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Man With Dog
2010-08-06, 08:44 AM
Hi there,

I am currently a DnD player - i played since v2 and currently play v3.5 alot and occasional v4 but a friend from work has recently said he might start a Shadowrun game.
Now i only know the very basics of Shadowrun and thought i'd ask around these parts for any views on Shadowrun.

It wont interfere with my DnD but - is it a good game worth giving a try?

Coplantor
2010-08-06, 09:08 AM
I loooooooove the seting. Though I fear some of my players wont ever ever EVER understand the mechanics, some of them have been playing for almost 4 years 3.5 and they still dont quite get d20 system, far less the idea of optimization.

If you have no probleems learninga new system, then you should totally give it a try, specially if your friend is a goo GM.

Ormagoden
2010-08-06, 09:12 AM
Yeah, but play 3rd edition. It's more complicated but has more options.
(unless you can't find the books! then you can try 4th :( )

Man With Dog
2010-08-06, 09:20 AM
I shold be ok with learning a new system, i am vaguely familiar with it from my past but the DM/GM that wants to run it is alot more familiar with it.

I've already decided if i do play i wouldnt mind a sniper based character - that likely to be done or easy to accomplish?

Any tips or sites for reference would be appreciated too

MrLich
2010-08-06, 09:28 AM
I think Shadowrun is one of the best settings I've ever played. The game I played in was definitely my favorite game of all time but it was a combination of great DM and amazing RPers that I played with.

The sniper type could easily be done a few different ways. The sniper from my group was our hacker/decker. With enough newyen and cybernetics you can be amazing at whatever you please. :)

Sadly I don't know of any good sites but I could look though my books and come up with a few ideas if your interested.

Satyr
2010-08-06, 09:31 AM
Yes, a sniper shouldn't be a problem at all. Not always useful, but it shouldn't be a problem. Shadowrun characters start already quite competent and many concepts work from the beginning. The only problem might be getting a good sniper rifle.


Yeah, but play 3rd edition. It's more complicated but has more options.
(unless you can't find the books! then you can try 4th :( )

Not necessary. Yes, for everybody who knows the older stuff, the rule changes in 4th edition were no improvements; and the changes in the background were terrible. However, without this comparison, Shadowrun 4e is not a bad game. The rules are not better or worse, just different (and less iconic), and as long as they work, it's fine.

Now, the background changes and the utter lack of cyberpunk atmosphere, that's a serious drawback.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-08-06, 09:34 AM
SR is a system for math enthusiasts.

If you enjoyed 3.5 character creation, then you'll love rolling up a Street Sam or Rigger and spending 2-3 hours getting them just right.

The setting can't be beat - it remains unique amongst the RPGs (AFAIK) - and so long as you have the right mindset going into it (everyone's a glass cannon, so strike only when you can win, and strike first) and never cut a deal with a dragon, you'll be fine :smallamused:

Between the systems, I prefer SR3 to SR4; SR4 has cleaner dice mechanics but loses a lot of the dystopian and cyberpunk from previous editions due to fluff alterations.

Basically:
SR1-3 = William Gibson
SR4 = Neal Stephenson

...plus magic, of course :smalltongue:

EDIT: You can make pretty much any character in SR, but as long as you don't mix magic & cyberware, you'll be OK. You can mix magic & cyberware (Physical Adepts mostly) but it's a bit trickier.

In general, your character should be a specialist in one area and a generalist in another. For a Sniper, getting familiar with a SMG might not be the worst idea - though a Troll Bow Sniper is always fun :smallbiggrin:

Earthwalker
2010-08-06, 09:36 AM
I loved shadowrun as well.

Snipers are possible tho it is a good idea to have another string to your bow. Playing just a sniper you might find lots of situations where the GM doesn't want you to just sit up high and blow all the bad guys away, so meetings will take place inside buildings and so on.

Last time I checked, the dumpshock forums was the place to be to discuss the game, of course it seems plenty of people here still play if you need build advice.

Oh and I think out of the box, you can't get a very good sniper riffle, limits on availability of starting equipment. Can soon get something nice once the game begins tho.

Britter
2010-08-06, 09:38 AM
In my opinion, the sourcebooks for 1st and 2nd edition Shadowrun are some of the best out there. Evocative, full of good setting material, and preserving a sense of mystery and depth to the setting, they were also very good reads. If you play using the 4th editon rules, do yourself a favor and track down as much of the old source books as possible and use them to flesh out the setting. The sourcebooks are often entirely devoid of mechanics and only provide setting, characters and events, so minimal conversion is necessary. Mid-to-late 3rd edition stuff is no where near as good and often trends towards the ridiculous, and I would recomend avoiding it.

Regarding playing the system, I have been running Shadowrun games for 13 or so years, and I have never had as much fun with any other system. I don't like the transhumanist focus of 4e, and I perfer the grittier cyberpunk aspects of the earlier additions, but you should try the system for your self and see how it suits you.

Winterwind
2010-08-06, 09:38 AM
I can only concur with the posters before me. Love ShadowRun, especially setting-wise, am familiar only with the 3rd edition of it though, and what I've heard about the 4th one makes it sound like it's still a decent game, but nothing that would make me interested in switching over from the 3rd one. :smallcool:

Man With Dog
2010-08-06, 09:44 AM
I think Shadowrun is one of the best settings I've ever played. The game I played in was definitely my favorite game of all time but it was a combination of great DM and amazing RPers that I played with.

The sniper type could easily be done a few different ways. The sniper from my group was our hacker/decker. With enough newyen and cybernetics you can be amazing at whatever you please. :)

Sadly I don't know of any good sites but I could look though my books and come up with a few ideas if your interested.


Always interested in idea's - i dont have the players handbook equivalent book yet - waiting on DM to see which he wants to run with (and of course i hadnt asked if people thought it worthwhile playing)
But i am always open to idea's - any idea's from anyone

Zaakar
2010-08-06, 09:53 AM
If you wanna play a sci-fi game, shoot. I don't really like all the mechanics (though most of it), but it's nothing you can't live with (like pretty much any other good tabletop RPG)

Also, while I've never played the game, just read some books, the game seem to require a quite good GM. There are many elements in that game that you never have to bother with in DnD.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-08-06, 10:12 AM
Always interested in idea's - i dont have the players handbook equivalent book yet - waiting on DM to see which he wants to run with (and of course i hadnt asked if people thought it worthwhile playing)
But i am always open to idea's - any idea's from anyone
So... a lot depends on whether you're playing SR4 or not.
In SR4 you can be whatever.

In previous editions, there was The Decker Problem - some "classes" were inherently hyperspecialized and therefore did not play well with others. This was mainly The Decker but also non-drone Riggers. Some GMs (such as me) would just give the PCs a "free" Rigger and/or Decker when the 'run called for it. SR4 fixed this by making everyone a little bit Decker and every Rigger a Drone Rigger.
What, exactly, do you want your 'runner to be capable of doing? Imagine him as a member of a Special Operations ("SpecOps") team - what's his job? You can also use TF2 terminology if that helps.

Hzurr
2010-08-06, 10:50 AM
A few thoughts (I played Shadowrun for the first time this summer, and my previous experience was almost exclusively d&d)

- If playing 4th (which I played, and enjoyed), pick up the 20th anniversary book, not the default 4th edition Shadowrun book. The origional release is horribly laid out, and very difficult to navigate. The 20th anniversary re-printing is much easier to use (and it uses the 4E rule set)

- It's very easy to twink your character so that he/she is OMG UNBELIEVABLY AWESOME!!11! at just one thing. Be careful about this, because even though specialization is important, don't be afraid to have some decent secondary skills (even ones that are covered better by other party members) because it's inevitable that you'll end up in a situation that you can't shoot your way out of, and you'll need to drive (or you can't magic your way out of, and you'll need to talk; or talk your way out of, and you'll need to sneak). Secondary roles are key; so don't ignore them.

- In my experience, I've found that a lot more goes into the initial planning of missions (which is interesting, because this is usually what caused things to slow down in d&d, but it's one of the best parts of Shadowrun).

- When you create your character, spend a few more points on cash, and make sure that you buy a few things that "could be useful, but you'll never need." You'll use them, trust me.

HailDiscordia
2010-08-06, 11:26 AM
It's totally worth giving it a shot. To agree with everyone else, the world is absolutely one of the best that there is.

I have a 2nd edition game going on currently and the rules are really not that bad. Honestly I hadn't played 2ed in years and it's not as bad as I remember it, and if you have a decent GM they can just improvise and keep things moving. I highly recommend Shadowrun.

And you can get 2nd edition books online for next to nothing!

Oracle_Hunter
2010-08-06, 11:41 AM
I recommend SR3 to SR2 - the character creation system in SR3 is much better. In SR2 it is either impossible or incredibly awkward to make certain races Full Magicians due to a quirk in the generation method. Plus, they tighten up the math a bit in each generation, so the later the better.

SR4 is an exception just because of the massive fluff shift - and a corresponding rules shift.

Man With Dog
2010-08-06, 11:49 AM
So... a lot depends on whether you're playing SR4 or not.
In SR4 you can be whatever.

In previous editions, there was The Decker Problem - some "classes" were inherently hyperspecialized and therefore did not play well with others. This was mainly The Decker but also non-drone Riggers. Some GMs (such as me) would just give the PCs a "free" Rigger and/or Decker when the 'run called for it. SR4 fixed this by making everyone a little bit Decker and every Rigger a Drone Rigger.
What, exactly, do you want your 'runner to be capable of doing? Imagine him as a member of a Special Operations ("SpecOps") team - what's his job? You can also use TF2 terminology if that helps.


I am interested in a Sniper kind role but it cant JUST be Sniper so he needs a kind of 'backup'
I dont mind too much what his secondary ability / specialisation would be.
Maybe he is a pistol user? An SMG user etc - dont mind :smallsmile:

Oracle_Hunter
2010-08-06, 11:56 AM
I am interested in a Sniper kind role but it cant JUST be Sniper so he needs a kind of 'backup'
I dont mind too much what his secondary ability / specialisation would be.
Maybe he is a pistol user? An SMG user etc - dont mind :smallsmile:
Well, you have choices:

The Infiltrator : You sneak up into a firing position, take the shot, and then sneak out without anyone being the wiser. [Also comes in Magic]

Fire Support : You have a big gun and know how to use it. You just plunk down in a sniper's nest, cover up in camo, and wait for your cue.

Overwatch : Sometimes you need an eye in the sky. You get into a good position to watch the action and then respond as needed. [Also comes in Magic]

Captain Longshot : You're too pretty to get into the thick of things, so you hang back where your longarm and comm suite lets you support the troops as you coordinate. [Also comes in Magic]

Think about what kind of style appeals to you - there's a lot more to being a 'runner than killing guys.

Man With Dog
2010-08-06, 12:03 PM
Well, you have choices:

The Infiltrator : You sneak up into a firing position, take the shot, and then sneak out without anyone being the wiser. [Also comes in Magic]

Fire Support : You have a big gun and know how to use it. You just plunk down in a sniper's nest, cover up in camo, and wait for your cue.

Overwatch : Sometimes you need an eye in the sky. You get into a good position to watch the action and then respond as needed. [Also comes in Magic]

Captain Longshot : You're too pretty to get into the thick of things, so you hang back where your longarm and comm suite lets you support the troops as you coordinate. [Also comes in Magic]

Think about what kind of style appeals to you - there's a lot more to being a 'runner than killing guys.



See they all sound pretty awesome. I need to go out and spend some pennies on some of this stuff and any extra splat like books i can get.
Hope its not as pricey as DnD books get

Oracle_Hunter
2010-08-06, 12:05 PM
See they all sound pretty awesome. I need to go out and spend some pennies on some of this stuff and any extra splat like books i can get.
Hope its not as pricey as DnD books get
Don't bother with splats. Just get the core rulebook (1 book) - it has all the rules you need to run a game without Riggers or Deckers.

Also: those were just some concepts I made up on the spot. Feel free to make your own.

Man With Dog
2010-08-06, 12:09 PM
Don't bother with splats. Just get the core rulebook (1 book) - it has all the rules you need to run a game without Riggers or Deckers.

Also: those were just some concepts I made up on the spot. Feel free to make your own.

More of a case of thinking just what you wanan do - rogue-ish, Schwarzenegger style etc and picking the abilities and weaponry you can to echo that kinda style

Oracle_Hunter
2010-08-06, 12:15 PM
More of a case of thinking just what you wanan do - rogue-ish, Schwarzenegger style etc and picking the abilities and weaponry you can to echo that kinda style
Yes, though there are certain builds that are mechanically interesting.

For example, an Aspected Infiltrator can drop an Improved Invisibility spell into a Power Focus to gain active camo. You can even take some cyberware so long as you don't need any high Force spells.

In the alternative, a Shamatic Infiltrator has a lot of fun getting a Spirit to Conceal them while they're moving around.

The important thing is to have an Ares Predator with EX Ammo and a Silencer for close-in work. Smart-Link it up and you can whisper "boom, headshot" all day :smallamused:

Man With Dog
2010-08-06, 12:32 PM
Yes, though there are certain builds that are mechanically interesting.

For example, an Aspected Infiltrator can drop an Improved Invisibility spell into a Power Focus to gain active camo. You can even take some cyberware so long as you don't need any high Force spells.

In the alternative, a Shamatic Infiltrator has a lot of fun getting a Spirit to Conceal them while they're moving around.

The important thing is to have an Ares Predator with EX Ammo and a Silencer for close-in work. Smart-Link it up and you can whisper "boom, headshot" all day :smallamused:

I have jsut been told were going t be running v4.0
I am guessing that doesnt change too much of what you said or does it drastically alter it?

Either way, i definitely need to grab at least the first book in this and have a good read up

Oracle_Hunter
2010-08-06, 12:35 PM
I have jsut been told were going t be running v4.0
I am guessing that doesnt change too much of what you said or does it drastically alter it?

Either way, i definitely need to grab at least the first book in this and have a good read up


:sigh:

Somewhat, but probably not in any way you'd notice.

If you need a rules summary, try this handy and enlightening link. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=9090611&postcount=3)

Man With Dog
2010-08-06, 01:03 PM
Double Post

GreyMantle
2010-08-07, 12:23 AM
I have jsut been told were going t be running v4.0
I am guessing that doesnt change too much of what you said or does it drastically alter it?

Either way, i definitely need to grab at least the first book in this and have a good read up

Honestly, I suspect a lot of people on this board are giving 4E a bad rep. The rules are simplified in general, but they also work much better. The character creation takes longer, but it also allows for greater customization. Instead of being totally unplayable, PC hackers only cease to be viable when you try to powergame the system, which is probably an improvement.

The fluff...well, the fluff is different. There's no getting around that. But the thing to keep in mind is that the first 3 editions were all built around 80s and 90s ideas of technology, with things like limited memory, wires sticking out of everything, etc. But we already have this really neat thing called ethernet that allows for wireless access to Teh Interwebz, and it's not even 2029 yet. So, really, 3rd edition and lower have entered that, "fun but in a very retro, outdated way" stage of sf where the present has totally caught up to the future, but mostly in ways no one could've predicted. In contrast, 4E is probably on the borderline between "classic" (read: no longer accurate) cyberpunk and a more realistic (or at least plausible), um...let's call it "transhuman."

Now that is by no means a bad thing. But especially if you're a huge Gibson fan, the changes are likely to make you go all "b-but b-but b-but...???!!!!" And do really keep in mind that the underlying mechanics in 4E are much smoother and better than any prior edition of Shadowrun.

SuperCracker
2010-08-07, 12:52 AM
My biggest problem with 4E: It took ALL of the juice out of melee combat.

Outside of an extremely highly specialized punching adept with the ranged attack ability, it's not a viable tactic anymore. Complex action vs. guns that are simple action. Only one mundane modification can be made on melee weapons.

Meanwhile, the street sam with his SMG burst-fires on you twice in the same turn with his tricked-out gun.

Other than that, 4E is actually a pretty fun system.

Timeras
2010-08-07, 02:12 AM
Firing a weapon in SA or BF mode has always been a simple action. A Character depending on Melee was just as dead in 2nd or 3rd edition as he ist in 4th.

And that is not a bad thing. The rules shouldn't encourage attacking people carrying guns with a knife or a baseball bat.

Sasha Tate
2010-08-07, 02:26 AM
Shadowrun was an awesome game and a real blast. However it is very dependent on the storyteller running it. We were a group called "problem solvers Inc." and we had a mage, a sniper, a technomancer, a conwoman (me), and a samurai. Ironically I was one of the most vital members getting us access, distracting cops, coming up with excuses for why we failed, and generally oiling the gears. The ST had a houserule that made the mage and S.S. vital: elementals and manifested spirits were highly resistant to modern weapons. You had to get close and dirty to take them out. And there is nothing more thrilling than driving the get away car while an tornado spirit is chasing you. Boy we pissed off the natives something fierce...

DeltaEmil
2010-08-07, 02:41 AM
Spirits have always been highly resistant against modern weapons, which is why Shadowrun is another game where mages rule and mundanes drool, at least most times.
However, the deadliness of the game (you effectively only have 10-20 hit points, so to speak, and there's a lot of special attacks that bypass your overmaxed defenses) does not make the disparity that aggravating.

There are still some D&D-istic elements that should have gone the way of the extinct dodo in Shadowrun, like monsters that drain your essence (vampires, blood spirits and other nasty stuff, created to punish highly cybered characters), monsters that drain your karma points (your xp), monsters with the ability to force you to reroll or automatically negate your edge-rolls (so that you cannot and must not ever win against a dragon, but the community is so far ahead of the developers), elven "supernations" that have weird "supergear" (which in truth all suck, and at least the american Tyr is a bankrupt and impoverished country where the immortal elves have failed in every regard to keep up with modern times), "supermagic" traditions (they've been toned down somewhat for now), and magical items, weapons, equipment or spirits that can only be used by NPCs and fail horribly in the hands of player characters.

Zen Master
2010-08-07, 04:55 AM
I played a couple of 'precision shooters' in my time. Naturally, it works better with a sniper rifle - but not everything is about effect.

For the situations that allowed for it, I'd be on high ground somwehere with a big mutha of a rifle, taking aimed, called shots at anyone who presented a shootable head to me.

Those situations weren't too common, of course - it's almost only when the combat takes place outside somewhere that a long-range rifle is very practical.

