My play group tends to be friends both inside and outside of Shadowrun. No matter how many times they create characters, they always seem to bring them relatively "in the fold". What is you group like? Is there infighting amongst the characters (not players), or do they treat each other like Level 3 contacts?

Most of my groups have, with the occasional exception, been relatively friendly with each other. I'm hoping to get a game going sometime that's played more realistically (characters more than open to selling each other out, watching each other as closely as the Johnson, etc.).

~J

"Larry… I'm a cop"

Other.

Two are swordbrothers, close like family -- right down to one smacking the other one over the head for being an idiot, and so on. Drag each other out of the fires and so on.

Last is somewhere on the side of friend, but nowhere near that close.

Mine are friends but the group is still "gelling" so I put neutral at the moment.

My group tends to be large, depending on how many people show up each week, and we have a fairly high turnover rate so it keeps things pretty interesting. Usually, though, each group of about 6 will break down along the lines of Player relationships (Several of us are very good friends, and a few of us don't like each other), usually an "in-crowd" of 4-5 PCs that follow the actions of a leader, and 1-2 "dissenters" who through roleplaying out flaws or genuine in-character disagreement with the rest of the team will cause plenty of excitement (to use one word for it) and mayhem throughout the run.

My players all live togeather and treat each other like siblings.

my group is never close in character. We have been friends for many years, shared good times, bad times, women, money, booze, you name it. However, in the game we are all paranoid and always expecting another PC to geek us and make off with the phat l00t or double cross us for cred. Has happened a few times. One player in particular seems to enjoy killing other PCs (and at the very least threatening them) when the do something he doesn't approve of. It's a habit I've been trying to break him of by instituting "wrath of the GM".

My group is mixed: some characters are really close, soem are on neutral terms, and some don't like each other for various reasons. However, we're - IRL - friends, and thus, tend to not double-cross each other too muchevery character has their secrets, of course, and two are careful to not let other players, no matter how long they know each other, and how much they trust and depend on each other, know where they live, or what they do in their down time.

We run the gamut-from a group that had a thing with trying to sodomize one paticular character, to best friends.

We generally work well together, but there's that sweet, underlying paranoia everywhere. The poor Wyrm Shaman with his force 6 tattoo magic nearly choked on his nutriSoy burger when he learned my present character is good chums with people in the Star.

(Hey, it makes sense that a person who's got a cover identity as a bounty hunter for licensed use of exotic cyberware would have friends in traffic control, forensics and the dept. of homicide).

I put `generally like` as my poll vote, but then its pretty broad.

Kitty, the team`s face/skillwire jockey/ ghost in the ID machine, seems to get along best with Gene (gun adept) and Sassie (ork ex-mafiaso muscle and razorchica). However she keeps her many ID`s secret from even them and most of her safe houses (the real ones) they dont even know exist.

Gene generally appreciates the skills of the group but has no friends within it, preferring instead to keep his social side of things detached from the team.

Sassie enjoys nights on the town with Kitty, because the elf chick knows all the best places to go and gets them in and has become friends with the team`s newest member Logan (elf street sam/ gun expert).

Logan respects Gene because of his skills, protects Kitty because he`s made a few of the same enemies and enjoys the rough and rocking company of Sassie.

Still not sure how much trust is given by each of the above though, they all have secrets from each other and a few personal vendettas that have endangered the team before now. Scary really considering i`m the GM.

my group is a mix. last time we played i riped off 1 of the runners telling the chummer that the contact charged more then he really did. split the extra with rest of the team. the next game one of the chummers from that run was there. he and i are getting all buddy buddy in game.

PC shadowrunners are often dysfunctional in their relationship with each other.

The PCs often distrust each other based on the premise that SR is about paranoia and double cross. Yet they stay together in spite of their mistrust because, metagamingly speaking, they have to.

The result is often a bunch of people who logically should drift apart (or kill each other) but instead somehow stick together against all logic.

After half a dozen run or so, I feel any runner team should be thick as thieves (They are thieves after all) or split. If you don't trust someone 100%, I don't see why you would trust them with your life.

Which why the first runs are so crucial. Incidently, this is why if you are an untrustworthy bastard, you shouldn't have been able to get in a good SR team in the first place. You can't get in another strong team if no one vouches for you. And no one vouches for you if you are not trustworthy. I always assumed a new PC still had a few low risk runs under his belt in which he proved he was trustworthy. Otherwise, no one in their right mind would have introduced that PC to other quality runners and Johnsons. This assumption only makes it more painful when that new PC proceed to act like a complete rat, the kind of rat who shouldn't have been able to leave the gutter, much less have a fixer introduce him to the rest of the team.

I put other because whilst the player group is closer knit than family (just as many ties, but actually like each other). The group is about as manageable as a herd of cats and has a very developed sense of Us and Them; anything goes as long as it is done by Us to Them, unfortunately when there is no ready source of Them the first person to turn their back gets to fill in.

So we generally always have two plots going on, the mission and who going to get backstabbed in the most creative way possible just shy of death, life in prison, or penury.

I put paranoid, we are all good friends but tend to play surspisious characters, this can get in the way sometimes but always makes for an interesting game!

torz x

I've played in games where the characters were close friends and trusted each other with their lives, and I've played in games where the characters hated each other, or at the very least, didn't trust each other.

The characters that startedout hating each other, slowly began to trust each other over time, though they never did get along very well, and never did anything together between runs. They didn't have to like each other as long as they could work together and realize that they couldn't do as well on their own.

I've only been in one game where a character killed another character intentionally (I've been in many games where characters accidently other characters killed) The killing was justified IC. It was nice that the two players involved were able to keep their IC problems from spilling over into OOC problems.

