It never occurred to me that he thought 1% meant that there wouldn't be someone with talent in whatever building Zod is getting levitated up to. It seemed so obvious that the locals, gangers, and thugs would have minor mages in their ranks that I never considered he thought 1% meant 0%.

Well strictly, its 1% magically active...if you split 50/50 adepts/mages, now your down to 1/200 people, and if you bell curve it from 3 as average, only 1/400 people is a "competent" mage, less than 1/1000 is a "4" and 1/10000 people is a runner class mage by inherent talent. You start talking 6s and 7s, and your literally looking at 1 in a million.

How do you know you're a nerd....

Ok, but seriously, you have to look at how the world should work by now: Magic has been around. The Corps AND the organised crime know it's valuable. It's simply LAME to say otherwise, no matter what the books say. Being able to do magic is so much of an "I win" button that the corps will be licking their fingers over every mage they can find, and so will every cartel, or whatever. I think the deal with smaller corps not having them (and hence low magical security) is really not being able to afford them, because that value creates a demand, and the demand creates a price which small corps can't pay, save, say, for a few wards here and there.

And concerning mage stats, there is no formalized mechanism linking stats to amounts of education and training people receive, but I would say that the average mage WILL get more of that than the average non-mage. Adepts are a mixed bag, because they have only limited utility uses, and aren't universally useful as magical security (although adepts with astral perception can make and maintain wards). So personally I would do it something like this: Gangers and common criminals get the dropouts from mage school (magic 3 or less) and self-taught mages (around 2) from the really poor districts, corps get the regular schooled mages, that is 4s and up, while the organised crime elements will probably train their own (to 3-4 at least) (and possibly from a young age to build loyalty). Those who are bored with all of that become runners.

AND I have to adapt my game world the PCs, as in, adjust what I believe is normal. In my current group we are 100% magically active - one mage and four adepts. Where min-maxing is concerned we are much better off than hyphz, because simply put, the mage is the only really min-maxed guy, and he didn't do it very well . He's still a pain, but easy to annoy. In karmagen min-maxing is also obviously less of a problem, and hence most people have skills of 3-4 for their good fields, and 5s in their specialty, but usually not more. A "normal" specialist NPC can hence easily have 3-4 in their specialty without breaking the game world, so a "normal" mage can easily throw 8 dice for his spells, maybe more for a specialty. That is enough to hit a PC with a stunbolt! I even got through the mage's defenses in astral space, because all his nice sustained spells were not active there .

Yes, but really all you need is a dude who can see in the astral and a gun to take potshots at the mage while he's floating Zod 5 stories above the payment. Have a few other inhabitant of the tenement open up to defend their building and maybe, just maybe, there would be a fight scene, especially if the GM doesn't just say "you win, they all die" and actually rolls some dice and gives the people in the building the benefit of cover.

My attitude about mages is, yeah, they're rare... so are doctors. But if I walk into a hospital, lo and behold, there are lots of doctors, all over the place! It's the same way with shadowrunners. Most shadowrunning teams have at least one mage. Most corporate compounds have at least one on-site mage, or wards and a patrolling spirit at the very least. Corporations, criminal syndicates, and gangs will all have awakened talent. It is only rare in the general population, not in the criminal, security, and corporate sectors that shadowrunners typically come into contact with.

The 1% is the same percentage as doctors to non-doctor's (at least it was a couple of years ago).

Really? You can smuggle a machine pistol into a bar or a mall or an airport? MAD scanners would find it quite easily. Hell, a pat-down would find something as big as a machine pistol no problem. You are the GM and it is your gameworld, but if you think a concealed machine pistol is the leading edge of subtlety no wonder the Automatics skill is the only weapons skill Zod needs. I am willing to bet your PCs walk around in full armour all the time without raising an eyebrow as well. You tell us you want to challenge your players, but then seem reluctant to do so.

