Tabletop Roleplaying Games (D&D, Pathfinder, CoC, ETC.)

[Overly Serious]

100%

To explain it. I'll use my experience with MechWarrior.

For years, I had heard repeatedly about how great MechWarrior (or Battletech) is. Maybe years later I finally got to play it and ...I wasn't impressed. The part that matters here however is the lore. People hyped up these stories as peerless, but I found the story to be near none-existent. When I played MechWarrior 4, you get to choose one of four mercenary companies. Not knowing them, I chose the one that gave more money. This turned out to be the "wrong" choice. Supposedly the Kell Hounds were the most super awesomest merc company evar!!!1!!one!! When I get to choose between siding with Stiner or Davion, I just shrugged. But to MW lore buffs this was a big deal.

After years of this, I eventually figured that the setting started as a simple set up for a war game, but years of novels (many of which were US only), spin offs, and games had resulted in an impenetrable block of lore, and not knowing all of it meant I was missing out. The "peerless stories" seem to be more lore references.


I'm coming into Shadowrun just now, and it's a similar mess. Seattle, Hong Kong, Berlin, Bug City, Super Tuesday, plus a whole timeline of events and status quo changes. And unlike, say, Call of Cthulhu where everything is self contained, or Eberron where the setting is static. It makes it seem like everyone has to know all of it. And that's before arguments over all 7(?) editions.

Okay. I hope you'll take it in good humour if I get a little defensive. I wont dispute that there's a tonne of lore in Shadowrun and it's certainly a problem that a newcomer will struggle not to put a foot wrong. But the setting itself is not a mess. At least ways prior to 5th edition which you'll recall I always talk about 4th. However, if I've made you feel like those Battletech players and telling you that you keep doing things wrong due to some invisible body of lore you don't know then I can only apologise. I guess maybe that is how I've come across. I'm not really familiar with Battletech beyond a very superficial knowledge of the setting. Shadowrun doesn't have "oh, you're not supposed to be on this side" or "oh, you shouldn't pick that faction". But perhaps where I've come across that way is about the tone and style of the setting.

To explain though not excuse, Shadowrun has a unique flavour and a big pet peeve of mine is when it's looked at as just fantasy stuck in sci-fi and anything goes. One of the best things about Shadowrun is the thought and effort put into making elves and dragons and magic realistic. Or perhaps more accurately, internally consistent.

And even though the outcome may have been bad, my motivation was simply that I want others to enjoy it as much as I do. I'm like that annoying person who keeps explaining things in a movie they love "oh, did you appreciate this? Did you get that? No, he did this because..." Instead of just letting someone enjoy it for themselves. That's on me. My username was picked deliberately, FYI. I tend to approach things very seriously.

Perhaps I should back off and if you have any questions, ask away. Despite any impression I've given, I want to help you enjoy the game if you run it so if I can offer advice or answer questions (same as others will), just ask. Ultimately I don't think anybody can give a better description of Shadowrun than that anonymous fan long ago: "It's shooting people in the face for money. With elves."

This was covered previously, but in short, nothing in isolation. The problem is that obvious challenges that would arise from that playstyle are met by the proponents with "nuh uh!".

What is the building is wirelessly shielded? "Nuh uh! Wouldn't work."
What if they shoot down the drone? "Then I'll just send out another!" Wouldn't you run out eventually? "Nuh uh!"
What if they send a security team to check on the parked van since I assume riggers are a known threat in this setting? "Nuh uh! Wouldn't work!"

Yeah, I see the problem. In the spirit of trying to be helpful as remarked above, there are answers to all of those issues the player raises but I sense the issue is more that the player is not going to be happy with the answers and continue to push or call you an unfair GM if you follow through on the (frankly logical) consequences.

Of his objections, it's only the one about the building being wirelessly shielded that I tended not to do myself. It's a viable thing that exists in the setting. And actually pretty easy to do to about 97% effectiveness. Just have a mesh under the plaster / wall paper. If the rigger wants to drive around looking for the weird spot he can park or plant some relay drone, and deal with degraded signals messing with his Response time, eh. Whatever. But I never bothered with that nuclear option because the soft options are just so darn effective. My favourite being to just let him do it. He'll be less effective than if he's on site for a number of reasons and what the player needs to get through his head is that the goal is to complete the mission. Players need to understand that they can live and still fail. So what if he's safe the whole mission? It's meaningless if he can't effectively help the team. And if he's the dual rigger / hacker as was often the case (especially in 4th where dual roles are easier) then the rest of the group should be shouting at him for being a cowardly little shit when they're stuck at some maglock door and can't open it because the specialist isn't with them. Or can't counter-hack the corporate drones because the only signal he's got to them was the drone he was using as a relay which was just shut down.

