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IMJack posted:This has always been my favorite example of how a Shadowrun game should play out. It's several years and two game editions old, but still relevant. It was a nice story but this has two of the characters not doing anything for about 70% of the game time  Anyway, Shadowrun's a good game but from what I've read of the official missions they are not very impressive. I think you're better off knowing what characters you'll be running for, and working out missions that will have something for everyone to do. Wi-fi inhibiting wallpaper and astral barriers may seem like something to put a damper on Hackers and Magicians, but they actually make the game better, for my money, because it means the hackers and mages come along instead of doing a boring 20 minute solo scouting mission. Oh and the rules are a mess of crazy modifiers. As an example, there's six different types of visibility conditions (Full Darkness, Partial Light, Glare, Light fog/smoke, Heavy fog/smoke, Thermal smoke), and then four different types of vision (Normal, Low Light, Thermographic, Ultrasound). So there's 24 different dice pool modifiers based on the conditions and what you're seeing through. I have a feeling they could've just done a simple "okay conditions, no mod", "poor conditions, -2" and "real lovely conditions, -4" but, I dunno, maybe the book didn't have enough tables. Then there's about 25 different possible modifiers for ranged attacks, and about half that many for melee. It's a mess, a horrible but awesome mess that can make for some great games once you're familiar with the rules (or just decide to say screw it and approximate everything).
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Jun 29, 2009 02:50
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tendrilsfor20 posted:OK, couple things: They're expensive, but they're also ludicrously effective and they don't need much after they have 5 magic, 4 in the spellcasting group and decent willpower/logic. Stunbolt at force 10 takes out pretty much any living thing that doesn't have counterspelling or a lot of magic resistance and the mage will rarely take much drain from it. And spirits are really versatile (and the spirit of man has the most broken power in the game: influence). Also hacker programs are up to 6000 for a rating 6. It's the common use programs that are cheapo. Hackers routinely end up spending 100,000 spacebucks on programs. They can do cool things but require a cooperative GM so be cooperative and you will be AWESOME! For example, stick autoguns around for them to hack. And enemy drones are actually good for hackers since they soon become friendly drones. Also try to include the hacking part as part of the run so the hacker doesn't do everything before the mission. Do this by using lots of wifi inhibiting wallpaper and have hackable targets with low signals (so they have to be close, Hacking it at the time instead of the night before). Have them hacking the metal detector at the same time as the players are smoothtalking the guards. It's death for the game if a hacker/astral projecting mage is off from the group for too long tendrilsfor20 posted:2) Playing as a human is effectively "Hard Mode" Yeah, pretty much. I've never really known a GM to play up the roleplay advantage of being human either (and I barely do myself). tendrilsfor20 posted:3) Knowledge Skills can eat a dick. Dunno, just work out a standard for your group. Maybe even come up with your list of own knowledges and let the players come up with things of similar breadth? tendrilsfor20 posted:The way 4e is set up with half-page long italicized insets explaining how each step goes is great when you're reading through it to understand, but a pain when you're trying to actually do it, since it breaks up the flow. Yep. Good luck with GMing your first Shadowrun. It's real tough
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Jul 28, 2009 14:09
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Looks pretty good but I count 82 skill points, and rating 3 cerebral booster is Availability 18 (can only start with availability 12 items). As for playability: looks okay but this is a pretty strange character because you don't have a focus. He has elements of a face and elements of a hacker. As a face he'll be middling with about 8 dice to tests. Average 2 or 3 successes. You could boost this pretty cheaply with another point in the influence group and then pick up Tailored Pheromones, rating 3. And the First Impression quality is dead cheap at 5bp for +2 to social rolls in the first meeting. As a hacker, hmmmmmm. This is one of the things you either want to really focus on or not bother with at all. As it is, he has 6 dice for exploit actions (the most used hacking action, I reckon), and a stealth rating of 3. Check the sample device table on p214 to see what you might be up against. On average it looks like you've have an okay chance of hacking rating 3 devices, but you could get unlucky and set off an alarm pretty easily. And this guy will want to stay out of VR without much better skills. Overall, I'd drop his hacking skills and just take data search and an analyse program and maybe a few others. Use the extra BP to bump his face-ness. Lastly, since he's mostly a non-combatant, you don't have to worry, but anyone planning to live through a fight will need more initiative passes. It's not a mechanic I like (might even get rid of passes next time I run the game), but yeah, without extra passes you either get killed or you keep wasting your single pass on full defence Anyway, this all varies based on the group, of course. If everyone else has 2 charisma and the Uncouth quality, your guy will start to look pretty drat face-ly.
