No, the GM should set the rules. But the players should enjoy the game. If the players playing want to play drakes and the GM insists on a No-drake game, then perhaps the players aren't enjoying themselves.

I'll have to agree to disagree with you then. Because when I'm GMing, you're right, I set the rules. If I say no drakes, there are no drakes. If you can't have fun without playing a drake, the game probably isn't really your thing.

But yeah, if the players are running the game, not the GM, I can see where the soft rules could be a problem. But I'm really not sure anything can be done about that.

Keep in mind that the game says magic is rare. If you want to customize the game, that's up to the people playing it, but it doesn't make sense to criticize the game's lack of rules in an area when you're choosing to ignore them.

This thread is simultaneously arguing that the players set the tone for the game, and that the game is setting a bad tone for the game. That argument makes no sense. If the players are setting the tone, not the game, then what's with the problem?

Yet the game doesn't say that magic-using PCs are rare...

You can nuance anything. When it comes down to it, it's someone's job to interpret the rules. In my games, that's the job of the GM. In some games, I guess it's the players. But if, in your group, you've interpreted the rules as "Magic is rare, but not among player-characters", then would it be the game's fault that magic is too common?

I do not recall that there being a rule such that there is a limit to the number of Awakened PCs in a game.

There is a soft rule of only 1% of the general population being Awakened. therefore in a town of 1000, only 10 people can be Awakened. If there are 10 PCs who are all Awakened, then it is the GM's job to make sure there aren't any Awakened opposition in town, since all 10 magic slots are already occupied.

Deacon, you're my hero. Your post a few pages back had me scratching my head and wondering if I somehow registered under a different name while hosed at 3 am.

I

Curugul, what a valuable statement. You're words have added volumes to the world of Shadowrun, and helped it be a better place without a doubt. No one could doubt the validity of such a statement, despite its pointlessness and lack of support.

*stares at his screen, blinks a bit, considers a response*

No, I'd better stay out of this one; there's just too much fuel that I could be touching off....

Magic may be rare in the general population, but it is probably fairly common among shadowrunners, as well as their opposition. I generally prefer to let the PCs play what they want to play, and fill the other needed slots on a team with NPCs, but even I might start setting some kind of limits if, say, everyone wanted to play an awakened character, and I did not want to run an all-awakened campaign.

The players have a lot of flexibility in the character creation process, but the GM is still the one who gives them the char-gen guidelines for a particular campaign. It may be a high-powered corporate break-in campaign where your Trickster shaman street ganger would be totally out of place. It may be a "Lock, Stock, and Three Smoking Barrels" street-level campaign where wired reflexes: 3 would be totally out of place. Sometimes that can be rough, when you really wanted to play that drake, but you have to make concessions to the GM, who is trying to craft adventures that challenge all of the PCs and fit into his conception of the Shadowrun world.


As far as magic being too unbalancing, I don't really see it.

Sorcery? Having to split you dice between three things (spellcasting, spell defense, and resisting Drain), risking Stun damage every time you simply cast a spell, and having dice allocated to spell defense not refresh until the next round (making multiple actions much less useful to you). Someone with high Attributes is tough to affect at all, and things like drones are almost impossible to affect with magic. Plus having to worry about background count, and having enemy mages able to use spell defense to totally negate your efforts. Spells are nice, and extremely versatile, but an Ares Alpha is more likely to ruin your day than a manabolt most times.

Conjuring? Either a big expenditure of materials (hermetics), or resisting Drain that tends to be higher than most spells are (shamans). Spirits can be banished, controlled, and attacked in a variety of ways (although they are less susceptible to damage by mundanes), and you always have to worry about how many services you have left (and domain, if you are a shaman). Very useful, but drones are too.

Astral projection? Great for scouting, but there are plenty of barriers and defenses to it, and you run other risks as well. Being able to project only means that you get stuck doing a dangerous job.

Adepts? Great for specialists, but when you try to generalize you usually end up with a second-rate sammie wannabe. More versatility lets people create specialists in non-combat areas. This bumps total mundanes out of a few niches, but why should a mundane with no cyber be better at anything? They already lose the Face contest to the guy with cultured tailored pheromes, anyways.

