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hyphz
So, today was the second session of our new folks campaign. Since the last session, several of the players had tweaked their characters to make them a bit more sensible compared to how they were before. Dawg, the Dwarven mage, was now Low lifestyle instead of Street and had a Commlink. Kane, the Elf hacker type, was essentially unchanged. The fellow who I gave the name "Third" in the last post was actually named Zod (and his fake SIM's name is "Neil Before"), and he had also gotten himself a car (an armored car with two machine gun turrets, to be precise), a cheap Commlink, and a Medium lifestyle. Finally, we had a new player join us who's an intermittent visitor to our (RL) area. He was loaned a character that was made up by Kane's player while he was learning Chummer: a Troll combat generalist called "Mr. Happy Punch".

Before I start with the narrative, two rules questions came up:
- Arsenal has some rules for how Miniguns fire, and specifies the types of gun that can be made into Miniguns. However there appear to be no rules for actually making or buying a Minigun - there's no weapons with that description, nor a modification. So how do they work?
- The rules say that you can spend a point of Edge to "reroll all dice on one test that did not score a hit". We weren't sure if this should be read as "reroll (all dice (on one test) that did not score a hit)" - ie, on any test, reroll all the dice that didn't score hits; or "(reroll all dice on (one test that did not score a hit))" - ie, you reroll all the dice but can only do it if you rolled exactly 0 hits on the test. Which is it?

So, we finished the last session with the players finding a lead to Zipper. They head out to the Cathode Glow in Zod's car, parking it a while away. Zod turns off his cheap Commlink to stop it getting attacked, while the others are confident in their Firewalls. They leave the heavy firepower in the car this time, although they still decide for some reason to turn Dawg invisible and cast Reaction buffs on Kane and Zod before heading in. Kane easily enough spots Zipper in AR, and they head over to her table to ask her about the disk. Zod decides to increase the persuasion factor by drawing his ceramic pistol from his cyber slide mount and holding it to the head of Zipper's friend at her table. She tries to lie, fails, and coughs up Loomis' name and location - as the other group members are getting suspicious looks from the surrounding tables, and the robots are watching them carefully, but nobody really wants to get involved. Oddly, Kane doesn't try to hack anything while he's there, and although Zod was apparently considering trying to hide a small amount of plastic explosive under the table to blow the bar up after they left, he decided not to. This meant that Zipper was able to call through to Loomis and warn him about the group's approach.

The group drives past the Coda with Dawg having Detect Enemies up. Loomis has done a runner and the Trashers are hanging around in the doorway of the Coda. As soon as they see the heavily armored and turreted car they immediately figure that this is who they're looking for, and Dawg's Detect Enemies goes off. Initiatives are rolled. Zod wins first initiative and fires a long burst from one of the turret guns at one of the Trashers, killing him. (The car was being driven by Pilot software.)

Now I did make a mistake here. Namely, I didn't realize I needed to add Body to the Armor ratings for the NPCs - I thought they were already fully calculated. However, in practice, it didn't matter. The skill values the PCs were rolling were so high - and the Trashers only had reaction 3 - that, most of the time, even if the NPC had rolled all hits on the Armor test, they would have died.

Mr. Happy Punch decides he wants to get involved, and jumps out of the car, walking towards the Coda door (since it was a "drive-by" I figured he'd get there that pass) while shooting at a Trasher with his SMG. This seriously wounds him but doesn't kill him, leaving Kane to finish him off with the other turret. Dawg casts another Reaction buff. The Trashers run inside the bar to take cover behind the pool tables, and G-Man - who had been waiting in the bar - moves forward, takes cover behind the door frame, and fires a burst from his cyber machine pistol at Mr. Happy Punch, but misses him.

Next pass: Zod decides that the turret is "too weak" because it takes a Complex Action to fire, and thus sticks his Assault Rifle through the gun port on the car, blowing away G-Man with another burst (yes, even after his Good Cover. I wasn't sure if Zod should get the penalty for firing from cover, but he argued that gun ports were explicitly designed to make it easy to fire from a protected position, and that seems reasonable). Mr. Happy Punch runs into the bar and knocks out one of the two remaining Trashers. The second Trasher surrenders - although technically he shouldn't have had an action in that pass, but I figured better that than having him beaten to death by the other characters who'd assume he was still a threat.

So, the remaining runners enter the bar. The Trasher explains that Loomis ran out the back, and told them to mess with anyone who came for him. Zod shoots the knocked-out Trasher, knocks out the remaining conscious one, ties him to the winch on the back of his car and uses it to slam his body into the wall of the bar. They then proceed to loot the bodies, and the bar, including chopping off G-Man's cyberarm and - when one of the runners noticed something unusual about the hands of the Trashers - hacking off their fingers to extract their hand razors. They dump their grim haul in the smuggling pocket in the car.

The group then announced they were driving their car through the fence surrounding the junkyard. Now, since they had been messing around mutilating the Trashers for quite a while, I decide to go with the first scenario suggested in the book - Loomis has a good start, but he's fallen over and injured himself in the junkyard, so he's not actually gone yet. Meanwhile, the Shangri-La team is moving into position. (By the way, I couldn't find a "Shangri-La Corporation" in the books - is it one that's changed since? I randomly guessed it might be Horizon, but I'm not sure..)

So, the car smashes down the fence, and the runners start to circle the junkyard looking for Loomis. Sure enough, they see him. Zod announces that he wants to run Loomis over, but a quick check reveals that his car is on Slicks which wouldn't run well on the messy, bumpy floor in the junkyard. With some grumbles from the player, he instead decides to continue circling the Junkyard, while Dawg casts Improved Invisibility on Kane and Kane walks over to Loomis and decides to start whispering his name in his ears while invisible, followed by "Come with me if you want to live". This, naturally, freaks the hell out of Loomis, who assumes it's a spirit or some other nasty astral thingy.

Meanwhile, the rest of the time is still circling when they happen to spot the Shangri-La team headed into position. Zod commands the Pilot program to stop, surprises the grunts in the party (although not the Mage or Lieutenant), and fires a burst at the Shangri-La mage, killing him. The lieutenant responds by skinning his AK-47 and firing at Zod in the car. After some confusion about the rules for doing this, he manages to hit the correct area, but the car's armor soaks all the damage. The grunts fire at the car too, but most miss, except for one who shoots out one of the tires. Unfortunately, when I check the rules, it seems that shooting a tire gives a penalty to Handling Tests but does not actually force one to be made, so the runners aren't bothered. Zod blows away the lieutenant and one of the grunts on his next pass, and commands the other two grunts to throw down their guns and surrender, which they do.

Meanwhile, Dawg - during the battle - for some reason stopped sustaining the Improved Invisibility to cast another Reaction buff, so Kane appears in front of Loomis and offers to help him up. This suddenly puts a new spin on the whole thing - it seems like, played right, the runners will be able to make it look like the Shangri-La team were the group "coming to get the disk" that Zipper warned him about, and the runners have come to his aid. Kane helps Loomis over to the car, where Dawg is now interrogating the surrendered grunts - one of whom has had Mob Mind cast on him (the other one resisted) and both of whom have been tied up. They find out about the corporation and what the grunts were after. As soon as they see Loomis, they shout out for him not to trust the runners, as they attacked the strike team unprovoked. Zod reacts by grabbing the pistol from the dead grunt and shooting one of the tied-up ones in the head. He then asks the other grunt "Do you like cyberlimbs?". When the grunt replies that he doesn't have any cyber limbs, Zod shoots off all his muscle joints and says "You've got plenty of space for them now."

Loomis is now thoroughly terrified, and hands over the disk on condition he won't be harmed. He also gets Mob Minded, and told to tell the truth about the disk, and he pours out the story about K-Dop and how he obtained the disk. The team decides to throw Loomis IN THE TRUNK OF THEIR CAR (!) and then to hack up the bodies of the Shangri-La troopers for their cyberware (including asking if they can extract the Wired Reflexes from the lieutenant). They throw the mangled bodies of the Trashers and the troopers into the Coda bar, and then set the bar on fire. They then decide to head off to Carrion Studios, and I end the session for the week.

