[Malex]

Please, please understand that killing is Option Z.  Being wimpy and letting them get away with murder, well, that isn't even an option, but there are plenty of other possibilities out there.  If there's no other PC there to witness events, you can say, 'you throw the grenade, you get caught in the grenade blast, the drone opens up ... and everything is black.'  Killing runners is, actually, bad for business for the corps, because killing you isn't going to find out who hired you.


I may have made the situation seem very straightforward in my previous entry when infact it was a very complicated matter.

They'd already been captured by an individual who had kink bombs plugged into them. This individual who the team had thwarted on two previous occasions decided to make them useful to his operations by sending them on a suicide job. The job involves going to L.A., vault diving to the Dhakasoft building that's under the waves, finding a program that was being worked on in the labs, and returning to Seattle. The complications involved are 1) an artificial intelligence that became aware within the last few months and 2) a shedim infestation which has basically turned the whole building into a zombie infested hellhole. The AI, only ever having had contact with shedim possessed metahumans and an Aztechnology team that tried to plug a virus into the system, saw the PCs as another potential threat. It made the attempt to communicate with the team, but one of them got hot headed as in the above post and well the rest is history. The AI having seen that the only way to keep things from getting back up again (pesky shedim) is to 'reduce targets to tacomeat', which it did just that to the PC. The AI not really caring about taking prisoners has only been about it's own self-preservation (wait til the team finds out it's suffering from a form of PTSD) as the Shedim have been trying to destroy it and the drones it commands.

The team did manage to not get themselves killed, thus far, and tricked the AI that they are a repair team from Aztechnology/Dhakasoft.

[Ryushiroi]

I may have made the situation seem very straightforward in my previous entry when infact it was a very complicated matter.

They'd already been captured by an individual who had kink bombs plugged into them. This individual who the team had thwarted on two previous occasions decided to make them useful to his operations by sending them on a suicide job. The job involves going to L.A., vault diving to the Dhakasoft building that's under the waves, finding a program that was being worked on in the labs, and returning to Seattle. The complications involved are 1) an artificial intelligence that became aware within the last few months and 2) a shedim infestation which has basically turned the whole building into a zombie infested hellhole. The AI, only ever having had contact with shedim possessed metahumans and an Aztechnology team that tried to plug a virus into the system, saw the PCs as another potential threat. It made the attempt to communicate with the team, but one of them got hot headed as in the above post and well the rest is history. The AI having seen that the only way to keep things from getting back up again (pesky shedim) is to 'reduce targets to tacomeat', which it did just that to the PC. The AI not really caring about taking prisoners has only been about it's own self-preservation (wait til the team finds out it's suffering from a form of PTSD) as the Shedim have been trying to destroy it and the drones it commands.

The team did manage to not get themselves killed, thus far, and tricked the AI that they are a repair team from Aztechnology/Dhakasoft.

Man, and I thought I watched too much Resident Evil...

[Malex]

"You're all going to die down here."

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

Please, please understand that killing is Option Z.  Being wimpy and letting them get away with murder, well, that isn't even an option, but there are plenty of other possibilities out there.  If there's no other PC there to witness events, you can say, 'you throw the grenade, you get caught in the grenade blast, the drone opens up ... and everything is black.'  Killing runners is, actually, bad for business for the corps, because killing you isn't going to find out who hired you.

I may have made the situation seem very straightforward in my previous entry when infact it was a very complicated matter.

You seem to have stopped reading a little early.  Let me quote the end of my post:

Yes, sometimes they just beg to be killed, and sometimes it's really difficult to NOT kill them -- but unless you WANT to be the PKer GM, try to find other things to do than tell them, 'okay, draw up another character'.  Imagine them getting caught three times, and having to follow orders from three different groups ...

... 'cause I think being merciful three times is probably the limit. 

If they've passed the limit, whatever your limit happens to be, then sit them down ahead of time -- or at the end of a session -- and be honest.  "Guys, it's getting really, really difficult to not kill you.  I've been trying, but if you continue to act like assholes and idiots simultaneously, you're going to be rolling up new characters.  If that's the way your character is going to act, that's fine -- understand, though, that there are people just as much of an asshole, and just as short-tempered, and even more lethal than you are.  In fact, right now you're in one hell of a 'no survivors' scenario.  Unless you pull it together and act like you want to get out of this alive ... you won't.  Any questions?"

Maybe they'll pull it together.  But if they don't, the PLAYERS have been given fair warning; kill 'em if they play stupid.

