We had a player like that. Decided to be setting booby traps in the (evacuated) building so that when Lone Star showed up they'd walk into it and give "us" more escape time.

He got caught.

Our one mage at the time "helped" him out by pretending to be abducted by him, got saved from him by Lone Star, but not before she cast Alter Memories on him, re-writing his day ("He woke up, said to himself, 'You know, I don't like that fireworks factory. I'm going to blow it up,' and he did so, by himself." Yes, the place we were sabotaging research at was a fireworks factory).

That character gets to make a Willpower + Intuition roll in about another 4 in game months to remember what really happened. The player was dropped as the group was too large (he had fun at least).

I go... My character goes into combat to keep Them from geeking the mage. Though They'll probably want to geek the gunbunnies first (but at least then I don't have to deal with their stupidity).

Sniper + Shotgun = lots of dead mooks.

I don't remember if it was him or the other gunbunny, but one of them one-hit KO'd a character the GM was intending as a reoccurring NPC. We totally left her bleeding out on the floor.

i am forever forbidden from playing demolitions experts and people who can build traps for fun ._.

It's kind of funny, I know plenty of GMs that would rather allow Super Heavy Weapons Expert than the Demo/Trap expert. Hell, they'd rather have several Heavy Weapons experts than even one demo/trap expert.

Ahhh...our last game had a demo expert / face. We blew up a whole building once.

Wait. Twice.

Twice, yeah. The first time was ingenious and magically potent (and we were paid to blow up the whole building, 2 stories):

Earth spirit, make a tube from the basement to a gas pipe (turned out to be a gas main).

Air spirit, funnel the gas into the basement and don't let it escape.

Fire spirit. "Have fun."

The second time though we set explosives on their gas line in the basement (the face con'ed his way in to do this), as well as opened the gas line to let it leak into the basement. Edge roll (fail), the heater detects the cooler temperature of the gas and turns on, WHOOM setting everything on fire as the face is on his way up the stairs. He runs. Everyone in the building runs (team's in the van). He runs up the second story stairs and jumps out a window. Nearly burning to death he climbs / gets dragged into the van. Last action before passing out: set off the explosives.

That building went up, came down, fell over onto a neighboring building.

And that's when we learned it was 10 stories tall, not two.

this boards need a jealous smiley <.< . .

There was our third run in with high explosives--another game, another character--but seeing as he suffered Personality Death (we erased his memories of the whole day in order to get away from Lone Star) I don't consider it a successful application of Fireworks Factory Products.

Edit.

Now I have an intense desire to play a Mindfuck Mage where runs end up being one thing, but are really another, and do so on the level that the GM runs them the way I make the other characters think what actually happened.

That would be awesome.

Pre-run, me to GM:
"Alter memories, that troll we fought was really a dragon." (remember, alter memories is past tense)
GM runs the session, uses Troll stats, but visually it's a dragon.
PCs: OH FUCK

The way I'd do it is have everything be a wacked out:

"Wait, that doesn't make any sense. We fought a dragon, ran away (it survived), and the reason it was after us was because we started a bar fight over a bottle of 1970s booze? And after that it came back and fired a minigun on us from the air, so we ran away again. It caught up to us driving a Lone Star van and wanted back a fruitcake we'd stolen?"

"To be fair, we did have a fruitcake with us."

"Yeah, but where'd it come from?"

Knowing is half the battle.

Violence is the other half.

Don't forget the element of surprise.

*YANK*
SURPRISE!

this reeks of the awesome ._.
sadly, even if i DO get to play . . my group is nothing like that <.< . .
most of the time it's all sneaky gritty blah ._.

Yes, there is definitely something "Oh so wrong, but oh so right" about a character with Knowledge skills like "Improvised Munitions - 5", "Insurgency Tactics - 5", and the skills "Intimidate(Torture) - 4(+2)" and "Demolitions(Booby Traps) - 4(+2)" all at once.

Gawd, it's fun to play Rickson again...

