I've just started up with some new players and had our first session. I told them very specifically and weeks ahead I wanted to run a mirror shades-style campaign, realistic, preferably no ice cold spies, but starting shadowrunners that are washed out professionals or criminals moving up. I told them that they should be wary of qualitives that were difficult to play, either for mechanical or, especially, role playing reasons, like Vindictive which can be cool but end everyone in lots of trouble if not done right.

So everyone comes with good characters with solid backgrounds and some nice twists.

Except one that is really fucked up. Distinctive Style that can't be concealed, really strange background, spells like acid stream. I should probably just have vetoed the char, but I didn't, a mixture of thinking he had some point to it and could handle it, and that we needed to play and not have him make a new char.

So in game, he does strange things too. He says people react strangely to him because of his looks, and he acts strangely towards people also. His tradecraft sucks too, a mark that doesn't fall for an attempt to lure him away, he immediatedly starts very visibly throwing spells at him, in the open, undisguised and with his distinctive style showing.

I mean, fuck. I'm thinking back, why are fixers and johnsons dealing with this guy? Why are the other team members?

I have to kill him or land him in jail, soon, don't I? Hopefully without too much fallout for the other guys. At least it is a good opportunity to show them that stupidity kills, I guess.

If I was GMing with your player, I would definitely have his character have a very, very public and visible death. Something along the way of a multiple guard/drone/spirit pile-up that resulted in much dakka.

Well... you seem to have made it clear and you warned them all. Actions have consequences. No mercy!!!!

Hehe... well, you know what i mean. If it is possible to track him down AND he gave reason to do so: People WILL track him down. Done deal... nothing you can do about it.

Well, you could give him a few warning shots : a copious tongue-bashing by a pissed of Johnson backed by a very visible security making a stupid or violent reactin likely to be met with a prompt demise, or contacts warning him to lay very low as several not-so-nice heavy-hitters are around asking questions.

If he still doesn't understant, swat his character like a fly.

SR3 style Lone Star roto-drones that follow him around, watching the weird guy. I'm sure he'd never do anything so stupid as to attack an armed police drone that is recording his actions on video. ... That would put pictures of Mr. Distinctive Style on the comlinks of every cop in 5 minutes, and to the public a while after that.

Give a warning IC, and then give a warning OOC that you were clear on actions having consequences both for the character and the team in general. Make it clear that this is the one warning and if the keep acting in a brutally obvious fashion, respond in a brutally obvious fashion. Make sure the other players know that you have warned him as well, because they may want to take precautions to not get caught in the fallout.

Everyone has a right to play their character how they like, but if it doesn't match the theme and tone of the game, or it does noting but irritate the GM and other players, then they also have the responsibility to modify that play or find a new game. Everyone needs to have fun.

Actually, what happened with the mark would make a great viral video. So I'm thinking, some bystander recorded the incident, posted the video, it goes viral, and the ex-cop PC who was with him gets the video from a cop contact, along with a "WTF are you doing there, was that why they kicked off the force?!? And who's that weirdo partner of yours?" (They were in fake police uniforms when it happened)

It could be a police brutality or a funny video.

You have to be careful though. While you did give proper warning, if you kill that character he might be very upset about it depending on his maturity level. I've run games (D&D) where the players were very immature and thought that the game was so they can play a god and never have any consequences for their actions. Actions do have consequences, but if you want to keep the player in the game and he's immature, you gotta do it carefully. Me? I'd think that with such a distinctive style, a pissed off enemy is somewhere in his past... they'll toss a pound of explosive through his window one night to kill him.

What you could do is scare his character. Start with death threats, then have some very obvious attempts at his life (car rigged to explode, goes off when he uses the remote starter; gas line in his kitchen cut and explodes as he returns from a run; stuff like that) and have an entire adventure based around people chasing him down. Show him he has a LOT of powerful enemies and try to get his character to go on the run; perhaps to a foreign country where he can't be in the campaign.

My response to this topic is pretty complicated and I'm not sure that I have the energy right now to dig to the full depths of it, but here goes.



As you said, you are running a "black leather professionals" type game instead of a pink mohawk type game. I assumed this primarily because of your use of the word "tradecraft" even before I reread the beginning of the post. And as you said, you discussed this with all of your players beforehand and they all understood what it meant to you, because if you look at the actual Shadowrun artwork, it isn't very indicative of the "everyone is a spy and is subtle all the time" atmosphere that some GMs (including myself) like to use.

