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Shadowrun has always been shaky on how much or how you should roleplay having very low Essence. Until I think SR5 they never even made it a mechanical thing, and even then it was connected to one of the most hated mechanics in SR5: limits. The actual best look into it was in the SR2e book Cybertechnology, and even then, they didn't actually present it as low Essence somehow "draining away your humanity." Instead it was a (very cool, I should add) look into how turning yourself into a weapon would negatively effect your mental state in far more interesting and realistic ways. Things like "my cybereyes made things too crisp, too clean. It made me disassociate myself from my own life and see it like a movie. And that's what I wanted." Or "the wired reflexes meant I had to forever keep my back to walls, because they're reflexes, and for the rest of my life I'm going to be terrified that an innocent person or even a friend will approach me from behind and I'm going to hurt them without wanting to." This kinda thing is way more interesting then just "sorry you have a prosthetic; you lose 10 Human Points," and a whole lot less lovely to people who have actual need of prosthetics to boot. It's also in its own way a whole lot MORE grim; the risk isn't that getting a metal arm makes you somehow less of a person, the risk is that you can no longer do normal things with that arm because it's always jacked to a thousand and now you try to playfully punch someone and you break their shoulder. The risk of getting the cool headware isn't that your brain is rewired into something robotic and evil, the risk is that constantly hearing and responding to voices in your head makes everyone around think of you as a crazy or dangerous person, and now you have even less human contact in your already lonely existence.
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Mar 6, 2023 17:57
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habeasdorkus posted:Yeah, Racter is IMO the most interesting party member because of how he views the world. I do find it funny that he says "well, of course eugenics are monstrous" as if he accepts that's an argument he won't win... and then turns right into "but what if we could do techno-eugenics?" From what/how I understand Racter, his point is that old-style eugenics (i.e. eliminating genetic strains deemed Ungood) is morally indefensible for obvious reasons (who gets to say which are Ungood ? and so on) ; whereas deciding which Good techno-genetic strain you, personally, would like is different. I don't believe he's thinking it the whole way through however, which just as obviously gets into New Deus Ex territory : "And what happens if I don't have the ressources (or even the inclination) to become one of your technomagic-angels in our modern fast-paced competitive for-profit corporate murder environment, Racter old boy ?"
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Mar 6, 2023 22:23
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Racter would probably find the goals of 20th century eugenics movements to be both dumb and bad - I expect he'd have very little patience for racism masquerading as science, for example. Though he'd be opposed to it because it's scientifically incoherent, dumb, and getting in the way of progress, rather than it being morally wrong in and of itself. I think you're correct on where his beliefs run into problems from a moral philosophy standpoint, but I don't think Racter much cares about that.
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Mar 6, 2023 22:51
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Kobal2 posted:I don't believe he's thinking it the whole way through however, which just as obviously gets into New Deus Ex territory : "And what happens if I don't have the ressources (or even the inclination) to become one of your technomagic-angels in our modern fast-paced competitive for-profit corporate murder environment, Racter old boy ?"
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Mar 7, 2023 00:27
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ProfessorCirno posted:Shadowrun has always been shaky on how much or how you should roleplay having very low Essence. Until I think SR5 they never even made it a mechanical thing, and even then it was connected to one of the most hated mechanics in SR5: limits. Good post, I like that way of thinking about it. Similar to a piece I read about what a WOD mage being able to cast certain magic effortlessly might actually mean for how they went through life.
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Mar 7, 2023 00:42
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I think it's definitely the better approach from a setting and roleplay perspective yeah.
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Mar 7, 2023 03:05
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racter's root beef with eugenics is that it's barking up the wrong tree. there's no amount of selective breeding you can do to give yourself an integrated machine gun. if there was, he might be on board, but it can't, so he's not interested
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Mar 7, 2023 17:56
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Yeowch!!! My Balls!!! posted:there's no amount of selective breeding you can do to give yourself an integrated machine gun. if there was, he might be on board, but it can't, so he's not interested But evolution has produced the pistol shrimp, so can we really ignore the potential?!