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Jul 30, 2009 10:51
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tendrilsfor20 posted:The 2 points you're getting are from the Artisan "specialization," which isn't a specialization, just a notation of his "art." Why I dumb  tendrilsfor20 posted:Also, where/what pagedid you find the "availability guidelines"? I told one PC "just go ahead and take anything that's not an "F" class item. This rule is tucked away on p84, under the Gear heading. It's up among the most forgotten rules with "dmg equalling body renders you prone" and "burst DV doesn't count towards armour piercing". As an aside, you can start with "F" gear, it's just you won't have a license for it. tendrilsfor20 posted:He's a pretty obvious tribute Bizarre! tendrilsfor20 posted:This is something I don't get about the combat: If you use one of your passes for full defense, does it last until the end of the full combat turn, or the next pass? Yeah, it lasts until your next action. So, example: 1: It's Turn 1/pass 1 and you only have 1 init pass. You take a full defence, then it lasts the whole round until Turn 2/Pass 1. 2: It's Turn 1/pass 2 and you only have 1 init pass and you've already shot someone! You can take a Full Defence as an interrupt action, but it uses your next turn. Which for you is at Turn 2/pass 1. So you eventually get to act again on Turn 3/pass 1. hosed, eh? 3: It's Turn 1/pass 2 and you have 3 init passes. You go on full defence. You can act again on Turn 1/pass 3, and the full defence wears off then. tendrilsfor20 posted:What about for a generally low-combat game? (My policy as a DM going into the game is "If you're in combat something has gone horribly wrong.") Well, it's partially about survivability and partially about "sitting around doing nothing while the dude with 3 passes tears poo poo up". In a low combat game you could probably live okay with just 1 pass, but you might get bored. I really don't like the init passes as a mechanic for balancing tiers of power. I reckon the combat-lite dudes should still get to act, but just have their actions less potent like every other game instead of having to wait around whenever a combat starts with more passes than they have. But Shadowrun sins on this point whenever someone drops into the matrix or the astral, too. The game's not good at keeping everyone at the table active. The GM has to really work on that. Anyway, judging from that wiki page your character will use lots of init-enhancing drugs like Kamikaze and Jazz and Cram so maybe you'll be able to keep up that way.
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Jul 30, 2009 14:21
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Hmm... obscure rules, let's see (keep in mind some of these might only be obscure to me because of my brain problems). If you have bioware and cyberware installed, whichever has the lesser essence cost total is halved This rule is on p301. Yes, I missed it for a long time When spirits are summoned they appear manifested, not materialised While manifested they are visible and audible on the material plane, but they can't affect anything. They first need to spend a complex action to materialise (and only after the mage has spent a simple action to command them). This may seem finicky, but spirits are VERY powerful and super versatile and they need these checks in place. A force 5 earth spirit (that the average summoner will be have double the dice in summoning) has 19 soak dice and attacks that don't exceed 10DV don't even harm it. And spirit of man with its influence power and innate spell is just crazy, so you might find yourself relying on this rule to limit spirits being summoned one after another in a fight. So summoning a spirit to a fight looks like this: Action 1: Mage uses a complex action to summon, spirit appears manifested. Action 2: Mage uses a simple action to command spirit, spirit uses a complex action to materialise. Then on the spirit's next action it hurts things. The book doesn't say whether it counts as one of the spirit's actions to manifest. Recoil accumulates over the pass, not for the individual shot This means if you have an uzi with Recoil Compensation 2, then you can take one short burst (-2 to your shot) without any recoil, but then you've used up all the compensation for the pass so the second shot in that pass attracts recoil as normal (-1 for a single shot, or -3, for a short burst in the second pass). This was confirmed in the faq, here: http://www.shadowrun4.com/resources/faq.shtml#3 You don't have to spot an invisible enemy to attack them Only mentioning this because it's different from D&D. Attacking an invisible figure just means you take -6 to your shot, and you use intuition instead of agility. I don't think it's possible with standard races, but should the bizarre situation ever come up where you have 1 agility and 8 intuition, you should definitely close your eyes before you shoot people. Shadowrun has Attacks of Opportunity! See "Intercept", p151 That's all I can really think of, not including all the squillions of modifiers that you shouldn't worry too much about looking up in the middle of the game.
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Jul 30, 2009 15:21
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PierreTheMime posted:The initiative system does seem a little wonky, but it is a pretty good balance for the high-end of the game. My complaint with init passes is not about balance, it's more that I don't like that it's possible for players to be sitting around the table not doing anything. Combat can take a long time to resolve, and if you're the one pass dude who just went on full defence... well... go make tea or something, we'll see you in a half hour when you can act again.