So... yea. I'm just worried at this point. First of all, I'm bothered about the whole business about Zod killing everyone in a single pass. Honestly, the problem more seems to be that Zod wins fights far too easily, yet if I force him into non-combat situations the player will (quite correctly) object that I'm pushing him to do things that I know he doesn't enjoy. Even he said that he felt Shadowrun was "broken" and wouldn't play properly.

Secondly, it seems like it's come to a rather harsh choice. Basically, either I decide they get away with all this stuff - which seems a bit unreasonable - or they'll basically get hunted down and killed. I wasn't sure people were enjoying the session, either.
Aku
For your second question: It's really ambiguous and a GM call. I would go with "you get to re-roll any dice, on one test that werent already hits"
UmaroVI
It is generally accepted to mean that you reroll only the dice that failed; apparently in the German edition, the grammar makes this unambiguous (if you needed further evidence).

Miniguns: There are AFAIK only 3 miniguns. The GE Vindicator from Arsenal is a minigun, but its use is ... questionable, since you have to blow a simple action to start it up. I'm sure it's not outright useless, but I can't see any way to make it really useful with no innate recoil compensation and that nasty drawback. Much more useful are the two vehicular mounted miniguns: the GE Vigilant Light Autocannon and the GE Vindicator Heavy Autocannon are both very nice. The light autocannon can go in a Flexible mount slot and while it is 5000Y (more than a LMG) and harder to find, it's also better. The heavy autocannon needs a Fixed mount slot or a Heavy Turret, but it is probably the nastiest weapon PCs can reasonably expect to get on a vehicle (the 20000Y price, while steep, isn't out of the question) and it will REALLY shred people.

Other than these, it's not possible to make a minigun RAW.
UmaroVI
Now some GMing advice. I think you should do a few things:

Talk to the players, specifically, the people who aren't Zod. Are they enjoying the sessions? Ask them this individually (so they don't feel peer pressure). One possibility is that some people want to play Black Trenchcoat And Mirror Shades shadowrun but Zod wants to play Pink Mohawk Shadowrun and either you will need to not have them all in the same group or you will need to make some compromises.

Another possibility is that everyone actually is ok with playing Pink Mohawk Shadowrun and there's nothing wrong with that. It's totally fine to run a game of Shadowrun where the PCs are loose cannons who are bad enough dudes to take on fairly tough strike forces - DO have people come after them, but not "screw you guys, rocks fall everyone dies;" instead, make the PCs being on the run from / fighting off / blowing up with excessive plastic explosives the people who come after them a source of fun gaming. I suggest beefing up the opposition in numbers and quality some if the PCs are tough, but try to avoid "random gangers now roll 18 dice!" and instead have it be people who are in-universe supposed to be tough coming after the PCs - like maybe a more elite Shangri-La team. Or maybe that one guy Zod shot up, back with a bunch of cyberware and a thirst for vengeance.

hyphz
QUOTE (UmaroVI @ Jul 30 2011, 11:04 PM) *
Talk to the players, specifically, the people who aren't Zod. Are they enjoying the sessions? Ask them this individually (so they don't feel peer pressure). One possibility is that some people want to play Black Trenchcoat And Mirror Shades shadowrun but Zod wants to play Pink Mohawk Shadowrun and either you will need to not have them all in the same group or you will need to make some compromises.


At no point was Zod acting against the wishes of the player group. He was perhaps a bit over the top in a few places but generally the desire to "kill that guy" was pretty present in all the players.

The worry about not enjoying the session more came from the fact that there was little apparent challenge.

HunterHerne
The challenge in Shadowrun isn't necessarily in the combat. But, that seems to be what the players want.

I second UmaroVI's suggestion of the Shangri-la coming back for revenge, after a few weeks, in game, with enough cyber that he almost resembles a cyborg. Also, use some more tactics against the players (I know it's hard when they start a fight in random, but it's a good idea to try, I think).

Another thing you can do is try moving them out of their comfort zone. The PC's vehicle will work in the barrens (unless someone strips it for parts, but that's another discusion), but they'll be harrassed and possible have the car impounded if they go into a better nieghbourhood. If he can't use his usual weapons, he'll be at a slight disadvantage, but still have a use.
UmaroVI
In that case, yeah, I would fix it by upping the challenge somewhat. It is important to do this in a way that has the tone of "you are impressive enough at murdering dudes that people respect you enough to send serious threats after you" rather than "screw you."

There's nothing wrong with upping the challenge by taking the PCs out of their comfort zone, but don't go overboard - the classic example is GMs who have every single adventure include a shoehorned-in overly large background count to screw over mages, but similar stuff (overuse of Millimeter Wave Scanners to shaft everyone but mages, etc) can also be done and also sucks. That said, stuff like "and now you need to take on this gang (who normally wouldn't be a threat to you) without your guns!" is perfectly fine so long as you don't overuse any one thing, and it gives people with more diversity (ie, having both gun skills and unarmed combat skills) a chance to shine.

To sum it up: up the challenge level, but make it more "enemies that are tougher and are in-universe supposed to be tougher" rather than "the GM kicks you in the balls over and over."
Faelan
QUOTE (hyphz @ Jul 30 2011, 05:28 PM) *
Even he said that he felt Shadowrun was "broken" and wouldn't play properly.

Secondly, it seems like it's come to a rather harsh choice. Basically, either I decide they get away with all this stuff - which seems a bit unreasonable - or they'll basically get hunted down and killed. I wasn't sure people were enjoying the session, either.


I have read your other posts related to starting a game, and realize that you are coming from a D&D mindset. In Shadowrun you have to have consequences. There is not a "level appropriate monster", an encounter with the right "CR", but there are consequences. Zod wants to run around making a target of himself, put a sniper round through his brain pan with love from Shangri-la. They call the remaining runners and explain that they want their shit back, or they have similar messages to deliver to them. You want to play a psychopath expect to get treated like one. Act like a rabid dog and you will be put down like one. Did the town guard let them off the hook in D&D? Send a runner team after them, nothing is broken when they are dealing with equals, but when you send mooks against them they are going to mop them up without breaking a sweat.
CanRay
Bugger. Wrong window!
hyphz
QUOTE (Faelan @ Jul 31 2011, 12:24 AM) *
I have read your other posts related to starting a game, and realize that you are coming from a D&D mindset. In Shadowrun you have to have consequences. There is not a "level appropriate monster", an encounter with the right "CR", but there are consequences. Zod wants to run around making a target of himself, put a sniper round through his brain pan with love from Shangri-la. They call the remaining runners and explain that they want their shit back, or they have similar messages to deliver to them. You want to play a psychopath expect to get treated like one. Act like a rabid dog and you will be put down like one. Did the town guard let them off the hook in D&D? Send a runner team after them, nothing is broken when they are dealing with equals, but when you send mooks against them they are going to mop them up without breaking a sweat.


Well to some extent I am limited by what is in the sample adventure, and later on they DO have a runner team sent after them. But right now they're potentially in a lot of trouble if anyone happens to object to them having turrets and gunports on their car. Given that they'll notice the knocking coming from the trunk, and find a guy covered in Dawg's magical traces who says he was kidnapped from the Coda, and oh look that's been burned down and is full of dead guys one of whom has the same magical trace on them.

Problem is.. basically all these things come down to ending the campaign.
Faelan
QUOTE (hyphz @ Jul 30 2011, 08:27 PM) *
Well to some extent I am limited by what is in the sample adventure, and later on they DO have a runner team sent after them. But right now they're potentially in a lot of trouble if anyone happens to object to them having turrets and gunports on their car. Given that they'll notice the knocking coming from the trunk, and find a guy covered in Dawg's magical traces who says he was kidnapped from the Coda, and oh look that's been burned down and is full of dead guys one of whom has the same magical trace on them.

Problem is.. basically all these things come down to ending the campaign.


So let it end, and start a new one. The characters they made sound like something straight out of a bad comic, or a hack and slash game. You have your Thief, your Wizard/Cleric, and your Barbarian. They screwed the pooch. If you really want to keep it going, capture them and implant some cortex bombs and watch them squirm. Violent criminals don't just get to go on killing sprees without paying the piper.
Sengir
QUOTE (hyphz @ Jul 30 2011, 10:28 PM) *
- Arsenal has some rules for how Miniguns fire, and specifies the types of gun that can be made into Miniguns. However there appear to be no rules for actually making or buying a Minigun - there's no weapons with that description, nor a modification. So how do they work?