If you have a mundane sammie, with Resources: A, then with the right mix of cyber and bio, you can create a VERY effective character. I won't get into the sammies vs. mages vs. adepts argument, but I hardly find most sammies to be underpowered.


Are normal mundanes totally outclassed? Yes, and rightly so. A normal mundane can start out with great Attributes and lots of skills, gear, and contacts, but the only way a mundane will ever shine is by using his creativity and cunning to deal with people who are tougher, stronger, and faster than him, who can do things he couldn't even attempt to do. They are generally faces, snipers, and backup specialists, and they have a tough time making it. That's how it should be. Like someone said earlier in the thread, the dual themes of the game are: 1) Magic is special, and people who have it are alternately idolized and feared, and 2) You can sell pieces of your humanity by getting cyberware to become better than human. Having mundanes able to compete on equal ground with everyone ruins the whole point. A mundane should be feeling twinges of envy when he watches the adept or mage, and should always feel the temptation to get just a little cyberware or bioware to make his life easier. Being mundane in SR should be hard.

Unfortunately, it's largely not true. It's fairly easy to design a character who will, statistically, never expect to be taking drain unless the amount of magical opposition is pumped way past what is reasonable, which leaves the mundies with few options that don't involve heavy (and loud) artillery.

~J

I find myself in agreement with Glyph pretty much 100%. If a designed character is out of hand for the GM's campaign, the GM has to say something.

Curugul, should be noted that everything I've written for Shadowrun, to date, has been political or technological information. Nothing magical. So if a magical bias exists in the game, and I agree there might be a bit of one, I doubt I'm behind it.

The same could be said in reverse. There are just as many uber cybered trolls with bodies of 18 or above as there are albino gnomes. I don't think that's a flaw of the game.

I can kinda see where Deacon is coming from, but I suspect he's dealing with a high karma game, or a VERY long campaign. I've played several adepts and I've always felt lacking in some area, both in options and in overall power. I would like to see more Face related cyber, but I won't complain about that until I see SOTA64 (right now the worst unbalancer in that regard is skillwires with a CED). Adepts in general have been stuck in a very few roles, which kinda sucks for them. I love to see Adepts and non-rigger, non-street sam mundanes get some major non-combat boosts. We do need more non-combat cyber : ) Edit - But it does sound like SOTA64 will offer some useful new gear in this regard.

Something else Deacon brought up that I'm wondering about... As the sixth world looks more and more like earthdawn, will magic become more prevalent? Will EVERYONE have magical ability of some sort? Or is this waaay too far off in the future to worry about?

Technically speaking, Glyph said it all I think.
On the human side, some rules that may be soft but nonetheless critical:
- it's a game, so people participating should enjoy, all of them;
- dialog is essential: GM and players should discuss the kind of campaign they want to play, they should discuss the way they see the game's world.
- Agree to disagree. If players (including both PC and GM) can't agree on a same campaign environment, the best is to stop playing together this game, and to rearrange gaming groups so that everybody is happy. No problem.

About soft vs hard rules, I consider the system and the background of Shadowrun as both representing the rules. So if something is stated without giving figures or hard facts, it's nonetheless something to take into account. Common sense is something to use intensively in RPGs.

Well, you can put me in the not-so-fond of magic camp -- after seeing what mages can do in the wrong hands, I've been very sour on them. It's too easy to make a mage who can do anything anyone else can do, only better, with spells. However, I don't want to see magic go away -- Shadowrun without magic isn't Shadowrun, after all.

I'm also someone who wants to see mundanes, and by that, I mean people with no cyber or magical ability (short of maybe a datajack), still be relevant in Shadowrun. My idea of the Shadowrun world tends to be towards the low-fantasy, low-tech side of the canon one, but that doesn't ruin the game for me when I see stuff showing up I'm not interested in, as long as it doesn't go to extremes. I stopped playing for a while when I thought things were getting too bad, I still don't own Man and Machine or the Cannon Companion (but since I have every 2nd edition supplement published....well), but I have found most of the more recent stuff to be very well written.

If you don't like how something is in canon, for god's sake, change it. You don't want everyone and their mother to be a mage? I applaud it. Tell people during character creation that you can have one full mage, or two adepts, and let them haggle it out to see who gets to be what. Yes, some players won't like this because they wanted to play a drake or Joe Ubermage. Tough. Most of those people aren't playing it because they want to try out the roleplaying possibilities of a drake, they want it so they can be 31337 d00ds and "win" the game. Those are the kinds of people you (well, I) don't want in a game anyway. And frankly, if someone came to me and said "look, I know you only want one full mage, but I have this idea...." and it was interesting, I would let them play it.

