[Tsujigiri]

I'm about to make the players "regret" some of their decisions, but I was wondering whether I'm going too far with that. Also, I could use some input again (especially on 2.).

1. During their last run, the PCs messed up some gangers with whom they repeatedly had trouble. Rather than just leaving them, they called an ambulance for them and barely made their getaway (they're new to the shadows). Their fixer is pretty annoyed because he also has an axe to grind with those gangers. Now the plan is for him to send another team to take care of those gangers while they're in the hospital. I was thinking to let the players hear about this on the news, with one or two innocent bystanders killed in the attack as well.

I want to show them that the shadows can be pretty dark, but is this too cheap a shot by not giving them a way to prevent this from happening?

2. One of the players own a small company, which exists mainly for background and does not give the player extra money or anything. I wanted to have a Johnson hire the runners to attack this company (not knowing that one of the runners owns it). I have a hard time coming up with ways for the players to get out of this job, though, without outright killing the Johnson or the people behind him..

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance!

[GiraffeShaman]

I'm about to make the players "regret" some of their decisions, but I was wondering whether I'm going too far with that. Also, I could use some input again (especially on 2.).

1. During their last run, the PCs messed up some gangers with whom they repeatedly had trouble. Rather than just leaving them, they called an ambulance for them and barely made their getaway (they're new to the shadows). Their fixer is pretty annoyed because he also has an axe to grind with those gangers. Now the plan is for him to send another team to take care of those gangers while they're in the hospital. I was thinking to let the players hear about this on the news, with one or two innocent bystanders killed in the attack as well.

I want to show them that the shadows can be pretty dark, but is this too cheap a shot by not giving them a way to prevent this from happening?

2. One of the players own a small company, which exists mainly for background and does not give the player extra money or anything. I wanted to have a Johnson hire the runners to attack this company (not knowing that one of the runners owns it). I have a hard time coming up with ways for the players to get out of this job, though, without outright killing the Johnson or the people behind him..

Any suggestions?

1. You might want to rethink your logic on this scenario. There are plenty of ways to show how dark the SR rule is and it doesn't have to be aimed at the characters. I'm not sure why it's so important that the players regret their actions in showing mercy. They've sent a strong message to the gang. It might be better to have the gang realize the PCs spared their lives and become allies, depending on how the PCs respond. You can easily spin off a bunch of adventures from this. where the PCs help the gang defend their turf, etc. in exchange for favors such as acting as distractions for the PCs runs. The TV shows the Shield and Sons of Anarchy have good examples of characters doing favors for a gang in exchange for future favors.

Also, why is this Fixer so dead set on death on the death of the gangers? Honestly, this sounds like pretty petty drek to me, but I guess it depends on who the Fixer is and how important the gang and the members in the hospital are. It's a pretty common scenario for a Fixer or Johnson want a lesson taught to a gang and them being put in a hospital would please most fixers and Johnsons immensely. An assault on a hospital is costly is why this seems so petty. I mean, these guys aren't the head honchos of a major gang like the Cutters are they? Assuming this fixer has a huge grudge, it would be far cheaper to put more of the gang into the hospital, the ones that aren't currently there. Or wait until the current ones are out and get them then. Most fixers are too busy with biz to even do that.

It's important you don't create the impression that you as the GM are out to get the players, even if the world is dark and out to get them.

2. I'm confused on this scenario. Why don't the players just say no? Not only that, if they play it cool, they now have been tipped off that their company is going to be hit.

[RHat]

1. Don't do this.  There are good (or at least better than most) people in the shadows, including at least a few of the Jackpointers (Frosty is explicitly more moralistic than most runners).  Some people will respect the runners for this, others less so.  It will impact the kind of jobs they get, their relations with these gangers (they saved themselves a worse problem there) - what you need to realize is that your players did the smart thing.

2. They can get out of it by saying "no".  End of story.  An offer from a Johnson doesn't need to be taken - for many people, that's the entire point of being a runner.

I'm not sure, honestly, that you have an accurate concept of Shadowrun.  It's dark, not grimdark.

[Reiper]

The number one part, as others said, seems way to costly. Attacking a hospital is going to be very costly (there would be security at the hospital, and probably LoneStar or their analog pretty close by).

The fixer would probably end up eventually getting himself killed doing things like this, or end up destroying his reputation. I'm generally more inclined to make it harder on people for going into the deep end with going out of their way to kill or hurt people (there is a difference in doing the job and going overboard just because they can), I really wouldn't screw with them a whole lot just for acting like a (meta)human-being.

