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Mystic Mongol posted:How does one change a thread title? Or maybe it's time to just pack this up and make a genric Shadowrun thread, with the pros and cons for every edition. Anyone interested in helping with that? Just file a report to the admins about wanting to switch to a new thread title and they'll hook you up.
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Feb 21, 2022 00:23
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Shadowrun: There were only 5 editions, what are you talking about?
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Feb 21, 2022 00:29
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Sailor Video Games posted:I cracked open my copy of Rigger 2 for old time's sake and got about two minutes into reading how the Electronic Warfare skill worked before wondering how any of us ever managed to actually play this game. I know I have but it seems like a fever dream. Generally there's a lot of things that people will never actually bother with. Like if you have a bunch of rough boys with sledgehammers and shotguns, they will not be going technical. If you don't have a decker, there's that entire realm just *poof*. If you only have a physad you aren't messing with most of the magic rules. The degree to which you need all the rules is variable from game to game. If you do have, say, a rigger and a shaman and a decker and so forth that want to do all their cool poo poo.....yeah it gets real real crazy real real fast. e: And as much as it's a dumpster fire, I stand by my perfect video game being the SNES Shadowrun mixed with the Genesis Shadowrun. Mulva fucked around with this message at 01:43 on Feb 21, 2022 |
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Feb 21, 2022 00:45
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2nd edition, best edition. 
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Feb 21, 2022 00:50
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I want to argue but. honestly i liked the matrix stuff being its own mini dungeon
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Feb 21, 2022 01:14
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Put 3rds initiative in 2nd and I’d agree. You’ll never get books like 2nd anymore. The 80s were a wild time for TTRPGs.
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Feb 21, 2022 07:06
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ninjoatse.cx posted:Put 3rds initiative in 2nd and I’d agree. Pff! My 4D6+11 initiative cyberfreak disagrees vehemently, and the fact that I get to do shoot everyone, loot them, run to the store, buy some celebratory SynthBrew™ and hand them out to any survivors before you even get your gun out just means you need to stop slacking and get in line with the SOTA, chummer.  …ok, so the initiative gave rise to some silly situations, but still.
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Feb 21, 2022 15:19
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For me I still go with 3E because the initiative system works better and they made the optional 'More Metahumans' rule standard because nuts to putting Race at A priority. Although I house-ruled Elves down to D along with Orks and Dwarfs because honestly it feels like a weird Elf tax.
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Feb 21, 2022 15:29
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I mostly played in 2nd and ran games in 3rd so 
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Feb 21, 2022 18:07
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Those were the best editions. You can tell the authors loved the game, and put a ton of effort into making a quality product.
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Feb 21, 2022 18:17
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2e is the one that got me interested in the game via the Sega Genesis game when I was a little kid, so that is the best one. It definitely has the best aesthetic for me, although I don't think 3e changed the aesthetic much, I might be misremembering. When did wifi get introduced?
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Feb 21, 2022 21:14
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RichterIX posted:2e is the one that got me interested in the game via the Sega Genesis game when I was a little kid, so that is the best one. It definitely has the best aesthetic for me, although I don't think 3e changed the aesthetic much, I might be misremembering. When did wifi get introduced? 4E was when it went all AR and wireless, but wasn't made of ghosts yet. You could do wireless way back in 2E (or maybe even 1E) but with significant performance loss.
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Feb 21, 2022 21:17
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I was pretty happy to see the Matrix mini-dungeons go away, so later editions definitely have that going for them. Even with that I do still sometimes run the group decker as an NPC.
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Feb 21, 2022 23:09
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bird food bathtub posted:I was pretty happy to see the Matrix mini-dungeons go away, so later editions definitely have that going for them. Even with that I do still sometimes run the group decker as an NPC.
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Feb 21, 2022 23:40
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Tippis posted:4E was when it went all AR and wireless, but wasn't made of ghosts yet. I remember there was some point to point laser connectivity devices that you had to have a clear line of sight to and manually line up. Just absolutely wild.
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Feb 22, 2022 00:20
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Infinite Karma posted:On the other hand, the game would be improved by having all of the characters able to contribute meaningfully in matrix scenes, the way they (tried to) make the rules of Foundation runs work. This 100%. I was hoping 6e would take that plunge, but instead we got that steaming dog turd. There really is a huge ambiguity about what you can find on cyber-google, and turning matrix searches into an action scene is an opportunity sorely missed.
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Feb 22, 2022 00:29
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Sailor Video Games posted:I remember there was some point to point laser connectivity devices that you had to have a clear line of sight to and manually line up. Just absolutely wild. My favorite was satellite. Just be a million mile away and run it from vehicle. It was only the size of a suitcase lol
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Feb 22, 2022 00:31
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Infinite Karma posted:On the other hand, the game would be improved by having all of the characters able to contribute meaningfully in matrix scenes, the way they (tried to) make the rules of Foundation runs work. The fact that you cannot get a direct connection from your face sticking a USB drive into an open terminal -- that it has to come from your deck -- is totally boneheaded. It's a huge impediment to making the rest of the team feel like they're contributing to matrix work. Lift a code off of a device that your pick pocket steals from someone, that gives you a free mark. The game really needs more of that.