Same goes with cyber. You want wired reflexes 3 to be the be-all-and-end-all of reflex enhancement? Restrict what people can take at the start and throw out things like move-by-wire. This is basically what I've done -- WR3 is the best, but you can get other things that are less invasive, just not as effective.

I'll echo Synner's comment and say that I don't really like adept powers that mirror cyber exactly -- I prefer them to function a different way, or cost more, or be less effective; cyber is easier to scan for, so for balance purposes I think it should be somewhat weaker.

Deacon, while I can understand your frustration, I think your vehemence is a little....way over the top. Just because something is in the book doesn't mean you have to use it. Personally, I like the way magic and tech don't really interact that well; frankly I'm not so keen on the idea of technological devices with magical effects. I would prefer to just see more interesting ways of using tech; not necessarily more powerful, just different, a lateral shift rather than an upward trend.

I forget who said it now (and I'm too lazy to go back and check), but I'll agree that one of the reasons the magic rules see fairly frequent updates is because everything is more complicated, rules-wise. Doing the conversion of Shadowrun to SilCORE, I'm not really looking forward to decking (and I'm dramatically simplifying rigging, since SilCORE has a built-in vehicular combat system); how many people just leave decking out entirely because it slows the game down too much (and has almost as many rules as magic, when magic has many more purposes)? And yet, decking is supposed to be one of the signatures of the cyberpunk genre. I don't have MrJLBB yet; I'm hoping that gives me something better to work with.

You really don’t have to worry about Move-By-Wire. Given how quickly it kills people, it’s pretty much a legendary-NPC-only thing. In other words, it would come up when the GM would otherwise just be throwing together a bunch of high numbers.

~J

Wow, lots of good points on both sides. I think I lie somewhere in between. Overall, I think SR is pretty much fine. However, I have noticed that since the whole Wizkids/Fanpro switch, magic, society, setting, non-cyber tech, etc have all gotten a pretty fair share of development, with the exception of cyber/bio. Cyber/bio has pretty much just been reprinting Shadowtech and Cybertechnology. I'm NOT saying that there hasn't been anything. There is a bit of new gen-tech stuff, but a good part of that is more cybertech reprinting. There is nano-tech, which is very cool, and currently rather limited. That is an area that has unlimited potential for expantion in the near future. There's been a very small number of new cyber-mods. So I'm not saying that there's been NOTHING for the sammies, but I do feel that between the mundanes and the magicians, the magicians have gotten a lot more development in the last couple years. (since society, setting, other tech is for everyone, equally) I was REALLY hoping for a little new cyber, and some new gene-tech and nanotech in SOTA 2064, but alas, it looks like I'll have to wait for 2065 for any of that.
On the topic of social adepts, my biggest concern is that, given the amount of nuyen a corp shells out each year to runners, the amount of money that they'd be prepared to give a social adept would make it such that the majority of comanies would have one. I mean, really, how many millions could that save even a single corp every year, not to mention the added benefits of the social adept being more able to recognize a group that'll crack under pressure or turn on itself and not waste money on them in the first place? Paying less money for better runners should be worth many millions to the lucky social adept who works for that corp. Yeah, you might have to sell your soul to the corp to get the job, but I bet they can negotiate some pretty good terms. What this means for the runners (and players) is, if most corps have a social adept doing their negotiations for them, then the PC's feel they need one to compete, and now instead of needing muscle, driver, decker, spells, and any one of them could be the face, they need muscle, driver, decker, spells, and uber-face just to keep up. This is NOT a conclusion, I haven't read the book, this is a concern; something for us all to be on the look-out for.
Eagerly awaiting my copy,
Moon-Hawk

yes. the SOTA book idea is, i think, a really great way of handling things.

Very true. I was just saying that I thought it was about time for the cycle to switch. If I don't get what I'm looking for (in terms of tech) in this book, I'm sure it'll be in the next. I am very excited about 2064, as I've always had a special place in my heart for Adepts.

