User:Niven
| Reddit Username | [1] |
|---|---|
| Timezone | PST, so GMT-7 |
| Country | US |
| GM Level | 1 |
Characters
- Shrike, barrens sourcerer techno who thinks he's matrix batman
- Titania, rigger/face with a chrome addiction, an attitude problem, and a need for speed
- Mystic Murray, giant ghoul mysad trashfire, rebel without a cause, big guy for you
GMing style
Philosophy
Shadowrun is supposed to be fun. RPGs in general are supposed to be fun. For me, that means that the hidden fail state of each game is players having a bad time. Adversity is fine, IC conflict is fine, but as soon as the negativity starts spilling out of the game into real life that's some bad mojo. Trust me, I've cocked up games before when I bit off more than I could chew.
Declining runs
I'd prefer you metagame and not apply a character to runs that your character wouldn't approve of. Remember, despite all the backstory and notes written on the wiki, you have a lot better understanding of what makes your runner tick than I do, so I can't always catch these problems (though I'll do my best.)
Derailing runs
I can be a slow thinker, especially when something comes out of left field. However, improv is a skill best learned through practice. So while I'm fine with derailing runs, if you know from the outset that it's likely your runner will attempt to thwart the run's goals then please tip me off in advance. Whether that's the form of a "I might end up working against the Johnson" in your application, up to DMing me our entire plot to kill the J and pin the blame on the bugs, if you go in with that mindset it helps for me to know. This being said, it's possible for a run to go off-script in a way that ruins the day of other runners, by leaving them in the crossfire, killing their shot at getting paid, potential PvP, etc. If this comes up I expect players to be adults and talk through their thought processes OOC.
Realism in Shadowrun
Bruh.
There are literal actual dragons flying around, tear gas kills you in seconds, tanks turn their occupants into spaghetti sauce when they hit a tree, everyday people keep their devices online 24/7 despite how comically easy hacking is, combat chainsaws are a real weapon, computers are both trivially cheap and absurdly expensive, drugs can turn you permanently insane, some people can just send emails with their brain, this setting has a thin veneer of realism over a dense core of what-the-fuck. I don't feel particularly limited by realism. To me, Shadowrun is a crazy universe where lots of wacky and uncharacteristic stories can all coexist. To this end, while I'll try to have everything make sense, I'm going to prioritize shadowrun's internal logic over IRL internal logic. This often means that I'll approach the setting working backwards to justify the decisions and things in the established lore over figurting out how things should logically work from the group up.
Seriousness
To me, Realism and seriousness are decoupled. The former is an approach, the latter a tone. My runs tend to be less serious by nature, but my runs are also more of a grabbag of "what sounds interesting" rather than a tonally consistent whole, so watch the tone/theme section of any run I post carefully for more detail.
Failure and consequences
I don't hate your characters, and I'm not the evil spiteful GM found in memes and tales of gaming from the 80's. But because this is a Living Community where I usually won't get the chance to explore the fallout of player actions in the long-term, I will make sure meaningful consequences are applied during my runs in the short-term because I can't go back later. Also, assumed competence is a thing. If you fall out of a plane, I'm going to assume you picked up a parachute during the flight, and I won't make you play out the trip back to base once you hit the ground (unless you aimed for a zero-zone or a toxic wasteland on purpose). As for fail states, I'll try and offer the players some leeway in order to prevent "run over, you lose, nothing more can be done" situations, but if push comes to shove my runs almost always have fail states, even if they're obvious in advance and difficult to achieve by accident or poor rolls.