Help - Search - Members - Calendar
Full Version: Stupid Deaths
Dumpshock Forums > Discussion > Shadowrun
Pages: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
Cyberon
Another one... heroic.

We had gotten ourself into the mess of The Renraku Archology.. Battered and beaten up, we found ourself being corned by weapon wielding guards, and the windows to the outside. I can't remember the specifics, but i think the escape was planned so that we had to move out that window, anyways our GM had given us the choice to keep out of the Renraku and make characters just for that run, telling us just how hard it was, but at the point my Physical Ad. yes the same as before, wouldn't leave his buddies behind, so he want in anyways.

With everyone out the window, except my character and the group Hermetic Mage, the goons turn the corner, being fast as hell i have allready spotted what is going to happen. My character set-off in a sprint, knowing that our mage can safe himself in a free-fall since he has demonstrated he got the levitate spell. The sounds of guns are heard as Wolf (my character) tackles our mage, with his back to the bullets. I take 2 3-bursts, and go deadly overflow as i and the mage fly out the window. That's when the automated defences begin tracking our group.. In an incredible save, our mage first levitates himself, then catches my limb body mid-flight with another levitate, and only barely manage to hurl me in through the lower window we where supposed to enter.

ShadowDragon8685
How did this poor awesome thread die? Have we run out of stupid deaths?
Prosper
I've got one from back in the day. I played a dwarf technician with a penchant for explosives and grenade launchers; an instant recipe for disaster. We end up investigating some gang and ultimately arrive at their headquarters. We're supposed to get inside and talk with the gangers, not necessarily kill anyone.

I get the bright idea to strap my character completely with blocks of plastic explosive and waltz right up to the front door with a deadman switch in my hand. I figure they'd listen to reason and let me talk. Instead it turns out the troll at the door is hopped up on all kinds of chemical goodness, and seeing me walk forward with something in my hand panics and shoots.

The resulting explosion takes out a city block.
ElFenrir
I told my 'take the cake' story once...but the quote from the player in the infamous 'High-Five Dive' scenario is in my sig. biggrin.gif
pragma
QUOTE (Prosper)
I've got one from back in the day. I played a dwarf technician with a penchant for explosives ... I get the bright idea to strap my character completely with blocks of plastic explosive and waltz right up to the front door with a deadman switch in my hand ...

Our group decided that the single most useful NPC to recruit for a run was the dwarf decker/suicide bomber. He'd do all of the legwork and overwatch, but when the going got rough you had an ankle biting ball of plastic explosives gunning for the opposition.
Siege
Bloody hell.

Nowhere in the manual of dwarf tossing should be the line, "pull pin before throwing."

-Siege
Jrayjoker
FIRE IN THE HOLE!!!!!!!!!!
Trax
It's a misfire, must've been the burrito he has for breakfast.
pragma
Now it'd be really terrifying if he also had cyberskates.

"Speedy Delivery!"
Siege
You want a bottle of lube for...what?

-Siege
Nidhogg
I once GMed a game where the players managed to fuck up Food Fight. I won't get in to fine details, but it involved a decker with a flechette only gun trying to take down the lunatic with the shotgun, while the rigger let loose his only ranged weapon - a satchel of fifteen live, active, remote grenades with a single detonator (for the love of God don't ask). I won't even get in to the Lone Star incident that the two survivors (also the only ones who took cover throughout the entire scenario) had to endure. Long story short, the inagural 'mission' that most 'runners experiance at some point ended up becoming a dreaded 'TPK' session, and I reluctantly went back to playing D&D with that group.
ShadowDragon8685
Partake of the general wisdom: newbies cannot get their hands on explosives. At all.
SL James
And on that note, I blame stupid GMs who broke that rule for the preceding stories of explosive silliness.
Siege
It bothers me that the PC felt the need to carry so much live explosive into a quickie-Mart.

-Siege

Edit: For structure.
Feshy
This story doesn't actually have a character death in it, and really the game and the characters involved where the funny parts of the story. But someone almost dies, and the whole situation is hilarious to me. So I'll share.

