go to the RP forum we've got right here on Dumpshock. Look through some of the old gaming threads. Many of them have had players drop from the game, often more than one, and they have continued to truck along. None of the games where the GM decided to quit have continued from that point forward. If one of the players doesn't want to play, oh well, the rest will just have to make do with a smaller team. If the GM doesn't want to play, there is no game.

You're right, you shouldn't put up with a bad GM, but the reason you shouldn't is because he has so much authority. In a standard game, if the GM sucks, that means the game sucks, at which point I would probably leave to find another game. In a more player-driven game, it matters less if the GM sucks 'cause he has less control over things.

That's slightly misleading. Like I said, look at the "GM's wanted" vs the "Players wanted" forums on RPOL.net. There's over twice as many threads advertising for players as there are players advertising for GMs. Besides which, if a GM decides to drop out, another player can always step up. In fact, this happens all the time. It's called "rotating GMs", and it is a highly effective style. If the GM doesn't want to play, you might have an issue, but not an insurmountable one.

But anyway, the point is this: a GM is not as necessary as people like to believe. *Especially* for average GM's and worse. All games should be player driven to a larger extent than smaller.

Then there's a new GM, but there still needs to be a GM. While I've seen games with rotating GMs, most of them don't do that, because honestly, it's hard for a new GM to pick up the strings where the old one left off, since there's tons of stuff that the guy wouldn't know as a previous player, especially for a developed campaign.


See, this is why you keep getting into arguments with people over this. You keep saying "you should all play like I play!" when, for a lot of us, we actually prefer to play the other way. And I'm speaking from a player's perspective, not a GM's. I don't want any control over the narrative beyond what my character does, because that makes things boring and unsuspenseful for me.

Cain, you keep repeating that, and it's obvious you believe that with your own experiences. It's also obvious that a healthy chunk of people don't agree with your point of view. Why keep pounding it home like you expect everyone else to realize they're wrong?

In my experience, the GM is *always* more important than the players because without him/her, there is no game. If we're running an extended campaign, in whatever system we're using, the GM going absent means having to run a 1-shot with completely different characters. A player can't just step in and take over, because no one knows what the GM has planned for his plots and ideas. In the circles I travel in, we don't do rotating GM's overmuch, if at all. Case in point: Our current game has been stalled for the past 4-8 weeks because the GM got *really* sick and ended up in the hospital, and hasn't been able to return to game yet. We expect him to be out another month or two. I had to pick up and start GMing a whole different game, with different characters in the interim. Been a hell of a challenge too, as the game in question was originally and intentionally designed as a 1 shot to happen on the occasional week when too many people (or the GM) were absent. As such, the characters and setting don't work as a long-term campaign. So now I'm facing starting another game, or continue with week after week of 1 shots, which is frankly boring.

Not everyone shares your experiences. Not everyone shares your opinion. *Please* stop giving the impression that you're trying to tell everyone how wrong they are just because their experience differs from yours.

Oh yeah, that doesn't really mean anything. If anything, it proves the exact opposite. There are almost no threads in Welcome to the Shadows advertising for a GM. That's because there's simply no point. Games start and stop on the whim of the GM. A GM advertising for players can usually get some easily, but a player advertising for a GM is much less likely to get a response, so why bother?

Hell, the only thread I've seen in WttS advertising for a GM was by a person who offered to GM another game for his GM in exchange. When people go to those lengths to get GMs to run personal games for them, it's pretty obvious whether GMs or players are in higher demand.

Not true. If anything, it proves just the exact opposite as well. Just as many games die off because players lose interest. And then the GM scrambles madly to resuccitate his game by PMing people he wants to recruit or posting a thread advertising for more players. There are almost no threads in Welcome to the Shadows advertising for a GM because by the time a group of players get together, they'd rather someone from the group GM the game instead of some smuck who don't give the players what they are looking for. Usually a GM advertising for players already want to game, and is looking for interested parties to invest their time into his game.

There are many game in WttS that die off due to lack of player participation. When that many games die off not because of GM apathy but player indifference, it is pretty obvious whether GMs or players are in higher demand. Any fool can post on the forums to offer to GM a game, but very soon his game dies out. Players that are willing to invest their time and effort are in much higher demand than any GM who wants to see how his cool idea for a run pans out.

On the other hand, I've seen lots of people comment on how well it works for them. While I'll acknowledge that it's a YMMV thing, it's still remains true for a lot of people and the way they play.


I doubt that many people *have* played the other way, just that some played that way and didn't realize it. You've probably played a game or two with "Story Points", which is a narrative mechanism. Even SR4 has a narrative mechanism, in the Critical Success rule. It's a primitive and not-especially-good one, but it is one nonetheless.


What it means is, there's over twice as many GM's looking for players than there are players looking for GM's. What it means is that in a forum dedicated to online roleplay, GM's have to compete for players, not the other way around. Few people advertise for GM's in "Welcome to the Shadows", because they don't know it's acceptable. If they did, there'd be a lot more people asking about games.


In my experience, the GM is often *percieved* as being more important. But if there were no players, there wouldn't be a game. In large groups, if there's only a few players, there's also no game. Heck, in some games, I've seen it where if one certain player was missing, the game still died.