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kjones
2009-08-18, 07:03 PM
Earlier this summer, I picked up the Shadowrun 4E rulebook, and since then I've run three missions, all with people who were completely new to the system. Everyone had a lot of fun, and I thought it might be interesting to share my thoughts about the system as someone whose previous gaming experience was mostly with D&D of various editions.

(The first two missions involved a face, a hacker/rigger, and two street sams. The third mission involved the same face, along with a hacker and a bunch of pregens, specifically the covert ops specialist, the eco-shaman, the combat mage, and the weapons specialist. The parts of the rules with which I have experience will probably reflect these party makeups.)


The core mechanic, rolling Skill + Attribute dice, is really nice. I've also found that I really enjoy opposed rolls, and while it can sometimes bog things down a bit, I like how stuff like armor and dodging are handled separately, rather than kludged together into "AC".

That being said, I get very confused when you're rolling something other than Skill + Attribute. I found this most often when dealing with Matrix stuff - a lot of things are Skill + Program, or System + Program, and it works differently for Agents than it does for people. (which makes sense, I suppose... but when should I be rolling System, and when should I be rolling Response? I'll talk more about Matrix stuff later.) In the first game, I spent a lot of time amazed at how effective the hacker was, until I realized that he was rolling Logic + Hacking + Exploit to break into systems, giving him something like 16 dice before mods.
I guess this one will be pretty obvious to anyone who has ever played a game with combat, but having additional initiative passes is huge. It's hard to have a fair fight with someone who can go twice as often as you do. And with the way the rules for full defense actions work, you don't even have to win initiative! I don't think this is a problem with the rules - it just made a much bigger difference than I thought it would. In the first mission, the street sams geeked some Halloweeners before they could even fire a shot (in a straight-up firefight). In the second, they took down six gangers without taking a scratch. Again, these probably aren't unreasonable outcomes, especially considering the lethality of the system,
That being said, it seems pretty easy to get lots and lots of dice for some pretty basic things. Again, this isn't necessarily a bad thing, since you should be able to be good at stuff, but the street sams were generally rolling 12+ dice for pistols, against guys with reaction < 5. Some of this, I'm sure, is due to my unfamiliarity with the system - there are probably lots of negative modifiers that I'm failing to apply correctly.
Re-rolling initiative every round is kind of a pain in the neck. I'm considering playing with D&D-style initiative, but I don't want to upset game balance or anything, since this would probably penalize high-init characters unfairly (there's the off-chance that they end up going last - if they rolled every round, they'd probably be first most of the time even if they got one bad roll).
The rulebook is very confusingly laid out. Finding stuff on the fly during a game is way harder than it should be. For example, there's no way to look at a skill and see all the things that skill is used for. (I realize you couldn't enumerate every single possible use, but it would be nice to have the basics right along with the skill listings.) Matrix stuff especially is spread out all over the place - we were constantly paging back and forth through that chapter trying to find stuff.
Character generation takes a very long time. Each of the from-scratch characters took on the order of 4-6 hours to make. I really like the amount of tweaking you can do with character creation, but... it's a long time, and equipping can get tedious fast.
Matrix stuff, in general, is just really confusing. What you can do, which skills to use for it, matrix combat... again, I'm sure that this is mostly just unfamiliarity, but the problem is that with most rules things, if you don't know the exact rule, you can just go with "what makes sense" - but it's hard to say what "makes sense" when you're dealing with completely fictional technology. If someone could provide me with some more extensive examples of hacking, I'd be much obliged - the ones in the book are very limited.
It seems like gunfights can really easily devolve into firefights in which both sides are behind hard cover and nobody has enough dice to actually hit anything. I don't necessarily think this is a negative quality of the system, since it's certainly realistic, but how do you deal with this?
Keeping track of negative modifiers for NPCs is a pain - there's just so many of them, and forgetting any of them makes a big difference in a system as lethal as Shadowrun.
I like the lethality, though. My players seemed to figure out pretty quickly that if you find yourself in a stand-up, drag-out fight, you're doing it wrong.
One of my players raised an interesting point after one of the missions about the economics of shadowrunning. See, they had completed the mission successfully, and gotten paid, but the rigger's van had been shot up pretty badly, and he realized that repairing it was going to cost him more than the money he'd earned from the mission.

