NOW PLAYING III

Can you spell teamwork?

Every time I start a new adventure I imagine my players thinking as a group instead of as a character who happens to be part of a group. Unfortunately, I don't remember this ever happening. My players seem to consider each of them as someone who's like the hero of a film (the Die Hard movie guy comes to mind), who can do everything, on its own and who doesn't need anybody else to help him. Of course they'll accept help (hey, in Die Hard 3 the black man does help Bruce Willis), but they don't consider it part of the way to work.

This just doesn't work. Trust me. Sooner or later, you'll regret that demeanor. You ain't Bruce Willis, so you need help. An example of how my players got almost waxed by a single shaman who could actually be a starting character (my players characters were beginners too, true, but they were five, and the damn shaman was alone.) He didn't have any focus, his highest trait was in conjuring(spirits) in which he had 7, he used a grand total of 4 spells, 1 spirit (rating 6) and he "stole" the spirit of one of the two shamans of the team (I must admit I was lucky for that one). You must be wondering how the hell this could happen. Simple: the whole team was separated all the time (after five minutes none of the five runners could see one another or actually knew were they were, and that in a 3 floor house), of the three who had commlinks, one didn't have it turned on, the two others almost didn't use it. After confusing the troll giant physad (who was considered potentially the most dangerous) and the Jamesbondesque character who was getting too close using the power "confusion" on both with the shamans own spirit and the stolen spirit, he almost killed in astral space the gator shaman (but got hurt in the process) and he almost fragged the mage who found him (after quite a lot of research), but got killed by him after the player used karma to escape death. Meanwhile the police was coming and I was generous enough to let the players escape easilly (except for the troll giant who almost literally went to see the cops saying "arrest me please" for some reason), after all this was the easy part of the mission.

This situation could have been much better if all the characters were working as a team (and prepared before running, but more on that later). Lets restart the example, this time with a team instead of individuals stuck together. The first characters enter the house, make sure there isn't any immediate danger and stay together near the window by which they entered (these are the sniper and the Jamesbondesque), waiting for the troll giant, the albinos gnome gator shaman (my game's a freak show) and the mage. The whole team have commlinks, which they have already turned on and tested, so they can tell whatever interesting thing they see and give situation reports on requests if they get separated. The two mages go in astral inside the house (they couldn't do it before because of a ward) to find where is the woman they're searching and where are any guards that could be there. They start searching on the third floor since they saw lights there from outside. They stay two by two, while the rest of the team watches their bodies. On their way, they encounter a hearth spirit rating 6 which they kill easilly (two magicians against one spirit, poor spirit), before finding a shaman waiting in astral perception to see what was happening. The two magicians blast the shaman, who quickly returns to its body (if he ain't dead already). The shaman being no threat, the magicians now look around them and find the woman they were searching (some official from the Atlantean foundation) in the same room. Getting down they quickly run through the different floors, finding nothing of interest. They get back to their bodies and tell the rest of the team what they just saw. The team starts moving to the third floor, while the magicians keep themselves in astral perception to see if the wounded shaman didn't hide any card up its sleeve, which he doesn't (he's at +3 to all difficulty numbers at least, don't expect anything powerful from him). At the third floor, the two magician quickly go to see if the shaman and the woman are still there (they are). The three other members of the team go to the room, while the two magician stay away, giving dice to resist magic to their teammates while they kill (or stun, or whatever) the shaman and get the woman. They quickly get down the stairs, even before the cops can get near.

Doesn't that last example seem more professionnal? Every team member doing what he's supposed to do, and knowing what the others are doing. By acting as a team, and not as individuals together, you get a much more efficient team, even if your into unknown ground. In this example the runners didn't know what to expect, but they didn't get any difficulty for that reason, since there was only one mage guarding the house. Now what's missing is a little preparation.

Can you spell preparation?

For this run, the players didn't prepare at all. Not at all. Nada. They got they're goal in the afternoon and ran in the night. It was the first time they saw what the house looked like when they tried to find the woman. They weren't really in a hurry (they had two weeks to do a 2 parts job), they just didn't care about preparation (and I guess it's the same thing for lots of players).

Just by running the night after they would have been able to get useful information that would have reduced problems to almost nothing. A night of watching is enough to find out that there is a guy with shurikens guarding the outside of the house (most probably a physad). Looking through the windows they would have seen a woman who worked in the house (their target) and another guy, following her around (some bodyguard). Knowing thatthey just had to have mister sniper kill the physad in the garden, and then shoot stun bullets through the window where the woman his to stun her and her bodyguard. The rest of the run is a walk in the park...

This other example is to show how preparation can help you a lot (this ain't a really good example, the run was simple. For better example read any background books, there are a lot of those (especially in Awakenings, new magic in 2057)). Do your fragging homeworks before you run, find out what you have to do and what kind of security to expect before you run (finding the reason of your run can be another good thing to do if you don't want to be double-crossed) and then you can call yourself a shadowrunner and not an amateur.