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

[Overly Serious]

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."

Yeah, that's a gamist GM mindset. In his head your character is doing one of those Mission Impossible scenes where you skilfully tumble and pirouette past laser beams and sensors. And then suddenly the big chunky troll character decides to follow you and attempt the same. So he says: "Okay, new roll". Whereas in your mind it's "I have identified a safe path through".

Really things should have stopped at that point and the situation cleared up. At the very least, the subsequent characters should be able to back out once they realise they're attempting to roll the same stuff your stealth character did.

But if you specifically asked me as GM "is this a good idea," I handle those by providing in-character knowledge. I'm never going to say "it's a good idea" or "bad idea" because there may be factors your character doesn't know. I'll say "it's a difficult climb, not for amateurs" or "you only saw one camera and it cycled very slowly. I'll give Bozo the Troll a bonus to his roll because you went first and can point it out to him". That's enough for you to make an informed decision based on what you know and if you blew your own Perception roll and didn't notice the Hell Hound lurking at the end of the block, I haven't lied and told you it's a good idea.

We'd probably enjoy each other's games. I actively want my players to think up clever plans and exploits.

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."

True enough. I do have a tendency to sit back and let players find their own way but more recently I've decided to (been forced to) accept a bit more of a nurturing approach. Even so, I recently had a play disregard THREE GM "are you sure you want to do this?" 'es. Normally even one should be enough from me.

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.

Heh. That would be funny. Requires players mature enough to learn from it though.

Like so many of my GM'ing problems there's an underlying problem of not being able to find players on my level or if they are, not being cultural-political ideologues who seem like they're part of a cult.

 

[The Ugly One]

Even so, I recently had a play disregard THREE GM "are you sure you want to do this?" 'es. Normally even one should be enough from me.

Most of my players understand that when I say, "Are you sure you want to do this?" I am saying, "Do not do this." One doesn't. The one who doesn't has a graveyard full of dead PCs.

Heh. That would be funny. Requires players mature enough to learn from it though.

A meta-assumption in RPGs that transcends D&D, on the level of FPS mouselook players assuming they have no inertia, is that you can't really fail. Not really. The GM will always give you an out, always tilt the scale or load the dice so that things will go your way.

Now, personally, I don't much care for ending a campaign on a TPK. It's anticlimactic. But "failing forward" is gay. What I do is, any time your party would have gotten TPKed, some die, some get captured, and the "good ending" is now blocked off. For example, let's say the campaign is about stopping an evil cult from summoning Orcus, the demon lord of undeath, into the world. The party fucks up majorly, they get wiped out deep in a dungeon. They are captured, along with some cultists of Bane, and escape requires assisting the cultists, which ultimately may mean they stop Orcus, but now there is a devil cult that has expanded its tyrannical rule of hatred. Better than the extermination of all life, but not a "good" ending.

 

[Tom Bombodildo]

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."

Really things should have stopped at that point and the situation cleared up. At the very least, the subsequent characters should be able to back out once they realise they're attempting to roll the same stuff your stealth character did.

Over the years, I've met some GMs that (it seems to me) will deliberately give half-truths or seize upon misunderstandings like that so they can fuck with the players. If I'm being charitable, I would guess it's a response to having a group of players that are highly risk-averse, and so every session becomes "We spend 45 minutes preplanning and micromanaging every possible detail so that there is no chance of failure and nothing unexpected ever happens."

Most of the time though I just think they're an asshole.

 

[Henri Barbusse]

I would guess it's a response to having a group of players that are highly risk-averse, and so every session becomes "We spend 45 minutes preplanning and micromanaging every possible detail so that there is no chance of failure and nothing unexpected ever happens."

If the players are having fun making plans, I don't really see an issue with this. But this is coming from the mindset of playing Ars Magica where solving an adventure succesfully without leaving your lab is the best ending.

 

[Adamska]

it 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.

Honestly there's ways you can make them plan smarter without going that route, but it just depends on the site location and security. If their run takes them to something public, then basic IC and relying on the noise the PAN's in to limit distance can do enough. Especially if they have a Spider on hand to run counter as well. For riskier targets, I tend to prefer using intranet servers that are hardlined over this. It's pretty secure, but still provides an avenue for the decker, rigger, or technomage to do their thing. Sure you can bring the drone in but you're gonna want to have it have a jack and cable to sim hack that sumbitch, and you will likely get feedback. Or you have to get your pasty ass in there.

Hell, you can just do the silly GOD mechanic, where if they routinely do sleaze and force checks, it procs a silent countdown for each action and how long you're in the system before the SysAds can find you and boot you from the server. It can be lethal due to the nasty dumpshock, but it does force them to be clever with when and how they hack.

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.

This. Mages are busted, and you just run most competent security to target them first. Plus do not feel afraid to put some mages on employ. They often are just to prevent the player mage from being a powergaming goof, and it works well enough.

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..."

