[Nal0n]

I am with Bull on this one: As soon as you earn real money by building and selling stuff you become a NPC.
Avoids LOTS of discussion and problems.

Building stuff for one self / the team is ok though.

[All4BigGuns]

I am with Bull on this one: As soon as you earn real money by building and selling stuff you become a NPC.
Avoids LOTS of discussion and problems.

Building stuff for one self / the team is ok though.

Instead of taking the player's character away from them, why not take a look at your payouts and increase them? That is generally going to be the reason they bother trying alternate methods for making money.

[Crunch]

I am with Bull on this one: As soon as you earn real money by building and selling stuff you become a NPC.
Avoids LOTS of discussion and problems.

Building stuff for one self / the team is ok though.

Instead of taking the player's character away from them, why not take a look at your payouts and increase them? That is generally going to be the reason they bother trying alternate methods for making money.

The two things don't have anything to do with each other, and increasing payouts won't magically cause PCs to stop playing shopkeeper.

[Raiden]

If he is playing shopkeep he may find your payout too low. 

[Opti]

Well, honestly, my players are veteran powergamers from other systems, and they are very new to shadowrun, so they are looking for every advantage, regardless of how much pay I give them or not.

[calaen]

Ah.  You just said the magic woids.  Veteran powergamers.  Okay!  Right, what you've got to remember is anything they can do, you can do better.  Set another team of runners against them, remember that the bane of the summoner is the banishing specialist, remember that in a given group of gangers, there may be an magically active NPC, if they had such a go in with a group of gangers, well, their buddies are gonna be real upset about what happened, and the way it happened, so hit them during downtimes when they're seperate, and do it via ambush.  Geek the mage first is always the way, so the moment that your spirit goes on its murder spree, all the other guards or NPCs focus fire on that mage - preferably with either APDS or stick and shock.  (Yes, I am aware that this is a vicious, hateful set of solutions.) And if he gets the stick and shock option (because you're being nice) now he gets the joy of being a corporate prisoner - use your imagination about what they might do to a prisoner unless he escapes or gets rescued (this can be the focus of a whole run.)  Remember, NPCs aren't dumb - they 1. prepare for contingency. 2. Adapt and respond.  These two things mean that Lonestar or Knight Errant both have mages in employment, and many corporate branches likely have at least one mage in their employment - not to mention drones.  Suffocation does nothing to drones, same with mind control.

As to shopkeeping... as others have said, supply and demand, and quite frankly, there just isn't the demand, since on top of you only being able to sell formulae once to someone, they may already have it.

[Muscular_Bevar]

I feel like the "I'm the GM and i say NO" option gets used alot and its valid in many circumstances but perhaps another way of looking at it is that if your players want to make money by running a buisness, let them...

However, this is both a role playing game and shadowrun so it would make sense that in doing so they need to play a role and run the shadows. Your players want to make cash out of selling formula. Great! but they need a place to sell from, they need people to sell too and they need a product worth paying for. All of these things need to be worked out and it makes sense to me to weave these into the way you play. So now the team is doing legwork to make contacts in thebiz and to rustle up potential buyers. They are running to earn enough to expand thier buisness or to get hard to find or unique ingredients/materials. In fact they probably also need to do some runs to steal ideas or gain inspiration for new ones.

Here's what i would present to the players (before doing the hard yards of course). If you would like to continue selling formulae we can go a few different ways. First, we can turn this into a buisness and ultimatley this will shape your character and thier goals to revolve around it. Secondly we can drop the whole thing and go back to "calassic running" or finally you can spend time creating formula and trying to shop it around in your spare time but be aware that this is not going to be the cash cow you expect it to be. you will most likely be spending much of your downtime each month to pull in a few hundred nuyen.
If they dont get the concept of the above i would use examples like the storage wars/pickers guys as people who devote there liife to it to make a living or the guy who tries buy cheap stuff off of ebay and make a small profit in his spare time (having done this myself in the past, it is a great way to help support a gaming habit but not enough to live on and yes it does chew up far too much time. If you look at the numbers you might earn $2-3 an hour, unless you devote alot of your time too it so really just get a job!!)

Any way hope thats helpful!!

[SoulGambit]

You're complaining that your mage is wiping the floor with people who are rolling 4 dice? Those were mooks... their job is to die spectacularly.

Also, in regards to Mob Control, et cetera. Its untenable in actual play, I don't think you are running it correct...

First, roll spellcasting vs resist. If successful, note net successes. Nothing has actually happened yet. On their action, instead of doing something, they resist again, whittling away at your successes. Then on your turn, you issue a command. On their turn, they roll again, whittling away again at your Hits. If they don't, then they perform whatever your command was. This is three resistance rolls against your one roll... if your dicepools are -that- much better than the opponent's, then you deserve to instantly win.

Second, the rules do what they say they do. There is no "commit suicide" action. Miscellaneous actions are allowed if I feel they are appropriate. While I will houserule in random stuff that makes the game better--you are not entitled for me to houserule actions into the game. Now, shooting yourself in the head is a an action and something the NPCs can be made to do. This is a called shot. They roll their attack with a -4 penalty (no defense, I'll give them that). It deals the listed damage, and they soak it normally. That is how it works because that is how the rules says shooting anything in the head works. If your players complain it should be instantly lethal, explain that you're the GM and that sticking to a strict reading of the rules makes the game better, and to please go along with it. If they still complain, tell them to read up on Beethovan's relatives, also anatomy books. If they -still- complain, have an as-before-unseen NPC perform a called shot on their head, then politely ask them what should happen. After the results of the fight make sure to build rapport later and have one or two positive interactions before your next game.

