[Shadowrun] The impossible thing before breakfast and other catastrophes

[Sven Seeland]

Hello everybody...

This is gonna be a somewhat therapeutic thread. I hope this doesn't come of as too much of a rant. One of the reasons I'm writing this is to get my thoughts and feelings ordered. I hope it's not too unstructured and that you can help me get a bit of structure into this and maybe find a sollution to these problems so I can enjoy roleplaying again.

I feel kind of stupid/newbish to come here talking about Shadowrun and not some avant garde indie game but that's what we play. Mainly because that's what we have sitting in the shelf and that's what we had two experienced game masters for. One of those GMs is me, the other is Timo. Timo actually got into the game earlier than I did but I did more GMing than he did (although we're pretty much even by now, I guess). By now we have a third GM, Jana, who also happens to be my girlfriend. She is running our current campaign and she's learning very quickly. A natural talent it seems.

The incident that got me to write this post happened last sunday.

A few weeks ago we (Jana and me) told Stephan, a good friend of ours about our roleplaying group and he was interested so we chose to run a little demo for him to see whether he'd like the game since both of us really want him to join. Since Jana is pretty busy with her studies right now, I offered to be the GM for that night. We met last Sunday, used the afternoon to create a character for Stephan and where joined by Felix in the evening, who is a regular member of our group. Jana and Felix where playing their usual characters from the campaign(s) but taken out of the context. This run would not impact their characters for the campaign we are currently playing.

Anyways, I was really thrilled to have a night of Shadowrun again as we haven't been able to play for a few months and I was also thrilled to be GMing again after a break of about two years. Back then I was the only GM but Timo and Jana have been running the game since then so I have to let myself be compared to them, which isn't always easy, since we have radically different play styles.

I spent the few days that I had feverishly preparing a run full of conspiracies, betrayal and mystery. I drew up maps and came up with colorful NPCs. I tried really hard to hit the players emotionally and atmospherically. And I failed misarably. I mean, it could have been worse. None of the players where REALLY turned off, Stephan was hooked (though I don't know why) and Felix seemed to be enjoying himself. However, Jana seemed to be really bored most of the time and kinda frustrated. All in all, it was a really mediocre evening. It was allright but it wasn't fun.

To give you a context, this is how the run was planned:

The runners would get a job offer to steal all documents concerning a new medicine from a company called Pharmalogics and to destroy all samples that may have been produced by now. The job offer was made under the pretense that the research data was stolen by pharmalogics and the original owner wants it back now, which of course wasn't true. The players would break into Pharmalogics, using a combination of all their skills. Security was managable. This was supposed to be a rather short run for the first half of the evening. A short wile later they would be hired by their fixer for some "personal thing". He wants them to help out an old friend, whose daughter is about to die. This friend wants to know what happened to his daughter and who is responsible for it. She died from a new drug called "Edge", which consists in great parts of the medicine that the runners stole. The drug is highly toxic and will kill the addict sooner or later but the medicine in the drug keeps the addict alive, as long as he takes the drug regularly. The ultimate addiction. I was hoping they would be terrified enough to see what they were responsible for to decide to put an end to this, seek out the production site and destroy it, together with any research data on the drug, so that no more of it could be produced.

I spent a lot of time talking to Jana about that evening.
A few problems that we were able to issolate are these:

1. I didn't manage to involve the players equally.
While planning the run I was very carefull to include a moment to shine for everybody. Jana, the fighter, would be able to fight in the the first and the last third of the run. Felix, the hacker, would be able to do a lot of work in the first half. And Stephan, the social adept, would be able to involve himself pretty much all the time. However, since they greatly overestimated the security of Pharmalogics, they chose a non-violent approach for the first part of the run. That way, Jana had nothing to do except to drive the car. Stephan screwed up royaly with his plan to talk his way in. Not because he didn't know the rules but because he didn't think it through far enough. Felix, however, managed to hack his way into the security network via wireless and was able to steal the data while sitting in the car down the road (I told you it had weak security). So the major part of the evening was spent with Felix, hacking through the network of Pharmalogics. Later on, there was a lot of research involved. Felix did his share over the Matrix, Stephan could do a little bit but not much since it wasn't really social work but more sniffing around, trying to find clues and making sense of those things they find. Again, Jana had nothing to do. We didn't even get to the last part where they raid the drug lab because it was getting too late.

2. I was convicted of railroading
After the game, Jana complained that they had too little freedom to go their own way. I was pressing the story onto them. While I didn't notice this during the game, I think that she is right. Oftentimes I shut certain approaches down because I hadn't planned for them. I always had a good excuse but I still constrained them to a single path, more or less. At one point during the legwork-phase, Jana pulled a gun on an old lady to press her for some cake. She was bored and for her it seemed to be in character. To me it seemed as though she was deliberately trying to break the game or fight me because she wasn't happy with the way the run developed. I then threatened her with an exorbtial cow, which is my way of telling the players "If you spoil my fun, I'm going to spoil yours". If players to something that really breaks the game for me, something that they could do by the rules and the setting but that is so totally out of context and out of the social contract that it destroys the game for me, I'm always threatening to drop a cow on them. This is meant more as a warning and an eye opener than an actual revenge. I have yet to actually drop the cow but still... Well, she was kinda mad at me for that. In hindsight I clearly overreacted. I wanted to get on with the story since we where already running late. She just wanted to lighten the mood and get herself involved. It was even true to her character. I should have allowed that. Those are the moments that we keep talking about months after they happened. Those are the moments that are really fun, those true character moments.