Specifically, there is a rule stating that sniper rifles lose accurace when used in combat. I took this seriously.

For closer work, I'd use a hunting rifle - still high-powered, but without the limitations of the sniper rifle on combat use. I'd be a few steps behind the other guys, but doing the same as above: Waiting for targets to present themselves.

And finally, in cramped quarters, I had a large revolver. I could have used the hunting rifle, of course, but no one even moderately sane would use a scoped weapon against a target 10 feet away. So neither will I =)

Alleine
2010-08-07, 05:17 AM
I've only played a few sessions of shadowrun, and while I didn't quite like the feel of the game, I'd still recommend it. ESPECIALLY if you have someone who's played before. The group I ran with had never played(barring the GM), and I wasn't too thrilled since none of us really knew what to expect. We handled things rather poorly for the most part. Someone to tell us 'no, the plan is this' would have done us a world of good. It also might have helped if any of my characters had been even mildly competent at anything other than getting shot.

Slightly more on topic, if you plan on buying a book, I've heard the anniversary edition is much better organized than the first 4th edition core. If that is so, it will make a world of difference.

WinWin
2010-08-07, 07:17 AM
Shadowrun suffers the same problem as WoD. In order to make a character that is good at something, you need to build it that way at char gen. Experience costs are too expensive relative to the length of the campaigns in order to play a generalist. Making a master of every weapon is nearly possible, but takes heaps of time and karma. Starting a mage with a Magic score of 1 is not worth the effort. Not starting with decent cyberware and expecting to buy it in game is harder than you realise, especially for the good stuff.

For best results, do not try and make a character that can do everything. Pick a broad speciality and work around that. Branch out a little, but stay on focus.

Some archtypes include:

Street Samurai. A combat surgeon. A Street Samurai Wins the Battle, only then do they fight. Chrome up, make sure you have a good SIN and licences for your gear. Reputation, Discretion and Reliability are more important than a body count, especially if you want the Johnson to hire you again.

Ganger. Street Muscle. Like a D&D rogue. Could play like a Sammie, but probably regarded as more expendable.

Face. The spokesman for the group. Responsible for negotiation, gathering intel, opening doors and putting out fires.

Rigger. The driver. Responsible for getting Runners into and out of the area. May also have some drones for surveilance and combat.

Tech. Could be a hacker also. Helps bypass surveilance and security. Sometimes needs to be on-site in order to tamper with closed systems.

Mage. Variable. Could be combat focused, stealth or social depending on spell selection. Most are capable of summoning spirits. While a Mage can act like a tactical nuke, they are more likely to be a bit subtle if they plan on retiring one day. Powerful magic is easy to trace...

A few fast and easy archtypes. A Mage or Adept might Play like a Sammie or Face. The Ganger could have some Tech or Driving Talent. There is a lot more than what I have gone over here.

Just remember that you are essentially playing an Industrial Spy, Sabotuer or Criminal. TV shows like Leverage are probably better for SR inspiration than the A-Team, though YMMV.

comicshorse
2010-08-07, 07:27 AM
elven "supernations" that have weird "supergear" (which in truth all suck, and at least the american Tyr is a bankrupt and impoverished country where the immortal elves have failed in every regard to keep up with modern times), "supermagic" traditions (they've been toned down somewhat for now), and magical items, weapons, equipment or spirits that can only be used by NPCs and fail horribly in the hands of player characters.

Yeah but just ignore the truely horible Tir Na Og book and you lose all of these

Telok
2010-08-07, 08:44 AM
Ok, I only read the first page but...

Don't be too good at what you do in the beginning. Be just good enough. There are two benefits to this. First, you have more skills to spread around. Don't be afraid to start with a couple of points in medicine or computers even if you aren't the primary medic/hacker. Second, it is possible to be totally overkill in what you're doing. I've seen phys-ads blow some street punk ganger's heart out through his back with a stun-glove, on accident. We had a sniper go "wing a couple of air taxis" to discourage air travel between the airport and an arcology for a few days... He put an armor piercing bullet through the center of the rotor assembly on the first shot. Way more attention than we wanted. Way way way more attention. That run went from "kidnap an exec" to "hide from Lonestar and Renraku for a month" really fast.

Figure that once you can throw about 10 dice (including from your die pools) at a paticular job and mabey another couple of dice in an emergency you're good at what you do and it is time to diversify.

JaronK
2010-08-07, 10:08 AM
I absolutely love Shadowrun, and am in a 3rd edition campaign right now. I will say that the doctrine of Shadowrun is very different from D&D... it's not "are you good enough at your job?" It's "can you apply your skills?" A good sniper WILL kill with one shot. But the question is whether you can set up a situation where the enemy is in front of your sniper rifle at long range. A good street sam WILL blow away the target. But you have to get your guns in past security. Etc.

Snipers tend to be realistic, which is to say boring. You end up sitting through much of the mission just waiting for the shot. Have other abilities (even just having a carbine rifle from Cannon Compendium will help, so you can get in close).

JaronK

GreyMantle
2010-08-07, 11:39 AM
Shadowrun suffers the same problem as WoD. In order to make a character that is good at something, you need to build it that way at char gen. Experience costs are too expensive relative to the length of the campaigns in order to play a generalist. Making a master of every weapon is nearly possible, but takes heaps of time and karma. Starting a mage with a Magic score of 1 is not worth the effort. Not starting with decent cyberware and expecting to buy it in game is harder than you realise, especially for the good stuff.

This is true. But part of your issue, I suspect, is because of mechanical failure on the fault of the designers; the other part is more of an intended design goal.

Mechanical boo-boo first: Skills are, simply put, just way too expensive. What's more, the curving cost for increasing skills with Karma also penalizes you heavily. It incentivizes you to start out with a 6 in one skill and lower numbers in everything else. The best solution, I've found is to do two things:
1) Switch all the costs over to BP and modify in-game rewards appropriately. Because BP are linear, it tends to require less theoretical maths to plan out your character's development.
2) Halve the costs of all skills. (Ie, one skill costs 2 BP, one skill group costs 5 BP, knowledge skills cost 1 BP)



Ganger. Street Muscle. Like a D&D rogue. Could play like a Sammie, but probably regarded as more expendable.

Tech. Could be a hacker also. Helps bypass surveilance and security. Sometimes needs to be on-site in order to tamper with closed systems.

Mage. Variable. Could be combat focused, stealth or social depending on spell selection. Most are capable of summoning spirits. While a Mage can act like a tactical nuke, they are more likely to be a bit subtle if they plan on retiring one day. Powerful magic is easy to trace...


Just a few issues:

Ganger-labeling your character as "the expendable one" is probably not the best way to go about things, especially in a game where the characters are supposed to be outright badasses superior to most of the opposition they face and in which character creation takes a notoriously long time.

Tech-Hackers not having to be "on-site" is probably the biggest reason why the Hacker role tend to be relegated to be performed by NPCs in many games pre-4E. 4E mitigates this problem somewhat, but there're still a lot of problems and eventually you'll probably want to homebrew a system or find someone else's.

Mage-Being able to shoot fire from your hands to kill people in one round is, surprisingly...not that useful in a world where you can buy grenades at the local Wal-Mart. The most successful mages focus on things like summoning, stealth, etc-those activities it's most difficult for mundanes to replicate.

DeltaEmil
2010-08-07, 11:48 AM
Fireball and other such flashy elemental spells are also completely useless for mages. The true combat spells (stunbolt and stunball, don't bothe with the mana versions) can incapacitate every enemy, give you less drain, and if you need to kill the guards, you can still break their necks afterward.
If you need to trash drones, you use the energy-variant. Deadly spells with easy drain-values. Also, you can easily erase your magic signature in a few seconds.
And let's not start with spirits that are a little bit too strong and too useful.

WinWin
2010-08-07, 12:16 PM
Being a Ganger is worth it. Being able to disappear into Redmond Barrens, the place even LoneStar will not tread, is fantastic for a group of Runners. Not good for every mission, but it is still an asset and a fantastic archtype. Some players enjoy being the Underdog, or the uncouth punk.

As for spells, do not wate your time with flashy elemental effects. That is what elementals and explosives are for. Mob Mind, Alter Memory, Influence, Shapechange, Power Bolt/Ball, Stun Bolt/Ball, Levitate, Turn to Goo, Shape Concrete, Mana Static and that EMP type spell, I forget the name. These are versatile bread and butter spells. A few health spells to boost IP and heal damage in an emergency are good. A poison negating spell coupled with some gas grenades has the dual effect of providing cover while debilitating some of the opposition. Only be on the front lines if you are playing a Possession Tradition mage, otherwise leave that to your spirits.

The problem with magic is that mana leaves a residue on everything it effects. Astral cleansing can be fast, but it is not always totally effective. A runner is not always going to have the luxury of time required to police every spell they cast, especially if Corp Sec is on the move. A mages best option is to try and initiate quickly and pick up Masking in order to better conceal their astral signature.

Of course, the same could be said of the Street Samurai policing his shells and disposing of used weaponry in a proper order. That can easily be traced with forensics. Same deal for the Rigger and his toys. The Hacker and the nodes he uses. Some games do not make a big deal about getting caught or maintaining a low profile. Some do. This is the sort of thing you will need to know before building a character.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-08-07, 01:25 PM
Street Samurai. A combat surgeon. A Street Samurai Wins the Battle, only then do they fight. Chrome up, make sure you have a good SIN and licences for your gear. Reputation, Discretion and Reliability are more important than a body count, especially if you want the Johnson to hire you again.
I've never even heard of a Street Sam with a SIN. Most of the bleeding edge gear you're packing is either prohibitively expensive to purchase permits for and it isn't going to take all that long for someone to link you with some crime and yank all those permits.

Street Sam live by their own code and aren't about to be bound by the rules of a honorless and decadent society.

Raum
2010-08-07, 01:44 PM
When I played everyone picked up SINs when they could afford them...usually more than one. That gave them a backup in case one got compromised. :)

Alleine
2010-08-07, 01:49 PM
What you want is a Fake SIN. Or, a really, really good plan to use a dead guy's SIN. There's a big difference between a SIN and a Fake SIN.

WinWin
2010-08-07, 02:07 PM
I've never even heard of a Street Sam with a SIN. Most of the bleeding edge gear you're packing is either prohibitively expensive to purchase permits for and it isn't going to take all that long for someone to link you with some crime and yank all those permits.

Street Sam live by their own code and aren't about to be bound by the rules of a honorless and decadent society.

Depends on the game and who you play with. Most of the time there is no difference between a mercenary and a street samurai. Some backgrounds may involve a character working their way up from the street. Others may have an ex-corp background. Most of the time, a street samurai is just a guy with a weapon and some augmentation. Few players give any thought as to playing someone with an actual code. Just because a samurai has a code does not mean the world works any differently. It only changes how the samurai acts.

Attempting to get though a security checkpoint while packing chrome means that you will need a good fake SIN and the licences/clearance to carry. Most meetings with a Johnson or other contacts require getting through checkpoints. Most Runs involve moving though checkpoints. The downtime lifestyle of a Street Samurai involves moving though checkpoints. Even buying a soydog at the local Stuffer Shack will result in a SIN being recorded.

Same goes for any character type though. Chrome tends to be more obvious and easy to detect. Mages need licences. Hackers can make or steal their own identities, they just need to be careful not to leave a trail. Riggers would probably suffer more than Samurai, depending on the vehicles and drones they use.

The group I played SR with tended to have a very paranoid playstyle. More Black Tenchcoat than Pink Mohawk. Other groups tend to be more relaxed in their playstyle. Find out how strict the GM is going to be running the setting before making a character.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-08-07, 04:43 PM
Depends on the game and who you play with. Most of the time there is no difference between a mercenary and a street samurai. Some backgrounds may involve a character working their way up from the street. Others may have an ex-corp background. Most of the time, a street samurai is just a guy with a weapon and some augmentation. Few players give any thought as to playing someone with an actual code. Just because a samurai has a code does not mean the world works any differently. It only changes how the samurai acts.
Technically speaking, a "Street Samurai" isn't just some dude with a weapon and some chrome - he's a modern practitioner of bushido who relies on cyberware to perfect his Art. A Street Samurai isn't just the SR version of a Fighter, which a lot of people seem to forget.


Attempting to get though a security checkpoint while packing chrome means that you will need a good fake SIN and the licences/clearance to carry. Most meetings with a Johnson or other contacts require getting through checkpoints. Most Runs involve moving though checkpoints. The downtime lifestyle of a Street Samurai involves moving though checkpoints. Even buying a soydog at the local Stuffer Shack will result in a SIN being recorded.
A good Johnson isn't going to run a SIN check on his 'runners, or require someone else to do so - too many Shadowrunners work "off the system." Besides, anyone can fake a SIN; better to have your own contacts verify the identity of the 'runners and let your bodyguards sweep them for Area Bombs before letting them approach.

If you're forcing your run & gun squad to buy fake SINs for the Meet, then you're overpaying for 'runners - not to mention doing it wrong :smalltongue:

As for sleazing checkpoints: either you're impersonating a particular individual (and need a specific fake SIN anyhow) or you're doing a little B&E and it'll be awkward for the megacorp to send your SIN over to UCAS and convert it to a Criminal SIN that yanks your licenses anyhow.

Plus, don't forget Certified Credsticks. While the Seattle RTA may not let you buy a Tube Pass with one, most private entities are more interested in getting your nuyen than knowing who you are.

Moral of the story: if you're going to be doing illegal things, it's cheaper and better to get rid of your SIN before you attract the attention of someone who can give you a Criminal SIN - which is much harder to get rid of.

Raum
2010-08-07, 04:55 PM
Technically speaking, a "Street Samurai" isn't just some dude with a weapon and some chrome - he's a modern practitioner of bushido who relies on cyberware to perfect his Art. A Street Samurai isn't just the SR version of a Fighter, which a lot of people seem to forget.Hehe. I don't think we played the same game. :smallwink:

Oracle_Hunter
2010-08-07, 05:16 PM
Hehe. I don't think we played the same game. :smallwink:
Well, I can only speak from the fluff I've read in SR2 & SR3.

I mean, it's not like have to be called a "Street Samurai" in order to play a cyber'd killer - it's just a fluff label for a concept. It'd be nice if there were another fluff term for "cyber'd warrior with less than 1 Essence" but it looks like nobody ever got around to making one.

Volomon
2010-08-07, 05:23 PM
Well, I can only speak from the fluff I've read in SR2 & SR3.

I mean, it's not like have to be called a "Street Samurai" in order to play a cyber'd killer - it's just a fluff label for a concept. It'd be nice if there were another fluff term for "cyber'd warrior with less than 1 Essence" but it looks like nobody ever got around to making one.

Anyone can be a cyber'd warrior that's not the premise of a Street Samurai, the Street Samurai is literally fluff they present themselves as modern Samurai who bask in a different kind of life style with morals and codes of conduct which to the Samurai can not be broken.

If you just want to be a beat up anything cybered out guy just be your typical Ganger with a lot of dough.

wadledo
2010-08-07, 05:39 PM
*Has fond memories of his Nosferatu Sniper and Were-Bear Medic Shaman*

Hawriel
2010-08-07, 06:10 PM
I mean, it's not like have to be called a "Street Samurai" in order to play a cyber'd killer - it's just a fluff label for a concept. It'd be nice if there were another fluff term for "cyber'd warrior with less than 1 Essence" but it looks like nobody ever got around to making one.


That would be a cyberzombi.
And your not a cyberzombi unless your essence goes into the negatives. You dont want to be a cyberzombi. Just ask hatchetman.

Shadowrun is not D&D whare fluff gets in the way of fun. There is no fluff. Its the setting as is with a history to back it up. It's easyer to talk about shadowrun on its own with hout shoehorning in terms inspired by gamers who grew up on WOTC.

Shadowrun is a game that better suites the style of character personalty over stat block. You interact with peaple, corporations, the law, enviornment and most of all the concequences of your actions.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-08-07, 06:15 PM
Shadowrun is a game that better suites the style of character personalty over stat block. You interact with peaple, corporations, the law, enviornment and most of all the concequences of your actions.
All I'm saying is that if your character goes around telling people he is a Street Samurai, they're going to expect him to follow "Street Bushido." It's like calling yourself a Decker without being particularly interested in the Matrix.

comicshorse
2010-08-07, 06:22 PM
Use of SIN's very much depends on your type of game. If you're running a street-level campaign then the occassional fake ID may get you through. For higher-level, more espionage games several good SIN's are a must.
I usually try to maintain one solid SIN that doesn't get used on anything obviously illegal just so you can move around in the nicer area's of the city without worrying about getting pulled by Lone Star ( after all that's where all the best resteraunts are).
I found a Private Investigator is a good identity to have its a reason to carry a pistol and to ask all sorts of strange questions.

Hawriel
2010-08-07, 06:42 PM
Bushido has nothing to do with being a steet samurai. Its just a term used for gunmen for higher. Some are profesional, most are gangers with guns. There is no code of honor behond an individuals code of conduct. It is an ingame term but a real shadowruner would never call himeself a street samurai. It's mostly used by the news media, simsence industry, and posers who think they are hardcore.

In the book Fields of Fire the poster on the Shadowland BBS even mocks the weapon called the 'street samurai special'. It was marketed with the misconception that street sams had a real profesion. Again only used by poser gangbangers.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-08-07, 07:34 PM
Odd, since the write-up for the "Street Samurai" Pregen in the SR2 and SR3 books states that Street Samurai follow the code of Bushido.

Raum
2010-08-07, 07:45 PM
I mean, it's not like have to be called a "Street Samurai" in order to play a cyber'd killer - it's just a fluff label for a concept. Like I said, we played very different games. :smallsmile: Nothing wrong with that! I simply emphasized the dehumanizing influence of tech and society's dystopia more than your GM seems to have.

Not saying there weren't 'honorable' characters in the game, there were...a few were even PCs. :smalltongue: But, to a criminal trying to survive in the forgotten underbelly of civilization, honor meant keeping your word and paying your debts...for good or ill. It didn't mean ascribing to an outmoded and over-hyped world view. In fact, they were more likely to assign the samurai term to those they fought - those giving loyalty to the corporations. After all, that's what a samurai was, a warrior willing to die at some feudal (or corporate) lord's command.

If the characters in my games assigned any term other than 'shadowrunner' to themselves, it would have been 'ronin' long before 'samurai'. After all, they had rejected the accepted norm of being a corporate wage slave.

