I can't believe I forgot to mention one of my often talked about threats to my players.

Drop a cow on them.

It's a standing (never used) threat that if you break my game or ruin other people's fun, a cow will fall on your characer. From the sky. On your face. It's been a running joke, but all my players make the joke and fit the cow into the game. Shadowrun? Cybered up sammy cow with a metallica moo. Legend of the Five Rings? Jade cow with red eyes. Ad infitum

Anyway, just drop a cow on him.

And it's been forever since I saw this, but I know I'm not the first to mention this online, I think I got it from Blackjack's site.

Can I use a rolleyes smiley? Pretty please?

I see your RollEyes smiley and raise you an Oblivious smiley

Sphyx. The defination of a griefer is someone who sets out to have fun at the other players expence. Now, I can't comment on whether or not that's what he's doing, as I don't know him, but consider this.

Yes the game is about professional criminals. But criminals are still people. They still have backgrounds, they still have lives, they still have personal quirks and tastes that make them more than some lump of 2D cardboard from a bad action flick.

As many people have said here already, the numbers don't seem to be the real problem here. The problem seems that we have a combat junkie, in a game which according to its own rules and background info, should be the last resort for a run gone bad. And I can cite several examples of that in several different sourcebooks to boot.

And though you may have ment "no offence", you really got some gall to call one game a "real" game and another not just beacuse it doesn't fit the view of what you think Shadowrun should be.

Yes, Gall I have plenty of.

But your'e right, I shouldn't have made that comment, my apologies to those offended, I'll [Edit] it out.

Sphynx

My apologies Rev, I assumed since you were still posting on this thread you were still talking about "the player" that is the topic of it. In a more "General" way I'm sure you're possibly right. But I'm not interested in discussing gaming politics, just pointing out that "the characters" in question are not problems. No where did Joker say that the player was playing poorly, hogging moments, or anything that implies he's a combat problem. Joker even said that "in combat situations" he kills everything and "out of combat" sits it out. Perfect! What's the problem? Sorry, hate to burst bubbles, but alot of players play the games they play for the combat, and disdain social encounters as much as certain social players disdain combat. That actually makes a better team. When someone looks at my character sheet and guffaws becaise I only have a charisma and etiquette of 2 I guffaw right back and tell them we have a "Face" in the team, if I wanted to play the "Face" my Strength and Body scores wouldn't be over 10.

Sphynx

Thanks Gknov, but FYI, Joker never said that. Joker's problem was that "in order to challenge the player" the offense is so high it kills all the other players. Never once did he say the character turned non-combat situations into combat ones. If he did, I'd be supporting alot of Rev's comments. The problem is 100% the GM though based purely on what Joker has posted.

Sphynx

Sphynx, munchkin roll-player though he is, is right about one thing. The power level of these characters is not the problem. They're not really all that powerful... my most recent PC, even as a starting character, could've handed either of them their ass. They've been min-maxed, but they've been min-maxed badly. They're one-trick ponies, and they're not even very good at their one trick. Killing them would be easy... all you have to do is blunt their one trick - put an attacker where the troll can't reach him to engage in melee, send in a drone or a high-Will, high-Body NPC that's difficult to affect with combat spells against the dwarf, or the like - and hit them in one of their many glaring weaknesses, and they're dead meat.

Thing is, I'm pretty sure that killing them won't help, because the problem's not the character, it's the player. If you kill off his character, he'll just make another one-dimensional cardboard cutout with whatever one trick he thinks is cool this week. Likely, it'll be oriented to counter whatever you killed the last one with, and it'll probably be a bit better at its one trick than the last one was. If you keep killing them, all he's likely to learn from that (if anything at all) is that he needs fewer weaknesses and more varied strengths. Then he'll make one-dimensional cardboard cutouts with two or three tricks, and they'll be harder to kill, but still one-dimensional cardboard cutouts rather than actual characters. That's not really an improvement.

You need to get the player engaged in the game, interested in his character as a person, not as a set of stats that's just there to beat whatever set of stats you send at them. That's not easy to do, and I can't honestly tell you that my advice will help, but...