3. Problems with the rules
We spend way too much time on the hacking. For one we had to look up the rules for every small thing that we did. That's because we don't play often enough to memorize such a complex ruleset. More simple rules would probably help but then again part of the fun comes from building a character to exploit those rules and from the tactical depth that they provide. And then the rulestext isn't clearly written. Many things concerning the matrix are too vague and too spread out over the book. It takes a hell of a lot of time to actually find out how to do something. And then it takes quite some time to actually do it. Shadowrun breaks a lot of actions down into smaller sub-actions, each of which needs to be roled seperately and has its own rules.


Well, that's the main part. I probably forgot small a thing or two. What's bugging me the most is this thing directly corresponds to number 2 above and which seems to be called "The Impossible Thing Before Breakfast" around here. As a GM I always saw myself as a storyteller. Of course I should give the players as much freedom as they want but I should provide them with an "imaginary environment", so to speak, that lets them experience the story I came up with... The problem is old and well known: it's impossible to present a story without severely restricting the players' freedom. However, coming up with and presenting the story is what's most fun to me as a GM. Providing simply tactical opposition is too cumbersome for me, especially with the complex ruleset of Shadowrun. The tactical element of Shadowrun can be lots of fun but if you turn it into a real challenge (GM vs. Players) it's
1) unbalanced since the GM has unlimited power and
2) too cumbersome for me to be fun since I want to relax when I'm roleplaying, not do mental weightlifting.
That and I have had some pretty bad experiences with this style of play in Shadowrun where the players have pretty easily outsmarted me and turned my ellaborate challenges into a joke (mainly due to me being a tacticaly untalented and not knowing the rules well enough). I also don't like the competitiveness of this style of play. I enjoy roleplaying games for the cooperative experience they provide. Everybody, including the GM is working towards the same goal.
It is a lot of fun to me to watch the players plan their tactics and adjust accordingly but this amounts to the same thing: I'm manipulating the story to reach a predefined goal. The tactical efforts become meaningless (tactically speaking) since it's still up to the GM to decide whether they work or not.

I suspect it's coming down to different player preferences. I'm more into the dark and meaningful stories (I think... or am I?) and the rest of the group takes things much more lightly.

I'm still trying to come up with that "ideal" session of Shadowrun, in order to see where we are, where I want to end up and what needs to be done to get there. However, I can't seem to get it right. If it's a story dictated by the GM, the players have too little freedom. If it's just about letting the players do what they want I'm not investing enough into the game myself. If it's about the tactical challange it ruins the game for me because it's too arduous and competitive. So what can a game be about in order to be fun for me as a GM?

By the way: when I'm a player it's almost the same problem. Following a predefined story is boring/frustrating/disempowering. Just doing "whatever we want" is empowering but ultimately boring and purposeless (and if it's purposefull it's an unmanagable task for the GM). If it's about the tactical challenge it's too arduous and competitive.

I think this should be enough for now. The post is long enough as it is already. I hope to get a lot of constructive and maybe critical feedback and all the right questions on this since I'm really stuck in a crisis here. All my conceptions about roleplaying are crashing down and I don't know where to turn. Is roleplaying not my kind of hobby after all? After almost ten years of frantic roleplaying fandom?

Thanks a lot in advance,

Sven

[Eero Tuovinen]

So Sven, have you read all that stuff about narrativistic bass-playing gamemastering, where you as a GM take the job of providing an intricate backstory and rock-solid backdrop reality for the players, but let the story be crafted by their choises in relation to the backstory? I'm asking because this is something of a common meme around here, and if you're already familiar with that angle (as you might be, after reading the Forge for a while), I won't bore you by explaining it anew. Your writing has many elements that would seem to indicate that this might be the correct resolution for your problems with the Impossible Thing, but if you're already aware of it, you might know that better than I.

For what it's worth, I like your basic premise for the session - an industrial espionage job that leads to a worsening drug problem in the city. How interested were the players in the story? Did you ever get to revealing the true purpose of the first job to them? If you did, how did the characters react? Did they want to put a stop to the problem, as you presupposed? In general, did the players ever try to stray from the plot, or was your railroading and blocking only in terms of the means the characters used to achieve their goals? Did the players ever question the missions you gave, or were they focusing on solving the problems you presented?

Also, how do Timo and Jana run their games? Do they have a solid mission-based approach as you seem to do? What is done during their sessions? Is there lots of in-character choices, or is it more about the tactics of overcoming GM-set challenges?

I sympathize with your doubts about roleplaying, I was in that same place around the beginning of the decade myself. I've found many interesting angles on the hobby since then, so it's not an impossibility that you might repair your hobby as well. Regardless, taking a break for a couple of years is not a bad idea if it allows one to look at his play-habits from a distance, perhaps initiating some drastic changes in how you play and think about play.

