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The guy in the van

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Chalkarts

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« on: <05-18-15/0002:02> »
I live in a gaming desert. 
I have run a lot of games over the years before moving here.
I want to put my first Shadowrun campaign together and wanted some advice from experienced GMs.

When I finally manage to get some runners together, as a GM, how should I handle the guy in the van issue.
I saw this as a problem in the long SR. Campaign I played in years ago and it frustrated our GM to no end lol.

By guy in the van issue I mean it seems SR. Lends itself to splitting up the group a lot.  While the Street Sam and Adepts are inside pounding faces there was a Rigger or Decker or Astral Mage body chillin in the van missing most of the fun.  I don't like just murdering a character but I'm not sure how to keep the group as a single unit with everyone taking a bit of risk. 

With this being my first SR campaign I don't want to be too hard on the van riders but I'd really like to get them out of the van and into the adventure in the meat.

How do you deal with it, do you throw random things at the van, cut off their COMS so they can't talk to the group from the van, or just blow up the van every session lol?
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Kincaid

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« Reply #1 on: <05-18-15/1001:14> »
Many of the changes to deckers in 5e were designed to get them out of the van.  Noise imposes a penalty to their actions based on distance and a host's firewall is often too high, requiring a decker to directly connect to something on-site.

An astrally projecting mage can't target things in the meat world that aren't dual natured, making him useless when the sam and the adept are facing mundane guys with guns.

Riggers can still be van-ish, since they have to worry about noise, but don't have reason to directly connect to things in many instances.  But in those cases, their drones essentially act as stand-ins for their meat character--you're worried about the drone's initiative, dice pools, Condition Monitor, etc., so there's still an element of drama.
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Herr Brackhaus

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« Reply #2 on: <05-18-15/1148:14> »
As Kincaid says, it's harder to be a remote decker, technomancer, or magician in SR5 than it was in previous editions (I'm looking at you, Grounding).

To my mind, these archetypes now have strong incentives to join the team, for deckers and technomancers (arguably) the direct connection advantage is significant when facing host ratings that exceed device ratings, and magicians require line of sight for a lot of things. There's a case to be made for support characters like riggers and summoners to not necessarily join the team directly, and since they would have spirits and/or drones representing them I very much agree with the comments Kincaid made that they are for all practical purposes still involved in the game.

One of my favourite character concepts for SR4 was a drone rigger driving a souped up government-model SUV (aka getaway car) from the rigger cocoon placed in a smuggling compartment, with four heavily modified, armed and armored Renraku Manservant-3 drones occupying the front and rear seats ready to either follow the team and/or protect the vehicle. It had a very distinct Elysium feel to it, similar to the spacecraft that gets shot down in the film that carries two drones tasked with protecting the principle.

The bigger concern to my mind is the rigger or summoner who gathers up a small army of drones or spirits, as this can quickly get out of hand.

All of that being said; just sit down and have a straight up talk to your players before this becomes an issue if you think there's a chance it might. Clearly lay out your expectations, and discuss the topic with them if they have an issue with your expectations and come to a mutually agreeable solution. To quote one of the many passages from published adventures where a team might not want to take a particular job:
"If the player characters refuse to take the job, regardless of these suggestions, you may want to discuss with your players what it is about the job that they object to, and find a mutually satisfactory solution"

I personally believe there is no obstacle that cannot be overcome through dialogue where this game is concerned.

Mr. Black

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« Reply #3 on: <05-18-15/2215:42> »
In the beginning it is fine for perhaps the Rigger and Decker to stay in the Van (the mage should be with the entry team in my opinion), eventually the Crew will be hitting legitimate targets. and these targets will be shielded from broad band signals and astral intrusion, or least the parts that matter will be. Then the whole Crew will have to enter. Maybe not every time, but often enough to negate this worry. Any real target will be using said countermeasures as SOP, or will be doing so to reduce their insurance costs. Any company worth billions or hundreds of millions is going to understand how valuable their secrets are, how vulnerable those secrets are, and take appropriate measures to prevent "casual" intrusion. They know because they also hire shadowrunners. Heck, if you want to softball the Crew, let them get hired to Red Team a facility

So give your new players a couple of milk runs, then watch their faces when they hit that "hard" target. Enjoy the panic on their faces, and the scrambling to figure out where to park the Van. Heck, if you want to softball the Crew, let them get hired to Red Team a facility. Maybe Mr. Johnson has his guards use non-lethals that day, maybe he doesn't. Or go the opposite. And enjoy the panic when all communication from the intrusion team is cut off as they enter the core of the target, and those drones go on auto-pilot. Hope they have IFF!

Chalkarts

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« Reply #4 on: <05-18-15/2239:21> »
Mr. Black, I like the way you think.
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Triskavanski

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« Reply #5 on: <05-19-15/0010:26> »
At the same time you end up removing some of the big features of things like Mages and Technomancers and such by forcing the party to be stuck together like some sort of dungeons and dragons party where everyone has to be right there trying to stab  the sword golem and disarm the traps.

If you completely knock out Astral, or Force the doing Astral to have to do it while the rest of the party is draging his cold spiritless body around with them through the highly super duper secure no outside astral traveling thing... You might as well just expect everyone to make Mystic Adepts and Adepts over a mage. That your Riggers might suddenly start thinking their character isn't really any more use to the rest of the party. Why? Because they're riggers. Not dogbrain baby sitters. If being a rigger just means you have some drones, (Instead of going VR and using your rig to jump in or use an RCC) any one can do it.

