Shadowrun
Shadowrun Play => Gamemasters' Lounge => Topic started by: Reiper on <02-11-13/2347:36>
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How much slack do you give your runners, especially in the begining? I haven't really GM'd in years, and when I did it was always with real good friends and we were there to have fun.
But with a fresh group of people, some of them being strangers how much slack should a GM give the players over little things. For example, one thing that I can see happening is someone using geko hands (the bioware or the geko gloves) to climb up, and then decide to chuck a grenade. Especially if you have the bioware version, this can definitely lead to some issues. How would you treat that situation (or others in a similar situation where they may not think it completely through).
In one hand, I really don't want to coddle them completely, but I also know it sucks to take yourself out fairly early in a game and just be sitting around the rest of the session (or building your next character).
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A good, simple rule is this: Remind them of things their character would know. A lot of people focus on the abusive side of the player-knowledge versus character-knowledge issue, but the flipside can be very important too. If their character would know it, the fact that the player doesn't shouldn't get them killed.
And that goes way beyond just their knowledge skills.
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Although you can get the (very) odd player who takes the position that what they don't know, their character doesn't know - which is usually fair enough but not when it includes setting information. Example: player never heard that S-K was owned & run by Lofwyr the Great Dragon. Right, she said, my character can't know that either.
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You might be surprised by sort of things that 'everyone' knows that some people actually don't know. Especially if they are younger or have a particularly sheltered life or up bringing. I'm not saying that isn't kind of a weird stance for a player to take but it isn't outside the bounds of reality either.
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How much slack should you give players? Just enough to hang themselves.
Seriously, though, if they are new to the game, then through their first run or two, let them know that you're going to be playing with kid gloves, and do the "Are you sure?" thing when they're about to do something royally stupid. After the 'tutorial' is over, though, let them know that all bets are off, unless someone picks up the Common Sense quality.
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How much slack should you give players? Just enough to hang themselves.
Seriously, though, if they are new to the game, then through their first run or two, let them know that you're going to be playing with kid gloves, and do the "Are you sure?" thing when they're about to do something royally stupid. After the 'tutorial' is over, though, let them know that all bets are off, unless someone picks up the Common Sense quality.
The "'Are you sure?' thing" isn't kid gloves. That's just being a decent human being of a GM and as such it should not cease. Ever. Period. Full stop.
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The "'Are you sure?' thing" isn't kid gloves. That's just being a decent human being coddler of a GM and as such it should not cease. Ever. Period. Full stop.
I fixed it for you.
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The "'Are you sure?' thing" isn't kid gloves. That's just being a decent human being coddler of a GM and as such it should not cease. Ever. Period. Full stop.
I fixed it for you.
You "fixed" it to be incorrect. There is only one time when it shouldn't be done, and that is a very poorly worded Wish spell (or equivalent) in D&D.
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The "'Are you sure?' thing" isn't kid gloves. That's just being a decent human being coddler of a GM and as such it should not cease. Ever. Period. Full stop.
I fixed it for you.
You "fixed" it to be incorrect. There is only one time when it shouldn't be done, and that is a very poorly worded Wish spell (or equivalent) in D&D.
Disagree. Once players are experienced enough (both with the system and with the game world) to know what is and is not a stupid idea, then leave them to the loving graces of Darwin and Murphy. You have to take the training wheels off sometime, Guns.
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The "'Are you sure?' thing" isn't kid gloves. That's just being a decent human being coddler of a GM and as such it should not cease. Ever. Period. Full stop.
I fixed it for you.
You "fixed" it to be incorrect. There is only one time when it shouldn't be done, and that is a very poorly worded Wish spell (or equivalent) in D&D.
Disagree. Once players are experienced enough (both with the system and with the game world) to know what is and is not a stupid idea, then leave them to the loving graces of Darwin and Murphy. You have to take the training wheels off sometime, Guns.
Again, it's not "training wheels".
As to the Common Sense quality, it shouldn't exist, as it should be automatic. The players will NEVER understand the setting as well as their characters do because they do not actually live in the setting and the characters do.
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The "'Are you sure?' thing" isn't kid gloves. That's just being a decent human being coddler of a GM and as such it should not cease. Ever. Period. Full stop.
I fixed it for you.
You "fixed" it to be incorrect. There is only one time when it shouldn't be done, and that is a very poorly worded Wish spell (or equivalent) in D&D.