I had similar problems with my group way back when. It took time for them to grudgingly get it. "I want an AK97. Why can't I afford one?" "Because you blew thousands on binding that spirit." "I want missions that pay more." "Nobody will hire you for those when you failed lesser jobs."

It was basically a game of chicken with the group. Eventually I got them out of the mindset of "if we live we won". It wasn't easy. You know who got it instantly? People who had never played an RPG before. To them it was the most natural thing in the world to ask "why should I be paying for your gear?" or "of course the bad guys came after us - why wouldn't they?"

Of course no GM wants to have to go through that.

I don't even want to kill the PC. Just it's treated as a game breaking "I win" button even though it doesn't seem like it. I don't even know how big these things are. Are they tiny like those toys you see, or are they the size of a car? I assume that's up to the rigger, But the former is venerable to anyone with sufficiently sized tupperware, and latter could be stopped by an average sized doorway.

There are all sorts of drones. You have tiny little things the size of your hand or great terrifying things like the classic Steel Lynx with a machinegun on its back. Most vehicles are in fact drones, right up to military helicopters. Really, I don't have any problem with a rigger trying to sit out the entire game in a van. If it works. The first stage of any Shadowrun mission should be, if the players are smart, casing the target, surveillance, fact-finding. Then at that point the rigger should be saying: "Huh, my steel lynx is going to attract too much attention if I take it into the office complex" or "when you're inside if you place this commlink here so I can use it as a relay to hack those cameras". The last thing a team should do is just rock up at the doors of a place and go marching in blind.

Again, it was the people in my group with a history of playing RPGs that approached it like that. The ones who had never played an RPG before immediately took the approach of wanting to do things like ask around, find someone who worked there and blackmail him to let them in. Stuff like that.

I guess that's what a lot of my stuff comes down to - Shadowrun is supposed to be a game where you plan, think, ambush, sneak... the works. The enemy, whoever that is, is nearly always stronger and better resourced in Shadowrun. That's the fundamental difference I try to get across to people with a D&D background or whatever. In D&D you slay the dragon and take its treasure. In Shadowrun you take its treasure and try not to be slain.

I'd run it where they would sealed inside, and are quickly recruited by "the rats in the walls" (I've only skimmed the book remember) which from what I gather are survivors trying to band together to get out, hiding out in blind spots in the surveillance system.

Sounds a lot of fun and a good series of adventures. As I said previously, my point wasn't to say you couldn't do a fun dungeon adventure there, but that it would be different to a D&D dungeon in fundamental ways.

 

[The Ugly One]

Again, it was the people in my group with a history of playing RPGs that approached it like that. The ones who had never played an RPG before immediately took the approach of wanting to do things like ask around, find someone who worked there and blackmail him to let them in. Stuff like that.

GMing can be a huge issue here, because GMing a different RPG for D&D players means you really do need to explicitly tell them when their unspoken assumptions are no longer valid. I don't remember what RPG I was playing, but it was completely new to me, and I asked the GM if it would make sense for my character to try and climb down a wall. He said, "Sure, you can try," so I rolled some check according to his instructions, failed, and broke both my legs.

Upon further inspection, it turned out that I had something slim, like a 2% chance, of successfully climbing down. But I was pissed because my character, an experienced cat burglar, would have known by looking at the wall that it wasn't something he could easily scale. Not only that, but I didn't know the game had these sorts of permanent injury rules. In D&D, I would have had something like a 75% chance of successfully climbing that wall, and falling would have done 3d6 damage. When I asked, "would it make sense to try and climb down?" the answer should have been, "You look over the edge. It's a steep, slippery wall, and you figure if you tried to climb down, you'd most likely severely hurt yourself." Now I know. If I still try, it's on me.

Like if my character is an experienced combat veteran, he would know whether a 5-on-1 firefight is certain death (as it is in some games) or an easy win for a skilled gunslinger (as it is in other games). If it's a futuristic setting, my character would know whether or not having his Rent-a-Droid man the spaceship's nav system is something Rent-a-Droids are expected to be able to do, don't tell me, "sure, you can do that," and then laugh when the droid fails his 0.1% success chance roll and flies us all into an asteroid.

 

[Overly Serious]

@The Ugly One Yeah, that is terrible GM'ing. He absolutely should have given you a lot more context and ways to gauge that. I certainly would have.

