[Rotten_Emu]

Background: In the past two runs the team I'm GMing is turning out to be more Pink Mohawk than Black Trenchcoat. They do take care to clean up vids/leave little trace and the like but rather than sneakily stealing a tech before it's shipped, or intelligently seperating it from the convoy they seem to land more on the 'shotgun the driver from the passenger seat' side of things. As a result my grunts have died quickly (The Phys Adept and The Gunslinger doing real well in that respect). The team is completed with a Decker and an Adept Face. They started with basic chargen and have accrued around 15 karma each.

The run: Now as a change of pace from shooting up grunts I want to challenge them in a different way but am looking for some honest feedback on my idea. A talismonger sends them into a forest to gather up magically charged bits and pieces (large chunks of the countryside have been flooded with mana). There are several places in the forest they can approach and through interaction they can conjure up a guarding spirit that will fight them on the physical plane (they don't have a Magician as it stands). Once beaten the Spirit will drop a telesma or some reagents, which they can turn in with the Talismonger that gave them the job for moneys. And example is near the lake is an altar with two old waterbowls. There's an instruction riddle: "The left is five, the right is three, I'll only show myself for a perfect one." There's a hole in the altar to pour water in. I plan to give them hints based on knowledge rolls (as they tend to not use them a lot), eventually just giving the solution kf push comes to shove based on logic based rolls (it's the characters that should solve it after all). They should fill the 3 bowl twice, emptying it into the 5 bowl twice, thus leaving 1 unit of water after the second time and putting that in the altar. Not enough water poured in won't do anything, too much will just result in a bigger spirit. Different challenges for different spirits, for a total of six.

Question: I want to show them the magic in the world a bit more, what do you guys feels about this set up? Would you feel it poses the right kind of challenge? Is the change of pace not too big? Does it still fit in the Shadowrun setting?

Edit: The forest itself and all the spirit locations are not fully visible upon the start. Through some legwork they can find at least three of six (min for payout is four telesma) locations.

[ShadowcatX]

I would be very careful about using riddles in a game. I once had a pbp game die when the dm put uus up against two riddles he claimed were super easy. He ended up giving us both answers, but the.game had lost all momentum by then. Its a pity, he was a fine DM.

The other thing, is that your scenario doesn't make a lot of sense in game. who put it there? Why is there a riddle? Who is this spirit? What type? Etc.

[Rotten_Emu]

In regards to the riddles, it's a live game and I'll make sure they won't take longer than 10min. So while I do appreciate the word of warning I'm confident it won't drag us out long enough for them to lose interest. Another 'summoning' would be them lighting a campfire. All quite basic tasks

Who put it there?
I venture there would've been some Shamans taking advantage of the mana drenched environment (which is part of my UNL fluff) in the area.

Why is there a riddle?
Either 1) The spirit wants to be summoned and put it there? 2) The shamans wanted to make sure the spirit was summonable for others even after they died or the knowledge to do so long gone. Also as an incentive for them to look into their knowledge skills and use them in appropriate moments a bit more.

Who is the spirit? What is his type?
The spirit is tied to the lake, a water type, protecting it from outside influences.

I'm not looking to defend my scenario and I do appreciate your feedback, but I feel I have these bases covered. Hoping to introduce my PCs to the wondrous world of SR magic, teaching them about creatures and spirits that might be appropriate to the setting and giving them something to indiscriminately shoot (unless someone feels spirits are sentient being in which case they would be trying to reason with them, though they wouldn't be very open to that due to the shamans using and abusing their powers in the past).

[ShadowcatX]

You asked how we felt about it and if it fit the shadowrun setting. If you don't want responses that say "no, it doesn't make sense in the setting" you probably shouldn't ask that as a question. Without the additional information it didn't make sense.

I personally still don't feel it fits the setting but it fits a little better than just "its there and the pcs are hired to kill the spirit."

[Jayde Moon]

I'm also very wary of riddles in RPGs.  They generally make great sense to the GM but just frustrate players.  However, you do look like you have it covered through knowledge (or Logic?) rolls... If my character has a logic/intuition of 6, he's going to solve a lot more riddles than I, the player, ever will.

Background information on the site would be important, as the characters will probably look into it via Legwork, unless you are saying that the Altar is literally just something they stumble on and not part of the actual job they are hired for, in which case, be wary of the team just avoiding it outright (maybe not, depending on the players, but most of my characters will avoid dangers not associated with the job at hand).  But fleshing out the background could be great for future stories, if not so much for the run they are on in the moment.  Handwavey plot devices are fine for one off runs.

Anyhow, it looks like the story here is something like:

Get job to find reagents.
Head to the woods.
Eventually have to fight a Spirit of varying power depending on how well they solve a riddle.
Return to talismonger.
Get Paid.

