As a player, I find biomonitors to be interesting devices. I like the idea of joining them to auto-injectors to administer stimulants, or trauma drugs (like the patches, but in liquid form) when a runner gets flat lined someplace where it is difficult or impossible for teammates to reach them. I've even considered using a biomonitor + autoinjector as a way to automatically administer an antidote when exposed to a severe allergy. I could see this as an auto epi-pen for somebody who is deathly allergic to peanuts for example.

But I've never played in a game where a GM rigorously used biomonitors with sentries, nor been forced to comprehensively analyze how runners would go about detecting and bypassing them. (I don't know why. It just always happens that way.) So in light of my limited experience, I wondered how others have seen biomonitors deployed among guards, or VIPs? How do security forces try to conceal, and protect those monitors since they can be potentially hacked? How do runners go about detecting who has them, and then bypass that layer of the alarm-onion?

I curious to see how other people have run them in actual gameplay. Is it an obstacle best used in moderation? Does it cause the game to slow down too much?

I've used the Biomoniors in a 2070-era game with Lone Star officers having them that hook up directly to their LS-Modified Ford AmeriCar's computer. This became a challenge because the Hacker in the group was in the back seat, using a laser eye to cut a hole between the compartments and having a knock-off walker drone plug him into the system, as a "Back Door" of sorts to Lone Star's Network.

He barely got what he wanted to transfer into the system before the group's "distraction" killed one of the officers. Literally, "Transfer Comp..." *DUMPSHOCK*

The group didn't figure out how to "get around it" so much as "distract the officers" while other things were going on. The bad news was, they hired Halloweeners to do the distracting, which they did by lighting the officers (and their car, I might add) on fire.

Theoretically, linked biomonitors would be ubiquitous. Many things should be, in 2070 (RFIDs, surveillance, etc.). However, keeping track of these things and playing criminals in such a setting is honestly a huge pain. So most people don't bother.

For high-end installations, wearable biomonitors are expected - they're cheap as hell in comparison to loss of product/prototype/paydata and it's a great way to alert the entire complex that something's wrong.
"Whup! Steve and Roger have flatlined! Lockdown the vault, prep an extraction patrol and get the armoured backup here!" - that's about 4 combat rounds, max, before the place goes on lockdown if your ganger-archtypes get triggerhappy in a zero/zero area. Most player teams haven't started apportioning blame in 4 combat rounds, let alone gotten clear and into the getaway vehicle.

All this for ~ 5k biomonitor when you've spent millions landscupting ("defensive landscaping, with the fortification hidden by attractive features"), setting up wards with elementals, etc? No brainer.

Andif the guards are cybered the players can expect at least one to be biomonitored, possibly with a GPS/screamer setup so that programming a few roomba to carry an unconcious guard captain's body about on his "rounds" is an amusing, but sensible precaution. Or some bonus karma if you secure the tranked guards in the toilet so that their supervisor, pissed at having to chew out Todd for sleeping in the john again, walks right past their break-in attempt because he's in a mood to fire an ass....

Paranormal animals and cyberhounds are excellent candidates for Biomonitors as well - Fluffy and Chuckles might possibly go to sleep at the same time, but if you've just given them a "tickle" with the shock collar and their readings remain the same, it's time to trip the silent alarm and buckle on the armour.

GM's don't use them enough and players don't think hard enough to overcome them as hazards, though.

-Tir

The usual way to deal with them is 'all runs now require an even better hacker'.

+1000. There are so many parts of this game - RFIDs, sensors, biomonitors, most everything security-oriented - that, if taken to their logical conclusions, make crime almost completely impossible in the types and scales that shadowrun intends to portray. This was bad before SR4, but in SR4 it's been taken to a magical new level of hilarity. We just handwave 99 percent of it and get to the meat of the game, but I'd love to see someone sometime actually run SR4 with the taps opened all the way.

"Damnit, Hardison! Hack faster!!!"

Holy godknobbling coincidences CanRay - have you been hacking into our Skype games?!