*Grin*
I hope I get a chance to play it sometime, but that'll have to be after my current character either dies or retires. Not sure I'd be willing to try it on a GM I don't know very well. I'd prefer if it was Jim (because Jim knows how to roll with things like that, he'd make it both fun for me, fun for everyone else, and find a good way for it to backfire, as well as fill in other things that the character would alter without my having to guess or know about them in advance.

ah fuggit, just for the hell of it, i am so trying to get an explosives specialist by my GM again <.< . .
and i want 2 Remote Control Detonators that give Bonuses to my Intimidation rolls!
*holds up left hand*"I have wired this building to explode!"
*holds up right hand*"I have wired this building to explode . . AND YOUR WIFE!"

Yeah, sadly, my GM's aint good at quick thinking on their feet when i throw them a curveball like that ^^
usually, there's empty stares, pained groans and indignant sputtering after most of my sentences ^^

Heh...reminds me of the time we were running an Old Skool canned adventure (we ended up running through the whole series 1st ED forward) where we had to extract an unwilling, and quite obnoxious, primary. We got passed the guards the quick 'n dirty way and walked in the room to tell him the good...well for us...news. He opened his mouth to spout some snotty blurb from the book and the dwarf Bounty Hunter simply leveled her pistol and put two gel rounds right into his head. We scooped his bitchass up and headed out to drop him off. No muss, no fuss.

The GM was absolutely stunned...

I have an Orc Druid who relies on his stunbolt before anything else, and can easily take out six guards in a single round. Cromm Cruach relies on violence to get the job done first and foremost, and prefers it to social confrontation. Easier to just stun everyone in the building and Powerbolt the drones into spare parts than try to sneak in full sec armor with a ballistic shield, even if he is riding a seguey or cruising along on his rollerblades.

Sluagh, my infiltration specialist and Sigma, my Mindbender, are both in the camp of 'If it devolves into combat, the drek has already fragged the fan'. There is literally no reason we should not be able to charm, sneak, or subtly remove a single obstacle, one at a time, until nothing stands in our way.

My technomancer was highly reactive, and responded to violence with violence, and to social and mental pressure with social and mental bursting.

WHOA! I hadn't been following this thread anymore, I didn't realize people were still contributing. Great stuff folks, keep it coming. Speaking of explosives I'll throw another subset of questions on the pile to help keep it going:

What kind of grenades do you see used at the table? How often? For what tactical purpose or technique?

Neurostun for those you don't have time or desire to kill.

Frag for the unarmed (and you want them dead) or the armored (wanted unconscious)

High explosive for spirits, armored (and dead), and other paracitters.

Always use in small rooms for Chunky Salsa.

Slipspray Grenades!
Hilarity Ensues!
Hijinks Happen!
Bad Puns and Groans abound ^^
Also: Stun-Gas-Grenades that don't go BOOM but HISSSSS . .
after that, usual Stun Grenades and Flash-Bangs . .
Only when i want chunky salsa, or we want to kill someone really dead, we use under-barrel grenade launchers with micro grenades or the SR3 improved offensive AP Grenades with 16S flechette Damage Code . .

No Grenades.

Really, the last time we saw a grenade being used on our table was SR3 Time from an NPC and my character had enough time to throw it back.

But that should change once i finish my "Demoman!" Build.
Why he fights other people? Art Form.

Freeze Foam Splah Granades, for covering the retreat and hindering the opposition (wondefull against flying drones if used right in combination with an AirBrust Link).
Other interesting toys are the EMP Granaeds, or the Spash Granades loaded with Wireless Inhibiting Paint.
Interesting effects can be obtained also with Incendiary and White Phosphorous Granades (incendiary ones could be replaced with molotovs) as they strart fires so damage strart stacking, they are also very good to frag invisible opponents (but they are horrible for anything involving a subtle approach, or containment of collateral damage).

In reponse to the OP, my super awesome character uses combat to replace the social skills she doesn't have because I twinked out her combat. Nice chat = hitting. Angry argument = shooting. Had a bad day = torturing your family while you watch.