Sometimes they come up with a different solution to what you expect, and in those cases it can just plain work out for everyone. It's why I never supported having one solution to a puzzle or a heist. If they have decent ideas you did not account for, reward it.

 

[Hikaru86]

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

"Choose to ignore elven faggotery in my games, sir"

 

[Tri-Tachyon'sClown]

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.

I mean, you posted something positive about a b u i l t women on Kiwifarms, would be surprised if you didn't get your notifs blown up.

 

[Overly Serious]

@Adamska I'm afraid you and I are not on the same page on this occasion.

Honestly there's ways you can make them plan smarter without going that route, but it just depends on the site location and security. If their run takes them to something public, then basic IC and relying on the noise the PAN's in to limit distance can do enough. Especially if they have a Spider on hand to run counter as well. For riskier targets, I tend to prefer using intranet servers that are hardlined over this. It's pretty secure, but still provides an avenue for the decker, rigger, or technomage to do their thing. Sure you can bring the drone in but you're gonna want to have it have a jack and cable to sim hack that sumbitch, and you will likely get feedback. Or you have to get your pasty ass in there.

I ran a successful campaign with real hacking for years and never once used wireless shielding. Sure it existed and if they'd done a run into some very secure Ares HQ they'd have run across it. But they never did. Wireless zones are a massive inconvenience in my game and rarely used for the simple reason that there are better methods. When a GM slaps wireless zones routinely I start to grind my teeth for a couple of reasons. For one, it's easy to bypass. Run a small fibreoptic somewhere between the outside and the inside, you're half way to being able to hack remotely. Commlinks are cheap. Nothing stops you planting a little trail of them wherever you go and relaying your signal however you like. Vulnerable? Sure, but easily do-able. And it also only makes sense if you've air gapped the entire system on the inside. If not, there's a wired path to the systems within. And you can wirelessly connect to any of the external systems to begin that path. Secondly, it's just not as good as all the other ways of handling hackers. I can plant ICE that will stealth past them and trace where they're connecting from and despatch security, or counter-hack them. In extreme scenarios I can use Black ICE which can potentially kill them with counter-feedback. I can have corp hackers enter and engage in cybercombat. I can create fascinating and fun systems for the hacker to make educated decisions about: "Should I try to brute force my way through the public reception node? What if I can subvert a security guard's account - that would be enough for door access but not get me the office files..."

All compared to the blunt "it's blocked" which is just shutting down a whole avenue of play and conflict because, I'm really sorry, usually a GM hasn't really got their head around the hacking rules and much like magic rules, they fear it and want to shut down an avenue of play to something they can better control. I routinely saw this with earlier edition players from 3rd or before who always wanted to seal everything away and make the game "escort the hacker to room X, he will then make a few rolls whilst the other players make some tea". Then escort the hacker out again. Gods I hate that. Over and over.

Sometimes the hacker would go in with the team because that has advantages. Most people had some level of dual-role at my table also. But other times it was absolutely great to have the hacker running oversight remotely, projecting a map on his team mate's vision showing where to go and the dots that were the moving security guards. And the local node set up had lots of things to make that interesting for the hacker too. And in 4th edition unlike earlier editions, it wasn't a separate sub-game that took away from everyone else. It was all happening in the same rounds and initiative passes as everything else.

Nodes don't have to be wirelessly enabled, either. It's very rare that in practice I would want to create a dead zone. And like I said, it's a massive inconvenience for the corporation. Even air-gapping a home system irl is a giant pig when it comes to keeping systems updated, transferring files as needed, managing access accounts, etc. On a corporate scale it's a giant endeavour. And if the whole system isn't air-gapped, a wireless zone is something you can relatively easily work around and therefore a high price to pay for not that much gain.

This. Mages are busted, and you just run most competent security to target them first. Plus do not feel afraid to put some mages on employ. They often are just to prevent the player mage from being a powergaming goof, and it works well enough.

Again, I'm afraid I disagree. I don't think mages are busted. Over and over I saw newbie GMs asking for advice on how to deal with a powerful mage character and saw people respond "put background count there", "I always have a background count of 1 or 2", "someone must have died there at some point so that's at least a background count of 1..."

If a GM says they're struggling with a mage, the right thing to do is find out what exactly is happening and why it's a problem for them. Not break out a big hammer and start smashing down the mage class:

• "The mage is able to astrally project and see where everything is!" Okay, great - that's something mages do. The guards have AK-97s, you want the group to blunder into them without warning? An encounter isn't busted because the players were able to set up an ambush and kill the guards - that's a good thing. Get out of the mindset of thinking you have to run a series of level-balanced encounters and the players are cheating if they avoid them.
• "The mage has bought lots of foci and is too powerful". Okay, so the mage is walking around lit up like a Christmas tree on the astral plane? They de-activate all their foci every time they pass through a ward? They're happy when some corp-mage on the astral plane uses the dual natured foci to cast a spell through into the physical plane?
• "The mage keeps binding Force 7 spirits and kerb-stomping the enemies". And the rest of the party are happy that all the money they earn is paying for the mage character? Do you always space the missions apart to exactly allow the mage character to bind a spirit that strong and then sit around recovering before you say "next adventure!" Even after a bad binding roll on the mage's part? Does the corp never freak out and send heavy reinforcements when they see a giant roaring inferno come storming into the enclave? Do you always just have a couple of nice encounters that match the number of bound services the spirit has instead of the mage burning through everything, draining himself and having to be babysat by the Samurai?

