Shadowrun Character Idea

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

So I've just in recent weeks begun playing Shadowrun, and I have the role as the party mage. This is not the titular interesting character idea, though.

The idea I had was something I thought about when reading through Arsenal to discover there's a way to put a character's brain into a vehicle. I'd always wanted to do something like this, since I've watched Ghost In The Shell a few times over the course of the years, so here's my concept;
You heavily armor and set up security for a car, not a super car in any way except security. You put your brain in said car and have drones you can see through and control as though it were your own bodies. A combat drone, a flying drone, a normal looking human drone and any other drones you can think of for whatever mission you can think of. This way if you die on a mission, you just have to replace a drone and your armored car-shaped skull sits safely in some impound lot or back-alley.

What do you guys think?

[Hadrian_Emrys]

Such a thing, I imagine, would leave you with an Essence of say... -0.25 or so. Street Sam's would look at you as a freak. :smallbiggrin:

[NPCMook]

There are actually rules for playing a Cyberzombie located in the back of UnwiredAugmentation.. Personally if you want to go that route I'd just play an A.I. out of Runner's Companion

Edit: Listed wrong book

[Xuincherguixe]

Sounds like a Cyborg (also Augmentation). Not such a great choice of names really, but the idea is that you're reducing to nothing but a brain in a jar. And you permanently connect to a body via simsense.

There seems to be some sort of assumption it would be a humanoid body, but there's nothing saying you can't put it into a car.

And while using drones might reduce the problem a little, the fact is that as a car, you're going to have a lot of trouble getting into certain places. I mean for one, what if you get hired to do some poaching deep in the forest?

Or, how are you going to sneak past authorities as some mobile death mobile? Those 15 machineguns might be a wise investment in a Z-Zone, but not such a good thing for when you're trying to get yourself shipped to africa, for where you're going to help smuggle some diamonds.

Of course, it seems like you can "switch" bodies as a Cyborg, which helps some of the problems. Though it takes a day to get used to the new one.

[RandomLunatic]

Am I the only one who is thinking "Knight Rider"?

Sorry I have nothing useful to add-I do not have the books.

[Xuincherguixe]

Am I the only one who is thinking "Knight Rider"?

Sorry I have nothing useful to add-I do not have the books.

Being Shadowrun, it would naturally be a much more badass, smart alec version. And is possibly abomination.

"Damn you red light! You really piss me off!"
*fires rocket into traffic light*
"Did... that car just shoot a rocket into the traffic light?"
*screaming*
*police*
*crazy car chase*
*15 car pile up and 87 people dead...*
"Maybe that wasn't such a good idea?"
"Nah, that red light was totally asking for it. Jerk."
"You sir present a strong argument, my opinion is swayed."
"Of course it is. Now, lets go head into the bad part of town. You can jog, and I'll cover you."
"Sounds like a plan to me!"

[Angelmaker]

It just won´t work.

The essence loss will make you a truely bad mage ( I estimate a leftover of... well... dunno... negative essence seems realistic for that ) and video links won´t work for spells. Pure Optical fibre links work, but the idea of a security mage in a heavily armored car is nothing a new.

You just have to work together with a rigger for the car and perhaps make heavy use of the magesight googles, if you insist on being transported rather than go on foot.

[Swordguy]

While it's an interesting and fairly unique idea, I don't think you really want to do it. First off, legwork and socializing are a deceptively huge part of Shadowrun. It's somewhat...difficult...to go to the local Shadowrunner bar and hang out if you're a car.

Unless you're a Transformer. Even then, it'd be tough.

Moreover, you're talking about somebody outside of you maintaining and repairing you when/if you get damaged. You aren't going to heal naturally, which is bad news - and you'd better REALLY trust your group's lead mechanic. Last, think about what a mage can do to you when you're traveling at 100mph down a road, and he erects a physical barrier spell (invisible, of course) across your path. A lot of times, it's actually easier to hurt vehicles than characters - and the vehicle damage rules aren't friendly at all.

