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Kazuhiro
Players whose approach to character creation makes it seem like they just finished a runthrough of Gears of War 2 and have forgotten the point of Shadowrun present a unique problem. One of my players, and I'm sure you've all had characters like this in your games, is playing a character whose primary ability is shooting people very hard without dying. He's not sneaky, knowledgeable, tech savvy, charming, Awakened, or well connected.

In Shadowrun, these people stand far apart from the people who are of different archetypes. Fully automatic fire, as we all know, is incredibly destructive. But generally, 1) it's a bad idea to have the streetsam fighting off corp-sec all by himself and 2) when the other characters are sneaking, astral projecting, and hacking, they don't appreciate this guy counting up his modifiers for firing off a 12-round burst of EX-EX from his heavily modified Ares Alpha.

He has silencers when he needs them, but generally every time you kill someone, you risk getting caught in the act. What do characters like this do when they aren't allowed to cause wanton destruction?
Kyrel
Very simple. They have a problem. Or challenge if you will.
Banaticus
If the other PC's in the group are really so sneaky and they really don't like him, then they shouldn't have any problem just disappearing when he's not looking then going off on the run without him, right?

That being said, I think you'd need two things to be able to shoot people with a silenced gun:
1. Someplace to hide the bodies. If people come across the body, you've basically lost.
2. Some way to get rid of the evidence that you shot someone (e.g. the Sterilize spell).
Kazuhiro
Well, as a GM what should I do with him? He enjoys "creating diversions" with the obligatory party armored car (don't even pretend that every single group doesn't eventually decide to get one of these) but when he's so far above the others in combat ability, that's about the only thing he can do. I can't have him smashing down the front door and shooting everything that moves, for multitudes of reasons, the main one being that it's a waste of the other characters' abilities for plan A to be "shoot lots of guys."
Wandering One
QUOTE (Kazuhiro @ Apr 26 2010, 01:47 PM) *
Well, as a GM what should I do with him? He enjoys "creating diversions" with the obligatory party armored car (don't even pretend that every single group doesn't eventually decide to get one of these) but when he's so far above the others in combat ability, that's about the only thing he can do. I can't have him smashing down the front door and shooting everything that moves, for multitudes of reasons, the main one being that it's a waste of the other characters' abilities for plan A to be "shoot lots of guys."


I hate to be brutal, but he's in the wrong campaign with that character then. If you're enforcing repurcussions, this guy is a glowing target for whatever pretends to be police in your area. He needs a subset of skills, at least, to offset the combat monster, or the player has to understand he's a nitch character who's entire purpose is for when things go *wrong*, not part of the plan in the first place.

... or your campaign has to go completely off the hinges. smile.gif Extraterritoriality means that if Lone Star can't demand access to the corp lands, they don't have to prosecute crimes there, either, things like that.
Draco18s
Drop a bridge on them. I had a GM do that before I'd gotten a chance to even be in combat.

Though, to be fair it was That Other Game and I was no match for a destriken as its CR was about twice that of the party. And we were split up. And the GM was a notorious dick. Ruke and I quit the game after that session.

Did I say I never saw combat? Yes, I did didn't I.

Guess how many sessions in we were.

Three. And our first combat was against a bunch of humanoid red aberations riding a giant spider that was so large it had its own outpost on its back. Unless you count all the times we ran away from destrikens. The entire party couldn't take one and then we got split up and had two or three chasing a single character or a pair of characters. And then one dropped a bridge on me (I spent 5 rounds of combat digging myself out--to be fair, I hadn't rolled higher than a 4 until the fourth round).
tagz
I have a policy not to radically alter the security presence I had intended for ONE PLAYER. The group, yes, but not a single player.

If that one player is so far above the other characters in a field that to challenge said character the task is fatal or impossible (not improbable) to others who have similar roles, then I feel the player does not WANT to be challenged. So I do not seek to challenge said player and they quickly become bored with their concept and want to move on the next one. Perhaps they will repeat it in a different way, maybe they'll learn they should keep themselves in check with the group's capabilities, who knows.

To be honest, I don't think there is anything wrong with wanting to blow off some steam by making an unstoppable powerhouse, but I'm not going to tailor the game to one person out of many. Don't think you're expected to either.


