The GM should know in advance the general level of difficulty and security at every level of facility in the world; from a stuffer shack up to a Zero Zone. The Zero Zone might have high rating milspec matrix systems, dozens of high force nested wards, hundreds of high force spirits, every square millimeter under constant surveillance from all types of sensors, hundreds of guards in assault armor loaded down with enough high end combat ware that they are almost cyber zombies, and with a full suite of skill softs to ensure that in any potentially relevant skill they have at least 4 points from the soft.

But if players who are built and speced to survive running against such a Zero Zone decide instead to raid a local accounting firm, well that accounting firm is not suddenly going to find that it has high end mil spec matrix security, a bevy of security guards loaded with beta and delta ware and armed with military grade weapons, multiple high force wards, and multiple on site security mages and spirits. The player characters might dominate the accounting firm run and not be challenged, and well that is just fine. They have chosen to run below their potential level and thus get's a smaller reward for less risky work.


The GM does not get to decide what, when, or where the PC's hit. He can have NPC's in the world offer jobs or plot hooks, he can even position those NPC's so that IC they come across strong inducements to get the PC's to do what they want, but he does not have the ability to force it. The PC's can always say "Fuck it." and decide to go knock over a grocery story to cover their food needs for the month.



I never once said that 400 BP made a runner a master of the universe, it doesn't. What it does is make him an exceptionally above average individual with multiple complete skill sets at levels comparable to those of individuals who have dedicated decades of their lives to that single profession. If the PC has a skill at 5 then he is one of the best in the world, if he has a 6 then he is an Olympic medal contender or a Blue Angels Pilot or a marksman on the Secret Service's sniper competition team, if he has a 7 then he is Michael Phelps, Fastjack, Michael Jordan, etc.



Whether a run challenges the players or not is up to the players. They choose what they will run against and how they will approach the run. If PC's with the skills and abilities to run against an Ares top secret R&D base decide to run against a Wal-Mart shipping hub, well then they shouldn't face anything that could be classified as "challenging" but the payoff from that run would be far smaller. If the players want to accomplish anything meaningful and do the kind of runs that make their characters legends then they will be running against facilities that are incredibly challenging and with absolutely no guarantees that they won't be sniped by an anti-shipping laser on a blimp 20 kilometers away from the run site, if they want to run a few days a year to cover the rent money by knocking over jewelery stores well; that's their choice but for the characters it means that they are never going to make the massive leaps in power and skill that runners that test themselves constantly can manage and for the players it means that the game could get quite boring fairly rapidly.

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The GM runs the world, what the players do in that world is up to them. Now, the players and GM should talk about what areas of the world the PC's will focus on so that the GM can direct his limited time and resources to more fully and completely fleshing out those bits but the GM has no right to say "You can't run against Wal-Mart, you have to run against Ares R&D because you are too skilled and the Wal-Mart run would be too easy for you.".

If you have played Morrowind it's like that, the PC can run into areas where he will die instantly because he wasn't skilled and capable enough yet, similarly he can hang out in starting areas when powerful enough to solo armies and that is his choice.

This is getting seriously off topic, but I feel compelled to answer as, put in the context of your last post, I'm not sure we're that far apart vis-a-vis the question of scaling.

Finding the kind of open world SR game you are describing would be awesome. I've only ever participated in a couple of RPG campaigns (AD&D and GURPS 1e Space not SR) that were structured in a manner where all of the adventures were player driven (and those were back in junior high/high school when the players and GMs had way more free time than is possible at this point). Even then, it seemed like it was asking a lot of the GM to either A)have every possible base covered and prepared to have a kickass session ready regardless of what the players may choose to do or B)be able to consistently improvise convincing and engaging sessions week after week that cater to the players' whims at the drop of a hat. We generally had the best success in the player driven content when the PCs made plans at the end of a session and the GM worked up the content that covered those plans for the next session in the intervening time. All that being said, these 2 campaigns are probably the most memorable of all I've played in.

Most of the games I have played in before or since across a pretty wide variety of systems are far more structured and GM driven. The GM presents the scenario they have prepared and the players react to it w/ maybe a couple of contingency options if the players really aren't feeling it. The "good" GM driven campaigns have had the majority of individual sessions/runs/adventures threading into a larger plot arc (or several). The content or flavor of an individual session definitely catered to the feedback, tastes, and suggestions of the players but were ultimately presented as "Here's what you can do this week".

Anyway, sorry to have detoured the thread even farther... I'll shut up now

Do you understand the concept of the social contract? A GM works hard to make a run that will be appropriate and fun for a group, and to tell him to go stroke off because you don't like his plot hooks violates that trust implicitly.

You come to the table to play Shadowrun. He comes to the table with a Shadowrun; he might even bring two if he knows his players are prone to being dicks and turning their noses up and the work and prep time he's put into his first plot for the night. You run the shadowrun he brings you. Otherwise, go pick up your controller and head on back to Morrowind, because that's how things roll at a table.

