Oh dear. Now, as I mentioned after the fifth session I felt it hadn't gone that well - it didn't have a pleasing "arc" of tension rising throughout, which I had tried to arrange for the other sessions. I was really stressed out about this session, also, as I knew the runners wanted to raid the Ragers again and I couldn't find any good details to use for their stronghold. However, I did figure that since the Ragers would know the PCs were out for them, they had very probably gone to ground anyway and would be abandoning and cleaning out their old haunts. Also, the next section of Ghost Cartels planned to be interesting - it involved a raid on a well secured location (the DocWagon station) where slaughter wouldn't be a great option, and also where the players would be handing the corpse over to Ghouls related to Tamanous - and therefore possibly related to the people they previously killed in the Verge.

Unfortunately, this session was even worse than the previous one. Instead of a rising arc it ended up with a falling one, went far too fast, and Zod's player did nothing at all and was playing EVE Online on his laptop for most of the session. ("If there's no fighting I can't do anything")

So, the session began with the runners heading back to Tickler's to meet with Dae and Kaz. Since I needed to fast-forward the plot a bit I ruled that the second plot point was occurring immediately after the first. On the way to Tickler's, the group discussed killing Dae and Kaz for "being evil drug dealers" after collecting their money, but Dawg insisted that they should complete as many jobs as they could first in order to take the most money from them. So, they piled into the back room, collected their money, and handed over the case of Tempo they took from Caine, taking a patch each for themselves (as Dae permitted them to). Kaz briefed them on the Body Snatchers mission with a few modification given what he knew about them: he did not describe the woman as an innocent journalist, nor that she was believed to have died from a Tempo overdose; and he did not mention that the ghouls they were taking the body to were allied with Tamanous. Given the, ahem, "moral" attitude of the runners so far this seemed the best bet, and they accepted the mission and prepayment. Some contacts and searching found the DocWagon facility and they headed in.

Plan A: Cast Trid Illusion on the car to make it look like an ambulance, and then drive up to the entrance gate. Cast Trid Illusion again on Faceman to make him look like a doctor, and have him lean out of the window and use Con to call out to the entrance monitors that their RFID tags had failed. The runners were rather surprised when this didn't work, and after a few moments, somebody opened a small eye-hatch in the facility gate and Dawg detected a dispelling attempt against his Trid Illusion. He re-cast the spell, but the spider informed him by speaker that they would not admit a vehicle that was obviously enchanted. Dawg's players started asking me how they would know about this, and I responded that it was correct that they did indeed know, and I suggested he try astrally perceiving, which he did - seeing the Beast spirit crouching by the gate, intently watching them. So, they drove off.

Plan B: Now, I'm not altogether sure how this came together at all. It seemed to be the result of multiple ideas being tried out and rejected on the fly and not a lot of certainty at all. What happened was this: Dawg, Kane, and Faceman all decided to pile on to Kane's motorcycle, while Dawg levitated it several hundred metres above the facility, hoping that it wouldn't be spotted in the darkness. Dawg then cast a separate Levitation on Kane himself to gently lower him into the facility with his Chameleon Suit activated. He landed on the facility roof, and quickly with Infiltration ducked behind an A/C unit to avoid being seen by the rail drones. (I screwed up a bit here because I forget there's supposed to be a helipad on the roof, but never mind.) He slipped down to the side of the building, dodging cameras, and then came to the maglocked employee door. Having Logic 1 and low Hardware skill, he glitch-fails to disable the Maglock, alerting the spiders. The camera nearby tries to fire a narcoject burst at him, but he neatly dodges it and Dawg then lowers the motorbike a bit further in the air and Levitates Kane back out of the facility while the two rail-drones on the roof frantically spray him with gel rounds (all of which he manages to dodge).

This bit also run much more slowly than I would have liked, as I had to constantly look up the stats for the sensors, camera, spiders, drones etc. in order to make sure I was running it fairly..

Part C: Dawg decides to head several blocks away, summon a Force 6 Spirit Of Man, and command it to retrieve the body independently. This results in an incredibly fun moment when I have to repeatedly roll 12d6 over and over before declaring that the Spirit does not return, having been destroyed by the Beast spirits.

Part D: Dawg considers summoning a constant stream of spirits to wear down the Beasts (since he often resists 100% of the Drain) but eventually Dawg decides to "sod it" and summon a Force 10 Spirit Of Man with the same instructions, making sure to give it Psychokineses and Improved Invisibility so that it can hide itself and the body while trying to leave with it. He takes 2 Physical damage from the oversummoning. Another session of me rolling 20d6 and 12d6 values - I ended up just abstracting things as much as possible and using an automated dice roller to do it as fast as possible. Basically, the Spirit of Man defeated the two Beast spirits, and was unaffected by the security Shaman who tried to Banish it several times. It astrally flitted through to the morgue, materialized, Confused everyone in the Surgery, turned Improved Invisible and then barged its way out.

