[Xzylvador]

My approach may border on the opposite, in that when I am running a home-made story, I tend to make up the tactical situation on the fly.  For example, I gave my players a list of twenty potential targets.  They chose a street doc who worked out the back of a redneck BBQ place (Greasy Bruce's) in Renton.  When the actual session started, that's all I, the GM knew about the target location. 

By the time they arrived, I decided it was raining, it had a large graval carppark full of pickup trucks and bikes.  When they got to the entrace, they were met with a tired, worn-out watress and a muscle bound bouncer (with no stats written out).  They decided to infiltrate the place as potential customers, so I decided Bruce was a big guy and he had two big bruiser enforcers.  Still no stats, just a description.  When they talked there way into the clinic (and I made up the layout on the fly, deciding on  restruant section, a bar area, a dirty kicthen and a small concrete and steel clinic and a loading doc area out the back), I just had the street doc out the back.  When one of the other players wanted to sneak into the place by an upstairs window, the place suddenly had an upstairs section, with an office.  When the sneaky player wanted to make his way inside to the clinic, there was a stair case and a corridor between the clinic and the mainbar. There was also a third bruiser, to give the stealthy player a chance to avoid a guard on the way to the clinic. Stuff happened and the players needed to escape via the back.  Suddenly the back loading dock area is a large graval courtyard surrounded by a chainlink fence and on the otherside tall apartment buildings and trash filled alleyways and in the distance, a street.

It was easier to maintain atmosphere and create new challenges on the fly.  For me, it makes the game eaiser to run and easier to make more cinematic and interesting.  I focus on the potential challenges and scences I want to run, and not to sweat the details.  When I run pre-made missions, my biggest challenge is the detailed set-up.  Sometimes I skim the details, get the core challenges and themes out and run with that.

While obviously very fun and cinematic, how do you match that with legwork?
Let's say the runners manage to get the building's blueprints, the number of guards or even hack into the security feed and see everything beforehand. Doesn't that make it very hard to "wing it", all of the sudden needing to put something definitive down on paper (or whatever style you use)?

[Unahim]

Not necessarily. You can just give the Runners a rough description (like: "You find the floor plans. You can see that there's x type of security measures, and can expect to have to overcome Y and W") that they can prepare for, and then just make sure to incorporate those elements you mentioned at some point. Instead of keeping the map hidden to them and not giving any pointers, you just show whatever you have and if they ask questions like "Can we find the control room from here?" you say "Yes. That way." rather than "If you're lucky."

If they don't do any legwork, you just decide what direction they should be going in on the fly (and before they decide which one they go in) and generally make security more of a pain.

Working with only very basic preperations isn't easier than working with detailed maps and encounters already written out; the difficulty is just placed on on-the-fly DM'ing and thinking two steps ahead while at the same time handling the situation as it develops, rather than on careful plan making and finding time beforehand.

[Black]

Quite true.  If they get access to floor plns etc, it just means they can discuss entrance options, and if the facility is large, they won't get lost.  When my players raided the renraku arcology (2050 campaign) they referred to their map and asked questions.

Eg Player question - how to we get to the nearest landing pad. 
Reply, it's two floors down, towards the south side through a residential area for the residents.  There is a security post and tons of monitoring in between.
 Question, can we avoid the direct route? 
Reply - Hmm.. There are a series a service corridors.  They re tight and you will run into service teams, but it will avoid most of he security patrols. .... And so forth.

Whether you answer those questions (and note them down) during legwork or during the actual run, shouldn't have as much impact.  The downside is your spending as much time in security, he upside, in my case anyways, is that the security is about challenges, not a series of heavily layered defenses.  My players aren't big on break and enter, so giving them a few interesting challenges works better then an extended series of layered security challenges.  I would, experience has shown, get the none infiltration people doing a backseat 'are we there yet?' routine.  So I try and keep the paces high as I can.

[All4BigGuns]

Not good at delineating these things, but here goes a try.

1) If it's in a published source book, and it's within whatever restrictions on availability set forth in the main book, it's available. (No using personal bias to 'knee-jerk ban' something, basically.)

2) If something is presented as an archetype on it's own, consider it it's own thing. (Want to play an Adept? Play an Adept. Want to play a Street Sam? Play a Street Sam. This goes into the whole Augmented Adept thing, as an A.A. is some weird hybrid between the two, IMO.)

3) The PCs should be exceptional compared to others in the setting. I find it incredibly boring to play the 'average person', being rather average, if not a little below, myself, I don't enjoy being that way in game.

4) The GM should build adventures/runs/whatever according to what the PCs can do, whether it's "realistic" or not. Incorporating a lot of scenes in which no PC has the skill to accomplish is, IMO, trying to force specific ways of building on one's players.

5) Backgrounds can be important, yes, but they should not be required. If a player does provide a very intensive background complete with goals which can make a campaign, then it should be used and not ignored. Ignoring such things just makes one think 'what's the point' in the future.

6) If the players make characters with high dice pools, do not increase the dice pools of the opposition over-much. This just leads to an 'arms race' between players and GM.

7) If a PC spends Edge, do not immediately spend Edge with the NPC being attacked to 'counter' the PC's Edge. This just makes Edge even more worthless. On a similar note, NPCs should have a very minimal shared pool of Edge (perhaps 2 or 3 points shared among ALL non-critical NPCs in a session).

