[All4BigGuns]

1) 40% of the team accepting a job and the rest not accepting because "I'm too pretty" and "my cyberware will get hurt" (even though the GM tells you specifically that no it won't) is both unprofessional and very likely comes off insulting to the Johnson.
2) Could also be construed as not finishing a job. By any standard, either the whe team should accept the job or the whole team should turn it down.
3) Unless the characters have Logic 1, they aren't gonna think it's an episode of Oz, either.

1) The "I'm too pretty", I am betting was more of a quip from the player trying to be funny. I know I've made such quips before. As to the cyberware, you are forgetting that prisons do not disable implants when someone is placed in them. They remove it, and they aren't kind about it. So without really massive favors being expended, any of the team going in as prisoners would be suddenly without a good chunk of where they put a high Priority choice in character generation. If the Johnson is insulted by a runner turning down his run, he really doesn't need to be dealing with the Shadows.

2) Turning a job down at the meet is nowhere near the same thing as refusing to finish the job. You can't refuse to finish something that you've never started in the first place.

3) It does not take low intelligence to have very 'wild ideas' of what goes on in prison. All it takes is a working trid set, an active imagination and never having gone to prison oneself.

[shreck]

wel i woud have handelt it different .
i understand why the 3 non-combats puld out .
i as the fixer (GM) woud have offerd the service of a few orc gangers that i coud call in to play the prisoners ( offer players 1/2 reward and let them play those for the prison part ) .
once outside the prison thy switch back to thyr own characters and the orc gangbangers leave whith thyr reward ( thyr job was just the prison bit ) .

and yeah dropping a awakend ( phys adept/mage/shaman) in a regular prison is a very bad idee ( 1 slipup and its strait to a max prison for you ).

[ZeldaBravo]

Or just let non-combatants play guards. I still don't understand why were they supposed to be prisoners.

[NovaHot1]

1) 40% of the team accepting a job and the rest not accepting because "I'm too pretty" and "my cyberware will get hurt" (even though the GM tells you specifically that no it won't) is both unprofessional and very likely comes off insulting to the Johnson.
2) Could also be construed as not finishing a job. By any standard, either the whe team should accept the job or the whole team should turn it down.
3) Unless the characters have Logic 1, they aren't gonna think it's an episode of Oz, either.

1) The "I'm too pretty", I am betting was more of a quip from the player trying to be funny. I know I've made such quips before. As to the cyberware, you are forgetting that prisons do not disable implants when someone is placed in them. They remove it, and they aren't kind about it. So without really massive favors being expended, any of the team going in as prisoners would be suddenly without a good chunk of where they put a high Priority choice in character generation. If the Johnson is insulted by a runner turning down his run, he really doesn't need to be dealing with the Shadows.

2) Turning a job down at the meet is nowhere near the same thing as refusing to finish the job. You can't refuse to finish something that you've never started in the first place.

3) It does not take low intelligence to have very 'wild ideas' of what goes on in prison. All it takes is a working trid set, an active imagination and never having gone to prison oneself.

1. True. Although that prison removing them instead of disabling them depends on the GM.

2. If only half a runner team accepts a mission, that's still unprofessional. It should really be an all or nothing response, or that team isn't going to survive very long.

3. It doesn't take low intelligence to have wild ideas. It definitely takes low intelligence to believe that, as, in character, you are playing a hardened criminal (exceptions go to street level games, I'd say) that would have a general knowledge of the consequences of their actions for something like that.

[Glyph]

Runners might not be wrong in thinking that prison is really, really bad.  This is a distopian universe, where prison privatization is accompanied by lax oversight and a subcategory of people (SINless) with no human rights to speak of.  Street samurai getting their cyberware forcibly removed (maybe they get anesthesia if they're lucky) and mages getting held in conditions of torturous sensory deprivation are a thing, in Shadowrun.

[Top Dog]

2. If only half a runner team accepts a mission, that's still unprofessional. It should really be an all or nothing response, or that team isn't going to survive very long.

But runners aren't a team; they're independent actors. You might often be hired together with the same guys, because you have the same fixers/fixers that know each other and you're known to work well together, but that's not the same thing. (Practically, you probably do all your (big) missions with the same people, but that's for metagame reasons).

They don't offer a job to the team as a singular entity, they offer a job to 4-5 seperate runners. That offer might be conditional ("We want to hire this specific team, so either you all accept or we'll find a different team") but that's on the Johnson. The runners should always decide for themselves if they accept the run or not, and the Johnson can decide what he wants to do if part of them accept.

[Herr Brackhaus]

I'd disagree with you on that characterization, Top Dog.

