This is a bit of a gripefest really. I just want to get it off my chest, no resolution required.

I've been playing in a group now for quite a few years. I love the guys and we're all really good mates.

The problem is that my GM just doesn't know how to mix it up. The first campaign went for years and while it was fun and we all liked our characters, every single run was just a clusterfuck of metaplot. They'd pretty much go like this:

1) Johnson offers you a simple sounding job
2) All leg-work leading up to the job suggests that everything is as it seems
3) When we do the job it turns out that nothing is as it seems and that the gangers/cops/corp douches involved are actually great dragons/horrors/vampires.
4) The truth is never uncovered by leg-work, it's always some Matlock moment like tripping over and seeing something under a dresser. Just the 2075 version of that....... and that only ever happens when we're past the point of no return.
5) we end up completeing the job with a comedy of errors.
6) Some douchebag who we've got no chance of killing, like Lofwyr or the corporate court turns up in the end and takes all our stuff, but then pays us after the fact.
7) Irespective of what we do, we are always on everybodies radar. They can always contact us at will, have leverage on us, etc.

So this got a bit tiring and we had a bit of a vent about it and so we restarted with street level characters about a year ago. This was great, we were doing jobs just to get by, living in the barrens and slowly building cred. But then about 5-6 sessions in the GM (who's the same guy, because he hates playing for some reason) takes us straight back to the metaplot driven stuff of before, we got all this gear and money virtually for nothing (and I don't mean that Lofwyr gave it to us, we just hit paydirt that was worth heaps for some reason) and then all the wierd stuff started all over again.

I know this sounds wierd, but I just want a job where we get to go fuck up a drug deal between some gangers, with no great dragons/vampires/Corp CEO caring about it in the slightest!

Anyone else have this issue? Any ideas what players can do to steer it back in a less ridiculous direction?

Some of the stuff has to be fixed by your GM. You can´t make your legwork work on your own, and you can´t avoid superior enemies if they are dropped on you.

So if you want your GM to learn, and have already talked "The Talk", you can only adapt your behaviour to show what you don´t want. I´m not really a fan of that strategy, since it can make the game worse. Usually I´d suggest that someone else takes the helm for some time.

- A connection that repeatedly fails to provide the goods drops from your network. Not worth having.
- A fixer providing jobs you are cheated on regularily faces harh punishment. Don´t cheat armed&dangerous criminals.
- Spend the superfluous money on layers upon layers of privacy options, secret stashes etc. Walk out of your life if the "point of no return" was reached.

You basically adapt to the structure of the world your GM presents. No "hey stranger, you look trustworthy" either.

See this is why when i don't play with my regular group and i go play somewhere else I ask three questions.
1. Can we die, like tpk (if no I don't play)
2. Are there mooks, basically storm troopers who cant hit shit? (If yes I don't play)
3. Do things for the most part make sense if i tell a mob boss in Italian how i had a 3 way with his girlfriend, father and a stray dog in graphic description, will I be beaten tortured then set on fire? (they don't have to answer that question. I just say it to see the look on their face and judge if they are a good gamemaster)

ok so here is what you do mind you this isn't a douche move its a douche canoe move and normally I would not condone this type of behavior. That being said, you search forums everywhere for 20 characters builds of ridiculousness and copy them. You phone one other player you know who will do the same thing remember they have to have the poker face quality. You both walk in on game day with these characters hidden in different pockets. (btw when one dies act like your making a new one, don't just pull it out) If you have characters in game kill them. He probably wont let you die so you pick a fight with your buddy steal something insult him what ever just don't make it obvious alright. Get that PvP moment out of the way. If he wont let you pvp that's fine he probably wont let you die. Once that's established do the most heinous acts imaginable grand theft is tame. There is a reason there isn't children, animals elderly or mimes in that game. Snatch a child and throw him into on coming traffic that's a freebie. Try to recreate a BTK crime scene. Options are endless. Forget the plot they are running the new plot is you have drugs carnage and 20 life's to spend.

*nods* in such cases ruining the GM's powerfantasies is the only way to actually have fun.

What's the point in arguing with the GM or the other players (who might like this playstyle?) and how to waste everyone's time.