[Malex]

I did the sit down and told them straight up 'play smart and you will not die'. I also gave plenty of warning to the eminent peril of the situation which killed that player, a whole week in fact, as the game paused on a cliffhanger with the drone showing up and loading the LMG attached to it.

The thing which kinda irked a bit more was when that player, after the event, said he did it out of boredom. Which as a GM sucks to hear that one of your players was so bored by the game that he decided to get himself killed.

Not like the character death doesn't rebound onto me anyway, since I had to come up with a means by which the player can still contribute to the game while in a place that has no normal way to throw in a new character. Any guesses?

[Ryushiroi]

Locked in a closet?

Waking up in a shower with no memory of who she is, and having nasty flashbacks throughout the rest of the adventure?

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

That's a player/GM issue.  You can ask him if he's just bored with Shadowrun, if he wants to play something else.  On the other hand, maybe you have another GM on your hands.  Offer to let him run the game sometimes; finish the current run up without him, and the next 'run is his.  Otherwise, well, I've had those too.  There honestly isn't much you can do with them, because generally all they want is combat-combat-combat.

[Chrona]

Let's just say that last night's game involved the PhysAd Blademaster's brother being in charge of the SecTeam on overwatch for their extraction target. And her brother had gone the path of the Cyberzombie.

Nothing like having the terminator trying to rip you to shreds as the Invoked Memory Stimulator has him talking in a child-like voice with his sister about the the picnics they used to have as children.

I had a run in with a Cyberzombie whose  Invoked Memory Stimulator was stuck, he kept going "Remember, Remember..." between every kill

Eventually I told the party to run while I, the face, bought them time  Miraculously I managed to be viewed as a non-combatent long enough to go "... The 5th of November?" and get him out of kill mode.

[Malex]

Let's just say that last night's game involved the PhysAd Blademaster's brother being in charge of the SecTeam on overwatch for their extraction target. And her brother had gone the path of the Cyberzombie.

Nothing like having the terminator trying to rip you to shreds as the Invoked Memory Stimulator has him talking in a child-like voice with his sister about the the picnics they used to have as children.

I had a run in with a Cyberzombie whose  Invoked Memory Stimulator was stuck, he kept going "Remember, Remember..." between every kill

Eventually I told the party to run while I, the face, bought them time  Miraculously I managed to be viewed as a non-combatent long enough to go "... The 5th of November?" and get him out of kill mode.

Interesting.

As for my answer. I'm giving him a role as one of the Shedim. The Master Shedim wants out of the building and is sending one of it's more capable servants (the player) to intercept the team and to act like a survivor in the hope that the team divulges how they got into the building. What happens after that is anyone's guess, I'm hoping for some interesting roleplaying; especially since one of the other PCs tried to double cross and kill another team member.

The Player has only played one Shadowrun game, this one, and made a character that was on the edge of sanity and had a penchant for explosions (Streetname: Splodey MacGee). The rest of the team felt it was only a matter of time before he got killed, I had hoped otherwise.

After this game I want to not GM for a little while and in the meantime try to get the group to make characters that will work together as a team and not a disorganized rabble of cutthroats.

[DoubleTap]

I wont stop there stupidity.  They do something stupid to bring down he wrath thats on them.  Had a PC in a reacent game fire a rocket launcher at a lone star patrol car, at that point when the Swat shows, up and he dose'nt bug out,, that would be why he died.  I won't stop them from doing doing something stupid.

[ShadowChaser13]

I hate killing PCs, but once one bites the bullet it really ups the tension level in the group.  I had a side plot about a serial killer who implanted himself with barghest sensitive earpieces and had three of the barghests under his control roaming through redmond at night.   I had the pc cee a news vid on him, receive rfid id uptes about where not to walk, stumble over an old fashioned newspaper with the dandgerous neighborhood conveniently showing on top (that was my hail marry saying "do not walk through here, call a cab."  needless to say he walked and became barghest chow.
it keeps that "im the pc, im untouchable because im a player" vibe out.  and there always the doc wagon out....

that plot of your is nice man.  sounds like fun.

[Leticron]

In my opinion the possibility of death adds necessary(?) tension to the game and brings in another, possibly deeper, level of play.
Players have free will and who am I not to respect that. I just set the stage, it's their turn to get up there and make it shine.
Staying alive, backup plans, etc. are within their responsibility (to a certain degree ).
Also, if something goes really wrong that's what Edge is for.

