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"Don't get attached to your character..."

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Gentleman Snow

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« on: <05-11-14/2153:22> »
 ^That was the advice a seasoned Shadowrun veteran gave to a completely new player when they both sat down at my table.  Neither had ever run with me before, but the veteran's experienced led her to warn our mutual friend that characters DIE in Shadowrun. All the time. Left and right. Do NOT get attached to them.

That was August.  They're still playing the same two characters, and the veteran has since darned me unto the black gates of heck for breaking her rule and making her care about her character. :P  The same goes for the new addition; she'd never done RPGs before -at all-, and she's just as invested in her gunslinger.

I do remember the lethality of Shadowrun and especially in the new system, farmland comes cheap for buyers in 2075.  What I want to know from my fellow GMs:

1) Do you have players who also believe that getting attached to a character is bad news? How do you feel about this?

2) How do you handle character death when it occurs?

3) Do you have a long term game going? Any long running characters? I'd love to hear about them.

As for how I got them invested, I spent a heavy chunk of time exploring their backstory as people and how they connect as a team.  I've gone for the soft spot of their emotions as often as I could without becoming too overwrought.  This is in between regular runs, of course.

I would love your feedback.

Noble Drake

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« Reply #1 on: <05-11-14/2247:26> »
Shadowrun has had the Hand of God as long as I can remember - which has made it one of the most survivable games on the market for pretty much its entire life.

Of course... it is a game in which "you got shot, so you are down for the count," is a pretty common thing, though the newer editions have actually trimmed that back just a touch.

1) I do not have players that believe getting attached to a character is bad news - just the one, but he is a pretty weird guy and has only been back in our group for a while after years of shunning for his crappy "games are competitions" attitude... the rest of the group, however, all feel that you should get attached to characters even if (possibly especially if) there is a good chance they are going to die.

2) My group handles character death however they feel like it at the time... oddly enough, this tends to mean they just leave them where they lay and move on with the game - except for if I am actually a PC for a change, in which case my character honors the dead despite my PCs that fall also being just left to lay where they fell (and I tend to have characters die a lot because the rest of my group seems to think that I don't need anyone's help even when I ask for it - or they are just not used to working with me as a player rather than me being the GM).

3) I only do long term games, so yes, I have one going right now - it actually just started 3 sessions ago and is going pretty well so far.

I can't really share anything worth while about the characters without writing way too much, though, so you'll just have to deal with this: They are street punks making the change to legit runners, and I intend the game to carry these 7 "kids" through 25 years of setting history.

Critias

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« Reply #2 on: <05-11-14/2258:37> »
I've been playing Shadowrun since January of 1990, and I've yet to lose a player character.  Some folks come into games with their walls up, ready to lose a PC;  some of them make bad choices, some of them misunderstand rules, some of them have terrible luck with dice, some of them had really brutal GMs, some of them just find it easier to adopt an "everything is disposable" attitude. 

cantrip

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« Reply #3 on: <05-12-14/0002:59> »
I've had some really good GMs over the years (IMO) - so I'm probably spoiled. We've always taken the approach that if you have invested a lot of time and effort into your PC that a bad roll of the dice is typically not the end of the character --- that doesn't mean your invulnerable. Sometimes you wake up with a new cyberarm --- cool right? - yeah, not when your the mage...   ::)  Other times your imprisoned or now owe someone powerful a few favors for saving your hoop.

It is good to have a discussion with your GM and group at the start, or as your game progresses, so everyone knows how player death is handled.

Other times, it makes sense for your character to go out in a blaze of glory or saves the day by sacrificing themselves -- and that's okay too. Ultimately, everyone has to work together. Building trust in a group is important -- I trust that my GM isn't going to outright cap my characters, but on the flipside, I don't take advantage of the game in ways that would be unrealistic and unfair to the GM and other players.

