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Rockopolis posted:That bad, huh? I think you've got a lot of good advice coming on the crunch there, so I'll touch on the "why do you run?" question. I often had trouble with that motivation myself until I changed my approach from resource-oriented to need-oriented. It's a subtle difference, but important. Resource-oriented motivation - make money, get access to healthcare for a sick relative, etc - do make sense, but they're limited and often don't fit, especially for very capable or intelligent characters who could easily hack it out of the shadows. Sure, you can create reasons that going straight is impossible, but doing that every time can get repetitive. Plus it quickly strains credibility if they can't get out. In some cases this is an interesting story and concept, the guy who is trying to go straight but who's history keeps pulling him back in. It shows up a lot in media, after all. But in most cases, that isn't the whole story with even those characters. What works better is to figure out a need that being in the shadows meets. Nearly every capable runner has skills that would make them, if not wealthy, comfortable in normal life. In fact, many NPCs in Shadowrun moonlight in far safer and more lucrative fields, especially music. Yet, they still run. So what they get out of the shadows is something they can't get anywhere else. Most runners are probably (at least) slightly hosed up personalities. The money is an excuse to cover thrillseeking or bloodlust or a desire to face life-or-death challenges. They run because being in the shadows gives them something that is impossible to find in civilian life. At the same time, many runners are too individualistic or anti-authoritarian to stick in respectable fields that provide those things, like the military or police. In some cases it may actually be idealism, misplaced or otherwise, given the corruption of institutions in Shadowrun. Take a look at cyberpunk characters from other works. Hiro Protagonist is a world class hacker, a swordsman, and more. It's repeatedly shown he has as much or more capability as some of the richest and most successful people in the world. When things start going to hell, he's the one guy with the ability and temperament to step up and do what needs to be done. Yet he lives in a storage unit and can't even hold down a job as a pizza delivery driver. Clearly, something about his personality draws him to the dangerous underworld. He literally is incapable of going straight without becoming a completely different person. Most runners are probably like Hiro. They run the shadows because that's who they are. Rather than try and come up with a perfectly logical, unimpeachably rational reason to be a 'runner, look for the irrational and illogical need that drives them. You'll get much more interesting characters, and spend less time tying yourself in knots to justify your continued involvement in the shadows. Think like a base jumper, or any other extreme sports personality. Felix Baumgartner didn't jump from the edge of space because it made him a lot of money or out of scientific curiosity. But that also doesn't prevent him from approaching it with incredible professionalism and care, didn't stop him from making exhaustive preparations, and certainly didn't bar him from getting a very lucrative contract on the way. Ultimately though, he did it because he's Felix Baumgartner, and it's intrinsic in his make up to seek out the most difficult challenges he can imagine. Comrade Gorbash fucked around with this message at 00:39 on Feb 7, 2013 |
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Feb 7, 2013 00:13
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Comrade Gorbash posted:Take a look at cyberpunk characters from other works. Hiro Protagonist is a world class hacker, a swordsman, and more. It's repeatedly shown he has as much or more capability as some of the richest and most successful people in the world. When things start going to hell, he's the one guy with the ability and temperament to step up and do what needs to be done. Yet he lives in a storage unit and can't even hold down a job as a pizza delivery driver. Clearly, something about his personality draws him to the dangerous underworld. He literally is incapable of going straight without becoming a completely different person. That is the essence of runner motivation. Triggering and feeding that need will keep them in business. Another related input you can play with is the unbearable and uncomfortable calm of civilian life. For the seasoned runner, “calm" is a synonym for “trap" and “setup". Relaxing by the pool means you're exposed; waiting in line at StufferShack means the old lady in front is deliberately slowing you down while the cybered-up orcs are getting into position; and since it was four months since you last heard from your fixer, you have no idea who's out to get you — you no longer feel the pulse of the street. At least when you're on or between runs, you know the score and the gut feeling about the old lady is a certainty rather than something that might end up as a huge embarrassment that will get you banned from the store.
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Feb 7, 2013 16:36
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Thank you for the advice. I need to think about these, I'm not sure I can really dig the "need to run for the sake of running" thing, although, come to think of it, that's approximately what we're doing by playing Shadowrun.  The doesn't handle calm well sounds a bit more like my character, who, come to think of it, is kinda paranoid. Okay, here's my two cents; I noticed earlier in the thread a discussion on Perception and the usual problem of tipping off your players that something's up? I didn't notice it suggested earlier, so what do you think? Based off a half remembered "Let it Ride" rule from Burning Wheel, you roll perception once (behind the GM screen), usually at the start of a scene and then have that value stand for the rest of the scene. You then compare it to preset difficulty values (spotting hidden objects), or roll the Infiltration of upcoming enemies at the same time. You always roll at the start of every scene, whether or not you have something planned.