To the OP - I enjoyed SR for years...never played 4e but I hear they've cleaned the rules up significantly. I think the setting isn't as dark as it used to be but, since cyberpunk was largely an 80s things, that's not terribly surprising. Give it a chance! Hope you have fun.

comicshorse
2010-08-07, 08:30 PM
Not saying there weren't 'honorable' characters in the game, there were...a few were even PCs. :smalltongue: But, to a criminal trying to survive in the forgotten underbelly of civilization, honor meant keeping your word and paying your debts...for good or ill. It didn't mean ascribing to an outmoded and over-hyped world view. In fact, they were more likely to assign the samurai term to those they fought - those giving loyalty to the corporations. After all, that's what a samurai was, a warrior willing to die at some feudal (or corporate) lord's command.

If the characters in my games assigned any term other than 'shadowrunner' to themselves, it would have been 'ronin' long before 'samurai'. After all, they had rejected the accepted norm of being a corporate wage slave.
.

Yep that's why Renraku elite force are the Red Samurai.
( and why in Cyberpunk the P.C.'s are often referred to as Ronin)

The Big Dice
2010-08-07, 08:45 PM
Yep that's why Renraku elite force are the Red Samurai.
( and why in Cyberpunk the P.C.'s are often referred to as Ronin)

If you're going to work the street in any cyberpunkish game, you need to have some sense of giri. Don't be the guy starting trouble or going for the double cross. Be the guy who ends trouble, gets the job done with the minimum amount of fuss and never forget to give people the right kind of payback.

That said, Vaarsuvius's Theorem about explosions and social situations seems to hold true in a cyberpunk setting...

boj0
2010-08-07, 10:29 PM
Shadowrun is an amazing game as long as you're willing to lose every once in a while; it's not D&D where lose = death, but more "Okay, mission comprimised GTFO; everyonde go dark for a month." You gotta roll with the punches in SR because you can't go Tippyverse, there is no magic "pwn dragon" button on pun-pun build, you are fragile in the Shadows, but you might just pull away with some cash or shiny chrome. :smallsmile:

sombrastewart
2010-08-07, 11:16 PM
As a tip for the OP, since you're playing SR4 and want to be a rifle guy, let me make a simple, "no kidding" recommendation: only worry about cranking up your longarms skill. Since you've got this concept in your head, that one weapon skill will cover a large variety of weapons for all sorts of ranges. Longarms applies to sniper rifles, hunting rifles and shotguns.

My current SR4 game has me playing a troll physical adept that acts as the team's muscle, which usually consists of me breaking out one of two things: my Auto Assault 16 shotgun (from the Arsenal book) or the Elephant Gun (from the base book). I've used a sniper rifle as well, and it's all the same dice pool.

Autonomy
2010-08-08, 09:34 PM
Odd, since the write-up for the "Street Samurai" Pregen in the SR2 and SR3 books states that Street Samurai follow the code of Bushido.

Thankfully, SR4 has moved on since then and removed the 80's fetishism of Japanese culture that malingered across SR2 and vaguely into SR3. Now it simply refers to a runner who deals with mundane combat who doesn't want to be called something else.

Bushido doesn't feel a good fit for the new, less romantic Shadowrun, and whilst you could play a similar character, Ghost Dog starring Forrest Whittaker serving as an inspiration for the sake of example, inevitably you'd find yourself forced into actions with no hope of survival, and when coupled with the fatalism inherent to the Way's teachings, the odds wouldn't dissuade you from pursuing whatever suicidal course of action you're on. And that's before we get into any shenanigans involving your "lord" and the seppuku themed antics that can ensue. It seems against the tone of the backstabbing, amoral, corporate/criminal world of SR and doesn't feel right for verisimilitude, there's something off about elements of a criminal/espionage subculture in North America adopting a historical Japanese philosophical outlook belonging to a social class that lead a very different existence.

In my mind, it makes more sense if street samurai is a slang word that arose in the 'runner sub culture similar to gunslinger in the "Wild West", often coming attached to romantic ideals but also being used to refer to someone who's just pretty good at shooting people dead. IMO the samurai in the term is less likely to refer to the actual samurai but to reference elements from the Japanese samurai films (who in turn were a reference to gunslingers, bring us nicely full circle) - excellence in combat, a separate group within society due to their vocation, devotion to their skill - and most crucially, provide a cooler word than street warrior or urban ninja or cybercowboy etc. They never should have brought the historical samurai into in so much detail and kept it far vaguer.

A SR4 street samurai code would fit in better with the world if it promoted ideals considering virtuous in that subculture. So the street samurai always gets the job done, but won't risk himself unnecessarily to do so. He is polite and courteous to Johnsons, but when they sell him out, he tracks them down and gets his revenge without remorse. He doesn't make a fuss, he doesn't harm bystanders; unless that's the job of course. For another, less moral and altogether scummier take on a criminal code check out Sinister Dexter, 2000AD's near-future hitmen.



IMNSHO Mr. OP, I would strongly suggest you disregard the earlier editions and stick with the improved version. The anniversary edition I feel is particularly well done, with formatting and language rewrites that vaguely reminds me of the better aspects in more recent (later end of 3.5 to 4th Ed) Wizards, art that serves its purpose well on the whole and references classic cyberpunk visuals to evoke the genre (the buildings on the cover are blatantly Blade Runner inspired) and the rules have scope without too much clutter. The various splat books don't particularly add power IIRC, just broaden your options, so if you're going to focus on a particular aspect of the gameworld (magic, cyberware, boomsticks etc) its worth checking them out as well.


Don't be too good at what you do in the beginning. Be just good enough. There are two benefits to this...

Sure, if you want to be merely good enough. Personally I'd rather play a pro. My advice (especially with combat oriented characters) would be to push for the larger pool in your characters specialist areas. Things will get hairy and you are going to need to pull out the stops. Doing difficult but useful stuff (e.g. ignoring armour, running while firing, firing blind to name a few common combat specific) requires you to take some hefty penalties.

I may be stating the obvious but in SR, your rolls will be giving you 1 hit for every three dice you roll on average, so you want to be still rolling six dice after you apply all the penalties to fire two narrow bursts aimed at separate targets heads* whilst running. A ten dice pool would struggle to achieve this reliably and to provide another automatics example would leave you with small pool on a full auto with most SMGs/assault rifles unless you focus on adding recoil comp. Add a negative situational modifier - wound penalties, spell effects etc - and you're not going to reliably make the shot. Having somewhere closer to 14 dice in your basic pool and with at least 6 bonus on there is far more comfortable and can be done without crippling the characters utility in other areas.

I'd personally avoid the sniper. Sure, longarms are useful but limited in application and are a little obvious. Take the firearms group and then buy up your specific skill. IME you get more utility and damage out of automatics. Snipers don't really shine unless they get to pick their battlefield, and with cybereyes and assault rifles (hell, you can do it with an Ingram if you're Woo enough) you can do more damage at most practical combat ranges. The temptation in SR is often to play a very specific kind of professional combatant who operates in a military/SWAT style; by the numbers, covering fields of fire, "double tap" at all times. This works, but you can also be Max Payne. Run to gain dodge bonus'! Acrobatics dodging and ways of enhancing movement! Stim patches as Cure Light Wounds! Drugs, parkour and two fisted gun-fu!

Sorry. Got a little carried away there. If you do go the Payne route, take as much as Edge as possible. You'll need it. Interestingly I never felt the HK street samurai outshone the usual style but complimented it nicely, being useful for covering the fight from unusual positions, rapidly gaining ground to provide medical assistance (well, stim patches) and still able to switch to the more steady paced standard combat approach when called for.

Telok's point about taking other secondary skills is spot on though. I'd add to the suggestion taking advantage of the relevant tools/kit and a specialisation early - Gunshot Wounds on First Aid 1 with a decent rank medkit can come in extremely handy.

* I don't recall a specific ruling but the aiming at separate targets may have been Rule of Cool from my GM.


My current SR4 game has me playing a troll physical adept that acts as the team's muscle, which usually consists of me breaking out one of two things: my Auto Assault 16 shotgun (from the Arsenal book) or the Elephant Gun (from the base book). I've used a sniper rifle as well, and it's all the same dice pool.

Bit of a tangent, but have you seen what you can do with a mystical adept troll, focus-sustained attribute improvement (the full strength spell one) and a bow? A friend played one in a Renraku run and I'm fairly sure maxxed out his strength, giving the bow 17P and an extreme range of 900 metres. The Panther Assault is only 10P and whilst out ranging the bow is still four grand more expensive. In retrospect I'm curious as to why Deus didn't try to make a serious effort to capture him and create an army of troll-hawkeye-ninjas.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-08-08, 10:03 PM
Thankfully, SR4 has moved on since then and removed the 80's fetishism of Japanese culture that malingered across SR2 and vaguely into SR3. Now it simply refers to a runner who deals with mundane combat who doesn't want to be called something else.

Bushido doesn't feel a good fit for the new, less romantic Shadowrun, and whilst you could play a similar character, Ghost Dog starring Forrest Whittaker serving as an inspiration for the sake of example, inevitably you'd find yourself forced into actions with no hope of survival, and when coupled with the fatalism inherent to the Way's teachings, the odds wouldn't dissuade you from pursuing whatever suicidal course of action you're on. And that's before we get into any shenanigans involving your "lord" and the seppuku themed antics that can ensue. It seems against the tone of the backstabbing, amoral, corporate/criminal world of SR and doesn't feel right for verisimilitude, there's something off about elements of a criminal/espionage subculture in North America adopting a historical Japanese philosophical outlook belonging to a social class that lead a very different existence.

In my mind, it makes more sense if street samurai is a slang word that arose in the 'runner sub culture similar to gunslinger in the "Wild West", often coming attached to romantic ideals but also being used to refer to someone who's just pretty good at shooting people dead. IMO the samurai in the term is less likely to refer to the actual samurai but to reference elements from the Japanese samurai films (who in turn were a reference to gunslingers, bring us nicely full circle) - excellence in combat, a separate group within society due to their vocation, devotion to their skill - and most crucially, provide a cooler word than street warrior or urban ninja or cybercowboy etc. They never should have brought the historical samurai into in so much detail and kept it far vaguer.

A SR4 street samurai code would fit in better with the world if it promoted ideals considering virtuous in that subculture. So the street samurai always gets the job done, but won't risk himself unnecessarily to do so. He is polite and courteous to Johnsons, but when they sell him out, he tracks them down and gets his revenge without remorse. He doesn't make a fuss, he doesn't harm bystanders; unless that's the job of course. For another, less moral and altogether scummier take on a criminal code check out Sinister Dexter, 2000AD's near-future hitmen.
Oh good, another thing I can hate about SR4 :smallsigh:

As a small correction - SR does not fetishize Japan for no reason, but that reason is removed when you move from Gibson to Stephenson.
A persistent trope from the 80's was that Japan was the New America. Japan was perceived as being uniquely suited for the modern world - a clean, technologically advanced society that willingly accepted silicone over human flesh. Consequently, SR made them a major power that provided traditional American culture with a second shock - not only have The Old Ways of the Native Americans triumphed over the United States' power but the technology of the Japanese overwhelmed the "can do" spirit of America. This is why the currency is the nuyen, most megacorps are Japanese, and there are so many Japanese loan-words - America lost the 21st Century and now is trying to survive under the weight of The Other. That is cyberpunk: a dystopian world with a mishmash of cultures seeking to survive under the oppression of a State run by Technology and its servitors.

In such a world, it makes sense to reference Japanese, rather than American, culture - so the folk heroes of the new world are Samurai rather than Gunslingers.
Now, what do we have? America resurgent - our rebellious territories are going bankrupt, we're finding friendly spirits in the Matrix, and everyone has access to networks untethered from a Matrix dominated by megacorporations. No wonder Street Samurai are mocked; it'd be better to get rid of a term that no longer holds meaning than to deride what was once a valid part of the setting.

Fenrazer
2010-08-08, 10:36 PM
It is a very lovable game for me. Its all D6, and just add and subtract. Simple system, much less math(minus Essence costs), and it has a lot of other options compared to most games that I have played.

The thing I mostly love about the game is how when you are injured it actually matters. A guy with a pistol can kill a master cyber samurai if he lands a good enough roll, and there are many other things that I love about the damage system. D&D, my second fav, is very well depicted by the Black Knight from Monty Pythons demotivational poster where any amount of HP is enough to still keep on going like there is no problem. Lose a leg? Stick it back on!!! Not a problem! Haha. Nah Srun is the best game I have played. If you are a first timer, I'd stay away from full blown Matrix based characters, as it is a new and difficult concept for most GMs I have met, but after a bit of playing, the Matrix is an invaluable asset.

Do it...Do it now.

Autonomy
2010-08-09, 05:08 PM
As a small correction - SR does not fetishize Japan for no reason, but that reason is removed when you move from Gibson to Stephenson.

The correction would seem a touch unnecessary as I never mentioned a reason.

You can hardly lay the blame on Gibson, he really only brought in a few Japanese loan words and referenced Japanese business culture in a few places. I honestly can't recall a single reference in his work to a street sam, and certainly nothing to do with Bushido. I see early SR's inclusion of Japanese elements as part of the same mainstream trend that led to such horrors as Little Showdown in Tokyo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Showdown_in_Little_Tokyo). Its the mindless inclusion of Japanese cultural elements to ape Gibson but without considering why and how those elements would have been adopted a Western subculture.


This is why the currency is the nuyen, most megacorps are Japanese, and there are so many Japanese loan-words - America lost the 21st Century and now is trying to survive under the weight of The Other. That

Whilst I completely disagree I do like this reading of it. It's a nice justification but doesn't feel right for verisimilitude purposes.


That is cyberpunk: a dystopian world with a mishmash of cultures seeking to survive under the oppression of a State run by Technology and its servitors.

That's an interesting definition of cyberpunk but not one I'd agree with at all. Cyberpunk is a specific kind of speculative fiction that must include technical expertise in making its predictions. Certain other details may be present - a counterculture feel to it (usually reminiscent of punk ethics), moral ambiguity, future shock. The definition you provide doesn't really work for a few inarguably cyberpunk novels I can think of (Accelerando by Stross, Red Robe from Grimwood, Pollen by Noon) so I'd question its usefulness.


Now, what do we have? America resurgent - our rebellious territories are going bankrupt, we're finding friendly spirits in the Matrix, and everyone has access to networks untethered from a Matrix dominated by megacorporations.

This essentially reads to me as you're not happy with a setting set in the near future that has actually taken into account the present social and technological conditions (well the first and last points), which seems a little silly considering how crucial technical verisimilitude is to cyberpunk, or am I missing something?


No wonder Street Samurai are mocked; it'd be better to get rid of a term that no longer holds meaning than to deride what was once a valid part of the setting.

Not to be funny, but what on earth are you talking about? Nobody's mocked street sams, aside from, well, you. And the term still has meaning, just one that I feel is closer to how the real world works. See for example the term otaku - used widely in geek culture incorrectly, the word now has a meaning of its own outside Japan. That's the way loan words work, they don't always have the meaning in the borrowing culture as they had in the culture borrowed from.

And dude, it may be me but the tone of your posts on this thread seem quite patronising. You're not an idiot, so why are you assuming that you're talking to one?

chiasaur11
2010-08-09, 07:34 PM
Uh, didn't the term Street Samurai originate in Neuromancer?

Just remembering.

Crow
2010-08-09, 07:42 PM
Play 3rd Edition.

Aroka
2010-08-09, 08:00 PM
Uh, didn't the term Street Samurai originate in Neuromancer?

Just remembering.

Weirdly, I could've sworn Molly was referred to as one, but after looking it up, it's "razorgirl".

There's quite a bit of Japan in Gibson's Sprawl and Bridge trilogies, though; not exactly fetishization (indeed, in the Sprawl books they're pretty much "bad guys"), but it's very much the "cradle of technology" thing.

DeltaEmil
2010-08-09, 08:28 PM
Play 3rd Edition.... and use 4th edition rules instead.

Always a good idea.

Crow
2010-08-09, 08:57 PM
... and use 4th edition rules instead.

Always a good idea.

I'm not even sure how that would work. Granted I am not a very big fan of the direction the game turned for 4th edition.

DeltaEmil
2010-08-09, 09:00 PM
I'm not even sure how that would work. Granted I am not a very big fan of the direction the game turned for 4th edition.Use background lore from third edition, use 4th edition rules, and retcon the wireless matrix as having always existed since decades.

Works for every game. Use your prefered background lore, and use your prefered rule system.

chiasaur11
2010-08-09, 09:01 PM
Weirdly, I could've sworn Molly was referred to as one, but after looking it up, it's "razorgirl".

There's quite a bit of Japan in Gibson's Sprawl and Bridge trilogies, though; not exactly fetishization (indeed, in the Sprawl books they're pretty much "bad guys"), but it's very much the "cradle of technology" thing.

I thought she was called both at various points.

Might be faulty memory. Don't have a copy at the moment.

Crow
2010-08-09, 09:05 PM
Use background lore from third edition, use 4th edition rules, and retcon the wireless matrix as having always existed since decades.

Works for every game. Use your prefered background lore, and use your prefered rule system.

I can see we have different tastes, and that's fine. I don't happen to like 4th Edition's rules, which is in fact my main gripe with it. That and the wireless matrix. Netrunning isn't netrunning to our group unless you're "jacking in" to do it.

3rd to 4th edition pretty much marked the transition from cyberpunk, to ghost in the shell. Which is great for those who like that sort of feel. I guess I'm just not one of them.

DeltaEmil
2010-08-09, 09:22 PM
I always considered Ghost in the Shell to be Cyberpunk. It has cybernetics and punks, and cyber-enhanced punks. Just from the view of a police force instead of the local anti-government wannabe-terrorist. :smalltongue:

As for the rest, your loss.

I hate using clunky, complicated, time-consuming and non-uniform rule-sets of the likes of AD&D 2nd edition or Shadowrun 3rd edition, but if you don't have a problem with those, good for you.

Kaun
2010-08-09, 09:31 PM
I can see we have different tastes, and that's fine. I don't happen to like 4th Edition's rules, which is in fact my main gripe with it. That and the wireless matrix. Netrunning isn't netrunning to our group unless you're "jacking in" to do it.

See im on the other side of the bench here, the idea of having to use acctual cabling to connect to every computer erks me...

