[CanRay]

"GM, this is CanRay. Make him PLAY for his Karma!"

Bastards the lot of you!!!

You just enjoy watching me suffer, don't you?   

*dangles a game to play just out of CanRay's reach*

Hehehehe. 

You could have just said "Yes".

 

[All4BigGuns]

"GM, this is CanRay. Make him PLAY for his Karma!"

Bastards the lot of you!!!

You just enjoy watching me suffer, don't you?   

*dangles a game to play just out of CanRay's reach*

Hehehehe. 

You could have just said "Yes".

 

But that's not as fun. 

[Stahlseele]

"GM, this is CanRay. Make him PLAY for his Karma!"

Bastards the lot of you!!!

You just enjoy watching me suffer, don't you?   

Of course we do.
But i already said that if i had that kind of money, i would have paid 10k$ to get you a game

[Mirikon]

"GM, this is CanRay. Make him PLAY for his Karma!"

Bastards the lot of you!!!

You just enjoy watching me suffer, don't you?   

*dangles a game to play just out of CanRay's reach*

Hehehehe. 

You could have just said "Yes".

 

Now CanRay, you know that if we did that, the fun would end. Of course, you could always just move somewhere that isn't a frozen wasteland, and actually find people to play with. Remember, it is your choices that make it so you can never play. Instead of fighting it, just accept it, and start running a game, with you as all the players.

[CanRay]

Now CanRay, you know that if we did that, the fun would end. Of course, you could always just move somewhere that isn't a frozen wasteland, and actually find people to play with. Remember, it is your choices that make it so you can never play. Instead of fighting it, just accept it, and start running a game, with you as all the players.

After breaking my arm, and a load of other issues, I can't move away from where I am.

Nearly killed me getting here in the first place.  Might not be so lucky the next time.  Much as I complain, it's better here than back home.   

[The Big Peat]

I will reiterate, based on what I've seen here: It's not a competition.

My personal take on this would be; it's not a competition, but it must maintain the illusion of the competition. You are working together to enjoy yourself; most groups enjoy themselves most when they feel challenged.

[Patrick Goodman]

You can challenge your players without competing with them. You should challenge your players without competing with them. The second competition between GM and player happens, the game's already pretty much doomed. It stops being about telling an amazing story with your friends, and it becomes a game of spiraling one-up-manship that only ends badly. If I've learned nothing else in more than 30 years of doing this, it's that lesson right there.

[Nycidian Grey]

The problem with human nature is we like to compete, but this also is what makes games fun.

As a game master your goal should be to create a story that is as interesting as possible and allows your players to struggle and compete without competing with the players themselves.

You should ideally push each and every character to the depths of despair and to the heights of success.

You need to remember that it is not your world but yours and the players worlds and you should know what their goals are for their characters and give them challenges, that if passed, will further those goals.

[The Rampant Gamer]

So much of the advice here has been system-agnostic - you could apply it to any RPG.

Overall: It's a roleplaying game - you win by being the most interesting and entertaining character, not by beating the bad guys every time. And reward good behaviors in your players, so that they'll want to keep doing more of the same.

As far as Shadowrun in particular goes? Don't let your players build characters in isolation. Force them to build them together, as a group, even if it costs you a full gaming session to do so. Force them to decide before you get very far into things, just why it is they're a team, why they work together, and why on earth they trust these other misanthropes with their lives. The biggest problems I have run into include a) finely tuned characters who have no weaknesses or are impossibly good at something important like combat, far outstripping the rest of the team and b) a group of characters who have no common bonds, and when played correctly wind up shooting one another because they're all a bunch of vicious bastards.

[Reaver]

So much of the advice here has been system-agnostic - you could apply it to any RPG.

Overall: It's a roleplaying game - you win by being the most interesting and entertaining character, not by beating the bad guys every time. And reward good behaviors in your players, so that they'll want to keep doing more of the same.

As far as Shadowrun in particular goes? Don't let your players build characters in isolation. Force them to build them together, as a group, even if it costs you a full gaming session to do so. Force them to decide before you get very far into things, just why it is they're a team, why they work together, and why on earth they trust these other misanthropes with their lives. The biggest problems I have run into include a) finely tuned characters who have no weaknesses or are impossibly good at something important like combat, far outstripping the rest of the team and b) a group of characters who have no common bonds, and when played correctly wind up shooting one another because they're all a bunch of vicious bastards.

A well made character (in my mind) would have only a few to no weaknesses... After all he was well made :p
But that usually means he's not the "king of the hill" in any one area. Sure he can shoot (reasonably) well, hack a little code, and schmooze his way past the guard he coildn't sneak past, (ESP with a nice bribe!) but he's not going to prance around anyone in a golden crown screaming "I'm da king baby!!"

On the other of the coin are the hyper specialized characters... You know the ones... Unless it involves (XXXX), they are drooling piles of mush.... Those are the easiest characters to deal with!!! Just throw the meat grinder at them and watch the chunks spew!
What I mean by that is hit them where they suck! Can't tell the number of 30+ dice gun bunnies, cybernuaghts and arch magi I have dusted over the years with a little common sense RPing of the situation.

The gun bunny got 100 dice in his gun skill and 4 IP? What is his willpower??
The arch magi throws 200 dice for that fireball and to resist drain? That is his body?
The cybernaughts got every piece of ware possible to have and still have a pulse? What's his defense against being hacked???

[Lacynth40]

A really good piece of advice? Don't be afraid of killing off characters if they do something stupid. Or, if you need to show the rest of the group that you are dealing with some serious stuff. Like, I don't see a group of Jaguar Warriors and a couple of blood mages going down without at least ONE of the characters biting it. Especially when the Aztlaners have the drop on the group.

But, if the hacker's player decides that his starting character is good enough to try to hack Horizon's Consensus servers in full VR, and no assistance... Well, concentrate on the rest of the group while he makes up a new character. *shrugs* Everyone at the tables I play with always has back-up characters rolled up in case their main bites it. If you are starting a new campaign, and actually want that level of grittiness, just suggest that everyone have a spare character so they don't waste the rest of the session writing up a new one. Of course, around here we're all used to playing Paranoia, CoC, and a host of other games that feature character death or insanity. So, it all seeps into our Shadowrun gaming as well.