Aside from that - play smart, have fun!  ;)

Namikaze

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« Reply #4 on: <05-12-14/0139:49> »
I've got a group of four players - two new, two experienced.  The new players love their characters, and hate when something bad happens to them.  The experienced players have very different mentalities.  One of them could care less about his character - he's just numbers on a page to him.  This irritates me, but that's a different issue.  The other experienced player takes a great deal of care in making and molding his character.  And then makes and molds three more, just in case.  For him, each of the characters has a story to tell, but their story might get cut short at any time.  I think this is the ideal mentality as it blends the care and concern of the new players with the grizzled acceptance of reality that the other veteran expresses.
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farothel

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« Reply #5 on: <05-12-14/1131:30> »
I've been playing RPGs (not only shadowrun) for over 15 years now and in that time I've not lost many characters.  Of course, in some games we stopped quite quickly and I'm also not counting one-offs, as there you don't care.  But in long term campaigns it has been close a couple of times, but I've had it only once and that was in Legends of the Five Rings, where dying gloriously to save the empire is actually a good thing.  It was the campaign finale and the whole party (all of us died in that battle) unanimously agreed it was a very good ending.

So yes, I've become attached to most of my characters, even the one that died.  In fact, I beleive that you have to become attached to your character to better play it.  How can you play a character if you don't feel at least some emotional band with it and if you don't care what happens to him/her/it?
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Namikaze

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« Reply #6 on: <05-12-14/1243:19> »
I had a great game of Werewolf back in the day with some good friends.  They all played well together, developing a real-world bond that mimicked the one in their in-game pack.  Unfortunately, one of our players had to leave the game, and he was quite sad about it.  So we did a proper finale for him.  He dove onto an incendiary grenade, killing his character but saving the pack.  Afterward, we had a little funeral service in-game for him, and I'm not afraid to admit it but we all cried a little.

Sometimes getting attached is just perfect.
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Furious Trope

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« Reply #7 on: <05-12-14/1406:41> »
In my current game we've had two PC deaths.

One blew himself up after spending some quality time with the Great Dragon Ghostwalker, physically harming the bastard and killing some trusted lieutenants.

The other was killed by my character to use as a patsy for a number of high profile crimes we'd recently committed including a daisy-chain of grenades and a riot in the rich part of town. The weird part was the guy was about to commit suicide having finished all the work he wanted to do. Which... messed with Vicar more than if he'd fought back.

I mean, it's one thing to kill a guy to cover your tracks. That's just business. But when the guy not only doesn't fight back but spent considerable effort implicating himself in your crimes for the express purpose of taking heat off you... that's just messed up.
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Ghoulfodder

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« Reply #8 on: <05-12-14/1521:55> »
^That was the advice a seasoned Shadowrun veteran gave to a completely new player when they both sat down at my table.  Neither had ever run with me before, but the veteran's experienced led her to warn our mutual friend that characters DIE in Shadowrun. All the time. Left and right. Do NOT get attached to them.

That was August.  They're still playing the same two characters, and the veteran has since darned me unto the black gates of heck for breaking her rule and making her care about her character. :P  The same goes for the new addition; she'd never done RPGs before -at all-, and she's just as invested in her gunslinger.

I do remember the lethality of Shadowrun and especially in the new system, farmland comes cheap for buyers in 2075.  What I want to know from my fellow GMs:

1) Do you have players who also believe that getting attached to a character is bad news? How do you feel about this?

2) How do you handle character death when it occurs?

3) Do you have a long term game going? Any long running characters? I'd love to hear about them.

As for how I got them invested, I spent a heavy chunk of time exploring their backstory as people and how they connect as a team.  I've gone for the soft spot of their emotions as often as I could without becoming too overwrought.  This is in between regular runs, of course.

I would love your feedback.
We had two players kick the bucket in our last session (both burning edge but one will probably retire in the near future after his unpleasant experience with a Hellhound finding his astrally projecting body. It all just went a bit pear shaped.