Having to use tech in a game supposidly in the future that is out of date now was horrible.

Thats why i loved 4e.

A lot of the lore i wasnt overly fussed when it was altered, i only used the bits of it i wanted anyway.

Autonomy
2010-08-09, 09:51 PM
Netrunning isn't netrunning to our group unless you're "jacking in" to do it.

This has got me scratching my head. Data jacks still exist, you've got hot sim and security above a certain threshold requires you to be on site, so you'll be running good ol' cables and stuff; I'm curious, what's off putting about the hacking of SR4?

Swordguy
2010-08-09, 10:26 PM
I always considered Ghost in the Shell to be Cyberpunk. It has cybernetics and punks, and cyber-enhanced punks. Just from the view of a police force instead of the local anti-government wannabe-terrorist. :smalltongue:


4th edition Shadowrun is very explicitly post-cyberpunk, by it's own admission.

1st edition Shadowrun was intended to be run as a highly-gritty, Blade Runner-esque world (plus magic) where you're essentially disposable street trash. Technology is something to be wary of and feared, and you have to deal with the dichotomy that you have to cyber up to be competitive and do your job, but each piece of cyberware you install means an irrevocable loss of humanity (in 1e and 2e, for example, by RAW, once you'd lost Essence, you could never get it back, even if the cyberware was later removed, IIRC as an optional rule you could get it back if the cyber was removed in 3e). You COULD load up on cyber or high-end magic and be badass, but you'd be the first person I've heard who played 1e that way. The dehumanisation by technology and the drive to self-improvement at the cost of self are major themes in both cyberpunk in general and ShadowRun in particular. Hearing that feels like hearing about the Vampire: TM players who played the game as a beat-em-up pulp action game where they're better than all the "normies". You can do it, but that's clearly not how the game was intended to be played.

The editions got progressively less-gritty until 4th edition.

4th edition Shadowrun doesn't take its main influence from Blade Runner, Neuromancer, or the dull, dark, and depressing arms of true cyberpunk. It takes inspiration from the post-cyberpunk glow of series such as Ghost in the Shell: Stand-alone Complex. Where technology isn't inherently harmful to the human condition, and is instead a good thing that could be argued to be the next logical stage in human evolution. (When taken to its logical conclusion, post-cyberpunk will move smoothly and naturally into transhumanism, where science and technology are effectively indistinguishable from the human body itself, and biological limitations are essentially a thing of the past, eg: want a new body? Go get one - they're cheap) Cyberware beyond a datajack is considered almost a natural thing to get - like having a cell phone issued by your employer today. The game plays at a higher inherent power level, with heavily-cybered characters being the norm for figuring challenging bad guys (rather than early editions, where cyber would be a bonus above and beyond what you'd normally be expecting, in 4e, the game assumes that everyone fighting will have some sort of enhanced reflexes, for example - where the vast majority of published NPCs in 1, 2, & 3e had no such abilities). Now, certainly, you CAN play 4th edition as a gritty game. But that's not inherently where the setting, mechanics, and inspiration lie.

In short, there's a line from gritty cyberpunk (1st ed Shadowrun) to Heroic Cyberpunk (3rd ed Shadowrun) to post-cyberpunk (4e SR) to transhumanism (Eclipse Phase being the major example at this point). The primary difference is the attitude toward the implementation of technology to modify, improve, or replace the human body. The scale goes from fear and mistrust, to acceptance, to active encouragement.

wadledo
2010-08-09, 10:45 PM
Not totally true (note the treatment of technomancers and AIs), but accurate for the most part.

4e is less about power through corruption, and more about purity of mind. As long as you don't get under the control of the bugs/techies/zombies/wraiths/etc, you're 'fine.'

a_humble_lich
2010-08-10, 12:51 AM
You COULD load up on cyber or high-end magic and be badass, but you'd be the first person I've heard who played 1e that way.

While I agree with much of what you say, I completely disagree with this. It may be a result of starting to play Shadowrun when I was 13, but in many many of the games of 1e and 2e all of the characters were ultimate bad asses. And many of the supplements seemed to have been aimed at making you more badass (the Street Samurai Handbook and Shadowtech especially). I'd say starting characters in 4e tend to be *less* powerful then they were in 1e/2e.

I think my big complaint with 4e is that they took the punk out and all that's left is the cyber. Try to find how many mohawks you can find in the artwork. Then compare to the 1e book. On the other hand, many of the changes were needed modernizations. Shadowrun came out before the World Wide Web. Now I can get the internet on a cell phone. When Gibson was writing it seemed that the Japanese were going to become world powers by being better capitalists than the US. Then their economy crashed. For Shadowrun not to have changed I think would have given it a very dated look. I just wish they had kept the gritty feel.

Also, I like many of the mechanical changes in 4e, and with wireless deckers hacking is playable in my opinion. Whereas before our group wouldn't allow PC deckers because when they were online nobody else could play, but they generally were far less powerful then everybody else offline.

Tiki Snakes
2010-08-10, 05:27 AM
Just want to point out that the slow loss of humanity via the gradual addition of technology and whether or not that is irreperable is a theme of Ghost in the Shell, not Blade Runner.

Blade Runner is all about how synthetic people are people also. :smallwink:

Satyr
2010-08-10, 09:26 AM
It's interesting to read how different people assess the various Shadowrun editions and their change in style. Fort me, Shadowrun used to be an extremely misanthropic setting, with everything slowly crumbling to ruins and nothing that really matters anymore. Not a post-apocalyptic setting (even though it certainly has some similarities), but an apocalypse in progress setting. Sit back and enjoy the show while everything collapses.
(As a side note, for me Street Samurai is a self-proclaimed title, because it sure sounds a lot more romantic than "brutish goon with a few cyberware-induced or enhanced psychoses").

From my perspective, 4e used one of the almost guaranteed ways to make everything worse: They made the game lighter and softer and thus duller and just less... enthralling.

I am probably also one of the few who never had a problem with the oh so slow matrix rules. Yes, they were not the most elegant rules ever written but once you understood them, they worked okay. And btw, there were rules for wireless access to the matrix in 3rd, and perhaps even in 2nd edition.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-08-10, 09:53 AM
Blade Runner is all about how synthetic people are people also. :smallwink:
...as is Ghost in the Shell
Recall that The Puppeteer was an AI that wanted to be treated as a person, and ultimate fused with Kusanagi to "create" a new synthetic life form.

And it's hard to argue that cyberware dehumanized people in GitS, considering that Kusanagi (and practically everyone else!) was 99% machine from the beginning. If anything, the poor human bastard on the team is proof that machines make "better people" - he's more naive than Kusanagi but no more caring or "humane."

No, GitS is about as transhumanist as Dresden Kodak.
@Satyr: were the "wireless Matrix" rules in one of the decker splatbooks? IIRC only the Otaku (early technomages) could "wirelessly" access the Matrix - and I'd argue they weren't deckers in the traditional sense.

EDIT: Also, +1 to Swordguy :smallsmile:

KiltedGrappler
2010-08-10, 10:03 AM
I love the game. The setting is great and the mechanics are solid, atleast as far as 3rd Edition goes. I never got around to looking over 4th Edition, though I've been meaning to since it came out.

Satyr
2010-08-10, 10:54 AM
were the "wireless Matrix" rules in one of the decker splatbooks?

Yes, they appeared in Matrix, where the different forms of access points were discussed. They were not used often, because they made it a lot easier to track the decker and triangulate the exact position than a well-hidden illegal access point, and as such, weren't really interesting for most runners, but they were included in the rules. And I am also pretty sure, these kind of connections also appeared in the Corporate Security Handbook, which is thoroughly good old time, full nostalgia 2nd edition.

Tiki Snakes
2010-08-10, 01:01 PM
...as is Ghost in the Shell
Recall that The Puppeteer was an AI that wanted to be treated as a person, and ultimate fused with Kusanagi to "create" a new synthetic life form.

And it's hard to argue that cyberware dehumanized people in GitS, considering that Kusanagi (and practically everyone else!) was 99% machine from the beginning. If anything, the poor human bastard on the team is proof that machines make "better people" - he's more naive than Kusanagi but no more caring or "humane."

No, GitS is about as transhumanist as Dresden Kodak.

I'd argue that there is plenty of cross-over, but the central drama for the main character, especially in 1, is, well.
Some Quotes;

Major Motoko Kusanagi: That robot. Did we seem similar to you?
Batou: Of course not.
Major Motoko Kusanagi: No, I don't mean physically.
Batou: Just what, then?
Major Motoko Kusanagi: Well, I guess cyborgs like myself have a tendency to be paranoid about our origins. Sometimes I suspect I am not who I think I am, like maybe I died a long time ago and somebody took my brain and stuck it in this body. Maybe there never was a real me in the first place, and I'm completely synthetic like that thing.
Batou: You've got human brain cells in that titanium shell of yours. You're treated like other humans, so stop with the angst.
Major Motoko Kusanagi: But that's just it, that's the only thing that makes me feel human. The way I'm treated. I mean, who knows what's inside our heads? Have you ever seen your own brain?
Batou: It sounds to me like you're doubting your own ghost.
Major Motoko Kusanagi: What if a cyber brain could possibly generate its own ghost, create a soul all by itself? And if it did, just what would be the importance of being human then?

Whereas in comparison even the robots in Blade Runner are basically made of flesh, possibly dream and basically just want to be allowed to live a full and normal life. The Central drama of the film is based around the simple fact that the Synthetics don't want to die, because they think they're people. The closest to the whole "Slow loss of humanity through technology" the film gets is the thing with Harrison's character questioning whether he is, infact, a Synthetic himself.

Given that there aren't even really any kind of mechanical implants to falicitate the kind of slow loss of humanity described in the post I originally replied to, I think you can see my point. :smallsmile:

Sligo
2010-08-10, 01:54 PM
(first post outside of the Hello thread...)

I've been playing SR4 with a group at work for about 2 years. I started out as the GM and we had a lot of fun learning the rules and mechanics. The characters (and the NPC's I created) were generalists with minimal specialization. We ran through a few missions until the characters got to be too powerful to be fun anymore. So we switched GM's and built new characters.

This time, with better knowledge of the rules, we built specialist characters to the max. Didn't help that the GM gave us 100 extra build points and a boatload of money to spend (well, it did, actually, but not from the "fun" perspective). Two players ran 2 characters each, and we had a third player with 1 character who had to drop out half-way through the campaign, so that character was run by me or the other player until we finished the mission.

On a mission, we were surrounded by a bunch of uber powerful hive-minded drones. One character was badly hurt (basically one point away from death), and another was severely wounded. Then it came to the mage's turn in initiative. After thinking through the numbers (I was running this character, as he was the one orphaned by the player who left), I over-cast a lightning ball. The two mages in the party both had counterspelling declared. It worked out to 16 points of electrical damage in an area effect large enough to zap all the drones threatening us. However, our entire party was also in the middle of it.

Counterspell time... Rolled the dice, used edge, and everything else we could pump into it. Out of the five characters, only one took any damage at all - just one or two points, I think. We were able to complete our mission (i.e. turn off the A.I. that was driving all the drones), and get out of there alive.

Why do I tell this story of amazing bravery and luck? Because I believe the SR4 system is inherently broken. While I was GM'ing, I had to take special measures to account for the mage in the group who would basically level all the opponents with a stunball or variant in the first round of combat. In one case I found a way to neutralize the mage, but I actually had to cheat to do it, just to make the battle fun for the rest of the players.

If you want to build a "broken" character for SR4, you have several options, but here are the two keys:

1. Max your Edge... And USE them.
2. Max your Initiative Passes. A character with 3 or 4 passes, but does less damage, is far more effective than a character with only 1 pass and does a lot of damage.

Whatever else you do, make sure you're rolling at least 10-15 dice when you attack, this way, when attacking with a weapon (or melee) you can afford to call your shot and add more to the damage. If you are a mage, pick both area-affect and single-target spells (because area affect spells will hit allies), and always remember to counterspell. If you're a gunner, choose weapons that allow you 2 shots per round but with minimal or no recoil.

With whatever build points are left over after all that, then you can round out your character and buy the miscellaneous gear.

As a GM, realize that if you have experienced players, they will do this. In order to counter them, you will have no choice but to create scenarios that make little or no logical sense ... like 40 mage elves, all trained identically, using mage-sight goggles and fiber-optics to surveille a hospital-sized facility in downtown Los Angeles.

(Yeah - we succeeded that mission, too, by blasting our way in through the roof and using lots of smoke, flak, and flash-bang grenades)

Worira
2010-08-10, 03:06 PM
And how much drain did you take off a 16 DV AoE elemental spell? I don't have my books with me, but I'm pretty sure that would work out to a pretty hefty wallop.

GreyMantle
2010-08-10, 10:39 PM
I can see we have different tastes, and that's fine. I don't happen to like 4th Edition's rules, which is in fact my main gripe with it. That and the wireless matrix. Netrunning isn't netrunning to our group unless you're "jacking in" to do it.

3rd to 4th edition pretty much marked the transition from cyberpunk, to ghost in the shell. Which is great for those who like that sort of feel. I guess I'm just not one of them.

But there's a huge game (not realism) problem with needing to jack in to use the Matrix, at least for a cooperative storytelling game like Shadowrun. One of the maxims of such a game is that all of the characters should be able to contribute in roughly even amounts, in different but still compatible ways. If Sammy the Samurai and Marvin the Mage, and Adam the Adept all need to actual go into wherever they're infiltrating to do whatever they're doing, but Harold the Hacker does not, and is in fact penalized by running with them instead of hanging out by some electrical outlet and tuning the world out, then he is in fact playing an incompatible game with what the other three are doing. There's a reason why one of the most common pieces of advice given to people doing <4E SR games is "make the decker be a GMNPC." And that's a shame, because the archetype of a hacker is an undeniably cool one.

So you really have two options:
1) Have the Matrix be wired, and either submit to the fact that your deckers are going to be playing a substantially different (and differently paced) game than everybody else. This leads to things like everybody taking a pizza break while the GM runs the decker's solo adventure. Or just have the actual hacking be handled off-screen. But, on the plus side, you get to keep some of that nifty cyberpunk flavor everyone loves so much.

2) Adjust the flavor and rules in order that hackers can now run with the rest of the PCs. Making the Matrix wireless is but one of the options to do this. This makes the game itself run much better, but it's not like Gibson and Stephenson and whatever, so of course it's gonna rankle some people.

I'll be honest. The 4E Matrix rules are not good, like at all. The Anniversary Edition minor adjustment and Unwired are even worse. But they're still a step in the right direction for making Shadowrun a better cooperative storytelling game.

Crow
2010-08-11, 01:38 AM
Well it depends on how you run the game. It is perfectly possible to make matrix runs occur simultaneously with physical runs, even when the decker is a thousand miles a way.

Pre-mission decking to gather intelligence, handle it off-screen or make it a couple computer checks, yes because it would be a pain otherwise.

But concurrent mission stuff like decking the system at the same time the team is infiltrating because the access codes that control the data vault change every 20 seconds, and the physical and electronic alarms are tied to a massive corporate network presided over by a semi-sentient AI? Oh yeah, you can run that simultaneously just fine.

BobVosh
2010-08-11, 02:34 AM
I'm one of those "use 3rd ed fluff, 4ed crunch" people. At the very least don't make the deckers actions 100x faster than the people out in the real world. It just means you have a decker session and a regular group session. NPC deckers work well, although it can be difficult as it will look railroad no matter how you do it.

Also I'm interested to read the first two books now after swordguy's post. How does he always make me do that?

WinWin
2010-08-11, 02:35 AM
I have to say I prefer the new editions of SR. I liked 3, but chaffed at some of the rules systems. Some of the ideas and themes are better in 4, if only because they are somewhat unique to the setting. Perhaps not pure cyberpunk, but then it never really was. With magic and metahumans. Better to say that SR is inspired by cyberpunk.

Sligo
2010-08-11, 07:54 AM
And how much drain did you take off a 16 DV AoE elemental spell? I don't have my books with me, but I'm pretty sure that would work out to a pretty hefty wallop.


Actually none. He had a drain focus adding 6 dice to the drain roll, and an additional 5 dice because he used an edge. Add to that his mentor spirit adding a couple dice for combat spells, and a quality adding a couple more.

His particular school gave him base dice of like 10 or 11 dice to start with - his drain roll dice was around 25 dice. Making 8 or 9 hits on that isn't that hard. (He didn't fully overcast, only partially)

Swordguy
2010-08-11, 10:30 AM
As a GM, realize that if you have experienced players, they will do this. In order to counter them, you will have no choice but to create scenarios that make little or no logical sense ... like 40 mage elves, all trained identically, using mage-sight goggles and fiber-optics to surveille a hospital-sized facility in downtown Los Angeles.


Good story.

Everyone else, what this indicates is that Shadowrun, more than most games I can think of offhand, requires the GM to put forth a desired starting "power level" for their games. In 4e terms, he needs to specify:

1) How many dice, as a cap, you should be rolling for your primary skills (secondary skills are usually 3-5 dice less than primary skills, as a rule). Extreme cases such as strength-based skills on a Troll are allowed on a case-by-case basis.
2) How many initiative passes are allowed, at a maximum, on a per-character basis. For most "average" games, the maximum that works best is 2. Players who roleplay well or spend a LOT of time and effort in-game might end up with a +1 IP to the Cap.

Something I've been trying to get Catalyst to do in the wake of last year's GenCon is to publish a free guideline showing roughly the genre power levels inherent in the game. Gritty "street punks with guns" might top out at 10 dice and 1 IPs. The average game as specified in SR4 (semi-professional runners) might top out at about 16-18 dice and 2 IPs. Drek-hot runners with all the trimmings top out at 25 dice and 3-4 IPs (and will probably have no Availability limits on starting gear).

Doing this enables a GM to tailor encounters in such a way that they can reasonably challenge the party, without the entire combat always devolving into a waste of time.

If the issue is the old saw about "mages are too powerful", remember this:

1) In practice, on a run a mage will often be sustaining several spells at once (Reflex enhancer, any necessary Utility spells like Invisibility, Mana-based defense spell if the target is know to employ mages), and each sustained spell is a -2 dice penalty on all other tests. Not all other spellcasting tests, all other tests. (SR4, pg 174)

2) You can avoid the above penalties by using sustaining foci, but the Force of the spell will be limited to the rating of the foci (which are pretty pricey). The lower the rating, the easier it is for a hostile mage to dispel or counter your spell.