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Mar 7, 2023 23:17
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My read is that Racter doesn't like eugenics because it doesn't involve personal choice in selecting desirable traits. Like, sure: the guy is absolutely supervillain material, but he's not something so base as a pathetic fascist - he's the "I have created an undetectable prosthetic that can disintegrate anything with a touch and I'm going to sell it to anyone with the cash in the name of evolution" libertarian weapons merchant. also i would not be the least bit surprised to find that there's meat in that drone
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Mar 7, 2023 23:49
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Kith posted:also i would not be the least bit surprised to find that there's meat in that drone What, going to deny Koschei the dignity of a delicious meal now? His namesake may be deathless but that doesn't mean you should starve him.
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Mar 8, 2023 07:03
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Yeah, but Koschei isn't anime yet, either. He's desu-less. 
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Mar 8, 2023 07:07
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habeasdorkus posted:But evolution has produced the pistol shrimp, so can we really ignore the potential?! how much to get a cyber-pistol shrimp arm scaled up to human size I uh, no reason. Just curious.
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Mar 8, 2023 08:13
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Psion posted:how much to get a cyber-pistol shrimp arm scaled up to human size that's just a gun tho
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Mar 8, 2023 08:34
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Also don't pistol shrimp claws very specifically only work underwater
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Mar 8, 2023 10:56
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yeah, the snapping generates a shitload of acoustic pressure, in atmosphere it would not really do much besides make a loud noise maybe? biomod flashbang hand
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Mar 8, 2023 18:40
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God may have invented the pistol shrimp, but man invented the shrimp pistol, so who's the real winner here?
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Mar 8, 2023 19:26
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girl dick energy posted:God may have invented the pistol shrimp, but man invented the shrimp pistol, so who's the real winner here? The now-armed pistol-wielding shrimp, I have to imagine.
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Mar 8, 2023 22:44
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Hey, we have the right to keep and arm bears. Why not shrimp too?
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Mar 9, 2023 01:16
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Gotta be at least one runner whose gimmick is getting right next to the enemy and blowing them up, maybe with some sort of shaped charge to avoid blowback but a long stick could also work.
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Mar 9, 2023 10:54
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I am pretty sure there is a cyberarm option that is basically an implanted single-shell shotgun in the forearm that only activates upon making contact with your palm and triggering it. Give the high-five of a lifetime.
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Mar 9, 2023 11:15
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Kobal2 posted:
That's not an eugenics issue, that's a capitalism issue
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Mar 9, 2023 13:36
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RedSnapper posted:That's not an eugenics issue, that's a capitalism issue Sure, but ideology (and science, even Science!(tm) ) has to account for material realities and their consequences, else it's just disingenuous wankery. We run in this world, not an ideal automated luxury space post-scarcity communism version of it.
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Mar 9, 2023 14:51
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Kobal2 posted:Sure, but ideology (and science, even Science!(tm) ) has to account for material realities and their consequences, else it's just disingenuous wankery. We run in this world, not an ideal automated luxury space post-scarcity communism version of it. listen that's cool and all but 
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Mar 9, 2023 21:11
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Kobal2 posted:Sure, but ideology (and science, even Science!(tm) ) has to account for material realities and their consequences, else it's just disingenuous wankery. We run in this world, not an ideal automated luxury space post-scarcity communism version of it. Can't argue with this. No point in saying 'what if people weren't bastards?' when the world is run by bastards.
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Mar 9, 2023 21:50
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Kith posted:listen that's cool and all but Fair enough.
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Mar 9, 2023 21:53
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Kobal2 posted:Sure, but ideology (and science, even Science!(tm) ) has to account for material realities and their consequences, else it's just disingenuous wankery. We run in this world, not an ideal automated luxury space post-scarcity communism version of it.
