[Jayde Moon]

As GMs, it's up to us to make sure we adjudicate fairly and provide a fun game for everyone involved.  But sometimes, just sometimes, and for a variety of reasons (legitimate and not), we just make a call to cruelly punish one of our players.  Maybe he's been a jerk rules-lawyer always second guessing your calls and you finally caught him on something, or its a player who's been too cocky and overestimated his ability to do something, or just someone who should have known better and you called them on it.  Maybe it was a rookie GM mistake you made that just hosed a player at your table.  Maybe they totally deserved it or... maybe they didn't (you jerk!)

Whatever it was, let's hear some stories.

And please, no judgement or second guessing calls.  This is just for fun!

[Jayde Moon]

I'll start with something... smallish:

Manhunt (CMP 2010-01), Official Missions play, the players head to the Barrens to catch a ride in a convoy headed out to some farms at the edge of the Barrens.  They arrive in one of the runner's car.

They get the lay of the land, all the descriptions, everything.

The convoy they should hook up with arrives and they pay to head off with it.  Instead of adding their ride to the convoy, the runner... leaves their car where they parked it to ride with the convoy.  In the Barrens.  For a few days.

When they got back and went to the car, I informed him that it was on cinder blocks.  With 2 successes (out of 5 dice on his Edge roll) I deemed that enough of the car was left that if he could get it back to a shop, it he'd only have to pay 60% of the base cost to get it running again.

He opted to just leave it and buy a new car.

[8-bit]

Disclaimer: The GM for this game is awesome and everything that happened was all in good fun and had us laughing at our misfortune.


My very first game of Shadowrun, I was playing a rigger. We'll get back to that.

It was a data steal, we had the information and everything, but as we were leaving, we had to deal with building security. Everyone is climbing into the back of the van. We still have a few rounds to get everyone in before we can get the hell out of dodge.

That's when the mage decides to do something stupid. He pulls out a Flashbang, which he just happens to have for some random reason, and throws it.

With Agility 2 and Throwing Weapons 0.

Needless to say, he critically glitched, dropping the Flashbang at his feet. This manages blind him for several minutes, and causes everyone to soak 10S damage. And it blows out two tires on the van. So, we're stuck with only two tires on our escape vehicle. But it doesn't end there. Because, our Face decides to pull out his own Flashbang.

He manages to toss it all right, but the GM decided that the mage, in his blindness, had stumbled back into the radius. Boom, out goes the mage.

Good news: We had the data and t;he bad guys were all knocked out.

Bad news: Our team consisted of one dumpshocked Decker who was at 8P damage; a knocked out mage who is outside of the car; and 3 people with 7S+ damage. And HTR was on the way.

All I can say is "Thank God for Control Rigs". It might not have been the smoothest escape, but at least we got out. I think the GM finally had pity on us. Although, my car needed more repairs than we made on the run, but the things we do for the job, neh?

[BetaCAV]

At least it wasn't an ArmTech MGL-12 loaded with flash bangs doing a semi-auto burst.       

[psycho835]

Disclaimer: The GM for this game is awesome and everything that happened was all in good fun and had us laughing at our misfortune.

With Agility 2 and Throwing Weapons 0.

With that kind of stats, why would he even carry a flashbang?

[farothel]

This is not shadowrun and I don't consider it 'messing' as such, more using what the players put in their backgrounds, but it can be used there as well I suppose.  It's from my Alternity campaign.  One of the players has the divided loyalty flaw (he was part of a Tibetan monastic order) and another has the powerful enemy flaw (the son of a diplomat he was supposed to protect but didn't).  I managed by using what was in the books (there's all kinds of secret societies in there) to link the two, so that the player with divided loyalty is actually informing the powerful enemy of the other player on what's going on, although he doesn't know it.  It's going to be great fun if they ever figure that one out. 

[Herr Brackhaus]

Disclaimer: The GM for this game is awesome and everything that happened was all in good fun and had us laughing at our misfortune.

With Agility 2 and Throwing Weapons 0.

With that kind of stats, why would he even carry a flashbang?

Wireless flashbang placed on the ground next to a door pursuit is expected to come through + Decker with Wrapper program + microcamera with view of door = booby trap on demand that doesn't require a throwing weapons or an extended demolitions test.