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Feb 8, 2013 17:13
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There are a million ways to roll for perception without the player knowing - you can use a program so that it's completely silent. Another popular method it to just be constantly rolling dice as a GM, the players will quickly stop taking note when you roll.
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Feb 8, 2013 17:42
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Ah, halfway through my first introduction run and getting into the meat of the action as street fighter turned runner. Looking at the Arsenal and Black Book source books, have anyone considered having a contact who can do air strikes or to intercept enemy response teams. The way I see it is I want to consider running an ex-mercenary for my next character. A pure "semper fi" marine who has a couple of military contacts who supplys him with a sniper to back him up and a drunken pilot who still have the keys to an Eagle C.
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Feb 8, 2013 20:01
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That seems like something geared towards a military/paramilitary campaign. Otherwise, it's...rather unsubtle. Mortars might be cheap and handy, plus there's always doom blimps; Stormclouds with a Grenade Launchers!
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Feb 8, 2013 22:16
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Rockopolis posted:That seems like something geared towards a military/paramilitary campaign. Otherwise, it's...rather unsubtle. Well with most flyboy contracts they are usually glorified taxi services, this kind of stuff is when you need to make sure your mission succeeds. A Fighter pilot won't be shuttling you out of trouble but he can do recon, blow up an incoming VTOL carrying a response team that can maul your squad or drop a couple of iron bombs on the unsuspecting enemy, or in worst case scenarios, carry a crate filled with supplies dropped as a care package. And in Shadowrun, an rocket artillery is pretty darn cheap if you are running a rigger who probably will be acting as mission control. Only cost is the missiles. Lastly, did anyone ever explained their "Day Job" flaw? gyrobot fucked around with this message at 06:45 on Feb 9, 2013 |
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Feb 9, 2013 02:26
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gyrobot posted:Lastly, did anyone ever explained their "Day Job" flaw? This is a great question to take into consideration because Day Job is one of the most fun flaws imo. It's not particularly glamorous, but something about having to juggle "running across rooftops while shooting at dudes stylishly" with "wage slave demands" just has a lot of potential for hijinks. Also it provides mini-hooks in case some of your group can't make a session. One time when everybody in my party except me and another guy had to cancel, my GM ditched the plan for that session and instead had us trying to get through the the lunch rush at our day job (You Should Not Eat So Much). It wasn't particularly high-stakes or anything, but it was a fun exercise in improvisation and comedy of errors type stuff.
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Feb 9, 2013 20:47
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Day job does not necessarily mean you are working a 9-5 white collar job for the man, man. You can have a legitimate contracting or other small business, and still commit Horrible Crimes on the side to support your beetle habit. Suggestions for :comedy: 24hr locksmith, on-call tech support, session or club musician, bar-tending. Suggestions for :character development: Volunteer work at homeless shelters or addiction clinics and churches (if religion is a thing in your games). Either way, put something in there for your GM to use, gravelly-voiced generic toughguy-with-a-gun is boring.
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Feb 9, 2013 21:21
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You can, it's only if you "jump in" drones via the control rig you can't do anything else. Also, you can buy Agents if you want to have something with a bit more logic than the drones themselves running the show while you hack something.
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Feb 9, 2013 22:41
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Day Job is great for riggers/hackers. You can work in a garage or machine shop, or do computer work for some Z-rated corp which all fit great with that type of character concept. Magicians can provide astral security, wards, work in talisman/enchanting shops, etc. as easy and believable careers. It is what you make it, it doesn't have to be 9-5 in a cubicle working for The Man.
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Feb 11, 2013 14:16
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My Martial Artist Adept had a "Day Job" as an underground fighter, and gradually worked his way into becoming a legitimate MMA competitor. Unfortunately, his success sort of backfired on him since now he has to disguise himself before each run, lest someone recognizes him.
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Feb 11, 2013 23:42
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PunkBoy posted:My Martial Artist Adept had a "Day Job" as an underground fighter, and gradually worked his way into becoming a legitimate MMA competitor. Unfortunately, his success sort of backfired on him since now he has to disguise himself before each run, lest someone recognizes him. Same here, except my character was taking a bit of a break to go back into the underground circuit. He is still well known enough that people probably knows he would at some point bust someone's bones since the guys running the show has relations to a big name organization.
