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yea none of the SR books are like, great writing, but if you go into it expecting dumb pulpy bullshit with a rather thin cyberpunk coating you'll have fun with some of em
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Feb 7, 2020 23:40
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sexpig by night posted:yea the slightly flippant answer is 'read Gibson and pretend like half the characters fuckin around are, like, orks and poo poo' I admittedly didn't want it to sound flippant.  But I probably should've phrased myself better.
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Feb 7, 2020 23:57
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bird food bathtub posted:Found a Shadowrun group that I'll be joining. Wife is interested in joining me as well. I've done some explaining of what the world of Shadowrun is like, but my explanations are probably limited. What novels could I pick up that would help her get an idea of how things are in the Shadowrun universe? Hoping something has been well-written and enjoyable in the library of Shadowrun, but would rather skip trial and error attempts on my own.
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Feb 7, 2020 23:59
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bird food bathtub posted:Found a Shadowrun group that I'll be joining. Wife is interested in joining me as well. I've done some explaining of what the world of Shadowrun is like, but my explanations are probably limited. What novels could I pick up that would help her get an idea of how things are in the Shadowrun universe? Hoping something has been well-written and enjoyable in the library of Shadowrun, but would rather skip trial and error attempts on my own. Don't read any of the books. Get a copy of Threats. (Threats 2 is bad, don't get that)
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Feb 8, 2020 01:17
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Gobbeldygook posted:I have never read a Shadowrun novel, but I have vague memories of hearing recommendations for Changeling, 2XS, Burning Bright, & Wolf and Raven. The ones by Nigel Findley are pretty good, and of those 2XS is one. That would be my recommended novel. It's breezy and pulpy and Nigel was pretty good at fiction.
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Feb 8, 2020 16:55
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I was going to say the timeline in Sixth World Almanac would probably do a lot for getting people to understand the setting.
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Feb 9, 2020 04:43
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I've been watching a lot of Acquisitions Inc and Vampire L.A By Night but is there anything close to that level for Shadowrun? Is Corporate Sins any good?
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Feb 21, 2020 18:50
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SilverMike posted:Yeah, I wouldn't necessarily recommend Secrets of Power as high prose, but it did a good job getting me hooked on the Shadowrun setting as a kid. Secrets of Power is solid because it gives you a good tour of the setting and all its major bits (at least those bits circa 1E/early 2E).
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Feb 21, 2020 19:04
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AndyElusive posted:I've been watching a lot of Acquisitions Inc and Vampire L.A By Night but is there anything close to that level for Shadowrun?
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Feb 21, 2020 19:13
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Gobbeldygook posted:There was an Actual Play that made a two hour video about why SR6 sucks and they were not playing it anymore. Oh geeze. So I guess the answer to my initial questioning is no?
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Feb 21, 2020 19:44
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I tried to find some a few months ago, but I couldn't really stand most of the ones I dug up. People were either too long winded, or the whole thing was crammed full of uhms and confusion, which is accurate to playing, but sucks to listen to for 2-4 hours at a time.
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Feb 21, 2020 19:49
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For reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dn1cYgG0bQw But on the other hand, just to cheer everyone up… 
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Feb 21, 2020 20:28
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ShootaBoy posted:I tried to find some a few months ago, but I couldn't really stand most of the ones I dug up. People were either too long winded, or the whole thing was crammed full of uhms and confusion, which is accurate to playing, but sucks to listen to for 2-4 hours at a time. What's annoying is that I listened to a couple of good Goon-related ones like a year ago or so that were posted in the LP forum but the name eludes me right now and I don't have a search either.
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Feb 21, 2020 20:35
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AndyElusive posted:I've been watching a lot of Acquisitions Inc and Vampire L.A By Night but is there anything close to that level for Shadowrun? Absolutely. Lauren is a fantastic GM and the cast is generally really fun/ny too. Lauren still does a bunch of streaming and other RPG stuff. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KMenSIb9EU Mirrorshades has a strong cast and some really good moments. It's also using SR1, so it's terrible if you want something to showcase one of the more modern but not 6E versions.
