Shadowing of the Running kind. [Shadowrun 4e]

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > Shadowing of the Running kind. [Shadowrun 4e]

secular woods sex: Aug 1, 2000; I dispense wisdom by the gallon.

children overboard posted:

(or just decide to say screw it and approximate everything).

That's what I did. So far I've run two SR 4e games, and never actually looked at the modifier tables. I just took into account the players equipment, and assessed dice pool modifiers on the fly. It seemed to work well, but my games were more like action movies than heists or cons.

# ¿ Jun 29, 2009 06:28

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 22, 2024 16:06

secular woods sex: Aug 1, 2000; I dispense wisdom by the gallon.

The first run of the last game I GMed involved two elderly gentleman (both PCs were 70+ years old) hiring a gang to do a drive-by on an Ork Rights Committee rally. They booby trapped the cars they provided for the gang, and blew them up outside the rally. They then used a spirit to retrieve the keynote speaker, but mistimed it and it the spirit dragged her through the explosion at about 30 miles an hour.

It ended up handing the runners a leg attached to a pair of shattered hips. They got the hell out of there real fast.

The most amazing part is that it was all accomplished without rolling initiative. I love Shadowrun.

# ¿ Jul 10, 2009 02:09

secular woods sex: Aug 1, 2000; I dispense wisdom by the gallon.

Ethnic Hairstyles posted:

Shapeshifting minotaur sorcerer vampire adept.

I had a friend play a shapeshifting cougar physad. Agility boost, counterstrike, weapon foci. She was regularly rolling a double handful of dice to cut things, and all shapeshifters have regeneration.

Thank god for magic damage and allergies.

# ¿ Jul 14, 2009 18:29

secular woods sex: Aug 1, 2000; I dispense wisdom by the gallon.

tendrilsfor20 posted:

OK, so I'll be starting my own Shadowrun (4e) game soon with some goons and a few others. I have never played or DM'd before, and none of the players have played 4e, and only some have played 3rd (others are totally new).

The first game I GMed was a clusterfuck. Nine PCs, all with different back stories that I tried my best to tie into the story.

Luckily, I had three experienced GMs playing PCs. They had run everything from Paranoia to Star Wars D6. Their best advice to me? Lie. If something awesome can happen, fudge the dice rolls so that it can. This is an amazing thing if you can get used to it. Because of a fudged dice-roll, I had a PC stop a mag-lev train by turning off the power supply to the tracks, sending it crashing to the ground.

After every session ended I asked the players what I could have done better. Their answers helped me figure out what they wanted, and in what direction to nudge the story.

Finally, remember that it's your table. You're a new GM, you might not know all the little rules. gently caress it. If you don't know something off hand and it would slow down the action to look it up, make a ruling on the fly and then come back to the rule later. The story is more important than the rules.

# ¿ Jul 30, 2009 17:54

secular woods sex: Aug 1, 2000; I dispense wisdom by the gallon.

The General posted:

UGh, remind me never to sit at Hotdog In A Hallways table.

Sometimes a run going smoothly is awesome, othertimes the poo poo hitting the fan, two runners down with the rest of the team dragging them offsite to Doc Wagon on the street corner is awesome. Please, please let my actions and the dice rolls determine this. Especially when it comes to character death. For some people, it's just no fun if you cannot die. Shadowrun is a gritty world, and death should be a constant fear, but there's no fear if the DM won't let it happen.

I killed two PCs, nearly killed a third, and damaged others to the point of surgery. "Awesome" does not necessarily mean "goes the PC's way."

# ¿ Jul 30, 2009 20:11

secular woods sex: Aug 1, 2000; I dispense wisdom by the gallon.

The General posted:

We have different ideas on how to run a game

True. I like my games to be kind of like an action movie, whereas most Shadowrun GMs either choose Pink Mohawk or Ice Cold Pro.

If you sit down at the table and ask your players what kind of game they want, and then do your best to make it as interesting for them as possible, you can't really fail.

# ¿ Jul 30, 2009 22:24

secular woods sex: Aug 1, 2000; I dispense wisdom by the gallon.

Tias posted:

I'm awed at the amount of interest, but it feels incredibly intimidating to GM with a system with so many rules - I've never been a rules-oriented person, preferring the storytelling system, but I do have a couple scenarios written up I would be willing to run if people can bear with a lot of fuckups.

The good thing about PbP is that you have all the time in the world to look up the rules and how to resolve things.

# ¿ Aug 3, 2009 22:30

secular woods sex: Aug 1, 2000; I dispense wisdom by the gallon.

Tias posted:

Fenarisk>> Well, you want survivability, as well as a well-tuned acrobatic talents and a skill at dealing damage. I suggest Adept, plus bioware if you want to go that route and accept the consequences. Here are some suggestions off the top of my head:

Bioware:
Platelet factory,
Orthoskin
Augmented muscles

Adept Powers:
Armor
Great Leap
Killing Hands
Improved Reflexes
Augmented Skill: Gymnastics
Augmented Combat Skill: Unarmed Combat
Pain Resistence

Suggested Qualities:
Hard as Nails
Will to Live
Poor Self-Control: Thrill-Seeker

You could drop the augmented combat skill for Critical Strike. The half point you spend on adding one die to your unarmed attack would be turned into a flat +2DV bonus on punchin' things.

# ¿ Nov 27, 2009 17:36

secular woods sex: Aug 1, 2000; I dispense wisdom by the gallon.