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Mar 9, 2023 22:56
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Rogue AI Goddess posted:The material reality is that we live on a shabby boat and do the bidding of a local Triad boss. From the materialist standpoint, the strengths and weaknesses of Racter's ideology are irrelevant because he has no way of imposing his vision on society.  A true visionary is never recognized in his own time.
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Mar 10, 2023 02:34
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Visionaries are a dime a dozen. How many visionaries are born and die malnourished in the slums of any given megacity?
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Mar 10, 2023 02:52
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Rogue AI Goddess posted:The material reality is that we live on a shabby boat and do the bidding of a local Triad boss. From the materialist standpoint, the strengths and weaknesses of Racter's ideology are irrelevant because he has no way of imposing his vision on society. Ah, but if he turned himself as deathless as Koschei (which is his mid goal), then he would have. In time. Well, probably not imposing, that's not really his style. But functionnal immortality is a thing people have been wanting for a *little* while now. But then, come to think of it, considering the costs and sacrifices involved it would probably be more like Altered Carbon than Deus Ex - a handful of the richest fucks that could be conceived, immortal, physically perfect, keeping the tech strictly to themselves and stamping their boot on everyone else's neck. Forever.
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Mar 10, 2023 05:58
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wiegieman posted:Visionaries are a dime a dozen. How many visionaries are born and die malnourished in the slums of any given megacity?
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Mar 10, 2023 08:44
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Kobal2 posted:a handful of the richest fucks that could be conceived, immortal, physically perfect, keeping the tech strictly to themselves and stamping their boot on everyone else's neck. Forever. That's the idea behind the TTRPG The Flesh Is Weak -https://opensketch.itch.io/the-flesh-is-weak
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Mar 10, 2023 11:25
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Kobal2 posted:Ah, but if he turned himself as deathless as Koschei (which is his mid goal), then he would have. In time. That’s already a thing in canon Shadowrun (at least in the later editions, so past this game), it’s called Leonization. And of course it’s horribly expensive, so only megacorp execs and the like can afford it. IIRC it’s eventually ruinous on your Essence (you have to keep getting the treatments, and it’s a minor Essence hit every time? Even getting breast or penis implants costs you 0.25 Essence IIRC in one of the 5th Edition ‘ware splatbooks, and you start out with 6 Essence points at character creation) so that’s a baseline I guess you can use), and is supposed to be developed from horribly unethical (natch) biomedical megacorp research on HMHVV (aka the virus that turns metahumans into ghouls and other nasty creatures), so that’s a thing.
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Mar 10, 2023 15:15
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Leonization has bounced around a bit across the eras. I think as far back as first edition they had it, but from what I can tell, in 2e it was extremely expensive but only cost .1 essence, in 3e it was much cheaper but cost a whopping .5 essence, and then in 4e it was merely expensive and didn't cost essence. Apparently they decided that the 4e version had very bad mental/cognitive side effects after the fact, so basically no one uses it anymore. That might have been the HMHVV version? 5e has it cost a full point of essence. Still, back in 2e, a baseline human with all their essence at age 60 and both extremely high status connections and gobs of nuyen, could functionally last centuries without feeling any real essence pinch. Leonization rolls you back to being physically about 20 years old, so that's 400 years of additional young adult-early senior lifespan for 1 essence, leaving you with 5. If you wanted to remain in your physical prime and have a treatment every 10-15 years, that's still 100-150 years of being physically 20-35 years old for just one essence.
