[Fade]

I was talking to a friend the other day, who said that with each edition, Shadowrun has become less and less lethal, to the point that where a character dies is extremely uncommon.  He said that in missions, he has almost never felt like his charter's life is at risk, and has never had to burn a permanent point of edge. 

In my experience as a GM, the amount of edge I've had characters burn to stay alive is actually pretty low for a game that talks so much about heavy threats.  I chalk this up to GMing for characters who are optimized most of the time.  As written, most missions are going to be easily walked through by an optimized team.  Additionally, I often hear players cry foul if they are taken by surprise or simply shot from a distance by a sniper type enemy, yet these same players have no problem attempting the same thing on npc groups or locations.

So seldom are the player runners the hunted ones, put on the defensive, or otherwise actually threatened.  I think we can see this in the amount of high karma characters that are out there in the missions world.  Sure, anytime additional rules are added with new books, things get easier to break, and we do have to balance the less experienced players along with the optimizers.

I guess what I'm looking for, is a community opinion on the difficulty of missions.  Should it be increased across the board, or should the missions have more options to tweak the difficulty on the fly?  Should Shadowrun Missions become a grittier, deadlier campaign overall?

Just some thoughts from running at conventions and continually having tables with invincible mystic adepts, and runners with 30+ dice on damage soak tests.  The bad guys just can't compete.

[Bull]

From the basic boilerplate text that comes with every Missions adventure, usually around Page 4...

Step 5: Challenge the Players

Gamemasters should challenge the players but should generally not overwhelm them. This is not to say that games cannot be deadly. If the characters die through their own actions and repercussions of those actions, then so be it. But the idea is to challenge the players and their characters, not to bury them. If the enemies and challenges are too light for the characters present, then increase them. On the other hand, if the characters are badly outmatched by the enemies, then tone them down. Make things difficult but not impossible.

And in the next section...

Mission Difficulty

Gamemasters are encouraged to use their own judgment and to adjust the difficulty of the encounter to take into account the abilities of the players. If the players have no magical support, replace magical defenses with mundane ones. If the players are weak on combat, reduce the number of enemies by one or two. Conversely, if they’re steamrolling the opposition, add
one or two enemies to the fight. Missions should be difficult and something of a challenge but should not be insurmountable.

A simple method for adjusting difficulty is to simply increase the dice pools and Professional Ratings of the enemies. A simple +1 or +2 to all combat and defense tests gives enemies a minor boost in power, while a +3 or 4 will make them truly formidable. Adding to their Professional Rating will give them a larger group Edge pool to draw from, and gamemasters are encourage to use this Edge when logical.

Often a combat scene will tell you if it’s supposed to be challenging or is simply there to serve as filler or a minor obstacle that the players should steamroll through. When possible, use this as a guide to know when to tweak the enemies and encounters. If it doesn’t say, assume the scene should present a challenge to the power levels of the players.

So basically, use your own judgement.  Missions is supposed to be a fun, cooperative living campaign, so it's not supposed to be really deadly.  But it should be a challenge at times, and should on occasion be dangerous.  As a GM, use your own judgement and adjust as needed.  Don't let optimized, overtweaked players steamroll your games, because that's just not fun for anyone.

[Kincaid]

We came thiiiiiiiis close to losing the troll playing Tick Tock.  An infiltration specialist discovered that she can't out-sneak an Ares Alpha in a different run as well.  Things can get deadly when they need to or the GM wants them to.

[Tarislar]

I'm a little surprised.
Does the GM reduce the opposition for you?
Does your group regularly have 5+ players in it?

I've been in a Season-4-Seattle group for about a year now, (played w/ 5E rules), that has had from 3-6 people each time.
We've had very nasty fights on Missions 2, 4, 5, 6, & 8 so far that we were not able to avoid.
The Troll-Adept-Tank has attracted his share of firepower to keep other people from getting shot at many times.
The Mystic has also "tanked" a few times by dodging v/s soaking & had to pull out the Spirit Army at least 3x just to keep the group alive, not to make the fight a pushover, but just to survive it.
The Mage has knocked himself out casting fireballs to keep the team alive during 4.4
The Decker had to burn a point of edge permanently to stay alive during 4.6 Hard Target.
I will admit that 4, 6, & 8 were occasions where only 3 people made the game.  So that was part of it.
But 2 & 5 had 4-6 players & were still nasty fights regardless of our #s.

I'm not sure if its Optimized characters or not, but, your GM should be able to adjust for that as well as for #s which, IMHO, are far more often the issue of survival.

[Thorarinnsig]

We´re new players around my parts, and for my part I like playing a roleplaying game. Not a contest who can come up with the most broken character.

Cry foul about a sniper from 700 meters ? That was my first Shadowrun organised play experiance, I really enjoyed that one wish I´d have brought a book to read.  Second one was my team slaughtered by the Founder, yeah way too easy. After my third game I gave up on my interesting but flawed character and looked into making something that was enough of an ubermench to deal with what the writers of these missions threw our way, while still making a character that was fun.