The message you're communicating, at least to me, when you (a generic pronoun referring to anyone reading this and not ~just~ Tippy) post something like this is that you don't respect your GM. You make him your bitch and demand he run your game your way and to deny you any of your "fun" is wrong.

No. You can't just tell your GM to do all that for you, because he deserves to have fun, too. And if he says, "No, you can't go knock over a jewelry store because this isn't old school D&D chaotic-neutral douchebaggery let's ruin my campaign night," you sit down, appreciate that he's put time and effort into creating something fun for you instead of running roughshod over the world. His world is not a sandbox like Morrowind where you can just go around and do anything you please. It can't be, because he's not a video game and is under zero obligation to provide you that ridiculous amount of freedom.

The GM has ~every~ right to deny you the ability to do something stupid like what you've exampled above. It's selfish, it's disruptive, and it's just being a bad gamer and a bad human being in general. If you want to go kick over sandcastles in a sandbox, got sit in front of a keyboard or console. But you can't treat a GM's sandbox like your personal litter box.

I ~hate~ players who have that kind of sense of entitlement, where they think they should be able to ignore a GM's work and just run free, with their fiddly bits flapping in the wind, and stamping their feet when someone demands they put clothes on because they think someone's cramping their freedom and their fun.

The campaign world you describe, especially your "tactical jet insertion-simstar extraction" makes so much more sense now. You have beaten your GM into submission and he's stopped even ~trying~ to give you a good game, because he knows it's not worth the effort, if what you've said above is even remotely your attitude when you sit at the table.

The social contract is very simple: The GM creates a game and spends hours trying to develop what he hopes will be an enjoyable experience for his players. The players expect the GM to give them engaging stories and challenges on-par with their abilities. No where in that contract are you allowed to just pitch out the GM's work on a whim, because you think you're in some sandbox MMO and can just have him generate things to suit your whims on the fly.

How do you even conceive that this kind of attitude is appropriate at a gaming table where you're a player?

People might chastise me and tell me that, "As long as everyone's having fun, there's no 'wrong' here." I accept that. But I can't imagine any GM having fun at a table where his players expect the payloads and payouts Tippy quotes, when he thinks he's entitled to tell said GM that his story is garbage, and he's just going to go wreck stuff up. I can only imagine what would have happened if his GM had said, "There's no jet available for your rooftop extraction. Figure out another way in."

I've had players like that at my table before. And the response I've gotten to a similar, "You're going to have to try something else, because the resources for that plan just aren't available right now." There was yelling, accusations of how they spent character resources on these things and that they should have x items on-demand, no matter the circumstances. Now, I'm not saying Tippy himself would throw a temper tantrum and pitch dice across the room, but I've been there when it's happened for other gamers who had the same kind of entitlement phrases on the tip of their tongues, too.

That's a bad game. And that's bad gaming. And no GM should sit down at a table with a player who has expectations like that out of their GM.

My twoyen on the issue of the social contract. And I'm going to do my best to go cool off now, and try to keep my contribution on the subject to just that twoyen.

The GM violates that trust when he chooses to make runs that the players characters would not, IC, accept or that the players aren't particularly interested in. If the Players want to deal drugs in game then the GM should not be attempting to force them on runs to, say, raid Ares military R&D labs. Similarly, if the player can not justify his character taking a run with the character acting in character then the GM has failed if he expects the character to accept the run anyways.

RPG's are a social contract between both the players and the GM. The GM has no preeminent position in that contract. It's his job to work with the players in advance and provide a game that everyone enjoys, and it is directly against that contract for him to attempt to alter the rules during play.


And I say, "Fuck off. My character with the background and skills he has is not going to undertake this run in these conditions for the offered pay. It's not a remotely reasonable or in-character action for him." Just like if said character was in a game and one of the other PC's went all pink mohawk said character would pull out his gun and put a bullet in the back of PM's head. If the GM is forcing characters to act out of character to play the game then he has fucked up.


Our entire group rotates positions. Hell, I'm GMing this weekend. I have plenty of respect for all of my GM's, it's not an easy task. That being said, it is far easier if you actually bother to work with your players and simply create the framework for them to operate within. Quite frankly, forcing runners to do any given run is about as antithetical to the SR mythos as it is possible to be. The whole point of being a runner is to have the freedom and independence to do as you will, not simply trade the corp(s) for random Johnsons.


Then I pity you for having such bad GM's and DM's. A good GM/DM builds a world, creates general characters and locations in that world, creates the methodology that he will use to run that world, and then lets the PC's free in said world to do as they see fit.


The GM railroading the players without consent is selfish and bad gaming, not the players refusing to be railroaded.

And I hate GM's who think that their mission is a special little snowflake and that the players should be honored to undertake it.


Um no. We just happen to run a game that accepts that the PC's, horrors of horrors, will not take risks for less compensation than they could make moving drugs and will do everything possible to reduce and/or minimize risk. And even then, our prices are cheap. A million, ten million, or even a hundred million nuyen is chump change at the levels the runners are operating at.

Any of the AAA's or entities operating at that level has a black budget for special operations in the billions of nuyen per year, minimum. Do you have any concept of just how much money real life nations are willing to throw at problems? At just how little even a hundred million dollars is to the US?