There are just SO many ways to deal with mages and a lot of the time it's just a mindset issue with the GM and solved by "why is that a problem?" Which brings us back to my eternal point of people trying to run Shadowrun like a dungeon crawl with a series of encounters.

Sometimes they come up with a different solution to what you expect, and in those cases it can just plain work out for everyone. It's why I never supported having one solution to a puzzle or a heist. If they have decent ideas you did not account for, reward it.

Yep. The way I ran my games was I'd set up the goal, the opposition and so long as I myself could see at least one way of pulling it off, I'd just stop there and present the players with the mission and see what they did.

 

[Judge Dredd]

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

It's a hypothetical example that is an amalgamation of stories I've heard.

All compared to the blunt "it's blocked" which is just shutting down a whole avenue of play and conflict because, I'm really sorry, usually a GM hasn't really got their head around the hacking rules and much like magic rules, they fear it and want to shut down an avenue of play to something they can better control.

I don't mind the players winning, it's when they optimize out the fun, or get mad their build they ripped from the internet doesn't guarantee victory in every situation. Specifically because I don't want to shut down playstyles. This is why the "nuh uh" part was a concern. My assumption was I didn't know Shadowrun enough to run the kinds of games I want effectively, but from the thread it sounds like no, it's the players are retarded.

As mentioned, every game has this. For 5e it's the druid that solves every encounter by turning into a t-rex. In practice, I've only known one guy do the whole "turn into a dinosaur" thing, but it was in PF2 and it was really cool. The player understood that it doesn't work in small spaces, or if a mage turns up (you inherit the bad int save iirc), or the adventure is a murder mystery. It was far from the campaign killer it was hyped to be, but I don't think that player would do that anyway.


@Adamska It's interesting to see you talk about mages, because that's a new one. Usually I hear about riggers and physads.

For what it's worth, I assume the power of physads are over blown or vary by edition? Because the idea of a starting character being basically superman, able to punch through engine blocks, run at the speed of sound, and be essentially bulletproof, all without the gear costs of other classes sounds so obviously broken I doubt it would survive playtesting.

Going back to the whole "it's blocked" and "running effectively" thing, I'd hate to run Peach Trees Ranraku Archology, and turn 1, the physad walks up to the nearest window, punches it, and escapes.

 

[p1138]

"The mage is able to astrally project and see where everything is!" Okay, great - that's something mages do. The guards have AK-97s, you want the group to blunder into them without warning? An encounter isn't busted because the players were able to set up an ambush and kill the guards - that's a good thing. Get out of the mindset of thinking you have to run a series of level-balanced encounters and the players are cheating if they avoid them.

The party using resources to avoid combats should be considered a good thing. It means they're actually using their brains rather than just trying to brute force everything, not to mention it also changes up how you can react to them once the job is over. Oh, the party was so slick the avoided the armed guards? Great, send them on tougher jobs with more armed guards and other physical issues to deal with because they've proven they can get things done without being a mess or prompting a more violent retaliation.

"The mage has bought lots of foci and is too powerful". Okay, so the mage is walking around lit up like a Christmas tree on the astral plane? They de-activate all their foci every time they pass through a ward? They're happy when some corp-mage on the astral plane uses the dual natured foci to cast a spell through into the physical plane?

If the corpos in the area hear about some new crew running around making extreme use of their mage, this absolutely should be the case and it can be done if the party has some adepts as well. Just like MAD scanners exist and guard stations exist, why wouldn't a secure enough location also have corpo mages with their own bound spirits?

"The mage keeps binding Force 7 spirits and kerb-stomping the enemies". And the rest of the party are happy that all the money they earn is paying for the mage character? Do you always space the missions apart to exactly allow the mage character to bind a spirit that strong and then sit around recovering before you say "next adventure!" Even after a bad binding roll on the mage's part? Does the corp never freak out and send heavy reinforcements when they see a giant roaring inferno come storming into the enclave? Do you always just have a couple of nice encounters that match the number of bound services the spirit has instead of the mage burning through everything, draining himself and having to be babysat by the Samurai?

I'm not even sure why a corpo would tolerate a kaiju running around their installations and not have an appropriate level response available, maybe not active on scene the moment shit hits the fan, but after enough time for some calls? Absolutely.