Same thing with Technomancers too. They've actually got a lot more advantages using their unaugmented meaty bodies some place else were they're not expected to use it to block a few dozen rounds from armored enemies for.. really no reason what so ever.

You've also gotta be kinda careful with creating the super panic nintendo hard difficulty after doing tutorial missions for a bit, especially with new players who have no idea whats going on in the game. Cause you might end up just getting a few of them to go "Nope." and quit the game right there. Even if they are completely capable of taking on the task, trying to cause the panic in them that far could have said detremental effects. Study the players and how they act, and slowly push on them for a bit before you ramp the difficulty.
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Chalkarts

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« Reply #6 on: <05-19-15/0147:57> »


The point of my query wasn't because I want everyone stuck together like some dirty d&d group.  The real frustration is having 1 or 2 players sitting off to the side doing nothing but being bored through most of the run or having to run split games.  It's just easier to keep everyone involved and keep all the players having fun together rather than having guy in the van playing with his phone half the night waiting for the group to run into a hackable lock or that 1 astral guard that they can help with from the van.  I could do van stuff to keep those players occupied but then I've got the rest of the group sitting at the table with their thumb up their butts waiting for van guy to deal with something completely unrelated.

I see your point about hard mode turning players off but being an uninvolved non-entity can be just as alienating.

So to my original question, any suggestions on how to deal with this issue?
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Kincaid

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« Reply #7 on: <05-19-15/0841:48> »
It sounds like the problem isn't one of location so much as it is integration.  If people in one group seem like they're getting listless, you're taking too long between scene shifts.  That's always been a somewhat tricky thing when it comes to GMing Shadowrun--how to weave together different narrative threads.  I don't think there's a single correct answer to it, but I've always taken cues from how television cuts from scenes or ad breaks.  You want to cut away at a moment that's dramatic enough it gives the players you're leaving something to talk about while you're focusing on the others.  Build dramatic tension to a certain level and then return to that scene before it all bleeds away.
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ScytheKnight

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« Reply #8 on: <05-19-15/2255:09> »
Well a bit question is what version are you running? If you're doing 5th Edition then the way it handles Astral and Matrix is, from what I understand, far more integrated than previous editions. it's entirely possible to have combat taking place on all three 'spaces' at the same time, Street Sams/Adepts/Drones battling meat targets, hackers dueling it out in the Matrix VR and a projecting mage and his spirits fending off an astral threat.

To some extent players sitting around listless and bored is a failing of the GM... decker bored as he sits in Matrix overwatch? Time for a corp spider to show up! Or even have the team walk into a room full of hidden automated defenses, leaving them cowering for cover until the decker can wrest control of them. Mage on astral overwatch getting bored? have a free spirit wander into the area, is it hostile? friendly? uninterested? Rigger getting bored pushing his drones around? Have an opposing team find his vehicle and make him split attention between driving around to lose them and keeping up with his drones in combat.
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Triskavanski

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« Reply #9 on: <05-20-15/0054:04> »
I'd go with Kincaid's suggestion on the whole TV cuts thing.

Things with an on going story never really end on a point where everything is resolved.

Like imagine this set up.. Inside party goes in suddenly is attacked by a cyber zombie. Combat starts, goes on and completes.. then we get to the guys in the van who get some challange come up, they work at it and complete it. Then back to the inside party. This set up is pretty boring. Everything is resolved and there isn't something there to keep them at the edge of their seats.

Or you could take something from like most movies/Tv shows with multiple story lines. Like take Lock Stock and Two Smoking barrels, Snatch, or Game of Thrones. There is more of them I'm sure, but these three I know are very much invested in multiple stories happening all at the same time. During some of the action scenes of the Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch, you flash  between the different groups like every two to three minutes.

So in the event, you could have "Indoor party opens the door.. And discovers something far more machine then flesh.. A hulking cyberzombie!... Meanwhile, Van Party manage to hack into the files, discovering a dreaded secret within.. The cyber zombie!"

Right now we've got a game with three different teams, and the way I've built my technomancer I can throw matrix support to any three of them that would be needed.


Concepts are great, but implementation sucks. Why not improve it?

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The Wyrm Ouroboros

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« Reply #10 on: <05-20-15/2355:02> »
Don't forget the thing that has always been a part of Shadowrun, but which has always tended to not be played up: the world of SR is meant to take place simultaneously.  An error in the Matrix can set the dogs on the guys in the physical; an act in the physical can save the mage in the astral; an alert in the astral can cause the Matrix to kick to a higher security rating.  Everything is interconnected, so have everyone keep their initiative rolls together.

The real trick for a GM is to keep their positions aligned mentally.  While this is very possible between the meat and the astral because of the direct alignment, it's very difficult (I was going to say 'virtually impossible', ga-harf, ga-harf) between the meat and the matrix.  You could, if you wanted, essentially make the matrix presence of whatever place they're intruding on be essentially identical to the regular world, but the system setup usually won't coincide so readily.  However, keep in mind that because each can affect the others, it can be very important to keep them on the same 'tick'.
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