An operation to foil a kidnapping plot by having a cyberized operative stand in for the target with a prosthetic body replica of the intended victim
An investigation of suspicious terms in a will, it ends up a maid of the wealthy estate murdered the estate holder and swapped her cyber brain into his body and has been posing as him, changing the terms of the will as a plan to make off with the money
An investigation into a eco-hacktivist group that ends up being a false-flag by an energy company executive who is using it to manipulate stock prices, perhaps with the help of some useful idiots who think they're saving the planet
A seemingly run-of-the-mill crypto investor exit scam that was actually part of a massive money laundering scheme to move oligarchs' money out of a currently heavily sanctioned country (yes yes this one is a little close to home)
A ring of teenage live streamers who have been taking on progressively more disruptive and dangerous dares and getting increasingly popular, the streaming company is secretly encouraging it and legally protecting them because it has been really good for revenues
A company lauding their development of the first fully-conscious AI robot line, it ends up it's a scam and the robots contain human cyberbrains from trafficked refugees who have been blackmailed into playing along
I gotta come up with a GITS style plot for the sunday after this one.
God it's hard to do GITS mysteries, please fill me with your wisdom so I can have more variety.
(Suggest post cyberpunk cop plots, my current one is about overreach to access a banks records before they can doctor them for court)
Decades ago a billionaire uploaded his consciousness to what was at the time expected to be the most popular and future proof technology, the blockchain. His descendants inherited his empire, but also the responsibility for maintaining the chain. Unfortunately, new information has revealed that the chain forked years ago, and there's a cult of ape-masked followers causing havoc who may have legitimate claim to the assets of a massive corp. The ghosts (in the machines) of Noel Reeke must be busted.
Medical insurance company that directs people to a compromised clinic where their good cyber organs are cut out and sold on the black market and replaced with low quality organs harvested from transient populations, with a thin veneer of presentation slapped on them to look high quality.
Social Engineering penetration team that gains access to required information by implanting false memories directly into the cyber brains of their marks, causing them to trust the Pen team and disclose the required information. The Pen team moves on with zero care for the long term fallout caused by the forcibly implanted memories.
A precinct has suspiciously high case closure and conviction rates, it ends up they're using warrantless brain tapping to create entrapment scenarios.
Suspicious coma-like symptoms are experienced by a large number of cyberized individuals who are all short-term hospitalized for no apparent reason, it ends up that the only connection between all the patients is that they were registered voters for the same political party and the duration of the coma coincided with Election Day.
I gotta come up with a GITS style plot for the sunday after this one.
God it's hard to do GITS mysteries, please fill me with your wisdom so I can have more variety.
(Suggest post cyberpunk cop plots, my current one is about overreach to access a banks records before they can doctor them for court)
Religious cult that turns people’s cyber brains into crypto mining rigs during their trance like prayer sessions.
Somewhere Neal Stephenson just sat up and sniffed the air.
Way more Charles Stross's bag nowadays. Stephenson....well he wrote some interesting books last, I was gonna say decade but looking at the list, this century? If you like psuedo historical fiction.
Termination Shock felt half blueprint for some insane billionaire to fix the climate and half prayer/wish/dream for that to happen all while admitting that somebody was gonna get fucked in the process.
Was looking through meetup for some local boardgame eventgs and found one for Backgammon Chouette that included this:
"Depending on who shows and their experience level, we will mostly be playing with a "no consult before the cube" rule, definitely with the Jacoby rule (no gammons unless a cube has been offered and taken), and Beavers allowed."
Was looking through meetup for some local boardgame eventgs and found one for Backgammon Chouette that included this:
"Depending on who shows and their experience level, we will mostly be playing with a "no consult before the cube" rule, definitely with the Jacoby rule (no gammons unless a cube has been offered and taken), and Beavers allowed."
I gotta come up with a GITS style plot for the sunday after this one.
God it's hard to do GITS mysteries, please fill me with your wisdom so I can have more variety.
(Suggest post cyberpunk cop plots, my current one is about overreach to access a banks records before they can doctor them for court)
Religious cult that turns people’s cyber brains into crypto mining rigs during their trance like prayer sessions.
Almost literally out of SAC there, they have a pachinko parlor rigged up like that (the payouts increase while they're borrowing people's brains apparently)
Was looking through meetup for some local boardgame eventgs and found one for Backgammon Chouette that included this:
"Depending on who shows and their experience level, we will mostly be playing with a "no consult before the cube" rule, definitely with the Jacoby rule (no gammons unless a cube has been offered and taken), and Beavers allowed."
Pretty sure this is actually just Calvinball.
Those beavers have me worried, though.
0
ShadowenSnores in the morningLoserdomRegistered Userregular
I gotta come up with a GITS style plot for the sunday after this one.
God it's hard to do GITS mysteries, please fill me with your wisdom so I can have more variety.
(Suggest post cyberpunk cop plots, my current one is about overreach to access a banks records before they can doctor them for court)
Religious cult that turns people’s cyber brains into crypto mining rigs during their trance like prayer sessions.
This honestly might be the plot of my next episode.
"The government recognized financial disparities.
You, the Panopticon team investigate that with no respect for banks rights"
Out of curiosity, what system are you playing this in? My current cyberpunk campaign is in Shadowrun but running a game that is much more straight-up GitS is really appealing to me.
Was looking through meetup for some local boardgame eventgs and found one for Backgammon Chouette that included this:
"Depending on who shows and their experience level, we will mostly be playing with a "no consult before the cube" rule, definitely with the Jacoby rule (no gammons unless a cube has been offered and taken), and Beavers allowed."
Pretty sure this is actually just Calvinball.
Oh nah, it's all pretty basic backgammon scoring. It's played with a 2/4/8/16/32/64 cube that basically lets you go double or quits at any time and keep going, basically betting on how well you can finish the round you've already started, or offering your opponent a chance to concede if you just whacked 'em one.
"No consult before the cube" means that you're playing a team game but until somebody's offered to double stakes they can't collude with their teammates.
Gammons and backgammons are flawless and EX flawless victories; winning without your opponent shedding any checkers, or with that plus they've still got some on their bar or backline. They count for double or triple - Jacoby's a variant where that's only true if somebody doubled up already, probably to increase the number of games that get conceded out of neutral, rather than somebody hoping to push a lucky streak into a double payout for a flawless victory.
