I'm an experienced GM (DND mainly years ago) and I have always loved Shadowrun for its lore/style (still read the paperbacks) and I've finally convinced the group I play with to let me GM a few Shadowruns.

However the group I play with are a bunch of Powergamers/Min-maxers and I'm scared to death of someone min-maxing their character to the point that its just not fun. Characters are as follow:

Physical Adept - Loaded with all the magic, abilities (hard to stun, blind, zoom-in eyes) guns (has 4) and armored suits.

Shaman with Lion Totem - Unknown, but thinking can get ugly from what I have read on these boards.

Japanese Businessman with machinegun suitcase (Ares Protector) - The "face" of the group with languages, cybered to 2.5 essense with gear, loads of money.

Meathead Troll - Armored to the gils with a few guns all wrapped up in a suit.

Combat Decker - Not too scared of right now.

My question is. Is there anything I should look out for as a GM that is within the rules that might be borderline broken? Or should I just relax have fun and deal with the problems as problems arise?

Thanks in advance!

Feonyx

I'm no expert, but I'll toss in my 2 nuyen.

First off, are these starting chars? By rules, no starting char has "loads of money"; any money that's not spent on gear/cyber/lifestyle/etc is basically reduced to nil. Also, as someone who's played/built mages/PhyAds, what do you mean by having one with "loads of magic"? 6 magic pts, no matter what he spends them on, doesn't buy a lot of PhysAd abilities. Frankly, if the PhyAd in question wants to waste his skill points on guns, I say let him (also Ballistic>Quickness is bad as well). He'll suffer for it in terms of melee-combat, which is what a PhyAd is supposed to be good at.

If you're really concerned with overall "power", one thing my GM did is to restrict start-up gear by Availability score. In our case, we weren't allowed to buy anything with an Avail>8. That let us buy the basics, but kept the really obnoxious stuff like Combat Armor, Cannons, etc out of reach. Make the players earn the "elite" gear through role-playing/etc.

I am guessing you are stepping into these already-made toons? If so it's more tricky since they've had some time to establish habits (from other GMs), gear, money, karma, etc.

I suggest a few runs to gauge your runners and to get a feel of what they would do in situations and what they are expecting to get away with. Are they nit-picky rules lawyers or are they flexible? Do they expect to walk down the street in Heavy Armour toting Panther Assault Cannons? You have expectations as do they. Let them know ahead of time you are feeling things out and ask them to do the same.

Remember this: they can min-max the rules, but you can break them completely.

Good-luck and have fun!

It looks like you have a pretty heavy hitting group there and being ex-D&D players they will probably want to charge into every situation guns blazing and either live and collect Karma or die and roll up new chars.
My advice is this. Since you know the world and I presume that the players have little or no knowledge of the world make sure you explain to them that this is a very lethal game and the bad guys always have you out gunned(not true but it puts them in the right frame of mind) and that you will get the same rewards if not more for sneaking around the guards than blasting through them.
Second. Give them some situations to flex their Killin' Skillz. Mob war, hijackings, hits, escort missions are all ways to let 'em cut loose. However make it clear that they won't get the really high paying jobs until they learn to be a bit more subtle.
Third have a well thought out plan of the actions of the opposition. Ocasionaly the players will do something completely off the wall and you won't see it coming. When this happens knowing how they(the NPCs) will act when there is a five alarm blaze across the street will save you alot of headache.
Lastly. don't be afraid to kill characters for truly stupid actions. Bad luck on a stealth roll should not result in player death, perhaps the guard was curiosly inatentive. But ramming a truck into the front gates of MCTs headquarters and expecting to live more than 60 seconds calls for doom. however on a related note it is your job as GM to make the PLAYERS understand that such action is suicide, they have inteligence and knowledge skills for a reason.

I had similar problems myself. Without seeing the sheets for 'em, I'd have to go with blasting the trog with magic. Domination-type spells can be fun, and often mean you can mop the floor with his buddies.

I just put in random NPCs that are at LEAST as powerful as my runners. I don't limit my PC's, I death-trap my games.