...

Not really though I just thought it would be funny to have a character for whom hitting people replaced friendly conversation. Would lead to some interesting situations...

"Hey how's it going!"

:kick to the stomach:

"Oof, what was that for?"

"It means she likes you."

I don't think any character could be able to torturer as well as Stray did.

Hammer + Tent Stake + Butane torch.

Mage committed suicide (cyanide tooth capsule, or a cranial bomb, I forget which) before Stray got farther than fingering the hammer.

Oh, i am quite capable of doing pretty gruesome things as torture . . i read up on that stuff as a hobby after all *snickers*
it got so far that the following took place in a game once:
Me to GM:"Ok, i know he will talk, he know he will talk, you know he will talk . . let's say he talks and gives me any info he thinks might be usefull and i promise not to tell you what i am going to do to him to get him to talk . . "
*shrugs* bad karma for me, pretty white face of the GM and something i could have drawn out for several hours solved in a matter of seconds ^^

Killing is both a means to an end, and somethign some people can never get enough of. My character's natural state is that of survival. Combat just happens to involve the more obvious part of survival.

-Chrysalis

On this one I think Cain described my character to a T: a proffessional, pure and simple; voilence is one of the tools at his disposal (and since his past proffession was as an infiltrator and assassin it's a pretty important tool) but by no means the only one.

Dependent on the situation he'll either use it as plan B, when talking or stealth fails, orsimply as the most logical solution to the problem when he can see that his not inconsidderable gift of the gobb just in't going to cut it.

All that said: he's normally the one in the team most eager to take the subtle apporach to problems, initiating any potential violence from an advntageous and unexpected direction.

Just another tool in the toolbox.

My rigger Tick-Tock does combat for the jazz. (not the drug)

Backstory: 10 plus years of working bottom of the pile corp life style and being stuck as a pig jocky. (mindlessly inspecting pipe and duct work riding an outdated sensor drone). He left and wandered,looking for some reason to exist. He found it the moment he redlined his doberman and screamed in on three wage-mages guns blazing.

" Its all about the rush, chummer"

As for the grenade question, He has a penchant for the high explosive and incendiary. (Mood lighting for the chunky salsa lovefest you know? )

Although I didn't plan on him becoming a Leeroy Jenkins, he is showing a serious case of adrenaline addiction. might ask at the next game if he can pick up that negative trait and see where it goes.

edit: yes, I know adrenaline addiction isn't canon.

Ya know its funny, 12 years ago when I started playing SR (Sr2 at that point... scary) I would have said "My character does it cause its (fun, exciting, ect).
The vast majority of them would say now "Because if I don't, I'm going to get killed or worse"
Dont get me wrong, I really try and emphasize the PUNK in cyberpunk, and poke fun at one player who has a tendency to take things too seriously when its not needed. But it just seems then when I get around to writing up an NPC runner, or rarely a PC for myself, most of them are in it for the paycheck. And you cant get paid if your dead.

Quite.

My PC took a grenade to the face today (12P +2 AP) and only took 4 damage. Hurray exploding 6s (roll 14 dice, get 5,6,6,6 roll 3 dice, get 6, roll one get 6, roll one get 6 roll one get 6--then realized I forgot to add my 4 body dice: zilch).

In RC there a Daredevil Compulsive Behaviour negative quality, maybe it's usefull.

@allthenothing: Mercy buckup, will look that up. I don't have RC yet but its waiting in my cart on battlecorps. just hope uncle sam hurries up with my tax refund.

Compulsive requires that the character make a composure [2] test (Will + Charisma, 2 successes) or follow through on the behavior.

Most PCs are going to make this test 80% of the time or better (especially if they're a mage--even more so if they're shamanic--or face). So you might want to take this house rule with you:

Anytime a character needs to roll composure for a flaw (including totem spirits) they mark down how many times they've made the test, and that is a DP penalty applied to the next test, until they fail.

