[Sichr]

Well, I think this is whole about GM-Player agreement.
I have players with Pacifist, who are constantly challenged in battles, bnecause the rest of the team dont give a damn to her feeling. We created this group long before RC came out so we used some qualities frominternet sources, such as Weirdness magnet.

Weirdness Magnet
Bonus: 5 BP
Whenever weird shit comes down, it happens in your neighborhood or to you directly. Spirits seem to find you absolutely fascinating for reasons they can't or won't describe, and paranormal animals keep popping up in your neighborhood. You keep getting Elvis shamans as free contacts. Not-quite-sane street people seem to consider you a valuable confidante.

And they expect me to introduce Elvis shamans into the gameplay, and expect that the werid things happen. Bad Luck character counts that his use of Edge may bring him down, like it happened a few times before. Character with Gremlins does expect, that even her presence can cause trouble to any modern technics, and all the time she notices little green man with her peripheral view, trying to sneak somewhere, she knows the shit gos down: crashing OS in the Electronics shop, she just bought her new 1/1 Commlink, malfunctioning of whole group of bikes gang parked outside the brothel, which she just walk around etc.
So I dont thing that introducing negative consequences of negative qualities into the gameplay necessarily means that it makes that Player vs. GM and may lead to some harsh feelings. We always have a lot of fun with those, trying to exploit their potential, because IMO those are Negative qualities for character creation purpose, but have very high possitive value in roleplay

[Irian]

Weirdness Magnet is a very old GURPS disadvantage, which may or may not be suitable for a character in your campaign. There are scenarios that are better suited for such an perk (for example, IOU - Illuminati University) and some where this quality should never be taken. Personally, I would disadvise my players from taking it, except they are ready for a campaign that will get them into the very center of weirdness... It's one of these perks that affect the whole game, not just one character.

[Dracain]

While I can understand bringing up a negative quality in gameplay, I also see that some negative qualities are simply meant to cut of certain paths.  I also think that forcing a mage or adept to get 'ware put in them is a little, much, because that is permanently weakening them with no way whatsoever to fix this.  Wouldn't it be cheaper for the mafia to just put some sort of collars of bracelet that will kill them if tampered with?  I would use this as a chance to put the players on a job to fix their relations with the mafia.  I mean, a mage is probably going to notice their magic permanently weakened, so it isn't really a matter of stealth. 

I think the point of sensitive system is to make it so the player is generally cut off from using 'ware, or if they do decide to do it, they need to pay for it.  I don't think this is one of those situations where the negative quality is supposed to come up.  If someone took gremlins, I would bring it up in the game because this is not a negative quality that is meant to cut off pathways of advancement, it is meant to make using tech a living hell.  I don't think I am a carebear GM, I would make that player have some trouble if they where ordering something over their commlink, and I would make hacking very difficult, however, non of it would be permanently taking away players hard earned stats.  However taking away a magic-users essence, causing them to permanently lose a point of magic they can never get back does not sound like keeping off the kid gloves, that just sounds mean-spirited to me. 

[Crash_00]

Magic is one of the stats that is not capped after creation. You can always initiate further and raise your magic again.

Unless the character is already very close to the burnout cutoff, implanting some spyware/autoinjectors isn't going to cause crippling damage to the character. It's no different from blinding, maiming, brain damage, or implant destruction. All of which there are rules for in the game.

If a Technomancer gets bitten by a ghoul and tanks his resistance tests, do you infect him? What if he stuck around because of Combat Paralysis/Monster? How about a mage in the same boat?

The first case is a severe loss to the character (loss of all Resonance and Technomancer abilities) and the second is a minor setback to the character (loss of a fraction of essence and 1 pt. of magic).

I guess I'm used to more brutal systems so it seems tame to me, SR3 mages could lose magic just from taking a bad wound or being treated by someone who didn't know they were awakened. When I start a campaign, the first thing I do is look at the characters, and as a GM I build the story around the characters. Sure, whatever happens to the mage is going to be contrived. No more so than any other plot point though.

