Because he'll die otherwise? I mean, I guess they don't have to save him. I'd hate to railroad the plot, you know? Do what feels right for your character.


I'm pretty sure he does that every time he targets you with a spell, weapon, or hack. Come to think of it, a character who didn't exist would be pretty much invincible. Maybe I'll roll a character who doesn't exist for my next game. I'll get permission from my GM first, of course.



I'm sorry, I think you have this confused with the forum for Candyland.



I usually get my GM Fiat with bacon and extra cheese.


You're quite welcome. I'm glad I could help you understand the game. Have fun!

It may seem obvious, but I've dealt with numerous GMs that played it as Me against the players. I've had players try to run it that way too. It's obvious to some, completely foreign to many others.

A day late and a dollar short, but here's my two yen:

Power gamers, minmaxers and other types of douchebags end up doing one of two things in my game: quitting, because they can't stand that I don't care about how they raped the rules to get down-or conversely they learn to game. Take all the points you want homes, I'm the GM. I really am god. If I want you, trust me I got you.

You know, You are really not being all that helpful...

Keep the Faith

Half this thread isn't being that helpful. I'd daresay, a good majority of the content is people being contrary for the sake of being contrary. I see no evidence that anyone has actually made an attempt to understand where the other posters are coming from. Their opinion is right, and they must convince the ignorant masses...

I'm sorry, were we being helpful? I thought the thread had denigrated into name calling. Shall I pretend that was a serious post he made? Here's one without sarcasm.


Because he left an opening that the GM decided to take advantage of. As I have explained before. At length. Repeatedly. In very small words. But here we go again: If the CyberSam decides not to invest in ultrasonics, is it wrong for the GM to let the opposition use Invisibility? Is he morally bound to change the game so as not to exploit the player's weakness? Of course not. The player is responsible for making a character that can take what the GM throws at him. If he thinks the GM targetting his weakness is unfair, he should fix the weakness, not cry about it.



The point is to challenge the characters with an interesting story. If a character can't be beaten in a fair fight, the GM is going to come at him sideways to keep it interesting. I'm not talking about executing the problem character with a sniper, I'm talking about stranding the Samurai in a social situation for laughs. I'm taking about the hacker getting into a fist-fight with an elderly janitor. I'm talking about making the game interesting. That's the point, van Dainig: It's supposed to be a challenge.


GM Fiat is when he *changes* the rules to keep the story moving. In this case he would be obeying the rules and putting an obstacle in your way to be overcome - like the guy who took Allergy:Gold getting locked in the Executive Washroom and realizing he's going to have to deal with gold-plated everything. It's not the GM changing the rules, it's the GM being a dick. If you forced the issue when he asked you not to take the Negative Quality, then he's only responding in kind.




You're welcome, jerk.




Tymeaus, you seem like a cool guy. You've helped me out. I'm kind of surprised you're painting *me* as the guy trying to start a flamewar in this little exchange, but I honestly thought I was taking the high road. In the future I will crush those who oppose me with ruthless browbeating instead of cutting remarks.

Let's start right there. My suggestion would be to talk with the players [as has been mentioned]. Let them know you've noticed this, and talk about it. If I were you, I'd tell them, "Hey, you don't have to get out your copy of Min-maxing the Munchkin Way. You want 5 points? Take 'em. 10? Fine. What I want is for your sheet to reflect the actual human being you intend to play. If you need 10 more points to play the guy you want to play, that's no problem. But let's not be intellectually shifty about the whole thing over a couple of build points, yeah?"

The other solution, of course, is to simply not play with the people who have this mindset, whether it be because they feel small in real life and want to fantasize big, or because they feel roleplaying is an "Us vs the GM" kind of game, or just because they like "getting one over on the rules," or whatever their reasons are. This is usually not an option: you have the stable you have, so work with them. Over time, you can turn a munchkin into a deep, considerate roleplayer if you work at it.