As far as having the team attack his own business, There would have to be a reason to attack it. If it really isn't bringing in any extra money, then it probably wouldn't be worth attacking. And if its straight out of revenge for part 1, then there is no point in it.

[All4BigGuns]

All right, listen up because this does not happen often, but I am in agreement with Reiper and Rhat on this.

[Reiper]

All right, listen up because this does not happen often, but I am in agreement with Reiper and Rhat on this.

Is that a precursor to the real matrix crash (the Internet crashing in 4.3.2.1...

[All4BigGuns]

All right, listen up because this does not happen often, but I am in agreement with Reiper and Rhat on this.

Is that a precursor to the real matrix crash (the Internet crashing in 4.3.2.1...

It's possible, or it could be a sign of the Apocalypse.

[Tsujigiri]

Thanks for your replies.

1. I already kind of had the feeling that this idea was bit ham-fisted... I guess their Fixer will have to begrudgingly accept it.

2. Okay, it did not really occur to me the players could say no. I don't mean that I would railroad them into accepting, it's just that we're all fairly new to SR. I guess I'll make it into an A-Team-style adventure, defending the company from another runner team and then digging up some stuff about the Johnson to blackmail him into leaving them alone.

[Reiper]

Thanks for your replies.

1. I already kind of had the feeling that this idea was bit ham-fisted... I guess their Fixer will have to begrudgingly accept it.

2. Okay, it did not really occur to me the players could say no. I don't mean that I would railroad them into accepting, it's just that we're all fairly new to SR. I guess I'll make it into an A-Team-style adventure, defending the company from another runner team and then digging up some stuff about the Johnson to blackmail him into leaving them alone.

Defending the company could be pretty fun, or even if it isn't their own personal company being asked to defend a small level company might go well too, especially if your team seems to be fairly nice.

Reminds me of an old chatroom based game in the late 90's that I was in. My team ended up attacking a small time research lab to recover some stolen documents, and when we approached the building and did our initial perception rolls (found a sniper on the roof, some other random things) right before we were going to make our move the GM said "ok swap chatrooms to X and roll initiative. We moved rooms, rolled inititive and so did the other team members that were waiting to defend the lab from a ruthless group of runners hired to break in.

It was really fun. My team ended up not being able to achieve the goal but we did end up stealing some other stuff and came out about even.

[GiraffeShaman]

I guess I'll make it into an A-Team-style adventure, defending the company from another runner team and then digging up some stuff about the Johnson to blackmail him into leaving them alone.

Bonus points if there's a scene with them building a Machine of Death out of scrounged parts found in the business. It might also be interesting if regular employees were somehow employed in the defense. Kind of like the cowboy movies where the townfolk help the hero take on the banditos.

[RHat]

Thanks for your replies.

1. I already kind of had the feeling that this idea was bit ham-fisted... I guess their Fixer will have to begrudgingly accept it.

2. Okay, it did not really occur to me the players could say no. I don't mean that I would railroad them into accepting, it's just that we're all fairly new to SR. I guess I'll make it into an A-Team-style adventure, defending the company from another runner team and then digging up some stuff about the Johnson to blackmail him into leaving them alone.

Well, we need to be careful here because this thread seems to be the beginning of Ragnarok.  But I'm gonna risk it.  I'll note that I'm reading between the lines and making a few assumptions here - I'm aware of it, and if this is inaccurate please do inform me (ad if it offends I'll gladly apologize - I'm Canadian, we're polite like that), but also note that anything I'm assuming comes directly from what you've said thus far.

1. The problem isn't just that it's ham-fisted; the motivation you explained isn't really a valid one; I expect this comes partly out of a false conception of the setting.  The fact that runners turning down a job never occurred to you reinforces this, in my mind.  But there's more to it.  See, wanting to do that suggests, to me, that you think it's your role to set the tone and impose it upon the players.  The fact, however, is that the game world is a collaborative construct made with contributions in roughly equal measure from each individual at the table (the GM may make more stuff, but the PCs have, individually, roughly the same level of impact on the kind of game it is as the sum total of the NPCs - whether you want them to or not), with the rules and setting serving as the common core to keep everything together.  Your players making that choice tells you a lot about the sort of tone they're looking for and the kind of runners they want to play; you should pay attention to this.  And now on to more specific points.