When you double, you can't raise the stakes again; the cube stays with your opponent until they decide to raise you. Beavers are a variant of this that lets you immediately accept, double up again, and keep the die. (Raccoons, not mentioned are a further variant that lets you immediately redouble a die your opponent accepted and doubled.)
Masks is a game about teenage superheroes. There are a variety of potential settings available, and while you don't necessarily have to be a teenager, usually the biggest flex on that is just to make someone who's a teenager in alien years. Your identity needs to be as in flux and your place in society as uncertain as a reference Earth teenager.
Also, still looking for more than one taker for this. If you've got availability on an EST Sunday, why not stop by?
Grabbed the Shadowrun 6th World bundle on Bundle of Holding recently. I think I've confirmed I never want to run Shadowrun. It has rules for how big of a hole you're going to shoot in something based on your weapon's attack rating and the object's structure rating (divided by 2 of course). But then the spells are: Do Damage, Do Area Damage. Do Damage and Light them on Fire, Do Area Damage and Light them on Fire. Utterly uninspired stuff. But the On Fire condition has a number! And you have to reduce that number to 0 to not be on fire anymore. Who wants to track all this shit?
Maybe it's like D&D 4E in that it reads really poorly but plays better?
Unfortunately I went in for the bigger bundle, so I think I wasted money on some more detailed books that I don't care about. Maybe the setting book is OK.
Grabbed the Shadowrun 6th World bundle on Bundle of Holding recently. I think I've confirmed I never want to run Shadowrun. It has rules for how big of a hole you're going to shoot in something based on your weapon's attack rating and the object's structure rating (divided by 2 of course). But then the spells are: Do Damage, Do Area Damage. Do Damage and Light them on Fire, Do Area Damage and Light them on Fire. Utterly uninspired stuff. But the On Fire condition has a number! And you have to reduce that number to 0 to not be on fire anymore. Who wants to track all this shit?
Maybe it's like D&D 4E in that it reads really poorly but plays better?
Unfortunately I went in for the bigger bundle, so I think I wasted money on some more detailed books that I don't care about. Maybe the setting book is OK.
Oof. Sixth World was really not well received at all by the Shadowrun player community. Not only were the rules bad but the editing was terrible. Here's a multiperson teardown of the whole thing if you like rulebook trainwrecks:
Played a 5e one shot today! Sort of. The DM hasn't DM'd for us before, and hasn't DM'd at all in 40 years, and
he had us all roll up level 1 characters that had to be either halflings, gnomes, or dwarves. Two of us were halflings (I was a fighter, the other was a wizard), the other was a half-drow/half-gnome (he was a rogue). Started off at a campfire overlooking a valley. We watched our childhood heroes, The Magnificent 7, fight a huge 5 headed dragon over a big magic gem down in said valley. It killed them all, but before the last one died she broke a staff over her knee and there was an explosion like a mini nuke that left only a crater and the big magic gem (unharmed). We approached and the gem zapped is all and sucked us into it!
We woke up in a cave, and the other two couldn't feel their magic and all our magic items were inert (the DM had us each start with a +1 item of some sort). We heard yelling and explosions, so we crept to the cave mouth to see a desert unlike anything we'd ever seen before spread out before us, and two horses hitched to a wagon and two groups of men fighting with wands and staves made of wood and metal that cast explosions and struck people down. Two of them hid in the cave and saw us, but since we didn't make any hostile moves they turned back to the fight. Eventually the people in the cave won, and they sat with us while we cycled through various languages to try and figure out a way to communicate. Turns out we should've tried common first lol. They asked us why we looked so strange and where we came from and why were children out by themselves in the desert anyways? Eventually they left and we were visited by a projection of a demigod who told us we needed to get the gem back because we were on another plane of existence and only with the gem could he return us. We went to the wagon and looted the bodies and the demigod filled out minds with the knowledge to use the strange objects.
Then the DM pulled out character sheets for a game called Boot Hill and we ended up playing that. Went to a western town and had a gunfight in a saloon, saw a doc after nearly dying in that fight, then bought some clothes to fit in with the locals and got drugged and put in jail at the nearby Dudley Ranch. Broke out of jail, murdered a ton of people (using a weird hybrid mishmash of D&D 5e and Boot Hill rules since we got our magic back), recovered the gem, stole some horses and made our escape back to the cave.
It was dumb and fun! Though having to roll to hit (with tons of modifiers for if you're wounded, distance, if you're moving and how fast, if they're moving and how fast, if there's cover, what your skill with the gun is, etc.), then rolling to see where you hit, then rolling to see how much damage your hit did, was all a gigantic pain in the ass!
My recommendation for starting with GMing Shadowrun 6e is don't.
But my recommendation if you've already committed to playing Shadowrun 6e and your players aren't sticklers for the rules is to play it a la carte and use the rules you like and drop the ones you don't care about, at least to start.
On a basic level it's pick a stat, pick a skill (or pick 2 stats), add them together and roll it; use 1/3/5/7/9 hits for DCs
Pare edge actions down to just the most useful ones. Realistically my players have only ever used 1 to reroll a die after a roll, 4 to do the big add edge stat + exploding 6s roll before a roll, and 5 to negotiate for a special effect (eg, I've had a player spend 5 edge to get another combat round after they should've fallen unconscious from neurotoxin, or to retroactively have spent their money to buy an item in the past that would've been useful in this situation, etc).
Ignore AR and DR completely and instead just award edge situationally unless your player specifically requests it (and encourage your players state their case for why they might get edge in any particular situation).
If you can help it try to limit your encounters/party to just a couple of the various combat situations/specialties (regular combat, rigging, matrix combat, vehicle combat, magic combat, summoning, astral combat) at the start, and then introduce more of these aspects into the campaign as you and your players get more comfortable with the rules.