That said, even in the context of those assumptions, I am mystified by some of the stuff you said. For instance, acid stream? What is wrong with acid stream? It is mechanically less effective and has more flavor than, say, manabolt, which is the exact kind of thing I encourage in my campaign. Personality is more important than "more dice". For that matter, what are "spells like acid stream"?

Secondly, what do you mean by saying he "acts strange"? Is there anything in his character background that indicates that his "acting strange" is in character? What about his other negative qualities?

For instance, last night I was PCing but we only had two players and one GM due to cancellations, so each player was running two characters to field a new team. One of my characters was a "Reality-Impaired" hacker, and another was a creepily amoral (even by Shadowrunner standards) hermetic mage with Poor Self Control (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder). Both the hacker's inability to function socially outside of the Matrix and the mage's conspicuous, compulsive 'rituals' (not the magic kind, the OCD kind) as well as his general chilly demeanor were things that I roleplayed to the hilt, both because it made the characters more interesting, and because I had GOTTEN POINTS for them and it wouldn't be fair not to self-handicap. (In spite of awkwardness/creepiness, both characters were extremely competent at their areas of expertise which of course helps, being that both are professional runners in their 30s with at least a decade (backstory, not in-game, both are close to starting level) of experience.)

In general, I can see a player playing distinctive style the same way, and I wonder what other negative qualities the character in question had and how they factored in to the "acting strangely". If you just ban all of those qualities that effect the way you roleplay, you're making a conscious decision to cut out a huge chunk of the game.

I guess I want to know if this is really a case of "troll starts shelling the building with an assault cannon type stupidty" or is merely a case of "not everyone wants to roleplay Sam Fischer only with less personality".

And because everyone loves Shadowrun anecdotes anyway, why not describe the incident in question in more detail?

In summation, quirky != obnoxious...unless it does. It can be a hard line to see, short of having actually played in that game.

I think he meant that it is rather distinctive, adding to the already high trackability of this particular character.

Bye
Thanee

Moreso than what?

Are the only acceptable combat spells to take the mana, power, and stun lines?

-glitch-

The appearance, obviously.

Anyways, it is just my guess as to what he meant with it.

Bye
Thanee

No, I mean, which spells are "subtle" and which spells are "distinctive"?

I have always assumed that magic was rare enough that even something like powerbolt or manaball was pretty damn distinctive, and I also always assumed that the flavor text of how visible/invisible those spells were and what they looked like was entirely up to the GM, or even up to the player if the GM felt like it.

This these pop up from time to time. cause like you said , there's always one. Someone that's not with the program. Best first step, IMO, is to figure out why that is. Start with your player. Did he simply 'Not Get it"? As said above, this could be a maturity thing, a lack of experience with SR, or perhaps he's just never had a character die. You're going to be a better judge of that than any of us , You're sitting down with the guy. Best way to start is to talk with your Problem Player one on one and find out where he's coming from.

Remember that the guy did take Distinctive Style and you did let him take it. Not all characters are professionals. There's certainly going to be a lot of psycopaths in the shadows. You did tell him there's a type of character you're looking for, and he seems to have gone the more fast and loose route. So it may just be that he's playing it while he can, and his character is going to die. Just remember that you ok'd the character. Sure you had reasons, but there's a responsibility on the GMs part to keep things running with the theme he's going for.
If that ends up meaning killing that character off for valid IC reasons, just make sure that the player understands why things are laying out the way they are. He may just be trying something new, or not really getting the setting or where you're coming from. Again, you're going to be the best judge on that.

Bottom line is to talk to the PC. Once you have a clear understanding, and get the Cause/Effect thing across, play it out logically. He took Distinctive Style, so he really can'y complain when he's easy to track down by Lone Star / Knight Errant/ whoever for murdering someone with a spell, and they respond with a SWAT unit. Just the way things go.

I've had a few players and even one whole group that didn't really care what they did or who they pissed off, until the first time it caught up with them. Wake up calls can be great.

I think that the psychopaths as opposed to the professionals SHOULD DIE, yes, if their actions warrant it, but I think they should do so when it is dramatically appropriate.

Reservoir Dogs would be a much less interesting movie without Mr. Blonde.

Psychopath and pro aren't exclusive.

Debatable. But it seems to be in this case.

one way to deal w/ PC is giving him Wanted-Negative quality (from Runner's Companion)
(some places/cars/? JUST happen to be under protection of major gangs/
Organized Crime)
let's see how fast PC buys off Distinctive Style- qualty with karma..

Sometimes it's actually a bonus.

