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Traks
Now to another horror story from my players. A little bit long, so seems.

Place - remote island where players have landed to take some data from lab.
They get into lab after dealing with minor resistance and samurai runs forward leaving others behind. "Bang, bang" - samurai drops dead. He isn't minmaxed, but those two adversaries were with light pistols. So they got lucky and he got unlucky.

Other players approaches.
P1: I am trying to pull him away from enemies' sight.
I, GM: oook, you managed. Do you try to heal him? (overdamage slowly filling.)
P1: What? I loot his body.
P2: I point a gun at P1 head and say "don't loot without me, sucker"
P3: I point gun at P2 and say "It's all mine suckers"
P4: I point gun and P3 "You all are SO greedy"
GM: Bad guys have changed positions and now are shooting at you. P4, roll body.

Then they decide to quarrel at later time and dispose of opposition.
At last they get where needed and get the stuff.
P2: I point gun at P1 head. - "I am taking this, baby."
P1: I turn my shotgun at his body - "How much your body cyberware costs?"
P3: I slowly approach from rear and try to hit P2 with shock glove.

He fails his stealth check and gunfight starts. Both P1 and P2 take S damage and do not hit each other for quite a while. Finally P1 gets lucky headshot and P2 drops dead.

P3: I shoot at P1.
GM: What?
P3: Yeah, I get all the stuff and his firm that he founded (they made a security firm a while ago.)
P1 drops dead.
So two players survived the lab go.

After returning from island, P5 says:
I am going around and asking bands if they want to pillage some place.
GM: They say - pay me money and we will do anything.
P5: Great. Now I go around and ask if any rigger will take me to corporation laboratory along with my army.
He died couple of nights later from Renraku team. Too bad about FoF rule and information leakage.

P5, 5 minutes later with new char.
"So, I am going around the city and searching for a vampire"
GM: *Stares*
P5: You know, they are so strong. I wanna be one of them.
GM: It looks like you found one. "Rolls 6 sider to know how wealthy it is (not a real wampire, of course". Comes out 1. This homeless bum surely is a vampire
*wink wink*
P5: I ask him? Are you really a vampire?
Bum: Uhm, yeah, I am mighty vampire.
P5: Sooo... will you make me one for 20 000?
Bum: Yeah yeah yeah. Just come here tomorrow with the money and you will be one of us.
P5 leaves. After some time he announces "It was a sucker. I am going to search for ghouls"
GM: After couple of days searching you have found a lair. What do you do?
P5: I am waiting for one and forcing his teeth into my arm.
GM: He bited you. Roll Willpower for your personality.
He blows it and rolls one 6 out of 4 dice.
GM: You feel like you have to go somewhere. You do not remember what it is, but you always went there at 9:00 every morning.
P5: Yeah, I go to work I guess.
GM: Roll stealth if you can mask yourself.
P5: I have no stealth. I default to quickness. 1,1,3,4,5
GM: -4, it means all ones then? Other guards yell "Alert! It's a ghoul. Stay away and shoot him, quickly!" Your previous teammates make you into a pieces of ghoul
P5: Nuts!
TinkerGnome
question.gif question.gif

So... how often do you run games down at the looney bin?
Kagetenshi
Please tell me this didn't really happen.

~J
MrSandman666
You know, I thought my groups where bad but this really makes me appreciate them...
kerensky
This is exactly the kind of stuff that gave me nightmares when I started GMing... I always put those dreams on par with going to work naked. My condolences.
Abstruse
You know, when the teammates in Reservoir Dogs started pointing guns at one another, there was a LOT of dramatic tension involved as one of them thought Mr. Orange was a traitor, Mr. White was defending Mr. Orange, and Nice Guy Eddie was defending his dad. They weren't holding guns at each other's heads wanting Mr. Blonde's beretta...

Frankly, I think it was around the time the first player said "I'm pointing my gun at XXX's head" the GM should've stepped in and said something. I mean unless you like running games where the PCs are horrible amateurs at shadowrunning. I prefer to play as a Professional, not some wanna-be worrying about the loot.

Honestly, do your best to break your players from this bullshit D&D mindset. Maybe after they've wasted three reams of printer paper on character sheets, they'll understand...then agian, maybe not...tell them the hack-and-slash is two doors down the hall, be sure to bring extra D20s for rolling backstab attacks.

The Abstruse One
broho_pcp
I liked the story, it sounds like your group has fun. Gives me some ideas... ork.gif
Beast of Revolutions
Don't forget the post-run organlegging.
Kagetenshi
QUOTE (Abstruse)
I prefer to play as a Professional, not some wanna-be worrying about the loot.

You're acting like a first-year fucking thief! I'm acting like a professional!

~J
Arethusa
That scene where everyone drew a pistol on someone else so had me thinking Reservoir Trogs.
Reaver
Gee, and to think, usually the only pain involved in my Shadowrun games is that which I deliver unto my players.... not the other way around. wink.gif
Traks
Tinkergnome - I run those games rarely.
Kagetenshi - oh yes, it happened. Last team killing made some of them think though.
Abstruse - they will learn it, surely. At least some of them. I have already made them paranoid and it's 1/3 of being professional smile.gif

But, as GM I think that players themselves must grow up.
Besides they have suffered Diablo 2.