That said, you can always just have a mental manipulation mage thought control him into throwing down his weapons, handcuffing himself, and marching himself straight into a jail cell. The next run could be with him forced to make use of skills that have nothing to do with combat (being interrogated, lock-picking the cell, making the right friends in prison or get shanked in his sleep...) while the rest of the group plans a break out. Just an idea.
ClemulusRex
While there is certainly a place in the Sixth World for people that just know how to hurt people, If the kill-machine is consistently stomping on the other players' sense of fun and enjoyment because of a difference in play-style, then yes, something about the character and/or player has got to change. Try appealing to the player for that exact reason--his trigger-happy attitude is spoiling the sense of theme for the other players and that unless he compromises somehow, their characters probably don't have much in-game reason to continue working with them.

What's the character's background? If he's a former soldier, try pointing out that even the most straight-forward infantry grunt probably has some kind of Infiltration skill. A former gangbanger/mob soldier should have plenty of Intimidation and other social skills and is more likely to use the threat of violence than violence itself.

Of course, that means that you as the GM should compromise by letting him shine at his preferred task once or twice a session. It doesn't necessarily have to be directly a part of or tied the the run, either. Maybe they get harassed by gangers going to or from the run. Their escape through the sewers is cut off by ghouls, etc. But every once in a while, just have things go south, whether by betrayal or bad luck, and finally the group really needs him there to just blow their way out through hordes of corpsec. Then, he'll have his fun, and the rest of the players might finally value having him around.

AndyZ
There's a few ways to handle this but it depends on how much tough love you're willing to give.

Personally, I'd consider dropping a few Steel Lynxes with Vindicator Miniguns on him while he's creating a distraction. That way he can find out just how lethal Shadowrun really is and that pouncing straight into a fight isn't always your best bet.

It can help to have him follow along nearby as backup. If anyone gets in trouble, he can run up guns blazing, but otherwise he just has to stay quiet until he gets some other skills. Depending on the talents of the rest of the crew, though, this could get mighty boring. If you do this and the rest of the group is very good, throw him the occasional bone with high security that he can plow through.

You could talk to him and ask if he'd be willing to try something else and be less of a one-trick slayer. Maybe there's something else the group needs and he could try it out. It could be that he just doesn't understand the rest of the stuff yet and is sticking to basics.

If all else fails, assuming nobody else in the party is doing so, have him controlling the party vehicle.

Hope some of that helps
Kagetenshi
Sometimes nothing helps a clean exit like security getting mowed down like flies on the other side of the compound.

This also solves the problem of having to fight the whole place by himself (he doesn't, he just needs to kill the first-responders and then book), though it does split the team and create more work.

~J
Shot
It does seem as though your friend made the oddly annoying One-Shot power gamer...Being the gm i am surprise that you allowed him to play him or ditn't guided him to more usefulness . Now for clarification i am all for the deadly game of shadowrun combat, i personally get a high off the fact that one wrong dice roll could mean i die. but a power gamer usually ruins it all. best bet is to set down said Player and tell it to him straight. He needs to diversify himself to be a Lot more useful and to fit in. But adding combat isnt that hard, there is always a non-wireless networked sealed off guarded places that need a drone plant to access the secret files of horizon, and could allow you to sharpen your gm skills. Remember change is hard but is often more rewarding then being annoyed and closed off.
BlueMax
The point of Shadowrun isn't something I consider well enough defined to have a canon version. From my aged POV, the point is to have fun. If he has fun mowing down enemies with his character, and the rest of the group isn't too pissed off: victory.


BlueMax
The Jopp
Let him babysit an entire daycare center.

Put the character in the situation of defending a high profile target (the five year old child of X Ceo) and the daycare center where they are is bombed/collapsed.

Now the team is trapped in a building (all kids are safe in the same room - it was nap time) and need to keep the kids calm until rescue arrives (or dig themselves out).
Ascalaphus
Does he feel like he needs* all that fighting power, or does he just enjoy having it? If he thinks he needs all that power, is he somehow justified? Sometimes this can be a matter of just not realizing how you could do it in a different manner, or maybe your opposition is quite tough.
If he just wants to destroy things, well, in that case you could see if there's anything else he'd also enjoy doing, and otherwise best look for a new player. (Assuming you don't want to run that style of campaign.)