I don't think there's anything wrong with acid stream as such. But piled on top of all the other stuff, 2 levels of distinctive style, one of which is obese and the other is some big beard big hats thing, he's swedish and there was something strange with that too (maybe proud viking heritage or something like that), has shotguns and knifes. Many of those things in itself could work, but together it just all seems off.

Odd behavior, for example he touched the Johnson to cast Analyze Truth (it wasn't a professional Johnson, but I mean, aside from the spellcasting, placing your hand on the arm of the guy hiring you at the meeting?). I think he was also provocative to someone, but that might have been another PC, or appropriate.

Btw, I'd say the style of my campaign is more like a mafia movie than spy. Nearly everyone in and around the shadowrun community is broken, greedy, hot headed, addicted, sleazy, and/or lazy. If they were pro spies, they'd still be spies for a corp or state, instead of being outlaws hoping they don't get caught or sold out. At least it pays well

I tend to agree with a lot of what has already been said, so I won't repeat it. However, there is one point that I think is important: what do the other players think? My old group had a guy like that and I know that in my experience "that guy" and his screwy characters was always very annoying to the other players. So much so that they orchestrated the death of at least one of his characters that I can remember. Anyway my point is that you might not be the only one who's enjoyment of the game is deminished by this guys weird roleplaying tastes. If that's the case, I'd say the most effective approach might be an OOC discussion with the whole group.

There you go. If you can't reach a compromise, then someone higher up could sell him out to cover his own skin, or sends them on a suicide mission. Think the italian dude in Boondock Saints... two bullets for 6 people. A dirty member could do that no problem.

QFT. Said it better then I could have.

This is often the GM or the thoughtful player's biggest question about other characters, lol.

I actually changed characters mid campaign once because I couldn't resolve the question and decided that I'd just change and run a character more in line with the silliness and evil level of the game. If your other players are playing along with your idea, this guy needs to change characters, or he may need to find another table.

While the spell itself should have been an issue, the issue of touching may not have been so much. Depends on the players real-life experiences, as well as the way you have set up the social interactions in the game. I guess, additionally, I am not sure what "placing your hand on the arm of the guy" means, exactly.

However, I could see a situation where a handshake wouldn't be completely out of the question... or perhaps other situations. What I would do would be to discuss some of the behaviors with the player, and see if you can't find a happy medium. Otherwise, as my GM has threatened, a randomly tossed cow could fall on his head... (not sure where he got that idea... though he did tell me, I just forgot).

The orbital bovine bombardment comes from Blackjack, who used to have a great Shadowrun resources page. Although it is often over-prescribed as a solution. Blackjack only used it for the very worst problem players.

I'm gonna guess that the bovine orbital bombardment may have been swiped from Baldur's Gate. There was a scroll you could get using cheat codes or character editors that would let a character cast Cow Kill that either did lots of damage or was an instant (chunky) death spell. The developers even made a cut-scene movie for the spell.

If they break Wheaton's Law, you're justified with almost any action.

Also, to clarify...

Is it really the character that's the problem?

Or is it the player?

If it really is just the character, and the player can change, sit down with him and hash out what changes you can both live with.

If it's a player problem... well, some folks just don't fit in to some play styles.



-k

A realistic, mirror-shade style campaign with no ice cold spies. What? I am getting contradictory vibes from your post. You want a mirror shade style campaign. You prefer not to have ice cold spies but either up and coming amateurs or professionals are fucked up somehow. Eh?

From what I see, you got what you asked for.

LOL WUT?

Talk to the guy. Tell him to change things or he will wake up with a tattoo on his face that says, "Hello my name is SUICIDE BY COP" on it.

The whole thing about Distinctive Style is that it can't be covered up. If it could be covered up, it would instead be called "Free Build Points" the quality. It can be disguised in the fashion that any character can be disguised while working, but once the character is recognized as an intruder/target, then the distinctive style is in effect. +6 to perception checks to find the character or locate with legwork. Lvl 2 is a Total death sentence in any realistic game.

Ask him if he'd rather trim this character into something that looks and acts less like a clown, or if he'd rather just start from scratch when this one gets shot dead Jack Ruby style.

Ok, I'm going to suggest the "other" route:

Instead of crapping all over the guy, find a way to actually make him WORK in your game world: Translate the way you title your post to the gameworld: The underwold needs one fucked up psycho for just those specific tasks where one might need one. And while they would usually try to get rid of him once his usefulness is up, there is always the question of how many resources to devote to that task. If he survives one ambush, the next just might not happen.