3) Why cast at a high Force (thus risking Drain)? Aside from the fact that the Force of the spell is what sets the Base Damage Value (thus, more Force = more damage), you're limited in the number of hits on a spell equal to that of the Force rating. (SR4 pg 171) Cast a Force 3 spell and get 5 hits? Great - except you just lost two of them, because only the first 3 count due to the Force the spell was cast at. Hope you didn't need those hits to bring down that charging Troll.

4) Visibility modifiers apply to spellcasting. (SR4 pg 173) So very many people forget this - Shadowruns mainly happen at night, remember.

5) Defense mages muck magic right up. A mage declaring he's keeping a number of people under his protection adds his Counterspelling dice to their Resistance Tests against your casting. On average, I've found that'll drop at least 2-3 hits off of whatever you get on its own, not counting the actual target's resistance. MegaCorps, especially Yamatetsu, Sader-Krupp, and Aztechnology, are quite fond of these guys, as is Lone Star.

6) Casting magic isn't invisible - people do get a test to see if you're casting (pg 168) and casting on someone without their permission is both considered assault and is illegal. That bar owner you just charmed may like you, but his bouncer may have noticed and called Lone Star. Further, simply by being a mage, you've made yourself Target Number One in any given firefight. There are two primary motto's in Shadowrun: "Never deal with a Dragon", and "Geek the mage first". Guess which one applies here.

Sligo
2010-08-11, 11:04 AM
Swordguy, Your points are well taken but there are a few things to consider:

1. SR4 is a point-buy character building system. Unless the GM imposes rules over and above the rules already in place, it is too easy for an experienced player to build an unrealistic, unbalanced character - even at the standard 400 points established in the rules. The only time dice are rolled is to determine starting Nuyen, and this is done after equipment is purchased.

2. Yes - foci are expensive. Our GM was a little too generous when it came to spending money, making these kinds of foci very affordable. Bad mistake on his part.

3. Our party had two magic users. One was an "attack/combat" oriented mage, the other was a support mage. The support mage cast and maintained the invisibility spells and was the primary for counterspelling. This freed up the combat mage to max out his spell casting without having to worry about sustaining stuff for the party. He had a sustaining focus for his improved agility (which gave him the 3 init passes), and that was it.

4. Visibility modifiers don't apply for area-of-affect spells. Only line-of-sight.

5. Our primary "counterspelling" mage added 20 dice. The combat mage typically added another 3 or 4 (his hits adds to the total dice using the co-op rule). Throw in edge for all three characters, and you're looking at an additional 10-15 dice overall. Counterspelling is not reduced by sustaining magic, either. Maybe it should be...

6. Legality was never a concern for our team... In the few situations where police intervention was a potential issue, you have to consider the timing. In SR4, a combat round is 3 seconds. If the Techno is doing her job, any outgoing communications are going to be jambed, or at least hampered. For someone to get a message out, you have to consider reaction time, time to communicate (which should be pretty minimal) then, most important, time for the constabulary to arrive and respond. It's not like they have the manpower to have full SWAT teams standing on every street corner ready to pounce whenever there's a call. If the combat is over within 3 rounds, that's 10 seconds. The 'Runners are long gone before any police show up two-to-three minutes later. Who cares if the bouncer succeeded in getting his call out?

I'm not saying that your points are invalid. They truly are valid in a real-world sense. My point is that I believe the SR4 system is somewhat broken. Yes - the GM needs to take a stronger role from the start (i.e. character generation), and in our case, he didn't (call it a rookie GM mistake). Unfortunately, the rules allow for this, especially with the expansions like Arsenal, Runners Companion, Street Magic, and Unwired. It's a type of meta-gaming that seriously damages the overall experience.

In our adventure, the GM actually wanted us to have powerful characters. I don't want to say we didn't have fun playing through it, because we did. He made things challenging for us, and there were several situations where characters were badly wounded and almost killed. However, he had to suspend belief more than once in order for the challenge to exist.

Swordguy
2010-08-11, 11:19 AM
I'm not saying that your points are invalid. They truly are valid in a real-world sense. My point is that I believe the SR4 system is somewhat broken. Yes - the GM needs to take a stronger role from the start (i.e. character generation), and in our case, he didn't (call it a rookie GM mistake). Unfortunately, the rules allow for this, especially with the expansions like Arsenal, Runners Companion, Street Magic, and Unwired. It's a type of meta-gaming that seriously damages the overall experience.



Ah - gotcha.

The official CGL policy basically boils down to this:

"Game companies have spent the last 15-ish years trying to build systems that intelligent and highly-motivated people are incapable of "breaking" to screw up a game experience. They have universally failed. Thusly, screw it. We're going to design a game that is concerned with reasonably accurately portraying the game world, and aside from very gross checks and balances, we're not going to bother trying to keep every munchkin out there from gaming the system. You want to roll 20 dice on an attack roll as a starting 400BP character? Go ahead. You want to have a Pilot/BattleMech skill of +10 (equivalent to a negative Piloting skill in Classic BattleTech) just out of character creation? You can. We feel it's up to the Game Master to decide what power level he would like the game to be run at, and to use his discretion to enforce that power level. That means every game will be house-ruled to an extent, and we support that."

You can agree or disagree with their philosophy at your own discretion, but there it is. Heck, IIRC, it's actually directly and deliberately spelled out this way in A Time of War (the current BattleTech RPG). The Line Developer (Herb Beas), had been...excessively...blunt about it when people bring "this new thing that breaks the game!" to his attention. CGL supplies the toolkit to have a game at any power level that a) you want, and b) the game universe will allow. Anything more specific than that is on the GM's head.

Sligo
2010-08-11, 11:30 AM
Well said (or quoted) my friend!

In our case, the GM not only allowed for, but encouraged us to take things to an unreasonable extreme.

We've rotated to a different GM and a different system (Savage Worlds/Rippers) for the next few months. I'm back in the saddle after his turn as GM, and we haven't yet decided what system we'll be running. If it is SR4, I'll strongly consider imposing realistic limits on character generation in order to maintain at least a thread of realism...

Thanks!

a_humble_lich
2010-08-11, 01:20 PM
I agree with Swordguy that the GM needs to add additional restrictions to character creation and have extra care that characters are not broken. (GURPS is the same way and has the same philosophy) Unfortunately, you have to be somewhat experienced before you know what is broken. I think the problem is partially something inherent in all point buy systems where it is easy to make a very specialized character who is God at their specialization but can't do anything else.

What I would like the see are:
1. Suggested pay rates for Shadowruns. It was very hard for me as a GM to find out how much money to give players. And since sci-fi games tend to be so equipment based, there are major dangers to give too much.

2. The initiative pass system gotten rid of. Right now extra passes are way to powerful, to the point where extra passes are a near requirement for all characters. Wired reflexes should be good, but it should be possible for a non-wired character to fight too. I'd recommend giving everyone an extra pass, so an unwired character has 2 passes, wired reflexes 1 has 3 passes. This isn't great, but the difference between a character with 2 passes compared to 3 is much better than 1 compared to 2. Alternately, get rid of the whole system and come up with something new.

3. Many, many, more :-)

But really, I like the SR system, I have complaints with every system.

Swordguy
2010-08-11, 01:30 PM
2. The initiative pass system gotten rid of. Right now extra passes are way to powerful, to the point where extra passes are a near requirement for all characters. Wired reflexes should be good, but it should be possible for a non-wired character to fight too. I'd recommend giving everyone an extra pass, so an unwired character has 2 passes, wired reflexes 1 has 3 passes. This isn't great, but the difference between a character with 2 passes compared to 3 is much better than 1 compared to 2. Alternately, get rid of the whole system and come up with something new.

Try the following houserule:


"Instead of extra IPs, initiative enhancers grant extra Simple Actions on a 1:1 basis. Extra simple actions are taken at the end of the round and are considered to be simultaneous between all characters with them. Therefore, a Character with Wired Reflexes II going on Initiative count 21 will receive his regular 2 Simple/1 Complex action on his Initiative Count, and then will get 2 additional Simple actions at the end of the round."


It'll require a little tweaking here and there (since Melee attacks are Complex actions, it really helps) and the occasional bit of GM adjucation when the bonus actions cannot be simultaneous (opposed Dex or Reaction tests are your best ad hoc solution), but we've found that for low-power games, it's a huge help. Cyber/Bio/Magic that grant IPs are still incredibly useful under this variant, but no longer totally game-breaking.

BobVosh
2010-08-11, 01:35 PM
I like that. Do you have any suggestion what the Johnson should be paying?

Oracle_Hunter
2010-08-11, 02:05 PM
I like that. Do you have any suggestion what the Johnson should be paying?
In pre-SR4, pay was usually based off of lifestyles; you'd choose a month of a particular lifestyle and make the payoff equal to that per person.

So, if this particular 'run would be tough-but-doable for a Low lifestyle-type, the pay is (1 mo. of Low) x (number of runners). IIRC this was mentioned in the SR2 or SR3 book as a suggestion, and it has served me in good stead.

Swordguy
2010-08-11, 02:06 PM
I like that. Do you have any suggestion what the Johnson should be paying?

Not at all. It varies too much depending on the type of game the GM wants to run. At a minimum, though, Runners should make about 1500-2000 Nuyen per month, which allows them to upkeep at least a Low Lifestyle and have a bit of spending money. Cash goes up from there depending on the danger of the run, the value of the target, and the desired power level. I've found that runs that pay more than 25K a person should be vanishingly rare.



Something else you should note: by the RAW, it's almost impossible to justify being a runner, because stealing, disabling the GridGuide tracking system, and reselling cars will guarantee you something like 250K-500K per month if you're barely competent at it, and more if you are competent. Ignore the RAW. The point of the game is Shadowrunning, nor CarJacking.

Raum
2010-08-11, 02:07 PM
4. Visibility modifiers don't apply for area-of-affect spells. Only line-of-sight. First a caveat - I don't have or know 4th and don't know if the same rule applies. That said, in previous editions visibility modifiers did apply to AoE spells unless the spell was a transformation spell. Did that change in 4th ed?

a_humble_lich
2010-08-11, 02:47 PM
Also as far as giving rewards to characters, characters can advance using both money and karma. But there are some character types that need karma much more than money and vice versa. If one is rewarded much more than the other it will start to skew things. I feel ¥2500 is worth about 1 point of karma.

Also as far as mages go, not only are foci expensive, they cost lots of karma

JaronK
2010-08-11, 03:34 PM
I like that. Do you have any suggestion what the Johnson should be paying?

Considering the skills most runners have, they'd make 5k a night just boosting cars pretty easily. So factor that in. I usually pay between 5k and 20k, but leave loot available for the runners if they see fit (our team has a medic that can surgically remove cyberware, and there's other valuables that can be used as well).

JaronK

Sligo
2010-08-11, 03:55 PM
First a caveat - I don't have or know 4th and don't know if the same rule applies. That said, in previous editions visibility modifiers did apply to AoE spells unless the spell was a transformation spell. Did that change in 4th ed?

I never played any version prior to 4th Ed, so I have no basis for comparison. In an Area-of-Affect spell, the consideration to hit targets is line-of-sight on the premise that solid objects (walls, barriers, etc) would protect someone from the affect of the spell. Visibility is not an issue. In theory, if the barrier is glass, it would protect the victim from the lightning ball if the epicenter is placed on the other side of the glass wall. However, if the mage can see through the barrier, he can place the epicenter of the spell on the other side of the glass.

In the case I described in my long previous post, the epicenter of the spell was at the mage's own feet. Our party was completely surrounded by drones and there was no way he could place a spell so that only the drones could be hit. So he chose a spot that all the drones had line-of-sight to, which happened to be where he was.

As for monetary rewards, based upon the cost of stuff in SR4, and considering the resources available to the mega-corps, no self-respecting shadowrunner would ever accept a job paying less than 10-20k.

Raum
2010-08-11, 04:14 PM
Hmm, I may need to purchase 4th ed just to read up on all the changes.

Edit: It used to be only spells which actually created fire / acid / whatever could affect targets out of the mage's line of sight. A stunball, for example, would not affect someone hiding around the corner from the mage.

WinWin
2010-08-11, 05:11 PM
It depends on the need of the game. A general rule of thumb might be 5k nuyen per head for a short (one gaming session run). Perhaps a certified credstick with a couple of K for expences, or even an untraceable vehicle or equipment for some runs.

For a longer mission with some niche requirements and high risk, maybe 50k per head.

Try and avoid organlegging and cyberharvesting in your game (unless the runners have ties to Tamanous). SR is not D&D (though I did have an adept loot a magic dagger once...)

As Runners gain street cred, increase their payday for serious runs, but keep the milkruns at the same pay grade. Add in a few non-credit rewards such as Contacts, or upgrade contact relationships (buddy, friend for life). Throw in some downtime, allow runners to spend their credits. If they are nearly out of funds it keeps them hungry and more likely to take up a milkrun/plot device instead of holding out for the big payday.

I hope that is intelligeble, lol.

Crow
2010-08-11, 07:08 PM
Shadowruns mainly happen at night, remember.

Not the one on the cover of the book. Artwork fail.

In response to the pay issue, I usually paid the players enough to maintain twice the average lifestyle cost for the group once they get established.

That or pay them enough to get by, but pay them with favors in addition (these can come in any flavor, and are arguably more useful than the cash).

Kaun
2010-08-11, 11:39 PM
Not at all. It varies too much depending on the type of game the GM wants to run. At a minimum, though, Runners should make about 1500-2000 Nuyen per month, which allows them to upkeep at least a Low Lifestyle and have a bit of spending money. Cash goes up from there depending on the danger of the run, the value of the target, and the desired power level. I've found that runs that pay more than 25K a person should be vanishingly rare.



Something else you should note: by the RAW, it's almost impossible to justify being a runner, because stealing, disabling the GridGuide tracking system, and reselling cars will guarantee you something like 250K-500K per month if you're barely competent at it, and more if you are competent. Ignore the RAW. The point of the game is Shadowrunning, nor CarJacking.

But the whole car theft idea requires that you dont flood the stolen car market and kill your own bottom line.

And that the corps holding the majority of the auto inssurance policies in the region don't decide to do something about it.

wadledo
2010-08-12, 12:09 AM
But the whole car theft idea requires that you dont flood the stolen car market and kill your own bottom line.

And that the corps holding the majority of the auto inssurance policies in the region don't decide to do something about it.

Point of note: This is what professional car thieves make now. Someone with the skills of a shadowrunner could double that easily, then retire to Lagos within a year and live like a king for the rest of his life, untouchable.

Kaun
2010-08-12, 12:48 AM
Point of note: This is what professional car thieves make now. Someone with the skills of a shadowrunner could double that easily, then retire to Lagos within a year and live like a king for the rest of his life, untouchable.

The insurance companies would be more inclined to take the law into their own hands (or hire some one too) in the shadowrun world.

Basicly every dollar in stolen car's is going to come out of some corps pocket.

and...


meh bugger this debate its been done to death lol.

Basicly try not to let your Players find out how much cash can be made selling stolen cars.

JaronK
2010-08-12, 01:16 AM
If the corps actually spend that much money on retrieving the cars, they're going to go bankrupt. It's a lot cheaper to steal a car than to try and recover one.

JaronK

Hawriel
2010-08-12, 01:27 AM
It's not about finding the stolen car. It's about protecting your companies reputation. So if an A or better rated insurance company finds a stolen car, and kills the car thief in doing so, they prove to the client that they will take care of them. And that rep is priceless.

chiasaur11
2010-08-12, 01:32 AM
I got a solution.

Simple one. Fun one.

Anyone else here read Jipi and the Paranoid Chip (http://www.vanemden.com/books/neals/jipi.html)?

Every car has that. Makes carjacking more fun and less tempting.

wadledo
2010-08-12, 08:24 AM
It's not about finding the stolen car. It's about protecting your companies reputation. So if an A or better rated insurance company finds a stolen car, and kills the car thief in doing so, they prove to the client that they will take care of them. And that rep is priceless.

Cost to steal a car: 600-800 at most.
300-500 to bribe the occasional security officer or biker gang
and 100-300 to wipe all the various data chips and serial numbers off the parts (this is the cost of paints and wrenches and electronic sweepers, etc)

Money you get from selling a car whole: anywhere from 5,000 to 20,000, possibly higher if you score big.

Money you get from selling a car piecemeal: anywhere from 2,000 to 13,000

Piecemeal is less than selling cars whole, but much safer, as you can look over everything and make sure that your buyers have less of a chance of being cops.

2 car related robberies happen every second. (IRL)
So from the time you started reading this, more than 20 cars have been jacked, and how much worse do you think that is in the urban decay of Shadowrun?:smallyuk:

Oracle_Hunter
2010-08-12, 09:13 AM
So from the time you started reading this, more than 20 cars have been jacked, and how much worse do you think that is in the urban decay of Shadowrun?:smallyuk:
Marginal cost numbers aside (where did you get them?) remember that in Shadowrun, Geico doesn't just save you a bunch of money on car insurance - they'll also blow up the squat of someone who is costing them a lot of money in car insurance :smallamused:

Oh, and more people live in secured communities and park in protected corporate garages in SR than today. Stealing Ford Americars is all well and good, but you're not getting your hands on a Eurostar Westwind without spending more than you'll make.

DeltaEmil
2010-08-12, 09:13 AM
Therefore, start paying the shadowrunners enough that they don't have to resort stealing cars.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-08-12, 09:17 AM
Therefore, start paying the shadowrunners enough that they don't have to resort stealing cars.
The question here is more about self-consistency than gameplay.

Few, if any, 'runners spend their time boosting cars for money. From a Player's perspective it's not really all that fun - and there are very good in-game reasons why it's not a good way to make a living.

wadledo
2010-08-12, 09:24 AM
Marginal cost numbers aside (where did you get them?) remember that in Shadowrun, Geico doesn't just save you a bunch of money on car insurance - they'll also blow up the squat of someone who is costing them a lot of money in car insurance :smallamused:

Oh, and more people live in secured communities and park in protected corporate garages in SR than today. Stealing Ford Americars is all well and good, but you're not getting your hands on a Eurostar Westwind without spending more than you'll make.

I did a couple of papers on how easily one could make a living off of boosting cars.
The figures are out of date (by 2 years), and I switched the numbers around a little for neuyen, but it's all relatively the same.