* Does he understand that the goal is getting the MacGuffin, not exterminating the Dungeon?

Whipstitch
QUOTE (BlueMax @ Apr 26 2010, 10:32 PM) *
The point of Shadowrun isn't something I consider well enough defined to have a canon version.



Yeah, it's a game where you could say it's like Ronin or Escape from New York and be right either way.
toturi
QUOTE (Ascalaphus @ Apr 27 2010, 03:26 PM) *
Does he feel like he needs* all that fighting power, or does he just enjoy having it? If he thinks he needs all that power, is he somehow justified? Sometimes this can be a matter of just not realizing how you could do it in a different manner, or maybe your opposition is quite tough.
If he just wants to destroy things, well, in that case you could see if there's anything else he'd also enjoy doing, and otherwise best look for a new player. (Assuming you don't want to run that style of campaign.)

* Does he understand that the goal is getting the MacGuffin, not exterminating the Dungeon?

Ah but his method is getting the MacGuffin by exterminating the Dungeon.
Ascalaphus
QUOTE (toturi @ Apr 27 2010, 08:42 AM) *
Ah but his method is getting the MacGuffin by exterminating the Dungeon.


While I don't really approve of "punish the player so he'll learn" passive-aggressive revenge strategies for the GM, this is how I'd do it (if I were to):

Set him up to fall down deep; let it be successful for a while. But make sure you give him notoriety every time. Make sure everyone notices word starts to get around. Johnsons make comments about it; getting work might be a little harder because the best Johnsons don't want the team anymore, but second-rate Johnsons can't be as picky.
Eventually, you lead him into a trap; he'll die in battle, but he can't say he didn't see it coming. It was due a long time.

A big part of doing nasty things to PCs is making sure the players understand just how they themselves were responsible for it happening. It shouldn't look like random GM malice.
Smokeskin
So he created a one-dimensional character. Ok, he's now a combat monster and gets to handle all the combat stuff. Sort of like how the face handles most social interaction, and the hacker does the matrix stuff?

I don't really see the problem, except that a) he's going to be bored in most of the game, unless everything is combat or b) you think that the realistic security measures would be no contest for him, so combat challenges go out the window.

If the problem is that he's turning everything into a combat situation, I don't really see how that is possible. If some combat-armored cyberpsycho with an assault rifle starts killing left and right, he better make sure he dissappears fast - alarms will go out fast, and the security response isn't going to be light. Once there are helicopters, drones, spirits and astrally projecting mages tracking his escape, he is hosed. Even if he is the biggest, baddest combat monster, the SWAT mage is just going to play dirty and have a Spirit of Man with manabolt materialize behind him and he'll go down quickly, won't he?

Killing people isn't that hard, doing it without getting detected and/or getting away afterwards, that's the hard part.
ClemulusRex
QUOTE (Whipstitch @ Apr 27 2010, 07:30 AM) *
Yeah, it's a game where you could say it's like Ronin or Escape from New York and be right either way.


Totally! As long as the bulk of the players are okay with it, sometimes you just have to roll with the madness. I once ran a 3rd Ed adventure where one of the players decided that his character was going to be Lo Kwan: Master of the Martial Arts! His real name was Simon McCaffrey and he had been living in a retirement home at the age of 70 when one day he wakes up with super powers and decides he's going to ''fight crime." Other than his fists, his signature weapons were "Kwanarangs", which I ruled as impact-detonated airfoil grenades, but the player liked to think of them as Nerf footballs with lit sticks of dynamite stuffed in them. Another hilarious detail was that after all of his Kung-Fu, Stealth, and Athletics skills were purchased, he had two skill points left over that he randomly threw into Pilot: Submarine as some half-remembered skill from his previous life as Simon McCaffery.

So, was this character suitable for a "serious" interpretation of the SR rules and world background? Hell, no! Was he fun to have in the game? Hell, YES! And luckily it worked for everybody else and the whole tone of the game shifted far over to the "Escape From New York" (with a hefty dose of "Big Trouble in Little China") end of the spectrum. The whole game flew off the rails right quick, but my was it a fun ride!