Now you might be asking, "How did it get out?" and that's a good question. The problem is that the book is very unclear on what methods of locomotion are available to a spirit once it has materialised - I _assumed_ it could fly, as it could in astral space, which would give it huge advantages for moving unseen in the complex and enable it to then fly over the wall. The alternative assumption, that a materialised spirit has the same movement options that its material form would have, results in some strange consequences; ok, a spirit of Man could walk (a man can) but not fly (a man can't), but a materialised spirit of Fire would be unable to move voluntarily at all - it could spread (a fire can) but can't pick a particular direction and go that way (a fire can't). There's also the issue of the size of spirits - I don't think anything in the book actually explicitly says that the size of a spirit is based on Force, which taken literally would mean that a higher force spirit would be less useful when Materialized as it would be unable to fit into the building. This seemed illogical to me. But was I right? Is there established canon on this or something I'm missing in the books?

So, the Spirit drops the body off with them. They take a sample of the congealed blood themselves, and then take the body to the Verge. Dawg sends a Watcher ahead into the Stuffer Shack, which returns with an image of the ghouls. Again the party consider killing the ghouls and then returning the body to Kaz, but they decide not to and offer the ghouls the body and the credstick. When the ghouls demand more money, they flail a bit in attempts at negotiating before incidentally mentioning they would check with Kaz which causes the ghouls to back off.

The session then ends with me reminding the players that they had been unable to find out anything about the dead woman's activities before her death, which was required for a bonus. Zod's player makes several references to wasting his time and all the players ask about just getting spirits to do everything for them in future, because although they might not be competent for every task, they can be resummoned forever even if they fail. The players head home and decide to rest up before continuing the investigation, and in the morning, the news of the newscaster's death and the mysterious disappearance of her body has made the Trid (together with a report that the "Death car killers" - oh, yes, did I mention the media have a name for the runners now? Their PI is already 2 and nearly 3 - were sighted near the facility before the disappearance but, as far as anyone in it knew, driven away)

So, yea. A rather bum ending to a rather bum session. I'm beginning to wonder if Shadowrun itself is a mismatch. Any suggestions? Should I have been less generous about the spirit? Are there clear rules on this kind of thing anywhere (I haven't read all of Street Magic)?

I'm not an expert on Shadowrun 4 magic, but it sounds like a few things could help your game:

• Ban electronics at the table. Nothing pisses me off more than players using their phones, or e machines to play another game.
• Go over the summoning rules again. Pick them apart, and figure out what they're abusing, and corn hole them alittle. Remove them from their comfort zone.
• Beef up the opposition's defense against their summoned minions. Don't be a dick about it, but find a legitimate way. If they're building a steady rep, then everyone in town will start knowing who they are and how they operate righht? Play that angle.
• Speaking of infamy, Have it start affecting what jobs they get. Classy employers back away, and they start getting suicide runs. Scummier employers start making inquiries. Or they start losing money. Nothing msarts more than looking for employment right?
• Find a way for each to player to get a moment of involvment. If someone starts drifting, Rope their ass in. Pacing is like timing homeboy.

Hope any or some of that helps.

If he was chain summoning spirits and sending them off to their "deaths" to wear out the spirits of beast guarding spirits should have started to spend edge to resist being summoned. Also while it's not strictly mentioned it stands to reason that a lot of spirits really don't appreciate being summoned and commanded by a critter with lower magic then them, so a lot of people run with the logic that for most summoning spirits of magic higher then the magicians will spend edge to resist the summoning. This is completely legal by the book but completely in a your discretion territory. Additionally you did remember that that drain on summoning binding is 2xspirits hits not net hits right? A lot of people, myself included, screw that up at some point or another.
Tactics wise the mage shouldn't have tried to dispel the high force spirit, he should have just stunbolted it much more efficient use of his time and drain.

Once a corporation like docwagon figures out their under sustainined magical attack they are going to get ont he horn to every mage they have that can go astral. These will mostly be sec mages with a 3-4 magic rating but there should be at least a couple "real" combat mage types who answer the call and come running at astral speeds, which is for all intents and purposes pretty much instantanious so presume a two round response time.. To be honest the moment someone tried to gain entrance to their facility under false pretense Docwagon should have been under high alert at least for that night and they likely should have dispatched something, spirits or drones, to monitor who these intruders were.


I'm going to make some big assumptions here, but it basically sounds like your players are getting bored because your playing the opposition as clueless. Your players in turn are not trying to solve problems by thinking about them but by just waiting for you to give them an opportunity to roll their fight pool and then go from there. Your opposition is just waiting around for things to happen to them, not calling for backup and not responding to obvious threats based on information they have.

Also stop worrying about running things fairly, eyeball more stuff. It's not a contest between you and them, you've got to let that adversarial crap go with DnD. You know what power level your opposition should have, make up sensor ratings and such on the fly to get there.