Because it is what I demand as a player from my GM/DM's and as a GM/DM from my players. The GM's job is to create and run the world and it's reactions to the players actions. Nothing more and nothing less. The Players job is to create stories in that world. If the players are idiots then their characters will die or suffer because they acted like idiots, if the GM is an idiot then the players will simply not play with him any longer.


This is the fundamental problem, it is not the GM's story. It is a shared story created by the players and GM working together and because there are more players than the GM the story is primarily shaped by said players. The GM is the reactive party most of the time, not the players.


We would have shrugged our shoulders and said "We can't do this in the time available with the resources available. Sorry. Good luck and we hope that you find someone able to achieve your objectives.". before leaving and going back to doing the things we actually cared about.


The characters should have shrugged their shoulders and said "Ok, we can't do this run. It's not something that we absolutely have to do. Let's go and do X instead.". Runners are not fanatical zealots willing to do any mission regardless of odds for low pay, they are amoral mercenaries who are willing to drop any mission once the costs become higher than they are willing to bare and will always have an escape route (barring a few exceptions for personal motivation runs).

@Tippy: And what's your opinion of these who ramble on about the "dystopia" stuff as an excuse for expecting the players to accept keeping their characters as street-level thugs barely making enough for a Soy Burrito from the convenience store?

The problem is, a 400BP character can, right out of the gate, challenge the best of the best at what they do. A pornomancer has so many dice, they can simply schmooze their way into any zero zone, regardless of the security you throw at them unless you blatantly cheat and favor yourself as a GM. A properly built *team* of min/maxed 400BP characters can stymie any GM that intends to play fair and maintain believability.


Luckily, I don't game with those players anymore, but there are always more just like them waiting in the wings. I've seen too many players twist and bend parts of SR4.5 to dance to their tune, in little hidden ways designed to escape the GM's notice until we're already midway through a game. Even with the worst offenders, yanking the run out from under them mid-game is unfair and wrong. And before you go blaming the GM for not catching it, remember that problem players will actively deceive you as to what they can do until they do it, so unless you're better at gaming the system than they are, you won't catch them in time.

I guess I'm glad that I have a bit of a sub-conscious aversion to over optimization/munchkinism (and/or I just suck at it) The only broken system in 4A RAW that I can't seem to avoid exploiting to a decent extent is layering armored clothing ensembles w/ FFBA, and PPP modded w/ SoftWeave, Carbon-Boron, Delta-Amyloid, and Gel Packs as appropriate. There's definitely something wrong w/ a legally unencumbered 23 Balistic damage resist pool at creation on an elf face w/ a 3 BOD/2 STR who is basically only wearing a business suit w/ long underwear, shin/forearm guards, and a cup.

Just to clarify/restate, I really wasn't trying to make any objective judgments or insult anyone in any of my comments. They're meant only in the context of my own experiences and preferences in style of play/progression. It's been a frustrating week so I've probably come off as more of an asshole than usual

I disagree with you fundamentally here. I as a GM always design my opposition so as to challenge the players, that's part of the fun on both sides of the table. This doesn't mean that a small local gang will be boasting ex-Special Ops skill levels. Hell, they don't need them - as long as they don't line up like ducks to be shot, that gang can still challenge a group of 400BP characters they way I play it. Admittedly, I do (or did) run a fairly street level campaign, and I have my own homebrew CharGen house rules to prevent excessive min-maxing and flat out will not allow characters that don't make logical sense to me (i.e. you are gonna have to come up a background that supports that 6 skill, and have the sort of secondary skills that would come with that background).

This doesn't mean I agree with railroading PCs either. If they decide not to take the job and turn over a jewelry store, I will adapt. Where your brow-beaten GM and I differ though, is that in an organic breathing gameworld there may be complications. Perhaps the jewelry store is "protected" by the mob, and the PCs will run into difficulties fencing the goods and then get an invitation to visit the local capo in his pasta restaurant. The world of 2070's Shadowrun is a mean place, and your PCs aren't the first group of hoodlums to think about raiding that jewelry store.

This depends on whether you treat social skills as mind control or not. At my table, social skills have their limits, and although the pornomancer might have some luck schmoozing into a zero zero zone, it will only get them so far. For instance, with a passable story said pornomancer might sleaze their way past the guard post, but the guard might follow him/her on the cameras to make sure they are who they say they are and are doing what they say they are doing.

Perhaps this is partly because I don't allow RC races like pixies and dryads, and have a house rule that makes Kinesics and Tailored Pheremones mutually exclusive at my table, so thank goodness I don't have to deal with some of the excessive social dicepools bandied around on Dumpshock all the time.

That they forget that dystopia's are two fold, on the one had you have those with unimaginable amounts of wealth and power, on the other hand you have those barely making ends meet who's life is worthless and with no power to change that fact.

Runners are very much a part of the first group. Even a straight out of the gate runner (of virtually any build) is more skilled and has access to more wealth than 99% of the population. Runners have power, they are not powerless peons ecking out a subsistence level existence with no hope of changing their situation.