The problem with that is they don't need to return every stolen car. They need to return 1 in 1,000, maybe 1 in 10,000 to say they've been successful. The illusion of safety is much more prevalent (and cheaper) than actual safety.

DeltaEmil
2010-08-12, 09:25 AM
If the players have to start playing how they steal cars so that they can finance their own gear and lifestyle, which the reward of the run didn't pay for, then it's the fault of the game moderator. A GM who can't see that needs to step down and be replaced by somebody with common sense.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-08-12, 09:35 AM
I did a couple of papers on how easily one could make a living off of boosting cars.
The figures are out of date (by 2 years), and I switched the numbers around a little for neuyen, but it's all relatively the same.

The problem with that is they don't need to return every stolen car. They need to return 1 in 1,000, maybe 1 in 10,000 to say they've been successful. The illusion of safety is much more prevalent (and cheaper) than actual safety.
Ah, it's based off of RL numbers.

Well then, you need to factor in the following:

- the survelliance state in SR is much greater than IRL; it is easier to be identified as a car thief

- corporations are willing and able to use lethal force to stop people who steal from them; a higher cost if caught

- there is a large population of troublemakers who are regularly hired to do violence on the cheap

- the wealthier classes spend more on security than people do today; even wage slaves live in corporate compounds and work in secured corporate facilities

wadledo
2010-08-12, 09:41 AM
One question:
If security is so great, why are there still things like gangers and bikers roaming around the streets?:smallamused:

Oracle_Hunter
2010-08-12, 09:44 AM
One question:
If security is so great, why are there still things like gangers and bikers roaming around the streets?:smallamused:
Because they can't roam in the secure corporate compounds :smalltongue:

That's the point - people who have the money to buy cars don't leave them on the street to get blown up in a random streetfight. They leave them in secured compounds paid by their corporate masters.

And why the secured compounds? Because anything that helps keep people out can also be used to keep people in :smallamused:

Tehnar
2010-08-12, 09:49 AM
Actually stealing a car is easier in SR then in real life. You just hack into it,and order the pilot to drive itself to your friendly chop shop. You can be in a steam house 5 km away.


I would advise that you stay away from the really low payouts (unless you and your players want to play a more street level game). There is some minimum get out of bed pay for Shadowrunners (which at 400 BP you are). I'd recommend at least 5000 per run per runner.

To keep your shadowrunners poor however give them lots of expenses. New fake SINs, disguises, bribes, destroyed equipment, ammo, specialized equipment needed for a run....costs add up fast.

wadledo
2010-08-12, 09:49 AM
Here's the problem:
Corporate wageslaves don't have the money to buy nice cars;
Thus, only richer people have nice cars;
These rich people still need to get to their jobs;
Not everyone lives in a complex, because the aforementioned rich people won't have it, and not all wageslaves are worth it.
In fact, most people don't live in complexes, only people that can not leave because they know to much (like scientists and mangers).

So yes, there is a huge business in cars. And how do you know some companies don't higher people to steal other companies cars, so the can say "Hey, your car got stolen! That wouldn't happen if you belonged to Ares!"

Oracle_Hunter
2010-08-12, 09:58 AM
Here's the problem:
Corporate wageslaves don't have the money to buy nice cars;
Thus, only richer people have nice cars;
These rich people still need to get to their jobs;
Not everyone lives in a complex, because the aforementioned rich people won't have it, and not all wageslaves are worth it.
In fact, most people don't live in complexes, only people that can not leave because they know to much (like scientists and mangers).

So yes, there is a huge business in cars. And how do you know some companies don't higher people to steal other companies cars, so the can say "Hey, your car got stolen! That wouldn't happen if you belonged to Ares!"
But rich people do live in corporate compounds - and take chauffered VTOL craft to their jobs. Corporate compounds are nice and secure and you don't get to be a corporate executive without being a good "team player." Mavericks tend to get hit by 'runners hired by their business rivals.

And surely you're not suggesting trying to jack a corporate executive's (or even a wage slave's!) car while he's commuting? All he needs to do is slap a PanicButton and you're on KnightErrant's "to do" list.

Finally, you're overestimating both the wealth of non-corporate types and the necessity of car ownership. Seattle has a very nice monorail ("the tube") which most people with SINs use to get around. Cars are very expensive and credit is hard to get - SR doesn't even have rules regarding credit card; Credsticks are only used by the rich and SINful. In short, there just aren't as many cars around in SR as there are today, and those that are around are either usually quite secure or owned by people you don't want to piss off (and sometimes both).

wadledo
2010-08-12, 10:05 AM
....What?

Oh, oh.
My definition of rich people for this is "Upper-Middle Class".
Stupid enough to want it but not rich enough to not be able to afford it without loans.

These people live in the suburbs, and you jack them when they go out to the city for the night life (right after you get your hacker to deactivate their wireless [or send a fake signal, if you want to nit-pic]).

Also, SR is 60 years into the future, and the population is twice that of earth today.
There are more cars. People will always want what they can't afford, or shouldn't have. This includes nice cars.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-08-12, 10:20 AM
....What?

Oh, oh.
My definition of rich people for this is "Upper-Middle Class".
Stupid enough to want it but not rich enough to not be able to afford it without loans.

These people live in the suburbs, and you jack them when they go out to the city for the night life (right after you get your hacker to deactivate their wireless [or send a fake signal, if you want to nit-pic]).

Also, SR is 60 years into the future, and the population is twice that of earth today.
There are more cars. People will always want what they can't afford, or shouldn't have. This includes nice cars.
I guess... but that means you're boosting Ford Americar from the slums or you're taking Eurostar Westwinds from the nice parts of town where survelliance is going to be higher.

All I'm saying is that the margins aren't as sweet as you make them out to be - even without counting the chance of lethal response, the world of SR is much more locked-down than RL America has ever been; more security makes it more expensive to do things.

Sligo
2010-08-12, 10:30 AM
I'm starting to think that a good 'Runner mission would be for a mega-corp's insurance division to hire runners to break up a car-theft organization...

Tiki Snakes
2010-08-12, 10:35 AM
I'm having a hard time reconciling the idea that the world is falling apart, choked by crime and gangs and mutants and so on, teams of people are regularly sent on highly violent black-ops style missions all over the city, (enough that there's an entire class of people dedicated to doing such work) and yet there's so much security that you couldn't hope to steal a Car that isn't best described as a Rust Bucket.

:smallconfused:

But then, I'm pretty new to the setting, so I'm probably missing a hell of a lot.

Sligo
2010-08-12, 10:37 AM
I'm having a hard time reconciling the idea that the world is falling apart, choked by crime and gangs and mutants and so on, teams of people are regularly sent on highly violent black-ops style missions all over the city, (enough that there's an entire class of people dedicated to doing such work) and yet there's so much security that you couldn't hope to steal a Car that isn't best described as a Rust Bucket.

:smallconfused:

But then, I'm pretty new to the setting, so I'm probably missing a hell of a lot.

It doesn't have to make sense... It just has to be fun!!! :smallbiggrin:

DeltaEmil
2010-08-12, 10:38 AM
Even with increased lethality, stealing car would still be more profitable and less lethal than breaking into a high-security complex and extracting a person who hired your gang of shadowrunners to let himself be kidnapped, if you don't adjust the pay.

Also, cheap cars have the additional bonus that the lethality is decreased a lot.
And if necessarily, just ally yourself with the local mafia, and now you're under protection, and even when you pay half your income, it'd be more profitable than breaking into a Mitsuhama-lab or trash a Renraku-factory.
If players should do this, then give them a good reason for that.

GMs, just use your common sense. You were all born with it, so use it. Shadowrun is not a game that focuses (only) on GTA-style car-stealing, but also on other stuff, and to make sure that the game does not devolve into a lame-ass pen-and-paper-GTA, make sure that the players have good enough incentive to not do that, like raising the money.

Tiki Snakes
2010-08-12, 10:42 AM
It doesn't have to make sense... It just has to be fun!!! :smallbiggrin:

If the DM manages to work up the courage to start the campaign, (New DM, stage fright), then I shall be playing a Grizzled bounty-hunter with a cyborg arm that also functions as a grappling hook, (Bionic commando style). He's not going to be wasting his time jacking cars, he'll be all high speed motorbike chases, building-scaling, ass-kicking and punching people in the face from across the room.

Fun will be had. :smallcool:

Britter
2010-08-12, 10:43 AM
Frankly, if the runners want to jack cars, let them. Sure, big payouts...but then you can work in insurance companies, organized crime guys upset about runners horning in on their turf, Lonestar investigators...have them jack a rare car owned by a collector...have them do a "Gone in 60 Seconds" kind of mission. So long as the GM is willing to create meaningful consequences for the players actions, all this discussion of stealing cars for a living actually sounds like a really solid premise for a game, at least to me. I could think of a lot of ways to spin it.

Possible antagonits:

Owners of chop shops, gangers who make their living stealing and don't want folks horning in on their turf, Mafia or Yakuza or Insert criminals here who come and ask for a percentage of your business so you don't suffer an unfortunate accident, insurance company adjustors (in a shadowrun context, these would be a team of well trained company men with the chrome and magic to back up the companies garuntees..."Your in good hands, because our hands have guns in them"), anyone who may have left something valuable or important (protoype information, blackmail material, etc) in a car that the runners happen to have stolen.

Possible Johnsons and allies:

See above and reverse. Also, local car dealership interested in upping sales and working a fraud scheme involving a corrupt insurance rep and a team of car theives (the runners), other runner teams looking for untraceable vehicles and willing to pay top dollar who don't ask questions, collectors who don't much care how legally they acquire their rare vehicles, a corp who is very interested in looking at some propriatary software in a rival corps car, people looking to drive property values up or down in a given area in order to buy or sell real estate may want an increase in crimes of this sort.

Mix and match as needed.

I mean, the story writes itself if the players say "Screw this run, lets go make a living stealing cars". I may just have to use this idea myself. The more I think about it the more I like it.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-08-12, 11:02 AM
I'm having a hard time reconciling the idea that the world is falling apart, choked by crime and gangs and mutants and so on, teams of people are regularly sent on highly violent black-ops style missions all over the city, (enough that there's an entire class of people dedicated to doing such work) and yet there's so much security that you couldn't hope to steal a Car that isn't best described as a Rust Bucket.

:smallconfused:

But then, I'm pretty new to the setting, so I'm probably missing a hell of a lot.
For whatever reason, people seem to forget two key concepts of the SR world:

(1) Corporations are Nation-States. They have citizens, armies, and lots of money.

(2) Everywhere else is a Crapsack World.

People don't commute from "the suburbs" in SR; there aren't any. There are corporate enclaves where corporate citizens live and The Sprawl where SINless rejects struggle to survive. You don't work for a corporation; you are a citizen of the Corporate State. It's like living in a prosperous totalitarian regime - you have a good standard of living, but very little else.

For those of you who remember, consider the Renraku Arcology. A self-contained city within Seattle that was the soverign territory of Renraku Corp. It housed its own "employees," taught them in their own schools, and treated them in their own hospitals. The only thing exceptional about the Arc is that it was governed by an AI, rather than by some low-level executive; most corporate enclaves are similarly constructed.

And that's how the prosperous half of society lives. If you're an "employee" instead of a citizen, you're probably opening flavor packets at the local Stuffer Shack and riding the tube from your low-life apartment to your job. You could own a car, but why bother? They're extremely expensive and, without secure parking, likely to get boosted or busted by being parked out on the street.

So what's left? Either targets of opportunity left out by adventureous wage slaves or the vehicles of street people sufficiently confident that nobody is going to mess with their ride. And let me tell you, chummer, wage slaves don't often go places where there isn't a boatload of security - in the tradeoff between security and freedom, the wage slaves are safe and the street is free; that's how they like it.

Tiki Snakes
2010-08-12, 11:04 AM
So basically, there are no cars to jack?

JaronK
2010-08-12, 11:10 AM
Ah, it's based off of RL numbers.

Well then, you need to factor in the following:

- the survelliance state in SR is much greater than IRL; it is easier to be identified as a car thief

But there's mages who can go invisible and just negate that entirely, and Shadowrunners have that kind of tech. Survielance won't help at all.


- corporations are willing and able to use lethal force to stop people who steal from them; a higher cost if caught

According to the books, other than Aztechnology even the AAAs won't go after people for attacking them. It's just not cost effective. Remember, this is a world where gangs just drive around causing damage and nobody thinks it's worth the cost to stop them.


- there is a large population of troublemakers who are regularly hired to do violence on the cheap

Yes... the car thieves and their friends.


- the wealthier classes spend more on security than people do today; even wage slaves live in corporate compounds and work in secured corporate facilities

They have to live in such security because outside the compounds they could get attacked at any time.

If Shadowrun were a totalitarian state where every crime was punished, this would make sense... but it's not. It's a distopian society where go gangers steal cars to trick out all the time. That's what a go gang is! Law is available only to those who can afford it, and even then only if it's cost effective at the time.

JaronK

Oracle_Hunter
2010-08-12, 11:14 AM
So basically, there are no cars to jack?
There shouldn't be - and the ones to jack aren't ones you can get away with jacking for very long.

The streets aren't safe and the tube is. You need a SIN to ride the tube and anyone with a SIN who commits a crime is pretty damn easy to track down and label with a Criminal SIN.

You need a SIN to get credit from legitimate source; cars are expensive and non-essential in the hardscrabble life of the Sprawl. Paying off the local gang for security for your flop is also expensive and is far more essential to survival.

Plus, if you accept that cars are easy and profitable to steal, then why are there any cars on the streets to begin with? IRL it's because car theft is a capital-intensive business - you need entire criminal organizations to "process" and "distribute" the cars once they've been stolen - and legitimate business opportunities are easier to be had. In SR there are few legitimate business opportunities for the SINless and there is a highly robust Shadowland; low-hanging fruit like Wadledo's Cars aren't going to be on the street long enough for a runner to grab 'em. So why leave your car on the street if it's as good as gone?

@JaronK - basically responded here, but recall that while other corporations don't regularly hunt down troublemakers, if your team is spending all their time pissing in the cereal of Gei-Corp they're going to set you up the bomb.

Also: have you seen the Drain on Improved Invisibility? Besides, if you're a Mage and you're using your powers to boost cars for a chopshop - you're doing it wrong :smalltongue:

JaronK
2010-08-12, 11:19 AM
There shouldn't be - and the ones to jack aren't ones you can get away with jacking for very long.

The streets aren't safe and the tube is. You need a SIN to ride the tube and anyone with a SIN who commits a crime is pretty damn easy to track down and label with a Criminal SIN.

Um, Shadowrun is distopian. Why are we describing it as having safe public transit where all criminals are easy to stop, and car theft is impossible to get away with for super criminals like Shadowrunners?


Plus, if you accept that cars are easy and profitable to steal, then why are there any cars on the streets to begin with? IRL it's because car theft is a capital-intensive business - you need entire criminal organizations to "process" and "distribute" the cars once they've been stolen - and legitimate business opportunities are easier to be had.

In real life cars are stolen all the time. But there's a LOT of cars, so it slips through the cracks, and it's not THAT noticeable. And remember, Shadowrunners are WAY above the level of current car theives, who still exist in Shadowrun in the form of go gangs (among others).


In SR there are few legitimate business opportunities for the SINless and there is a highly robust Shadowland; low-hanging fruit like Wadledo's Cars aren't going to be on the street long enough for a runner to grab 'em. So why leave your car on the street if it's as good as gone?

Because you don't have much choice. You live somewhere crappy, park the thing in a garage, and drive to work at one of the many stuffer shacks somewhere. Then you park it in their parking lot, and hope it doesn't get stolen. Same way people do it today.

JaronK

Oracle_Hunter
2010-08-12, 11:29 AM
Um, Shadowrun is distopian. Why are we describing it as having safe public transit where all criminals are easy to stop, and car theft is impossible to get away with for super criminals like Shadowrunners?
Yes, because that's only half the society - the part of society that has sold its freedom and liberties for perfect security.

Everyone else has to live with the criminals. That's dystopia - specifically, a 1984 dystopia.


Because you don't have much choice. You live somewhere crappy, park the thing in a garage, and drive to work at one of the many stuffer shacks somewhere. Then you park it in their parking lot, and hope it doesn't get stolen. Same way people do it today.
Right - and your car is stolen the very first time you do that, because it's so lucrative, right? Where does our hero get the money for a second car? Insurance isn't going to keep replacing the damn things, and he's going to run out of money to pay the premiums eventually. Might as well buy a commuter pass on the tube and be done with it.

* * *

People, SR isn't like RL. Look at the cost of the Ford Americar and compare it to the payments for a Low lifestyle. IRL people get loans to cover the difference; in SR loans are not that easy to get. Might as well complain about 'runners existing since, IRL, anyone acting like a Shadowrunner would have the FBI running a nationwide manhunt within a week :smalltongue:

Tiki Snakes
2010-08-12, 11:32 AM
I see a valid and interesting setting in both of your takes on the subject, but JaronK's fits more closely with what I've heard about and understand by 'Shadowrun'.

I do like your take on it though Oracle. Though to be honest it reminds me slightly more of Paranoia or even what little I heard about Corporation. :smallsmile:

Umael
2010-08-12, 12:09 PM
I leaned forward and tried to ignore the goon's glare.

"So what's the deal?"

The Johnson cleared his throat, a little self-consciously.

"Car-jacking."

I blinked and shot a glance back at Rider. He looked as confused as I was. Not that it was easy to tell with Rider, of course, his face as impassive as normal, but it was there.

"Car-jacking," I repeated, looking back at the Johnson. "Well, that's easy enough. Are you paying us per car, or is there a particular car you want?"

The car's not the prize, I thought. So obviously, this guy thinks...

"No, no, you misunderstand," the Johnson said, leaning forward slightly. He ignored his goon, who was now glaring at him instead of me.

Interesting. The goon's been hired to keep the Johnson in line, as well as protect him. A babysitter, not a bodyguard.

I filed that away. "So explain it to me."

"We aren't looking for you to do any car-jacking at all. We want you to prevent car-jacking. There is a ring of car-thieves. Very successful, which means they are very skilled."

I shrugged. "Car-jacking is Lone Star's problem. So why us? What's the catch?"

The Johnson seemed to bore into me with his eyes. "I don't think you understand. I said, they are. Very. Successful."