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Jul 30, 2009 15:24
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Ehhh, I don't like to roll a dice and pretend something else came up. If there's absolutely a need for something to be fudged, I'll just straight up tell the players I'm not rolling, it just happens. That way when I do roll dice they know for sure that the results are straight. Anyway we should get back to more Shadowrun specific things because this is a general GM style issue and we only have one thread for this wacky game One thing that came up recently in one game I run and one I play in was how crippling it can be to have Forbidden cyberware when you need to go somewhere likely to have scanners-- pretty much any time you cross borders, or enter a corp building or even a patrol car can have ludicrous-ranged sensors attached quite cheaply. By the mechanics they could drive down the street and pick up every sammy with a metal skeleton. And a metal skeleton isn't like an illegal gun you can just toss into the sewer. But I don't really like a character's body being 'illegal' (and honestly the Forbidden cyberwares aren't that powerful anyway) so I came up with the 'brown bag' policy: law enforcement don't specifically search for cyberware. Fluff reason? They'd pull in too many police veterans and retired servicemen with phoney arms and their stats would look horrible. Plus, there'd be an element of police complacency since when you're a cop with 3s for stats, do you really want to pick a fight with every heavily-cybered thug on the streets? But on the other hand, if Lone Star pull you in on another charge and discover you with wares, they'll use it to trump up the charges. How do other people handle this? No scanners at the borders? Or do you make your PCs take illegal routes if they have wares?
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Jul 31, 2009 02:17
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Yeah, I'm more strict with forbidden weaponry. Cyberware just gets a little bit of leeway because it's something you're stuck with and not a choice a character can make run by run (and honestly I'd be more inclined to play up the posthuman-horror aspect of implants if physical characters didn't absolutely need every ounce of cyberware to have a chance to keep up with the mage and his summons, but as it is... yeah, it gets a bit of a blind eye). For example, recently my players needed to cross into Salish-Shidhe lands. They knew their cyberware probably wouldn't be scanned, but they sure as hell weren't getting across with that Assault Cannon. So they ended up paying a shady smuggler and bringing the big guns and we'll see what happens next (probably explosions).
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Jul 31, 2009 05:47
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Kwyndig posted:Datajacks aren't as important now that everyone carries a commlink and uses AR glasses or whatever. But yeah, if you go around with no cyberwear whatsoever people are going to assume you are the team mage on the run, and you're going to get shot, with bullets. A lot more glitches happen if you use the old method of reducing the attacker's dice pool instead of increasing the defender's dodge pool. In a recent firefight (under the old rule) I had quite a large number of goons with ~6 dice to shoot. The players had cover, so that reduced the baddies to 2 dice. Very high chance of glitching. So if you find glitches fun, use the old rule. I kinda like 'em.
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Sep 10, 2009 17:34
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Ice Phisherman posted:Being mundane vs cybered or biowared really depends on your GM. Some games have pretty much no security at any time because the venue doesn't call for it or the DM doesn't give a poo poo. However, a decent GM that has you on corporate or other high security runs will have cyberware scanners at almost every turn, which is why I tend to go with bioware at chargen because it is harder to detect the illegal stuff. Dunno if I'd call that a "decent GM", because that's basically the point at which anyone with cyberware says "welp we can't do that job, Mr Johnson, what else you got?" and you skip ahead to the next mission (or leave out anyone with a cyberarm.) Fair enough if you tell them at the start of the game "don't get cyberwares because there's scanners everywhere", though. Fenarisk posted:In the little blurb from the anniv. edition it mentions to cut down on die rolls for combat, you could not even roll to resist the damage. Would this be a good idea to slightly speed things along for a brand new group, or would it make some stats less useful or gently caress them over if we ever decide to add resistance rolls back in? It doesn't mention if it makes the game any deadlier or not, or what the adverse side of it would be. It'll make the body stat less powerful, because it's now only contributing 1/2 a box of health per point, instead of also giving an extra soak dice. But yeah it'll really mess things up, because body, armour and AP mods no longer matter. You could just use the buying hits rule on soak (trade 4 dice for 1 hit) so you don't have to be rolling all the time. That could be a good compromise.
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Sep 15, 2009 15:51
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lighttigersoul posted:Isn't this one of the reasons you keep Hackers on hand? I think that's a great way to handle it. Gives a little extra risk to get the guy with wares in (because the hacker might fail) and doesn't outright halt the game.
