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The Question Man
Hoi Chummers, I had a lot of fun GMing a running gun battle between the PCs and LoneStar Police and SWAT. With plenty of support from Drones, Matrix, and Magical assets. It was a blast. When the game was finished I realized that if I had ever tried to run that scene with any of my old Shadowrun groups they would have "Stood and Fought!" until either they were victorious, dead, or the GM interfeared.

Do your Players "Stand and Fight!"?

Or do they "Scoot and Shoot"?

Let me know

Cheers

QM
Kagetenshi
Standing and fighting against not-outmatched foes tends to leave dead players.

~J
mfb
i've been in all kinds of groups. my usual character and his usual partners are, quite often, tough enough to win against a surprising level of opposition. on the other hand, that same character and his partners have, on at least one occasion, looked at the current situation and bugged out. and when it was that character, a few other runners, and some college students against 5,000 shedim... actually, we stood and fought the first few hundred. after that, though, we ran.
Cray74
QUOTE (Kagetenshi)
Standing and fighting against not-outmatched foes tends to leave dead players.


I just try to kill the characters, not the players. I don't do realistic LAPRing. wink.gif

My experience is that the PCs will avoid the fight before the shooting starts if the odds look bad, but once the bleeding and screaming begins, they tend to stay in for the duration.



UpSyndrome
I agree with Cray, with the notable exception that they will often start to flee once it's far too late.

-Joe
Kyuhan
Didn't we have a thread similar to this a little while ago?
nezumi
My group runs even when the odds are on their side! I was running one of the jobs from First Run, where a group of Red Sams are ambushed. They had half the group dead and half wounded, and of course these guys are loaded down with top notch gear. But as soon as they get the chance, they grab the loot and high tail it. I was surprised.
GrinderTheTroll
In the words of Kenny Rogers, "You got to know when to hold'em, know when to fold'em, know when to walk away and know when to run."

My players generally know when it's time to get-out-of-Dodge.
SpasticTeapot
From my limited RPG experience, most of the characters I have known like to throw a grenade or two before running; if nothing else, it tends to dissuade people from coming after you.
And besides, nothing produces crispy & chunky salsa like a Delayed Blast Fireball in a room full of goblins. (AD&D)
D.Generate
Smart runners don't even get into gun fights but shit happens so any smart person is not gonna stick around and duke it out with the "law" whatever form that comes in.

Most of my players know that brute force will end thier life pretty fast. Some of the slower ones still haven't caught on that bullets kill no matter how much chrome/mojo you pack. Needless to say I always bring a couple extra character sheets with to my games just incase someone gets a bad case of Matrix-itis which is what i call it when bullets start flying for no reason and characters run into the fray no cover or anything. Now I'm not a cruel GM but if you do dumb stuff in my games I don't pull punches, bad dice rolling for smart plans are understandable, clocking out a receptionist because you can't come up with a better plan to get inside an office building always causes a bad day for everyone.

The New Big D
Siege
If your players can muster delayed blast fireballs and are fleeing goblins...

-Siege
heliocentric
The old group... well, the less said about them the better.

This new group has yet to get in a protracted fight. When the lead flys they bug out.
DocMortand
My group hasn't been together for too long - maybe 4 months, I think? So I haven't got a good read on their preference yet (of course my membership is shifting as well...) but so far they tend to stick to things to the end - good or bad. I think they've fled twice, and they usually left someone behind.

*shrugs* Of course my group also tends to be paladins, and sometimes beserkers. smile.gif
Speedy
In my group, a buddy and I both take turns playing and GMing. I tend to make sure that people have their characters do what they would really do. (would your character really try that?) also, I have my NPCs think like I would in their place. They don't hold back. You can't be afraid to kill a PC if they get stupid. Fear makes for excitement.
The first time I killed of a PC I was thanked for it. We all loved the character and how the player played him, but it would have been stupid to let him get away with turning his back on a street sam with a pair of Ruger thinderbolts in the middle of a fire fight. "I forgot she was there" just can't save you, in fact it should kill you. (mind you, he almost survived the shot to the head, the tough little bastard)
Necro Tech
Our group tries really hard to avoid the "gunfight at the OK corral" unless we are getting paid a lot of money. When we have to do it we like to start with grenades and rockets if we got them and escalate from there. Fights with johhny law are the one big no-no. If its fight or get arrested we fight, but we use non-lethal and retreat while we do it.
iPad
My sig sum my current character up.

Sybiotics so eats.

Shoots to beet immediate enemy.

Leaves when the times right.