I felt Rider stiffen beside me as he figured out what the Johnson meant a nano before I did. My mouth went dry and cottony.

"Runners," I said. Just like us.

He nodded. "Does the name 'Natasha Seronin' mean anything to you?"

Oh hell.

I felt my skin flush a little and my heart raced. Rubbing my forehead, I let out the smallest of groans.

"We... uh... we're going to have to ask you for more money for this one..."

The Johnson smiled, not a particularly pleasant one.

"I thought you might."

Oracle_Hunter
2010-08-12, 12:14 PM
I see a valid and interesting setting in both of your takes on the subject, but JaronK's fits more closely with what I've heard about and understand by 'Shadowrun'.

I do like your take on it though Oracle. Though to be honest it reminds me slightly more of Paranoia or even what little I heard about Corporation. :smallsmile:
*shakes cane*

Well, I'm pretty sure the oldsters will agree that pre-SR4 Shadowrun was closest to my description. This new-fangled SR4 seems to encourage silly things - like making car theft ridiculously lucrative and easy to do, and yet there being tons of cars to steal.

Gibson's Cyberpunk is heavily influenced by earlier dystopian literature; SR used echo those same themes. Megacorps are explictly written to function like 1984-style states in part due to a Flanderization of Japanese business culture in the 1980's; Japanese corporations often had anthems and a sense of "citizenship" amongst their employees. Below these Corporate Citizens are Orwell's "proles" - left to fend for themselves, they have "freedom" but no security.

EDIT:
@Umael - Win :smallbiggrin:

Britter
2010-08-12, 12:19 PM
Umael, that is exactly how to turn something like carjacking into an awesome adventure. I approve.

Tiki Snakes
2010-08-12, 12:24 PM
As I understand it, the existence of plenty of cars is what would MAKE car theft simple and lucrative.

I guess it's a matter of critical mass. Once you have enough cars, then the activities of the theives become harder to prevent or deal with because there's just so much. Like natural predation, the herd will not notice overly much if some scragglers are taken.

Once the density of car ownership drops below a certain point, not only would there be very few cars that are safe to steal, there'd also be so few that there'd be no point stealing them, because no-one would buy them. The Herd would be too small to support the predators.

I guess somewhere in the middle is a society with a decent amount of cars but with the majority of the populous unable to really afford anything too decent, legitimately. Which of course not so much remove the black market as fuel it, because it'd be the only way for anyone short of those in the compounds to get a half decent car. So stealing a car would be very risky if it was a decent one in the right part of town, but quite lucrative. And stealing a decent car in the wrong part of town would be almost without consequences, because what's the owner going to do? It was already a stolen car.

I think if this post had a point, I've misplaced it. But this has given me plenty to think about, so it's all good.

Loving the car-jacking run concepts and so on, Britter, Umael.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-08-12, 12:31 PM
As I understand it, the existence of plenty of cars is what would MAKE car theft simple and lucrative.

I guess it's a matter of critical mass. Once you have enough cars, then the activities of the theives become harder to prevent or deal with because there's just so much. Like natural predation, the herd will not notice overly much if some scragglers are taken.

Once the density of car ownership drops below a certain point, not only would there be very few cars that are safe to steal, there'd also be so few that there'd be no point stealing them, because no-one would buy them. The Herd would be too small to support the predators.
Pretty much.

IRL car ownership is prevalent in America for a wide variety of reasons.

In SR, most of those reasons are invalid or simply no longer applicable. There is no reason for the average Seattlite to own a car in SR aside from the joy of owning a car you rarely use. People with credit probably work for megacorps and so their cars are rarely parked outside of corporate security; people without credit cannot afford to continually replace their trophy cars every time a "street sam" wants to upgrade his wires.

There's no demand for stolen Ford Americars and the supply dwindles continually. Why again is it a sensible career decision for the Combat Mage and his "street sam" buddies to waste their time boosting cars? :smallconfused:

Britter
2010-08-12, 12:50 PM
Re: Carjacking, or any other "easy money" type of activity in Shadowrun.

The way I see it, when a player looks at the rules and says "this looks like a better way to make money then doing dangerous shadowruns" and the group decides to pursue it, they should be allowed too. Afterall, SOMEONE has to provide the fixers with the guns, gear, vehicles etc. SOMEONE has to provide the street doc with stolen cyber- and bio- ware lifted from the not-quite-cold corpses of hapless wageslaves. You get the drift...someone in the world is making bank off of these activites.

So, let the players have what they want. Give them a massive income, their very own little organization, a piece of the pie that has made them wealthy and powerful, be that piece cars, running a business, you name it. Let them build it lovingly for a few sessions. Make it everything they ever dreamed it would be.

And then make them fight for it tooth and nail.

Have someone send runners after them. Have someone swear vengenace for an imagined slight. Have someone bigger, more powerful, and wealthier decide they are going to acquire the business. Heck, it makes even more sense for the Yakuza to move in and gobble up your sucsessful carjacking ring than it would for them to hire your lame runner tuckus for a lot of money for a single job, right?

If the players want to be movers-and-shakers, it they want to try to take the cushy, easy road, if they want to be supply-side or management and leave the shadows to rubes who haven't grasped how foolish it is to be paid peanuts to risk their lives, well I say let them. And then show them that in the concrete canyons between megacorporate enclaves, no matter how big a predator you are, no matter how close to the bleeding edge you may walk, there is someone bigger, meaner, and tougher who is going to try to take what you have earned away from you. Show the runner who has tied their income to a business venture of some sort what exactly they lost by opting to become just another cog in a machine. Have someone try to take everything from them, and see how hard they are willing to fight.

In my mind, the economics of being a runner are in fact crap. But if you are a runner, you are free. You make your own choices, and you are beholden to no one and nothing. You walk the wire between corps and crime bosses, you move unseen beneath the neon sea of information, and no man is your master.

Ironically, when my players choose to play a more traditional shadowrunner along the lines above, I do everything in my power to take that freedom away. I try to show them that a few independent souls in an otherwise faceless world of clandestine business deals, pervaisve media, and corporate culture have no chance of making a difference. And then I see how hard they fight to prove me wrong.

In my mind anything can be a good Shadowrun story, so long as you give the players what they say they want, and then determine logical consequences from there. Make them fight for the things they value. No one runs the shadows for money alone, right? Because if they wanted to be rich they would be doing something else, like maybe stealing cars. :smallamused:

For me, cyberpunk is defined by the struggle: nature against technology, the individual against the faceless masses, the rich against the poor, the law against the criminal, freedom against Orwellian oppression, the struggle to define "right" and "wrong" in a morally bankrupt world. Set up a conflict like that based on your players interests, and things will write themselves.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-08-12, 01:30 PM
For me, cyberpunk is defined by the struggle: nature against technology, the individual against the faceless masses, the rich against the poor, the law against the criminal, freedom against Orwellian oppression, the struggle to define "right" and "wrong" in a morally bankrupt world. Set up a conflict like that based on your players interests, and things will write themselves.
+1, chummer :smallbiggrin:

See, this is how you run old school SR.

Britter
2010-08-12, 01:41 PM
+1, chummer :smallbiggrin:

See, this is how you run old school SR.

Thanks Oracle Hunter. I try my best :smallsmile:

chiasaur11
2010-08-12, 01:48 PM
I still say having every car equipped with a paranoid weak AI wired up to high explosives is fun times.

If every theft requires the skills of a hostage negotiator, and could end in horrific death by exploded, the whole thing gets a bit more fun.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-08-12, 01:50 PM
I still say having every car equipped with a paranoid weak AI wired up to high explosives is fun times.

If every theft requires the skills of a hostage negotiator, and could end in horrific death by exploded, the whole thing gets a bit more fun.
But more than a bit silly.

It's one thing to talk down an experimental AI planning on using the self-destruct system to blow up a Black Research Lab; it's another thing to argue with a Ford Americar's auto-nav to not set off some grenades in the trunk :smallsigh:

Earthwalker
2010-08-12, 02:41 PM
Pretty much.

IRL car ownership is prevalent in America for a wide variety of reasons.

In SR, most of those reasons are invalid or simply no longer applicable. There is no reason for the average Seattlite to own a car in SR aside from the joy of owning a car you rarely use. People with credit probably work for megacorps and so their cars are rarely parked outside of corporate security; people without credit cannot afford to continually replace their trophy cars every time a "street sam" wants to upgrade his wires.


I think I have a different idea of Seattle of the shadowrun world then you Oracle_Hunter. The AAA corps and some AA are nation states but not all have that status.

Some of the AA and the A corps have to get by on how they can. The Seattle source book had areas that were basically suburbs that had a commuter belt, I think it was Everet. Even areas of Redmond Touristville supports middle and low lifestyle. The people living here are working for the smaller corps as wage slaves, some may own cars.

Now I do agree car jacking isn't going to happen. Or at least not easy, all the main roads are all gridlinked, all the cars drive themselves and are monitored by the system (more so in SR4) with more drones and more AR overlap.

So stealing a car is a hackers job not some Joe with a gun. You need to get in to the car, disable the gridlink. Get the car off the gridlinked roads without being tracked. Disable any security the car has broadcasting to any node where it is. Its all work work work.

If my players wanted to play GTA the pen and paper game they could but I can think of plenty of ways to make things more complicated. I think there is car crime and even car jacking but the cars in the areas you are jacking my have people inside you don't want to meet.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-08-12, 03:02 PM
I think I have a different idea of Seattle of the shadowrun world then you Oracle_Hunter. The AAA corps and some AA are nation states but not all have that status.

Some of the AA and the A corps have to get by on how they can. The Seattle source book had areas that were basically suburbs that had a commuter belt, I think it was Everet. Even areas of Redmond Touristville supports middle and low lifestyle. The people living here are working for the smaller corps as wage slaves, some may own cars.
Fair enough.

It's easy to forget that megacorps aren't the norm in SR - mainly because sending a 'runner against a regular ol' corp is overkill. Still, IIRC the Shiawase and Seretech Decisions granted all corps extraterritoriality and freedom to use lethal force against threats to their property (respectively). If the world corporate council put different rules into place, then I guess it was in a sourcebook I haven't read.

Earthwalker
2010-08-12, 03:51 PM
The layout of Seattle and the different areas was in the Seattle source book. I think alot of details on what being a Mega corp means and how other corps work was in the Corporate Shadowfiles I think, if I remember correct it was a good book, not alot of rules but very nice write ups on how the corporations of the Sixth world work.

Lots of nice source books for shadowrun, one more reason I love the system.

Oh and thanks for writing extraterritoriality, I couldn't work out how to spell that.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-08-12, 03:56 PM
Oh and thanks for writing extraterritoriality, I couldn't work out how to spell that.
Google Spellcheck is your friend :smallcool:

a_humble_lich
2010-08-12, 05:02 PM
I'm not sure that stealing cars is a profitable as people seem to think it is. Remember the price given in the book is how much you can buy a car for new, not how much you can get for a stolen one. Also, since cars are large, difficult to hide, high value items I think the GM is well within their rights to say stolen cars fence for less than other gear. Also, since the cars are not new, their value is even lower. In all I think it would be reasonable to say you could get 10-20% of the cars new price--which means the Eurocar Westwind you just spend a whole session jacking is only worth ¥8500. And this doesn't include how much you have to pay the mob for protection, bribes to the cops, etc.

OTOH, I think a GTA campaign would be interesting. I think Shadowrun often sells itself short when it assumes that all campaigns will be people doing shadowruns, while I can think of a lot of other quite fun games that would take place in the same world.

JaronK
2010-08-12, 06:09 PM
*shakes cane*

Well, I'm pretty sure the oldsters will agree that pre-SR4 Shadowrun was closest to my description. This new-fangled SR4 seems to encourage silly things - like making car theft ridiculously lucrative and easy to do, and yet there being tons of cars to steal.

I only play SR3. And SR3 is a distopian society, not one where crime is eliminated by perfect security. Those corp workers with the fancy cars? A shadowrunner team could easily get to those cars. Heck, you could hack the darn things to take the wrong exit off the freeway (which they do have to drive on), grab the car, turn off the library transponder, drive it into a truck, and take it away. The worker? Chuck him out the back or ransom him if you accidentally got someone worth taking. Who cares. That didn't exactly take a lot of effort and took FAR fewer resources than what a Shadowrunner team has available. If they nail four cars in a night (from different exits), they just made a lot more than some pidly 5k run... and probably at far lower risk.

I'm not assuming every car gets jacked always. I'm assuming the same as today: there are valuable cars, and there are lots of people who steal them. Especially considering the cops are often described as being jackbooted thugs with guns more than actually solid investigators, you should be fine. Just use color shifting paint on your vehicles and make yourselves look like go gangers from some real gang, and Lonestar won't even bother you.

The point is, Shadowrunners are professionals who risk their lives. They expect some reasonable compensation.

JaronK

wadledo
2010-08-12, 06:11 PM
*Stuff*

Not really true. Modern car thieves usually do things like repainting it, switching out the license plates, or just making it as ostentatious as possible. If they can, a large number also just run chopshops. Secondhand part stores can be filled with 'repossessed' parts from cars to old to fetch a lot of money or just to hot to let sit.

Also, there are rules for used and jacked cars in Arsenal. Used cars go for 20-50% cheaper, and if it's a high priced car like the Westwind, you can bet your going to get the best you can for something like that.

Kaun
2010-08-12, 06:39 PM
why does every shadowrun thread descend into a car jacking argument?

These arguments are more borring and played out then "Why do monks suck?" threads and anything involving the word "alignment"

At the end of the day it all comes down to your GM if car jacking is a viable option or not.

a_humble_lich
2010-08-12, 06:41 PM
My point was for stolen cars you need to do things like repaint it, strip it, take out RFID tags, and avoid the police in a way you don't have to do with other sorts of fence-able materials. I'm not saying you can't get rid of a stolen car, just that it is more difficult than an Ares Predator. And unless the PCs own a chop shop and a second hand store that sells "repossessed" parts they will have to pay people to provide these services. Organized crime groups have access to these facilities which makes it more profitable for syndicates (who tend not to like competition...) Even modern car thieves, while they make money, aren't making hundreds of thousands a month each.

Also, going by RAW a used car can be bought for 20-50% base price. And you can only fence something for 30% of its value. So getting 15% of the base price from your fence would be doing well. For a Eurocar that is ¥12750, which when split among the party hardly counts as mad cash. The players can ask for more, but that will take longer and also increases the risk of somebody noticing.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-08-12, 06:53 PM
why does every shadowrun thread descend into a car jacking argument?

These arguments are more borring and played out then "Why do monks suck?" threads and anything involving the word "alignment"

At the end of the day it all comes down to your GM if car jacking is a viable option or not.
Wait... this is a thing when discussing SR? :smallconfused:

wadledo
2010-08-12, 06:57 PM
Also, going by RAW a used car can be bought for 20-50% base price. And you can only fence something for 30% of its value. So getting 15% of the base price from your fence would be doing well. For a Eurocar that is ¥12750, which when split among the party hardly counts as mad cash. The players can ask for more, but that will take longer and also increases the risk of somebody noticing.

Going by RAW, a used vehicle costs 20 to 50% less than a new one, depending on condition (Arsenal, page 104).

So since the base is 30%, and something like a westwind is somewhat rare, so you can tac another 20 percent on that. So 50% of 85000, at minimum is 42500. Add onto that anything your face can squeeze out of the dealer and you've got yourself 50000+ for a single nights work.
Wait... this is a thing when discussing SR? :smallconfused:
I have never had this argument before, and I've had a fair number of arguments about shadowrun.

BobVosh
2010-08-12, 07:19 PM
Wait... this is a thing when discussing SR? :smallconfused:

News to me too, I normally see the biggest complaint (this is in 4ed) where one can essentially buy a decker in char creation and not spend much to do so.

a_humble_lich
2010-08-12, 07:22 PM
I misread the used car rules from Arsenal. Sorry.

But still, that is how much you could buy the car for, not how much you can sell it. Unless the PCs want to change the game from GTA to "Used Car Salesmen 2071" they will have to find a fence. According to SR4 page 312 the base price a fence will give you is 30% of the value, so your ¥50000 just became ¥15000 and just getting that price requires a negotiation+charisma (10,6 hours) roll.

I think if the GM wants to run a game based on stealing cars, or if the PC "acquire" during the course of the run and sell it there is no problem. But if the GM doesn't want the party to become car thieves the RAW make it not so profitable. Unless you can find a way to get many cars at a time, but I'd say that kind of operation gets you noticed.

wadledo
2010-08-12, 07:31 PM
I think if the GM wants to run a game based on stealing cars, or if the PC "acquire" during the course of the run and sell it there is no problem. But if the GM doesn't want the party to become car thieves the RAW make it not so profitable. Unless you can find a way to get many cars at a time, but I'd say that kind of operation gets you noticed.

That's not the point.
The point is is that it is more profitable to steal cars than it is to shadowrun, normally. Which means that you have to pay your PC's enough for it to be logical for them to want to shadowrun.

That is what this argument is about, in case you've forgotten. This is not about players making the game into GTA, this is about payscale.

Kaun
2010-08-12, 07:41 PM
Wait... this is a thing when discussing SR? :smallconfused:

The car jacking makes more money then running debate?

You are going to tell me this is the first time you have had this conversation OH?

GitP may not see as many of these threads but then again it only gets a small % of SR threads i guess.

Ow well continue on then, lets see if the never ending debate gets an answer this time lol.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-08-12, 07:46 PM
You are going to tell me this is the first time you have had this conversation OH?
...yes, because carjacking for money in the SR universe is silly. It must be because of that quote from Arsenal (which edition is that book?) because it never even occurred to me in all my years of playing SR to suggest that our team of elite special-forces types try to boost Ford Americars for money.

Heck, we didn't even bother fencing the guns off of guys we killed! We could have bought our PA Troll a sack and had him stuff looted equipment in it during the run. Afterwards, we could've called up our fixer and sold the stuff wholesale!

a_humble_lich
2010-08-12, 07:48 PM
Yes, but what I was saying is if the GM does not want to pay the characters much, there is much in the rules that can make stealing cars less profitable. If stealing a nice car only nets ¥15000 to the party, then for a 4 person team that means a run that pay ¥4000/per person is profitable. If the local Yakuza demand ¥5000 for the privilege of stealing cars in their area or other such GM imposed expenses, then shadowrunning looks even better.