On spirit movement, all spirits follow the normal movement rules when materialized unless they have some listed alternate locomotion power. As to size that's entirely your deal.

This is old SR2/3 I don't know 4 but previously shamanic spirits were limited to their domain. A city spirit wouldn't have been able to enter the DocWagon clinic, as that would have been a different domain. Does SR4 still have those domain limitations? And then there are wards, especially popular in places like morgues to keep the shedim out.

Kane trying to sneak around a security system without knowing how to disable it? I thought those skills went hand-in-hand? *facepalm*

What is the load limit on SR4 version of Levitate? How much do 3 guys and a motorcycle weigh? Now I'm picturing ET riding in a basket on the front of the bike.

If Zod doesn't like any session he can't murder his way through, maybe he ought to try rolling up a human being instead. I mean they were gonna kill someone else for being 'evil?' Wonder what would happen if huge rewards were put out, and they could make huge amounts of money by killing each other?

Seems your group just wouldn't know subtlety if it bit them. Even their idea of sneaky is ham-fisted. They're lucky DocWagon didn't call a couple of FRTs home after the 2nd attempt at 'someone is really trying to break in tonight.' I'm amazed they didn't try to claim the body through the front door, claiming to be friends or family or something, but I guess they wouldn't get to use any guns or invisbility that way.

I do agree with you in wondering if SR is a mismatch, as your group seems to lack any amount of Mirrorshades mindset. I think thats a question to ask the players.

Nope.
Good idea.

The limit is 200kg/hit. Net hits are used for speed. Hits of course are limited by Force. Levitating the motorcycle to avoid multiple casts is legal but you will need a lot of hits.

While this may be a realistic scenario in the game world, not every player likes PVP. You should talk to the players about something like that first, and given that you as a GM are not satisfied with the session you should do that anyways.

I have read every one of these session posts, and seen all the advice, and based on that I have a few comments.
1) Are you actually following any of the advice given, or as it seems ignoring it and continuing to have the same results.
2) Are you playing with adults or a bunch of teenagers, or adults with roid rage?
3) You seem like a conscientious GM who wants to deliver the goods and puts some effort into doing so, however your players seem to want to make life difficult. Do you ever get to GM, because it is pretty clear that the Zodf player has zero respect for what you are doing. Playing video games at a session is a booting offense with most people I know, is there some extenuating reason you are taking the abuse lying down?
4) I apologize for being sarcastic, but your posts are becoming repetitive because you seem to have an issue with making life difficult for the characters. Things will seem easy, things will be a walk over, Zod will murder his way across the wasteland and become Lord Humongous, as long as you provide zero consequence situations for them. He has to sleep sometime, and by now he is a hunted man. A squad of Lonestar busting in, beating him down with stun batons, confiscating the murder mobile, and throwing him in the can is long past due. Then let him discover the wonders of the prison system while his friends try to bust him out, or let him rot in jail for all the heat they are having to deal with. They are fugitives, make them feel it.
5) Is SR your game? I don't know, but I do know that the kind of problems you are having are indicative of taking any hack and slash player and trying to get them past that.

It is uncertain what you mean by this, and if you mean they follow normal movement rules for what they look like, it's flat wrong.

To follow up on Neraph above, this is wrong. Spirits never have alternative modes of locomotion listed. They might have the associated skill though. But just like a human doesn't need Running skill to run, a spirit doesn't need Flying to fly. They can use it to fly faster though.

It sounds like there is a bit of a mismatch between the team and the kind of jobs they are getting. They are a pink mohawk crew of urban mercs - they should be getting jobs like "send a message to this new gang that's butting into our turf". Instead, they are getting these infiltration and information gathering jobs where they are frustrated, lost, and floundering. Finding a way to nix the spirit summoning, or the killer car, won't really do anything, other than leave them with nothing that works for them.

I think you are a fairly adaptable GM, but I would recommend either dropping the pregenerated adventures, or drastically modifying/simplifying them, as they don't seem to fit your current group. Give them some simple jobs, some scraps, and some colorful NPCs to interact with - play it more like an action movie, and less like Mission Impossible.

He didn't actually chain summon any spirits - he just considered doing so. And yes, I did remember the doubled drain rule (the spirit rolled very badly!). Fair point about the security mage, though.

One of the players recently suggested they should just summon a Force 10 spirit and ask it to plan and lead the run for them as with mental stats of 10, it is not only smarter than all the characters but also smarter than all the players.



I followed the description of the facility from the adventure book which does include both spirits and drones, but there wasn't really a "sustained attack".



I understand what you mean but I don't really like doing things that way. Running everything as it's set, with the rules as written, creates a rather nice sandbox feel where the players can interact with things and everything shares a common set of rules. Eyeballing too much changes it from a sandbox to a puzzle where the players have to either work out something I like or I'll fudge it not to work and that just doesn't feel so great.

You do realize that's what the role of the Game master is right? To tweak things so that there is a balance. No one is suggesting you run rampant on your players, but rather the opposite-don't let them run you over.