Suggested ideas for DT world.
Sprinkle powerful NPCS as told above. 1/6 enemys works about right.
Avalability limit of 9.
When using weaker enimies, groups are fun.
So are magic weilders
Give the opposition better stuff. Then if you have an especialy cruel mean streak, make them all have Personal Saftey Smartlinks.
Drones are fun.
And the military.

When not fighting, which should be a good chunk of the time. (2/3)
Huge parties are a good RP ground. If they are STUPID ENOUGH to gun down everyone there, teach them a lesson with A Corp Strike Team. (About 20 people that are 5x stronger then the runners.) then put a 500,000,000 Nuyen bountie or something on them, and if they survive the strike, have them run into a missle launcher, alot.

Basicly, untill they stop Min/Maxing, have fun with putting the chips in the oppenoents favour, and enforcing RP so they don't have an outlet for their 1337 sk177z. Especialy if they dumped CHA.

Giving a group of hack & slashers a hack & slash enemy never works. They'll either figure out how to beat it, or complain that the GM is a 'killer' GM.

Instead, what you want to do is give them more role-playing challenges suitable to the genre. When they find themselves unable to deal with them, start subtly impressing upon them the need for etiquette and negotiation skills.

For example, give them the mission to track down something -- a mobster's missing daughter, a piece of heirloom jewelry, a prototype drone. In order to do this, at one point they're going to have to get into a very high-security building and speak to Mr. X. The problem is that Mr. X lives in a high-security, high lifestyle building and doesn't want to deal with riff-raff.

The players have to deal with the security coordinator through either a remote window or through the Matrix, since they're not residents. They have to figure out how to get inside and talk to Mr. X. If they decide to pull out the guns and go in blazing, the doors close -- they find that they're stuck behind walls of meter-thick duralloy which their piddly gunfire won't even scratch, and the building's warded by powerful magicians. Don't even let them start shooting -- just let them know it won't work.

But, if they do their research and find out the security coordinator's weaknesses, and commit a suitable bribe (and it doesn't have to be money -- perhaps the man has a weakness for a certain hard-to-obtain french wine, or a rare Nolan Ryan rookie card, something that the PCs can find in any case), then he'll let them inside to talk to Mr. X. Provided, of course, that they disarm themselves and agree to certain security measures...

It's stuff like this which will make them realize that this ain't their usual D&D hack & slash game. When they have to deal with things in ways that don't allow them to use their 733t c0m6@t sk177z, then they start learning that there's more to roleplaying than rolling dice and stacking bonuses.

That's the point of my system, set it up so they CONSTANTLY get their ass kicked, and start looking for non-combat ways through.

I used a somewhat Pavlovian response system. The only time any of my players got karma was when they started to actually rp.

That works. You either have ta encourage your players to RP, or "encourage"
them to RP.

Yes, but most of my players actualy find RP funner once I FINALY GET THEM TO DO IT. After awhile I'll give them the oppertunity to H&S, make unfair characs, ETC... but they never have after RPing.

The group sounds perfect to run a fencing operation. The Japanese Businessman as the fence, a few bodyguards and a decker to check up on buyers and sellers (while also cleaning the money). I suggest giving them a little of everything: combat with thieves, bribery with police, blackmail with a gang that might turn ugly, ect. The best way to break the D&D mentality is to stop the theme of adventures and quests. Bring out just living and surviving in the shadows.

Fortune:: Oh, that's what they ment by that paragraph. That would curb the MW Adept some. So knock it down to 4.25pp and only Invoking, Great Form Spirits being an incredibly useful thing to have. Centering isn't nearly as useful if you don't have Astral Perception, since you need that to help with Sorcery and Conjuring...unless he wants to make the Backflipping Soooopar Star. Still with a few choice spells and maybe a sustaining Focus and/or Focused Concentration, he would be fairly formidable tool.

P.S. I do agree that having him try to focus on gunslinging would be a bit of a step back. A well put together cyber/bio mundane starting character is usually the min/max choice for that. For that reason the PC in question probably won't be a problem.