Of course, this can lead you to some troubling conclusions - when in the real world is it worth risking your life just to make some money? - but it also meant that they were much more cautious with the van the next time. Street cred and karma aside, if you break even on a run, that's a failure - you just risked life and limb for nothing.


That's all I can think of for now - I'm sure I'll be back with more later. Keep in mind that for the most part, I love the system (and the setting!) and I'm mostly frustrated with how obtuse the rulebook can be. (This is also one of the first times I've had to learn a system straight from the book. I learned most of the other games I know by playing them with people who knew them.)

And, in case anyone was wondering, the missions I ran were slightly modified versions of the missions found here (http://www.shadowrun4.com/missions/downloads/).

comicshorse
2009-08-18, 07:28 PM
I'll just comment on a couiple of things that jumped out at me


The first two missions involved a face, a hacker/rigger, and two street sams

You ran WITHOUT A MAGE ! Geez you're brave


In the first mission, the street sams geeked some Halloweeners before they could even fire a shot

Yuo thats pretty standard. You have to remember even as starting charcters the P.C.s are probably already hardened professionals who have put in time on the streets, or in the military or even corporate security. They've also got better guns and cyberware than the average street-punk so they should be slaughtering them. Street-punks aren't a Shadowrunners fears they should be worrying about SWAT and elite Corp-Sec teams. ( Though many G.M.s to like to run low-powered games and build the characters up from the start but you'll need to cut down on their BP's for that)


It seems like gunfights can really easily devolve into firefights in which both sides are behind hard cover and nobody has enough dice to actually hit anything.

Yes but this should be a problem for the P.Cs. The cops can afford to wait while their back-up gets ever closer its the P.C.s who should always be on the clock.
Our group found area effect spells good at winkling out bad guys from cover or just lob a couple of cans of thermal smoke and run like hell


One of my players raised an interesting point after one of the missions about the economics of shadowrunning. See, they had completed the mission successfully, and gotten paid, but the rigger's van had been shot up pretty badly, and he realized that repairing it was going to cost him more than the money he'd earned from the mission.

Thats always a problem for the characters with the expensive gear ( the riggers and Deckers) though I have seen medical bills for the magic users mount up pretty heavily.
You probably should factor this into how much the Johnson's offer for their missions or perhaps include a reasonable expenses clause in the contract where the Johnson will re-imburse them for lost gear or medical expenses. ( And god help the P.C.s if they're ever caught padding this claim)


Character generation takes a very long time. Each of the from-scratch characters took on the order of 4-6 hours to make. I really like the amount of tweaking you can do with character creation, but... it's a long time, and equipping can get tedious fast.

Use the Pre-gens they're pretty good

And counting down to Swordguy commenting in 5,4,3,2

Kaun
2009-08-19, 04:17 AM
Yeah the book is a bit all over the place at first.

and the matrix can be a bit tough especial when you have a gm who kinda understands it and a player who doesn't (Still a hell of a lot easier then the earlier additions.)

I still find the setting awesome.

One way many people have got around the matrix thing when there still new to the system is avoid it some what until the players and GM are more comfortable with a lot of the other rules. Give the party a GMpc or contact who's a hacker/Decker who helps out with the more complicated workings of the matrix to begin with. Then once everybody is more comfortable with the rules start to move more heavily into it if your players want to.

Swordguy
2009-08-19, 05:15 AM
And counting down to Swordguy commenting in 5,4,3,2

...1 :smalltongue:

Do NOT combine the Pregen characters in the book with custom characters! The pregens work fine on their own, but are significantly suboptimal (think about playing a Fighter with a 16 Int and Cha and a 10 Str and Con) when combined with non-Pregens. Not to mention that some of the math is wrong. There's an errata somewhere. You need to use all or none, as it were.



That being said, I get very confused when you're rolling something other than Skill + Attribute. I found this most often when dealing with Matrix stuff - a lot of things are Skill + Program, or System + Program, and it works differently for Agents than it does for people. (which makes sense, I suppose... but when should I be rolling System, and when should I be rolling Response? I'll talk more about Matrix stuff later.) In the first game, I spent a lot of time amazed at how effective the hacker was, until I realized that he was rolling Logic + Hacking + Exploit to break into systems, giving him something like 16 dice before mods.

