Well, I'm back. It's been awhile but I reached a point where I'm looking to put a group together, and with that I started thinking about Shadowrun again. It only made sense then to restart the blog as well.
I want to ramble for a bit on one of the hardest points to GM of a modern, or pseudo-modern RPG. The police.
I recently wrapped up a play-through of Mafia 2, on the XBox 360, and one of the things I liked about that game, that I think is missing in a lot of games is the fact that the police behaved in a semi-believable manner. Hit someone while a cop is near? That'll get you in trouble. Speed, that'll attract attention. Commit the usual bevy of mayhem, or mischief? That'll get police attention.
Granted, the game handles the police far too leniently in my mind, which results in some odd behavior. For example, you duck down a side ally for a minute, and voila, all is forgiven. Pull back out in front of the same police cruiser, and it's as if you'd never hit them at all. Now, I understand this makes sense from a game mechanic perspective, the game is supposed to be fun, but it rubbed me the wrong way. It, in a way, violates the "rules" that we all intrinsically understand.
The Seattle police department, today, isn't known for their ethnic, and cultural sensitivity. In fact, they aren't known for sensitivity, period. I cannot fathom that this viewpoint will change much in the future, and especially not once you start talking about Megacorps, and meta-humanity.
Where am I going with this? Quite simply, I think the police, and security in general are one of the hardest aspects to get right in Shadowrun. I'm reminded of Shadowrun 3rd Edition. Lone Star officers came equipped with a burst-fire only heavy pistol, the name escapes me, but it was simply terrifying. A car with two officers was a serious threat, simply because they were lethal. Granted, I handled this all wrong when I was GM'ng SR3. I played the cops as bumbling fools, often fudging the dice to reduce the lethality. This made for a more playable game, a more "fun" game, but it's not a memory I look back on fondly.
I firmly believe that the police should be scary.
Part of this comes from a shift in my understanding of what a Shadowrunner is. When I was younger I liked my characters to survive, to reach nearly Godlike levels of skill, and lethality. Character death was unheard of. It wasn't uncommon for characters to retire with millions in the bank.
This isn't Shadowrun.
Shadowrunners die. A lot. Shadowrunners are disposable, cheap throw-away bang-bang for their corporate overlords.
Characters should die. If they do something stupid, or are simply unlucky.
I'm still wrestling with exactly how I want to play the police in my new group, but as the thought processes gel a little more, you'll see my thoughts here.
Information for GMs, and gaming groups, targeted for Shadowrun 5th Edition.
Showing posts with label Fireside Chat. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fireside Chat. Show all posts
Monday, August 10, 2015
Thursday, May 22, 2014
Fireside Chat: Running in the Real World
I recently read a review of Elder Scrolls Online, and the biggest complaint is that the player didn't feel like they were the center of the world, and in previous games that had been a major selling point. The reviewer stated that he felt okay with the idea that when he left a town that the inhabitants simply froze, waiting for his return.
That got me thinking about role-playing games and how we as the GM tend to build the world around our players. For example, what's it matter if the next town over is under attack, if our players never visit? When I run D&D I build my world as a series of points each of them existing as a chain as the party moves throughout the landscape. However, if the players journey off that road I'm left scrambling. Simply put, I didn't build a world, I built an adventure, and when that adventure went an unexpected direction I was left flat footed.
I've been guilty of the same behavior in Shadowrun. However in Shadowrun I feel it's almost inexcusable. I've talked a bit about the value of having a folio of people, and places, and the help that can come from having a standing cast but I want to touch on the idea that maybe the players aren't that important. I know, this seems radical but stay with me.
Let's envision a run, the team is hired by a rookie looking Mr. Johnson, new suit, ill-fitting, he pays too much out of the gate, and flubs the negotiation badly. The team is looking to make a lot of money for relatively little work. So far this sounds like a standard Shadowrun setup. Let's take a moment to step back. Why is the Johnson hiring the team? Why this specific group. Remember there are hundreds of Runners, of various levels of professionalism, and skill set. Why did he pick this group? What is going on in his background to make him need a Runner team in the first place?
Let's assume that Mr. Johnson is running a scam. He owns a business, and needs an out. He's going to hire the team, make sure they damage the business so he can walk away with the insurance, and to top it all off he's going to make sure he doesn't need to pay them. Why? Because he's Mr. Johnson. Still sounds fairly vanilla-Shadowrun.
A day or two after the meet Mr. Johnson gets nabbed. His insurance company got wind of the attempted fraud, and he's been picked up and is currently sitting in jail with no way to alert the team that the poorly planned insurance fraud scheme is not going to work. The world has taken an action outside of the context of the team, at this point there's no way they can get paid, but they don't know that. Maybe they go on the run, and finding no resistance, quickly accomplish the tasks set for them. Of course, they don't know that the reason they don't meet any resistance is because the building has been seized by the insurance company, and when they contact Mr. Johnson he's gone quiet.
This is one of the hardest things for a GM to work with. You have a group that's now most likely disappointed. They had a milk run, and now there's no money. Bills need paid, and there's no payday. However this is one of the reasons I absolutely love Shadowrun. The world, the real world, doesn't have to sit still and wait for the team to come along and give it meaning. Have a contact you really like? He bar tend? Well, now the bar's closed. What do you do now? Or, he's been shot. There was a row at the bar and he ended up on the wrong end of a shotgun blast.
I'm still playing with the concept, but I like the potential of having a living, breathing world, and the party is a tiny, tiny cog. I'm sure this will come up again, but in the meantime, if you've ever thought about the wider world in your games, or have interesting ways of keeping your party from feeling that the world revolves around them leave a comment!
That got me thinking about role-playing games and how we as the GM tend to build the world around our players. For example, what's it matter if the next town over is under attack, if our players never visit? When I run D&D I build my world as a series of points each of them existing as a chain as the party moves throughout the landscape. However, if the players journey off that road I'm left scrambling. Simply put, I didn't build a world, I built an adventure, and when that adventure went an unexpected direction I was left flat footed.
I've been guilty of the same behavior in Shadowrun. However in Shadowrun I feel it's almost inexcusable. I've talked a bit about the value of having a folio of people, and places, and the help that can come from having a standing cast but I want to touch on the idea that maybe the players aren't that important. I know, this seems radical but stay with me.
Let's envision a run, the team is hired by a rookie looking Mr. Johnson, new suit, ill-fitting, he pays too much out of the gate, and flubs the negotiation badly. The team is looking to make a lot of money for relatively little work. So far this sounds like a standard Shadowrun setup. Let's take a moment to step back. Why is the Johnson hiring the team? Why this specific group. Remember there are hundreds of Runners, of various levels of professionalism, and skill set. Why did he pick this group? What is going on in his background to make him need a Runner team in the first place?
Let's assume that Mr. Johnson is running a scam. He owns a business, and needs an out. He's going to hire the team, make sure they damage the business so he can walk away with the insurance, and to top it all off he's going to make sure he doesn't need to pay them. Why? Because he's Mr. Johnson. Still sounds fairly vanilla-Shadowrun.