I would also have to argue that treating a mage different than you would a non-mage, just because he's a mage and you (the GM) know it would set his character back slightly, is meta-gaming to a point of absurdity. Why does the mob suddenly grow a conscious and not plant a spy package in their known enemy they just nabbed? How does the mob leader know that its going to severely damage the mage's abilities if he doesn't have any magical knowledge skills? Likewise, how does he know the mage would notice the loss right away/soon and not just feel a little off.

I would also have to argue that Sensitive System is not simply a cut-off flaw. It's not full blown bio-rejection, it just limits a resource when taking it.

I still don't think it's a GM vs Player scenario. That's not the GMs job. The GMs job is to make it feel like he's playing against them, but letting them win without realizing that he's letting them win.

[All4BigGuns]

Unless the character is already very close to the burnout cutoff, implanting some spyware/autoinjectors isn't going to cause crippling damage to the character. It's no different from blinding, maiming, brain damage, or implant destruction. All of which there are rules for in the game.

All of these are optional rules, and thus are used by a slim minority of GMs.

The first case is a severe loss to the character (loss of all Resonance and Technomancer abilities) and the second is a minor setback to the character (loss of a fraction of essence and 1 pt. of magic).

Best choice here is not to use ghouls in the first place unless you want to heavily houserule the infection crap. Currently a ghoul bite might as well be "okay the ghoul bit you, roll a new character".

I guess I'm used to more brutal systems so it seems tame to me, SR3 mages could lose magic just from taking a bad wound or being treated by someone who didn't know they were awakened. When I start a campaign, the first thing I do is look at the characters, and as a GM I build the story around the characters. Sure, whatever happens to the mage is going to be contrived. No more so than any other plot point though.

Again, optional rules that didn't see THAT much use.

I still don't think it's a GM vs Player scenario. That's not the GMs job. The GMs job is to make it feel like he's playing against them, but letting them win without realizing that he's letting them win.

Just because you don't think it's a GM vs Player scenario doesn't mean that it isn't. NO NO NO, if the GM even makes the players feel like he's against them, that ruins the fun of the game and it quickly becomes a slippery slope in which he actually becomes against them, and thus is a BAD GM.

[ArkangelWinter]

Really, whats the point if you're not playing against them? My players know that I dont pull punches, my villains are psychopaths, and that the only times I have qualms with handing out negative qualities is when it ruins the character completely (I once dumped Paraplegic on their B&E guy. Ended up becoming a totally wicked rigger). So they play smart, careful, and professional to avoid getting hit with that kind of drek. Like a real spec-ops team would have to be.

If a player is adamant that something I did was foul, I'll fix it. If the aforementioned char had been pissed, I had 2 back up plans to restore his legs next session. But he got caught in a huge explosion, his kids died, and he almost bled out, and he saw it as a new direction to take the character.

Know your players. He thought his cool collected ninja becoming a rage-filled cripple was fun. The face freaked on me when his house got seriously damaged. So I'm a little more careful in throwing that player curveballs.

[Crash_00]

Just because you don't think it's a GM vs Player scenario doesn't mean that it isn't. NO NO NO, if the GM even makes the players feel like he's against them, that ruins the fun of the game and it quickly becomes a slippery slope in which he actually becomes against them, and thus is a BAD GM.

Or you have a GM that actually can GM and doesn't make it against them, and it feels like a challenge to the players. The whole point of the game is to play the role of the characters and tell a story. It''s not a miniature war game, it's not a board game, it's not a video game. It's a roleplaying game. There are three requirements needed for a good GM to run a good game: 1. A good GM 2. Good Players 3. A good challenge.

There ARE bad GMs, bad players, and bad challenges. I never argued that, but I don't think you've thought through your reasoning very well.