As for not being able to get into a secure location, sometimes that is the goal in SR. Wetwork (assassination) is only one of a number of "standard" SR jobs which include stealing MacGuffins/paydata, extractions, bodyguarding, finding missing people etc. In all the above cases (including wetwork), getting into secure facilities and/or traveling through high-security neigbourhoods may be required. As a GM, you owe it to your players to present them with different kinds of challenge, and to prevent their standard tactics from always being an Insta-Win button. For what it's worth, I think you are trying, but perhaps you could try a little harder.

As for one-trick min-maxed monstrosities, there is a reason that the GM has to approve any character that is brought to his table. For myeslf, I always want the character to have some internal logic as to his/her abilities, 'ware and skillset. How did Zod learm to be a god of Automatics? Was he trained in the military? Did he grow up on the mean streets and fall in with a gang? Or did some mentor come along, realize his talent and teach him? Or was it something else? Next you think about the background and think what other skills he may have garnered while learning to shoot the crap outta fings. What did he do before becoming a runner? Was he an assassin, or just a mob heavy? If the player wants the former background, how did he get to his sniper positions before he came across Dawg and his invisible levitation trick?

Take the PC's out of their comfort zone, force them to adapt, and occasionally throw a spanner in the works when they use their standard tactics. If you can achieve this, you will find you have ramped up the tension and your players will be so much more satisfied.

2 words: vat grown. Background done

Heh, I had a character like that, but he was the min-maxed god of all-roundedness . Well... that was SR3, so there were fewer skills you had to have, but still...

Zod, in game, has been challenged, nearly being killed by another sniper, suffering because he lacks B&E skills, etc. But the other side of the coin is that having his high combat dice pool should not be an instant win, either - and you need to learn how to deal with those, because Zod only has his glaring weaknesses because he was put together by a new player. You can certainly make a character with a dice pool of 20 or so, who also can function in other areas.

I think it boils down to having more mooks who use elementary tactics and don't bunch up together. Someone already gave an example of how a few mooks could take Zod down after he used his action to take the first one of them down. And honestly, I think Zod would probably enjoy the game more if he did take a few wounds, or have a few scary moments, here and there. And I think you're making progress in that area, you just have a few mental blocks - I can be the same way sometimes, shooting myself down with a bunch of reasons before I even try something. I think if you run scenarios a bit more fast and loose, and hold the NPCs back a bit less, the game will get better.

In America I think it's 0.5% - 1% are military servicemembers.

I did the math problem in a thread, and taking the base rate of 1% or 0.5% across the general population and applying it to shadow runners, corp security, criminal outfits, and other subgroups is erroneous way to anylyze that tidbit published back in 2E (the 2050's to 2060's). And according to the book magic is getting stronger.

So a better method is to do it from the top down. Assume a population of 10 million. At a .5% that indicates that there are 50,000 mages of varying power levels. Most are 3 or 4 (50%), the 1's and 2's are probably perfecting their craft (20%-mostly younger folk), and significant % are 5 (let's say 20%), and probably 10% are a 6.

So there are 5,000 in this group with a rating 6 in magic, 10,000 with a 5, and 25,000 eith a 3 or 4.

Ok, now lets suppose that in a population of the 10 million, 1% are law enforcement/security, 1% are organized crime, 3% are street gangs, and 0.1% are shadow runners. That means there are 100,000 cops/security, 100,000 in the mafia, yakuza, etc, 300,000 in various street gangs, and 10,000 runners. Let's suppose that for the cops/corpsec, 10% are mages of magic 3 or higher, organized crime is 1% mages at level 3 or higher, street gangs are 1% but rating 1 to 4 (mostly 1-3). Runners are 20% mages, ratings 3 or higher.

Cops/Corp Sec have 10,000 mages out of the pool that is 40,000.
Organized Crime has 1,000 mages out of that 40,000.
Runners have 2,000 mages.
Gangers would have 3000 mages.

That would leave about 27,000 mages of rating 3 or higher doing corporate research/medicine/entertainment. It would also leave about 7,000 low level mages learneing their craft. Of the population 44,000 are not illegally practicing their craft.

You can adjust the assumptions and percentages to nothing of course, but that to me wouldn't jive with SR.