A day or two after the meet Mr. Johnson gets nabbed. His insurance company got wind of the attempted fraud, and he's been picked up and is currently sitting in jail with no way to alert the team that the poorly planned insurance fraud scheme is not going to work. The world has taken an action outside of the context of the team, at this point there's no way they can get paid, but they don't know that. Maybe they go on the run, and finding no resistance, quickly accomplish the tasks set for them. Of course, they don't know that the reason they don't meet any resistance is because the building has been seized by the insurance company, and when they contact Mr. Johnson he's gone quiet.
This is one of the hardest things for a GM to work with. You have a group that's now most likely disappointed. They had a milk run, and now there's no money. Bills need paid, and there's no payday. However this is one of the reasons I absolutely love Shadowrun. The world, the real world, doesn't have to sit still and wait for the team to come along and give it meaning. Have a contact you really like? He bar tend? Well, now the bar's closed. What do you do now? Or, he's been shot. There was a row at the bar and he ended up on the wrong end of a shotgun blast.
I'm still playing with the concept, but I like the potential of having a living, breathing world, and the party is a tiny, tiny cog. I'm sure this will come up again, but in the meantime, if you've ever thought about the wider world in your games, or have interesting ways of keeping your party from feeling that the world revolves around them leave a comment!
Thursday, March 27, 2014
Fireside Chat: Matrix Topography
I'm in the process of putting together a new story arc, and I decided I wanted to challenge myself and build a Matrix-centric story line. Now, in most of my games the Matrix is seen as a tool, something my players interact with to accomplish the mission, and not as a crucial part of the gaming session. A lot of this is a hold over from Shadowrun 3rd Edition when running the Matrix was a very painful experience.
However, in Shadowrun 5th Edition the Matrix blends with the real-world action a bit better. While it's still not perfect, it's close. So, with that I mind I sat down to think about what I wanted the Matrix interactions to look like. In previous games I always tried to make Matrix hosts ritzy, and glamorous, wild colors, and crazy layouts. However, as I started planning the run I realized that from the perspective of a system administrator, that's the last thing I would want.
A Matrix host is tied to a physical location, so, why would you design your Matrix host to be wildly different from your physical location? Especially in the case of an office building, bank, factory, or other production facility.
I started with the first major location, a boat yard in Everett.I modeled the location on Vigor Industries, a real-world shipbuilder in Seattle. I had a good idea of the yard layout that I wanted, several large dry docs, fabrication sheds, storage sheds, liquid tanks, parking, etc. all enclosed by a high fence, and a legacy drone on rail system, that's a hold-over from Shadowrun 4th Edition.
With the physical layout roughed out I turned over to the Matrix. At first, I envisioned this nautical themed host, with boats, and pirates, and parrot IC. This seemed like an amazing idea at first, but as I played with it more, and the physical location came together, the analogy fell apart. It simply was a pain to remember the pirate-centric theme as I developed the run. I realized, that if I couldn't remember the theme in planning, I wasn't going to remember it at the table.
With that in mind I sat back with a coffee and thought about the problem from a real world view. I've worked in web design, both front end, and back end development, and I wondered if I was handed the challenge of designing a Matrix host for a shipyard, what would it look like? How would I design it if I had to sit and maintain it day after day.
I started with the drones. I wanted legacy drones on a rail, with a smaller number of tracked drones inside, and a large group of worker drones in cradles and on charging pads around the 12 acre facility. All of these were represented in the Matrix by an icon that roughly mirrored their function. Welder drones looked like a MIG set, trundle drones looked like a hand cart, etc. Security drones used their default icon, and so would be immediately recognizable to my team, with a spot check, and possibly a knowledge check.
With the drones sorted, I moved on to the buildings. I theorized that with RFID tags, and smart inventory systems, there's no reason that the security rigger shouldn't be able to see the buildings contents, once he had a mark on the building's icon. With this in mind, I developed a layer-cake model for the buildings. Each building was an icon itself. Once a building was marked, the contents icons would become visible, and the building itself would become translucent. Each of these icons would display their contents, unless the container was secured, then it would have to be hacked, and marked, like any other icon. This lets me handle the large amount of material in a fairly natural way, without a cumbersome analogy.
Cranes, dry-dock controls, tenders, and other large machinery would be represented by their own icons. As if they were large drones themselves. As I thought about the cranes, and other large machines I couldn't think of a reason they wouldn't be rigger adapted. With rigger adaption you run the risk of your players deciding to drive a crane into the sound, which I guess I'll deal with if/when it happens.
As I looked over the notes I'd made I realized I still didn't have the objective mapped out, or the IC that would respond if the team botched something. I wanted to use the shipyard offices as the objective. I played with the idea of making the office building it's own host, or going even further and making the office a cable only, no wireless, location. However, making the office offline didn't seem to fit with the idea of this being a working shipyard.
So, I went with the building being a sub-host, with dedicated IC. When the team's rigger jumps into the building he's going to see a relatively standard office space. Devices, files, feeds, will all be represented as small icons similar to their physical self, and roughly co-located with their real world counterparts. I wanted to keep the feel of the real space as much as possible.
At that point, securing the objective data became trivial, the iconography worked for me, a safe, a digital representation of the data store, and the files within represented by manila folders.
I did take a minute to play with the icons of the IC. I wanted the offensive IC to be sculpted as welders, with the torches being their damage output. Marker IC would be represented by a worker, with a spray can, Patrol, would take the shape of a large junkyard dog, and the analogy continues. However, this is still a relatively natural jump. The IC's icons map to their real-world abilities, while providing some dramatic flair for the game, and the story.
Overall, I'm really happy with the session, and I'm curious if my players with actually play in the Matrix, as I've planned for them to do, or if they will try to scale the fence and simply wander around getting into trouble in meat-space without ever bothering to do more than check AR for drones. Only time will tell.
However, in Shadowrun 5th Edition the Matrix blends with the real-world action a bit better. While it's still not perfect, it's close. So, with that I mind I sat down to think about what I wanted the Matrix interactions to look like. In previous games I always tried to make Matrix hosts ritzy, and glamorous, wild colors, and crazy layouts. However, as I started planning the run I realized that from the perspective of a system administrator, that's the last thing I would want.
A Matrix host is tied to a physical location, so, why would you design your Matrix host to be wildly different from your physical location? Especially in the case of an office building, bank, factory, or other production facility.
I started with the first major location, a boat yard in Everett.I modeled the location on Vigor Industries, a real-world shipbuilder in Seattle. I had a good idea of the yard layout that I wanted, several large dry docs, fabrication sheds, storage sheds, liquid tanks, parking, etc. all enclosed by a high fence, and a legacy drone on rail system, that's a hold-over from Shadowrun 4th Edition.
With the physical layout roughed out I turned over to the Matrix. At first, I envisioned this nautical themed host, with boats, and pirates, and parrot IC. This seemed like an amazing idea at first, but as I played with it more, and the physical location came together, the analogy fell apart. It simply was a pain to remember the pirate-centric theme as I developed the run. I realized, that if I couldn't remember the theme in planning, I wasn't going to remember it at the table.
With that in mind I sat back with a coffee and thought about the problem from a real world view. I've worked in web design, both front end, and back end development, and I wondered if I was handed the challenge of designing a Matrix host for a shipyard, what would it look like? How would I design it if I had to sit and maintain it day after day.