The good thing about Shadowrun is Burning Edge, they die, yet they don't. So I'd be happy to get proper attached to my character because you can always legitimately bring them back in some outlandish fashion.

But the game is lethal so there's always that chance. I don't think a GM should actively try to kill a character. Generally death should happen because of poor choices or extremely bad luck.

firebug

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« Reply #9 on: <05-12-14/1542:16> »
Shadowrun is like the Warhammer RPGs; very lethal, but your characters have extra "lives" represented by a certain special attribute.  On one hand, I like this, because it lets the setting be dark and dangerous without making it impossible to play.  Players should be attached to their characters, because they should be playing characters they put effort into making who have (or develop) interesting personalities and backstories.

On the other hand, it does make the game feel a bit like it is holding your hand, as it's literally impossible to die until those things have gone away, unless your GM simply says otherwise.

I recently played a game of Pathfinder where the GM expressed his desire to be cold and unfeeling because he wanted the game to be as dangerous as the situation really would be in his mind--  A sentiment that sadly doesn't hold up once everyone gets past level 1, because it was Pathfinder, but I understand what the words he was saying meant.

To answer your questions in order...  I think players absolutely should get attached to their characters.  I think it's necessary for good roleplay; someone who doesn't care about their character isn't as invested in that character's story.  They won't care as much if bad things happen to that character.  Similarly, they likely won't empathize with other players if bad things happen to their characters.  In order for the best stories and drama to develop, I think it is very important that the players grow attached to their characters.

Character death has happened a few times in other games; I haven't really played SR enough for it to happen in this game.  In other games, it either was blown under the rug (a function of the setting, the group of PCs being generally heartless towards one-another) or else it often leads to the disruption of campaign entirely (as one player is out, loses interest, and the group is one man short).  Even if the character is to be replaced by the same player, it still takes time (sometimes a long time) for the player to make another one and for the GM to find a way to bring them in to the story, especially because almost no deaths happen anywhere but right in the middle of an event, where you could not have a new ally just show up, even if the PCs were willing to suddenly trust this stranger right after their ally died.

I have been trying so hard to get a long-term campaign going for Shadowrun, but the issue is that I learned about it maybe half a year before 5th edition was released?  Maybe a year, I dunno.  It didn't happen in the first few months (I and everyone I showed it to were still learning the system) and by the time we heard of 5th edition it was like...  "Why start a long-term thing now when we may as well start with the newest edition?"  Right now the only problem is the lack of material for 5th; it's hard to really aim for a serious, indepth long-term campaign when I am waiting for a bunch of things to allow more indepth characters to be made.  Some of it can be kind of done now, and then altered later (like if someone wants a different magic tradition), but other things (like technomancer and rigger stuff) just really can't be transferred well.

The longest character I've had is firebug, who's only existed since a few months before 5th edition.  In the time she's only gained a handful of Karma, so I haven't got much to report...  Most of what I use her for is writing a backstory and RPing on this forum (she posts in VU 93 every once in a blue moon).  I have plans for her though, and hope to see her get enough experience to stop being an immature ex-ganger and grow into a confident and skillful professional.
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SlowDeck

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« Reply #10 on: <05-12-14/1549:52> »
I tend to be a bit of an old-school player, to a degree. I always have a back-up character waiting in the wings. Of course, this is due to the sheer number of characters I've lost over the years; between bad rolls, selfless sacrifices, times when the GM was actively trying to kill the group, times GMs have killed my player simply to prevent the idea I just came up with from being attempted, times I've done something stupid in-character, and the times in Cthulhu my character suicided and took the enemy (and, often, the rest of the players as well) with them out of sheer spite... I've lost a lot of characters.

I also get attached to them. Which makes their deaths either tragic or awesome, depending on how they go out.

Even my SlowDeck character that I use on here will probably die at some point. Just because narrative realism demands it. And I will be very sad when that happens.
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MortimerBane

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« Reply #11 on: <05-12-14/2017:49> »
What a great question!  Here's my thoughts on the subject...