Well, in fairness there is a weapon mod that helps there: ceramic components / plasteel components, and it is a no-brainer for the concealable weapon you want as your hold-out

It may have been "playing it wrong" but in the first session my infiltrator snuck into a club past 2 troll guards and a MAD scanner, while carrying his sniper rifle and an AR for Zod. He was invisible (force 5), and timed it to go in at the same time as a punter, letting the punter take the fall for the alarm bells (I rolled 9 hits on the infiltration test to sneak past and time it). Is this broken and should have been punished, or a creative use of team skills?


This I completely and unequivocably agree with. Hyphz is by nature a cautious guy, and tends to try and play it safe. I don't think he's doing the setting justice keeping things toned down, when we are quite obviously running rampage in a high tech city. Bring the pain, and let the dice fall where they may, we can always reroll new chars

It's nice, actually, with the exception that a high-class club would probably have a ward active around the entrances. Wards aren't really that expensive - a few grand every few months.

The problem with the tactic is that the fall guy will obviously be searched, and if they find nothing they are going to get suspicious that they got a (probably huge) alert on their scanners.

You got into a club carrying a sniper rifle and an AR, past 2 troll guards and a punter, while the scanners sounded an alarm without bumping into anyone?
And when the alarms went off the whole club didn't turn to look?
or at least the 1-2 people in the club who could see astral didn't turn to see why the scanners are going off and see you and the guns glowing bright as daylight?

How long did you remain in the club, sustaining that invisibility, while no one opened their third eye?

"My friends and I are happy to see you, and would like to buy you a drink. Or two...."

That was a very cool move actually. This group seems to be doing a very good job of making up for each other's weaknesses through teamwork. The huge alert is really no different than if they'd had a hacker go in and edit the scanner. At least with this method it doesn't leave any digital trail. Warding is correct -- unless it was a bar that catered to mages in which case they may only have wards around the manager's office/safe (so that people can go in with their fashion/physical mask/shapechange/orgy/resist alcohol or whatever).

I've come to a conclusion in SR4 that there is actually no point in bothering with magical defense. All that magical defense does is create a "hacker problem" for mages where you get stuck playing out 20+ mins of the mage trying to deal with stuff that no one else can deal with so the rest of the party just tunes out. Actually making your business dual natured is MORE likely to result in magical problems than if you don't. There isn't too much that a mage can do to an office safe that isn't easy to defeat with matrix/physical security or at least make very obvious (eg. camera sends an alert as soon as safe is no longer visible in its current spot, hidden pressure sensors wired to warning light on the bar).

As to the magical problems this group is having I wouldn't worry about them too much. Eventually the day will come when Dawg isn't around when the rest of the group needs him and then their weaknesses will be glaringly obvious. Having an easy time of things through clever plans and ideas is a reward for Shadowrun just like nuyen and karma. Personal annecdote so YMMV: clever planning is the one reward that will be talked about long after everyone has forgotten their characters's stats.

I think from some of the previous posts I've spotted a major math error we've been making that could tilt things dramatically in Zod's favour.

Ha! Oh boy.

The punter goes in with you in tail, the alarm goes off, you squeeze past and rush it to the toilets, where you drop the invis in a cabin. Now what you are going to do with two big guns in a club is a question I won't bother to answer. Why you would even WANT to take them I even don't know, because probably the Elan with S&S would serve you just as well in a place where noone has either a big gun nor heavy armour.

Oh. Another question - Do I need to be using all the supplements?

My original plan was to use the corebook and Arsenal only, but the problem seems to be that the supplements take away as much as they give. Unwired, for example, might give some power ups to hackers but it also introduces secure slaving and other things which make things harder or remove handwavium. So is it really needed to have them all in mind?

As the GM you determine which books are allowed, and what in each book is allowed.

That's how it should be...

The GM gets a bit more voting power because ultimately he has the most work, and generally if he has serious reservations people should listen to him, but that doesn't mean that if four players in the group want to include something, and the GM doesn't, that he isn't out-voted. Ultimately, you have to decide such things as a group, because the GM doesn't win if his group is unhappy (and vice versa, naturally).