It's a fair point on how I wrote it that you might say GM'ing can be a factor. I'm quite good at discarding assumptions. To me it's bizarre when people assume certain things without evidence and people adhering to other conventions "for no reason" (as I see it) has been a recurring problem in my GM'ing career. I emphasise it more these days. In Shadowrun for example, explaining explicitly: "Just because you live, doesn't mean you're not a failure". I'm not as bad as your example. What I find a lot of the time though is that I can say this stuff to players and they STILL wont get it. I can explain that I try to make a realistic world and not everything is built around their characters. I.e. if you hear there is a dragon living on that mountain it doesn't mean you're ready to go and kill that dragon. But they will still go and do it because it's rooted in their heads that the whole game is designed for level-appropriate combat for their benefit. You wouldn't, you hear what is actually said not what you expect. But very many players don't.

With me it's always a basic conceptual approach that is the schism with my players. I'd never do something like allow them to lack information their character should know - like how difficult the wall is to climb down or the consequences of failure. But many things that do go wrong are simply mystifying to me. Like just expecting the Big Bad to be sitting in one spot waiting for them to arrive no matter how long they take or how much they telegraph their arrival. I have run D&D but rarely and there was a severe culture clash with the group I had found so it didn't last long (no I am not interested in your genderqueer elf). Nearly all my GM'ing is other systems. And I have long noticed a pattern of incoming D&D players struggling in my game. I do try to help them adapt but there's a kind of learned blindness about most of them that, to be blunt, drives me crazy.

I'm sorry. I know you are a real old hand at D&D and I've read enough of your posts on it to know that your games are rich in tactical depth and challenge. But... I'm equally certain you know what I mean. Some people just don't adapt and I struggle to understand why - because I do try to explain to them "the cliff is steep and falling will hurt", metaphorically speaking.

 

[PhoBingas]

Probably because most of these grimdark people probably have some sort of fetish with it because good lord some of these people are uh...a bit too into it. Seriously you stare into the abyss long enough it'll bestow you the knowledge that most of everything extreme is someone's fetish. Semi-related, when some people threw a hissy fit when the Tau weren't seen as "grimdark" enough so they fucked with the lore to make them so.

I always thought that was the "joke" about the Tau, how they seemed shoe-horned in from some other sci-fi franchise and had to deal with all the 40k grimdark shit.

 

[Paradox Mystic]

I had a player who thought Vampire the Masquerade should be like heavily homebrewed D&D 5e, he didn't understand that in Vampire the rewards your character gets can be more abstract rather than finding a +1 sword and x amount of gold on everyone you loot. It's like having a extra gun or extra wad of cash doesn't matter much to Tony Soprano or Dale Cooper, influence/connections and info are more important.

The scarcity of important objects helps make them cool and interesting. I told him up front before the game began that I don't like super-wacky highpowered styles of VtM, I wanted something more focused on subtle political struggles and personal drama/personal horror. He ragequit my game because he refused to learn from the rest of the party that there is more to playing in the Camarilla than having combat skills, his character was quickly damaging his social reputation because he was throwing temper tantrums in Elysium and he was refusing to fulfill his debts after he agreed to owe people favors.

Also he wanted a evil GF NPC tied to his backstory, and he was shocked when she treated him like dogshit when he was gaslighting her with lies of omission, she told him let's not have conversations like this, come back to me later when you're done crying. He was like "I said I wanted a evil gf who is a schizo-cannibal psycho but also deep down she is a softie with a secret heart of gold."

@Overly Serious @The Ugly One
I had a player once who wanted to jump off a cliff instead of using the ladder, I simply told him you could but you can see it's X amount of distance down so you'd take 15d6 damage from falling unless you have something to effect the damage. It's definitely a problem with people mishandling the idea a character should know things that are obvious to him, and in some cases be able to skip over rolls a character should usually be able to complete. I formed a D&D group from online randoms and one guy told me in his usual group you have to roll a perception check for your first turn of the game no matter what, so he was confused that he didn't have to when his character is in a normal city near a tavern in mid-day.

Gary the Gunslinger/Timmy the Thief/Sarah the Seducer-singer shouldn't have to worry about basic shit regarding their specialty unless a player wants a complication like thinking "Actually I think it would be cool in this scene if Gary's gun wasn't loaded at the moment." or they're in a scenario where they've been stripped of all their gear and tossed in a prison cell. Gary should understand he's a good enough gunfighter to wipe out the scum at the local bar, the sheriff's posse is a medium challenge and the Sheriff could be a significant problem. Timmy and Sarah should be able to do similar calculations easily regarding their own specialty and should be assumed usually to have their related gear with them unless there is something like Oh the hotel burned down and you decided to flee with only your pajamas.

