Shadowrun Game

[Atomicweasel]

Wyrd,

Thanks for taking the time to post all this and explain your reasoning and GMing methods. I'm sorry to those of you who were offended by Baye's coarse language. I think perhaps, looking at the big picture, I'm not such a great fit for this game. I like gritty mature games, and while not all my characters are potty mouths (Mari, lol), I find it really distasteful to censor myself. We may just be looking for a very different gaming experience. No harm, no foul, but it's probably best for me to withdraw now.

Thanks for running the show, Wyrd, and thanks to my fellow players as well.

[The Hospitaler]

Not to make this sound like everyone's jumping ship, but I think it would be better for me to make up my mind and stick with my decisions instead of Bret Favre-ing the matter. I will be saying thanks, but no thanks at this point. I think my issues is because that I just don't have a conneciton with my character and I haven't been focusing like I should.

I think my decision actually was sealed at creation. I tried cramming several concepts into one character and I was distracted by another character in the process (I know people remember DigiGeist and the sheer pain I had in brewing her.) and I think concepts blended wrong.

That and Tabitha feels hollow.

I know people would say "Then roll a new character", but the thing is, SR is a b**ch to roll up in. Also it's easy to overlook important skills you wouldn't think were important. To be honest... I'd rather play SR at a table than in PBP. Probably why I jumped in to this in the first place is that I'm SR starved.

Unfortunately I'm going to have to find my feed elsewhere.

Sorry everyone, it's me. Not you.

[Wyrd]

I'm going to try to cover the more general comments here.

First off, remember that I told you from the beginning that this was a test. You were told exactly what you were doing; you were the ones who jumped to conclusions regarding it. That part of the test was simple: Can you follow directions?

The information that was omitted is what is most likely to be omitted by a Johnson. If you don't ask about a group or individual that you are told to look for, they will generally assume that you either already know or will look it up. Nobody asked about the Black Tusks in game, but the two characters with appropriate knowledges asked to roll them to see if they knew anything about them, and then in character told the rest of the group that they knew about them. Nobody asked for any details about Trevor, or Trouble as he prefers to be known, in character or out. Nobody, and I'm looking at Baye here, tried to do a quick matrix search for more information on any aspect of the run.

In character and out, I was trying to point out the sorts of things you need to look out for because they are ways that GM's and Johnson's are known for screwing people over. Before going into the grittier levels of SR, I wanted to see how prepared you were for them. If I was aggressive as some SR GM's I've known, at least one of you would have died on this run from not paying attention, but I have no interest in playing Call of Cthulhu-run.

The cameras is something that a GM has pulled on my group before, though we didn't learn about it until one of us spotted the hot new reality trid-cast and recognized our runs. The bombs strapped to your cars was something that I have seen before as well, though I wasn't about to start off new runners with that level of risk.

In character, this run is a kind of hazing that will in many ways get you more respect from other runners who've been put through it before, a warning that if you come across other runners hired by your opposition, they may be recording their runs, and an opportunity to get more money and build your rep faster if you chose to take it. Your opponent taking a moment to grandstand for his fans could be the difference between life and death in coming runs.

Why were runners chosen for this run? Most of you are new to this city, so you wouldn't know this as well, but I would like Jeremy to explain exactly how dangerous driving on the back roads was. VITAS killed, over-all, about 2/3rds of the world's population, and still kills over 100,000 people every year. Wars, the dangers of awakened wildlife, the reduced ability to grow adequate crops because of nature becoming so much more dangerous; all of these things and more have resulted in the concentration of meta-humanity into scattered urban centers with vast swaths of land owned only by nature and whatever can coexist with it. Denver's location, as I mentioned in Juno's review, makes it particularly dangerous to leave the patrolled routes.

Baye, grim and gritty is coming, should you wish to continue, and I won't cast you out for using profanity, as it fits the character and the setting, I am just passing on concerns from other players. I tend to use very little profanity myself, but most of the time it doesn't offend me either. If cooperating with your fellow players enough to come up with new and interesting euphemisms instead of assuming that profanity hasn't continued to evolve is excess self-censorship for you, well, that is your choice.

Also, some of you don't seem to realize that 500 nuyen is an appreciable amount of money. You each made a little less than a week's wage for a middle class salaryman for a couple of hours of light work. Even if you only ever did this level of run, you could earn quite a living off of that, and the more difficult and dangerous runs will pay higher.