What we do is make a cheat-sheet. Create an Excel file. The right hand column is the action you want to take. The center column is the skill used, and the left column is the attribute commonly associated with the skill. The decker, for example, should fill this page with all his programs and possible system tests ("access a file" is "this+that", decrypt a file is "that+this") and so forth. Do this for the most common actions each character takes that aren't attack actions (since everyone really should have that memorized). Speeds up play immensely for a comparatively small amount of OOG work.



* I guess this one will be pretty obvious to anyone who has ever played a game with combat, but having additional initiative passes is huge. It's hard to have a fair fight with someone who can go twice as often as you do. And with the way the rules for full defense actions work, you don't even have to win initiative! I don't think this is a problem with the rules - it just made a much bigger difference than I thought it would. In the first mission, the street sams geeked some Halloweeners before they could even fire a shot (in a straight-up firefight). In the second, they took down six gangers without taking a scratch. Again, these probably aren't unreasonable outcomes, especially considering the lethality of the system,

Covered perfectly by Comicshorse. 400BP runners are bad-ass. They aren't invincible, sure, but they wipe the floor with normal security guards and street punks unless heavily outnumbered. The lethality goes the other way, though, if the "normies" catch you in an ambush or off-guard. Not getting an active defense against gunfire is rough.



* That being said, it seems pretty easy to get lots and lots of dice for some pretty basic things. Again, this isn't necessarily a bad thing, since you should be able to be good at stuff, but the street sams were generally rolling 12+ dice for pistols, against guys with reaction < 5. Some of this, I'm sure, is due to my unfamiliarity with the system - there are probably lots of negative modifiers that I'm failing to apply correctly.

Let's look at a quick skirmish between a gun bunny and a security guard outside an office at night.

Starting gun bunny characters will generally start with a 5 in their primary gun skill, a 5 in their stat, a +2 for a smartlink and a +2 for specialization. So that's 14 dice. Now, most shadowruns happen at night, and Seattle is pretty foggy most of the time. Partial Light (streetlights) is going to be -2 dice, light fog is another -2 dice. We're down to 10 dice. The vast majority of combat in published modules takes place at medium to long range for Heavy Pistols (usually medium), so there's another -1. Generally, OPFOR should be looking to get under cover or to be going prone as quickly as possible, this can give a -4 penalty. Now we're rolling 5 dice on the attack roll, against a Reaction of 5ish, as you mentioned. That 14 die pool doesn't look so bad now, does it?

If the only modifier you remember is the +2 for smartlink, combat won't be all that challenging. You need to include visibility and cover modifiers.



* Re-rolling initiative every round is kind of a pain in the neck. I'm considering playing with D&D-style initiative, but I don't want to upset game balance or anything, since this would probably penalize high-init characters unfairly (there's the off-chance that they end up going last - if they rolled every round, they'd probably be first most of the time even if they got one bad roll).

I've done circular initiative in demo play before. Rerolling costs you a karma point, or take a full round to "recenter" yourself with no other non-Free Actions possible. Sometimes you just get behind the 8-ball, and it's hard to get back out in front. This works quite well and keeps the game moving.



* The rulebook is very confusingly laid out. Finding stuff on the fly during a game is way harder than it should be. For example, there's no way to look at a skill and see all the things that skill is used for. (I realize you couldn't enumerate every single possible use, but it would be nice to have the basics right along with the skill listings.) Matrix stuff especially is spread out all over the place - we were constantly paging back and forth through that chapter trying to find stuff.

No argument here. I love 'em to death, but the CGL guys have layout issues. The Total Warfare rulebook for BattleTech is an order of magnitude worse, believe it or not.



* Character generation takes a very long time. Each of the from-scratch characters took on the order of 4-6 hours to make. I really like the amount of tweaking you can do with character creation, but... it's a long time, and equipping can get tedious fast.

There's a priority system (a la SR3e) in the Runner Companion that's a little faster, because you aren't tempted to min-max every BP of the character. But yeah, SR characters have always taken a long time to generate. I suggest each person having a spare character already on-hand.