+2
AthenorBattle Hardened OptimistThe Skies of HiigaraRegistered Userregular
Grabbed the Shadowrun 6th World bundle on Bundle of Holding recently. I think I've confirmed I never want to run Shadowrun. It has rules for how big of a hole you're going to shoot in something based on your weapon's attack rating and the object's structure rating (divided by 2 of course). But then the spells are: Do Damage, Do Area Damage. Do Damage and Light them on Fire, Do Area Damage and Light them on Fire. Utterly uninspired stuff. But the On Fire condition has a number! And you have to reduce that number to 0 to not be on fire anymore. Who wants to track all this shit?
Maybe it's like D&D 4E in that it reads really poorly but plays better?
Unfortunately I went in for the bigger bundle, so I think I wasted money on some more detailed books that I don't care about. Maybe the setting book is OK.
My understanding with regards to Jason Hardy & Co. is that they wanted to simplify magic (which used to have a lot of different dimensions) and matrix, but combat.. well, why break a "good" thing? Yes.. the blasting holes in things rules suck, as do the knockback rules. They are there mostly to give options between realistic gameplay (where bullets actually don't leave much behind) and movie-like gameplay (where you can shoot a huge hole in a wall). It's something that should be handled at the speed of plot... But, well... it's not.
Question for those with greater spell jammer knowledge than me: can a spelljammer run on psionics? I know they use points instead of slots but I figure they must on account of so many spelljammer races being psionic. Mindflayer in particular ostracize any who dare study arcane magic so...
The reason for this question is the recent animated spellbook That ended with a non-magical character stuck on Dark Sun after an unfortunate encounter. I'm wondering if to get off of dark sun he would need to somehow convince one of the mad sorcerer king guys that I've heard so much about or if the relatively common psionic character would do.
I don't know the Official Lore but I don't see why you couldn't find a spelljammer designed to run on psionics
maybe call it a psyjammer then
BahamutZERO on
0
Zonugal(He/Him) The Holiday ArmadilloI'm Santa's representative for all the southern states. And Mexico!Registered Userregular
Tonight during D&D my players were tasked with investigating the disappearance of three temple-orphans. Their investigation brought them to a local music festival.
Upon entering they ascertained that the children were stolen below into the Shadow Maze, the eternal underground labyrinth that rests below the entire continent. My players, upon learning about the Shadow Maze, immediately cussed me out because they know they are going to get eaten in a classic dungeon crawl.
Oh, also at the music festival? They learned that Faygo exists in every reality of the multiverse (and as a result was obviously being sold at the festival), and they spoke to a man so high on drugs that I just reenacted this skit from Key & Peele:
I sent my parents Railroad Inks Blue and Green for Christmas with the thought that --after returning to the States {having obtained a copy of Lush Green (with the Engineer expansion!) for my sister and then myself}-- it would be opportunity for my sister/niece, my parents, and my partner and I to play on video chat.
... That would require being a better correspondent, but we'll get there. Too much luck for my partner on first play, but maybe he'll like it better adding the Renovation die. At least I know my sister really likes the game!
I'm also brainstorming the easiest way to play Hive remotely.
I'm thinking of drawing up a hex grid and numbering it a la chess... I suppose we do have a Chessex map, but that's a bit of overkill. Ah, bless, of course some bright spark has done up a version. https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2085807/hive-gridboard
But I like the idea of getting arty with it, so I'll probably get out my markers if and when I follow through.
I do not have a webcam, but we still have our PS3 Eye & Eye of Judgment camera stand (wait, do we? ... May have donated that, actually), so I bet there's a USB or Bluetooth compatible camera that will fit the stand. but that's a problem to solve, again, if I get there.
Meanwhile, I'm turning forty soon, and I'm thinking of ticking off some of the RPG wishlist. 2-player GMless in a theme I'm interested in are low on the ground, but solo and 3+ are bountiful.
For efficiency, I could combine two of them (Apothecaria and Scurry) and pick up Apawthecaria.
More efficiency, the highlights:
Also meanwhile, we are playing Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Detective and having a ball. The case scoring rules actively hamper the (rather enjoyable) gameplay, so we're just chucking that out; Sherlock's wild leaps of logic would never hold up in court, we are much more thorough in chasing leads.
Skrk! the Rat, having killed one of Tiamat's priests, also several incapacitated cultists, will spend the night in the woods recuperating with the rest of the players.
When they get back to mini-town they'll find it scorched by dragons with the villagers running away. Tall plinths with Skrk!'s face demanding her head will be set around the debris and her patron Bojax will inform her she done goofed hard. Again.
From there a tall Elf woman basically becomes there exposition boss. She will essentially be the Adventure Zone equivalent boss sending everyone on missions I don't care that I'm stealing.
From there the plan is to have, after stopping Tiamat, prevent cultists from raising six other destructive gods from different pantheons.
Question for those with greater spell jammer knowledge than me: can a spelljammer run on psionics? I know they use points instead of slots but I figure they must on account of so many spelljammer races being psionic. Mindflayer in particular ostracize any who dare study arcane magic so...
The reason for this question is the recent animated spellbook That ended with a non-magical character stuck on Dark Sun after an unfortunate encounter. I'm wondering if to get off of dark sun he would need to somehow convince one of the mad sorcerer king guys that I've heard so much about or if the relatively common psionic character would do.
I believe psionics would be fine, but I don't have my Spelljammer book in front of me to check so I could be wrong. Might take a specialized helm to use psionics instead of magic.
There are other problems with Spelljamming in Dark Sun though, and that has to do with it's crystal shell. It is located in a remote region of the Phlogiston, far away from any known space lanes, and the shell itself has no openings in or out and magic does not work on it. But a DM can change what they want; perhaps magic doesn't affect the shell but psionics does.
Even if the DM doesn't change anything, there are apparently a lot of celestial objects in Athasspace that could lead to fun adventures. They aren't detailed in any way, leaving possibilities open for all sorts of shenanigans
I gotta come up with a GITS style plot for the sunday after this one.
God it's hard to do GITS mysteries, please fill me with your wisdom so I can have more variety.
(Suggest post cyberpunk cop plots, my current one is about overreach to access a banks records before they can doctor them for court)
Religious cult that turns people’s cyber brains into crypto mining rigs during their trance like prayer sessions.
This honestly might be the plot of my next episode.
"The government recognized financial disparities.
You, the Panopticon team investigate that with no respect for banks rights"
Out of curiosity, what system are you playing this in? My current cyberpunk campaign is in Shadowrun but running a game that is much more straight-up GitS is really appealing to me.