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Feb 12, 2013 04:31
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PunkBoy posted:My Martial Artist Adept had a "Day Job" as an underground fighter, and gradually worked his way into becoming a legitimate MMA competitor. Unfortunately, his success sort of backfired on him since now he has to disguise himself before each run, lest someone recognizes him. Man you got those all backwards. You had a perfect opportunity to play a future MMA luchadore and you blew it. But really I'm replying because you put an awesome idea into my head. Plenty of pro wrestlers' characters have some kind of backstory, think of the Undertaker and the Mountie and stuff like that. What if a pro fighter's character was that of a Shadowrunner? Not a real runner, of course, it's the glitzed up sim version the way Call of Duty is of actual military life, or Ocean's 11 is like a real robbery. But some corp exec gets the idea of putting him in a real run, you know, get the real grittiness of the streets in there as a way to open the new season and have something to start off Wrestlemania Eleventy-Billion with. Sure, they can edit out all the stuff that tests poorly in audiences. But it'll be his biggest challenge yet! You can't tell the real runners about it, of course, they're just forced to work with this meathead. Whatever, the pay's good and the run's easy, right? Except it's never easy, and runners are complete weirdos who, if they don't throw a wrench into the carefully-crafted script's plans themselves, will have pasts and reputations that are more than happy to do it for them. So the wrestler gets caught up in all the crazy "why did you take Amnesia you rear end in a top hat" complications that can arise, and things have escalated to the point where he's in so deep he can't just call Big Daddy Corp to come rescue him. So he's forced to keep up this charade, and keep on being a runner. But what happens when your reality and this character, this fake runner, what happens when they start blending together? What happens to the *you* when you stop being able to go out of character, or else you'll die? See, this is how you take a flaw.
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Feb 12, 2013 05:41
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Just to check on this, a technomancer can Thread absolutely any program, right? Tacsofts, Emotisoftware, etc?
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Feb 13, 2013 16:46
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Swags posted:Just to check on this, a technomancer can Thread absolutely any program, right? Tacsofts, Emotisoftware, etc? Yep, pretty sure. Even programs without a rating.
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Feb 13, 2013 17:08
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Swags posted:Just to check on this, a technomancer can Thread absolutely any program, right? Tacsofts, Emotisoftware, etc? Ask your GM. Quoth selected parts of the Shadowrun FAQ: quote:Can technomancers thread or learn Complex Forms of the Sensor software (p.60, Arsenal) or TacSofts (p.125, Unwired)?
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Feb 13, 2013 17:22
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Duke of Straylight posted:Ask your GM. Quoth selected parts of the Shadowrun FAQ: Not that it's any measure of official-ness, but Chummer allows for those software to be added as complex forms. 6 karma for a level 6 emotisoft seems fair when a hacker/face will get it for a little over 1 karma's worth of nuyen.
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Feb 13, 2013 18:48
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Dredging up this thread to say I've spent the last month or so reading through, and it's been really interesting and entertaining! Thank you all. Now, content: I'm a first-time GM, and I picked Shadowrun for my players because, well, I love the world to pieces. Most of us used to be in an aborted SR group a year ago, and it's been great reacquainting ourselves with the people, the places and the mechanics. I've had three sessions with them so far, and they've completed their first run (which included a crazed homeless mage, twin troll bodyguards for a mysterious Johnson and a ragtag bunch of Humanis Policlub scumbags, as well as being drip-fed mystery and intrigue and improvised world-building by yours truly). However, there's one member of my group I just don't feel comfortable with half the time. She's a veteran RPer - I haven't been in a single campaign since I started tabletop roleplaying that didn't involve her as GM or fellow player. However, while others have been happy to let things like their contacts and backstory grow organically as new bits and pieces come out through the RP, this one player has what amounts to half a notebook of Character Backstory And Fluff. It's extensive enough that she could have taken a character from a year-long SR campaign and plonked her into the group - everything from family history to the precise nature of her relationship with every one of her varied contacts, as well as about three different Secret Lives. Most recently, during the two-day downtime after their first run, I've been asking my players one-on-one about what their characters are doing with their time. As for her? She's actually regimented her time down to the half-hour, with Every Single Action and Phonecall and Datasearch she wanted to make. I ended up muddling through, and I'm starting on prep for the next session without problems, but I get the feeling I'm not prepared enough for her - like she's a whole new chapter of the Runner's Guide or somesuch. Any advice for ways of coping with this data-dump style of roleplaying? Or am I being a whiny baby-GM?
