Shadowrun
Shadowrun General => General Discussion => Topic started by: 忍 on <03-28-17/2319:19>
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My PCs have focused on excelling in combat. Most everything I throw at them gets chewed up within moments. They've developed a linear mindset of, "What do I need kill to complete the job?" If they would face a non-combat obstacle, the game would grind to a halt as they stumble through, "Well, what do I do?"
Is there any advise yall could offer to help me teach the players how not to talk with their fists?
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Short answer: Talk to your players, communicate your wishes with them.
Long answer: Are your players having fun killing everything? On the other hand, are they not having fun when they're not killing or preparing to kill stuff?
If the answer is that they're having fun when killing or preparing to kill stuff, then don't change it. If you as a GM don't like it, then bring it up within the group. Try to come up with a solution that pleases everyone.
If your PCs are killing everything you throw at them, throw better stuff at them? High-level spirits, snipers that get the first shot at them due to being concealed and far away but are then engageable by the PCs... Other Shadowrunners like them, high-level corp fireteams in assault helicopters. Dragons. The possibilities are endless.
Alternatively, make the players work to having to kill stuff. Really put an emphasis on preparing to kill stuff. Tactical planning. Finding out information. Stealthily entering a location and staying there to provide fire support when the rest of the team arrives. Having to do a minor run before the big showdown that doesn't involve killing stuff but is necessary to access the big fighty-killy Shadowrun, such as having to swipe access cards, talk someone into giving access codes or whatnot.
If you want to not talk this out with your players fo whatever reason, then make it -explicitly clear- by Mr. Johnson that their pay will be severely docked (or not even handed to them) if they injure someone/are seen/do killy things during the run. Then again, that will leave everyone asking why Mr. Johnson is hiring this flashy-killy team for a job like that?
What other skills are there within your team, anyway? If your PCs are focused in Combat, do they even have the abilities needed to pull of a stealthy heist or complex negotiation?
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And what is their roleplay history? If their previous experience is mostly in games like D&D, where killing your way to the loot is expected, they might simply believe that this is the norm. In that case it might be that Shadowrun isn't the best game for them, unless you keep it as a combat game (it is possible as your team get a reputation for violence, more and more similar jobs will come their way).
another option is to play out the consequences of their actions. They killed their way to a prototype in an Ares facility? Well, a couple of Firewatch teams will be looking for them. Killing employees hurts a corp's bottom line and they are kinda protective of those. :)
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First of all: Talk with them. Tell them that there are other options
Solving everything through murder should even in the pinkest mohawk games lead to uncomfortable consequences: People out for revenge hire assassins - and not the kind that hold speeches, but those who poison your soycaf. A five year old girl that enters a room calling "Daddy!" only to stop and look at their deceased parent and start crying while calling "Daddy, daddy, what's wrong with you. Get up, come on, why aren't you getting up?".
NPCs telling them straight to the face that they aren't going to hire them since they draw to much heat.
Having them arrested in their downtime and presented with a list of people they murdered and then be asked to defend their actions.
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A very energetic thumbs up to the whole point of talking to them about it. Tell them that SR usually has a lot more than combat and that you're interested in exploring that, but that you want their thoughts on it. Maybe they are perfectly happy with the game as it is? (in which case you have a tougher issue).
Beyond that I suggest one specific piece of communication: anything that the players do, the GM can do. That some of the more brutal tactics are not things you'd throw at them generally, but if they are doing it (large scale use of explosives, sniper nests, killing machine builds), that they can expect the game to mirror that back at them to some degree. If they are heavily armed, well augmented, and well coordinated, let them deal with elite combat units who are similar, at least some of the time. After they fail to just shoot their way in and out a couple of times, they might start looking at other options more seriously.
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My PCs have focused on excelling in combat. Most everything I throw at them gets chewed up within moments. They've developed a linear mindset of, "What do I need kill to complete the job?" If they would face a non-combat obstacle, the game would grind to a halt as they stumble through, "Well, what do I do?"
Is there any advise yall could offer to help me teach the players how not to talk with their fists?
First, let me agree that talking to them is a very important part of what you should do. Accompany this with movie night. Showcase movies like Blade Runner, The Sting, Sneakers, Oceans Eleven, and others.
Second, there is ALWAYS a bigger fish. Part of the problem seems to be that you're throwing FAIR fights at them. Stop that nonsense immediately. Send them to a Zero Zone, or someplace else where they'll either die, or learn that shooting things isn't always the best option. Nothing breaks a group's arrogance like monowire traps at calf height, heavy machine gun nests, Seven-7, and cyberzombies who have 8 Essence worth of deltaware in them. When they complain after getting their asses handed to them, kindly inform them that there was a simple social encounter that would have gotten them around all that if they hadn't decided to make with the killing.
