Shadowrun
Shadowrun Play => Gamemasters' Lounge => Topic started by: SoulGambit on <08-28-13/1731:18>
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So, Mages can Astrally Project and basically anyone can open an AR window to view the matrix. The Decker can do it slightly better. This means every player has access to cheap "I know everything going on near me" abilities. This makes it hard to build suspense an drama, and emphasizes the planning phase of a Run too much. Planning takes forever, to the point that I present the run and make them do Legwork / Planning before the game.
There has to be a better way to handle this. Yes, there are some stories where this is not a factor, but I mean for the ones where it is--primarily revolving around infiltration and sabotage/extraction/et cetera. Mana Barriers, running silently, et cetera help but really just add more steps to resolve the inevitable. Thankfully none of my PCs have the detection spells, which I can only assume exasperate the issue.
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You forget AR spam, astral noise and a bunch of other things that can screw with that.
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Along the same lines as Silence, you have to remember that the PCs do not exist in a void and are not the only people in their world. Astral space is filled with the auras of everyone around them as well as plants, animals, spirits, etc. Even using DNI, it is not an instantaneous thing to do a data search for information on the matrix. Things take time.
And just because they can go astral or do a matrix search does NOT mean that they notice everything or can correctly interpret what they do manage to perceive in the first place. That is where their character's skills come in. The decker is generally the best as matrix data searches because they have (or should have) the highest Computer skill in the group. The mage can see a lot in astral space that can't be seen otherwise, but unless they have a good Assensing skill, they're just as likely to gain no information or even to interpret it wrong. And even simple physical perception takes time if they are trying to take in more than just peripheral input. It takes more than just a couple hits to get good, complete information from Perception and Assensing tests as well.
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Having a lot of information is not the same as having good or complete information.
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Remember that at this point corporations have been defending against magical intrusion for more than 50 years. Given that Astral Scouting can be foiled by office plants I'd call it a damn sight short of omniscience.
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Very easily, they say what there doing make a roll and I tell them what they found. Otherwise that's it. If you want to prevent a mage from mapping something out have them run into barriers as well as a spirit guarding in astral space. Have the commencing battle end with another mage detecting this new mages presence bam bang boom he just fudged the whole mission and has a whole corp coming down on them. This will prevent mages from walking the entire building in astral.
That's it.
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There is a difference between having all the information, asking the right questions to have relevant information, and making the intuitive leap to using the right information to formulate the right plan. For example, just because a student can look up a topic on Wikipedia, it does not mean they can write an essay about it.
And just because the information is there, does not mean it is all accurate. Matrix Search can be done in secret, not telling the runners if they got a glitch or critical glitch. Do not penalize or put undue limitations, they still need to piece it all together. I find that people do not always ask the right questions, so they do not always get the right info.
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For example, just because a student can look up a topic on Wikipedia, it does not mean they can write an essay about it.
But he can be reading and re-reading articles on Wikipedia for hours trying to write it. What I'm saying is that the main problem lies in legwork taking fragload of real time with mages and hacker going: "we do that, then that, then that & that..." - they want to know everything. That slows games a lot. All the advice here is golden, but I don't see how it solves this problem: Planning takes forever, to the point that I present the run and make them do Legwork / Planning before the game.
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But he can be reading and re-reading articles on Wikipedia for hours trying to write it. What I'm saying is that the main problem lies in legwork taking fragload of real time with mages and hacker going: "we do that, then that, then that & that..." - they want to know everything. That slows games a lot. All the advice here is golden, but I don't see how it solves this problem:
Planning takes forever, to the point that I present the run and make them do Legwork / Planning before the game.
Depends on how your players and game runs. If the players are having fun in the legwork and planning, add some challenges during that process to spruce it up, make a big deal of it. If they do not like the legwork, move on quickly to the run part. I have always found Shadowrun to be a few hours of intense planning, legwork, sneaking, and an hour of sheer panic as nothing survives contact with the enemy.
If you do not enjoy the planning, but your players do, make the process enjoyable for yourself, but do not cut it out. Prioritize what is most fun for the group, not what is most/least time consuming. The reason planning takes so long is probably because the players are trying to best you, which means they respect or fear your abilities or cruelty as a GM and they want to be very careful. Take it as a compliment.
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You might also consider alternative structures, like beginning in media res or jump cutting. There's nothing saying that SR has to be bound to the conventional Meet>Legwork>Planning>Run>Aftermath Model.
Be careful though, if you do decide to cut out planning, not to penalize players for losing the time.