If your players are generally new to Shadowrun and this is just run #4 or 5 (which it seems like, after 15 Karma), then it sounds fine.  If the players are a bit more experienced, they might want a bit more to it.  Going berry picking and running across a bear isn't, to me, a Shadowrun... as a player, I'd probably not be very engaged with the story.

Consider making the Altar actually part of the job.  Maybe there's a focus there that the Johnson wants (probably why he isn't hiring a team with a mage).  Fleshing out the details can indeed make it more exciting.  Also, if there is an actual magical altar, their legwork might be used to actually teach them more about how magical threats work, etc.

[Pixie]

I've run a few mystery-themed games in my day, with riddles and not-so-obvious clues.  It's brutal.  As a GM, it's your duty to explain everything that a character perceives, and there are just things that everyone will take for granted.  In order to actually describe everything, the game would slow down to less than a crawl as each of the players got an absurdly detailed explanation of everything.  The alternative, of course, is the only explain the things that seem important.  The drawback there is that there will always be details that the GM leaves out.  The final option is to make things extremely easy for the players to figure out, which feels like you're not giving them any kind of challenge.

What I've done and seen done is this: make a challenge difficult, but not impossible.  Provide the team with all the clues that they would realistically acquire.  Have them roll extra Perception tests, Logic+Intuition tests, etc. to gather additional clues.  And if all else fails, have an NPC or something come in and Morgan Freeman for them for a bit.  As in, narrate the truth so that they can't ignore it.  Give them every chance possible to resolve the challenge on their own, but don't be afraid to handhold them.

What I'll usually do in most games like this is place a fairly obvious breadcrumb for the group.  This will lead them to the next step most of the time.  Sometimes they don't get it, but most of the time they do.  When they see a document or file that says "all of the bad guys are meeting up <insert place name> at <insert time>" it usually tells the team more than enough to get them going in the right direction.  Don't bother with red herrings, as that will always frustrate the team and cause them to resent you.  If you place important data for them on a commlink or host, just have them find the file they need and say that their data processing software parsed out the irrelevant data.

Also, good luck.  I think Shadowrun needs more non-combat challenges quite often, and it's good to see someone trying.  I may not agree with your methods, goal, etc. but I have to at least give you credit for trying something different.

[Overbyte]

I have to agree with previous posters..
The problem with riddle based situations is that as a player you are both limited and aided by your own knowledge / intelligence.
This makes truly roleplaying a character of different mental skill than yourself nearly impossible.
When I read your post I immediately recognized the "riddle" as a variation of the make 4 gallons from 5 and 3 gallon jugs. And others might if they've seen Die Hard 3.  :-)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVtQNK_ZUJg

But their character may have no way of figuring it out.. or may be brilliant so would know immediately. Either way it boils down to a die roll to succeed or fail.. not very exciting.
I think you can still achieve your other goals without a riddle.. or rework the riddle into some sort of personal test.

[cantrip]

If your wanting to tie into the setting a little more closely, you could have your players be contacted by a magical entity.

One possibility, would be to have the the antagonist of your story be a free trickster spirit (or possibly a corrupted trickster spirit) --- it's hard enough for (meta)humans to understand the spirit world and vice versa. I could easily see a spirit using riddles in a game, just because it wants to, or perhaps it thinks that is the rules of this strange realm due to reading a complete collection of Dragon Magazine. In this scenario, it really doesn't matter if your players are like "What the frag chummer, riddles!?!!?!" It isn't meant to make sense as far as the normal world goes.

Another possibility is that they have strayed through an Astral Rift into another meta-plane and it can have any look you want. Someday, I'd like to take my players to a astral plane where they become their D&D equivalent. That doesn't mean they have the required skills of course....

Elf Face: What am I supposed to do with this bow and cloak?
Dwarven Rigger: I'll trade you for my Battle Axe.
Female Troll Samurai: At least you guys have armor that covers something other than your chest!!!

Now if you want to keep it dark and gritty, have them stray into a toxic zone, or be hired to gather reagents from a haunted woods near the Barrens. In these scenarios, you could stick with your scenarios, but just make it a little more....psychotic...feral ghouls, hellhounds, devil rats, free spirits etc. Have the talismonger that hired them be a new toxic that has a pact with a local spirit to free it, or retrieve reagents from it's domain. Still could use the riddles - just a little darker or sinister - but have the fulfillment of the riddles release something locked away or perhaps cause an expansion of it's toxic zone. Something the players can choose to fix over time or learn to live with. Oh, and work on your maniacal GM laughter --- MMWWWAAAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!

[Spooky]

One good way I know of to cover "what your character perceives" is to type up a description of the area beforehand (perhaps flavoring it to individual characters) and hand it to the players when they get there. That gives them something to reference, and makes riddle challenges easier for all.