[Glendower]

Have you considered that perhaps Shadowrun doesn't possess the tools to get you what you want? The set of rules in Shadowrun encourage combat and tactical play.  I'm hard pressed to find a single game mechanic that helps you get to the goal of "dark and meaningful stories".

There are games out there that have mechanics to accomplish this goal. I know that you love Shadowrun, but consider for a moment that you are playing this game and not getting what you want, in fact you are using heavy handed techniques to force stories that you and others are finding unsatisfying. The fact that the amount of rules is more of a hindrance than a help. The fact that not all the players are having fun.  This lack of fun is the single most important reason that perhaps this rules system may not be giving you what you need.

Now, if you still want to use these rules, then there's an adjustment or two that I recommend you consider.

"I then threatened her with an exorbtial cow, which is my way of telling the players "If you spoil my fun, I'm going to spoil yours". If players to something that really breaks the game for me, something that they could do by the rules and the setting but that is so totally out of context and out of the social contract that it destroys the game for me, I'm always threatening to drop a cow on them. This is meant more as a warning and an eye opener than an actual revenge. I have yet to actually drop the cow but still."

Nothing says emasculating like the GM threatening instant death. Even if you don't follow through with the threat, it's still you saying "Shut the fuck up and get back in line".  And that doesn't exactly help collaboration.

Player empowerment starts with good old fashioned conversation. We're all adults here, and fostering communication fosters collaboration.  You as a GM can ask the players for help, ask them what they, as players, would like for their characters.  What kind of challenges they'd like to face.  Allow them to make decisions on what to do next, by asking them what they think of X, or Y job.  Have them suggest other jobs, and even suggest opposition!  When they make a roll to "discover something", ask them to describe what they discover, and encourage suggestions by yourself and others.  Collaboration means you do less preparation, but it also means you have way less control.  They are building the opposition with you, and I'll tell you, more heads to figure out a really cool security system is better than just yours. It might be hard to let go of that kind of control, but if collaboration is your goal, then you MUST.  Step out of the character, and talk to them as people at the table.

There are a few great tools that can help get people involved in a game, Mr. Ron Edwards has two that are just great. I'm talking about Kickers and Bangs.  Now the Kicker is ENTIRELY player created.  This is the underlined, exclamation point of WHAT I WANT TO DO, MR GM, SO MAKE THE GAME ABOUT THIS. It should be something that lights a fire under the butt of the character, and the player needs to make it something they, as a PLAYER, care about. 

Now, with the Kicker, you are getting genuine feedback on what the player WANTS, so now it's your job to provide them with a Bang. A bang is something that happens right this moment that they HAVE to deal with.  This is the "Ninjas through the skylights!" moment, something they have to deal with right now, right this minute.  Bangs should be focused on the Kicker, to keep the player interested in what's happening in game.

[Sven Seeland]

Hey, thanks for the quick answers!

To get the easy stuff out of the way first: I'm not particularly attachet to the Shadowrun rules. In fact, I'm known for not liking the rules at all. I love the setting, and I love the books for their "feeling" but I wouldn't mind playing another game - especially if I can put in the Shadowrun setting. The question is whether the rest of the group would be willing to do so. But putting those concerns aside: I wouldn't know another system to use that would work better.

In fact, I'm not even sure whether it's the dark and meaningful stories I'm after! I really like such stories, but maybe I'd enjoy my roleplaying and game-mastering better without them...

And currently I don't see how Shadowrun supports player authorship. After all, it's about trying to find out what the GM has in store for you. At least that's how our group plays it. However, changing our gamin habbits might work here.
I try to slip player authorship in by carefully listening to the players and making their ideas come true. If I hear them thinking out loud that there might be tripwires hidden in those bushes, there will likely be tripwires in the bushes even though I didn't plan for that originally. (just a stupid example).

Eero, I'll come back to you later. I really like your ideas but I'm out of time and I think those things you wrote require some more thought from my side.

Greetings,
Sven

[Frank Tarcikowski]

Hi Sven!

Eero and Jon are aiming at the very fundamental questions you have raised, and that's fine. I'm going to add something on the smaller scale, technical side.

Which version of the Shadowrun rules are you using? I'm not particularly familiar with anything beyond 2.01, and I hear they have improved a lot since then. Someone told me that they even fixed the old "decker" problem (a matrix run takes 1 hour real time while the rest have nothing to do). How do you normally deal with that, in your other Shadowrun sessions?

What you've been struggling with during that "first run" is pacing. The players were spending too long on the legwork, playing it more carefully than you had expected. This is a very common problem rooted in the very concept of Shadowrun. There are means to overcome this, but it requires letting go off some die-hard habits. Consider telling the players straightforward: "Okay, you do the legwork, here's what you find out." Be sure to make clear to the players that this is all the available information, so they don't need to pain themselves with thinking about what else they might be able to find out.

After the run takes off, you may want to throw some complications at them and start to cut back and forth between scenes quickly in order to get a fast-paced action sequence, but they may feel betrayed and rely on even better planning next time. Here's something for Jana to consider: If you play a fighter, and want to get a fight sometimes, you should either be prepared not to plan every run carefully in order to avoid any fight, or you should accept that the GM will have to use fiat in order to involve you in a fight. Sven, consider telling the players, while they are discussing their elaborate plans: "For Pete's sake guys, get in there and gun them down already!"

