No agenda, no rules, few restrictions. For whatever is on your mind...

I decided that we really, really needed a place to interact for Shadowrun.   I suspect that the lack of games probably results from the usual lack of communication.

Mostly the lack of confident GMs it's not a particularly easy game to run online.

Hoi Chummers!

This

I started play by forum on dumpshock which is 'just shadowrun' (and still going). I love the world, but the rules are very very complex. Especially the matrix rules. Explaining that complexity over forum is hard. Tabletop/face to face it's much easier as there is a much higher bandwidth

The other issue I have with SR4 at least is that with the same build points some people can make gods and others the key stone cops. That's true for other game systems of course and a good GM can overcome that (helping the weaker and asking the stronger to tone it back a bit)

I am delighted to see that the Shadowrun 5 matrix rules actually seem to work, and are not too complex (by comparison).

Agreed. Then you mix in all the different rules for riggers whether they’re just sending commands to all drones or jumping in.

On a separate note, just want to throw out some past character names to see who all I’ve games with before: Hive, Mustang, Iron Hide, Vault, Fashionista, and Cheshire.

Hi all! I inherited a copy of the Shadowrun Sixth World rulebook from a friend who passed, and promised to run a game for other friends who played it with my late friend as GM and said they'd never play it again because it took them half the session to create characters, and then the game sucked. I'm taking that as a dare. :)
This message was last edited by the player at 13:38, Fri 04 Aug 2023.

Well Shadowrun does have a little bit more complexity to character creation. One of the killers of a Shadowrun game especially in pbp is the planning phase before a mission of it goes on for too long. Some games I’ve been in have helped that along with the Johnsons being former runners and able to provide at least some information for the players to go on when they do their own recon. Once the missions starts then it’s usually a good pace.

You did it in half a session! Wow! I usually take a couple of days. And that's with a tool (hero labs) to help. It's not the worst system for that sort of thing (Gurps, Hero systems, Mutants and Masterminds... I'm looking at you all) but it's certainly not 'light weight'.

There are three things about it really: the world, the fiction and the system. The world is great. Quite well thought through. A blast to RP in. The fiction (there are a load of paperbacks) are 'OK'. Which is quite high praise for 'game' fiction. And adds quite a lot to the enjoyment of RPing in the world I think.

The system (1 through 4) is ... 'barely adequate'. It's too complex for me to be fully happy with. The earlier editions had computer hacking rules that were so complex every single GM I have played with house ruled their own. I think they have got over that with 5th edition (not totally sure because haven't played it yet, just read it). From what I've read 5th edition is quite a lot more straightforward in a number of ways, so I am looking forward to seeing how that actually works out in play. It certainly gets rid of a load of craziness from earlier edition.

No idea what 6th edition is like

Half a session is really good.   I can usually get through the number crunching in a couple of hours; it's the role-play related stuff that takes me a week or three to figure out.

I refuse to do "get the party together" stuff. Especially online. If I have it my way we start litterally in initiative order. Work out yourselves from there.

Ah we differ there, Sir Swindle. Combat is (IMAO) a speed bump in RPOL. Any time in combat increases the chance of the game dying. Building RP voices, building up character interactions, that's what makes a good movie, book or game.

That's not true tabletop. Tabletop I'm with you: I roll-play instead of role-play (and enjoy it a lot). Combat gets the excitement up and is great. It's the thing to do when people's attention starts wandering

Initiative is a mechanism that was created to solve a table top problem: making the access to the GM in a controlled fashion. That's not needed in RPOL of course, but we 'cargo-cult' it across. I do it too for the few occasions where it matters.

Nothing wrong with starting with a bar room brawl of course (tabletop or RPOL). Or in the middle of a fire fight with flashbacks. In my current game I start everyone in their personal prologue and I've killed a couple of them in the first scene (not perm death of course just part of their intro)

It's more about ensuring that everyone knows what is happening right now and get invested early. Combat is cut and dry, you either posted since the last GM post or you did not. You need to shoot those guys shooting you, you aren't wondering if being the 4th person to chime in on this 5 way conversation stretches credulity.

Don't do five way conversations :) then problem solved. Most threads I run have two or three players in it. Three works really well. Four becomes a crowd.  Occasionally they get together for planning or something, but then they usually have a chairman, lots of side conversations and ... those threads are as hard to run as combat.

But put two or three players into a thread and they'll have a blast chatting or investigating or doing stuff. Takes hardly any effort as they do all the work. Everything grinds to a near halt with combat though, and I have to do a lot more work.

Being lazy I like to dodge that 'more work' as much as possible so I have tweaked the rules systems so that only the players roll the die most of the time. They roll to hit, and they roll to dodge. That way all I have to do is a bit of fluff. You can do that with shadowrun quite easily. Just 'buy hits' for the bad guys (don't do that for the big bads of course... just minions).

I've played in a M&M2 game with you Sir Swindle I think (A long time ago, I haven't played M&M2 for many years). Works there too. Actually better. In shadowrun it changes the die distribution (for the better I think, but it's still a change). In M&M it's identical.

Ya, getting the back and forth die rolling simplified down to one roll is pretty necessary.

I've hit up a few M&M games on here. Tried to run them but it didn't really work out.

I've discovered that the best way to run combat seems to be: "Everyone post their actions and I'll resolve in order".   Otherwise, it takes a week per rather than a day or two.

Ya, that's what I do.

Also having a schedule seems to help. "Combat rounds will be resolved on Tuesdays and Fridays" or something like that. Then you make sure you know "reserve" actions that the PCs will take of they don't post, in SR it's almost always I shoot the guy with my gun.

Total agreement Hunter/Sir Swindle. Players go. GM goes. Players go. repeat

While there's alot about the SR3 system I dont miss (I remember cross referencing 3 different source books to determine the correct target number for a die roll) I do miss the Task Pools that system had. It meant that two characters with the exact same stats could be played quite differently depending on how the Task Pools were utilised.

Good morning chums.

Ola, everyone.

Everyone, please don't forget that we have open threads in several categories in addition to Community Chat.

Ask the DMs: For those rules that you can't quite figure out.  Also, for discussion of said rules.

Orphaned Characters: for characters that you've never gotten to play, the game fizzled out before getting going, etc.

Game Ideas: An idea for a campaign (or just a few scenarios) that you'd like to GM or play.

I'd like to make a motion to change the title of Orphaned Characters to Character Ideas.

"Orphaned" is a built-in sob story. It shouldn't notably matter if a character saw a game or you just liked the idea and built it out.

Agreed 100%

In reply to Sir Swindle (msg # 23):

Okay, done!
This message was last updated by the player at 07:21, Mon 07 Aug 2023.

Let's get some discussion going, shall we?

Okay, here's the question.  How do you make a self opening parachute, what components does it need, and how much will it cost?

Tie the rope to the plane like they do for paratroopers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...%20a%20preset%20time

.it takes a computer a sensor and an actuator. A commlink (100 nuyen in sr5) has the computer and the sensor (a modern smartphone has enough). The actuator is probably another 10 nuyen if you buy one. And a box to put everything in ... that's probably as much as the rest... call it 90 nuyen for nice round numbers

The parachute itself will support it. Today there are many countries where it is mandatory to have such devices

Summary... 200 nuyen and about an hours work for someone that knows what they are doing (plus the parachute)
This message was last edited by the player at 08:23, Sun 20 Aug 2023.

So some more general question about gaming: just to get a chat going

Race:
If people were going to play in a shadowrun game would they prefer a 'simple mostly human/orc/elf' sort of game, or would they want to play some of the more exotic (and unbalanced... but who cares about balance) races. i.e. pixies, were creatures, free spirits, AI, trolls (I put them here because they are as broken as pixies)...

Flavour
Do people most like playing

• Shadowrunners in a 'all guns blazing' 'shoot their way in and get the loot' style
• Sneaking/skulking... no one even knew they were there
• Normal people in the 20XXs
• Working for the corps
• Doc Wagon/Trauma Team (a special case of working for the corps)

Power level
Do people like

• Street level
• 'Normal' as per books (which is pretty potent)
• 'Prime Runner' (i.e. has been around the blocks a few times)

What to play

• Cyber street samurai
• Mage/Shaman (aka spell caster with or without spirits)
• Physical Adept
• Technomancer
• Other

Alignment

• I want wetwork
• Who cares if we have some collateral damage?
• Let's not kill anyone unless we have to
• I don't kill people
• Goody two shoes

Game version

• Homebrew
• SR 1..2...3...4...5...6

My preference:

• Races: I like the exotic races because I have played the normal races a lot, and I like the differences.
• Flavour: I like the 'no one knew we were there' or the Doc Wagon/Trauma team... both great
• Powerlevel: I like to start at normal and get better quite quickly.
• Alignment: Ideally 'I don't kill people' +/1 on that scale
• What to play... actually I'm OK with most. Probably mystic adept or technomancer > Mage > Cyber Samurai but the > is a small >
• Game version. Homebrew (because SR is so very very very complicated requiring so very many die) or SR5

My preference:
Races: Human (allows more options for archetype) > Orc (enough physical bonuses to justify not picking human while not limiting archetype)
Flavour: mirrorshades > pink Mohawk (in appropriate setting like Blackout), would like to try a working for the corp team
Powerlevel: Normal if there’s decent karma and Nuyen given out at the end of a run, prime runner if going for the big runs
Alignment: Ranges based on character, generally neutral
What to play: have not played a Technomancer or decker, adept/street Sam is my go to
Game version: SR5 or 6

My preferences

• Races:  Like Siran, I've done the core races quite a bit.   And I've found that playing an exotic tends to come with hooks of it's own.   Plus, I seem to have a connection to fairies....so Pixies!
• Flavour:  I'm fairly open to anything, really.
• Power Level:  I like Prime Runner for online games, myself.   I'm open to really anything but street level: scrounging for resources is too much like real life for me.
• What to Play: Mages and Shooters.
• Alignment: One of my old go-to was Elven Hitman; but I really prefer to avoid body counts.
• Game Version: I've played 2nd, 3rd, and 5th.  My current jam is 5th.

My preferences:

Races: I'm elf ride or die here
Power Level: Normal and up
What to play: Mages and Technomancers
Alignment: Only necessary killing
Game Version: most experienced with 4e

Hello all!

Preferences:

Race: Human or Elf, mostly
Flavor: Depends on the team and the run.
Power Level: Prefer normal/book level, but 'Prime Runner' has its appeal, too.
What to Play: PhysAd, then Decker (or Decker/Rigger in SR5). Haven't tried Technomancer yet
Alignment: While collateral damage is sometimes unavoidable, it tends to make enemies...
Game Version: SR5. I haven't had a chance to try SR6 (or, for that matter, SR3).

Preferences:

Race: Elf and Troll usually but I'm open to about anything, really like the idea of a Tiger Shifter but they tend to get shafted being dual natured in 4th.
Flavor: Sneaking and Skulking is my preferred but typical Shadowruns/Trauma team and Corp are all very delicious flavors!
Power Level: Normal or up, I don't like struggling, much like Hunter I can do that in real life just fine :P
What to Play: Depends on the addition but I have a soft spot for Cyber Samurai and Possession Shamans...Voodoo anyone?
Alignment: I believe in escalation, the more I escalate the more the bad guys do...so I start off with as little death as I can manage but make sure I have the tools to blend if it's necessary, but not my preference.
Game Version: SR4 and SR5, played 3 briefly and haven't even looked at 5e

Hello chummers.

