"My toy"?

*Has never played a Missions character in 4E.*

*Has never played a PC with Mind Control period.*

*Will be GMing 24 hours of Missions at Gencon.*

Well in any case Bull self-evidently has the final say, but I'd just like to point out that Control Thoughts is less disruptive than Mob Mind, Mob Control is less disruptive than Control Thoughts, Control Actions is less disruptive than Mob Control, and all spells that Control Emotion are less disruptive than any of the above. I don't know enough to place things like Influence and Mind Probe on that continuum.

Looking forward to the actual updated FAQ to see what is and is not banned.

Since you explained your past experience with Missions, I'll just say this:

Missions is not like home play.

It tries it's best to be, but due to the venue it differs in many aspects.

Chief among these aspects is the random nature of what GMs and players you get.

When you get a bunch of people who may have never met each other before siting down to play, in a time-limited gaming slot, with those players potentially having paid significant amounts of time and money to be sitting there, things change.

This isn't even counting things like GMs who might have been roped into judging that morning and have not even seen the Mission until five minutes before the play slot.

Chief advice for a new Missions GM, in my opinion, is that you really have to learn to "go with the flow" - don't get hung up on details and trust your players, strangers they might be, to handle their characters and the rules specifically concerning them. You might have a particular play style at a home game, but set that aside for Missions - If you have a bunch of powergamers who like their big dice pools, ramp up the challenge. If it's a bunch of social butterflies (or people new to Shadowrun), play up the setting and atmosphere, ease off the strict rules-mongering. Your job as an official Missions GM is to observe the players and adjust so they are having fun. Everything else you can fudge.



-k

buddy of mine brought up a question based on MC Spells ... and after thinking about it I am very curious about the answer

what about the "Animal" Range of these Spells

Calm animal
Calm Pack
Control Animal
Control Pack

I understand if the answer is "No on the principle that all the others are banned"

but I COULD Argue for these based on RP Value ... in Denver one of my players did a Control Pack on a BUNCH of Birds and used them to run Physical interferance for Survelience Cams .... Bird Poo on Camera's makes it hard to see ... and an exorbant ammount of Bird Poo works Great for Vandalization

Good advice, the problem for me always comes when i don't get one or the other I get both. I get the guy "I've been playing since second edition and this is how you should play your hacker or your christian theurge newbie." at the same time i'm trying to get someone immersed in the setting and system so they hopefully come back. Mediating those aspects is one of the trickiest parts about con/demo team games.

Is there going to be a FAQ that includes information about rules that were published after Runner's Companion, like WAR! or any of the PDF titles?

I put the stunbolt comment to the side before I continued. You said these bans (MC and possession) was done by CGL, not by SRM Staff. I was wondering when CGL started taking such an active interest in SRM's rules. Did they for a fact ask for the ban.




Yeah, in all the home games I played the Johnson met with the Fixer, the Fixer met with the runners most of the time. Otherwise the Johnson was a middle man who knew nothing-- often not even who was really paying him.