Third, there are plenty of Johnsons who require low/no body counts on jobs, for the sake of discretion. Make dead bodies a mission failure. And then have a 'cleanup crew' with snipers at the meet to make sure the team understands just how badly they fucked up. Geek the mage in the surprise round. Two snipers with Barrets will make sure that even the best combat mage is dead if caught unawares.
Four, I don't think you're properly playing the consequences of leaving trails of bodies behind them. Bigger fish isn't the only reason that you don't go around with killing as the first option. More bodies means more chances for corp reprisal teams to be sent after you, or other runners, who are willing to use all the dirty tricks the players do, and the ones they haven't thought of. And your jobs will quickly go to ones that are basically suicide runs, like a frontal assault on a zero zone to 'test upgrades'. You'll also have contacts being unwilling to talk to them, choking off supplies of ammo, gear, jobs, and information.
Five, so what if they look around blankly saying, "What do I do?" when faced with something that bullets aren't the answer for? These are those sink or swim, adapt or die moments, where good players will come up with something clever, and bad players ragequit and go home.
Six, others have asked whether the players are having fun, but that's the wrong question here. You're as integral a part of this puzzle as the players are. Are YOU having fun? Because it sounds like you're wanting to play Shadowrun while they're wanting to play World of Warcraft.
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Airburst grenades.
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Set up more opportunities for other options... and be obvious about it.
Think of your players like infants... and literally hand walk them through the other options other then mass gunfire! After a few hand walk sessions, they'll catch on.
But remember, you have to make the "non-combat" option just as "fun" as the combat.... be that tense social encounters to thrilling covert operations, if they are not finding enjoyment in the other options, then you will never break them out of the "Shoot first, second third" mindset they are in.
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To add to the choir of "talk to your players", this seems like a situation where your players and you have different desires out of the game.
This isn't just "why are my players always killing the NPCs I put in"? This is that the players have built the characters for combat; the team is literally built for fighting. Simply shifting the focus of the campaign may bother several players, as they clearly want a lot of fighting. If this isn't what you, as GM, were hoping for out of the game, then you need to talk with the players. Discuss potential shift in mission style, tell them some details, but you don't need to spoil things. Something like "I'm thinking of having the next mission be a lot less combat-focused, maybe something investigative, or with more social stuff. Would you guys be up for that?"
If you simply try to change how the missions have gone without telling the players, there's a good chance they will keep acting the same way, because to them it's just doing what works, and if you suddenly make it not work, they may feel like they're getting punished for making what's always been the right choice and get frustrated.
I'd also suggest doing some google searches for how to GM social- or investigative-focused storylines. One thing a lot of GMs have trouble with is how to handle mysteries. If the players have to gather clues, always remember the Three Clue Rule (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/1118/roleplaying-games/three-clue-rule) and never lock vital information or a clue behind a single roll.
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I'd also suggest doing some google searches for how to GM social- or investigative-focused storylines. One thing a lot of GMs have trouble with is how to handle mysteries. If the players have to gather clues, always remember the Three Clue Rule (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/1118/roleplaying-games/three-clue-rule) and never lock vital information or a clue behind a single roll.
Thanks for this great link. I'm going to run a Star Trek campaign (a DS9 type thing where the players are on a station mostly) and I had difficulties finding ways to do station plots. This one (and links in there) actually help a lot.
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To add to the choir of "talk to your players", this seems like a situation where your players and you have different desires out of the game.
This isn't just "why are my players always killing the NPCs I put in"? This is that the players have built the characters for combat; the team is literally built for fighting. Simply shifting the focus of the campaign may bother several players, as they clearly want a lot of fighting. If this isn't what you, as GM, were hoping for out of the game, then you need to talk with the players. Discuss potential shift in mission style, tell them some details, but you don't need to spoil things. Something like "I'm thinking of having the next mission be a lot less combat-focused, maybe something investigative, or with more social stuff. Would you guys be up for that?"
If you simply try to change how the missions have gone without telling the players, there's a good chance they will keep acting the same way, because to them it's just doing what works, and if you suddenly make it not work, they may feel like they're getting punished for making what's always been the right choice and get frustrated.
I'd also suggest doing some google searches for how to GM social- or investigative-focused storylines. One thing a lot of GMs have trouble with is how to handle mysteries. If the players have to gather clues, always remember the Three Clue Rule (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/1118/roleplaying-games/three-clue-rule) and never lock vital information or a clue behind a single roll.
Another thing to bear in mind is that if you're doing a mystery, especially a murder mystery, don't start the game at the beginning but in the middle. By this I mean that if it's going to be a serial killer don't start it at the 1st murder but after the 3rd so that there are several locations where they can go to find the clues, therefore if they fail at one scene there are 2 more for you to place the same clue without them ever realising.
You can achieve the same by starting at the 1st murder and having the 2nd happen whilst they're still at the site of the 1st. This also has the added benefit of putting time pressure on the players, which gives a sense of urgency to their investigations and can leave them feeling like they've been in combat if done correctly, due to escalation of the antagonist.