And yet, at that point the Players have already cheated from the get go, if the GM is trying to maintain believability and fairness. Goes both ways, you know... And the world is not believable if the Runners are setting the price. At least not by how the world is written. *shrug*

No, Runners are very much a part of the Second group at start. Methinks that is why you are having issues with most of the board here.

I think runners depending on how they are built and their background can very well be part of the first group at start. In my opinion, a competently built PC at 400 BPs should be in the first group. The inability to accept that is why most people are having issues with Tippy.

I'm impressed how totally in line with every existing piece of fluff your group is.


No, that would be his natural charm and wit.

Also, a competently built 400 BP runner would not be among the first group. Because Shadowrun, unlike MMOs or D&D, rewards individual skill and stats of awesome a lot less than connections. And starter characters, unles sspecifically built to be connected, just are not very powerful there.

I disagree. The players did not cheat if they created their characters without breaking any of the rules. If the GM maintains believability and fairness, then the PCs should be able to stymie the GM's NPCs. He would have difficulty maintain a higher level of challenge, but that is precisely the point of a team of properly built min-maxed PCs - the players as a group are telling the GM they do not want a challenge. If the GM has a problem with that, then he should talk with his players.

Personally I derive enjoyment from writing scenarios and statting up my NPCs. I keep firmly in mind that while I may flesh out my NPCs, ultimately they are not my GM PCs. The scenarios I wrote are not my babies. They are there for my players enjoyment.

Can you explain how does having many connections relate to being in the first group?

Actually, he should just tell them to go fuck themselves and look for a less obnoxious group of players. It's what I'd do.


Depends on the connections' level, certainly; 30 1/1 squatters won't cut a lot, one 5/5 corper is worth them a thousand times. I'd say, as a rule of thumb: 20 total, two major group connections (corps, syndicates, large gangs, magical societies or policlubs), four connections of rating at least 5, connections in at least 5 different sprawls. It's a very rough rule of thumb though. Also, the character should have a sizable disposable fortune (upper six-digits, at least) and several equipments above availability 10/be initiated or immersed at least three times.

I second hermit's opinion on this. Those players will not find me running for their table.

I don't find fun in the idea of giving the PCs an "easy mode" just because they min-maxed. Just because you have 25 dice in your sniper rifle skill doesn't mean you get a Hogan's Alley, where I just line up mooks for you to pop. That's what video games are for.

In fact, if you show up with a min-maxed character at my table, I take that as a personal challenge. It shows me that a player wants to step up the game to a min-maxed level of challenge. To extend the metaphor (however poorly), he's showing me he thinks he can S-Rank for a Dante Must Die run. Far be it for me to give him anything but Dante Must Die levels of challenge.

When a player decides to step up their game and think they're Big Boss, the only sensible response is to send in Solid Snake. I don't give out milk runs to someone who should wave their hand and pooh-pooh milk runs as beneath them. It insults the character and it insults the player. So, no, when a GM maintains believability about his scenarios, his NPCs won't get stymied - they play at the same levels as the players, and aren't rank amateurs that can be duped. Players and characters running at that kind of level should be ambitious enough that they wouldn't consider a lesser challenge, or dealing with people who don't play on their plane.

Worthy adversaries for worthy anti-heroes. To ask for, or expect, less from a GM is to waste that GM's time.

I agree, and it would seem to me that they're also upset because Tippy's view puts the players in a good position, while their's puts the players bent over the log about to receive the sandpaper covered spike.

There is a functional Middle ground here, though. You may not be paupers, but you are definitely not the cream of the crop, all living High to Luxury Lifestyles and pissing on the Fixers/Johnsons Offers because they do not fit your idea of how much money you should be making.

In fact, if our team was taking the run that Tippy described initially that started this whole thing out, we would have negotiated up to about 200,000 Nuyen or so, spent 20,000 Nuyen on equipment, and pocketed 45,000 Nuyen each. And with far less fanfare than Tippy's crew caused. Not bad for 26 hours of work.

If the players are "pissing on" the offers, then the GM still needs to increase them, because he's likely trying to keep the players from advancing their characters both mechanically and socially in the game world, and he needs to learn that that is BAD GMING.

No, it means that the Players have a higher opinion of their characters (and some whacked out sense of entitlement that is inappropriate) than they should, that's all.

From what it looks like, you think that the Characters have the right to set their own paydays and to hell with anyone/anything else. That attitude Ddoes not fly at ANY of the tables I have played at over the last 20 years.

You can always go a different route w/o refusing a job outright. Take the info gained from the Johnson about a run and shop the run around to other interested parties until you get a "reasonable" offer. Of course this is going to be a lot easier and more feasible if you actually have a broad range of contacts who might be interested and can pay what you think the job is worth. Basically the same run, not a lot of wasted GM time, runners get the chance to not feel entirely railroaded and get paid more "equitably". However, you can probably expect to take a hit in Notoriety and piss off that particular Johnson and/or the fixer he contacted you through.

