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Message no. 1
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Dan Turek)
Subject: Group Interaction and Exotic to Impossible Equipment
Date: Fri Oct 12 02:15:08 2001
I really like the group I have right now. All but one try to be stealthy and
do things like they were part of a military group (which is not in all of
their backgrounds). The other, my personal favorite of late, they call ADD
boy. Ex. the sniper is in position, the mage is waiting invisible, the
decker is hiding and the phys ads are scouting. After 10 minutes of nothing
to do but hide and wait like the decker, ADD decides "hell with this" and
climbs the building. No attempts at stealth and no subtlety when he
encounters hostiles. While the group gets mad at him, he is a perfect
distraction (though they don't seem to notice). Sadly, since I don't like to
do one-on-ones, the group heard him talk about them to Rikki Ratboy (I love
example characters, almost all his stuff is in the rulebooks!) and they feel
he sold them out. We picked SR since it is dark, and I wanted a game where
they could shoot each other if they Really wanted (most are mature enough to
not hold a grudge over it). I love the character, and will miss him when it
happens. (Their meta-gaming isn't the only reason, it just put them
over-the-top, and they all anticipate when their characters find out).

Whiny players, and especially whiny, immature players that ruins the game
for everyone else are best to be cut out. Of course, they are probably
someone's friend in real-life and live in a state of denial at how
impossible they are when gaming. If you have to see this person, you could
always make a campaign for them (whether Mercs, or even switch to a system
where being all-powerful is common like Mage), but don't expect other people
to play for long. Has anyone seen two munchkins in the same group get along?
I've only seen them go for each other's throats.

They get to adventure in the Tir soon. For that adventure they have to stick
together to get out. When I'm a player I hate when the GM forces anything
(I've even voted turning down runs "You want us to hunt down a Toxic Shaman
for 40k? I go home and watch the trid!") or disallows something.

I have a hard time seeing anyone having a Sorcery library of 20, and the
Medicine Lodge for that would be huge. But what really is the "reasonable
limit" for PC's? Personally, I think anything over 12 is excessive, and have
never seen a PC with any skill or spell greater than 10.

Most of my players have minimal contacts, but I would love it if they wanted
to try for something huge and expensive. Not only would it kill their cash (
which is usually a better asset than any one item ), but it makes for an
easy adventure. "You want a Phaeton Rolls-Royce? Let me look, call you back
in 3 days". 2 days later "Yeah, I can get one, but it will take 3 months and
cost price * streetindex + whatever". Next day, calling character #2 "I got
some biz, I need you to get a Phaeton Rolls-Royce, and try to keep it in top
condition... No, all I have is a name and address. Oh, worth about half
(price * streetindex), but only if you get it within the month"

I don't see any reason to keep Banshees or Tanks from them, but not only do
they never have the money, but they are usually too wise to deal with the
people that sell those kinds of items. As mentioned earlier, there is no
good use for a Banshee other than smuggling or quick transport, and even
then you have to hide it Real Good when you park.

_________________________________________________________________
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Message no. 2
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Melina York)
Subject: Group Interaction and Exotic to Impossible Equipment
Date: Fri Oct 12 14:05:01 2001
-----Original Message-----
From: Dan Turek <danturek@*******.com>


>Personally, I think anything over 12 is excessive, and have
>never seen a PC with any skill or spell greater than 10.


I agree with 12 being a realistic ceiling to a player's skills, but don't
think it should be an actual limit. Most players in my group see acheiving a
skill level of 8+ in their primary skill(s) as one of the drives behind
playing. Most have at least one skill in that range, with several having a
skill or two at 10. One has a Mana Blast spell at force 12. However, these
are the exceptions, and I'm not talking about beginners. Most skills,
spells, and equipment ratings are between 4 - 8. A broadly focused char
doesn't have the time, money, or karma, to get all their gear and skills up
to ratings much higher than that, let alone maintain it all. Isn't that why
a well-balanced group is so important?

>Most of my players have minimal contacts, but I would love it if they
wanted
>to try for something huge and expensive. Not only would it kill their cash
(
>which is usually a better asset than any one item ), but it makes for an
>easy adventure. "You want a Phaeton Rolls-Royce? Let me look, call you back
>in 3 days".
snip
>I don't see any reason to keep Banshees or Tanks from them, but not only do
>they never have the money, but they are usually too wise to deal with the
>people that sell those kinds of items.