Play stuff outside combat, outside of directly antagonistic situations. Interaction with his neighbors, with his contacts, with neutral NPCs, and other such situations where attacking them isn't going to get him anything, and talking to them might. If he attacks them for no reason, visit the consequences on him... killing the PC is an entirely reasonable response to that (though you might want to start with something less and work up to that if he doesn't catch the hint); just make sure that it's obvious that he brought it on himself. And note that that doesn't mean that any random NPC should be able to take him in combat... if he decides he's going to kill some random innocent, he should probably be able to do it. But if he does that too much, the Star - or some other group with a vested interest in keeping the freelance murder rate down and enough firepower to squash any PC - will eventually catch up with him. The idea is to get him interested in the world around him, interested in the NPCs, and aware that he can do more in this game than fight people. And if you can do that, I think you'll see that the characters start to change.

Oh, and talk to the guy. Just tell him, "Hey, you know that this isn't just a pen-and-paper FPS? You can do more than shoot people here."

If you want to challenge a combat monster (not the flaw, the character build type) in his own game (combat) without killing the others, find an excuse to put the combat montster at least 50 meters (or one thick wall) away from the rest of the group. Or, be mean. Make another PCs life dependant on his ability to make himself the best target in combat. Make the player decide between losing the decker and dodging into oncoming fire. If he lets the other PC die, the rest of the group may kick out the character (read: make the player come up with a new character), or something else.

A few more things I need to say before I get flamed even more. As I said before those are not verbratam characters that he plays his are usuially alot better number crunched than those are. Those are just examples of the one sidedness of his characters. I would also like to admit a few faults of my own as a GM. I have been making it far to easy to avoid consiquences of slaughtering security guards, civilians, ect... a problem which I intend to fix on my next run. And also I havent been enforcing the problems with walking down the street with a bazooka. My problem is that he only plays combat monsters. They usuially have no back story and are very one dimensional. The vindictive flaw is also one of his favorates. If a player insults him or rubs him the wrong way even slightly he has an "in character" excuse to turn the situation into combat. Then is baffled when bad things happen to his characters. While this is entirely "in character" it is not fun for the rest of the group. Not killing someone is never an option given a choice even if staying out of combat is the better alternative he still jumps right in guns blaring. The rest of the group still likes combat but dosent number crunch all their characters specifically for that. They realize that their is more to SR than massacreing civilians and sec guards who get in their way. We have refused to let him in on runs before because of his number crunched characters. And hitting him with a bigger hammer only seems to make him come back with a bigger hammer of his own. My goal is to make him and the other characters play their characters more intelligently. Yes we have told him that these characters are not fun to play with but he dosent seem to understand I dont belive he is intentionally a greifer he just dosent quite get it.

One question; how does the group feel about being given pre-gen characters? Tell them the basics of each character (in my portfolio of fun, I have a decker, a rigger, three sams and four flavours of magic user) and have them choose. Even my group (un CLUE'd) can live with that when they know that the storyline needs a certain type of party...

Joker, here's a twist of irony that many bad gamers fail to appreciate, and that might help your game out.

Oftentimes, bad players of all stripes (be they annoying concepts or one-dimensional combat builds) fall back on the excuse "it's roleplaying" or "it's what my character would do" to explain their actions. What they forget is that they're expecting everyone else to metagame to cover their hides. After all, where's the big neon "PC" sign that encourages the rest of the party to hang out with them?

So this might well suck some time out of your games, but insist that every character have at least a thumbnail background, and suggest to the core group that they interview any newcomers before running with them. (Including a disasterous NPC co-runner could provide a great in-game reason to.) And don't break game action just because a character dies. So if the player repeatedly comes in with simply different shades of the same character, either on paper (where they'll get vetoed off the bat) or in action (where they'll get killed), he has to sit around and watch TV for a spell.

If the player truly doesn't get what's expected, give him some pointers, and I'm sure a "dumpshock checklist to group-friendly runners" could be whipped up in no time at all. That and/or a couple of runs as effectively the group "intern" (give him a shtick nobody else has to make him feel useful, but have his character be a novice to the shadows; a born-and-raised corp mage who has to keep his head down in an awakened free party being an ideal example) should help him realign his tastes.