Addressing specific comments:

Quote:

2) We were then judged, evaluated if you will, on "failing to get" this information, which strikes me as very unfair. The point that Johnsons are not always honest was made, but here's the bottom line: If a Johnson wants a job done, he does whatever he can to help that job get done. Do Johnsons sometimes betray teams, or mislead them? Sure. But doing so is considered a way to say "goodbye" to that team. The Johnson doesn't fuck a team over and still expect them to work for him the next day. Good Johnsons, competent Johnsons, develop positive relationships of trust with their operatives. I'll also point out, just as a point of order, that it was FAR from obvious that the "tell my son" thing was a password. I didn't ask what her son looked like because, OOC, I didn't figure out what the hell she was talking about until we were already at the store.

So, to sum up: Evaluate us, sure, but lets keep the OOC evals fair...and if the IC evals aren't fair, don't be shocked when the characters get pissed over them.

As I said above, you were told exactly what to say and who to say it to. You responded with an innuendo laden comment that made it clear that you thought she wanted you to kill this person, which is why she tried to get you to reevaluate what she had said without breaking the rules she was operating under. Also as I said above, this is information that a Johnson will often just not think about giving you; it was intentionally withheld in a situation where it wouldn't bite you in the ass to remind you that you need to make certain you aren't missing vital bits of information that the Johnson, or I, may have just forgotten to give you.

Quote:

I don't care if the op is legal or illegal...though we sure as hell need to know when we take the mission. I hold up the example of the checkpoint, where we thought the package was something really bad. I could easily see a scenario where one of the checkpoint guards saw the package and asked to open it. If we thought it was contraband, that'd probably lead to a wholly unnecessary gunfight. If we knew it was no big deal, we'd just show it to them and be on our merry. But that's info we need to have, and that it's in the Johnson's best interest to tell us! That's what really bites my bull about this. There's no earthly reason a Johnson would ever not give us the info we need to find a contact, for example, or disclose the legal status of a package. It's info they'd have readily available, and there's no downside to telling us, and we need it for the assignment they are giving us. It makes no sense.

Magnun improvised a little there by making it look more dangerous than it was, though I didn't object to it. I told her to tell you that spilling it would be dangerous, but not mention that it would be dangerous because you'd have nothing to feed the hungry dire wolves.

The dangers of assumptions was one of the things that I was going for here. I didn't want you going into a run to extract someone and assuming they meant dead or alive unless they told you that. Very little information was withheld, it was more a matter of allowing you to make assumptions so you could have it driven home how off those assumptions can be.

Quote:

If you have expectations for how we are to behave under your employ, you tell us.

Outside of her personal distaste for profanity in her business, her only expectation of behaviour was professionalism, which isn't really something you should need to specify.

Quote:

If you want us to say a certain something to a certain someone, you tell us what to say, and who to say it to.

Precisely what she did.

Quote:

People like you get people like me killed, and that I do not stand for.

Her goal is actually to reduce the number of people killed by newbie mistakes. She is a retired Shadowrunner, as is her husband. All three of her kids are active, experienced runners. I can't argue with the bit about it being a game, but it was a war game, a simulation of the real problems that you would face in the future, with her pointing out what could have gotten you killed.

To sum up, I deliberately made this run soft and nonlethal so I could see what level of danger the players were ready for. I've not been on these boards long, and I don't know how all of you play, so I didn't want to start with hardball. The actions and interactions in this game tell me that most of you are not used to a GM putting you in the kind of lethal situations and backstabbing that are common to SR games. This is fine, it is something I can work with, but what would have happened if I had started out with a Johnson that wanted to use a group of newbies as disposable assets and rigged all of your cars to blow? Only one of you had an alarm on your vehicle, and no alarm was set off while you were in the bakery.

If I missed anything or you have further questions about what I've said, please tell me. I want to work things out as much as possible, though I acknowledge that sometimes a given game and player will just not work well together.

[SalmonMax]

I think it's too late, man.

Moreover, the constant refrain of, "But I told you..." is pretty clearly not getting at the real issues here. It's very clear that you feel everything you did, in-character and out, was perfectly justified.

And just as clearly, some players...in character and out...disagree. Vehemently.

Personally, I'm no longer interested in trying to argue the point. I've read, I believe, three enormous explanatory posts that have only restated the same things that failed to convince me before.

We're just not seeing eye to eye. It happens. I don't even have any hard feelings over it anymore. I was frustrated at first, but once I realized what was going on that disappeared. You and I have some fundamentally different notions about the very core of what Shadowrun is...and about what GM'ing is...and about what RPG'ing itself is. There's no shame in that. It just means I probably shouldn't play in your sandbox. I wish you and yours all the best.

[Forge]

I think this entire thing is a giant non-issue.

And for the record, I still wanna play.

[Jeremy]

I'll still play. Getting used to Shadowrun.

[LydaLynn]

I know I still want to play.

[Wyrd]

For the next run, I'm not certain if I should split you up or keep you together. All of the players that were approved during this last run will be able to join in now.

