Yeah, there are some bad RPers who will just play the same character in every single game. You need to work around that character’s presence. Maybe the whole process will be more enjoyable if you think of it this way: his character is a shitty team member, but your characters can’t kick him out of their running crew, because [he’s just too damn good/they know he’d turn you in out of spite/they think he’d sabotage the group/they think he’d join a rival crew or corp/they’re biding time while they think of a way to sabotage him]. Instead of an interpersonal problem between players, this is now a source of drama between characters, which is a lot of the fun in Shadowrun anyway. Your character could even develop a grudge against his and undermine his character in subtle ways. Who knows?
Just my two cents. Mostly, I’m playing Shadowrun vicariously through you because, for some reason, I just can’t get a non-flaky group together to play it in San Diego.
Ah, he is getting better over time. It used to be that he flipped out fairly frequently, and tends not to realize that repeating a losing strategy does not turn it into a winning one. In one case, he shot the Pope solely because he had no other interesting target available, and… (I Am Not making This Up!) he was hungry. No, I don’t get it either.
The irony is that he’s one of the best GM’s I’ve seen. His games tend to be fairly brutalistic military campaigns, but he does them well. Has no head for the long haul, though, and he can’t count.
After a few games, he gets bored or can’t come up with something new and he campaign ends.
Anyway, an update.
We met again, his mighty AI threatened me. I made a counter-threat to damage his goodies. I then made some implication that we could avoid the nastiness by taking both off the bargaining table. (Those were almost my exact words). GM got pissy and said that wasn’t possible, since we’d still both know it had been pulled out.
I didn’t actually have a coherent response to that. I don’t quite know how to explain that was irrelevant. Later on he argued with me over the definition of “take [something] off the table.” he then ignored me the rest of the game while I sat aound, unable to leave because I write the campaign log. He later claimed that he thought “I didn’t want to talk.” I wil say that he managed to piss me off so thoroughly I took some foil and caused pain to myself in order to distract myself from the blinding boiling rage.
There was a huge and very late (like 4:00 am late) discussion of things. I am finally giving up. I’m not going to argue anymore. He literally cannot comprehend that my character might use threats or counter-threats in bargaining. he was literally incpable of comprehending negotiation as anything other than people laying out all up-front what they want and what they are willing to trade.
He also seems to have had some kind of difficulty comprehending that when I said I wanted something, that was what I wanted. I am not sure why. He kept requesting I tell him that, and for some reason just didn’t get it. I think he couldn’t understand that my character was fundamentally unwilling to offer the screwy AI servitude, and that the AI’s threats made it worse. Moreover, the AI no longer has anything I really want. I’s basically made the emotional cost of doing business so high that it can’t offer me anything to compensate, and refuses to do so anyhow.
His screwy AI apparently clasified me as “hostile” because I broke down some walls and smashed up a couple drones (the drones being armed with heavy machineguns doesn’t seem to figure, nor that they attacked us first). I actually had permission to be there, whereas his AI has actually hijacked control of the place and named itself “Acting Director” (and is keeping the actual director from calling back in and talking to anyone). But anyway he refuses to negotiate except on the basis of ‘I 0wnz y3r @$$’ as a starting negotiating position, and doesn’t believe I represent any threat.
In the name of the friendship I do not believe he has for me, I renounced my anger over it and handed him “victory” so he would stop. He still apparently does not understand what I am doing or why. My character will probably wind up sitting on his ass for the next four in-game months (or six weeks, which if true actually punctures one the AI’s sole reason for imprisoning me). Since the entire campain of seven sessions has taken up less than 2 weeks in-game time, I will be sitting around for a very long time doing jack.
In the future, I am never going to actually play his games. That is, I don’t care what kind of goals he sets. I am just out for numero uno. I don’t care about the mission (everyone else abandoned it for their own interests, leaving me behind while they enriched themselves*).
*They offered me a cut, but I can’t actually accept it because of a charactrer flaw. Which I told them, although I epxect they’re too dimwitted to know about it.
No, Zeriel, look at it. A Computer taking over an Arcology and demanding obedience. Heavily armed people roaming it trying to solve problems. It’s Paranoia.
In a gaming group, is impossible to solve problems on the real-world level by taking actions on the fictional level. You have problems with what the GM is doing. You and the GM are both real-world people. You need to talk about those problems in the real world. Having your character do and say things, and then complaining that the GM doesn’t ‘get it’ isn’t ever going to fix anything.
This doesn’t have anything to do with what an AI would do, or how Faraday cages work, or what the rules say about hacking cyberware, or how an Arcology is laid out, or etc., etc., etc.
If you can’t discuss the problems with the GM as real people, then I agree with virtually everyone else here that you need to quit this group.
The base assumption has to be that everyone is there in order to have a good time, and that people are going to do what they can to ensure that everyone else has a good time. This basic rule holds true for the GM as well as the players. If not everybody can agree to that rule then you have a dysfunctional group.
That’s where you start. Tell the GM that the things that he is doing are making the game less fun for you. Ask him why he’s doing these things. If the answer has anything to do with in-game logic, ask him again until he’s willing to engage with you on the level of two friends who are trying to have a mutually enjoyable experience playing together. It is likely that there are things that you are doing which make the game less fun for him. Listen to those things, and respond in the real world. “That’s what my character would do”, “that’s what the rules say”, and “that’s how things work in this world” are not valid responses to “why are you doing this thing that makes my game less fun”.
That’s what I’ve been doing. I’ve two combined chat sessions which run almost six hours together, because we couldn’t talk face to face. And out of character, he simply can’t comprehend my viewpoint.
Now, I do see the world differently from most people. I am trying to explain it to him. He just does not get it. He fundamentally cannot seem to get that the suggestions he’s made can’t be done in the game, because of the rules he plays under.
He also refuses to acknowledge the pleasure he took in messing with me. I can deceive people very well, but I usually don’t ( I don’t like it; it makes me feel bad). But I can read peoples reactions. The slight flush, the slight grin smile he cuts off, the open eyes… he enjoys messing with me. It may in fact make him feel worse in the long run, but I can see he enjoyed it at the time.
He thinks that’s what’s fair, basically. He doesn’t seem to understand that I, or my character, might think his AI is utterly moronic, or that this is relevant to how I play. He can’t understand that it has nothing to offer except leaving me alone. It apparently decided I was hostile. Then when I basically say “Screw you, I’m going home; this isn’t worth it,” it refuses to believe that I fundamentally no longer care about its playground and have no intention of bothering it anymore (I’m a mercenary, and this is a strict business proposition). I was even willing to offer it information about threats to it gratis, but the AI, or GM-as-AI, doesn’t seem to care to get more. It has apparently decided it is nigh invulnerable and must complete its mission (“Protect the Arcology”). In which case, there’s nothing to negotiate over.
For some reason, he seems to be incapable of getting that I am willing to bargain, but not on his terms.
He claims that me not being happy makes him depressed.