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Feb 22, 2020 03:35
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bird food bathtub posted:Found a Shadowrun group that I'll be joining. Wife is interested in joining me as well. I've done some explaining of what the world of Shadowrun is like, but my explanations are probably limited. What novels could I pick up that would help her get an idea of how things are in the Shadowrun universe? Hoping something has been well-written and enjoyable in the library of Shadowrun, but would rather skip trial and error attempts on my own. Wolf and Raven's my preferred SR book. Collection of short stories by Stackpole, who's a pretty workmanlike SF author so above the usual grade of RPG novel. Alternatively, pick up some of the older sourcebooks. The in-world fiction in them is really good.
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Feb 22, 2020 05:02
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I found a Shadowrun/Cyberpunk generator page. It generates names for runners, bars & restaurants, corporations, locations, shops, Commlink Data, weapons and gangs! Try it out. https://rpgenerator.net/cyberpunk/data
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Feb 24, 2020 05:05
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Helical Nightmares posted:I found a Shadowrun/Cyberpunk generator page. It generates names for runners, bars & restaurants, corporations, locations, shops, Commlink Data, weapons and gangs! Try it out. That's really really good. I fell in love when the Corporate Name Generator page included a balance sheet and a history of major deals for the past ten years. The last generator I used for Shadowrun generated a bar simply called "The Potatoes" which became the campaign's major hub and runner hideout.
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Feb 24, 2020 09:53
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Helical Nightmares posted:I found a Shadowrun/Cyberpunk generator page. It generates names for runners, bars & restaurants, corporations, locations, shops, Commlink Data, weapons and gangs! Try it out. That's fantastic, I'll start using that for sure. Thanks!
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Feb 26, 2020 17:06
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https://shadowrun.itemcards.com/about I've used this one occasionally for Runner names. Although the other one looks really rad.
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Feb 26, 2020 17:10
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when I first read SR as a teenager I was so weirded out by the speculated timeline, why would a pandemic Virus killing millions even be a thing in the sci fi future, ah well guess they had to have some artificial decay in there
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Mar 12, 2020 09:38
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I had my first Shadowrun game ever this week. When casing an area I rolled a 9-die critical glitch on a trivial perception check, failed my roll to keep driving after getting distracted (fortunately not another crit glitch by one die) and left a good portion of my car on a post. So I had to take off and act casual while the guy without a skillset built for it figured out how to get the intel we needed. It was great.
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Mar 21, 2020 08:28
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Welcome to Shadowrun, be ready to masterfully shoot people into their eyes while jumping out of a train moving full speed and landing perfectly, but critically glitching your first perception role and end up half blinded 5 minutes after saying yes to the Johnson.
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Mar 21, 2020 11:46
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I assume a critical glitch on a perception roll means you fail to stop your cybereyes from downloading an update in time and now you're blind for 3 minutes while they install it.
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Mar 21, 2020 11:53
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Goddamn windows updates in the middle of the fight.
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Mar 21, 2020 12:02
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I really need to remember that one, totally gonna use it on someone some day.
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Mar 21, 2020 14:00
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bird food bathtub posted:Found a Shadowrun group that I'll be joining. Wife is interested in joining me as well. I've done some explaining of what the world of Shadowrun is like, but my explanations are probably limited. What novels could I pick up that would help her get an idea of how things are in the Shadowrun universe? Hoping something has been well-written and enjoyable in the library of Shadowrun, but would rather skip trial and error attempts on my own. Very late to the party here but might be relevant given people getting shelter in place orders; try the steam games. SR: Returns is short but it'll give her the gist of things, and Dragonfall, though much longer, is a really great story and a really great game. JerikTelorian fucked around with this message at 05:09 on Mar 22, 2020 |
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Mar 22, 2020 05:06
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Goa Tse-tung posted:when I first read SR as a teenager I was so weirded out by the speculated timeline, why would a pandemic Virus killing millions even be a thing in the sci fi future, ah well guess they had to have some artificial decay in there The funny thing is, they never really committed to it. VITAS was absurdly deadly and killed like 1/3rd of the planet within living memory. That's the kind of thing that leaves permanent scars on everyone and should be quietly everywhere. Like, 'it's incredibly weird and uncomfortable to shake hands with someone after making a deal' or 'it's perfectly normal for someone to wear disposable nitrile gloves 24/7.'