This can easily be transposed into investigations/mysteries that are not murder related as well.
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Or, if you are just starting down this path of trying to cure their blood lust and get a little more subversive in their play you can always set them up against a foe that can't be solved with a gun.
Have one of the players (I suggest the most RPish of the group) get a cryptic message over the matrix, or via a "trash" drone that explodes after the message is delivered... Let it hint at some deed in their past, and something coming after them.
Now, the players can choose to ignore this warning or they can investigate.. which means digging through past runs, or encounters that someone would want revenge for....
If they ignore the threat then just have the attacks continue (I found that the warnings also added a good element for where I took this..), but always indirectly.. (A matrix hack of their car, a throw-away drone turned bomb (grenade)) until they investigate.
lead them on a merry chase of social, sneaking, leg work encounters and tests until they finally have enough info to trace the attacks back...
<In my game, the "Master Drone Bomber" was Timmy. The 13 year kid of some nameless security guard of a Corp the team hit, and randomly killed because it was easier then being stealthy. Which left them in a moral dilemma, what to do about Timmy...... And all the other potential Timmy's out there..>
< I have sick, sick players :-[ >
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So did they recruit Timmy or break his legs and tell him not to do it again?
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So did they recruit Timmy or break his legs and tell him not to do it again?
The team operates on a motto:
"We always get paid"
And they collected their pound of flesh....
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Pity, the kid sounds like he could've been good runner material with a few years of proper training. Of course, they'd have to have given him one hell of a "nothing personal, it's just business" speech to get him to go along with it.
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Even better, have the kid seem to buy the "it's nothing personal, it's just business" line for a while, then sell them out on a run and turn that phrase back on the team.
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My hope was they would recruit the kid as a back rigger for more complicated runs I was planning.... And maybe tone down the full auto firing.
Sadly, Tanamous pays well for 'young, slightly used' organs. And a ghoul contact bought what Tanamous didn't....
BUT, they have tobed down the full auto fire.
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"Bullets bring bullets"
"You can't outrun the radio"
and
"Knight Errant loves an excuse to bring out the heavy ordinance"
These three phrases should put the fear of KE into them. If you don't want to end the campaign, have them catch a live news feed the next time they're at a bar, where some team of Shadowrunners went on a shooting spree and now KE has locked down 9 city blocks to trap them in a tic-tac-toe grid and is now moving in with a couple hundred officers with milspec gear, covered by scores of drones, several choppers, and some HR mobile attack vans. Watch runners get flushed out, bullets go 'ping!', and get brutally, brutally butchered. Have a few people mention how they'd hate to end like that, and if the PCs speak up, point out that whatever they have is what the poor schmucks who just got cut apart had and it wasn't enough.
You have to make a point that just being the biggest, baddest, bullet-est bunch of Shadowrunners ain't enough. You're outnumbered, out-armorered, and out-gunned, not to mention out-magiced. Direct conflict on that scale should be a huge, HUGE no-no in almost every case. (Mind you, every now and then, a big shoot out in the Barrens with a well-armed gang? Nice change of pace! But, in general? "Bullets bring bullets".
Live by it or die by it.
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Exactly, Wak. Too many people get caught up in the trap of thinking that encounters have to be 'balanced'. This is simply not true. If players do something that moves them to the top of someone's 'to do' list, then things are going to get very UNbalanced, very quickly, and they need to understand that. Sabaton's 40-1 is a kick-ass song, but remember that the people that song is about lost, and most of them died.
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\m/
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This is why my team generally uses tasers rubber bullets and pepper punch and nacro jet knock the security out but dont get pinned for murder that way when the security guards wake up they get fired lose their jobs and end up having to run the shadows too, also security cameras are EVERYWHERE even today
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Flooding the labor market with amateurs who take our jobs and drive down our pay? That's even worse than killing corpsec! At least when you kill corpsec, you only make life harder for yourself and not for the entire shadow community!
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I'm so glad this forum has people like you guys. A recent trip to the Shadowrun subreddit resulted in people arguing with me claiming any combat where their enemies weren't all dead was a failure.
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Well, it is.....sometimes. Sometimes you want them all alive but unconscious too. In fact, sometimes you want them conscious but unable to fight. The key is that you always want to end combat with all threats neutralized.
That said, "dead" is my personally favorite form of neutralized.
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Oh sure, sometimes you want them dead. But a lot of players have this fallacy going on that "not dead = totally fine" and that being knocked unconscious with Stun is just a slap on the wrist. (The person was initially arguing that having armor be able to convert damage to Stun was a horrible rule that made everything worse from a player standpoint and a GM standpoint).
Being knocked unconscious is often way worse-- For one, only stimpaks can recover Stun damage, so a magician's Heal spell becomes much less of a threat. They seemed to think they'd somehow be having to fight enemies multiple times, like they'd wake up in a few seconds. Considering most runs are done in less than an hour once the combat starts, a player can bank on enemies not having the time to recover from being unconscious.