However, since you are all new to the system, it might be a good idea to add slowly. You might, for instance, introduce stuff from Augmentation as new tech bit by bit. That's obviously a change from canon, but... makes things more manageable, and the players have to accept it when you say you simply don't know this stuff, yet.

Now, to give you something more substantial to go on:

I would include:
Augmentation: Yes, it beefs up PCs, but generally SR isn't the same without it.
Street Magic: Selectively. This one is not as necessary as Augmentation, but as an old SR3 player I often miss things without including it.
Unwired: I actually like this book, because it gives you possibilities as the GM. You just have to watch out for where 4A overrules it

I have reservations against:
War
RC if you don't get rid of a lot of stuff; Obviously karmagen (in a possibly errata'd/house-ruled form) is practically mandatory

The splattier splats you might as well exclude, even though their impact on the game should be minor. You might consider Way of the Adept, and This old Drone, because it adds options and flavour stuff. You might also consider Spy Games, because it finally includes a lot of options which didn't exist previously.

At your table. At ours my players have elected to allow me to determine this. There is no one true way.

By the by, for the record there is no book I don't allow. All your high tech junk is meaningless when you hear the howl of the barghest baby!

Sorry, I've got to agree with Paul. The player who can't sway my opinion and doesn't like my choice can be the GM.

Note that Paul's option not only includes what books, but what in each books, and I will add to that selection, if it's not implied, "any house rules you think make the game better/clearer".

Exactly. if you want gaming by committee run it yourself.

Shadowrun is one of those reactionary games that even promote going against years of progress in gameology, which finally brought us democratic gaming. House rules are group decisions, just like anything else, and should be transparent and known to all players. Your groups may elect to let you decide on them, but that doesn't make things better.

I'll make the choice to walk from any table that includes god-moding GMs who break rules and won't listen to my suggestions or won't put them up for group vote.

It's not YOUR game, it's your scenario, that's the entirity of a GMs role in role playing games.

I love how you go to such lengths to paint the opposing viewpoint as evil and broken as possible. Your word choice here helps paint the problem with achieving group consensus with some players.

Edit: Since both Paul and I have included the option of "Anyone who doesn't like it can run their own game" and your option seems to be "Walk away from the table", I think I can see why you feel the players need the ability to outvote the GM on issues.

And I think that's reasonable. Please don't confuse I'm the GM with I think I'm God. But yeah, at my table my players expect me to take charge and expect me to arbitrate fairly. So if they think I've made a mistake they'll point it out and we'll discuss it like reasonable adults. It is our collective fun, not just my selfish needs.

We have a standing rule, which we refer to as the 445 second rule. If during the course of a game we have a disagreement on a rule we'll devote 45 seconds or less to discussing it, looking up rules or what not. Then I make a ruling on the field that stands until we're done. After the game we can devote as much time as people have to spare-which isn't always much, but thanks to the modern miracle known as email we can do a lot of our rules lawyering that way.



I don't know. I think the role varies at each table. I have a strong group of independent minded players, with a lot of experience in not just Shadowrun but a variety of systems-Ninjas&Superspies, D&D (In every incarnation), Rifts, Earthdawn, D20 Modern, Role Master, Call of Cthulu, Eclipse Phase...the list goes on. In the 20 plus years we've gamed together as a group-since our mid teens to our mid thirties now-we've always seen whomever is wearing the GM's hat (Generally me, but not always) as the final arbitrator of how the game will be run at the table.

The nice thing is we've always taken the attitude that if you don't like it, voice your opinion and if you feel strongly enough about it, run a game. We're not into being dicks to each other, and we all try to ggive it a fair go, no matter who's taken on the GM'ing duties. But yeah this isn't game by committee.

Just curious. Like where specifically? This the Agent thing again?

Edit: I can see where Brainpiercing is coming from, things should be discussed and mutually agreed, but at the end of the day, it's the GM who decides. Your both right.