I am trying to follow it. The problem is that I'm not quite sure how to implement the "consequences" people have suggested without basically ending the campaign right there, which obviously doesn't do anyone any good. And it seems that SR is a hard game to find the right "challenge" margin in - when the big guns come out, the guy who doesn't shoot first just dies before they can do anything.



Well, the simple reason is: it's his house. But even if it wasn't, I wouldn't "boot him" for that because I sympathize with his position. I mean, I can't stand hearing about GMs who practically want to lock their players into sensory deprivation tanks during the session to "force" them to pay attention to something that isn't interesting to them. Same thing with the GMs who want to put in harsh rules for people who speak out of turn or show up 2 minutes late. This should be something people choose to do because they like it, it shouldn't need to be enforced by social mores that are more applicable to a shared misery.



I've been sort of back-and-forth on that issue - on the one hand you're right, he's acting like a psycho, on the other hand Lone Star are not really going to shed any tears over a bunch of dead Ragers. The real issue is that with no stats or details on it I have no idea what would happen once Lone Star arrested him.

Writers aren't infallible, and even if they were they aren't psychic. They don't know what's going to work for every group, they don't know the power level of every group, they don't know the level of tactics every GM is capable of, they don't know how permissive with loot every GM is towards his players, they don't know how many players are gonna be in every group, they don't know what happened in your game last week, they don't know the relationship your PCs and NPCs have, they don't know the precedents you've set in your game, they don't know how min/maxed your characters are, they don't know what kind of die pools your players are rolling...they don't know anything at all about your game and players when they write the adventures.

Running everything as it's set means, basically, you're expecting the writers to do most of your job as a GM, and all you're going to do is watch die rolls and eat snacks all night.

You need to tailor adventures, stats, NPCs, gear, difficulty levels, even whole story arcs, to fit your game, or things fall apart. Just like what you're describing. You've come onto Dumpshock and asked for guidance and advice again and again and again -- and then you've just kept running everything as though the adventures are graven in stone. They are absolutely not, and it's up to you, as a GM, to tailor your adventures to fit your group. You and your players would really, really, like it if you started to do so, and so would all the folks you're asking for advice (and ultimately ignoring) here on Dumpshock.

I do understand, but at the same time I think that needs to be done in moderation. I mean, I've actually just written a more general question of this type on rpg.net because it's something that's bothered me for a while. If the fact that Zod has Automatics 28 means I'm going to start making sure to bump everyone's Reactions and Armor up so that he can't hit them more often than he would be able to if he had taken Automatics 10 and I had thus not modified the adventure that way, then what's the point of keeping track of his Automatics score at all? Why not just decide what these wonderful perfectly adapted odds of him hitting someone should be - apparently, no matter what choices he makes - and then just roll that? Why have a detailed character generation system at all?

Also, as I've said, I find it hard to work out how to tweak things to make a challenge for this group without actually killing them outright. I mentioned this before - in every fight we've had so far anyone hit once or twice has died. So what _is_ a challenge in those terms? Having the PCs get hit once? Ideally, I don't want them to all wind up dead before they can even assess the enemy and realize their approach is wrong..

Plus, of course, the written adventures should be better than anything I can come up with. If they were not, I would be the one getting paid and published!

This is a mindset I just can't wrap my head around...but I can't think of a better way to explain why than what I just typed in the last post, or better ways for other people to make their points and give their advice. So I guess I'll just wish you luck, and wait for next week's thread.

When you have a group of superhumans, only other super humans are a challenge. The most challenging fights I've put my PC's through involved grunts and a Prime Runner statted leader. If the stats are unavailable, MAKE THEM! The last time I ran a fight like this, the runners had to run, and they got away with a combined 16 boxes filled, 15 of those were pysical. The gangers didn't even lose anyone, except the one guy they forced to try to follow the Phys. Ad down the rickety fire escape (it collapsed).

On tweaking to make a challenge without killing them, don't worry about that. If they lose someone, they lose someone. If they are smart they'll get out of it (even if they have to run), and if they do, they have options to get out of it (burning edge for survival, for instance). If they feel like they earned success, or survival, then they'll feel better then what is happening now, I think.

The written may be better, but that doesn't mean using them word for word. I am considering adapting a few adventures to my campaign, which takes place in a drastically different place then most of the adventures are written for. (rural multi-town region, instead of sprawling city-scapes).

Your players aren't stupid. They have options to stay alive, if you throw something dangerous their way. They can use full defense or counterspelling, they can roll edge on those, they can roll edge on soak rolls, they can burn edge if all else fails and you're going to kill them anyways -- you're so worried about not killing them that you're not challenging them, and then you're just totally mystified that they walk all over you week after week after week. And the absolute worst case scenario (if that's what you want to call it) is that someone does die -- so what? It's part of the game. They've been murder-facing NPCs left, right, and center, and you need to show 'em that they're not the only guys in Seattle with trigger fingers and bullets. Especially because, as you've said, they're not having fun while you're kid-gloving it, and neither are you.