In other words: If they want you to give them something to do, then they should not work too hard against you if you try. On the other hand, you could probably practice being more flexible. If their plan doesn't take them where you had planned the fight, why, let them go on anyway and find a way to stick a gut fight in later.
   
So, pacing, being up front, flexibility.

Furthermore, your idea with that drug was very good and true to the Shadowrun setting. But obviously you didn't manage to make this the core of that evening's session and the players' attention. That was due to the pacing issue and also due weak planning. So, the first run was going to be an intro? When exactly did your players realize that it was just the intro? At all?

How about this: You start the scenario with a scene where the PCs give the data to Mr. Johnson and he thanks them for the good job. Then you cut back to the run, already in medias res. Thus the players know they can't blow it (as you already revealed to them they're going to make it). The planning is also left out and nobody cares about it. They can blow something up and then get to the story. Granted, this technique may put some players off. In some cases it might be better to start just before the run begins. But still you should be prepared to make clear to the players, one way or the other, that this thing is just the intro.

Then, the dead girl. You want to involve the players emotionally? Why, involve the PCs personally. Make it a PC's connection, or worse, his little sister. And come to think about it, dead NPCs are boring. So little Sarah is still alive, but addicted. The dead girl is her best friend, who first got her in contact with the drug. Personal enough? Now you got the PCs moving. And you best be prepared for any action they take.

They want to use their street gang connections and start all-out war in the streets against the drug dealers? Okay, there you go. They want to involve Lone-Star? Okay, but maybe Lone-Star is being bribed. And maybe there is that one lawful Lone-Star guy who offers them a secret pact – but can they trust him?

They'd rather try to find some genius medic who can find a cure, hijack him and make him save little Sarah? Okay, but whoever "owned" him will want him back, and who knows, maybe he was involved in brewing the damn thing in the first place? Or maybe the PCs are offered a very high price for the man by a mysterious mage?

Also, note that this scenario is way too complex to play through in one sole session. The good ones always are, especially with a game system where using the rules takes up a good deal of time. That's cool, you could pick it up later or just have it stand there as a teaser to the new guy: "This is how my game rocks." But things should at least get moving in the first session, and the players should leave it with a good idea of what's in store.

Frank

P.S.: Teh sucke! I wanted to write a short reply!

[Sven Seeland]

Right, let's get to this...

Eero, I've thought about your questions for a bit.

I am actually familiar with the bass-playing GM. In fact, that's the kind of style I usually aim at. And even though I think it's great in theory, I'm having my problems with getting it to work in practice. I find it to be nigh impossible to provide a "rock-solid backdrop reality" - especially the "rock-solid" part. Shadowrun is about tactics and it covers a pretty wide ground. You've got all sorts of options for combat, security measures, computer networks, magical security, vehicles, social interactions and whatnot. And that's only accounting for the rules. Then there's also the whole tactical dimension. I suck at tactics. One time, a team of relatively new Shadowrunners wasted two elite special units I sent at them because they knew a good deal more about tactics than I did. It's already been a couple of times that I had players find a hole in my backdrop and have my game ruined in a matter of mere minutes. It's just too much ground to cover, too many rules to take into account. That's why I tend to be overly restrictive. I just don't have enough confidence that my backdrop will actually work out because far too often it didn't.

And now to the rest of your questions:
I told the players upfront that the first run was only intended to be an intro and that I don't want to spend more than half of the evening on it. They seemed a little skeptical but didn't object. By the time the characters stumbled upon the connection of the first run to the drug, they were only mildly interested in the story. Things went gradually downhill over the whole of the evening. The players were enthusiastically jumping onto the mission, planning and speculating. However, after their first attempt failed and they couldn't seem to find a good second approach they were starting to feel frustrated, I believe. The interest in the story or the game as a whole waned over the course of the evening so by the time they found out they unleashed a deadly drug into the streets they frankly couldn't care less.
The characters never really strayed from the goal or the plot. My blocking was, as you already guessed, more about how they pursued these goals, again, in fear of breaking the game. They were actually diligently working towards the goals I set them, with very little in the way of off-topic chatter and things like that.

Jana's and TImo's games are much more about tactics than mine. They don't do as much for the story and if there is a story, it's usually delivered in "cutscenes", i.e. short scenes where players have little to no input that reveal some part of the story to great effect. Mainly we just do missions., like in a computer game. It's always the same. You get the objective, come up with a plan, do your best to reach the objective by executing the plan and then return for the rewards. Any kind of story is usually moved to the beginning or the end of the session but not into the middle of the mission. Timo and Jana also don't go for realism as much as I do. They allow outrageous player characters that are downright sociopaths that nobody in their right mind would hire because they are fun to play with. Timo plays a dumb-as-a-brick female troll stripper with dwarfism who has an inferiority complex about her height and a hot temper who shoots first and then forgets about the question. My character is constantly casting mind-control spells on her to keep her from getting us into all sorts of trouble. Unrealistic? Yes. Unbalanced? Yes. Obnoxious? Yes. Fun? In a way, yes. It caused many laughs. It just doesn't work at all if you have a dramatic story to tell. Which is not what Timo or Jana are trying to do.