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Honestly, I find this depends a lot on the GM and how consistent his world is.
My GM, and my games that I GM, are persistent, consistent worlds, where every decision the players make have an impact. Now that impact might be small - Like burning down a known bar, but its there.
In games like this, leaving a trail of bodies behind in your runs, actually starts to limit your work. After all, if its known that you have killed 40 Ares employees during your career, how likely is it that Ares is going to offer you an Actual job (that is not a setup?). And if you think the Corps don't know what you've done... well what do you think those Reputation scores mean?
Corps expect shadowruns, that's just the nature of business in the 2070s, and they have a certain amount of "loss" built into their budgets. But that doesn't mean they won't come after you if you, well... piss them off... which a few dozen dead employees will do. But if you keep the body count low, then Corps are more willing to let it pass.. or only offer token reprisals.
And speaking of reprisals... A lot of people don't seem to realize the true "reach" of a megacorp. They are plugged into every facet of life on every level, they have connections that reach from top of the towers to the deepest of sewers... A Corp can throw everything from a bunch of gangers paid by the Corp to hunt you down, all the way to Pictures of the team flashing on every AR screen hooked to their network in the city next to a bright red WANTED sign with a lot of zeros and a phone number... Yes legally, the Corps reach ends at the property line, but their clout can reach everywhere.
But Some GMs just run a bunch of adventures that are loosely strung together with nothing in between and no real sense of continuity. In games like this then killing everything and everyone is the best option as that's less change of someone waking up early and sounding an alarm.... and there is no consequence in doing so.
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I feel like though it's not unreasonable to say that Shadowrun is not meant to be a game where the PCs are free from consequence. It's very clear to me that the setting and mechanics reflect this-- Games like Pathfinder and D&D are built on a vaguely connected string of combat encounters. Those encounters are the flesh-and-bone of the game, which is why everything is balanced around those. The fights are very finely tuned to be roughly even fights. There's no real "non-combat classes"; every enemy is given a Challenge Rating, etc. It's kind of designed around combat encounters being their own sort of "bubble", disconnected from other stuff. This was incredibly clear in D&D 4th Edition, where almost everything outside of combat was removed from the main rules. Shadowrun isn't like that; the game's focus isn't individual combat encounters. Switching the focus towards individual missions kind of stretches the scope. Normal corpsec aren't supposed to be a serious threat to the party. Some characters can only barely fight, but are invaluable outside of combat...
I'm just rambling at this point. I suppose my real point would be that Shadowrun is less "videogame-y" in many aspects of the setting and gameplay, and freedom from consequence is a purely video game trope that has begun to seep into tabletops despite not really fitting in. In particular, many things in Shadowrun are "balanced by consequence". Things like Forbidden-legality armor, explosives, and many aspects of magic in general.
I love video games, but I love tabletops more, and every once in a while I resent the medium for giving people dumb assumptions about how a tabletop game goes. Every time I have a player ask me if their wizard is physically capable of hitting something with a sword, or see someone's mind get blown at the idea of being able to shoot someone through a cheap plaster wall, I can't help but facepalm.
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snip
I've found that Reavers remarks apply moreso when you're running against the corps and big syndicates. On the other hand, I've been running against smaller players and found the opposite way of thinking to hold true. When you're going up against someone without a lot of manpower, killing a lot of their guys means they have significantly less boots on the ground to hunt you down. When you blow up their stuff, they've got less money to buy bullets with your name on them. And if they don't have cameras and access to a forensics lab? All you have to do is leave no witnesses alive and they won't even know who they're looking for. Not to mention that some players are small enough that you can actually intimidate them.
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I've found that Reavers remarks apply moreso when you're running against the corps and big syndicates. On the other hand, I've been running against smaller players and found the opposite way of thinking to hold true. When you're going up against someone without a lot of manpower, killing a lot of their guys means they have significantly less boots on the ground to hunt you down. When you blow up their stuff, they've got less money to buy bullets with your name on them. And if they don't have cameras and access to a forensics lab? All you have to do is leave no witnesses alive and they won't even know who they're looking for. Not to mention that some players are small enough that you can actually intimidate them.
That is very true; when you're not going against someone with the "infinite compared to the common man" level of resources a megacorp (or even more large syndicates) have, it's not worth it. But against private groups, particularly gangs and policlubs, "causing serious damage" can definite be beneficial. The sort of "default" of Shadowrun, or more like, the generic run that is used for most discussions or thought experiments tends to be an extraction or data steal against a corporate-owned facility. That's usually the kind of game people expect when they're talking about what usually works. But Shadowrun is definitely a very flexible setting, and someone say... Fighting gangers working for Tamanous in Chicago's Containment Zone doesn't need to avoid lethal damage. They might even just think it's the morally right thing to do to end those people's lives.