There are just SO many ways to deal with mages and a lot of the time it's just a mindset issue with the GM and solved by "why is that a problem?" Which brings us back to my eternal point of people trying to run Shadowrun like a dungeon crawl with a series of encounters.

Even a dungeon crawl, if the players can use their brains to avoid or otherwise neutralize encounters without something other than combat, or getting enemies caught in traps, or whatever, that really should be rewarded there as well. A lot of people always seem to want to run(and play) a dungeon crawl like it's a saturday morning action cartoon but there's no reason a dungeon crawl itself can't be closer to a heist movie or spy novel if the players want to handle it that way.

I don't mind the players winning, it's when they optimize out the fun, or get mad their build they ripped from the internet doesn't guarantee victory in every situation.

This sounds like players being fucking dumb. Just because some thread on enworld or whatever says that some specific build is god tier, doesn't mean the DM needs to allow access to the components of that build to let it become "broken" and if they can't handle challenges to such builds they probably couldn't handle challenges to whatever build they would have come up with on their own.

but from the thread it sounds like no, it's the players are retarded.

ding ding ding we have a winner

As mentioned, every game has this. For 5e it's the druid that solves every encounter by turning into a t-rex. In practice, I've only known one guy do the whole "turn into a dinosaur" thing, but it was in PF2 and it was really cool. The player understood that it doesn't work in small spaces, or if a mage turns up (you inherit the bad int save iirc), or the adventure is a murder mystery. It was far from the campaign killer it was hyped to be, but I don't think that player would do that anyway.

And that's how you solve the problem. Player wants to be a t-rex? Fine, throw things at them that a t-rex doesn't resolve or to keep the t-rex busy while the rest of the party is doing their own thing. If you can figure this out in a fantasy RPG, you can figure it out in any setting. No matter how a player tries to min-max, they still have a min, and the DM is still effectively god and can throw whatever they want at them(unless it's some shit like PFS or D&D AL and you're just following the book but that's a whole other separate mess, not to mention wtf is someone trying to min-max for that in the first place).

For what it's worth, I assume the power of physads are over blown or vary by edition? Because the idea of a starting character being basically superman, able to punch through engine blocks, run at the speed of sound, and be essentially bulletproof, all without the gear costs of other classes sounds so obviously broken I doubt it would survive playtesting.

They're still magic(and have foci and such), stick out like a sore thumb for anyone looking for them, and just because they can start powerful doesn't mean they'll continue gaining power at the same rate as the rest of the group.

Remember, licenses also exist in shadowrun, and a lot of things can be R restricted or F forbidden and aren't just available or normal to be walking around with. Just because someone can use something and carry it around, doesn't mean they'll be able to stand up to "you've got a loicense for that mate?" when scrutinized, and it applies to magic as well(this is where fake SINs and other such things come into play, which of course have cost, need connections, and so on).

 

[Overly Serious]

For what it's worth, I assume the power of physads are over blown or vary by edition? Because the idea of a starting character being basically superman, able to punch through engine blocks, run at the speed of sound, and be essentially bulletproof,

I actually never had one in my game prior to 4th so have limited experience outside of 4th edition. In 4th I found them balanced. A little anaemic in a way because whilst strong they were more narrowly focused. Whilst the Samurai equivalent can more easily dip into sidelines like rigging, hacking or at least dealing with security systems like maglocks, etc. Plus, Shadowrun is a setting with guns. You can make a gun-fu adept, too. But if they've focused on melee then you're again in a situation where the more generalist Samurai > specialist Physad. Though don't get me wrong - they can be a monster in combat. One of their biggest assets is that they can fight magical threats. A physad with a weapon focus can toe-to-toe a powerful spirit. The Samurai less so.

all without the gear costs of other classes sounds so obviously broken I doubt it would survive playtesting.

I think you've overlooked something here. It's again a mindset of thinking money is a separate track to character traits. It's not and when building a character you can directly spend points on having money rather than skills, attributes, etc. There are lots of things for magical characters to spend their money on and in fact a spirit-focused magician might end up spending more. A physical adept can still benefit from Foci, which are not cheap.

But hey, if a character can be a successful runner without spending too much, that's good for them. I'd personally love to play a frugal runner who started loan-sharking the rest of my team. That's very on-brand for Shadowrun.

@Adamska It's interesting to see you talk about mages, because that's a new one. Usually I hear about riggers and physads.

One way to say it - and it's a way that is simplistic to the point it's a little misleading - is to say Samura = Marathon runner, Mage = Sprinter.

The mage can do some very impressive things. But if they really want to max out what they can do, it's going to cost them. The Samurai will be firing short bursts in the morning, short bursts in the afternoon and short bursts in the evening. Samurai just walks around with a Nuke-It! burger in one hand and an SMG in the other killing things.

Mage bursts into the scene, declares "I AM POWER!" and goes off for a nap.