Point being, I agree that if your other players aren't actually bothered by the kill-o-bot's antics, then I see little problem. Otherwise, I stand by my previous assertion that talking to the player and working out some sort of compromise is in order.
wind_in_the_stones
Kazuhiro, is it just you that has a problem with this character, or does he bug the rest of his team too? As a GM, you need to provide opportunities for players to play the characters they like, but there's only so far you can go. If the rest of the players are enjoying your missions, and this guy is making things difficult for them, you need to talk to him.

If you're the only one with a problem, you have three choices. (1) Make things appropriately difficult for him. When he waltzes through your security guards, step up the corporate response. And use notoriety and all that. Either he'll change, or his team will start to cover for his weaknesses. (2) Talk to him, and admit you're having trouble designing missions for him, since his abilities are so out-of-whack with the rest of the team. (3) Play things his way. He'll be bored sometimes, and the hero other times.

As for specific tips about how run a campaign with him in it... um...

Step up the post-mission threat. They'll be looking for this team. With a low casualty count, corporations are willing to ignore the shadowrunners. They're really after the people who hired them. Lots of killing directly affects their bottom line, if they can't provide for the safety of their personnel, so they'll decide it's worth going after the perpetrators.

Use more magical threat. Gunbunnies are just as vulnerable to spells as the average (non-mage) runner when the target attribute is willpower. Your mages will recognize this guy as the biggest threat, and target him first. You know the rule, geek the mage? The other rule is mage geeks the troll. And a force 6 or 7 spirit should present a challenge for him. Invulnerability to normal weapons FTW.

Um... that's all I got at the moment.



Kagetenshi
QUOTE (wind_in_the_stones @ Apr 28 2010, 12:02 AM) *
Lots of killing directly affects their bottom line, if they can't provide for the safety of their personnel, so they'll decide it's worth going after the perpetrators.

That's nonsensical. Revenge doesn't translate into profit, and whatever the team was actually hired to do will outweigh the impact of collateral damage by orders of magnitude (otherwise no one would be hiring a team of professional criminals to do it).

That's before we take into account that a fairly reliable way to make sure that a Shadowrunner is dead is to wait two months.

~J
Eratosthenes
QUOTE (Kagetenshi @ Apr 28 2010, 11:56 AM) *
That's nonsensical. Revenge doesn't translate into profit, and whatever the team was actually hired to do will outweigh the impact of collateral damage by orders of magnitude (otherwise no one would be hiring a team of professional criminals to do it).

That's before we take into account that a fairly reliable way to make sure that a Shadowrunner is dead is to wait two months.

~J


Revenge may not be profitable, but a high body count would mean the law enforcement agencies would be more likely investigate the crime, be it internal corpsec, or outside agencies like Knight Errant or Lonestar. If a company just suffered a high casaulty act of terrorism, they'd want to show the rest of their employees that they're doing something about it, to bolster morale and seem competent. Scared wageslaves hurt productivity.

Unless of course they can cover it all up, and deny anything happened, while writing off the losses. But high body count events tend to be difficult to cover up.
Ascalaphus
QUOTE (Kagetenshi @ Apr 28 2010, 04:56 PM) *
That's nonsensical. Revenge doesn't translate into profit,


To a point; establishing a reputation for your corporation as bastards you don't mess with, can pay off in the long run. It may scare off a lot of potential attackers. And let's face it; not all revenge missions are expensive.
Kagetenshi
But that reputation isn't enhanced by being selective based on body count; quite the opposite, in fact.

~J
Whipstitch
Yeah, Mitsuhama picked up that kinda rep by killing everyone, period.
wind_in_the_stones
QUOTE (Eratosthenes @ Apr 28 2010, 10:59 AM) *
If a company just suffered a high casaulty act of terrorism, they'd want to show the rest of their employees that they're doing something about it, to bolster morale and seem competent.


This. It's all about image. At this point, the Shadowrunners are probably easier targets than the ones who hired them. "We're going after the ones who shot up your comrades!" Take out a few runners, and "whew, I'm glad they caught those guys! I can get back to work now."