If he simply doesn't want to play anything other than first-person shooters or alter-ego wanking at everyone else's expense, that's when you give him the "our play styles are just too different" speech. But be wary of that and keep it as a last resort.

In a prior campaign, one of the players always made loners (this is for a Team game, remember) who tried to get other characters in trouble. If we'd used Edges/Flaws, he would have taken Vindictive and said he was playing "in character".

One night the magician refused to heal his deadly damage, and instead the team stood in a circle around his body and each one put a bullet into his brain and passed the gun on. They were playing "in character". And "in character" they interviewed each following character he made, before finally accepting one into the Team.

Now, this was a long time ago, and it was this particular players first time playing Shadowrun (an experienced D&D player though). He didn't fully understand Shadowurn of course, but we did give him quite the lesson 'in character'. His newbie character fucked up and almost caused the team to fail a mission.

At the time me and one other player were playing very seasoned shadowrunners who didn't take kindly to any kind of newbie behavior, and if they had had a choice about it they wouldn't have gone on a mission with anyone that green. However, after the dust settled they took the newbie character out back and gave him a good lesson (nothing physical although they did threaten his life and got close to putting a few bullets in his head) in how to do things the right way. It was very intense and quite fun for all of us involved.

The player learned a bit of how the Shadowrun world worked in the process and it was done in game so it had the added effect on all of us. Also, the fact that it was us players and not the GM who did this I think maybe carried a bit more weight. Perhaps your other players should take a similar approach.

When he does something stupid 'in character' the other characters of course don't want that kind of thing going on so they should respond in kind.

Also, at this poitn I've very curious about seeing one of his real starting characters. I think myself, like a lot of others think there's some rule bending/breaking going on. You should get ahold of one of them and post it for us to see. The examples you did were all fine, but I don't think they really helped at all in adding to useful suggestions.

Connor, a word of warning about how you did things; it's incredibly cool so long as all the players understand that the green character is being trounced, but as green characters are often played by green players, be very careful that everyone keeps in mind not to trounce on the green player. It's a very fine line, and one not everyone can work well with. (I prefer the slightly metagamey but more holistic feel of the fixer taking a shine to the new guy, and offering the veterans a bonus if they show him the ropes. Gives them an incentive to take care of the "intern", and that's really the only way to learn how Shadowrun goes.)

Joker, good luck with his "more balanced character", but I'm a little doubtful he knows what your group means by that. (And to be fair, we all have our own ideas of "balance"; it's a little much to expect someone to intuit exactly what you mean by it.) And sadly, the character concept he seems like he'd be happiest playing is extremely unlikely to be as green as he plays. (An assasin or special ops type. Combines the killing skills he seems to love with the stealth and tactical skills that'd make him more of an asset on a run than a liability.) Failing that, you might want to try the "team intern the fixer takes a shine to" idea I mentioned above, give him a green ganger with scads of potential or somesuch, (I could make both the ganger and the special ops as a quickie playable starting character if the two of you need pointers,) and remember to award bonus karma for the learning curve (other players get some for teaching, he gets more for learning well).

True, it's blatant bribery, but then a subordinate role isn't exactly the most glamorous thing to play. But if that doesn't get him to adapt to the groups play style over time, he might well be beyond your ability to rehabilitate now.

Yeah, well, it was all in good fun, like I tried to say....maybe I didn't make it clear. He was just new to Shadowrun and we took a fun in game way to bring him into the world in all it's gritty glory.

SR may be a team game, but the best way to help players build characters is to split their characters off from the group. It may be time consuming, and it may even leave other players bored (but I'm sure they'll understand and go buy snacks or something), but putting a munchkin character in a position where he's hopelessly out of his depth, on his own, where his PAC and 28 Strength are useless is the only way you can show them that a PAC and 28 Str isn't the answer to everything. It doesn't really matter whether they survive or not, since from the experience, the player will probably not like the character anymore, and want to change to someone who's more able to handle a multitude of tasks.