(wild exaggeration - the mage can choose how much power to unleash, but it's good to notice this underlying design principle when comparing magic with non-magic).

I don't mind the players winning, it's when they optimize out the fun, or get mad their build they ripped from the internet doesn't guarantee victory in every situation. Specifically because I don't want to shut down playstyles. This is why the "nuh uh" part was a concern. My assumption was I didn't know Shadowrun enough to run the kinds of games I want effectively, but from the thread it sounds like no, it's the players are retarded.

Yeah, that's a player problem. It's exacerbated by the realism of Shadowrun and the different nature of games to be sure - easier to find "exploits" that a GM hasn't yet learned how to handle. But the attitude is definitely a player problem.

If the corpos in the area hear about some new crew running around making extreme use of their mage, this absolutely should be the case and it can be done if the party has some adepts as well. Just like MAD scanners exist and guard stations exist, why wouldn't a secure enough location also have corpo mages with their own bound spirits?

You've reminded me of another good point - astral signatures. Powerful magic can be examined by other mages to try and identify who it was. It's not entirely out of the question that they might be able to summon the same spirit the mage did and ask it about him. Though that never occurred to me when I ran the game and would be a bit mean. I'd require it to be special circumstances, same magical tradition as well. Mages stick out though because they are MUCH less rare.

"I'm looking for a man with a gun."
"Ooookay...."

vs.

"I'm looking for a mage who is a native American Shaman and summons wind spirits."
"Oh, that's Runs With Anglos. He lives in Puyallup."

Even a dungeon crawl, if the players can use their brains to avoid or otherwise neutralize encounters without something other than combat, or getting enemies caught in traps, or whatever, that really should be rewarded there as well. A lot of people always seem to want to run(and play) a dungeon crawl like it's a saturday morning action cartoon but there's no reason a dungeon crawl itself can't be closer to a heist movie or spy novel if the players want to handle it that way.

Reminds me of the time I was a player in someone's D&D game and I asked the GM if I could get a 5' rod made of steel. I'd seen you could get 10' wooden ones, after all. GM made up a price and I got it. A trap where the walls start closing in? I placed my steel rod level between the closing walls and we walked out. Bars separating off a different part of the dungeon? I place the steel rod between them and used it as a lever to get through. I ended up finding endless uses for that lump of metal and IIRC the DM banned it.

Looking back, I was probably a very annoying little kid.

Going back to the whole "it's blocked" and "running effectively" thing, I'd hate to run Peach Trees Ranraku Archology, and turn 1, the physad walks up to the nearest window, punches it, and escapes.

Eh, that's no different to someone using explosives to blow a hole in the wall. Or powertools or sledgehammers. That's the theme I keep coming back to with this whole Shadowrun conversation. "This guy can punch through concrete! That's really powerful." "If that breaks the game, wouldn't a pick-axe also break it?"

 

[p1138]

You've reminded me of another good point - astral signatures. Powerful magic can be examined by other mages to try and identify who it was. It's not entirely out of the question that they might be able to summon the same spirit the mage did and ask it about him. Though that never occurred to me when I ran the game and would be a bit mean. I'd require it to be special circumstances, same magical tradition as well. Mages stick out though because they are MUCH less rare.

Sure it'd be mean, but if your players want to play that kind of hardball, why wouldn't corpos respond in kind?

"I'm looking for a mage who is a native American Shaman and summons wind spirits."
"Oh, that's Runs With Anglos. He lives in Puyallup."

LOL. True, and this is also where street cred, notoriety, and public awareness can bite someone in the ass. Of course a corpo can pay some schlub in the underground to give over info.

Reminds me of the time I was a player in someone's D&D game and I asked the GM if I could get a 5' rod made of steel. I'd seen you could get 10' wooden ones, after all. GM made up a price and I got it. A trap where the walls start closing in? I placed my steel rod level between the closing walls and we walked out. Bars separating off a different part of the dungeon? I place the steel rod between them and used it as a lever to get through. I ended up finding endless uses for that lump of metal and IIRC the DM banned it.

Looking back, I was probably a very annoying little kid.

Eh, maybe. At the same time the GM also could have found an online calculator to determine the weight and strength of your steel rod and just bent it with the walls while also penalizing you for carrying what I assume is at least a 1 inch rod? Yeah that's gonna weigh at least 12 pounds and be unwieldy unless you've got extradimensional storage for it. But I can see why a ghetto version of an immovable rod could get banned from a game if the DM really just didn't want to bother with it.

I actually never had one in my game prior to 4th so have limited experience outside of 4th edition. In 4th I found them balanced. A little anaemic in a way because whilst strong they were more narrowly focused. Whilst the Samurai equivalent can more easily dip into sidelines like rigging, hacking or at least dealing with security systems like maglocks, etc. Plus, Shadowrun is a setting with guns. You can make a gun-fu adept, too. But if they've focused on melee then you're again in a situation where the more generalist Samurai > specialist Physad. Though don't get me wrong - they can be a monster in combat. One of their biggest assets is that they can fight magical threats. A physad with a weapon focus can toe-to-toe a powerful spirit. The Samurai less so.