Besides, while we prefer that corps go after the real perps, sometimes, they go after the pawns. The OP needs a reason to justify it, so there's one. Are there others? Hmm, to torture them for info on who sent them? That could make a good story in itself.
Whipstitch
I don't really buy into that explanation much. For one thing, why should the corps have to go kill the runners for employee morale? They're really going to go hunt someone down and produce the bodies so Joe Security and Mr. Middle Management can sleep better at night? They'd be better off you know, actually improving security, or at least providing the illusion that they have done so. If you have pissed off someone powerful enough that they want to make it their pet project to kill your team because that's just the sort of person they are, I can buy into that for the sake of a campaign, I guess. But the whole reason corporations hire shadow runners in the first place is because running around shooting people in the face to get your way doesn't really look good in the public eye. People generally want normality, not street justice. That's why Mitsuhama's Zero Zone policy is the exception and not the rule. Such measures are really only worth taking if you want to be feared-- it's more about deterrence and making sure that you don't lose people in the first place than anything.
Eratosthenes
QUOTE (Whipstitch @ Apr 29 2010, 01:13 AM) *
I don't really buy into that explanation much. For one thing, why should the corps have to go kill the runners for employee morale? They're really going to go hunt someone down and produce the bodies so Joe Security and Mr. Middle Management can sleep better at night?


Do you honestly think that if a group of armed men shot up a local mall, or factory, in your neighborhood, that the general populace would be fine if the police just said, "You know what, we're not going to try to find out who did it. We're going to just beef up security at the mall."

How long before people were storming town hall in protest? How would you feel about your feckless police force?

Change mall for laboratory, and police for corp-sec. People want to know that those who are responsible for their safety are being proactive in ensuring said safety. Now, minor incidents can be swept under the rug, but a high body count act of terrorism, not so much.


CeeJay
QUOTE (Eratosthenes @ Apr 29 2010, 03:54 PM) *
Do you honestly think that if a group of armed men shot up a local mall, or factory, in your neighborhood, that the general populace would be fine if the police just said, "You know what, we're not going to try to find out who did it. We're going to just beef up security at the mall."

"Oh, of course, here at CorpSec we will try to identify and capture the terrorists. This is our highest priority right now. Investigation are already under way and we have some promising leads already. In the meantime, let us introduce you to our new security concept, so that such a desaster won't happen ever again"
...
Two months later...
"No, we are still at it. Right now, we are waiting for legal cooperation with the local police forces.."
...
Half a year later
"Unfortunately, to our best knowledge the terrorists were sponsored by our competitor EVIL Corp and have gone into hiding. Right now our legal department is examining the chances for filing a lawsuit against EVIL Corp. We will keep you informed about it."

-CJ
Smokeskin
There is no universal solution here.

On the downside, revenge operations have a cost.

On the upside, revenge operations are an effective deterrence. You have to balance the cost of a revenge operation with the future savings in terms of less shadowruns against you in the future. If you never retaliate, you risk shadowrunners considering runs against you risk free as long as they get away, and therefore they'll be willing to do it very cheaply (not just because of they won't demand risk premiums, but also because operations are much simpler if you don't have to worry about leaving behind evidence or having your identity revealed).

The game theory logic is somewhat similar to states negotiating with terrorist hostage takers. Sure, you might think that meeting the hostages are easily worth their demands - but if you give in, then you have changed the incentive structure - even rational players will now attempt it against you, while previously it was only the deluded.
Kagetenshi
But the important thing is that the value of revenge ops doesn't hinge on the body count the original incident created. The PR thing is a smokescreen; producing bodies is easy if you don't need them to be the right bodies, and with corp loyalty being the way it's described in canon you may not even need to actually produce bodies, just claim that they've been produced.

~J
Triggvi
When you have one dimensional character, challenge him not with combat but with other choices. He is great at kicking in doors and killing everything in sight, but what does he do when the pick pockets that stole is comlink are a group of street kids around 12 yrs old? He is forced to deal with them in a not combat way or really have a bad rep. Shadowrun is about the grey between the light and darker grey.