Uhm, the Vindicator should be on the same page plus or minus one wink.gif
Then there are the two aforementioned vehicle guns, and the German edition adds another one *points to signature*

QUOTE
- The rules say that you can spend a point of Edge to "reroll all dice on one test that did not score a hit". We weren't sure if this should be read as "reroll (all dice (on one test) that did not score a hit)" - ie, on any test, reroll all the dice that didn't score hits; or "(reroll all dice on (one test that did not score a hit))" - ie, you reroll all the dice but can only do it if you rolled exactly 0 hits on the test. Which is it?

Most players and the German RAW agree on the former

QUOTE
Secondly, it seems like it's come to a rather harsh choice. Basically, either I decide they get away with all this stuff - which seems a bit unreasonable - or they'll basically get hunted down and killed.

A local underworld bigwig is indeed rather not pleased with having psychopathic killers loose on his turf. In addition to making people wonder who is holding the reins, the resulting police attention has already caused serious extra costs for his organization -- which is why he has decided against simply killing these freaks and putting their mangled bodies on display as a reminder for anyone with similar ideas. Instead, he will kindly ask them to make amends for the damage they have caused to his reputation and business totals.

[Insert some side quests here. And some cranial bombs (0 Essence, so no problem even for Awakened/Emerged) into the players, so they keep a lower profile this time. Oh, and the truck is kindly accepted as a down payment.]
hyphz
What is the deal with Germany and Shadowrun? Is it a German game?
noonesshowmonkey
Do not despair!

Shadowrun takes a long time to get right, both playing and GMing. Everyone's first few SR games look like a crappy, slasher heavy version of Heman meets Conan meets Big Trouble in Little China meets Mad Max. Good SR looks an awful lot like that, sometimes, but is really satisfying... I don't really know if I made any point there, but I'll let it stand.

Tuning your challenges to meet player abilities is really, really hard. For one, I would try and normalize your table's dice pools by further tweaking characters or starting over. Set a dice pool range for the character's primary skills - hacking, social, gun bunny, melee, damage soak, rigging or driving (and whatever else) - and make sure that everyone has one or two things they are good at. I'd suggest 12-16 dice, with 16 being on the top, top end. Do whatever works for you. Then, when you are designing your encounters, make sure you dry-run your opposition.

By dry run your oppositions dice pools (attack and defense!) against the players dice pools you will make sure that you have a handle on how dangerous the encounter will actually be.

I recently GM'ed a Barrens car chase where I sent a Mad Max go-gang and a Dune-esque Sand Worm was spitting acid after the player's tricked out Tata Hotspur... It was really cool until I realized that the HMGs on my go-gang wouldn't scratch the paint on the player's vehicle. And the rocket launcher attacked with a Dice Pool of 8 with a scatter that would never hit anything ever... And the player's tweaked out rigger did 2/3rds of the Sand Worm's life in a single burst on the first turn, using a second burst to kill it the same turn... And the beast's base attack wouldn't really do much but melt the paint... Point is, it can be really challenging to figure out what is just enough and what is too much. I'd said to myself 'maybe Body 14 is too high?' when, in point of fact, the thing needed more body (it was huge!) as well as some armor. What I REALLY needed to do was send a wolf pack of sand worms...

Never rely on single enemies of any kind, Sand Worms or not, to challenge players. The Rock-Paper-Scissors factor of SR4 - as well as the innate frailty of any one entity - makes the Boss Fight of most other gaming systems pretty much impossible.

Lastly, Shadowrun challenges a GM raised in the traditional gaming systems to think way outside the box. Any encounter can exist in three or four dimensions incredibly easily: astral space, meat space, the matrix / drones / vehicles and social challenges. This is a huge amount of information to synthesize. Shadowrun also boils down to 66% or more people skills. Players generally spend an inordinate amount of time talking to people, be it their contacts, whoever they meet and are trying to get information from or just John Q Law (or Johnny Go-Ganger et crew) who happens to have pulled over their wildly illegal car along the 405. The idea that thrusting a blood-thirsty cyber samurai into social conflicts would be 'gamesmanship' is rather spurious and erroneous. Combat in SR4 is measured in 3 seconds rounds and rarely goes any longer than 15 seconds. What the hell is your samurai doing with those hundreds of thousands of other seconds?
Glyph
QUOTE (hyphz @ Jul 30 2011, 06:28 PM) *
What is the deal with Germany and Shadowrun? Is it a German game?

They have German translations, and a decent-sized fanbase. The German stuff often seems to have slightly tweaked rules, or extra stuff that doesn't make it to the English version.

I agree with UmaroVI's overall advice. Make it more challenging, but keep it fun. The advice of the others might be technically correct from a "Shadowrun purist" approach, but if you did it in your game, you would probably have the players walk away in disgust. Sniping someone in the head, or getting the crew outfitted with cranial bombs to be some underworld boss's personal bitches - can you really see the players accepting that? Especially if it came out of nowhere; it would be a pretty dramatic switch in gamemastering style to spring on them. Do start gradually introducing them to consequences.

I think part of the problem is that you took a bunch of combat-oriented asskickers and tried to run them through a pregenerated adventure designed for less hyper-focused characters. These guys like fights, so give them fight-oriented runs (take out this ghoul gang, be overwatch at this underworld meet, because the crime boss who hired them thinks the other guy is going to try something - only what happens is that a third party crashes the scene, etc.). Ramp up the power level a bit - logically - and have your mooks use cover and a few other elementary tactics; you would be surprised what a difference it makes when they aren't simply standing there like targets. Oh, by the way, you can still use pregen adventures - just don't be afraid to tweak them for your group (make combats harder, lead them by their noses a bit more on plot and legwork).
hyphz
Oh, sure. I knew they were combat monsters. If they're enjoying it, I'm happy with them playing that way. It's just that working out how to fudge it so that they don't end up with Lone Star impounding their car after somebody heard the frantic knocking coming from the trunk is a bit of a stretch, and if I do (hey, armour 20 could be soundproof, right?) then the game loses a lot of its colour. Every player might as well make their own Zod in that case, and go back to Street lifestyles while they're at it. At the same time, if I don't fudge it, I'm pretty sure the PCs won't want to shoot it out with the police (in fact, Zod's player specifically checked with me that the guys he saw in the junkyard were not police officers) and if they get busted, campaign over. Even if we start another, the players will probably still feel they've been bitchslapped by me for just playing in the way they enjoy, and that would suck.

I also spent a bit of time preparing the combat, hoping that the players would enjoy it, and was just shocked when people started going down in single hits. I had several strategies planned for their Mage and he was toasted before he could act. Plus, if he's going to carry on driving his car off-road into combat encounters, that means I have to either put the other guys in armoured cars too or give them stupidly huge weapons. (Actually, maybe a car chase with an armed Shangrili-La combat vehicle would be a neat thing to throw in at some point in the future). What I guess I'm really afraid of is that it'll become "kill or be killed", so that any combat encounter is either a walkover or results in the death of a PC.

hyphz
Holy crap. I've just realised that they didn't take away Loomis' commlink before throwing him in the trunk.
Aku
QUOTE (hyphz @ Jul 30 2011, 11:33 PM) *
Holy crap. I've just realised that they didn't take away Loomis' commlink before throwing him in the trunk.


"Hello, 911, what's your emergency?"

"Yea, i just got snagged by these clowns driving a sedan thats loaded with weapons and they stuffed me in the trunk I dont know where I am, do you have my gps signal? please send someone to help me!"
Mardrax
QUOTE (Glyph @ Jul 31 2011, 04:14 AM) *
Oh, by the way, you can still use pregen adventures - just don't be afraid to tweak them for your group (make combats harder, lead them by their noses a bit more on plot and legwork).

For example, what I did with that encounter was to tweak the strike team with two points of Infiltration (Urban), have the mage hide out in some thermal damping, ruthenium suit, on top of the crane, coordinating the team. The rest were sneaking among the stacks of cars, having a delicious cat and mouse game with two physadepts who would have outclassed them easily without. Surprise is hell, and so is eletrical damage. They're using nonlethal means? Go to town with tasers, which are fairly silent to boot. Use gel rounds to knock people down. (and add the possibility of falling from the top of car wrecks piled 3 meters high, when players insist on climbing up and playing sitting ducks for, well, everything) Oh, and these are corpers. Don't forget the TacNet. Or a hacker, or even just a jammer to deny communications to the players when they split up. If you really want to turn up the pink mohawk, have the teams evac chopper fly over, with a board gunner doing some suppressive fire.

