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Shadowrun: Orks, Hacking, and Samurai
Salvation122
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Shadowrun!
Shadowrun is, without question, my favorite RPG of all time forever. Classless, no encounter levels to deal with, and the flexibility to run anything from what is (essentially) a D&D-esque bunch o' magic game to a grungy group of gangers trying to bust into the distribution market for drugs that are literally nothing more than a four-hour orgasm to a cyberpunk retelling of Ocean's Eleven.
A few resources:
The official Shadowrun web page. Contains upcoming news and previews, as well as links to distributers and ebook vendors.
Dumpshock. Dumpshock is, for all practical purposes, the unofficial Shadowrun web page. It's contributed to by freelancers and WizKids staff who work on the game, and has a wealth of information availible going all the way back to Second Edition. Just be wary when you read their forums - they're full of dumb.
Of special note to new Shadowrun GMs is Blackjack's Page, which while dating from 2E is still an excellent read on how to handle unruly players in the world of megacorporations and cyberware.
If you're still playing Third Ed (and a lot of people do,) the NSRCG is an excellent character creation tool.
More to come later.
Shadowrun is, without question, my favorite RPG of all time forever. Classless, no encounter levels to deal with, and the flexibility to run anything from what is (essentially) a D&D-esque bunch o' magic game to a grungy group of gangers trying to bust into the distribution market for drugs that are literally nothing more than a four-hour orgasm to a cyberpunk retelling of Ocean's Eleven.
A few resources:
The official Shadowrun web page. Contains upcoming news and previews, as well as links to distributers and ebook vendors.
Dumpshock. Dumpshock is, for all practical purposes, the unofficial Shadowrun web page. It's contributed to by freelancers and WizKids staff who work on the game, and has a wealth of information availible going all the way back to Second Edition. Just be wary when you read their forums - they're full of dumb.
Of special note to new Shadowrun GMs is Blackjack's Page, which while dating from 2E is still an excellent read on how to handle unruly players in the world of megacorporations and cyberware.
If you're still playing Third Ed (and a lot of people do,) the NSRCG is an excellent character creation tool.
More to come later.
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I am still undecided as to what the hell is going on with 4th edition
I've run one game since 4E dropped (and hope to get a regular group going soon here at college,) and my feelings were distinctly mixed; combat wasn't quite as deadly, though probably more balanced, and I couldn't quite get my head around the new decking rules (my decker (shut up, it's decker you tool) kept trying to perform full-VR actions in AR, and I kept letting him, and it got real weird real fast.)
Players shouldn't be gunshy about using their rating 2, 3 or 4 skills because they're paranoid about glitching. That makes for extremely un-fun gameplay.
Anybody have a house rule that works in place of the official rule?
I think the main thing was the reworking of tech so it was more up to date with today's stuff and so that you could run deckers at the same time as the rest of the team.
Now.... how's vehicle combat in 4 ed?
EDIT:
Play 3rd Ed?
Also note the difference between a glitch and a critical glitch. A glitch is a setback, a pain in the ass. To use your metaphor, it's akin to burning the meal. A critical glitch sets the kitchen on fire. Confusing the two leads to serious problems.
Mostly I've been having a team of a specops elf + wacky scottish mage and the occasional cybered orc guest-star running around Seattle screwing up in wierd ways.
Calling SR classless is such a horrible lie, though. Everyone has an archetype and there's not a whole lot of leeway outside of them.
I rolled up a human Security Specialist/Face for a game I'm hoping will actually work. He's seeming nifty.
On the non-magic side you've got riggers, you've got deckers, you've got samurais, (skill here) experts, and socialists. Maybe a wide variety of choices, but you really have to specialize to shine, and when it comes right down to it, you're either a caster or a chromy (at least, this is all coming from Salty who's only played in two games and is speaking primarily on behalf of 3rd edition with nothing but core.)
Not really. There are several very necessary roles that need to be filled - you pretty much *need* a combatant, *need* someone with presence on the astral, and *need* a decker. After that, you have *socialists*. Everything else is just variations on those themes.
I'm interested in the pen and paper stuff, but I've no idea where to begin, or what game, even.
Edit: The mechanics are relly easy. I just find trouble in figuring out what skills and attributes to use where.
My experience with Shadowrun is pretty much comprised of SR4 and the SNES game.
Yeah.
Use a glitch to explain some cool shit that happens, that acts as a bump in the road. As in.. the cook doesn't slice off his fingers, He finds he can't find his favorite pan, or starts to overcook his food.
A glitch with no successes is the food catches on fire, one of his employees is late, a runner comes in and puts a gun to his head.
Every dice rolling a 1 is the cook chops off his fingers.
It's all about scale.
(I'll post more when I get established.)
Edit: There's nothing stopping the combat adept from being the face, or the decker from being the magic user (GASP!), or the rigger from being the dumb brute.
The only limitations, seriously, are those that the players place on themselves, and that the GM forces on the campaign.
A good GM will create a scenario that has no definite solution, and let the players scrape out the answer. Sometimes they fail, after all.. but having pre-determined roles lead to holes in those roles, that an enemy can exploit.
As I said in G&T before the drek hit the fan, I picked up Street Magic and Runner Havens on Friday. I'm not far into either, but I've enjoyed what I have read.
Socialist is a political system, it has nothing to do with social skills.
Maybe you should buy a dictionary.
In the old days, we called the social types "fixers"
Been playing since 1st edition, and it's still by far one of my favorite RPG's. There are times when I just get this terrible urge to run Shadowrun. It just pisses me off that no one I know runs it anymore, so I never get to be a player.
I haven't even seen the 4th edition stuff yet. I'm kind of afraid to, because it came out so early after the 3rd edition. I hope they aren't pulling a White Wolf and changing editions just because they want to attract more whiny goths or something.