Now to you Frank:
To answer the most simple question: we're using fourth edition (4.01D ;-) ) We've been using third for a long time and are now making the transition.
Hacking has always been a problem, especially since the player who plays the hacker has a tendency to grab hold of the attention and never let go. He has a talent of drawing things out more than he should. Looking at it with some distance, I handled it poorly. Rules handling time is always an issue with the hacking, even in fourth edition, but I should have cut him off earlier and not argued so much about what is possible and how.

And yes, pacing is a big issue. Unfortunately, my players are no friends of aggressive sceneframing. The legwork is a big part of the fun for them and if I take the flow of the story out of their hands by cutting back and forth in time or dropping them right into a challenge they usually feel cheated in a way. Our group still has the tendency to play the game as a simulation. The group looked at every little detail I presented them (and those where quite a few, because they asked)  even if most of them were improvised on the spot and didn't mean a thing.
And just as a notice: Jana didn't fight because she thought she wouldn't have a chance. She overestimated the security I had planned for the site and not wanting to commit suicide and risk the whole mission, she decided to stand back.

And yes, flexibility is one of my weaknesses, for the aforementioned reasons. I'm just too afraid my on-the-spot decision will have some unpredicted effect later on that might ruin the game. Or, since the players look at every detail like it could mean the world, that the players will spot an inconsistency in my improvised story and think it's some weird riddle that they have to solve. You have some great ideas in the last few paragraphs of your post, Frank, but I hardly believe that I could come up with such ideas and actually play them while running a game. And I don't think I can always divide the story into chunks so that they nicely fill one evening and then leave me some time to think about the next step.

So I think one major part of my problem is confidence in my own abilities as a GM, I guess. Does that seem to be about right?
What do you guys think so far?

[Frank Tarcikowski]

Hi Sven!

Honestly? I think you are wasting your time and nerve trying to GM Shadowrun for that group. Do you enjoy being a player when Timo or Jana GM? Then do that.

You have obviously been thinking about this for some time. You are assessing the facts quite clearly and in a non-self-defendant way. That's good. The conclusions are also already there in your report. It doesn't work. You ain't got what they want. No need placing the blame. And if you care to venture further into that kind of "story" thing--Hamburg is a great city to find other role-players, you know. Shoot me a PM.

Frank

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

With all respect, I think you are not seeing what Eero is talking about regarding the bass-playing. What you are calling "rock-solid backdrop," or interpreting in his use of those words, is not actually what I wrote about concerning playing bass.

However, I am not writing to criticize or belittle you. I am writing to invite you to further conversation on that topic if you are interested, perhaps in my (Adept Press) forum. But if you aren't, then that is OK too.

As far as your points and descriptions here are concerned, I think Frank has really identified the issues for you, and I'm interested to see what you'll do next with this group and the game.

Best, Ron

[Eero Tuovinen]

So I think one major part of my problem is confidence in my own abilities as a GM, I guess. Does that seem to be about right?
What do you guys think so far?

I think you're doing a great job of explaining your situation in a clear and conscise manner. I'm very tempted to give some concrete suggestions later on in the post, just because the situation seems so clear-cut. Just remember that you're the high arbiter of your own situation, we really know shit around here in internetland.

But first, a bit more about the goals you have as a group:

Jana's and TImo's games are much more about tactics than mine. They don't do as much for the story and if there is a story, it's usually delivered in "cutscenes", i.e. short scenes where players have little to no input that reveal some part of the story to great effect. Mainly we just do missions., like in a computer game. It's always the same. You get the objective, come up with a plan, do your best to reach the objective by executing the plan and then return for the rewards. Any kind of story is usually moved to the beginning or the end of the session but not into the middle of the mission. Timo and Jana also don't go for realism as much as I do. They allow outrageous player characters that are downright sociopaths that nobody in their right mind would hire because they are fun to play with. Timo plays a dumb-as-a-brick female troll stripper with dwarfism who has an inferiority complex about her height and a hot temper who shoots first and then forgets about the question. My character is constantly casting mind-control spells on her to keep her from getting us into all sorts of trouble. Unrealistic? Yes. Unbalanced? Yes. Obnoxious? Yes. Fun? In a way, yes. It caused many laughs. It just doesn't work at all if you have a dramatic story to tell. Which is not what Timo or Jana are trying to do.

Here you are describing how your friends play the GM role when they do it. Would you say that the group is good at listening to each other about what and how they want to play? Do you, as a group, have the concept that "playing Shadowrun" might be several different things for different people? Is the difference in your GMing styles openly recognized, or is it something you see only yourself? Finally, does the group consider any ambitions of the GM his own problem, or do the players share some responsibility in creating a coordinated gaming experience?

What I'm getting at here is that it seems rather obvious from your description that the other two core members of your group don't seem to care about story overmuch in their games. This might sound obvious, but you're not going to fix that by trying harder as a GM, if this is the case. The change, if such is indeed necessary, needs to come from the social level, not with harder railroading and more comprehensive session preparation.

