The Decker Problem

We all know you don't split the party, right Veeky Forums?
What about the roles that seem to want a solo section in every encounter?
>I'm a sniper
>I run drones remotely
>I jack into the Matrix
>I go into the Astral Plane
>I scout ahead
>Someone has to fly the ship/drive the van/steer the wagon
How do we deal with the one guy who isn't actually in the scene EVERY scene?

Many of these things can be combined.

So if a player takes one solo role, they have to take them all?
Doesn't solve the problem that either the rest of the party has their thumb up their butt for several turns, or the solo guy is out of luck (or affecting the game but invulnerable like the sniper).

Well you could just make it a small carriage with a window. As for a ship then just have cameras or old Victorian style gramophone things everywhere depending on the setting.

It's called "stop building one trick ponies faggot".
If your character is useful at only one thing, then make a character who is more diversified. If there is need of such a character, get some sort of supportive role too.

>I'm a sniper
Either make the encounters in a building with multiple rooms (so he needs to reposition himself for line of fire), or make sure his ideal sniping spot is noisy so he doesn't hear the goon sneaking up on him.

>I run drones remotely
Not much I can think of, honestly.

>I jack into the Matrix
Employ Noise penalties from being too far from certain access points, or just go full retro Shadowrun and require the decker physically jack into whatever he's hacking (meaning his meat body needs to be at the source of the action)

>I go into the Astral Plane
>I scout ahead
Both of these can be mitigated by instilling some fear into the player. Oh, he wants to use his nifty abilities to check what's ahead? Well that means he's alone when touch magical or mundane security spots him.

>Someone has to fly the ship/drive the van/steer the wagon
And then what? Are they just sitting in the vehicle until the party returns?

I broadly agree, but some roles don't work that way, and some systems don't either.
Shadowrun is the prime example, with various solo-types and high costs to generalisation (unless the GM has a very fine sense of balance to his encounters).

I've had wheelman types literally do this in Spycraft.
The opposite problem is when the heat is on and the chase begins. The other players pile in the back, they peel out, the driver has a neat chase scene to chew on and the others debate whether or not to shoot out of the windows or just brace. Thrilling.

I used to play a literal "sit on my ass back at home" hacker. The GM said something very simple. Certain top-security buildings we infiltrated needed personal presence, as they would deflect the whatever-sonic-waves a wifi connection needs, so i actually needed to be inside the building.

When i was running one, i dictated that hacking from a distance had an average+ difficulty due to being on the safe spot, but being actually going near the camera and hacking it individually is an average- to easy task, so the player could take the risk of self harm for a potentially lower risk of failing the mission for everyone.

It's pretty simple really, you just need some imagination.

>not being a decker that insists on running with the party and only hacks when it's needed

have an all star support NPC who follows the group around doing the driving/hacking/sniping/fetching while the party does the awesome stuff

>sniping = not following the party
>not watching the johnson meet ready to burst his head like a watermelon

But actually there's very little need to be far away in SR unless you're watching over the face or doing a similar role, being ready to burst through a wall shooting everyone.

Also, you shouldn't scout ahead more than like one round's movement away from the group. That way you can bail or call in the full party if shit goes down.

But if the all star supports do all that, what awesome stuff is left?

derping about and dishing out damage, which is what PCs are usually built to do

So you take out all the planning, the contracts, the dodging the law, the little adventures that may happen while you're going downtown to get the latest lewd trideo...and the PCs get to be glorified murderhobos that don't have to think beyond shooting.

I think you miss the point of Shadowrun.

I had a scene like this in Shadowrun, except that one player decides to pull the pins off several grenades and toss them to the other members like hot potatoes in order for them all to do something. The ensuing freak out had everyone toss the grenades out the window, blowing up the car that was chasing them.

>I'm a sniper
Get into a high position and overwatch the main strike team. Pop high priority targets as they exit cover to engage party.
>I run drones remotely
Fly them near the party. Depending on their role, they could be close fire support, specialist-droids, mobile shields and cover, etc.
>I jack into the Matrix
Your cybercognitive defense systems all take the rough shape of your close allies and comrades due to a psychological dependency on/trust in the other team members.
>I go into the Astral Plane
Cool. That spell can target multiple characters, so the party can join.
>I scout ahead
Two, maybe three dice rolls is all this takes.
>Someone has to fly the ship/drive the van/steer the wagon
Autopilot, or camouflage.

send him to the time out room

>We all know you don't split the party, right Veeky Forums?
What about you DO split the party ? It's not that hard. The key to this problem is to switch between the players very fast
>A what do you do ?
>I do X
>ok roll Y
When he is counting his dice pool you switch to B and do the same, then C, etc, then you go back to A
>So across the corridor you spot a wageslave drinking a coffee, he hasn't noticed you yet, what do you NOW
>

Yeah, exactly. There are two solutions, the first being not to play class-based games. Allowing players to design characters as they like avoids many of these problems.

It does not really avoid the decker problem, though, when one guy plugs into the matrix and, regardless of proximity, is essentially playing his own solo campaign, sometimes for a long while.

One way to address that is to simplify all those sorts of tasks (astral planing, hacking, recon, etc.) into a short and quick series of skill rolls. It's dull, but it solves the problem. Another way is to do it like in Shadowrun Returns, and be prepared to always combine decking situations with real world combat, so that the players outside the matrix have to be active as well, defending the immobilized decker, and just have everyone act in combat rounds.

