Sorry to hear you have such bad experences Lurker. And yes am sure we have met the type. But dial it back a notch, plenty of well adjust happy people like to play this way too.

I am not one of them. I ceased to be well adjusted a long time ago.

Damn, you need to take a massive chill pill or go out and get drunk. Some groups like to play that way. If it is not your ball of wax that's fine but there is no need to attack the mental health of someone.

Aye, my thoughts exactly

If you've found a group of like minded folks, congratulations. If your just planing on your "super win plot" to spring on your fellow players and your GM is letting you run that way, also congratulations although again I don't find it any more valid to cut out the social rules just because it's intra-pc conversation just because that would be to one PC's benefit.

Having said that, i stand by my observations as their based on experience. If only drinking would wipe the memories away.

The way we play inter-team communications is purely role play, not roll play. We find rolling and using a clunky mechanic when we can actually have In Character discussions about things would be a bit odd.

Plus, CodeBreaker going to such lengths to make sure he is secure is completely in character for him. He was first basically kidnapped by Transys-Neuronet when he SURGEd, held for 2 years being forced to work on a proto-AI project, escaped during the Crash 2.0 (With the DI that had Emerged in tow) and then ran the Merseysprawl shadows for a few years building up enough Nuyen to escape to Seattle. He highly suspects that the remnants of the Transys team that originally tried to track them down is still looking for him and he has spent more than enough time in the shadows to know that everyone he works for is a criminal that is really, in the end, only doing what they do for money.

His priorities for preservation go:
CodeBreaker,
Seraphiel the DI,
CodeBreaker's Daemon,
CodeBreaker's Resonance Well,
CodeBreaker's year long supply of Stuffer Shack Burgers,
Other Runners.

Plus now with one of his team members going rogue he is going to be even more paranoid that the Mage is going to pull something funny.

my rigger doesn't have plans to kill his team mates, although he always leaves himself a door to bug out if the drek hits the rotary oscillator.

However, the team hacker is pushing the envelope by getting a little too visible. The fact that said hacker dresses as a clown and refuses to wear anything that isn't "Clown Fashion"doesn't help.

Its hard to stay low profile wearing size 32 red combat boots no matter how pink Mohawk the game.

While my character has measures in place to off the team, I, as a player, have no intension to do so. I've never played in a group where my fellow player decided to kill my character. Maybe if we talked it out before hand, but to just show up for gaming and go, "I shot you in the head, haha! make a new character.."

I would Punch you in the dick and/or dickhole .

I'll second this. It's amusing to dream up ways to take down hard targets like your fellow runners, especially since you don't need to do any legwork. I'd expect very few of the people in this thread have any intention of following through with any of their plans anymore than most players would come to the table with a Pornomancer. It's fun to discuss, and if you're running a shades-and-trench-coats game, having other people find your vulnerabilities and tell you rather than taking advantage of them improves your survivability.

I'm with LurkerOutThere, or at least I'd defend his position. There are a lot of poorly adjusted people in the world, and some of them play Shadowrun; it's the GM's prerogative to remove them from the game if their personal issues become disruptive to the group.

That said, I would gladly participate in a game where it was announced that in-group assassination was kosher, and in fact considered impressive.

Well in the spirit of the OP, your a runner, the question is, why don't you have a plan?

granted my plans all run along the same line as long as i'm not on the ground bleed, they go , Step one, Shoot person A in the face, now plan B. mostly for mages and street sams is, Shoot person A in the back of the head, There are also plans that mostly revovle around car bombs,

Thank you, and i could sort of get your second statement although I don't believe it's in keeping with the setting as is. Plus if your going to play a game about heavily armed paranoid operatives waiting to back-stab each other at the first opportunity Paranoia simulates that better. Friend computer finds your talk of taking out your fellow shadowrunners disquieting.

I had developed an unbalanced (mentally, not statistically) NPC to use in a game who was a street doc, very adept at cyberware, surgery, and the like. He also had an unusually high demolitions skill for a doctor. Combine this with high social skills and he would be cranking out a bit more than cranial bombs. I figured he probably would have had a couple of really dumb walking grenades in other NPCs.

1) Be polite
2) Be efficient
3) Have a plan to kill everyone you meet

You generally meet a lot of people, so most of them just have copies of the same generic plan (something along the lines of 'shoot them in the face, drop the body in a dumpster, thermite the gun and drop it off a bridge'). Anyone you meet a lot or who would be particularly difficult to dispose of deserves their own, customised plan.