My suggestion? Play a few sessions without dice or character sheets. Set the rules aside, and show them that these flaws are more than just dice, they're actual flaws possessed by the actual person being roleplayed. And always, always, always make it clear that good roleplaying earns way more karma than bullshit min-maxing. [Doesn't hurt to drop some lines here and there to stimulate the meme within your table-culture that "min-max" means "tiny penis," either.]


You shouldn't let it be. The rules are your bitch, not the other way around. If someone's getting something for nothing and you don't want them to, don't let it be for nothing. Insist he roleplay his disdain, and make it cost him. Not much - it's 5 damned points; he shouldn't get his legs cut off for it - but make it cost. If he just wants to ROLLplay, tell him there are some very nice wargames in the world, and he should consider those.


If roleplaying isn't a game penalty, you're doing it wrong. The dice and rules are just a tool; don't rely on them, and don't let them fuck up your game.


Debt in Shadowrun works more-or-less like debt in the real world: yes, at first you get ahead. But then you have to pay back what you got, plus interest, and in Shadowrun 4, you have to pay it back, plus interest, plus karma. For a few build points and some money up-front, he's cost himself much more money and karma as time goes on. That's no bargain, except in the short term...just like credit in the real world.


Well, RAW specify you have to buy off flaws, so if he's a rules lawyer [and won't listen to reason and can't be beaten about the head with a stick], point that out to him. Otherwise, I'd find some way to make those 5 points cost: a former co-worker sees him on a job and recognizes him, or he's constantly getting calls from them asking him to come back, or his boss is pissed that he quit on short notice and threatens to turn his SINless ass into the police for tax fraud. You don't want to penalize him, per se, but you do want those points to have some cost.


So he's never well-rested, because his neighborhood is loud and he has barely any soundproofing and his bed is an old Army cot with a broken leg. He gets weird illnesses from the parasites living in his building, and the roaches scare away all his dates. His friends don't really want to chill with him because his trid barely works, and with the water rationing, he smells like shit half the time. He's constantly bored because he has no money to go out, and he begins to feel a queer detachment from humanity...

Dude, this is roleplaying. If you're not helping to feed the role, many players will just take whatever they can and feel like kings of something. But if you make the game about the role, and not about the jobs [or the combat], suddenly the "victory condition" changes. As GM, you're the one setting that victory condition, and you can let the rules and the players make a bitch out of you, or you and the players can work together, with the rules as a guideline, to produce the maximum amount of fun for everyone at the table.

Bravo!

Naaaaaah... You don't need to crush anyone... sorry if I came off a bit harsh... have not had any sleep for the last 40 hours or so... Just having a tough night is all...

As far as Negative Qualities... they are there to foster quirks and roleplaying opportunities... using them should provide an abundance of hooks for which the GM to ustilize to hang you... in our games, anything goes, jut don't be surprised if your negative qualities get used against you...

I think that Negative Qualities are a very useful tool for botht eh player and the GM... You may just have to approach the use (or exploitation) of them a little creatively...

keep the Faith

Man, I hear that. I'm going to be first in line for a Sleep Regulator when those come out.

Ditto... at this point even the good drugs are refusing to work...

You get insomnia too? It's a rough time some nights/days.

Rarely, but I am going on 40 hours now, and still not out... Yep pretty rough...
In this case, I think that My mind is going at high speed processing all the things that I have been working on for multiple games (Shadowrun and Earthdawn) that I just can't slow it down enough to get any sleep...

Keep the Faith...

I find a good 10 or 15 miles of walking, or a few hours hard swimming, puts the lights out pretty quick.

This is very true...

I play cribbage myself when I need to beat insomnia. Having to count up scores and playing cards seems to use just enough of both sides of my brain to ease it down and get me to a place where it can finally take a breather.

Sorry, every published adventure in any genre I have ever seen with the 'PCs get captured' explictly calls for GM fiat to do so. So lets be clear here, this is a move the GM is making happen because he feels like being a cock -> PCs typically go down fighting when backed into a corner unless you GM fiat it up and almost every PC carries basic defences against the inhalants, and carries guns against all the injected stuff. Realistic ally if you're capturing PCs you're saying 'hahaha, screw you' and bilking them way more BPs than they got from the disadvantage.