On topic, one particularly devious GM I with played years ago decided to creep the team out by having us find a child who, and I quote, "has an eerie vibe to her", in the bio-containment section of an old, abandoned Renraku lab. The child, who looked to be about 8 years old, had seemingly survived by herself in a lab that was supposed to have been locked off for about a decade, and when assensed she had a strange aura that the Awakened team members all agreed was off somehow, but couldn't quite identify. Despite the rest of the team essentially saying "oh HELL no", one player decides that their characters first instinct is to protect this child, who when approached starts pleading to be let out of the lab, and the player character lets the child out and brings it out of the lab.

Over the next several weeks, the child shows incredible aptitude and an astonishing capacity for learning. Additionally, the team soon starts getting spooked because they feel eyes on them from time to time with increasing frequency. One team member manages to catch a trid recording of something digitally camouflaged following him while not on a job, and when the child starts asking questions about the team members we all start getting a little creeped out. When the child start asking questions about metahuman biology, we decide it's time to put some security measures in place and bug the one players apartment, only to catch the child conversing with full-on humanoid killer drones in, you guessed it, digital camouflage.

The player who decided to bring the child home is contacted, a meet is decided on, and we all do some legwork. After our hacker manages to crack the encryption on the paydata we stole from the lab (and kept copies of, of course), we discover that the lab was doing high-level cybernetics, robotics, and, as if revealing the cherry on top of the ice cream sundae that is his adventure, the GM gleefully says "Artificial Intelligence research". We promptly convince the player who brought this creepy little kid home that this doesn't scan, and with EMP grenades in hand we proceed to go take care of this monstrosity, permanently.

We get back to the place of residence, sneak up to it to the best of our ability (which was significant), and bust in the door ready to unleash hell, only to find an empty domicile. No sign of the child or it's protectors or conspirators are found, except for one note left in the home node of the residence, addressed to the team as a whole.

"Would you like to play a game?"

When the news started reporting on unseen killers in the night we all promptly packed our shit and left for another town.


We never did find out what that was all about, but we had a good time freaking out over it.

[Walks Through Walls]

One small way I "mess" with my players from time to time is I have them make perception rolls as they are going along or as they leave the meet. After everyone tells me how many success I just nod, glance at my notes and then say, "Everything appears normal." and then move on. This is especially effective if done in a tense situation.

Another type of messing with the characters was in one of their first runs they ended up against another runner team after the same artifact at a museum and in a the other team has the drop on them a bit. Everyone works together and they get out of it, but the stealth thief kept thinking she was seeing someone, but was never able to find the person. After a couple more missions they start running into the same group and find out the other group has a throwing specialized troll with a chameleon suit. He became the nemesis of the team on and off for about six months.

[JBRocky]

Ok going to stick with the same campaign of what I have done to the Players.  Quick rundown on who was playing Elf Go-Gang Cyber goon, Female Elven Street mage who was the pretty type, Korean Phys Ad who put most of his magic points into Killing Hands, the Cyber Dorf, Cyber Weapons Expert who was quite and talked to his plants, Gator Shaman, and the Rigger who was desperate.

-Ok the weapons guy asked me at character Creation if he could go negative money to pay for more Cyberware.  I though about it for a few minutes asked how much he wanted and said sure.  So a few games later Tony and Vinnie showed up at his Doss looking for the money they loaned him with interest.

-The Rigger was annoying a Dragon with his drones so said Dragon used the Riggers van as a rattle, while the rigger was in it.  Rigger was beat up as was the Van and most of his gear.

-The Go-Gang Elf asked the Pretty Elf to a Party with his gang (The Ancients) well the Korean Phy-Ad wanted to come.  Well since he was not an Elf o Cute he was told no.  So he persisted and finally got to come along.  So one complete run was based around this party with most of the game playing NPC Ancients.  They were told to haras him but no to start a fight since he could take care of himself, so well they did get him to start it and proceeded to mop the floor with the kids.  So at that point bigger fish got involved and the PhysAd was lucky to walk away (limping).

-And finally I had a different run based around The Ancients so the Elven Go-Ganger had to pay most of the bill and work for free.

[ScytheKnight]

Going to actually take this the other way, but it's a good story and should get some laughs.

Playing a street level game and decided to introduce two new players who had been captured while trying their own run against a Cutters safehouse. The crew, consisting of a rigger, a street sam, a decker, a Mys-Ad and a Sioux shaman find out there's a fire escape out the back of the safehouse and sneak in through the alley. Part way down they have to fight some devil rats after stepping on the tail of one (thanks to Concealment everyone failed a perception check). Anyway they fend off the rats, get to the back of the safehouse and with a superhuman leap the street sam jumps up to the retracked ladder and (carefully) lowers it to the rest of the crew letting everyone sneak into the 1st floor window.