If you're not having fun and they're not having fun, why are you just trying the same thing over and over again? Challenge them. Bloody them. If they're playing MMOs instead of paying attention, you've GOT to change something, dude.

I gotta agree here. You're being too gentle with them. Shadowrun is a hard world, with hard consequences. Here's something to try:

Run them up against a group that uses tactics. Cover, defense, suppressive fire, etc etc etc. Things that are *smart*. If your players are like many others, they just spray the area and kill everyone and keep walking. Cover is for wimps because they never get hurt anyway. Show them how good it can be. If you need to, TPK them. Then tell them: This is what happens when you walk into firefights with arrogance in a world that can kill you.

And then offer to rewind and let them try it again. See if they use tactics and actually work to kill their opposition. At that point, they'll be thinking instead of just rolling and shooting, and it'll engage them more.

Combat needs to be complex. There needs to be layers within it so the players can navigate their way through the opposition, not just kill everything in the way.

By now you've seen how they act. Think up specific counters that make sense in game. Using spirits for everything? Wards. Using explosives? Chem-sniffers and rapid-response high threat teams dispatched the moment one goes off. These are not "dick moves" specifically designed to cock-block the players fun. These are what the groups in-universe would be doing *anyway*, and you are simply not enacting the NPC's varied defense strategies.

You can keep playing love-taps with them, and watch things get worse, or you can work out a way to challenge them. In the end, it's up to you.

Hyphz,

For what it's worth, I think some of the heat you have been getting is a little harsh. Cut him a little slack boys and girls, he is coming here for advice not scorn, and he ain't doing too bad a job.

The characters have used Trid Phantasm successfully against gangers, but this time found out it ain't an insta-"I Win!" button, especially when it comes to breaking into a secure facility. And the players were obviously trying to think creatively with their ETesque plan B, shame noone thought to get Hardware skill or a maglock passkey ...

When it comes to the Force 10 spirit, I think you have opened up a whole can of worms. As people have mentioned, by RAW spirits can use edge to resist summoning and/or binding, and some folks have houserules where spirits WILL use edge to resist if their force exceeds the mage's magic. You can simplify it to say Force 1-3 spirits almost always won't use edge to resist summoning/binding, Force 4-6 will 33 or 50% of the time (your choice), and Force >6 will resist with edge all the time. I would suggest you tell your players at the beginning of next session that you forgot whatever rule you choose to set, but will enforce it from now on, otherwise they will subvert your game into SummonRun.

I like the name the media chose for your team, and by this device you are reminding them that what they do does have consequences, and am interested to see what comes of this. Sending a character to prison is basically the same as saying "roll up a new character" if the rest of his team don't bust him out of the precinct he is being held in before he gets transferred to a more secure facility, but you can throw in random encounters with bar patrons ("Hey, you look like one of the Death car killers!"), police patrol cars at the most inconvenient times to reinforce the heat they're starting to generate without going TPK.

As for Zod and his "I can't do anything if I'm not shooting" attitude, try and encourage him to branch out. Seeing as the team seems to get easily defeated by maglocks, you could try suggesting that he might branch out and become the team's B&E guy with some of the karma he gets. As others have suggested your team seems better suited to pink mohawk style, so always try and ensure they get the firefight they seem to crave at some point during each session.

Good luck!

I have a few suggestions:

- Instead of fighting the 'hawk, embrace him. What can I say, if your players are having FUN that way, then let them. For instance, you can shift focus of security forces away from passive features and more in the direction of human/drone/spirits. Instead of 10 locked doors, you have only one, but instead of the team of 2 spirits, 5 drones and 10 men, you have 5 spirits, 10 drones and a battallion of men. This is not a bad move, as long as your game world stays consistent.

- When tuning fights, tune them in a meaningful way, which to means the following: Removing boring grunts. These can be handwaved to die, anyway. Give the grunts defensive cyberware to make them less boring - cheap wired reflexes and cover can give them about 8-10 dice to dodge before full-dodging, and then give them armour in the range of double their body. Then give them automatic weapons with ample recoil compensation, and let them use (full) wide bursts. At least let all the drones do that, with merely long wide bursts for grunts. These will rarely kill, but often hurt.
And finally, when you tune a fight, don't even think about HOW your PCs will overcome it, and rather go to the absolute extreme of what you think your players can take, and THEN ADD ANOTHER 10-20%. Because they can always think about some sort of easy kill-switch, and it's fun for them if they do, but if that kills the fight, it's not fun for you. If the fight runs badly for them, you can always make the bad guys act stupid on the fly. For instance, if they think they are winning, they run out of cover and try to subdue the PCs, who then get another chance at nailing them.