If there is no challenge, the game might as well be called (Tickle-me-with a Feather Duster)run. We'll replace the great dragons with giant Tickle Me Elmos and give players the codes to pop into their game genies just so that there is not chance they'll trip and scrape there knees.

In order for their to be a challenge, the player's have to feel like the GM will actually be willing to kill, maim, chew and spit them out. If the GM isn't willing to, and lets them know he isn't willing to as you suggest, there is no actual challenge to the game. Sure there may be a fake feeling of challenge, but deep down every player knows his character is as safe as an egg cradled in eighteen pounds of styrofoam cushioning.

Stories have challenge. Who wants to read. Jack was born wealth. He became a knight. He slew the dragon unharmed and lived happily ever after. The end. There's no challenge to the story at all. Likewise if the story involved a dragon that breathed fire near jack and harmed him, but informed him that he wasn't really against him, and that jack would win in the end relatively undamaged, it wouldn't be much better.

Again, optional rules that didn't see THAT much use.

No, that was base rules back then. The opening to that section was "Awakened characters have it rough when they get hurt." and proceeded into the talk about taking a deadly wound or being treated without the appropriate penalty (meaning of course the +2 modifier for treating an awakened). In both situations, the mage had to roll 2D6 and lost a point if he rolled equal to or less than his magic score. If they were being treated for a Deadly wound and the person treating them didn't take the penalty, they had to roll twice. To top it off, I never once saw a player bitch about losing magic...ever. Whether from damage, stim patches, implantations...not a single one. Every single one of them enjoyed the story and moved on.

All of these are optional rules, and thus are used by a slim minority of GMs.

Weird, most groups I've seen use them unless it's a Missions game. They've been just as commonly used as maximum armor mods, armor capacity, and Way of the Adept, but come up less often due to what it takes to trigger the effect. While the rules might be optional, I can't think of a single GM who would say that it is impossible to gouge out someone's eyes (or spray spray-paint in them), chop off fingers (or limbs), or break bones. Every single one of those aspects can be repaired or fixed in some way in 2073, so I don't see the issue. There is an entire set of rules on replacing those cybernetically and/or using vat grown cloned tissue. Being torn to pieces has been a staple of the sci-fi genre and shadowrun is not exempt from it.

But hey, we should all write Lucas a huge amount of hate mail, because chopping off that hand (and all those limbs in later movies) was so uncalled for. It was obviously the director vs character.

Best choice here is not to use ghouls in the first place unless you want to heavily houserule the infection crap. Currently a ghoul bite might as well be "okay the ghoul bit you, roll a new character".

So completely avoid the question. Good one. It's not a vampire bite, it can be beaten/cured, it's just very very hard. I've seen 1 in 6 bitten manage to stave it off by themselves. Two more were saved by the Cure Disease spell providing enough dice to their tests. Of course they had to use a significant amount of edge to do so, but it wasn't instant fail like you make out.

[UmaroVI]

Are you sure you understand how the infection rules work as written? It is obscenely hard to stop it - the only thing that really stands a chance is the disease-curing nanites. I'd be amazed to see anyone shake off HMHVV as written without those, let alone one in six people!

Let me demonstrate. Suppose we have a troll with Body 10, Edge 6, and 6 hits from a Cure Disease spell. Since HMHVVIII is Penetration -6, that means stuff like Pathogenic Defense bioware does jack and shit to help so I'm not going to worry about that. This is already an edge case in favor of resisting the disease.

HMHVVIII is Power 8, Speed 1 day (10). That means you have to make 10 fully successful checks to shake it off. You lose .1 essence every time you fail and you become a ghoul after losing 1 full essence - so you need to make 10 before you fail 10.

Post-spending Edge (which gives you a better chance of making it than pre-spending edge) gives the troll of 76% chance of making a check. Without edge, they only have about a 12.5% chance of making the check. Those are not good odds - on average, you'll get 4.5 successes out of the 6 tries you spend edge on, and then you only make about 1 in 8 checks. Those odds are terrible.