I started with the drones. I wanted legacy drones on a rail, with a smaller number of tracked drones inside, and a large group of worker drones in cradles and on charging pads around the 12 acre facility. All of these were represented in the Matrix by an icon that roughly mirrored their function. Welder drones looked like a MIG set, trundle drones looked like a hand cart, etc. Security drones used their default icon, and so would be immediately recognizable to my team, with a spot check, and possibly a knowledge check.
With the drones sorted, I moved on to the buildings. I theorized that with RFID tags, and smart inventory systems, there's no reason that the security rigger shouldn't be able to see the buildings contents, once he had a mark on the building's icon. With this in mind, I developed a layer-cake model for the buildings. Each building was an icon itself. Once a building was marked, the contents icons would become visible, and the building itself would become translucent. Each of these icons would display their contents, unless the container was secured, then it would have to be hacked, and marked, like any other icon. This lets me handle the large amount of material in a fairly natural way, without a cumbersome analogy.
Cranes, dry-dock controls, tenders, and other large machinery would be represented by their own icons. As if they were large drones themselves. As I thought about the cranes, and other large machines I couldn't think of a reason they wouldn't be rigger adapted. With rigger adaption you run the risk of your players deciding to drive a crane into the sound, which I guess I'll deal with if/when it happens.
As I looked over the notes I'd made I realized I still didn't have the objective mapped out, or the IC that would respond if the team botched something. I wanted to use the shipyard offices as the objective. I played with the idea of making the office building it's own host, or going even further and making the office a cable only, no wireless, location. However, making the office offline didn't seem to fit with the idea of this being a working shipyard.
So, I went with the building being a sub-host, with dedicated IC. When the team's rigger jumps into the building he's going to see a relatively standard office space. Devices, files, feeds, will all be represented as small icons similar to their physical self, and roughly co-located with their real world counterparts. I wanted to keep the feel of the real space as much as possible.
At that point, securing the objective data became trivial, the iconography worked for me, a safe, a digital representation of the data store, and the files within represented by manila folders.
I did take a minute to play with the icons of the IC. I wanted the offensive IC to be sculpted as welders, with the torches being their damage output. Marker IC would be represented by a worker, with a spray can, Patrol, would take the shape of a large junkyard dog, and the analogy continues. However, this is still a relatively natural jump. The IC's icons map to their real-world abilities, while providing some dramatic flair for the game, and the story.
Overall, I'm really happy with the session, and I'm curious if my players with actually play in the Matrix, as I've planned for them to do, or if they will try to scale the fence and simply wander around getting into trouble in meat-space without ever bothering to do more than check AR for drones. Only time will tell.
Tuesday, February 4, 2014
Fireside Chat: Playing the Police
In my previous post I spoke at length about the benefit of thematic encounters in Shadowrun. Now I'm going to go over the various pieces of a combative encounter, as I run them, starting with the police. In Shadowrun the police should be a nearly constant presence, at least in the nicer parts of town, Runners should at least be aware of the police, if not afraid of them.
Let's look at the basic police stat line:
Solid, middle of the road stats. With a Pistols skill of 4, and when I run them, a Longarms skill of 3. Why Longarms you ask? Because every police cruiser in Seattle has a shotgun strapped between the two front seats. I give each patrol car a long barrel Defiance T-250, with Smartlink, and five extra rounds in a bandoleer on the stock. This, on top of the Area Predator V that every officer is given in the rules makes the police dangerous.
However, what it doesn't do, is make an individual officer a threat. Nor should it. Police travel in pairs, and their response escalates with the duration of combat. I like to run police thematically, as well as combatively. By that I mean the police show up when my players have made a mistake, and then they show up when it's convenient for the story.
Let me illustrate a typical police response in one of my games. The team is tasked with breaking into a mom & pop store, they approach the back of the building and promptly glitch the test to force the maglock. It's not a catastrophic glitch, so the door is open, and as the alarm is silent, the team doesn't yet know that they should be calling it quits. The alarm notifies a security company, not the police, think Brinks Home Security. This company accesses the cameras in the store, and sees the team, they promptly notify the police of a burglary in progress.
At this point we have to fudge the numbers a bit. In Seattle, response times vary widely. In Downtown, or Bellevue, police response is a matter of minutes, in Tacoma, or Everett, 5 or so minutes, in the Redmond barrens, good luck. When you plan police response keep these times in mind, however they aren't written in stone, and any team that comes to rely on a "window" for police response should be taught a very harsh lesson. I generally have an officer respond if the team isn't moving with the speed I feel they should. This can be a random patrol, or in the case of the example above, response to a call.
Let's get back to our example, the team has taken a few minutes slowly casing the store. They don't know that the alarm has been tripped, and as far as they are concerned they have all night. The first squad car rolls up, and parks with the headlights shining into the store. The officer opens the drivers door, and takes cover pistol at the ready. He can see some of the team inside the store, and has taken precautions. Given a professional rating of 3, and the nature of the call, he would have already called for backup on-route, and so the timer for more officers to arrive is already rolling.
Immediately the teams Street Samurai pops a semi-auto burst out the front door, as the team begins to frantically search for their objective. This action causes the officer to call in shots fired over the radio. I let police radio in 10-codes as free actions. This puts all officers in the area on alert, and speeds up response time dramatically. Remember, at this point you have only one officer on scene. He's not going to wage a protracted gun battle.
At this point, the officer has to make a choice. He can hear over the radio that backup is inbound, and his job is to now contain the situation. This is where the few points of Professional Rating really matter. Officers are going to keep their head, and operate as a solid unit. Furthermore, if any police drones are in the area, it's at this point that I'd re-route them to the scene to provide over watch, and to track the team, should they escape.
In game, we're talking a combat turn, maybe two. The officer is going to return fire while keeping in cover, and at least un-racking the shotgun from between the front seats. Even if the team manages to incapacitate, or kill the officer in the opening turns they know that other units are inbound.
This adds a delicious level of tension, as I've said, a single officer isn't a serious threat, but five, or six pairs of officers, working with drone coverage, are a serious threat and can rapidly take apart a veteran Runner team.
Let's assume the team kills the officer, and then decides to unwisely hang around the store, hoping to complete their objective. Within a minute (20 Combat Turns) multiple cars will arrive, blocking off the rear ally, and blocking the front of the store, with the officers using their cars as cover. At this point, if the team continues to stand and fight, I bring in drones, Lieutenant's, a police Decker, and Rigger, and whatever toys I feel are worth throwing at them. This generally means that the run has gone decidedly pear shaped.
What do we take away from this? What's the lesson for a GM here? Put simply, don't be afraid to punish your players for their mistakes. Don't be afraid to make the police lethal, efficient, and dangerous. Remember, these are professionals, not mall rent-a-cops. In Shadowrun the police are your best weapon, especially early in the game.
Furthermore, don't be afraid to punish teams financially for making bad decisions. Unless you're working for a crime syndicate, nobody likes a cop killer. If a player develops a reputation for killing cops, and attracting too much police attention, don't be afraid to have employers refuse to hire him. Or, conversely, those that do hire him tend to be the seedier elements in the shadows.
I also like to remind my players that police have long memories. If players continue to resort to guns to solve problems, eventually the wealth of forensic and ballistic evidence will come together.
Have any great cop stories? If so, post in the comments!