- If they use a lot of powerful spirits or too much magic, just bring in projecting mages who will stunbolt the fuckers. Spirits have NO ranged attacks, and a materialized spirit is a sitting duck from the astral. Of course, an F10 spirit has 10 dice to resist, but three or four sec mages with magic 4, and sorcery 4 with a spec in combat has the same pool, and only one net hit is needed to do damage.
I am not a great fan of letting spirits use edge to resist, because it simply kills the summoning mechanic entirely. It's a last resort, IMHO.


- I can only repeat what others have said about tuning the modules. Often enough these modules aren't the best adventures ever, what they have is a production value in the details that you don't have to think up. But I don't think any module can be run without modifications.

Good luck on getting that worked out by a being who will start with "well, take a metaplanar shortcut inside the room you indicate, take that funny metal nexus box, Elemental Attack the ceiling and fly out of there. Oh, and make sure to turn around to laugh as their Lead Elemental Attack tickles you."
Technically though, you'd want to get a Guidance spirit for that. It'll give you the same, in riddleform.

Spirits are not a catch-all. At all.
Wards will hamper them badly, as will background count, patrolling spirits (even if they get cakewalked, their summoner will know, and intervene. Or call up that 15 year old guy who concistently outperformed everyone in Advanced Summoning class, to get scoring him that hot illusionist repaid. Or just his area's head of Magic Security) dual natured critters (hellhound wathdogs anyone?), etc.

It's one massive game or rock paper scissors lizard spock. And if you're consistently pulling out the rock, don't be surprised if you keep on getting served the paper or the Spock. While doing this may provide some fun times as the team accomplishes things, make sure to get that lizard out sometimes.

Priceless !

As a GM I'd have a blast with that.

Runners: "So wait why are doing this again Elemental?"
Elemental: "Because I really need you to gather these items to make me more powerful. So I can help. I swear..."

"Well master, first I'd advise all of you to sign this pact with me, so that I may more fully aid you _{(for the mere price of all the karma you will ever recieve)} and grow more powerful in the process, to aid you even more on later ventures."

Lol

How about making an Adept with Aptitude Shadowrunning, Shadowrunning 7, and Improved Technical Skill Shadowrunning 3? Instant Win

@Mardrax and Paul: This is the typical behavior of a free spirit. Summoned spirits won't act like that.

Who's to say how a spirit, even a summoned one, would react when given carte blanche to start thinking independently? The Sixth World is full of wonders, and perils for anyone too trusting.

Asking the spirit how to best fulfill the Johnson's assignment hardly is a carte blanche. Anything not connected to that assignment is off limits. This most certainly includes spirit pacts.

BTW can summoned spirits even make spirit pacts? I highly doubt it. Otherwise spirits would be alot more powerful: Spend a service and dictate the pact.

I'm not trying to bust the guy's balls, but the fact is he's been coming here and asking for GMing advice after every session, and then he's been not implementing that advice, and then just asking for advice again.

The crux of it remains that he's scared to kill the players, so the players feel no fear of consequences, so the players just keep trampling all over him, so he and the players aren't having a whole lot of fun (so after every session he comes here and asks for help). And every time people say "don't be scared to kill the players. Don't be a dick about it and just hit them with orbital cows, but really challenge them with some tough combat," and then the next session he doesn't, and it all starts again. Right now, he and his players are really missing out on one of the key ideas of Shadowrun -- that there's always someone nastier than you, and that fights should be scary -- and we're just trying to convince him to roll up his sleeves and get his hands a little bloody.

There's only so many times you can see someone getting the same advice, over and over again, before maybe you want to try and put an exclamation point on the end of the advice, this time, to see if it gets through.

I fixed that according to what I think you tried to say. If you are seriously advising on killing the players, he won't have a group to play with.

Yeah, but then he could start over fresh.

Just not playing with the old set would also achieve that goal, and would avoid all those annoying homicide investigations.

That may be your take, and in your game you're welcome to it. In my own game, eventually questions like this would lead to more trouble than just trusting someone else to do your planning.



Why? Because you want that to be true?



Just for the record I'm not even discussing Spirit Pacts. Others may be, but I am not.

As I see it-and all of this is relevant to my own game, because obviously in your own games, at your own tables you can do whatever you want-in the real world, which I like to see my own game as a admittedly twisted reflection of things don't always work the way we plan them to. And sometimes too good to be true is just that. Asking someone else for advice is one thing, this is tantamount to a dick move in my book-basically a lot like cheating. I'd let my players, if they were dumb enough to try it, try it. And then if they started abusing it I'd show them, with in the guidelines of the framework established by the rules, why this is a colossally stupid idea in my game.

Now in your game maybe it'll score some extra karma, but in my game I'd pretty much award all of the karma straight to the spirit, and slowly it would become more than just a summoned ally. It would quickly become a dangerous and unstable rival, and potential enemy.

Trust me, sometimes it doesn't work out the way we plan it. Heh. My own group has imploded on several occasions, and while I've been lucky so far I know eventually I'll hit my edge limit.

