[JimmyCrisis]

I can see a reason, but as said, due to player stupidity.
Player: 'I do a full frontal charge on the Aztec pyramid'
GM: 'you die'

I think this is perfectly acceptable as GM to have this ruling without rolling any dice.

Depends on many factors there. While it isn't likely, it is certainly possible to be able to do some damage and manage to escape. Why just say "You die" when you can have a battle scene of epic proportions?

Or have a very painful, once sided scenario to display in horrible, painful, detail to the player just how bad that idea was. Call it a teaching moment.

Nope, no or there. What you're suggesting is the equivalent of swatting a pet with a newspaper rolled around a piece of rebar. That's not fun. The difficult battle of epic proportions with a minutely slim chance of victory and a larger (yet still kind of slim) chance of escape can be a game session remembered and discussed for decades to come.

If that's the game the rest of the group wants to play, sure.  Otherwise, blatantly suicidal actions should just be that... if a character puts their Ruger Warhawk up to their temple, there's no need to roll for damage.  Of course, with the proper planning and prep-work, a single character may just be able to take on a battalion of jaguar guards... but that just gets back to point 1:  is that the game everyone wants to play?

[incrdbil]

Nope, no or there. What you're suggesting is the equivalent of swatting a pet with a newspaper rolled around a piece of rebar. That's not fun.

Its what the character asked for. If you pick a stupid fight with an far more powerful foe, and you do it in a blatant manner, you get slapped down. A GM can provide warnings, advice, even have NPC friends/contacts try to reason with or stop the character, but if you try to take on overwhelming opposition head on, you get what's coming. Stupid actions have consequences, and some times you have to demonstrate that.

[All4BigGuns]

Nope, no or there. What you're suggesting is the equivalent of swatting a pet with a newspaper rolled around a piece of rebar. That's not fun.

Its what the character asked for. If you pick a stupid fight with an far more powerful foe, and you do it in a blatant manner, you get slapped down. A GM can provide warnings, advice, even have NPC friends/contacts try to reason with or stop the character, but if you try to take on overwhelming opposition head on, you get what's coming. Stupid actions have consequences, and some times you have to demonstrate that.

That is where you are entirely mistaken. The GM whose desire is to "slap down" his players is a piss poor GM unworthy of his screen, IMO. The GM's job is to set the scene and arbitrate the rules. Nothing more. Once he gets the "I am god" idea into his head through the 'Rule Zero' fallacy, the game he is running is immediately doomed.

[incrdbil]

Nope, no or there. What you're suggesting is the equivalent of swatting a pet with a newspaper rolled around a piece of rebar. That's not fun.

Its what the character asked for. If you pick a stupid fight with an far more powerful foe, and you do it in a blatant manner, you get slapped down. A GM can provide warnings, advice, even have NPC friends/contacts try to reason with or stop the character, but if you try to take on overwhelming opposition head on, you get what's coming. Stupid actions have consequences, and some times you have to demonstrate that.

That is where you are entirely mistaken. The GM whose desire is to "slap down" his players is a piss poor GM unworthy of his screen, IMO. The GM's job is to set the scene and arbitrate the rules. Nothing more. Once he gets the "I am god" idea into his head through the 'Rule Zero' fallacy, the game he is running is immediately doomed.

Setting the scene and arbitrating the rules fairly, but to the absolutely inevitable conclusion in a lopsided battle that is soley due to immense player stupidity in challenging an overwhelming opposition in an extremely foolhardy fashion was exactly what I was talking about.

[Lucean]

For me one player going on a lone suicide mission of such a dimension with no connection to the story is wasted time for the rest of the table.
Why should they sit it out and wait while someone else is truly stealing the spotlight for himself?
But it all depends on the circumstances. A planned suicide mission could be an interesting end for a team or a single runner. Although if it is centered only on one character, the GM could maybe adviced to do this 1:1 and not at a regular session with other people waiting for it to resolve.

[All4BigGuns]

For me one player going on a lone suicide mission of such a dimension with no connection to the story is wasted time for the rest of the table.
Why should they sit it out and wait while someone else is truly stealing the spotlight for himself?
But it all depends on the circumstances. A planned suicide mission could be an interesting end for a team or a single runner. Although if it is centered only on one character, the GM could maybe adviced to do this 1:1 and not at a regular session with other people waiting for it to resolve.

Why? No one has to be "just sitting there". Cut back and forth between everyone.

While one is fighting, the others can be involved in a high speed chase, either toward his location in an attempt to save him or he could be trying to hold those enemy forces off long enough for them to get to their extraction point. Could be high in drama and tension there.

[Namikaze]

GM style is completely different from person to person.  I like my players to have some degree of background, an idea of their character's appearance, and some other specifics down pat.  One of my newer players hated that, so he left the game.  No skin off my nose.  I like to try to bounce between players, interrupting their long diatribes of actions in order to allow everyone a chance to play.  No one has ever been upset with that.  I prefer the characters in my games to be more realistic, so I try not to allow combinations of things that are only viable due to loopholes or unclear aspects of the rules.  And I try to stick to the "1 minute" rule, wherein if I come across something that I can't figure out in 1 minute, I'll just make something up on the fly to keep the game moving.