Let's look at the basic police stat line:
| Police Officer: SR5 pg. 383 | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| B | A | R | S | W | L | I | C | ESS |
| 4 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 6 |
Solid, middle of the road stats. With a Pistols skill of 4, and when I run them, a Longarms skill of 3. Why Longarms you ask? Because every police cruiser in Seattle has a shotgun strapped between the two front seats. I give each patrol car a long barrel Defiance T-250, with Smartlink, and five extra rounds in a bandoleer on the stock. This, on top of the Area Predator V that every officer is given in the rules makes the police dangerous.
However, what it doesn't do, is make an individual officer a threat. Nor should it. Police travel in pairs, and their response escalates with the duration of combat. I like to run police thematically, as well as combatively. By that I mean the police show up when my players have made a mistake, and then they show up when it's convenient for the story.
Let me illustrate a typical police response in one of my games. The team is tasked with breaking into a mom & pop store, they approach the back of the building and promptly glitch the test to force the maglock. It's not a catastrophic glitch, so the door is open, and as the alarm is silent, the team doesn't yet know that they should be calling it quits. The alarm notifies a security company, not the police, think Brinks Home Security. This company accesses the cameras in the store, and sees the team, they promptly notify the police of a burglary in progress.
At this point we have to fudge the numbers a bit. In Seattle, response times vary widely. In Downtown, or Bellevue, police response is a matter of minutes, in Tacoma, or Everett, 5 or so minutes, in the Redmond barrens, good luck. When you plan police response keep these times in mind, however they aren't written in stone, and any team that comes to rely on a "window" for police response should be taught a very harsh lesson. I generally have an officer respond if the team isn't moving with the speed I feel they should. This can be a random patrol, or in the case of the example above, response to a call.
Let's get back to our example, the team has taken a few minutes slowly casing the store. They don't know that the alarm has been tripped, and as far as they are concerned they have all night. The first squad car rolls up, and parks with the headlights shining into the store. The officer opens the drivers door, and takes cover pistol at the ready. He can see some of the team inside the store, and has taken precautions. Given a professional rating of 3, and the nature of the call, he would have already called for backup on-route, and so the timer for more officers to arrive is already rolling.
Immediately the teams Street Samurai pops a semi-auto burst out the front door, as the team begins to frantically search for their objective. This action causes the officer to call in shots fired over the radio. I let police radio in 10-codes as free actions. This puts all officers in the area on alert, and speeds up response time dramatically. Remember, at this point you have only one officer on scene. He's not going to wage a protracted gun battle.
At this point, the officer has to make a choice. He can hear over the radio that backup is inbound, and his job is to now contain the situation. This is where the few points of Professional Rating really matter. Officers are going to keep their head, and operate as a solid unit. Furthermore, if any police drones are in the area, it's at this point that I'd re-route them to the scene to provide over watch, and to track the team, should they escape.
In game, we're talking a combat turn, maybe two. The officer is going to return fire while keeping in cover, and at least un-racking the shotgun from between the front seats. Even if the team manages to incapacitate, or kill the officer in the opening turns they know that other units are inbound.
This adds a delicious level of tension, as I've said, a single officer isn't a serious threat, but five, or six pairs of officers, working with drone coverage, are a serious threat and can rapidly take apart a veteran Runner team.
Let's assume the team kills the officer, and then decides to unwisely hang around the store, hoping to complete their objective. Within a minute (20 Combat Turns) multiple cars will arrive, blocking off the rear ally, and blocking the front of the store, with the officers using their cars as cover. At this point, if the team continues to stand and fight, I bring in drones, Lieutenant's, a police Decker, and Rigger, and whatever toys I feel are worth throwing at them. This generally means that the run has gone decidedly pear shaped.
What do we take away from this? What's the lesson for a GM here? Put simply, don't be afraid to punish your players for their mistakes. Don't be afraid to make the police lethal, efficient, and dangerous. Remember, these are professionals, not mall rent-a-cops. In Shadowrun the police are your best weapon, especially early in the game.
Furthermore, don't be afraid to punish teams financially for making bad decisions. Unless you're working for a crime syndicate, nobody likes a cop killer. If a player develops a reputation for killing cops, and attracting too much police attention, don't be afraid to have employers refuse to hire him. Or, conversely, those that do hire him tend to be the seedier elements in the shadows.
I also like to remind my players that police have long memories. If players continue to resort to guns to solve problems, eventually the wealth of forensic and ballistic evidence will come together.
Have any great cop stories? If so, post in the comments!
Friday, January 24, 2014
Fireside Chat: Thematic Encounters
I'm in the process of gearing up for my next run. At present I have three players, two of which are veteran and one veteran role-player, who has no experience with Shadowrun. This has gotten me thinking about an are where a lot of GM's fall short. Playing the bad guys.
In other Role-Playing Games, like D&D and Pathfinder, the opposition is fairly clear. You have monsters, and they follow the usual cinematic flow of going from little, to big. Everyone knows the big bad guy at the end of the castle is the boss fight, and aside from a handful of traps, and maybe a hidden door or two, the bulk of the opposition is the monsters themselves.
Shadowrun is different. Both in the scope of the potential opposition, and the wide range of the severity of the opposition. This mean that you have to think about Shadowrun opposition in a completely different way. So, instead of viewing security as a challenge to be overcome our players let's look at security as a narrative device.
When we approach the idea of opposition in Shadowrun I divide encounters into two rough groups, the first being combative encounters, the second being thematic encounters. While most of your time will be spent planning the combative encounters, it's the thematic encounters that occur most often.
What do I mean by a thematic encounter? This is a tough one, as it's not a hard and fast rule. However, when you design an NPC, that you don't think is going to result in combat, that's a thematic encounter. Of course, sometimes, your thematic encounters turn into combative encounters. Every run has at least one thematic encounter. Most GM's call it meeting Mr. Johnson. However, I like to have a number of other thematic encounters. Think about every person you encounter in your day to day life. The barista that makes your coffee, the ticket taker for the subway, or the cabbie that gets you to work, the doorman for your apartment, and the homeless man on the street corner, All of these people have the possibility of being thematic encounters. While these encounters might seem trivial, but a good GM knows that their players live in an area, and that area is populated by other people. Those people can become regular sights, contacts, enemies, or friends. Over time, the group can come to expect these people in their day to day adventures.
I base my games in Seattle, and love to have my players live, and run out of a specific neighborhood. Areas of Seattle, like Tacoma, or Freemont, or Capitol Hill, make for amazing backdrops for Shadowrun. These areas, and the people that populate them humanize the game. It's one of the reasons I love playing Shadowrun over any other role-playing game. I love the people, the city, and the thematic elements that as a GM you can weave into the story. This is one of the reasons I always keep a folio of the people, the NPC's and the locations in my games. Over time, even across story arcs and characters the players in my groups develop an attachment to the areas and the people in the game.
When ever I talk about thematic encounters, and the power they can have in a game I like to tell a story about a tinker that I used in one of my long running D&D games. This tinker was a throw-away NPC, older human that would wander from town to town with a cart full of goods. I described him as a bit of throw away color in one of the villages my party stopped into, and without really thinking about it, described him again in the next village. This, while a mistake on my part, caught the attention of the group, and they began looking for this tinker in every village they stopped into. So, not one to waste a good story, I had him randomly pop up in villages and towns, or on the road carrying a vast array of stuff. Never anything too useful, but if you needed a ten foot pole, he was your man. Over time this tinker developed a bit of a mythos, my group couldn't believe that it was just a tinker, they assumed there had to be more to the story. This is the best part of a thematic encounter, your players become invested in the NPCs.