Welcome Feonyx, to the Dumpshock Forums.
We're glad you're here.

Feonyx, you've entered the one game where munchies can be squashed flatter than a pancake! This isn't D&D, the players aren't the heroes. They're just scraping to survive just like everyone else. There's always someone meaner, tougher, and more chromed waiting around the corner.

Check up on cyberzombies, toxic shamans, main battle tanks, rail guns etc... Its extream, but if they create huge problems quickly someone (like the UCAS) will probbly want to take care of them.

As for the adept with 4 guns, thats normal as long as he doesn't have 4 arms.

Really? The rules do not say that you need to have fun. Of course, since you are the GM, you get to break the rules, which means the players need not have fun either.

Feonyx, I think you can have a great time with these players and their characters, and can run a table where everyone has fun. Based on your descriptions, I don't see any problem with these characters.

Remember that Fixers and Johnsons are not stupid. They will hire these characters for what they are good for. The team won't be hired to infiltrate Tir nobility, and the Troll and Ork won't be hired to pose as waiters at a high-society afternoon Tea. You need to design 80% of their adventures to be what intelligent Fixers and Johnsons would hire them for. Fixers and Johnsons will hire, for most runs, the cheapest team (i.e. least powerful) that they think is likely to succeed. Therefore the Fixers and Johnsons will, as part of their business, make sure the runs are challenging to your players.

If you are unsure of your ability to create the right level of opposition, consider using a GM screen to hide your dice rolls and adjust results so the team feels challenged but eventually succeeds if they are smart. Eventually you'll get to the point where you make challenging opposition and can roll your dice out in the open, where every player knows you are being fair and death is just a roll away.

One way of making equal opposition (for when you need it), is to get photocopies of their characters and then tweak them to make your NPCs.

If you feel they are combat oriented, give them a combat oriented run. Here's an example:

God you guys are just awesome. Lots of great ideas for runs and lots of great input into the problem. I do realise its more of a stealth game.. hence the "shadow" and I've told them eventhough we are doing the StuffShack Ganger fight first (from First Run) it is a complete mistake to think this is the way to do things in SR.

I have yet to get the character sheets off of them as they are still tweaking them, but I looked over them and heard what they were excited about.

To answer a few of the questions posed:
-The toons are brand new and made using the Table and not the point system.
-Adept has a bunch of skills/magic that soften flare and stun, magic armour, lots of repelling skills, stealth skills, 3 guns and some black armored stealth suit and ~6 Initiation dice.
-Business man scares me with his people skills, his wired flexes to his automatic machinegun case (high conceal) and went with 1,000,000 for equipment (since raising skills and attributes is easier at lower levels read: heavy min-maxer)
-Yes they are nitpicky rules lawyers, but I'm trying to turn up the RP with Karma rewards and turn down the rules-lawyering, but knowing more than them (by reading everything shadowrun)

You guys mention a bunch of Critters and NPCs to through in the way. Should I:
a) Create my own NPCs ala PC charts.
b) Buy the Critters book.
c) Tweak the campaign/run books by cloning and changing slightly the NPCs
d) Other...

When I play I am a heavy RPer and I tend to make a character that is fun to play even if he isn't the best at what he does. Then a situation arises where my skills are found a little wanting and all the other players go: "You should have done this and that" The GM agrees and my character becomes cookie cutter so I can do the job. The thing I LOVE about Shadowrun is that you can heavy RP and min-maxing need not be a problem.

I am humbled by all of your suggestions, imagination and knowledge of Shadowrun.

/bow

Feonyx

PS. OurTeam your run suggestion is exactly what I need . I also read somewhere else about a bunch of guys attacking a building with little or no leg work and once they got there they all died because they were doing their own thing. Teamwork is really important and that run has teamwork written all over it. I love it . Ditto Kanada Ten suggestion.

Oooohhhh yeahhhh.....that's another thing.