I feel the gang really aren't supposed to be a worthy fight. Generally, groups at that kind of level tend to form more of a social/moral dilemma for the runners than anything else. Sure, you can kill all of them. Heck, line them up, and a proper physad could probably have them all down for the count in two attacks total. Any decent shot with an smg should rip them to shreds. But what do they gain from it? And what do they lose? As a wise man here once said: everyone has friends, families. You go after people like that, you stand a good chance their friends come after you. Or after your families.

Since it's all done though, what to do? I'd say play up some background. Have one of the players watch the news, where the team's faces get a full frame shot, as Zod mutilates the corper's limbs, sound playing in full. Have Lone Star issue a bounty after that. nuyen.gif 20.000 for anyone who provides information that leads to the arrest of this socially depraved madman, or any of his associates. A round 100.000 for information leading to the entire team. To cut to a half hour special mourning service, where the man's wife and kids bemoan the dangers of the evil, evil world outside their precious corp compound walls, roamed by madmen, and ruled by nothing but violence. Have them run into pictures of them being AR-spammed in public places, with the usual "Do you know anything that could lead to this man?"
You're fighting Horizon? Don't fear dodging the less than lethal weapons. Fear dodging public opinion. How's your Disguise pool folks? You're going to need it.
And then, that loyalty 1 contact might well call someone up to have a beer. You know? "Hey man, where are you? Cool. Care if I came over for a beer in half hour?" Or just the downstairs/across the street neighbour. And that nice little lady at the pizza place who always deliver for free. And what actual enemies do you already have? How many of these people are prepared to sell the players out?

And then see how good the rest of the team is at breaking a heavily beat up Zod out of prison. And him breaking out from the inside. They want spectacle and violence? They've got it.

About your other questions, I'm AFB right now, but from memory:
I do believe Shangri-La is described as being a subsidiary of Horizon's, not Horizon itself.
I also do believe the minigun description isn't so much about the minigun itself, but the HVAR mod, which I also do believe is described in Arsenal. This mod is what the Vindicator guns all have on the standard models.
LurkerOutThere
Be prepared for them not being willing to break Zod out, or even being willing to sell him out, that is very shadowrun.
Mayhem_2006
QUOTE (Mardrax @ Jul 31 2011, 05:01 AM) *
Long detailed breakdown of perfectly reasonable consequences


MAdrax has teh right of it..

Maybe as a group they hadn't recognised the difference between Shadowrun and D&D - Shadowrun has instant communication and wide-reaching law. Their violent actions have long reaching consequences.

You have a group of characters who have committed atrocities - outright murder, torture, mutilation of corpses etc etc AND who have given the authorities ample opportunity to gather pictures and audio of them and their vehicle. They should now be wanted criminals, both by the police, the Horizon Corporation and by the Shangri-La Teams for who it is now personal.

Hit them with the full force of the consequences, making it clear that these are legitimate consequences not just you dropping the GM hammer on them. If they and you can figure out a way for the game to continue with these characters after that, then so be it.

/maybe drop them in a warzone.
Mardrax
QUOTE (Mayhem_2006 @ Jul 31 2011, 11:53 AM) *
/maybe drop them in a warzone.

Read Punisher Max issue 1 through 5 for inspiration nyahnyah.gif
UmaroVI
You could just ask your players "Yo, you know Turrets are illegal, right? How do you plan on driving around without getting stopped by Lone Star?" Hopefully they will figure something out. Alternatively, they could stay in places where Lone Star doesn't care enough to patrol (eg, Barrens areas).

HunterHerne
True, they could do that. It all depends on the game, but honestly, I think I would get bored of Pink Mohawk after a few sessions.
Tymeaus Jalynsfein
QUOTE (HunterHerne @ Jul 31 2011, 09:35 AM) *
It all depends on the game, but honestly, I think I would get bored of Pink Mohawk after a few sessions.


Amen to that... smile.gif
UmaroVI
Then let them get bored of it, and when they're ready to turn over a new leaf, you can do a more Mirror Shades game without having to fight them over it.
Faelan
QUOTE (HunterHerne @ Jul 31 2011, 10:35 AM) *
True, they could do that. It all depends on the game, but honestly, I think I would get bored of Pink Mohawk after a few sessions.


I would also, of course I would also tire of a mirror shades game. At least for me Shadowrun requires a careful balance between the two, because both break down at a point. Pink Mohawk assumes you can blow everything up, and mirror shades assumes you can finesse past everything, neither is accurate in reality, and neither is truly fun as a play style. They both carry certain conceits which require a GM to ignore major aspects of the setting for them to work.
HunterHerne
QUOTE (Faelan @ Jul 31 2011, 02:01 PM) *
I would also, of course I would also tire of a mirror shades game. At least for me Shadowrun requires a careful balance between the two, because both break down at a point. Pink Mohawk assumes you can blow everything up, and mirror shades assumes you can finesse past everything, neither is accurate in reality, and neither is truly fun as a play style. They both carry certain conceits which require a GM to ignore major aspects of the setting for them to work.


That's true, there does have to be a balance.
Tymeaus Jalynsfein
QUOTE (Faelan @ Jul 31 2011, 11:01 AM) *
I would also, of course I would also tire of a mirror shades game. At least for me Shadowrun requires a careful balance between the two, because both break down at a point. Pink Mohawk assumes you can blow everything up, and mirror shades assumes you can finesse past everything, neither is accurate in reality, and neither is truly fun as a play style. They both carry certain conceits which require a GM to ignore major aspects of the setting for them to work.


Mirror Shades DOES NOT assume that you can finesse past everything. It is just your first choice in the progression of options. When Finesse does not work, you move to more forceful options. Eventually, you may, indeed, have to consider the Brute Force Option. Pink Mohawk, in comparison, assumes that the Brute Force Method Option is the first, and correct, one.

The big difference between the two styles is Consequences. Pink Mohawk has little to no consequences, so going Brute Force is the No-Brainer option. Mirror Shades goes the other route, assuming that the consequences will likely be generated by the characters own actions. In that style of game, you try to get by with the least amount of consequences incurred. Unfortunately, You can not always accomplish an objective sans consequence. They are always there. wobble.gif
Faelan
QUOTE (Tymeaus Jalynsfein @ Jul 31 2011, 12:38 PM) *
Mirror Shades DOES NOT assume that you can finesse past everything. It is just your first choice in the progression of options. When Finesse does not work, you move to more forceful options. Eventually, you may, indeed, have to consider the Brute Force Option. Pink Mohawk, in comparison, assumes that the Brute Force Method Option is the first, and correct, one.


Really. They are opposites. Even the Pink Mohawk will resort to finesse if Brute Force does not work, and it will be equally awkward. My comment was a generalization. Your comment seems to be indicating that Mirror Shades is somehow more versatile or better, when in fact they are exact opposites and equally deficient in their method in my opinion. They approach the same problem from the exact opposite end of the spectrum. My generalization is based on the consistent comment that if anyone knows you were there you failed to sufficiently fulfill the goal of the Mirror Shades aesthetic.

QUOTE
The big difference between the two styles is Consequences. Pink Mohawk has little to no consequences, so going Brute Force is the No-Brainer option. Mirror Shades goes the other route, assuming that the consequences will likely be generated by the characters own actions. In that style of game, you try to get by with the least amount of consequences incurred. Unfortunately, You can not always accomplish an objective sans consequence. They are always there. wobble.gif


There are consequences in Pink Mohawk, they just tend to be death, glorious death, and blazing glorious death. Essentially death in varying degrees of obviousness.
HunterHerne
QUOTE (Tymeaus Jalynsfein @ Jul 31 2011, 02:38 PM) *
Mirror Shades DOES NOT assume that you can finesse past everything. It is just your first choice in the progression of options. When Finesse does not work, you move to more forceful options. Eventually, you may, indeed, have to consider the Brute Force Option. Pink Mohawk, in comparison, assumes that the Brute Force Method Option is the first, and correct, one.

