[Sliver]

I've always pictured shadowrunning as a big risk job. It's highly rewarding in terms of financial gain, but has a huge impact on your health and well-being. Most runners are doomed to die a horrible death to gunfire or drugs.

This is the kind of campaign I want to run, where they get addicted to chems, lose limbs and loved ones. I want to challenge my players with a little more than just a few security officers with guns. Unfortunately, I've been having a hard time doing this in my campaign. My players seem to be avoiding drugs and mental problems, living average lived when they're not being shot at or recovering in the hospital. I can't force them to do anything, because that's not what a GM does. But I do want to sort of push them in that direction.

I also want to do permanent damage to them without ruining their characters. You know, take limbs, eyes, and have them lose essence and physical attributes. But I don't want my players to bitch at me, such as making a magician lose 0.1 essence and reducing their magic permanently by 1. I don't want some strength character losing a point of strength and bitching at me because I ruined his character. I can't even use glitches to enforce these, because glitches almost never happen and whenever they do, players just fix it with one point of edge.

So what rules do you enforce and how do you keep players from hating their GM for ruining their characters? Where's that happy medium?

[Critias]

Rules won't do it.  Communication will.  Talk to 'em.  Find out if that's the sort of campaign they want to run, and make sure they're all gonna be on board -- and then just do it. 

Don't worry about namby-pamby rules for it, if someone takes over half their physical health in a single attack, describe it as mauling 'em up real good and hammer out the mechanical details later.  Then slap 'em with an Addiction once they get out of the Street Doc's office, and let 'em know they'd better hope they know someone who's got a good line on Bliss, 'cause those painkillers the doc used were awesome.  Their normal lives dissolve in hails of gunfire from random go-ganger driveby violence, Humanis attacks outside the home, or a targeted assault from a corporate enemy or rival shadowrunner.

Rules, schmules.  If you want to start fucking with them -- which is not the same as fucking them, if they're on board for a little more grit and dirt -- just do it.  You don't need a rulebook for that, just an idea and the willingness to stick to it.

[Crash_00]

Like Critias said, the key to a good gritty campaign isn't in the rules or enforcing rules, but in the players themselves. That said, you need to talk to your players and find out if they want to play in a gritty realistic campaign.

If your players aren't up for it, then no amount of pushing from you is going to get them to play it as though its a rough gritty world. Likewise, forcing players or using non-rules ways to make the game gritty will just make them gripe and hate the game if you haven't talk to them about making it grittier beforehand (or if you did and they said no).

Permanent damage is a great way to get across the risks of being a SR, but they hit some characters (like mages) extremely hard while other characters are fine after a minor surgery at the local street doc. Likewise addictions are good too, just like Critias said, don't forget that when they get healed up in a hospital they are most likely subjected to all kinds of pain killers and tranquilizers which are usually fairly easy to get addicted to.

Being gritty and overly realistic in the game is much more a matter of Roleplaying than it is using the rules to get what you want done. If your group is more into the dice and pink mohawk side of the game, then your best bet is probably just to run it that way if everyone is having fun (yourself included). If no one is having fun, then you have to ask yourself why are we playing and find ways to fix that issue.

I ran a game of Hell on Earth one time placed one year after the bombs had fallen (the normal time line is thirteenish) and the group was band of survivors that had run out of supplies in the old S-Mart they had been holed up in. I hit them with infection rules for scrapes and cuts, made them figure out on their own whether zombies spread though bites or not, and gave them an extremely hard time with the Fear Check rules from the game. By the fourth session all of them had at least one phobia and one had managed to lose a hand from a mixture of a poisonous spider bit (radioactive to boot) and infection. To make it even worse for the character, i realized right after they amputated that he was the two-fisted two gun kid gunslinger of the party. The player loved it though and scoured the wasteland trying to find a prosthetic hand to fit him (he ended up just strapping a mace to his stump and learning to club and shoot).