However, this opens a whole new avenue of questions:

• Should you try to change how your group plays? That depends on how happy you are accomodating to the priorities of your friends in the gaming table, and how much work you want to do to continue playing with them. You could decide to conform to their play style, or you could start playing with different people altogether, ones that want the same things you do. Or you might want to suggest some new games to your friends, as a change of pace. Who knows, they might even like it.
• Should you continue playing Shadowrun? I've never played it myself, but by all accounts it's system simply is anything but suitable for what you seem to be trying to do. Nowadays we have the technology, if I may say, to produce most brands of gaming experience with less work. This is especially true if we consider that it is ten times harder to change how you play if all the support structures remain the same: if you want change, changing the rulebook that lies on the table seems like the obvious first step that really signals that the next game is played differently.
• Do you even know what you want? It's not so obvious. One thing I've learned in roleplaying is that people do not know what they want. That's a big part of how drama works right there. And that's how gaming works, too: if you've only played Shadowrun and perhaps some similar games lately, then perhaps a change of pace is in order. Try new things, or perhaps old things with new attitude; you might find something that scratches your itch in a new way.

OK, so that's my general observation: either you get used to playing dull games, or you work out with your group how to make the game enjoyable to everybody. That's a platitude in itself, so I'll provide some suggestions next for things you might want to try. These will range all over the place, and you probably shouldn't try them all at once.

New GMing technique

As others have already intimated,  there's lots you can do as a GM to spin a game, any game, into something completely different. Heavy terminology has been slung, like bangs and such. There is lots you can make these things do for you, but alone they won't be worth anything: you need to get your co-players to agree to a change. Sometimes this need not be verbal: if you're changing to faciliate their play better, you can be quite unilateral in switching things around.

However, this time I don't think this alone will be that helpful. You might master the bass-playing story creation technique, but if the game you're still running is Shadowrun, that won't result in a story: your group is used to playing a mission-based Shadowrun game, so getting out of that mindset while the rules system stays the same seems rather difficult. You can't sneak up on a radical change, and getting your co-players to play a story-full game is exactly that.

Therefore, if you're going to change just GMing technique, my sole suggestion is to learn to understand what your co-players want from the game and providing that. At this point it seems to me that you're laboring under an auteuristic vision of the GMing role: you create a story for the other players to consume, and use force when necessary to direct the unfurling of that story. This does not work, I'm sad to say: Play will always be an arduous undertaking as long as you're not playing in harmony with your co-players, and no amount of GMing technique is going to solve this fundamental problem.

New game

Now, here's the serious business! If you want to change playstyles and perhaps teach yourself and your group new ways of playing, a new game is exactly what you need. I'm going to suggest some, because I think that people should play more different games instead of digging a large investment hole for themselves with one game. I guess I'm technocratic like that, believing in the right tools going a long way to open up possibilities.

The Mountain Witch is a game I'm very fond of myself. It has ample GMing advice for the narrativistic, bass-playing gamemaster, and an interesting rules system to boot. The basic situation of the game - a group of ronin is going to kill a particular witch atop Mount Fuji - is seemingly mission-based, which might be viewed as a soft landing for players used to mission-based play. This might be a weakness as well when playing with entrenched assumptions, of course, as you might miss some of the nuances. Still, this is a prime recommendation; it's pretty certain that if you get it and hate it, you're going to hate other "narrativistic" games as well.

Sorcerer is another game that might prove intelligible and fruitful. It has a weakness in requiring a substantial campaign to really start firing, though (compared to The Mountain Witch, above, which takes around three sessions all told), but otherwise it's prime meat and a primary source for many new ideas of how to conduct a roleplaying game. It is easily adaptable to many settings, and the primary thrust of the game is kinda hard to miss.

The Shadow of Yesterday is, in many ways, the most excellent choice one might make when looking for narrativistic roleplaying games: it is available for free, can be adapted to a multitude of settings (including Shadowrun) and provides many familiar structures in it's rules. The latter is perhaps the greatest weakness: the game is relatively rules-heavy compared to the other suggestions, and the semi-familiar mechanics might engender wrong assumptions in a player who is used to thinking that all roleplaying games are the same.

Under the Bed is on my list for one very particular reason: it is completely impossible even for the least discerning hobbyist to mistake it for a traditional roleplaying game. The lack of GM does that. It also takes just three hours or so to play, so you don't waste too much time with this one, even if you don't like it. UtB is an excellent gauge of how people stand on the matter of story creation in roleplaying games.

So OK, just naming games is not that useful. A bit more: I've found it useful to play short mini-campaigns or even one-shots of new games with my gamer friends, just to see which games might be fun for us. I suggest that this is the easiest way of seeing which way your friends swing on the story question: it is quite possible that they will latch on it right away when given a non-Shadowrunnerly environment to practice, or it might be that they won't be interested, because the game doesn't scratch the same itch Shadowrun does. Whichever way that goes, knowledge is power in planning for the future.

One other point about getting a new game: a game is really the best thing a GM might get to improve his GMing technique. A good game has solid, simple and efficient instructions for what, exactly, you're supposed to be doing when GMing that particular game. And people will also give you more relevant advice. Like, if I was seriously going to advice you about how to run Shadowrun, I'd suggest hitching up the tactical challenge rating while keeping a special eye out for variable victory conditions and rewards of victory. But being that that's obviously not something you like, I'm recommending a new game instead: get something that does what you want.

