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So we know that one shouldn't mess with Aztechnology, dragon, blood magic and pissed off spirits. But what can you mess with in the sixth world?
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# ? May 26, 2018 11:21 |
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# ? Jun 10, 2024 06:10 |
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Poor people, same as in this world.
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# ? May 26, 2018 11:24 |
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The cyberdong stuff is reminding me of Red Dwarf and Kryten's Groin attachment.
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# ? May 26, 2018 12:55 |
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Stago Lego posted:So we know that one shouldn't mess with Aztechnology, dragon, blood magic and pissed off spirits. But what can you mess with in the sixth world? Quite a lot, actually. As long as you make it more costly to find you than the theoretical value of making an example of you, you can feel reasonably secure that once you've gotten away clean and made a hand-off of anything you've stolen, you won't wake up to a corporate kill-squad knocking down the door of your safehouse. Shadowrunners gonna shadowrun, if your some corporate middle manager that just got hit, you blame an unfortunate underling, run a few seminars and consider cranking up the security budget, and if you're going to go after anyone you try to find which of your corporate competitors ordered it instead of wasting effort on the hired goons. As long as said goons don't make it too easy, of course. That does, however, mean that if your Mr Johnson lied to you about the value of whatever you just stole or destroyed - and they do have a tendency of doing that - or if things went sideways and you accidentally collateral damaged a bunch of wage slaves, you really need to scramble to crank your paranoia up ten to fifteen levels before a corporate killteam tracks you down. Some Shadowrunners deal with that by perpetually living down a deep, dark hole where any attempt to find them would be disproportionately expensive, but that does rather get in the way of actually having a life. The other important thing is being keenly aware what makes the corp in question throw away the cost-benefit analysis and go full scorched earth on you. S-K will go nuclear at the drop of a hat, because dragon psychology does not recognize the concept of a proportional response when their hoard is hosed with, even if that hoard is actually a multinational corporation. Aztechnology are rather prone to the same for a bunch of reasons but largely because they've got nationalistic fervor and religious zeal tied in to the corporate identity. Ares, Mitsuhama and Wuxing will take any perceived betrayal badly. Horizon will not hesitate to erase you from history if you might be a threat to their lovingly crafted corporate image. And so on and so forth - most every corporation and country has pet peeves. Knowing all of these little landmines, not just so you can avoid them but so you can press your Mr Johnson for hazard pay when you run the risk of tripping them, is a drat important and oft neglected knowledgebase for Shadowrunners to cultivate. Pretty much every character has at least a few points in Automatics (Assault Rifle) or Pistols (Semi-Automatics) or Blades (Katana), but a few points in Sociology (Corporate) or Etiquette (Corporate) can save a runner's rear end just as often. And even if you don't want to put the effort in to learn it yourself, a decent pirated knowsoft is cheaper than any AK on the market.
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# ? May 26, 2018 15:12 |
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There's also a whole world of runs outside the corporate sphere. Governments, political parties, gangs and criminal syndicates, charities, terrorists, private citizens, and, if you've completely ejected your sense of decency, homeowner's associations. Hell, even the cops sometimes.
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# ? May 26, 2018 16:44 |
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...okay, so, how would this run go: Johnson from rival company hires your team to infiltrate SK offices, enter the treasury, remove a trophy from a pedestal (set it down somewhere) and place a magnificently crafted golden turd in its place. You are to take NOTHING, for your own safety. (The idea is that this run is supposed to be a personal insult against Lofwyr.) Your team doesn't know nor understand what is in the spoiler block. What would Lofwyr's reaction be? And how bad would poo poo go?
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# ? May 26, 2018 17:07 |
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Siegkrow posted:...okay, so, how would this run go: as someone who has infiltrated Lofwyr's hoard successfully, you are PROBABLY dead as a safety precaution, but there's a nonzero chance that he will trigger the severance clause on the security personnell who dropped the ball (ketchup is involved) and set about hiring some replacements with an eye for the flaws in security systems. your names are likely to be high on the list of potential recruits. the johnson who hired you is eight kinds of dead, though
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# ? May 26, 2018 17:21 |
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Or working for Saeder-krupp the entire time and the run was a secret recruitment test that Lofwyr watched the while time, laughing his butt off.
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# ? May 26, 2018 19:09 |
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Or it's just another great dragon doing it for laughs.
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# ? May 26, 2018 19:16 |
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Deep Dish Fuckfest posted:Or it's just another great dragon doing it for laughs. In which case see the ketchup comment above.
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# ? May 26, 2018 20:04 |
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Deep Dish Fuckfest posted:Or it's just another great dragon doing it for laughs. There is, in fact, an entire adventure set centered around this. Apparently it's how the Great Dragons choose to resolve disagreements civilly - using intermediaries and other patsies to count coup against one another. There is something of a "Gentledragon's agreement" involved in that if the patsies managed to get away clean, they don't get hunted down afterwards unless they did something seriously unprofessional. (Mind, no such guarantees during the run -- you fail, you're lunch, and the dragon that ate you will cheerfully thank the dragon that sent you for the nice meal.