[Charybdis]

As others have said, this looks like a case of conflicting expectations from GM and Players.

As GM, you need to know if your players are on the same page as you for a hard-hitting, savage campaign.

Normally in Shadowrun, the answer is "Hell no" as the players are already scraping Cash and Karma to get by, and suddenly needing a new hand or 20 Karma to replace a point of burned Edge means that the last few missions have been for nothing.

If however, you tilt the balance to make recovering from these options a bit easier (upping Karma rewards, Cash, Contacts etc), then the Players may be more open to the odd lost attribute, appendage or Magic point.

By default though, SR4 is already very damned dangerous and if your PC's are playing it smart, then they both:
A) deserve to be rewarded for it
B) look like they've already chosen a limited danger level by default.

We had a PC in Ghost Cartel's adventure try Tempo a few times, as it looked like fun and he was in the nightclubbing scene via background. He developed a mild addiction to it very quickly, but then when further scenarios came about in the adventure, he started spending Edge on those Willpower rolls to go cold turkey. Sometimes just the threat of what could happen is enough to scare the PC's... don't need to permanently impair them...just give them some temporary 'issues'

[Sliver]

I understand the role-playing aspect, and I've already been working on that. I'm also going to talk to my players about it.

Anyhow, I'm having an issue finding these rules you all are talking about. I looked through the entire "Running in the Shadows" section, and found nothing of fear checks. I'm really just trying to get a handle on the realistic gritty rules that are in the book.

[Crash_00]

Well the example I gave was from another game, Hell on Earth, which is post-apocalyptic. It tends to be played in the same two styles as SR though (Pink Mohawk/Bad Action and Black Trench Coat/Gritty Real).

That said, I believe that Composure (Will + Cha) is what you use in SR to resist the effects of intimidation and fear.

The two questions you need to ask the group (and ask them as a whole):

A.) Are you more interested in Role-playing or Roll-playing.
  This is important, as if they are more interested in their gear and improving character stats than role-playing, then there really isn't anything you can do.
  Gritty campaigns where you scrape into the realm of addiction, missing pieces, and usually mental disorders are much more about character development than character improvement.
   In order for the Gritty Campaign to work, you want the players to actively want to role-play their character development. Think of it like a shooter game. You have players that are just interested in padding stats and players that are more interested in the story of the game. The two sides rarely agree that the same game is the best.

B.) Would you like to play a Gritty Campaign
   Just because players want to delve into character development doesn't mean they want it all to be gritty. I've actually seen many more Pink Mohawk games go into character development in the club scene than I have black trench coat or pure grit games.

[Critias]

I've actually seen many more Pink Mohawk games go into character development in the club scene than I have black trench coat or pure grit games.

This is one reason I'll never fully understand the crowd who scoff at "Pink Mohawk" or utter it like an insult.  In a game that embraces the silliness of the setting and lets players get away with some of the over-the-top antics a little more often, I find there's a little more room for people to care about their characters, and a little less of a tendency to be so worried about "efficiency" and "the perfect build."  In a Pink Mohawk world your characters can make mistakes, your players can spend karma a little unwisely and still be okay, and not every nuyen has to be spent with nothing but cold, hard, survival in mind.

When folks take gaming too seriously, it turns into work. 

[Crash_00]

Agreed, I find though that most game masters can only run Pink Mohawk or Black Trenchcoat/Grit campaigns well, but not both.

By the same token, most players can really only do one side of the spectrum well.

Hence why I suggest asking the group as a whole.

[Onion Man]

The real treasure is when you can combine a pink mohawk player (like me 60% of the time) with a group of gritty, trenchers (my local group, some gnomes not included), and still end up with a fly by the seat of the pants, white-knuckle ride through Lagos (God I hope we leave Lagos soon).

[Crash_00]

Oh yeah.

My first group was very into the Black Trenchcoat style of game play when I started playing with them to the point that they almost always did one session planning and one session for the actual run.

