Over the years we've had a few versions of this, but as a sounding board what do the current crop of Evil GMs ™ throw at their poor unsuspecting players?

Throwing my hat into the ring:

Troll with Cyber torso, TWO articulate arms with smartlinked Vindicators, tactical computer and rear direction sensor package.

Huggy the Troll

'Nuff said.

large pack of ghouls

The players' own imagination.

Honestly, give them enough rope and they'll do all the work for ya.

yea, ever see the old batman episode, from the 60s. the penguin bugged the batmobile or something, then let batman plan his capers. was flawless until batman stopped him. i coulda seen that coming though

I had a SURGE ghoul adept, specialized in being sneaky.

SURGE mutations? Chronic Osteocuspis (sp?) and Natural Toxin (VITAS). He has immunity to the disease himself, but will spread both it and HMHVV via the bone spikes and his claws.

He's just a "scary thing to avoid" NPC now, but I had a GM who was going to allow me to play the thing in his game, once...

Harlequin

Logical reprecussions for their actions or inactions.

Sea Sabers.

NukeCola

And yes, just hit players with result of their actions and mistakes.
It is the essence of being evil GM

A life of crime.

Blackjack's "Month of Chaos".

An excaped Aztechnology experiment, a troll ghoul adept that lives in the sewers and cost about 200 build points to make... wheee!

JaronK

Ninjas

Ignoring the crap martial art they got stuck with in Canon Companion, the organisation from the Underworld sourcebook can be scary.

To put it as bluntly as I can, to be an "evil GM" as it is referred to here:

1) Don't be a wuss.
2) See rule one.

If an NPC would realistically do it, then do it. If a PC fails rolls, Kill him. If a PC kills an NPC you didnt want to die... suck it up, they earned it, he dies. Din't ever, ever ever ever fudge dice to save a PC or NPC. Make Death important. That raises the stakes for the whole damn game dramatically.

Enforce consequences for all actions, Like Doc Funk said. That's all it takes. Don't bend over.

Actually I will totally agree with that. (un?)Fortuantely that hasn't been an issue for me. It was long ago in 2nd edition... ahh the memories.

Pfft. My wife tends to get it harder than all of the other players combined (err, don't pervert that) in my games, and she smacks me upside the head if I don't.

Take a big wad of dice and mix in specific colors, like dark green dice among white ones. Now all you care about is the green ones, but roll all the dice. when rolling some guys body/athletics/melee skill or something. When the players hear the thunder of about 20 dice hit the table behind the screen watch them cringe and see how the tactics change. Oh and ninjas always work, who doesn't like a good ninja.

Also sporadically have them roll perception or willpower once or twice a session, even if there is no reason for it. Then nod, hmmmmm, and make some notes. occasionally roll some dice of your own and ask them what their willpower is before you do that.

Well, Bad Ninja`s obviously dont like Good Ninja`s , that and one of my players likes to think he`s pretty unique (save for the clan he`s part of)

one of my players just told me that if you can afford helicopter, you can afford something more expensive than mmg. so now all helicopters come standard with FA autocannon.

I'm not an Evil GM. I'm Chaotic.

Kagetenshi, don't tease us, tell us.

I like the rerolling non 6's for the sound effects I get out of my players.

Players in my Saturday games, don't read this. The rest of you people are free to.



~J

K- Nice touch. Don't mess with the kettle if you don't know what is in the stew.

Bitbasher posted this a few years ago. It always deserves a mention:

Use my personal favorite, Small Children =)
Hire the runners to extract a "kidnap victim"
in a sublevel of a biological/paranatural lab that has an unusual level of security, kept in cell C.

Have the runners break in to find automated defenses active (have a few sentry guns shoot at them), and the entire place on alert but not a single person present in the entire complex at all. Noone, even down through security checkpoints, and runners cracking maglocks, not a single person, not even a trace, full coffee cups (still steaming), half eaten donuts. a computer screen beeping away with the E key on a keyboard filling half a screen (and moving pretty rapidly). Give the impression that all of it happened very recently.

let them ride downstairs in the secure elevator of doom (ballistic walls, magloc 12 on the door, but unlocked for some reason) to the research floor. the paranoia level should be pretty high by now. Make it a LONG. SLOW ride in the elevator, let someone with a math skill or a math SPU figure them to be 500 meters under bedrock. No corp would ever build this lab and blow this much cash if not absolutely necessary. Make sure they know this, but be subtle.

The lab is a Gym sized 2 story floor with misc machinery, vats, computers (spitting paper printouts all over the floor) again completely empty. There are 4 cells or holding rooms in the center of the floor, with about 10 meters of completely empty space on all 4 sides. cell c faces away from the party as they exit the elevator. all 4 cells are solid, homogeneous slabs of steel alloy, about a meter thick, each with a single reinforced bank vault style door, and a window of hideously ballistic material also about a meter thick, warded on the inside at force 14 or so.