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# ? May 26, 2018 21:14 |
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What are some of the stranger things roaming around in the shadowrun universe? Teenage Awakened Ninja Turtles and a Sailor Moon themed shadowrunner team wouldn't be all that out of place here.
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# ? May 26, 2018 21:46 |
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Your job is to get to the location marked on this map and when you arrive you are to smear yourselves with the various sauces and spices available, lie down on the big tray at the huge doors and await further instructions.
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# ? May 26, 2018 22:00 |
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SugarAddict posted:What are some of the stranger things roaming around in the shadowrun universe? Teenage Awakened Ninja Turtles and a Sailor Moon themed shadowrunner team wouldn't be all that out of place here. Magical traditions who draw their power (weird powers, like teleportation, which is supposed to be impossible) from worshiping the no-poo poo Elder Gods. Whatever it is that lives in the Foundations of the matrix, and the hidden AI nation they sometimes hunt. Practically anything involving the Deep Astral, or the Metaplanes in general. Whatever the Monads are getting up to out in space.
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# ? May 26, 2018 22:04 |
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Here's the thing, Saeder Krupp gets run against ALL THE TIME but no one wants to report it because it means they're dinner for Lofwyr.
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# ? May 27, 2018 03:31 |
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habeasdorkus posted:Here's the thing, Saeder Krupp gets run against ALL THE TIME but no one wants to report it because it means they're dinner for Lofwyr. It's almost like creating systemic incentives to lie about your security is a flawed approach. Who knew?
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# ? May 27, 2018 04:12 |
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There are probably analysts who should be telling him that, but I can't really blame them for not. Being the guy in charge of telling a dragon to be less of a dragon seems like an unfortunate place to be in.
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# ? May 27, 2018 04:15 |
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Tehan posted:There are probably analysts who should be telling him that, but I can't really blame them for not. Being the guy in charge of telling a dragon to be less of a dragon seems like an unfortunate place to be in. Anyone smart enough to figure out the problems with that approach and figure out a way to deliver it without getting eaten is also someone smart enough to realize you never deal with a dragon.
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# ? May 27, 2018 04:17 |
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Yeah, running against S-K isn't instantly a giant red flag, you're only in trouble if you do something big enough that it sends ripples all the way to the top. Normal corporate sabotage and data theft isn't generally gonna get you in Lofwyr's sights, but if you have to jack a secret experimental prototype, commit some huge act of terrorism, or do some weird arbitrary thing like stealing a trophy and replacing it with a gilded poo poo? Yeah, you better ask for a hell of a lot of hazard pay because you're going to need to disappear or else you actually will.
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# ? May 27, 2018 04:18 |
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Every megacorp, to one extent or another, accepts that the costs and fallout associated with shadowplays for and against themselves are just part of the cost of doing business. It's when you poke or break something that you really really really shouldn't have that the kill teams and scary magic and dinner menus come out, and where you really see the different flavors of awful brought to bear. Unless it's Mitsuhama, who just put all their important poo poo in Zero Zones.
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# ? May 27, 2018 04:32 |
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I thought Zero Zone was a general defensive concept for Mitsuhama, AKA tons of magic, riggers and other terrible stuff compared to other AAA corporations.
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# ? May 27, 2018 05:28 |
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What is a Zero Zone, and why is it important enough to be a proper noun?
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# ? May 27, 2018 06:10 |
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Anticheese posted:What is a Zero Zone, and why is it important enough to be a proper noun? A Zero Zone is a secured area with Zero penetration, and Zero survivors. A form of security protocol employed by Mitsuhama, as well as runner slang for any place that does not take prisoners, does not negotiate, does not ask questions, and does not hesitate to kill anyone who isn't already cleared for access. Generally that's going to include riggers, spirits, awakened guard critters, at least one HTR team on site, and 100% camera coverage. Stroth fucked around with this message at 06:35 on May 27, 2018 |
# ? May 27, 2018 06:32 |
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Like Renraku's Red Samurai, the danger is twofold, because if you do survive your encounter with them then you've become a massive threat to their corporate reputation.
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# ? May 27, 2018 06:48 |
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To further elaborate, Zero Zone guards know everyone who belongs in there, individually, by face and name. They will immediately shoot anyone other than those people with a truly excessive number of bullets. You cannot talk your way through a Zero Zone, or fake identification, but a very good disguise might work.