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There should very rarely be an "inevitable". And if there is, don't waste time with rolls, or cut it down to 1 roll or as few as you possibly can - just tell the story. It's your responsibility to guide the story and make it good, it's not your responsibility to let them explore every option they possibly can. If it is working for your group, doing the Legwork in between Sessions seems like a good option to me as well.
If Legwork is still taking too much Session time (or you don't want to devote as much time away from the table to it), don't give them as much time for it IC or OOC. Give them tighter deadlines. Force them to prioritize the things they seek to learn, and to make their choices regarding approach quickly. Then OOC verbally keep things moving too, if the players are just sitting there yaking back and forth - especially if it's going in circles, just be like: "okay, the day has passed as you all argue, pout, order pizza, etc. Now what are you going to do?".
Some tables really enjoy the Legwork, if your players are all enjoying it, maybe there's not a problem and you should instead make the Legwork more of a Run of its own?
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*Keyboard is messed up, apologies for horrendous grammar*
If you dont like long planning, simply dont allow it regularly. Design runs that dont require extensive planning, or make the information gathering process difficult, and time consuming. Mr. Johnson does not like to be kept waiting, there are deadlines to meet.
As the GM, you make the rules. Im not advising you to be cruel to your players, but there is nothing wrong with taking full advantage of the tools at your disposal. An example of this would be to line up a run that they would normally plan for hours, but have them get jumped during the planning process. To make matters worse, during the fight one of the villains snatches someones commlink and escapes, only have to have everything go completely to hell. Turns out that commlink is most likely in the safe at the Yakuza boss headquarters and he is the very guy you were supposed to take out. Now you need to do it swiftly, and before they have time to access sensitive data on the commlink(sure you can be careful, but everyone can slip up from time to time).
That is just one of many examples of a run that you can catch a breather on and deny them the chance to spend 3 hours planning things out.
Another possibility is to make better use of knowledge skills, and instead of rolling out too many tasks, you could make a small number of rolls and tell them what they find out. You dont need to kill a lot of game time hammering out every single detail, if they need more info, its okay to make it easy or at least fast, once in a while.
I like to GM at a somewhat quick pace, while I give plenty of time for roleplaying bar scenes and meets etc, I also dont want to sit around planning for half of my game session. You need to find ways to make that process quicker, and you definitely cant let them deliberate for hours. 30 minutes should be the absolute maximum. The players have contacts, knowledge skills, active skills etc, you can simply hand out a bit of info if things are taking too long, anything it takes to keep the game entertaining for you, and that information doesnt even need to be accurate.
Also, I would highly suggest not letting their master plan make for a boring run. You should definitely keep them on their toes, its rare that any plan goes perfectly. People make mistakes, bad things happen, you gotta keep it interesting.
Tired rant coming to a close, but essentially, find ways to move the game along at a pace that everyone is happy with. Once you GM with that concept in mind, youll find your sweet spot and you and your players will have a lot more fun.
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I myself find preparation and legwork to be at the core of Shadowrun. It's being paranoid and having plans B-F lined up in case things go wrong (which they will). That 's fine for me as a player. It can certainly happen that Matrix + Social Engineering legwork takes hours of actual real time and the run is done withing 1 hour after that.
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Alternatively, just give the players the information.
By reading your problem, it seems to me like the PC's usually have plenty of time to do their legwork and the do so with little or no risk.
I'm assuming this because otherwise, it'd have to be done during the game instead of handled before it begins. This goes together with the assumption that they're either connected, skilled and knowledgeable enough to get reliable results with minimal risk; OR that you just don't want to throw a monkey wrench in their plans at the legwork phase of the game and prefer to stick to the actual live mission.
Either way, why delay the inevitable? If you know ahead of time that the mage and the hacker will spend 2 hours of gametime creating get a perfect map of their target and that the face will pillowtalk the guard into giving her the passkeys and no one will encounter any potential problems while doing so, just have the Johnson give them a map and passkey when he hires them. Two hours of gaming saved!
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Alternatively, just give the players the information.
By reading your problem, it seems to me like the PC's usually have plenty of time to do their legwork and the do so with little or no risk.
I'm assuming this because otherwise, it'd have to be done during the game instead of handled before it begins. This goes together with the assumption that they're either connected, skilled and knowledgeable enough to get reliable results with minimal risk; OR that you just don't want to throw a monkey wrench in their plans at the legwork phase of the game and prefer to stick to the actual live mission.