Let me put this in a polemic way: I don't need to enter a voluntary dictatorship in my leisure time. There are enough outside forces that I (or people in general) have to subject themselves in their "real" lives, so that I think in gaming I can take a perfectly democratic attitude.

That being said: I think from what Paul says his group is generally a mature enough collection of people that they can cope - obviously. I also favour something like a 45second rule, with the exception of new groups and new games, which generally need more time for looking up stuff you are not yet familiar with. And then, even in games I'm very familiar with, like D&D, for instance, I need to look stuff up all the time.

If you say that you will allow everyone to run the group, well... that's a practicality issue. If you have five people and one time slot per week where everyone is available, then you'll generally get one game, maybe two if you alternate bi-weekly. And that's the limit. If one of those games turns bad, but for some reason the other players want to keep it up, then I can only walk, because as has been pointed out in this very thread, gaming isn't worth the aggravation. (Yes, that in itself is also a partly democratic process - if the other players are happy, then that's good for them, why should they change? However, in my experience a lot of players are just dickless and don't even want to voice an opinion - and these are all adults, mind you, I wouldn't even say anything if these things went back to my teenage years.)
And that's why I simply say: Democratic gaming, i.e. "Stuff is up for group vote, period" is practically better gaming, because at least if you don't get your way then you had the chance of putting it forward. Which I would have never had if all I ever hear from the GM is "no", and the other players simply side with him for fear of no longer being favoured.

And if you are lucky enough to have never played in groups who - frankly - suck at this sort of thing (such as me, who was cursed with groups like that for years, and was unfortunately not yet independant enough to walk away), then I envy you, but I know that the more straight-forward I am with my attitude, the less likely I'll be to end up in a group like that again. (And if it's just because those with the inclination of dictatorial GMing won't like the antagonism.)

When I GM, am I perfect? By no means. I do sometimes decide things on the fly, both for back-story mechanics or because I can't be bothered, or it doesn't seem worth the trouble. Or I'm sometimes too lazy to put every house rule writing immediately, which I should. Well...

I'll give you one concession, where I believe that at least during the conception phase a game can be strictly "as offered": That's PbPs on the internet, when you don't have a firm group of players. You offer the game, you offer the house rules and put them up for review. (And a good convention GM should do the same: Put things out there for everyone to see, people don't have to join if they don't like it.) And then anyone who joins and does not immediately complain has to accept things as they are. But when you then come up with a new problem, something you would like to change, then you have to put it before the group.

It really sounds like you just had a series of dick GM's. Most of my players really don't care about the rules, and trust me to make sure things stay fair. If they have an issue they have the opportunity to voice it pretty much anytime either at the table or via email or phone, I don't play with immature children who want to argue about everything. They trust me as a caretaker for a story constructed by the interaction of the group. It is not democratic, we don't take votes, they simply trust me, and should I play in a game they run I trust them, but ultimately if I have an issue with a rule in a game they are running and they don't I will simply suck it up, because they are the individual putting the most time into it, and may very well have a reason they cannot reveal at the time for something being the way it is. So no one is a dictator, but someone is running the world, you really don't get the option to decide that being attacked by Yakuza at one point is unrealistic, and that instead it should be Vory. The contrary player rarely lasts long in my groups, we all work and have little time to deal with the unique special flower who wants all the attention. Not that I think that is what you are suggesting. I think most groups fall in the middle with an unstated consensus based on trust, a compact with the GM for him to not abuse the responsibility the rest of the group has essentially given him. It seems to me that you have been involved in situations where that trust has been shattered.

This makes zero sense to me. No one's saying 'no player input'. *Obviously* player input. But the GM is the one GMing. And this crap about 'favor' and 'fear' is ridiculous.

I think we're relatively far from the thread now, though.

Yea, it's about time to get back to giving hyphz advice to ignore

I haven't been ignoring any advice. It's just been difficult to deal with.

And it's a bit confusing to be told I need to make more stuff up while at the same time being told I'm bad at making stuff up.