This just goes back to the problem of players making their characters over specialized. That's not the say that a gun toting physad doesn't have a place, clearly they do, but they've invested themselves into their weapons, and their guns, and probably don't want any cyberware killing their essence(same with mages of course). But if the party does want to roll a mage, a street samurai focused entirely on combat, and a decker, that means that whoever decides to play the generalist B&E skill monkey is going to be able to request quite a bit more for their numerous contributions to successful runs. Afterall, nothing says a party needs to be distributing their reward evenly, and even the Mr Johnson might point out that the skill monkey actually did half the work and deserves a larger cut, or if you really want to create some intra party conflict, give that guy an offer to join a corpo and maybe some jobs that the rest of the team might not be entirely ok with. Afterall it's a shadowrun crew, not the fucking strawhat pirates.

Eh, that's no different to someone using explosives to blow a hole in the wall. Or powertools or sledgehammers. That's the theme I keep coming back to with this whole Shadowrun conversation. "This guy can punch through concrete! That's really powerful." "If that breaks the game, wouldn't a pick-axe also break it?"

Also congrats, you blew out a wall/window 50 stories up in a massive building currently on a lockdown and could very well be shot by the armed security drones in the air, assuming the physad didn't just go splat when they hit the ground if they actually tried jumping out of the window. Or considering how large the arcology is ok cool you blew out a window... into one of the interior atriums and you're still inside since the arcology is something like the 8th largest pyramid in the world and houses 100k people since we're talking about something probably closer in scale to the Tyrell Corp. building from Blade Runner.

 

[Overly Serious]

Eh, maybe. At the same time the GM also could have found an online calculator to determine the weight and strength of your steel rod and just bent it with the walls while also penalizing you for carrying what I assume is at least a 1 inch rod?

We were 10 years old and I recall our TV was black and white, just for context. My main memory of the D&D game is thinking that the cleric woman you rescued from Bargle in the rule book was cute.

 

[p1138]

We were 10 years old and I recall our TV was black and white, just for context. My main memory of the D&D game is thinking that the cleric woman you rescued from Bargle in the rule book was cute.

lol, well considering all of the bullshit that could have happened with a bunch of 10 year olds, sounds like it was handled maturely enough.

 

[Judge Dredd]

Eh, that's no different to someone using explosives to blow a hole in the wall. Or powertools or sledgehammers.

I don't know about Ranraku specifically, but I want to say the whole point of the shutdown is the shutters are capable of withstanding a nuclear strike. At very least, people can't just walk up to the front door with a sledge hammer and open it.

My main memory of the D&D game is thinking that the cleric woman you rescued from Bargle in the rule book was cute.

Pics?

That's the theme I keep coming back to with this whole Shadowrun conversation. "This guy can punch through concrete! That's really powerful." "If that breaks the game, wouldn't a pick-axe also break it?"

Sorry about that. Just trying to figure it out. And I think I've figured out anyway, unless I have the posters here wrong.

My main experience with Shadowrun is the PC game Shadowrun Returns, which was a flawed game to be sure (I hear Dragonfall is better, but a slog at times). In my mind, the cyberpunk games I like to imagine are things like old movies such as Split Second, Cyber City Odeo 808, Appleseed, or Dredd. (I notice those are all cop themed. Not my intention.)

The videos are of Cyberpunk adventures. One is set in a run down apartment where the corpos are trying to destroy the building so they can build a relay on it. The other has the PCs defending a truck that is attacked by multiple factions. Turns out the Mr Johnson didn't want the job to succeed and wanted the rival to steal it. The PCs were just dispossible pawns that were meant to put up a convincing fight but die.

These OP builds were an issue because adventure ideas get eliminated 1 by 1. I can't run a horror if the PCs never have to be in any kind of danger. I can't run tactical urban combat if the PCs can just press an instant "I win" button. Raids on corporate offices are rendered useless by PCs who can casually punch through walls and security doors like they were tissue paper.

You know how 5e has lots of options like goodberry and warforged that make gritty survival campaigns pointless? It's that problem. The difference is that the players claim to know how to bypass all survival elements, and yet I'm a newcomer who doesn't know about goodberry yet.

 

[Adamska]

Honestly I think you misinterpreted me on what I meant:

-On wireless shielding and wireless zones

I never said that I cut things off. I said for particularly secure or paranoid places that they might use intranet and keep it localized, or for the most important shit absolutely walled off in a small area. Once you got in the nodes, you were able to be in so long as you didn't proc a systems search with successful sleazes. I even mentioned an example of how a rigger might be able to still do overwatch if less efficiently via drones by using them as his relay point inward, just needing some form of linkage.