No fixer worth his salt would have an issue with the fact that they called an ambulance for the gangers.  He'd make a note of it, certainly; what this demonstrates to a fixer is that the runners aren't going to go around causing excess collateral carnage, which is valuable to him because of the value it presents to people who'd want to hire the runners.  The big, loud jobs with trails of corpses in their wake are the marks of bad "runners" who are hired to create a distraction so that the real runners can work.  Many of the modules would see the players rewarded for this exact sort of behaviour (especially the Dawn of the Artifacts series).  Even if he has issues with these gangers, he wouldn't expect the runners to be his proxies in it - that's not their job; they are not representatives of his interests.  And he certainly wouldn't go calling down assassinations just 'cause - behaviour like that gets you dead, fast.  And attacking a hospital is a great way to make a lot of people hate you; this is not a reputation a fixer wants.

If you want to introduce some darker elements, that's fine - but to do it by forcibly converting non-dark elements into dark elements is the wrong way to do it.  Just introduce new things that are dark elements; there's no shortage of those.  If you're at a loss for ideas, though, try bugs.  Look up the Universal Brotherhood.

Saving making them regret their decisions for when they make decisions they should actually regret.

2: A better way into this scenario is to have someone warn the runners that the attack is coming.  That said, your difficulties here suggest, again, a setting misconception.  Did you somehow think that a Johnson could ever force the runners to take a job?  I'm rather curious as to what the source of this was - and it's a good thing we pointed the possibility out to you here, rather than you being unprepared for it when it happened in a session.  A lot of GM's I've heard from have said they keep a couple alternate jobs prepped, just in case.  Some of the modules have, as a specific point of "troubleshooting", things to do in the event the characters have objections to the job ("I don't wanna travel", and such).

And a character's background, especially something that's purely RP like this, isn't a decision you should ever be trying to make a player regret.

[All4BigGuns]

Thanks for your replies.

1. I already kind of had the feeling that this idea was bit ham-fisted... I guess their Fixer will have to begrudgingly accept it.

2. Okay, it did not really occur to me the players could say no. I don't mean that I would railroad them into accepting, it's just that we're all fairly new to SR. I guess I'll make it into an A-Team-style adventure, defending the company from another runner team and then digging up some stuff about the Johnson to blackmail him into leaving them alone.

Well, we need to be careful here because this thread seems to be the beginning of Ragnarok.  But I'm gonna risk it.  I'll note that I'm reading between the lines and making a few assumptions here - I'm aware of it, and if this is inaccurate please do inform me (ad if it offends I'll gladly apologize - I'm Canadian, we're polite like that), but also note that anything I'm assuming comes directly from what you've said thus far.

1. The problem isn't just that it's ham-fisted; the motivation you explained isn't really a valid one; I expect this comes partly out of a false conception of the setting.  The fact that runners turning down a job never occurred to you reinforces this, in my mind.  But there's more to it.  See, wanting to do that suggests, to me, that you think it's your role to set the tone and impose it upon the players.  The fact, however, is that the game world is a collaborative construct made with contributions in roughly equal measure from each individual at the table (the GM may make more stuff, but the PCs have, individually, roughly the same level of impact on the kind of game it is as the sum total of the NPCs - whether you want them to or not), with the rules and setting serving as the common core to keep everything together.  Your players making that choice tells you a lot about the sort of tone they're looking for and the kind of runners they want to play; you should pay attention to this.  And now on to more specific points.

No fixer worth his salt would have an issue with the fact that they called an ambulance for the gangers.  He'd make a note of it, certainly; what this demonstrates to a fixer is that the runners aren't going to go around causing excess collateral carnage, which is valuable to him because of the value it presents to people who'd want to hire the runners.  The big, loud jobs with trails of corpses in their wake are the marks of bad "runners" who are hired to create a distraction so that the real runners can work.  Many of the modules would see the players rewarded for this exact sort of behaviour (especially the Dawn of the Artifacts series).  Even if he has issues with these gangers, he wouldn't expect the runners to be his proxies in it - that's not their job; they are not representatives of his interests.  And he certainly wouldn't go calling down assassinations just 'cause - behaviour like that gets you dead, fast.  And attacking a hospital is a great way to make a lot of people hate you; this is not a reputation a fixer wants.

If you want to introduce some darker elements, that's fine - but to do it by forcibly converting non-dark elements into dark elements is the wrong way to do it.  Just introduce new things that are dark elements; there's no shortage of those.  If you're at a loss for ideas, though, try bugs.  Look up the Universal Brotherhood.

Saving making them regret their decisions for when they make decisions they should actually regret.

2: A better way into this scenario is to have someone warn the runners that the attack is coming.  That said, your difficulties here suggest, again, a setting misconception.  Did you somehow think that a Johnson could ever force the runners to take a job?  I'm rather curious as to what the source of this was - and it's a good thing we pointed the possibility out to you here, rather than you being unprepared for it when it happened in a session.  A lot of GM's I've heard from have said they keep a couple alternate jobs prepped, just in case.  Some of the modules have, as a specific point of "troubleshooting", things to do in the event the characters have objections to the job ("I don't wanna travel", and such).