That being said, I personally wouldn't expect the payout for a single job in a character's first few months of running to pay for the shiny alphaware MBW 2 system a character had their eye on, but it should at least be paying the rent and ammo bill/reasonable expenses w/ a little bit left over in most cases IMO.

All4 - There's a good position, where you can get your gear and pay a couple months in advance on any lifestyle you want.

Then there's Tippy's position where you can get a combat jet on a phone call, drones enough to follow you out for a beer run, and the deconstruction nanites to eat away any evidence you had a jet or went on a beer run afterwards.

The scale of resources is just so staggeringly beyond anything that runners traditionally have access to. Which is fine. Some people have Monty Haul groups like that. But it's Tippy's perpetual insistence that he is objectively right (he used the word objectively on at least one occasion) about what the numbers mean and how shadowrunners should function in the mechanical system of SR, is what ruffles feathers.

The standard watermarks for SR and the genre of cyberpunk lay in the aethetics of how Dick brought "Blade Runner" to the screen, and Gibson's "Neuromancer." This is what I expect and hope for when I come to the table for SR. When Tippy posts his... convention-defying... style of gaming, I can't help but think he wants to play James Bond or "Navy Seals" with some "Mission: Impossible" mixed in.

But that would also never happen. Because there's no way Tippy would be so unprepared that he'd end up on the ski slopes without a machine gun, and he'd just walk from the Dubai Tower because, well, he's so super secret no one's ever heard of his group that could betray him in the first place it would just never happen. (And while he's admitted his hiring practices are his weakest link in the chain, I wonder what would happen at the game table if his GM dumped him on his ass after his party was framed and his fixer betrayed him because someone else had that fixer over a bigger barrel. [Why? Because "Ghost Protocol" was a damn fun run for for some seriously high level operatives.])

To a LOT of people, that's just plain NOT Shadowrun. And to be told that we're second-rate runners and players for still taking jobs from Johnsons... is kind of insulting.

It's not upsetting because Tippy's view puts his players in a good position. It's because Tippy's view calls out everyone who doesn't zero-zone run on a standard 400 points as inferior players and characters.

What's the issue here is not the inability to accept that a min-maxed PC is quite good.
The issue is that there are absolutes being thrown around.
Yes. A 400 BP min-maxed character can be really good in some aspects. That does not mean he is fabulously wealthy or a power that bends megacorp players over the log (as has been so eloquently put). NOR does this mean, that a 400BP char has to be a clueless newbie.

1.) I take issue with the absolute "Every 400BP char is a prime runner". I don't even think that a "properly built min-maxed" character is a prime runner. He's just really good at what he does, maybe even the best. But he is NOT a legend. His Notoriety is 0, as well as his Street Rep and his public awareness. His Streetname is not whispered of in awe in dive bars in Redmond ans he is not someone to look up to and aspire to be. Because he is NOT KNOWN. These are actual game mechanics, no matter how much people dislike them.
He is no Gingerbread Man. He is no Kane. He is not even one of the guys posting on ShadowSea. No conception can make it so. He has to earn Karma and his fame.

2.) I find terms like 'properly built min-maxed character' highly offensive. It implies that everyone who does NOT do this, is playing the game wrong. This is not so. Not in the least. Building characters should be a group effort, in accordance with the GMs and the other players' wishes. Character creation should not exist in a vacuum.

Therefore, this is not an issue of a bad GM wanting to railroad his players nor an issue of munchkins domineering their GM. It is an issue of different views on how a game is fun and how it is not.
If you (yes, I mean you, All4BigGuns) think that your GM constantly wants to fuck you over, you should find a new one. If your experiences make you believe that other GMs do this to their groups, you may be severely biased.
A player is not 'in a good position' if he managed to one-up the GM in his wishes on how to run the campaign. Quite the opposite in fact. And in this case this should not be fought out in the game but rather through out of play discussion.

To conclude this part of my rambling: Absolutes and generalizations are bad. In some groups, 400BP chars are super duper special snowflakes (yes, I know this is derogatory, but I'm using exaggeration to make a point here), in others, they are people who can barely afford the bottle of synthahol they drink every night to be able to sleep, the scum of the earth. There is also a LOT of inbetween.
Tippy had it absolutely right with one point, in my opinion, though: In this dystopia there are the super rich and powerful and the people barely scraping by, divided by a huge gap. But wherever the runners may be, they have one distinct advantage: They are upwardly mobile, because they do have special skills. Skills in high demand, that make them stand out in this crap sack world.
And this is true for every character, be he min-maxed to the extreme or built to a more standardized baseline. (Well, there are also horribly underpowered characters, but even those are better than the average citizen)
However, in MY games, the runners are not super powerful, right off the bat. If you try something to prove me wrong, I will crush your character. But you will have known it beforehand. Most likely, over the course of their careers, characters that I run games for will influence major events. They will, however, not orchestrate said events. They will not save the world. They will not become megacorps. But you will know all that before you even created your character and started playing with me.