I speak from the experience of my Speed Sammie who tried to negotiate with a Vampire and his Dzoo-noo-qua bodyguards (I left involuntarily though a 30 story window iirc). In situations like that, you discover that it doesn't matter that you got first turn and shot a bad guy, but that the situation can be avoided by having some semblance of Charisma/Social Skills.

If he had all his gear they would probably have been no problem, but this was a negotiation situation - so arms and armour were by necessity kept to a minimum for concealment purposes.

Anywho, the moral of the story is - if you take the fish out of water, he learns to adapt to not being in water, if the player goes for versatility rather than concentrating on one single aspect then he doesn't control the game because he can't be good at everything.

Killing characters with bigger and badder NPCs just tells a player his characters aren't tough enough.

Perhaps not bad advice D-Angel, but wouldn't work on me or any in my group. GM can prove all he wants that someone needs negotiations, and I still won't make a character generalized enough to have a little of everything I 'need'. That's WHY we work in teams. Next time I just get more paranoid and make sure the Face is with me at all times until we reach a stalemate that none of the team will leave the rest of the team's side. It might improve things for some players, but would definitely make things worse for others.

Sphynx

If he continues doing this, then remember the two rules when it comes to gaming:

1) The GM is always right.
2) If the GM happens to be wrong, se rule number 1.

Just tell him no.

No, he can't be vindictive. No, he can't be allergic to salt (how does he survive?). No, he can't take the exceptionable attribute edge. No, he can't buy [insert cyberware here]. No, he can't buy [insert bioware here]. No, he can't buy gold with the last of his starting cash (thus avoiding the divide by ten rule). No, he can't have ANY attribute over ten at char. gen. No, he can't play a cyclop. No, he can't play an albino, gnome magician. Drekcetera...

Why? Because you said so. And you're the GM.

Edit: Added the drekcetera.

Then it's fine.

That depends on the group. As a Gm, I would not allow what has happened here. No way. I had a player that did something similar (but unintentionally, he'd pick "cool" cyber and become unstoppable) and I told him no. You're not allowed muscle augmentation at rating four or titanium bonelacing. He said fine and still made a semi-monster.

Yes, there are more players in the group, but if you're the GM then it means that they either trust you as a GM or don't want to GM themselves and then you sit with most of the power. And if the players don't like how I GM, then they can always find another one.

The most important thing to remember however is that everyone is supposed to have fun playing, and that includes the GM. If one player is disrupting things for the entire group (as it seems is the case here) then the GM can do pretty much what he wants to to that single player.

GM's are rare. Players are common.

That is the realpolitik of the situation that balances out thier numbers.

Actually, my current group is about 50% DMs and we all take turns. Well, except my wife, who simply tells me I can't DM...

saying "no, you can't have that!" is a good way to do three things
1. Make sure his character is weak, yay! Hooray, the team just got less effective... wow....
2. Make sure that he's not having a good time, if you say "So what? maybe he quits! even better!" you're not a GM, not even the worst one on earth, if you say or think something like that (i have not stated that anyone does, but IF someone would....) you are just a fragging asshole....
3. Look like a lousy GM and make players distrust and dislike you, if you say "how good, someone else can GM instead!" you are, once again, not a GM of any rank anymore, you're below the lowest slime patch there is, you're a fragging asshole.....

sheesh, what happened to good old talking? no using your holy 1337 GM skillz to kill his characters or to force them to become useless, just talk to him....
you know? like, "Dude.... you can't roleplay, don't hide behind your character, "but that's what he'd do!" *imitates player*, that's bulldrek, a character wouldn't resort to violence as soon as possible, he'd be put down before he could grow that powerful.... so, next character you make, answer the 20 rules first, don't make one-sided characters, and would you mind handing in 1 page of background and personality, in normal size and font, before you start working on his numbers? thanks"

you know? why yes, i know i've had a couple (read: 95% of my SR GMs) of bad GMs in the past, and right now, who couldn't handle this kind of situation, i sure as heck couldn't do it when i was a new DM, i just did what many shadowrun GMs do, i threw undefeatable stuff at them, or said "ye can't get ye spell/feat/PrC/base class/whatever"......
now i've grown beyond that level, to where i try to talk to the "problem" player first, then let the whole group talk about the issue (if they don't have any issue then it doesn't need fixing!) and if he still won't change: "Forget" to invite him to the next game, after a secret vote amongst the group.....