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Feb 22, 2022 00:40
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wiegieman posted:The fact that you cannot get a direct connection from your face sticking a USB drive into an open terminal -- that it has to come from your deck -- is totally boneheaded. It's a huge impediment to making the rest of the team feel like they're contributing to matrix work. At least according to how we've always read the rules, a Data Tap (extremely cheap Comm Device) lets you get a direct connection to anything you physically connect it to, and then you can wirelessly connect to your own data tap that the Face stuck into someone else's tech, and have a direct connection. I meant more specifically that it'd be nice if once the decker goes "I'm in" the whole party can jack in and help fight ICE or search for data or distract security or whatever else needs to happen. It'd be even better if the PhysAd and Face and Street Sam had useful things to do roll without actually being hackers.
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Feb 22, 2022 01:02
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I played in a larp for a while where there were simultaneous physical and matrix things going on, and neither could directly affect the other (but could indirectly, like installing taps, controlling turrets, opening doors), but also the physical fighters could kill the enemy decker if they could get to the tag that represented their body, I feel like the 'if you can find the other guy's decker's meat and smoke him' gets underused in SR.
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Feb 22, 2022 01:43
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Infinite Karma posted:At least according to how we've always read the rules, a Data Tap (extremely cheap Comm Device) lets you get a direct connection to anything you physically connect it to, and then you can wirelessly connect to your own data tap that the Face stuck into someone else's tech, and have a direct connection. A data tap is a plug-in point that you can clamp onto a cable, which can then be plugged into for a direct connection to the devices on either end of the cable. You still need to make a direct connection from whatever device you are projecting your persona through to the tap, whether that's your deck via a cable or your Living Persona via technomancer skinlink/a datajack. Plugging a slaved device into the tap is fine if all you want is access, but it is not a direct connection from you to the device. It is those two devices which are direct connected. This does mean that, in case of throwbacks that are hardwired together to prevent wireless intrusion, a technomancer who doesn't have skinlink can still put a datatap on a cable and plug anything wireless into it (or trodes, for example) in order to get wireless access to those devices -- but this is not a direct connection without skinlink or a datajack, since you have to work at the same remove that you normally do in the matrix. What matters is that the device which projects your persona (which for a techno is their essence) has nothing between it and the target except a physical connection. The only other way to get a direct connection is to enter a host; you are directly connected to all devices on that host's WAN while you are inside it. --- What this boils down to is that the hacker has to go on-site to avoid having to fight the inflated numbers a host can throw at anyone trying to touch its slaved hardware, so that they can target the cheap hardware that has been lumped together under a WAN so that the corp can save money, but it also removes some of the ways the rest of the team could help with hacking. I am 100% in agreement that we either need ways for the whole team to participate, or hacking should be cut down even further.
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Feb 22, 2022 03:47
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At least in 3e, radio-enabled data taps are in the corebook. The thing you want is not only possible, it's baseline functionality.
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Feb 22, 2022 09:00
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SolTerrasa posted:If you do this, I would recommend against Runners in the Shadows, the published system that does this - we just wrapped a campaign of that and it has seemed like a worst-of-both-worlds situation. I’d also recommend against Sixth World, the apocalypse world hack. I wish they worked but as an experienced shadowrun, blades, and apocworld gm, I couldn’t get the shadowrun feel out of any of it. Next time I need a shadowrun I’ll just run 4e again I think. Or maybe 7, if they ever make one and it looks okay. Hey, from a little while back but any chance you could expand a little on this? At this point I feel like almost any game I'd want to GM would be a Forged in the Dark or Powered by the Apocalypse hack (yes, I am a SA TG forum cliché) and was wondering what you felt didn't work with those systems. Someone also mentioned they couldn't recommend Hack the Planet, and was wondering if they could talk about that too, or link to a good review or something. Also, IIRC, they put out a book for The Sprawl (a PbTA game) that adds magic. I haven't played The Sprawl but I've read it and listened to an actual play podcast of it and it seems like another potential contender for "Shadowrun but storygame." Anyone try that? Or, SolTerrasa, is your whole point that "Shadowrun but storygame" is a bad idea in the first place?