And a character's background, especially something that's purely RP like this, isn't a decision you should ever be trying to make a player regret.

Holy crap...it must truly be the End Of Days. Everyone get to your bunkers, there must be some massive comet on a collision course.

Especially the last part, as that's why I don't bother with more than a couple of scribbled notes of background any more. I've come to regret doing big ones too many times due to it being wasted effort.

[Black]

Thanks for your replies.

1. I already kind of had the feeling that this idea was bit ham-fisted... I guess their Fixer will have to begrudgingly accept it.

2. Okay, it did not really occur to me the players could say no. I don't mean that I would railroad them into accepting, it's just that we're all fairly new to SR. I guess I'll make it into an A-Team-style adventure, defending the company from another runner team and then digging up some stuff about the Johnson to blackmail him into leaving them alone.

Well, we need to be careful here because this thread seems to be the beginning of Ragnarok.  But I'm gonna risk it.  I'll note that I'm reading between the lines and making a few assumptions here - I'm aware of it, and if this is inaccurate please do inform me (ad if it offends I'll gladly apologize - I'm Canadian, we're polite like that), but also note that anything I'm assuming comes directly from what you've said thus far.

1. The problem isn't just that it's ham-fisted; the motivation you explained isn't really a valid one; I expect this comes partly out of a false conception of the setting.  The fact that runners turning down a job never occurred to you reinforces this, in my mind.  But there's more to it.  See, wanting to do that suggests, to me, that you think it's your role to set the tone and impose it upon the players.  The fact, however, is that the game world is a collaborative construct made with contributions in roughly equal measure from each individual at the table (the GM may make more stuff, but the PCs have, individually, roughly the same level of impact on the kind of game it is as the sum total of the NPCs - whether you want them to or not), with the rules and setting serving as the common core to keep everything together.  Your players making that choice tells you a lot about the sort of tone they're looking for and the kind of runners they want to play; you should pay attention to this.  And now on to more specific points.

No fixer worth his salt would have an issue with the fact that they called an ambulance for the gangers.  He'd make a note of it, certainly; what this demonstrates to a fixer is that the runners aren't going to go around causing excess collateral carnage, which is valuable to him because of the value it presents to people who'd want to hire the runners.  The big, loud jobs with trails of corpses in their wake are the marks of bad "runners" who are hired to create a distraction so that the real runners can work.  Many of the modules would see the players rewarded for this exact sort of behaviour (especially the Dawn of the Artifacts series).  Even if he has issues with these gangers, he wouldn't expect the runners to be his proxies in it - that's not their job; they are not representatives of his interests.  And he certainly wouldn't go calling down assassinations just 'cause - behaviour like that gets you dead, fast.  And attacking a hospital is a great way to make a lot of people hate you; this is not a reputation a fixer wants.

If you want to introduce some darker elements, that's fine - but to do it by forcibly converting non-dark elements into dark elements is the wrong way to do it.  Just introduce new things that are dark elements; there's no shortage of those.  If you're at a loss for ideas, though, try bugs.  Look up the Universal Brotherhood.

Saving making them regret their decisions for when they make decisions they should actually regret.

2: A better way into this scenario is to have someone warn the runners that the attack is coming.  That said, your difficulties here suggest, again, a setting misconception.  Did you somehow think that a Johnson could ever force the runners to take a job?  I'm rather curious as to what the source of this was - and it's a good thing we pointed the possibility out to you here, rather than you being unprepared for it when it happened in a session.  A lot of GM's I've heard from have said they keep a couple alternate jobs prepped, just in case.  Some of the modules have, as a specific point of "troubleshooting", things to do in the event the characters have objections to the job ("I don't wanna travel", and such).

And a character's background, especially something that's purely RP like this, isn't a decision you should ever be trying to make a player regret.

Holy crap...it must truly be the End Of Days. Everyone get to your bunkers, there must be some massive comet on a collision course.

Especially the last part, as that's why I don't bother with more than a couple of scribbled notes of background any more. I've come to regret doing big ones too many times due to it being wasted effort.

I concur with what RHat has said here.  Great feedback.

With the attack on the company, I would suggest working out why the Mr Johnson wants to destroy the company and come up with a few ideas on how he is going to do this.  And then work out how to involve the PCs and then let them come up with a plan to deal with the Mr Johnson and just support their ideas with a few twists of your own.  Let the players do some of the work for you and customise the game to their style at the same time.

