[Jack_Spade]

I can't speak for Sovereign, but Kynos follows the highest bidder on this. And 100.000 NY are a very strong incentive.
Also, I gave Athos plenty of opportunities to call Kynos back into his service - but ignoring comm calls does tend to lead to a breakdown of communications.
But regarding working on cross purpose: That was entirely up to Shaman Yuri.
If you remember, it was Kynos that asked you to come to the party to capture Venom - and even that was a courtesy towards Athos so he could clear his name instead of outright killing and incinerating Venom.

The drift apart - at least from my perspective - was entirely voluntary from the sides of Athos and Minnie.
I would have preferred it to keep working together. But as it stands now Minnie effectively betrayed Kynos and Sovereign, so I'm not sure those are the ones obliged to change their position. Especially since she was also the one who broke communications. Of course it didn't help one bit, that gilga decided DemoX has to ignore orders and attack on his own and fail. Actually that action was so stupid I wanted to scream. If you want to collect a bounty, you don't shoot at the target in the middle of the water. And especially not if you were told that the target needs to be interrogated.

I do have a problem with a story, that is designed to keep players apart instead of leading them back together.

And I have to admit. I have a terrible habit: Whenever I feel powerless to influence anything, I unconsciously start to rebel and begin to destroy the world.

[Mercy Merchant]

Hmmm.  I do apologize if I ignored any comm calls from Kynos.  That was unintentional.  Unfortunately, when we all split up on the island, Kynos went off to talk to DemoX and Athos was sent on a different mission by Luna.  Based on what I was reading, I am not sure that Kynos would have left off what he was doing to follow a new clue.  Sorry if I misinterpreted that. 

But I think it is all part of the same problem with giving the individual PCs different personal missions that are seemingly designed to keep them apart.  And, yes, it might be hard to get everyone back into sync at this point.

[gilga]

Well if you do not mind we can conclude most of the big plot in a fast forward of a few months into the future. I was kind of planning to do so once we conclude something with Venom and the land grab.

I gave too much emphasis to the back story - my initial idea was an assassination that uncovers a plot to take down the entire city - but it was not as well designed as I thought because the inability of actually preventing an entire city to get fucked up is frustrating. As you were running I planed to gradually make Seattle one terrible hellhole.  So I think that perhaps once we conclude the current runs we can then fast forward a few months into the future as I conclude the story of of Seattle. It will give you some opportunity to spend Karma and to decide if you want to somehow stick together or do this independent thing.

I am okay with either a group or a bunch of runners -  initially I wanted to try and give the feeling of a shadow community where you keep encountering similar names sometimes working with you sometimes working with someone else and so forth. This kind of story means that some runs must fail especially when there are conflicting goals and well I am not sure if it is fun when you are on the disappointed side.

About DemoX attacking him - sorry if it felt off, I figured him seeing a 100k prize in naked and unarmed in a boat will be too much to pass out. If I missplayed him I am sorry.

[Jack_Spade]

That's part of the problem: You don't need the PCs for your story. They seem to be more of a hindrance.

Let's not talk about realism, here. There are certain implied conventions in every RPG that have to be observed by players and GM.
Namely: The PCs are the protagonists, not the sidekicks and they trust that they have a chance to succeed. In exchange for that, the PCs take up the plot hooks of the GM without dismantling or questioning them too hard. You broke this agreement unilateral.
Some runs must fail is in no way acceptable. Because that just means you are taking away the PC's agency. You can make it hard, but you should give us the chance to recognize it as such. Point in fact: The guards being Prime Runners was in no way communicated or even hinted at.

Withholding essential Information is bad, bad, bad, bad, bad GMing.

You can certainly aim for gritty play, but you'll find that your players become very reluctant to do anything for your NPCs anymore.

About fast forwarding a few months: That won't solve anything. Instead it will force us to come up with ludicrous explanations why we stopped fighting when everything went to hell instead of leaving the city.

