Back to the main page

Mailing List Logs for ShadowRN

Message no. 1
From: Todd Montgomery <tmont@****.WVU.EDU>
Subject: Initiatives and Money
Date: Tue, 10 Aug 1993 21:32:50 -0400
GM tricks gathered over the years of SR gaming:

1: Initiative

A) Try a new initiative system.
I use the system proposed on rec.games.frp.misc
a long time ago.
Basically you use only 1 D6 but for every additional
die you have for initiative you get -1 to the phases between
your actions. So Wired 2 gives +4 to reaction and makes
the phases between actions equal to 8. This seems to work
very well. But you might want to check out the other
options in the Shadowrun FAQ put out by Wordman.
B) Going first is not always helpful.
Put mages who go at ungodly speeds up against
several Manifest high force Elementals. This
keeps them busy.
C) Delayed actions from snipers make the faster targets
very appealing.

2) Money

A) Monthly expenses don't cover everything. A person
living in the Barrens under a low lifestyle may not
have trid, power, phone, because these services
are notoriously unreliable in areas such as the
Barrens. There is always additional expenses that
the GM can always think of to empty the coffers of
hording PCs. Extortion from local gangs to protect
the homestead, paying contacts so that the relationship
stays close and loyal (also favors can be called in)
(This stuff is best handled like a two way street just
so PCs don't get in bad moods about them.) Expenses to
keep the PCs fake ids up to date and accounts not
traceable. And my personal favorite, Romantic Enterests
and dependable relatives. The best way to handle all
this is ask the player what they want in the way of
siblings/homes/neighborhoods/etc. and start being
deviant.

3) PCs who all they want to do is SHOOT, SHOOT, SHOOT!!

A) Use their reputation to be their downfall. They
become the target of choice. And will be the brunt
of many first strikes and ambushes. ALso hit them
when they are down. And hit them where it counts,
deckers wiping accounts, (Gotta have a good decker
buddy to set up the safe means of operating) surprise
attacks at the PCs home, etc. Just be evil. The player
eventually gets the idea from the streets that he is an
easy mark and taking him/her down well really up some
persons status on the street. Sometimes psychos can
be very useful. (Killing the president syndrome).

B) Make it blatantly obvious that being successful in a run
involves more than combat. Don't be afraid to let them
fail because no one had any social ability when it was
really needed. But let them know that THEY messed it up
by not being rounded enough to get the job done. If the
PCs depend on the GM to make up for their inadequate
abilities they will never want to do anything but
power game. If they continue to just live for combat
and look at the rest as filler, get some new players
that think more like you want them to. If you like
just combat then it works out really well for you.

This is just some opinions and ideas I have used that have really
worked well in SRI and SRII. My group is, by combat means, underpowered,
but hold a large amount and quality of skills that have prooved to be
very invaluable.

-- Quiktek
-- Todd Montgomery
tmont@****.wvu.edu
tmont@***.wvu.edu
un032507@*******.wvnet.edu

Further Reading

If you enjoyed reading about Initiatives and Money, you may also be interested in:

Disclaimer

These messages were posted a long time ago on a mailing list far, far away. The copyright to their contents probably lies with the original authors of the individual messages, but since they were published in an electronic forum that anyone could subscribe to, and the logs were available to subscribers and most likely non-subscribers as well, it's felt that re-publishing them here is a kind of public service.