This was several years ago, after many years of SR with an experienced group. The GM for this campaign had decided that our Shadowrun games had been too serious lately; and our lives too stressful in general. Thus, this campaign would be a "stress relief" campaign. No "serious" shadowrunning allowed, though it would take place completely within the shadowrun universe. There where two rules to character creation:

1) The concept had to be totally over-the-top. The weirder the better, but it had to be doable within the SR rules.
2) On top of that concept, you had to have a deep, dark, scary secret. It had to be as weird as the concept.

Now, with those two rules in mind, here are the characters that we had:

1) Jedi adept (me). A touch-range laser spell bonded to a sustaining focus served as my light saber, and the GM let me have a few innate spells as well (like influence.) This was probably the most SR-like character in the group, and that "light saber" actually turned out to be so deadly I'm surprised no one else created one in later games. The "deep dark secret" was that the "Jedi" initiatory group I was part of had sold chicago to the bugs, in exchange for leaving the rest of the midwest alone. I took "bug spirit" as a language.

2) A violent gun-bunny. Sounds a lot like normal SR? No... the violence had to be over the top, remember? As in "Sir, would you like paper or plastic?" -- "I would like VIOLENCE!!!" followed by grenade explosions. His deep dark over-the-top secret? He was actually Santa Clause, and just trying to balance out all the "good karma" from delivering a toy to every child on the planet the rest of the year.

3) Jackie Chan. Not a Jackie Chan-like adept, but the actual Jackie Chan. I haven't a clue what his secret was.

4) A human torso mage. He used levitate and magic fingers at ALL times. I don't know what his secret was either, but it involved UFOs.

5) A drone rigger. Not a "rigger that controls drones" -- a "drone" that was a rigger. He was a drone wheelchair fused with a Semi-autonomous knowbot. He rigged an anthroform drone in a loose cloak to sit atop him to mimic a wheelchair bound rigger / hacker. He did this solely to be not "The main behind the curtain" but "The chair behind the man behind the curtain." I haven't a clue what his "dark secret" was, we never got past the fact that, as Jackie so thoughtfully put it, "you a fragging chair man!" It wasn't until at least halfway through the run that we discovered his furniture status.


Now, I don't remember how things went down, but here is a guess of our situation at the time in question:

The torso had been abducted again, he was nowhere on earth to be found. Honestly, I wonder if the "aliens" where really just the disguise of a free spirt, using the gate power to abduct him to a UFO-like metaplane (damn, that's a GOOD idea... I need to work that into a game sometime). Whatever it was, he was gone. The violence addict was "hiding" from the lone star he had angered. He was, if I recall, "hiding" behind the two rapidly expanding mushroom clouds of fire his high explosive rockets had created just inside the lonestar compound. And even then it wasn't so much "hiding" as "strategic cover" for his next volley of automatic fire.

Meanwhile, as far from the abductions and explosions as we could get, Jackie Chan, the Chair, and I where investigating the plot clue we had. It had led us to some sort of warehouse or building, I don't quite recall. The chair was doing drone and matrix overwatch as we broke into a building. Jackie did some crazy stunt that even I, the Jedi Adept, couldn't follow. Because of this, I don't make it into the room until some time later by mundane means, and I find a strange object and an unconscious Jackie. Well, we really do need jackie, he's one of the more sane members of the team. So I get the chair to take us to one of my contacts, a skilled shadow doctor.

Inside the doctor's sterile office, he examines Jackie for a long time. I'm pretty sure the torso came back during this time. Santa called to get our location, we gave him the wrong address. The doctor eventually comes out to me and says "I know what is wrong. He's not knocked out or drugged -- his soul has been taken from his body to somewhere else." (Maybe the torso's aliens got him, I don't know.) Well, knowing that high quality medical care often means magic use too, I ask him if he has a mage on hand that can help -- or, for that matter, if there's anything at all that can be done.

"No problem. I'll have him fixed up in a few hours."