I’m running this using a custom system called Panopticon. I can send you the play test docs if you’d like. Being meaning to type up a more formal version of them anyways.
The core mechanic is a die pool where each Problem opposing success in your roll is a dice. The more skilled you are the smaller the dice is in size
Then roll and anything over half the value (so a 4+ for a d6) is discarded. The remaining pool is your Result that the GM can spend to generate consequences (4 is the cost of outright failure).
It’s designed to be very free wheeling and to portray hyper competent action folk in the vibe of GiTS, Cowboy Bebop or Resident Evil.
Question for those with greater spell jammer knowledge than me: can a spelljammer run on psionics? I know they use points instead of slots but I figure they must on account of so many spelljammer races being psionic. Mindflayer in particular ostracize any who dare study arcane magic so...
The reason for this question is the recent animated spellbook That ended with a non-magical character stuck on Dark Sun after an unfortunate encounter. I'm wondering if to get off of dark sun he would need to somehow convince one of the mad sorcerer king guys that I've heard so much about or if the relatively common psionic character would do.
I believe psionics would be fine, but I don't have my Spelljammer book in front of me to check so I could be wrong. Might take a specialized helm to use psionics instead of magic.
There are other problems with Spelljamming in Dark Sun though, and that has to do with it's crystal shell. It is located in a remote region of the Phlogiston, far away from any known space lanes, and the shell itself has no openings in or out and magic does not work on it. But a DM can change what they want; perhaps magic doesn't affect the shell but psionics does.
Even if the DM doesn't change anything, there are apparently a lot of celestial objects in Athasspace that could lead to fun adventures. They aren't detailed in any way, leaving possibilities open for all sorts of shenanigans
Spelljams is from the old times, where literally everything got stats. I definitely remember psi, sorcery and ki powered helms. There was even stuff like using magic blood to run the ship so an ordinary pilot could circumvent the requirements.
I would say you’d need to bore a hole in the crystal shell to get out, but hey, all those well travelled places had to have something happen to start it all off…
2. I'm not super familiar with small scale rpg stuff but I do know one of those. The Quiet Year is amazing. Absolutely beautiful little game.
3. Our current favorite 2 player boardgame stuff btw. Clank Acquisition Inc. is a fun little legacy deck builder with a board component. Isle of Cats, Tetris with cats on a boat. Near & Far another little legacy type game, we adore the art style that the creator has throughout all his games, which are all good.
4. If your folks like Railroad Ink they might enjoy the Welcome To games. Floorplan as well, my current favorite roll and write.
5. Cycling back to 2 player or smaller stuff. Some quickish standbys for us. Hardback (or paperback), Burgle Bros, Azul.
2. I'm not super familiar with small scale rpg stuff but I do know one of those. The Quiet Year is amazing. Absolutely beautiful little game.
3. Our current favorite 2 player boardgame stuff btw. Clank Acquisition Inc. is a fun little legacy deck builder with a board component. Isle of Cats, Tetris with cats on a boat. Near & Far another little legacy type game, we adore the art style that the creator has throughout all his games, which are all good.
4. If your folks like Railroad Ink they might enjoy the Welcome To games. Floorplan as well, my current favorite roll and write.
5. Cycling back to 2 player or smaller stuff. Some quickish standbys for us. Hardback (or paperback), Burgle Bros, Azul.
The One Ring peeps just sent out some stretch goal PDFs to the Kickstarter backers, one of which is for Strider Mode. It's for solo or 2-3 player GM-less play, and it was designed by Shawn Tomkin (Ironsworn) and Matt Click (The Mecha Hack), so if you think that sounds neat you might see if you can find someone to share a copy.
Question for those with greater spell jammer knowledge than me: can a spelljammer run on psionics? I know they use points instead of slots but I figure they must on account of so many spelljammer races being psionic. Mindflayer in particular ostracize any who dare study arcane magic so...
The reason for this question is the recent animated spellbook That ended with a non-magical character stuck on Dark Sun after an unfortunate encounter. I'm wondering if to get off of dark sun he would need to somehow convince one of the mad sorcerer king guys that I've heard so much about or if the relatively common psionic character would do.
I believe psionics would be fine, but I don't have my Spelljammer book in front of me to check so I could be wrong. Might take a specialized helm to use psionics instead of magic.
There are other problems with Spelljamming in Dark Sun though, and that has to do with it's crystal shell. It is located in a remote region of the Phlogiston, far away from any known space lanes, and the shell itself has no openings in or out and magic does not work on it. But a DM can change what they want; perhaps magic doesn't affect the shell but psionics does.
Even if the DM doesn't change anything, there are apparently a lot of celestial objects in Athasspace that could lead to fun adventures. They aren't detailed in any way, leaving possibilities open for all sorts of shenanigans
Spelljams is from the old times, where literally everything got stats. I definitely remember psi, sorcery and ki powered helms. There was even stuff like using magic blood to run the ship so an ordinary pilot could circumvent the requirements.
I would say you’d need to bore a hole in the crystal shell to get out, but hey, all those well travelled places had to have something happen to start it all off…
Yup, found the relevant passages from the old book. Spoiled for huge wall o' text:
Series helms
Cost: 75,000 gp (per linked helm)
Series helms are the invention of
the ill ithids (mind flayers) , but the
idea has been adapted for a number
of races with spell-like abilities and
no levels of experience. Series helms
look like the gamut of major and mi-
nor helms, running from simple -
looking to ornate, but unlike the
spelljamming helms , the series
helms can be linked together, one to
another , to increase their power .
For each helm in a series manned
by a mind flayer (or whatever crea -
ture the helm is designed for) , th e
ship has an SR of 1. If there are three
mind flayers in a series , then the ship
has an SR of 3. In general, mind
flayer ships will have between two
and five series helms , though they
may not all be occupied. Empty
helms in a series are ignored in figur-
ing SR.
If a mind flayer in a series helm is
slain, then the series is broken for
one round and the ship loses all
power and movement. Further , all
mind flayers in the series must save
against magic or be slain as well.
Series helms vary from species to
species, but in general are inferior to
spelljammer helms, at best able to
move 50 tons, on par with a minor
spelljammer helm. Their lower limi-
tation is a 5-ton ship; they cannot
move items smaller than that.