It sounds like a tech focus might be coming back, at least somewhat. Some of the books Rob mentioned coming up at GenCon sounded more tech-ish than magic-ish.

My impression is the same as Demonseed's the next development cycle should be tech-heavy.

On that subject though, I'd just like to add a comment on one often-overlooked aspect of the tech curve in Shadowrun. I've mentioned this before but it's worth reminding. Several aspects of high technology which have been introduced in Shadowrun have far reaching social and economic effects which have to be carefully thought through before they can be further developed (mainly because several of them would turn the cyberpunk status quo on it's head). Introducing magic is relatively safe proposition because by nature access to it is limited introducing high-end (read Transhuman Space-level) nanotech and biotech risks changing the nature of the game completely (and put the last nail in that cyberpunk coffin people have been griping about) is far more complicated because access is universal (as long as you have the money or the means).

This isn't to say there's not a lot that can still be done at the current tech-level, I just think variety and specialization is the way to go rather than the bigger, better, bestest, more arms race that Cyberpunk 2020 suffered from.

But I wholeheartedly disagree that this can’t happen with magic. Again, we haven’t seen how it will all play out, but as others have aptly pointed out the potential for a magical arms race (similar to the one that would be caused in any world where the Mindprobe spell was undetectable, as current rules stand) caused by social adepts is very much present.

~J

Just to place this whole thing in perspective, I'd like to underline the fact that adepts are only a "fraction" of the overall magical population which in turn is only about 1% of the overall population, and those who follow the relatively new and decidedly minor "way of the social adept" are a smaller fraction of that total population. These guys are rare, and though some will be suits, fixers and con-men, because of the very nature of adept powers they will never be as numerous or come as cheap as Johnsons with custom tailored phermones, cosmetic surgery, chipped negotiation skills and cerebral boosters.

I'm finding this discussion increasingly funny since social adepts only account for a fraction of the new stuff in the adept section of SOTA64 and I'm starting to wonder what things are going to be like when people see the rest...

The smaller the fraction, the higher the corp pay will be, and the more extreme the reason will have to be to drive them to the Shadows.

You've teased us long enough; now it's time for you to quake with fear.

~J

Yeah, but corps will still only pay for worth. Bottom line is important, and they may not necessarily be better than using options that already exist. Perhaps social adepts are less detectable, but for many things, corps don't need to be overly sneaky about their negotiation abilities.

Adepts are also flat-out better for the given training.

Only adepts with sub-par charisma would be likely to be left out, except since charisma is trainable even that's not the case.

~J

I'm just having fun imagining the first team of shadowrunners to have a social adept Johnson, when their face emerges from the negotiations....

"Let me get this straight, you agreed to a run on the upper levels of the Arcology for twelve dollars and a Red Lobster gift certificate!?"

"It seemed like a good idea at the time...."

Talk about going straight to shell...

-Siege

Edit: Although at the risk of ruining Black Isis' funny, if the Johnsons are able to set a fixed price they will not go above, the runners should be able to set a fixed price they won't go below.

For the Johnson, that's the amount of money they've got. For the runners, that's enough money for rent for the month times the fraction of the month it'll take, and then the amount they'll probably be spending on gear/bribes/etc.

~J

However, the problem comes when you throw metagaming into it. What happens when the team decides that they're not going to do the job for less than 20k, and the Johnson gets them to agree to 10k? Then you get an argument like this:

Johnson: Your pay is 10,000 nuyen.
Face: We've decided that's too low. We want double that.
Johnson: I'm sorry, but I'm not going to pay that.
Face's Player (to GM): Ray, either give us 20k or we're going home. FFXI is a lot better than doing this crap run for crap pay.
GM (to player): Look, the Johnson beat your character fairly in a negotiation test, you don't have to be a sore loser about it.
Face's Player: That's it, I'm outta here. *Packs up stuff, leaves.*
Samurai's Player: Great, Ray, that's left us with two people to do the job. We can't handle it alone, and I agree, the pay sucks. I think Dave had a great idea, I'll just go home and play KOTOR again. *packs up stuff, leaves*
Mage's Player: Well, sure as hell I'm not sitting here alone. Think I'll go to the bar. Later, Ray. *packs up stuff, leaves*

The GM is left with no players. This can happen, and it has happened before.