The big difference between the two styles is Consequences. Pink Mohawk has little to no consequences, so going Brute Force is the No-Brainer option. Mirror Shades goes the other route, assuming that the consequences will likely be generated by the characters own actions. In that style of game, you try to get by with the least amount of consequences incurred. Unfortunately, You can not always accomplish an objective sans consequence. They are always there. wobble.gif


Even so, sometimes a player wants to feel like he can do something without consequences. I allow these kinds of things, however controlled.

Most of my groups have been done through Skype IM, which I find to be incredibly helpful to my GMing style (I liketo withhold information from players that shouldn't learn it unless the player tells them. Can make for interesting dynamics. I also don't like bogging down other players with over excessive reading/waiting when another player does something that doesn't impact the group.) In one case, I had a secret tournament, kind of an underground urban brawl, where one team is on the defence, and the other is offence. I only had three characters that were primarily combat characters, so I had them (and only them) compete. They lost in the second round (the mage couldn't make it to the match, for in game reasons, and out of games. Left them a little gimped against a Jewish Loup-garou spider mage, and a wolf shapeshifter phys adept. There was a third but, he was sniping, just in case)
hyphz
QUOTE (Mayhem_2006 @ Jul 31 2011, 10:53 AM) *
MAdrax has teh right of it..

Maybe as a group they hadn't recognised the difference between Shadowrun and D&D - Shadowrun has instant communication and wide-reaching law. Their violent actions have long reaching consequences.

You have a group of characters who have committed atrocities - outright murder, torture, mutilation of corpses etc etc AND who have given the authorities ample opportunity to gather pictures and audio of them and their vehicle.


Well, I mean I guess this is sort of where I have trouble because I'm just not sure what the correct balance for these sort of things is. (Oh, and by the way, I looked up Horizon in Corporate Guide last night and there's no mention of a Shangri-La so I have no idea where they're linked to now.) I mean, let's look at what I have so far:

- Driving around in a turreted vehicle. Yes, they're going to have trouble with this, but it'd probably be more of a warning than a total bust since they are still learning the game, after all.

- Ripping the cyberware out of dead guys. I'm not at all sure about this because while it's clearly unpleasant, the books make it clear that this is totally a thing. I might rule that the kind of cyberware you get out of mook corpers and random gangers isn't going to be worth much because the big legger gangs can easily just kidnap someone like that, hack their 'ware off alive and drop it in the deep freeze to order - rather than having to scrape the rotting dead flesh out of a cyberarm that's been in someone's car for a few days.

- Zod mutilating/torturing the surrendered guys. Now, the fact he killed guys who had surrendered is obviously something that'll get out (he was hoping to stop them telling anyone, of course). But honestly, I'm really thinking about handwaving the other stuff under the Feng Shui rule - in other words, saying that basically all he did was kill them, but happened to add some flavor, and stopping him adding that flavor doesn't really benefit anything. The tone seemed that he was going for the old action movie thing where the final kill of a combat is ridiculously contrived and followed by a payoff line, and while he might seem that he's acting more like a villain than a hero, that's just because in an actual film the entire fight and situation can be choreographed from the beginning to make sure it ends with it being Totally All Right for the hero to chop a guy in half down the middle with a chainsaw or dump him in a cryogenics tank and decapitate him.

- Blowing away the gangers in the doorway who were unarmed. Obviously a rather over-the-top response, and it'll get them a rep. They could have probably negotiated or intimidated their way past, but if the players are spoiling for a rumble it seems kind of lame of me to have the enemies just cave as soon as a weapon comes out, even if that's what they would do.

- Killing the Shangri-La guys - honestly, I can't see this as psycho, all that much. They were obviously armed and, they deduced, likely to be using lethal force on someone they were trying to protect. Ok, opening fire on the unarmed guy first on the grounds that he must be a mage could certainly lead to bad results, but in this case they were actually right.

- Kidnapping Loomis. I think they really didn't think this one through at all..

- Not being in disguise. This is another question. Is it generally reasonable to assume that ANYONE who has a DNI'd commlink will have dropped a free action at some point to tell someone big about what's going on? It seems reasonable but whether or not it leads to a fun game, I'm not sure. I guess the real issue is that looking ahead, the only difference it would make is that someone makes a Disguise roll before the team sets out.

What I've actually done is to write to the players to confirm that they actually enjoyed having their PCs doing what they did in that session - as opposed to just doing it because it seemed to be what they "had" to do in the situation - so I can get an idea of how to spin this.
UmaroVI
QUOTE (hyphz @ Jul 31 2011, 02:22 PM) *
Well, I mean I guess this is sort of where I have trouble because I'm just not sure what the correct balance for these sort of things is. (Oh, and by the way, I looked up Horizon in Corporate Guide last night and there's no mention of a Shangri-La so I have no idea where they're linked to now.) I mean, let's look at what I have so far:

Let me give you my take on the various parts. I have no idea who Shangri-La are so I can't help you there.

QUOTE (hyphz @ Jul 31 2011, 02:22 PM) *
- Driving around in a turreted vehicle. Yes, they're going to have trouble with this, but it'd probably be more of a warning than a total bust since they are still learning the game, after all.

This one, honestly, I would just explain "F gear is OK, but unconcealable F gear is not," and tell them to mod it into a Concealed turret at the next opportunity. The general rule I go with is R = have a license, F = be able to hide it, be aware you can't take it everywhere.


QUOTE (hyphz @ Jul 31 2011, 02:22 PM) *
- Ripping the cyberware out of dead guys. I'm not at all sure about this because while it's clearly unpleasant, the books make it clear that this is totally a thing. I might rule that the kind of cyberware you get out of mook corpers and random gangers isn't going to be worth much because the big legger gangs can easily just kidnap someone like that, hack their 'ware off alive and drop it in the deep freeze to order - rather than having to scrape the rotting dead flesh out of a cyberarm that's been in someone's car for a few days.

So the whole "mutilating corpses for cyberware" thing is perfectly reasonable to do, but will get you a bad rep. I would suggest letting them do it, but (a) Don't let them sell it for too much of its value. 30% is the base price, -20% for used, -20% for stolen, -10% for used in a crime, and Secondhand Cyber is only worth half price anyways (the essence hit), so that's 7.5% of the "full value." I would also advise your PCs that this is in-universe considered pretty reprehensible, and that they'll get Notoriety for fencing, ahem, "recently liberated" cyberware. But do let them sell it and take the notoriety if they want.

QUOTE (hyphz @ Jul 31 2011, 02:22 PM) *
- Zod mutilating/torturing the surrendered guys. Now, the fact he killed guys who had surrendered is obviously something that'll get out (he was hoping to stop them telling anyone, of course). But honestly, I'm really thinking about handwaving the other stuff under the Feng Shui rule - in other words, saying that basically all he did was kill them, but happened to add some flavor, and stopping him adding that flavor doesn't really benefit anything. The tone seemed that he was going for the old action movie thing where the final kill of a combat is ridiculously contrived and followed by a payoff line, and while he might seem that he's acting more like a villain than a hero, that's just because in an actual film the entire fight and situation can be choreographed from the beginning to make sure it ends with it being Totally All Right for the hero to chop a guy in half down the middle with a chainsaw or dump him in a cryogenics tank and decapitate him.

Shadowrunners don't have to be heroes. Here, you might give them Notoriety, but I would instead be inclined to have the consequences be the guy coming back with cyberware as a fun recurring villain.

QUOTE (hyphz @ Jul 31 2011, 02:22 PM) *
- Blowing away the gangers in the doorway who were unarmed. Obviously a rather over-the-top response, and it'll get them a rep. They could have probably negotiated or intimidated their way past, but if the players are spoiling for a rumble it seems kind of lame of me to have the enemies just cave as soon as a weapon comes out, even if that's what they would do.

Honestly, I'm not sure about this one. Yeah, it sucks for the gangers, but they WERE gangers. I can see the rest of the gang being out for revenge, sure, but I don't think this one deserves further consequences. Looking at the Notoriety table, "killing unarmed gangers instead of being humane to them" doesn't really rank up there with "forget returning that Orphanage's money. Let the brats starve."

QUOTE (hyphz @ Jul 31 2011, 02:22 PM) *
- Killing the Shangri-La guys - honestly, I can't see this as psycho, all that much. They were obviously armed and, they deduced, likely to be using lethal force on someone they were trying to protect. Ok, opening fire on the unarmed guy first on the grounds that he must be a mage could certainly lead to bad results, but in this case they were actually right.

