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MagusofStars posted:It just clearly sends the message that holy hell, we might be miles over our head in dealing with Cheng. True, but it also establishes that if you're useful to her, she will overlook things. She's nothing if not pragmatic. I mean we still don't quite know what's going to happen to Bao, but it's clear that if she wanted him worse-than-dead it would have already happened. Just don't overestimate how useful you are to her when you... take initiative, so to speak.
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Feb 1, 2021 14:36
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Deep Dish Fuckfest posted:True, but it also establishes that if you're useful to her, she will overlook things. She's nothing if not pragmatic. I mean we still don't quite know what's going to happen to Bao, but it's clear that if she wanted him worse-than-dead it would have already happened. And I think in this case, it's in the PC's favor that it's not remotely clear yet what the hell went down or why. I think Chen is electing to move carefully with the PC right now, until such time as she gets a good grasp of precisely what kind of poo poo got dumped into her backyard and who dropped it.
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Feb 1, 2021 14:49
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It also establishes that anyone double-crossing the triad and not properly covering up will come to envy the pitiful old man who got roughed up. Ain't nobody loving with the Yellow Lotus Triad, nor more to the point dear old Aunty.
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Feb 1, 2021 15:39
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Cythereal posted:And I think in this case, it's in the PC's favor that it's not remotely clear yet what the hell went down or why. I think Chen is electing to move carefully with the PC right now, until such time as she gets a good grasp of precisely what kind of poo poo got dumped into her backyard and who dropped it. Yeah. For all she knows whoever is after the PC is after them because they know something. And now whoever is after them might think that Chen now knows something too. And it's clear that whoever is after the PC can, at the very least, make the HKPF into their own personal hit squad which is rather worrying for her. She wasn't kidding in one of the previous updates when she said that Gobbet and Is0bel had just dropped a huge pile of flaming dogshit on her doorstep (or however she phrased it).
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Feb 1, 2021 19:16
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Deep Dish Fuckfest posted:She wasn't kidding in one of the previous updates when she said that Gobbet and Is0bel had just dropped a huge pile of flaming dogshit on her doorstep (or however she phrased it). And likely, once she's finished sorting out what's going on and how to deal with it, those two are going to be in a world of pain for it. Unless they make themselves very useful.
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Feb 1, 2021 22:07
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kaosdrachen posted:And likely, once she's finished sorting out what's going on and how to deal with it, those two are going to be in a world of pain for it. Unless they make themselves very useful. I think those two are relatively safe. At the end of the day, they were in the wrong place at the wrong time and Chen doesn't seem like the kind of person who kills over that. The PC and Duncan on the other hand...
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Feb 1, 2021 22:11
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This mission illustrates very neatly a lot of things. It's a good showcase of the neighbourhood and the people that you just got dropped head-first into. And it's also a mechanical showcase as to why not bringing Isobel to places is generally a bad idea. We lost 270 nuyen by not bringing her this time. Now, we got a karma in exchange since this was specifically set up to be Gobbet OR Isobel, but you can be sure that's not going to be the case most of the time. (Plus if you already know the code, you can technically get the karma anyways since I'm pretty sure it doesn't change)
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Feb 1, 2021 22:32
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Cythereal posted:I think those two are relatively safe. At the end of the day, they were in the wrong place at the wrong time and Chen doesn't seem like the kind of person who kills over that. The PC and Duncan on the other hand... If the HKPF followed up on their previous bulletin on Is0bel and Gobbit and got close to Heoi, Chen also doesn't seem like the person who'd blink for a second at putting bodies at the bottom of the harbor if it became necessary.
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Feb 1, 2021 22:34
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Keldulas posted:(Plus if you already know the code, you can technically get the karma anyways since I'm pretty sure it doesn't change) 
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Feb 1, 2021 22:36
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Cythereal posted:The PC and Duncan on the other hand... Are also in the wrong place at the wrong time with no clue what the gently caress is going on. Raymond managed to gently caress everyone over somehow, including himself apparently.