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If you've let the power level creep up a bit, you have to decide if you want to perhaps relaunch the campaign, or create a situation that removes what you feel has ruined the campaign (excess gear/nuyen/whatever). If they simply have gotten too much karma..well, you are the GM, you have unlimited resources, use them.
Seriously, they cant beat a really fired up great dragon, for example, unless you've completely lost control of the campaign, or you aren't using the critter abilities, or playing the opposition as talented as they shoudl be.
Corporate and military special forces teams are better than the players can ever be in a standard game. Better gear, better stats, better training, better teamwork.
Set up missions where social skills are the only way forward,. The mission takes place in an area where they cant bring any gear through. an extraction where the compliance of the extracted person is needed, or the mission will fail. A subject you have to have them get data from, but has a cortex bomb and locked data stores. or one where a force solution will get opposition so severe it becomes impossible, and let the players choose. If they go in with force against what has obviously been presented as insurmountable odds, that is on them. That is not a "TPK" trap, thats players making a poor choice and suffering the consequences.
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Well, it is.....sometimes. Sometimes you want them all alive but unconscious too. In fact, sometimes you want them conscious but unable to fight. The key is that you always want to end combat with all threats neutralized.
That said, "dead" is my personally favorite form of neutralized.
No, you always want to end combat with you and your team being alive, not in custody, and not having your faces plastered over every newsfeed in the sprawl. Sometimes this means all threats have to be 'neutralized'. Sometimes, this means a couple smoke grenades to cover your escape.
Honestly, there's problems you're going to face if you cause massive death and destruction, even when dealing with smaller corps and syndicates/gangs.
For the corp side, we're talking about A-rated or lower. Anyone with AA rating will have extraterritoriality, and the resources to back it up. But when you're dealing with an A or lower corporation, that doesn't mean you're in the clear. Because those corps often contract out their security to people at Knight Errant, Lone Star, Eagle, or one of the other providers. And they DO have access to forensics, and if you go around killing people and blowing shit up on property they're contracted to patrol, then they WILL have a stake in hunting you down, to show their clients that they get the job done. ESPECIALLY when you make a habit of it in places outside the Barrens. Doing stuff like that practically makes KE's PR people salivate at the possible clips of officers taking down 'dangerous terrorists' that they can use in commercials, all featuring your team getting geeked.
For the criminal side, unless your team all lives at the same address, and doesn't do anything on their own, ever, then you're not considering the possible problems. Remember, small-time syndicates know all the tricks you do. Hell, people like them INVENTED most of them. You seem to be under the delusion that these people don't have any contacts of their own, and even if they can track you down, they'll just send waves of guys at you when you're all together. That's stupid thinking, especially when talking about gangs. Your street samurai isn't going to be much good when his ride has an 'accident' on his way back from the club and blows up. A lot of other scenarios to consider, as well. Hell, I don't even have to think hard on this. Just look at what gangs do to eachother today in situations where a target is too well protected for a frontal assault.
And we're not even getting to the fact that many low-level gangs tend to have partners or sponsors that they rely on for some of their business. Take out this gang, and you may have ruined a Yak protection scheme, or distribution for a Cutters drug network. Everything is connected. The key to living in the shadows is to do the job without making enough waves that you become an annoyance to one of the big fish.
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Just want to add that sometimes that security guard you killed when you could have found a way around him is a KE, Lonestar, X, officer moonlighting for some extra cash. In which case you don't just have generic "Look we got dangerous terrorists." PR flack from the higher ups but personal you killed one of us motivation from the beat cops. Then of course there's always the possibility of highly experienced/connected/powerful criminal elements taking a hand because your loose elements are drawing attention they don't want and making them look bad ot other similar elements. When the higher ups want you caught for the publicity, the front line officers want you dead for their coworker, the criminal elements want you "recycled" for drawing unwanted attention and the man on the street is reporting anyone who might be those dangerous terrorists there's not many places left to hide.
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Late to the part here, but .. It sounds, to me, like you're asking two separate, but related questions:
1) My PCs are combat monsters and kill everything faster than you can blink. How do I stop this?
and
2) How do I stop my players themselves from using violence as the answer to all their characters' problems?
Well....
1) This is easy. There's always a bigger fish. I don't care how badass your Street Sam is, the corps have more money, more time, and more bodies than any single lone Shadowrunner can ever hope to get. If said razorboy is pulling the special snowflake card, he's gonna have to be satisfied with the posthumous accolade of "Well, it took NeoNet 2 tanks and an airstrike to kill him, but they got him in the end." Don't matter much to NeoNet. Chummer's dead either way.
2) This is more difficult, and can be achieved by many of the things people have already talked about. Talking to the players is a really good start. Lots of things can be solved purely by communicating. If they want a run-and-gun game, and you don't, you'll have to compromise.