Now, a GM can sit down and talk it over with his players. But sometimes a GM has to give in to the players, otherwise there's no game. If the players want 20k or they go home and play their console games, there's not a whole lot that the GM can do about it; he either gives in to the players or he tells them to get the frag out and closes the game. That causes bad feelings all around.

The point to this is, sometimes negotiation works. Sometimes it doesn't. The characters might have certain pre-set limits they won't go under for a job. One rigger I played refused to do any job -- and I mean any job -- for less than 5k, plus expenses (like drones/drone parts). This wasn't being greedy -- it was a need to pay living expenses, optempo costs, SOTA upgrades, drone and vehicle maintenance... a rigger's life is one expensive ride. I'd even calculated that at my rates, I'd still be losing money.

And that was 5k for himself. Not 5k total for the team.

The GM laughed at me, of course, so I walked. And so did two of my friends. The GM was left without a game. We started again three weeks later, having sat down and talked out what the monetary flow needed to be in the game. I still ended up losing money. In fact, for several missions, I was unable to contribute anything to the run, my drones all having been destroyed some time ago and both of my vehicles being in the shop. It wasn't until we took the initiative and started some runs of our own that I started contributing again.

The point to this post is that sometimes the party won't go lower. Can't go lower. No matter how good the negotiator is. And if the GM won't bend, his players might just decide there are better things to do with an evening than a game of Shadowrun.

i'm not sure how disinterested players and/or an unrealistic GM can be fixed with game rules.

Well, cause the group is entering into a negotiation over the price. the Johnson convinces them in retrospect that their talents were not worth the initial asking price and they couldn't well argue the point. negotiations are opposed, not just one side talking...

And in Deacon's example the players shouldn't be asshats. Don't start a negotiation if you aren't willing to face the consequences, it's a gamble and Johnsons do it for a living, odds are a lot more than the players do. Get new players, or tell them to sack up to their own consequences. Or turn the run down and seek another.

Really, theres more runner wannabees and runners than jobs.

In Deacon's example, the runner PCs weren't happy with what is being paid, so they leave. The Johnson just shot himself in the foot by being too clever. The players however should allow the GM to offer them another run, or the PCs can themselves tell their fixer/s not to bother them with cheapskates especially if the fixer is a Level 2 or higher contact or if a PC has the Good Rep Edge.

Heh. That reminds me of the time my PC walked out of the meet because the J was acting like a child.

Unfortunately, the ensuing run did offer plenty of opportunities to watch the ghoul PC in the crew paint a masterpiece of death, but...
meh.

yes. but, again, that's not something that rules can fix. if you're stuck with asshats, you're stuck with asshats, and that's the end of it--either do what you can to make the situation amenable to all parties, or go home. it's pointless to discuss stuff like this within the context of the rules, because the rules can't solve these problems.

Right. Telling someone to go find more players, doesn't always work.

That's one of the points I was trying to make.

<Just My Opinion>

One suggestion with regard to negotiations on price -- here's an idea:

I'm the GM, and I decide the base amount Mr. Johnson will pay the runners is 10,000 nuyen. With negotiation, that will go up to +-50%. So, in actuality, his first offer is the lowest he wants to pay (because he's not stupid enough to think the runners are going to let him talk DOWN the price, right? Unless, like, they really like Red Lobster, you know ). So he tells the runners he'll pay 5,000 nuyen for the job. Of course, they think that's crazy -- and bargaining ensues. After all the haggling, the players still come out on the short end of the stick, but not THAT short an end -- he raises his payment to 9,000 nuyen and they agree to the deal.

Doesn't that make a lot more sense?

"find more players" wasn't one of the options i listed, Deacon. the options i listed were a) deal with it as best you can, or b) stop playing. there is no ruleset available to help you deal with asshat players/GMs. this is not a rule problem. there's no rulebook for it. this is an interpersonal problem, and the only workable ways of dealing with it are unrelated to the game rules. SR rules can't fix broken marriages, and they can't fix asshat players/GMs.

In realistic manner, the PCs do get to walk away if they think the Johnson is being a cheap fink. But the other part is that their rep may take a hit, depending who is doing the talking or listening. There may be many wannabes but there are precious few pros. So if you are running a pro campaign, the runners will want to be paid apporpriately.