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Feb 2, 2021 00:29
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Kindly Cheng posted:I am in this position because I am far better at this than you She's not kidding. She sleuthed Bao out, planned a 'reach out and touch someone' job, but also allowed it to work out to her benefit no matter what her target chose. And she got to test some potentially unreliable assets for "can you follow directions", all while getting them out of her immediate area after they dodged HKPD and their bullets. Makes me wonder who would have drawn this mission had the Player not shown up (and what happened to the rest of Bao's associates).
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Feb 2, 2021 02:34
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She wanted them left alive and told him he could keep his men, so I imagine nothing too horrible. You know, besides being stationed in the walled city where the super lovely energy is so bad it chased off that researcher.
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Feb 2, 2021 02:40
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I can't help but hope that the researcher's test strip went bad super quick because she was all messed up herself, and her fixes actually did a little something to help. 
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Feb 2, 2021 02:46
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Space Kablooey posted:I can't help but hope that the researcher's test strip went bad super quick because she was all messed up herself, and her fixes actually did a little something to help. I haven't played this game so pure speculation but how is Kowloon not infested with insect spirits by this point?
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Feb 2, 2021 03:24
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Soylent Pudding posted:I haven't played this game so pure speculation but how is Kowloon not infested with insect spirits by this point? Potential shamans dying too quickly or being too far gone to be useful.
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Feb 2, 2021 03:43
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Insect spirits don't want to live there either. (this sounds like a joke but I would consider it the actual answer)
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Feb 2, 2021 03:46
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The Lone Badger posted:Insect spirits don't want to live there either. Honestly wouldn't be surprised if the local energy was so toxic that it actually kills the things before they can finish gestating.
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Feb 2, 2021 04:04
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The Lone Badger posted:Insect spirits don't want to live there either. Yeah, I'd consider this the real answer.
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Feb 2, 2021 04:26
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Space Kablooey posted:I can't help but hope that the researcher's test strip went bad super quick because she was all messed up herself, and her fixes actually did a little something to help. I dunno, this smells like Main Plot to me. That Kowloon being abnormally hosed up and awful even by Shadowrun standards and the clusterfuck at the docks and whatever Raymond was doing are all related. I'm assuming that someone capable of turning the HKPD into their own private hit squad is going to be a pretty serious affair, if not quite the 'holy poo poo what the gently caress' of Monica's death and its implications at the beginning of Dragonfall when people just thought it was black ICE.
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Feb 2, 2021 04:32
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Negative_Earth posted:She's not kidding. She sleuthed Bao out, planned a 'reach out and touch someone' job, but also allowed it to work out to her benefit no matter what her target chose. Yeah, she's pretty good at the whole win-win thing, isn't she ? Like with us. We're either assets who can do what they're told competently enough for real work (who are under her thumb for good so much cheaper than paying real runners), or we're goodwill tokens to the HKPF and/or whoever's organized the massacre, possibly coming in a number of bags each no bigger than a breadbox. She's got absolutely nothing to lose playing with our skins - the "loss of face" thing covers Nightjar's crew exclusively, not us. Soylent Pudding posted:I haven't played this game so pure speculation but how is Kowloon not infested with insect spirits by this point? Because they're not prosperous enough.
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Feb 2, 2021 04:50
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Kobal2 posted:Yeah, she's pretty good at the whole win-win thing, isn't she ? Like with us. We're either assets who can do what they're told competently enough for real work (who are under her thumb for good so much cheaper than paying real runners), or we're goodwill tokens to the HKPF and/or whoever's organized the massacre, possibly coming in a number of bags each no bigger than a breadbox. I mean it wasn't zero-cost for her, she had to spend some favours organising the burning of our SINs. But she ran the odds and decided a wager was in her favour.