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Sep 16, 2009 03:11
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The General posted:4e is quite balanced and I think it's quite a task to go broken. Though I haven't spent the weeks needed to try. Ehhh... you only need mediocre magic skills to make stunbolt (or clout, if the enemy has counterspelling) totally stupidly outrageously awesome. Then there's spirits with their "no counterspelling allowed, by the way, have you seen my Influence power hahaha kill your friends! Or how 'bout concealment why yes you do now have -5 to spot me and all my friends." I guess you can balance this with environmental stuff, like amping up magical security but it gets to a point where you just wish they'd balanced poo poo instead of making you have all these measures in place every single run just so the party mage and his pet ghost don't tramp all over everything and make the rest of the party laughably redundant. Or maybe you were just talkin' about breaking hackers. Dunno!
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Sep 18, 2009 04:38
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Well the number of Watchers is limited by Charisma, but yeah you usually get a few at least. And you really only need 1 moderate level spirit concealing itself on the astral to make the perfect tail/scout and obviate a bunch of skills. Oh yeah, movement power, too.
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Sep 18, 2009 05:01
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Hmhgh I'd tentatively disagree. Much as I like Shadowrun, I really think the rules are a bit of a mess and the main reason to use them is if you're also using the great setting, because they do fit pretty well. If convoluted is bad for you, you don't want to look at the page of 27 different ranged combat modifiers, or 24 different combinations of lighting penalties (though some of these might be reduced in a Fallout game if you don't use some of the options like Ultrasound vision). The movement rules are messy too, and the Initiative Pass system, where some people get more turns than others is... a big topic for discussion but not good for a Fallout game in my opinion (or any game where you don't want some PCs sitting around for 2-3 turns while other PCs do the combat thing). So to run Shadowrun for Fallout, you'd be taking out: Species, magic, most of the cyberware, the matrix, rigging, and if you're starting as tribals, you're also taking out the equipment part of character creation, so you're left with a fairly okay system of Stats+Skills+some qualities that probably has too many modifiers. Pared down, it could be suitable, I think, like if you reduced the modifiers to "good conditions, +2!" and "bad conditions, -2!" but if that could be done with the other system you're using, maybe stay with that?
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Oct 27, 2009 03:11
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Actually, one other mark against using Shadowrun rules in a Fallout setting is that level-up is going to be pretty boring. In Shadowrun, the fun of advancement is: -getting more init passes -learning new spells -initiating (magical ritual to be more awesome) -binding spirits -binding sprites (computer spirits) -binding permanent spells -getting new weapons -installing new cyberware There aren't really any qualities that are out of reach at the start of the game (like Perks in the Fallout system), and stats typically only improve 2-3 points throughout the standard campaign. So with the Shadowrun elements taken out, advancement will look like: -slightly higher dice pools (going from maybe 8d6 at the start to 12d6 at the end of the game-- a difference of about 1 success on average) -new equipment (and it will work pretty well on this front: you can simulate the climb through technology pretty well) -(and possibly, if you want to include it) some Cyberware So I'd say that if it's more feasible to simplify the system you're using now, then go with that over modding a whole bunch out of Shadowrun. That said I haven't really taken a good look at the Fallout PnP rules and they might be a total mess.
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Oct 27, 2009 10:44
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There used to be a great flash map around where you could click on each suburb and get all kinds of info on it, but the page is gone now (and archives didn't maintain flash functionality ) But there's an okay static map here
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Oct 27, 2009 16:45
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Usually about one game every few months (or one a year that doesn't die in the opening scene while everyone's standing around the first meet describing their mirrored shades and trenchcoats).
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Oct 28, 2009 19:26
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I don't have the book, but are the Free Spirit rules balanced? Even if it costs you 250bp to buy into, wouldn't you still be pretty much unstoppable if you had even a moderate activation dicepool and a few powers like Influence and Concealment? Some kind of never-seen dominator that can't be counterspelled. I suppose mages can summon the same things, but then, mages also have delicate little bodies that can be stabbed and shot.
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Oct 30, 2009 07:39
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McGravin posted:Whew, I just typed a drat manifesto. Appreciated, though! Let us know how the gameplay goes, Ryuujin.
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Oct 30, 2009 10:42
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The General posted:Speaking of Renraku, I read they went under. What's up with that? When did that happen? They used to be my DM Threat. 'You fuckers had better smarten up, or I'm sicking Renraku on your asses." And now they are gone Ehh why would you use the metaplot you didn't like? I mean if one of the players tells you "uh-uh because check splatbook A page 385 Section 4: Renraku's not around anymore", well it just makes it even funnier when the Red Samurai crash through the wall.