Series helms save against all dam -
age on a 3; they are not quite as
tough as spelljammer helms , but al-
most. Spelljammer helms cannot
work on the same ship with operat -
ing series helms and vice versa , but a
spelljammer helm can be installed
on a ship that previously used a se-
ries helm without problem (as long
as the two do not co-exist on the
same ship. If they do, neither func-
tions at all) .
Series helms were developed ei-
ther by the illithids or by the Arcane
with the illithids in mind (accounts
vary according to the situation).
There are other series helms for
those social creatures with spell-like
abilities, except for the beholders ,
who have found their own solution.
Pool Helm s
Cost: 500 ,000 gp (mind flay ,ers only)
A recent development of the il-
lithid collective mind , the pool helm
uses the natural life -pool of the mind
flayers to power the ships , as op-
posed to illithids themselves. Such
ships have an automatic SR of 5 and
are used primarily as transports for
illithid Great Old Ones . The pool
counts as two crew members. Sev-
era I nautiloid ships have been
equipped with pool helms and there
are rumors of larger mind flayer
ships, as the pool allows larger ships
to be powered. Current rumored
maximum size of such a ship would
be 200 tons, but this is hearsay and
speculation .
Orbus
Cost: 300 ,000 gp (beholders only)
The orbu s is a living being that
functions much like a series helm on
the beholder tyrant ships. For each
living orbus (maximum of five for the
typical tyrant ship) , the ship has an
SR of 1.
The orbi are usually found near the
center of a beholder ship, surround-
ing the Great Mother or Hiveleader of
the ship. If an orbus is slain, the SR is
diminished by 1, and if all orbi are
lost, then the ship loses all power.
Orbi appear as blind beholders,
with milky skin over all their eyes.
They are pale and practically help-
less on their own. They have been
bred by the spacefaring beholder fac-
tions to serve and serve well-they
have almost no will of their own .
A single orbus can create spell -
jamming energy for 20 tons of ship,
two to a limit of 40 tons and three or
more to a limit of 60 tons. If insuffi-
cient orbi exist, then the SR of the
ship is 1.
Given the simplicity of beholder
ships , it seems possible that human-
oid races could make use of the or-
bus as well , either as a primary or
back-up system. The beholders
guard their orbi carefully, and would
rather disintegrate them than see
them turned over to other races. The
above price is what an Arcane or be-
holder of another faction would pay
for an orbi .
Furnaces
Cost: 100,000 gp
An early and primitive form of
spelljamming helm still used in
some areas, furnaces take their
power not from living spell energy
but from magical items. Th e items
are fed into the furnace (and de-
stroyed) to power the ship . Items
which cannot be destroyed by fire are
unaffected and retain their spells and
spell-like abilities.
As a rule of thumb, for every 1,000
xp an item is worth , the furnace will
function for one week at SR 2. On
long voyages this becomes an expen-
sive proposition . The SR can be
boosted to 3 by sacrificing more than
one item simultaneously but there is
a 25% chance that the furnace will
explode and cause 10-100 points of
damage in a 30-foot radiu s.
Furnaces are old devices, found
mostly on ghost ships and crashed
hulks. They are thought to be an
early version developed by the Ar-
cane, then abandoned. They are lim -
ited solely to travel within a crystal
sphere , as exposure to phlogiston
causes an immediate explosion (20-
200 points of damage, 45-foot ra-
dius). A chill fire spell will reduce this
to normal devastation.
Artifurnaces
Cost: priceless
An artifurnace is the u ltimate
stage of the development of t he
furnace-a magically-po wered spell-
jamming device which d raws it s
power from a magical artifa ct. Each
is a custom-made devic e tailor ed to
contain and siphon energ y fro m a
specific artifact. Because an artifact
is practically eternal , th e powe r de-
rived from it is equally so.
Once installed , an artifurn ace pro -
vides SR 5 for as long as needed.
Both artifurnace and artifact are un-
damagable as long as they remain to -
gether (though the ship th ey are in is
not). The artifurnace is dest roye d if
the artifiact is ever remo ved, how-
ever.
Artifurnaces are extr emely rare,
on the level with artifa ct s them -
selves. They also have the diffi cult y
of attracting the attention of those
powers tied to the Artif act being
used. Should an artifurn ace be
hooked up to the Eye of Vecna ,
Greyhawk's immortal lich will lik ely
come looking for it (or send fri ends
in the various spheres wher e th e ship
visits in order to recover it). No mor e
than a double handful of artifurnac es
are recorded as having exi sted, and
almost all of them are destro yed or
hidden . Where they have app eared,
they have created in surr ec tion as
every captain in the area att emp ts to
seize it for himself.
Lifejammers
Cost: 80 ,000 gp
The lifejammer is a very special -
ized and evil type of spelljammin g
helm which feeds off th e li fe energy
of an individual placed insid e (usu-
ally against his will). Th e lif ej amm er
can function on any cr eatur e wit h hit
points, but drains the lif e out of th e
creature placed within.
For every day of operation, the li-
fejammer sucks 1-8 hit points from
the target. These hit points cannot be
regained by healing while the indi -
vidual is within the lifejammer. In ad-
dition for every day of operation (or
fraction thereof) the lifejammer 's vic-
tim must save versus death or perish.
An individual with good hit points
and saving throws is preferred , but a
ready supply of weak characters can
be just as useful.
A lifejammer engine gives the ship
an SR as if the creature placed within
was a wizard using a minor helm. A
lif ejammer drawing energy from an
8th level fighter, for example, will op -
erate as if an 8th level mage was at
the helm.
Lifejammers are believed to be an
invention of the neogi, who use mul-
tiple lifejammers in powering their
mindspider ships. Other evil races,
including undead , have been known
to use lifejammers as well. Good
races and characters are very relu c-
tant to use a lifejammer except in
emergencies, and then are careful to
remove the character from the de-
vice before his life is endangered.