That said... One thing that I didn't see suggest is having them face life-threatening situations that they -can't- shoot their way out of. For example: Get 'em on a run, then dump 'em in the middle of the Siberian Tundra. Let's see how well your wired reflexes deal with -20F Temps, and no Stuffer Shack to keep that overactive metabolism running. Give 'em sequentially increasing body tests to resist hypothermia. That air drop is deadly enough without adding whatever awakened creatures you want to it, especially if they've been there a while and are now running at all kinds of -ve modifiers. I ran a run like that, once. It was amazing how fast it humbled the players, taking them out of their nice comfortable "shoot everything that moves" urban comfort zone......
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Cash.
Set a price for a 'clean' job and penalties if it gets messy.
Your team represents a particular set of skills and if all the Johnson needed was the front door kicked in with the place being torn up and everyone killed, he would have just paid off some local street gangs to do the trashing.
Instead he wanted a job done quieter like sabotaging a rival company (or even a rival department in his own company) project in such a way as to set them back long enough the Johnson can get his product launched first or even stealing plans to a new prototype while leaving few marks pointing back to any inter-corporate hanky panky.
Kind of hard to roll that new invention/recipe as your own brand if the company you looted reports it was stolen during an extremely violent robbery.
Robbing/sabotaging each other is fine, so long as you don't get caught at it.
Same with extractions, the idea is to get the target out and into the loving embrace of their new corp with a minimum of fuss.
Sure the old corp will be pissed, but when the guy in ensconced in his new lair, the receiving corp can spin it as a voluntary extraction, regardless of whether it actually was or not.
The receiving corp may have to pay for 'damages' along the way, so again it in their interest to keep the collateral damage low.
There will probably always be some level of violence, nobody is saying your team has to be pacifists, but it should be a measured response.
But that means you have to give them jobs that they can do without wrecking the place, and if they insist on going full blazing well the previous posts have plenty of suggestions to respond with, but even more persuasive is hitting them in the pocketbook. If they get a rep as burning things to the ground, the better paying Johnsons are going to avoid them, forcing them to chump change jobs, or they get used like throwaway decoys for the Real Runners the Johnson hires.
So have the team do their usual pyrotechnic demolitions and turn up at the meet for the payoff from the Johnson to get paid and then see the 'main' team turn up with the device/plans/whatever they got while the guards were being distracted by the first team and getting the bigger payout.
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You know Sendaz reading your post I have to admit the first thing that popped into my head was a Johnson hiring a good, reliable team to quietly extract their target and replace them with a decoy while hiring this team to hit the same place a little later and kill everybody. target is quietly removed to their offshore research facility, opposing corp believes they died along with everyone else in the nearby vacinity and this team is left dealing with the heat from both corporations for killing a high priority target while the Johnson denies ever having met them.
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The scenario gets even better when you start thinking about what kind of facility is getting hit. I'm not even talking about some high tech cyber outfit, or bleeding edge programs. Industrial sites are where you want to pull something like this, and I'll tell you why.
First, industrial sites usually have more of the more 'expendable' types of human resources about, and less of the high end talent or critical data. While this means that security is generally less, you're more likely to have collateral damage that has friends and families in the local gangs. This becomes important later on.
Second, you have big tanks, crates, or other storage mediums of Stuff. The exact nature of the Stuff is up to you, and how badly you want to frag them (and the neighborhood). Chemicals, either toxic or flammable, are the gold standard for this, as it doesn't take much for a kill-happy team to rupture tanks, causing explosions. Even if they don't hit the tanks, the team doing the real run can arrange for tanks to 'accidentally' explode while your team are on site. Basic chemical spills are the standard, as I said, but if you really want to gutpunch them, make it something radioactive, or make it be foodstuffs, like soy factories. Either one of those going up in flames will immediately ratchet up both public awareness and police looking for the 'terrorists'.
Now, how you play this depends on whether this is an internal job or an external one, but the main thrust remains the same. Mr. J approaches the team for a smash and grab, with emphasis on making sure that the facility's production is slowed at least a couple weeks. They're hitting an Ares target, and Mr. J looks Hispanic and speaks with an Aztlaner accent. He doesn't say he's working for the Big A, but, well, he doesn't say he isn't, either. (News flash, he isn't, but the players are meant to think he is.)
Now, after the run there is massive property damage, mass casualties, and a lot of people crying for blood. A 'helpful tip' comes in from one of the local gangs. They want the Knights off their backs, so they mention who they 'conveniently' spotted during the attack, namely your team. Doesn't mean they won't go about trying to find the team themselves, but they aren't about to take heat from Knight Errant for something someone else did, especially if there is a reward for the info. So your team's image gets put up on the screens, since cameras are everywhere, and even gangers have commlinks. And because of the damage, KE is looking to score points on taking the terrorists down.
Now the team has to try and avoid capture by the Knights, attacks from the gangers, and the inevitable reward for fucking up so grandly, a double-cross (maybe even a triple-cross) at the meet, with our suspiciously Aztlan-ish Mr. J attempts to silence the team. For added difficulty, have the Knights crash the party, once more on a 'tip', while Mr. J disappears.