Let's turn this around to Shadowrun. You have a player, in a low lifestyle, on the edge of Redmond, they have a mild addiction to alcohol, and so they stop into their local Stuffer Shack on their way home. As a GM, I can gloss over this little transaction, doing nothing more then making a note that they've satisfied the addiction for the next few days. Or, I can use this as a thematic encounter. I can describe the store, the sales that are running, the girl behind the counter, and the homeless troll that's always sleeping against the side of the building. I can have a bunch of wannabe gangers loitering in the parking lot, and have them harass the character, to see what they do. Maybe I can have a Knight Errant officer in his car in the parking lot, see if I can't spook the player into going home instead, and triggering the negative effects of the addiction.
No dice need to be rolled, but this is a perfect way to build an environment, to show your players that they don't exist in a vacuum between their lifestyle, the meet, and the location for the latest bit of mischief.
Hopefully this has shown a little of what you can do, in a storytelling perspective. Next week I'm going to go over combative encounters, and how I design physical, astral, and matrix security for my runs.
In other Role-Playing Games, like D&D and Pathfinder, the opposition is fairly clear. You have monsters, and they follow the usual cinematic flow of going from little, to big. Everyone knows the big bad guy at the end of the castle is the boss fight, and aside from a handful of traps, and maybe a hidden door or two, the bulk of the opposition is the monsters themselves.
Shadowrun is different. Both in the scope of the potential opposition, and the wide range of the severity of the opposition. This mean that you have to think about Shadowrun opposition in a completely different way. So, instead of viewing security as a challenge to be overcome our players let's look at security as a narrative device.
When we approach the idea of opposition in Shadowrun I divide encounters into two rough groups, the first being combative encounters, the second being thematic encounters. While most of your time will be spent planning the combative encounters, it's the thematic encounters that occur most often.
What do I mean by a thematic encounter? This is a tough one, as it's not a hard and fast rule. However, when you design an NPC, that you don't think is going to result in combat, that's a thematic encounter. Of course, sometimes, your thematic encounters turn into combative encounters. Every run has at least one thematic encounter. Most GM's call it meeting Mr. Johnson. However, I like to have a number of other thematic encounters. Think about every person you encounter in your day to day life. The barista that makes your coffee, the ticket taker for the subway, or the cabbie that gets you to work, the doorman for your apartment, and the homeless man on the street corner, All of these people have the possibility of being thematic encounters. While these encounters might seem trivial, but a good GM knows that their players live in an area, and that area is populated by other people. Those people can become regular sights, contacts, enemies, or friends. Over time, the group can come to expect these people in their day to day adventures.
I base my games in Seattle, and love to have my players live, and run out of a specific neighborhood. Areas of Seattle, like Tacoma, or Freemont, or Capitol Hill, make for amazing backdrops for Shadowrun. These areas, and the people that populate them humanize the game. It's one of the reasons I love playing Shadowrun over any other role-playing game. I love the people, the city, and the thematic elements that as a GM you can weave into the story. This is one of the reasons I always keep a folio of the people, the NPC's and the locations in my games. Over time, even across story arcs and characters the players in my groups develop an attachment to the areas and the people in the game.
When ever I talk about thematic encounters, and the power they can have in a game I like to tell a story about a tinker that I used in one of my long running D&D games. This tinker was a throw-away NPC, older human that would wander from town to town with a cart full of goods. I described him as a bit of throw away color in one of the villages my party stopped into, and without really thinking about it, described him again in the next village. This, while a mistake on my part, caught the attention of the group, and they began looking for this tinker in every village they stopped into. So, not one to waste a good story, I had him randomly pop up in villages and towns, or on the road carrying a vast array of stuff. Never anything too useful, but if you needed a ten foot pole, he was your man. Over time this tinker developed a bit of a mythos, my group couldn't believe that it was just a tinker, they assumed there had to be more to the story. This is the best part of a thematic encounter, your players become invested in the NPCs.
Let's turn this around to Shadowrun. You have a player, in a low lifestyle, on the edge of Redmond, they have a mild addiction to alcohol, and so they stop into their local Stuffer Shack on their way home. As a GM, I can gloss over this little transaction, doing nothing more then making a note that they've satisfied the addiction for the next few days. Or, I can use this as a thematic encounter. I can describe the store, the sales that are running, the girl behind the counter, and the homeless troll that's always sleeping against the side of the building. I can have a bunch of wannabe gangers loitering in the parking lot, and have them harass the character, to see what they do. Maybe I can have a Knight Errant officer in his car in the parking lot, see if I can't spook the player into going home instead, and triggering the negative effects of the addiction.
No dice need to be rolled, but this is a perfect way to build an environment, to show your players that they don't exist in a vacuum between their lifestyle, the meet, and the location for the latest bit of mischief.
Hopefully this has shown a little of what you can do, in a storytelling perspective. Next week I'm going to go over combative encounters, and how I design physical, astral, and matrix security for my runs.
Friday, December 13, 2013
Fireside Chat: Game Settings, and Systems
What is Shadowrun? When I've been asked that question I usually embark on a long description of the game, the setting, and the fluff. This works for new players, and helps people understand what they are getting into, but it's limiting in and of itself. Let me give you an example.
I happen to frequent a local game store, as I like to shop local, and as chance would have it one of the fluff writers for Shadowrun 5th Edition also frequents the store. We got to talking, and she took me to task after I stated that Shadowrun was based in Seattle. Her point being that, as she wrote for Catalyst, she knew that the plot wasn't going to be Seattle-centric, and therefore I was wrong to state that Shadowrun was based in Seattle. This got me to thinking, first that it's silly for a person who is a representative of a company, however, peripherally, to be arguing with that same company's customers, and second, what exactly is meant by a setting, or really, a system at all?
Let's look at system first. There are two main game systems. The first, is a threshold based system. This is the D20 system, in a nutshell. You have a target, if you roll over it, you succeed, under it, you fail. You also have a success based system. This, is Shadowrun. You have a pool of dice, and if enough dice succeed you pass, if they don't you fail. If you want to describe Shadowrun in minimalist terms, you would describe it as a success based D6 system. That's it. There's no trappings of settings, or fluff, it's simply the system that is used, and the type of dice rolled.
Now, let's talk setting. Setting is where the game's fluff takes place. This is often confused as being where the game itself takes place, but once you remove the fluff, you're often left with very little in terms of setting. In Shadowrun 3rd, and 4th, edition the game's setting was Seattle. In my mind, this continues into 5th Edition as well. Regardless of the official cannon. Why does this matter? Let me explain.
For years now, I've wanted to run a role-playing game set in Prohibition. That is, 1920's era, New York City. In order to run such a game, I went looking for a set of rules who's fluff meshed with the setting I wanted to run. What I should have done, and this comes back to the discussion in the game store rather neatly, was adapt a game system, to fit the setting I wanted to play. What's to prevent me from taking the D6 based success system of Shadowrun 5th Edition, and dropping it into a 1920's era setting? Nothing. That's the great thing about viewing a game as a system, and not as a setting.