* It seems like gunfights can really easily devolve into firefights in which both sides are behind hard cover and nobody has enough dice to actually hit anything. I don't necessarily think this is a negative quality of the system, since it's certainly realistic, but how do you deal with this?

Gas. Grenades. Flanking movement around said cover. Time limits on the PCs ("you hear sirens in the distance, getting closer"). Suppressive fire while one enemy team moves up while the runner's heads are down (aka Bounding movement). AOE elemental magic. Yelling "Fire in the Hole!" and throwing a fist-sized rock. :smallwink:



* Keeping track of negative modifiers for NPCs is a pain - there's just so many of them, and forgetting any of them makes a big difference in a system as lethal as Shadowrun.

Generally speaking, an NPC will go down after suffering a wound equal to their Threat Rating. A Rating 1 threat will lay there and stop fighting after a Light Wound, while a Rating 3 will require a Serious Wound to make him stop. Forcing your NPCs to fight to the death also forces you to remember their modifiers. Have them run away or stop fighting, lie there, and moan (which most people will do when shot anyway). Boom, no modifiers to remember, because they aren't taking any more actions.

...actually, I can't recall offhand if there's TRs for NPCs in SR4; I think I'm thinking of the SR3 rules. Dammit - too many rules in my head...



* One of my players raised an interesting point after one of the missions about the economics of shadowrunning... Street cred and karma aside, if you break even on a run, that's a failure - you just risked life and limb for nothing.

Hehehe. Welcome to the streets, chummer. :smallbiggrin:

Dhavaer
2009-08-19, 06:47 AM
...actually, I can't recall offhand if there's TRs for NPCs in SR4; I think I'm thinking of the SR3 rules. Dammit - too many rules in my head...

There's Professional Ratings, which are presumably the same thing.

TheCountAlucard
2009-08-19, 07:28 AM
That's why it's a good idea to get paid twice, as it were. If the face looks hard enough, he can probably find interested parties who would pay to see a certain mission accomplished... that the PCs just happen to already be doing anyway. :smallwink:

Either that, or the PCs can resort to looting. :smalltongue:

OverdrivePrime
2009-08-19, 07:53 AM
Character generation takes a very long time. Each of the from-scratch characters took on the order of 4-6 hours to make. I really like the amount of tweaking you can do with character creation, but... it's a long time, and equipping can get tedious fast.
It seems like gunfights can really easily devolve into firefights in which both sides are behind hard cover and nobody has enough dice to actually hit anything. I don't necessarily think this is a negative quality of the system, since it's certainly realistic, but how do you deal with this?

Just played a "present day" game with the SR4 system where our characters were a government special team against a campus full of zombies. My group of players are all about the character creation, and since there was no cyberware, bioware or magic, we had our characters whipped out in about 30 minutes each. Now, granted this was because we knew we were playing a one-shot. Standard characters do indeed take the 3-5 hours that others seem to spend, but we love every second of it.

I'm not normally a gun guy, but last night I was firing a full burst on a bunch of zombies in a narrow hallway. -9 dice to your dicepool really hurts when you've got just 8 dice.

The other two guys were more skilled with guns and were making heavy use of called shots against the zombies. It worked much better.

comicshorse
2009-08-19, 08:41 AM
I'm not normally a gun guy, but last night I was firing a full burst on a bunch of zombies in a narrow hallway. -9 dice to your dicepool really hurts when you've got just 8 dice.

I believe thats what they call the 'spray and pray' method :smallsmile:

Lost Demiurge
2009-08-19, 10:01 AM
I'll echo the others... Welcome to the shadows, Chummer!

Seriously, you've found a good system and it sounds like you guys are having a blast with it. If your PC's have already twigged to the idea that minimizing combat or making sure that every fight is on their terms, then they'll do well in the long run.

There's already a good amount of advice on this thread, but I can offer a few points.

1. For Hacking: Get an idea of what the matrix can and cannot do. Then decide for your own game what the matrix can and cannot do. Once that's done, feel free to streamline hacking down a few rolls. The matrix rules in SR4 are the lightest of any edition so far, but they're still a little bulky for quick action. So streamline, simplify, and reduce. If worried, talk over changes with the guy playing your hacker between games. Bring him on board, discuss options, and work with the guy in advance.