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# ? May 27, 2018 06:53 |
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ChaseSP posted:I thought Zero Zone was a general defensive concept for Mitsuhama, AKA tons of magic, riggers and other terrible stuff compared to other AAA corporations. It's a very specific defensive concept for Mitsuhama. Going into one is basically giving your GM full clearance to put you in a dungeon that's the result of the Temple of Elemental Evil and the Tomb of Unknown Horrors having a baby that was raised by the Arcology Shutdown. Many corporate facilities have auto turrets in their hallways. Zero Zones have auto-turrets in hallways with preplanned places for an assailant to take cover, and then have hidden turrets ready to pop out and riddle those spots with explosive rounds. paragon1 fucked around with this message at 06:57 on May 27, 2018 |
# ? May 27, 2018 06:54 |
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wiegieman posted:To further elaborate, Zero Zone guards know everyone who belongs in there, individually, by face and name. They will immediately shoot anyone other than those people with a truly excessive number of bullets. You cannot talk your way through a Zero Zone, or fake identification, but a very good disguise might work. It's also the kind of place where automated security systems skip over "turrets in the walls" and go straight to "enough napalm sprayers to flood the entire hallway, plus now everything's electrified, just in case". It's basically the Tucker's Kobolds approach to shadowrunning.
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# ? May 27, 2018 06:59 |
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LOL if you don't release a nerve agent at the first sign of trouble, all guards innoculated of course. I just imagine the workers having some small talk while getting into gear and resuming in the exact same spot in the conversation at the end of the shift. Because you don't get to socialize on the floor.
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# ? May 27, 2018 07:05 |
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Stroth posted:It's also the kind of place where automated security systems skip over "turrets in the walls" and go straight to "enough napalm sprayers to flood the entire hallway, plus now everything's electrified, just in case". Of course, if the job is to KILL somebody in Mitsuhama, tweaking things so they get mistaken for an intruder in one of those areas is probably a dandy way to do it.
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# ? May 27, 2018 07:08 |
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wiegieman posted:To further elaborate, Zero Zone guards know everyone who belongs in there, individually, by face and name. They will immediately shoot anyone other than those people with a truly excessive number of bullets. You cannot talk your way through a Zero Zone, or fake identification, but a very good disguise might work. So, to be clear, we're talking the kind of run where step one is "Be Arsène Lupin III"? ...Great. Now I'm trying to figure out how you'd stat up Lupin's gang in Shadowrun. I figure Goemon'd be a phys adept, at least.
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# ? May 27, 2018 07:41 |
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chiasaur11 posted:So, to be clear, we're talking the kind of run where step one is "Be Arsène Lupin III"? They're all adepts, each specializing in a different area. gently caress, now I want to run that group.
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# ? May 27, 2018 07:54 |
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chiasaur11 posted:So, to be clear, we're talking the kind of run where step one is "Be Arsène Lupin III"? Or be a Troll with a big enough gun and enough body to grin through a railgun shot. You can only harden a site so much -- part of what makes runner teams so effective is their willingness to employ high explosives in very inadvisable ways. And all those autoturrets? Corp spiders might be good, but a hardcore decker will be better. If the only way to get to a payday is to go in guns blazing, that's what the team is going to do.
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# ? May 27, 2018 08:11 |
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That's a great way to make sure you get into the Zero Zone and an even better way to ensure that you never ever get out. Runners operate on maintaining local superiority. The dynamics of every decent run is going to revolve around overcoming or subverting local resistance quickly enough that you can accomplish your objective and leave before bad things show up. Places like zero zones have the bad things be there from the get go. Trying to out brute force the AAAs from start to finish should end with the team in bodybags or worse, full stop. paragon1 fucked around with this message at 08:49 on May 27, 2018 |
# ? May 27, 2018 08:44 |
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Wouldn't it be easier to just mind control enough guards? I'm sure there are some really powerful spirits who can be bartered with.
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# ? May 27, 2018 08:49 |
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They're already under a mind control spell from the on site wage mage, are being protected by counter spelling from the same, Mitsuhama has way more resources to barter with the big spirits than you do, etc. They're one of the big magic corps, if not THE biggest, they know how to counter magical intrusion and force. And any Matrix help you're hoping for better come with you, because no Zero Zone is going to be out on the open grid.
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# ? May 27, 2018 08:53 |
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Those Zero zones sound very deadly. No doubt a shadowrun team could enter, but could they leave? I wonder if a large group of juggernauts might.
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# ? May 27, 2018 09:05 |
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... did anyone ever played a zero site being invaded by shoggoths? Because that's the only equaliser I can come up with right now.
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# ? May 27, 2018 09:07 |
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Clearly you just need a bunch of basilisks.
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# ? May 27, 2018 09:53 |
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Basilisks and juggernauts are at animal intelligence level right? That probably means that they are relatively easy to control. Also bullets work on them. Something shoggoth like would be much harder to defend against.
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# ? May 27, 2018 09:58 |
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# ? Jun 10, 2024 06:10 |
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Horrible Lurkbeast posted:Basilisks and juggernauts are at animal intelligence level right? That probably means that they are relatively easy to control. Also bullets work on them. That or a pack of dragons!
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# ? May 27, 2018 10:13 |