All that is to say that my style isn't for everyone, just as many of the GMs I've played with haven't really been for me.  In fact, the whole reason I started GMing in the first place was because way back when I played D&D.  My DM had me take a herring to a tree, while chanting "ni."  Now, I'm as big a fan of Monty Python as the next nerd - but to me that was too much in the silly direction.  I knew I wanted my games to be more...  gamey, but also to stay fun.  It took me years to refine my style, understanding what to look for in players before they did something I didn't like.  As a result, I don't really have to "smack down" my players - I simply see what is coming and prevent it from coming up.

When I do demo games though, I let the freak flag fly.  Players can be as crazy as they want to be, because it's not a campaign and the characters' actions won't have any repercussions.  What I think this means is that I have a varied style of GMing, and I can adapt to several situations.  Not every GM can do that.  For a long time, I couldn't do that.

When I think of "smacking down" a player, I think of a GM hitting someone with something impossible to defeat, without giving the player or character any chance of warning.  For instance, let's say there is a door with a lock that the characters have no chance of overcoming.  The characters should still be able to kick in the door, blow it up, hit it with spells...  something.  If I say that this is an invincible door and they should have picked up Lockpicking when I told them to...  that's childish as hell on my part.  The GM should allow the players to have a chance, even if it's not always the ideal.  In that example, let the characters kick in the door or whatnot, but it sounds an alarm.  It makes the rest of the run harder, but it doesn't stop the game because I wanted to be right.

So to me, that's what "smacking down" a player would be.  If a GM has more than 2 years of experience and is still doing that kind of thing, they're a crap GM.

[incrdbil]

So people interpret phrases differently, but it seems everyone is on the same boat--let players suffer the consequences of their actions, but be fair about it, and be ready to dice it out, within reason, and hopefully make a learning experience of it.

[Lucean]

For me one player going on a lone suicide mission of such a dimension with no connection to the story is wasted time for the rest of the table.
Why should they sit it out and wait while someone else is truly stealing the spotlight for himself?
But it all depends on the circumstances. A planned suicide mission could be an interesting end for a team or a single runner. Although if it is centered only on one character, the GM could maybe adviced to do this 1:1 and not at a regular session with other people waiting for it to resolve.

Why? No one has to be "just sitting there". Cut back and forth between everyone.

While one is fighting, the others can be involved in a high speed chase, either toward his location in an attempt to save him or he could be trying to hold those enemy forces off long enough for them to get to their extraction point. Could be high in drama and tension there.

I don't know about you, but battles that go on for 3 or more combat turns are exceptionally long at our table. The distance you could cover in a chase during that time is negligible. And I don't think that the movie 300 can be adapted to fit a shadowrun setting, with a small force holding off a much bigger one.

So while nice in theory, I fear your options are hard to emulate.

[All4BigGuns]

Since when is running a good game easy?

One can have a game easy to run and just fiat everything with the players just sitting there for "story time", or they can have a game that is fun to run and play.

[incrdbil]

For me one player going on a lone suicide mission of such a dimension with no connection to the story is wasted time for the rest of the table.
Why should they sit it out and wait while someone else is truly stealing the spotlight for himself?
But it all depends on the circumstances. A planned suicide mission could be an interesting end for a team or a single runner. Although if it is centered only on one character, the GM could maybe adviced to do this 1:1 and not at a regular session with other people waiting for it to resolve.

Why? No one has to be "just sitting there". Cut back and forth between everyone.

While one is fighting, the others can be involved in a high speed chase, either toward his location in an attempt to save him or he could be trying to hold those enemy forces off long enough for them to get to their extraction point. Could be high in drama and tension there.

Depends on the situation really, if the other players want to be involved, (or if they could be involved, in case of the lone wolf player doing his suicidal action on his own.)

[All4BigGuns]

Also if a situation like that occurs, there's a good chance that the GM should be taking a serious look at his game and possibly his entire running style because there is a high probability that it is being done because the player is having far too much problem with how things are going and sees that as the only way to do anything about it.

[incrdbil]

Also if a situation like that occurs, there's a good chance that the GM should be taking a serious look at his game and possibly his entire running style because there is a high probability that it is being done because the player is having far too much problem with how things are going and sees that as the only way to do anything about it.

It definitely is a cause for extra communication to determine if its a communication problem, an expectation problem, or if the player just isn't taking the universe seriously, which is not always good for the enjoyment of others.

[All4BigGuns]

Or, more likely, the GM is taking the setting FAR TOO seriously and it's ruining the actual game aspect for others. Far too often people put too much focus on the RP side and think that someone who mainly enjoys the Game side is "playing wrong".

[incrdbil]

Or, more likely, the GM is taking the setting FAR TOO seriously and it's ruining the actual game aspect for others. Far too often people put too much focus on the RP side and think that someone who mainly enjoys the Game side is "playing wrong".

Yeah. how dare someone try to role play in a RPG.