Something that I was considering was for you to get together and be given a list of job opportunities(generic at first, details later) that Mrs. Esterhouse has found for you. She won't be acting as your Johnson any more, she is just passing on some contact information for others.

If you don't want her to be involved at all, tell me and I'll try to come up with a different way for you to get together. I'd really rather leave groups up to the players, as the odds of you forming groups that you can live with are much higher than me putting you together.

Characters I am currently expecting to play:

NIY(not introduced yet)Steve Hunter

NIY Bres

Essa (the wild girl in the woods)

Jeremy Noctis

Kisada

Magnun

NIY Old Man Winter

Atasaya

If I am missing anyone or if any of you have changed your mind about playing, please post here or pm me. I would also like to hear opinions on the next run, such as whether you would prefer to split the groups or run as one group.

[LydaLynn]

If there's a full eight - I'd say two groups of four - if there's only six - I'd say one group - just depends on if everyone is actually planning on playing.

As for what kind of run . . . I have little preference beyond 'something my character can be useful in'.

[Jeremy]

Same here on the kind of run. Groups- I say plural since I assume everyone is going to play- shouldn't be over-sized like for Milk Runs.

[Wyrd]

Also, those with karma can spend it if they like. there isn't much you can buy with that little, but it can allow some tweaks if you couldn't quite afford something during character creation.

[batsibf]

6 is the best number In my opion,

and for people that wish (would recomed at least look at by every one) http://www.shadowrun4.com/game-resources/slang-guidebook/

[Forge]

I've been using this as it is only updated through the timeline of the game and not through all of 4th ed.

http://www.intercom.net/user/logan1/glossary.htm#cement

[Jeremy]

For those curious, Jeremy will either do the Corp extraction or Courier job.

[batsibf]

Bres is willing to do the extraction

[Forge]

Courier

[Krugar Rockbiter]

Originally Posted By: Damon

Courier

That's me btw.

[WhiteRain]

Move or Courier for Magnun.

[Wyrd]

So far, that makes two for move or courier, one move, one courier, and one 'whatever I tell her to join' as LL's has no in character preference, though she would likely work best on the courier run.

Test

[LydaLynn]

*nodnod* Essa will very much go with the flow.

[Vortican]

I am up for the courier run, or the move, so either works.

[Wyrd]

Unless Anatoly responds soon, it looks like we have 6 players. That is the high end of an effective group, and three is the low end, so either I split the people who are open to both runs between the two groups for even numbers, let you choose which groups you want to be in, or have you run one run together, possibly followed by doing the other one.

Those are the options I see. If someone has a suggestion for alternatives, I'm open to them.

[Jeremy]

Hmm. I don't want to be the one arguing for the removal of PC choice, but my rationale is that if you split people, we can have balanced teams that can be suited for their respective run.

[Wyrd]

Any of you who sent me your character sheets in pm's you started will need to resend, as I no longer have access to them. I moved all of your stats to a spreadsheet, but I don't have all of the details like equipment readily available at this point. It's probably best to assume you need to resend me your character.

Edit: Please title the pm SR: Character Name, for ease of reference on my part.

[obidancer]

Hello! I've been reading through all the threads and would be interested in joining the game, would there be any room for me?

I'll bring goodies to the characters

[Wyrd]

Sure. I have three people working on characters to join after the current run, and three people who said they were going to be in the current run but have never posted. One of the great things about the design of SR is that it is very easy to work in someone new to the group.

A warning if you are an experienced SR player: I have enough inexperienced players that I have dialed back the challenge level a bit. There will still be challenges, they will just not be quite as complex or rely on the players being more paranoid than a character who has survived three sessions of Call of Cthulhu. I want everyone to have fun if possible, so I am setting the challenges I place before the players at a level that I think they will find challenging and fun.

You can PM me with a character idea, or discuss it either here or in the OOC thread if you want input from the other players.

[Deckard]

Hi, I have also read the posts and have been playing Shadowrun since 1st edition. I would like to play the game as well. I am familiar with 2nd ed. rules and a bit with 3rd which I have. I dont have the 4th edition rules would they be required for this game or ccan I convert 3rd's?

[Wyrd]

You'll need the 4th edition rules; they are different enough from third that you will need to understand the mechanics even though the game is set in 3rd edition's timeline. You can acquire the game relatively cheaply from Drivethrurpg, or I got my copy from Amazon. Borders, should there still be one near you, is going out of business and selling all of their books fairly cheap as well. These are all legal, licensed methods of acquiring it, so I hope they allow me to leave this in the post.

[Deckard]

I have the Quickstart rules and a character. I will get the 4th rules soon. Can I send or post the character?

[Wyrd]

Pm me with it, preferably with some background, so I can go over it and see how well it works. Some of the things in the character generators are things I have specifically prohibited earlier in this thread, so check my first few posts before submitting, please.