Enjoy the challenge

Really, now. It seems to me that your friends are running a light-hearted tactical romp with little concern for the social fiction of Shadowrun. You could just try to figure out why they view this as such a pleasing thing and join in yourself! Trying to force-feed story when the other players are not interested seems a bit sad from outside the situation, really; as they say, go write a novel if that's the way you swing. Or at least find some company that actually wants a storyfull game.

Meanwhile, there's lots that can be done with tactical roleplaying. Consider the following points:

• Risk: In your games, what kind of risks do the characters entertain? If a player makes a mistake, is his character going to die, or will the GM fudge in some manner to keep the character alive? Is there a variety of other possible setbacks, or is it just death or victory in all situations?
• Goals: Do the characters have player-assigned goals, or does the GM always decide what the characters are trying to do? Are there several, perhaps partially conflicting goals? Are there consequences for failing or succeeding in different things?
• Rules: Are the rules of the game utilized fully? Does the GM fudge the results? Can he change the rules by his own say-so?
• Skill: Does player skill have impact in character success? What things can players do to affect the success? Are the players interested in doing this, or will they trust the dice?
• Color: What kind of missions do your characters usually face? Are there colorful enemies, or goons? Do the fights happen in varied environments that have significance for the challenge? Do the characters change rapidly, opening opportunities for trying different things with the system?

Consider the above list from two viewpoints: first, how does your group play in those regards? Second, how can you, as a GM, provide any of the points that seem particularly important for your group? It might very well be that none of the above are particularly noteworthy in your games, but if some are actually important to the players, it's probably very important that you as the GM do something to provide them. Trying to substitute a good challenge game with a convoluted plot will just annoy players.

Also: although I'm entertaining a particular theory with the above list (that of your fellow players enjoying gamist play, as it happens to be called), it might well be that this isn't right either. But considering that angle is useful regardless, because it might help one see how different the GMing duties in a game might be, depending on what the players want from the game. If your fellow players really like their tactical maneuvers in the game, it seems wrong to me to try to substitute this with a force-fed plot.

New group

My last suggestion, and not a snarky one at all. Sometimes you have to realize that a given group of people are not having fun together. I myself went through this very situation around the beginning of the decade, and resolved the issue by switching play groups. We played a couple of sessions of my kind of games with my old group, but they were keen on their D&D and didn't see the allure in the kind of game I'd started researching. So that was that, then, no great drama; I'm still friends with the guys, they play elaborate D&D campaigns with my elder brother 1-2 a week. I'd definitely participate myself if I was in the same city.

In conclusion

OK, so the above might totally not be what you're looking for, but if one of the points interests you, we might look into it in more detail. I'm much enamored with "New game" and "Enjoy the challenge" myself, but you know yourself much better what kind of solutions might be appropriate for your own situation. At this point the most I can only say is that it seems obvious that something needs to change if you are to enjoy the hobby, such a gap I see between your ideals and the practice of the group.

Also, if you're interested in the bass-playing technique ("The State of the Art in Storyful Roleplaying", you know), do take up Ron's offer of explanation. He does that much better than I'd do, I suspect. Likewise, if I was in the same city with Frank, I wouldn't miss a session or two of fun gaming with him for the world - I really should talk him into visiting Finland at some point or something.

[TonyLB]

Hrm.  I feel like I should be writing something long, but my question is actually pretty short:

What was the decision (or decisions) you were looking forward to seeing the players make?  What question, fundamentally, were you trying to ask them?

You say you don't like tactics, so I suspect that the question is not "How will you penetrate this facility?" (though it's a great question that has as many entertaining and surprising answers as there are player groups).  And, since you had a sense that you knew that the players would try to destroy the drug when they found out about it, I suspect that the question is not "What is your moral obligaton, given your part in creating this drug problem?"

Was it, maybe, "How does this make you feel, to really be shitty people?"  That's an awesomely bleak Shadowrun question, but it's one that people are only going to be happy answering if they're on the same page with you.

In your place, I might have aimed for two questions:  "Will you turn over this information, knowing that it may hurt people but not knowing specifically how?" and then either "What's your moral obligation?" (if they do turn it over) or "When you've reneged on a job, what will you do to get on with your life in one piece?" (if they don't).  But that's me.

[Sven Seeland]

Good stuff, guys, good stuff...

You know, Tony, you may have a point there. I don't think I was asking a question at all. I had already answered it for them! The question would probably have been "What do you do, knowing that you brought death and misery to the people around you?". But I already answered it, demanding a guilty consciousness and an urge to make things right. That was probably the fundamental mistake (as has been hinted at earlier). I totally forgot that the duty as the GM is to ask questions and most importantly let the players answer them!

Eero, as usual, your questions hit right on the mark.

Do I want to change the group?
No, not really. I like these guys and gals and it's fun to be with them. We know each other and trust each other. I've had some bad experiences, playing with strangers.