Everybody who knows me would expect me to have a plan, but if i am really honest...i don´t have one. I keep it with the legendary words of Captain Malcolm Reynolds: "if i want to kill you, you will look me in the eyes, you will know what is going to happen and you will be armed". I play a black mage with world-ruling-phantasies, but i have kept one thing: honor.

Hey, I already said that! Get your own TF2 reference! You can have "I've yet to meet one that can outsmart bullet." That's my more general strategy, but doesn't quite apply to the topic for me.

If one of the meta-rules is: "The game is for fun and all players shall have fun.", then unauthorized PK'ing is a rule violation.

Now, if the target player agrees...then folks are having fun.

But, since the OP's query was about character plans then, as a general, the answer is "yes". However, my current character is still too busy trying to stay afloat...literally living one day at a time. Once he gets past the psychological damage, then he'll move into the more ruthless Shadowrunner mode.

Of course the rest of your "meta-rule" is; And "fun" is diffent for each group. In my group I play up the hopelessness and decay of society so PvP rape and murder is perfectly acceptable, provided that it stays IC, OOC bullshit is where I draw the line.

But then again I only play with people who are mature enough to handle the fact that Runners are cutthroat SOBs who shoot people in the face for fun and profit.

In a word, and speaking for Kerenshara (most of my other characters are usually what DnD would call "good" aligned, whereas she is most definitely NOT), yes. They aren't her family yet, they don't have her trust, and SOMEBODY burned the SiN she was using somehow, so until she learns who to trust, EVERYBODY is going to feel that itchy feeling between their shoulder blades when she's around. On the other hand, she's a team player and will stick her neck out for a team member if it's important to the mission.

UPDATE:

To keep a long story short, my group hacker decided to set off his cranial bombs he had implanted in the other members. The highlight of the evening was when his head exploded with the transplanted cranial bomb from the team mage. Needless to say he was surprised, and now vows to better safeguard his meatbody.

regardless of character type I think that my approach would look a lil something like this:

During normal gameplay I would make sure that I was well-liked by as many teammates as possible (normal enough). Though I would also never allow anyone near any place that I might actually stay for extended periods of time. (once again easy enough not to raise anyones alarms here). Then if I had to actually get rid of my former teammates, I would use a down-cycle in the adventure or game and put on a disguise go through intermediaries and all the normal things that players usually do when dealing with a Johnson. Hire a sniper to kill those teammates you don't like. You can give detailed accounts of abilities and common tactics/ responses. You know where the party is going to be so you can communicate your location or your future location to the assassin.
This method allows for several things:
1.) Plausable deniability. If it fails, then you don't have former teammates looking for you. Even if you do, then you never let them know any real information about you, so it doesn't really matter.

2.) Air-tight Alibi. You were there with the group when everything went down...so anyone that is still alive will never think that a member of their own group set them up. They will chase wild theories about some corp. or security force.

3.) Misdirection. You are capable of leading the team into the situation since everyone already trusts you. and leading them to whatever red herring you want if they survive.

for a more Magic-centric idea:
Use every opportunity to gather ritual links to your teammates so you never have to have a physical confrontation with them in the first place. Cause nothing sucks more than having to wait 3 init. passes while a cyber-chump shoots you so you can do one action.
Extra points for you if you can talk them into giving you a ritual link on their own accord...for "tracking purposes should someone ever get kidnapped or lost."

The trouble will killing a teammate on a run is that you may become a threat they feel the need to eliminate. So basically thier wind up being 2 people making up new characters if the GM allows that kind of play. If not the only one person is making a new guy.
Having worked with a few ex-cons I believe that most criminals don't make contingency plans to kill thier fellows. Not that some are not willing to do it, but if they make a plan to do so then it becomes a matter of when not if.

might i dare say that the fact that they didn't have the forethought to make contigency plans is exactly why they are an ex-con in the first place? and that someone that did wouldn't have been a convict?

While I don't have a contingency plan I do try to find out my fellow runners weaknesses and strengths so that I can cover their weaknesses and boost their strengths. Killing a teammate on a run is not effective as well as you are down one person and you've increased your body count (something that I try to avoid). It is better to help boost a player every chance you get and when you want to see them die you just boost their weaknesses instead of their strengths and see them fail on their own.

I'm surprised no one asked this, but how in the frag did you ever get cranial bombs installed in all your teammates?
I mean, if I went in for medical treatment for a gunshot and came out with a shaved head and a fresh incision, I'd be suspicious, and in the end, homicidally torqued off.

Greetings Programs, two of my character prepared or had prepared small explosive devices in the advanced personal communications units he supplied for the group.


A specific broadcast.