I simply said that there would be times where proprietary research would be that walled off, usually in AA companies and above and it's their main money makers. Heck, my runners were spooked when I mentioned that a point of access they could've consulted was some of the lower level and out of the way servers in Renraku's newer and smaller arcology system, since the company they did the run with was a subsidiary game development company that accidentally made a BTL chip experience with their RPG on a specific build, and those servers had some good data they could've started with, like employee records and logs.

It was isolated from the PAN outside via basic security, but once you were in, you could bounce around with the right incentive. Wasn't even that harsh, but being in sight of a AAA at all spooked them. Wisely I'd say.

-On not knowing the hacking rules

I specifically did my campaign run to help the technomancer and other newbies (since only half of us had any experience with Shadowrun) understand how the cyber systems worked in Shadowrun. I know them rather well given how often I looked back at and referenced them after spending a good amount of time reading them. I specifically made my two shot tech based so I could make sure I knew them to not fall into traps like this.

In that situation, they pretty much were able to do a lot of the legwork just using drone relays and info gathering, with the only direct going in being to get the BTL beta chip and the guilty party from the Triads. Even then the Technomancer did most of his work from a distance, if not all of it. Speaking of which, he has eternal emnity with a local nightclub's spider, since he experienced a lovely bit of fade and dumpshock when his sprite got fucked up by his IC.

I don't limit points of access beyond what would logically make sense for the security and even then I can and have been talked into approaches I would think of.

I don't think you intended to say I didn't know the system but it comes off like that, which isn't the case when it comes to the tech management.

-On mages not being broken

No, I assure you mages are broken, mainly because spirits are broken. This is a major factor in why Technomancers, while being worse than a decker or rigger in most computer tasks can wreck so much face. The other being they can garble code together quickly to make one off specialized softs that the others would need to code or buy.

Yes, they cost a lot to retain and use, but that doesn't change how much they can change when busted out. This was not me bitching about mages; just specifically stating that they can do a fuckload of pain if you don't know how to counter that. Similar to how a Troll Archer in older editions could outpace tank shells. Or similar to how nasty a skilled Gun Adept can get.

Game's not really balanced, but that's to it's benefit.

And yes, mages are quite defeatable and aren't invincible. That wasn't the point of what that statement was.

I will state however I'm less familiar with the mage stuff simply because we never did do the arcane heavy short set to learn how that works. I did pick up a decent amount when I made my priestly shaman back-up character that got the OG DM into a bit of a tizzy over the lore's religion, which was funny.

Eh, maybe. At the same time the GM also could have found an online calculator to determine the weight and strength of your steel rod and just bent it with the walls while also penalizing you for carrying what I assume is at least a 1 inch rod? Yeah that's gonna weigh at least 12 pounds and be unwieldy unless you've got extradimensional storage for it. But I can see why a ghetto version of an immovable rod could get banned from a game if the DM really just didn't want to bother with it.

Items have HP, which I would've deducted from the rod from crushing damage from the walls per round. Still more than enough time to escape, but just to highlight that things like that can be demolished.

Oh and as for PhysAds, they start stronger but progress slower since they rely on gaining power points to get anything done, which takes a lot longer to get than augments. My troll character was a Phys Ad who dumped most of his into wall running and mobility just so he could run up faster and hit you with his specialized club.

Motherfucker was not guaranteed a lethal hit, but you'd be close to death with each blow since he had the hitting power of a high grade shotgun.

 

[p1138]

I can't run a horror if the PCs never have to be in any kind of danger

Why? Every OP build either has a weakness built in, or something you can just not allow them to have to complete whatever stupid build they found online.

I can't run tactical urban combat if the PCs can just press an instant "I win" button.

What "I Win" button? If the PCs have access to some "I Win" button, why would their opposition not also have access to this?

Raids on corporate offices are rendered useless by PCs who can casually punch through walls and security doors like they were tissue paper.

The more important the building, the less likely any shadowrunner is going to just be punching their way through walls. And again, even if they do... ok what's on the other side of the wall that a cybernetic fist can't take care of? Practically anything, considering we're talking about mega corporations that bank on a fucking space station and have infinitely more resources than any shadowrun team is ever going to have. Some corpos will go as far as putting dirt and other shit in the walls of their buildings to stop astral bullshit also, why? Because they can afford to.

You know how 5e has lots of options like goodberry and warforged that make gritty survival campaigns pointless? It's that problem. The difference is that the players claim to know how to bypass all survival elements, and yet I'm a newcomer who doesn't know about goodberry yet.