I wouldn't even worry about the cops. Cops can be bought. You don't even have to let the PCs do it. Have some fucked up powerplayer do it, because he thinks he can use the PC to his ends, at some point. You can even orchestrate this in character: Have the PCs meet up with a crazy mafia-boss or even corp bigshot who is - or acts as - a secret fan of the weird PC.
Or even better: If the guy is so distinctive, make him a media phenomenon. Give him some fan-clubs of middle-class wageslaves and their offspring, who watch trids about him on matrix-tube. Make him popular enough that cultivating him might seem useful to some people. Perhaps have a media company orchestrate him as some sort of shadow-hero (with enough spin, of course). The lone freak who dares to stand out. He only needs to stand out enough that people will think twice about letting him become a martyr. (This is actually a nice idea for a run: The team gets hired by a TV company who wants to establish their own real-life vigilante. Basically it might start out as an act, and then turn sour and all hell breaks loose, and the team have to orchestrate a victory for their "hero" without ever getting any focus themselves.)

Now of course this creates problems for those really clandestine operations the team has to conduct. But even then, have the TEAM force him to tone it down on those. You have to discuss this with your group of course. Essentially they have to be willing to cope with the guy. If they are not, then probably nothing will work.

Is it the player or the character that's the problem? It could be that a perfectly nice player made an experimental character that didn't turn out so well - but in the beginning you said that it could work, so..

A) If the player is the problem: don't try to solve it in-game, solve it with mature OOC communication.

B) If the character is the problem:

Step 1: tell the player that you're concerned about the character, but that it's not personal. Try to explain your issues with the character.

Step 2: tell him that while you've given some leeway in the past, NPCs will be reacting more severely in the future. Not so much to the things he's already done, but any new misdeeds will meet with appropriate respnoses.

Step 3: give him options: continue with the current character, or change to a blank slate. If he switches, be lenient in starting points; not (too much) behind the rest of the players.

From this point on, let "reality" take its course;
- If he continues to screw up, contacts back away and dry up. They'll let the rest of the party know they don't want to be near the troublemaker when shit hits the fan.
- NPCs will start sending threats and compiling dossiers. Feel free to be obvious.
- Move in for the kill.

At any point, if he kept the old character, he can try to "learn his lesson", dedicate Karma to buying off his NQs and lay low. Maybe get a face job and a new ID. Don't make this too hard; you're trying to keep him involved. If he tones it down a bit he might still make it in the long run.

Again, these are things that, if they are bad, you need to explain why they are bad.

Big beards and big hats barely qualify as two-levels of distinctive style with fashion in SR being described the way it is. I don't see how having an ethnicity/nationality is innately 'weird' either. And what is wrong with shotguns or with knives?

Then again, I do agree that an obese guy with a big hat and a big beard carrying around a shotgun filled with knives wherever he goes and talking in an outrageous Swede accent could be pretty disruptive. But it really depends how the elements come togehter.

Oh, and if not for the innate "spells are painfully obvious" problems with the SR rules, casting Analyze Truth on a Johnson (especially one who is obviously non/semi-pro and is without magical backup/protection) is a pretty cool idea. Additionally, there are plenty of ways for a player to camouflage a 'touch'
in a social context. I would even allow a player who came up with a clever enough method to make the touch without any dice rolls.

In general, on the 'how to deal with the problem' end of things, I agree with what Ascalaphus just said.

Also for future reference you don't need to touch the target to use analyze truth. The touch range is referring to who receives the sense analyze truth. The range of the sense is force x hits in meters.

Without seeing this in play I can't really say anything, but he does not seem that far off from a mirrorshades but not really mirroshades character.

I was flinching by "I told them very specifically and weeks ahead I wanted..." and the rest of the sentence just...what you said. Topped off with all the characters created away from the table [separate from each other], and then he let this one get past the one check point he did have, unchallenged (of course, what's he going to do, have everyone wait for the guy to redo the character?).

With side a dollop of expectation that the player sees the world, the "realistic" that he's got in his head. *sigh*

Seems to me the guy would make a wonderful contact, not so much a mirrorshades runner. That can always be an alternative for the group.

What Ascalaphus said.

You do NOT want to escalate failed communication (and you had a part in that, by definition) into a played-out-IC pissing match with someone. That's going to end poorly, for everyone. Focus on fixing the communication. If it comes together then it does, if it turns out what you were interested isn't what the player is interested in, then you can burn that bridge when you get to it.

I understood the OP: a non-Mohawk campaign, but don't make your *starting* characters boringly-perfect. Not the best phrasing, but it's clear enough. That doesn't mean, 'make a crazy Mohawk mage, please'.