Secondly, why the hell would the corps ever implant cyberware into someone forcibly other than a cranial bomb? Seriously, what would be the point? The guy is a mage, and you know he gets punished as is for implanting cyberware. If you want him to do something for you (the ONLY reason to ever capture someone and then let them go), you need to install a compulsion (the bomb), but then you don't deliberately screw up the thing you want that you captured him for (the magic). You'd have to be some kind of retarded.

So basically, you're making the world's most contrived situation in a attempt to completely screw a player.

Most of the 'disadvantages have to mean something' people in this thread are just being passive aggressive. It's like drugs man, if you don't like it, say no. Don't:

A) Subtract 6 months worth of character progression

B) Impose 35 BP of negative qualities for no reason what so ever

C) Make extremely contrived situations to kill the character you don't like

Which is seriously what is being promoted here as 'good games mastery'

It's obvious to me that the problem with most games is the players and the GM don't talk to each other about expectations. Talk straight when you don't like something. Don't be two faced and let it into your game then screw someone for doing it.

I like your point about straight talk regarding expectations, and I agree that this is probably a case of the GM being a dick. However, you did ask why cyberware other then a cranial bomb would get implanted, and oddly enough I have an example. Mind you, it is heinous f*ckery most foul, but still.

I'd like to introduce you (if you haven't yet had the pleasure) to a man named George Alec Effinger. He wrote three books in the late 80's, the first of which is entitled When Gravity Fails. It is one of the more influential Cyberpunk works - If William Gibson gave us the Matrix, Effinger gave us Skillsofts and Personafixes. His protagonist is a small-time hustler with a crippling drug habit that he seems completely unaware of.

Marid is unique in his world for being neither cybernetically enhanced nor controlled by the crime lord who unquestionably rules the city; due to a series of brutal murders both of those are going to change. The crime lord forcefully adopts him as an investigator, and makes sure he is augmented so as to stand a chance of success. The boss doesn't take no for an answer, and indeed never asks Marid's feelings on the matter. Marid is given a set of wires and a selection of chips, including one that completely blocks pain, and one that turns him into a feral killing machine. Both save his life. In the end, he's saved his neighborhood from a serial killer, and all it cost him was his self-respect, independence, a few close friends and possibly his soul.

In this case the upgrades were a matter of the boss making Marid his property - they combined significant upgrades with some terrifying loyalty compulsions, if I recall correctly. I've always thought a cranial bomb was a little crude; a permanent solution to a temporary problem. After all, if you give a man a Pain Editor, nobody says you can only reduce his pain. If you give a man a simrig, you decide what dreams he gets to dream with it. If you give a man a personafix, why would you let him take it out? A cranial bomb is the least of your worries.

Interesting and totally true in case of mundanes. Awakened Characters however would not completely fit this profile. While augmenting the cybernetically you reduce their magical power.

If a crimelord or any other antagonist would want something of the character and implants him to a) make him compliant B) ensure his survival against the opposition, he would probably weigh the pros and cons of this tactic and do pre-op diagnostics to find out if anyone has problems with 'ware.

Why would he use cyberware anyways, if the Influence Spell is available. Another possibility would be just plain lying to the characters as to what has been done to ensure their cooperation cf. Escape from NY/LA

It's not clear a personafix even requires hardware in SR. The rules for that stuff are 'handwavium' which is the same as 'GM fiat'

Also, fitting a PC with a personafix is the same as killing him, so it's not like it matters.

That's a far more concise way of expressing point I was trying to make. Plot happens.
I'm certainly not going to destroy a player outright for his choices, but I'll attack 'em all right. I've got to make him defend those choices to help solidify the character. And if his history is a big blank, then I'll fill it in. And, despite how I may sound when I say so, I ain't mean about it. The reward for a GM is helping develop these characters so that they'll take the story in directions you couldn't even imagine.