QM

I will never understand why people mistake "condoning sociopathic and extreme antisocial behavior" with maturity. They are not one in the same. Nor will I ever understand the condescending attitude that always comes from these sort of people.

It was quite ingenious, after a particularly bad run aganst a few Knight Errants Mecha Frames the team had to rest up. IIRC just about everyone was in bad shape, nearly dead in a few cases. The team (expcept for the hacker) was "temporarily" held captive wile the mechs trundled back to base with their prisoners. During this time my player was desperately trying to find a spot with his Micro-Tapper drone so he could hack into the hard wired Mech. After finally finding that sweet spot he entered into a short but sweet cyber combat, took control of the Mech, with his 5IP's he turned the mechs main guns on the other two surviving ones and disabled them in a glorious fusillade. He then booked it with the party members.


Afterward he kindly "disposed" of the mech sending it into Renraku's territory guns blazing. He then took the team back to their private medical facility to patch them up. That's he when he implanted the "failsafes". After they awoke they thought it was something Knight Errant did to them, that is until during one run when the hacker went down during a fight and the "backup hacker" logged into his comlink (to use his high rating programs) and found the data concerning the operation and the activation codes for the bombs. Of course while HE was out, they simply gave him back his bomb.

Now with the high chance of my Teammates becoming Zombies err Ghouls.
Yes I'm working on a Plan "B"(for "B"ullet in the Head) for some of my Chars !

Hough!
Medicineman

IC, that does not make any sense. The only questions the characters should ask at that point are: what else did he do? who is he working for? More important, once they've lost their trust in you, you are useless in the team, since everything you do will have to be double checked. There is only one way for them to be sure you cannot harm them: to make you talk before they kill you.

Of course, OOC, everybody knows it's a game among you and everybody loves when Coyote's trap backfires at him. But that's not Shadowrun, that's Toon.

Come on, we all love the good old Wile E. Coyote.^^ But you are right, SR lives from the fact that you can play together. If you want to play against other players, you can have this in better ways on the internet etc.

And after realizing that "KE" did something to them, they didn't go immediately to their own personal docs to get stuff resolved... why? Personally, after an unknown period of unconsciousness in enemy hands, I'd go fro a full body, full spectrum diagnostic analysis to figure out if everything's the way it should be. Anything that shows as being off, even a little, I'd work to have taken care of. And my guess is just about anyone can look at the Xray of their brain and go "I haven't seen that big white spot before, and I've got a lot of ware. What the drek is it?"

I personally have just everyday common medical knowledge, and I could spot an anomaly implant with just a glance. They show up *brightly* on xrays and other scans.

That is what makes it particularly entertaining, they did not. Due to some story events there was a good chance they were implanted with something beneficial. They took the hacker at his word that everything was fine, and started work on completing the run they were on.

Translation: The "professional" characters were idiots and deserved what they got. Cool. Just wanted to know how this happened. Thanks for the insight.

I never said "professional", "powerful" maybe... but they indeed had it coming. It was particularly entertaining for me to see how everything would unfold.

So who all died when the bombs went boom? Or is it better to ask who survived?

Just the team Hacker, they did find out and get them removed.

Well it makes a little more sense when one remembers evidently Rage's gm doesn't make PC's actually do social checks when they make bald face lies to each other, a rather stupid notion in a PVP game, but whatever.

I'm actually the Gm, and the hacker was quite skilled.

The "maturity" aspect comes from the fact that the arguments against allowing PvP almost always boils down to the players being unable to keep IC and OOC seperate and getting upset. I only play with people who are mature enough to remember the differences between the two.

As for condoing bad behavior, remember we are playing a Cyberpunk Game, anti-social and sociopathic behavior should be the norm, not the exception.

Perhaps I should clarify, as a rule I don't allow "one shot" PCs whose only reason for being is to kill the other PCs, sick twisted fraggers who might want each other dead or even old grudges from the past are fine provided that I believe the character could have survived in the Sixth World long enough to reach the campaign.

What kinda Drek is this?

I would never even think of conflict with my Omae. They are my best friends, we have saved one another's lives so often, we truly belong to each other.

And while I am discussing this, I have never done anything the least bit illegal, and yes in fact this is my real SIN, just that some how the bio data got a bit smudged, really you can trust me

You forgot the bit about having a bridge for sell.

Only one of my characters ever had a plan to kill all of her teammates... the first iteration of my first character, Scope - a vatjob sniper / covert-ops specialist. She was also a sociopath and worked very hard to endear herself to her teammates to gain the advantage... She'd kill them in a specific order so that none would be forewarned.