Another issue I have is the statement of 'social contracts' and how they're understood.
For me, I state clearly what I want of my group, if I GM. This also means, that I look at their characters and suggest changes, if they a) do not fit to what I imagined and b) do not fit in power level to the rest of the group's characters.
If this causes problems, well, tough cookie. The particular player can always find another GM. Funny enough, there seem to be more players around than people willing to run games, in general.
The social contract also means, btw, that everyone has their fun. This includes metagame. If character A is played to be a constant dick to everyone around him (even if his stats are in line with the rest of the group), the fun factor plummets quickly. In this case, the player will be asked to tone it down. And if that means he has to NOT play his character as before, then the fun of the group is worth more than the fun of a single player. He may say "A is being a dick, as usual" instead of playing this out.
If my character would usually not take a job, but the rest of the group wants to play the adventure, I bite my lip and agree. For out of play reasons, so that my friends still have fun (well, not if it's totally out of character, but then I can still leave for this adventure and only lessen my own enjoyment).

So, this is more a stream of thought than a well thought out argument, but some statements just make me angry. Play your game, folks. Don't look down at other people's games. It does not make you more right if you're condescending.

@bannock: There's a difference between thinking they're all "out to get you" and realizing that many are like that and learning (and watching for) the warning signs for that sort of piss-poor GMing.

@TJ: Funny how expecting to get enough for a decent lifestyle while still able to save to advance seems to be "a sense of entitlement".

Rude Circumlocutions while not directly sexual or explicit are still offensive, and in this case sexual.

Please note item 4 in the terms of service.

While this may be true (I definitely have had GMs/DMs/STs/etc. like that), is an In Character, In Game solution optimal (or even advisable)? That seems to be an Out of Character, Out of Game issue, a difference in mutual expectations or perhaps a difference in what the GM has said and then does. I think that calls for a frank discussion between the GM and the players - if the GM has indicated that the runners will be "movers and shakers" from the get go, but then has them struggling to pay for a low lifestyle, there is a disconnect between the players' expectations (which have been influenced by the GM's statements re: "movers and shakers") and the GM's actions, and the players are well within their rights to question it. Similarly, bannockburn says above that "[the runners] will not become megacorps [in my game]." - but if the runners want to start their own corporate empire, they should bring this up with the GM (in this hypothetical, bannockburn) out of game. Then the players and GM can come to an understanding of what sort of game they, as a group, wish to play, and hopefully they will come up with a compromise acceptable to all parties.

The game, both mechanics and fluff, allows for play on any point on the spectrum. Depending on the interpretation the GM makes of the fluff, one could have a Sixth World in which 400BP characters, even if particularly well-optimized, will be struggling to keep themselves off the street (or from ending up Ghoulfood, if they're already there). Another could have a Sixth World in which 400BP characters can, with proper planning and support, pull a high-risk, Zero Zone extraction. Neither need break verisimilitude; both can exist credibly.

If you are arguing for a Luxury Lifestyle, then yes, the Players/Characters apparently have a sense of entitlement that is out of whack with the expectations of the game world. I have no issues with a High Lifestyle; 10,000 Nuyen /Month is easy, just on runs alone, in fact. Saving up for other gear is expected. But demanding 4,000,000 Nuyen for 26 hours of work is so far outside fo Shadowrun expectations that I STILL laugh about it every time I think about it.

*rolleyes* Yeah, you're just that kind of guy. I hope you don't think your tough guy lingo is impressing anyone? And since when is challenging characters appropriatly something that warrants rape metaphors?


There are 47% of gamers always looking for a run to freeload Karma and Nuyen, because they feel entitled to that. It is not my job to care about these gamers.

Oh come on. You're better than that.

Alright, it is a bit of a low blow.

I was more just trying to present a potential in-character compromise solution, one that actually seemed to work pretty well for players and GM alike the only time I've used it when presented w/ a job that had us spending the majority of our 50% up front pay in expenses right out of the box on our second run that was only going to pay ¥2K/runner total w/ a proposed 1 run/per game month schedule. In our team's situation I felt pretty well justified in pushing for a solution that would keep us from being evicted from our low and middle lifestyles and prevent some of the team from getting their kneecaps broken at the end of the month. My definition of a reasonable profit margin is decidedly lower than some I spose.

EDIT: LOL, I just caught the R-Money reference, well played . Not enough sleep this week...

No, they really really aren't. Runners can (and often do) have enough ware in them to pay for a high lifestyle for a year or to buy outright a low lifestyle. Runners can (and often do) have multiple knowledge skills as rating 3 or better; that's college degree level (and if you throw down a 6 on a knowledge skill then that is Doctorate level). Runners can (and often do) have multiple other skills at 3 or better; that's professional career level in all of those skills.

Virtually every runner is a high level polymath. They are manifestly not part of the majority of people in a dystopia who have no power or say.


Connections are necessary to achieve any great measure of power among the top 1% but they aren't necessary to become part of said 1%, and even then with the skills you can create the connections.


What the players skills are should be irrelevant to your design choices as the GM. You make challenges that are believable for the world and then let the players succeed or fail at them on their own.