1)  Shadowrun is the most lethal RPG ever printed.  This is because the original creators of the game were some really sick and twisted people who played way too much D&D growing up.  Most players come to Shadowrun through D&D.  I bought Shadowrun 1st Ed when I was 17 and didn't play another D&D game till I was 37 lol.  I was so sick of the same formula of all RPG's back then.  At early levels the players were bored out of their minds!  One hard slap could kill the teams tank and the mage needed to take a nap every time he cast a spell.  The poor priest had to fill BOTH his spell slots with heal or the party would mutiny.  Most GM's just let their players start out at lv4 or 6.  BUT.  Then when they got to lv 10 the same main tank would have to stab himself in the chest around 36 times before he MIGHT die.  The only way to truly challenge the party is to open the planes of hell and unleash the hordes.  The biggest challenge is figuring out how to carry 40,000 coins back to town.
     Shadowrun is different.  I made a combat mage in March of '89 named Mortimer Bane.  When I made him he had 10 "hit points'.  25 years later I'm still playing him.  He's been everywhere and done everything and you know how many 'hit points' he has now?  10.  You can be the biggest and baddest guy on the block, but on the right day even the guy bagging your groceries can take you out of the game permanently.  But even at creation the guy could take out anyone else on the block if he played smartly.  This leads to my next point.

2)  Shadowrun makes players better gamers.  Because the game is inherently so lethal the players absolutely MUST play smart at all times.  Knowing that you can easily die just crossing the street makes you play with more 'awareness'.  It also makes doing even the most mundane things dangerous.  This amps up the energy at the table and gives the players something to focus on.  In D&D, unless we were in the middle of a major fight we were bored as hell and that made everybody goof off and not focus on the game.  In Shadowrun, just a trip to your local stuffer shack can be an adventure.  Oh wait, wasn't the very very first adventure printed in the very very first rulebook just that?  A trip to the local Stuffer Shack?  Yup.  So now that the players are better gamers...

3)  Players naturally get attached to their characters in Shadowrun.  A starting character in D&D sucks, plain and simple.  You need to age it like a fine wine and you have to do it in game.  A Shadowrun character is awesome and fun and playable right out of the box.  How can you not LOVE him you MADE him!  You didn't roll some dice and take what you get or feel like crap because the GM just gave you 3 points so your rogue had an 18 dex or look like a 'tard at the local thieves guild.  You put every single point in place and chose every single skill he had.  Not skills off the "ranger-usable" list, but whatever the hell you wanted.  I bet if you asked 10 people on this forum to each make a warrior and post them that they would all be almost identical.  Ask those same 10 to each make a Mystic Adept.  Nuff said.

4)  Infinite character improvement.  Shadowrun has no level cap.  Thus there is no built in ceiling to what you can imagine your character becoming.  I think this alone is what really begins the love affair between the player and the character.  What's the line from Jerry McGuire?  "I love the man that he almost is."  You can absolutely love your character and be totally satisfied with him and at the same time, still be excited to see 5 karma at the end of a long run.

5)  One game - One map.  In D&D, and most other games, there are multiple game campaigns.  Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, Birthright etc..  So, your characters are spread out all over the place and most will never meet.  This means most of your characters will never meet players of another group if you go to play somewhere else.  "Oh, your playing Forgotten Realms.  Bummer.  We've been playing a lot of Dark Sun stuff so my guy won't really fit."  Or, "What level are your players?  Hmmm, well my guy is lv 12 but I guess you can just downgrade him and take away some of his stuff to fit the group."  You know what happens... you just make a new guy to fit their campaign.  "Meh, it's just a character sheet, I'll just make a new one... no biggy."  That is such BS.  You can almost always take your character from game to game.  Why wouldn't you... we all play in the same world at the same time in the same year.  If I go to your house to jump in on a campaign and you guys are in Germany, I don't need a long drawn out story of why I ended up in 'your' Kingdom.  I just need a plane ticket.  And I can acquire that in about 30 secs on my commlink.