2. Finding things: Yeah, the book's laid out a little obtusely. This is mainly because they shaved and scrimped to get the entire game into one book. Read and skim until you know where the basic stuff is located by heart, and make cheatsheets for the more complicated stuff.

Aside from those, have fun and don't stress out when your PC's jump in a completely different direction than you expected, or go about a run in a totally different way than you anticipated. This is normal. Get good at improvising, then sit back and enjoy it when they surprise you.

TheCountAlucard
2009-08-19, 11:01 AM
Read and skim until you know where the basic stuff is located by heart, and make cheatsheets for the more complicated stuff.Back when I first started playing Shadowrun, my GM did exactly that. He even had a little booklet for character creation so that a newbie didn't need to hog the core book for hours on end.

Science Officer
2009-08-19, 11:57 AM
I'm also new to Shadowrun and have some handy links for you:

I've only used the grunt cheat sheet, but it was pretty useful
Cheat Sheets (http://pavao.org/shadowrun/cheatsheets/)

Now, the next two sites are in French, but there is some english.

First off should help when purchasing gear, although I don't know if that was an issue for you.

Kits Bitos du Runner (http://www.shadowforums.com/cyber-espace/spip.php?article207)
("Kits for dumba** runners") has lists of equipment that every runner should have, in general and for various activities.
The names of the items are provided in english, but the explanations sont seulement en francais. For quick and dirty gear purchasing.

Scroll down to "La liste des kits de Bitos Inc."

1. Kit for Runners
2. Kit for B & E
3. Kit for Security
4. Kit for Matrix Security
5. Kit of Grenades
6. Kit of Infiltration
7. Kit for Combat.

and lastly, and probably the most useful is the CharGen utility.

Here (http://daegann.free.fr/page.php?id=241).
Page is french, program is english.
Build characters in minutes, not hours. (well, might still take hours if you really want to min/max)

kjones
2009-08-21, 02:36 PM
Thanks for the help, everyone - and those cheat sheets look like they'll be very useful. (I should note that my usual tactic in dealing with a rule that I don't understand is to lay the burden of looking up the rule on the player who wants to use it. Sometimes I feel bad about this - but it keeps the game moving.)

Demiurge: One of the things that made Matrix combat so complicated for us was that the hacker had bought a bunch of tricked-out Agent programs, and so he usually had three or four guys in the Matrix (himself included) doing stuff. His plan was to do the hacking/searching himself, while his agents kept IC off his back. It sort of worked, but keeping track of everyone involved was a pain. (Question - does Blackout/Blackhammer do anything against IC? I didn't think so, but I wasn't sure. You use Attack against those, right?)

Also, I forgot that "Ratings" are how you count System, etc. for most devices, and was annoyed that I couldn't find specific stats for anything.

Finally, I somehow missed the fact that the Hacking + Exploit roll for hacking on the fly is an extended test. This would have made hacking a lot harder, if not for the fact (mentioned previously I think) that we were adding Logic to the roll! Oops.

Swordguy: I don't intend to combine pre-gens with custom characters in the future, but I think it worked out OK in this case. The two custom characters each filled a niche (hacker, face) so I don't think anyone felt left out.

Thanks for the firearms example - you pointed out exactly what I had been missing. It probably didn't help that I was letting the players calculate their own dice pools, and while they're not cheaters, they're not going to go out of their way to find negative modifiers for themselves. ("It's foggy, innit? Better take another -2...")

I've seen you extol the virtues of that spell that erases forensic evidences, and I have a general question about missions. How much of a hard-ass should I be about having the players covering their tracks? This goes for Matrix stuff as well. What should happen if the hacker doesn't clear the logs of the cracked system? I'm asking this question both from a game-world perspective (how can they track you down? what can they do if they do?) and from a gameplay perspective (is it fun to have to worry about wiping off every surface you touch for fingerprints?). So far, the players haven't been cautious about this stuff, and I haven't pushed it, but if I'm going to start playing more seriously, I feel that I should consider it.

Swordguy
2009-08-21, 02:59 PM
I've seen you extol the virtues of that spell that erases forensic evidences, and I have a general question about missions. How much of a hard-ass should I be about having the players covering their tracks? This goes for Matrix stuff as well. What should happen if the hacker doesn't clear the logs of the cracked system? I'm asking this question both from a game-world perspective (how can they track you down? what can they do if they do?) and from a gameplay perspective (is it fun to have to worry about wiping off every surface you touch for fingerprints?). So far, the players haven't been cautious about this stuff, and I haven't pushed it, but if I'm going to start playing more seriously, I feel that I should consider it.