Do you mean K-10?

I have a build put aside for a K-10 fueled bio-adept.

code:

Race: Human
Magic: Adept

B: 3 (6)    C: 3        Edge: 6
A: 4 (7)    I: 3        Essence: 5.05
R: 4        L: 2        Magic: 6 (5)
S: 3 (9)    W: 3 (4)    Initative: 7/1 (7/4)

Qualities:
Restricted Gear 3 (20 doses of K-10, one full suit of body armor)
Martial Arts (2 levels, Muay Thai for +2 DV)
35 points of negatives

Skills:
Unarmed Combat 6
Athletics Group 1
Influence Group 3
Perception 4
Pistols 4
Pilot Ground 3

Adept Powers:
Critical Strike 6 (+6 DV)
Killing Hands
Counterstrike 5 
Elemental Strike (metal, +2 DV, +2 AP)

Cyber/Bio:
Bone Density Augmentation 3 (+3 DV unarmed)
AutoInjector (K-10)

25 thousand nuyen left, no contacts.

He rolls 13 dice for Unarmed Combat, 18 or more if he parries and gets to use Counterstrike.

Unarmed Damage with K-10: (9/2) + 2 (Muay Thai) + 3 (Bone Density) + 6 (Critical Strike) + 2 (Elemental Strike). Before adding net hits, he does 18 points of damage.

He'd be difficult to RP with the lack of contacts, but as far as punching things goes, he's pretty drat good. Even if he isn't a troll.

# ¿ Dec 18, 2009 23:29

secular woods sex: Aug 1, 2000; I dispense wisdom by the gallon.

Oh yeah. 18 stun unresisted. Dopadrine could be used to cancel the berserk, and if you have a kindly GM they might allow for Long Haul to keep you upright long enough to get to safety, but otherwise you're going to be out like a light.

# ¿ Dec 19, 2009 00:15

secular woods sex: Aug 1, 2000; I dispense wisdom by the gallon.

Tias posted:

Are there any natural features to compare size except the night sky? If that's a corporate enclave (I don't know anything about the ecology, if that's a SR geek fail I'm sorry ), the other buildings could conceivably be just as big - if we wrangle the sky a bit and say that GRITTYCYBERPUNK skies are quite a bit higher up nowadays :p

That's basically how it is. Skyscrapers are called "Skyrakers" and can be between 150 and 300 stories, if I am remembering it right.

# ¿ Apr 8, 2010 11:57

secular woods sex: Aug 1, 2000; I dispense wisdom by the gallon.

I'm not sure how your group treats high-force spirits, but this seemed to work with one of my players:

He managed to summon a Force 13 fire spirit with a lot of luck (and I wanted to see what he would do with it -- he's a really good, inventive player.) I told him straight up that he's summoning something with mental stats all around 13 - in other words, almost twice as intelligent and willful as he is. After that point, I played it like an NPC. He fawned and simpered over it, but being hugely powerful and smart it was irked that a puny mortal could summon him and require services. During a finale for a run, he had it absolutely TRASH a subterranean installation. After the spirit carried out the orders, it managed to burn the runner's name in 30 foot high letters on the ground before is disappeared.

# ¿ Jan 27, 2011 02:59

secular woods sex: Aug 1, 2000; I dispense wisdom by the gallon.

Mystic Mongol posted:

There are some interesting options for subtle sneaky swords, but none can be hand-made telisima, which means they can't be weapon foci, which means no cutting spirits.

If you're going RAW, yes. Or you could talk to your GM and see what they'll allow.

I want to be a master of disguise physad who has a variety of low-power weapon foci. Things like a ball-peen hammer, six inch flathead screwdriver, or even a belt/sarong.

# ¿ Apr 24, 2012 13:58

secular woods sex: Aug 1, 2000; I dispense wisdom by the gallon.

SerCypher posted:

We have an ambulance, it's the party ambulance.

A jambulance?

Only registered members can see post attachments!

# ¿ May 2, 2012 16:02

secular woods sex: Aug 1, 2000; I dispense wisdom by the gallon.

During a close quarters fist fight, one of my players mashed a corporate assault team member into a corner with his gigantic ballistic shield. He then reached around and pulled the pin on the corpsec guy's grenade. The resulting explosion blew the player out the window, mostly unscathed.

The partially applied chunky salsa rule turned the corpsec member into a stain.

# ¿ May 3, 2012 17:06

secular woods sex: Aug 1, 2000; I dispense wisdom by the gallon.

You can always go gear-light as well. You're a forest dwelling, fast-talking hacking machine. You don't necessarily need a lot to live on, and you should be able to scam (verbally or electronically) whatever you do need.

# ¿ May 16, 2012 18:05

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 22, 2024 16:06

secular woods sex: Aug 1, 2000; I dispense wisdom by the gallon.

Swags posted:

Looking at Naga as a race and they seem kind of neat. Would it be possible to get them a non-essence draining set of arms? Like a drone backpack with arms or something?

Assuming you give them adept as a quality and increase their Magic, can they be... y'know, useful?

Give them eight or ten drone-arm backpacks slaved to an implanted comlink. Congrats, you now have a 30 foot long Awakened robo-centipede.

Holy poo poo, I want to run a game where this happens.

# ¿ May 29, 2012 15:37

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > Shadowing of the Running kind. [Shadowrun 4e]