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Feb 2, 2021 04:59
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Cythereal posted:I dunno, this smells like Main Plot to me. That Kowloon being abnormally hosed up and awful even by Shadowrun standards and the clusterfuck at the docks and whatever Raymond was doing are all related. Yeah, I'm getting definite "main problem of the game" feelings here. Magic in Shadowrun is subject to what's called "background count", where how easy/hard it is to cast spells and work with spirits can vary depending on area. Usually background count is normally affected by major events there, particularly bad ones make it much worse (trying to summon spirits or cast magic in Auschwitz is a Really Bad Idea in-setting for example), but background can also be manipulated by feng shui and other forms of "geomancy". I seem to recall Hong Kong in particular getting a call out in the setting for lots of companies messing with feng shui; this company makes their corporate headquarters just this way to bring good fortune/direct bad vibes to a competitor, that competitor builds to act like a "mirror" or even redirects the negative energy to yet another company, and so on and so forth (one of the more amusing Shadowrun mission suggestions was basically ninja redecorating a target to play with their feng shui). It's possible somebody is redirecting nastiness into Kowloon, though whether that the equivalent of magic toxic waste dumping or part of some plan to fuel some sort of magic there is still kind of up in the air. Stroth posted:Honestly wouldn't be surprised if the local energy was so toxic that it actually kills the things before they can finish gestating. It very well could be! As mentioned, background count affects spirits in the area, and in particular areas can be rendered "toxic" (most easily by actually tossing actual toxic waste there like all too many Shadowrun corporations like to do, but even just large amounts of human misery can do it if I recall right) which generates toxic spirits from that area that tend to be about as friendly as you'd expect a spirit of radiation or poison to be (i.e. not very). There are also toxic shamans who get twisted by their exposure to these things, and some effectively turn into the equivalent of Captain Planet villains to try to spread their particular brand of toxin around to increase their power, it could be one of them doing this. I do imagine insect spirits might have issues with toxic areas, though I would have thought any area toxic enough to repel them would be giving someone like our Rat shaman serious issues too, so hard to say.
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Feb 2, 2021 05:33
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Some insect spirits are actually extremely good at surviving spiritually toxic areas, but those particular kind are relatively harmless compared to the Ant Spirits from the first Shadowrun game.
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Feb 2, 2021 05:54
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Insect shamans can go toxic but it's blessedly super mega rare. They're all about unity and the whole above the self and the outlook of toxic spirits is pretty inimical to that.
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Feb 2, 2021 05:55
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Yeah, it does feel way too cruel to keep the old man's cred stick. Even if there's no reward, returning it felt good.
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Feb 2, 2021 06:08
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paragon1 posted:Insect shamans can go toxic but it's blessedly super mega rare. They're all about unity and the whole above the self and the outlook of toxic spirits is pretty inimical to that. It depends on the spirit. Some of the predator bug spirits get along quite well with humans because they have the same enemies, and don't even override their host.
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Feb 2, 2021 06:39
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MadDogMike posted:(one of the more amusing Shadowrun mission suggestions was basically ninja redecorating a target to play with their feng shui) I can also imagine wage slaves discreetly moving plant pots around the office and strategically dropping paperclips so that Joe Promotioncompetition gets bad luck on their quarterly review. quote:(most easily by actually tossing actual toxic waste there like all too many Shadowrun corporations like to do, but even just large amounts of human misery can do it if I recall right) Oh yes. That's why Auschwitz is super bad juju. Any spirit who chooses to kip in that little corner of the astral is most definitely going bonkers soon if it wasn't to begin with and not something you want to come into contact with (not to mention the vengeful ghosts of all the people who died there with enough hate to stick around, like our friend the Door Code Spirit). Whether the qi in Kowloon got hosed up and that's why the place is miserable, or the place started miserable enough that its inhabitants unwittingly hosed up the qi in there just by being unhappy on a large scale is up in the air ; but at this point it's most definitely a self-perpetuating loop. EDIT : BTW the feng shui stuff is not just a thing in setting. Feng shui is Big Money in SE Asia, both in terms of consulting and whether or not a big deal is going to get signed when. Not everybody believes in it, nor every company ; and in any event a lot of FS is just good sense wrapped with a mystical bow, but still, it can get weird. Kobal2 fucked around with this message at 06:49 on Feb 2, 2021 |
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Feb 2, 2021 06:41
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For unclear reasons, nuclear weapons also gently caress up the astral something chronic.