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Dec 5, 2009 01:49
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Gobbeldygook posted:
Dude, mage with stunball drops targets much faster with a pitiful risk of drain. And he doesn't even have to be armed to do it (whereas the shooter probably needs something large and illegal that won't survive the first security checkpoint). And the mage doesn't even really need to be there: he can have a near-invincible spirit of man do it for him while he rests in a bar a few blocks away. A bullet hits you, you roll your soak and if you're tough you might live. A stunball hits you and it doesn't matter if you're Joe Mookface or the mightiest Street Sam to ever live, you get 10 or 12 stun boxes and you're out. And Steel Lynxs would have to be fitted with pretty highly illegal weapons and there's no way they're getting past a metal detector, while spirits just appear out of thin air (sometimes you'll even be able to summon them before hand so there's no delay), kick horrific amounts of arse (or cast horrifically powerful spells, even if they're kind and use something like movement it's still crazily strong) and disappear, costing you -maybe- a point of drain, though probably not unless you intentionally gimped your mage just to be nice to the others. There's very little need to bind spirits, they're basically on tap. Yeah GMs can do stuff to combat them, like "there's a ward" or "there's background count" or "it's dark/there's cover/something that screws over the physical fighters just as much", but it's a hassle to even minorly reign them in, and it does delve into sheer dickery after a while: you're having to do all the nerfing the gametesters should have done in the first place. Nah, mages are just stupidly broken. They do their role and the roles of several other people too: they're the best scouts (watchers), the best trackers (astral tracking), the best fighters (near-invincible spirits with stunball, and mages get the cheapest init pass boost), and then there's the stuff like invisibility, levitation, mind control etc. The wizard problem in SR is worse than D&D 3.x.
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Aug 14, 2010 08:06
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LGD posted:But I'm perfectly capable of coming up with houserules to fix magic on my own Could you post your houserules out of interest? I was thinking magic would be a bit less borked if you got rid of the stunbolt/ball spells and probably mass control too (anything really that's a one hit kill when the mage has 10 dice to cast and most opponents are rolling 3). Or maybe give direct spells soak rolls, so the quality of the opponent is at play a bit (unlike now, wheras if you get hit by a Force 10 stunbolt, you take 11+ damage and you go down, no matter who you are). Spirits should probably just have their stuff halved, everything that's 2x force can just be 1x force now. Make them useful servants but not ball-breakingly good (and obviously reign in the crazy powers like Command and Movement). And so you didn't lose the classic gameworld element of "whao scary spirit poo poo just got real!" you could put together a more costly, more draining spell to summon the originals maybe, instead of just having them on tap like now (maybe this could actually require the mage to be possessing the spirit, forsaking his own actions?) But I have really not put much thought into this and I'd be interested to hear what you think. I think there's still room to have the mage be the only guy who can deal with magic just like the hacker's the only one who can deal with the net, I just dunt want him doing all the other stuff better than everyone else too.
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Aug 14, 2010 11:12
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Tias posted:Anyway, would there possibly be hope for some of you wanting to IRC a game? I tried one about 6 weeks ago but alas only 2 dudes signed up, and then each session only had 1 player show up But I think the problem there was I had a very fixed schedule and could only play on one day, so maybe if a GM with a more flexible range of dates makes a game the response will be better.
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Oct 8, 2010 02:51
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Swags posted:Seriously, there's no armor for this? Standard elven assassin had 3 Willpower. Rolled them and failed, rolled edge and got one success, and she still loving went unconscious. (note: I am not opposed to rolling to make a dice sound and then lying about result, player just saw the die roll) You're right, mages aren't balanced, and stunbolt is one of the worst offenders (then there's mass mind control which is even more powerful, but at least that has a chance of inflicting a tiny bit of drain (maybe...)). I dunno how to fix 'em, but a soak roll on direct attack spells seems like a start, along with adding a second stat to defend against mind-control spells (so it's Will+Charisma maybe, but that still won't have much chance against a mage's full dice pool most of the time). Other people in the thread have advocated harsher spirit summoning rules, eg: you can only summon a spirit up to half your magic before getting lethal drain, then the max level of spirit is equal to your magic. This seems like a good plan, because spirits really are amazingly tough and versatile. Sure the gunbunny can drop a spirit in one round, if they have armour piercing rounds and get the drop on initiative (a tall order against things which have Forcex2+2 init), but the spirit has so many ways to not even fight fair: 4/5 spirit types have concealment! Then there's the spirit of man's outrageous mind control power... Some people have fun in their games despite the magic imbalance, but I find it a bit like "SUPERMAGE SAVES THE DAY! Also his friends teamed up and killed a ghoul while Supermage was fighting the three dragons". I think the problem is they cover too many bases at once-- no need for a streetsam when your mage can summon things tougher than him (and gobbledygook, you don't need to bind them. Summoning disposable spirits is a better investment most of the time). I'm fine with mages being powerful, it fits with the story, but I think the designers overdid it in this case. By quite a bit.