The point of a roleplaying game is to tell a story and have fun, I honestly dont think all the mission writers got the memo. This is to introduce new players and get people into shadowrun as well as for older players yes ?

[Jayde Moon]

It's always going to come down to the GM.

GMs all have different styles and ways of handling things.  Run Faster even covers the idea of Pink Mohawk vs Black Trenchcoat (pg 18).  I tend to try to run more Black Trenchcoat, personally, though I greatly enjoy shenaniganry and with things like edge and optimization, sometimes things can't help but rolling over to PM territory.  I also try to post the outcomes of my missions in the forum here, just last night a character at my table was removed from play completely.

Besides style is also experience and trust.  Experience doesn't need an explanation.  If you earn your players trust, then you can definitely shake things up for them and they'll know that you aren't doing it to punish anyone or f--- with anyone, but rather that you are trying to craft the most memorable experience for them that you can.  And sometimes that includes moments when things just don't go your way.

Anyhoo, YMMV on all Missions.  We've had nights where the same mission was playing at both tables and at one, the characters made it through relatively unscathed and didn't understand what was tough about it at all while the other table failed the run completely and lost two characters.

[Fedifensor]

Cry foul about a sniper from 700 meters ? That was my first Shadowrun organised play experiance, I really enjoyed that one wish I´d have brought a book to read.

That was my wife's first experience with Season 5 Missions.  Shot from surprise (despite my character getting 6 successes on Perception) and was one box away from death.  It nearly put her off of playing Shadowrun entirely.

This brings me to a point every Missions GM should think about.  If you err on the side of not being difficult enough, the players may not feel adequately challenged in a particular adventure.  If you err on the side of being too difficult, you can drive someone away from the game completely.  It's one thing to have to burn Edge because you did something dumb (I fully endorse making people pay for stupidity), or even if you're just having an exceptionally bad dice night.  It's another thing when you've done everything right, have a good die pool with the skills you're using, and roll well...only to be shot dead from a sniper in the equivalent of a random encounter.  Keep in mind, PCs are not NPCs.  There's an endless supply of NPCs, and in most cases they should not be Shadowrunner-level foes (they have quantity over quality).  If every fight is a nailbiter, then you won't even earn enough Karma to buy back the Edge you're spending (which can be up to 35 Karma per incident for some characters).

Now, people have different play styles.  Some people are going to read the above and scoff at it.  However, my take is that pushing the difficulty too much detracts from roleplaying, as people turn to overly twinked out characters built solely to succeed at Missions but not having any real personality.  Three different players that I normally run through Missions have told me they feel the campaign is already pushing the boundary of being too difficult.  One has been playing less as a result, and the other two are optimizing more and more.

Finally, focusing on the amount of Edge PCs burn in a module is a really simplistic way to track difficulty.  If you need to make Missions tougher, there are ways to do this without simply beefing up stats on bad guys.  Time limits are great for this - you may not be killed in one shot, but you can fail the mission because that Ares team just arrived on site and WILL kill you if you don't flee.  A run where the PCs get 2 Karma and no Nuyen because they had to bail demonstrates the difficulty quite well, without the hard feelings of being dropped by an NPC that's been obviously beefed up for the purpose of jacking up a module's kill count (Quaid, I'm looking at you).

[TeOdio]

Most Missions are structured in a way that the Shadowrunners should have the advantage because they are usually on the offense, or stumbling into a scene where they have the element of surprise. Well optimized characters played by people that understand them and stick to well thought out plans should be rewarded. If they get dumb, or do silly things like stand out in the open and lob spells at the dudes with assault rifles, start fights in a Runner bar, hit the alchemical preparation on the wall... I've had a few table wipes, and even if they are super combat effective, sometimes their choices in combat have ill effects [spoiler]POOR TASHA, Haha![/spoiler] If the runners insist in going everywhere armed to the teeth and armored for a hot drop into a Bug Hive, well, change up the mission. Have a fully stated out Firewatch, SWAT, well armed gang / CZ militia not taking kindly to the armed incursion and have a 4 hour drag out fight instead. If you make it clear that's what may happen, and they choose to go that route, hey, their choice. Just my experience, but I have definitely collected my share of EDGE, lol. If I have newbs that I am going to decimate, I usually lighten it up and give them pointers and tactical advice "their characters should know".

[Dr. Meatgrinder]

Cry foul about a sniper from 700 meters ? That was my first Shadowrun organised play experiance, I really enjoyed that one wish I´d have brought a book to read.

That was my wife's first experience with Season 5 Missions.  Shot from surprise (despite my character getting 6 successes on Perception) and was one box away from death.  It nearly put her off of playing Shadowrun entirely.