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Mar 22, 2020 08:37
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Ratoslov posted:The funny thing is, they never really committed to it.
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Mar 22, 2020 15:14
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I always figured it got lost in the shuffle of, "Holy gently caress my kid has green skin with tusks and the neighbor is making fireballs fly out of his hands!" Also, unsurprisingly, my Shadowrun group is on indefinite hiatus.
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Mar 22, 2020 15:34
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eviltastic posted:So much new stuff has been bad that I think the big head scratcher is whether or not to reboot the timeline. Give me back Horrors and Harlequin and Dunkelzahn suddenly popping his head out of the Denver rift going "Hey kids I'm back! Did ya miss me?" And then go back even further and kick the Spider totem's butt for some reason.
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Mar 23, 2020 03:16
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I've managed to start my shadowrun (4th) group up with a bunch of new players. In my previous group, magic was totally ignored, but this time it's in, and I'm having thoughts of how to tone down the stunball a bit, since tonight the final encounter was ended by a mage overcasting at force 8 and sending 16 Stun damage into the rival runner team. Even with counterspelling, that is almost impossible to resist in any way and seems way too strong. Any tips for how to nerf it a bit? I already toned down spirits a bit after previous advice, but I'm not sure what to do with the magic. More drain, maybe? This is still a fuckton of damage with no real recourse.
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Apr 1, 2020 23:08
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Aeble posted:I've managed to start my shadowrun (4th) group up with a bunch of new players. In my previous group, magic was totally ignored, but this time it's in, and I'm having thoughts of how to tone down the stunball a bit, since tonight the final encounter was ended by a mage overcasting at force 8 and sending 16 Stun damage into the rival runner team. Even with counterspelling, that is almost impossible to resist in any way and seems way too strong. Any tips for how to nerf it a bit? I already toned down spirits a bit after previous advice, but I'm not sure what to do with the magic. More drain, maybe? This is still a fuckton of damage with no real recourse. In my short history running 5e, where Stunball was also a terror, by the time shooting happens in Shadowrun it's not really practicable for any NPC configuration of non HTR Team proportions to actually withstand the firepower even slightly optimized PCs are throwing around. Without knowing 4e specific tricks I'd guess you'd just have to bring more mooks because raw numbers are the only thing that NPCs would have on their side.
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Apr 1, 2020 23:26
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Aeble posted:I've managed to start my shadowrun (4th) group up with a bunch of new players. In my previous group, magic was totally ignored, but this time it's in, and I'm having thoughts of how to tone down the stunball a bit, since tonight the final encounter was ended by a mage overcasting at force 8 and sending 16 Stun damage into the rival runner team. Even with counterspelling, that is almost impossible to resist in any way and seems way too strong. Any tips for how to nerf it a bit? I already toned down spirits a bit after previous advice, but I'm not sure what to do with the magic. More drain, maybe? This is still a fuckton of damage with no real recourse. Are you using 4e or the 4e 20th Anniversary? If you're using 20A, your mage had to soak 14P drain. quote:Direct Combat spells involve channeling mana directly into a target as destructive and damaging energies rather than generating a damaging effect. Affecting the target’s being on this fundamental level with raw mana requires more focus and more power than producing basic effects; as a result every net hit used to increase the damage value of a Direct Combat spell also increases the Drain DV of the spell by +1. Gobbeldygook fucked around with this message at 00:52 on Apr 2, 2020 |
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Apr 2, 2020 00:44
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The Stunball is super strong but yeah, having to soak huge drain is the downside to its power. Many encounters have been ended by the mage overcasting a Stunball into the elevator full of goons and then passing out immediately or coughing up blood everywhere. If a character wants to end an encounter with no fuss other than they are now passed out and being carried around for the next several hours because you do not want to slap patch mages then that's fine.