[RHat]

Thanks for your replies.

1. I already kind of had the feeling that this idea was bit ham-fisted... I guess their Fixer will have to begrudgingly accept it.

2. Okay, it did not really occur to me the players could say no. I don't mean that I would railroad them into accepting, it's just that we're all fairly new to SR. I guess I'll make it into an A-Team-style adventure, defending the company from another runner team and then digging up some stuff about the Johnson to blackmail him into leaving them alone.

Well, we need to be careful here because this thread seems to be the beginning of Ragnarok.  But I'm gonna risk it.  I'll note that I'm reading between the lines and making a few assumptions here - I'm aware of it, and if this is inaccurate please do inform me (ad if it offends I'll gladly apologize - I'm Canadian, we're polite like that), but also note that anything I'm assuming comes directly from what you've said thus far.

1. The problem isn't just that it's ham-fisted; the motivation you explained isn't really a valid one; I expect this comes partly out of a false conception of the setting.  The fact that runners turning down a job never occurred to you reinforces this, in my mind.  But there's more to it.  See, wanting to do that suggests, to me, that you think it's your role to set the tone and impose it upon the players.  The fact, however, is that the game world is a collaborative construct made with contributions in roughly equal measure from each individual at the table (the GM may make more stuff, but the PCs have, individually, roughly the same level of impact on the kind of game it is as the sum total of the NPCs - whether you want them to or not), with the rules and setting serving as the common core to keep everything together.  Your players making that choice tells you a lot about the sort of tone they're looking for and the kind of runners they want to play; you should pay attention to this.  And now on to more specific points.

No fixer worth his salt would have an issue with the fact that they called an ambulance for the gangers.  He'd make a note of it, certainly; what this demonstrates to a fixer is that the runners aren't going to go around causing excess collateral carnage, which is valuable to him because of the value it presents to people who'd want to hire the runners.  The big, loud jobs with trails of corpses in their wake are the marks of bad "runners" who are hired to create a distraction so that the real runners can work.  Many of the modules would see the players rewarded for this exact sort of behaviour (especially the Dawn of the Artifacts series).  Even if he has issues with these gangers, he wouldn't expect the runners to be his proxies in it - that's not their job; they are not representatives of his interests.  And he certainly wouldn't go calling down assassinations just 'cause - behaviour like that gets you dead, fast.  And attacking a hospital is a great way to make a lot of people hate you; this is not a reputation a fixer wants.

If you want to introduce some darker elements, that's fine - but to do it by forcibly converting non-dark elements into dark elements is the wrong way to do it.  Just introduce new things that are dark elements; there's no shortage of those.  If you're at a loss for ideas, though, try bugs.  Look up the Universal Brotherhood.

Saving making them regret their decisions for when they make decisions they should actually regret.

2: A better way into this scenario is to have someone warn the runners that the attack is coming.  That said, your difficulties here suggest, again, a setting misconception.  Did you somehow think that a Johnson could ever force the runners to take a job?  I'm rather curious as to what the source of this was - and it's a good thing we pointed the possibility out to you here, rather than you being unprepared for it when it happened in a session.  A lot of GM's I've heard from have said they keep a couple alternate jobs prepped, just in case.  Some of the modules have, as a specific point of "troubleshooting", things to do in the event the characters have objections to the job ("I don't wanna travel", and such).

And a character's background, especially something that's purely RP like this, isn't a decision you should ever be trying to make a player regret.

Holy crap...it must truly be the End Of Days. Everyone get to your bunkers, there must be some massive comet on a collision course.

Especially the last part, as that's why I don't bother with more than a couple of scribbled notes of background any more. I've come to regret doing big ones too many times due to it being wasted effort.

I concur with what RHat has said here.  Great feedback.

With the attack on the company, I would suggest working out why the Mr Johnson wants to destroy the company and come up with a few ideas on how he is going to do this.  And then work out how to involve the PCs and then let them come up with a plan to deal with the Mr Johnson and just support their ideas with a few twists of your own.  Let the players do some of the work for you and customise the game to their style at the same time.

Suggestion:  Wait until they piss somebody off, and make this revenge with a side of profit.  Otherwise, the company has to have enough impact to become a target in its own right, which doesn't well suit its lack of game impact.

[Black]

Good point RHat. Perhaps if they did some runs which actually built the company's profile, they would become invested in it enough to care more if someone targetted it... And those runs may be the very reason why its a target.
My some corporate espoinage to get the inside run on a tender, steal some cutting edge research or even an extraction?