Preferences:

Race: Dwarf
Flavor: Gritty
Power Level: normal/book level
What to Play: Face/Struggling Musician or Street Doc/Chemist/Drug Boosting User.  I've also had fun with Enchanting adept or Ex-Merc
Alignment: As little killing as possible.  Heavy planning and surgical precision are his preferred style.
Game Version: SR1, SR4, and SR5.

Gday, see my answers below, typically I have thoughts on each of the options presented to provide context for my choices.

Race:
Human because from a purely game mechanics character generation point of view, they deliver the most bang for buck. I've always wanted to play a Troll Mage or Physical Adept but felt I had to make too many compromises to do so.

Flavour

• Guns Blazing is usually my default style of shadowrun - typically most games spend many hours doing an intricate plan which fails for some reason either before or shortly after commencing excution. Then going 'screw it' and just go in winging it with all guns blazing.
• Sneaking/skulking... - After playing years of shadowrun, I can probably count on both hands the number of times successfully pulled off a 'sneaking' shadowrun adventure.
• Normal people in the 20XXs - No Desire, never played
• Working for the corps - Something I think could be interesting to do, but never had a GM or group want to try this.
• Doc Wagon/Trauma Team (a special case of working for the corps) - See above.

Power level

• Street level - Good for grittier/dark face to face games which can be fun, but the capability of characters can be frustrating.
• 'Normal' as per books (which is pretty potent) = I prefer to start off at the default power level for  F2F games because they proceed at a decent pace so Karma gets handed out regularly enough that you can actually raise something in a reasonable irl time frame.
• 'Prime Runner' (i.e. has been around the blocks a few times) - Prefer Prime Runner for online games as game progress is from a crawl if its chat based game eg Discord/Skype with irl time between having enough karma to raise anything 1-2 months, or molasses if doing Pbp where it can be irl  6 months to a Year to save up enough karma under SR5 to be able to raise anything on a character.

Alignment
I've played all kinds of Alignment, early in my shadowrun 'career' I was pretty much consistently a murderhobo ('I want wetwork') and bounced between 'who cares if we have some collateral damage' and 'lets not kill unless we have to' Only tried the last two a few times and they were... interesting.. and challenging... but certainly enjoyable.

Game version
SR 3rd edition
I really enjoyed the Combat/Decking/Matrix/Astral Task Pools from SR3 which meant two characters with the exact same stats could end up being played very differently. Also miss FASA's fantastic editing and layout work for the source books. However I -dont- miss cross-referencing rules and tables in 3 books to determine a target number for a dice roll.

SR 4th and 5th Edition
A good (but not perfect) attempt at simplyfying and unifying Combat, Magic, Decking and Rigging. Lack of general Task Pools  means characters with similar stats will have an 'optimal' playstyle. Another bonus, most (but not all) of the rules used are limited to the Core Rulebook, Run Faster and Street Grimoire(5th Ed) instead of being spread out over 20 books. My main headche with SR5 is the incredibly slipshod and disorganised layout/editing work for pretty much every book realeased by Catalyst Games Lab.

SR 6th Edition
Myself and my regular group all purchased SR6 books shortly after release, cracked them open, created characters, played 1 full run (2-3 sessions) and agreed this ruleset was absolute garbage. To my knowledge none of us have ever touched the ruleset since.
This message was last edited by the player at 20:13, Fri 25 Aug 2023.

I think it's interesting that I am getting the following view from a few people about the 4th 5th and 6th edition

A few people have said that 5th edition is like 4th with the bugs ironed out. Most of the exploits gone, and basically better in every single way. That's the view I know have. I am $100s into sr4 (I think I have almost all the books) and I already prefer 5th.

Personally I did think 4th was significantly better than the editions I've played: 1st and 2nd. (I missed third). It just had utterly unplayable computer hacking rules. So every GM I've played with house ruled their own much simplified version. 5th edition hacking rules are (I think) much better.

And the same people all say that 6th is garbage. I've not worried about checking it. I'll wait until I get a 'hey it is good' from someone I trust before buying it.

I wouldn't classify 6th as garbage. It's rushed and has trouble holding together. With a bit more work, it might work better. At the moment, 5th holds itself together best.

The biggest problem of SR3 Matrix rules was that Decking did not lend itself to being played with the other players, as an entire 'matrix run' could take the in game world timepsan of a few combat actions. Wireless matrix rules did not exist, everything was done from a jackpoint. When it came time for a Decker to do his thing, the rest of the group went to get food/drinks and the GM did decking for the next 45m-1hour.

At the time, I had the Matrix rules down pat and didnt find them too complicated. It was pretty much roll your deck's attribute in dice, vs TN of System Attribute - Program Rating/Program Modifer. And the System got to roll its' Attribute in dice vs TN of your Decks' target attribute modified by program and deck mode. (After so many years, I forget the exact 3rd ed Matrix Rules). Net successes for the host on certain rolls would add to your Security Score (or whatever it was called). As you built up security score, the host could do things like launch new ice at you, call in security deckers or initiate a complete shutdown.  I don't remember my SR 3rd ed GM house ruling any of the Matrix rules, using them as written.
This message was last edited by the player at 20:57, Fri 25 Aug 2023.

I did say I hadn't played 3rd :) My comments were about 4th. It just took me about 10 die rolls and over 100 die to hack a simple club website. Hopefully we got the rules right...

Your point is valid tabletop. What I think is interesting is that the matrix play is probably much easier in play by forum. There it doesn't really matter too much how long it takes as long as the other players are doing something (and that's easy to arrange usually)

In reply to Galen (msg # 38):



I would. Not worth the paper it's printed on.

Whereas 5th, as it is now, is quite functional to me.
This message was last edited by the player at 00:17, Wed 30 Aug 2023.

In reply to Lord Funk (msg # 41):

I have to say that I didn't see anything in SR6 that felt like a necessary upgrade from SR5 in what little I've seen about it. I'm pretty fond of SR5, though.

What to Play

I like elves and humans.  Sometimes an ork or a troll to mix it up.

Flavour

• Shadowrunners in a 'all guns blazing' 'shoot their way in and get the loot' style
• Sneaking/skulking... no one even knew they were there
• Normal people in the 20XXs
• Working for the corps
• Doc Wagon/Trauma Team (a special case of working for the corps)

Yes? All of that, hehe.


Normal and higher, usually. With the odd exception if I'm doing a "normal people" start.

What to play

I typically play mages, but I like me some gun adepts and I'll go after a rigger be-times.

Alignment

I like a good direct-action mission, but I try not to kill people who don't deserve it, if they exist in the mission.

Game version

4e all day, e'ry day. I will play 5th, though, it isn't bad or anything, just not my SR home. Haven't touched 6th, don't know anything about it, can't comment. Don't much intend to go in that direction, either. 4th works fine for me.

My preferences

• Races: I'm used to the normal races that have been in the game since day 1. All this other stuff like faries and minotaurs or centaurs i dunno. Not that I'd be agaisnt them in the game
• Flavour:  Whatever
• Power Level:  Normal is where I'd rather start but I'll get to where I am going sooner or later
• What to Play: Mages that are also part street samurai
• Alignment: It's shadowrun the closest to good I get is the robin hooder type aside from that surviavl is fair game
• Game Version: I played 1st 2nd and 3rd tired to start a 4th a few times and never played 5th but it's all shadowrun to me.

This message was last edited by the player at 02:36, Thu 31 Aug 2023.

I'd like to know if someone would be willing to step forward and take over as primary lead of this group.   I'm planning on leaving RPOL, and would prefer not to leave this group hanging.

I'll check back in a day or so.   Thank you for joining.

I'll take the reigns.

Thanks Jobe00

In reply to Jobe00 (msg # 46):

Thank you.

We just got a Shadowrun community here on RPOL. Can't lose it.

So are there any games in the works?

Not that I know of. The creator of this forum was making one, but suddenly stopped. Had a bad experience I guess.

I am running enough games at the moment, but I'd be delighted to join if someone else was running

In reply to Siran (msg # 51):

yea 'The StoryTeller' left our game which had just started hanging :(

I don't have time to run anything these days, but I could play in an SR5 game as I have a couple orphaned characters, and that's my preferred Shadowrun edition.

I would be available for a SR5 game as well if one was started.

i tried to run a game, but I just dont have the energy or time to do it well. Got a new job a few months ago and its been kicking my ass.

Can relate.

Hello all. Long time player and GM. How's everyone doing?

Race:
I mostly stick with the norms and some of their metavariants but I've allowed the occasionally exotic in as a GM. Mostly AI/EI's. The occasional pixie, shifter, dryad, and centaur has been brought in. Personally, though as a player I'm not interested in the exotics beyond the Digital Intelligences.



I am mostly a mirrorshades with a leaning toward black trenchcoat. The occasional dust-up is fun but I prefer keeping things quiet. No real interest in playing norms. I've run and played in the last two and they were a fun change of pace.




It varies but rarely street as you need to seriously rework the rules to balance that out. CPR does a much better street game. These days I like to fall in somewhere between normal and prime though closer to normal as for the moment I've had my fill of prime as a player though I enjoy running that level as a GM but that too requires work.



Depends on the day really. I've enjoyed them all with about equal frequency. Though the least likely concept I will play is a rigger as they don't really catch my interest.





This really depends on the campaign premise and character concept I come up with but more often than not the character is a hooder.



Never cared for any of the alternative systems. I've played all the editions and Anarchy. I think every campaign regardless of edition has a little homebrew or house rules in it but for a pure homebrew, I've never been interested. I like the crunch of the various editions and how that helps speak to the universe and fluff.

All of us have characters abandoned or concepts designed for play that we haven't played yet. While we have a channel for that I see it hasn't been used much.

Tell us about some of yours and what edition they're for?

Two times I joined a 4e game here that died in a week. Both times it was with my Hermetic Elf. I wish I could play with it.

What's their backstory? Where were they from? Where were they supposed to run the shadows?

When I built him it was for a newbies game here in RPoL a decade ago. We were going to start in Seattle (of course). My elf was a Tir Taingire mage, working undercover for Hestabi inside Aztechnology. He joined a group of Shadow Runners that was working on a heist in an Aztech subsidiary to use it as a screen for his own particular goals. After that the story would've started and I would see where it lead.

He had a solid fake identity for going undercover, and helpful tricks on top of a combat mage base.
This message was last edited by the player at 21:00, Fri 22 Sept 2023.

I had an interesting 4e character that never got started. An Eagle shapeshifter shaman. Grew up 'in the wild', but close enough to civilization to eavesdrop on a rural school and community, to not get the uneducated and uncouth negative qualities. Just arrived in the big city (actually Seattle barrens), living on roof tops while exploring and learning. Strong environmental focus. Not much coaxing needed to get labelled eco-terrorist.

I made a Troll Street Samurai Adept for 5th edition, with the concept of Monster Hunter, usually for spirits, magical entities, etc..  He used a Kanabo as his main weapon.  Unfortunately, I never got to play him.

I just adjusted the community to Mature as I will use harsh language at some point and there are several things in the Shadowrun setting that are definitely not for general audiences.
No one needs to do anything, as I will assume the folks in the community now are fairly mature.