My PCs all like each other. I've had two occaisions when two PCs didn't get along well, for whatever reason. In each case, one of the two simply left the group. It wasn't even a case of distrust, just not liking another person's style. They each figured they're better off with a totally new group than following someone who might get them killed.

My first team was a mix of freindliness and savage hatred. The giant unkillable Troll Sam was everybody's friend, and he was the one that brought the team together. The two mages were on good terms with each other for the most part (though one did go evil, but he wasn't part of the team by that point). It was the remaining mage and the Face/Adept who really, really hated each other. They stuck together, even when the other mage and the Troll Sam left mostly because they had invested too much in each other to part ways, and partly because they were by then an established high-powered runner team who attracted top talent. The situation degenerated to the point where they were actively attempting to kill each other, which came to a head when the mage planted a large C12 bomb in the Adept's toilet set to go off when she flushed. They ended up involuntarily saving each others life later in that particular session. As far as I'm concerned, fun times all around.

I'll just drag your head out. Somehow we'll dig up the money for you to go full-borg

Oh wait, we can sell the rest of your body to raise the money

But yeah, that was one of the major issues. Who wants to wait around three months because they thought they smelled a rat at the meet?

~J

Depending on if they are friends in real life most of the players in my game are and expect their friends to be their friends in the game.

If there not friends in real life they often try to hire on new players for a small fixed wage + 5-10% of total profits rather than a full partner in the group. This usually can be made to work a couple of times before they let the new guy into the main group of players.

We separate between real life friendship and in-game friendship. Had all kind of relations, chars hating each other, loving each other, being brothers and all between. Currently three of our chars know and trust each other very well, while the occassional back up char (mostly the same sams) are viewed with caution. They're trusted as far as they can be trusted, but they have to work hard to become real friends.

My group is paranoid about each other. They will work together, watch each other's backs, etc. But they will never trust each other. On one hand there is always the possiblity of being sold out. It's happened before, though it wasn't really intentionnal. One guy blabbed all about the missions they were doing to a local fixer he thought was his friend (it is to note the player doesn't have a malicious bone in his body, and so is easy to manipulate).

Also, should any one of them get captured, you don't want him knowing where he lives, should he get tortured and be forced to reveal where you live.

Plus, if the mission goes sour and it's you or your team mate, you don't want to be too attached when you gotta leave him behind... or cap him.

I think in general the criminal-shadowrunner type of person CANNOT trust anyone, no matter what. A fine example of this is the movie The Way of the Gun, when they're leaving the motel with the chick in it. Benicio Del Toro's character tells the other "can you get my jacket inside", the other guy goes to get it, but the chick fires through the door with a shotgun.

Benicio's character pushes his partner out of the way, since he'd proven his point about the girl. Now, these guys are TIGHT. They're blood borthers, for sure. But when Benicio's char pushes him out of the way, the other dude pulls out his gun and stick it to his face by reflex and looks him in the eyes.

You never know. You never trust anyone completely.

The PC's in my game are loose friends who have their share of secrets and reasons to be weary of each other. The street sam and the decker are constantly on each other's throats.

In fact, in a previous session the group was climbing a long ladder while under gunfire. The sam though it would be prudent to climb over the dwarf rigger to get to the top platform faster. Well, lets just say after the rigger failed his strength test and the sam failed his athletics test, they were both in for a long fall. The sam's high body prevented him from sustaining any damage, but the rigger sustained an M wound. You can imagine the rigger was none too pleased by this stunt, but it was a great in game moment when the sam, who already had his fill of the rigger, said "Wow, that was the most fun I've had all night!". All of us bust out laughing as the rigger pulled himself up off the floor. Of course this has only added to the mounting tensions. I would have to say that their relationship has a Gimli-Legolas dynamic to it.

We've also got a Troll who takes up the "tank" type runner very well. He also garners his own share of hatred on runs as he always employs a "shoot first" mentality. This has not gone without causing a number of dangerous situations for the group. The rest of the runners are frequently screaming "Noooo, don't do it!!" in their comms. I always get a laugh out of his failure to learn from past mistakes.

Then we've got a slick as ice face character who definitely garners the most mistrust in the group. He's always got side deals going on, and many times when fencing loot, he will be less than forthcoming with the other member's shares. Example, selling some hot item for 40,000, and giving the other members 3,000 each. What is really funny is that this player came to me and asked if it would be against the rules to double cross another PC in order to further his own goals. So, I can only wait with baited breath to see what kind of sinister plans this PC will come up with in the future. its funny because even though none of the other PC's trust him, he is an invaluable asset due to his connections and social abilities.

There is also a Mage, who is a pretty straight shooter. the face seems to be the most weary of him as he is pretty secretive, and the face does not like to be kept in the dark, though he seems to follow the logic of "keep your friends close and your enemies closer" because he always acts the chummiest with the mage when they are together.

All issues aside, I really love where this group of players is taking the story that we have going, and I can't wait to see what they will do next.

Two of the characters are pretty close because they have been together a long time. The rest of the group changes pretty frequently and you really aren't considered part of the core till maybe the 10th or 12th run. By that time you will have probably done at least one thing of note.

Neutral.

As long as theyre on a run theyre generally friendly, and aid each other accomplishing missions and usually during downtime. But its SR, and too many times has the gun been pointed the wrong way. Theres times it can switch to wary or paranoid so fast, in a single sentence of flavor text, that theyre neutral. Never so trusting to be allies, never so paranoid to shoot without asking questions, but friendly until there could be a reason not to be.

Completely depends on the team--we only have one character who would rate as a sociopath, and the team does their best to treat him the way you would a rabid dog...short leash with the knowledge you may have to put him down at some point.

Otherwise, most people have a professional respect for each other--some are closer than others just like any work environment.