Your challenges should be the same regardless of what characters are brought to the table. Just because the players bring 200 BP street level gangbangers to the table does not mean that zero-zone security all the sudden drops to a level comparable to what 400 BP characters would expect to face when raiding a moderately secured research facility.


A GM who tailors a world to the players (either to challenge them or to help them) is a bad GM. The world should be the exact same regardless of what the PC's are and should only change in reaction to the PC's (and NPC's) actions.


If you aren't capable of affording a luxury lifestyle then why are you running? If you aren't clearing at least 1.2 million in profit per year from running then you either spectacularly suck, rarely work, or have the worst payment negotiator that has ever lived.

Do you have any idea of how much money, in real life, a former special forces solider or secret service agent that has decided to go into private personal protection makes per year? The absolute cheapest you will see is 250K per year, if the body guard actually stands a reasonable chance of facing combat it's upwards of a million dollars a year. This is for legal, relatively low risk, work.

For the kinds of stuff runners do? You can hire individuals in real life to undertake such runs but your bill will be in the millions.


You would have died nearly immediately.


The players do have a right to set their own pay. The Johnson is coming to them with something important enough to the Johnson to commit multiple felonies to achieve, Johnsons do not hirer runners for things that the Johnson does not consider important. This means that it is a sellers market, the runners tell the Johnson what they will undertake his run for and he can either pay or leave; him leaving does not cost the runners anything, they shrug their shoulders and go back to planning their own run.

I am objectively right. The book flat out says what the numbers mean. It flat out says just how anal the corps are (they do put RFID's inside food and if you have food from the wrong mega in your gut then it will set off alarms when raiding a facility). If you want to defeat the level of security that the game says exists then you need access to a whole laundry list of resources that do not come cheap. And sometimes the only way to beat a security plan is to come at it with something incredibly over the top, overwhelming brute force is sometimes a necessity if you want to achieve success.

Fast, cheap, or good; pick two. Fast and Good is not cheap, good and cheap is not fast, fast and cheap is not good.


Which is all well and good but is not what the setting fluff and rules actually supports.


I would shrug my shoulders and activate one of my burn plans, depending upon the specifics of the situation.


I never said that they were second rate players, I said that they aren't actually playing their character in character. If they are having fun then it works for them and I do not care, what I care about is when those people say "No Tippy, you are wrong." when under the published rules and fluff they are, in fact, the ones who are wrong.


I never said not taking Zero-Zone runs makes you inferior as a player or character. I said that under the rules 400 BP is about the minimum necessary for the character to be capable of successfully carrying off a zero-zone run, and as a side effect of that any run below that difficulty level should be progressively less of a challenge (to the point where street level runs should rarely, if ever, actually be any challenge to the party).

Yeah. Which is less important than you seem to think it is.


Not in my book, kiddo. Without connections, you are nothing, nobody, zero, toast. You can write clever matrix posts with your college degree level skills (which isn't much to begin with). Nobody will care. Nobody will give you a job. Nobody will be amazed by you. You'Re a nobody. Because in Shadowrun, far more than in any other RPG, you are who you know.


I am not there to provide you with whatever you like, as a GM. Neither are you entitled to anything from your GM. If your GM walks on you, there's exactly nothing you can do, and frankly, I would heartily recommend this to any GM you ask to run a game for your group.

Also, by your logic, why aren't players required to make characters that are believable, too?


Why? To pander to easy mode min-maxing players who think challenges are there to be nonexistent?


No. You just aren't asking your GM for handouts.


In your kid-gloves, easy mode campaign? Don't make me laugh.


You've never worked an actual job, have you, Tippy?





Actually, you did. Several times.

Except that Shadowrun IS NOT OUR WORLD. Get over that Emperor Tippy. What goes on in our world is not a good comparison for what happens in an SR world. *sheesh*



And we would NOT have died almost immediately. See, this is your problem. You have already decided (based upon your tables's tendency to over complicate things) that your method was the only soultion possible, and refuse to see that there were a LOT of other options. So many, in fact, that I am not even going to go into them, as many of them should be pretty obvious. Hell, some have even been given to you over the two topics in this discussion.

And no, PLAYERS have absolutely NO Right to set the pay scale for the game. The indication that your table allows that is an indicator of exactly how different your game world is compared to everyone else's.

Isn't this basically assuming that every character shares a mono-culture/brain and has the same background, skills, and motivations? To me this is the anti-thesis of fun/good roleplaying. A well formed character has their own personality, life, capabilities, and outlook on the world they live in IMO. Trying to jump into these differing perspectives for several hours a week is a lot of the fun of playing the game. Not all of them necessarily have the desire, drive, or ability to be one of the ultra-rich and important luminaries of the 6th world.

My reading of the rules and fluff leaves a hell of a lot of space for playing just about any level of game you want and still be well within the intended scope of the game.

Nevermind that in OUR WORLD that kind of payment is out of reach for the majority of them too. I'd really like to see some sources on that, Tippy.


Welcome to video gaming culture.


Actually, I'd like to see some of your fluff and crunch exampled that support this approach to Shadowrunning. After all, you're doing it right, aren't you? Playing Shadowrun as it is meant to be played. Should be easy for someone as knowledgeable as yourself.