I had a 5e prime runner Human Technomancer Sourceror using a Kitbashi Sleeper Cyberdeck (one you can use Resonance through) who intentionally made himself look like a wageslave cyber security (Blandness, low quality burner deck, average suit). Submitted him for a game one time but the game never took off.

Mature
Wise!

Characters
I quite like the Eagle shaman idea. I was very tempted with that: flying is awesome. I've added my weretiger build to the 'character ideas' thread. Maybe some other people would like to put sheets there too so we can all get ideas?

Without getting into edition hatred, if given a choice between playing 5e or 6we which is your preference?

5e for the larger customization base. You can have two street samurai that are worlds apart.

SR5 without question. It was solidified with the Hong Kong rules that allow the SR5 rules to work before Crash 2.0.

I also have the basics of updating the SR3 Cannon Companion firearms creation rules to SR5.

In reply to Jobe00 (msg # 70):

Definitely 5E, although I'm not familiar with these Hong Kong rules? Where can I find them?

5e. It seems to be 'with all the bugs ironed out'. While 6e appears to be 'nerf everything, start again and make lots of brand new mistakes'.

It was a PDF included with the Hairbrained Schemes Shadowrun: Hong Kong game. You might be able to find it online somewhere as I don't know where to find them offhand.

In reply to Siran (msg # 72):

Yeah. I'm not a fan of the SR6 rules changes that nerfed things that didn't need it while complicating Edge and making it the most important stat.
I'm not a fan of some of the setting changes like Seattle going independent as UCAS intervention is the only reason it's not part of NAN. Ares up and moving from Detroit, which it literally owns, to Georgia in the CAS makes no sense.
Not the first time things were changed that I disagree with like the absolute nerfing of the various NAN military forces.

In reply to Jobe00 (msg # 73):

Oh, I own that! I'll need to search through the files to find it -- I didn't realize that was a thing...

In reply to jaberwok (msg # 75):

It might have been a stretch goal reward for the Kickstarter for SR: Hong Kong.

In reply to Jobe00 (msg # 76):

I haven't found it yet -- even though it turns out that I accidentally bought the game twice -- but in my searching I ran across this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJg02ivYzSs

It's pure Shadowrun. *chef's kiss*

Edit: I found it! Thanks for the heads up on this resource!
This message was last edited by the player at 20:12, Fri 06 Oct 2023.

I presume all of us at this point have experience with play-by-post. These games live and die based on their posting rates and rhythms being established and then being consistent. There is always some variance on these based on what is actually happening. I tend toward a posting minimum of once every three days with a check-in roughly every day in case there is a specific post addressed to a PC which they should respond to. Even if it is just to say that the character doesn't respond to whatever it is so the group doesn't sit there and wait for a response.

I've seen that happen too often in games where a character is intentionally choosing to ignore things and not responding with the player expecting that eventually things will continue because it will be apparent by the non-post.

So what posting rates are you each comfortable with that allows the game to continue without stalling but also not putting such a pressure on to post that it becomes work and causes some players to drop out due to frustration over how quickly things are posting or the volume of said posts.

In reply to Shaman (msg # 78):

I usually use 3-5 times per week, weekends and Holidays excluded.

I'd be a little more than Isenax ideally. But games can survive with a post per week in the quite periods. Less than that and it's awkward

I've had games where we were able to post multiple times per day, it was glorious. With my Exalted ST we're currently running a session on Discord, but doing posts instead of voice, and so far it's working. In three sessions we've done the equivalent of what you would get in six months of one post per week.

Depends a bit. If I only have one game, I can live with several posts per day. Works best in 1:1 situations and the same time zone ;)

However, people have lives, different time zones and more than one game, so 2-4 posts per week works fine in my experience. Including a checkin if a player hasn't posted in about 3 days or something like that and should state at least "no idea"

For those interested in a 5e Prime Runners game there is a call up in Wanted - Players. It is not my game, I am just providing a heads up.

Thank you for the heads up! Will look into it as I’m sure most of us here will lol.

I suspect you are right. As you say thanks for the heads up.

@blaque87, are you planning to set the game you're making as mature or adult?

I probably should mention that it's rated Mature.

Looks to be interesting if the writing prompts are any indication.

yeah. i am going to be making a submission for certain, just fussing over what sort of character I want to go with.

Do we want to maybe have a post about what kind of characters we are applying with? I’ve applied with a Technomancer Sourceror.

Biomancer with a focus on researching drakes.

What’s a biomancer?

Doctor / mage

In reply to blaque87 (msg # 87):

When is the campaign set? What year?

I applied as a Technomancer too... I think I'll put together a second one.

I picked it because usually people don't do decking/hacking so I was 'filling the gaps'. I'm fine with something else :)

i am thinking about an adept. maybe a face?

In reply to Jobe00 (msg # 94):

+62, or 2085.

I'm debating applying and as what. Finding a concept which truly hooks me these days tends to be a challenge.

In reply to Shaman (msg # 98):

You could make a Texas Ranger. *grin*

On the subject of concepts... in SR4 it was just about possible to play a free spirit. Is that still possible in SR5?

think that i will submit a Tir mystic adept combat mage on path of the wheel with a dip of face skills.

In reply to Siran (msg # 100):

Not in 5e, no.

Ah that's a shame. I really enjoyed playing a Free Spirit in 4e. Much weaker than a mage (everything is really) but very good at utility stuff.

Anyway thanks

i just submitted my app. I kept it super brief because im still mulling over details and ideas a lot, but wanted to go ahead and get "something" in.

*waves*
It is, you just gotta fudge the rules a bit.

on that note, is it possible for a hybrid child between a spirit and meta?

You can have a summoner mage that channels a spirit if that helps. Don’t know yet from the ST if you can use karma at chargen to initiate/submerge.

In reply to serrasin (msg # 106):

Not really. In a possession Tradition, a possessed Magician or Summoning Adept could bang or be banged and conceive a child, which may or may not get magical powers later. Most likely, it would be an explanation for the child Awakening later.

@Hunter
Hi Hunter. Good to see you :)

I get we can tweak the rules. I was just wondering if it was in the books officially.

@Logan
I was meaning an actual free spirit. Not a mage that can summon a spirit. In SR4 it was horribly expensive and thus you were much weaker than a mage. But there was a lot of really nice RP goodness. I don't think there was much you could do that an astrally projecting wizard who can summon a spirit there and then couldn't do better... but the RP was super.

@Jobe00
Hah. funny idea. And certainly an amusing back story... I might use that.

@Serassin
I'm going to say 'sort of' instead of not really. Insect spirits are really that as far as I can tell. I haven't seen the SR5 spirits of course. IN SR4... the two merge together. I forget the name of the 'type'. You have manifesting spirits, possessing spirits and this kind of spirits. I'm pretty sure there was a story/run in which an insect spirit host had a child that was a kind of hybrid.

But those are totally NPCs/aliens/wierd ichy stuff. Mind you I can imagine RPing something a little like that with some little twists. Remember Stargate with the Goa'uld and the friendly ones. You can imagine a nice spirit merging with a sick host and the two being symbiotic. Plenty of sci fi / games about such mergings. It's not 'core' this though. You would need a good story and a friendly GM open to unusual stuff.

yeah. i tend to like coming up with weird corner case concepts, but have to mentally filter it out most of the time without knowing the GM is into those. normally have to run my own ideas through a personal "keep it simple" filter to trim off extraneous ideas.

In reply to serrasin (msg # 106):

As much as I enjoy making and playing "special" characters, this idea is probably the one that I'd have to put a hard "no" to.   A spirit is simply too alien...and let's not delve into the hardware/software side of the equation.

As for actually playing a free spirit.  I'd suggest using the Ally Spirit creation rules in Street Grimoire, with a fixed amount of karma and a hard limit on maximum force (6 feels like the right number).   You'd have to work out how karma increases work and how you add new abilities/raise new ones....because Force is so integral to EVERYTHING, it'd need a really high cost.

On the other subject:
I'm not sure that I'm into playing again, but I feel that I'm in the place where lurking again is okay.

@Hunter
In SR4 you still buy attributes and skills as normal. It's only NPC spirits that get 'everything = force'. But yes Force is really important. One thing I did enjoy was 'helping the PC mages'. You get to add your force to their spellcasting rolls for example.

And ... Just FYI... that time traveling game you started was very thought provoking. If in a few months you want to kick it off again that would be awesome.

I'll probably pick it up when I finally get back to the right place...whenever that is.

On another subject....
I've gone ahead and posted my current favorite SR5 character in the Character Ideas thread.  Feel free to steal her as an NPC in your game.  ^_^

Something I’ve always wondered. Why are there many different Foci to boost abilities for Mages, but practically nothing similar for Technomancers in 5e or really any edition. The only thing I found was booster chips in Hard Code but the amount of damage they cause is ridiculous when they wear off and is only resisted with body which isn’t typically high in technos. Would it be possible to house rule Techno “Foci”? They could be pieces of resonance enhanced tech that can be worn to boost the “signal” coming from technomancers?

Mage/Techno equivalents:
Sorcery/Software
Conjuring/Compiling
Binding/Registering
Banishing/Decompiling
Magic/Resonace

Because the game is really Magic-Run and not shadowrun at all.

Everything Technomancy << everything mage. Look at what you get for initiation. With mages the benefits are often 'one buff per level of initiation'. With technomancers the buffs are 'one'. I say 'everything'. I think there is one thing technomancers are a little better at: the equivalent of binding spirits.

All that said technomancers are 'ok'. I like playing them. I think a mystic adept decker is at least as good as hacking (especially something like a pixie) but there is enough RP goodness in them for me to enjoy them

technomancers were originally rare "special character" options as otaku and imho should have stayed that way. i dont think they really add anything to the main archetype options.

We differ there Serasin. They add a lot. I'd ten times rather play a technomancer than a standard decker.

In reply to Logan Turman (msg # 114):

Magic Initiation goes back to the 2nd edition days, which is why.  Technomancers are much newer, and aren't quite as central to the game.   That said...options = good!

In reply to serrasin (msg # 116):

Magicians and Adepts are supposed to be rare too, but as with Technomancers, you have a disproportionate number of them in the shadows.
That said, Technomancers were much better to play in SR4A than in SR5 where they were smacked hard with the nerf bat.


In reply to Hunter (msg # 118):

Initiation goes all the way back to SR1. Technomancers, while new, are inherently woven into the setting of Shadowrun.

What you said Jobe00

In reply to Jobe00 (msg # 119):

I will admit to being ignorant as to most of first addition, as I started out in second.  That said, I don't remember Otaku/Technomancers appearing until third.

In reply to Hunter (msg # 121):

Otaku were first introduced in SR2 in Virtual Realities 2.0. I have an NPC, Lord Jobe, The God of Psiberspace, that started as a young teenager running the Matrix naked, eventually became an Otaku, and just as he began to fade, he Resonated as a Technomancer, and he's the most powerful Technomancer I have in my campaigns. He's a very weird man with a god complex on the Matrix with the power to back up said complex.
Lord Jobe is based on an older GURPS Cyberpunk Cyberpsi PC of mine that was inspired by Jobe from The Lawnmower Man movie.