Finally, Kynos has In debt IV. He can't afford to sit on his hands because otherwise he loses his knee caps. That is another reason I am so pissed at being shafted again on the payoff of the mission.

[gilga]

1. They are not prime runners regular runners created with priority build and not optimized to the core but they are multiple and thus may pose a threat. 

2. About the rest let me think about it.


The main plot line I had in mind was this - most of it is not changeable by now.

1. Red runs amok in the city taking over the military base and much of the population and tries to destroy everything that she cannot control. She reach a level of paranoia where she simply attempts to murder people that are immune to her influence. (already happening )
 
2. The UCAS military stops Red but at a terrible price, a massive EMP weapon destroys all the electronics and the matrix spaces of Seattle.  No more red but the city is in complete chaos, carrying nanites becomes the most terrible offense and those caught with them are killed on sight. People accuse each other to be 'head cases' and the city go through some rough time as there is little way to prove it and many innocents are lynched just for being slightly odd - or pissing off their neighbors. The local government has to play along because they are weak and have no practical means to control the city. 

3. The local government struggles to regain control on the city without access to modern technology. They manage to regain some areas, others remain in anarchy  and the NAN takes a large part in the recovery process making Seattle informally a Salish colony where the ambassador becomes the informal ruler of the city. Slowly they'll try to bring the matrix back up and reestablish technology.

4. In this power vacuum Grail claims parts of the city making them his own undead kingdom where people have to pay with their own essence in order to live them. Some are so desperate that they actually accept this arrangement but they only do so out of desperation they are branded as property like cattle and are shot on sight on other parts of the city if they dare to escape.

5. In local politics the vice mayor is assassinated by meta human anarchists and Humanis becomes the leading force and they are building walls and fences around entire neighborhoods declaring them human only, segregating humans from the others.

Now, my original plan was to gradually change the big picture as you run your daily lives, earn money and try to adjust to the changing landscape and political conditions of the city, with a larger and a bit more heroic run of assassinating Grail and his main followers. I figured that after Red betrayed him and got whacked - he'll become  small enough for a group of runners to take down.

That said - I despite the frustration I think it is cool that you met Red at her infancy and dealt with her, possibly even worked for her. That you could almost stop her - but DeepBlue your way out of that hellhole was also working for her.

Well it feels that we are doing exposition for a long time and it is not as fun as I anticipated so we can perhaps do it as the background story. (or not?)
I think it will give us a single and sort of unified goal of a run to follow and some big events to look back for hopefully within the setting of a well defined run with clear goals it'll be easier and less distracting.

I do need to figure out how to do these things in a manner that makes you feel center stage and I made many mistakes in the way I told the story. I try to learn how to do so better.

[All4BigGuns]

On the note of Player Agency, you also made another big faux pas. When you allowed Shaman Yuri to just go around using Con (Seduction) on PCs with impunity, you opened the door to serious problems. It is normally, in most groups, commonly accepted that that just isn't done, and quite frankly it did piss me smooth off when she pulled it on me out of the blue.


NPCs built with the same system that PCs are built with are supposed to be RARE adversaries. Such is the stuff of "boss fights" intended to be faced by an entire team. That you didn't 'optimize' them is immaterial.


Honestly, none of those elements look even remotely fun to have to deal with in a game. Good grief, man, but number 2 screws over most non-magical archetypes (the Face being about the only one not hosed in that).

[Jack_Spade]

What you really should think about: Why the hell should the team stay in such a hell hole. There is a reason why Boston and Chicago became containment zones - and why all the official runs are focused on teams getting in and out as fast as possible.

The term prime runner describes NPCs that are built the same way as PCs and not variations of the Grunts and goons.
p.385 core, if you are interested.