"Dammit, HACK FASTER" was basically the theme of one of our recent ones

-Tir

If I was, I'd be joining in and finally GAMING.

Yup - that's our approach as well:)

-Tir

CanRay - we're Australian, but happy to try and get a game going with our northern commonwealth cousins:) (Play by mail, if skype's not going to work, if you wish?)

My group is mostly going against organized crime, gangs and guerila fighters, so there is not that much need for a hacker - but all CorpSec, SWAT, MilSpec and similar forces are equipped with biomonitors, but i try to keep the matrix security according to fluff -> DR4 for security, DR5 for MilSpec, DR6+ for really high end stuff (cyborgs, fighter jets, national banks, etc.).

This has to be quoted for truth.

Most recently, the group I'm with was tasked with sneaking our illegal gear into Denver. We first left it in the plane in the hangar, where the GM assured us it wouldn't be found and confiscated. We scoped out the security at the airport, and decided sneak the gear out in a garbage truck. We had to hack into the security systems to make the MAD scanners not detect the guns and armor, though. Also, said systems had to be hacked via fiberoptic cable, and the guards in the room had biomonitors, which meant that the hacker had to hack their commlinks and make the biomonitors send out false data. So, yeah, "we need an even better hacker now."

Bribes are cheaper and quicker.

Paid guards can squeal. Unconscious guards can't.

Unconxious guards are missing or lay on the ground. Bribed guards do not count their money in public.


Actually this is one of the few things, making Shadorun playable. Guards looking the other way for a little fee, if it is not about the stuff they are actually guarding.

This all reminds me of Arkham Asylum and Arkham City where certain goons have biomonitors hooked up and come running to each other's aid when one them gets taken out by Batman...

- J.

I have to agree that basically every security guard in anything except the worst environments or working for the crappies companies should be wearing a biomonitor. Cops definitely.

So yeah, you really do need a better hacker.

Bribing is seriously under-used in our games, unfortunately. Part of that may be due to being - as players - not corrupt enough to know how to even approach a guy to bribe him. I mean, if it goes wrong, it can blow up in your face. Sort of worse hacking the guy's commlink and then knocking him out, because that only happens when the stops have been pulled, anyway. Yeah, we also generally don't go in undercover, cold or light.

@Brainpiercing7.62mm
I guess this has also a lot to do on what kind of players you have.
Some players only feel secure in what the rules give them, others have this more dominant approach of "my solution works". And if your GM is not a dick, it will mostly work. (Simple: If you sell something good most GMs won't find a reason why it should not work in under half a minute. Unless you are proposing bullshit)

And sometimes the GM expects you to be a bit more balled in this situation than you act. (So the solution seeming hazardous to you is the one the GM anticipated)

Tell me about it. I AM the GM. I've had runs go from really easy to REALLY hard because the PCs gave the bad guys tons of time to prepare, lay low and get ready, which would all have not been there had they just waltzed in there without prep. The trouble was, the PCs didn't use the time for prepping themselves, but they just hesitated, wasted time doing other stuff (sometimes healing), or got useless intel that they really wouldn't have needed, because it became useless by the time they got it.

That being said, this is a fine line to walk. You don't KNOW as a player what your GM will do. Sometimes you may want to charge through a run, sometimes you may want to take it slow. Both can be right or wrong.

It is quite hard to see the players perspective all the time. You see one clear road but the players see quicksand ah, well and monsters..

I hate those guys.

Too right, Irion. Damned players, ruining everything.

Yeah. I've had players tell me, "Well I thought of doing X instead, but I figured it was too easy and you had something evil planned." and "You smiled when I suggested we do it that way, you don't smile unless it's a bad idea." Which isn't true, frequently they think of way worse things for me to do to them than I ever do. It is fun to just smile randomly and have them start looking for traps or flipping their shit.

Eerily enough, Hardison was a computer/electronics engineer that I worked with at my last job. Due to the general lack of respect shown to him, the phrase "Damn it, Hardison!" was pretty common.