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Feb 27, 2013 01:58
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What exactly is she doing that's getting in your way? You can just hand wave her OCD downtime schedule as "nothing important turns up except X, Y, and Z." All the contacts and secret lives are plot hooks that you can use. I would've loved to have a player like that when I was trying to run SR. If she's asking for rolls on every call she makes over those 48 hours, ask her politely to knock it off since that's a crushing amount of book keeping for you. Or you can lead her into snooping around for something way over her head to nudge her into being more careful with who all she lets in on her business. Whoops, calling everyone you know about the bustling taqueria in the middle of the gang-ruled urban wastes has tipped off Aztechnology that someone is snooping around their blood magic something something front. Gird your loins, here come the black choppers! You're not being a baby though, Shadowrun is enough of a pain to get the hang of without someone dumping more work in your lap.
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Feb 27, 2013 03:25
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I would just let her use buy hit instead if she gonna retry until she got it, unless it's for important/powerful roll like casting magic and just give her a quick succeed/failure answer on unimportant things. Along with what BoBtheImpaler said, maybe run some fatigue penalty for not getting enough sleep and ask what motivate her character to even want to spend hours doing something like that unless her char has OCD for Phonecall or something.
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Feb 27, 2013 04:23
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I think my main source of uneasiness is that, especially compared to the other players, her encyclopaedia-of-fluff thing crosses the line from "oh, useful and could serve as a cool/interesting/OH poo poo RUN plot-hook!" into "oh, great, I get to spend half an hour in a go-nowhere contact roleplay because she's done all this work and I feel obligated". It's intimidating. I was planning on having a couple of her mistakes - rookie errors, especially considering her apparent connections - come back to bite her in the arse soon enough, but I do like the idea of actually questioning her fundamentals. Why DOES she want to spend hours re-checking the same info the rest of the group already found out on a high-success datasearch? Why DOES she persist in these Secret Lives, when she's about as adept at covering her tracks as a guy trailing a whole roll of TP from the men's room? Maybe - not now, but soon - some of those safety zones of hers are going to start cracking. Thank you for the advice, though! On the plus side, I had a similar in-character moment with the Hacker's downtime - basically, he wanted to run the names and faces of the rest of the party (whom he has just met and doesn't know if he can trust) through the major corps' personnel files. "ALL the corps?" "All of the Big Ten." Roll for Exploit, Datasearch, sprinkle some intrigue and info, and then I get to terrify him with a full-immersion AR encounter with Saeder-Krupp's newly installed security programmes. After that mini-session he said his heart was actually racing. (Shadowrun is really really cool you guys)
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Feb 27, 2013 05:32
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It really is  My four-session one-shot is tanking, though. There's way too much looking up rules, even though we have books enough to go around. There were other unavoidable factors (seriousness issues for the group, having to split the party because a players roomate got locked out and he had to leave etc.), but I wish there was some way (other than awesome cheat sheets and character programs we already use) to reduce rules fiddling.
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Feb 27, 2013 15:50
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Advice: Careful attacking her safe zones. I can't generalize too much - I don't know that much about your specific situation. But often times, in my limited experience, when players start writing personal novels and retreating into their 'safe space', it's because they consider those things sacrosanct. Those are 'her' characters you're messing with! It might result in hurt feelings. Ask her what her comfort zone is, figure out what she's doing all this, and then proceed from there. I mean honestly I think the whole reams of backstory thing is a pain. Players sometimes mistake length for complexity. A single interesting character in her backstory is so much better than a list of dozens of other poorly defined characters. Explain to her that you can only really utilize a limited amount of the information she's provided, and explain that you need to be fair to the other players. Each character gets spotlight time. If she feels the need to follow up another player's success with redundant rolling, she's stealing spotlight, or trying to. Instead make sure she gets an equal amount of spotlight, but can learn different pieces of information. I had a spotlight problem for a while and I started actually timing how much time I spent with each player. It's pretty eye opening, and it can be a real problem if it gets away from you. In my very humble opinion, you can't deal with these sorts of problems using in-game mechanisms. They're player problems, not game problems.