It depends on the value of what the runners just stole/destroyed/hid. Think like a corporate beancounter - is the cost of examining the forensic evidence, tracking down the runners, dispatching a hit squad, and paying the life insurance for anyone the runners take out (plus potential revenge runs against your corp if your hit team fails) equal to or greater than the value of what the runners screwed up? If so, then leave 'em alone; their IDs go into a file that says "hire if necessary" because, let's face it, they were good enough to do their job and get away, and you might need that sort of skill in the future.

On the other hand, if they wiped out something especially valuable, or have proven themselves a thorn in the corp's side time after time after time, then "sending a message" isn't out of line. It doesn't even have to be a hit team - a pound of Play-doh with a visible digital timer attached to it sitting on their kitchen table when they wake up (with a note attached that says words to the effect of "stop blowing up our stuff please") sends an exceptionally clear message without any real chance of the runners coming after you if they live, and dealing with expenses and property damage (plus they'll remember that you COULD have killed them and didn't; and it may make them more likely to trust you if you need to hire them in the future).

However, make sure the runners don't realize that you're running an ROI every time they leave behind a bit of blood. If they leave behind massive samples (during playtesting, a troll evidently left a steaming dump on the head of Aztechnology's desk...wanna talk about ritual magic links?) then make a note that the corp can track them and stomp on them any time it wants. And if they do something to deserve it, do so. You want to foster an atmosphere of healthy paranoia, not an atmosphere of "you stole a Mars bar from Saeder-Krupp. Lowfyr levels the city block in which you were sleeping in revenge".

Umael
2009-08-21, 03:42 PM
A friend of mine ran a bastardize game that was a cross between Shadowrun and White Wolf oWoD.

It actually worked okay, just a little... bizarre.

I might get the chance to play a straight-up Shadowrun game someday...

Timeras
2009-08-21, 03:58 PM
Reactions also depend on where they left evidence. If the runners stole something from a corp, they will usually not spend resources to find them just to hear "we gave it to a guy named Johnson". They probably won't even call Lone Star, because they don't want to tell anybody what was stolen.

But if the runners start mugging people on the streets, local law enforcement (Lone Star, Knight Errant etc.) will start looking for them.

comicshorse
2009-08-21, 05:43 PM
Of course how the Corporation reacts will depend how the P.C.s did the run. If they snuck in at 2 A.M., narcojeted a few gaurds and slipped out then the Corp. are much more likely to let it go then if they blow a hole in the computer section and gunned down everybody in sight.
Of course you can always be a git if you want to, after all maybe the thing the P.Cs stole was some Corporate's pet project and he hires 'Runners for purely personal revenge

That said IMHO you should be harder on the Decker than the other Runners. A computer trace will be a lot quicker and immediate to run then forensics and so the Corporation will be more likely to use it.

( Nasty trick I picked up : If you are going to hit something really important, purchase some blood from a low rent blood bank and keep it preserved. Then on the run spill it. Corp. secutiry go 'well there's no need to do a time consuming, expensive investigation. Mage get over here'
Mage uses it as a ritual link for a fireball. Corp. security pat themselves on the bank and some nameless homeless guy who sold his blood to the blood-bank gets fried)

Cristo Meyers
2009-08-21, 10:22 PM
I've seen you extol the virtues of that spell that erases forensic evidences, and I have a general question about missions. How much of a hard-ass should I be about having the players covering their tracks? This goes for Matrix stuff as well. What should happen if the hacker doesn't clear the logs of the cracked system? I'm asking this question both from a game-world perspective (how can they track you down? what can they do if they do?) and from a gameplay perspective (is it fun to have to worry about wiping off every surface you touch for fingerprints?). So far, the players haven't been cautious about this stuff, and I haven't pushed it, but if I'm going to start playing more seriously, I feel that I should consider it.