Two birds CanRay.... Good shot.

@thorya

You must be consistent Your players should always be thinking you are about to throw them to the wolves, and they better come up with something good if they want to live.Of course my games are tending to make you feel like you are running down the side of a cliff toward an angry dragon, just to avoid the avalanche behind you.

"No [plan|mission] ever survives contact with the [GM|players]"

I don't like to give my players hints but sometimes they just suggest something utterly stupid. I look at them and say "are you sure?"

Typically then, the other players tell the offender to STFU and scrap the idea.

I don't like killing the PCs because of one bad idea. A series of clusterf*cks OTOH...

- J.

See, I do that ('Common Sense' effect) and the players act like I'm being mean, leaving them no options. As if something suicidal was an option in the first place.

I've explained it to them. What's more, they've seen the consequences for going against that comment. When I use my 'evilGM' voice, there is no misinterpretation. Not anymore at least.

- J.

I do that as well, of course, sometimes it's a decoy.

The other side of this is, what if the guy at the table with the worst ideas on how to conduct a run is the GM?

Generally, the GM has access to perfect information-- they basically know what will or won't work because they've read and/or designed the module the PC's are in. But we aren't infallible. When I'm running the game, it's not the job of the PC's to guess what I'm thinking. Sometimes they'll have good or bad ideas on how to tackle whatever obstacles are in their way, but all their decisions are made on information I've given them.

I've played in games where the gm decided on the correct course of action and would punish the party for not doing it (and not consciously, just if you deviated from what he thought was 'right', it was skewed against you). All I can say is, for a group of players, it's not the most fun way in the world to spend a Thursday night.

Thought you didn't play or run RPGs?

- J.

I've run a number of them over the years. Including Shadowrun. And played more, just not Shadowrun.

I don't think that's what I'm talking about, Mercer. My comments referred to things like, "well, what if I jump off this high building?" or "uh, I'll try to pull my gun on the crime boss while all his men have guns aimed at me". Like, literally. It's even worse in D&D, oh man.

Without knowing the players in question, and without knowing the context of those statements, they do sound like ideas that would not end well.

However, if the character had a parachute or had some way to fly or was so tough he could survive the fall, or that character had some ability to draw that weapon and bring it to bear before the other guys can react; OR AT LEAST the player thought his character could do any of the above, then it may not sound quite as bad.

"I can survive the drop off the building, I have enough hit points." "This isn't D&D. You don't have Hit Points."

"I can survive the drop off the building, I have more than enough Body."

Yes, the good old clerics feather fallhttp://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0806.html

I guess this is an other aspect: What if the rules fight common sense every step of the way...

@toturi
The Problem here is, that the falling rules take a lot of stuff not in question...
If you fall in full armor, you will also create a bit more of an impact.

A pixie falling down a building is (realistically) much more inclined to survive it than a troll ist.
(Ok, pixies may be able to fly, but lets ignore that for a moment)
So if both jump of a building (lets say 30 meters high) the idea of the pixie is not that bad in realm of common sense.
The idea of the troll is very bad considering common sense and there should be no way in Hell he could survive that.
But the rules tell an other story...
Now what is a GM supposed to do...

With the falling rules of Shadowrun it would be due to write a letter to ares, informing them, that they could use much smaller projectiles for Thorshots since size does not matter for the impact event.

Something like that is always bad, because Players should be able to rely on common sense to let their characters act and not on obscure rule knowledge.

I think that players that make the effort to read up all the rules should be encouraged and allowed to use them in their characters' favor.

@toturi
Thats easy to say if only one player is involved. But if an other player has to die because of this rule, while he would not even be scratched in the real world...(And we are not talking about magic here...)

Now it gets complicated...

To that I keep saying that quite obviously the GAME world does not work like the REAL world. You don't NEED a degree in physics to play a roleplaying game. You DO need to know how the GAME world works.

If you take suicidal actions in the game world, they are just that, suicidal. OR you have to change the rules.

yeah, sorry about the caps, does look a bit stupid now....