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Feb 27, 2013 16:45
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I would advise the opposite, and say to attack her safe zones the way a few others suggested already. Then again I got fed up with how broken magic is in the game and how all my players wanted to be mages, so I had an insect spirit queen kill all of them and then outlawed magic for new characters. 
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Feb 27, 2013 16:49
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It's getting close to the release of SR5 (supposedly June?). The cover of the main book may be the best cover art for any Shadowrun product since Shadowtech which came out in 92 or 93. If the art is any sign of overall quality the game should be much improved.
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Feb 27, 2013 16:57
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Martello posted:I would advise the opposite, and say to attack her safe zones the way a few others suggested already. Some friends and players of mine play in another game where everyone is magically active. It actually brought fuckery down because everyone got acquinted with the magic rules (and agreed to house rule the potency of the most broken things down).
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Feb 27, 2013 17:22
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Bigass Moth posted:It's getting close to the release of SR5 (supposedly June?). The cover of the main book may be the best cover art for any Shadowrun product since Shadowtech which came out in 92 or 93. If the art is any sign of overall quality the game should be much improved. Got a link to this?
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Feb 27, 2013 17:29
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See, my group hasn't really encountered this yet because one dude that loves mages loves monks more, so he keeps making adepts. And the other guy that's playing a mage is basically retarded and can't figure out how to play one, until we finally told him, "It's been three months. We're not helping you play your character anymore. Learn the loving rules." So now he just casts Force 2 spells because he's terrified of drain, and never really summons spirits except as a huge distraction while we infiltrate. But at least he knows the rules now.
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Feb 27, 2013 17:35
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Martello posted:I would advise the opposite, and say to attack her safe zones the way a few others suggested already. Actually she's the party's street-sam, with no augs or magic in sight. I actually have been having a lot of fun with magic and matrix stuff!
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Feb 27, 2013 19:05
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Gertrude Perkins posted:Actually she's the party's street-sam, with no augs or magic in sight. I actually have been having a lot of fun with magic and matrix stuff! I was just giving an example of how evil I was as a GM so to take my advice with a grain of salt. I just fine magic to be so overpowered - anything meat can be fried with a manabolt. It's like, what's the point in using anything except mana spells when faced with living opponents? Sure, drones are good foils but then you have powerbolts, etc. If you build your character right, drain becomes almost a non-issue as long as you're careful.
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Feb 27, 2013 19:07
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404GoonNotFound posted:Got a link to this? http://www.shadowruntabletop.com/2013/02/shadowrun-fifth-edition-cover-crafting-an-icon/
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Feb 27, 2013 19:59
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Bigass Moth posted:http://www.shadowruntabletop.com/2013/02/shadowrun-fifth-edition-cover-crafting-an-icon/ That looks loving rad!
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Feb 27, 2013 20:09
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Martello posted:I would advise the opposite, and say to attack her safe zones the way a few others suggested already. I got five words for you, my friend: Fluorescing Astral Bacteria Mark III
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Feb 28, 2013 15:48
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Lazy Bear posted:I got five words for you, my friend: How have I never heard of this before? Sounds like the ideal overkill method for a corp to get rid of any pesky magic cults on their turf. Also the best thing to fill a bathtub with and then dump an adept into.
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Feb 28, 2013 23:35
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Can you load an assault cannon with any ammo other than the listed assault cannon rounds?
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Mar 1, 2013 18:56
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Swags posted:Can you load an assault cannon with any ammo other than the listed assault cannon rounds? Realistically, sure, just do a little conversion chart for how much more expensive and hard-to-get some ammo variant is and apply that to standard AC rounds, and you'll get some neat equivalent to the APFSDS-T or APDSI-DU 30mm rounds that such guns fire today.  …not that ACs particularly need more oomph than they already have.
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Mar 1, 2013 19:12
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Now I want to run EX-explosive rounds in an assault cannon. "Do you feel lucky, punk?"
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Mar 1, 2013 20:53
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I got the impression that Adept/Hacker is a decent mix, crunch-wise, because you end up mixing karma-hungry and nuyen-hungry archetypes, so you're not short on one resource and flush with another? Fluff-wise...  How well does Mystic Adept (or even Mage) mix? Too many skill demands?
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Mar 1, 2013 21:20
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Mages can actually be pretty nuyen intensive despite the promotion that they're mostly karma-based. Foci are expensive. Also most of the best things to spend nuyen on eat your Essence score.
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Mar 1, 2013 21:50
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