Copperhead:
This is absolutely not personal for me. I like you as a player and very much want you to keep playing. And I don't want you to feel disrespected. You are wanted and welcomed and appreciated. I would feel horrible if you left because of this. I appreciate playing with people who enjoy the SR-3 universe as much as I do.
I understand that you felt that we were proposing was overkill and was interfering with your intentions. The notion of planting c-4, shooting someone, etc. would only be lone wolf if they'd been done without team discussion/agreement. And there wasn't agreement on those things (and in terms of shooting someone, I don't think that was ever the intent, that was a fallback contingency). Therefore, they weren't done.
Turning off comms wasn't essential to establish trust. You didn't communicate to the team that you were going to do so, nor for how long. We just suddenly lost any ability to listen in or communicate - at a time when listening in would have been valuable and we were in far from a low risk environment. From an OOC perspective, you turned us all into spectators without giving us a choice.
Having back-up available or comms on did not significantly increase mission risk. Not having them would have. Yes, things worked out in this case. And I agree that odds are that they would have worked out. The chances of things going south in this instance were slim. But there was still a chance and it was useful to have contingencies in place if that occurred.
We could have talked about alternative/lower risk/impact ways to provide backup. The notion of paying attention to (or caring about) whether someone loses sleep because their maglock is a bit clunkier than usual isn't a way I'm used to playing. And if I did think about it, I'd assuage my conscience by leaving 50 nuyen and sticking a piece of gum in the hole in the wall. I'm not sure how to function in an environment where we have to avoid making messes at that level. But if it's important to you, we can try.
Note that we *did* let you go in on your own. And did let you play it out as "friendly" rather than hostile. So we did listen to your ideas and allowed you to take the lead. To me, that seems like we were respecting your contributions. We recognized that you were best positioned for this and were happy to play second fiddle. But we would like to play a fiddle of some sort. Excluding us on the grounds that your instincts say we probably wouldn't be needed is problematic. The ninja stuff didn't significantly slow down what happened here. And if things had evolved differently, we'd have been ready.
It's perfectly fine for you to do off and do things on your own when we're all off doing our own things if we've agreed that the risk/reward of splitting up is better than sticking together. I don't think there's any intention to babysit each other in everything we do. But when we're all together and can't do anything useful separately, then allow us to function as a team. Perfectly fine for you to take the lead, but make sure you give us something to do that lets us be involved and don't do things that impede our ability to communicate or provide assistance if, by some weird fluke, GM fiat or module dictat, the dreck does hit the fan.
For now, Copperhead's just going to give you the cold shoulder because she doesn't have the communication skills or personality to not make things worse if she does anything else. But do not take that personally. I want us to work this out both IC and OOC. We're new to playing together and have different experiences/expectations. That doesn't mean we can't find a way forward.
Certainly agree that letting Manes know that Junior appears to have organized this so we can get more intel on the why - and whether he's operating alone or with the help of daddy would be good. Though I'd like us to chat with Tee Hee a bit more about what he knows about Junior and his motivations first. And we should see if we can trace down a bit more. I don't want to bug the Johnson too often.
Most of my thoughts are pretty similar to what Copperhead posted in the quote above, so I won't bother restating all of it. (Plus Copperhead phrased things much more eloquently than anything I probably would have come up with.) I will attempt to explain Caduceus's "hypocritical tantrum" comment though, so hopefully you can better understand his perspective.
First, I will start with why Caduceus called White Duck's "I told you so" speech a tantrum. The team just got through with a plan that went off without any real problems, and White Duck felt it was necessary to point out that his plan to talk to Tee Hee had worked despite the rest of the team's reluctance. Fair enough. The team was wrong about that. But then he goes on to criticize the rest of the team's insistence that they be allowed to do their jobs as well.
Which they also completed successfully.
There could have been "I told you so" speeches from any one of the team members. Copperhead's drill idea worked, despite White Duck's protest. Caduceus's spirits didn't cause any problems, despite White Duck's protest. Noruas was able to successfully do his decking stuff, despite White Duck's protest. Sure, any one of those things could have gone wrong, but the same can be said for White Duck's plan too. So that is why when White Duck was going off on the group about how he was so right about the plan he insisted the rest of the group follow along with, it lost some of its intended effect on the shaman. (I kept his reaction internal though, because I didn't want to antagonize White Duck, who seemed to already be on edge.)
The reason Caduceus called the speech hypocritical was for similar reasons. White Duck was saying how the group should trust his instincts, yet in the same speech he disregards the instincts of the other team members. The other team members instincts were telling them to have contingencies in place "just in case." Yet when they try to plan contingencies, Duck just disagrees with them and assumes his own instincts are the correct ones. Or at least that is the way it seemed from Caduceus's perspective. He said the group was screwing with his mojo, but failed to acknowledge that he was also screwing with the mojo of others.
I appoligize for any hurt feelings I may have caused. Like Coppehead said, it will take some time for the characters to work out their dynamics. I look forward to when that day comes, and hopefully our shadowrunners don't eat each other alive before it does. :P
P.S. Get well soon Noruas!