@Brainpiercing7.62mm
Jesus christ. It is not about a degree in physics.
It is about beeing dead if hitting a deer on the road, for example!

So you have to possibilities:
You do not allow the mage to stop a tank with a raiting 4 barrier or the next time your group drives through an wooden sign the group is dead.

And I totally disagree that you need to know every freaking corner rule to play. If you do some every day stuff you should be on the safe side and not be killed by some obscure rule.

That's true, toturi: assume they did *not* have a parachute or any plan at all. Then when I said, 'you'll probably die, you know…', they said I was being mean. How dare the game world not cater to their protagonist powers.

You could have just gave them a page reference and let them judge the consequences of their intended actions for themselves.

Ah, but then it's my fault for letting them get into that situation in the first place. Even though it was their idea and they chose it.

What you're saying is that you think the rules are bad. But that can only have one consequence: change them. The car damage rules are mess, and fixes are simple enough (use other's body x relative speed / something for damage, for instance). Falling damage rules may also have problems. But if the rules simply say that tougher people have a better time resisting damage, and don't take body mass into account, that's not really a big deal. It's a change compared to the real world, but not one I couldn't live with. You know that as a frail individual you had better not take a lot of falling damage (or any damage at all).

The game world should function in a way that's transparent to anyone, but not knowing the rules is no excuse. Look, I'm also against doing a collision test when hitting a signpost in a tank. Obviously that's stupid. There should be a simple sanity check (in the rules) to prevent such a thing. Something like If structure rating is much smaller than armour rating or body rating then there is no collision damage. On the other hand, driving into a very thin tree with a car COULD very well get you killed. Likewise a traffic light.

But the direct consequence is always that the rules need to be changed, and likely as not, for your group, you will have to do it yourself. With or without consulting them, depending on how you are inclined.

The point is, there are not. And actually it is impossible to write rules with those in all instances.

The falling rules work well for the medium human with a bit of armor.
The second it gets a bit more complicated....

The ramming rules work for one avarage car ramming an other avarage car.

So a GM needs always to adept the rules to the situation.
An I think common sense should go before rules.
So I would not be mad if I could not stop a tank with a barrier 3 iteam.
But I would be mad if I die, because I hit a squirrel with my tank.

Same thing if I am playing the generic elfen stripper and die because I jumped down a (active)windway because the rules do not take into account air resistance and mass...
If I did it with a strength 9 and body 7 troll, I would be kind of asking for at least some physical damage.

The last GM I played with liked coming up with scenarios that he couldn't solve.

One of them involved extracting a guy from an archology where his daily routine was to go from his apartment on the 16th to work on the 8th, and back. Public only had access up to the 4th (4 floor mall). We couldn't startle the guy and we couldn't physically hurt him either. Nor could we drug him. Our employer stated as such, although wouldn't give a reason as to why. Just that the guy was twitchy and paranoid.

What we ended up doing was spending half the paymoney to a cabal of mages to cast a ritual Suggestion on the guy to "visit the hat shop in the mall."

Then the face bumped into the guy, made friends, started trying on hats, they both left and paid for a full head-mask covering. Face went upstairs, the team (and the target) went downstairs and into the van. I forget what we told the target at the time (either mind-magic or face-magic to get him to come with us).

It was great later when the archology tried to reclaim him from out safe house. They smoke and strobe grenaded our place (only thing that works is ultrasound...guess what all of our melee combatants already had: ultrasound). Someone (PC) shouted at the target "THEY'RE here to get you!" and he bolted while we took care of the swat team.

We picked the target up afterwards and delivered him, in full health. GM stated afterward that the reason we couldn't harm him in any way was that he had data in his head that the employer wanted, and any severe trauma or stress might wipe it from his mind (and spooking him would cause him to run, making it difficult to take him down without harming that data).

You should take this as a compliment. It means he thinks you're smarter than he is. At least that's what it means when I throw scenarios like that at my players.