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Player made a big mistake - damage control?

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GloriousRuse

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« Reply #15 on: <04-30-17/1704:47> »
Which, in the absence of an clear alternative forms of electric generation in canon is just more "writer' can't do economics". After all, electric generation is usually super inefficient at recovering heat energy from burning hydrocarbons. It is mostly useful for turning that heat energy into easily distributed non-heat energy. So, cooking with electricity taken from an oil/gas power plant is actually way more expensive per BTU than just cooking with your choice of hydrocarbon to begin with after you get past initial capital costs. Just as an aside.

Other than that, look, this guy decided to throw hand grenades into the kitchen of a local Olive Garden before turning it into mini-Grozny, with a ton of innocent civilians around - in a part of town obviously well off enough the the LE are concerned about warrants and judicial review. Even if you let him out of the immediate physical scenario alive, his life now consists of being hunted until dead, self-exiled,  or very publicly tried and incarcerated for life.

firebug

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« Reply #16 on: <05-01-17/0500:25> »
Other than that, look, this guy decided to throw hand grenades into the kitchen of a local Olive Garden before turning it into mini-Grozny, with a ton of innocent civilians around - in a part of town obviously well off enough the the LE are concerned about warrants and judicial review. Even if you let him out of the immediate physical scenario alive, his life now consists of being hunted until dead, self-exiled,  or very publicly tried and incarcerated for life.

That reminds me.  It's a rule of thumb in games I GM that any encounter with law enforcement results in +1 Public Awareness, as you'll be on the news somewhere.    If it involves explosives, I'd increase it by 1, and if it involves the death of any law enforcement, that's another +1, with a +1 Notoriety.  No Mr. Johnson wants you to kill cops unless that's specifically what they ordered you to do.  While Lone Star or whomever might just be "on the way", keep that in mind as potential repercussions should his character survive.  His reputation in the shadows will suffer for this, one way or another.
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Jeeze.  It would almost sound stupid until you realize we're talking about an immortal elf clown sword fighting a dragon ghost in a mall.

Jack_Spade

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« Reply #17 on: <05-01-17/0646:23> »
@GloriousRuse

The official canon talks about fission and fusion plants as well as solar technology being the main energy source.
Microwaving is likely the most prevalent way to cook in the 2070s.
And Lonestar bothering with due procedure indicates that the opposition can and will use lawyers, nothing else.

That said: Yeah, (HE) grenade throwing with civilians around is quite stupid (gas grenades with pepperpunch are so much cheaper and in addition completely legal)

@firebug
That seems reasonable - reputationwise this was probably a career killing move. None of my characters would want to go on a run with such an unstable idiot.
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Dominious

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« Reply #18 on: <06-13-17/1022:45> »
You can give him one last chance by having the Ork Chef beat him to within an inch of his life and then having Lone Star Show up (the others should be away by then) and arrest him.  The guy they were doing this for pulls a few strings and he gets off with only a criminal SIN.  That way he doesn't die, but he has a negative backlash from his actions as a criminal SIN is not fun.  You can also use this in future runs to keep him in line.  If he doesn't take it, then killing him is a perfectly viable option (Lone Star tend to have a 'shoot first, ask questions never' policy towards people who resist arrest).

Out of Character, I think since you mentioned you played mostly Pathfinder before, that this player is still in Pathfinder mode, where combat is quite different.  When the run is completed I would take out time for a feedback moment, asking all players what they think (both good points and bad) and give your own as well.  Maybe this player was expecting something else from the session and/or the system.  Since you guys are new to Shadowrun, which is not the easiest system to learn, having some feedback can enhance future games.  If the character died, he's pissed about it and you gave him a couple of chances, point these out to the player during the feedback.

This! This too would likely be my way of handling this situation. Particularly given how new your campaign is. That said, Shadowrun is a very consequences heavy game. There is a tidal wave level of ripple effect in the 6th world. As a player I found this out the hard way when one of my PC's who had a distinct hatred for Lone Star did something that caused such havok that the whole team had to retire their characters due to public outcry and notoriety(25 points to be specific). Speaking of which, IF this rigger survives, I would say a several point increase in his notoriety would be expected and reasonable. Were it my game and I let the rigger live, he would end up with a notoriety addition of 4-5 points for this stunt. But that is just my two cents and as always; "opinions and mileage may vary"

DWC

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« Reply #19 on: <09-01-17/1256:50> »
Sweep the leg.  His character willfully did something mindnumbingly stupid, and if you casually let that slide, it'll become the new normal.