As the party looks into a cell they see it is about 3meters on a side, square on the inside. they see a and b, and round the corner to c they notice the the Outside of the glass is frosted over at the corners, and ice crystals are clinging to the glass. (the temp in the room is 80 or so, but the ice shows no signs of melting) the walls of this ONE cell are ice cold, even through through the meter of steel alloy. Cold enough to cause severe discomfort. Unnaturally cold. The lock on this vault door, unlike the others, is not digital in any way shape or form, it's analog, an old fashioned wheel mechanism. A party member will have to wear gloves to open it or resist damage. Also let the party know theere are NO electronics or wires coming from the cell. the cold is not being caused by technical means.

If the party looks in the cell they see a cherubic 6 year old blond girl in the cell wearing a plain white nightgown, and wearing no shoes. she doesnt smile, but she looks the character looking in the glass straight in the eyes. Have that player roll willpower, note results, nod and say okay, then make a note. She has deep ice blue innocent eyes, there is something odd about the eyes, no matter how high the player rolls on a perception test, thats it, just odd. The character cant quite place it. It is imperitave that she does not look menacing in any way, just innocent, and WAY out of place (and the only living thing within 600 yards =)) and behind WAY too much security.

<<bonus karma for the party having the balls to continue>>
when opening the cell the wheel turns freely, and they can hear bolds sliding out of place and the door swings open and the air inside is not cold at all, but the walls are freezing. the little girl doesnt move at all until the party crosses inside the cell, then she holds her arms up or holds a hand out like she wants to hold hands or to be picked up.

<<bonus karma to the runner with the balls to hold her hand/pick her up>>
she feels and acts from this point exactly like a little girl. she wont say a word. make odd things happen around the party, way odd, unexplainable things. have them all roll willpower a couple of times for no good reason, note the results and nod and go hmmmmmm and think for a bit, make some bogus notes. All dogs stare at the vehicle on the way past. the drop off is at sea-tac airport. an old german guy meets her there and thanks the runners, pays them, and holds her hand as they get on a plane. the little girl looks back, waves and whispers goodbye to one of the runners, the one that looked her in the eye through a window and also whispers "its not over" , by their REAL name. Give the party a smackload of karma for no good reason, and make the little girl appear in crowds, then vanish. in reflections in windows, in bodies of water, and most importantly in dreams.

Then take it wherever you want it, just remember NOTHING should ever be explained to the party about it, dont even explain it to yourself just let it happen. it works better that way. fear isnt in what they see and hear, its in what they DONT =)

Not if you have an accountant as a player. If he can't quantify it, it doesn't exist. More Karma is good, What he doesn't see? Does't count.

He can quantify it: risk.

~J

Azrael, that is such a fragging awesome idea! I am definitely going have to do something like that to my players sometime!

My players had a semi load of cojones to go through that whole run the first time. It makes for great atmosphere.

I keep detailed records of what Lonestar picks up on the runners after any run...each character has a dossier with my notes of their suspected infractions. Every once in awhile I pick em up and have a Johnson note something from it..keeps em on their toes.

Also Paranoia style note passing: ex.

Note #1 (to player): Roll 6d6 for me, write up something here and pass it back

Note #2 back: I rolled a 65!! Look at player 3 and shake your head some!

Note #3 (to player 3): roll me a perception test..send me the results....

Note #4 (to player 1): Roll more dice..moan in disgust and shake your head at me...

I keep this up a bit til someone goes crazy...I have my favorites to play this with, but sometime I change things up to keep em on their toes

Where the players deserve it, I first start with a decently-organised team of hit people/special ops/SERT to shoot them, as an object warning (they've always done something to merit the inclusion of such a team).

If they don't learn from that, I have them face the legal consequences of what they've been doing for the last six games. Still carrying the same gun? Same set of armour with ballistic residue? Same phone number? Bled at the scene? Used magic without cleansing at the scene? Left behind a witness? Walked in front of a camera? Read R3 and SSG for scary ways "the man" can track you constantly without you even knowing.

If they don't learn from that, I bring out the ultimate equaliser - I offer the least moralistic/most sociopathic player (there's always at least one, the problem is chosing only one) to kill one (and only one) of the other players. The remaining players will then retaliate and kill the assassin. The dead players will bring in new characters and take revenge. The game will be gone. They generally realise that I do this when they've made the game untenable and their own stupidity has brought them into this situation.

No, Enigma. Death is too easy an escape.
You should make them suffer - shot magicians should recover, losing magic points one by one. It is more satisfactory than instant death, also it increases violence within team. And team should not die because of their arguing.

Just... talk to them in and out of game, if they are satisfied with how things are going on. If they are, take it or let other player GM

Enigma, That's the definition of Not being able to separate in character knowledge from out of character knowledge. Anytime someone makes a new character to avenge their old one you should give then a swift kick in the ass then veto.

That idea (Azrael's repost of BitBasher's) is brilliant. I am so going to do that.

Hmm, though, we already have a 'small children kidnapped' plotline running, so they might make assumptions... well, all the better!

Cybernetically altered chidren that had been brainwashed by Transys-Neuronet. They had rating 10 skillwires and some other wonderful gadgets.

It was fun watching runners think.. "wait, would my character kill a 12 year old?"