I wasnt suggesting that technomancers should have been removed or anything, but that they should have been in a splat rather than the base book. By being in the base book they add an additional system and complexity without having enough space to be as developed as much as they could have been. Again, just my own opinion.

See some people like them. Some people don't

I like them. They add a lot to the game for me

While I like Technomancers, they simply can't compete with most deckers, and they can't be riggers without undergoing Submergence. It's too easy to upgrade to a deck that will outperform most Technomancer Living Personas. While Technomancers can do things deckers and riggers just can't and have access to Sprites, overall, they are subpar mechanically.
Bluntly, Technomancers were nerfed way too much between SR4A and SR5 and really didn't need to be nerfed.

Agree 90%.

There are somethings a technomancer can do that a decker can't (not many and not very important). But... the decker can be something else as well: mage, physical adept, cybered... And the technomancer basically can't.But it's the way it is. And it's not very bad. As I say I enjoy playing them in SR5

If I was going nerf anything it would be mages. There's a reason no one really wants to play 'non magic characters'. Part of that is the lack of thought about the upgrade path for cybernetics. As an example there's no reason that cyborgs can't have the equivalent of initiation: which is their 'learning to deal with more cyberware'.

One of the newer SR6 books addresses this. Which one slips my mind at the moment. I am still debating what I think of it.

in theory higher grades of cyberware should do this, but I dont think they are significant enough jumps in efficiency.

In reply to serrasin (msg # 128):

The real reason is because karma is much easier to come across than the amount of nuyen required for 'ware upgrades.   Even if you're talking initiate grade five or six, that takes significantly less time than it does to save up for those level 3 Wired Reflexes.

In reply to Shaman (msg # 127):

*stares in Cybertechnology*


In reply to Hunter (msg # 129):

GMs need to be more liberal with NuYen and a little more conservative with Karma when you have tech characters in a game. Said characters tend to need more down time as well to heal up from surgeries and make upgrades to equipment.

What you said Hunter.

And... if a team is good enough to take on a black ops research unit guarded by parazoological monsters, elite guards and stuff... what makes you think they can't take a jewellry store? Or an art gallery? Or (insert other cash rich facility). Even today a lorry full of Tobacco is multiple millions. An ATM is around a quarter of a million. There are many easy ways for an elite team to get money if they don't care about legalities

In reply to Siran (msg # 131):

At some point, the theme music for your runner team will go from the Mission: Impossible or Pink Panther themes to Yakety Sax. It is inevitable. It just takes less time for neon mowhawk groups compared to black trench coat or mirror shades teams.

In reply to Jobe00 (msg # 130):

I figured recently (for fifth edition), that the average run generates about 4 karma and 6k nuyen.    And bear in mind that those numbers are much more liberal than they used to be, at least on the nuyen side.  Mages have never needed a large amount of nuyen...past lifestyle, there's very little to buy.

But I've always had a beef with the amount that the team makes for the job, from the very beginning.  A successful runner team (and the PCs should be considered successful) should have enough resources for upgrades, gear replacements, and living a High Lifestyle.  The Rigger shouldn't be sweating (or swearing) too much if s/he's got to sacrifice a Steel Lynx drone to get the job done and everyone out in one piece.

I'd never expect a Golgo 13 level of pay (except on maybe that "one last job"), but see above.

I think I'll go for that jewellry store and get the odd few hundred thousand nuyen. Much better than the high risk black ops with ultra keen SWAT teams. It might even get some karma too. Or the equivalent of a crack house. Today for example a single ATM has about $300K inside it.

If you are going to have cyber characters at all you need to give them methods to improve and money is it.

Of course they can loose all their spare cash instantly and unexpectedly: spend it or loose it...

when storytelling I prefer to mostly reward nuyen and give players ways to convert nuyen to karma. For example buying training or donating to charity.

And so, we circle back to the "why you run" part of the 20Q.  Discussion like this was one of the things I was hoping for when I initially set this place up.  ^_^

I tend not to run 'set missions' but instead set up the world, set up relationships and so on

Mind you I've run the players as 'starting at Trauma Team' during the Doc Wagon/Trauma Team corporate wars. That was simple, fun, and great for passing the time during things like 'convention games' or 'what shall we do for a few hours'

I ran another where the players were all very long lived: they were around during earthdawn times (I play pixies/elves and some others as immortal). In this they effectively had two characters: their earth dawn self, and their modern self. To solve the mystery in the present they had to relive memories using magics to remember what had happened in the past. In the present, while the players were powerful, they had to do powerful things. Like going head to head against Aztechnology and insane blood shamans.In the past it was fairly typical Earthdawn missions, with an overarching story that they 'were trying to remember'.

The main game I ran (maybe five years table topping) started with them as simple runners. After a couple of years tabletopping we had a mission that 'went wrong'. They released that which man ought not wot' and had to put it back. That was pretty appocalyptic involving the Anti-Christ, the second coming and so on.

I don't mind episodic simple 'do the mission, get the cash or get betrayed' but I tend to prefer deep storylines. I think that's why I liked your idea of going to the past Hunter. That really gets thoughts going.

As for money/xp. I think the idea of saying you can buy xp is ... a very very very bad one. I wouldn't play in that world. I don't mind people being able to buy money with xp... that's different. Money is not a fixed amount that should be controlled/limited by the GM. If the players want to knock over a casino or a crack house they can... there are consequences.

The players should have freedom to do things, and if they want money they should be able to get it. Xp though comes at a rate determined by how good their RP is, and how well they do on the job.

i get where you're coming from, but its something that I adopted from old school d&d where players earned xp by collecting gold. I have found that such a system really helps to motivate players to be more mercenary which suits Shadowrun well. That being said, it is a system that requires a bit of curation and trust. Im not certain its something i would implement online with relatively unknown players.

I have been in a couple of games with a GM in another site where every 2 substantial IC posts (not one liners) would result in 1 karma and 2k Nuyen. This was of course on the honor system that people wouldn’t just spam IC posts. It encourages player participation and making decent posts.

If you have a world in which the rich have a million times more xp than the poor then that works. But that makes Elon Musk the greatest martial artist the world has ever seen. Or maybe the world logic doesn't hold together? That's a bad thing: the rules you have should reflect the world

If you totally control every unit of money the players get in a modern world (and how can you do that without railroading and a degree of control over their actions that doesn't seem reasonable) then I guess it could work. But that means if they do want to rob a jewellry store ... you have a big problem. You can say 'no because in my game it's impossible for reasons that ... have no possible grounding in world logic only in negative control of players choices'. Or what else can you say?

And anyway why would you want to? What possible value is there in coupling together two separate types of reward? And certainly the idea that people have to choose between xp and ammunition is a total non starter for me.

--

I do give out xp based on posts. In one game I run every 5000 posts I give out bonus xp. I can imagine doing it at 'every 1000 posts get xp'.  I don't do it at that level though because in most games some people post three or four times as much as others, and I want all the characters to advance at a similar rate.

Hey if a mage does initiate and then losses essences does that affect initiate lvl or abilities?

Losing Essence lowers a Magician's or Adept's Magic attribute as well as the maximum (Which is normally 6 + Initiation Grade). Same for a Technomancer's Resonance. If you lose any Essence, you reduce your current and maximum Magic or Resonance by the same amount rounded to the next whole number. So if you lose 0.01 to 1, you lose 1 Magic. If you lose 1.01 to 2, you reduce it by 2, and so on.
That will affect dice pools for some abilities and the maximum Force that can be cast or summoned safely.
SR1-3, if you Initiated, you got an automatic Magic increase, but with SR4 on, you buy your Magic attribute up to 6 at start (though you can have a 7 with Exceptional Attribute: Magic), and Initiating doesn't increase your Magic attribute automatically, but it does increase the maximum. You then increase your Magic attribute as you would any other attribute.
This message was last edited by the GM at 18:38, Thu 02 Nov 2023.

Another example to help.


It hardly matters the order you do things unless you are loosing an extreme amount of essence

In reply to Siran (msg # 143):

yeah i could never find a direct answer in the main rule books. So I would kinda just make a mage char with max magic and a few bits of cyberware and bioware...never really got to run the char though....

In reply to Daniel Essex (msg # 144):

Based on my experience, the answer is: "It does and does not matter".   During character creation, the end result tends to be the same.   After that, make sure you don't get more 'ware than you have magic points to lose.  So, you can get a cybered up mage...just be sure to initiate a few times first.

I played a troll mage with an essence rating of 1 at char gen. Worked amazingly well. Sure she wasn't great at magic, but she could do some really interesting things. It was based on the 'burnt out mage' from the first edition.

In reply to Siran (msg # 146):

Yeah I was looking to start a jack of all trades type. A hybrid street sammy/support mage....

In reply to Daniel Essex (msg # 147):

You would be better off making a Mystic Adept for that. Adept abilities and casting and summoning. The only thing you can't do is interact with the Astral Plane. You can't project at all, and to perceive Astrally would require you to take the Astral Perception Adept Ability.

I support what Jobe00 says. There are things you can do that a mage can't. Some of the physical adept powers are horrifically powerful. And you can back that with buff spells.

I suspect that you're going to run into the issue of "trying to do too much" at character generation.   You'll be able to be either a really good with the cybered up or with the magic side.    Later editions (like 5th) pretty much only allow you do concentrate on one or the other.   You're going to quickly run into a wall of not having anywhere near enough resources to go around.

Cybver/Bioware augmentation is on the expensive side and gets more so as you play.   We've touched on the issue of ... I'll call it mundane augmentation... recently here in this very thread.  On the flip side, building a good mystic adept at character creation is very karma intensive; as power points are 5 karma a pop.

There was more I was going to add, but it's eluding me now.

I'd like to chime in support of the others. Now, granted, I generally play 3e, not the current editions, but in general, I've found the SR doesn't lend itself well to jacks of all trades. Generally you want to pick one or two things to be good at, so you can throw lots of dice at that particular problem. And if everyone else in your group follows a similar philosophy, that means that regardless of what challenge you end up against, you'll have at least one person who's really good at overcoming it.

Being mediocre at a bunch of things generally just leads to becoming a corpse, at least in my experience.

From my experience most characters have a primary and a secondary focus. Face is often a secondary focus of a lot of characters if they have skill points to spare or having a high charisma is essential to the character already such as shaman and Technomancer. Another popular secondary is medicine and healing which is popular with hermetic mages/enchanters and riggers who want the DocWagon background.

In reply to Logan Turman (msg # 152):

Most secondary roles are typically have a single skill requirement.    Face boils down to Negotiation...Paramedic (i.e. Medicine) is First Aid...and so forth.   If you're really set on making a jack-of-all-trades character; I'd really recommend specializing in the beginning (with what you're good at) then expanding once you're in play.

Shadowrun is a game that is co-op where you are part of a team, and in any team, the best advice comes from Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, "KNOW YOUR ROLE!"
Pick your niche, and be the best at it that you can be with a smattering of skills like one good Combat skill (usually Pistols or SMGs unless your primary role is fighting), First Aid (with a level 6 Medkit which adds both dice and your Limit in SR5), and maybe a legwork skill of some sort to pump info from your contacts.
After the campaign starts, then you can pick up new skills or work on a few secondary skills so long as you maintain your primary role.