I had an NPC captured once and the plan was to have a simrig implanted in her so they could make "movies".

Ok I waited until this morning to respond figuring that you'd all get "mellow, happy Ravor" from flirting with a certain pretty young lady, sadly last night was "interesting" and my exwife is being more of a slitch than normal so ya'll get cranky Ravor instead.

Dakka Dakka your entire post just makes me want to bang my head against a wall. The only thing that I'm going to say about the nonsense of trying to compare the impact of Sensitive System between mundanes and the awakened is so what, take a look at any number of other flaws that effect the Awakened different than mundanes. The comparason between the two Mages is a good point, but my responce is simply to point out that the second Mage got the extra Build Points/Karma from taking teh flaw so it's time for him to pay the piper.

Oh and I frankly don't care whether or not Essence can be regained, with the existance of Essence Holes tis a moot point.


Cthulhudreams are you seriously gonig to claim that you can't think of any reason to implant cyber into someone other than a fragging bomb? Hell, just off the top of my head I can see wanting to implant eyes and ears in order to keep tabs on the perp, commlink/simmodule, 'jacks, and datalocks are also fairly good choices with very little imagination required. And the idea that no-one would do this because it lowers the Mage's Magic, excuse me? The implants I've mentioned have a fairly low Essence cost and the ability to keep your thumb over the Mage is a hell of alot more valuable than the lost Magic would ever be.

As for the idea that capturing someone is done via "fiat" I call bullshit and will leave it at that.

Data filters are another one that could easily be considered a mandatory part of an employment contract, particularly since mages are really good at seeing things they're not supposed to. After all, even assensing is pretty useless if you can't remember the results for longer than a couple of minutes.

No Argument Here...

As an aside, My character was captured and was forcibly implanted Skill wires (Low Rating) with a Skill Chip and place into a work prison making electronic devices... what a bitch... Still waiting to escape that one...

Anyways... Keep the Faith

Well.... all that stuff can be carried externally, I'm not particularly sure why you'd cripple your asset to do that.

Plus, let's imagine you did install all that stuff into a sensative system mage 9remember, what we're discussing) means he's going to lose two points of magic - for the sake of argument taking him from 5 to 3. Costing him 57 Karma to recover from. At 5 karma a session, 1 session fornightly, you've just deleted 5 months of his character advancement.

That is a move I would characterize as 'being a jerk' Does anyone seriously think that taking away 5 months of progression is not a jerk move?



Please, point me towards a published adventure which doesn't explicitly call for you to railroad the PCs into being captured. I'd be extremely interested to see it, because I don't think it exists.

And yes, I call railroading PCs into inescape scenarios 'GM Fiat'

@whipstich - totally, but this discussion isn't about volutary arrangements for money, this is about GMs foisting stuff on players. Foisting data filter on a player mage costs 1 point of essence, or ~25 karma (there is an increased initation cost experinced which is going to be expensive). That's 5 sessions of progress, or 2.5 months.

Again, not a great move. Hell, if you did it to someone in the PbP forums, it means that you've removed more progression than they are likely to experience in the entire game.

Cthulhudreams you're kidding right? Are you seriously suggesting that I trust someone that I've captured and forced to work for me to carry around the gear that I'm using to keep tabs on him?

As for published adventures, not sure and I really don't care as I seldom use them and when I do I run everything through a blender at high speed, but as long as the players treat their characters as real people and not a bunch of video game sprites it hardly requires "fiat" to capture them.

And yeah, I consider Senstive System to be a very dangerous flaw for Mages to take, as long as they are able to remain at large it merely limits their growth, but thems the risk when taking a flaw that can directly screw you over so drastically.

Sure, you implant a cranial bomb that if it gets out of RFID range of the gear blows up. That's what we call in the business 'a strong incentive to keep carrying it'

This may not be the most mechanically optimal choice, but I'd certainly regard it as preferable to deleting a players character and telling him to restore from a 5 month old backup.