Part of it comes from the idea that everything has to be rolled for when you have the option to fastforward less interesting rolls, like if you do a timeskip of a few months and Timmy robs the easiest targets only you don't have to focus on that, but if Timmy wants to prepare and rob the big spooky Vampire castle with traps and lots of guards then you can focus on that and have him do some dicerolls.

"Timmy you lockpick this door open easily and you can see inside on a desk is a expensive looking ring with a green diamond and some sort of magic rune you can't identify, you hear two of the guards on patrol approaching the nearby hallway as part of their usual routine. There is a large window with a very steep drop down to the backyard garden, it'd be extremely difficult to drop down from this height safely, you also see another locked door leading deeper into the castle to a section you haven't explored yet. The lock looks moderately complex, what do you do?"

Now Timmy's player should be able to make a reasonable decision on whether he wants to get a closer look at the ring, jump out the window, or try another door, or mess with the guards. He shouldn't have to roll to see out the window if his eyes are working normally.

 

[The Ugly One]

But... I'm equally certain you know what I mean

I know what you mean; I was just adding my own experience. The fundamental problem is that intuition is deeply baked into our brains, and people have a very hard time with games that violate their intuition. For example, if you're into first-person shooters at all, a fundamental assumption built into every competitive multiplayer FPS on the PC is that you have close to zero inertia, and can instantly turn around and/or change directions. It's so ingrained that it's even in simulation games like Arma3. This is because that's how you moved in Quake, so it's been baked into player intuition, and if you violate that intuition by designing movement with realistic weight and speed, they just won't play your game. Even if you explicitly say it's a sim, they still won't.

I think the point I'm trying to make is that player intuition is often anti-reality, to the point they're not even aware how unrealistic it is. So something like, "There is a room full of armed unfriendlies; we can and should attack them" is at such a deep level of intuition that you can tell players outright, "do not assume that just because a group of individuals is people you don't like that you should try to kill them on sight," and they will still reflexively try to kill them on sight. My early D&D games involved breaking my players' intuition about such things. Don't assume that if you can go there, you should. Don't assume this monster should be fought. Don't assume you should kill everything that moves. At the end of the day, you can really only un-teach players their D&D-formed intuition by letting them fail.

But there are times when it may make sense to intervene - "Your character is an experienced decker. He knows that if he sits in the van, if the party encounters any secure systems deep inside the complex, he won't be able to help them. You also know that if you're unable to steal the trade logs, your failure will make it harder to get good missions." They may still do something stupid, but it's always valuable to be able to say, "I told you so."

 

[Adamska]

He had them adopt Sindarin knowing that it was made-up because well... it already exists in complete form, is globally accepted as "the" elven language, and frankly if UGE happened IRL there'd be no shortage of people thinking elves should just all magically speak it and enough of them would get tired of explaining that they grew up in Baahstin and not Middle-Earth learning it would be less of a headache.

Honestly this is the sort of stuff I'd do, but then I've been very open that I prefer to just run my own stuff rather than 1-1 the setting completely. I like the game and do find the setting neat, but I'm not absolutely married to everything possible, especially since I do have my own magical brain creativity too and there's some stuff I just don't vibe with from time to time.

Also tbh I completely forgot that the damn Keebs invented their own smug conlang too.

I'm coming into Shadowrun just now, and it's a similar mess. Seattle, Hong Kong, Berlin, Bug City, Super Tuesday, plus a whole timeline of events and status quo changes. And unlike, say, Call of Cthulhu where everything is self contained, or Eberron where the setting is static. It makes it seem like everyone has to know all of it. And that's before arguments over all 7(?) editions.

Just apply rule 0 once you have the basic setting stuff figured out. That's the point of being a GM, you can do whatever the fuck you want with the setting even if it's wrong, since that's still going to be your table's official take on the world. The lore is a guideline and idea farm to play with as you please. It always has been.

You don't need to know the setting by heart to run. Just pick a city and use it as a basis for what you want to go with. Seattle is a great city because it has a lot of detail written about it. You can alternatively just make up a city yourself.

What is the building is wirelessly shielded? "Nuh uh! Wouldn't work."
What if they shoot down the drone? "Then I'll just send out another!" Wouldn't you run out eventually? "Nuh uh!"
What if they send a security team to check on the parked van since I assume riggers are a known threat in this setting? "Nuh uh! Wouldn't work!"

I'd probably just kick the powergaming faggot who clearly refuses to suck it up on the spot. Especially since they're mentally retarded enough to deny that they do have only x number of drones and that shit's expensive. You literally paid for making that fucker, you should be aware that these things can be broken and they cost money to repair. Simple economics.