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Jan 29, 2011 12:55
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Also, in addition to discussing Shadowrun, we should play Shadowrun! Who's up for a PBP? I will run a PBP if there is interest here (I tried to run a maptool game a while ago but we couldn't schedule enough people to get on at the same time, so it died).
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Jan 29, 2011 18:51
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Madman Theory posted:I'm totally up for a PBP, provided there are no bullshit gimmicks like it being set pre-Crash 2.0 or whatever.  How did you kno-... no, actually I'm thinking Chiba City Sprawl (the kind of area the first part of Neuromancer was set in) because I already made a map of the area for a game I never got around to running! Plus I've run a lot of stuff in Seattle and am looking for a change. Basic idea is non-Yamatos, disgraced corporate employees, trolls, dwarfs, foreigners and other criminals who aren't allowed in the arcologies live in the sprawl. Usual sprawl issues like ghoul infestations, food shortages, gangs vying for territory, corps exploiting whatever's of value. Good place for a bunch of disparate characters to join together and smash things for money.Mystic Mongol posted:Can I play a murderer with magnets in his arms and rocket feet? The murderer part, sure. The magnets and rocket feet, aaaaaaahm, possibly? Is that a real thing? In Shadowrun?(!)
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Jan 29, 2011 19:23
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Okay, thread's here. Ended up scrapping the Chiba idea for something I liked better! http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3385482
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Jan 30, 2011 05:45
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Gobbeldygook posted:I ran the SR4 missions module And Now For Something Completely Different a few weeks back. I ran into a lot of problems, some of which I solved. Anyone want a breakdown on how to run it without losing your sanity? Yeah I'm interested in your take on it. The couple of Mission modules I read through weren't very good (I've only read the first one of each season that they put out free). I reckon GMs are better off going with custom missions appropriate for their teams. So if you've come across missions that are worth running, let us know! I remember there was that one prefab mission, I don't think it was an official "Missions" mission, but done by one of the writers in his spare time, that basically started with: "some shadowy figure ambushes you and shoots you with stick'n'shock and you go unconscious and when you wake up some evil woman has stolen your sperms and impregnated herself with your baby and she's threatening to shoot herself in the belly unless you do this convoluted/boring mission". Cool, dude.
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Feb 18, 2011 01:15
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Angry Diplomat posted:I'm pretty sure that's actually a real thing, I could swear I've heard of it somewhere It's definitely a thing I'll see if I can dig up the PDF. But it was the first SR prefab mission I ever downloaded and it set a bad precedent. Second was On The Run, which, although not fantastic was miles better than "stick'n'shock-impregnate-cutscene you gotta do this now or I shoot my belly!!" 404GoonNotFound posted:Solution: Shoot her yourself. Running's complicated enough without paternity suits and child support payments That's the weirdest part. I thought exactly the same thing. 99.9% of runners would too. Why did the author not realise this?!?!?! (It was one of the Shadowrun writers, I remember that, not just a random loon who made an adventure)
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Feb 18, 2011 10:59
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I found the pregnant mission! It's by Bobby Derie, who was a Catalyst freelancer. Here's the full link: http://ancientfiles.dumpshock.com/Spoorn/ZeroSumGain.pdf But some choice parts: Bobby Derie posted:
BRILLIANT!  Hey Bobby Derie what if the characters don't care? Bobby Derie posted:HOOKS "Oh well". Oh well! "Hey Jim, that thing that just happened to Steve? Uh... yeah... same thing happens to you. Stick'n'shock, and um, sperm, and the whole thing. And now she's double pregnant. Oh, you don't care either? Okay, Jack, same deal."
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Feb 19, 2011 04:48
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The amount that Forbidden wares is problematic varies by GM though (sounds like Gobbledigook has experienced particularly stern ones, I never really bother with it because I don't think the "F" stuff is that much fantastically better than the "R" stuff that it deserves a response like "uh uh can't go in the arcology coz you got a spur, go sit on the porch while we play this session without you!"). I just reckon implanted weapons are such a big part of the setting (look at the art, dude's got one on the front cover!) that it's a bit poo poo for GMs to pull that kind of thing. If you do want to make an issue of it as a GM, do it like this: There's a MAD scanner at the entrance to the airport, you'll need to hack it so Sammy can get his spur through. There y'are, added complication if you really want to point out the difference between F and R things, but it's minor and gives the players a chance to pull out their skills. Anyway. On a completely different note I need a new player for my Shadowrun game. You can read the intro thread here: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3385482 and the full game thread's here: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3386663 (you don't need to read all of that though. All you need to know is the players captured their first mark and they're not interrogating him to find a lead to the second). Preference is to the people who made characters before and didn't get selected in the first lot, but I'm not sure if they're still around so throw your hat in the ring if you're interested. Thanks!
