As a GM, I find it entertaining to mess with my players' expectations. Take this afternoon's session:

The Setup: A low-level yakuza soldier and the daughter of a Triad street captain have gotten engaged, and both gangs are gunning for them. The yak hires the PCs to smuggle them out of Seattle to Olympia.

The Complication: One PC's contact, a Yakuza consigliere, offers the team three times whatever the soldier is paying them to turn both of them in to the yaks. The PCs, after some deliberation, advise the Yakuza contact to meet them in Olympia, with the intention of getting paid twice. (Capt. Tagon would be proud.)

The Payoff: The Yakuza contact shows up with three goons in tow. He borrows his PC's gun, causing the other characters to think he means to kill the clients and frame the PCs. Instead, he kills his own goons and frames the PCs. It turns out the client is his godson (and would have come out, if the players had thought to ask, that he directed the client to the PCs). So it was a double-double-cross: the PCs double-crossed the clients by betraying them to the Yakuza contact, who in turn double-crossed the PCs by having the clients' best interests at heart and framing the PCs for the deaths of three Yakuza enforcers.

None of my players saw this coming.

What are your stories of blindsiding your players?

That was an awesome twist! Out of curiosity, how did the Yak get a hold of a PC gun?



Maxim #38: Just because it's easy for you doesn't mean it can't be hard on your clients.

Captain Tagon would've definitely approved, right up until the point where the double-crossers got double-crossed. Then he would have done a double-facepalm.

I would guess he asked.

If it was seriously that easy, then they deserved to get double-crossed!

Maxim #30: A little trust goes a long way. The less you use, the further you'll go.
-The Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries

To quote the Joker "Bob, Gun".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=playe...p;v=h28ftIM929w

And you would be correct. Mr. Haro, the rigger PC's Yakuza contact, with whom the rigger has quite a bit of history, simply asked to borrow the rigger's gun. The rigger, staring down three armed and ready enforcers, had little choice but to agree.

In the last hour of our last campaign arc the mage player was put through a string of WTFs that was a joy to witness. Not least was finding out his long-lost brother from his backstory was behind most of the shit they'd been through (he'd completely forgotten he even had a brother). The big finale, however, was mostly the work of the hacker.

The team was a mage, a rigger and a hacker. The hacker appeared to be a dribbling vegetable of a geriatric ('Norman') who went everywhere by rigged wheelchair and lived constantly online. In actual fact he was an AI living in the retirement home's node who had the manager drug Norman and put him in the chair whenever he needed to make a 'personal' appearance. The rigger player knew all this, but the mage player and both characters were completely unaware. At one point they were laying low at the retirement home and came face-to-face with an undrugged Norman, which the hacker roleplayed brilliantly. The mage player found it utterly bewildering but didn't twig.

Cut to the end of the last run - the rigger had martyred himself through a tragic misunderstanding, the mage had come face-to-telepresent-face with his genetically-altered brother (who was now Japanese) and the hacker had facilitated his and an NPC's daring escape from a serious Evo HTR team. Back at the home the mage is unwinding with a cup of tea and has found Norman awake in the rec room. The hacker player slipped back into his ancient, senile, oblivious alter-ego and less than a minute into the conversation slumped over the table dead from an aneurysm. The expression on the mage player's face was exquisite.

I gave him a couple of moments and then described how he felt light-headed and giddy and then suddenly fell out of his chair as the drug in his coffee took effect. As he slipped into unconsciousness the last thing he saw was the manager leaning over him and the last thing he heard was an electronic voice over the tannoy coldly saying "Prep the chair..."

It was a beautifully dark end to the arc and the mage player loved it. He used it as an opportunity to try a different character so we've just started the next arc with two new characters and the old mage occupying the chair.

What exactly was the point of it for the AI player ? It feels like a gratuitous bitch slap, without any kind of actual purpose or reason behind it. Was there some bad brew between the AI and the mage fo one reason or another ?

Nah, I think Aerospider is making this story up. There are some inconsistencies

And here I was waiting for the final twist in the tale. "You can have my gun, but you can't fire it." *Biometric access denied* *Weapon locked in safe mode*

Lol, good spot! I think it was coffee, but my memory fails on said detail.

No bad brew as such. The AI is psychopathic and in its most generous moments the "meatbags" are no more than a means to an end. In its less generous moments he finds their squishiness intriguing to the point of entertainment. During their escape he crashed a stolen helicopter into a bunch of inconsequential revellers (and if he thinks the single point of notoriety is the end of that he's got another think coming!).