I had similar problems with my group way back when. It took time for them to grudgingly get it. "I want an AK97. Why can't I afford one?" "Because you blew thousands on binding that spirit." "I want missions that pay more." "Nobody will hire you for those when you failed lesser jobs."

This also works, making them face consequences. And if they still "nuh uh" fucking kick them.

 

[Tri-Tachyon'sClown]

>>tfw I get a notification and it's not someone @'ing me about Julia Vins.

I looked them up and it's some muscle girl. Assuming someone was given you shit for mentioning her or something?

 

[LovisXVI]

Also tbh I completely forgot that the damn Keebs invented their own smug conlang too.

Actually, Sperethiel is the resurrected 4th world language of the Elven Kingdom. Do you even Earthdawn?

 

[Adamska]

Actually, Sperethiel is the resurrected 4th world language of the Elven Kingdom. Do you even Earthdawn?

This just makes me want to make it simply a lame gaelic bootleg conlang made up by celtaboos more tbh.

But then again, I'm also the guy who thought that Aztlan somehow managing to gas Catholicism in Mexico and the way that there's like a three way split in Catholic Doctrine in general is pretty dumb too.

 

[AnOminous]

Don't assume that if you can go there, you should. Don't assume this monster should be fought. Don't assume you should kill everything that moves. At the end of the day, you can really only un-teach players their D&D-formed intuition by letting them fail.

A few TPKs at early levels, before they're really attached to the characters, is a valuable lesson not to just LEEROY JEEEEEENKINS your way into every possible battle.

 

[LovisXVI]

somehow

Mexico has been trying and variably succeeding or failing at destroying Catholicism in the country for its entire existence. Introducing magic and dictatorial corporate control would be the thing that could finally push it over the edge.

 

[Overly Serious]

I know what you mean; I was just adding my own experience. The fundamental problem is that intuition is deeply baked into our brains, and people have a very hard time with games that violate their intuition. For example, if you're into first-person shooters at all, a fundamental assumption built into every competitive multiplayer FPS on the PC is that you have close to zero inertia, and can instantly turn around and/or change directions. It's so ingrained that it's even in simulation games like Arma3. This is because that's how you moved in Quake, so it's been baked into player intuition, and if you violate that intuition by designing movement with realistic weight and speed, they just won't play your game. Even if you explicitly say it's a sim, they still won't.

That's a fascinating example that I'd never heard of or considered. I've got it reasonably ingrained to try and re-evaluate new things I have a problem with to see if it's a question of objective merits or familiarity. And if it's the latter then, subject to expediency, I try to adjust for it. Many people don't.

At the end of the day, you can really only un-teach players their D&D-formed intuition by letting them fail.

Largely my experience also, hence Shadowrun. The real problem is when they don't learn and you end up running a game about a bunch of unhireable miserable people living in a squat with no prospects. They hate you and you are tearing your hair out. 'Why did you try to rob your employer? Why???'

Honestly this is the sort of stuff I'd do, but then I've been very open that I prefer to just run my own stuff rather than 1-1 the setting completely. I like the game and do find the setting neat, but I'm not absolutely married to everything possible, especially since I do have my own magical brain creativity too and there's some stuff I just don't vibe with from time to time.

I tweaked the setting last time I ran it too, I probably give the impression I'm an utter purist about it but I have some wild divergences from lore. Example, no President Dunklezahn! The reason behind most of the changes when I ran it were because I'd never run the metaplot adventures I'd always created my own adventures and campaign plots. So some of the stuff that required more set-up to make work like Dunklezahn's election or Year of the Comet just never got it and thus the big things that follow feel a little bit intrusive. Or alternately I really liked something about the event and did want to run it but simply hadn't gotten to fit it in yet. Like insect spirits, Chicago, etc.

I generally handled this by just not touching on it in the game and looking the other way. That let me still run things in 2070's Seattle and gloss over any hiccups. My players weren't typically interested in the timeline's US elections unless I brought it up, wouldn't suddenly visit Chicago unless the team was hired for a run there. I treated the setting as a big of a buffet table. Which probably surprised @Judge Dredd from my posts. But again, my purism with Shadowrun isn't about the setting details but the setting tone and how the game plays.

I looked them up and it's some muscle girl. Assuming someone was given you shit for mentioning her or something?

Spoiler

She's a power lifter, held three world records. Someone posted a meme of her in the funny pictures thread and I mentioned who she was and made the mild joke "you wouldn't say no. And if you did it wouldn't matter". Which provoked some wild and angry responses from someone saying "I can bench more than that. I would twist the bitch's head off" and other such weirdly angry stuff and then another dude accused me of being 'Woke' for 'believing a woman could be stronger than a man' or having a rape fetish and weird stuff like that. For a day my notifications kept blowing up with replies about it. And I'm the one with the username 'Overly Serious'. ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯ Seems to have passed now.