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Feb 2, 2021 06:46
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I preemptively vote to do the whampoa one first if we're going to even vote. do the whampoa one first, it'll increase humor value massively. you might think we might not wanna do whampoa one first but we wanna do whampoa one first
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Feb 2, 2021 09:55
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We're not voting for missions, or counting pre-emptive votes for that matter. I've played this game before so please relax and stick to things that have been covered in this LP instead of future content as per thread rules, thank you kindly.
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Feb 2, 2021 10:41
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So he wasn't just doing a complicated setup to a "whampoa balls" joke, that's an actual thing that was given that name?
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Feb 2, 2021 12:57
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Dareon posted:So he wasn't just doing a complicated setup to a "whampoa balls" joke, that's an actual thing that was given that name? Whampoa Garden is a real place in actual Hong Kong today, and also a place in Shadowrun Hong Kong.
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Feb 2, 2021 16:34
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Well, we do have a shaman on the team. Gobbet's a rat shaman, so I suppose it seems logical (not knowing a whole lot about the setting) that rat spirits would manage better than most under these conditions. I'm assuming that commandeering the HKPD takes some serious resources, probably the same kind of resources that would allow for deliberately loving up magic in Kowloon or profiting off of such.
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Feb 2, 2021 16:38
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The HKPD answers to the highest bidder. They have no loyalty to anyone except kicking the poo poo out of whoever the FEZ council wants hurt and/or dead.
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Feb 2, 2021 17:24
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Cythereal posted:I'm assuming that commandeering the HKPD takes some serious resources, probably the same kind of resources that would allow for deliberately loving up magic in Kowloon or profiting off of such. The HKPF is already mostly a corporate hit squad rather than a police department. I mean sure, they also do regular policing stuff on the side, but they're really the armed fist of the HK government, which itself is literally a corporate board of directors. Sure, corpos being kind of sort of the de facto rulers is true more or less everywhere in the Sixth World but in HK they dropped the pretence entirely. It's a libertarian wetdream, which might explain the existence of the mother of all slums teehee.
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Feb 2, 2021 17:29
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As a side note, we know that we're not facing one of the big 10 because they have their own people for this kind of operation. The Hong Kong cops exist to muscle for the local A and AA corps (who in turn exist to act as cutouts and bagmen for the big players, no matter what they think of themselves) but they can't hold a candle to the likes of Firewatch or the Red Samurai. If those guys were involved, we'd be dead already.
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Feb 2, 2021 17:34
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wiegieman posted:It depends on the spirit. Some of the predator bug spirits get along quite well with humans because they have the same enemies, and don't even override their host. They 100% override the host, but yes they can be cooperative. If they actually like you then you'd better watch your back because they probably think you're a good candidate for a merge.
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Feb 2, 2021 17:49
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So are Bee spirits bad?
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Feb 2, 2021 18:17
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wiegieman posted:As a side note, we know that we're not facing one of the big 10 because they have their own people for this kind of operation. The Hong Kong cops exist to muscle for the local A and AA corps (who in turn exist to act as cutouts and bagmen for the big players, no matter what they think of themselves) but they can't hold a candle to the likes of Firewatch or the Red Samurai. If those guys were involved, we'd be dead already. Eh, I dunno. You don't send your corp special forces to deal with a bunch of nobodies. I mean, the part about us being dead if that were the case is absolutely true, but making a call to the local SWAT team is a lot easier and a lot more discreet. A Firewatch or Red Samurai team is a precious resource and they already have a busy schedule dealing with things that actually matter like insect spirit nests or assaults on multi-billion dollar research facilities by soon-to-be-dead runners.
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Feb 2, 2021 18:18
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hkpd is a division of mitsuhama in sr
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Feb 2, 2021 18:25
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