The players knew it was the end of the arc and that we wouldn't be coming back to Shadowrun for a long while (the mage player was wanting a break from RP altogether). There was never going to be an issue with him getting his character back as and when he wanted, but he decided on a change for the next arc.

Funny enough, I did it with Shadowrun Missions 04-01: Hiding in the Dark.

The team was under Seattle transporting some goods to a remote off-the-grid Ork village. They'd run into a few handfuls of desperates, junkies, and lowlifes along the way through the old tunnels, and handled them well with a mix of brains, brawn, stealth, and diplomacy.

Then the gabriel hound showed up. They were crapping their pants because none of them had any idea what the hell it was, nor why it looked like a freakshow horrow movie monster, nor why it was moving like a giant wolf spider on Kali, nor why some of them were randomly being frozen in place, nor why it kept disappearing only to pop up again twenty minutes later. They finally tagged it with a lucky shot, slowing it down enough for the minotaur to perform an amazing suplex and grind it's spine into the tunnel floor. At which point they were so relieved that it was finally dead and no longer stalking them, and so eager to get the hell out of the damn tunnels, that they happily and rapidly slogged across a stretch of knee high water in an old sewer tunnel a little further on, failing their perception checks to spot the pair of alligators.

Was a fun run, they really seemed to enjoy the constant aura of dread and unknown dangers lurking in the shadows.

~Umidori

I haven't the heart to blindside my players in SR.

Eclipse Phase however, is fair game. One of the players had gotten annoyed with his team's refusal to investigate a freighter, so in a fit of anger, he secretly radio'd firewall that his team had abandoned the mission. After some discussion, the group decides to investigate, and uncovers an extinction level even waiting to happen. They put together some clues, and begin to figure out just how screwed humanity is if this thing ever gets out, when the hacker's head explodes. Then the soldier's. Then the Xenobiologist's. With only one player left, he quickly realizes that firewall had received his message, and transmitted the killcodes on the cranial bombs installed on the rogue agents. Radio transmit times being what they are, it took a few hours.

So heres the one player. In a freighter, surrounded by his recently decapitated teammates, and the ELE-in-waiting. Humanity died in the intro game.

"And then the lawn got up and started beating our safehouse. True story!" - One of my old Players

I gave my players Karma one time.

My players are blind-sided when I've used the Infected as NPCs (for or against the PCs). Paranoia goes through the roof.

I've unintentionally blind-sided the players when I had an enemy corp-magician use Manabolt. We have two shamans in the group who regularly throw out Force 9 Stunbolts without breaking a sweat. It stumped them for a minute, trying to figure out what spell they were getting hit with (since it was causing physical damage) and why they could only resist with Willpower. Eventually they figured out what it was but I thought it was amusing that they hadn't considered that an NPC would deal with the extra drain just to cause physical vs. stun damage.

Manabolt is a hell of a spell. All you sacrifice is the single extra point of drain.

I still hate Direct Combat Spells, even with the errata and whatnot.

~Umidori

How and why did the PCs start with cranial bombs? I mean, that's just asking for it.

They transferred their egos over to a near-site sleeve when they got the mission. I handed out archetype sheets for the first game, so no one would have to care about their character too much.

Oh yeah, those are messed up. Enough that the first trick I taught my shaman player (who never played SR before) was a FORCE TEN STUNBOLT MOFO. She overcasts it to the max, boom, target folds, she soaks 4 DV like nothing.

It was even worse when dice from Spellcasting Foci could be used to resist drain.

~Umidori

My House-Rule is that all Direct Combat Spells get +4 Drain, all Indirect get -2 Drain.

Turning all Direct Combat spells into Indirect Spells also works pretty well. Just make it so dodging a mana spell without astrally perceiving in order to see it takes dice off.

~Umidori

If you are astrally perceiving, you are going to be taking dice off for dodgeing as well, so how is that a solution? Just Curious.

I'd qualify dodging a mana spell when astrally perceiving as a "magical action", no dice off. But if you were trying to dodge, say, a burst of bullets, the gun doesn't show up astrally nearly as well as the bolt of mana does, so that you'd lose dice as normal.

Only really used this houserule for a two mission mini-campaign. Worked well enough, but could be tweaked, sure.

~Umi

So, would a counterspeller lose dice for not astrally perceiving when counterspelling a Mana Spell as well (when using your House Rule)? IF not, why?