Oh, and it turns out I was wrong about the math error.. which is annoying, as it means I haven't found the problem after all.

Ok, obviously you're not getting me: (so just one last time)

Scenario is GM territory. Obviously the GM decides what things happen in the world. He has full control over all of that, which obviously still means that while playing the game, his leverage is always greater. Still, whatever he does should all the while obey the rules and mechanics of the game (if not to the letter, then at least in spirit). (Which also means that he shouldn't prepare plot, because that often has problems, for instance sacrificing consistency for drama and stuff like that. Different topic again.)

Rules are GROUP territory. Rules and mechanics make interactions in the game world possible. They facilitate anything that happens in the game world, and they define and give structure (and limitations) to the overlapping spheres of influence of players (and their characters) and the GM. Therefore they must be transparent, obvious, understood and mutually agreed upon. You agree on a game and the available source material, and that defines the basis of the game you are playing. Any and all deviations from that basis, i.e. from the rules and mechanics of the game, must be put by the group, or else no further interaction is possible. If one guy just decides he'll do things differently, then the game falls apart - even if that guy is the GM. Because once the GM starts doing things differently, then I can no longer rely on the possible interactions within the game world (and certain metagame things, too). And even just giving him the possibility of changing things on the fly without prior notice or discussion is making these interactions impossible to gauge. Of course the GM also acts as mediator and moderator - but his weight in any given matter shouldn't be much greater than everyone else's. He might be the one to tip the scales, but he doesn't get to decide against all others involved.

So obviously this is all in theory, and in practice we generally have to compromise for all sorts of imperfections - laziness, lack of rules knowledge, time, etc., all of which blur the handle you can have on the game world. So... game rules should be a bit like the laws physics - you don't have to know all of them, but you can still rely on certain things working in certain ways. And gravity won't stop just because one guy says so. (Unless he's a wizard.)

That's all I'm saying, and no matter what game you are playing that simple division holds up. I'm not saying that the trust relationship is wrong, obviously you trust the GM to create a scenario that is fun for everyone, and in turn uphold the very important responsibility of a player to likewise ensure that everyone else can have fun, too.

And why do I think this method is better than the old "it's the GM's game, he gets final say on everything" method? Because that old one can cause all kinds of crap. Crap that doesn't happen once you understand that the GM is basically just a player - albeit with greater responsibilities. I'm not saying the other one can't work, it's just that mine works better in more cases. If the rule books of all the games out there were more clear on the matter (and sometimes less reactionary) then gaming would be more fun for a lot of people.

And ok, end of that OT.

The funny thing about this is that you go so far into hyperbole that I can't possibly agree with you.

I have no problem with a GM deviating from the rules for the purpose of a good story. If he introduces a new race, critter, device, spell, vehicle, or something else not covered by the rules into the mission, I'm cool with that. Clearly you aren't, but that's your problem, not everyone else's.

As far as your way working better, maybe it works better for you. It definitely isn't better for me. I like being surprised by new toys in my sandbox and your "better" way doesn't allow for that.

If it's related to something specific we might be able to help without diving back down into the "you're doing it wrong" folder (or I'll try not to dive back down it anyway). Give us the scenario and some specific stats and we can show you how we'd crunch them.

Let's see that the rules say about obeying the rules....
Okay - so maybe that doesn't say anything about GM has final rules decision vs "everything must be put to a fair and democratic vote"... but that's my favorite section of all the SR books. RAW that says "screw the RAW"

Blimey, how many 5's and 6's do you guys have on your d6's - you always seem to get far more hits than you statisctically should! That aside, your tactic to get guns into the club was risky but legitimate, and with 9 hits you aced it even if the GM had thrown a DP penalty at you for the tight squeeze/perfect timing requirements.