I have a combat monster that has no social skills. part of the background. He stumbles into having the sister of the mark take a liking to him. she is all of like 16. Now he is in position of have to learn seduction(con) on the fly. Kind of a cerino moment with other people helping him. That is quite a challenge for me and not just the character. Now he has bought tutor-soft and is going to be paying karma to get Con(specialty:seduction). (he is an adept so no skillwires)

My point is that challenge is not always combat. It is making them think outside the box.
Mongoose
I don't see why combat capable characters so often get labled problems. A good combat-focused character can, if managed well, be like a good hacker. Nobody else in the group needs to put much effort into being good at combat (or even knowing the combat rules) because the combat specialist handles it for them.
Eratosthenes
QUOTE (Mongoose @ Apr 29 2010, 01:19 PM) *
I don't see why combat capable characters so often get labled problems. A good combat-focused character can, if managed well, be like a good hacker. Nobody else in the group needs to put much effort into being good at combat (or even knowing the combat rules) because the combat specialist handles it for them.


I don't see any problem with combat-focused characters, for the very reasons you listed. I think the problem really lies in one-dimensional characters, in general. One trick ponies, regardless of what their trick is, are really the problem. That hacker-adept who's really good at hacking, but can't do anything else...is going to be bored on runs that don't involve hacking.

I think the special problem with combat-monsters is that there are fewer types of runs where combat is needed and/or useful, while hacking can be useful for many types of runs (at least as legwork, if nothing else).
Kagetenshi
I'm not familiar with how SR4 Initiative makes things work, but with SR3, leaving the combat to the combat tank doesn't work so well. One person only gets one action, during which they can only kill two clusters of enemies (and that only if they're willing to be tossing AoE, which is usually either loud (grenades) or painful (fooball)), in which to prevent the opposition from acting.

~J
Ascalaphus
QUOTE (Kagetenshi @ Apr 29 2010, 06:59 PM) *
I'm not familiar with how SR4 Initiative makes things work, but with SR3, leaving the combat to the combat tank doesn't work so well. One person only gets one action, during which they can only kill two clusters of enemies (and that only if they're willing to be tossing AoE, which is usually either loud (grenades) or painful (fooball)), in which to prevent the opposition from acting.

~J


Roughly the same. It's generally not a good idea to leave all the fighting to one guy.
Whipstitch
QUOTE (Eratosthenes @ Apr 29 2010, 08:54 AM) *
Do you honestly think that if a group of armed men shot up a local mall, or factory, in your neighborhood, that the general populace would be fine if the police just said, "You know what, we're not going to try to find out who did it. We're going to just beef up security at the mall."


You're misrepresenting the situation by leaving out an obvious fact: The corps are not the police (although, admittedly, some police are corps). They are the law on their own territory, but extraterritoriality does not imply that they can go send out their security teams to bust down doors willy nilly in search of shadowrunners and then tell their employees about it without massive piles of red tape. The corps guard their own asses but investigations and punitive actions are both logically and by fluff implied to typically be the job of the police and government contracted national security services like the Star. And often times the corps don't want anyone to know why they were hit by runners, so how quick they are to volunteer with evidence once the runner team is gone is debatable. So the situation goes like this: The corp gets hit, some security people die, and then the community blames the cops when nobody gets caught while the corp clucks about the tragedy of it all. Dodging responsibility for these kinds of things is pretty much what corps do in Shadowrun. That whole song and dance is why it's worth it to hire deniable assets in the first place.

So while the Star may not like getting blamed, the setting more or less requires them to take it on the chin and not look too hard at their client's mess sometimes-- which is fine because they're well-compensated for it. The security agencies in Shadowrun got where they are today by being in bed with everyone. So, yeah, Knight Errant may look into killing sprees harder, but not necessarily as hard as you might think, particularly if the trail might say, lead to a Johnson who turns out to have been working for Ares, at which point the extraterritoriality, blind eyes and bullshit comes out in full force again anyway. A few dead wageslaves is no good reason to rock the boat.
Smokeskin
QUOTE (Mongoose @ Apr 29 2010, 06:19 PM) *
I don't see why combat capable characters so often get labled problems.


From what I hear people say, it seems to often be a GM problem. If the GM isn't willing to escalate the confrontation, combat characters can overpower pretty much everything.