Disagree. Once players are experienced enough (both with the system and with the game world) to know what is and is not a stupid idea, then leave them to the loving graces of Darwin and Murphy. You have to take the training wheels off sometime, Guns.
Again, it's not "training wheels".
As to the Common Sense quality, it shouldn't exist, as it should be automatic. The players will NEVER understand the setting as well as their characters do because they do not actually live in the setting and the characters do.
Is there a term for a helicoptering GM?
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Guns, we understand that you like there to not be consequences for people doing stupid stuff, but as I said, once you get past a certain level of proficiency, you got to take things off 'easy' mode, and at least go to 'normal'. Sure, don't start people off on 'hard', but never moving off 'easy' just cheapens the setting. This is not a nice world we're talking about here. Things can go from shiny to hell in a handbasket at the drop of a hat. Getting screwed by the Johnson (or the world in general), having the consequences of your decisions come back to bite you, and finding out that you just royally fragged yourself are all part of the setting. Without it, you're doing as much a disservice to the setting (and your players) as if you decided to play Twilight, the RPG, and call it Shadowrun.
And no, Common Sense should not be automatic. Look around you. There are plenty of people in the world we live in right now who have absolutely no common sense.
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The only thing I have to say is that you missed the entire point. The Common Sense quality isn't actual common sense, it's just something to help out because of the fact that the players won't ever be able to know as much about the setting as their characters do because the players don't actually live in it, and yes it should be automatic because of that fact. You shouldn't have to spend character points for something that should be done any way because the character knows the setting more than you do because they actually live in it.
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The key thing for me is, does the player error match the character's experience? A merc with 45 years of experience would probably make sure to reload his gun, for example. I wouldn't let the player play him perfectly though, anyone can make a mistake here and there especially if the knowledge required isn't commonly known. In other words, don't make the character look foolish because the player didn't know something about the game, but don't make the PC omniscient, either.
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I never said omniscient, but that the character would know far more about the setting than the player ever could (discounting maybe the original creators of the setting--though I doubt even then). Far, far more than any amount of "Knowledge skills" could ever represent.
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I wasn't contesting your stance, merely presenting mine :)
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Seriously, as a GM you know the future consequences of their actions before they even perform them, and their character might actually reason through with what they're about to do. Taking away in character knowledge and letting a player do something you know will damn him for ever, but you know his character would know not to do is the most royally stupid thing you could do as a GM. Players can get themselves in royally deep in plenty of ways even if you play the part of their in character knowledge and common sense, which is part of your job as a GM.
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I'm curious about what specific situations have come up where these warnings are needed in order to avoid player death, because frankly this kind of thing has rarely come up in my games. I do recall issuing such a warning, but it was a player new to our SR group. The deadliest blunders with our group have been mostly about common sense, not world knowledge, and sometimes I was part of them as a player.
I think a big part of it is a style choice and your contract with your players, which will vary by group. I've always preferred not to have the warnings, as a player or a GM, since I feel it interferes with immersion, in a similar manner to not having a no player kill rule. My players are aware of this.
I can understand having such a rule if your players are busy people who don't have the time to read the books, but in our group the players are fairly knowledgable about the world and the books are available to everyone.
Common sense is just one of those things I feel needs to be provided by the player (Putting aside the quality), even though perhaps at times it means unwise people will roleplay a character that should be more saavy inappropriately. It's a bit like social encounters. Technically, a GM should always have social encounters go better for those with higher charisma and the appropriate skills. The reality is that many GMs also base it partly on how the player roleplays the character and dialogue choices. The player's dramatic abilities has an effect on the outcome, just as sometimes a player's common sense, or lack thereof, sometimes has an effect on an adventure or battle outcome.
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The common sense thing is alerting your players about things their characters would know, and for someone like me who makes their own setting cities, it's particularly important to make your players aware of the general state and atmosphere of the city. Little flags like "I'm about to walk out the door with my loaded shotgun under my arm, suddenly as my hand is on the knob it doesn't feel like such a good idea. I walk passed a couple security points every day on my way to where I'm going and I feel that they might take this the wrong way."
I usually sit down with my players and just spend a few hours discussing the setting and state of affairs they're about to jump into, how prevalent security is, what is common what isn't before we start to avoid instances like that but some things will slip the players mind.
Trying to fast talk your way out of police questioning when you just blew out a door with small arms fire, and then your buddy just cloaked in broad daylight with an assault rifle, I will not help you there.