Also similier to what a Kowala does

I ran the First Run mission, the red samuri fight was great, they spotted the copter at the last second and manage to shoot out some of the rappeling ropes. The red sams put in a fair old amount of damage but went down in the street. The truck with the mages and cyber zombie lead to a rapid bugging out. Was hilarious when the invisible combat decker with the cyber zombie phobia fled the wrong way, and was even more terrified when it still followed him. After a run around an entire city block had to leap into a moving van to escape.
mfb
see, people always say stuff like "smart runners don't get into gunfights if they can avoid it". but that's not always true. there are some runners whose speciality is firefights--whose job in the shadows is to meet bad guys and make them die. for instance, the mercenary archtype. he doesn't have that LMG because he's secretly a ninja.
iPad
But he does WANT to be a ninja

http://www.realultimatepower.net/index3.htm
BitBasher
Most of my teams get in the fights they have to or need to and as a genral rule have no problem bugging out. Of course, as a GM if the PC's never get into a fight they have to run from then I think the GM is pretty damn unrealistic. Shit happens.
RedmondLarry
I told my players, early on, that they would have to learn when to run from a fight and when to turn down a job. I was not going to make all opposition be weaker than the characters. I was not going to make all jobs be good ones.

Then I gave them opportunities to learn these things, over the course of many adventures.
BitBasher
QUOTE (OurTeam)
I told my players, early on, that they would have to learn when to run from a fight and when to turn down a job. I was not going to make all opposition be weaker than the characters. I was not going to make all jobs be good ones.

Then I gave them opportunities to learn these things, over the course of many adventures.

Amen.
draco aardvark
I think the "stand and fight" mentality comes from D&D, where the only one who can flee is the mage, and he's in the back anyhow.


You'd think they'd turn down the stupid jobs - but they don't!

Now admittedly, my group did a really wonderful bang-up job of "get the researcher from this Ares magic research base, he's not awakened, just surrounded by mages using ritual sorcery to throw his projects into orbit." They actually managed to time things just right so as to not have to deal with any mojo-slingers and only killed one guard.

On the other hand, they really should have turned down a mission where they were asked to destroy as much LoneStar property as possible. The two who agreed to that one are wanted by LoneStar, DocWaggon, and a girl who summoned a force 8 fire elemental for them who they subsequently didn't pay. One of the two *lost* money on that run.
toturi
QUOTE (OurTeam)
I told my players, early on, that they would have to learn when to run from a fight and when to turn down a job. I was not going to make all opposition be weaker than the characters. I was not going to make all jobs be good ones.

Then I gave them opportunities to learn these things, over the course of many adventures.

I do something similar. But I add another layer of complexity to it. If the job comes straight from the Johnson, all bets are off. They do their own legwork, make sure the Johnson doesn't double cross them, etc.

But if their job comes in from their regular fixer, things will be pre-screened. And if things are not as advertised, the fixer will have to "express the runners displeasure to Mr Johnson". They do not turn down jobs at the first meet, they always request a first look period of a day.
The White Dwarf
A lot depends on your groups "givens". To use tortui's example, most of his jobs arent rushed enough so a look day works (in this context anyhow). The last several runs I played in, the Johnson/Fixer gave out rush jobs that were take or leave.

We also tend to presume that theres only 1 run planned in RL, so if we want to game that night we take it. Its the GMs job to make sure he gauges the power levels of the run accordingly; some should be a bit easy, some a bit hard, and if the plot warrents it some should be darn near impossible. Rather than make the players guess, they trust the GM to just space it out.

That said, *I* tend to stand and fight when I play. But overall the players in our group run if they think they have to. I just like to see exactly how beefy I am when the lead starts flying, when Im playing a sam-type with that kind of personality, and that tends to be the majority of the time. But far more often than not, we are the initiators of said fights and tend to pick battles we can win.

Its when you get flat out surprised by Bug Spirits in a muesum carrying only a hold out and 4 bullets that you try to run, only to fail and join the collective... not that such an event happened to anyone I know...
Crusher Bob
Part of the problem is that the players may not know how to run away, 'technically' a retreat under fire is very hard to pull off, for a small force facing a much larger force (ie SR team vs a lot of cops) it can be near impossible. The action movies that most SR players get their tactical ideas from almost never show the mechanics of a breakout or retreat under fire.

Since most GMs don't know how to do a retreat underfire, they tend to have guys get away by fiat, rather than good tactics. This can make it very 'hard' for the players to run away, as they have never 'seen' a successful retreat, except with heavy handed intervention.

also, the I go/ you go nature of initiative in SR can make it very hard to supress some guys and fallback...

The other problem iwth running away can come from published adventures. In general, in a published adventure, when overwhelming force shows up, the PCs are supposed to get captured. So they will tend to get caputred via GM fiat, even if they do a reasonable attempt to break contact.
toturi
QUOTE (Crusher Bob)
Part of the problem is that the players may not know how to run away, 'technically' a retreat under fire is very hard to pull off, for a small force facing a much larger force (ie SR team vs a lot of cops) it can be near impossible. The action movies that most SR players get their tactical ideas from almost never show the mechanics of a breakout or retreat under fire.