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Feb 20, 2011 05:21
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Malus posted:I'll throw my hat back in the ring. If others from the original recruitment want in too then perhaps the players can decide. Yep come on over, we'll slot you in when the others call Johnson to come collect the package.
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Feb 20, 2011 15:20
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I was wondering about the hacking cyberware thing. The book says you can "hack some goon's cyberarm" (tough goon, not SA goon, I think) and that's aweseme, but later on it says devices can have their wireless thingy removed (but it reduces their functionality somewhat-- how though, it doesn't say). So how's it work? What's a good 'reduced functionality' of cybereyes or a cyberarm if a character turns off the wireless capacity? And how do you go about hacking a cyberarm? I'm guessing: get close enough->find the limb's node->hack that->spoof command? Basically how do I make a dude who makes a dude: 
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Feb 22, 2011 01:29
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For the -2 penalty for sustained spells, I'd always played it that that applies to all tests, but rereading the book it's a bit ambiguous, it says: "While sustained spells do offer the opportunity to have an ongoing effect, they are also draining on the magician's magical abilities. For each sustained spell the magician maintains, she suffers a -2 penalty on all other tests." The first sentence says "magical abilities" but the second sentence says "all tests" so I dunno what. Is it just magical abilities the -2 applies to, or all abilities? Is the 20th anniversary edition clearer on this point? On an unrelated note, I'd like to somehow make a character with Intuition at least 6 points higher than his Agility (blind shots are at -6, and use intuition+firearms). So he could literally shoot better with his eyes closed. Remember the ending of Neuromancer when the blinded vatjob goes hunting? Great scene. And do darkness mods apply to defence rolls? I guess it would make sense that they do but I can't find this anywhere, only that it's a "visibility modifier". Also goddamn this game for making you buy a commlink and an operating system. What the gently caress. Seriously go and tell someone who doesn't play games that there's an RPG that makes you buy your computer and also choose your OS and see how they look at you!
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Mar 20, 2011 05:59
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I put the question to my mum but she said I shouldn't be playing games with so much shooting in them. And she didn't know what an OS was so the whole thing was sort of a wash.
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Mar 20, 2011 12:28
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Gobbeldygook posted:Check out the wording etc...: Thanks man, that's the kind of stuff I was looking for, good finds.
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Mar 22, 2011 10:05
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^ Word, brother. Let's talk about our wishlists for the fabled 5e. I agree a streamlined system would be better. I don't feel an arcane system really adds to my Shadowrun experience. Others may disagree, but I like the world, not the fiddly rules. To me the only rules backup you need to keep the flavour are: high lethality combat, character specialisation (I think Niches still have their place in this system, given the technoheist genre it rips off). Yep, done, it's Shadowrun! There are just so many places to streamline the rules, like: -Equipment selection. I have to count individual units of currency?! No! Give me 3 top tier items (cyberware, vehicles, hacker's commlink, magical focus), 3 middle tier (guns, armour), 3 low tier (gadgets, cheap commlink)). Want more stuff? Take a Positive quality like "Rich", get one more of each. There, done, no counting individual dollars! -one roll combat. Right now you roll to attack, they roll to dodge, they roll armour. Okay, those last two rolls are just detractors from your attack and damage. So just give a dice pool penalty to represent their dodge, and a damage penalty to represent their soak. Done, one roll! -why are there 24 different modifiers for vision penalties?! Just give us a -4 in "bad conditions", or -2 if you have special eyes! -I... can't even go on. Vehicle rules, scatter rules, so many things measured in "metres" for a game that's rarely played with minis, hacking actions that no one even understands, aaaagh. Also on my wishlist, social combat: I want social combat! The game has such a social element, from dealing with Johnson, talking your way past guards, intimidating gangers, that I want more to the system than just one roll. I think Shadowrun could benefit from cribbing from modern games on this front. Also, putting aside the terribleness of the current Matrix rules (which are completely unforgivable, but this is about what I want in 5e, not bitching about 4e TOO much). But even if they did make sense, they take too long to use in combat. I want to hack arms and turn off cybereyes and make people's guns shoot everywhere, which you can do now (unless the enemy's disabled their wireless capabilities, and given how there's no concrete drawbacks to this suggested, they might as well). But you have to get within a metre, and then it takes at least two passes! So in 5e I would seriously prefer dumbed-down "Mass Effect" style techs for hacking. You know, something like a "hack the dude's gun and disable it for a round!" kind of "hacker's spell" that you can do in one pass so it's actually worth your time instead of just shooting like everyone else. Because I've never, ever seen Hackers used in combat to do cool things like make a guy punch himself in the face. Anything that takes longer than a pass is just not very useful compared to firing two grenades out of your semi-automatic launcher and just absolutely loving poo poo up that way! Dunno about changes to the magic system. It's already pretty easy to understand, I think only small rejigs are needed (making Spirits not "the best thing ever, also basically free to summon") and some kind of difference in difficulty so simpler spells are easy to cast and harder spells have higher thresholds to get off successfully. Because right now there's no reason not to just take the 5 best spells, and every Mage takes the same ones (only a dope would take the fireball type spells right now. 'Cool, fire spell? I'll take that! *dies from casting it twice*' Newbie traps like this are unforgivable. UNFORGIVABLE!)