I see no problem with this one either.
QUOTE (hyphz @ Jul 31 2011, 02:22 PM) *
- Kidnapping Loomis. I think they really didn't think this one through at all..

I agree. I would suggest having something go wrong - in this case, they forgot to take his commlink, so he calls for help. That sounds like perfectly good consequences, and maybe next time they'll be smarter about kidnapping.

QUOTE (hyphz @ Jul 31 2011, 02:22 PM) *
- Not being in disguise. This is another question. Is it generally reasonable to assume that ANYONE who has a DNI'd commlink will have dropped a free action at some point to tell someone big about what's going on? It seems reasonable but whether or not it leads to a fun game, I'm not sure. I guess the real issue is that looking ahead, the only difference it would make is that someone makes a Disguise roll before the team sets out.

I think this one really depends. If you want the PCs to wear disguises when doing stuff like this, just tell them "Yo, going on murder sprees without a disguise will get you killed. You should start wearing disguises" and they will probably do it. You can also just assume they are doing stuff like putting on masks for stuff like this. But you don't HAVE to run shadowrun like that.

QUOTE (hyphz @ Jul 31 2011, 02:22 PM) *
What I've actually done is to write to the players to confirm that they actually enjoyed having their PCs doing what they did in that session - as opposed to just doing it because it seemed to be what they "had" to do in the situation - so I can get an idea of how to spin this.


This is a good idea.
HunterHerne
Give them a news feed, telling about the massive slaughter of gang members and hard working Corp employees, as has been said. Let them have warning and see what they do.

Once the run is over, give them the apropriate Notoriety ratings, especially Zod. It sounds like he's racking up quite the reputation, and maybe people don't want to work with him anymore, except on really dangerous jobs (ghouls, maybe a crazy dragon lairing in the city, or even sending him on tail chasers as the distraction)

If they don't let loomis go, the consequences should be apropriate. If I remember the run (gone through it once as a player, never GM'd), Loomis is at least a little connected to the Jet Black Band. That could get seriously bad for Zod and the rest.

While there choice may not have been tactically sound, if you didn't give them reason to suspect he wasn't a mage, then let them get away with it. As long as he wasn't bound and gaged, it shouldn't be punished.

Blowing away the gangers might be a bit over board, but they had reason, since they showed up as enemies on the spell. I would maybe give them a point of notoriety for jumping the gun there.

Organ-legging and cyber harvesting, I would give them the low end, and be aware that the Fixer/Fence they go through takes a cut (usually 5% per connection rating of what the price ends up being). At the same time, I think a point of notoriety for how brutally they did it should be in order, too.

Manunancy
It feels your players have some quite a bit of a 'kill them all and loot the bodies' mindest - probably carried over from D&D. that's going to bring them some troubles if they keep piling corpses that way. Especially mutilated corpses, or which have been killed with a bullet to the back of the head.

It might not get them into immediate trouble, but odds are they'll start piling up a repute for that sort of crap. At which points their prosective employers are likely to think twice before giving them anything where a low profile is desirable. On a morale meter, odds are the jobs will start sinking too - from theft and information gathering toward wetwork, destruction of assets down to mass murder and the like. If you're known as a butcher, expect to get a butcher's work...

A remar about the car's turrets : replacing them with popups ones will be a tremendous help for inserting the vehicle into law-abiding locations, otherwise they can expect to have police drones keeping a close watch on them. And the cops dropping on them like a ton of bricks if something untoward happens to the drones.
Glyph
Honestly, the violence, in and of itself, should not be that big of a deal. They got in a fight with armed, hostile people, and happened to win. Be sure to stress to them, though, as something their characters would know, that similar tactics against a corporate facility, which can call upon reinforcements, will get them killed. Violent exfiltration after being discovered is one thing, but going in guns blazing will just get them to lock down the facility and call in heavy backup.

Going around without disguises was dumb, but probably something newbies wouldn't think of - not for day-to-day wandering around. Let their faces get on the news, and have them each plunk a grand or two of their pay to get new faces (and, if you're feeling generous, you can rule that their IDs can be altered for their new faces for a similar fee, rather than requiring them to get brand new ones); it can be a lesson for next time.

Cyberware harvesting, as has been said, should give them notoriety and squick even some of their underworld contacts and fellow runners out. Also, if none of them have any skills related to harvesting cyberware, then have the fixer look at these half-rotted limbs in disgust, and say there's nothing salvageable there. Although fencing cyberware should not usually be that lucrative.

Some of the things they did were a bit over the top, and the mutilated guy and the friends/survivors of the gang will probably be coming after the runners at some point. I would say, do it as more action, rather than "punishing" the players. But it will still let them know that there are consequences to their actions.

The "Mad Max" car, flat out tell them that until the guns, turrets, and such are hidden, driving it anywhere but the Barrens, or areas nearly as bad, will get them busted in no time. Shadowrunners and gangers exist at all in this ubiquitous surveillance society because of information glut, data balkanization, and the continual turf wars and jurisdictional squabbles between the corporations, the city, and other interests. But even so, a car-tank bristling with obvious weapons is like walking down the street with your Kingslayer assault cannon - you'll get a SWAT team called on your ass.

Now, the one mistake they made, forgetting to take their target's commlink - THAT should bite them, hard. At the least, have another corporate strike team, a tougher one this time, show up for another running gun battle.
Mardrax
QUOTE (hyphz @ Jul 31 2011, 08:22 PM) *
Well, I mean I guess this is sort of where I have trouble because I'm just not sure what the correct balance for these sort of things is. (Oh, and by the way, I looked up Horizon in Corporate Guide last night and there's no mention of a Shangri-La so I have no idea where they're linked to now.) I mean, let's look at what I have so far:

Shangri-La is just described in On the Run, and is a subsidiary of Horizon. Basically a record label that specialises in new talent. Triple As tend to have subsidiaries like a devilrat has flees, and you have hairs on your head. What you find described are just the big ones, the important ones, the ones important for existing fluff, or just plot hooks. If you or anyone else wants more, something's made up that fits into the crop theme, like in this instance. Make stuff up as you go along and information needs arise.

QUOTE (hyphz @ Jul 31 2011, 08:22 PM) *
- Ripping the cyberware out of dead guys. I'm not at all sure about this because while it's clearly unpleasant, the books make it clear that this is totally a thing. I might rule that the kind of cyberware you get out of mook corpers and random gangers isn't going to be worth much because the big legger gangs can easily just kidnap someone like that, hack their 'ware off alive and drop it in the deep freeze to order - rather than having to scrape the rotting dead flesh out of a cyberarm that's been in someone's car for a few days.

It's not only unpleasant, it'll be worth virtually nothing, if only due to the modifiers mentioned by UmaroIV. You're going to need at least some Cybertechnology skill in order to salvage anything useful of a cyberarm. And recycling Wired Reflexes? Yeah, no. Too small, too invasive, too pervasive. Short of dropping the body off at a very skilled doc in its entirety, and having him work for far more hours than it's worth, you're not going to get it out. Plus, remember that these bodies have just been fired at by machine guns on full burst. The only character I ever allowed to treat 'ware as loot was a highly trained (Biotech group 5) 'ware 'surgeon himself, who actually had a Day Job in a shadow clinic. And he didn't cash in on them, as much as bring the 'ware into the clinic as a favor. Anyone else would probably get the value of a few kilos of titanium and optic chips from me. Minus "this stuff was in someone you perforated with your White Knight, and you're expecting me to /sell/ this?" charges.
[ Spoiler ]


Also, who's actually going to sell them? I doubt most fixers would be happy if you came up to them, asking to sell this kind of stuff. Like a whole lot of runners are against pure wetwork, most people will be against you showing up on their doorstep with half a dead body. Especially if it's part of a corpsec citizen, and might just as well have a tracking chip in it, or whatever kind of stuff they put in there to keep their wageslaves under control. These aren't just people, they're an investment. And the investment bears protecting.

On a sidenote: you're having violent, really noisy combat in a corner of a city lawless enough to allow these guys to run free with ther Mad Max truck? You do know machinegun fire sounds like a dinner bell to the pack of feral ghouls that must be haunting the neighbourhood, right? See how happy they are to take time to perform field surgery after being jumped by a handful.