Let's now start burning permanent edge. You can burn edge 5 times to auto-succeed on 5 checks, then post-spend to have a 76% chance of making one more. Even with burning 5 permanent edge, I get about a 1.5% chance of shaking the disease off. Those are awful odds, on a troll with max Body, max Edge, and a really good mage with Cure Disease on hand.

[All4BigGuns]

Are you sure you understand how the infection rules work as written? It is obscenely hard to stop it - the only thing that really stands a chance is the disease-curing nanites. I'd be amazed to see anyone shake off HMHVV as written without those, let alone one in six people!

Let me demonstrate. Suppose we have a troll with Body 10, Edge 6, and 6 hits from a Cure Disease spell. Since HMHVVIII is Penetration -6, that means stuff like Pathogenic Defense bioware does jack and shit to help so I'm not going to worry about that. This is already an edge case in favor of resisting the disease.

HMHVVIII is Power 8, Speed 1 day (10). That means you have to make 10 fully successful checks to shake it off. You lose .1 essence every time you fail and you become a ghoul after losing 1 full essence - so you need to make 10 before you fail 10.

Post-spending Edge (which gives you a better chance of making it than pre-spending edge) gives the troll of 76% chance of making a check. Without edge, they only have about a 12.5% chance of making the check. Those are not good odds - on average, you'll get 4.5 successes out of the 6 tries you spend edge on, and then you only make about 1 in 8 checks. Those odds are terrible.

Let's now start burning permanent edge. You can burn edge 5 times to auto-succeed on 5 checks, then post-spend to have a 76% chance of making one more. Even with burning 5 permanent edge, I get about a 1.5% chance of shaking the disease off. Those are awful odds, on a troll with max Body, max Edge, and a really good mage with Cure Disease on hand.

Then consider how low the chances are for a human or an elf (or even an ork) to "shake it off".  All in all, ghouls or vampires as opposition is just asking for a TPK.

[Glyph]

Some games are more grim than others.  It is a matter of consistency versus any perception (justified or not) of bias.  If you are running a game where players expect their characters to be forcibly implanted with tracking cyberware when they are unfortunate enough to be captured, it is simply part of the game.  But when someone with sensitive system feels he is being singled out for such treatment, then it can cause bad feelings.

Shadowrun is a game with lots of fates worse than death.  That's fine, as long as people have the option of dropping a character that gets maimed or ruined.  The one bright spot about ghoul infection is that you have the option of burning Edge to die clean instead of being completely messed up by turning into a ghoul.  The key is to be consistent, and to have player buy-in before you introduce such elements.

[UmaroVI]

That's actually only strains 1 and 2 with the "die in peace" option (actually, only Strain 1 says you can burn edge to die in peace, but it's reasonable that you could for strain 2 as well).

[Sichr]

There is still the chance that character got Infected only, with strain uncompatible with Metatype. Also...not every ghoul you meet outthere have Infection power. Well, then there are those with both, right strain and right quality/Power...and then there you go. Also had one in my group who got bitten. Healed magical...well...using lot of unrepeatable story tools...

[Crash_00]

Yes, I know how ghouls work. I also know how overcasting, ritual spellcasting, edge, and foci all work. Yes, to survive Ghoulism your only source of aid is pretty much going to be biting the bullet or stepping up to the magical healing plate and hope the bill is low enough your next few runs will cover it.

The actual character that survived without aid was, sadly, the player that though becoming a ghoul would be cool for his character (who was a vegetarian). He was a Fomori with a 13 Body and 7 edge and rolled ridiculously well.

The other two were both humans (Bod 4 and 5) but received (as in paid extremely well for) overwatch from a group of Bear Shamans casing Clear Disease on them for nearly two weeks straight. Neither came out of it completely untouched (both took some essence hits) and both burned their edge after getting enough successful days to be able to burn to 10.