Uh-huh, that is perhaps one of the stupidest ideas that I've ever heard, and I used to read Emo's threads. There are so many holes in that theory that the only logical time it would ever be used is if the new bosses didn't have time to implant cyber, and even then it is next to useless.

Looking at it in terms of straight opportunity cost like that is a fool's errand though, since .2 Essence loss still leaves you with another .8 worth of essence you can use on other things without losing another die on Magic tests, which really, is often all that point of Magic is really doing for you. The question of whether it's a good idea or not becomes a lot tougher to answer when you consider that an employee with 3 Magic might not be as effective as an employee with 2 Magic, Cerebral Boosters, Retinal Mods and Data Locks and Filters. Not every mage is a unique and special snow flake who can live up to the potential their gift gives them. Some of them are just going to be gifted shlubs who are paid mostly to summon up something with the Movement power. Corps aren't interested in your personal growth as a Magician, they're interested in what you can do for them, which means they may not be willing to wait around to see if your next Astral Vision quest pays off or not.

We're not talking about random NPCs though.

We're talking about the actual players in actual games. And seriously, they are unique and special snowflakes, and are not shlubs.

The question is 'if a mage has no cyberware and sensative system, are you really going to enrage him by changing his magic skill from 6 to 4'

I am amazing that you are defending the position 'no, he won't be annoyed and that is totally okay and not a jerk move in any way'

I seriously did not think that anyone could reasonably defend subtracting (in the 6->4 case) 76 points of karma from a player.

Except that isn't what people are defending, they are instead defending the idea that flaws can and should have a bite to them in the situations where they come up in and probably that it isn't "fair" to treat someone with kid gloves merely because they decided to take a very bad flaw that they mistakenedly thought was "free points".

Should DMs also hold the hands of players who took other character killing flaws such as uncouth or infirm?

Wair... We went from altering one's essence (and subsequent magic rating) to altering skills?

When did that happen?

As an aside, if you don't want or expect your flaws to be used against you, don't take them...

Keep the Faith

You are right. That is not what they are defending, it is worse, they are advocating what Cthuludreams is talking about.

The GM should enforce the rules. If the situation comes up, and the rule is pertinent, then it should kick in. What he shouldn't be doing is to engineer those situations in response to a perceived "free points" situation.

Perhaps you have an allergy to peanuts, does the divine being make sure every meal(or a significant number) have peanut in them? Maybe if you are in Chicago and the food sources are old, maybe.

You have Sensitive System. Must someone come along to implant you with cyber even if you are not looking for any?


So unless you are into SM, don't take flaws?

I thought the purpose of enforcing a limited BP at character creation was to create a consistent resource pool with which the player expressed their character concept. Positive and Negative qualities can modify this limit to an extent, but in the end the player knows that the amge, street sam, adept, and rigger all had the same tools available during creation. The problem arises when qualities that give the same BP point adjustment have significantly differing impacts on the player character. This imbalance can create up a 70 point starting BP difference in characters, if optimized or exploited appropriately... and I use the word imbalance intentionally, because it isn't balanced across the 7 books available.

Personally, I believe this is ok, provided the GM can use these negative qualities to impact the character in some way. It doesn't have to be disasterous, or frequent, but there should be an impact, either directly through a limitation of the characters options, or a mechanism the GM can introduce in game. Sensitive System is not something the GM can introduce in game, so it has to be a limit the character in some way. As many have pointed out, it could be the inability to implant cybereyes, or forcing the character to depend on bioware for their enhancements. I can understand why some GMs think this isn't on par with the impact of a 40-hour a week day job, or a moderate common allergy, or 3 points of Gremlins, even though they're all 15 points.

