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Blond Gamer Girl

GM / Self Defeating NPCs

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Blond Gamer Girl
, 01-23-2011 at 09:28 PM (658 Views)
Currently in the Shadowrun Game I'm running, it seems that I have the beginnings of the over use of Spirits. Basically, PCs have begun to use spirits to do tasks that they can do. The party is mage heavy to begin with so its not like they need it. To me Spirits are self-defeating NPCs.

In the past any SR game that I have played in or GM'd for, spirits were used sparingly for this reason.

Has anyone ever had this happen in SR or any other game? What did you do?

Basically I thought of restricting spirit use if the following can apply:

1. Can the players accomplish this task themselves? If so, not allowed.


2. If used, a spirit can only perform passive duties. Basically, a spirit will NOT be an active PC.

What does everyone think?

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Comments

  1. Sascha's Avatar
    Sounds like you and your players have differing views on the extent of spirit services. Have you talked to them about it?
  2. SDJThorin's Avatar
    Hey BGG,

    Way back in the days when I GMed Shadowrun, there was someone who abused the whole magic system and specifically Spirits.

    What I did with him was have the Spirits get a little miffed that he was calling them for every little thing and so they started refusing to help him. At one point they ignored him for a week. The player did get upset, but after a while he stopped "wasting the Spirits time" and played his character better.

    If I recall, we made a loose house rule that gave a incremental bonus/penalty depending on the frequency and reason for the use of the Spirits. It worked out pretty well and even had some people conserving their use to have a big bonus for when they needed it most.

    Hope this helped!
  3. Blond Gamer Girl's Avatar
    Sascha - Yup - I explained in a detailed email but the very next game session, someone tried but failed the role.

    SDJ - That rocks. I'm so doing that.
  4. SDJThorin's Avatar
    Glad it was helpful!