But, let's keep it a little closer to home. I have a group of players, and they've never been to Seattle. Tacoma means nothing to them, nor does Redmond, Bellevue, or Lake Washington. The setting, as it's presented, is meaningless. Why use it? I know we get attached to a setting, and we feel that we have to do whatever it is that the designer wants us to use, but why not set a campaign in your own home town? Have your players meet Mr. Johnson in your favorite local watering hole, and meet up for after-the-Run dinner at your favorite greasy-spoon.
Remember, it's your game, and your players game, if they want to keep the setting in Seattle, great. If not, great. Do what you want with the system, regardless of the setting.
I happen to frequent a local game store, as I like to shop local, and as chance would have it one of the fluff writers for Shadowrun 5th Edition also frequents the store. We got to talking, and she took me to task after I stated that Shadowrun was based in Seattle. Her point being that, as she wrote for Catalyst, she knew that the plot wasn't going to be Seattle-centric, and therefore I was wrong to state that Shadowrun was based in Seattle. This got me to thinking, first that it's silly for a person who is a representative of a company, however, peripherally, to be arguing with that same company's customers, and second, what exactly is meant by a setting, or really, a system at all?
Let's look at system first. There are two main game systems. The first, is a threshold based system. This is the D20 system, in a nutshell. You have a target, if you roll over it, you succeed, under it, you fail. You also have a success based system. This, is Shadowrun. You have a pool of dice, and if enough dice succeed you pass, if they don't you fail. If you want to describe Shadowrun in minimalist terms, you would describe it as a success based D6 system. That's it. There's no trappings of settings, or fluff, it's simply the system that is used, and the type of dice rolled.
Now, let's talk setting. Setting is where the game's fluff takes place. This is often confused as being where the game itself takes place, but once you remove the fluff, you're often left with very little in terms of setting. In Shadowrun 3rd, and 4th, edition the game's setting was Seattle. In my mind, this continues into 5th Edition as well. Regardless of the official cannon. Why does this matter? Let me explain.
For years now, I've wanted to run a role-playing game set in Prohibition. That is, 1920's era, New York City. In order to run such a game, I went looking for a set of rules who's fluff meshed with the setting I wanted to run. What I should have done, and this comes back to the discussion in the game store rather neatly, was adapt a game system, to fit the setting I wanted to play. What's to prevent me from taking the D6 based success system of Shadowrun 5th Edition, and dropping it into a 1920's era setting? Nothing. That's the great thing about viewing a game as a system, and not as a setting.
But, let's keep it a little closer to home. I have a group of players, and they've never been to Seattle. Tacoma means nothing to them, nor does Redmond, Bellevue, or Lake Washington. The setting, as it's presented, is meaningless. Why use it? I know we get attached to a setting, and we feel that we have to do whatever it is that the designer wants us to use, but why not set a campaign in your own home town? Have your players meet Mr. Johnson in your favorite local watering hole, and meet up for after-the-Run dinner at your favorite greasy-spoon.
Remember, it's your game, and your players game, if they want to keep the setting in Seattle, great. If not, great. Do what you want with the system, regardless of the setting.
Monday, December 2, 2013
Fireside Chat: Mages
I wrote two blog posts on the magic rules in Shadowrun 5th Edition, specifically Spellcasting, and Conjuring. I wanted to take a moment and write one more post about an interesting opinion I read online while building my canned characters for my first session.
"Being an aspected mage actually penalizes for taking power limitations at priority C. (At priority B, aspected magicians are equal to magicians at least in terms of the karma value of their bonuses.) At priority D, obviously there isn't a comparison. The obvious conclusion however is that nobody should ever play an aspected magician except at priority D, unless you are going to be a conjurer, and even that is debatable. (Of course, then there is the question of why you would ever want to be a magician instead of a mystic adept, since Mystic Adept > Magician > Aspect)."
Courtesy of Ricochet here
Now, let's look at this a bit closer. At priority A, there's no Aspected Magician, so you have to choose Magician, or Mystic Adept. I cannot fathom why you would take priority A for Magic. By taking A in Magic you are selling yourself short. So much of the game focuses on Attributes, and Skills, I cannot fathom why you would waste A on Magic. Especially when B is nearly as good, and leaves your top spot open for Attributes.
Priority B is where I like to start with every Magician I've built. I look at it like this: If I'm building a human Character, then Mystical Adept, Magician, or Aspected Magician all make sense. Remember, if you're going to take Magician, you might as well take Mystical Adept. You don't have to buy the power points, but having the choice doesn't cost anything, and can leave interesting growth options open to you down the road. If I'm building a non-human character and I'm not going to have a large number of extra points to add to my Edge, and Magic, then I prefer the Aspected Magician at this level, as the one higher point in Magic can help offset the lack of special attribute points from the metatype. That being said, a full Magician at priority B can be solid with a non-human metatype, you need to balance the metatype choice, and the rest of your priority choices though.
Priority C is the first level where I'd actually consider taking an Adept. You have a reasonably high Magic, and you've left Priority A, and B, free for attributes, skills, or metatype. Though again, I'd caution against taking Priority A as anything other than attributes. For Magician, Mystic Adept, or Aspected Magician I have to agree with Ricochet. The skill group for the Aspected Magician simply isn't enough of a benefit to make me not want to take the full Magician or Mystic Adept. Magic 3 is still solid, especially if you're playing a human, or other metatype with a few special attribute points to bolster your magic rating.
Priority D, this is an interesting one. You're left with Adept, or Aspected Magician. You get no spells, or skills, for free. Why would you bother taking Priority D for Magic? Honestly, I would only take Adpet at this Priority. Given that all Adepts have to buy power points with Karma you might as well take Attributes, Skills, and Metatype/Resources as A, B, and C, and use the special attribute points to up the magic attribute, and the skill and attribute points to build a solid foundation for a character. I can't advise taking Aspected Magician at D, as there's simply too many demands on your skill picks, and karma, to make a mage work at such a low priority.
This is one of the only failings of a priority based build system. You end up with character builds that simply aren't as good, or aren't even viable. In the end, you're going to see a lot of Human Mystic Adpets. If this was intentional by the designers, or not, this is definitely the way I see things going.
Attributes: A
Magic: B (Mystic Adept)
Skills: C
Metatype: D (Human (3))
Resources: E
That's your cookie-cutter mage build, in my opinion.
I'm curious though, does anyone have an idea for a character that doesn't seem possible? I'd like a challenge. If you can think of a character concept post in the comments, and tell me what the character concept is, and what you'd pick for Metatype, Attributes, Skills, Resources, and Magic. I'll pick a few I like and see if I can actually build them.
"Being an aspected mage actually penalizes for taking power limitations at priority C. (At priority B, aspected magicians are equal to magicians at least in terms of the karma value of their bonuses.) At priority D, obviously there isn't a comparison. The obvious conclusion however is that nobody should ever play an aspected magician except at priority D, unless you are going to be a conjurer, and even that is debatable. (Of course, then there is the question of why you would ever want to be a magician instead of a mystic adept, since Mystic Adept > Magician > Aspect)."
Courtesy of Ricochet here
Now, let's look at this a bit closer. At priority A, there's no Aspected Magician, so you have to choose Magician, or Mystic Adept. I cannot fathom why you would take priority A for Magic. By taking A in Magic you are selling yourself short. So much of the game focuses on Attributes, and Skills, I cannot fathom why you would waste A on Magic. Especially when B is nearly as good, and leaves your top spot open for Attributes.