Remember: Its not that corps, cops, and mobs couldn't crush you beneath their heels. Its that is often just not worth it. Somebody, somewhere, in those hierarchies is holding the release authority for the utter crushing. He probably has a little prebuilt decision matrix for how much collateral he's willing to accept, what resources are worth what, and a handy legal guide from the corp lawyers as to exactly what he is and is not allowed to do without getting clearance from higher.

F10 spirit attack is probably one of the circumstances highlighted in red, with a little box that says "Fuck it. Go for it. We'll pay the mages' overtime. Please contact our local director of Games Theory while your at it. "

Basically, the more force you put out (especially for extended periods of time) the more force the corps are going to throw back. And they have freakin catapults.

So, Slappy mcmurderface, done once, in and out...maybe, maybe not. Runners are damned fast, faster than the bureaucracy probably. So long as its not Zero Zone, and you stay low, quiet, and utterly black for a while, the heat will die - eventually. Of course, your in the database now. Every future provocation is going to make life harder. Not ideal, but hey, we've all machinegunned our way past the receptionist some time.

But "They tried to fake their way in with a magic truck. Then they kind of lied about it. Then they really failed at breaking in through a door, and magic'd their happy ass out of there. And then a spirit attacked the compound. We beat it. Now a bigger spirit is attacking." ..That is likely to bring the jagnormous pain. Because its pretty damn clear that someone is trying to get in, with a fierceness.

Or, in modern terms - say you try to rob a bank. You fail to convince the manager your an auditor. He throws your ass out. The same day you set off the alarms that night. The cops come, but you run. Next you try to ram your way into the door while shooting an uzi, but the bike hits tire strips on the way in. You run away in a hail "stop in the name of the law" shouts and a hail of gunfire. If you come back in a van with AKs two hours later, do you think rent-a-cop is still going to be there as your only obstacle, or is Boston SWAT about to blow your brains out?

It's not like the spirit has any idea of what the runners are capable of. Especially if it's a hermetic spirit, it's likely to see humans as those annoying fellows who keep pulling it out of its cozy metaplanar home, to run some silly errands. This would lead to the logical conclusion that humans are incapable of doing anything of the sort themself. In the mean time, it keeps on hearing its free spirit buddies deliberate about how they could best get those mortals to sign their karma away...

And now they're asking me how to best get that -whatever this data thing they keep talking about- is, out of that strangely shaped hunk of nonorganic matter. Well there's a hole in it, with a ward. Bit tough to just smash, and it's not like I could get any help from these fleshbags who keep on asking my kin to do the strangest and simplest things. They obviously can't do anything meaningful themselves. But all this juicy karma can help me grow strong enough to smash that barrier, grab that box and fly out. It's not like any one of those mortals inside will stop me, anyway. But why would they stop me from taking a box in the first place? And it's not like it's their ward I'll smash through. Stupid humans leaving the astral all messy like that. Can't even do cleanup themselves.

The most outrageous things could be connected to that assignment, when tasked to a completely alien (super)intelligence.

In my very humble opinion... most alien super-intelligences don't survive first contact with the script writer... So...

We need a "Like" or "+1" button for some posts! I approve of the two preceding posts wholeheartedly!

But remember, the GM doesn't feel the need to come up with anything other then what's explicitly written in the modules but is also afraid to have the NPC's act in any smart way that might lead to PC death.. There's honestly no help for him at this point. At the risk of being overly harsh, you need to go back to DnD, isolated castle keeps and dungeons-of-plot might be more you and your groups speed. In Shadowrun there is a high potential you go in agaisnt things head on, you die. If your not doing that aspect because your afraid of character death then the whole system breaks down.

Edit Addendum: Looking back on this this might be a bit harsher then I intended, but i'm leaving it in place because it's basically how I feel at this point.

Yes, but it is someone who is forced to execute your orders to the best of his abilities. That is a lot better than trusting your fellow runners.

No, but because the character gave a specific instruction to plan the run, not tell him what to do in life.

Clearly you and I see this issue very differently. Your view point is so alien to me I'm not sure we'll ever see eye to eye. But since I have some time, and some patience I'll beat my head off the wall a few more times:

Best of what abilities? What exact abilities are we discussing? Why is you think that these abilities preclude grasping the fact that you've been summoned by a group of morons?

You're making a lot of assumptions, and again maybe in your game their solid assumptions to make.



Seriously? Trusting an extra-dimensional supernatural power is better than trusting your team? And i thought my game was twisted.



There are a lot of assumptions being made by you, and frankly maybe in your game they're true. If so, fine. But in my own game this is not how things would work.

Of course the spirit can grasp that it is summoned by a moron, and thus maybe resist with Edge, but once it is summoned it has to obey that moron.

There is no assumption on my part. The rules clearly state that a spirit will fulfill a service to the best of its abilities.
The underlined part of course includes the spirit's mental faculties.