In a lot of cases, players don't seem to coordinate their combat very well, at least in my experience. Like, no small unit tactics whatsoever, regardless of what their actual small unit tactics score is. :3

Shadowrun could be almost be a completely roll-play game but it is after all an RPG.

The way I see it is that with good RPing, the TNs set for skill checks is lower. But with good min-maxing, the PC can make use of those lower TNs.

Jeeze Louise guys, the game is for everyone to have fun... its a G A M E. Both the GM and the Players have a right to have fun, or they can exersice thier right to walk out the door.

If the GM is insensitive to the desires of his players, they will walk. If the players are insensitive to the desires of their GM they will be looking for a new GM soon. C'mon, it doesn't have to be "THIS WAY OR THE HIGHWAY".

I'm 36 years old and I've run games for 26 of those years and I've not once run an rpg where some form of violence wasn't a big part of the game, but at this point in my gaming life the story is more important than anything and roleplaying is what makes the story revolve. If you players want to shoot things, then let them shoot things, if they shoot the wrong thing, let there be a natural consequence. My players know not to frag with the Star. When a cop gets shot the Corp tears the Plex apart to find the perp, its only logical, particuarly in a world where guns are so easily availible. You have to teach the citizens that you can't mess with the enforcers. Just run the game logically, explain that to the players, and then let them minmax to thier hearts content, frankly the game lends itself to it.

I agree with limiting the starting gear. I limited my game to 8 availibility as suggested in the book, and didn't allow Dikoted weapons or Ruthenium Polymer fiber clothes. Allowing the group Troll to run across an open fire field with a base stealth of 12 (sans magic or luck) doesn't flick my swtich at character creation. And giving all guards infra-red spectrum vision enhancers was a strech of credibility to me.

Quick note on that businessman: make sure your player knows that cybering up a Face is generally a bad idea. Especially when you drop below 3 Essence, the social penalties really start to rack up. It's one of the main balancing points of cyberware, in fact. This is one major reason bioware is so useful to many character archtypes: it doesn't have that particular drawback.

Eh, Ruthenium's fine. It doesn't make the Troll any *quieter*, for one, nor does it stop the beaded or plastic curtains placed in his path from shaking, nor does it make doors any easier to open, pressure sensors easier to bypass, thermal goggles/cameras easier to sneak past, etc.

Dikote I have a problem with, but only because it makes no sense at all and is probably not balanced for edged weapons.

Gaah, didn't you guys watch the really bad movie they made of The Shadow? You're supposed to have ankle deep water everywhere.

I respect your opinions even as I disagree with them. Dikote we seem to agree on, its overpowererd and doesn't need to be in the game IMHO, so in my game its not. Ruthenim Fibers can give a max of 12 base stealth, I don't want to have this in my game either. I don't want to have to give my gaurds I/R goggles, or put "Beads" in doorways, or use fancy electronics in every place that I feel players need to have a chance to be detected in order to increase drama. If a player has a special piece of gear, or a neat ability I don't want to feel that I have to nerf it to create a challenge, and (at least in the way I've run Shadowrun) I'd have to do that with this piece of tech. Its too much for my sense of how to run my game for me to include for the players pleasure.

Are there ways to defeat it, can I come up with plausible reasons why security systems are set up to do so... yes... but I choose not to.

You rack up karma like EXP for killing things? I didn't know that.

This was my first GM in SR. I was used to D&D.

No, there were heavy weapons, mages, ALL SORTS OF SHIT THAT SHOULD HAVE KILLED HIM!!!

HE STAGED A 15D WEAPON ATTACK DOWN TO NOTHING! ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH!

LOL, i've never had a problem killing players, I think it's harder to try and balance response to NOT kill them.

I am not sure about your situation, but based on the Karma-reward, I'd guess there are deeper problems you might need to address. Remember, players will get away with whatever you let them.

There's availability for initiating? Anyway, that's definitely a bad plan at chargen, IMO.

I personally allow cultured bioware, because it is canon to do so (and because most of the stuff that make bioware worth getting is in there). Initiating I'm more iffy on.

~J