The point I am trying to make is that it shouldn't always be so. Some clubs (especially the bigger more famous ones) will definitely have wards in place and/or spirits to prevent magical infiltration. Also your characters were running the gauntlet with other awakened folks in the club - if anyone were to astrally see some invisible dude sneaking into the club (especially if they saw the hardware, which is OTT for typical Johnson meet/personal protection scenarios), they might discretely alert club management, or might even strike preemptively on someone who, from their perspective, is probably about to commit an act of terrorism and put a big downer on their night out. Turn the tables - if your team were waiting for a meet in a bar and saw someone smuggle some heavy duty hardware into the place, you might decide it was safer to go preemptive on their arses.

The thing that some of us are trying to get across to hyphz is that (1) Invisibility, although a powerful spell, should not always be an Insta-Win button, and can be defeated by wards, spirits or other astrally perceiving observers, and ultrasound; and (2) There is a reason that there is a skill called Pistols, and that he is not really challenging you if you can take your Boomstick of Death with you wherever you go all the time. In his defence, you as a group seem to be fairly creative at circumventing such restrictions, but my point holds as does my conclusion that you guys will find it much more rewarding if you have to hold your breath every time Dawg does Invisibility to see if you don't get caught with your pants down.

Oh, and as for ceramic components, yes they can be good against MAD scanners, but don't forget perception checks for guards - holdouts might be hard to notice, but even under a lined coat a machine pistol ain't so difficult to spot. And as there are often more than one guy watching people go through MAD scanners at security checkpoints they might get a teamwork bonus. Depending on the place, security might also do patdowns on a random selection of people, and patdowns should definitely pick up something as big as a machine pistol.

Player 1: I think we don't get enough cash and karma for our trouble. I propose we each get 100 karma and 1 million new yen per run. All in favor?
Other Players: Hell, yes!
GM: Groan

Smells of powergaming to me ...

Well, if they gave that same authority to the players, everything would be fine. Sorry, I said I would stop.

@hyphz:

I think what people are getting at is that you SAY you are trying to use the advice, while actually finding lots of reasons for yourself why not to. That's... a very common psychological thing to do, but this is just a game. You shouldn't be stressing out over it, but you should be aware that GMing for various systems can be learned, by applying methods and techniques (which are hopefully proven effective). SR is a far from perfect system, and it takes different methods than D&D, for instance. (And especially than that game that doesn't actually exist, because that is nothing more than a streamlined combat engine, something SR is decidedly not.)



This I would disagree with, for several reasons:
- IF you see someone smuggling automatic weapons into your club, you should be worrying about the safest things you can do. The first should be calling the star, or whatever agency is acting as the police, with detailed information as to what is going down, all the while hoping they don't just storm into the place with SWAT teams.
- if this is an illegal establishment, or generally a hideout for illegals, and you can't call the star, then you either have to ask yourself whether you have at your disposal security personel that can deal with a threat like that, or whether you don't. Specifically, whether you really want a drawn out firefight IN YOUR CLUB!
- Personally, what I would do is sound the fire alarm, potentially including sprinkler/the fire suppression system. It's really the only thing you can do if you don't have a stun-bolting mage at your disposal. The fire alarm might not tip off the potential terrorists, while still poviding a decent chance of foiling their plans. Now if you think that they are just going to shoot everyone there is nothing much you can do, anyway. You bring in what security you have and hope they can deal with it once the chaos has started.
- If you have any indication that the people with the heavy hardware might be runners, I believe an elaborate bluff might also be in order, as in: You talk to them, reveal that you know that they have smuggled stuff into the club you don't like, and make it sound like you are only holding back for politeness (or business) reasons.

Upon re-reading, I see you were talking about random guests... now... I think many people have a lot of reasons not to want to be the ones to start the fight. As the GM, you can obviously always drop a powerful mage into a club, because they also have to hang out somewhere, BUT... well, maybe that's actually not such a bad idea. Put a vigilante mage in there who simply stunballs the group, or tries to, anyway .


Smells of wilfully misinterpreting my arguments to me...

Obviously advancement rewards are GM territory, too, because that belongs to the scenario. Although actually some games do actually include the group. For instance, the group votes on who gets roleplaying rewards, fun moment rewards, etc., which is really a far better way of doing things.

Look at it this way: You demand that the players trust the GM, but why shouldn't the GM trust the players?