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Another thing that happens is tunnel vision combined with stupid. I had an encounter once where the PCs had to board a ship and take it over at sea. They scouted a bit and were told the ship regularly went through pirate waters so was armed. Their plan was to take a boat out to meet it and then swim over with scuba gear and climb aboard. They didn't factor in how they were going to climb aboard (ship, not boat so no lunging out of the water.)
They get to the thing after setting out in the morning. High noon. I repeat the time of day. They swim to the ship. I mention time of day again. They realize they have no way to climb on the ship and so get the mage to levitate them. Once more time of day is mentioned. They continue up onto the ship under levitate and into the the barrels of the deck guns. Three characters down and a fourth dead. They did eventually take the ship but at one hell of a cost.
Stupid and tunnel vision. Apparently the fact it was high noon and anyone could see them never crossed their minds. Despite numerous warnings.
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Game's I've played in operate like Mantis has just described, giving enough information (in that case repeatedly) to allow the players to make informed decisions and then giving them freewill to use that information.
Good example of my stupidity, trying to do a business deal in the NAN, I'm playing the team's face. The GM had gone through a big bit about where we were, the high level of security, we were very definitely on this guys patch and when things didn't go exactly as I wanted I still threatened to have the guy assassinated. Now the guy took it as a bad joke (he wasn't a massively violent NPC), laughed me out, I gained a boat load of notoriety, lost the faith of the rest of the team, and had the game not broken up much longer after that I'm sure he'd have been a low level enemy.
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In my never-humble opinion, Guns' stance is coddling after playing, oh, three or five sessions of any role-playing game - across all gaming systems. If by that point they don't get it, the players to which you have to frequently ask "Are you sure?" should have stated to them, "In-character actions result in in-character consequences. Doing things in the game that in real life would get you shot up or at least shot at will get you shot up (or at least shot at) in the game world. If you tell me you're going to pull your concealed hold-out pistol on the mob boss in his own house with six of his mooks there in order to threaten him, I will no longer ask you, 'are you sure?' because you're being a dumb-ass son of a bitch who thinks that it's just a character and you're just here to have fun; you may be here to have fun, but all the rest of us are here to have fun as well, and doing something totally off-the-wall and an eleven on the one-to-ten stupid scale while we're trying to have something within shouting distance of realism will get you killed.
"Period. Full stop."
The most a GM should do at that point, unless the character has actually taken 'common sense' as a Positive Quality, is pause, lift an eyebrow, wait three beats, and then nod and proceed with how everyone else reacts. And if that means that that player is putting together a new character every other game session because the last session he got himself killed doing something overwhelmingly stupid (on the "I have Kid Stealth cyberlegs - I can jump from the top of a 150-floor building across a 20m gap to catch the helicopter's landing skid easy!!" scale), then by the third or fourth character, perhaps roleplaying just ain't for him.
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You know, Wyrm and I have been agreeing on a lot of things lately. This is scaring me.
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Yes, well, mostly my self-restraint. There've been at least two posts lately where we would have been on opposite sides. :P
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My latest batch have been amazingly intelligent. As both a player and DM, I've been pulling my hair out. It was always "Let's chop up the Dragon!" and "I'mma febreeze a feral bear's ass!". It was silly, stupid, and looking back, utterly hilarious. As a DM, I always tried to let the players worm their way out, and they avoided that, found their own way, and wondered why every NPC was pissed at them killing a few drunken civvies back in the biggest city on the continent.
It all depends on the group. Some players 'get' it, so you give them more immersion, less hints. They go into the frying pan more, and maybe roll up a couple extra sheets, but they realize their mistakes, so they learn.
Some players never learn. You can smack them with the rulebooks all you want, all they'll understand is 'more armour, more damage'. Adjust the game to Pink Mohawk, bring up the insanity level, and let fly some hilarious situations - like SR's 'Best Ork Decker' ran into.
Sometimes players don't die just because they're stupid. In fact, most of my fellow players from DnD didn't die, except the one who was quite genre savvy - he jumped down a boss' throat, uncorking over a dozen flasks of Alchemist's Fire, with a badass battlecry. It worked, but he had to roll up a new guy.