Now if you're talking head-in-a-jar Futurama-style that can be replugged into various "bodies" (including into a car), then you may be onto something - and the Cyberzombie rules are definitely the best place to start. But there's still a LOT of logistical hurdles you need to think through. YMMV, depending on the style of campaign, of course. We run fairly low-power games (essences below 2 are pretty rare, and below 1 almost nonexistent).

[Swordguy]

It just won´t work.

The essence loss will make you a truely bad mage ( I estimate a leftover of... well... dunno... negative essence seems realistic for that ) and video links won´t work for spells. Pure Optical fibre links work, but the idea of a security mage in a heavily armored car is nothing a new.

You just have to work together with a rigger for the car and perhaps make heavy use of the magesight googles, if you insist on being transported rather than go on foot.

Oh, you're a mage too? How'd I miss THAT?! Yeah, won't work. You're going to have a sub-zero essence, which means a Magic stat of 0, which means no magic for you. Sorry man.

[hiryuu]

His mage is the current character, this is an idea for an alternate character.

Since wireless coverage is effectively everywhere, this isn't too bad an idea. You can pick up a human-looking drone for a song and just put a VCR device in it as opposed to the cyber brain. Now you're a car rigging a human.

Just make sure you buy a loyalty 6 doctor and mental health professional. Cyborg Essence is in the toilet and they have random chances of going insane... but I told you that already.

[Mordar]

[snip]

What do you guys think?

I think you should call yourself "The Great and Powerful Turtle"! ;-)

From a more serious standpoint, if as assumed you're not doing this as a mage, how is it all that much different from a Rigger who is gravely antisocial? Survivability *as* an armored car isn't any better than survivability *in* an armored car. In fact, it might even be worse.

ASIDE: There's already a Ghost in the Machine, so I guess a Ghost in the [Street] Machine is a natural evolution :)

- Mordar

[Angelmaker]

His mage is the current character, this is an idea for an alternate character.


I apologize for misunderstanding.

Might work, but I personaly would advice against it for two reasons:

1) The reduction of personal danger make for less fun. It´s a little bit with deckers, I don´t like to have them in my games if they insist on being the metaphorical deus ex machina - not even being physical present at the scene.
2) The addition of complexity to the game makes it a little bit more stressful for the GM. How does he deal with signal tracking, so you get to be a little on the toes? What about signal jamming? Might not even be an option to have you on the run, because a full telemetrical broadcast of one of your drones can´t be accepted in a high security zone.

This leads to the group being "torn apart" and having to handle 2 different sets of actions at the same time... can work, but also can be a little bit of a hassle where the other half of the players feel left out.

[Xuincherguixe]

Quite, it's part of why suddenly everything went wireless and hackable. So that deckers could be more included in the game.

I don't really recommend it either, but if you were to go for it... yeah, there's Cyborg rules.

[hiryuu]

Quite, it's part of why suddenly everything went wireless and hackable. So that deckers could be more included in the game.

Well, that's one reason. The other reason is that it looks like everything is going to be wireless and hackable by 2030 at least, and the SR writers keep tabs on current technology. Half the stuff in Augmentation and Arsenal is being worked on right now (or discarded and project abandoned because it was too simple). Right now, for example, augmented reality is being played with by the internet (making PANs and little virtual anime girls do stuff is an open source project, even!), and there's a company marketing NanoLub, a carbon bead lubricant that has just been discovered to be able to handle pressure of 430 tons per square centimeter (a couple of military institutions are working on sandwiching it in between specialized sheets to use as "smart armor").

On the other hand, yeah. I hated it when deckers used to go do their cutaway thing. I saw two solutions. One was to have two GMs, which never worked out well, and the other was brilliant. Our GM had the Shadowrun Genesis game as a ROM. He'd use a debug program to edit the cyberspace scenes and give the game character the decker's stats, then sit him down in front of the computer and he'd play through the decking process there.