Priority B is where I like to start with every Magician I've built. I look at it like this: If I'm building a human Character, then Mystical Adept, Magician, or Aspected Magician all make sense. Remember, if you're going to take Magician, you might as well take Mystical Adept. You don't have to buy the power points, but having the choice doesn't cost anything, and can leave interesting growth options open to you down the road. If I'm building a non-human character and I'm not going to have a large number of extra points to add to my Edge, and Magic, then I prefer the Aspected Magician at this level, as the one higher point in Magic can help offset the lack of special attribute points from the metatype. That being said, a full Magician at priority B can be solid with a non-human metatype, you need to balance the metatype choice, and the rest of your priority choices though.
Priority C is the first level where I'd actually consider taking an Adept. You have a reasonably high Magic, and you've left Priority A, and B, free for attributes, skills, or metatype. Though again, I'd caution against taking Priority A as anything other than attributes. For Magician, Mystic Adept, or Aspected Magician I have to agree with Ricochet. The skill group for the Aspected Magician simply isn't enough of a benefit to make me not want to take the full Magician or Mystic Adept. Magic 3 is still solid, especially if you're playing a human, or other metatype with a few special attribute points to bolster your magic rating.
Priority D, this is an interesting one. You're left with Adept, or Aspected Magician. You get no spells, or skills, for free. Why would you bother taking Priority D for Magic? Honestly, I would only take Adpet at this Priority. Given that all Adepts have to buy power points with Karma you might as well take Attributes, Skills, and Metatype/Resources as A, B, and C, and use the special attribute points to up the magic attribute, and the skill and attribute points to build a solid foundation for a character. I can't advise taking Aspected Magician at D, as there's simply too many demands on your skill picks, and karma, to make a mage work at such a low priority.
This is one of the only failings of a priority based build system. You end up with character builds that simply aren't as good, or aren't even viable. In the end, you're going to see a lot of Human Mystic Adpets. If this was intentional by the designers, or not, this is definitely the way I see things going.
Attributes: A
Magic: B (Mystic Adept)
Skills: C
Metatype: D (Human (3))
Resources: E
That's your cookie-cutter mage build, in my opinion.
I'm curious though, does anyone have an idea for a character that doesn't seem possible? I'd like a challenge. If you can think of a character concept post in the comments, and tell me what the character concept is, and what you'd pick for Metatype, Attributes, Skills, Resources, and Magic. I'll pick a few I like and see if I can actually build them.
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
Fireside Chat: Contacts Are People Too!
I want to talk about Contacts. As a game mechanic they serve a useful purpose, they find your players jobs, fence gear, sell gear, and provide a wealth of information for just a small pile of cash. The contacts your character picks tend to reflect the role, and back story of the character as envisioned by the player. These contacts have loyalty and connection rating, and are generally named after their role, and not themselves.
For example, in my current group we have a Decker/Face with a contact on his sheet that reads like this: KE Lieutenant (3/3) Now, that's enough to handle the contact. We know what he/she is, and what numbers to use for tests. This, for now, is enough. However, what happens when you actually start playing? Is this contact male? Female? Human? Ork? Troll? This is a trap that a lot of new GM's fall into. It simply doesn't matter.
Let's use the Lieutenant above. My Runners are looking to hit a local gang. Mr. Johnson wants to send a clear message that this upstart gang is moving in on his territory, but Mr. Johnson doesn't know, or won't divulge the location of the gang's base. So, the runners need to do some legwork. Knowing that he has a police contact, the group rings up this nameless, faceless, Lieutenant.
How do you proceed? As a GM I find you have a few options.
1) AR is your friend. Don't know, or care, about a contact's particulars? The Runners make a com-call, and the entire exchange is done via AR, they never see more than the contact's icon. Which, would be something police themed, and off the shelf.
2) Fall back on the archetype, we've all seen an episode of Law and Order, voila. Instant detective contact. Male, human, white, wrinkled, keep the conversation brief, and you should be in the clear.
3) Actually plan ahead. This is a tough one for new GM's but as you run more games this gets easier. I have a folio of canned Runners, contacts, places, etc. which comes with me to every game. If I need a canned police Lieutenant, I simply pull the canned policeman out of my folder, consult the list of pre-generated names, and pick one. This is tied to some vital stats, height, weight, etc. which allows me to build a plausible character out of a canned template.
I also make a point to keep every Runner I have ever built, for every edition. Just because the stats no longer translate into 5th Edition doesn't mean that the character itself isn't still valuable. In the end, it's the GM's job to provide a meaningful exchange. What that means to you, and to your players, varies by group. However, I find that I'm much calmer when I know I've planned for most eventualities.
Let's take a minute to look at the other side of the fence. Sometimes you have a player that knows exactly what they want their contacts to be. Name, age, place of employment, they have an image in their head and they want to take that image and express it on paper as a contact. These players tend to be more experienced, and in this case I have them write up a short bio for the contact. This gets tacked onto the back of their character sheet, and when the game wraps up, both their Runner, and their contact, get added to my folio. It's always nice for veteran players to see their old Runners, and contacts make another appearance. Plus, it gives you, the GM, a beautiful emotional hook. Don't ever discard an old character, crib sheet, or note from a game session. I've never regretted having too much detail on hand.
For example, in my current group we have a Decker/Face with a contact on his sheet that reads like this: KE Lieutenant (3/3) Now, that's enough to handle the contact. We know what he/she is, and what numbers to use for tests. This, for now, is enough. However, what happens when you actually start playing? Is this contact male? Female? Human? Ork? Troll? This is a trap that a lot of new GM's fall into. It simply doesn't matter.
Let's use the Lieutenant above. My Runners are looking to hit a local gang. Mr. Johnson wants to send a clear message that this upstart gang is moving in on his territory, but Mr. Johnson doesn't know, or won't divulge the location of the gang's base. So, the runners need to do some legwork. Knowing that he has a police contact, the group rings up this nameless, faceless, Lieutenant.
How do you proceed? As a GM I find you have a few options.
1) AR is your friend. Don't know, or care, about a contact's particulars? The Runners make a com-call, and the entire exchange is done via AR, they never see more than the contact's icon. Which, would be something police themed, and off the shelf.
2) Fall back on the archetype, we've all seen an episode of Law and Order, voila. Instant detective contact. Male, human, white, wrinkled, keep the conversation brief, and you should be in the clear.
3) Actually plan ahead. This is a tough one for new GM's but as you run more games this gets easier. I have a folio of canned Runners, contacts, places, etc. which comes with me to every game. If I need a canned police Lieutenant, I simply pull the canned policeman out of my folder, consult the list of pre-generated names, and pick one. This is tied to some vital stats, height, weight, etc. which allows me to build a plausible character out of a canned template.
I also make a point to keep every Runner I have ever built, for every edition. Just because the stats no longer translate into 5th Edition doesn't mean that the character itself isn't still valuable. In the end, it's the GM's job to provide a meaningful exchange. What that means to you, and to your players, varies by group. However, I find that I'm much calmer when I know I've planned for most eventualities.