And I must admit after last run one player have grown up admirably, and it frightens me. He bought Maglock and decoder, intending to use them.
He even did some planning and decided that will wait for NPC out of office, not storming it in middle of day. His MISTAKE was accepting Aztechnology offer of initiation. But power blinded him and at least he will lead quite starish carreer. Until the whole team gets to know what he is doing on weekends smile.gif

Only guy who most probably will not grow up is P5, who died two times.
His character now have number 3 and I suspect he will live when next stupid idea pops up. But he gets karma for dying in Kenny style, because his irrational actions greatly amuse me and other PC's. Or else he would get no karma whatsoever.
TinkerGnome
Actually, Traks, if they're learning from their mistakes, these types of runs are a good thing. If they're not (which is what my original comments were based around) then it's just sad.

As long as you're having fun, though, no game is a disaster wink.gif
Cray74
QUOTE (Abstruse)
Frankly, I think it was around the time the first player said "I'm pointing my gun at XXX's head" the GM should've stepped in and said something.

The players seem to be learning their lessons, and it doesn't look like Traks will have to translate internet suggestions to be stern and firm with the players into the infinitely more complex practice. The body count in the games seems sufficiently informative to 4 of the 5 players, and the fifth seems to be having fun in his own way.

QUOTE
Honestly, do your best to break your players from this bullshit D&D mindset.


What if they're having fun in the DnD mindset? You might dread that behavior in your group and want to correct it, but shouldn't you see if Traks' players are having fun with their means of gaming before you start giving advice to change that?

As TinkerGnome just succinctly summed it up: "As long as you're having fun, though, no game is a disaster."
RedmondLarry
Traks,
Shadowrun is most enjoyable as a team game, where every character feels he can depend on his team mates for his very life. You, the GM, should work to make the game more enjoyable for your players. Here are three suggestions for you, the GM. If you like them, print this out and share it with your players -- there's nothing secret about techniques for running a great game.

Point 1: Threat level
Players naturally band together if the GM presents enough threat. The quickest way to get them to work together is for you to present enough threat that they have to depend on each other in order to survive. Characters with very different backgrounds can learn to work together if they believe their next meal or their next cyber upgrade depends on it. Every time they fight among themselves it's a clue for you, the GM, that you are not providing enough threat to keep them interested. As a good GM, you should look for that clue and raise the power of the opposition when you see it.

Point 2: Type of jobs
A team that gets a reputation for failing their assignments will only get jobs that other shadowrunners have already turn down. These will be jobs that don't pay much and are either very dirty or very dangerous. On the other hand, if they get a good reputation for succeeding, the best job offers will come their way.

Point 3: Quality of replacement characters
The best shadowrunners won't join a team that gets a reputation for having members die and for failing runs. So the quality of replacement team members goes down if the team gets a bad rep. Only the desperate or unskilled will join you. Therefore, for a team with a bad rep, replacement characters should be of lower quality than standard beginning characters. Reduce attributes, skills, or resources for replacement characters as needed to give them the feel for this. As they learn to work together they will survive more and succeed more, so they should return to getting normal replacement characters.
Abstruse
My words sounded a lot more harsh than I intended them. I also assumed (wrongly it seems) that this group had played Shadowrun previously and were at least somewhat experienced at the game and the style. I also said that if that's the kind of game he wants to run, that's cool for him. Just totally torques me off when players in one of my games tries this kind of crap.

As long as they're learning their lessons and the GM isn't being light with their punishments for stupidity (nor overly-harsh so they blame the GM and not their own actions), PC massacres can help them learn very fast what do to and not to do. However, it can also give the players who already know what to do a friggin' migrane.

I played in a D&D game where we were a group of thieves in a large city. I approached my character in a very much Shadowrun-like way, making sure he was prepared, carried with him the appropriate tools, didn't bite off more than he could chew, didn't insult people he shouldn't insult, didn't try to start fights with the town guards...basically trying to lead by example.

We went into a ship to raid the hold, a group of seven of us. Three volunteered to go down to the hold and get the stuff, three stood on the docks as look-outs, and I stood on the edge of the ladder to communicate between the two parties. Everyone doing lookout had crowbars. Everyone in the hold didn't. I had to climb down the stairs to give them my crowbar, and just as I was about to climb back up, the call went out the captain was back. Everyone shoved me out of the way to get out of the hold, the last person falling off a ladder 50 feet to the ground and dying instantly (I kicked his body before heading up). The group decided to get even with the captain and attack him that night. I TRIED to convence them to leave well enough alone, and be happy we were still alive...but alas, they went ahead and attacked. I stayed in the back with a crossbow, and ran after the first two dropped. Needless to say, I was the only one who lived. But damn, what a headache...

The Abstruse One
Traks
I am not one of players, I do not have headaches smile.gif
And if they would not learn, I would stop GMing for them.
What fun is if they fall for the same trick 30th time?

They have played previously, not too much. Few sessions which were somewhat similar to this one, like story about taking monofilament whip with two fingers (it was the same P5, obviously)

I'll post next horror story when session will come smile.gif


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