Fixers don't exactly make for good runners.
Socialist works fine, and it's simpler than saying Social-based Archetype over and over.
First edition: 1988.
+3/4 years
Second edition: 1991/92 (depending on who you ask)
+6/7 years
Third Edition: 1998
+7 years
Fourth Edition: 2005
"So Early?"
(Admittedly, 2 of those years were fubared with the closing of FASA and the transfer to FanPro, but still.)
Edit: Reading through 4th, as I finally have a fluff book.. I see jack and shit that's changed about the game's style. The developers said that 4th was aimed more at getting the game back onto the streets, and lowering the power levels... Well, I still see the names of Great Dragons dropped like a hat, and perhaps moreso.
It seems the only thing that's changed is the Cap is gone.. er.. sorta.
I can vouch for this.
I had a player who made a "fixer" once, was always providing gear to the runners.. and getting them in his debt. He based it on a face archtype with 53 contacts. He never played in one of my games again. (Admittedly, it was my last Shadowrun game, but still.)
Edit: What is this "priority" you speak of? ;-)
I know only the points system, and have only known it since SRComp, Revised came out. I only let players roll priority when it was a time issue.
Adept: You're right, although he's already using B on Magic which will limit either his attributes (he'll need int/cha for Face aspects and str/dex/bod for combat) or his skills (there are quite a few social skills, if you haven't taken a look. My face had to spend 19 of his SP on social skills alone.
Magic using deckers are just obviously not the best choice because as soon as you begin including any cyberware at all, your spellcasting begins to suffer. You're automatically taking a big hit when you decide to branch in those two directions. (And it's pretty costly to cover both A magic and B or C for resources, because Cyberware and Cyberdecks are expensive.)
I haven't looked into riggers much because they don't interest me, but aren't they pretty reliant on Intelligence?
I see problems are going to arise by the fact I'm a 4th edition GM, and everyone's talking 3rd ed. ;-)
Riggers at this point don't really exist in SR4, except for AR-controlled drones and a quick and dirty vehicle system. The next core book on the list to be released is Arsenal, and then Augmentation after that -- Riggers, being the rarest archtype with the most complex rules, follows its tradition of being the last core book.
That said, in 3rd edition the most important stat for riggers was Reaction. This represented them trusting their guts and reacting to situations instead of thinking about it. As Intellegence is one of the stats from which Reaction is derived, it is thus one of the elements riggers need.. But not the only one.
Being a true rigger is intensive on the priority attribute and monetary fronts.
Edit: 4th edition's a lot more friendly to mages being deckers, because your magic attribute starts at 1, instead of 6. Thus, by building your character, the fact that the cyberware is decreasing your magic attribute is less visible. Plus, there's no way in hell you'd survive in 2070 without augmented reality. Luckily, they've made great strides in net meshes and other non-invasive ASIST tech.
If you read through the SR books, you'll notice that a great many of the posters are mages, especially some of the more powerful characters (at least 1 mage comes to mind, and some of the immortal elves). It's not unheard of, and it can be a blast if you don't want to be the uber-god spellslinger someday.
God DAMNIT! Why do I keep trying to type mage?
Fucking Fedora & Glasses wearing jerks. (anyone get the reference? =P )
I meant dragons. What's the name of the info-obsessed one out of Ireland?
... Wait. Wasn't his company one of the ones that merged into NeoNET?
Same goes for shifters, really. I didn't see fox shifters mentioned in that book, but there was definitely a fox shifter in the SNES game.
There are no fox shifters. The SNES game should not be taken as canon.
I'll go scour the companion some more.
Unfortunately, most of the lore for these things has been published in so many books, so many times, that tracking down a definitive explination is actually hard.
The SRComp has a great writeup on shapeshifters, but more information on HMHVV and shifters can be found in the Critters GM supplement for 3rd. Beyond that, I'd just look around Dumpshock.. I believe they have a wiki by now, and at the very least Ancient History would be able to answer your questions.
With that out of the way...
HMHVV
I've heard so many different conflicting reports on the source of the vampiric virus, that I can't really make heads or tails of them. It is essentially a virus that causes its victim to live off the essense of others. There are 4-5 different strains of it, each causing a different effect and reaction (which somehow differs from metahuman to metahuman). All also tend to degrade the intellegence and faculties of its victim, although that is not universal.
Shapeshifters:
Intellegent (or semi-intellegent) Paracritters that can assume human shape. Many NAN countries award them citizenship and legal rights, but the UCAS does not. Always remember, though, that they are animals first... and clothing does not meld into their bodies like it does in the SNES Game.
I can refute this.
I had a very successful player who played a Fixer. You just have to play your part correctly. He rarely got into combat, and acted as the team negotiator. He was able to not only buy off a gang that was sent to attack the team, but he also hired them a little later on when they needed a little extra security. It's all in how you play the character. If you go headlong into combat like an asshat with a character like that, then you get what you deserve. If you hide behind full cover and tell the Merc to get his ass out there while you call for a little backup, then you are playing it right. He basically took a lot of social skills, language skills and that sort of thing, and then he spent the rest of his money on expensive (but armored) clothing and contacts. Lots and lots of contacts. Later on, he got the Tailored Pheremones from the Shadowtech book, and that helped a lot. But he rarely ever got into combat, because he knew his place.
To answer the Priority question: Priority was the way that they did distribution in the first two editions. Instead of using a point pool system, you assigned priorities on this kind of retarded chart. It basically meant that no matter what you did, you were totally screwed on something. It also made it so that the less money you had, the less points you had to spend on spells or PA abilities. Personally, I got used to it, but once I tried the point system, I liked it much better. I had fewer and fewer players bitching.