Hello, everyone.

I am newcomer to Shadowrun and this is my first brush with the forum. I've recently begun running a Shadowrun game with friends after deciding to move to something new after several years of Pathfinder, I'm still very much learning how the system runs. My primary concern here is in dealing with the upcoming fallout from where I left off this evening's game. Forgive my ignorance of both crunch and fluff.

The premise of tonight's game was a side run. They needed a favour from one of their contacts in Lone Star and he offered them a deal: in one of the less blooming parts of Renton a trashy restaurant serves as a front for a narco lab, they have more than sufficient proof they're there but nothing to allow for a warrant. So they are sent to cause just big enough a mess for his patrol to have enough excuse to crash inside and accidentally stumble upon the lab in doing so.

Things were coming along rather nicely. They did some legwork on the place. Our face, mage, and street sammy got inside as customers and drew some attention to themselves innocently while our ninja snuck his way in and the technomancer probed after what little systems there were for her to use.

The problem is the rigger. He was scouting out the place with a FlySpy drone only to be rudely interrupted as one of the chefs, with a good roll and a display worthy of forewarning that this guy is not to be messed with, slashed the irritating fly in half with a kitchen knife. This funny little occurrence is what brought all hell down upon the game. It made our rigger (whom was also very much a demolitions expert) so pissed that he marched out of the car, said something about "blowing that fragger up" ignoring all comm hails asking what the drek was going on, went through the backdoor where our infiltrator had cleared through... then a very hasty command to take cover.

"IT IS BOOM TIME!"

He threw a high explosive grenade toward the guy at the counter, right between one of the workers and half of our team. Barely knowing how to react they did not move anywhere near fast enough to clear out of the way sufficiently. They were only rescued from being exposed to a bad part of the blast by our mage who did some quick thinking and used Control Actions on the stunned food worker/drug runner and made him curl down and absorb the blast with his body (with an edge point).

Not a pretty sight. The restaurant cleared in a panic. Street sammy got shooting, took down another of the guys inside. The face and mage were trapped in the crossfire. Finding that they had caused a sufficient amount of mess to draw Lone Star at that point the infiltrator made a run for it through the backdoor and urged the rigger to do the same. He was still out for blood. Threw another grenade he was packing into the kitchen and the chef (and big tuff guy) rushed out, met the street sammy head on and went on to give him a whopping with a large kitchen knife.

Badly hurting and with Lone Star no doubt showing up soon enough as planned they're making a run for it. A panic switch was kicked and the doors were automatically locked so they're about to make a rough exit through the windows to the waiting escape vehicle. Issue is, the rigger severely screwed himself by not running out and is trapped in a storage room with a locked door behind him and frenzied ork chef ahead of himself. They're unlikely to take him down and he's got another guy incoming. Decker glitched out trying to wrench control of the doors.

He's screwed himself over big time, and his team. While the others have a solid chance of escaping and staggering out of there he's trapped and the others do not feel much obligation to get him out at this point. I know the player is not going to take it well at all if he gets killed, but that seems what is most likely right now. I'm not sure if he just thought the whole thing would be funny or he was genuinely pissed over losing his drone but the player also seemed to very much protect his actions. We're an RP heavy group.

Regardless, he is now cut off with a team that is pissed off at him. The player likely won't take it well if he dies and I've been a generally 'merciful' DM throughout my PF career but I've still got a few kills under my belt especially for wanton suicidal moves like this. But I feel bad killing him on the fourth game when he seems so into the character.

And the issue is, further, even if I don't kill him I see no reason how or why I should force the team to keep him around. He nearly killed half of them, went AWOL over a crappy drone, had a civvie killed in his rampage, and generally exposed the whole team to mortal danger whether by his own fire or theirs.

I'm not sure what would be a happy ending to this issue.

TL;DR: One of my players rushed in on impulse, blew the plan away and nearly half our team, is cut off and likely about to die, and is alienated by the entire gang. No happy ending in sight.

Or is there?

This could've likely been made a lot shorter and comprehensive, just rattling it off late at night. Its bugging me. Feels like bad group dynamics or drama is inevitable and will make a sour beginning to our Shadowrun careers.

GhostGirl

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« Reply #20 on: <09-01-17/1735:48> »
While dying should be the result, you can do something almost as bad. Life-threatening injuries, arrest, or both. Make him go through a lengthy recovery, and have to get back into the good graces of his team. Make him face the consequences.
"The finest trick of the devil is to persuade you that he does not exist."--Baudelaire