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Mar 22, 2022 16:58
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Sailor Video Games posted:I want to argue but. honestly i liked the matrix stuff being its own mini dungeon I did as a GM as well. My decker players were honest, so I could give them a description and then hand over pre-built index cards for nodes that they could make the appropriate rolls against while I handled the other players dealing with physical security, and speak up if something went wrong. Digital Osmosis posted:Hey, from a little while back but any chance you could expand a little on this? At this point I feel like almost any game I'd want to GM would be a Forged in the Dark or Powered by the Apocalypse hack (yes, I am a SA TG forum cliché) and was wondering what you felt didn't work with those systems. There's a Forged in the Dark knockoff out there already, called Runners in the Shadows. Liquid Communism fucked around with this message at 05:42 on Mar 23, 2022 |
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Mar 23, 2022 05:39
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Sailor Video Games posted:I want to argue but. honestly i liked the matrix stuff being its own mini dungeon My old GM's VRML-inspired Matrix runs using 2E's decking rules were Neuromancer as gently caress! Colorful cubes and spheres on index cards. All options/target#s on the back for him, pretty descriptions on the front for the decker and his looped-in riders (rest of the group). This was The Matrix around the time that Keanu. Needed. A. Computer!
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Mar 24, 2022 20:05
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I remember mapping out dozens of matrix systems when I was in the 5th grade with time to kill. Nobody ever played a decker in my group.
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Mar 25, 2022 00:15
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ninjoatse.cx posted:I remember mapping out dozens of matrix systems when I was in the 5th grade with time to kill. Nobody ever played a decker in my group. 
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Mar 25, 2022 12:58
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I think one of my favorite TTRPG sourcebooks ever written was Virtual Realities. It had all of these rules for creating your own cyberdeck and persona, all of which were really detailed and cool as hell to rules lawyer nerd me. In retrospect, they all involved skill tests using skills that were only good for one thing (building parts of cyberdecks), all of the rules were overly complicated, they all took forever in "in game" time, and making a cyberdeck took something like 14 dice rolls. How they expected anyone other than the biggest nerd GM to know the rules for this game, I'll never know. I miss that book. It'd be really cool if there were a computer game that used those rules.
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Mar 27, 2022 09:07
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ninjoatse.cx posted:I think one of my favorite TTRPG sourcebooks ever written was Virtual Realities. …also, one of the best in-world lore/storytelling stories in the entire game run (seconded only by the logs that made out half of Universal Brotherhood or the ). It puts one over Hatchetman's story in Cybertechnology by not immediately being ruined by rules to explain the horrible weirdness that the story contains.
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Mar 27, 2022 13:38
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Made 5th Ed CYOA that will run for approx. 4 months, maybe more: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4007651
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Jul 19, 2022 09:01
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Oh, lovely! I'm going to eat that up
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Jul 30, 2022 18:57
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Are dryads not intended to be played? Looking at the Symbiosis trait especially. The setting is a freaking dystopia, where the heck would your character live where you don't feel constantly sickly, sad and agitated with a permanent penalty to every single action? It even costs more karma to play as than a regular elf despite that if you took their unique traits and attribute adjustment and calculated the costs compared to the SURGE and positive/negative qualities lists you end up with a huge chunk of karma that should be refunded. Just playing an elf and being SURGE with Glamour and Impaired Strength costs almost the same amount of karma but without the inconvenient common allergy or the crippling Symbiosis crap. Unless I'm missing something here? Poil fucked around with this message at 19:10 on Jul 31, 2022 |
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Jul 31, 2022 17:28
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I had a long campaign with one of my PCs being a dryad and they tried to somewhat influence the environment for symbiosis by looking for a comparable good place, substitute bad feelings and wageslave thoughts with a blossoming garden and some spirit intervention that is quite happy and stuff like that. I did allow this to happen and the wording of the rule is specific enough to make it possible, but it certainly was a negative effect in the longer term, especially as due to PC interaction and story progression the city got less peaceful and more corporation-y and poo poo, so it got worse over time. Definitely not something when you're looking to really make up for karma and look at balancing, but it also wasn't, like, an obstacle they couldn't live with.
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Jul 31, 2022 20:18
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There are wilderness areas in Shadowrun, but they are wild, dangerous places and no groups of people live there. There's really no thought into how they would survive because there wasn't much put into it when they were created.
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Jul 31, 2022 20:38
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Well now I want to play Shadowrun again. I blame every one of you.
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Jul 31, 2022 21:48
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Already playing in an all SURGE team campaign run set in San Diego-Tijuana.  We've got a snakewoman, an oni and a half-dragon of sorts.
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Jul 31, 2022 21:55
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Thanks for the insight.ninjoatse.cx posted:There's really no thought into how they would survive because there wasn't much put into it when they were created. 
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Jul 31, 2022 22:49
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Humble bundle has a bunch of 6e books for $18 for the next 3 days if anyone is crazy enough to want it: https://www.humblebundle.com/books/shadowrun-trpg-catalyst-game-labs-books Apparently the Seattle Edition of the sourcebook included there has some fixes? The bundle is missing the Sixth World Companion though which I gather gives you a framework for a bunch of house rules?
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Aug 1, 2022 16:40
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wrong thread lol. also lol 6th ed.
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Aug 1, 2022 16:42
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Is there a specific 6e thread? Isn't this the general Shadowrun one?
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Aug 1, 2022 20:12
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