"Great!" I say, "That's way better than I had hoped. Oh... but we don't have much cash right now... can we get that on credit?"

"No charge" the doctor says.

At this point, I panic. Nothing is free in SR. Ever. GM, I implored, what is it you've neglected to tell me? The GM passes me a note that everyone else can't see. A sure sign that something is wrong. The note reads simply:

"He's one of THEM."

Oh dear.

At this point, I request the GM let me talk to him in "bug" so that the others don't learn my deep, dark secret. He actually makes me pantomime it. So after a good two minutes of chirping and using my fingers for mandibles and antennae (which has the group rolling) I ask the doctor

"What are you going to do, exactly."
He kind of shrugs.
"No way man, no way! You are NOT bug-spiriting this guy, we need him."
"Aw, come on man, this guy's a power house! We could really use him! You can even borrow his body until you're done with it!"

Anyway, we somehow get out of there without Mr. Chan being turned into a bug spirit, and escape to meet up with Mr. Violence.

I guess Jackie Chan didn't die, but it was pretty close for a while. He eventually recovered.

That was the weirdest run we ever ran. I wish I could remember more stories from it.
nezumi
That is GREAT. Man, now I want to run a game like that. That is a hilarious story.
hobgoblin
i think a notworthy.gif fits nicely right about now...
DocMortand
I have to go with explosives and newbies don't mix. I once ran in a group where a kid ran this stealth-gunbunny person who eventually received the nickname Captain Ebola. (He survived the ebola virus). He LOVED grenades...but had no thrown weapon skill. We didn't realize this when he made the character. So, he throws a grenade at a group and misses horribly. The grenade then bounces under the nearby car where we were sheltering behind. The next grenade then scatters to go between the legs of our troll tank.

We firmly took the grenades from him at that point and forbade him from ever touching grenades again.
Siege
This should spawn a new thread.

"Rule of your Group" - what informal, unofficial rule has your group developed after a particularly bad adventure?

My crew? 100 feet of rope. No matter where you're going, no matter what you're doing, 100 feet of rope.

Why? It's a long story involving zombies, sewers and a 100 foot drop into a pile of corpses.

-Siege
DocMortand
QUOTE (Siege)
This should spawn a new thread.

"Rule of your Group" - what informal, unofficial rule has your group developed after a particularly bad adventure?

My crew? 100 feet of rope. No matter where you're going, no matter what you're doing, 100 feet of rope.

Why? It's a long story involving zombies, sewers and a 100 foot drop into a pile of corpses.

-Siege

Oy...don't leave us hanging, here!

I have to say, the general rule of thumb in our group is "You go first." Oh, and when you're a new character in the Arcology Shutdown, don't tell the group "Hello" when trying to get their attention (this may result in untimely death)
Siege
This was actually a homebrew Cyberpunk (X-thulhu) game with heavy doses of magic and demonic evilness.

Our characters were pursuing missing children and ended up heading down into the sewers. As the logistics person, I was charged with outfitting our crew with everything we could conceivably need.

So, we had enough ammo to start and finish a small war, two medical kits with enough antibotics to jumpstart a corpse, biohazard gear, air filtration systems with emergency air tanks and so on.

I had three pages in 10 point font of itemized gear. You'd think this was enough, right?

As we descend into the sewer, we start encountering weirdness - including shambling packs of zombies made up of people listed as missing earlier in the week.

A running gun-battle later, we're running low on ammo, explosives and everything except the enemy. We retreat down a tunnel and come to an underground cavern below the city - zombies pushing in from behind and a chasm from the charnel pits of Hell lying before us.

In the middle of a lake of sewer waste lay an island with the missing children. A demon-form...a bloated giant of a man with a large, growing mouth in his belly was climbing out of waste, intent on the kids.

My solo - samurai had to improvise a way of getting down the 100 foot drop and clear the cavern distance to try and rescue the kids. The only available resource? The zombies closing behind us.