Personally, I think it should depend on how experienced the players are as well as what's already been mentioned. A couple of new players should get a bit more slack on the follow-up investigation than ones that have a few runs under their belts. Unless the new players do something exceedingly dumb (like the aforementioned...ah, gift...on the desk of the Aztechnology head), you can take it a bit easier on them.

You want your players to be paranoid (although, you're not paranoid if they're actually out to get you, and this is Shadowrun, they're out to get you), but they also shouldn't feel like they can't get away with nuthin'

Crowbar
2009-08-22, 01:10 AM
My players love Shadowrun. We've got such an over-the-top team. It's great.

I do completely agree with what you say. Despite the ten or so runs we've done so far, I still don't get Matrix rules.

Jack_Banzai
2009-08-22, 01:43 PM
I've seen you extol the virtues of that spell that erases forensic evidences, and I have a general question about missions. How much of a hard-ass should I be about having the players covering their tracks? This goes for Matrix stuff as well. What should happen if the hacker doesn't clear the logs of the cracked system? I'm asking this question both from a game-world perspective (how can they track you down? what can they do if they do?) and from a gameplay perspective (is it fun to have to worry about wiping off every surface you touch for fingerprints?). So far, the players haven't been cautious about this stuff, and I haven't pushed it, but if I'm going to start playing more seriously, I feel that I should consider it.

One of the team's first runs once they hit a new tier of infamy should be to make sure that they are all well and truly SINless. Time should be spent on fake identities, but more importantly, they should be going to some lengths to do things such as alter their fingerprints, fake their deaths, establish a couple of safehouses. If they're doing this on their own, that's okay. But if they aren't, feel free to push them gently in that direction. It doesn't have to be a motorized hit squad of corp goons. Just start in with their contacts mentioning people looking for them, etc. Maybe one of their credsticks (if they are still trying to maintain a "legit" identity without taking pains to conceal their activities) stop working as the assets have been "frozen", and if they are using said credstick at a legitimate vendor, have a Lone Star black and white cruiser start heading over. That kind of thing.

Part of how far a corp or government will go to chase the runners has to do with how valuable any paydata or personnel the runners violate/snatch is. If it's just a new accounting program or website build, as long as it isn't supersensitive, they won't go so far to find out much about the runners. But if you're stealing Excalibur from the Atlantean Foundation, they will turn over Heaven and Earth to find your team. Likewise, few corporations will bother with reprisals from simple wetwork (though they will put out feelers, for sure) unless the person cacked was of supreme importance. There's no profit in revenge. Any revenge motives will usually stem from a single offended individual, though if they are well connected and can use corp/government resources to pursue your team, that's their problem.

Last (well second to last) piece of advice: Have a contact or friend of the team mention that Shadowrunning 101 always, always always always always involves at least basic investigation of the Johnson, almost before anything else can happen. It's important. Have the contact act incredulous if they aren't doing this. Johnsons betray runners a lot. A LOT. Finding out if a Johnson is on the level is not an outrageous or unreasonable step, and a lot of higher-class runners won't even take a job until they have turned over a few rocks on their prospective employer to begin with.

Edit: Have a mercenary type contact suggest caseless ammo to them. It costs a little more, but it's less evidence to clean up.

kjones
2009-08-22, 11:21 PM
Is having the Johnson backstab the players something I should really be doing that often? I mean, if it happens often enough, I feel like the players would just stop taking jobs...

Raum
2009-08-22, 11:57 PM
Is having the Johnson backstab the players something I should really be doing that often? I mean, if it happens often enough, I feel like the players would just stop taking jobs...Short answer - NO!

Longer answer - Think of Johnson as a corrupt mid-level corporate manager who is ambitious and willing to break the law (at least by proxy) to succeed. He'll wring every personal advantage he can out of the situation, including paying the runners as little as they'll take so he can pocket the rest of whatever he was authorized to pay. But, when it comes down to it, he usually wants the runners to succeed. It would take a very large payoff for him to break with his bosses and betray the runners on a legit run.

That said, there are potential reasons for runs to be less than legit. Or for large bribes to be offered causing such betrayals. They just don't happen often. Also, any runner doiiing basic research into a Johnson should be able to see some signs of potential problems...this is one reason they should check out the people they're working for. Another reason to research him is to figure out how much a runner can charge him. :)

Timeras
2009-08-23, 04:00 AM
Is having the Johnson backstab the players something I should really be doing that often?