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Apr 2, 2020 01:47
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A Force 11 Stunball with no hits added to damage is 5P drain, probably resisted down to 2 boxes or less.
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Apr 2, 2020 03:43
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Were reagents to overcast power on spells at super low drain not a thing in 4e? Because they were basically costed like grenades and had the same effect since they were used for massive Stunballs on demand
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Apr 2, 2020 05:06
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EthanSteele posted:The Stunball is super strong but yeah, having to soak huge drain is the downside to its power. Many encounters have been ended by the mage overcasting a Stunball into the elevator full of goons and then passing out immediately or coughing up blood everywhere. If a character wants to end an encounter with no fuss other than they are now passed out and being carried around for the next several hours because you do not want to slap patch mages then that's fine. My brother didn't quite do this in our last game, but as I understand it (my first time, I barely understand the mechanics of what I'm doing just as a Face) he maxed out Force without realizing that doesn't affect the stun damage in 5e. Ended up doing severely more stun to himself than the opponent.
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Apr 2, 2020 05:14
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Gobbeldygook posted:Because hits on a spell are capped by the force, that means your mage got eight hits on their magic + spellcasting and the enemy got zero hits on Willpower + Counterspelling. If a street sammy had gotten similarly outrageously lucky on an full auto attack that would have also decisively ended the combat. He did indeed roll very well, getting 8 hits on his I think 16 dice pool. My trouble with it is that you only get willpower to resist with (plus counterspelling), which will always be inferior to actually getting body and armor to resist with (which is why I wouldn't mind a street sam doing the same sort of damage - there's a wide gulf between defending with 9 dice for a char with high willpower vs 20+ for high body and armor. It's 4e 20th. I did not notice that distinction between indirect and direct damage spells. At first, I played with that rule specifically, but seeing how punishing it was for the mages lead me to google around for it and people said the rule was ambigious - used in one of the drain examples, but not spelled out explicitly (Like here). But I see that it is here for the direct damage, at least. That makes it more doable. He would likely have downed himself if he had to resist 14 instead of 6. 40 Proof Listerine posted:In my short history running 5e, where Stunball was also a terror, by the time shooting happens in Shadowrun it's not really practicable for any NPC configuration of non HTR Team proportions to actually withstand the firepower even slightly optimized PCs are throwing around. I'm fine with combat being very deadly, I just found this instance to be a bit too wild. But I'll see how it goes with increased drain. Aeble fucked around with this message at 09:30 on Apr 2, 2020 |
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Apr 2, 2020 09:11
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Yeah, using the rules is a good one, but no shame not finding them all in Shadowrun, they aren't well known for being bastions of good editing. Mage's being stronger than everyone else is a setting conceit since minute one, but they have downsides that might be harder for a GM to leverage. Yeah they do big damage and can turn completely invisible, but there is the risk, even if small, that they just fall over from that and are out in the middle of a corp building and that's not a thing anybody else has to risk. Other downsides: can be spotted in the astral so there's an extra security system that messes with them. Geek the Mage is a thing and whether you like the idea of singling out a player character and targeting them like that or not, it is an expectation of the system and rules that Geek the Mage is a thing that happens so that if anyone sees a Mage doing weird poo poo they're gonna prioritize putting a bullet in them because holy poo poo are they powerful.
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Apr 2, 2020 17:37
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Aeble posted:He did indeed roll very well, getting 8 hits on his I think 16 dice pool. My trouble with it is that you only get willpower to resist with (plus counterspelling), which will always be inferior to actually getting body and armor to resist with (which is why I wouldn't mind a street sam doing the same sort of damage - there's a wide gulf between defending with 9 dice for a char with high willpower vs 20+ for high body and armor. Which isn't a problem! A Shadowrun PC who plans to contribute to combats should be capable of dropping one target per initiative pass. A gunbunny will drop almost any target they hit with two attacks and they don't have to punch themselves in the face to do it. If a mage can't one shot someone with a spell, they should just be shooting people.
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Apr 2, 2020 18:07
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