A few rounds and a monoblade later, we finished dropping the zombie corpses out of the tunnel mouth. Then we slid off the lip of the ledge, bouncing off the rock wall before landing in the pile of corpses.

While my party tried to shoot the damned thing from the shore, my battered, bruised and now hyped on painkillers and combat drugs samurai charged the demon.

With the bullets having little or no discernable effect, my samurai dove into the water and let himself be swallowed by the demon with the remaining explosives - a couple of thermite grenades.

Between the autoinjector, another monoblade and lots of emergency medical assistance from my party, my character survived the trip back to the surface and spent the better part of a year in the emergency room and rehab.

-Siege
ShadowDragon8685
Wow.

I'm starting to think "Dive down it's gullet with something explosive" is not so uncommon a theme as would be thought...

My D&D gaming group considered using a Daern's Instant Fortress to dive down a dragon's belly and then have dragon-decorated Instant Fortress.
Siege
The reason why the Trojan horse is a classic - because it works.

-Siege
warrior_allanon
one of my GM's has this bad habit of losing his game notes since he only runs a game once in a blue moon, the one time however he gets to run for about 3 weeks in a row he sends us to a secret corp compound in the Andes mountains because its been infested by ghouls, now i'm playing a aspected wolf shaman, (dont know what came over me in making that character), and after retreating from our first probe of the compounds defenses we decide that we can just mow down the opposition easy, so in we go guns blazing, scavenging ammo and nades from the corpses of the ghouls, and i end up with 6 willie pete grenades on my tac vest, and a mild ringing in my head, (i had made the majority of my roles against the virus but still was gonna get a "side effect" the gm said) all of a sudden i catch a glimpse of something in the corner of my eye and switch to astral perception to find a fire elemental about 10 feet from me. my reaction is to throw a strong as hades spirit blast at it, (the spell fizzled but i made the drain). this ticked off the elemental which manifested and engulfed me. now remember kiddies, i'm wearing 6 white phosforus grenades and standing in an area filled with bodies that have about 4 grenades a piece on each of them. GM rolls object resistance for everything and only the last grenade cooked off, at that point i toss the character sheet aside without even rolling damage. the GM asks why, i can still make a damage resistace check. and i point out that while that is true due to the above mentioned situation and surroundings i will be blown up or burnt to a crisp anyway, GM describes the scene to the rest of the players as a near nuke going off, mushroom cloud and everything
Kyoto Kid
QUOTE (Siege)
This should spawn a new thread.

"Rule of your Group" - what informal, unofficial rule has your group developed after a particularly bad adventure?

-Siege

Never, Ever give the GM any ideas.
Kyoto Kid
Mentioned it in another thread.

One member offs a Tir Na Nog policeman while we were running in Celtic Double Cross.

Not only he, but the entire team is (as per the warning we received from our Johnson) "...are hunted down, summarily tried and executed."

And our characters pleaded with him not to do it...
ShadowDragon8685
Railroad, much? It's not like Shadowrunners don't routinely avoid manhunts and such. Gene therepy, plastic surgery, etcetera.
Demon_Bob
We were leaving after successfully recovering a cyberware prototype and extracting some pay data. Due to some complications I was forced to leave by another exit that was planned so my beat-up, rusted, multi-color compact with a rebuilt supercharged 302 was on the other side of the building.
Instead I exited next to the executive parking lot.
Lined up all nice and neat were several expensive cars in named parking spots.
He listed off the names and vehicles and I picked one I liked broke in, hotwired it and drove off. Never, worring about the rigger mods installed.
In a few minutes I found out that the car belonged to the security rigger in the building we just left as he remoted the car, locked out the manual controls, locked the doors and proceeded to drive his car back.
I radio my other team members and informed them of my predicament.
As quickly as possible the other team members caught up.
The rigger decides, "I'll shoot out the tires."
The mage decides, "I'll Ball Lightning the control circuits."
neither decides to tell anybody about their plans.
Car veers into oncoming traffick. Several cars make successful rolls to avoid me but fail to avoid other stuff. The vehicle continues through a yard and into a nice brick building. Accellerating all the way.
Trax
The shaman on my team used ball lightning against a vehicle once. It did a whole lot more than fry the circuits, it virtually melted the damn thing and it was an MPUV!
SL James
QUOTE (ShadowDragon8685)
Railroad, much? It's not like Shadowrunners don't routinely avoid manhunts and such. Gene therepy, plastic surgery, etcetera.