In reply to Jobe00 (msg # 154):

It's absolutely a team game, and no two characters are ever exactly alike (unless you're playing archetypes from one of the books).    The person who tries (successfully or not) to double-cross his own team is living on borrowed time...and it's absolutely in the best interest of the rest of the Shadowrunner community to see that ticket punched.

I think I only partly agree with the 'know your role'. In general a game is made lesser by that. Putting people into stereotypes and then forcing them to be that stereotype isn't a good thing. All that said most of my characters focus on a role.

However you don't need to do that and still have a good game. If you think of a game as 'I must accomplish goals' then sure ... the more specialised you are the better. The more you minimax for your role, and then have someone else in the party minimaxed for the other role...that's great.

But if you want a game to be a story. Like a book or a movie. And have it more like a world we can imagine and dream about and enjoy playing in. Then your character doesn't have to be a square peg that will fit in the square hole that is being described

It's perfectly possible to be 'good at one thing' and 'Ok at several'. Sure from an minimaxing point of view, or a 'know your role' point of view that isn't good. But from a 'playing a character who is a real person' it absolutely is.

One of my favorite characters is a character (SR4) that has 14 die in every situation except magics. Social. Making things. Sneaking. Fighting. Hacking. Vehicles/drones... Sure 14 die isn't the minimaxed maximum. But she's a blast to play. She can help the primary hacker. Or do a second hack. If she's on her own she can hack adequately. She can sneak nicely (especially with chameleon gear) and if anything comes for her she's good enough to either run away or fight it. If another player goes down she can step in and help.

Is that minimaxed and 'know your role'? Not really. Is she fun to play, and able to contribute to the story. Hell yes! Did she compete with the dedicated face or hacker? no: aid other is a great option when you have a lot of die to help them with.

All that said I played this character after I had played a lot of shadowrun. I think as an early character, while learning the game, it's a great idea to be a stereotype and follow a single role. And the current characters I am making are mostly a single role.

Skill groups makes things easier.
A mage who can supply cover fire, heal with med and magic, and has enough support spells to pick up anyone who is lacking in areas or make them better in their best areas.
Don't need much Stealth when you got the right spells. Healing with med and magic works wonders. Being able to summon something to cover an escape route, defend a target, or distract is useful as well.

Could someone give me the stats (and cost) of a Transys Steed in SR5. And for the Rigger Cocoon upgrade?

Rigger cocoon: Getting into a rigger cocoon takes about a minute, but it can be exited with a Complex Action using a quick-release system. Treat the rigger cocoon as a barrier with an Armor of 12 and Structure of 8 (p. 197, SR5). The occupant of the rigger cocoon receives +6 dice to resist damage from crashes or other vehicle maneuvers.

Transys Steed: TRANSYS STEED (MEDIUM DRONE) HANDL SPEED ACCEL BODY ARM PILOT SENS AVAIL COST 4/2 1G 1 3(1) 0 2 2 2 4,000¥

Thank you :)

Hmm... looks really good. Especially if you wear lots of armour instead the riggers cocoon: that reads as though they actually stack (which makes sense).

Do you mind checking the following. And explaining the bit I don't understand

If I read the rules right:

• There's a -6 on the tohit because of not being able to see the target.
• If the modified armour isn't >= the armour value (12) then auto fail. So light weapons are likely to have little effect.

Assuming it's a big weapon:

• Then 'Structure + armour' aka 20 die to resist damage.
• Then the remaining damage is 'applied to the structure' (I don't understand this .. does this damage the structure)
• If the remaining damage  > structure the rest goes to the target behind the wall (who has armour and stuff)

Worked example (1)

• Big Dude gets a total 12P on their attack.
• This is not more than the armour. So no effect

Worked example (2)

• Big Dude gets a total 13P on their attack.
• 20 die => 9 successes. Leaves 4P
• This 4P < structure. So nothing gets through. BUT what happens to the barrier? Is it affected? Did it take 4 hitpoints out of eight?

Worked example (3)

• Big Dude gets a total 13P on their attack.
• 20 die => 0 successes. OMG... What are the odds?? Leaves 13P
• This 13P > structure 8. So 5P gets through (and is resisted as normal) BUT what happens to the barrier? Is it affected? Did it get totalled and shattered?

I understand how to 'destroy the barrier' I think. This isn't that. This is 'shooting through the barrier'.

If the weapon you’re using is primarily a penetrating weapon, like a firearm or a pointed sword, then the barrier takes 1 box of unresisted damage (or no damage at all at the gamemaster’s discretion), allowing the rest to transfer to the target behind it. When multiple rounds are fired at a barrier, the damage increases to 2 boxes for 3 bullets, 3 boxes for six bullets, and 4 boxes for 10 bullets. Subtract this from the damage done to anyone on the other side of the barrier. This is only true for weapons whose modified DV exceeds the Armor rating of the barrier. As above, if the modified DV is less than the Armor, the attack is stopped dead with no damage to anything.

But do also remember AP on bullets and other weapons which will reduce the armor rating of the barrier. Then there’s bull’s eye blast called shot where you use burst fire attacks focused on one spot which adds AP x2 for double tap or up to AP x3 for burst fire and up.

All very cool. Appreciated. Especially the explanation about '1 hit, or zero hits at GM discretion'. I was confused about that.

My least favorite part of running a game: turning down player submissions because you simply don't have room.  As always, I've ended up with (at least) twice as many good applications as I've slots to fill.

Ugh.  -.-

As someone you've turned down Hunter, its never personal. We know you would have everyone if you could but that would kill a game. =)

That just goes to show how alive and well Shadowrun is on Rpol. We know that it is part of starting a game and don’t take it personally.

I really do appreciate the support...really.  As one of the applicants was new-ish to Shadowrun, I recommended he pop over here and join up.

Which goes back to one my hopes for this forum: get more people involved and get more people GMing.  I'd love to have half a dozen new games pop up, with one of them for new players.  :D
This message was last edited by the player at 14:56, Fri 08 Dec 2023.

GMing is a lot of work, and some that haven't been a GM don't understand that. A lot of GMs also don't understand how to work with players and have them help with their job. This means far fewer GMs and lots of players.
Tabletop gaming is collaborative storytelling which means give and take. The last few Shadowrun campaigns I ran or attempted were literally dealing with previous events and fallout from previous campaigns.
Another problem is the play-by-post format which I learned years ago I cannot deal with as a GM as well as a player. I pay attention to PLAYER responses to events when I run and lean into those when I run which requires real time.

That's never fun.

It is hard. One thing to realise is that during the first few months of the game you often have a lot of player churn. I usually say '40% in the first three months'. So if they are nice applications you can have them in a queue. If the game runs for more than a year or two they will be added.

I share Jobe00's comments. I have 60,000 ish posts as a GM of my games, and it's plain hard. I have to take breaks from it: some times of RL I can't handle GMing as well. But it's also really rewarding. One of the hardest skills is to learn 'yes and' instead of 'no' or even 'yes but'.

I do find that games that are only combat and missions don't survive more than a few months anyway. The secret to longevity in RPOL (I think) is to have social things as well as adventure things. The social stuff gives people the chance to 'love their characters'.

In reply to Siran (msg # 169):

Role Play is basically improve theater, I've noticed.  The GM provides the stage (and the theme) while the players are the actors.

I keep thinking about maybe starting up a 3e Shadowrun game, since that's the edition I like most and am most comfortable with, but I already run one game here and I'm rusty on SR. So I keep kicking the can down the road.

Let us know if you do.

In reply to Hunter (msg # 170):

I've been describing tabletop RPGs as community improv theater for years now.
The PCs are the main cast.
The GM is the producer, director, set designer, and supporting cast.

I agree it can often be improv, though that sort of performance scares a lot of people, so I don't mention it often.

As it is the Holiday Season, here's a question for everyone. Do you run any holiday based session(s)?

I've run a few over the decades, and they are some of the more fun to do. The most memorable is a MEGS (DC Heroes/Blood of Heroes) game where the heroes had to save Santa Claus and then help make sure Christmas happened afterward.

I've wanted to run a Shadowrun holiday game, but I've never had a group for the holiday season.

Any game I've been in has had the festival of Mutato. Even as a player. Set up a swap meet that people display their skills and offer initial lessons in their skill. Everyone wears masks and its a big "find your calling" kinda deal. On 11/11

Friday, I got some unfortunate medical news. I have lymphoma. I don't know anything more than this right now.
With this, I need to ask for one or more mods for this group in the event something happens to me.

In reply to Jobe00 (msg # 177):

You can add me back in as a mod.  I only passed lead because I wasn't sure how long I'd be gone and didn't want this place dying while I was on hiatus.

Thanks for the add.

Has anyone tried a game much more focused on roleplay and the characters’ lives and connections? Years ago my friends and I did collaborative writing of vignettes that looked at scenes from the characters lives. It started as a way to flesh out characters between games/runs, but it took on a life of its own.

All of my games are that way.

I ran a Trauma team game for a while. The players were working for Trauma Team who had just won the contract from Doc Wagon. Obviously Doc Wagon were sabotaging the handover, and there were 'counter ops' as well. (aka runs on Doc Wagon)

So in this kind of game it is a 'city game'. People go out shopping, for parties, romance takes place.  There is the company celebratory party. Drinks after the job.  Murders can happy, and there is a little detective work as well. But there are runs, there is 'the night shift'. It's quite cool because basically the bane of shadowrun games is the planning. And this takes away that problem. The alarm goes off and you are in the transport and arriving on scene within 2 minutes. No time to plan. Just the fun bit of the game with the endless hours wasted in planning because the plan doesn't work anyway.

In reply to Siran (msg # 181):

Plan?   Plan?    You mean "kick in the door and shoot everything isn't a 'plan'?"

I’ll be honest. The “alarm goes of and get suited up” approach does sound like it would help a game get off the ground and stay up very well. Especially, if the game starts off with the players having 6-8 hours before the ‘event’ takes place for the types that generally have a daily prep they do (summon/bind spirits, compile/register sprites, creating enchantments). Things that can be ‘grabbed’ in like five minutes before running out the door. Matrix and astral recon can be done on the ride to the site.

In reply to Logan Turman (msg # 183):

I feel that it would definitely work better here than on tabletop; simply because you've got time to figure out what your character would do instead just the first thing off of the top of your head.

@hunter
Plan: Yeah. That's actually a decent plan because it usually works. My experience of tabletop shadowrun is hours of planning that never actually turns into what the players do...

RP: Very much so.

@Logan
It does. And with the Trauma Team providing 'stuff' the mages get the materials for the spirits so that's a none issue. What doesn't work well in any of my games is quickened spells or over reliance on sustaining foci. I use wards extensively: every significant place gets one. Even (especially?) public buildings. It's a good way for a mage to make money. But also it means that when they go through a ward they have to turn off every spell, turn off every foci, and then recast them on the other side... if that's wise.

Well if it’s 6e, there’s a quality that gives you additional things to bring with you when you successfully slip through a ward. It essentially gives you bonus hits per level to bring additional Foci, spirits, sustained spells, etc through with you. I have a prime runner mage in 6e that has that specifically because she has a bunch of spirits including one that she is channeling.