This is something we will never come to a concensus about on this forum. It's a situation that'll have to be hanlded on a case by case basis, between the GM and the player. Some GMs may force a Sensitive System to take some cyberware, in which case those eyes will have the same impact on a Mages magic rating as a datajack, so spend that point of essence wisely. Some GMs may stuff a bomb in their head... if the player doesn't walk away from the table, then I'd say that's an implied acceptance of GMs decision. Some GMs mayb just say.. "Uhm, no." And some GMs may just let it slide, since it's not really that important to them, and it doesn't seem to bother the other players either.

Case by case. Table by table. there's been some good suggestions here. Let's not degenerate into a 'my way is better than your way.' Post some suggestions. try not to be overly critical of other people's ideas. We can all help each other out here...

No, just expect that they will be used against you... I will quote something that I learned in the HERO system a long time ago, and which I believe that I have seen posted here:

"A Flaw that is not a Flaw is not worth any points."

Now, that being said... you can go overboard trying to compensate for Flaws (I have seen a lot of "dick" moves posted on how to control them in game)... most of them will turn around and bite the character in the ass without the GM ever trying to be rude about it... some of them are there strictly for roleplaying purposes, and add depth to a character... Bottom line is that if you, as a GM, do not like a specific Flaw, don't allow it into the game... if you allow it into the game, don't complain when someone takes it and you have a hard time integrating it into the storyline somehow...

Keep the Faith

Damn... Ninja'd by Cheshyr...

Lot of angry people in here. Let's all take a step back and take a deep breath, okay?

If I remember correctly, this whole argument started like this: Degausser asked for advice concerning flaws that appeared to have no enforceable game effect - a prejudice at a level that somehow had a threshold 0 to resist. That turned into a discussion of other 'free' BPs at character creation, and somebody brought up Sensitive System, claiming that it was 'free' for mages. There was, as always, much dissent. Somebody suggested that they would only allow it on people who had cybernetics installed, so it could never be a 'free' flaw. Dissent grew. Many people argued that Sensitive System would never be 'free', since most mages will break down and cyber up at some point. Other people pointed out the GM's ability to bring 'free' flaws into the forefront of the campaign to force players to earn their points. Then a long and angry discussion about whether forced cyber implantation was a way to make players earn their points.

Now everybody hates each other forever.

The first question here, if I read this correctly, is are there flaws which give BP with little or no impact on the character? Some are certainly worse then others. I'd much rather take Sensitive System on my Rigger then a 15 point Gremlins - and come to think of it, I did.

Is the GM allowed to deny players access to flaws during the character approval stage? It's completely his call. If he has a problem, he should certainly bring it up, and listen to the players when he does. It's possible they have a good reason for it, or even expect to be hindered by it in ways the GM hadn't considered.

If a player insists on taking an action the GM strongly advises against, is that going to bite him in the ass? Seriously, has it ever *not* gone that way?


I think all the arguments about game mechanics, greedy players and evil GMs are kind of secondary to these three main issues: Are some of the flaws unwelcome in some games, does the GM get to make that call, and should the players expect the GM to point it out when they make a mistake? I say yes to all three. That said, all that needs to happen here is for the GM to pull the player aside (during the point in character creation set aside for exactly this) and come to an agreement.

I agree 100% that character creation is when those issues should be brought up.

Exactly - the guy deliberately trying to put players who take Incompetence: Artisan into death traps is just being a jerk - if you don't like it, tell the player up front. No-one is so unreasonable that they won't listen to you telling them that.

Why subject them to an endless series of deathtraps instead over a 5BP negative quality?



No, that's exactly what you are advocating. I'm not the guy who suggested forcible implanting of cyberware into sensitive system mages!

DMs shouldn't 'hold peoples hands' they should just talk straight to their players. If you think it is character killing, you just tell them that. Straight up. Say "Sorry, you cannot use infirm or uncouth in my game, it doesn't fit with how I run." It's not hard. Don't come up with extremely contrived situations like

"Well, Ares captures you, then for some stupid assed reason they install you with some cyberware that costs like 10k nuyen, then they set you free (?) and blackmail you into doing some job." Holy shit, your players are shadowrunners, i.e. people they commit crimes for money. Ares could have just offered the team 10k to do the damn job. Why inflict stupid bollocks on your characters because you don't like their choice of disadvantage?