Tears of the Sun, The Professional, Bourne ID and Supremacy. Not exactly escape under fire but evade and blend into the crowd.
Mumbles
My GM throws forces at us that we are unlikely to defeat on a regular basis. Any team that fights no matter what the odds are shouldn't last very long.

Knowing when and how to run away is an important part of the game.
toturi
QUOTE (Mumbles)
My GM throws forces at us that we are unlikely to defeat on a regular basis. Any team that fights no matter what the odds are shouldn't last very long.

Knowing when and how to run away is an important part of the game.

Interesting. Shouldn't the response be appropriate to the area and security rating? Knowing when running away is suicide is also part of the game.
BitBasher
QUOTE (toturi)
QUOTE (Mumbles @ Dec 22 2004, 10:27 PM)
My GM throws forces at us that we are unlikely to defeat on a regular basis. Any team that fights no matter what the odds are shouldn't last very long.

Knowing when and how to run away is an important part of the game.

Interesting. Shouldn't the response be appropriate to the area and security rating? Knowing when running away is suicide is also part of the game.

Remember. Unpredictable things happen. Standard response often isn't. COuld be no backup shows up because they're tied up elsewhere. Could be FRT and SWAT were getting the car washed 80 yards away.
Shanshu Freeman
Most of my teamates reason that the hit to credibility is a fate worse then death, so we really don't run from a fire fight.
Rev
You know you have a good gm when it is possible to run from a fight.

You know you have a great gm when the opposition runs from a fight.
BitBasher
QUOTE (Shanshu Freeman)
Most of my teamates reason that the hit to credibility is a fate worse then death, so we really don't run from a fire fight.

Running from a firefight shouldn;t be a reputation hit. Staying in a firefight they aren't likely to survuve should give them a rep hit. You shouldn't gain reputation for acting like a rank amateur.

And Rev: haha man, I wish it was that simple! Most of my NPC's bug out and run, or surrender and lay down arms when screwed. After all those may be NPC's but they're also people with families and lives they want to keep on living. Also, most of the time they aren't paid enough for that crap! It's when the NPC's DON'T run when outnumbered that the PC's know they're screwed and prolly in over their head! biggrin.gif
U_Fester
Both my PC and NPC run when it is needed.
U_Fester
QUOTE (BitBasher)
You shouldn't gain reputation for acting like a rank amateur.

Can I get you to come to one of my games and talk to some of the players? They see a hobo on the streets, they are shooting at him first and then asking... I need you to talk to them about what a REPUTATION is!
BitBasher
QUOTE (U_Fester)
QUOTE (BitBasher @ Dec 22 2004, 02:25 PM)
You shouldn't gain reputation for acting like a rank amateur.

Can I get you to come to one of my games and talk to some of the players? They see a hobo on the streets, they are shooting at him first and then asking... I need you to talk to them about what a REPUTATION is!

Allow me to qualify that remark:

They shouldn't gain any positive reputation from acting like a rank amateur. biggrin.gif

Just enforce concequences for their actions. Have a contact mention sometime later that a lucrative job wasn't offered to them because of some rumor about horrifically unprofessional behavior opening fire on a homeless person for no good reason. Start making jobs scarce enough that they have problems making ends meet. A job every 2 or 3 months will do that!

You gotta have some tough love for the players! It's for their own good! biggrin.gif
Jrayjoker
I love it....I had a crew that would torture anyone, anywhere for inoformation. I'm talking tearing off fingers in a nice restaurant, then shooting whoever was there to cover it up. Needless to say they didn't last too long. The next time aroound they were a lot more subtle and tried not to get into firefights. If they did get into one it was usually for cover during an escape.
Jrayjoker
Double post, sorry
mmu1
In the game I've been playing the most, about half our missions not only made the use of force likely, they required it - destroying a guarded mainframe, chasing down a thief and bringing his head back, bodyguarding a guy being chased by mercenaries or breaking into an abandoned military base in the middle of a desert don't really lend themselves well to "shoot and scoot".
iPad
QUOTE (Rev)
You know you have a good gm when it is possible to run from a fight.

You know you have a great gm when the opposition runs from a fight.

I like NPCs bugging out when I run games, leaves witnesses and all sorts of mess that let things in adventures happen (like ambushes or assasination teams).
toturi
If fighting it out is a vital part of the mission objective, then it is do-or-die. Also sticking out to the end would give the team a rep for completing the job no matter how far south things go.

Also to the comment that the unpredictable happens. Shit should happen sometimes, but not most of the time. The randomness is indicated in the various sec levels of the various zones.
Fortune
QUOTE (toturi)
Shit should happen sometimes, but not most of the time.