Julius Caesar (Technomancer): This one was key - he was the information networker of the team, and the only one whom had truly incriminating evidence as well as a method to deliver it without implicating himself. He had to go first or the rest of the team would be alerted with the first death. Scope made certain to befriend him quickly. She was always the one who took care of him when he got himself fracked up in the matrix (cleaned him up, and got him somewhere safe). She used her contacts to get him a safehouse when his was raided by KE (a raid she set up) She was also the only one whom actually invited him on non-work-related outings (poor nerd-hermit really appreciated the attention). In the end, she not only knew where he lived, but she also knew where he kept his data backed up in the meat world... and she had all the passcodes and keys to enter his home - which she did often enough (she'd come by to bring him food and check up on him whenever he was lost in the matrix for days on end) that a visit was a normal thing. If it came time to kill him, it was a simple matter of walking up behind him and putting a bullet in the back of his skull. Then destroy all electronics in the safehouse, and send a message to the rest of the team saying that he'd yet again gotten knocked silly while in the matrix.

Chan (Phys-ad): Chan was the most dangerous of the other runners and would be second to die. He was almost as good as Scope at stealth, and was stronger in melee combat than her. Scope got close to him by making it a point to spar with him at his dojo rather regularly, and discuss (more like listen) philosophy with him whenever he felt like it. She also trained him to better bypass sensors (IE: she tutored him on his hardware skill)... he trusted her. When it came time to kill him, she'd simply show up for an after-hours sparring session and hide a pistol in the back of her waistband while getting ready since he never paid attention anymore (and his perception was a bit lacking). Once he'd stripped to just the workout outfit, and had left his attuned weapons out of reach, she'd pretend to start bowing at the same moment he did (as they usually did prior to a sparring match), but instead would quickdraw her weapon and unload into him while he was in the compromised position. She estimated that he'd go for his weapon before going for her, and that extra time would be more than enough since she was faster and reacted quicker. Following his death, she would have approximately nine hours to complete the rest of the kills before his body would be discovered.

Ivarth (Troll ganger): In a straight fight, it'd be a toss-up whether or not Scope would win. Ivarth was a tough nut to crack, but Scope found that he had a weakness for children... she won his trust by playing up to that weakness and pushing the team for several hooding runs. After that, he introduced her to the woman whom ran his old orphanage, and she helped design a security setup for them that would keep them moderately safe from the gangs. Ivarth finally started trusting her, and she was able to observe that he was a creature of habit... he'd paint motorcycles in his down-time, and would very often have to exit his poorly ventilated workshop for fresh air. He never went to bed without putting a little paint to metal. Once his number was up, she would find a perch in the rusty shipping containers near his dockside workshop (he never did show her his pad, but his workshop was a better hit site anyway), setup her sniper rifle, and take him out when he exited for some air. By her plan, she would still then have four hours before any bodies were discovered.

Yumi (Face / smuggler): Since Yumi was barely cybered and only moderately combat-trained, she would be an easy kill in a straight fight. Unfortunately, she was good enough at pulling a vanishing act that Scope had to be able to accurately predict her location and catch her indisposed, else she risked losing her in the sprawl. Fortunately, Yumi was the easiest to get close to. Her twin downfalls were greed and an addiction to the finer things in life. Scope simply idly mentioned how her schedule and ware meant that she was only ever home for four hours a night, if that, because she often stayed away at her own workshop in another locale. Then she dropped that her haven was in a nice part of town (high lifestyle). That was all it took for Yumi to start talking about rooming to cut down on bills (she was having a hard time keeping up both her lifestyle and her gambling). Scope 'thought it over' for a month, and only agreed when Yumi was really desperate for money. Scope actually maintained two lifestyles - the one she was 'sharing' was just for show so that she'd have an in with Yumi. The rest would have been self-explanatory... except one wrinkle... Yumi actually got close to Scope (should have known that getting close to the face would backfire...). Scope ultimately decided that unless her hand was forced, she wouldn't kill Yumi. She'd go home, put a pistol on the table and stand unarmed across the room until Yumi walked in. Then she'd say "You have three choices Yumi. I killed the rest of the team, and I'm unarmed. You can either take that gun and hope you kill me before I get to you, you can die, or you can split the money with me and disappear so that we never see each other again. What will it be?"

Yumi's player later told me that she'd have taken option 3, but would have talked Scope into helping her fake her death in order to avoid certain gambling debts.


Funny thing was, Scope was the most trusted member of the team, the de facto team leader, and everyone liked her. She was also the most evil person on the team, but no-one but Yumi realized it - and Yumi didn't care. No other character I've had (including later versions of Scope) has had 'kill the team' plans.