No, you're the DM that hasn't bothered to say "I want to run a gritty survival campaign, goodberry and warforged don't fucking exist in it". And just to try and drive this point further home. If you don't want to run some monty hall gonzo super fantasy campaign where everyone is a demigod by level 10... don't. If this particular group of gamers want to play that so badly, and you don't want to DM it, let one of them figure out how to DM. You the DM are still a player in a game, and should be having a fun time doing the things you want to do. You're not some paid manservant DM'ng for the whims of some trust fund kids paying you... are you? If not, then don't act like it. You set the parameters of the game you want to run, you set the availability of magic, tech, items, schooling, etc. in your game. Want to play 5e in a low magic post apocalyptic wasteland desert? Propose that as an idea, if players are interested then play. Want to play in a realistic 90s action movie spy thriller set in the cold war? Propose that idea to the table, if you get enough interest then start the game. When players start demanding extra races and shit be added, or that they get this list of items by level 5 or whatever, and you don't want to do any of that? You tell them no. Preferably as up front and early on as possible, but just... no. Hell, you can even tell your players that if you spot that they're just slapping some bullshit busted build together that they found online for D&D, Shadowrun, Pathfinder, CoC, it doesn't matter, that you'll kill their character and throw their sheet in the trash because you do not want that in your game. Being a DM doesn't need to be adversarial, but you don't need to be a doormat either.

Items have HP, which I would've deducted from the rod from crushing damage from the walls per round. Still more than enough time to escape, but just to highlight that things like that can be demolished.

Absolutely, but apparently they were playing when they were 10 when that came up, so it's whatever. A group of adults, sure yeah I'd just break it. Oh you want to carry it around like some treasure and never drop it or leave it behind? Ok, fine... heat metal, problem solved.

 

[Overly Serious]

I don't know about Ranraku specifically, but I want to say the whole point of the shutdown is the shutters are capable of withstanding a nuclear strike. At very least, people can't just walk up to the front door with a sledge hammer and open it.

A physical adept isn't punching through anything that you can't get through with machinery. It lets you buy powers like an enhanced physical attribute that can get your strength up to the same levels as someone with cyberware or Killing Hands that turn your bare-handed strikes into Physical damage rather than Stun. And another one which boosts the damage value of your blows up by +1 for each level. So now your hands are as lethal as swords.

You're not breaking open nuclear bunkers any time soon.

Pics?

Googles...

Um, here you go. I'm afraid she dies at the end of the adventure. But Larry Elmore's art is eternal. To pre-teen me, she was a babe.

I don't think you intended to say I didn't know the system but it comes off like that, which isn't the case when it comes to the tech management.

Apologies. You clearly do. I've just seen both the things I talk about used as a Go To fix for people who don't know the system well. The mana count one being especially pernicious.

 

[Corn Flakes]

On the subject of mages in Shadowrun, I though the point of cyberpunk settings (at least when they're being played with grit rather than cyber-superheroes) is that everything you have the corpos/government have better. So you have to be very quick, very stealthy, or both in order to not get turned into a red smear on the floor when Magical MaxTac shows up. So if you have a group with a very powerful mage and you start gaining reputation for your work, it makes perfect sense the usual targets would work to harden their defenses against the vectors of attack that worked on them before.

Cyberpunk settings might be close to grimdark in how static the status quo is, but they're still living worlds. It's not like exploring a dungeon cut-off from the world for centuries. Enemies should adjust to your tactics if you lean too much on any given thing.

 

[Overly Serious]

On the subject of mages in Shadowrun, I though the point of cyberpunk settings (at least when they're being played with grit rather than cyber-superheroes) is that everything you have the corpos/government have better. So you have to be very quick, very stealthy, or both in order to not get turned into a red smear on the floor when Magical MaxTac shows up. So if you have a group with a very powerful mage and you start gaining reputation for your work, it makes perfect sense the usual targets would work to harden their defenses against the vectors of attack that worked on them before.

The corps certainly love to get their hands on any mage they can and will reward staff mages generously. But they really had to scramble to do this because to begin with most of the mages weren't very establishment. The largest organised bloc at first were Howling Dan Coyote's faction who were considered terrorists by the government (because they were). Other mages were pretty much going their own way as magic was new and there wasn't really any structured societal path for them. Plus, people who hear voices are never the easiest recruitment pool to begin with! When Sam starts hearing the Dog totem talk to him, it's not saying "focus more on meeting your deadlines".

My feel is that Corps have always been a bit on the back foot with mages though have turned that around a bit by 2070 and you'll find plenty of corp-sponsored hermetic circles, etc.

In any case, the speed you can move through astral space, even if they don't have many to allocate to all sites, dispatching a mage on the astral or a spirit, can still have reinforcements there quickly. Outsourcing to private companies can serve the same role for the A corps as well.

Cyberpunk settings might be close to grimdark in how static the status quo is, but they're still living worlds. It's not like exploring a dungeon cut-off from the world for centuries. Enemies should adjust to your tactics if you lean too much on any given thing.

Absolutely. And always look out for the ones that wont leave it at the end of the run. Wasn't there something about runners charging extra for jobs against Saeder-Krupp because Lofwyr literally had a revenge budget that was filed under Marketing? Without irony - he considers financing hits on anyone who targets the corp as good PR.