I'd say no, as counterspelling is said to work like a sort of "mana jamming", which is why it works on Detection Spells and Illusion spells you aren't actually aware of.

Besides, counterspelling goes toward the resistance test, not the dodge test.

~Umi

I ask because it seems that your premise for the Dodge test requires sight. It would seem then that the Counterspelling test for non-visible attack spells should also require sight.

Counterspelling counts towards the Dodge test for Indirect Spells... If you are going to allow Dodging of Direct Spells, it should count (be resolved) the same. Or did I completely miss the point?

I do not really see a reason to penalize the Defense of a Direct Spell (treated as Indirect) for those that cannot perceive it without also penalizing it completely for those that cannot perceive it for Magical Defense. It is a fundamental shift in how the Spell is being treated, why would you treat it differently based upon whether it can be perceived or not, and why would not ALL such spells then be treated the same way?It is just an oddity. And like I said, I may have misinterpreted your purpose.

For my 2 Nuyen. Just switch out the Drain Codes for Indirect and Direct Spells, and you should be just fine. Assuming you actually have issues with the defining differences. We have yet to do so; but then again, we do not have any problems with the Direct/Indirect Spell dichotomy. Can a Direct Spell be a Fight Ender? Of Course. Must it be a Fight Ender? Absolutely not, and is generally not at our table. Can the Indirect Spells get some more love? Absolutely. Switching the Drain is a good Compromise, In my opinion.

I goofed. S'what I get for posting before coffee.

Being more awake now, I can correct myself. With this particular house rule, Counterspelling does operate as normal and adds dice to the dodge roll, not the resistance roll. No clue why I thought it was the other way around.

As I said, I only ran it for two quick missions a while back. It made sense at the time and kept the players happy because they were annoyed with Direct Combat spells. Haven't run it that way in quite some time, and personally think that if you follow the errata'd rules properly, Direct Combat spells ain't so bad. You just need to keep track of things.

~Umi

Indeed...
No worries...
Have a great weekend.

Are you talking about the Optional Rule Stupid Drain Value Additional Mechanic? If so, that's just a messy, idiotic way to cover up something much more easily fixed another way.

Really threw my group for a loop last game when they tried to hack an elevator, and found it offline. After finding the computer for it on the roof next to the motor, the Technomancer realized that it wasn't just Offline, it was also 80-years old.

"USB 3.0? WTF?"

That sir, is masterful. I love it.

Poor computer, survived 8 times it's lifetime, two Crashes, and a lot of other abuses.

It didn't survive the Technomancer using a Bayonet (which he borrowed from the group's Face/Tank) to get at the Hard Disk Drive. He had no hardware tools, due to not modifying CommLinks because his Bionode is much more 1337.

It would be sort of a d*ck move, but I could see a GM saying that a PCs hardware kit, made to work with modern tech, wouldn't work with 2000-ish era tech. "This is called a "torx" screw? WTF?"

Only if it was a Dell. I wouldn't have gone that bad.

HAH, no kidding. Those are full of proprietary parts and random stuff that is unused be EVERY OTHER COMPUTER MANUFACTURER IN THE WORLD.

By the way, I'm instantly reminded of cowboy bebop when they get an old beta tape and have to search throughout several places to find someone that has an ancient working player...

Translate to shadowrun and give them a 3.5" floppy disk with some paydata. And make sure to catch them before they run a tag eraser over it.

I'm sure some of the more creative GMs here can find a way to blindside your players with that.

Reel-To-Reel Analog Tape Drive.

Old things scare me. When I was very little, my father brought a very *very* old reel to reel player out of storage. He played a recording of some old Beatles conspiracy stuff, where it was claimed you could hear 'Real Paul''s last words, could hear him crying for help in a crashed car, etc. Scared the hell outta me.

You guys have pretty much just described half of the point about the MacGuffin from On the Run, haven't you? Except the archeo-tech is still future stuff by modern standards, but even so, 2040s shit would be hard to find a way to work on in the 2070s.

Well, unless you used a conversion program or something...

Still need the hardware to read the item. Try getting info from a 3 1/2" disk today with no disk drive.

...

NO, DON'T JAM IT INTO THE DVD TRAY!!!

...

Aw damnit, that one was my own damned fault.

Can't you just hack it wirelessly?

No, it's so ancient it doesn't have a wireless component.

Surely you could slap a drive onto a baud modem, then emulate... Or something.

TM's take the day again: Resonance quest.