Played a 5e one shot today! Sort of. The DM hasn't DM'd for us before, and hasn't DM'd at all in 40 years, and
he had us all roll up level 1 characters that had to be either halflings, gnomes, or dwarves. Two of us were halflings (I was a fighter, the other was a wizard), the other was a half-drow/half-gnome (he was a rogue). Started off at a campfire overlooking a valley. We watched our childhood heroes, The Magnificent 7, fight a huge 5 headed dragon over a big magic gem down in said valley. It killed them all, but before the last one died she broke a staff over her knee and there was an explosion like a mini nuke that left only a crater and the big magic gem (unharmed). We approached and the gem zapped is all and sucked us into it!
We woke up in a cave, and the other two couldn't feel their magic and all our magic items were inert (the DM had us each start with a +1 item of some sort). We heard yelling and explosions, so we crept to the cave mouth to see a desert unlike anything we'd ever seen before spread out before us, and two horses hitched to a wagon and two groups of men fighting with wands and staves made of wood and metal that cast explosions and struck people down. Two of them hid in the cave and saw us, but since we didn't make any hostile moves they turned back to the fight. Eventually the people in the cave won, and they sat with us while we cycled through various languages to try and figure out a way to communicate. Turns out we should've tried common first lol. They asked us why we looked so strange and where we came from and why were children out by themselves in the desert anyways? Eventually they left and we were visited by a projection of a demigod who told us we needed to get the gem back because we were on another plane of existence and only with the gem could he return us. We went to the wagon and looted the bodies and the demigod filled out minds with the knowledge to use the strange objects.
Then the DM pulled out character sheets for a game called Boot Hill and we ended up playing that. Went to a western town and had a gunfight in a saloon, saw a doc after nearly dying in that fight, then bought some clothes to fit in with the locals and got drugged and put in jail at the nearby Dudley Ranch. Broke out of jail, murdered a ton of people (using a weird hybrid mishmash of D&D 5e and Boot Hill rules since we got our magic back), recovered the gem, stole some horses and made our escape back to the cave.
It was dumb and fun! Though having to roll to hit (with tons of modifiers for if you're wounded, distance, if you're moving and how fast, if they're moving and how fast, if there's cover, what your skill with the gun is, etc.), then rolling to see where you hit, then rolling to see how much damage your hit did, was all a gigantic pain in the ass!
"a game called Boot Hill" I'm old enough to remember when Boot Hill was new. Get of my lawn!
Played a 5e one shot today! Sort of. The DM hasn't DM'd for us before, and hasn't DM'd at all in 40 years, and
he had us all roll up level 1 characters that had to be either halflings, gnomes, or dwarves. Two of us were halflings (I was a fighter, the other was a wizard), the other was a half-drow/half-gnome (he was a rogue). Started off at a campfire overlooking a valley. We watched our childhood heroes, The Magnificent 7, fight a huge 5 headed dragon over a big magic gem down in said valley. It killed them all, but before the last one died she broke a staff over her knee and there was an explosion like a mini nuke that left only a crater and the big magic gem (unharmed). We approached and the gem zapped is all and sucked us into it!
We woke up in a cave, and the other two couldn't feel their magic and all our magic items were inert (the DM had us each start with a +1 item of some sort). We heard yelling and explosions, so we crept to the cave mouth to see a desert unlike anything we'd ever seen before spread out before us, and two horses hitched to a wagon and two groups of men fighting with wands and staves made of wood and metal that cast explosions and struck people down. Two of them hid in the cave and saw us, but since we didn't make any hostile moves they turned back to the fight. Eventually the people in the cave won, and they sat with us while we cycled through various languages to try and figure out a way to communicate. Turns out we should've tried common first lol. They asked us why we looked so strange and where we came from and why were children out by themselves in the desert anyways? Eventually they left and we were visited by a projection of a demigod who told us we needed to get the gem back because we were on another plane of existence and only with the gem could he return us. We went to the wagon and looted the bodies and the demigod filled out minds with the knowledge to use the strange objects.
Then the DM pulled out character sheets for a game called Boot Hill and we ended up playing that. Went to a western town and had a gunfight in a saloon, saw a doc after nearly dying in that fight, then bought some clothes to fit in with the locals and got drugged and put in jail at the nearby Dudley Ranch. Broke out of jail, murdered a ton of people (using a weird hybrid mishmash of D&D 5e and Boot Hill rules since we got our magic back), recovered the gem, stole some horses and made our escape back to the cave.
It was dumb and fun! Though having to roll to hit (with tons of modifiers for if you're wounded, distance, if you're moving and how fast, if they're moving and how fast, if there's cover, what your skill with the gun is, etc.), then rolling to see where you hit, then rolling to see how much damage your hit did, was all a gigantic pain in the ass!
"a game called Boot Hill" I'm old enough to remember when Boot Hill was new. Get of my lawn!
So is the guy that DM'd for us! But we were playing the newer, 3rd edition of the game which was released in 1990, so it would have been possible for me to come across it as a six year old 😂
+1
MaddocI'm Bobbin Threadbare, are you my mother?Registered Userregular
edited May 2022
Looks like my copy of Symbaroum for 5e is due to arrive Monday
Was going to be today but it got delayed slightly
Kind of excited because I think that setting has neat ideas, but I'm not in love with the Symbaroum system
Posts
An investigation of suspicious terms in a will, it ends up a maid of the wealthy estate murdered the estate holder and swapped her cyber brain into his body and has been posing as him, changing the terms of the will as a plan to make off with the money
An investigation into a eco-hacktivist group that ends up being a false-flag by an energy company executive who is using it to manipulate stock prices, perhaps with the help of some useful idiots who think they're saving the planet
A seemingly run-of-the-mill crypto investor exit scam that was actually part of a massive money laundering scheme to move oligarchs' money out of a currently heavily sanctioned country (yes yes this one is a little close to home)
A ring of teenage live streamers who have been taking on progressively more disruptive and dangerous dares and getting increasingly popular, the streaming company is secretly encouraging it and legally protecting them because it has been really good for revenues
A company lauding their development of the first fully-conscious AI robot line, it ends up it's a scam and the robots contain human cyberbrains from trafficked refugees who have been blackmailed into playing along
Decades ago a billionaire uploaded his consciousness to what was at the time expected to be the most popular and future proof technology, the blockchain. His descendants inherited his empire, but also the responsibility for maintaining the chain. Unfortunately, new information has revealed that the chain forked years ago, and there's a cult of ape-masked followers causing havoc who may have legitimate claim to the assets of a massive corp. The ghosts (in the machines) of Noel Reeke must be busted.