That said, there are (at least) two things to take into account when playing like that.
First of all, the players and me, we all know, that the guy who got some lucky shots last time can get badly betrayed by lady luck next time, so whenever players realize they have to retreat, I won't put extra obstacles in their way as, someone said it before, it's neither a GMs Job to play "against" players nor to kill them when he's got the chance to. I also avoid any "shoot outs" that leave only dead players or dead NPCs - after all it's the players choice how they want to handle a certain situation.
Secondly, should, for whatever reasons, a player get caught up in over his head, I do not force death upon him, so to speak. I let them surrender, or do whatever it takes to survive. So far I haven't come across a single "all in" situation (that wasn't forced by players whom i had previously warned about the possible consequences).

When I get to know my players better (or more so, their new caracters, as we play together for about 10 years now), i of course create situations specifically suited for one particular character that are also tense, in which even the groups life, success etc. lies in the hands of that one character, but they aren't created as 50/50 situations to begin with.

In general there is one particular advice that has helped me tremendously: Be aware of your players current situation and get a feeling for when they can take another hit and when they don't. And if they can't and just want to get out alive - don't go all out on them. Sometimes surviving a run can be as satisfying as dancing with Richard Villiers Daughter while pretending to be an Asian Billionair.
They best GMs I've played with so far, all had a very good feel for their players capabilities and designed their runs, adventures etc. around that skill set (and state of - player - minds). Most situations I've come across so far that got a character killed either came from that character's player not realizing he was in imminent danger of dying should he go on like this, or from the GM not realizing that his players couldn't handle the obstacles he had thrown in his way until it was too late - and not being flexible enough to give his players a way to possibly escape (Even then... who wants to get his as handed only to be saved by the GM?).

[Leigion]

I as a player have lost many a character over the years and a GM i have killed scores. TPK.. yep both sides of the screen. I have played in 3 living campaigns that lasted years though. ADnD, DnD3.5 and Shadowrun. I will not play in a game if we cant die, if we are constantly being saved or if combat is not rolled open. Total deal breakers for me. As a GM i tell my players you can die if, you get into combat, you do crazy shady stuff and get caught, you do insanely stupid stuff like C.LU.E. Other then that I am not trying to single you out or am I going drop a house on your head out of nowhere. Heaven help you if you cheat at dice, throw temper tantrum's, or keep trying to break the game consistently. Any of that you can finish your beer and you can go home.

To me why play a game if we are not going to have consequences for our actions? How can we really enjoy surviving, if death was never really on the line? How can you ask players not to cheat if the GM can fudge rolls? If their is no challenge then it gets boring, and the game will eventually fall apart, so will the group.

I guess I should also point something out in the living campaigns you have more then one character.The one's your not playing are doing stuff its not like they are sitting collecting dust. Thats the secret to not pissing people off and having a way if a TPK happens to keep playing. It helps to have a back up mission or dungeon something so they dont have to go right back to what killed them last time. Hope that helps

[lurkeroutthere]

Honestly for a missions game you should probably just be killing them. The alternative is when their captured by some legitimate authority(tm) where you can give them some disadvantages that make sense.

[Leigion]

Um to the person who said "its bad for business for the corp to kill you and not find out who hired you." Lets look at this logicaly. Corp kills runner /runners. Lets start simple and work more complex. If they capturre a team they are going to kill all but one or two, looking for the hacker. Then they are going to torture you, find out what they want and shoot you in the face period. Why would they call the cops or hold you indefinatly? Your a security threat breathing . If they are going to torture you then kill you, they would break your legs so you cant escape. If cybered legs they would just start cutting wires till its cyber cement shoes.

Lets move on. They have a body, they are going to go threw your stuff, right. So here is a cold dead cipher.  All your gear is going to tell them who you are. Start with the com link. Well looky here is this your personal or a throw away? If its your personal every one whos on it is now screwed. You gave them numbers to back track you in logs. Oh its the throw away that you were running in hiden mode correct? So it was still picking up stuff in the back log, it just wasnt sending info out. So again its now going follow everything it picked up like a map straight back to the meet, then to your safe house. Hope the runners arnt there hanging out. Once they make it back to your safe house they are going to know alot more about you.

How bout gear so what were you packing anyways ? If you got anything really heavy on you, like dealing with high restriction. They already know what channels to look into on the street, because of the shadow wars. A shorter list the more restricted. Sure this list work might take longer but they still are going to know where you got it. If they dont need you alive why would you be alive?