The best advise advice here can only be to talk with the GM and the other players about it, to change the playstyle of the game or find another solutionThe GM is a human being as well and he will probably understand that you (and the others?) wish to play another kind of game. Now, if you see in this discussion that he has a different understanding of the game there is only so much you can do. After all everyone (including the GM) should have fun during the game time:

1. GM leaves group
2. GM becomes player and someone else plays
3. You leave the group and look elsewhere
4. You agree on some terms what to avoid in your game. E.g. easier missions, less impact of your runs?, smaller scale, smaller / less epic metaplot(?)
5. You play missions / campaings from the books? (However I just looked at a few of the older ones and they seem to be pretty epic as well ^^)

So Smash and group, it looked like the way he put it was "we had a bit of a vent about it" They changed then after a few runs it went back to this non-sense they originally vented about. So the talking card has been played received and then "O wells" If I got this wrong Smash correct me because that's what it reads like.
Smash can you die or anyone else for that matter in the game? Serious question.

I could be wrong but I am willing to bet they cant die, if I had to rate it I am 87% sure of it. So he's got no consequences for his or his buddy's actions which is exactly what the opposition via NPC's are doing. I don't see how flipping the script and doing non-sense in a game that's based on non-sense is anything less then poetic justice.
It might just cure the GM when he sees the reflection and Smash will be having a great time in the process with a handle like Smash I have no doubthttp://forums.dumpshock.com/style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif

Speaking on the older adventures they were serious Nigel's were straight up, don't take the job screw them. Don't play smart it would kill you. I think (personal opinion, based on reading core books)the roleplaying games these days are straight up saying fudge rolls, throw out rules have fun that's most important.

First off don't cheat you know how pist you would be or other the players if everyone had to intervene over and over again to correct that player. You soon would eject him. Yet perfectly Ok for the GM to cheat rolls!? See the irony here play a game of monopoly and have some guy get caught stealing from the till a few times. Is that ok?

On throwing out the rules, why buy a book that has rules in it if you don't like rules? Its exactly the same reason why I don't use the self check out line. I don't work here, i am not a cashier. I am a shopper, so why am I checking someone out, me? Why am i not getting paid for being a cashier, break me off something we have decimals for a reason. Fraction me 10 minutes from an hour's pay. Another way of looking at it is if they don't play test and stuff is broken with out even trying to break it, and you spend hours fixing it you got hustled son. You don't work for them, your basically a intern on probation paying to go work but no pay cause your not hired. AKA Free Labor

On having fun, are you roleplaying roll, role, or acting? I say you will be doing all three so if its gritty or terror filled or in a house of horror you should be conveying the holy shit factor. Can your hit points, wounds, what ever system, fall to a point of death? Is it fun to die? Hell no but it can happen and does. So you let it go roll up a new one and game on but i don't think it should always be about fun or read just have fun. Call a spade a spade there is more then one roll, role, or role so there is more to it then just fun. The script got flip cause some stuffed suit said profit margin. I may be looking at this to deeply but DnD is owned by? Shadowrun is owned by? who owns shadowrun ip for games? Right so demographics has a lot to do with the attitude. Show me a watermark on a system that says here is what it is, here is where we are. You may add more water or take it away but our official stance of how this game is played is officially here this mark. Board games, card games but as soon as we hit the roleplay no one knows?! Playstyles?...come on really? Marketing Demographics period.

This is a very adult conversation about the expectations of all involved parties. Please notice I said, "adult conversation", not argument.

As I GM, I ran into some issues with bringing metaplot into my game. I like to think that I wasn't quite so bad as what you listed in your original post. THe main two ideas were:

1. There are ancient free spirits who were once worshipped as the greek pantheon
2. The PCs were reborn heroes from greek myth

I never got very far with at before the campaign ended for other reasons, but reception was lukewarm. The players much preferred things at the street level.

As has been said, your best bet is just to talk to your GM. Let them know that you're not really interested in being tangled up with all these power players.

It's been said, but there is really only one way to fix this problem. Have a talk with your GM friend again and tell him flat out that you don't care to play a game that involves these types of big power players and that you don't care for a metaplot at all.

I enjoy inserting metaplot, but never more than every third mission (unless it's a major climax, of course).

Do what I did - take chemistry and make a couple of tons of R15 explosive and buy a truck and some ball bearings.

I agree. Getting into arguments does not help creating a consensus with most people.

Turn down jobs.

"Nah, that's great and all, but there's been TOO MUCH wierd shit in my life today, so I think imma lie low and sleep in."