I agree. That was just lame.
Sandoval Smith
QUOTE (ShadowDragon8685)
Railroad, much? It's not like Shadowrunners don't routinely avoid manhunts and such. Gene therepy, plastic surgery, etcetera.

Yeah, but they're not running in Tir Na Nog at the time.
Critias
QUOTE (Sandoval Smith @ Nov 10 2005, 08:28 AM)
QUOTE (ShadowDragon8685 @ Nov 9 2005, 06:27 PM)
Railroad, much? It's not like Shadowrunners don't routinely avoid manhunts and such. Gene therepy, plastic surgery, etcetera.

Yeah, but they're not running in Tir Na Nog at the time.

Whoopty shit.

It's got Shadows, just like everywhere else.

I am a rabid elf-country fanboy, and I'd take a big dump behind the GM screen of anyone who ever just said "sorry, you're all hunted down, captured, and executed. New game," no matter what goddamned country we broke the law in. Tir Tairngire, Tir na nOg, anywhere. There's no rule that says "elf countries magically win," and there never should be.

You role-play the hunt out, at the very least. Let 'em go down kicking and screaming, dodging hunters, spies, cops, feds, Paladins, etc, etc. See if they can take a few with 'em, see what calls they make to try and pull old strings to get the hunt called off, let 'em try to drop fake clues, let 'em try to sacrifice one another to escape, let 'em do whatever they can -- let them do something.

Hell, would The Bourne Identity have been a good movie if, ten seconds in, the director just said "This is lame. Treadstone catches and kills him. Roll credits."

I'd kill to get in a game like that -- outgunned, outnumbered, knowing you should die but trying to outsmart the enemy, dodge the net that's closing in? That's pure Shadowrun, man. That's what it's all about. I've got characters that are tailor made for just that sort of game (though they'll likely never get the chance to use those abilities in that way). The characters are supposed to be pro's. Pro's don't quit ('till the players decide they do). They go down after a dramatic chase, with their thumb stuck in someone's eye and a fat kid IRL tossing one last handfull of dice.
Jrayjoker
Rally now, share how you really feel...biggrin.gif
Critias
Well, it's retarded. No wonder so many people hate Tir Tairngire, Tir Na Nog, and everything that's even remotely to do with them. If GM's pull this sort of crap left and right (for the magical elf countries, but for some reason not any other nation-state in the world), people should fucking hate elves.
Sandoval Smith
QUOTE (Critias)
QUOTE (Sandoval Smith @ Nov 10 2005, 08:28 AM)
QUOTE (ShadowDragon8685 @ Nov 9 2005, 06:27 PM)
Railroad, much? It's not like Shadowrunners don't routinely avoid manhunts and such. Gene therepy, plastic surgery, etcetera.

Yeah, but they're not running in Tir Na Nog at the time.

Whoopty shit.

It's got Shadows, just like everywhere else.

I am a rabid elf-country fanboy, and I'd take a big dump behind the GM screen of anyone who ever just said "sorry, you're all hunted down, captured, and executed. New game," no matter what goddamned country we broke the law in. Tir Tairngire, Tir na nOg, anywhere. There's no rule that says "elf countries magically win," and there never should be.

You role-play the hunt out, at the very least. Let 'em go down kicking and screaming, dodging hunters, spies, cops, feds, Paladins, etc, etc. See if they can take a few with 'em, see what calls they make to try and pull old strings to get the hunt called off, let 'em try to drop fake clues, let 'em try to sacrifice one another to escape, let 'em do whatever they can -- let them do something.

Hell, would The Bourne Identity have been a good movie if, ten seconds in, the director just said "This is lame. Treadstone catches and kills him. Roll credits."