Whipstitch
Sometimes being too quick to escalate is an issue as well. An awful lot of the time I get the impression that the combat monster only gunned down that helicopter and hogged the scene because the GM felt it was necessary to introduce a chopper in the first place. Heavy response is fine if the gun bunny really is running around killing everyone in sight, but I've been surprised at times by how quickly GMs break out the big guns just because the Adept Bruce Lee'd someone's ass as part of the team's plan. There's worse things in the world than a fight being somewhat anti-climactic if everything else about the run went smooth and people are working fast. I tend to build my combat characters pretty powerful myself, but that's mostly intended as insurance against the disfavor of the dice gods rather than a burning desire to bypass a Citymaster's armor in play.
Mongoose
QUOTE (Smokeskin @ Apr 29 2010, 09:09 PM) *
From what I hear people say, it seems to often be a GM problem. If the GM isn't willing to escalate the confrontation, combat characters can overpower pretty much everything.


Not the things that can't (or shouldn't) be resolved via non-combat methods.
Does the GM have to escalate the difficulty of social situations because the group takes in a social adept face who tosses 30 dice at negotiation / con tests?

Often times, escalation is what PRODUCES combat monsters. A player introduces a character that can handle the games threats so the party can get through adventures... the GM escalates... somebody introduces an even MORE badass character...

(Yeah, I know a combat monster can't win solo, but they can go a long way towards getting everybody through a fight if they protect folks by using held actions to intervene when somebody else is about to get shot, if they take point, etc.)
Mongoose
damn easy to double post here...
Wandering One
Part of the issue, offhand, is most characters, in one way or another, expect to be part of combat. Just about every archtype is theoretically involved in combat, somehow, even the hackers. Noone expects to be helping the hacker in the 'trix, the mage on his astral recon, or the pornomancer conning the doorman. But everyone expects to be in the combat, at least somewhat. It's the 'exciting' part!

Success or fail on the mission because the doorman kicked you out on your ass? Oh well, sigh, what's the next run?
Matrix boy's in the net and... comes back bleeding from his ears and the cameras are working. Aw shucks. Mage invis us, troll, carry the bleeding gimp, please.

Oh crap we're caught and fighting our way out?! Cue geek adrenal gland. Oh... nevermind, combat-superboy is here. My character goes to the corner and naps. We'll be out shortly. (That's without escalation)

It's a tension point for all players, one that's generally accepted to be multi-participant, not multi-PC-target. This is why the combat-monster is usually dreaded, because either everyone else in the group has to keep up to be participatory, or overly specialize and niche themselves into a hole.

I've still always found the best way for this character's participation is instead of making the group dread him, get them to be happy he was there when THEY went wrong/fouled up and they ran for cover behind him, but that requires your combat monster to be willing to not feel the need to randomly stir up trouble for no good reason and to lean back with his hands behind his head against the outside of the van for the entire run, LMG stuffed under a blanket nearby in the open door, smokin' a nikstick and watchin' the ladies stroll past.
wind_in_the_stones
QUOTE (Mongoose @ Apr 29 2010, 12:19 PM) *
I don't see why combat capable characters so often get labeled problems. A good combat-focused character can, if managed well, be like a good hacker. Nobody else in the group needs to put much effort into being good at combat (or even knowing the combat rules) because the combat specialist handles it for them.


Not in my world. Unlike the matrix, the rest of the team can't just stay out of combat. And when you escalate the threat to try to take down the combat monsters, the rest of the team dies first.
Kagetenshi
Again, though, the question that raises is why are you escalating the threat to try to take down the combat monster?

~J
tagz
This is precisely why I suggest that you don't escalate for an individual, you escalate for the capabilities of the team as a whole.

If there is only one hacker in the group, then matrix escalation is simple, base it off that one hacker. If combat includes everyone except the hacker, then you should be basing the threat level off the average of all the players involved. Yeah, that one combat monster might skew it a bit, but it shouldn't become too difficult for the others involved.
Mongoose
QUOTE (Wandering One @ Apr 30 2010, 12:29 AM) *
Part of the issue, offhand, is most characters, in one way or another, expect to be part of combat. Just about every archtype is theoretically involved in combat, somehow, even the hackers. Noone expects to be helping the hacker in the 'trix, the mage on his astral recon, or the pornomancer conning the doorman. But everyone expects to be in the combat, at least somewhat. It's the 'exciting' part!