I guess we need our own thread for this discussion!

We are in good standing with the dice gods Having played various systems for 2 decades or so you get to learn which rolls you need to edge reroll and which ones you can "safely" fail. I just lucked out on that one, I've had 7-8 DP tests rolled with 0 hits on several occasions now over the last 9 sessions (it always seems to be the Browse rolls too, maybe Caine's commlink is jinxed).

Regarding statistics, dice do not follow statistics particularly well except over a high volume of rolls. Anyone who's played D20 knows you get high crit sessions where everybody is rolling crits, and low crit sessions where nobody seems to get one (DM or players), even though it's a static 5% chance


We're learning that too. In fact, I'm wondering just how useful Infiltration is, if a spirit or mage can automatically perceive your aura anyway, then are they the ultimate guard? Or is it implied that if I am invisible, then I am easier to see on the astral and can't roll for Infiltrate, vs not being invisible and therefore can roll for Infiltrate even past a watcher spirit?

On my adept version of Caine I picked Astral Chameleon in the hopes that that would allow me to suppress my aura and sneak past astrally aware guards, however I'd also prefer to go in invisible & silent to fool cameras and mundane guards, and I'm getting the impression that any spell active on me is automatically lighting me up like a christmas tree on the astral. Does invisible actually mean "immediately obvious to at least one person in any sufficiently large group"? Does a non-awakened someone with a 20 dice Infiltrate pool and a chameleon suit have the same chance of sneaking past a spirit as they do past a metahuman guard? These are probably still all n00b questions but it's nice to get input from people who already had all these discussions


As a member of 2 groups that have been playing (as groups) for close to 2 decades each, there is an awful lot of trust both ways. As a player, I trust each GM to run it fairly, without abusing their positions as God of All™ too much, and only in an effort to advance the story. When I am GM, I trust the players to minmax like hell, come up with broken interpretations of rules (usually deliberate misreadings) in an attempt to minmax further, and basically try to ruin my entire day by doing nothing as expected. I also trust them to graciously accept me shooting down the broken rules and substituting a more balanced interpretation, and to accept the odd bit of railroading to get them back on track when they are so far off the plot that even a bodge artist like me doesn't know where to go next. Both groups I play with are very pink mohawk, in case you hadn't guessed

At no point am I expecting the GM to try and murder the entire group if they don't deserve it (it's fine if they do deserve it though, see start of thread for example), nor do I expect them to withhold rewards because we didn't choose the path they expected. I do expect them to railroad us back on track if required by the plot, assuming that they have put together some spectacular set-pieces that it would be a shame for us to miss (or we are at a point where we have broken the entire scenario and may as well be making it all up as we go along). And while I normally play with long standing friends, those expectations would still be there at a pick-up game with people I'd never met before.

Seen from the astral, all that can be figured is that the character has a spell active on him - it takes dual perception to notice that the person isn't visible on the material plane, hence that the spell is an invisbility one.

when it comes to the mundane in chameleon suit, since the spirit is watching the astral and the suit's cloaking ability doesn't work there, yes, the spirit has a better chance - though if the guard uses ultrasound sights or UWB radar, he'll be on par with the spirit since the suit doesn't help against a non-visual detection.

Nope. Spell type can be determined as well.


It doesn't help against thermographic vision either. Good luck getting past the troll.

So, if I have an active spell (invisibility, cast by Dawg) does the spirit have more chance of seeing me (-force DP on my Infiltrate or +force DP on its Perception), or can it automatically see me? If I don't have an active spell, is it a pure Infiltration vs Perception test or is there a penalty / bonus due to my natural aura?

We are currently playing it as astral perception is an automatic spot, and I'm feeling that this is a little unfavourable to Infiltration, as I have yet to find a method of completely cloaking my aura. If that's the way it works fair enough, it's just that it makes it relatively simple to put up an unbeatable surveillance system; spirits on overwatch plus guards / cameras on overwatch = forget subtlety, break out the autocannons :/

I'm probably missing something though