[ScytheKnight]

Se this sort of thing is why I'm more focused on loadout then weight.. this is especially true of the two street sams both of whom have Strength 8 (one because badass human wanting to use MMG as a primary weapon, and the other because frag you I'm an augmented troll) with reinforced skeletons... they can carry a load easily that would literally break the bones of weakling characters, so I'm just concerned with how they're carrying all their kit.

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

And, hopefully, how noticeable it is.

My favorite ways to mess with them is keep an eye on their habits.  Get to know what the players' characters will do - their reactions, what they always buy, etc.  One player I knew went through several characters, but ALL of them loaded APDS into every single weapon.  He got to be the trigger-happy character in the Fantasy Island adventure.  My character in that same adventure had an addiction to 'stuffers' - and even though the power was out to 99% of the island, the GM put a vending machine chock-full of junk food down a couple sets of stairs, to which I of course sprinted.  Oblivious, she almost got her head ripped off by a zombie while she gorged herself.

Even in normal-day stuff, remember who they are and what they can do.  If some nasty offensive little old lady / stupid ganger has his hands on the very last bag of Nochito's chips, the street sam's favorite, let him get upset and argue.  Better yet, let him get distracted by another PC just before he grabs it, and have the LOL/SG snatch it from under his hand - and refuse to give it up, taunting him all the while.  A cybered 8 STR shove is going to put LOL/SG through a shelf or six ...

[Sternenwind]

How do you define „messing“?

As GM in one way or another I mess with them all the time. And hey they deserve it. They always destroy my plots or kill my NPCs. Ok not always, but most of the time.

The one time I really messed with a player, hurt his character pretty hard was … without intent, I swear. So I was runing a little campaign, used some stuff form ghost cartel and was messing around with one character, just for the record it deserved it. One of the adventure/missions I did run was Paradiese Lost. I just took the mission, changed some data and run it as a “side quest” in 2070. Doing favor for a Johnson, so that they can progress in the main campaign. One of the things I changed were the pretty obvious hints about who(/what) the leader of Aloha is. I hid or removed them complete and only gave subtle hints. That they killed the only one I deemed worthy to know about Alohas leader made it all perfect. Not that I provoked it, I would never do such thing.

So they found out that a dragon was running the show, the moment the dragon entered the stage. The “I knew it. Dam it, dam you.” alone was worth all the planning. The combat started, I knew how it would most likely end and how I can spin it to progress my story and my players ruined again. Stupid rocked launcher. But before that there was a little “accident”. I nearly force suicide a player character. So there was a Dragon and he had a Fire elemental with him. And there was this melee physical adept. He wasn’t happy that I did not allow him to engage the dragon in melee combat because the fire Elemental was in the way. So I suggested instate he can attack the fire elemental. He did … and what can I say, a week before we switched from SR4 to SR5 and this was our first spirit with elemental aura …
16p(f) Ap -8 BÄM … ähm BURN.

[Lethal Joke]

Well, my players had a job that said they had to get data (from a datachip in a secure vault in a corp HQ's subbasement.) So, they managed to get in without tripping the alarms, but in the subbasement there was a standing guard: two regular and one lieutenant level. I was expecting a nice little fight.

The street samurai - timing it with a concert playing next door - hit the guards with a High Explosive grenade from his Ares Alpha. They were surprised, none of the guards near enough (there were plenty) detected the boom. So they killed all but the lieutenant, who was dropped by an arrow from their mage immediately thereafter. They opened the vault and grabbed the chip (half the sensors were off due to the concert next door.)

So I decided to have a patrol show up. Four guards (later reinforced to eight due to noise drawing them.) These guards caught my players by surprise, and the decker and the mage were injured quite severely, relegating them to taking cover behind a heavy desk. Over the course of the rest of the fight, the street samurai - again turning to his Ares Alpha - fired his remaining HE grenades at the guards. Who were hiding behind load-bearing pillars that were the best cover in the house.

Just as the last couple bad guys were turned into little squishy pieces, I decided to calculate damage to the pillar. My math may have been fudged a bit. Or a lot. But I had a section of the roof cave in on the samurai, who had been moving around the room to give him a better shot at the guards.

While the other players - who were under a big desk to the side of the room - didn't get hit, the street samurai (an elf, so fast, not tough) was hit by several items including a bathroom sink.

The party managed to limp their way out of the ruins before the HTR teams showed up. They had the data. But they spent quite awhile healing up.