User:ScrantonAnchor
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| Reddit Username | Scranton Anchor |
|---|---|
| Timezone | GMT+1 |
| Country | Italy |
| GM Level | 0 |
| GMP Tracker | [1] |
Characters
The flame that burns twice as bright burns half as long |
Gamemaster Foundation
Declining A Run
My policy on this is extremely malleable. There are many elements that are in play in the process of accepting a run, from info that is being withdrawn, to uneforseen variables, to a thousand other valid points. If a PC wants to chicken out during or immediatly after the meet, and has a good reason to do so, I would feel adverse towards punishing that with reputation reductions or similar. However, this is assuming that all players are aware of what they are getting into, and are willing to try to make this a pleasurable and fun experience for everyone else, so joining milk level runs and refuting because the pay is too low when the run level is clearly stated in the reddit post will be seen as poor taste, at least by my part. As for replacements, negotiating for a very different objective with the Johnson or other arrangements that can fundamentally change the run before it starts, I like to keep myself neutral and judge on a case by case scale.
Derailing A Run
I think that there are two types of derailing, and I have different policies towards each of those: The first kind is what I like to call "sandbox derailing". This includes all the plans that the PCs come up with that are very different from what originally planned, and thus require a degree of improvisation on my end, but fundamentally everything that shatters the linearity of the first draft for the run. This kind of derailing isn't only allowed, it is encouraged. The PCs are professionals in a job where lateral thinking and unpredictability are very powerful tools, so if a character finds a way to trivialize an encounter because they found a way to exploit a weakness in the enemy lines, it is their full right to use it, win, and feel awesome afterwards. The second kind is what I call "thematic derailing". This kind of derailing is the act of doing stuff that actively hinders the immersion of the other players and ruins the believability of the scene. We get it, drinking a pint of hurlg and shouting "dakkadakkadakka" while blasting suppression fire with your Krime Wave is funny, but maybe not very appropriate in an explicitly trenchcoat/mirror shades run in which all the other PCs are careful about not removing their gloves for a millisec to avoid pesky fingerprints. In general, I tend to be quite harsh on this, reminding the offending player that doing something nobody else is doing just for the sake of it falls in the "LOLRANDUMB", and I ain't a big fan of it, especially if the other players too are showing distress.
Cause And Effect
This is one of those situations where I have again, a nuanced position. In my games, PCs are, in fact, part of the 6th world, as is everyone else. The only difference from your super awesome streetsam with deltaware wired reflexes and 12 monowhips and Bob from accounting is the carrer choice, period. that brings all the implications, so going loud will mean police dispatches, betrayal is always a possibility, those meth-heads gangers in the barrens are aware that fighting you is a bad idea the same way you are aware that fighting an HTR is a bad idea, yadda yadda yadda. That also means that everything brings consequences, and loading your pistol with subsonic rounds instead of stick-n-shocks will change how your character is perceived. However, this is also a Living Community, and I am but an humble member of it, so, while I would love to make everything super meaningful, I physically can't. That specific time you forgot to mask your astral signature and those wild spirits spotted you? It may never come up again, because maybe your character will never be in another one of my games! Who knows? I also am in favor of re-takes and quick retcons, especially in lower stakes runs. We are all human beings, and we all make errors sometimes, so if a character would be something particularly dumb, there is a good chance someone will point that out.
The Grimdark Reality
The 6th world is a terrible place filled of terrible people that do terrible stuff. That is why we love it! Grimdarkness is an integral part of the identity of the game, and thus taking it away or even toning it down would, in my opinion, be very detrimental for the narrative. So in my games the common cyberpunk thematics of systemic oppression, losing The Self, the rampart violence within impoverished communities, being a cog in the machine no matter what and many others will be present, and often central. However, this is not an excuse (at least to me) to revel in the edginess, and while sometimes the runs will be on the darker side, it will always be filtered through the lenses of the "shadowrunner pragmatism" rather then be overdrammatified for cheap feelings (as in, we all know that spider had a family and children that will miss him greatly and will struggle to pay the bills without his support et cetera, but for your decker he was "just another decker I fried with a dataspike" and that's fine). Additionally, the light is sometimes present. There are redeemamble people, there are still individuals that try for what they can to right some of the 6th world's wrongs, and their stories deserve to be told too. Finally, I will go extremely light with some of the more "personal hitting" grimdark themes, such as body horror, excessive goreyness, unhealthy relationships and such, and if that is a fundamental and irremovable part of the run (will happen very rarely if ever) I will make sure that appropriate content warnings are present both in the Reddit post and the pre-run summary.