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Mar 10, 2023 15:49
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GhostStalker posted:That’s already a thing in canon Shadowrun (at least in the later editions, so past this game), it’s called Leonization. And of course it’s horribly expensive, so only megacorp execs and the like can afford it. I'm ambivalent about Essence costs from a world-building perspective - immortality but even moreso essentially existing entirely separate from the society of "mere mortals" is in and of itself traumatizing and turns you into a complete psychopath. Or at least makes you exist within a moral frame that is so alien to and without empathy for regular people that it might as well be psychopathy (that's what Altered Carbon was about) which is one thing. But I've always been sort of iffy about mechanizing roleplay and psychology. It always turns meh-to-lovely in practice, and veeery often problematic as well. I do get Essence as a game balance mechanic though, both from a character power standpoint (can only have SO much chrome, just as others can only have SO much magic/drones/being a troll) and a player economy one (more better chrome = more exponentially expensiver chrome)
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Mar 10, 2023 16:52
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In pen and paper tabletop there is, theoretically, no limit to the amount of magic a character can have. You can just keep doing initiations and increase magic, but it is quickly going to cost such ridiculous amounts of karma that it is never going to reach bonkers levels. For example an adept is never realistically going to get enough magical armor to become immune to bullets.
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Mar 10, 2023 18:38
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I find the way shadowrun treats essence as a concept both very funny and bad, and embarrassingly granola (as a pejorative), furthermore, I feel that chrome murder machine vs magical murder machine is something that is more easily handled through the action economy, you can't shoot the minigun and shoot the fireball at the same time, and if you could (and you should, because it's cool as hell) the karma costs should be considerable. Bonus points, have players paid for their actions during a turn with attention points so that they have a max complexity per turn as well as max time usage per turn.
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Mar 10, 2023 18:45
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SIGSEGV posted:I find the way shadowrun treats essence as a concept both very funny and bad, and embarrassingly granola (as a pejorative), furthermore, I feel that chrome murder machine vs magical murder machine is something that is more easily handled through the action economy, you can't shoot the minigun and shoot the fireball at the same time, and if you could (and you should, because it's cool as hell) the karma costs should be considerable. Bonus points, have players paid for their actions during a turn with attention points so that they have a max complexity per turn as well as max time usage per turn. That's not really the point, though - the point is that if throwing a fireball is vastly more efficient (at a given PC experience and budget level) than firing a minigun ; or vice versa, the game is not well balanced. And because the whole point of the game is to play magicians in a cyber setting/chrome samurais in a cyber dystopia both options should (roughly speaking) be equally attractive, give or take in-game ressource management (i.e. magic fatigue, ammunition & grenade counts etc etc).
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Mar 10, 2023 18:52
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They should be, and are, focus on a domain is generally better, so much better that the SR5e books even propose making a house rule to prevent overpigeonholing, removing essence (and potentially tacking a karma cost on learning and getting used to the implants) doesn't seem like it would impact that.
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Mar 10, 2023 19:06
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ProfessorCirno posted:The actual best look into it was in the SR2e book Cybertechnology, and even then, they didn't actually present it as low Essence somehow "draining away your humanity." Instead it was a (very cool, I should add) look into how turning yourself into a weapon would negatively effect your mental state in far more interesting and realistic ways. Things like "my cybereyes made things too crisp, too clean. It made me disassociate myself from my own life and see it like a movie. And that's what I wanted." Or "the wired reflexes meant I had to forever keep my back to walls, because they're reflexes, and for the rest of my life I'm going to be terrified that an innocent person or even a friend will approach me from behind and I'm going to hurt them without wanting to." Go too low, and you're a machine. Go too high, and you're a spirit trapped in a fetish of meat and bone.
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Mar 10, 2023 20:17
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Rogue AI Goddess posted:The way I see it, having particularly *high* Essence should have a similar effect, as you become increasingly untethered from material reality and closer to kaleidoscopic lights and mesmerizing flows beyond it. The thing is that there’s no mechanical way to gain Essence. Once spent, it’s gone forever even if you pull out the ‘ware you spent it on. There might be rules in later editions for regaining Essence lost, but I’m not aware of them. Again, baseline Essence is 6 for a regular metahuman at character creation, so there’d be no way for that to mechanically happen, however thematic that would be.
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Mar 10, 2023 20:41
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