What might it look like to incorporate some of those elements into a more traditional Shadowrun game? Basically, to encourage the players to "skip" the planning phase, you give them "Planning Points" that they can spend during the run -- basically explaining, on the fly, how they prepared for various situations they knew they'd come across? (Kind of like the "flashback" scenes that often occur in heist movies.) It would definitely need limits on effectiveness, and probably require a skill roll of some kind to make sure that the plan worked of course. You could even pair it with "Complication Points" that the GM could spend to cover random points of bad luck that sometimes happen (like the door locking behind them when it's not supposed to, or something).

I can see the points system in some of the following ways:
Mages: 1 point per force of a bound spirit (Max force = Magic rating)
Technomancer: 1 point per resonance level of registered Sprite (Max Rating = Resonance Rating)
Decker: 1 point per mark on Host, Commlink, device, etc (max of 2 marks)
Adept/street samurai: points for weapon/ammo from Weapons dealer (Melee 2 poinst per + to damage) (firearms 1 point per point of damage over 4P or 6S) (ammo 1 point per reload of ammo, extended clips are 2 points for double capacity)
Face: 1 point per hit on legwork from contacts (Max = Charsima)

Or something like that.

@Logan - wards
Try driving through a ward. Or going through a ward in a lift. And... it takes time. A lot of it... to go through those wards. If you can do it at all... because it isn't easy.

@Jaberwok
I've tried that and other variants on it. Mostly they fail. Here's two of the things I've tried

• Planning points like you describe
• Having two threads and running it like 'mission impossible'. One of the threads is the planning thread and you run that in parallel. When you hit an issue in the main thread you flip to the planning thread

All have failed. I can't stop the hours of endless planning (aka paralysis through analysis) which end up being worthless.

@Logan - points
My feeling is that the existing system mostly works fine. The only place the existing system fails is the first run, and that's not really a bad thing... the first run is usually a 'lets get started' anyway, and the GM can just be sympathetic to the mages/technomancer. I feel you don't need it for the decker and faces: that is the run for them. I never hassle people about ammo anyway: we aren't playing 'accountants the reckoning'. You either have ammo or you don't.... Occasionally it's 'story worthy' to have ammo issues then of course it's different, but that should be rare. We don't see ammo problems in the fiction or movies unless its a temporary part of the story.

If you do want a system you can go with the 'karma for services' which you can currently spend, and say that's the services you have at the start of each mission, not at the start of the first mission.

I have been watching, not many shadowrun games show up.  Are there any running but just not advertising?


As far as planning, just dont reward excessively detailed plans.  Maybe it is just the group i play with but we pink mohawk that stuff a lot, because the GM only punishes us when we get really stupid.   As long as we stay on track, advancing things for the mission, and have a general high level plan o help them prepare, he lets us get away with some things to keep the story moving.  especially as that was more fun for the GM and us.  (also as i was way better at planning and contingencies than the GM, after the first two missions went off without a hitch i stopped planning as that was no fun)

Even the other GM inrl who is more  a stickler, planning is fairly average, because again, the planning fails and we have to wing it most of the time.

In reply to Xeriph (msg # 190):

I'm pretty sure that it's because there just aren't that many games; search shows a total of 4 active (including this forum) and a total of 10 inactive.

There are two or three on dumpshock, but the tech is terrible there. Like you can't post pictures...

I'll keep an eye out.  I applied for one, but they didnt like my character i guess.

One problem with this is it doesn't work for every player. Having to break the session up into what is Player A doing now and going through that scene while the other players wait for theirs scenes drags on. It works best if the players all basically have the same social life. Then they can still act as a group with only a handful of moments that they have separate scenes with other friends. I have seen in some games, where the players each kept like a journal or private scenes folder, where they got to do their own scenes outside of the role play. For things like contacts, family, lovers, or something that was just between two chars that had nothing major to do with the plot. One small problem is these players tend to focus on these and soon lose interest in the rest of the game. I have seen a few games break because s group of players left to form their own RP, or they slowed down the main game becasue they just weren't paying much attention to the main.
It also depends on what type of game the players are looking for. Some really want that action move feel where the background stuff is quick and easy and settled with a few dice rolls. Some really want to RP the background stuff. You just need to find a mix or find a way to offer it that doesn't have players more focused on their background scenes than the main plot.

In reply to Daniel Essex (msg # 194):

I think you've hit on the difference between a Team and a Party.   IMO: Team is the group that's together just for the job; maybe there's some overlapping interests, but by and large everyone does their own thing.     A Party is about a step or two from family; you not only do the job, you tend to hang out at the same places, go to the same events, and generally are around when everything goes sideways for someone.

Team is much easier in this enviroment (PBP) because there's very little connecting the group and the players tend to leave it that way.   Party requires more of a concentration of rp time, and a fairly extensive discussion in session zero.


Edit: Your mileage may vary, of course.  ^_^
This message was last edited by the GM at 01:27, Thu 18 Jan.

I could see a family as a runner team to bridge the two and have that close knit group who watch each other’s backs and have a history.

As a suggestion...
Perhaps someone (who isn't me.   ^_^) could set up a board for people to run one shot games.    I'm suspecting that a fair number of people don't feel up to trying to do a full campaign (or otherwise feel unsure of their GMing ability) but are willing to do single sessions.

Well I got roped into running a SR game for my IRL group. Might be leaning on y'all a little bit.

We're here for ya!

I think that 'it's more natural to be a team than a party' is the style of game you run. In my games it would usually be the other way round. I never have 'just a combat thread' and make sure there are social interactions between the players as well as story. Because otherwise I find it's hard to get the character to be more than just their character sheet: I want them to feel 'real' to the players

on that note a mistake that I have made is starting the game and going directly into the first mission.

I think it's more that you need all the players on the same page.  If half the players want a 'team', and the other half want a 'party', you're going to have a hard time.

I have to say I don't find that either. See you can have more than one thread. One of them is of course the combat thread. Or 'the PLOT thread'. The others are for social stuff. The people that want social stuff engage in the social stuff. A few people just engage with the game in the PLOT stuff. All of them contribute to the game.

It's not a categorisation I use or have really experienced this 'party/team'. Maybe because in my games it's a non issue? Or maybe I have just had people that all wanted the same? Hard to tell. I can see other people have and its nice to see their experiences. It's certainly something I will keep an eye out for in the future

For me a much bigger problem is 'handling posting rate'. That's an unsolvable problem I think. Grouping people helps.... Making sure that no one thread has more than three or four people helps a lot.

I have seen some campaigns that have individual solo threads outside the main plot thread with side stories that allow the player to expand their character in non-combat or PVE situations at their own rate which keeps them interested in the campaign by diverting their extra energy to the solo one while waiting for the rest of the team to post in the main thread.

I had that in two of my games and it was great. Also, you could solve situations that only affected one character much faster than in the main thread

Agreed. That's how I run all my games

Organizing threads by theme I find really helps cut the clutter down and keep things focused. The issue is that players can be lazy or forgetful and not always check the appropriate threads or they check them, defer responding then forget they had something to respond to.

Any system has its issues but pacing is important and keeping players and GMs engaged is important. Keeping frustrations down is also important so gauging what a person wants and needs is important presuming they even know and can articulate that. Or as I have seen are able to even be honest about it. I've seen my share of players claim they want certain things and then do everything else but those.

One problem I have seen in the play-by-post is that the GM won't prod players or move things along when they slow down.

Timing is so hard.

My approach that I 'say' but still struggle with is 'If you don't post I will let you post twice next round' and I kind of blur the NPCs to handle it. It's not precise but it's better than everything grinding to a halt.

Games almost always die in mid combat I find. So the important thing is to stop them dying by means of some velocity.

And as you say: this is a really hard problem. My approach only 'works a bit'

There is a shadowrun anarchy game starting only has 3 players right now.

I don't actually know what anarchy is which is why I didn't apply; What version is it?

It is like a side shoot of SR5, not as detailed, only 5 stats and like 20 skills.

I wanted to join, but I don't have any experience with Anarchy and prefer SR5 as I'm too invested in it.

As much as REM keeps promoting it as an offshoot of SR5, it is its own system set in the Shadowrun Universe using the CUE system which was first introduced with the Valiant RPG. They also used that for MechWarrior: Destiny.

It focuses on Narrative play and while you can play it with a GM, it was designed not to be. As much as they promote the game as a great introduction to Shadowrun, I find you need a better grounding in the universe to fill in the gaps. It is rather free form and can work nicely for a variety of online play formats. If you don't care too much about the universal fluff and gear operating somewhat differently or you have at least one player who can help fill in what's needed, it can be a ton of fun.

I've played and run it as a campaign and it's a nice break for something more casual for me but I prefer crunch in my Shadowrun for the most part. That said, whatever brings you to the table, which ever edition you play that gets you running in the SRU, just enjoy it. We're here to have fun and our form of fun doesn't have to be the same.

I was planning on sitting the discussion out...but when can I ever resist the chance to stick my foot in my mouth?  ^_^

First, I have to echo Jobe00's point about being too invested.   It's one of the longest running with a background (i.e. in game history) that's changed very little since the beginning.   Most of the changes have been good, but not all (I'm looking at you 4e character generation).  It's also one the very few that I feel the need to home-brew the mechanics because I find them either too unwieldy and/or promotes sluggish character evolution: Rifts falls squarely into this category for me on both counts, but that's another story.

As far as running games here....I've been here since the early 2000s, so I'm an old fossil in that regard.    It's impossible to tell exactly what kind of player you're going to end up with based solely on the RTJ.   If you ask for too much, it's entirely possible that you're going to exclude one or more people who would otherwise be perfect.    If you ask too little, you tend to have to play sheep-dog to keep everyone on track.

Which, of course, means....communicate and be up front.   Kinda obvious, but many (especially new) GMs tend to forget it.
This message was last edited by the GM at 03:50, Wed 07 Feb.

World
I prefer other systems to work in the Shadowrun world. I wouldn't really use the massively heavy and optimised for Shadow Run world rules in another game world. It's not the rules I like (they are barely adequate) but the world.

Rules (Rifts comparison)
Just an amusing chat. Nothing to do with the question about 'Anarchy' or REM.  Rifts has a rule system that doesn't work in any situation. Social/Combat/investigation...anything... But great world. Again you can have the world with other rules. I've run games very successfully like that, and played in a few. (Í'd rather that was the other way round!)

Shadow Run's rules do mostly work I think except for hacking. And actually SR5 have mostly fixed that I think: huge improvement over previous games

Play Savage Worlds RIFTS. It's the RIFTS setting with a rule system that actually works.

Now that sounds interesting :) I usually play it with FUDGE. FUDGE is like Fate but a rule system that actually works. But I do like Savage worlds it's fun to play.

I was shocked that Our Man of Mega-Damage allowed RIFTS to be converted to any other system.

Well nothing wrong with mega damage as an idea. It's similar to 'scales of damage' that other systems have. Star Wars D20 for example had 'vehicle scale damage' and for a while I think some editions of shadowrun did too. I like the idea that D4 mega-damage is 'how many trees are utterly destroyed' when you shoot it in a forest. I even had a character with a sword that did something similar once: the damage die was a D6 and that was how many limbs you removed. 5 or 6 meant 'head as well'. Didn't keep the sword long :)

A major problem with rifts for me is the lack of armor repair rules. So since all the hitpoints you have is in your ablative armour (for most people anyway in games I played in), how do you repair / patch it and get hitpoints back?

disposable society, basically you have to buy new armor after every fight.  keeps the npcs in business

In reply to Siran (msg # 220):

My comment was not about Mega-Damage. It is about my amazement that Kevin Sembieda allowed anyone else to put his primary game in any other system.
During the early 2000s d20 boom, Palladium would have been one of the best companies to jump on the d20 bandwagon. They would have made money hand over fist left and right, but Kevin has some incredibly stupid ideas of how IPs work. He won't allow recording devices if he's speaking at a con because he thinks everything he says is his personal IP.