This brings me to a point every Missions GM should think about.  If you err on the side of not being difficult enough, the players may not feel adequately challenged in a particular adventure.  If you err on the side of being too difficult, you can drive someone away from the game completely.  It's one thing to have to burn Edge because you did something dumb (I fully endorse making people pay for stupidity), or even if you're just having an exceptionally bad dice night.  It's another thing when you've done everything right, have a good die pool with the skills you're using, and roll well...only to be shot dead from a sniper in the equivalent of a random encounter.  Keep in mind, PCs are not NPCs.  There's an endless supply of NPCs, and in most cases they should not be Shadowrunner-level foes (they have quantity over quality).  If every fight is a nailbiter, then you won't even earn enough Karma to buy back the Edge you're spending (which can be up to 35 Karma per incident for some characters).

Now, people have different play styles.  Some people are going to read the above and scoff at it.  However, my take is that pushing the difficulty too much detracts from roleplaying, as people turn to overly twinked out characters built solely to succeed at Missions but not having any real personality.  Three different players that I normally run through Missions have told me they feel the campaign is already pushing the boundary of being too difficult.  One has been playing less as a result, and the other two are optimizing more and more.

Finally, focusing on the amount of Edge PCs burn in a module is a really simplistic way to track difficulty.  If you need to make Missions tougher, there are ways to do this without simply beefing up stats on bad guys.  Time limits are great for this - you may not be killed in one shot, but you can fail the mission because that Ares team just arrived on site and WILL kill you if you don't flee.  A run where the PCs get 2 Karma and no Nuyen because they had to bail demonstrates the difficulty quite well, without the hard feelings of being dropped by an NPC that's been obviously beefed up for the purpose of jacking up a module's kill count (Quaid, I'm looking at you).

I guess Quaid is my fault, since I wrote Chasin' the Wind.  My apologies to your wife, and I'm glad it didn't turn her away completely.

Now I'll rant a little bit, because this is not the first anecdote I've heard about Quaid nearly killing a brand new character:  I really wish GMs would stop using Quaid without considering the consequences, and focusing on a brand new character (and brand new player) like that is inappropriate.  Quaid is in the Pushing the Envelope section of that scene, which means he should not appear at all at a table of new (or even remotely close to new) characters (and if you can't be bothered to check the power level of the table, just pretend it doesn't exist).  Quaid is there as a foil for highly-experienced teams, not as a stick to "break in" new players.  I'm starting to think I write the kind of missions that need step-by-step instructions for GMs.

[Bull]

Yeah, to defend Robert "Dr. Meatgrinder" Loper, the author of that...  This is all on your GMs.  WHich unfortunately is not something I can directly control (oh, if only I could.  The idea of puppetmastering dozens if not hundreds of Missions GMs makes me giggle).  As I said above, we give guidelines for how to tailor the game, but from there it's up to the GM. 

I'll apologize for you having a bad experience though.  That shouldn't have happened.  If you're at a convention and something like this comes up, if it's a Catlayst Demo Team run event, talk to the Agent in charge.  It may simply have been that the GM didn't realize the player was new.  I don't know.  But things do happen, and sometimes maybe the GM needs to be told to tone it down.

A few of the Con Regular GMs do joke a bit about "collecting Edge" from players, but it is honestly not malicious, and is mostly just a running joke.  You want to see cutthroat GMing and Edge collection, you should see what happens on the rare occasions we have time for an "All Demo Agent/GM/Freelancer" game.  Then it is malicious.  

Have Bob there tell you about the playtest session they did at Origins a few years ago for one of his adventures in 4th edition, where the GM went "Hrmm, Force 9 master Shedim, Spellcasting of 9, Magic of 9, 9 Edge?  Force 18 Toxic Wave, spending Edge.  Some of you survived?  I do it again next round."

[Kincaid]

Yeah, Quaid only shows up if someone has Combat Sense and magically decides to target that person for his first shot every time.  If you allow a Surprise Test, he only targets people who know you can Edge to not be surprised or people who can be saved via Leadership.

[Fedifensor]

I'll apologize for you having a bad experience though.  That shouldn't have happened.  If you're at a convention and something like this comes up, if it's a Catlayst Demo Team run event, talk to the Agent in charge.  It may simply have been that the GM didn't realize the player was new.  I don't know.  But things do happen, and sometimes maybe the GM needs to be told to tone it down.

No worries.  The GM was quite reasonable when I talked to him about it afterwards, and we're not holding any grudges.  Since it was the first game for my wife, I helped her retool her character slightly to be a bit more durable, and she's been having fun with Missions ever since.

[Hibiki54]

I have yet to kill a PC, but I sure have left them having to spend large amounts of nuyen and downtime repairing/replacing their gear.

Most difficult challenges in SRM can be solved by throwing money at the problem. And how money equates to solving a problem is situational and subjective.