I'd kill to get in a game like that -- outgunned, outnumbered, knowing you should die but trying to outsmart the enemy, dodge the net that's closing in? That's pure Shadowrun, man. That's what it's all about. I've got characters that are tailor made for just that sort of game (though they'll likely never get the chance to use those abilities in that way). The characters are supposed to be pro's. Pro's don't quit ('till the players decide they do). They go down after a dramatic chase, with their thumb stuck in someone's eye and a fat kid IRL tossing one last handfull of dice.

Before you blow a gasket, consider that all we know about the situation is that it happened in 'Celtic Double Cross.' That quote might've been there just to pare down a long, and to anyone who wasn't actually there, boring story about what happened. In that module, there might only be one part where you have a decent chance to just blow a cop away, and it just happens to be a really, really bad time to start shooting guys on the street. It doesn't matter if the place has Shadows or not if they're at the point in the module where it says, "this is where a Tir special forces convoy is moving through the city, and if the players follow it, they can get a good idea of what they'll be facing if they try and infiltrate location Z the next day," and the sammie goes, "Oh! Cop! Bang! Bang!"

I guess congratulations on feeling so strongly about this (is there anyone out there who goes, Railroading? Oh baby yes please!), but I'd have to ask what's wrong with having the whole story before you start shitting all over everything?
Siege
QUOTE (Critias)
Well, it's retarded. No wonder so many people hate Tir Tairngire, Tir Na Nog, and everything that's even remotely to do with them. If GM's pull this sort of crap left and right (for the magical elf countries, but for some reason not any other nation-state in the world), people should fucking hate elves.

I think people hate the elves because running, illegally, in the elf nations is so damned hard without GM fiat or some massive connections and so much cash that it's not worth it for most runner teams.

Of course, if the team left any ritual samples, astral signatures or anything that would allow a wiz to get a lock, it would be a very short chase.

Evading mundane security is hard, but not impossible - outwitting mages can be bloody near impossible.

-Siege
Critias
From the sounds of things -- maybe I'm just taking his post too literally -- the GM literally just said "you're arrested and executed," once they killed the cop. It also looked like, from Sandoval's post, it was was a-okay for this sort of thing to happen, because it was in Tir na Nog.

And, well, if that's what happened, and if that's the logic behind it being an allright move on the GM's part, I firmly stand by my above half-lucid end-of-a-shift 9:00 rant.
blakkie
QUOTE (Critias @ Nov 10 2005, 12:19 PM)
Pro's don't quit ('till the players decide they do). They go down after a dramatic chase, with their thumb stuck in someone's eye and a fat kid IRL tossing one last handfull of dice.

Amen. In SR3 terms, as a player in our group puts it "As long as he's got the Hand of God or a single point of Karma Pool left my PC doesn't quit."

QUOTE (Sandoval Smith)
is there anyone out there who goes, Railroading? Oh baby yes please!


Oddly, yes. They might instead of using the word railroading call it some other bullshit name like GM narrative style, but yes there are definately GMs that do that and think it's the cat's ass because they get to wetdream up the whole story beforehand and then inflict it on an audience that was likely duped into believing they'd have some sort of influence on the outcome.

Some people even like, or at least don't mind, 'playing' in such games. (EDIT: Particularly if they consider the GM's stories entertaining instead of viewing them as a rambling mess of the worst kind of fan-wank spawned from a marginally literate mind.) Me, i have my passive narrative quota filled watching movies or reading a book and look for something different in an RPG. But not everyone.

It is also possible that the group Kyoto Kid was in was a pack of QUITTERS! wink.gif They just didn't want to play out being hunted down like dogs by the uber (still no balls!) elf police.