[Mercy Merchant]

Wow, Gilga, that is some plan.  Not too sure it is the best plan and it would certainly hurt Athos a lot.  In my opinion, playing in "Grand Scheme" games is for characters that are in a team and good at working together and we have had no time to get that close, and in fact there are some personality and goal issues among us.  In this scenario, you have completely made anything we do completely irrelevant.  Not sure how we would make any sort of money, especially since several of us would no longer have any access to where the money is as we are non-human.  This could open up plots to establish smuggling routes and black market activities, but you have apparently taken everything away with no means of replacing it.  What was the purpose of allowing me to create a character with qualities like Made Man or a version of Trust Fund that you knew would be taken away?

Not sure where to go from here.

[gilga]

I kind of planned that the Mafia survives and expends it's influence having planned for a massive change and so forth. So I am not sure why Athos will be hurt with something like that? If any when everyone are afraid they need protection, guns weapons and the Mafia can provide these things. pushed around by Huminis ? this just bring the meta-humans closer to them and being a 'leading force' does not mean controlling every little bit of the city. I do not see why this backstory conflicts with Athos slowly establishing a Mafia branch.

I do not see what you do to be irrelevant, because these are your characters life, day job runs they performed and so forth and I owe a lot of closure for Athos.

[All4BigGuns]

Don't necessarily need to 'shoe horn', but at this point, the only way to get everyone together is to quickly end the disparate jobs and move to something bringing us all together. The potential animosities between the characters can be overcome once they're together, not easily, but it can be done. It will just take actually working through it, and those most affected by the animosities working their butts off to gain/regain trust.

[gilga]

1. Seduction - even when NPC's do so I keep it on a trust system where I let the player play their emotions the way they see fit. I won't allow to dice roll people out of their comfort zone because essentially it does not feel much fun.


2. I think that So far you came out on top and that even the HE grenades were not what took Kynos down. He ignored most of them completely - so I feel that the threat level was appropriate. If you feel deferentially let me know so far the enemy that came closest to PC kill was a ninja that was just a goon with a katana sent to assassinate Maxwell.

[Jack_Spade]

Well, one way I could see would be that Venom shows his true colors again and ditches the "I'm just a poor victim of the evil vampire" act.
Because I am sure that the reputation he earned, didn't come from nothing.
The team works together to bring him down and cashes in on the bounty.

At least that's what I'd do as GM. There is nothing quite as uniting as a common foe...

@gilga

You aren't reading what I wrote: The HE grenade - if it had hit - would have brought me down. I evaded and that forced me to crash. It was very, very much my undoing. If I hadn't had the little extra in form of a stim infusion, I would have been captured and most likely killed.
Also there is more than one way to take a PC out. Killing is just one way. Robbing him of his powers or his volition is another one.

Which is why I'm IP as OP pissed when someone tries to possess my character or do other mind control stuff. It's nothing less than rape.

[gilga]

Well you went after the Yaks in their most secure location in broad daylight when they are alarmed already and there are tens of goons in the street to the point where I felt silly even tracking down their number. How did it end in your book? you escape and nobody ride after you? You lose them ?  What about the day after when the entire Yaks are after you? Was it really about better negotiation position with Strawberry?

[All4BigGuns]

You still haven't addressed the concern that the opposition seems to morph into vastly more powerful versions of themselves depending on who is involved in a scene. Sure Kynos and Sovereign are very powerful, but you don't need to go to the extremes you are in their encounters. The problem has been there since the very beginning with the sheer number of drones present in the 'save IT' encounter seemingly just because of what Sovereign could potentially pull off. Had he not gone 'balls to the wall' there, I would have lost Serge in the first encounter.

[gilga]

These drones were the original opposition I planed and I was surprised how difficult they turned out to be. I did not morph them up for Maxwell. I was surprised by how hard it was to stop them. If any I toned down the combat because I felt that I over did it. It was also the first combat in this game like ever. The other one was a single drone for Minnie and some very armored KE guards that Athos and Kynos seemed to skim through with some effort but unhurt.