You and Mardrax however are advising that the spirit should actively work against the summoner's wishes or at least advise the morons to do stuff that only serves its own agenda (posts 23 and 24) in response to hyphz' post 10.

I never said it was a good idea, I am just of the opinion that a summoned spirit is one of the less likely characters to cross the summoner.

Quite the contrary. I'm just pointing out that the spirit in question will very likely have far differing opinions about what constitutes the best possible outcome of any given assignment that you give it that includes any room for interpretation. And that it has a very fundamental inability to grasp the concepts of what makes this world function, what drives people, how they react to one thing or another, and quite possible even what they're able to do. And quite possibly large misconceptions about some of these things. And on any assignment that it's given, it will act from these conceptions, or the lack thereof. Working with the tools it knows is the most logical outcome.

And the scenario I've sketched isn't working against the summoner at all. It's not even detrimental to him. After all, in the end, he gets the MacGuffin, which was the requirement for a succesful run. And it's not as if the summoner loses anything. He might subsequently appear on most wanted lists as the high force spirit is tracked to him while it's wreaking havoc, but the spirit obviously doesn't know a single thing about such things as laws, let alone enforcement of it.

Dakka I clearly don't see us coming to any sort of agreement or resolution here. Your view point is pretty alien to me, and I guess mine must be to you. As such I'll cut loose with a final I agree to disagree with you. At my table you'd be well served by not trying something like this-at yours I guess it flies. Luckily we don't have to sit at each others tables so it's all good.

I totally agree and may have misunderstood your previous posts. Spirits probably will have different opinions on what is the best way to fulfill the service. I merely wanted to say that summoned spirits won't actively go against the summoner.

In your previous post there is no mention that the spirit pact actually aids in completing the run nor that the rest of the spirit's advice would lead to the acquisition of the McGuffin or whatever the objective was, only that the summoner will never have any Karma. I see that as unhelpful and detrimental. That is what I commented on.

I would be willing to bet the Actual Spirit Pact could have been QUITE Useful...
Not as useful as the Karma though...

Some things fall by the wayside for brevity for comedic purpose. Mea culpa.

Your other option is to ignore power levels, and go for what would a realistic response be. Case in point--the illusion spell would have caused them all sorts of trouble in the follow on attempts as Doc Wagon would be tailing them to see what they were up to. The minute hostile action starts, assume that not only is 1 spirit for each OPFOR mage, but there is also 1 for each point of charisma. There would naturally be a limit, but sending 10 force 3 or 4 spirits at them simultaneously would not be an unreasonable response.

Sensors:It is better to just set a number of dice equal to what you consider appropriate. Remember things like ultrasound, shot-gun mikes, and radar ignore invisibility, camoflage suits and other vision based modifiers.

Does any one of them have a Doc Wagon contract?

The force 10 spirit should have used edge to resist summoning IMHO. My general rule of thumb is that if the magic of the magician is lower than the spirits edge is automatically used. Also, abusing the spirits (like using them as cannon fodder) can lead to them resisting with edge. Also even without edge the mage could suffer drain as it is 2Xhits on the resistance check. So even He does get enough success he should get smacked with the drain.

I see this is quite fair. The point is that I'm keen to make things more dangerous for the PCs but I'm just not sure _how_ to do it. So many of the cries here seem to be just saying I should drop a meteor on them. Or that I should engineer opponents who are certain to defeat them and put them up against those, which is dropping a meteor on them with whiskers. And as I've mentioned - if all the PCs die, the campaign ends, we go back to arranging the next campaign and if people weren't enjoying Shadowrun they won't vote for it again. I've no problem with making things more dangerous or smacking down the more extreme character designs but killing the entire group is a risky business.

And I _do_ think it's kind of silly for Zod to put all his points into being twice as accurate with an automatic weapon as the best marksman in the real world is or could be - ever - and then complain there aren't many people in the world who can outshoot him! I mean, if a player obviously wants to be special that way my logic usually says that I should let them.

I mean, I think things could open out to give the group trouble and then they turn out to be problematic:
- The magical traces Dawg has been leaving around look like a big giveaway but in fact the average Assensing skill for book mages, when rolled, doesn't get enough successes to get much from them most of the time!
- Yes, DocWagon could have called for extra security (although with only one person on site who can see into the astral, they probably weren't that aware of the Spirit attacks), but how do I justify the "extra security" being a guy with a heavy machine gun and rocket launcher and several ton of personal armor who is the only person who could challenge Zod (and who therefore could destroy all the other runners in a phase)?
- They've gotten themselves in plenty of trouble with Lone Star, especially now they've interfered with an investigation, but on previous encounters have expressed no wish to fight the police. That means that if I have them all arrested there's at least a fair chance they'll all surrender and then campaign over, see above.

If you use the Prime Runners rules, go for inferior builds, with the same type of characters the PC's the have (though not the exact same characters with lower stats). Use tactics. Force them to think further then the next spray of bullets. If your group seems too powerful for the PC's, you can fudge some rolls.