A few short fights later and they manage to rescue the new characters, a Pys-Ad and a combat medic/demolitionist... the new characters had a job to 'have a talk' with the leader of the safe house. The rigger ends one of his fly spies up to the 2nd story, and promptly fails a stealth check, drone gets wasted, the Cutters well know what's coming. Having no real options the runners storm up the stairwell... what happened was a fight that took about three sessions.

The most memerable member of the fight was a troll, armed with a crappy assault rifle out of Gun Heaven 3 he'd ripped a couple of runner a new one before crit glitching and completely jamming the weapon, he starts charging at the stairwell... the shaman summons up a guardian spirit who uses fear. The troll crit glitches the resistance test.

As the runner retreat they can hear heavy footsteps on the floor above them. The mys-as is watching the window to make sure their escape is still clear when with a mighty crash overhead the troll body-checks the boarded up window at a full sprint and goes flying through the air, plummeting past the lookout with a sickening crunch as it hits the ground.

[TheDai]

I don't know if you could call it "messing with a player".

One player play a female assassin with ties to the Yakuza. For some reason, even her Streetname is a secret and she never is anywhere without a mask. (Also negative Quality Social stress)

So one unfortunate Monday morning her Yak-Contact calls and asks for a very important favor. After KE blew one of their operations, one of them got caught and promised to not spill any beans as long as his 15 year old daughter is in good care.
He begs her to take the girl in for at least a couple of days, and so the most socially inept character of the group became the babysitter of a 15-year old, yakuza hating, punk-decker brat.
Day 1 she bought booze for 250 NY and filled her up. ( Which I found slightly irritating)
Day 2 she asked a connection where to get large amounts of Drugs. (I went from irritated to shocked)
And since I didn't want to replay the most famous scenes from pulp fiction (although that could've been fun) I went full "Leon, the Professional" on him.
=> She decided to rescue her father from prison and went with an arsenal of stolen weapons to the police station.
Once she realized what the girl planned (about 50 meters away from the police station) the player panicked, pulled out a syringe and immediately pumped Narcoject into her. ("You want to do WHAT?") In broad daylight, in an open street, police cars left and right.
The rest is history.

Honestly, I let him get out of that way too easy. At that very moment, he should've started to create a new character. But with the help of the teams face, he talked his character out of that situation. (I'm not THAT evil as the GM ... )
But it was fun. Very fun. For me at least.

[Angelone]

Had a spurned hacker forward all the pizza delivery calls to the faces comm.

[Mystic]

Two really quick ones. The first one was an honest me being an evil GM, the second was some good-natured hazing on a newbie.

Story one: Players are hired to iniltrate this warehouse to steal the 'McGuffin" (literally I called it that). They knew there was no way to force their way in, security was too tight and well armed. So they chose the sneaky way. I had them do stealth check after stealth check (this was 3rd ed BTW), with more than one roll being the difference between them and having to shoot their way out. Well, the rigger outside get's chased out by a roaming patrol, but before he's made. So the players inside need a new ride. This being a warehouse, they ask if there are any delivery-type vehicles, to which I say yes (not the best of plans but it was theirs). Well, they managed to break into the vehicle and hotwire it with little problem and were going to make a mad dash out, hoping they'd get a few precious seconds before security swarmed. Well, as they start up the Van, I have them roll to see if anyone hears the engine. Then, they put it in reverse...and then there is a blaring BEEEP BEEEP BEEP!!!! from the reverse alarm. Needless to say it became a running firefight, but the players got a bit shot up (the van a LOT shot up), but with the help of the double-backed rigger, they made it.

Story two: newbie player is running a Street Sammie who likes to try and carry ALL of his guns on him, which included a rifle, shotgun, sniper rifle, and numerous handguns. Everyone told him it was a bad idea, but he wouldn't listen. So, on their run they decided to infiltrate a facility by riding on an automated tractor-trailer truck (again, their plan not mine). But in order to get on (while it was in motion) they had to make Athletics checks...to which the newbie failed. So in a scene right out of the classic movie "I'm Gonna Get You Sucka", he falls off, hits the ground...and every gun he has goes off at the same time. So, he ended up with hundreads of flesh wounds, but no serious damage. He was a good sport though, even getting on the floor and acting the scene out. I gave him a few extra karma for that. 

[psycho835]

Must have beensome really crappy guns. THAT's why you buy a Manhunter.

[Mystic]

Well ... I may have used a bit of theatrical license on the newbie.