Seriously though, the looting mindset is one more groups deal with. Generally, it can be solved by making sure the players are satisfied with the payment
they get for actually running. Which IMHO means they need to be paid just-not-enough to be able to afford everything they'd want, while earning enough to get by. Also, once they the pittance of what this kind of stuff is worth, compared to the hassle of acquiring it and lugging it around (no Bags of Holding here), they'll tend to stop wanting to take it, like your average 6th level D&D party will not bother about taking anything that's not at least masterwok.
And after all, you're a group of highly trained, professional mercenaries. People who get called 'if no one else can help, and if you can find them.' Going around looting everything worth a dime just detracts from that image IMHO. Some ammo, comlinks (for info and paydata, not worth of the 'links), perhaps a gun or two, (to be used on-site, to avoid associating their own guns with the run) sure. Anything beyond that could, or IMHO even should probably be more hassle than it's worth on most occasions.
It might not be a problem for your group, or for you, but it's something to think and perhaps talk about.

QUOTE (hyphz @ Jul 31 2011, 08:22 PM) *
- Zod mutilating/torturing the surrendered guys. Now, the fact he killed guys who had surrendered is obviously something that'll get out (he was hoping to stop them telling anyone, of course). But honestly, I'm really thinking about handwaving the other stuff under the Feng Shui rule - in other words, saying that basically all he did was kill them, but happened to add some flavor, and stopping him adding that flavor doesn't really benefit anything.

Of course. In fact, they're roleplaying, flavor is everything.
Point is, they're roleplaying a bunch of folks exercising quite a lack of moral standard. Which isn't a problem at all, as long as everyone's having fun. Pink mohawk is just as fun as the mirrorshades style you'll see people tout, with the right people. It just means that the world should be treating them as a bunch of folks who habitually engage in behaviour only the most hard edged of criminals will have an easy time condoning.

QUOTE (hyphz @ Jul 31 2011, 08:22 PM) *
- Blowing away the gangers in the doorway who were unarmed. Obviously a rather over-the-top response, and it'll get them a rep. They could have probably negotiated or intimidated their way past, but if the players are spoiling for a rumble it seems kind of lame of me to have the enemies just cave as soon as a weapon comes out, even if that's what they would do.

I don't know. A lot of gun-fest loving people I know would be more than pleased with themselves when they a group of tough-acting NPCs cave and run for the safest place they can find once machine gun fire is opened.

QUOTE (hyphz @ Jul 31 2011, 08:22 PM) *
- Kidnapping Loomis. I think they really didn't think this one through at all..

Have him call Lone Star from the back of the truck. I wish him luck getting their support if they're actually in the barrens, though. Then again, having him namedrop Horizon in a 'getting killed' context might make them send the cavalry to his aid. Or it might turn them off completely. YMMV either way.
If he doesn't have DNI acces or a subvocal mic though, be sure to give the runners a chance to hear him talking, if they're not speeding somewhere like a gang of guntoting badasses, and drowning him out with engine noise.


QUOTE (hyphz @ Jul 31 2011, 08:22 PM) *
- Not being in disguise. This is another question. Is it generally reasonable to assume that ANYONE who has a DNI'd commlink will have dropped a free action at some point to tell someone big about what's going on? It seems reasonable but whether or not it leads to a fun game, I'm not sure. I guess the real issue is that looking ahead, the only difference it would make is that someone makes a Disguise roll before the team sets out.

It's not only reasonable to assume the corp squad has some sort of radio contact back to HQ. It's also reasonable they have biomonitors that start sending out a distress signal once their lights start going out. Not to mention that they have a cameradrone or two flying overhead to keep overwatch. And a bunch of sensor channels being used for a TacNet, which will likely at least be recorded by said drones. A remote spider might even be running security on their network, if not joined by a superior officer as well.

Also, I had a character in my group who emigrated from a different group that had devolved into pink mohawk not due to planning, but due to player boredom with a horrible GM. The same cyberdoc as before offered to give him some reconstructive facial surgery. That might be a way out, since I don't assume Disguise skills are too high, or present at all. It's in Augmentation.

QUOTE (hyphz @ Jul 31 2011, 08:22 PM) *
What I've actually done is to write to the players to confirm that they actually enjoyed having their PCs doing what they did in that session - as opposed to just doing it because it seemed to be what they "had" to do in the situation - so I can get an idea of how to spin this.

Sounds like a sound call. If this is what they want to play, and you enjoy it as well, there's no reason to worry at all.
Then again, I get the vibe from you that you'd rather lean more toward the mirrorshade style yourself, so perhaps some thought is required.

I think the main thing to consider is that whatever you do, however you handle things, you're not doing anything to punish the players. Even though you might send characters out who are out to punish their characters. Once you and the players get antagonistic in any way, there's a bigger issue that shouldn't be resolved IC.
I tend to think that before all of those things like providing an entertaining story and whatnot, your job as a GM is to provide your players with a world to play and entertain themselves in. A world that has a measure of internal consistency, and will look, move, act and react in accordance to that. If you're saying this is a dog eat dog, Big Brother is watching you and doesn't give a damn about wether you live or die as long as that isn't conflicting with His desire to make money and let their customers and wageslaves live without your interference kinda world, that's all good, but make it act that way, and how the world looks be in compliance with that. If you want to say gravity works in reverse, that's all good, it's your world. But shoes, tires and tables should probably all be covered in gecko tips.
What I've mentioned is a part of that. Of how I, and a lot of people assume the Shadowrun universe to work. It makes sense from a perspective, and as an extension of how people and organisations work, what they think, believe, what they want, how they go about this. And there's dozens of other scenarios that would make sense as well. And probably a few dozen other ones that do so without resortig to fridge logic. Ideal scenarios for gaming tend to vary between those categories.
If these scenarios diverge from what you had originally envisioned, that's no big deal. With a group like this, you'll likely have to learn to roll with the ruckus they make, more than with what you planned.

As long as you can keep a group (including yourself) entertained, and manage to keep up your collective suspension of disbelief enough to immerse to a level where you want to be, your mission is a success. smile.gif
KarmaInferno
Playing thugs is fine, if that's what the players want.

However, thugs only really get hired for thug jobs. Which never pay very well.






-k
Mardrax
QUOTE (KarmaInferno @ Aug 1 2011, 05:22 AM) *
Playing thugs is fine, if that's what the players want.

However, thugs only really get hired for thug jobs. Which never pay very well.


Thugs could easily be hired for high profile jobs, once their rep for wholesale massacre spreads. Which should pay well enough.
Also, you could always be shipped out to Amazonia or some other front, to perform wholesale massacres for Corp and Country. Where massacres are quite alright, as long as it's their people.

Don't get eaten by the trees though.
KarmaInferno
The high profile "thug jobs" usually end up with the thugs dead, though.




-k
Mardrax
QUOTE (KarmaInferno @ Aug 1 2011, 06:11 AM) *
The high profile "thug jobs" usually end up with the thugs dead, though.

This is why you get additional risk pay: life insurance for those left behind.
Isn't pink mohawk all about bringing down as many people as you can until you up into a blaze of fire though?
CanRay
QUOTE (Mardrax @ Jul 31 2011, 11:34 PM) *
This is why you get additional risk pay: life insurance for those left behind.
Isn't pink mohawk all about bringing down as many people as you can until you up into a blaze of fire though?
Sometimes it's about going through that blaze of fire with the intent on getting through the other side with the big score...
DMiller
You said your team has a mage... Your cyber-stealing guy might be able to talk the mage into getting the spell "Turn to Goo", very easy to obtain "used" cyberware without all the yuck factor.

I hope your team doesn't read this. smile.gif

-D

P.S.
Wired 3 should net about 15,000 without the fixer/fence taking a cut.
Glyph
Except that the spell doesn't turn the victim into watery slop, but into a "sticky, glue-like substance" - which sounds like something it would be harder to extract any 'ware from, especially the hyper-delicate micro-circuitry of things like wired reflexes.
Wiseman
Well, this is what wearing the GM hat is all about. You have to balance the power and fun, and sample adventure be damned. When necessary, step things up, tweak encounters, throw in a monkey wrench.