P.S. BTW i did a search for the other thread Kyoto Kid mentioned. The one i found didn't have any more details as to whether or not the GM really just summed up the whole chase down in a 1/2 sentence. frown.gif It did however confirm what i gathered from Kyoto Kid's post in this thread. He was a player, not the GM.
PBTHHHHT
Remember, many kids these days are the byproducts of the Final Fantasy and other 'rpg' related console/computer games. Railroading/narrative style? yeah.
Kyoto Kid
QUOTE (Critias)
Well, it's retarded.  No wonder so many people hate Tir Tairngire, Tir Na Nog, and everything that's even remotely to do with them.  If GM's pull this sort of crap left and right (for the magical elf countries, but for some reason not any other nation-state in the world), people should fucking hate elves.

Actually, my namesake character Kyoto Kid really Really hates elves. She was born of elven parents and raised in the TT but was unfortunate to be the human of twin sisters (this was back in SR1). It's one thing being an outcast in society, it is another when it is within your family. At the age of 13 she managed to stow away on a transport to Seattle when she finally decided enough was enough. and that is where her SINless career began.

Hence the second part of her motto below:
Kyoto Kid
QUOTE (blakkie)
QUOTE (Critias @ Nov 10 2005, 12:19 PM)
Pro's don't quit ('till the players decide they do). They go down after a dramatic chase, with their thumb stuck in someone's eye and a fat kid IRL tossing one last handfull of dice.

Amen. In SR3 terms, as a player in our group puts it "As long as he's got the Hand of God or a single point of Karma Pool left my PC doesn't quit."

QUOTE (Sandoval Smith)
is there anyone out there who goes, Railroading? Oh baby yes please!


Oddly, yes. They might instead of using the word railroading call it some other bullshit name like GM narrative style, but yes there are definately GMs that do that and think it's the cat's ass because they get to wetdream up the whole story beforehand and then inflict it on an audience that was likely duped into believing they'd have some sort of influence on the outcome.

Some people even like, or at least don't mind, 'playing' in such games. Me, i get enough of that watching a movie or reading a book and look for something different in an RPG. But not everyone.

It is also possible that the group Kyoto Kid was in was a pack of QUITTERS! wink.gif They just didn't want to play out being hunted down like dogs by the uber (still no balls!) elf police.

P.S. BTW i did a search for the other thread Kyoto Kid mentioned. The one i found didn't have any more details as to whether or not the GM really just summed up the whole chase down in a 1/2 sentence. frown.gif It did however confirm what i gathered from Kyoto Kid's post in this thread. He was a player, not the GM.

Basically, a lot of it was the GM who in other game systems tends to lean towards the "Killer" technique (as if this module wasn't tough enough). needless to say, I and several others do not play in this person's scenarios any more. We were not even allowed our Hand OF God.

I will say this though, my character (an earlier incarnation of the decker Diamond IC) went down swinging after things went south to the point of hopelessness. Even with her skill, deck & programmes, she still somehow failed to get us passage out of the country before they caught up with us. Must have been some really killer Trace IC I guess.

BTW her new Incarnation almost hates elves as bad as the aforementioned Kyoto Kid character.
Sandoval Smith
In that case, I rescind my previous leniency against the GM's actions. That was a really toolish thing to do, especially since the other players tried to get him to stop. I probably would've gone really hard on the shooter, for being dumb, but not gone out of my way to heap punishment on the 'innocent' players.

I'm also going to have to strongly disagree with Blakkie's take on railroading. One of the prime identifiers of railroading is that it's no fun. Therefore, if the players are having fun, it's not railroading, instead of deciding, 'it's railroading, and the fact that you guys are enjoying it is just indicitive that you're too dense to realize that you're being led around by the nose."
blakkie
QUOTE (Kyoto Kid)
Must have been some really killer Trace IC I guess.

Maybe it was a magical, flower-powered Trace program? Run on a satanic deck by some bizzarely old Elf? love.gif

QUOTE
We were not even allowed our Hand OF God.