 

[Adamska]

I generally handled this by just not touching on it in the game and looking the other way. That let me still run things in 2070's Seattle and gloss over any hiccups.

Did the same thing as well either as myself or due to the previous guy's session when it was my turn to DM. During our round robin for example the first GM had a seriously underfunded official Seattle police department as opener flavor to get the other players into the right headspace for hopping between districts and to show how mean the streets were nowadays.

I then went with it being an initiative after Lone Star got kicked out as a tentative effort to provide some leverage against Ares, being found in cheaper public areas and some of the checkpoints in between the nastier parts of town. They're not well equipped, but definitely a notch better professionally than the average Hard Corps unit.

My take on the Triad also was very opposite to how it's usually portrayed; rather than being full of adepts and mysticism, this triad group saw the Net and Net 2.0 as a heavenly realm and venerate technomancy and AR more. Was it canon? Not really. But it worked.

My players weren't typically interested in the timeline's US elections unless I brought it up, wouldn't suddenly visit Chicago unless the team was hired for a run there. I treated the setting as a big of a buffet table. Which probably surprised @Judge Dredd from my posts. But again, my purism with Shadowrun isn't about the setting details but the setting tone and how the game plays.

And the tone varies quite a bit, which I like with Shadowrun. It could be goofy fight the man hooding shit where you hack and pump embarrassing AR art all over a prospective megamall to make the local security firm look stupid, or it could be hard core and gritty efforts to aid in human trafficking efforts with the Yaks. Both are viable; it's just how you play the black-white and goofy-serious axis..

 

[Snekposter]

Mexico has been trying and variably succeeding or failing at destroying Catholicism in the country for its entire existence. Introducing magic and dictatorial corporate control would be the thing that could finally push it over the edge.

For those unaware of just how bad its been:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reform_War
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cristero_War
There's been a ton of issues with the Catholic Church since it was one of the biggest landowners in the country and any land reform would require it to be disestablished and disempowered, and naturally it didn't exactly like that. Cue more than a few overreactions from the reformists. The USA had a similar problem if reduced in magnitude when we took over the Philippines, but we managed to solve it with a combination of payouts and reminding them that as Protestants we didn't give two shits about threats of excommunication and heresy.

This just makes me want to make it simply a lame gaelic bootleg conlang made up by celtaboos more tbh.

It pretty much already is a lame Gaelic bootleg, Earthdawn origins or no.

Honestly this is the sort of stuff I'd do, but then I've been very open that I prefer to just run my own stuff rather than 1-1 the setting completely. I like the game and do find the setting neat, but I'm not absolutely married to everything possible, especially since I do have my own magical brain creativity too and there's some stuff I just don't vibe with from time to time.

Also tbh I completely forgot that the damn Keebs invented their own smug conlang too.

A different GM I ran with (and who played the techie airhead in the first game) wound up having both languages coexist, Sperethiel for the Tir faggots as the "true" elven language, and Sindarin for everyone else. He also pretty much wrote out the NAN by having them descend into straight-up inter-tribal warfare almost immediately after they got their independence followed by whitey moving back in as they cut deals and offered support to the various tribes. Turns out the Sioux had limits to how far they could throw their weight around, no different from the 1800's. CalFree also didn't pull its bullshit so its still part of the union, and the UCAS and CAS are on friendly terms and frequently act together when it comes to keeping the megacorps in check. Turns out having all those extraterritorial corporate arcologies also means you own a lot of really expensive things that aren't on UCAS soil or owned or operated by UCAS citizens, if you get my meaning. And yes, Ares was smart enough to cut a deal with the Feds and run cover for them at the Corporate Court, leaving the rest of the corps in a very poor position.

 

[Judge Dredd]

Just apply rule 0 once you have the basic setting stuff figured out. That's the point of being a GM, you can do whatever the fuck you want with the setting even if it's wrong, since that's still going to be your table's official take on the world. The lore is a guideline and idea farm to play with as you please. It always has been.

You don't need to know the setting by heart to run. Just pick a city and use it as a basis for what you want to go with. Seattle is a great city because it has a lot of detail written about it. You can alternatively just make up a city yourself.

Thanks. I was lost in the weeds there and completely lost sight of that.

What I'll likely do is read the fluff from a core rulebook or starter set. Then go from there. Or run everything in an isolated setting like Renraku Archology.

I hope you'll take it in good humour if I get a little defensive.

Perhaps I should back off and if you have any questions, ask away.