This is true for Johnsons screwing the group over as well.
Speedy
Players sometimes need to be taught about consequences.
That means they need to die sometimes, they need to get stunned unconcious sometimes, the need to get double-crossed regularly, they need to not get paid sometimes, they need to make their own work sometimes, they need to encounter random things a lot, they need to run into cops often, they need to scare security NPCs and be scared by them, they need to realize that the more bullets in your armour jacket the less effective it is, they need to know that there is always someone bigger, badder and more powerful than you just around the corner.
If i'm doing a combat sequence and it's come off as to easy, I bring in some more bad guys (you know, the ones who were late cause they had car trouble on the way over, or just like to be fashionably late) and up all their stats by say, 4 to 10, compared to the guys that just gots waxed. Brings out the "oh my god what is that!?!?!" like nothing else!
Crusher Bob
So if I'm a player in our game and the combat is 'comming off as a bit too hard' ,you won't mind if I pull out a few more characters 'who had car trouble' and insert them into the combat? If you are basing combat on how hard a time the pcs are having, they should all be wearing no armor and carrying hold-out pistols. After all it will be just as hard as if they were wearing sealed military armor and carring cannons. The hand of the GM will make adjustment...

Fortune
I think that if players need to be taught about the consequences of obviously stupid actions more than once or twice, then the GM is not doing a good enough job in describing and depicting the game world in which they are playing. They can only know and envision as much as you tell or show them.
Arethusa
That's not entirely fair. There are people for whom no amount of good storytelling will ever raise them from the pits of utter stupidity. I'm not saying that's the case here, but I have run into these people, and it really didn't matter what kind of GM was involved.
Fortune
That's why you do a one-on-one chargen session with the player, or preferably all the players individually. This is when you can tell him how the Law looks on people carrying AK-97s through Bellevue, or even demonstrate to him that standing still and shooting back from the hip might not be the best strategy to follow in a running gun fight. It is also a chance to explain how this piece of Cyberware, or that bit of Nanotech, or that other Spell actually works, before the player makes a choice that might turn out to be not what he intended later on in the game.

Maybe even have a movie night to demonstrate the feel of the Sixth World as you, the GM imagine it. There is also a fair bit of fiction in print including, but not exclusive to the Shadowrun Sourcebooks that can give the players a good basic idea of the background.

Even good players might have a different idea of how things work in your version of the 2060s, and can only benefit from the extra time spent in enriching their understanding of your Sixth World.
Arethusa
Believe me, that is a leap of faith. For the normal person, yes, that works. For good players, sure, it can help. For a select few, there's not a damn thing you can do. Again, not saying that that's the case here, as Speedy's brand of gming sounds unapologetically sadistic, but I had to disagree with the blanket statement that there cannot be times when players need to be taught things the hard way.
Crusher Bob
Heh, I remember going to the airport with my grandfather, many moons ago. When passing through the metal detector, he took the knife off his belt, put it in the 'change basket' then picked it back up after walking through the metal detector. The airport security didn't say a word either.

Notice that 'these days' that would probably fall into the 'highly stupid' category of action, but without a good knowledge of the world, you'll have no idea if that is stupid or not.

Is getting into a big Heat like gnufight with the cops 'cool' or 'stupid' with a bad GM you won't know until you are actually in one...
Fortune
QUOTE (Arethusa)
but I had to disagree with the blanket statement that there cannot be times when players need to be taught things the hard way.

I made no such statement! What I did say was that it shouldn't have to happen more than once or twice in the case of stupid actions. Cases where it is necessary to 'punish' your player's characters (and often the players themselves) should be very few and far between.

I do admit that there is the rare case of a total f*cktard (as Darth would say wink.gif). My question is why would you (and especially the other players) continue to game with him. Even if he's a close friend, there are times when it just doesn't work, and you have to admit it for the best of the group.

I dare you to tell me that you have played in, or GMed an entire group of idiots on the scale that you describe for any extended period of time.
Arethusa
QUOTE (Fortune)
I think that if players need to be taught about the consequences of obviously stupid actions more than once or twice, then the GM is not doing a good enough job in describing and depicting the game world in which they are playing.

It was this, specifically, that I took issue with, largely because I played with people who proved this false time and time again. I don't disagree that it should be rare that you need to punish players, so to speak, but should is really what this centers on.

And your question is valid, but overlooks the obvious answer: our group was mostly composed of fucktards, and needless to say, after years of an extraordinarily unhealthy group dynamic, things essentially imploded over Shadowrun as far too many people were using the characters as rather unhealthy vessels of compensation for their own problems. And they had a lot of problems. It's... well, it's a very long story.

But, hey, I sure hope that isn't the norm.
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