Religious cult that turns people’s cyber brains into crypto mining rigs during their trance like prayer sessions.
Suspicious coma-like symptoms are experienced by a large number of cyberized individuals who are all short-term hospitalized for no apparent reason, it ends up that the only connection between all the patients is that they were registered voters for the same political party and the duration of the coma coincided with Election Day.
This honestly might be the plot of my next episode.
"The government recognized financial disparities.
You, the Panopticon team investigate that with no respect for banks rights"
Somewhere Neal Stephenson just sat up and sniffed the air.
Way more Charles Stross's bag nowadays. Stephenson....well he wrote some interesting books last, I was gonna say decade but looking at the list, this century? If you like psuedo historical fiction.
Termination Shock felt half blueprint for some insane billionaire to fix the climate and half prayer/wish/dream for that to happen all while admitting that somebody was gonna get fucked in the process.
"Depending on who shows and their experience level, we will mostly be playing with a "no consult before the cube" rule, definitely with the Jacoby rule (no gammons unless a cube has been offered and taken), and Beavers allowed."
Pretty sure this is actually just Calvinball.
pretty sure those are just random sounds
Almost literally out of SAC there, they have a pachinko parlor rigged up like that (the payouts increase while they're borrowing people's brains apparently)
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
Yeah, that was the highlight of the game. New system + six players = sloooooooow.
Those beavers have me worried, though.
It's not the British Conservative Party's offices, so that should be fine.
Out of curiosity, what system are you playing this in? My current cyberpunk campaign is in Shadowrun but running a game that is much more straight-up GitS is really appealing to me.
The crypto thread is over there, buddy.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Oh nah, it's all pretty basic backgammon scoring. It's played with a 2/4/8/16/32/64 cube that basically lets you go double or quits at any time and keep going, basically betting on how well you can finish the round you've already started, or offering your opponent a chance to concede if you just whacked 'em one.
"No consult before the cube" means that you're playing a team game but until somebody's offered to double stakes they can't collude with their teammates.
Gammons and backgammons are flawless and EX flawless victories; winning without your opponent shedding any checkers, or with that plus they've still got some on their bar or backline. They count for double or triple - Jacoby's a variant where that's only true if somebody doubled up already, probably to increase the number of games that get conceded out of neutral, rather than somebody hoping to push a lucky streak into a double payout for a flawless victory.
When you double, you can't raise the stakes again; the cube stays with your opponent until they decide to raise you. Beavers are a variant of this that lets you immediately accept, double up again, and keep the die. (Raccoons, not mentioned are a further variant that lets you immediately redouble a die your opponent accepted and doubled.)
Also, still looking for more than one taker for this. If you've got availability on an EST Sunday, why not stop by?
Maybe it's like D&D 4E in that it reads really poorly but plays better?
Unfortunately I went in for the bigger bundle, so I think I wasted money on some more detailed books that I don't care about. Maybe the setting book is OK.
Oof. Sixth World was really not well received at all by the Shadowrun player community. Not only were the rules bad but the editing was terrible. Here's a multiperson teardown of the whole thing if you like rulebook trainwrecks:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dn1cYgG0bQw
We woke up in a cave, and the other two couldn't feel their magic and all our magic items were inert (the DM had us each start with a +1 item of some sort). We heard yelling and explosions, so we crept to the cave mouth to see a desert unlike anything we'd ever seen before spread out before us, and two horses hitched to a wagon and two groups of men fighting with wands and staves made of wood and metal that cast explosions and struck people down. Two of them hid in the cave and saw us, but since we didn't make any hostile moves they turned back to the fight. Eventually the people in the cave won, and they sat with us while we cycled through various languages to try and figure out a way to communicate. Turns out we should've tried common first lol. They asked us why we looked so strange and where we came from and why were children out by themselves in the desert anyways? Eventually they left and we were visited by a projection of a demigod who told us we needed to get the gem back because we were on another plane of existence and only with the gem could he return us. We went to the wagon and looted the bodies and the demigod filled out minds with the knowledge to use the strange objects.
Then the DM pulled out character sheets for a game called Boot Hill and we ended up playing that. Went to a western town and had a gunfight in a saloon, saw a doc after nearly dying in that fight, then bought some clothes to fit in with the locals and got drugged and put in jail at the nearby Dudley Ranch. Broke out of jail, murdered a ton of people (using a weird hybrid mishmash of D&D 5e and Boot Hill rules since we got our magic back), recovered the gem, stole some horses and made our escape back to the cave.
It was dumb and fun! Though having to roll to hit (with tons of modifiers for if you're wounded, distance, if you're moving and how fast, if they're moving and how fast, if there's cover, what your skill with the gun is, etc.), then rolling to see where you hit, then rolling to see how much damage your hit did, was all a gigantic pain in the ass!
But my recommendation if you've already committed to playing Shadowrun 6e and your players aren't sticklers for the rules is to play it a la carte and use the rules you like and drop the ones you don't care about, at least to start.
On a basic level it's pick a stat, pick a skill (or pick 2 stats), add them together and roll it; use 1/3/5/7/9 hits for DCs
Pare edge actions down to just the most useful ones. Realistically my players have only ever used 1 to reroll a die after a roll, 4 to do the big add edge stat + exploding 6s roll before a roll, and 5 to negotiate for a special effect (eg, I've had a player spend 5 edge to get another combat round after they should've fallen unconscious from neurotoxin, or to retroactively have spent their money to buy an item in the past that would've been useful in this situation, etc).
Ignore AR and DR completely and instead just award edge situationally unless your player specifically requests it (and encourage your players state their case for why they might get edge in any particular situation).
If you can help it try to limit your encounters/party to just a couple of the various combat situations/specialties (regular combat, rigging, matrix combat, vehicle combat, magic combat, summoning, astral combat) at the start, and then introduce more of these aspects into the campaign as you and your players get more comfortable with the rules.