For example, in several published adventures, Boardroom Backstabs in particular, the team is actually rewarded with positive dice pool modifiers if they only send the Face in to meet with Mr. Johnson first, and this particular adventure mentions that this is because Mr. Johnson sees this as a sign of respect.

Additionally, a lot of the fluff has individuals working together as a team more than individuals; each actor is not independent because a team is more efficient when they know each other and more importantly, trust each other.

While there certainly are considerations for each player having a say, I don't necessarily think the same is true for each player character. There might be some words between PCs after the job, but shadowrunning is not a democracy; jobs don't have to be run through approval committees if you ask me.

[ShadowcatX]

An approval commitee? Of course not. But if you want to claim the.runners are a team (and lets be honest, it has happened both ways in the fluff) then the unprofessional ones are the two who took the contract. You'll notice it was they who had the easy jobs, the ones who would be put to the most risk and most out of their element are the ones who should have had the say so.

[wraithstrike]

I am basically a noob, but one thing I learned, and maybe it just my GM, but Runs never seem to go as smoothly as they should. If I am a non-combat character there is no way I would agree to go to jail. If I am barely competent in combat I most likely can't protect anyone else either. If a local gang population wants someone dead, and I interfere I will likely die also.

From a player(not character) point of view being told exactly how to run a mission is not fun. I have been through that also.

It would be better to let me know who the target is, give me any info Mr.Johnson might have. If he wants he can suggest a course of action, but the team should be making the final choice.

[Glyph]

While there certainly are considerations for each player having a say, I don't necessarily think the same is true for each player character. There might be some words between PCs after the job, but shadowrunning is not a democracy; jobs don't have to be run through approval committees if you ask me.

I think most shadowrunning teams would be democracies.  They are misfit crews of specialists from widely different backgrounds, bound together by self-interest and sometimes a rough camaraderie, but no formal ranks or commanding officer.  At best, they will have a nominal leader.  But individual team members would still feel free to walk away from jobs - that's the whole point of being a freelancer.  If they wanted someone telling them what to do and choosing their jobs for them, they would be working for a megacorporation.  I can see things like a lone holdout being pressured into taking a job by the rest of the group, but I can't see over half the group getting no say in whether or not to walk away from a job.

[All4BigGuns]

1. True. Although that prison removing them instead of disabling them depends on the GM.

2. If only half a runner team accepts a mission, that's still unprofessional. It should really be an all or nothing response, or that team isn't going to survive very long.

3. It doesn't take low intelligence to have wild ideas. It definitely takes low intelligence to believe that, as, in character, you are playing a hardened criminal (exceptions go to street level games, I'd say) that would have a general knowledge of the consequences of their actions for something like that.

1) In a way, the former is a GM that actually knows the setting and the latter is a GM who just picked up their first SR book the day of the game and can't be arsed to read the setting chapters before the game.

2) Untrue. While there are some actual teams out there in the setting, those are actually the minority.

[Angelone]

I'm late to the party but I wanted to say that the idea was great the execution not so much. Punishing the players for opting out would be a huge mistake. The limitations placed on them by this run is too much. Also these guys weren't a team they worked together a few times before.

I would love trying a run like this.

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

I would too, albeit with a group of players I knew well, and ICly with a team I knew to be absolutely reliable to each other.

[Leevizer]

Also, you need to realize that sometimes the players just don't want to do your run, be it an IC or OOC reason. You should also have some sort of "backup-run" for that, in case something like this happens again.

[prismite]

Also, you need to realize that sometimes the players just don't want to do your run, be it an IC or OOC reason. You should also have some sort of "backup-run" for that, in case something like this happens again.

I have to disagree with this.

I'm not a perfect GM by any means or standards, let me announce that openly (not that there was ever any doubt). On my forums I have 3 rules posted that are the foundation of everything I believe in, RPG-wise:

1. Wheaton's Law: DONT BE A DICK. People underestimate just how far this rule stretches.
2. Trust the players.
3. Trust the GM.

In essence, if I spend the desk time to write you a mission, saying something like "I'm too pretty" or "nope, not the kind of run I'm interested in" is really a violation of Rules 1 & 3. I wish I had the link to the original article of which I extracted these rules, but the long and short of it is that sometimes you (as a player) have to do things with your character that are "out of character" because staying "in character" would force you to do prick things, usually agaisnt your own teammates. It violates rule 3 because trust needs to be mutual. If you dont trust me, I cant trust you. If I have a habit of screwing you over in missions because I'm too heavy handed or just outright evil, then *I* violated rule 3, not you.

I dont disagree that there should have been more involvement from the players in the setup of this mission, though. As for the claim that this is low-pay ... well ... that is going to vary from table to table and should vary (IMO, anyway) on the current total karma of the character. Higher total individuals will want more money than a new group of aspiring runners.