What do you have after all of this? Your runners have learned that getting the rep for being gun-happy has led them into being patsies for a run that's turning into a PR nightmare. Their employers aren't going to pay that second half, and the Knights are broadcasting their faces, saying that they're to blame for causing a city-wide foot shortage. All while Ares starts maneuvers against Aztechnology, while Horizon looks on.
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Senko's and Mirikon's scenarios are some excellent examples of some of the extreme Johnson-level fuckery that can happen when a team pegholes themselves as cannon fodder.
But again this is more a response toward an advanced team that has already slid far down the bloody slope of extreme gun monkey with the rep/notoriety to match.
You don't want to spring this level of grief on newer groups still trying to shape themselves. But a gentler version of the above can serve as a warning about being known as overly expendable.
Use media, if they are constantly getting in faces, videos will pop up and they will be noticed by the public. Contacts can start declining as they become too hot to be around.
But honestly for starters, try offering better payouts in both karma & cash for quieter jobs. We all love the shinies and more money means more shininess.
Players try to load as much as they can into chargen because unless you are playing the long haul campaigns, most characters see very little upgrades/skill or stat improvements.
If the players know they can actually earn enough to improve in the game, this also takes some of the urge of max loading their equip/skill/stats out and lets them spread it out a bit during chargen, or maybe just allocate a bonus set of skill points to everyone, with the caveat that they have to be spent on non-primary goals (ie Mage can't spend on magical skills, Sammies can't spend on gun/combat skills, etc...) so that everyone has some other abilities beyond the main.
Still give them a decent bit of rough housing with security/gangs/fill in the blank, but the main focus should be on doing a quality job.
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Even better, set their violence against the fact that their fixer has to pass on giving them 'great paying runs' because they're far too trigger-happy.
"Ya know, I wanted to give you guys this job, but fuck, I didn't want you guys to get killed just for walking in the door with your guns drawn the way you always do; it would've made it impossible to get done, and then I wouldn't get paid. So I had to give it to Subtle Sam's crew."
My preference is to leave the sensor records wiped (or edited) and the guards waking up from a laes sleep wondering why they fell asleep. Unlike firebug's /reddit folk, or the people I unfortunately ran into at DragonCon a few years back, the best runs are ones in which the people who are hit never even know they've been hit.
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My preference is to leave the sensor records wiped (or edited) and the guards waking up from a laes sleep wondering why they fell asleep. Unlike firebug's /reddit folk, or the people I unfortunately ran into at DragonCon a few years back, the best runs are ones in which the people who are hit never even know they've been hit.
And it's not all that hard to do actually. A mystic adept or mage with improved invisibility and a shot of laes and some skills in sneaking (and sticking in the needle) can already have a go at it.
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Even better, set their violence against the fact that their fixer has to pass on giving them 'great paying runs' because they're far too trigger-happy.
"Ya know, I wanted to give you guys this job, but fuck, I didn't want you guys to get killed just for walking in the door with your guns drawn the way you always do; it would've made it impossible to get done, and then I wouldn't get paid. So I had to give it to Subtle Sam's crew."
Exactly!
When it hits the team in the pocketbook, they tend to take notice real quick and start looking at ways to turn that around.
Plus jobs like this tend to require more range of skills beyond simple weapon mastery, so it allows the other roles the opportunity to bring their own skills into play more.
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My preference is to leave the sensor records wiped (or edited) and the guards waking up from a laes sleep wondering why they fell asleep. Unlike firebug's /reddit folk, or the people I unfortunately ran into at DragonCon a few years back, the best runs are ones in which the people who are hit never even know they've been hit.
Depends on the point of the run, to be honest. For a datasteal or covert sabotage, you are absolutely right. The longer before anyone at the target corp knows they've been hit, the more use the paydata is.
But there are times where you have to make a splash. Extractions, 'distraction' runs, overt sabotage, and wetwork are the main examples here. By their very nature, people WILL know that something's gone down. Even so, it is usually best if you make as little impact as possible, for the reasons discussed earlier in the thread. Hell, a wetwork assignment where only the target dies, without the assassin being seen or having to fight anyone else is considered the height of the craft!
It is part of the reason that, if I have the funds, I typically buy at least three outfits and weapon loadouts for my characters. First you have the day-to-day, things that aren't going to raise eyebrows as you're walking down the street, or doing a bit of legwork. Then you have your 'going out', for discrete protection when you're at the club or someplace where a lined coat just won't cut it. Third, you have 'on the job', where you got a decent array of protection, with armor tailored to your role in the party. Sometimes, I'll have a fourth, which is 'assault', with the heaviest weapons and armor I can afford/use, to hell with legalities, because we're about to be storming a place. I keep these three or four different kits, because most of the time, 'subtle' wins hands over fist against 'loud'. But when you need to go loud, you need to be kitted out for going loud.
