Modding (or managing) Combat

[steve98052]

One strategy is to warm up players' feel for the combat system not with a combat armor and ACR shootout, but a brawl where the baddest weapons are barstools and broken bottles. Have the police show up moments after the first real-damage (as opposed to stun damage) injury happens to a player character (or allied nonplayer character). Everyone goes to jail except those with real-damage injuries; they go to a hospital under police supervision, and get a great big medical bill for getting the broken glass picked out of their wounds. Next scene, the Admin specialist in the group sorts out bail, then tries to get the medical bill negotiated down to a more reasonable price.

If characters decide to wander around armed and armored for a battlefield in a place where it's legal but still not normal, describe citizen reactions. "You hear loud music from around the corner. At the intersection, you see that it's a bunch of teens in an open-top ground car. Moments after they see you, the music stops, the car takes a U-turn and flees the wrong way down a one-way street. Everyone roll Education. [Point to best result.] That car's Robo-driver only violates traffic regulations in Emergency Evacuation mode. Those kids are really freaked out." A few minutes later, a police armored air/raft shows up to politely request that the party not alarm the citizens. If the reach for weapons rather than cooperating, the whole party gets slimed with riot control foam from the the goop gun on the air/raft, and some of the players have to roll to hold breath until the police clear a breathing channel to them with riot foam solvent (which has the unfortunate side effect of melting the rubber grips on some of their weapons). Admin specialist sorts out bail next scene.

I wrote more on this topic in another thread:

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The combat system is pretty deadly, so that should be a deterrent to players who understand that there are a lot of weapons that will kill them with a single shot. If one player gets taking down -- even by a non-lethal weapon -- before they get a hit, they'll have a different attitude when they get out of the local police infirmary. Someone who spends six months in medical low passage while their shot-off leg is clone-grown will hesitate to resort to violence, with a reminder every monthly payment for their medical debt.

If players can learn from others' mistakes, make their first interesting encounter be a guy who has a very hairy, pale right forearm, but is otherwise light brown and not so hairy. That's likely to draw a question. "I got into a brawl a few years ago, and it spilled out into the street. No one had any weapons until the police arrived with their shiny titanium broadswords. Someone kicked me from behind and the cops thought I was rushing them. Nearly chopped my arm off. I got good first aid, but they couldn't save the arm. The police gave me apology money, but this was still the best re-grow job I could afford, and it still took me two years to pay off."
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