Wil 7 + Cha 7? 14 dice. 6 prior successes? Only 8 dice.

For totem spirits at least, my GM is also making it that when that player finally fails a test the DP penalty of that test is applied as a bonus to his next spell (I forget if its to the spellcasting or the drain, or a choice).

Basically it's because Compulsive flaws are really easy to avoid as written.

It's not a bad thing that they can be avoided, it showes that they are more quirks rather cripling flaws; for exemple I liked the idea of the compulsive tidy (from the negative quality's very description in RC) and I used it in a character (I also had taken some oddball qualities that I've never used because they were part of the concept), it was fun, there have been times that I made my character fail the test (I just said it failed without rolling) for the sake of commedy, but when it would have screwed the team over I brought the 12 dices DP to bear (the GM allowed me to buy successes); survival came before the distaste.

True. It just happens that our shamanic mage is also has a Trickster mentor spirit and hasn't failed the test on that once (twelve dice, needs 1 success) and the game would be so much more fun if it actually mattered.

Flaws/NQ that sort of sound niffty but don't happen in play, derail the game when they do, or devolve into the player running from them actually happening <<EDIT:while the GM frantically tries to impose them on the player using whatever dictorial means.>> Yeah, that's why I'm bringing the 6th World to Burning Wheel, a game where the equivalent of Edges/Flaws work. Anyway, getting back on topic.....


Grenades, does anyone use them to try push opponents out of cover? That seems to be the intention of the rules but I rarely ever saw that in practice. Mostly it was intended as damaging only.

Nah, i use it to KILL people in cover by throwing grenades in with them O.o
why would i waste a perfectly fine working Grenade to get them out in the open so i can waste more bullets to shoot them with, if i can just kill them with the Grenade in the first place? ^^

So your opponent doesn't ever leave cover to keep from getting churned into salsa?

if they do, that's fine with me too . . but i ain't trying to get them out of cover ^^

Do they ever? How often would you say?

So you don't throw with the intention of making them choose between getting out (so you can kill them) or taking the grenade blast?

no, i throw the grenade to hurt/kill them O.o
if they come out so they don'T get hurt/killed by the blast, then i hurt/kill them with bullets.
switch-off for being nice is a good thing to have ^^

*shrugs* about 50% of the time they tried to get out of their cover i guess . . i did not really pay too much attention to that *snickers*

The macho stance aside (and why wouldn't you pay attention if you really do want to damage them ) 50% strikes me as fairly often. So how do you prepare for them to come out? Or do you feel you can prepare? How does that look in play?

The times they don't come out, why would you think that is? Were they able to? Did it seem likely they'd be be able to soak the damage? How did it work out for them?

Oh, most of the (attempted) tricks have been putting people in pink bunny suits.

Different thread please.

Prepare with pointing burst of auto fire capable shotgun in general direction of most likely way of escape.
I did not pay Attention to HOW MANY TIMES THEY GOT OUT!
i paid attention to them in terms of hurting/killing, as is my Job being the Combat-Monkey ^^

*shrugs* i don't question it if they prefere to cuddle with a live grenade instead of trying to come out and face me. . .
maybe they thought:"oh well, a Grenade, if i do it right, at least this will be over quickly and mostly painless . . but if i go out there, i probably get riddled with holes and will die a slow agonizing death by bleeding out . . if they don't torture me first, that is . ."

Most times, i made sure to look into the cover where the (N)PC's used to be when i threw the grenade in, if i did not see them come out of there before the boom.
if only for the:"EEEWWW! . . you really do not want to see this!"
And if they were still alive somehow, i either let them live(if taking S-Damage by a grenade can be called letting them live) because they got lucky and would most likely not be in my way anymore . .
or finished them off if they did something to annoy me earlier ^^

In those cases, if i go to war, it mostly works out with me standing with up to Serious Damage and everything that did not get REALLY lucky dead or busy dieing . .
i proud myself on being an accomplished combat min/maxer after all ^^

It's a great way to kill time.