see? you have now done something that's harder, but has a few good parts to it as well....
1. You don't look like a asshat
2. The group now deeply respects you even more
3. Everyone's having a good time

it wasn't that hard, was it? sure, harder than saying "y halo thar, sniper? i win, you die!" or "ye can't get ye titanium skeleton" or "yarr, in soviet russia, you survive force 88 manabolt, but we're in *country that's not russia* so you lose! hah!", but it's MUCH more satisfying knowing that you've tried to help everyone, in the worst case (he's thrown out) you can at least say to yourself and the group "I/We tried, I/We did our best, but he didn't want to change..... it's not anyones fault but his"
now, if he had left after his samurai nr.835 was killed by a manabolt due to him not being allowed to get magic resistance, what could you say to yourself? "Well, i didn't try to change him, talk to him, the group or anyone about it, i just acted like a moron, thinking he'd pick up the hints correctly...."

*This lesson in good Game Mastering was brought to you by DSK productions!*
(DSK stands for Dragon Slayer Knights, the one-stop place for all your game-mastering and powergaming needs!)

*Edit* I've never had to throw out a player, they always changed before that, thankfully..... just wanna make that clear...

This is probably a completely different scenario, so ignore it if you want.

I recently had the opportunity to GM a munchkin, I knew his character was virtually unbeatable in melee or ranged combat (unless I tried to beat him) and he had a very powerful mage PC with him. I set up a run to clear out a group of bug spirits. The mage/sam worked very well together and eventually killed virtually the entire hive. I could have tried to trick them and hurt them, but they played it well and I did not want to reward good tactics with bad results. Both players seemed to enjoy the game, and I enjoyed the game. I do not want to give advice about how to handle any situation you may have, the GM has to deal with everything on a case to case basis and one overarching rule will not work for every situation. You must flow like water. (sad sad sad attempt at zen saying )

The more that the situation is described, the less it sounds like a power level problem and the more it sounds like a personality problem. This guy doesn't play a powerful character to be effective in his role; he takes the Vindictive Flaw just to have a contrived excuse to react to any insult with deadly force, claiming it to be "in character". He also starts firefights just because he is bored.

Now, I think the GM got the right idea when he said he was going to start introducing realistic consequences to this behaviour. I also agree with whoever said that the players can participate in this - things like booting him from the team if he hoses up a run, and making any replacement characters submit to a hiring interview.


The GM can also determine what starting equipment is or is not allowed, and what character generation system is used. Of course, the GM in question rotates in that duty, so he may have limited ability to change such things.

Having a background, though, does not really affect the rule mechanics end that much, so I would probably start insisting on backgrounds. Given the player in question, the 20+ questions (or even better, Bull's 50+ questions) would be best. Even if he jots down quick one-sentence answers for most of them, at least he has a few paragraphs worth of background, which is better than none. The three most crucial things that his background should answer should be: 1) How did this character survive this long? 2) Why would anybody hire him for a professional criminal mission? and 3) Why would other professional criminals want, or at least not mind, associating with this character?

Thank you, Cain. You beat me to it.

One more thing. Telling a player that, no he can't own said peice of cyber/bio/gear does not make the character automatically weak. That depends on what the player wanted to take and the powerlevel of the campaign.

Talking is good and I use that most of the time, but that doesn't always cut it. So I tell the players no. Some players you just can't talk to. And others... *shrugs* they just create powercharacters without trying. I've got one of those players. Mage/sammie/other it don't matter. He picks stuff he thinks is cool and then he kicks @ss. None of my other players manage it the same way he does and if I want some sort of balance, then I have to tell him no. And he's fine with that.

How would you react if one of your players thought that one of the reasons for designing a character is to make the GM cry by giving the character insane stuff and 1337 skillz?