{"id":888,"date":"2007-01-17T17:00:27","date_gmt":"2007-01-17T22:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=888"},"modified":"2007-05-08T14:10:40","modified_gmt":"2007-05-08T19:10:40","slug":"sidequesting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=888","title":{"rendered":"Sidequesting"},"content":{"rendered":"

(The following is a little gruesome.) <\/p>\n

Nilus left a comment here<\/a>, talking about looting companions after they die when playing a tabletop RPG:<\/p>\n

At least in D&D most lootable items are not surgically implanted in the player characters. I remember a Shadowrun game where we spent several hours debating how many times you would have to slam a car trunk in order to decapitate a person with it. This was because the party Decker, who had several million dollars in cyberware in his brain, just died and the rest of the party felt it a waste to let all that expensive equipment get buried with him. Of course no one thought it was a good idea to carry his whole body around and no one had a blade large or sharp enough to cut his head off easily. So thus we used a car trunk. <\/div>\n

I’ve never played Shadowrun, but I’ve read Neuromancer and seen a few cyberpunk movies, so I think I get the idea.<\/p>\n

Just for fun (fun for me, I don’t know if anyone else will enjoy this) I thought I’d detail how I would handle something like this. This is not to knock on Nilus’ GM – everyone has their own style, and there is no right or wrong way to play this game as long as everyone is having a good time.<\/p>\n


\nIf I was the GM in this case I would strongly challenge the players. Even if they were “evil”, I would ask them to picture what they were doing: Would your character really have the stomach to do something like this? To someone you know? Right after they die? With a trunk lid?<\/em> I wouldn’t forbid them, but if my players were interested in roleplaying as opposed to rollplaying I would encourage them to imagine how their characters would really feel in this situation.<\/p>\n

Assuming they still wanted the hardware, or their characters were callous enough to want to do this, then what we have here is a quest hook. Rather than let them attempt the above gruesome extraction, I would assume that this wasn’t the first time people were faced with this problem. <\/p>\n

Again, I have no idea how Shadowrun works, so I’m just making this up as I go and coming up with my own words for things:<\/p>\n

You guys saw a chop shop on your way here. You know that they probably have a wetware guy or a chipsmith that could pull this hardware out for you.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/center><\/p>\n

The shop looks like it was made from a renovated gas station. It’s the middle of the night, but the lights are on and even from outside you can feel the place humming. There is a sweeper zipping around the parking lot looking for trash to suck up. It’s loud and annoying and probably here to chase bums away rather than out of a desire to keep the place tidy.<\/p>\n

You can see various faded certificates, medical licenses, and inspection notices in beat up frames, hung so that they are visible from the outside. They don’t look particularly new.<\/p>\n

As you enter, a guy jumps up from behind a nest of old consoles and fat feed cables that dangle from the ceiling like jungle vines. He’s fiftyish, slim, disheved, and he squints at you over a pair of old-fashioned eyeglasses. As he comes close you can see he’s bouncing slightly and his pupils are dialated. He’s nervous and happy at the same time.<\/p>\n

He introduces himself as…<\/p>\n

(Think! Quick! Think of name!)<\/p>\n

…as Diesel.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You get the idea. They meet this goofball who they can pay to have the hardware recovered from their dead “friend”. While they are out in the parking lot with Diesel, looking in the trunk and discussing the particulars of the job, some minor antagonist will appear. Maybe a “health inspector” who wants a bribe? A couple of lunatic customers who are upset about work Diesel did for them in the past? Some cops who want to know what’s in the trunk that has everyone so excited? Lots of fun can be had in this situation.<\/p>\n

Once they deal with this threat, the guy will pull the hardware for them. Perhaps in doing so he’ll find that the hardware isn’t what they expected! If I can, I might try to tie this to the main plot. <\/p>\n

Since we’re here, this would be a great time to introduce the new Decker to replace the old. Talk to the player whose character died, roll them up a new one (or whatever) and have them come into the shop while Diesel is working. <\/p>\n

I do find this sort of thing can help you sidestep arguments with players. Instead of saying, “You can’t do that” I say “You have to do a sidequest to do that.” But that’s just me. I’ve never run a Shadowrun campaign (heck, I’ve never run anything besides D&D) so I’m not sure how well this sort of thing translates to other games.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(The following is a little gruesome.) Nilus left a comment here, talking about looting companions after they die when playing a tabletop RPG: At least in D&D most lootable items are not surgically implanted in the player characters. I remember a Shadowrun game where we spent several hours debating how many times you would have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tabletop-games"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=888"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/888\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}