I'm not sure I fully agree. There's a saying in our group: You can have anything, if you
like. What it has come to mean is that while anything is available, the big toys come with
equally big consequences. I'll give my players anything they can get - and keep. One of
the keys to this is contacts. We spend two-thirds of our game time involved in legwork and
other contact related interaction. One char has gone so far as to link some of his
contacts, a couple data havens, real and fake SINs, and a couple banks into a money
laundering-investment scheme that is simply amazing.

That being said, no
one has yet gone for the really big items they drool over, The rigger in
our group always used to say I was supposed to leave a Banshee out for him
when I'm GM. So I did. The group watched as a Cascade Ork smuggler run came
into Redmond in a Banshee. They watched everyone get out. And then watched
everyone get back in and fly off. The rigger never made a move (neither did
anyone else). They all seemed too spooked by the mass of weapons deployed
just prior to landing. As he (the rigger) pointed out later: yes, he *could*
have stolen the empty Banshee; but they didn't know it was empty for sure.
What if there was still another rigger inside? They'd all be fine pink mist
before the run even got started. So you see, even something free sometimes
seems too pricey.

The real key to the big money and the big toys is knowing the right people
and parlaying apparently useless info picked up on a run (not necessarily
even related to what the run was about) into something far larger. I'll give
you an example: when the Corp War began, one of our players clicked onto the
internal dissension inside Fuchi before most, and certainly long before it
was public. He converted almost his entire savings into Fuchi stock, and
shortsold it. When Fuchi stock took a nosedive, he made a killing. He
literally risked almost all he had, but came out way (way!) ahead.

Who you know and how you play them is what its all about.

Pete
GM, player, and general SR addict
Message no. 3
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Damion Milliken)
Subject: Group Interaction and Exotic to Impossible Equipment
Date: Tue Oct 16 07:00:01 2001
Dan Turek writes:

> We picked SR since it is dark, and I wanted a game where they could shoot
> each other if they Really wanted (most are mature enough to not hold a
> grudge over it). I love the character, and will miss him when it happens.
> (Their meta-gaming isn't the only reason, it just put them over-the-top,
> and they all anticipate when their characters find out).

Bummer. But they kind of did know what they were getting into when the game
began, it sounds. So did the nutcase with the "brain dead" character. I
wouldn't shed too many a tear over it.

> Has anyone seen two munchkins in the same group get along? I've only seen
> them go for each other's throats.

It depends upon what you really mean as "munchkin" I think. I've a couple of
players who would probably fall into the "munchkin" category in most
people's books. I just call them powergamers - they simply will not take any
item, equipment, skill, stat, edge, etc, etc, unless it provides the
greatest "bang for the buck", bonus, etc. But they have wonderful character
ideas at the same time, so they make great players, and they get along quite
well.

The most difficult players I have faced are the "I am the center of the
universe. All attention must be given to me. Everybody see me shine. I am
great. Bow down and pay homage to me now you worthless slime." types. OK, so
I got a little carried away, but I guess you know what I mean. The kind of
player who seems to be suffering from a psychological difficulty that
results in him continuously desiring to be the center of attention. And
forever trying to grab it the moment it drifts off to sombody else, even if
it means playing ridiculously stupid characters or doing insane dum-arsed
things in the game. I figure these kind of people have a personal problem,
and if they can't handle a team oriented environment they can go and play
their nintendo. I've yet to see even one of these such individuals stick
around in a game for more than about 4 weeks, let alone _two_ or more at the
same time!

> I have a hard time seeing anyone having a Sorcery library of 20, and the
> Medicine Lodge for that would be huge. But what really is the "reasonable
> limit" for PC's? Personally, I think anything over 12 is excessive, and have
> never seen a PC with any skill or spell greater than 10.

I don't know. If you play often enough, it's quite easy to get extremely
high powered. I play once a week, for an about 4 hour session. After several
years, the most powerful characters have earned about 300 karma.

Ivy K (some may recall her), played 3 times a week, for about 7 hour
sessions. I remember getting flamed into cinders when I suggested that her
3000 karma characters were somewhat muchkinous with their skills of 18 and
such.

I think it's all a bit relative. I will comment, though, that as soon as
anything reaches a value of 12, the game mechanics start to break down. With
a game that revolves around 6's, anything that either needs two of them
consecutively as a TN, or is capable of almost gauranteeing one on a roll,
begins to cause problems.

--
Damion Milliken University of Wollongong
Unofficial Shadowrun Guru E-mail: dam01@***.edu.au
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