Quick question, if anyone knows the answer:

In the Puyallup section of Seattle 2072 a place called Graham Cracker City is listed as a location but I can't find any further info on it. What is it exactly?  Anyone know?

It's a neighborhood within the district of Puyallup. It's not as common or as familiar as Tarislar or Carbonado. Very little has been written about overall though besides its security rating of E. There may be something in the original 1e CRB or the Seattle Sourcebook for 1e but I don't have mine handy to check.

Hello everybody, glad to join the community.

In reply to Shaman (msg # 224):

When I saw that "Graham Cracker City" the first thing I thought of was, "It's a hacker (decker) hangout!" :)

Both 'cracker' and GCC, which is a compiler. (technically GNU Compiler Collection).

I appreciate the help.  I haven't found anything on it and I have an adventure for my home group that passes through a homebrew version of GCC and I didn't want to contradict anything in canon. Makes me wonder if it showed up in one of the many SR videos games?

I don't think it has turned up anywhere significant. Which makes it a great place to do what you like without impacting any canon stuff

Welcome!

In reply to witchdoctor (msg # 227):

It is your world, in your game.  If you want to tweak the cannon, then dont feel compelled to not do a story line because cannon.

If you want to preserve cannon, then tell the story the way you want, and "fix" it by the BBEG escapes at the last minute, had a protection spell, was actually an imposter, the data was corrupted, the data was made up, it was all a rouse from the beginning.

Have fun and tell a good story.

In reply to witchdoctor (msg # 227):

Here's the great thing about running campaigns. You just have to be internally consistent and keep note of what changes you make.
My Forgotten Realms and Shadowrun deviate from canon as I don't acknowledge the garbage that was 4E D&D and what they did to Toril along with the century time jump. In Shadowrun, I don't care for the meta of SR6 at all, so it won't happen in my games, but I have my own lesser meta plots and their fallout from previous campaigns.

One major example is the Halloweeners get an all new decimation because they made the mistake of seeing a cowboy, a literal one as he was a Changeling Minotaur that looks like a classic Greek Minotaur who was a Texas Ranger, and shot up A Real Barn Burner and Flo's Yellow Rose Seattle. Thanks to warning from Bodacious, the staff at the Yellow Rose cleared out the patrons and the 'Weeners walked into a firefight that only one survived. This little incident pissed off the owner who hired local Seattle talent to deal with the 'Weeners, and war crimes were committed. The tunnels that the 'Weeners used to get from Redmond to Downtown were destroyed along with a couple sections of road in Bellvue, The Lantern House was burned to the ground after everyone inside was slaughtered, several of Nightmare's lieutenants were killed, and Nightmare went into hiding and currently has the undivided attention of the man that founded and runs the Black Ops division of the Texas Rangers, The Shadow Rangers. Eugene wants Nightmare alive so they can have a chat before he's is given a .454 Casull lobotomy. To say the 'Weeners are in disarray and a shadow of their former selves is an understatement.
I just haven't been able to run that part of the saga yet.

In an unrelated bit, one of the runners that did the above was thrown under the bus to a Tir Paladin and blew up Flo's Yellow Rose Seattle. He's someone else Eugene wants a conversation with. That's another plot thread I need to work on.

I have another plot thread of a Troll Adept that became UCAS' Own Personal Trainer disappearing more than a year ago and not being seen since.

All of these plots are just based on old games I played in or campaigns I've run.

In reply to rallenc82 (msg # 225):

Welcome to the group.

What Jobe00 states about being internally consistent within your own canon is important. As well, you need to be certain to share those points with any players who are joining the campaign if they are major points that would be known.

In one campaign I was part of as a player, a co-gm, and for a couple of my games that I run have some major changes. One is Ghostwalker is dead and Denver has been divided up again among several factions after it was invaded by the NAN upon the dragon's death.

A biological weapon keyed to HMHVV was released across the world killing most of those afflicted by it. Because of that Asmando was invaded and is no more.

The big three AIs still exist in some form but this is less well known.

What is kept from the fluff of 6e will be very select but as my campaigns are on hold I haven't had to make those decisions yet.

I agree about having internally consistent canon.  I was just curious if I was missing something from a sourcebook I don't have...

The game in question is set in 2052.  I tweaked the timeline a bit and expanded on some of the political events of the late 20th/early 21st century for clarity.  The game is a more low-key, gritty street level game ported over to the Chronicles of Darkness system.  The characters are currently out on the Mowich Lava Flats tracking someone down for Mr. Johnson.
The GCC is serving as a home base in the search.  It's an old government refugee camp hold-over from the relocation after the Ghost Dance War that's been repurposed into a research & trade outpost for the Lava Flats.  Filled with scientists, prospectors, smugglers and other assorted scum, it's like a ShadowRun Mos Eisley.  It picked up the nickname Graham Cracker City party from it's original monicker, Government Camp C, and the fact that the pre-fab construction materials that made up the "temporary" housing was a waffled dun-colored plastic that vaguely resembled a graham cracker from a distance.

Hey team, any ideas of what you might need in a player concept for a team? Happy to work with you :)

This isn't a Shadowrun game. It's a community where you can meet other players and GMs and hopefully join or start games elsewhere.

Gah, dammit! :D

In reply to witchdoctor (msg # 234):

Something to keep in mind about Shadowrun is that the timeline diverges from reality heavily in 1989 until it was retconned to be divert in minor ways in 1986.

Technology and politics are different because they took different paths from reality. In many ways, Shadowrun was really optimistic.

+1

It is and it isn't.    In many ways, things didn't turn out this way because the government/bureaucracy kept control rather than surrendering power overtly to corporate interests like we see in Shadowrun.  It could be argued that things have certainly moved in that direction, but there's been no real (i.e. foundational) changes in technology since the end of WWII.   As someone put it: It takes the same amount of time to fly from New York to Paris now as it did in the 1950s.....

All our technology improvements are in tinyness. If cars and planes had followed the path of the IT industry we could get from New York to Paris for less than a thimblefull of aviation fuel with a ring of flying in about 1 second.

IT is a pretty foundational change. It has impacted our society in almost everyway. Mobile phones a second huge change. And AI is going to be as impacting as the agricultural revolution or the industrial revolution. And that's not in shadowrun: the AIs there are just 'Gods' and 'Spirits' rather than what we are seeing arriving now which is everywhere including your toothbrush (yes my toothbrush has 'AI' in it)

Around 1980 a car mechanic who was trained by victorians could have maintained a 'modern car'. That's gone now. Not sure when the change was... but I guess around the 1990s..

Sure, computers have done a much better job that people at information collection and control.    Yes, we have improved communication technologies.; I'll give you both.    But those changes have been done with primarily (imo) military applications in mind; and I'm sure that you're aware that what we know as the internet was grown out of the ARPANET, which had specific military applications.

As for cars, they still function the same way and the only major change has been to hook a computer up to every part.   Which ultimately leads to higher costs (both in terms of repair and replacement) as well as faster obsolescence.   From what I was told back around when this change started to take place (in the 1990s as you mentioned); the basics of the car still work the same, they're just now designed so that computers micromanage every component

The whole electric car "crisis" only serves to further my point; the technologies needed for a practical (not hybrid) electric car simply were never developed.   And every (any, really) technology we need for a Star Trek like (i.e. Roddenberry) utopia has yet to reach the public domain.    No, I'm not trying to front some sort of conspiracy; I simply feel that we've been 'stage magicianed' into believing the changes that we've seen represent fundamental improvement when they don't.

But back to Shadowrun.  ^_^

Much of what fills the Cyberpunk genre is strongly influenced by Shadowrun.  One only has to look at movies like Johnny Mnemonic to see.
This message was last edited by the GM at 00:16, Wed 21 Feb.

When I buy my groceries for my grandmother who is in another country I am not buying a gun or bullets. I can support her from a thousand miles away. Every day I use the internet for most of the day. I communicate with people in ten countries on my various work projects. I use AI to support about half of the tasks that I do. Sure the military wanted reliable communications, but so do lots of other things.

I haven't use money for four years ( literally) until I went to India last month. I didn't even have a purse any more... I didn't know what to do with those folding pieces of paper and what is a coin for? I pay for everything with my watch now.

Obsolescence is getting less. My last laptop lasted eight years. This one is already five years old (and it's still kick ass and it will be a few years before I replace it). I've replaced the battery in my mobile and it's five years old (and still response and awesome)

When I was a child we installed a telephone in the house. To talk to other people we often had to 'agree a time' as they would be in a phone box and we would call the phone box. When I went cycling I took coins with me for the phone box and rehearsed how to 'reverse the charges'. And had to remember where the phone boxes where (not every village had one). Now I can talk to my children with a verbal command to my 'PAN' while I am walking in the alps. And I play with them twice a week for a couple of hours even though they are in different countries.

My point about cars was that they haven't progressed the same. As I say if they had we'd get from New York to Paris is one second. But they are no longer understandable or maintainable to people without the dedicated tools. They are entirely computerised.

I think Johny Mnemonic was influenced by William Gibson and maybe Walter Jon Willaims which is I think the source material that Shadowrun came from too. Take a look at this if you haven't read it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_of_the_Whirlwind It's just 'wow' and massively shadowrun although without magic (and came out before)

Gibson is the God of the Cyberpunk universe and Shadowrun is a world in that universe.

The screenplay for the movie Johnny Mnemonic was written by the guy that wrote the short story of the same name, William Gibson. This is why the absolute badass Molly Millions was replaced by the useless Jane character because Molly is tied more to the Neuromancer novel, so he couldn't use her in Johnny Mnemonic.

I cite Johnny's breakdown and rant about wanting room service, which I can recite verbatim, as the perfect example of a corpo losing it after having to slum it.

One major change in Shadowrun is that wireless technology never happened until after Crash 2.0. Crash 1.0 is why phone booths made a comeback in universe and why you see them in the artwork, and land lines were still a thing until the 2060s.

As for the optimism, according to Shadowbeat, all media is controlled by 15 major corps. That's a lot more than now, and didn't get to a similar number until Horizon came on the scene. Frankly, CGL and to a lesser extent FanPro, retconned things to be less optimistic compared to the real world than the FASA crew had predicted. Of course, you can go look at GURPS Cyberworld by Paul R. Hume, and it's not difficult to see things too far off from that shit show of a setting.

In reply to Jobe00 (msg # 238):

SR was groundbreaking in its day.  It was a dystopia for a different age, really, and in retrospect that probably makes it seem more optimistic.
I bought the book in '89 when it came out.  I was about to hang up the RPG hobby because I'd gotten as much mileage out if D&D as I was gonna get but ShadowRun dragged me back in.  It was the first time I'd seen an RPG that featured other Native people that weren't strictly enemies or horde monsters!  The Native representation in ShadowRun was... problematic and really caricatured...but it was at least positive.  That and the rest of the SR world had me hooked.
In the intervening 30-odd years, the alternate history of ShadowRun has evolved a bit and progressed a lot.  A lot of that, I believe, is due to the changing nature of what we consider a dystopia (growing darker as society grows darker.)
Looking back at the SR timeline, there's A LOT of societal issues in there that seemed ridiculously impossible when it was written.  Now? A lot of those elements seem a lot more plausible given the way the actual world is trending.