Four very high profile one session runs with far too many explosions later, they realized that they could manage a lot less planning and make it through as long as they covered the basics.

Two runs in particular were the funniest because me and another player managed to complete the run by ourselves while uhm...doing recon and everyone else was planning the uhm...backup.

The first time, we were hired to destroy a painting packaged in warehouse before it could reached the museum it was supposed to go to. To make things short, three drums of gas, two Redball Expresses and the world's smallest troll fire mage named Sparky lit the whole warehouse up like christmas while the rest of the group were still getting the train schedule for the shipping company.

[Black]

Same thing happened for a group of mine.  One player was very much a planner, while several others where doers.  So while one group of players is spending time recruiting muscle for a wetworks opperation, two other player scout the policlub their about the raid, start talking to recruiters, enter the building, one sneaks out, but gets stop by the club boss, the other clumsly tries to take a photo of the lead muscle for the club.  Small discussion over ownership of the phone leads to a stun bolt leads to... well a very, very close thing.  But after all the dies have been rolled, the two scounts completed the mission in under 30 seconds, long before the other half of the team could arrive with back up.  They did need the first aid though...  second lesson learnt.  If your the only healer, don't get shot.  If you don't heal (or even have fricken first aid), carry some patches at least...

[Mystic]

I feel like a broken record...or would it be CD....or an iPod stuck on repeat?

Consiquences. Want to make it gritty, or heck insane as hell? Keep track of who the runners may or may not have pissed off or helped.

Perhaps the runners had to rough up a kid who turns out to be a relative of another runner with a temper. Or, maybe because of their actions, they had to ruin the life of Sam Wageslave and they encounter him or his family on the street. Maybe that street doc they been helping turns out to have been kidnapping kids for organlegging, and you just stole some paydata that just upped his "research" by a factor of ten. Or conversely, they help someone out or do something say the local Mafia Don likes, it may lead to a favor...for now.

Want gritty, IMHO nothing says "gritty" than having to deal with past sins or the responsibility of what you have done.

[Crash_00]

Almost forgot the most important part of the realistic setting advice (I was caught up in the grit). In a realistic setting, players are not overly exceptional like they usually are. It may take a few low-lifes to compete with them, but any trained professionals should have skill ratings on par with those of the characters and highly trained professionals (SWAT, Rapid Response Teams, Red Samurai, ect.) should be able to put them to shame unless they have a great plan.

[Charybdis]

Almost forgot the most important part of the realistic setting advice (I was caught up in the grit). In a realistic setting, players are not overly exceptional like they usually are. It may take a few low-lifes to compete with them, but any trained professionals should have skill ratings on par with those of the characters and highly trained professionals (SWAT, Rapid Response Teams, Red Samurai, ect.) should be able to put them to shame unless they have a great plan.

Hmmm, while I see your point, I really disagree here.

It's one thing to be surrounded by people who are better than you (in skills, equipment, superior numbers or support), however if the runners aren't a cut above the regular crowd, what the heck are they doing running?

This sounds like a low-power campaign, not necessarily a gritty realistic one.

[Crash_00]

Read it again. That's advice for the realistic part of the campaign. Grit is != Realistic and vice versa. The OP said he is creating a gritty and realistic campaign, hence the adding of advice for a realistic campaign.

I usually run Shadowrun this way, and with 4th edition dropping all of the gear prices down it makes much more sense than it did in the price inflated 3rd edition. Shadowrunners in my games run because they have no other options (Criminal SIN, No SIN, Refugee SIN, Burned, or just no other skills (retired Merc/Vet that couldn't get back into normal life)) rather than because they are better than the competition. Life in the Shadows should be deadly.

I'm not saying limit the players, I'm saying beef up the opposition. Use the standard Lonestar Officers in the book as the new recruits and give normal officers a stat and skill boost to be a threat. The players power level never changes, just that of their opposition.

Again, this is for a realistic campaign, not a gritty one. The gritty ideas were up top in my first couple posts.