It's good. I'm not upset. I wouldn't ask if I didn't want to know.

With Shadowrun, I imagine if you'd been following it since release, then individually everything is simple and adds on to existing lore. As said above, I might just start with the barebones and go from there.

It was basically a game of chicken with the group.

These kinds of powergamers exist for every game, but with Shadowrun it feels greater than others. Though it could be because I don't have much experience with it.

In other games, these kinds of "I win" buttons don't pan out well. And from the sound of other posters (I think KF is eating my quote replies?) that my assumptions were correct.


@Ghostse On the topic of piracy. That's good. It's how I got 4e and Renraku, but if I'm going to run it physically, I'd like a physical copy. I'm fine with using PDFs if I'm playing via VTT. There are ebay listings locally that aren't insane. The current edition is easier to get. If I can't get it at FLGS, I can grab it from Amazon.

 

[robobobo]

This was covered previously, but in short, nothing in isolation. The problem is that obvious challenges that would arise from that playstyle are met by the proponents with "nuh uh!".

What is the building is wirelessly shielded? "Nuh uh! Wouldn't work."
What if they shoot down the drone? "Then I'll just send out another!" Wouldn't you run out eventually? "Nuh uh!"
What if they send a security team to check on the parked van since I assume riggers are a known threat in this setting? "Nuh uh! Wouldn't work!"

I don't even want to kill the PC. Just it's treated as a game breaking "I win" button even though it doesn't seem like it. I don't even know how big these things are. Are they tiny like those toys you see, or are they the size of a car? I assume that's up to the rigger, But the former is venerable to anyone with sufficiently sized tupperware, and latter could be stopped by an average sized doorway.

Yeah, no. That hypothetical player's retarded. Or that real player if you're using real examples, I'm not sure which. But in any event:

1. Wireless shielding is mentioned all over the place in multiple books as a standard feature in higher security areas.
2. Drones are expensive, having one get blown away is always a problem.
3, Popping the van rigger in the head is also mentioned commonly enough in Shadowrun stories to be basically a trope at this point.

Drones are listed in the vehicle sections of the main book and equipment books, they can be anything from cricket-sized to car-sized, depending on the model. Obviously the littler ones are more for recon and stealth as guns and armor require bigger chassis. Most runner drones are just a foot or two in size, wheeled or rotored, basically a mobile platform to strap a pistol onto. Ones you can mount a serious rifle on are large enough to be a little unwieldy in tight spaces, somewhere in the large dog to human size, so things like stairs become a concern.

 

[Overly Serious]

These kinds of powergamers exist for every game, but with Shadowrun it feels greater than others. Though it could be because I don't have much experience with it.

Definitely a factor. If you don't know the setting or the sorts of tricks companies use, it's easier for a player to try and pull stuff that shouldn't work. Best starting points I can recommend are:

• Learn what ICE is and how it works.
• Learn what Barriers, Watcher Spirits and Astral are and their limitations.

Get those two down and you'll already be shutting down half of the things you're worried about. There's nothing funnier than the moment a mage confidently goes swooping through a complex in astral form thinking they're going to solo the mission and the dual-natured Hell Hound looks up and starts barking at the corner of the room and the handler slams the "Astral Intrusion" alarm button and a mage from the head office swoops in with a weapon focus or a spirit traces the astral form back to the comatose body and they cart it off while his mind is not there.

But the key thing I keep coming back to - it's not a bad thing if a player thinks up a way to get past the security. It's what they're supposed to do. If the team can pull off the entire mission sitting in a van somewhere, good for them. Your player is thinking small if he wants to be in a van outside the complex, frankly. He should be in a comfortable apartment in Tokyo.

In other games, these kinds of "I win" buttons don't pan out well. And from the sound of other posters (I think KF is eating my quote replies?) that my assumptions were correct.

Yeah. There are a tonne of counter-measures out there. The critical thing is the type of the player you have. Is he someone that goes "oh, that doesn't work, I will change" or is he a manbaby who starts crying and blaming the GM.

GMs seem to fear their players winning sometimes. Perhaps because they're afraid their game is too easy or their fun encounters aren't used or such. Which I get. But I liked it when my players won. It set up the next mission where Mr. Johnson compliments them on pulling off a successful job and hires them for something the next league up. And suddenly there's more serious ICE on the system or the target is a mage. And now the team has to start getting clever and more co-operative: "I don't think I can get through the security on their main nodes. I need you to get me in so I can access a less secure node in one of the sub-stations" / "Well, we could get you in through this underground parking lot maybe. What do we know about how many guards there are?" That sort of thing.