Let's take a minute to look at the other side of the fence. Sometimes you have a player that knows exactly what they want their contacts to be. Name, age, place of employment, they have an image in their head and they want to take that image and express it on paper as a contact. These players tend to be more experienced, and in this case I have them write up a short bio for the contact. This gets tacked onto the back of their character sheet, and when the game wraps up, both their Runner, and their contact, get added to my folio. It's always nice for veteran players to see their old Runners, and contacts make another appearance. Plus, it gives you, the GM, a beautiful emotional hook. Don't ever discard an old character, crib sheet, or note from a game session. I've never regretted having too much detail on hand.
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
Fireside Chat: Run Their Game, not Yours
I have always preferred to run games, rather than play them. I'm a storyteller by inclination, and I've been told I'm good at it. While I can't speak to my own ability, I can say I derive a great deal of enjoyment from running a game. Over the years, and editions, I've learned a lot as a GM, a lot of mistakes that could have, should have, been avoided. These little tidbits of wisdom will be shared in a "fireside chat" format. For those of my audience who have never heard of the "Fireside Chats" a quick check on Wikipedia should bring you up to speed.
For today, I want to touch on a very difficult topic. When you run a game, for a set of players, you're running a game for them, not for yourself. Think of a GM as a server, as in waiter/waitress, you are providing a service. GMs that remember this, run great games, GMs that forget it, don't. It's not difficult on the surface, yet it's a classic mistake I see in newer, and even some "veteran" GMs. When I develop a run I plan for as many factors as I can, and I ad-lib the rest. However, if in the course of a game I stray from what my players want, then my plans must change, and they much change quickly and dynamically. I'm providing a positive playing experience for my group, not for myself. Let me give an example.
I love grenades. Absolutely love grenades and have always felt that in Shadowrun grenades should be a standard piece of equipment for any paramilitary response unit. Now, I'm not talking beat cops, Knight Errant shouldn't pack frag grenades, maybe a flash bang or two, but that's it. However, if you're running up against a High Threat Response team, or a Red Samurai unit, you better believe there's going to be grenades involved. Grenades in Shadowrun, have a massive damage potential, and I've killed several characters using a well placed grenade at the end of a combat turn. They are the ultimate way to deal with min-max'd characters. Nothing says "I don't like you" quite like a grenade.
In some of my groups, where my players are looking for high-threat and highly lethal play my grenade happy mindset is not only welcome, it's expected. However, when I play with a group that isn't looking for the same level of high threat play I have to alter my tactics. It does not, let me repeat that, does not matter that I like grenades. If my players don't, then I have to alter my play style. The same piece of gear, used at the start of a combat turn, adds a level of tension, and drama to a combat, and allows me to describe the combat in greater detail. Plus, it gives a player the chance to be the hero and lob the grenade away before it explodes, seconds later, in mid-air. What changed? My NPC still threw the same grenade, the threat is the same, the only difference is that instead of holding an action to the end of the round, to pop a grenade into the middle of my party, I threw that same grenade at the start, allowing my players to react.
This is the essence of a good GM, tailoring every aspect of a run to meet your players needs, your players desires, to maximize the end experience for your players, over your own needs and wants.
However, with all things there must be balance. Nothing ruins a game faster then having too much fun, too much loot, and too much karma. However, I've found that Shadowrun is the easiest game system to handle the "Monty Haul" problem. Let's assume a character, without the SINner quality simply has too much money. It's relatively simple to have a cop, investigator, or Decker realize that the player's SIN is fake, and freeze all his assets. This also works as a great run hook for the players to win back their ill-gotten loot. Remember, GOD is watching.
For gear-snobs, the availability rules are a GMs best friend. Don't want players to have a certain piece of gear? Make it nearly impossible to find, or if they've already purchased it, brick it as part of a run, or if it's a firearm, make the ammunition so scarce that the player dare not fire a round. This too works as a great run hook, or story arc. One of your players really wants a minigun? Ok, go steal one. Make sure you get enough ammunition too!
I'm not advocating that you take away a players hard-won gear, nor am I advocating that you as a GM give a player everything they could want, I'm merely saying that you need to balance the fun of the game, with the long-term goal of the campaign.
As always, feel free to comment if you've run into good, or bad, GMing decisions, and how they were handled. I'll do my best to respond to the ones I like, and who knows you might even end up the feature in the next Fireside Chat.
For today, I want to touch on a very difficult topic. When you run a game, for a set of players, you're running a game for them, not for yourself. Think of a GM as a server, as in waiter/waitress, you are providing a service. GMs that remember this, run great games, GMs that forget it, don't. It's not difficult on the surface, yet it's a classic mistake I see in newer, and even some "veteran" GMs. When I develop a run I plan for as many factors as I can, and I ad-lib the rest. However, if in the course of a game I stray from what my players want, then my plans must change, and they much change quickly and dynamically. I'm providing a positive playing experience for my group, not for myself. Let me give an example.
I love grenades. Absolutely love grenades and have always felt that in Shadowrun grenades should be a standard piece of equipment for any paramilitary response unit. Now, I'm not talking beat cops, Knight Errant shouldn't pack frag grenades, maybe a flash bang or two, but that's it. However, if you're running up against a High Threat Response team, or a Red Samurai unit, you better believe there's going to be grenades involved. Grenades in Shadowrun, have a massive damage potential, and I've killed several characters using a well placed grenade at the end of a combat turn. They are the ultimate way to deal with min-max'd characters. Nothing says "I don't like you" quite like a grenade.
In some of my groups, where my players are looking for high-threat and highly lethal play my grenade happy mindset is not only welcome, it's expected. However, when I play with a group that isn't looking for the same level of high threat play I have to alter my tactics. It does not, let me repeat that, does not matter that I like grenades. If my players don't, then I have to alter my play style. The same piece of gear, used at the start of a combat turn, adds a level of tension, and drama to a combat, and allows me to describe the combat in greater detail. Plus, it gives a player the chance to be the hero and lob the grenade away before it explodes, seconds later, in mid-air. What changed? My NPC still threw the same grenade, the threat is the same, the only difference is that instead of holding an action to the end of the round, to pop a grenade into the middle of my party, I threw that same grenade at the start, allowing my players to react.
This is the essence of a good GM, tailoring every aspect of a run to meet your players needs, your players desires, to maximize the end experience for your players, over your own needs and wants.
However, with all things there must be balance. Nothing ruins a game faster then having too much fun, too much loot, and too much karma. However, I've found that Shadowrun is the easiest game system to handle the "Monty Haul" problem. Let's assume a character, without the SINner quality simply has too much money. It's relatively simple to have a cop, investigator, or Decker realize that the player's SIN is fake, and freeze all his assets. This also works as a great run hook for the players to win back their ill-gotten loot. Remember, GOD is watching.
For gear-snobs, the availability rules are a GMs best friend. Don't want players to have a certain piece of gear? Make it nearly impossible to find, or if they've already purchased it, brick it as part of a run, or if it's a firearm, make the ammunition so scarce that the player dare not fire a round. This too works as a great run hook, or story arc. One of your players really wants a minigun? Ok, go steal one. Make sure you get enough ammunition too!
I'm not advocating that you take away a players hard-won gear, nor am I advocating that you as a GM give a player everything they could want, I'm merely saying that you need to balance the fun of the game, with the long-term goal of the campaign.
As always, feel free to comment if you've run into good, or bad, GMing decisions, and how they were handled. I'll do my best to respond to the ones I like, and who knows you might even end up the feature in the next Fireside Chat.
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