6)  They say cowboys don't die, they just fade away.  Well I say Shadowrun characters don't die, they just convert to the next rules version.  Shadowrunners grow old just like everyone else.  My character was made in first edition... that makes him about 23 years older now... 45?  Ugh!  He's for the most part retired from everyday running now.  When I created him, I wanted him to create a shadowrunning empire.  And that's just what he did.  He has an army of runners and fixers working for him.  He is the center of my contact 'spider web' and is behind or involved in everything that goes on in my campaign in one way or another.  But so is Grey McKreegan... a dwarf tech-wiz that I made and never played.  He ended up being so huge in the campaign just by placing him on the campaign-wide contact tree, that I was never able to play him without possible messing up something huge if he died.  I love that character to death.... and he never has and will never see table play.  The prospect of having a super-character like this is enough to make the players want to protect that character at all costs.  This means playing smart all the time.  I don't know a GM alive who wouldn't want a whole table of smart focused players at his table, hanging on to every word, attacking challenges with logic and confidence.  I don't know a GM alive who would kill this table of players just for the fun of it.  In Shadowrun, the GM should be just as attached as the players.  I think this dual-attachment is the reason less Shadowrun character sheets end up lining the bottom of your hampster cages as the character sheets of other games.

That's just my 2 nuyen chummer.

Agonar

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« Reply #12 on: <05-13-14/0249:18> »
I had a long post ready, and I thought even submitted, but I lost it somehow.. ah well.

I am going to have to start by disagreeing about Shadowrun being the deadliest RPG ever.  I don't think I've ever had a starting Shadowrun PC die because a rat bit him, and did more than his 1hp of damage.  That, and Shadowrun has the Hand of God feature, that makes it very hard, actually, to kill a PC that the player doesn't want to let die.  When I want deadly, I usually go with Cyberpunk 2020 over Shadowrun, but that's just me.

But anyway.  Many of my players get very attached to their characters, and I actually like it when players are attached to their PCs.  It makes them think better.  When you aren't attached to your PC, it's real easy to do dick things that are likely not only to screw your own PC, but the group as well.  When players are attached to their PCs, they flesh them out more, give you interesting backstories, adventure hooks, and world building even.

As for handling character death.  I think I've only really had 1 PC die in games that I have run.  I've had my own PCs die in games, but usually in temporary death games, where something in the world existed to either prevent outright death, or to bring back from the dead.  So, this one is a hard one to answer

As for long term games.  My current shadowrun started not too long before the physical book of SR5 came out, and we're still playing it.  We go every other week, and I have been putting them through 1st edition stuff.  They've done Silver Angel, Mercurial, part of Harlequin,  I've had longer running games in other systems, and the length of a campaign, in my opinion, depends heavily on just how attached players are to their PCs..  if they are too detached, then the game probably won't last very long.
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ZeConster

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« Reply #13 on: <05-13-14/0821:56> »
1)  Shadowrun is the most lethal RPG ever printed.
Having played a single Ars Magica session at my games' club 20th anniversary, I disagree.

Noble Drake

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« Reply #14 on: <05-13-14/0839:47> »
1)  Shadowrun is the most lethal RPG ever printed.
Having played a single Ars Magica session at my games' club 20th anniversary, I disagree.
I have to disagree as well.

I have seen exactly zero Shadowrun characters die, and I've been running and playing it since 1998 or so.

I have seen 93 Dungeon Crawl Classics characters die, and I've only been running it since 2012.

Shadowrun is the least lethal game out of all of them I have ever played - including the above, the world of darkness (both old and new), call of cthulhu, hackmaster, and various version of D&D, all of which have had far more characters end up dead - though no other is quite so lethal as DCC.