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Feb 17, 2012 03:26
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Gobbeldygook posted:A troll is an average of 2.5 meters or 8 feet tall. His arms are probably about three or so feet long. A sword should be somewhere between two and three feet long. The drone extrudes from the ceiling somewhere between six inches and a foot. So the ceiling would need to be about fourteen feet high for a troll to not be able to stab a passing rail drone with his sword while standing firmly on the ground. Unfortunately, a standing jump is defined as a simple action so he could not jump-smash it, but a running jump is a free action and thus kosher for whatever reason. I guess you could include Wall-Running as an option here too. Shh... don't say that too loud, the corps will start adapting. "Now, how high should we make the ceiling?" "Wellsir, a ceiling would need to be about 14 feet high for a troll to not be able to stab a passing rail drone." "Let's make it 15 feet. Brilliant work, Johnson" Also there's the issue that a warehouse probably doesn't have drones directly overhead, or even in one round's worth of movement. In my experience in my most recent game we did have some problems getting the melee focussed troll adept fister to shine. For a couple of fights I was able to set up to get him right into the action (maybe Mystic Mongol remembers the run on the executive apartments: cramped confines meant the melee guy was really effective), other times (the paratrooper siege at the university) it made no sense for the enemies to 'pop up' five feet away and the melee troll spent ages and ages running towards them. It was just dull and I regret following the movement rules that closely. Movement rate is stretched across the whole round, so if you spend two rounds running to get to the enemy (how many metres does that cover?) that's probably 6 passes for a wired street sam who would otherwise be shooting. Only one combat lasted longer than two rounds in the entire game. So melee can work okay sometimes, but if you're playing a melee guy definitely have a ranged backup (or see if the GM will fudge the movement rules, which I actually think might be a reasonable move).
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Apr 25, 2012 09:44
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For that game I think if you added up the melee damage dealt by the very fast, very athletic face (with a very modest attack pool) versus the slow troll (with a huge attack pool) you'd find the fast guy ended up doing more damage. It also helped the fast guy was able to make the jump from the top of a building to a helicopter, whereas the troll plummeted four storeys . Now, if the troll had actually gotten into melee, nothing could have beaten him. He creamed anyone he could get his hands on in the first run. So I guess the lesson is: if you're making a sword dude you need to focus on movespeed and having 20 dice in your jump pool. quote:I was just mentioning Johnny Vegas... he exploited this rule a few times. He only had one initiative pass, along with a running of 15 and cyberskimmers, which double land speed. So in combat he'd punch someone, then move his full distance away and around a corner. Bam, escape. If he had multiple initiative passes he wouldn't be able to move nearly as far before someone else's turn. I don't remember exactly how we ran it, but by the book isn't it the case that if you have 1 pass and the other guy has three passes, then if you go first and punch him then move... you only move 1/3rd your speed in the first pass. Then he goes, and you don't get another turn but you just get to keep moving another 1/3rd your move speed, then he goes again, and you once again get to move your final 1/3rd. The advantage a person with more passes would have is that they're taking actions all along the way, whereas the slow person just 'sets' their movement in the first and only pass and then it carries out as the round progresses. The reason I probably didn't play it that way is because that would be soooo annoying to work out and you know how I hate updating maps every single pass (unless it's to spray paint more blood on everything. I liked that part).
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Apr 25, 2012 11:14
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| # ¿ May 22, 2024 07:25 |
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Cool, looking forward to 5e. 4e's issues have kinda chased me away from the game for a bit. Here's hoping the new matrix rules are easy to run and magic/summoning isn't entirely borked.
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Dec 21, 2012 10:55
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