That's right. You're actually right about that.

Either I didn't communicate it well, or you missed my point that I tailor my challenges to my PCs, not my world. A jewelry store (to use one of your examples) will always be a jewelry store. I just don't let experienced runners knock over jewelry stores because they have nothing better to do than refuse a plot hook and want to screw with my plans as a GM. I don't offer those kinds of jobs to people who have some rep and experience under their belts.

Hebrews 5:12-14 can fairly sum up my position, when paraphrased for SR.


I challenge the runners who come to my table by offering them strong meat, and don't let them drink milk anymore.

My world doesn't get tougher in response to the players' power level. I just don't bother to let them play with the babies anymore. Knocking over Wal-Mart and jewelry stores (your examples, Tippy) are things new, immature (as in inexperienced, not juvenile) and street-level runners are supposed to do. Not experienced, first-class guys who just want to throw a double-finger to the GM because he didn't meet your price.

Again, if someone is stepping up their game to a min-max level, I offer them min-max challenges to reward them for their skill mastery. Pros don't slum, because pros stay on top of their game. And staying on top of your game means staying challenged. Does this make my point any more clear about how I challenge my players?

tl;dr version: When I challenge my players who can run with the big dogs? They run with the big dogs, or they stay on the porch.

Ummmm... Hermit are you actually talking to me or Tippy?
I am saying that this is the wrong approach.

Erm, Tippy. That came out wrong, no offense.

Hey, No worries...

Stop posting one after another! I get confused to whom is talking with the matching avatars!

I have older rights to this Avatar. But I'll relinquish it.

So long, TJ. Been a pleasure to be the terror twins with you. Occasionally.

Will be sad to see your avatar change, Hermit...

I have to wonder at some of the assertions being made regarding GMing. Gaming, especially tabletop gaming, relies on a willingness to compromise. One cannot get one's way all of the time, unless someone else's definition of fun is precisely complementary to one's own. Therefore, while someone may have reason to refuse a run, in character, this must be balanced with the need, out of character, to compromise with one's group and what that group is prepared to do. It is unrealistic, in many cases, to expect the GM to have a plan for every possibility - the Sixth World (and, more widely, any game world) is too broad for such things. The players must respect the limitations of their GM, or they must find a new GM. That doesn't mean that their GM, limits and all, is a bad GM. It just means that the playing styles of the GM and players do not mesh, or do not mesh sufficiently.

I don't think anyone can be "Objectively Right" in this case - the game necessarily relies on interpretation, and the fluff/crunch amalgamation allows for multiple, different interpretations.



One of you could switch to a version of the same avatar, but with Kamina-shades...

I'd disagree on that one. What Johnsons demand is trust and deniability. People keep talking about Johnson double-crossing runners, but the later have so many ways to do it the other way round that's it's a wonder Johnson simply accepts to meet the runners in the first place, let alone asking them to commit criminal actions and designating his target.
Obviously, runners shouldn't be able to make a living of simply meeting Johnsons, selling corporations information on which projects their competitors target, and getting back home. No matter how high and special their skills are, fixers and Johnson will stop calling them, because they simply don't do what they're asked.

Since M. Johnson expects the runners to suceed, it does imply they have the needed skills. But you need no particular skill to deliver an illegal shipment, and little ones to beat up a mid-level employee, steal his comlink or break into his house. Those nonetheless are criminal actions that a corporation could want performed by deniable assets: shadowrunning. You can be a shadowrunner with little skill. You cannot be one without trust.

But to stand out, you need both the trust and the skill. That's not the case for all runners.

The thing is, Shadowrun is a game we play with our friends, so we want the thing to be exciting and lively, with tension and drama. A lot of GM go Hollywood-style with gunfights and acrobatic heists and near-perfect impersonations, because it's fun. And then there always are three opposing teams that want the shipment and know about its destination, and a dozen of bodyguards protecting the high-level executive in his highly-secured villa. I've also played and enjoyed games in a Noir-style where characters were "weak" enough for a troll bouncer to break your jaw and a light pistol to be a deadly threat.

Ends up we're like defining what "experienced cop" means, with one guy using Lethal Weapon and Die Hard as references, another one Law & Order and NYPD Blue, and everything in between. And with no one with an actual experience as a cop.

Unfortunate. Unfortunate that you seem to equate min-maxing and not wanting to be challenged to being obnoxious. I know many players that aren't really looking for a challenge, they are looking for some excitement but usually that can be found even in cases where the opposition isn't a challenge. I can run a non-challenging scenario fairly easily, in fact, I have a whole notebook of them. When my players refuse the run their fixer offers them, I can easily offer them something much easier and I find running easy missions much less taxing on my part as well. (The refused mission can easily be recycled and repackaged and reoffered later.)

I do not quite understand your rule of thumb. Certainly knowing all those people and having all that money at one's disposal and having access to all those gear and magic put one squarely in the top bracket, but it seems to me more belonging to the elite of the elite - perhaps the top 1% of that top 1%. I am unsure if there are any canon statistics on this though.