Kyaaa, sounds too much like my work. Alot of my technical support problems seem too much like 'help, I've poked myself in the eye with a screwdriver and it hurts!'.

Sigh, 'I've deleted my printer, what do I do?'

"I've incorrectly load the paper into the printer, causing it to jam'
'I've somehow screwed up changing the toner cartridge, and now the printer is really pissed off'

'what do you mean I shouldn't alter data in the databse while it's undergoing compaction? Is it bad if I did?'

While riding his motorcycle down the street in broad daylight in the barrens:

"I pull out my binoculars and take a closer look."

Ah, the good old days. Good times.

The implication is probably: 'I stop the bike, then use the binocs'

When I say in the game: ' I'm going to the bathroom' it's assumed that I pull down my pants first, even if I didn't mention that part.

Same thing: 'I go get some breakfast from the stuffer shack' really means something like:
I get dressed, get standard equipment, wallet, keys, guns, armor, whatever
leave home (with appropriate security procedures, etc)
goto stuffer shack (without playing in traffic)
get food
pay for food
etc
etc

Having the GM cut to the stuffer shack, where your PC suddenly discovers he isn't wearing any pants, should not be something the GM does.

This kind of deliberate 'miss-scripting' of stuff the player says is not conducive to good gaming.

[edit]
Since most people describe actions as a shared script, they don't normally describe each little thing they do since they assume that the person they are talking to shares the same 'script' of the action that they want to do.

So when arriving at your house, if I say 'I stopped for pizza on the way here' you would be able to accurately describe the actions I probably took to get the pizza, even though I didn't spell them out for you. (i.e. we share the getting pizza 'script').
If someone does not share the same 'scripts' that you do, it can lead to easy miss-communication.

The problem often is that one/both sides of the conversation can't figure out what the problem is. Guy 1 is saying something to guy2 that dosen't make much sense (i.e. is not causing an appropriate script to fire), while guy1 can't figure out what guy2's problem is, since he's using the 'script firing words' that should explain everything.

Notice how pissed off computer people can get when trying to explain something like 'double click on the my computer icon' to a non-computer person... The non computer person has not 'computer scripts'
[/edit]

Hah. No.

It was more like this.

"I pull out my binoculars and take a closer look."
"I.. make a crash test."
"WHAT?!"
"You're... riding a motorcycle while looking through binoculars."
"I can do that fine!"
"You can't see! You won't be able to ride a bike! You couldn't even walk!"
"I've done it before! I can run and look through biculars fine!"
At this point, i stopped listening, mostly because I was laughing too hard at the image of this kid running down the street, hunched, with a pair of binoculars held to his face, and I think it cut off my oxygen supply after a while.

Then there was the time he "pumped" his shotgun at someone. And a very interesting incident involving some chocolates and the parents of a kidnapped girl. And the list goes on. And on. And, well, you get the idea.

(double post)

DBL POST

I have admitedly limited experiance GMing firefights, but in my experiance, one doesn't need amazingly stated guys to kill PC's. (are my PC's just not good at munch-foo?)

* Gain superior position - fire from behind cover so you're not exposing yourself
* get a bunch of your buddies - even if you all have 4 skill, when there's a bunch of you they'll go down

I think it comes down to player preference. I play in a group used to Dungeons and Dragons so they like combat and hack and slash. Thats what my players like. While that leads to alot of bending of the rules it makes for a high action game. But isn't that my job to accomidate the players needs? While I would like to see them run away more often they never do. So I fudge a few die rolls and everything works out. I think that having a few runs where sneaking in and out or where subterfuge is needed can be fun. But its not their idea of excitment.

Well, it depends. My runners fight when it is the job, when there is no way out,or when not fighting would lead to bad things.

Some of my character care about other people and fight so they can get way,others are cut throat greedy killers. I have seen the gambit with the people I play with.

I was reading through some old 1st eddy adventures today, DNA/DOA to be specific, and was amazed that I had forgotten how enemy heavy the book is. You run into strike teams every chapter. Random encounters make it possible to get killed before ever getting close to the sewer, and then random encounters every new hallway and room that's not already filled with Aztechnology security guards

Then you look at the equipment lists for some of the pregen'd characters. THREE reloads for your weapon? Heh, good frickin luck!

DNA/DOA is an unfair example though. It was (IIRC) the very first Shadowrun adventure FASA released, and is in no way typical of anything that followed. It was written by Dave Arneson, who has a very long and mixed record with D&D. It was a archetypical dungeon crawl, right down to the linear feel, and the random encounter tables, which only appear in that one module, I believe.

Most of my players have had the good sense to run when they know they're outmatched. I've had a couple who've decided at various times to "stand and fight like a man!" This almost invariably gets them dead, and they either figure it out with their next character or they don't. If the latter, they tend not to stay in my games for long.

My smart players tend to bug out when things stop going their way.

The others seem to think they can handle just about anything, though I was suprised when one of those fled just the other night.

At least one of my players tends to consider flight whenever confronted by anything...