As I see it though, really all you're dealing with are first experiences of new players. They're going to TRY everything, it's you that has to remind them the difference between a live runner and a dead one comes down to what kind of mess they leave.

I remember back in some D&D article they talked about a dwarf barbarian character of a first time player, that charged into the first fight headlong axe a-swinging. They noted that this experience would forever color the characters actions. If the charge succeeded, the dwarf player would continue to charge every time, but if it failed badly, they'd end up being more cautious.

Right now, your players are looking for you to set the tone and tempo. Forget the rules and the gear and the OTR adventure for a minute. Like children, they're testing boundaries, and you need to be the one to channel those energies into fun.

Is it fun to have players get railroaded, or suffer consequence for every action or slip up? Probably not. But neither is a game where they wheel around like master criminals killing and looting without any fear of being caught fun.

So enough with the lecture, how can you change the tone to create more tension, so that they must consider their actions and worry about their trail?

1) Really play up what happens to sloppy runners. That Yak boss going on and on about how he tortured that last runner that crossed him. News feeds pointing out the latest crack team that slipped up and what happend to them and Lone Star or whatever security agency boasting about how stupid they were. Play up the criminal setting and feed paranoia. Show them bad things DO happen to those who just shoot everyone and hack up bodies. This is a precursor to it happening to them, after all. Have Darius (think that was his name), call them up and ask what the hell they're doing, the Coda fire is all over the news with eye witnesses describing what went down. In short (yea right), turn up the heat.

2) No man is an island. Sure they took the Coda mook's gear, how about a call on that commlink from his kid wondering when dad is coming home? Play up on emotions (even if the runner wouldn't care there is a hopefully non-sociopath player behind him), and even if the sucker hearthrob shit won't work, have one of the mook's give his best dying gypsy curse as his lights are put out, and then play up glitches on the cursed character to color them to being haunted or "marked" (or up his chances to glitch until he makes amends).

3) Chopping up bodies for gear? First off, this is some of the most evil stuff in the game. Organlegging and cyberware repo runs are the stuff of nightmares. So if they want to play on the dark side, introduce them to the real guys who do this for a living... And really, how do they know what all the ware is?, or even how to go about extracting it? Sure a cyberarm is easy, but headware and implanted gear is more than likely to be damaged and useless if they try to dig it out with a screwdriver.

Maybe require them to have some of the relevant skills for surgery, biology, cybertechnology, to even begin making a profit of that junk. And really, hacking up bodies makes a MESS. Play up the point they're now covered in gore and trying to ride past that lonestar patrol. Seen pulp fiction? The mess a bullet to the head makes ain't pretty at point blank. Hacking off limbs and such should require all new clothes.

And the time it would take to do this... I honestly feel you're not playing up the threat of law enough. They should feel pressured to be moving after a massive firefight involving vehicle weapons. Sure the star isn't going to chase every stray gun shot in the barrens, but come on...it's their job to investigate people who shoot up a whole bar, hack up bodies, set the place on fire and kidnap people.. These players aren't even worried about being caught.

Have one of the guys they seized the arm from being the cousin to someone really connected, who shows up to reclaim the arm...no no..not the arm they hacked off, one of the players arms....an eye for an eye.

I get what you're saying about this being more likely at the end of the campaign, but that doesn't mean you can't threaten them. Have word get out that people are looking for them for what they have done, and there is going to be a price to pay eventually.

Bad Rep disadvantage exists for just this reason too!

5) Forget about going easy on the consequences. Killing people IS easy, living with the consequences is what deters most people in times of anger. Fun is them being afraid and thus having to adapt, get smarter, be more creative. Not fun is being afraid to punish them for outright murder because as others have said, at that point you're just rolling dice.

On a last note, how did the SL team in the junkyard not notice him driving around the junkyard in circles... Seems to me they should have had a clue something was up and gotten the drop on the team, not the other way around.

TL;DR - Amp up the pressure that shadowrunners who aren't subtle, don't cover their tracks, and leave a swath of death and destruction don't last long in the shadows. Its the fear that feeds paranoia that feeds the creativity that makes it fun. Without that fear, it's just a bunch of guys playing wild west shoot outs and rolling dice.

My 2 cents!
Tymeaus Jalynsfein
QUOTE (Wiseman @ Aug 1 2011, 10:21 AM) *
1) Really play up what happens to sloppy runners. That Yak boss going on and on about how he tortured that last runner that crossed him. News feeds pointing out the latest crack team that slipped up and what happend to them and Lone Star or whatever security agency boasting about how stupid they were. Play up the criminal setting and feed paranoia. Show them bad things DO happen to those who just shoot everyone and hack up bodies. This is a precursor to it happening to them, after all. Have Darius (think that was his name), call them up and ask what the hell they're doing, the Coda fire is all over the news with eye witnesses describing what went down. In short (yea right), turn up the heat.

...

My 2 cents!



There is an Interesting Episode (or two) of Firefly that should drive this theory Home. The Villain is Adelai Niska (First Appeared in the Train Robbery Episode)... Nuff Said...
Aku
Wiseman is wise, talking about the fear of the law. One of the strongest (imo) things a GM can say to a group is

"You hear sirens in the area."

Even if they HAVEN'T begun the criminal aspect of the run, this phrase as scared the groups i've gm'd for. Have they been double crossed? was this all a set up to begin with? Most of the times i've done it, it's been some hot shot flying through the streets of seatle with a cop chasing him..but maybe next time they wont be so lucky.
LurkerOutThere
Honestly the fact he's posting at all tells me someone isn't having fun: The GM. Saying "As long as the players are having fun" is bull, because then there's no reasons to use canned settings, I can come up with "Murderworld: The rapening" fairly quickly and easily, it's not Shadowrun.
Mardrax
QUOTE (LurkerOutThere @ Aug 1 2011, 06:49 PM) *
Honestly the fact he's posting at all tells me someone isn't having fun: The GM. Saying "As long as the players are having fun" is bull, because then there's no reasons to use canned settings, I can come up with "Murderworld: The rapening" fairly quickly and easily, it's not Shadowrun.

The first rule in any RPG book is 'if you don't like something, by all means, change it.'
With the ammount of house ruling some people have going on, it's barely recognisable as Shadowrun either. Not to mention the divide between the people playing 550 karma gangers, and those who ask "how can I maximise my chances to marry Lofwyr's daughter, kill Lofwyr and inherit S-K?"

To each his own.

But then, 'each' in no way excludes the GM.
Wiseman
QUOTE
Honestly the fact he's posting at all tells me someone isn't having fun: The GM. Saying "As long as the players are having fun" is bull, because then there's no reasons to use canned settings, I can come up with "Murderworld: The rapening" fairly quickly and easily, it's not Shadowrun.


I second that. I think he's just too hung up on either not altering the adventure or having the players suffer for their actions.

On the first point, On the Run actually goes into a lot about what happens if the players do stupid things and the consequences. Wait till they go to the "Yellow Lotus" (I think, i'm at work, going off memory) and are actually challenged to be an disrespectful or lose their cool and will FAIL if they resort to violence.

Read ahead to what happens when they act heavy handed with Marli/Maril (?) and mr. vampire rockstar shows up at the end or they end up in the back of a van in the barrens (or worse, it could be a lone star van sans gear). If it was me, being this was a first adventure, I'd let the heat keep piling on and maybe if they're smart, one or two might survive. Bet their next characters have a lot more to say and think before the guns come out.

On the second point, even a beginner adventure like OTR spells out if they do this kind of stuff, let them have it! It says warn them, it says give them an intuition test for advice, it says put up a blinking neon sign, but if they ignore common sense it's time to show them that no matter how big they get, the corps/law/other runners always have bigger guns.

Lastly, those mooks might be just a token resistance, but it doesn't mean they're dumb cannon fodder. Even a low build NPC played smart is way more dangerous than all the gear and BP/Karma you could sink in a stupid acting NPC.

This isn't D&D with guns, in the shadows, one slip up and you're dead (if you're lucky). If a player wants to keep their character, they burn edge onthe hand of god rule and learn something. I honestly feel if you upped the consequences, you'll up the tension and the fun from all the situations that stem from NOT being able to shoot everyone in the head.

Good luck OP! You can do eeeet!

P.S. (What up TJ, you still here huh?!) smile.gif
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