[JustADude]

Not necessarily. You can just give the Runners a rough description (like: "You find the floor plans. You can see that there's x type of security measures, and can expect to have to overcome Y and W") that they can prepare for, and then just make sure to incorporate those elements you mentioned at some point. Instead of keeping the map hidden to them and not giving any pointers, you just show whatever you have and if they ask questions like "Can we find the control room from here?" you say "Yes. That way." rather than "If you're lucky."

If they don't do any legwork, you just decide what direction they should be going in on the fly (and before they decide which one they go in) and generally make security more of a pain.

Working with only very basic preperations isn't easier than working with detailed maps and encounters already written out; the difficulty is just placed on on-the-fly DM'ing and thinking two steps ahead while at the same time handling the situation as it develops, rather than on careful plan making and finding time beforehand.

I tend to keep my floor-plans pretty abstract as well, though I've got a go-to folder of blueprints for if they want details... the rewards of mandatory archetectural classes as part of the engineering curriculum... and can easily use AutoDesk (free "student edition" ) to whip up more if needed.

If they take the time to plan their tactics, I actually let them make a teamwork roll on relevant Knowledge Skills to "hand-wave" the fine details. The end result is a Well Prepaired bonus on all their applicable actions (Yes, potentially even combat if they get the right material. Knowledge Is Power, after all.) while following the plan... which goes away if/when they get a curveball or the situation goes FUBAR.

The end result is that the "combat types" get to shine a little more during non-combat work, since they're the ones who have the tactical Knowledge Skills, and the whole team gets a concrete benefit to planning instead of flying by the seat of their pants.

[Unahim]

1) If it's in a published source book, and it's within whatever restrictions on availability set forth in the main book, it's available. (No using personal bias to 'knee-jerk ban' something, basically.)

2) If something is presented as an archetype on it's own, consider it it's own thing. (Want to play an Adept? Play an Adept. Want to play a Street Sam? Play a Street Sam. This goes into the whole Augmented Adept thing, as an A.A. is some weird hybrid between the two, IMO.)

3) The PCs should be exceptional compared to others in the setting. I find it incredibly boring to play the 'average person', being rather average, if not a little below, myself, I don't enjoy being that way in game.

Is 2 not directly contradicting both 1 and two? You don't want to set extra restrictions on what's available in the main book instead of using personal bias to "knee-jerk ban", yet you ban augmented adapts (available in the main book) based upon such a bias. You want the PCs to be exceptional and above average, but they're not allowed to play augmented adapts because they're "weird hybrids". Aren't they more like exceptional individuals?

Sorry, just having a little bit of trouble harmonising those 3 with each other. Absoltuely agree with you on everything else, though, and even on 1 and 3 on their own.

[All4BigGuns]

1) If it's in a published source book, and it's within whatever restrictions on availability set forth in the main book, it's available. (No using personal bias to 'knee-jerk ban' something, basically.)

2) If something is presented as an archetype on it's own, consider it it's own thing. (Want to play an Adept? Play an Adept. Want to play a Street Sam? Play a Street Sam. This goes into the whole Augmented Adept thing, as an A.A. is some weird hybrid between the two, IMO.)

3) The PCs should be exceptional compared to others in the setting. I find it incredibly boring to play the 'average person', being rather average, if not a little below, myself, I don't enjoy being that way in game.

Is 2 not directly contradicting both 1 and two? You don't want to set extra restrictions on what's available in the main book instead of using personal bias to "knee-jerk ban", yet you ban augmented adapts (available in the main book) based upon such a bias. You want the PCs to be exceptional and above average, but they're not allowed to play augmented adapts because they're "weird hybrids". Aren't they more like exceptional individuals?

Sorry, just having a little bit of trouble harmonising those 3 with each other. Absoltuely agree with you on everything else, though, and even on 1 and 3 on their own.

It's more that I expect a want to play the augmented adept for it's own sake rather than "this implant is 'cheaper' than this power, I'm taking it". If that's the rationale, I'm gonna try to work with 'em to 'fix' that for that game. Though I never once ran into anyone, ever, who wanted to put implants in an adept until I came to the forums.

[Unahim]

That's understandable then, I can get behind that rational.

[JustADude]

That's understandable then, I can get behind that rational.

Agreed.

That said, I really do find myself more drawn more towards Move-By-Wire-Fu than straight-up Wire-Fu. Cyborg Ninjas just really seem to fit the "feel" of the game better for me.

[Unahim]

Yeah. It's hard to imagine not putting a cyberpenis implant that shoots acid on an assassin, really.

[JustADude]

Yeah. It's hard to imagine not putting a cyberpenis implant that shoots acid on an assassin, really.

Why stop there?

Modular Cybertorso, with the ability to swap out everything.

[Unahim]

I am intrigued. Tell me more, I am sure you have terrible secrets of the trade just waiting to be told.

[JustADude]

I am intrigued. Tell me more, I am sure you have terrible secrets of the trade just waiting to be told.

It's pretty simple... you use Modular Plug-In "bits" to swap from one gender to another. Combine with other bits of 'ware (such as a Jigsaw Skull) and you can refit yourself into a variety of identities... possibly to the point where you forget who the "real" you ever was.

[Wakshaani]

Now don't give away *all* of Plan 9's secrets!

[Unahim]

Can also be achieved by magic easier, but I have to say, the fact that all of these "bits" can be shooting acid, rockets and/or lasers adds a lot to the idea.