My understanding with regards to Jason Hardy & Co. is that they wanted to simplify magic (which used to have a lot of different dimensions) and matrix, but combat.. well, why break a "good" thing? Yes.. the blasting holes in things rules suck, as do the knockback rules. They are there mostly to give options between realistic gameplay (where bullets actually don't leave much behind) and movie-like gameplay (where you can shoot a huge hole in a wall). It's something that should be handled at the speed of plot... But, well... it's not.
The reason for this question is the recent animated spellbook That ended with a non-magical character stuck on Dark Sun after an unfortunate encounter. I'm wondering if to get off of dark sun he would need to somehow convince one of the mad sorcerer king guys that I've heard so much about or if the relatively common psionic character would do.
maybe call it a psyjammer then
Upon entering they ascertained that the children were stolen below into the Shadow Maze, the eternal underground labyrinth that rests below the entire continent. My players, upon learning about the Shadow Maze, immediately cussed me out because they know they are going to get eaten in a classic dungeon crawl.
Oh, also at the music festival? They learned that Faygo exists in every reality of the multiverse (and as a result was obviously being sold at the festival), and they spoke to a man so high on drugs that I just reenacted this skit from Key & Peele:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnqWbop4PHY
In two weeks they will enter the Shadow Maze and fight some undead witches.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/m/product/395890
I sent my parents Railroad Inks Blue and Green for Christmas with the thought that --after returning to the States {having obtained a copy of Lush Green (with the Engineer expansion!) for my sister and then myself}-- it would be opportunity for my sister/niece, my parents, and my partner and I to play on video chat.
... That would require being a better correspondent, but we'll get there. Too much luck for my partner on first play, but maybe he'll like it better adding the Renovation die. At least I know my sister really likes the game!
I'm also brainstorming the easiest way to play Hive remotely.
But I like the idea of getting arty with it, so I'll probably get out my markers if and when I follow through.
I do not have a webcam, but we still have our PS3 Eye & Eye of Judgment camera stand (wait, do we? ... May have donated that, actually), so I bet there's a USB or Bluetooth compatible camera that will fit the stand. but that's a problem to solve, again, if I get there.
Meanwhile, I'm turning forty soon, and I'm thinking of ticking off some of the RPG wishlist. 2-player GMless in a theme I'm interested in are low on the ground, but solo and 3+ are bountiful.
More efficiency, the highlights:
Also meanwhile, we are playing Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Detective and having a ball. The case scoring rules actively hamper the (rather enjoyable) gameplay, so we're just chucking that out; Sherlock's wild leaps of logic would never hold up in court, we are much more thorough in chasing leads.
Skrk! the Rat, having killed one of Tiamat's priests, also several incapacitated cultists, will spend the night in the woods recuperating with the rest of the players.
When they get back to mini-town they'll find it scorched by dragons with the villagers running away. Tall plinths with Skrk!'s face demanding her head will be set around the debris and her patron Bojax will inform her she done goofed hard. Again.
From there a tall Elf woman basically becomes there exposition boss. She will essentially be the Adventure Zone equivalent boss sending everyone on missions I don't care that I'm stealing.
From there the plan is to have, after stopping Tiamat, prevent cultists from raising six other destructive gods from different pantheons.
I think I got this.
I believe psionics would be fine, but I don't have my Spelljammer book in front of me to check so I could be wrong. Might take a specialized helm to use psionics instead of magic.
There are other problems with Spelljamming in Dark Sun though, and that has to do with it's crystal shell. It is located in a remote region of the Phlogiston, far away from any known space lanes, and the shell itself has no openings in or out and magic does not work on it. But a DM can change what they want; perhaps magic doesn't affect the shell but psionics does.
Even if the DM doesn't change anything, there are apparently a lot of celestial objects in Athasspace that could lead to fun adventures. They aren't detailed in any way, leaving possibilities open for all sorts of shenanigans
I’m running this using a custom system called Panopticon. I can send you the play test docs if you’d like. Being meaning to type up a more formal version of them anyways.
The core mechanic is a die pool where each Problem opposing success in your roll is a dice. The more skilled you are the smaller the dice is in size
Then roll and anything over half the value (so a 4+ for a d6) is discarded. The remaining pool is your Result that the GM can spend to generate consequences (4 is the cost of outright failure).
It’s designed to be very free wheeling and to portray hyper competent action folk in the vibe of GiTS, Cowboy Bebop or Resident Evil.
Spelljams is from the old times, where literally everything got stats. I definitely remember psi, sorcery and ki powered helms. There was even stuff like using magic blood to run the ship so an ordinary pilot could circumvent the requirements.
I would say you’d need to bore a hole in the crystal shell to get out, but hey, all those well travelled places had to have something happen to start it all off…
1. Hi5 40 on the near horizon club
2. I'm not super familiar with small scale rpg stuff but I do know one of those. The Quiet Year is amazing. Absolutely beautiful little game.
3. Our current favorite 2 player boardgame stuff btw. Clank Acquisition Inc. is a fun little legacy deck builder with a board component. Isle of Cats, Tetris with cats on a boat. Near & Far another little legacy type game, we adore the art style that the creator has throughout all his games, which are all good.
4. If your folks like Railroad Ink they might enjoy the Welcome To games. Floorplan as well, my current favorite roll and write.
5. Cycling back to 2 player or smaller stuff. Some quickish standbys for us. Hardback (or paperback), Burgle Bros, Azul.
Steam - Talon Valdez :Blizz - Talonious#1860 : Xbox Live & LoL - Talonious Monk @TaloniousMonk Hail Satan
The One Ring peeps just sent out some stretch goal PDFs to the Kickstarter backers, one of which is for Strider Mode. It's for solo or 2-3 player GM-less play, and it was designed by Shawn Tomkin (Ironsworn) and Matt Click (The Mecha Hack), so if you think that sounds neat you might see if you can find someone to share a copy.
Yup, found the relevant passages from the old book. Spoiled for huge wall o' text:
"a game called Boot Hill" I'm old enough to remember when Boot Hill was new. Get of my lawn!
Oo\ Ironsizide
So is the guy that DM'd for us! But we were playing the newer, 3rd edition of the game which was released in 1990, so it would have been possible for me to come across it as a six year old 😂
Was going to be today but it got delayed slightly
Kind of excited because I think that setting has neat ideas, but I'm not in love with the Symbaroum system