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From:	Shannon@*****.co.za (Shannon Buys)
Subject:	Getting players to LOOK for work, getting them hooked.
Date:	Tue, 11 Feb 2003 15:38:47 +0200

Message no. 1 I have a problem in my game. I have some newbies who are coming along
nicely. Unfortunately I loathe just handing out work. Shadowrunners,
especially low level ones should have to LOOK for work, and look hard at
that. If I leave them, they generally just stuff around and do stupid crap
which ends up taking the game off on some inane twist and no-one ends up
having fun.

I said last session that they have the first 45 minutes of the game to do
any personal stuff they want to, look for gear, etc, after that it's a run.
This goes totally against my view of playing the game. I'd rather have them
work cause they need and want to, rather than because the gM tells them to.
Unfortunately they scored lucky off a few runs in the beginning, which I
allowed thinking it would give them 'adventuring capital' to make the game
more fun and give them more options. It's resulted in them having the
attitude of why should I work, I don't need money now.

One of the things I came up with is to drain them of cash through something
untill they NEEDED to work. Another option is if they don't create their
own adventure by looking for work (I have a stack of runs prepared for them
to pick and choose from) I would start creating my own.

Draw them into plots that may be interesting, but that don't pay and drain
them of cash. HOW, is the problem? How do I involve them? Gang war, fight
to survive and save their area of the shadows? Hunted by someone they don't
know or have no idea why he's looking for them? These seem just a little
cheesy. Anyone got any good ideas on this?

From:	SteveG@***********.co.za (Steve Garrard)
Subject:	Getting players to LOOK for work, getting them hooked.
Date:	Tue, 11 Feb 2003 15:52:00 +0200

Message no. 2 Shannon Buys wrote:
> [snip]
>
> I said last session that they have the first 45 minutes of
> the game to do any personal stuff they want to, look for
> gear, etc, after that it's a run. This goes totally against
> my view of playing the game. I'd rather have them work cause
> they need and want to, rather than because the gM tells them
> to. Unfortunately they scored lucky off a few runs in the
> beginning, which I allowed thinking it would give them
> 'adventuring capital' to make the game more fun and give them
> more options. It's resulted in them having the attitude of
> why should I work, I don't need money now.
>
> One of the things I came up with is to drain them of cash
> through something untill they NEEDED to work. Another option
> is if they don't create their own adventure by looking for
> work (I have a stack of runs prepared for them to pick and
> choose from) I would start creating my own.
>
> [snip]

Well ridding your characters of excess cash isn't too difficult. The trick
IMO is doing it in such a way that the players don't feel they're being
treated unfairly. Of course, if your players are sabotaging the game for
themselves, then maybe this doesn't matter.

If your PCs have money on the stock market, cause their stock to crash. If
they've sunk their money into assets like property or businesses, burn the
property or business down, or have the local criminal organization/street
gang start hassling them for protection money. If they just carry their
money around on their credsticks, there are still muggers and pickpockets in
2060.

There are any number of ways to go about draining your PCs of cash. Think of
something inventive and fun, and if it leads to a run or something similar,
all the better.

Slayer

"Beware my wrath, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup."
- Unknown Dragon

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From:	shadowrun@*********.com (Ward Rubrecht)
Subject:	Getting players to LOOK for work, getting them hooked.
Date:	Tue, 11 Feb 2003 23:16:11 +0300

Message no. 3 According to Shannon Buys, on Tue, 11 Feb 2003 the word on the street was...

"Draw them into plots that may be interesting, but that don't pay and
drain
them of cash. HOW, is the problem? How do I involve them? Gang
war, fight
to survive and save their area of the shadows?Hunted by someone
they don't
know or have no idea why he's looking for them? These seem just a
little
cheesy. Anyone got any good ideas on this?"

First, it's important as a GM not to drain the runners of resources with trite incidents,
such as "You wake up today and your car's been stolen. There's no clue as to who's
done it; none of the neighbors seem to have noticed anything during the night." This
just makes the players angry at the GM because he's robbed them of what they believe
they've earned.

That said, I would suggest a run in which some of the runner's main assets (think
vehicles, decks, weapons) get stolen in a reasonably believable way. This works especially
well if the runners have been using the item prominently in past runs (always flying in on
their new attack chopper, always busting into heavily fortified hosts with their new
Greased Thunder Fuchi deck; in other words, some item that makes them overpowered).

Leave some clues as to who might have done it and let the runners churn their contacts
for information. You could even lead them to a red herring, like a local gang or another
group of runners. If they aren't careful and don't ask any questions, they might even get
into a fight with said group, which is fruitless, of course, because the group didn't take
their stuff.

Once their initial fury has been worked out in whatever way, have a Johnson call them,
offering to trade the runners the info on their thief in exchange for some work. This work
can be pretty much anything, but the targets should generally be associated with the guys
who snitched their gear. Anyways, the group they run against decide to liquidate the
merchandise and get out of town before more of their stuff gets blown up. At this point,
if the runners have performed adequately and are sufficiently curious, allow them to track
the guilty party out of town.

In other words, you can take this idea to any extreme you want to, including having the
Johnson screw the runners out of even more money, or, if the stuff the runners lost is
really ridiculous (never should have let them buy that fighter plane at character
creation), just let it get lost or sold in the process. Blame it on the fact that the
runners made too much noise on the streets and the thieves got nervous. If they manage to
get the stuff back from the thieves after they flee Seattle, the runners have got a
problem moving it back across the border, since it's almost certainly illegal. Maybe they
have to pay smugglers to get it through (spending even more resources).

This plot device makes the players feel like they've really accomplished something by
beating the tar out of whoever robbed them, while really they end up with less than they
started with.

I've talked too long, but I guess my main point is that a GM needs to make robbing the
players part of the game, and not just a side note to down time. Also, he needs to couch
the fact that he's robbing them with their ability to get everything back intact if they
do a really fantastic job.

I'm out,

Ward
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From:	loneeagle@********.co.uk (Lone Eagle)
Subject:	Getting players to LOOK for work, getting them hooked.
Date:	Tue, 11 Feb 2003 23:08:50 +0000

Message no. 4 At 01:38 PM 11/2/2003, Shannon wrote:
>One of the things I came up with is to drain them of cash through something
>untill they NEEDED to work. Another option is if they don't create their
>own adventure by looking for work (I have a stack of runs prepared for them
>to pick and choose from) I would start creating my own.
>
>Draw them into plots that may be interesting, but that don't pay and drain
>them of cash. HOW, is the problem? How do I involve them? Gang war, fight
>to survive and save their area of the shadows? Hunted by someone they don't
>know or have no idea why he's looking for them? These seem just a little
>cheesy. Anyone got any good ideas on this?

One I've used to great effect (but which only really works if they have
contacts who know their real ID but not their 'runner ID, although it also
works with a male player with a "defenceless" female contact) is to have a
contact run into trouble, give them karma for going "in the hole"
(graduated according to how much they go in the hole (eg <5000 = 1 karma,
<10000 = 2 Karma, >10000 = 3 Karma) this is a one off and you let them know
exactly what they've missed out on at the end)

It worked with some of my players, (the ones I really need it to work on
weren't involved. :-( )

--
Lone Eagle
"Hold up lads, I got an idea."

www.wyrmtalk.co.uk - Please be patient, this site is under construction

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