I just let them act out their turns in order. Those are not separate roleplaying scenes, these are just combat turns, but divided by distance.

What kind of question is this?

>>I run drones remotely
I once had a guy insisting on playing a drones specialist that was controlling them exclusively from home...
In another city.
In another hemisphere.

I don't know how this makes me feel.
On the one hand he's invulnerable. On the other, if his drone is killed he is out of the adventure for a good long time.

Don't worry, he wanted a big supply of them on the location.

Oh and he was going to just spy on everybody and sell info, participating in adventures is for people less smart than our cambridge boy.

>participating in adventures is for people less smart than our cambridge boy
I hope your GM ducked with him relentlessly.

This
Dont just have the seperated player taking all the attention spread it round like you normaly would its rare that one side will not be doing anything while the other is active.

The rare case one side is sitting on there arses you will just have to grin and bear it.

Note how this applies to mostly to a modern setting.
In a medieval setting you'd have
>I scout ahead - easily fixed by having the whole party sneak, or making it dangerous, so the scout keeps a 'short leash'
>disarming traps - but who cares, that's just a couple quick rolls

A caper adventure in a modern setting? everybody should have their own scenes, if they don't they are part of the supporting cast, not PCs. It's just how the genre works. If your party is good, they'll act as support while the guy in the spotlight does his thing, or you'll have to move between scenes or use some other gimmick to keep everybody involved.

>he wanted a big supply of them on the location
>spy on everybody and sell info
>totally not make enemies who will hack into his drone control next time and fuck with/jam/take control over the bots
>enemies don't have contacts/hired goons overseas and totally can't track him while the tables turn and now the party's invulnerable and he's without support on site

>The opposite problem is when the heat is on and the chase begins. The other players pile in the back, they peel out, the driver has a neat chase scene to chew on and the others debate whether or not to shoot out of the windows or just brace. Thrilling.

A solution

(And I've never tried this so Warning: May Suck, but)

A solution that I just thought of: Plan the escape ahead of time.

Let's say you have four people - wheels, computer, weapons, face.

So obviously Wheels will be rolling a lot here, but let's say we have three points of interference to delay pursuit: Hacker has set up a remote that'll flip an intersection in their favor, Face has arranged a crowd (marching band? Black Lives Matter? Who cares?) to block the road right after they've gotten through and Point Man has rigged the bridge to blow as soon as they're across.

So the chase is three hard rolls for the wheel man to get away that each become easy rolls if, during the setup, the three other guys succeeded on their shit.

But you don't roll for any of it before the chase.

They get to the intersection and Hacker rolls to see if his bullshit signal works, they get to the protest and Face rolls to see if there are people closing up behind them, they get to the bridge and Point Man rolls to see if it detonates properly.

>What about you DO split the party ? It's not that hard. The key to this problem is to switch between the players very fast

Jesus that's not the point.

The PARTY knows not to split the party because that'll get them killed.

And the DM doesn't force the party to split, because he knows that if anything goes wrong after that, the TPK is his own god damn fault.

Deal with it by not playing Shadowrun. Pretty much every character (decker, rigger, face, adept, SS) is a specialist who will be completing tasks alone while the rest of the party sits on their asses and waits.

>Sniper
Have his solo time be getting into position, other than that, he damn well can provide cover fire to the rest of the group. Let him roll for initiative in combat, and if he fucks up, have counter snipers try and take him out.
>Matrix
This one is tricky, there is no way around solo play for this. That's why I prefer AR, so that I can hack while actively assisting the party, instead of sleeping in a bathtub for the entire run.
>Scout
Much like the sniper, there is no reason they can't contribute to the group as well. The scout can relay info to the others. Stick a camera on his helmet, and then the group can see with him, maybe help him pass a perception test or two.
>Pilot
Never have a runner dedicated to only driving, as not every run can fit a vehicle.
>Astral
Much like Matrix, there's not much to get around this. You could help your party also see into the astral plane, but it's a longshot.
>Remote drones
Same with scout and sniper, just because their body isn't actually in the fight, doesn't mean they can't contribute.

The real fucking issue is that when the decker starts hacking, the rest of the party can start nap time
Seriously, Everytime no matter what I did they always fucking have the hacker hack while the rest of the party starts playing on phones/talking about more fun things/sleeping
Same also occurs with ethereal spying
I think I'll just have a restriction in the future to "pure hackers are NPCs you can pay to do stuff for you, or are already part of your party but just NPC" if I play shadowrun ever again

>>I'm a sniper
Okay. Support the party from long range, and I'll build encounters so you're useful. You're all commlinked together for roleplaying anyway.

>>I run drones remotely
The drones are a party member, and you can remote the party's vehicles around for them to fight better, scout ahead, etc. Or you need the street samurai to carry your mini-drone around because it only has limited battery life.

>>I jack into the Matrix
Remote presence through augmented reality, keeping pace with the party in the digital plane, helping them get through stuff.
Maybe have them come along for direct line-of-sight hacking while being covered.

>>I go into the Astral Plane
You have combat abilities too, right? Otherwise, same as the hacker.

>>I scout ahead
You're on point. You're not that far ahead of the rest of the party, though, because you're scouting for threats to direct them at before supporting them in dealing with it.

>>Someone has to fly the ship/drive the van/steer the wagon
Yeah, the rigger. Otherwise, gridguide exists.