Sorry to hear, that just isn't right. Even if the guy that shot the officer was a total dumbass for doing so. Something like not being allowed a Hand of God would by itself cause me to cast doubts about a lot of other 'bad luck' that lead up to needing to use it. frown.gif
blakkie
QUOTE (Sandoval Smith @ Nov 10 2005, 04:15 PM)
I'm also going to have to strongly disagree with Blakkie's take on railroading.  One of the prime identifiers of railroading is that it's no fun.  Therefore, if the players are having fun, it's not railroading, instead of deciding, 'it's railroading, and the fact that you guys are enjoying it is just indicitive that you're too dense to realize that you're being led around by the nose."

*shrug* You can have three different players in a game experience the same thing. One likes it, one is unaware, and the third doesn't like it. Would the player that likes it refer to it literally as "railroading"? Maybe, maybe not, depending what connotations that brings to her. But my point is that it's still railroading, by any other name.

P.S. It sure didn't sound like Kyoto Kid wanted more of the same, although at least it wasn't just a 1/2 sentence that completely ended it. Even if everything past that point could have been a sham rigged by the GM who had set in their mind to terminate the team no matter what they managed to do.

EDIT: It sounds like this might also have been a variation on the railroad that i'd refer to as the deathtrap. It's like the railroad in that there is one path, but the path isn't something the player is likely to think of a straight-forward [obvious]. It is a puzzle created by the GM who sees and allows only one possible solution that requires very specific actions. Instead of rails to hold you in place on the path the PC just simply comes to a quick and horrible end if they happen to, mistakenly or not, deviate in the slightest from the GM prescribed path.
hyzmarca
QUOTE (Sandoval Smith)
I'm also going to have to strongly disagree with Blakkie's take on railroading. One of the prime identifiers of railroading is that it's no fun. Therefore, if the players are having fun, it's not railroading, instead of deciding, 'it's railroading, and the fact that you guys are enjoying it is just indicitive that you're too dense to realize that you're being led around by the nose."

The prime identifier of railroading is that the players have no real choices in that they cannot deviate from the given plot no matter what they do. That doesn't mean that it isn't fun. Final Fantasy X is fun, but its plot certainly moves on rails.
warrior_allanon
QUOTE (hyzmarca)
QUOTE (Sandoval Smith @ Nov 10 2005, 05:15 PM)
I'm also going to have to strongly disagree with Blakkie's take on railroading.  One of the prime identifiers of railroading is that it's no fun.  Therefore, if the players are having fun, it's not railroading, instead of deciding, 'it's railroading, and the fact that you guys are enjoying it is just indicitive that you're too dense to realize that you're being led around by the nose."

The prime identifier of railroading is that the players have no real choices in that they cannot deviate from the given plot no matter what they do. That doesn't mean that it isn't fun. Final Fantasy X is fun, but its plot certainly moves on rails.

yeah, my GM hates when we do something that completely blows his plans to hades, there was this one time, (and no it wasnt a stupid PC death but a stupid NPC death), our street sam and one of the phys adepts in the group went to meet the johnson to give her an update, well they were told to leave all there weapons with the weapons check, but the street sam kept the claymore mine in his fanny pack, once the johnson got there he armed and started to place the claymore with a radio detonator in one corner of the room but was spotted, he was told to turn it over to the weapons check as well so he did with it still armed and goes back to the table. next thing he knows the mafia goons start storming into the bar and the street sam calmly reaches down and hits the radio detonator switch on his keychain.....sets off the entire weapons storage and takes out the goons and half the bar....needless to say they were never allowed back into the bar, but the johnson was very impressed

Siege
Claymore in a fanny pack.

-Siege
SL James
A gay suicide bomber belt. Cute.
warrior_allanon
they will fit, i know from personal experience...(just finished a tour in the marines)
hyzmarca
QUOTE (SL James @ Nov 10 2005, 07:21 PM)
A gay suicide bomber belt. Cute.

Not suicide, you just point the claymore away drom your butt, bend over toward your enemies, and detonate it. If you're a troll you can stage down the explosive damage and the ball bearings wll slaughter your foes.
This is a "lo-fi" version of our main content. To view the full version with more information, formatting and images, please click here.
Dumpshock Forums © 2001-2012