Ghoul bites are powerful (I believe the guy who wrote the section even mentioned he messed it up), but they still work for a grittier style of play just fine. To be honest, it doesn't change the actual question I posed at all. Drop it to a power of 1 and interval of 1 day (5). Do you infect the technomancer is he fails? Somehow I feel that question will get dodged again.

I make it pretty clear when I run a game that if the players want to be powerful and live in fairytale land, they'll have to earn every second of it by climbing their way to the top. Even starting out in a high level campaign, there is always someone bigger, badder, or just flat out better than them.

I think the issue here is that people are saying that the person is being singled out for sensitive system (which he is, my first "random" determination method is looking through the teams flaws and picking who it fits most. I roll a die if it doesn't line up to anyone.) but taking offense at the fact that he's a mage (which really has nothing to do with the flaw). I make it clear that flaws will come up in play. Implanting ware isn't the only way that the flaw comes out, I mentioned other ways it comes into play as well. If a player chooses to take a flaw that will have damaging effects if it comes in to play, that was their choice.

I've implanted spyware into a mage before, I've also seen that same mage (with sensitive system) pick up second-hand cybereyes because he was on the run and can't afford to be blind after that torture session with Mr. Mob Mook that the group just rescued them from. Did the player feel he was shafted or I was "out to get him"? No. He was thankful he didn't die.

I'll usually let players drop characters (unless they do it every session) with no issue, but if they're dropping them because they're being sore about no being 100% maximized I don't usually let any of their karma transfer over. If the character dies, get's capture, or is retired because it is literally unplayable, I've got no problem letting anywhere from 50-90% karma and nuyen (I keep a running total) lap over depending on the background they come up with. I guess it's really an opinion of what makes a character "ruined" and I have a much higher restriction than "I lost a point of magic" which some people apparently hold. Then again, I've played a mage with a Magic 8 and seven levels of initiation in SR3 (back then initiation raised magic) and no ware and didn't even feel slowed down.

[UmaroVI]

I'm still quite surprised you had Body 4-5 humans living through that. What kind of bonus dice were they getting, exactly? They'd need 12 and 11 hits on that Cure Disease to even get up to the same (very bad) odds on that troll. Hell, even that Fomori doesn't have great odds.

To answer your question, though - I would be houseruling disease to work in a sane fashion where hiring a bunch of Bear Shamans to cast Cure Disease on you for two weeks straight actually did make you very likely to avoid ghoulification. Then I'd talk to the player about where they wanted to go with this - maybe they do want to be ghouled and start playing that (in which case I would probably offer them something like a lot of bonus karma after their "rebirth" so they could actually be playable after losing their Resonance). If not, I would use "stop Technomancer from becoming a ghoul" as a plot point to drive an adventure.

Example: [insert magician NPC who can get enough Cure Disease together to save the technomancer from ghouling] will do it, if the PCs do him a favor. And he won't do it until the favor is complete - so now they have a tense run that has to be finished in under a day. Or replace magician with someone who can get them emergency [whatever the disease blocking ones are] Nanites. Or something like that, depending on what would best suit the campaign, what NPCs already existed, etc.

[CitizenJoe]

I've implanted spyware into a mage before, I've also seen that same mage (with sensitive system) pick up second-hand cybereyes because he was on the run and can't afford to be blind after that torture session with Mr. Mob Mook that the group just rescued them from. Did the player feel he was shafted or I was "out to get him"? No. He was thankful he didn't die.

I think this needs to be more emphasized.  I have seen countless builds working around the idea that it is impossible to disarm the character.  While I'm sure this is rooted in wanting to have a fighting chance, what this really means is that you're not giving the GM a way out if things go poorly.  You can't have a mage just wandering about in the jail cell, they have magic.  And since that can't be taken away, they need a way to prevent the use.  Popping eyeballs is pretty damn effective.  But what is even more effective is a bullet in the brain pan.