Never take OOC problems IC. Do you want people to get butthurt? Because that's how you get people butthurt.

The GM may just need to be reminded, again. "Hey Joe? Remember how we had that conversation about how we don't want your metaplot which robs us of agency? You're doing it again. Please stop. If you cannot indulge in stories with an epic scope and high fantasy without pulling the carpet out from under us, please refrain from said epic scope stories. Thanks."

If, after repeatedly expressing your desires, and the GM shows a pattern of ignoring said desires, you now have a choice. Either you can put up with the bullshit, for whatever reasons (friendships, I guess), and just accept the bullshit is a fact of gaming with this group or walk.

Bitching about it on the interwebs does little to solve your situation, unfortunately.

Done this once in game. Turned out great. Gm adjusted and everyone talked, figured something else out.

Also had a Johnson walk out on the team once while I was GMing. They were screwing around in the meet too much, getting into arguments with each other. Sometimes there's Pink Mohawk Johnsons, and then there's the suits that are expecting professionalism, of which this was the latter. Game went on and everyone improved.

As often repeated, talk it out.

I echo the talk about it thing. And I repeat what others have said: a discussion is the word of the day. Don't go into it mad or attempt to pick a fight. If you can't hash it out or do hash it out and the GM insists on re-introducing the metaplot regardless of player wishes... Well, in another forum I regularly visit, the general consensus is "no gaming is better than bad gaming." If you aren't having fun, walk. Or if the group isn't having fun, walk collectively and fire your GM. If he is willing to play, fine.


As an aside: I wish I had some Metaplot in my SR games. My SR GMs avoid metaplot, immortal elves, and dragons like the plague, and instead come up with their own weird shit, like rituals that tear open astral gateways and sacrifice rituals to seal it require an immortal human initiate wielding a orichalcum needle the size of a sword literally sewing the rift shut.

-Temperance

My condolences. While I personally also tend to actively avoid bringing in immortal elves, dragons and similar high power stuff, I generally just make it a point to completely avoid anything truely epic in scale (and by epic, I here mean worldshaking stuff involving high level magic tearing holes in reality, blowing up entire cities, corps going all out on each other and similar stuff that IMO is way outside of what shadowrunners ought to be getting involved with).

Our SR GM did something pretty cool when he was running us through some early missions.

each session began with a snippet of news about some repercussions of our last mission, how such and such a corp had benefitted from the exploding depot of new Ares Alphas. and how such and such a group had claimed responsibility.

Along with a pinch of some very basic meta plot around world events ... not enough to drag us down into the rail-yard... but enough to keep us involved in the WORLD rather than just our own actions.

So we saw cause and effect but it wasn't on a global scale, and we weren't fighting dragons et al .


worked nicely

I like that idea, I will probably do something similar in my group from now on.

I do something similar for my players, essentially a sheet of Jackpoint-style chatter from local runners after each run of theirs. I think it's a fantastic tool to both connect them to broader plotlines and events elsewhere in the world (for instance, in one I tipped the players off that the extraction of an aircraft designer they'd just done had something to do with Tianjin taking bids from Fed-Boeing and Ares to build them a new suborbital bomber), and give them a sense of an immersive local sprawl (since it's the same set of runners and occasionally they might even meet one in person). I could absolutely see news bulletins having a similar effect.

I don't think that the problem is the metaplot in itself, but the suspension of disbilief:

> That you never can learn and unfold the intrigues beforehand
> That they happen all too often
> That they are uber-NPC who knows everything

Creates disbielief and drags the fun down.

In a way, having very powerful people who control your fate and use you as pawn is a classic cyberpunk trope and makes kind of sense in Shadowrun. But, being able to tell them to slot off (even if it means the end of the world as we know it) is another part of that trope.

Having the first without the second is frustrating.

Cyberpunk is very much noir with extra dystopian frosting.
You are supposed to be a small, insignificant cog in a giant machine, doing the bidding of some greater power or other, with little hope of ever achieving much success for yourself beyond a few scraps thrown to you for being a good dog. But you keep doing it anyway, because it's what you do. And if you watch for an opportunity, sometimes some one isn't holding the leash tight, or leaves a gate open, and you can break free. But probably not. So, you take an opportunity here and there to shit in their shoes.
If the GM takes away the chance to get loose or at least turn on your master in some meaningful way, it's just depressing.