From:	Mark Steedman <M.J.Steedman@***.RGU.AC.UK>
Subject:	Re: FWD> Character Death was RE
Date:	Thu, 19 Dec 1996 11:30:17 GMT

David Thompson writes

> Steve Collins wrote:
>
note please limit lines at 200 characters pref 70 or so, i origonally
go about 3 lines of your huge post.
[lopping mode engage]

> >Gee I've never had one of my characters die off either. Of course I have
> only played Shadowrun about 6 times. As a GM ( I am always the GM :< ) I can
> only remember 1 character dying on a run. A Fire Elemental Adept
not such a suprise, however courageous action, assuming the aim was
party saving in the first place.

> After a run when he had some spare cash he decided to get some more
> Cyber installed. A week or so later I did one of my periodic character
> reviews and found that this character had 32 (that's right 32 not 3.2)
> points worth of cyber in his body
oh dear....... Q? how many cortex bombs?

> The Doc had
> chopped him and got rich by selling the parts and was living it up in the
> Riviera.
in this case this is justifiable.

> And finally there was the time I told the entire party to
> just give me their character sheets because they were all dead.
sorry i don't think much of this. Ok they deserved to be dead but you
should always play it out, even if all they get is the perception
test target lots! followed by resist damage, but that only in the
most extrordinary circumstances.

> They hosed the run totally
> when the Cat Shaman was captured doing some scouting while invisible.
Should probably earn the Shaman a vist to interogation, maybe a
cortex bomb. When will folks learn magic is not invulnerability.

> Ute Authorities in bringing these international terrorists to justice and
> provided video's of all the dead mand known associates while they were
> conducting a "revenge run on Renraku ", it was actually a doctored version
> of them walking down the corrodors of the Renraku office that they went to
> meet their Johnson in.
Now thats more like it, and just like mega corps.

> I just decided they were all dead and gave each one
> of them a quick description of how it happened for him ( usually Ritual
> sendings )
1) you should roll the dice for PC's really.
2) did the corp in question have valid ritual samples?
3) why did they bother, having sorted that vid, a few leaks should
have trashed their reps, and left street scum to do it not their
expensive to use ritual team.

[David Thomsons post : start]
[ both were indented once.]
> >
> Sorry to say it, but this is exactly the kind of thing I don't like.
likewise.

> I've had characters killed by
> GM's because of things like this, actually less drastic though. I had a GM
> send huge magical and mundane forces after the party, chasing us and
> disorienting us with the troops, and then killing us all by a combination of
> suprise, huge elementals, and some invisible (as in really not present, even
> to astral perception) mage casting mind control on the guy with the minigun.
oh yes GM's that ignore the rules, don't bother to let Players chose
their reactions, don't implement the world (ie available actions are
limited by which the GM will deal with the results of etc etc) i
really dislike this sort of thing.

> (Oh, and the only
> reason he had suprise was because he decided to ignore me and one other list
> member yelling at him that we wanted to post watches and patrols -- remember
Ah yes the, i'll say what happens and ignore the players approach.
Or you stand there and watch.
Or somehow in initative infinity the chopper flies up, grab x, shoots
y and gets over the tree line!
Yeah right!, that last i saw followed same adventure by two sec
squads backed by about 4 grade 6 mages, we didn't know what they were
par Tir Na Nog (they described as average swat goons at worst) so
didn't surrender (that looked stupid like we were really going to
ever be free again, total adventure implosion followed in short
order)

The time i had PC's make a mess of a big corp penetration when GMing,
they got noticed, so the corpers set up an ambush and loaded gel, and
still the dratted rigger got away (the one with enough sense to spend
his first action running like mad!) The rest woke up less ritual
samples, with Cortex bombs and rather well acquainted with Sader
Krupp! Oh and asked 'oh so kindly' to tell Sader Krupp who hired them
(and not just the fixers name) and why.

Far more fun :), i did roll the dice, if fact the sec goons weren't
that spectacular just they had an ambush, lots of gel ammo and drone
+ magic backup, oh and better cover!

Mark