Either way, why delay the inevitable? If you know ahead of time that the mage and the hacker will spend 2 hours of gametime creating get a perfect map of their target and that the face will pillowtalk the guard into giving her the passkeys and no one will encounter any potential problems while doing so, just have the Johnson give them a map and passkey when he hires them. Two hours of gaming saved!
This is why i just have everything go horribly wrong at every moment. or at least thats what my players expect.
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Normally, when I plan a mission, I build in a handful of unknowns. For instance, say the run is to infiltrate a host for pay data, but the Johnson has info that the host is conducting tests/patches, so a terminal won't be online, but will still have copies of the files. It is suppose to happen over the weekend. I add a complication that the patches are taking place early, so if the runners don't discover than during Legwork, they can still complete the mission, but it will be a bit harder.
I'll add 2-3 complications for most missions, but none of them are going to ruin the run, just make it more difficult. If the players spend a ton of time in Legwork, for things I don't really care about, I just let them get whatever info they want, as it doesn't really impact the mission. Hopefully, I can move through that really fast instead of playing every mundane detail out. My players usually get the drift of what's important and what is not.
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Good replies, thanks everyone. Question: Crunch mentioned office plants stopping mages. Can anyone point out where that is?
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Look under Astral Projection.
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Good replies, thanks everyone. Question: Crunch mentioned office plants stopping mages. Can anyone point out where that is?
I'm not sure of where, or if, it's mentioned in SR5, but an Astral form cannot pass through another living aura. Given that Astral bodies have no mass and cannot displace even light physical bodies, one off the standard security measures for Astral securiy (from the Corporate Security book for 3rd Edition maybe. Great book mostly fluff) is to let Ivy grow over the walls of the building and encourage office plants and the like. At one point there was even a system that used Astrally Enhanced Bacteria to trap Mages.
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Living auras - plants, animals, and people, even magically-active ones who aren't astrally active - can be passed through, as their aura is only an astral shadow. Passing through it is like passing through a shadow IRL. Only something astrally active - a dual-natured critter or plant, an assensing mage, or a mystic barrier - is 'physical' in the astral, and cannot be moved.
Corporations have taken to growing Awakened (meaning dual-natured) ivy on the walls of their corp facilities as a defense against astral intruders for decades at this point, and because astral forms don't have real mass (clouds of FAB being a sort of exception) the astral intruder can't get through.
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Corporations have taken to growing Awakened (meaning dual-natured) ivy on the walls of their corp facilities as a defense against astral intruders for decades at this point, and because astral forms don't have real mass (clouds of FAB being a sort of exception) the astral intruder can't get through.
In 4th ed, anything that blocks an astral form has a barrier rating - and thus can be bypassed or fought. With the notable exception of the earth itself; and I suspect it does have a rating, its just impossibly high.
The older editions did have things living things with auras that blocked mages but could not be fought or bypassed.
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There's Glomoss that lights up when magic presence/activity is nearby, which can alert guards that something's going on and contact the security wagemage (to send a spirit for) for an astral look around. Iirc, it dies when it's triggered, though. So it'll need to be replaced regularily. Also random spirits or other astral things just flying past will trigger (and kill) it.
There's Awakened Ivy (Street Magic) which is grown to form walls. Requires some maintenance but it forms an actual astral barrier which, when projecting, can only be destroyed by astral combat. And when a mage does that, the plant rapidly decays, alerting mundanes that there's been a breach.
(I'm almost certain there's a second plant with almost the same function, too... Biofiber or something? AFB at the moment. If I remember, I'll try looking it up tonight.)
There's also the Guardian Vines (Street Magic), though I wouldn't recommend putting them anywhere your own employees would go. Their astral form moves around, though, so maybe you could put it in locked closets or something?
Haven Lily (also Street Magic) creates mana ebbs up to rating 3, severely weakening mages/spirits.
That said. None of these plants are selective. They'll hinder the company's magic security as much as they do enemy mages/spirits. It might be possible to come up with an attuned version of them, though, maybe them ignoring/only targetting a specific type of magic. It's not really RAW, but not too far-fetched neither imho. But this does create a potential security hole too if the magical infiltrators use (or pretend to with Masking) the same type of magic.
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This is Shadowrun. Legwork is a big part of the game. They have skills and contacts. That being said, I put my players on a clock. Legwork takes time. It also can cause problems in the present and future. My last run featured the face agreeing to owe a favor to the head of the Vory for info. He will have to pay and I look forward to it. Good legwork makes for great roleplaying. The matrix stuff can be handled quikly. But humint is slow and risky. If your players are enjoying the legwork, relax and enjoy it with them.