[Wasabi]

Dragoncon has a lot of the same faces each year so many of the players know each other.
This familiarity makes imposed PVP by one of the gang all the more poignant.

[Bull]

Dragoncon has a lot of the same faces each year so many of the players know each other.
This familiarity makes imposed PVP by one of the gang all the more poignant.

Well, the nice thing about that is that, well, Rep comes into play.  And PvP type action is the sort of thing that should effect a characters Reputation scores in game too.  But, he sits down at the table, and if you know who it is and that he does this sort of thing, say "Hey< I've heard about you!"  Yeah, it means you're possibly derailing the game a bit, but...  What would your character do if he sat down at a meet with Mr. Johnson and recognized a runner that had a rep for killing off teammates?

(But, honestly, the best way to handle this is to talk with the Gamemasters, and have them talk with the players and avoid these situations completely)

Bull

[Wasabi]

Player-wise, imposed PVP isn't against the FAQ and if a character hasn't heard about it before it doesn't matter if the player has. To have characters punish/blacklist a character who has done PVP without knowing IP is metagaming so that wont work and advertising the person's actions IP, while effective, is really just a verbal form of PVP that many of the teamwork oriented players probably won't want to mess with.

GM-wise, I don't know what talking with the gamemaster would change. The only fudging the GM can legally do (that comes to mind) is to say a Hand of God allows the victim(s) to be back in play immediately so the victims can respond sans their 1 permanent edge lost.

The experience could make players more apt to prepare their characters mindset/actions for pvp which, for some, that would add to the excitement but for many others the teamwork aspect means more than a constant paranoia aspect and these teamwork oriented players would be dragged down by the paranoia necessary to prevent this sort of thing. We all have the tools as shadowrunners, the issue here is motivation to prevent PVP within the group.

Spanner/Kirk (assuming you're the Kirk we play with from time to time):
If you're ever at the table of my friends and I have your character ask Smith or the folks of Casa de Smith, Seattle chapter, to be paranoid because you had something bad happen and between us we'll take care of it without any further explanation or drama. While we don't pvp in Missions our team is quite familiar with PVP from other games and rather ruthless when someone tries to screw us. Its the best I can personally offer without metagaming.

[KarmaInferno]

Just a note, though - "roleplaying" is never EVER an excuse for a PLAYER to be an ass to the others at his table.

I for one have walked away from tables where I saw someone I knew to be a jerk was already seated as a player or GM. Some people I will refuse to deal with.



-k

[Spanner]

Sorry I didn't reply earlier. BTW, for those of you who may be curious as to who I was in the games we're discussing, my new character's name is Socket, and is a male human rigger. (My old character is Spanner a male dwarf rigger.) Real name is Robert.

Let me direct your attention to a blurb from the Pathfinder Society Guide to Organized Play:

No Player versus Player Combat
The goal of Pathf inder Society Organized Play is to
provide an enjoyable experience for as many players
as possible. Player versus player conf lict only sours a
session. While killing another character might seem
like fun to you, it certainly won’t be for that character’s
player. Even if you feel killing another character is in
character for your PC at this particular moment, just
f igure out some other way for your character to express
herself. In short, you can never voluntarily use your
character to kill another character—ever. Note that
this does not apply to situations where your character
is mind-controlled by an NPC and forced to attack a
fellow Pathfinder.

Would it be such a bad thing to "just say no" in Missions? What's the big deal? The asshat doesn't get to ruin the fun for the other 5 players at the table, and the game goes on as before. And if I hear "well, this is Shadowrun, it's supposed to be gritty and full of paranoia" I'll run screaming from the forums.

[Bull]

well, this is Shadowrun, it's supposed to be gritty and full of paranoia



Not a bad idea, though.  I may tweak and modify that a little to include Mind Control and Involuntary SPirit Possession (via other players, at least.

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

The big deal is that some people need killin'.  Seriously, if someone's idea of 'a good time' is screwing over the rest of the team by doing something to the target(s), the Johnson, the data, the widget, or whatever else is screw-up-and-over-able, then it should be the rest of the team's good time going PvP on their skinny little hoop.  Forbidding it in convention Missions events will lead to either a) it being selectively ignored depending on the table, or b) a lot of very torqued-off players who didn't get a chance to put a bullet in the head of the one schmuck who screwed them over.  Let me quote from your Pathfinder Society Guide to Organized Play blurb:

The goal of Pathfinder Society Organized Play is to provide an enjoyable experience for as many players as possible.

Accent mine, obviously.  Their declaration that PvP 'only sours a session' is their opinion, and that's fine for Pathfinder, which is a 'pure fantasy' RPG and muuuuch more of the 'all of us against the monsters'.  Shadowrun contains more complex possibilities that, if one player decides to be a twerp, is going to lead to all of them getting screwed over.  It's the characters' right, as well as the players, to judge that character as being unfit to live -- or at least fit to be severely interrogated and turned over to the Johnson as 'the guy who screwed you over.  Sorry.  Let's let this stay between us instead of us taking a hit to our rep, hey?'

[Spanner]

K, two different topics going on here.

You're cheesed off because the hacker pulled a stupid move and looked at the data and thereby prevented the rest of the team from getting paid in full. I call that a player mistake, or role playing a negative quality, whatever. In any event, not something that I consider "PVP."

I'm cheesed off at a player who knowingly plants explosives on a suspected trap, steals all of the obviously expensive McGuffins, and tries to run away leaving the rest to their fate. I call that PVP, and if I were the GM, I'd say, "No, you can't do that.  Several other people payed their money to play this game too. Your fun does not outweigh theirs." If there were a blurb the GM could point to in the Missions FAQ, so much the better.

[KarmaInferno]

The big deal is that some people need killin'.  Seriously, if someone's idea of 'a good time' is screwing over the rest of the team by doing something to the target(s), the Johnson, the data, the widget, or whatever else is screw-up-and-over-able, then it should be the rest of the team's good time going PvP on their skinny little hoop.

The general solution in Pathfinder is the GM tells the player to knock it off, and if he does not, that player simply gets ejected from the table. Usually the GM will erase whatever the problem player did, and gameplay moves on.

Allowing PvP like you describe runs the great risk of escalating aggression on the part of the players. This is not something you want, especially in a convention setting.


-k

[Wasabi]

The big deal is that some people need killin'.  Seriously, if someone's idea of 'a good time' is screwing over the rest of the team by doing something to the target(s), the Johnson, the data, the widget, or whatever else is screw-up-and-over-able, then it should be the rest of the team's good time going PvP on their skinny little hoop.  Forbidding it in convention Missions events will lead to either a) it being selectively ignored depending on the table, or b) a lot of very torqued-off players who didn't get a chance to put a bullet in the head of the one schmuck who screwed them over. 

Thats a route to take but it still assumes both parties want to pvp. In that situation the very nature of playing shadowrun teaches people how to be underhanded and paranoid. The issue lay with players that dont want pvp. Some of those players, of which I include myself, prefer to trust their team even if thei rest of the world are out to get them.

[DarkLloyd]

Point is I don't think it will happen with this guy again. I was talking to him after that game and it sounded like it was a one time thing. If not i would be severely disappointed in that person.