Do I want to keep playing Shadowrun?
Not necessarily. It's alright but I wouldn't mind playing a different game. It's the group that's tough to convince. Especially Timo is pretty entrenched in his old-school notions and the others have a hard time letting go of traditional concepts as well. We tried My Life With Master once and it was bad... None of us really "got it". And yes, that includes me. Though I'm just slow sometimes. I would definitely want to keep trying different games. Not MLwM though, since it's too upclose and personal for my tastes. Too intense.

Do I know what I want?
I think not. For the longest time I thought I did but I'm not so sure any more. This is mainly due to a lot of theorizing and too little actual playing. I spent months and months in forums, coming up with theories of how a good game should be. I have these elitist ideals, setting myself above the crowd of minmaxers and powergamers. I think I've been wrong all along. I think it's time for me to find out what the heck I really want! Unfortunately I don't get to play RPGs nearly as often as I would like. Life's busy, you know... So I don't really get the chance to try things out. Well, I'll have to work on that.

I *think* I might be able to enjoy the tactical challenge, but I won't completely let go of the story. That's fine though. I just don't think I can step up to the challenge. The problem with Shadowrun is that the GM has unlimited power. Either I come up with everything in advance, committing myself to a no-cheating-policy in the game and accepting that my players might exploit a loophole that I overlooked or that they all lose their character because of me setting the bar too high or I fudge the dice and adjust the setting to allow them to win and therefore risk railroading. As a GM, I'm always more powerful, so it's not even really a challenge. It's me letting them win.

Ron, thanks for clearing that up. I did a little more reading and now I know what you mean, even though I'm not sure I could handle it. It all sounds pretty esoteric. I'll spend more thought on it though and maybe read more about it here on the forge. To me it sounds like it has to do a lot with pacing and setting the tone/atmosphere while providing interesting stuff to work with but keeping yourself in the background throughout the game. Right?
This should lead to a pretty player-centric game, which isn't really supported in the Shadowrun rules or gameplay. See, there might come a point in the game where I, as a bass-playing GM, decide that it's time for some action or that the players, inspired by one of my cues, want to raid a  facility that I hadn't planned for at all. I just don't think I can pull it out of my hat like that... I need NPCs, I need guards, I need a detailed concept for the encounter(s), I need floorplans, I need security systems, etc. all while keeping the security reasonable enough to be a challenge without overwhelming them. And all of that without any time to prepare it. In Shadowrun, the GMs job is not only to play bass. He also has to equip the stage, write the criticisms and do the management of the band. I have to come up with content, and lots of it. Most of it has to have some significant meaning.

Maybe I'm just overreacting. I'm known to do that. Make the problems look bigger than they actually are.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Sven!

To stay with our little sub-topic here for a minute, I think you are exactly right. Since that kind of GMing is my favored way, you can see why I tend not to play Shadowrun. When I do play a game with that sort of tactical and preparation importance, such as Tunnels & Trolls, you can bet I prep deeply and don't "play bass" at all. (I think Eero brought up the issue of bass playing just to get an idea of how you GM, not necessarily as a direct suggestion for your current situation.)

Regarding the overall thread topic, I think this is the key thing:

I think it's time for me to find out what the heck I really want!

Yes, a thousand times yes. I'll look forward to your posts when you find it.

Best, Ron

[khelek]

You know Shadowrun is one of my favorite worlds/setting. I just love it! I ran SR games for years and years. but something always bothered me. It was not until I started playing games that were more 'forge-like' that I understood what I did not like. that there is no way to challenge the character as a personality. (not that this is unique to SR of course). because there were no tools to use as a GM to prod the personality of the PCs, only ways ot interact with them in terms of infiltration, gun fighting etc...

Looking back, for a game all about making the difficult decision, about vengeance after the Corp betrays you, about finding out everything you were working towards was a lie, it strikes me as a terrible waste that are no mechanical tools to engage the personality of the PCs. I think that when I found L5R I was really excited, because it gave some tools for engaging the personality of the PCs (Honor), but when you see games like Sorcerer, Burning Wheel, Polaris, Dogs, TRoS, etc you see that Honor just does not cut it.

I would love a shadowrun system that gave you the tools to really ramp up the personal conflict rather than just slog though a high-tech dungeon crawl.

[Sven Seeland]

Agreed. In fact, there is an timid little idea starting to grow in the back of my head about writing a Shadowrun that is more about the characters. I really love the setting and the premise but the rules are a) not really good and b) don't facilitate my style of gameplay. However, since most of my previous RPG design ideas crashed and burned (except for one, which is currently on hold) I'm kinda careful about starting a new design. Especially since I want to be sure that I know what I want before I start designing.

More on-topic: I think I'm getting closer to actually finding out what I want to do, however I'm still lacking practical experience. I think I'm tending more and more towards character-centric play. On the game master side of things I'm probably leaning towards bass-playing and on the player side it's more about character development and decission-making. I'm planning to run a game of DitV sometime soon, which might facilitate this style well, I think. (Any other gaming suggestions?)

I also talked to Jana about this. To her, the fun is all about the social get-together, the character moments (like the time when Timo's troll lady almost started a shootout in a snack bar because she felt insulted) and the group dynamics (between characters as well as between players). The missions merely provide context and direction. It's not really about hardcore tactics to her.
I still have to talk to Timo about that though I suspect that he's leaning far more towards tactics and puzzle-solving.