<snip>

I've still always found the best way for this character's participation is instead of making the group dread him, get them to be happy he was there when THEY went wrong/fouled up and they ran for cover behind him, but that requires your combat monster to be willing to not feel the need to randomly stir up trouble for no good reason and to lean back with his hands behind his head against the outside of the van for the entire run, LMG stuffed under a blanket nearby in the open door, smokin' a nikstick and watchin' the ladies stroll past.


Fair enough, and that's pretty much what I meant by "properly played". A good combat monkey doesn't start trouble, he finishes it. Just like a good face doesn't go making himself (and the group) memorable by conning money from the guards, and a good hacker doesn't crash every ARow he sees while sneaking through a target's building.

Honestly, the funnest times I had playing a combat character was wen I was (relatively) safe doing overwatch on other folks, but was close enough to move in if needed. The epic fights are fun and all, but just being able to help things keep running smoothly despite fecal ventilation interactions is more rewarding (for me). Planning things is the funner part of the game, and seeing plans go pear shaped solely due to lack of firepower sucks. (And no, "firepower" is not itself a plan.)
Triggvi
the problem with one dimensional characters is that they are usually min/maxed to the hilt. In there tinny little box they are gods, outside of the box they are pretty anemic. You get them out of there box and keep them there. Before you know it the character is un-min/maxed because he has spent his karma to better himself in non combat ways.
Whipstitch
QUOTE (Wandering One @ Apr 29 2010, 07:29 PM) *
Part of the issue, offhand, is most characters, in one way or another, expect to be part of combat.


Yeah, you have to consider that being accurate about perceived threats is often a lot less important than avoiding bad consequences at all costs when it comes to life and death stakes. Take prey animals like deer or rabbits as an example. If you want to judge a rabbit's decision making by holding false positives against them, then the only conclusion you can come to is that such animals are wrong more often than they are right about whether things around them are threats. But for such animals fleeing at little provocation is still a better strategy than trying to avoid more false positives-- being too bold can very well get them killed immediately. And combat, obviously, is a situation where it's often a matter of life and death, so a lot of player paranoia about sheeting can come into play. A Face might be able to back down at the bargaining table if he can't get everyone to see things his way, but when it comes to drawing guns you're usually either good enough to win or you're dead, and players may chargen accordingly.
toturi
QUOTE (Triggvi @ Apr 30 2010, 01:40 PM) *
the problem with one dimensional characters is that they are usually min/maxed to the hilt. In there tinny little box they are gods, outside of the box they are pretty anemic. You get them out of there box and keep them there. Before you know it the character is un-min/maxed because he has spent his karma to better himself in non combat ways.

One dimensional characters are maxed to the hilt, the mins are glaring. A properly min-maxed character is god in a box and puts up a good fight outside of it.
Smokeskin
QUOTE (Mongoose @ Apr 30 2010, 12:26 AM) *
Often times, escalation is what PRODUCES combat monsters. A player introduces a character that can handle the games threats so the party can get through adventures... the GM escalates... somebody introduces an even MORE badass character...


That wasn't what I meant. What I meant was that when the streets resound with automatic fire and people die, security and police responses are fast and violent. When the first responders also bites the dust, you're looking at the dispatcher screaming "GET EVERYONE" over the radio. I don't care how good the combat monster, he can't avoid, escape or fight his way out of several SWAT teams hunting him, a few dozen patrol cars, helicopters, drones, spirits, mages. At that point, your chances of getting away are almost zero.

Bottom line is, open all-and-out combat doesn't unless you're out in the middle of nowhere where a response is hours away, or unless you dissappear ASAP. So if the combat monster starts playing Rambo, the mission is hosed. If the team was already compromised and this is to get away, or it is even the exfil plan, that's perfect. But during the majority of the mission, it is going to be about social, matrix, technical and stealth skills - and your occasional covert kill usually happens under circumstances where any moderately combat-capable character can pull it off.

I totally agree with those above who said that the main problem with combat monsters are that they're one-dimensional - that doesn't lead them to dominating the campaign, rather the opposite.
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