He took two levels of Distinctive Style.
It does not matter what that Distinctive Style is described as, the quality has mechanical effects which are suicide in a world of consequences.

If he wants to be a goofy jackass, I'm all about that. Games need their levity, serious ones more than some others, but that quality don't fly hoss. Not outside of L.A. and not in a syndicate game.

If he switches out those points with another NQ, and thinks a bit more about the where an when to act certain ways, then the Sweedish Chef rides again. No problem. Weirdness can be an appropriate disguise in SR, but Distinctive Style is a thing into itself. It's like not only wearing gang colors, but having a banner lashed to your back samurai-style while you run around making crimes. It does not fit in most games.

It was a 5 point disadvantage taken twice. You may like to make it the end of days disadvantage but it should be no worse than taking hated by fire spirits. All distinctive style should really mean is he is a bit easier to identify and track down.

Given that he went with 2 5 point hits to distinctive style instead of 1 35 point one it should be treated differently than a massive disadvantage. It should hurt him as much as any addiction quality for example, that isn't exactly professional, but I somehow doubt that is made into an end of days disadvantage in many campaigns.

A heavily bearded obese guy with an accent may stand out, but so what. I am fairly sure other players have unprofessional disadvantages as well, but they don't get crippled for it even though they got the same amount of points.

What you are saying is that it should be house ruled to no longer have the mechanical effects which it does have by RAW.

Some qualities are worse than others. By RAW, this one is terrible.


Distinctive style is only 5bp, because it's in Runners Companion, which means it's not well tested or thought out, and because it has no effect over the Matrix. You want to let your freak flag fly, be a hacker and stay the hell out of crime scenes.

Um no it is 5-35BPs. It has a mechanical disadvantage when the quality comes into play. 5 point ones will probably come into play a bit less often than the 35 point ones. This isn't house ruling it, this is not being a vindictive GM. When it comes into play they get +3 dice to track him down through legwork for each distinctive style that they noticed(max+6dice and its just legwork tracking down not matrix or astral). That is it. He is 5 points of obese distinctive style or fat enough that it stands out often enough to be distinctive the equivalent of 5 points of disadvantage. That is why it has a varied cost. You may have a personal pet peeve about the disadvantage and turn it into a constant problem, but it is supposed to be a 5 point problem when taken at that level.

By the way this usually means when both distinctive styles are noticed the opposition get 2 more hits to track him down, sometimes that means they find him when they wouldn't have otherwise, other times it just means they have padding in finding him.

So why don't you stop house ruling it into something worse than it is.

Very true. Describing the Distinctive Style is a roleplaying thing. The only reason the book sets guidelines is to prevent shady players from working over naive GMs for free points. The character gets the +3 Dice Pool penalty no matter what his actual "style" is, and the character should have to go to great lengths to conceal it, and only under certain circumstances should concealing it be allowed.


It's another one of those Qualities that inexperienced players think is essentially free points, but which is in truth, and if played correctly, one of the most crippling in the game.

Yep, kinda like enemy, A flaw that just keeps on giving or uncouth, unskilled. all can cripple a character.
You think uncouth is a great flaw until you, realize you can't make etiquette checks! OR CON! without paying double points for a rank. We use etiquette for social stealth so looking like you belong.
Sometimes you have to have the Johnson step in and say Hey you Fat Guy with a ZZTOP beard you get made on this run or compromise the security I will make sure you don't work in Seattle again. So in game warning works out and sends a clear warning.

Because I have the text in front of me and the ability to read English.



As it is worded, it is god-awful. Also it makes no sense. Up to 35BP with only the first 10BP having any effect. There's a reason there's no errata for that book. It's just one mistake after another.

By all means, do house rule it if you choose to use it. I do.
I also wouldn't allow it in a serious game, because it's a gag option and doesn't belong there.

@Saint Sithney

I don't think the sentence you underlined, and the word you bolded, means what you think it means. The sentence following that is the problem, or I guess more to the point the sentence that is missing from this description that explains how the 5BP version differs from 35BP is the problem.

That said, with a graduation applied, I find it hard to imagine a game with a "serious" level so extreme that a reasonably adjudicated, mildest version of this flaw would be out of place. I can imagine it. It's just hard because of how much I'd want to splash gasoline around the room toss on a lit match before walking out of such a game, and would find such a game nowhere in line with the description given in the OP of this thread.

I don't entirely agree but I like the way you worded this paragraph--very amusing, especially the fourth sentence. Very quotable.

The banner thing works for Space Marines. It should work for everyone. Apparently leaders in the future like to make it extremely simple for the enemy to single them out They don't even wear helmets.