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What's a good example of a HTR stat block that should instill fear?
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Generally, whatever the team has +4-10 dice should inspire fear.
On the other hand, you can work wonders with more 'normal' corpsec, and just giving them better gear, and having tactics on their side. Have them set an ambush with a kill-zone. Have it be as insanely unfair as you like. Twin HMG focused down the hallway the team has to get through to get to their objective, meaning they have to hurry to keep from being turned into Swiss cheese as the HMGs alternate between suppressing fire and targeting anyone in the hallway. Traps in the hall that will explode, stab, slice, shoot, or gas the party so that if they charge ahead, they get boned. And THEN you come into the kill-box with a bunch of assault rifles pointed at you.
Then have a couple social encounters to get them a pass. So that no one complains about being 'forced' to RP, have the pass also being able to be obtained by a (much more difficult) hacking session, and the pass becomes invalid if people know a hack's been made.
Remember, Omaha Beach was deadly not because the Germans were supersoldiers, but because they had an entrenched position with good cover, and multiple killzones for machine guns and artillery, as well as choke points that could be defended.
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Even better, set their violence against the fact that their fixer has to pass on giving them 'great paying runs' because they're far too trigger-happy.
"Ya know, I wanted to give you guys this job, but fuck, I didn't want you guys to get killed just for walking in the door with your guns drawn the way you always do; it would've made it impossible to get done, and then I wouldn't get paid. So I had to give it to Subtle Sam's crew."
My preference is to leave the sensor records wiped (or edited) and the guards waking up from a laes sleep wondering why they fell asleep. Unlike firebug's /reddit folk, or the people I unfortunately ran into at DragonCon a few years back, the best runs are ones in which the people who are hit never even know they've been hit.
I admit my preference is to avoid them knowing you were there too makes it a lot easier to get away.
As for the "inspire fear" question you can always throw hints of bigger fish out there. Give them as Mirikon said a response that will push/kill them if some die at the HTR team's hands they'll hopefully learn their lesson if they don't plaster the news channels with sound bytes by a local news personality indicating their calling in a more experienced team to lead the search not their global HTR team based at their corporate headquarter just the local eastern sea board one.
If you really want to mess with them let them hear that, get nice and complacent then have them see a news clip where the terrorist cell was "eliminated" followed by an anonymous letter placed ON the local deckers highly secure device basically saying "Hello X, we know you did Y to our facility Z. May we suggest you do this one little job for us (Details attached) if you don't want a terrible accident to happen." then fire a sniper round through a window shattering some suitable object trid projector, fan, their favorite seat.
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@Senko: Yep, that's one of the big reasons you don't go into killing frenzies in Shadowrun. It isn't just that there is always a bigger fish, but that the other side has a helluvalot more resources than you do, and if you move yourself too far up their 'to do' list, then they'll focus them on you. And you can't be on guard 24/7.
To go back to the idea of making even normal corpsec a threat, I'd like to draw on my D&D experience for a moment. Consider the lowly kobold. A suitable threat for any first level party, but too weak for mid level adventurers to bother with, yes? But they are known for being cunning trapmakers, and working together. Sure, a single kobold couldn't do anything against a level 10 warrior, in fact, the level 10 warrior could probably solo 10 kobolds if they just went charging up and stabbing at him with their little spears. But that is being stupid, and while kobolds are weak, they aren't any dumber than humans.
Which is where traps come in. Pit traps, collapsing ceiling traps, spike traps, poison gas traps, alchemist's fire traps, spinning blade traps, and more! When you really start thinking evil, you have a trap with a delay, so that a guard running back across it can deliberately trigger the trap, and have it go off in the face of the ones chasing him.
What does this have to do with Shadowrun? If you can't figure out a 1001 ways to lay devious traps for your players, then you need to hand in your GM screen until you've played some D&D. But here's a freebie: pressure plate at a 90 degree turn in a hallway to the secured area. Completely mechanical mechanism, with no matrix connectivity and it'll keep working during power outages. Step on the plate, and hidden weapons fire on you going down the hallway you just came from. I'm a fan of LMGs, but you can also set it up with flamethrowers or lasers. Best news? The trap can only be disarmed by a guard pressing a physical switch at the end of the hallway past the turn, so there is no chance to hack the system, and keep the weapons offline, so there are no matrix icons at all to tip the party to what is about to happen to them. Because it is mechanical, and works on weight, it also does wonders against stealthers. Even better, because the system is purely mechanical, your team will run back into the trap coming out if they don't do something to physically disable the pressure plate (something that will take time or make a lot of noise).
Of course, there are a couple ways to bypass the trap without running through a meat grinder. An Adept with Wall Running could do it, easily. Same with anyone wearing Gecko Tape Gloves. Pretty much anything that doesn't set off the pressure plate on the floor will work.