If you don't like it, just don't do it. But it can be a very interesting session. I would probably do it only once. And before the players start becoming so paranoid that it doesn't work anymore. That is why, if you really want to do this, you should not
Have a contact or friend of the team mention that Shadowrunning 101 always, always always always always involves at least basic investigation of the Johnson, almost before anything else can happen.
They should find out on their own.

Rasilak
2009-08-23, 06:18 AM
Johnsons betray runners a lot. A LOT.Basically true, but keep in mind that this does not always mean: "The Johnson does not show up, but sends a hit squad to dispose of the evidence." (although this *does* happen...)
Usually they just don't tell the truth about whom you're pissing off and what's the purpose of your run - which can be bad enough by itself.
And be *extremely* cautious if the run seems too easy or dramatically overpaid.

kjones
2009-08-23, 07:38 AM
And be *extremely* cautious if the run seems too easy or dramatically overpaid.

See, this is more the sort of thing that I would go for... the Johnson tells you that it's a simple "extraction", neglecting to mention the fact that it's unwilling. That sort of thing.

I don't think my players have picked up on the importance of checking out the Johnson (that sounds... dirty) yet, but they certainly have picked up on negotiating with the Johnson for more money! (The face gets something like 17 dice on this roll... Charisma 5 + Negotiation 5 + Tailored Pheromones 2 + First Impressions)

Jack_Banzai
2009-08-23, 03:54 PM
Basically true, but keep in mind that this does not always mean: "The Johnson does not show up, but sends a hit squad to dispose of the evidence." (although this *does* happen...)
Usually they just don't tell the truth about whom you're pissing off and what's the purpose of your run - which can be bad enough by itself.
And be *extremely* cautious if the run seems too easy or dramatically overpaid.

Right. That's what I was getting at. The Johnson isn't always going to stiff the players - that's not good business - but a Johnson probably wouldn't think twice about leaving the players holding the bag.

GreyMantle
2009-08-24, 04:45 PM
4E is great, but, as a number of people have noted, the Matrix rules are kinda confusing and annoying at times.

Personally, I prefer the rewrite done in The Ends of the Matrix (http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=48836).

Highlights include:

-Removal of Agents to prevent them from taking over the world.

-A logical and more thorough explanation of factors in the Sixth World.

-Technomancers actually being useful and not crazy BP/karma expensive.

-A more complete sprite list.

-Programs only determine the max number of dice you can roll with tests, they don't actually take the place of an attribute.

-Amusing puns.

Hadrian_Emrys
2009-08-24, 05:40 PM
Just to put it out there: the ability to roll up a lawyer that upsets animals with his mere presence and literally feels, to sentient creatures, like a being of pure evil... that is priceless.

kjones
2009-08-24, 10:52 PM
4E is great, but, as a number of people have noted, the Matrix rules are kinda confusing and annoying at times.

Personally, I prefer the rewrite done in The Ends of the Matrix (http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=48836).

Highlights include:

-Removal of Agents to prevent them from taking over the world.

-A logical and more thorough explanation of factors in the Sixth World.

-Technomancers actually being useful and not crazy BP/karma expensive.

-A more complete sprite list.

-Programs only determine the max number of dice you can roll with tests, they don't actually take the place of an attribute.

-Amusing puns.

Holy cow, I just read that whole thing. It's a lot to take in but I'd like to at least try playing with some of these rules.

Question - have you actually used them? Do you know anyone who has? How do they work in practice?

GreyMantle
2009-08-25, 12:53 PM
Holy cow, I just read that whole thing. It's a lot to take in but I'd like to at least try playing with some of these rules.

Question - have you actually used them? Do you know anyone who has? How do they work in practice?

D&D is my group's preferred game, but I have used the rules in the Ends of the Matrix for a number of shadowruns. And, really, I would say that they work well. Because of the simple fact that they're based on something that has only the loosest relation to anything in The Real World, they take a bit of getting used to (but, then again, so did the standard rules). And the unrelated house rules really even out some of the rough edges of the game (and finally make skills and worthwhile thing).

If you're into D&D as well, the author also wrote a number of similarly sized rules supplements that can be found in one of the stickied threads on the first page of that forum.