Does anyone else get a perverse joy out of taking "Poor Sense of Taste" as a Negative Quality and calling their character a COVID survivor? Too soon?

As long as you can tell the difference between poo and chocolate pudding, then you should be in good shape.

COVID didn't happen, but VITAS did, and it was worse. Though considering COVID is still going on (over 2000 deaths a week in the U.S. today) and folks didn't avoid it like the plague, I will once again say the FASA crew were way too optimistic.

In the GURPS Cyberworld setting, you had Tolliver's Disease aka Touchdown which was as bad as VITAS if not worse considering that everyone in Cyberworld's Australia are dead with TD being the primary culprit. No one is willing to go check, but in the aftermath of some Cyberworld games, one full conversion 'borg was last seen in his amphibious APC heading to Australia because he thought it would be safer than the consequences of his murderhobo actions.

In reply to witchdoctor (msg # 246):

Have you tried Coyote and Crow? I have a friend that has been playing and he says its quite excellent.

Yeah!  I backed it from the get-go and was not disappointed one bit!

It's a hefty book!  The system is pretty smooth and the setting is well detailed.  The only thing that I can think of that might be a downside to Coyote & Crow is that there's A LOT of on-boarding to do for players as a setting.  Lots of very different thinking that has to go into running it and playing it.

Hey, anybody wanna run a 6th edition game? I inherited a copy of the rules, but haven't had a chance to play, or even dive too deeply in. :)

Looks like I'm back in charge again for better or worse as Hunter has decided to leave the group again. Wish he would have given me some warning.

Well hello all. Im just looking for a SR5 game for a starting Human, female ~ Mystic Adept character.  Yes I use herolab and have almost every SR5 datapacket for my herolab build.
This message was last edited by the player at 22:03, Wed 17 Apr.

Shame we don't have the SR5 datafiles we were promised when we paid for them before SR6 dropped.

I have basically ALL of SR5 on PDF...

I do have all the SR1-5 PDFs and dead tree copies of SR1-4A.
My comment was about Hero Lab. I will always be salty that I paid money for a data file set that was never fulfilled, and why I am not as much of a fan of Lone Wolf Development these days.

I didn't know about that. Interesting and unpleasant.

I liked the old hero labs but I don't like the way the tool is moving.

The game is unplayable without it though (I don't rate chummer even a little bit and the game is too complex for spreadsheets) for me anyway. I have to admit I play out of nostalgia... there are much better rulesystems out there. (but the game world is great)

I still have a thread on the LWD forums that I used to bump asking about when we would get what was promised. I eventually gave up when it was obvious that it would never be fulfilled.
I have all the datafiles for Pathfinder 1E, M&M2 & 3, and SR4(A) & 5 for Hero Lab Classic. I have some stuff for Hero Lab Online, but I don't have a subscription, so I won't use it.

I had started work converting some earlier edition Shadowrun stuff to HLC datafiles, but I lost them somewhere along the line, so I would have to redo them again after I relearn making HLC datafiles. Unfortunately, I am neither playing nor running anything, so my drive to do so is nonexistent.

I have the M&M 2/3 and the Shadowrun 4/5. I didn't need pathfinder though, because I just use a spreadsheet. While still heavy weight it's doable. And at low levels (where I tend to play) it's not just doable but easy.

If you want a game you could try dumpshock. Old and dated tech but they are welcoming of new people.

In reply to Jobe00 (msg # 253):

Welcome back? =D

Anyone see what happen to hunter? They started a game and suddenly vanished.

In reply to Mortannis (msg # 262):

he took a break from rpol.

In reply to serrasin (msg # 261):

I never left. I became the mod for the group. I'm just back to being the primary again.

I had a shower thought a few weeks back. There has been a true megacorporation, and it wasn't modern.
The East India Company was around for 274 years, and until the UK finally nationalized it, it got to the point it virtually ran the UK government and owned India.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_India_Company

All very true. And the relationship between it and the Dutch equivalent is very interesting. It was a great example of 'it's yours to loose' and they did. Because of the structure of companies and shares the UK won. The Dutch were basically better sailors and exploiters. But the UK structured their mega corp better and thus 'won'. There was a time when Amsterdam was the financial capital of the world.... and lost because of 'how the shares were structured'.

In reply to Mortannis (msg # 262):

Yeah, I kinda snapped....sorry about that.

WB Hunter :)

Welcome back to the shadows, Hunter.

Welcome back, Hunter.

In reply to Hunter (msg # 267):

I hope you are ok.

Not really, but still breathing.   Between things that are going on...I'm managing okay.

---

Change of topic: Has anyone looked into setting up a game that works similar to an adventuring guild?   There's like a job posting board where GMs (and prospective) GMs can post with their game idea; I'm thinking that this might be a good spot for prospective (or otherwise) GMs to get their feet wet.  I think the setup would work well for one shot games as well.

That would sort of be like shadorwun missions community.

I have seen games like it.

I don't recall seeing anything like it, which is why I tossed the idea out.

Okay, so here's how I've roughed out rewards for a corp themed game.   So...hit up the feedback, please.


Karma:   I'd probably leave karma awards alone, including the modifiers.

Nuyen:   Payment per job.   I got thinking of this as a resource allowance rather than straight up cash reward; I'd suggest using the same payout amount.   I'd assuming both Day Job and Corporate SIN Qualities would be tossed in for free.

The characters could use it individually and/or share part of their pool if another character (like the rigger) needs a bit more.  I'd probably let consumables (ammunition, medical supplies, etc) be free as long the character has paid for them (either during character generation or later using resources).

sounds like some company store action.  which could be entirely reasonable.

I'm rediscovering the "magic run" phenomenum in minute detail.   Much like every other game I've run/tried to run; I'm ending up with 2/3 of the applications being for mages.....

Well it is just harder to make a good non magic character.  I’ll give you a non magic character :-)

In reply to Xeriph (msg # 278):

I fell in love with Bioware on first sight, but to borrow a quote from Final Fantasy 9..."Everything costs so much".

I’m going to submit a street Sam sniper for your game.

I am planning on following the general plot-line of the series at least in the beginning, so having seem the entire series (rather than just the trailer) will be a big help.   You'd be surprised how many people forget to actually give the information that I ask for in the RTJ.   That said, I'm hoping other potential GMs will take up the charge with games of their own.

---

(I'll do an edit rather than a new post)  Based on my experience....

You'll put out a new game, stuff like system and posting rate is basically irrelevant.
• If you get 10 RTJs, you can expect 6 to actually have all the information you wanted in the submission.    Note: I'm all in favor of questions, just as long as you actually have all of said information by the end of the submission.
• And out of those 6, you can usually pick one or two right off the bat as the player seems to fit the game concept.    You typically end up having to struggle with and think about the last few spots because those are the toughest.    Note: I've also learned that a session zero is important...too often character idea X doesn't fit so there's a need to do character idea Y instead.

This message was last edited by the player at 02:03, Wed 29 May.

There you go a solid not magic not min maxed and hilarious character submitted.

While i think she would be a riot to play, i understand if you dont like the idea.

I don't do RTJs very often now. My games tend to last for a few years, rarely 10. So I invite people I know through playing to invite and it's a conversation not an interview.  I do have a 'questionaire' but it's mostly about helping the person decide what their character is like

Any tips on playing / Gaming for a character with a 0 social Limit?

Like obviously he fails any rolls but I feel like there is a lot more there narratively.

Type 2 SURGE dumped Cha so I have a -4 Limit from Freak sidebar and only a 3 to begin with.

Well it's easy to play such a character if you are just smashing bad guys. 'Minimal personality' is what we're talking about

How to do that and have a character that's fun to play... Well tabletop is all about the OOC talk, so I'd use this as a tabletop character only. If you feel up to it you could try emulating HK-51 from the star wars game. That could be funny if pulled off... but you need a very friendly and forgiving player group

But that's not the problem. He has a Limit of 0 even if he rolls 10000 dice he still fails.

He's only slightly less actually charming than a standard Street Samurai.

Yes. He's brainless. Incapable of interoperating with other people. In a table top game you can get away with it. In RPOL you need a supportive and friendly group... and even thing I think it's unplayable. *shrug* Just my two cents. If you do want to try you can go with HK-51. Or just do a 'not really there' and not say anything. Depends what you want out of the game. But if it's anything even remotely'cooperative' then I would suggest you need a different toon.

Just because you put the numbers into the spreadsheet doesn't make it playable.

There's nothing narratively there to suggest that. His three eyes and scales don't turn him into a robot. People just don't want to talk to him.

Sure. That was my two cents. Basically everybody dislikes him. You can try rolling die at anypoint to see how much anyone likes him... But he auto fails.

The reference to HK 51 is that HK 51 has no social skills, is clearly psychotic, but is funny.

In reply to Sir Swindle (msg # 288):

I dont think the idea of a 0 social limit really has sunk in.

first you can not succeed on any social roll without spending edge to blow the limit.

second even rolls that are normally auto successful at best are failures, and a 0 limit does not stop glitches or critical glitches as a 0 limit does not mean no roll, it means no successes can be counted, so it you are rolling 1 dice, you have a 1 in 6 critical glitch.

Let me explain this another way, going into a stuffer shack and buying a soy burrito normally takes no roll as even the casual interaction with a cashier is an auto success.  This character cant even buy a burrito from the stuffer shack successfully with 100 neuyen.  Even the most casual interaction of saying hello to someone on the street is a failure, working with a team? nope cant even communicate a plan successfully.

Basically this character is going to be in the looney bin as they can not even talk to people well enough to convince people they are just a moron and not insane.

Good luck with your nice padded cell.

I feel like there suddenly needs to be a house rule of a minimum of 1 on limits in SR5 because even a cyberzombie can interact with people and excel at Intimidation.

Right there are litterally mindless creatures, or even a drone probably, that have better odds of successfully interacting with someone than my Picasso faced three eyed lizard man.

It's prejudice not anything about the way he thinks.

So it should really be any one that doesn't know him well just refuses to interact with him. He can't deal with a land lord, hence why he's a squatter.

I really feel like the Freak section needs to specify face to face interaction.

If i was running this, having a net of 0  for any limit means NPC character as they cant function in society.

0 physical means 0 mobility of any kind
0 mental  well we cant say the word in society for this any more without being descended upon by the mob
0 social means incapable of even the most basic conversation.


Just my opinion

as far as the zombie, being scary is much easier than ordering a burrito :-)
This message was last edited by the player at 20:47, Yesterday.

But they COULD order a burrito if they chose. They just don't want to.

I'm not willing to make any broad statements like that. Just right now I could survive without ever needing to talk to someone. I can order food on my phone, etc.

If your limit is 0 because your stats are 0 then sure. You are dead, braindead, or insane. But 0 from a penalty depends on what is giving the penalty.

I could be a lizard man right now and it wouldn't affect this conversation. So why would the penalty matter.