The key thing a GM can do to help this is start the players off with some cues for how to play. Have the first Johnson say: "There's a guy who worked a job for me before against these guys. He's not available which is why I'm hiring you, but if you cut him in for a share he can probably give you some valuable intel."

Now the PCs contact him. He says: "Yeah, I cased that place for a previous run. I've got the info you want on. Lets say 2,000nuyen."

If the players pay a bit less maybe he just gives them a map (maybe they can get that themselves by flying an aerial drone over in advance), if they pull the full amount they get info on the number of guards, the type of alarm systems, stuff like that. You've immediately got them in the mindset of pulling a heist and planning ahead. And if they decide they're not going to share any of the profits, go ahead and have them blunder in and set off alarms or be blindsided when reinforcements from HQ come in by VTOL. That's fine - they fail the mission. But this time they know they failed because they didn't know what they were getting into.

The current edition is easier to get.

So is hitting yourself in the head with a hammer. You probably have a hammer in your house right now. Go get it and give yourself a good whack. The damage to your brain will probably be less than playing 6th.

I can't emphasise the value of 4th enough. Especially if you can get hold of Anniversary edition though admittedly that might be harder in print. But the core 4th book contains everything you need to run a fun game. If you absolutely can't get 4th you could try 3rd. And some will advocate 5e though I think that's the point things started to go downhill. But you're right - I'm absolutely sure 6th is easier to get. Nobody else wants it.

 

[Overly Serious]

1. Wireless shielding is mentioned all over the place in multiple books as a standard feature in higher security areas.

Bit of a preference thing but I never liked using this. If my PCs were going into somewhere really secure then sure. But using it as a common thing felt like shutting down an aspect of the game because a GM found it difficult to deal with. I felt the same about GMs who would slap Background Count in as a way to nerf mages. It always felt to me like the GM simply didn't understand the in-built counter balances to magic and was trying to balance the mage with the Samurai. Which is missing the point. The mage is supposed to be able to lay down some blistering power. But the Samurai can fire shot after shot after shot after shot each round. Low cost, reliable, sustainable.

All these tools have their place but I sometimes saw people using it as their go-to and it just always felt far more rewarding to me as a GM (and I'm sure to players) to go "yes, and..."

 

[The Ugly One]

That's a fascinating example that I'd never heard of or considered.

Most people never think about how insane mouselook actually is. It's why FPS avatars are basically impossible to animate realistically. I've been aware of it for a very long time, because I used to be pretty into Descent. In the multiplayer scene, lots of people used a hack that allowed mouselook, and it just looked ridiculous to see space ships flipping and twitching like they have zero inertia. Then I thought about how the same applied to humans. Interestingly, you can get away with adding some weight and inertia to 3rd-person games, and you can to some extent on console as well, but it's just a non-starter on PC.

I've got it reasonably ingrained to try and re-evaluate new things I have a problem with to see if it's a question of objective merits or familiarity. And if it's the latter then, subject to expediency, I try to adjust for it. Many people don't.

I think I'm the same way. But the GM just wouldn't explain things to me unless I yelled at him. Another example, this was SR. I'd sneaked into some facility. I said I was looking for a route in that would avoid all the cameras, so I rolled various checks and made it in. Then I asked if I could have the party take the same route (assumption: in D&D, you never split the party, so I had unthinkingly assumed that getting the party to come with me was important), thinking that if I'd figured out how to avoid the cameras, everyone else could do it without a check. He said sure, so my allies started down my same path...and he told them to all roll various stealth-type checks, which of course they were going to fail. I got annoyed and said, "My character is an experienced burglar. He would know whether or not having the big oaf with a machine gun lumber down this path is going to set off the alarms. That is why I specifically asked you whether or not this was a good idea, not just whether or not the rules allow a check to do it. If I knew he'd have to pass all the same checks as me, I would have told him to wait."

Largely my experience also, hence Shadowrun. The real problem is when they don't learn and you end up running a game about a bunch of unhireable miserable people living in a squat with no prospects. They hate you and you are tearing your hair out. 'Why did you try to rob your employer? Why???'

I think there are a couple ways you can approach this. One is to intervene and not let your players do something colossally stupid because their characters aren't that dumb. I will say something like, "You realize that robbing your employer will get you blacklisted from the criminal network, and you'll never get work in this city again." I may even just break GM voice and say, "Look, your characters would never do this. It would be career-ending."

Another option is to treat this as a TPK. They're not physically dead, of course, but they have no future. Time to roll up new character sheets. Very first mission is with their old employer, who tells them about how the last group of idiots he hired screwed up everything and ruined their lives, and he hopes these guys know better.