Get used to banning incidental power in your game. The faster you learn to do this, the easier things will become. Just make sure you also implement the "Rule of Cool" as well. Lateral thought is allowed as long as it is interesting.

[Shamie]

i have run on both sides of the "mage´s spirit are OP" so i suggest that:

1) if you are not a very experience DM dont throw more enemies as micro manage them is a nightmare. Instead make every security guard to throw 10 dices per attack min. with assault riffles as weapon and 1 or 2 mages.

2) Cheat. Fudge the dices in a realistic way. And/or get rid of the limits for the enemies not the PC if you are dming 5th

3) The spirit enters the combat and every singles security guard should full auto on it.

I dont say to use this in every single combat, let him enjoy the first two encounters but by the third his tactics should bite the dust

[All4BigGuns]

2) Cheat. Fudge the dices in a realistic way. And/or get rid of the limits for the enemies not the PC if you are dming 5th

No. No. No. The only time it is acceptable to "fudge" is when a PC is going to be killed merely through dumb luck of a really good dice roll on the part of an enemy or a really bad one on their part. Character death should only occur at a dramatically appropriate moment, NOT simply dumb luck.

Basically, if you're going to "fudge", make sure it's for the benefit of the campaign as a whole rather than just because of some notion that a "challenging encounter" requires the PCs to come away severely depleted, injured or dead.

[Shamie]

2) Cheat. Fudge the dices in a realistic way. And/or get rid of the limits for the enemies not the PC if you are dming 5th

No. No. No. The only time it is acceptable to "fudge" is when a PC is going to be killed merely through dumb luck of a really good dice roll on the part of an enemy or a really bad one on their part. Character death should only occur at a dramatically appropriate moment, NOT simply dumb luck.

Basically, if you're going to "fudge", make sure it's for the benefit of the campaign as a whole rather than just because of some notion that a "challenging encounter" requires the PCs to come away severely depleted, injured or dead.

Two questions pop in my mind. Are you stalking me? It seems i cant sneeze in this forum without you coming under a rock to counter argument my posts. Is kinda flattering  and anoying. Second question who died and make you the authority about whats aceptable or not in a game? Is there a huge rock tablet somewhere that has the "thous" of Dming?

if he is saying that spirits are way to powerfull for him to handle and that he is a new GM. Instead of having to micromanage 15 goons (wich is difficult) he can just make 6 or 7 very powerfull goons and just fudge the dices to amp the difficulty so they hit the spirit or dont get inmediatly knock out.

[SoulGambit]

You micromanage 15 goons by not micro-managing them. You make them all have the same dicepools and then speed roll.

[Shamie]

You micromanage 15 goons by not micro-managing them. You make them all have the same dicepools and then speed roll.

thing is, and this is only my experience could be different for other people, that if all enemies are grouped on one big block of initiative it just drags a lot the combat.
example

player1-----player 2-----player 3-----player 4-----spirit-----goon1-----goon 2-----goons 3-----goon 4-----goons 5-----goon 6-----goon 7-----goon 8-----goons 9 to 15-----player 5.

There is a big block of time on each phase in wich the players are gonna be just listening to me throwing dices without them having any effect on the combat. And is more that anything the rolls on the attacks as if i roll one attack roll for all the enemies is not the same damage i want to dish out to the troll samie with 9 body than to the puny decker elf with 2 body.
And on the example of the spirit being too powerfull while 15 goons could concentrate fire and eliminate him quickly another problem arrise them. Once the big bad spirit is banish there still 15 goons and the players are probably dead. While with only 7 enemies and fudging i can tilt the balance in favor of the enemies while dealing with the spirits and once its gone tilt it again in favor of the players.

This is of course my opinion and experience, i know dms who can micro manage 25 npcs without a problem or use more other ways to resolving this.

[SoulGambit]

Because you don't do it one after like that. You do it like this

Player 1 -> Player 2 -> Player 3 -> Player 4 -> Spirit -> All goons simultaneously -> Player 5.

When it gets to the Goon's turn, you describe what they all do. End it with a note of how many attacks of what type are going to what players. One player at a time, you roll all of the attacks as they roll all of their defenses quickly. Determine what hits, tell them the damages. Move on to the next player as the prior player rolls soak and notes the result on their sheet. This has another advantage of blocking all of your PCs together. That lets them all take their turns at the same time, which speeds combat even more.

"Fifteen" is an arbitrary number. It is pretty close to the upper limit of what I'd do before handling them as a swarm. You, of course, gauge the combat by what the PCs can handle. Personally, I'd use a smaller number of stronger enemies, because even with this method 15 takes a rather long time.

[All4BigGuns]

Four signs of a good GM (in this order):

1- Provide a fun game for the players.
2- Ensure that the PCs survive unless they do something unbelievably stupid (something on the level of taking a piss on Lofwyr's claw)
3- Provide an appropriate level of challenge (severe depletion of resources and severe injury of a PC--as in very near death--is a sign of an encounter that is either too much or needs an extra experience reward)
4- Have fun yourself. (While you should be enjoying the game as well, the players' enjoyment should be priority over your own.)