Seriously, all the 'well, lets unreasonably punish players for taking disadvantages, yeah, that'll be awesome' GMs here are just being passive aggressive jerks.

It's especially hilarious given the disadvantages themselves are so unbalanced.



The disadvantages are SERIOUSLY unbalanced. Hunted is a total joke of a disadvantage. You're a criminal who regularly commits crimes against the actual state. So functionally having and not having hunted leads to exactly the same situation.

The -10 for hacker ones are also extremely unbalanced, in that they are way harsh, but the -5 point ones for non hackers are basically irrelevant and will never have a meaningful impact unless the player does weird stuff.

This is why you really have to wonder when you're getting super excited about the mage taking sensative system. Not only is sensative system materially impacting options he wants to take (cybereyes), it's hardly the most imbalanced of the disadvantages.

Yeah, it's basically the most important statement in this thread. A GM who's out to make an example of a sheet often isn't all that much more fun than running with a munchkin.

Yeah, rule 1 of GMing: Get the players in a room. Decide what style and tempo and powerlevel of game you want to play.

If you as the GM wanted to run 'Gutterpunks incorporated' and all the players ask for James Bond the international jetset, you need to actually cut a deal - and that deal will inform what you can do. The infirm hacker archetype is actually a feature of Gutterpunks Incorporated in books, but it certainly doesn't feature in 'James Bond style international jet set' games. Rivals: The crips works for one game, but not the other.

To me 90% of 'I hate player XYZ complaints' are caused by abject failure to have this discussion in advance and figure out that you wanted to play 28 days later, and the player was expecting Left 4 Dead.

Brother, it all depends on your players. If they are not roleplayers then you have to enforce these disadvantages yourself as they'll never take responsibility of them and, if you can't handle it, which I TOTALLY understand, then ask them to ditch the disadvantages. Of course, you could view it as free points too. And you can just bring it to the players and tell them that in these circumstances they need to be proactive about roleplaying their disadvantages. All your call man.

The original Harlequin campaign. It said explicitly: If the PC's escape, they escape. Go on to the next section.

Back on topic: Overzealously enforcing flaws is just a jerk move. Talk to your players, and find out not only how often they want their flaws to come up, but how it'll happen. Sometimes they'll RP it out themselves, so you'll never need to bring it up. You don't have to take their suggestions, but it certainly helps, and it can make things more fun overall.

Noooo, my entire point invalidated. Actually not really, the getting captured thing isn't exactly plot critical and goes to my point - PCs won't get captured unless railroaded.

Wait, what?

Look it boils down to this:

When you want to capture PCs, you need opposition that is almost, but not quite, lethal. To weak and the PCs will kill it. Too strong and the PCs will die. Also the opposition has to have the PCs in a situation where the PCs cannot retreat or escape. (PCs are usually crack at SERE).

Finding the 'sweet spot' and actually capturing the PCs is almost impossible unless you're just changing it up on the fly - or more commonly using totally overwhelming force or starting in media res in a situation where escape is impossible. If the PCs cannot use smarts and avoid the situation, escape or fight there way out, it is blatant railroading.

Say in WEG starwars, at least one of the published adventures had the PCs start in a 'no escape' situation, and in one of the others, you're hyperdriving and random into an interdictor cruiser with the ultimatum of 'surrender or die'. Both of which are blatant railroading as there is zip the PCs can do about that.

Well, here is a possible solution/compromise.

In the old World of Darkness games, flaws worked quite similarly to Shadowrun's Negative Qualities do. The New WOD has found a solution that I think is quite elegant.

Basically, you can take as many flaws at character creation as you like. You can have them as mild or as harsh as you like. These could be anywhere from "Wears prescription eyeglasses" to "Absolutlely terrified of cats."

