Or, to clarify this in practice: if the majority of the group doesn't want to play a wacky game, then letting one player get away with wackiness will only annoy everyone. Every other player will bitch about the ventriloquist mage with the hand puppet focus who constantly wants to use Trid Entertainment as a combat spell, and he'll bitch because you won't let him be as wacky as he wanted to be and name the puppet as his totem. And then he'll bitch even more when the street sam has his inevitable gun cleaning accident.

Go ahead. Ask me how I know this.

I know. My loaded d6s always got a non-6 roll about every third roll. (And then the paint wore off the loaded side, so you couldn't even fool new players.)

I know. But an AI that's, like, a Lower AI-7 or LAI-8 (in GURPS:Transhuman Space terms) would fine. It'd be less imaginative and capable than a human. Something like that, or maybe a Sentient AI-7 or SAI-8, should be harmless and add something interesting to the game.

The shame about Shadowrun's computer technology is that it's currently boxed itself in by making all AIs into demigods, and thus most GMs seem to leave AIs firmly in the "not in my campaign" area.

I disagree. Foul play is still foul play, and collaborating with the GM to put it over on everyone else does not make it better.

~J

Huh. Okay, I was thinking of loaded dice that might actually have a chance to pass a cursory inspection. I'd never even heard of a monster like the one you describe. The sort of thing you're talking about would just about need GM collaboration, and would have to be done sparingly as someone would surely eventually notice the way the dice clunked against the table.

Sheesh. Cheaters these days, they just don't care about quality. If I were going to cheat, I'd cheat with transparent dice, because I know how to weight those. >8->

If you read the descriptions of how everyone was cheering, you'd see why it was a good thing, destroyed by a backstabbing DM.

Yeah, think about this, people. This is a guy who secretly tape records incriminating conversations with his GM about whether to cheat to achieve a stupid goal, then goes and does it. Forget about "blame." Is this the kind of melodrama you really want to invite back to your gaming table?

Granted, I think everyone in Sabosect's story handled this badly. Even Sabosect's "Set a 200 TN to discourage people from trying" was probably a bad move, as it incites people to try to climb Everest. If you don't want AIs in the game, just say no. Or at the very least, "Okay, build an archology first. Then we'll talk."

The Great Ghost Dance does not have an assigned Drain Code. Harlequin doesn't have stats. Building an AI does not need a target number.

But now that you have an AI in the game.... Eh. Might as well make it part of the plot. Your own personal System Failure, if you like.

The only back stabber in the game was the cheater. He ruined a great moment by cheating.

Man you sound just like Creepwood... "the story the story, don't ruine the story, dice are unimportant!" blah blah blah

HE CHEATED.

Fair play may not exist in the Shadowrun world but it can and does exist at the gaming table.

It isn't cheating if the GM makes a fully informed decision to approve it.

By the very nature of his position the GM cannot cheat.

Actually, I still think it was a bad thing made worse, just like I did when I first read through this thread.

It's funny you mention gun cleaning accidents.

We had a player in my first group who picked up gun cleaning as a knowledge skill...yep, this was the first ever critical failure I saw.

Hilarious.

First of all, GM's cannot cheat. They are not bound by the same rules as players. Comparing a players actions to a gms is not what this is about.

The player deceived his friends, and the spirit of the game by using a loaded dice.

It is the same as lying to you. Ok?

Now as for gm's. They cannot cheat. They can be bad gm's, or bad people, but they cannot cheat. They have no rules for gming. Fudging dice to keep players alive, (or to kill npc's) is not cheating.

So get over yourself about GM's cheating.

The second definition of "cheat" in the Oxford American Dictionary on my Mac here is: "(trans) deceive or trick."

The GM cheats when he breaks the social contract with the players. I'm not talking about fudging dice rolls, or even allowing loaded dice. Maybe that's in the social contract; maybe it isn't. It depends on the group.

I'm talking about entering into a private agreement with a player to accept that player's actions, and then declaring the action not valid when executed. That's deceptive and it's malicious on an entirely out-of-game level, and I don't think it's inaccurate to call it cheating. Betraying the trust of characters is part of a GM's job. Betraying the trust of a player is not.

I thought I read exactly that.

What did he do then? Lie, backstab, deceive, set up the player? But not cheat? OK, if you say so.

What the GM did was entrapment. Like all acts of entrapment, it was an abuse of power. It was also an act of utter asshattery.