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Yeah that would work so long as everyone wants to do it. The problem comes up when it is just one or two who want pink mohawk and the rest would like to play a little more realistically. The example I gave was a result of a 'pinky' being made team leader and the others just going along with him because 'he knew the system better' (Three new players and two old timers). That was perhaps, the least stupid thing he ever suggested in that campaign.
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I guess I'd say a couple of things.
1) The three most important things a GM has to do are set clear expectations of how the world will behave, communicate them effectively, and let the players play.
2) Slack for new players is fine, and in fact to be encouraged, but it shouldn't be extended to the point that the players actions don't matter. And as players become more familiar with the system the training wheels should be taken off, but that doesn't take away the GMs responsibility to give the PLAYERS the information they need and that their characters should have access to. If Beau Peep the Samurai has been living on the block and buying Ramen from the noodle cart every day then you shouldn't let Beau Peep's player accidentally get him killed for mortally insulting the street vendor by violating his well taboo against discussing hockey.
3) A good GM should always be aware of who his players are, who they are playing and what they expect. If your players come to you with a gang member who likes knives, a B-list rocker who moonlights as a con man and a burned out mage known with a drinking problem then putting them into a high stakes corporate politics game is probably a mistake. Likewise if the characters are uber professional mercs then putting them in a game centered around saving the local watering hole from EvilCo Real Estate development is probably a mistake.
4) Realism isn't as important as suspension of disbelief. Things don't have to BE real, but they should FEEL real.
5) To me, Pink Mohawk doesn't mean no consequences, or even less realistic consequences. Bubblegum Crisis is way more Pink Mohawk than the A Team, but the consequences in Bubblegum Crisis are probably more realistic.
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I will NEVER stop asking players "Are you sure?" or "Did you just say that in-character?" The thing is, I do not just ask that for
bad ideas, or things that they really shouldn't say. I also do it for really good ideas, and and really appropriate things. It keeps
the players guessing about what they are doing and saying, and keeps them thinking.
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I will NEVER stop asking players "Are you sure?" or "Did you just say that in-character?" The thing is, I do not just ask that for
bad ideas, or things that they really shouldn't say. I also do it for really good ideas, and and really appropriate things. It keeps
the players guessing about what they are doing and saying, and keeps them thinking.
This. A whole lot of times this!
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yeah, you guys are raising good points, it is up to the GM to communicate the world, so as far as going "Are you sure" which I don't do, it's more of "In this world, there are measures that would easily pick up those actions you have planned" and if by the second time they try the same thing they'll get the consequences of police or whom ever's attention.
The only time you should stop a player is if you know he doesn't fully understand the setting he's in, and if he just wants to be a jackass for jackass sake then he'll throw himself to the dogs. It's just springing things on people like rock of doom status that's a load of drek.
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When the player doesn't keep track of Azzie politics, but the character has points in it, you don't just say 'Yeah, you know why this corp is doing this. They're with the Azzies, and it has to do with the Az-Am war, and-' No, you don't just throw the data at them when it's convenient. They wake up in the morning, and you throw them a small list of news updates - "Aztechnology denies claims of violence against protesters." lining with a small bulletin from a pal, "I'm catching word about a new H&K model. Number only, my guess is an Assault Rifle. Keep your eyes out, if you get any R&D jobs, ya hear?"
Tell your players things that you've established they should know. Remind them that Lowfyr is internationally one of the most terrifying beings conceivable, when they consider taking a job in his backyard that might piss him off, because we don't live in a world where dragons can, and do, eat people. It's easier to forget that sort of thing.
When they make stupid decisions, and they're informed, let them screw up. LET them try shooting Hans Brackenhaus, after their contacts have told them about what that handle means. Sure, let them get shot up in a KE ambush for knowingly not hiding their datatrail, after blanking some KE databases of their crimes. But make sure that they had the opportunity to use their head, and say 'I should avoid this. x data that I've been subtly given, says so. I mean, this one contact said no, but the rest agreed, so...'
Never give them the full story. Force them to pry the truth out of the dead jaws of whatever Johnson was about to screw them that week. Make them work for their understanding, and if they don't pursue it, let the matter die. If they ask, out of character, what happened, tell them they don't know, and they never will, because they didn't hunt down leads while they had time.
Give players consequences, harsh ones. Drive them crazy wondering, have the Mage go in for a vat-grown replacement arm after a bad fight, but don't try to wipe them off the face of the earth for nothing. Give them the tools to succeed, in the form of information.
And always insist that every member at your table have a second sheet drawn up by the third session.