At character creation, you get nothing for your flaws. Flaws don't really come into play until the game starts. If, during the course of the game, your flaw presents itself as a real, tangible hinderance to your character, you get a bonus XP.

For example: Bob is an Elf Poser.

In the first few sessions, nobody notices that Bob isn't really an elf. No bonus karma.

The next session, Bob gets found out by the group's mage, Steve, who happens to be an elf. Steve just rolls his eyes, smiles, and says nothing. Bob still gets no bonus Karma. Steve apparently doesn't care, other than finding it slightly amusing. As there has been no tangible detriment to Bob, he gets no bonus Karma.

The next session, Mr. Johnson just so happens to be an elf, and again, finds out that Bob is a poser. Mr. Johnson curls his lip at the poser. On the surface, again, nothing happened. But after negotiations are over, the GM reveals that the team probably could have gotten a better deal if it weren't for Johnson's disgust of Bob, so for this session, Bob gets the bonus Karma.

One more example. Larry has gremlins rating 2. He is trying to use some technological doohickey, and is rolling 8 dice. Ordinarily, he would glitch by rolling 4 1's, but because he has gremlins 2 he glitches on 2 1's.

On his first roll, he rolls 5 1's. Obviously he glitches, but he gets no bonus karma, because he would have gotten a glitch anyway without the flaw.
On his next roll, he rolls 3 1's. He would get a karma this time, because he wouldn't have glitched if it weren't for his gremlins flaw.

Now, I am not sitting in front of my WOD book, but if I am not mistaken, bonus xp from having a flaw is limited to 1/session, just so it can't be exploited by doing things like repeatedly trying to glitch using gremlins to rack up large karma bonuses... so choose your flaws with care.

Wow. Just...wow.

I'm all for roleplaying the flaws, and even having them show up as often as it seems funny for them to do so, but... Surely some player out there deliberately took something that would hinder the game just so they can get emotional about their struggle and earn XP.

Any time a flaw comes up is already an opportunity to impress the group with humor or drama, which IIRC is already on the list of things that might earn you Karma. Prejudice: Ambershard Dwarf Clan (They ruined me clan! Me father stopped drinking over it!) *Ding*


I *do* like taking the character background stuff out of the point-buy system, but maybe I'm too much of a roleplayer at heart.

Sorry Cthulhudreams but if you'd actually read what I've wrote you'd see that the only thing I'm "advocating" is that all of the characters should be treated the same, the guy with Sensitive System doesn't get off "scot free" by having his new employers implant a bomb and tell him to lug around a microphone and camera when the same character without Sensitive System would have been fitted with cybereyes and ears as well as said bomb because it's more effective and much, much harder to fool. Whether or not said character is Awakened or not doesn't matter to me either.

And once again, the only way you have to "fiat" a capture by designing the opposing force to be "just right" is if you have some piss poor players who treat the characters like video game sprites who would rather fight to the death as oppose to lay down arms and live to fight another day.

As for the entire blackmail vs simply paying them, suprisingly enough, I kindof sortof agree with you, most of the time, simply paying the Runners off would be the better choice, but they are times when a heavier hand is needed as well.




Oh, and toturi for once I think I may actually agree with you, provided that you'd also follow the rules and not have your NPCs decide to go soft on said character by not installing cyber if that is indeed what they would do otherwise, I'm not talking about "punishing" a Player for taking an unwise flaw by making damn sure that he gets cybered in the campaign, I'm simply not pulling my punches because of his poor choice in flaws.

No, you wouldn't get xp for that. Not unless his prejudice actually hindered that character in some tangible way. Wailing in angst wouldn't be worth any karma. That's just roleplaying.

Now if the above character, in the middle of a run, happened to see a memeber of the Ambershard Clan, and endangered himself and his mission to take his revenge, he would get Karma. (think Marty McFly from Back to the Future... any time someone called him "Chicken" and he acted out on it, he would get Karma.) But just Boo-Hooing his character history is not only annoying, but also not worthy of Karma.

Rule of thumb: If it "hurts", it was worth karma.