Yes, if you only want to pay the PCs a couple thousand per run than stealing high end cars would net you more than shadowrunning. But I'd say first a couple thousand per run is on the low side. Also, if I were running a game where I didn't want the PCs to have lots of money (i.e. I'm not paying them a whole lot) I would not make it easy for them to steal top of the line cars.

wadledo
2010-08-12, 07:52 PM
*Stuff*

So what do your particular houserules have to do with Shaodwrun, as it is written right now?:smallsigh::smallyuk::smallmad:

a_humble_lich
2010-08-12, 08:17 PM
Houserules?

According the to main book you can only fence an object for 30% of its value. If you ignore the fact that these should be considered used cars, that means you can only sell a Eurocar for ¥ 25500. Which is not too much divided between a normal sized party. According to the fencing section, I can't see how (by the strict rules) you could sell it for more than that.

So the question is how hard is it to steal a nice car compared to an average run, and how much do you as GM want to give for an average run. There are no real answers to those questions in the rule book. If the GM wants a game where stealing cars is easy and runners don't get paid much there will be problems. But that is a choice. And if the GM doesn't want stealing cars to be more profitable than shadowrunning, he/she has lots of tools to discourage car theft (reducing the value of cars because they are used, law enforcement, organized crime, making stealing nice car more difficult, etc).

Raum
2010-08-12, 08:21 PM
...yes, because carjacking for money in the SR universe is silly.Agreed. My players stole cars all the time - but that was because 1) few cars survived their runs and they didn't want their own cars destroyed and 2) the cars were licensed - tied to a SIN (legitimate or not) - and they didn't want to be traced or have a SIN blown by having a car tracked. And because a couple were too poor to own a car. Street lifestyle doesn't give you much...


Heck, we didn't even bother fencing the guns off of guys we killed! We could have bought our PA Troll a sack and had him stuff looted equipment in it during the run. Afterwards, we could've called up our fixer and sold the stuff wholesale!Hehe, my players were greedier than this...they'd sell used cyberware when they could.

The Big Dice
2010-08-12, 08:37 PM
I never particularly liked Shadowrun. Orcs 'n' Elves 'n' Cyberpunk don't really mix for me. However, Cyberpunk as a roleplaying genre is something I do like a lot.

If nobody can afford a car, why does anybody manufacture them? If you take the fact that car companies want to sell cars as a given, credit must be fairly easy to get. After all, not paying your bills on time can cost an arm and a leg. Or maybe an eye and a lung. You get the picture.

Sure, you might only be able to fence an item for 30% of it's value. But how much does a used item cost? Especially one with it's past scrubbed clean. That goes for weapons and cybernetics as much as it does for cars. And like any goods of dubious provenance, the odds are it's not going to work properly for very long.

I don't see why Shadowrunners wouldn't be able to make some cash on the side by boosting the odd car now and then. But then I don't see why cyberghouls wouldn't be screeching to a stop and jumping out of their black vans with the tinted windows to grab the bodies after a firefight on the streets. After all, dead is dead and parts are parts. And dead guys are parts.

Which is to say that preowned cybernetics and organs both have cash value. And that there are likely to be people who are willing to *ahem* harvest those commodities.

The way I run Cyberpunk is to pay 'runners fairly well. Then take it all off them in the form of hospital bills, rent, upgrades and equipment replacement costs. Sure, they might make 10k each for liberating a bit of tech from one company, or "persuading" someone to change the corporation that they work for. But the time in the ICU and regular hospital that they'll need after the run is going to cost 12k.

You have to keep those 'runners, be they Edge or Shadow runners hungry. Otherwise they get complacent. If they get a fancy car, steal it. And if they make it theft proof, set fire to it.

IT might just be me, but I like a dystopia to be something uncomfortable. If you can track down a copy of Grimm's Cybertales, there's some great ideas in there. Sure, the crunch was written for 2020 Cyberpunk, but the fluff fits perfectly into any Cyberpunk or Post Cyberpunk game.

DeltaEmil
2010-08-12, 08:55 PM
And if the GM doesn't want stealing cars to be more profitable than shadowrunning, he/she has lots of tools to discourage car theft (reducing the value of cars because they are used, law enforcement, organized crime, making stealing nice car more difficult, etc).If stealing cars is not profitable, then nobody is ever going to do any Shadowrun, because they're less profitable and far more deadlier.

Instead of being an assinine and sucky gm who makes every car suddenly guarded by superinvincible blood spirits that can shoot lasers and can summon other blood spirits so that no car gets stolen, while every security program in a car is guarded by the best corporate programmers there are, who are all immortal elves who transform into immortal greater dragons with the ability to hack every machine on the world from their moonbase, just do a simple thing and pay enough that you don't have to make yourself look like a fool.

Crow
2010-08-12, 08:57 PM
The way I run Cyberpunk is to pay 'runners fairly well. Then take it all off them in the form of hospital bills, rent, upgrades and equipment replacement costs. Sure, they might make 10k each for liberating a bit of tech from one company, or "persuading" someone to change the corporation that they work for. But the time in the ICU and regular hospital that they'll need after the run is going to cost 12k.

Haha! I do this too. There was a running joke in our group that if you had a little pile of nuyen, you had better spend it, or sooner rather than later someone would spend it for you. =)

Lev
2010-08-12, 08:59 PM
Shadowrun is SO good, I haven't found anything better to go with a DnD group, that way if you don't have all your players you can invite random people for a 1-off in shadowrun since the BEST thing about the game is that people can leave and come in randomly without breaking story, without breaking flow and without any long term negative effects.

chiasaur11
2010-08-12, 09:07 PM
Heck, we didn't even bother fencing the guns off of guys we killed! We could have bought our PA Troll a sack and had him stuff looted equipment in it during the run. Afterwards, we could've called up our fixer and sold the stuff wholesale!

Uh, why wouldn't you?

If you need money enough to be pulling stupid dangerous jobs, I see no reason to avoid boosting the margins.

Like Schlock Mercenary points out, nothing sounds quite as good as "paid twice".

Oracle_Hunter
2010-08-12, 09:19 PM
Uh, why wouldn't you?

If you need money enough to be pulling stupid dangerous jobs, I see no reason to avoid boosting the margins.

Like Schlock Mercenary points out, nothing sounds quite as good as "paid twice".
Because I usually am more interested in finishing the job than loading myself down with dozens of Ares Predators and AK-97s.

Listen, I'm not arguing over the economics of paying runners, I just think it's silly for people to believe that a world where people's SINs are checked every time they get on the tube is going to be one where stealing large chunks of hardware off the street is a feasible business strategy. It's like opening an investment bank in a game of D&D - how is that even supposed to work? :smallconfused:

DeltaEmil
2010-08-12, 09:22 PM
In D&D? Magic explains everything.
In Shadowrun? If stealing a car or anything like that is practically impossible/not profitable, then you must eliminate the black market and fixers from your game, and also eliminate organized crime, shadowrunning, corporate men and such stuff.

Kaun
2010-08-12, 09:32 PM
...yes, because carjacking for money in the SR universe is silly. It must be because of that quote from Arsenal (which edition is that book?) because it never even occurred to me in all my years of playing SR to suggest that our team of elite special-forces types try to boost Ford Americars for money.

Heck, we didn't even bother fencing the guns off of guys we killed! We could have bought our PA Troll a sack and had him stuff looted equipment in it during the run. Afterwards, we could've called up our fixer and sold the stuff wholesale!

Ow sorry its generally more of a theoretical debate like anything involving a Pun Pun.

Jacking cars in game would be borring after the first one.

WinWin
2010-08-12, 09:33 PM
Assmunig there is a market demand for 2nd hand cars, then I guess it could be profitable. In order to make for a compelling story there has to be more to it than than simply driving the merchandise to a fence.

If an illegal activity is profitable, then it would become the province of a gang or criminal syndicate in short order. Even the Atztechnology megacorp is rumoured to have links to various cartels. I dare say that drugrunning and identity theft would be bigger money makers for these groups than GTA. Any kind of long term activity is going to draw their attention. I doubt they would settle for only a minor cut of the profits.

The Big Dice
2010-08-12, 10:06 PM
I just think it's silly for people to believe that a world where people's SINs are checked every time they get on the tube is going to be one where stealing large chunks of hardware off the street is a feasible business strategy. It's like opening an investment bank in a game of D&D - how is that even supposed to work? :smallconfused:
If the world is that tightly controlled, how is there a black market in weapons, cybernetics and (I would assume) in magic? If the corporations are as strong and as self contained as other posts suggest, why is there a need for Shadowrunners at all? The megacorps should be able to handle all their own grey, black and water ops with their own personnel.

If there's a secondary, or grey, market there's going to be some kind of demand for hardware. After all, people are going to want to sell their used cars and stuff. While other people are going to want to buy those preowned goods. Which is the situation we have in the rel world, where people sell things to each other. With or without a middleman. What do you think newspaper classifieds are for?

And that kind of demand is going to spill over into an illegal, or black, market. Especially if there's a demand for illegal weapons, software, cybernetics and presumably for illegal magic too.

In a world where there's a recognisable demgraphic, no matter how small, that survives economically by doing dirty deeds (dirt cheap or otherwise) then there is going to be a market for stolen chunks of hardware off the street.

And the street finds it's own uses for things anyway. A stolen car might be too hot to drive round in. But the alarm could be adapted to be an alarm on a lockup. The bodywork could be converted into extra armour for the door of that lockup. Or into interior walls. While the engine now powers an elevator, instead of a drivetrain.

wadledo
2010-08-12, 10:39 PM
Houserules?

According the to main book you can only fence an object for 30% of its value. If you ignore the fact that these should be considered used cars, that means you can only sell a Eurocar for ¥ 25500. Which is not too much divided between a normal sized party. According to the fencing section, I can't see how (by the strict rules) you could sell it for more than that.

I don't think you read the rules as well as you think you do.

The main book says the the basic asking price is 30%. This means that, using the rules from the table directly to the left of the section, you could add on 50%, or deduct 20%, or whatever. Hey, you could increase the percentage of that 30% by making the check more difficult!

Edit: The Big Dice, I like you.

chiasaur11
2010-08-12, 11:10 PM
Edit: The Big Dice, I like you.

Seconded.

Nice to have the situation encapsulated.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-08-12, 11:47 PM
If the world is that tightly controlled, how is there a black market in weapons, cybernetics and (I would assume) in magic? If the corporations are as strong and as self contained as other posts suggest, why is there a need for Shadowrunners at all? The megacorps should be able to handle all their own grey, black and water ops with their own personnel.

If there's a secondary, or grey, market there's going to be some kind of demand for hardware. After all, people are going to want to sell their used cars and stuff. While other people are going to want to buy those preowned goods. Which is the situation we have in the rel world, where people sell things to each other. With or without a middleman. What do you think newspaper classifieds are for?

And that kind of demand is going to spill over into an illegal, or black, market. Especially if there's a demand for illegal weapons, software, cybernetics and presumably for illegal magic too.

In a world where there's a recognisable demgraphic, no matter how small, that survives economically by doing dirty deeds (dirt cheap or otherwise) then there is going to be a market for stolen chunks of hardware off the street.

And the street finds it's own uses for things anyway. A stolen car might be too hot to drive round in. But the alarm could be adapted to be an alarm on a lockup. The bodywork could be converted into extra armour for the door of that lockup. Or into interior walls. While the engine now powers an elevator, instead of a drivetrain.
At the root, this argument is comparing commercial vehicles to Instruments of Power.
Megacorporations can build their own cars - or even buy them on the open market. Nobody is going to invest great amounts of money or effort to create a thriving black market for this even under the eyes of a surveillance state. The same is not true for information and the tools needed to get them - magic, cyberware, even Runners. More importantly, it is because of the ease of surveillance that corps need anonymous individuals to do their dirty work - getting caught by the Corporate Court doing dirty deeds can result in embarrassing or deadly results.

This is the logic that underpins the existence of Shadowrunners and their ancillary networks - cyberware, weaponry, and magic smugglers. It is difficult work to do, and very expensive, but the people with money - the corporations - are willing to pay for it, however indirectly.

Where is the logic for car jacking? It exists IRL? Real Life is nothing like the Sixth World - you might as well cite 13th century economic theory for all the relevance it has.

Furthermore, the logic of the world mitigates against it. In Seattle at least, SINs are easy to trace and hard to spoof and everyone with money keeps a close eye on their property. Yes, you can steal it, but it will be noticed eventually and dealt with - this is why 'runners are so paranoid. Cars, in particular, are extremely easy to track; they're hooked into the CityGrid, are registered to SINs, and are friggin' huge. Not to mention Lone Star drone patrols, private security systems watching the street, and the difficulty of un-registering a device that's in constant communication with several public networks.

So what? You start boosting the cars of the have-nots? The very ones that lacked the resources to protect their property in the first place? People who can't even afford a Middle Lifestyle which - need I remind you - is listed as the "safest" in every sourcebook I can recall? Why are they wasting money on a car that is - apparently - so profitable to steal? They don't need them - motorcycles are cheaper and easier to store and the tube is safe and cheap.

And in the end, who's buying these damn things? Chop them for parts? Why? These things don't even use IC engines - if you need an electric motor buy one from a store! In any event, eccentrics who buy old car parts aren't going to support the market here, and there just isn't enough money floating around in the low-end of society for unregistered cars that can't even run on the CityGrid.
Tl'dr?

(1) Megacorps pay and support markets for things that are valuable for them. Shadowrunners are valuable; stolen cars are not.

(2) The cars of the Sixth World are nothing like cars IRL. They're easy to track, need to be authorized to work at all, and are irrelevant for urban dwellers.

That's all I'm going to say on the matter.

JaronK
2010-08-13, 12:50 AM
why does every shadowrun thread descend into a car jacking argument?

Mostly because it's a good way of determining how much runners should be paid. If they could get paid a lot more for less risk, then there's really no reason for them to do the run. So the run should pay appropriately. It's not just car jacking. The mage could just cast Makeover all day long at his salon, doing each customer in 5 minutes (spending those minutes trying out various styles) and make quite a good bit of money if he's got the right skills. The street sam or hacker could jack cars. So could the rigger. Etc. These people could make money safer, so there's got to be a reason they're doing these runs. Either that's better money or saving the world or whatever.

As far as cars being easy to track? Heck no, just pop out the library transponder chip, replace it with a new one (which IIRC costs 50Y) and repaint it (possibly with a painting drone). Now it's a new car, which you can sell to the same people that buy used cyberware and all those other goodies that Shadowrun exists are available. Heck, my runners buy disposable cars all the time. Clearly, there are people that would want it! As for cars not being needed... what game are you reading about? The Seattle Metroplex is HUGE and poorly planned and public transport is monitered, stinky, and dangerous... in addition to not going everywhere. Think LA if it were far larger and taller and full of refugees from a giant war (remember, a lot of the US population on the west coast had to go to Seattle after the NAN took over). There's no way in this mess you can just walk to your job like some utopian city.

JaronK

Swordguy
2010-08-13, 12:56 AM
Jesus H...the thread exploded.

OK, reading this over, the main thing I'm seeing is that people are largely taking selected chunks of Shadowrun fluff that fit their personal preferences and extrapolating them to be indicative of Shadowrun as a whole.

So, in terms of security and freedoms to do things like own a car, what does Shadowrun actually look like? Well...for once, it's something that doesn't totally depend on which edition in which you're playing. Shadowrun fluff has been reasonably, if not totally, consistent through the editions in this. There will be individual counterexamples to every point I'll make through this...but those counterexamples are specific instances, whereas I'm making the broad generalizations that are indicative of the whole.

1) Corporations do NOT run "everything". Corps - megacorps specifically - are incredibly influential, yes. They have a combined market share that makes WalMart look like Mom&Pop's General Store, yes. Practically everyone on Earth is influenced by a megacorp in some way, yes. But they are not omnipresent and they are not omniscient. In a world (4e) with a total population of about 4 billion, perhaps a quarter of those are directly employed by an A, AA, or AAA-rated Corp, or a subsidiary or holding thereof. This is true to the cyberpunk genre in that corps have such a large impact on day-to-day life that is seems as though they run everything, in but in reality, there's plenty of room for private enterprise. It's just that once somebody gets past a certain threshold of success (being either widespread or inventing something new that will be extra-profitable), some corp or another will swoop in and "make them an offer they can't refuse".

2) Why don't Corps run everything? Mainly, they're different entities. Gigantic, sociopathic entities, true, but different and distinct all the same. The idea of Azethnology working hand-in-glove on a long-term basis with, say Yamatestsu, is totally unthinkable. It's equivalent to asking the NAACP to enter into a long-term partnership with the KKK (to use the only example I can think of at 2am - my apologies). They're all working at cross-purposes, and are all aware that capitalist economics is, at its heart, a zero-sum game. Only one company can "win", and they all want to be that company. Thus, much of their effort is spent sabotaging everybody else.

3) Can people even have privately-owned cars? Of course. Remember, three-quarters (or thereabouts) of the world's population isn't under direct corp control. If you count the number of people who don't live in corporate arcologies (Renraku's doomed facility being the ur-example), that number rises even higher. Cities are much like they are now, with a downtown area, several zones immediately outside that area with varying security ratings (AA, A, B, and C) that have more or less "active security" depending on the rating. The more the residents make, the higher the zone rating. When people talk about the omnipresent security (in the form of live, active, security, not just cameras), they're discussing a AA or AAA-rated security zone. Those are somewhat rare, and mainly apply to the top 10% of corporate workers who live somewhere outside an arcology. The other 90% live somewhere with, necessarily, less security. Will all of them have cars? No - but a large number will, and over a large number of pay grades (meaning lots of "grades" of cars to steal). And for reference, yes, there are the no-security zones like the Redmond Barrens outside Seattle where "anything goes". People don't generally own cars there. A) They can't afford them. B) They'd probably get blown up if they did.

4) You mentioned Cameras everywhere. If there's so much security, surely it's impossible to get away with stealing cars! Well, yeah...if there wasn't so much other crime that's more important that property theft, AND if the police actually cared. See, the go-gangs and folks from the no-security zones come into the "civilized" parts of cities often enough that the cops are kept busy dealing with the murders and major property damage. Plus there's all the crimes runners commit. And BTL rackets. And people not paying the police their protection money. And so on, and so on. If the police really cared, they could probably track down a lot more car thefts than they do. And if you throw them a large enough bribe, then they'll show that interest. But for the cost of the bribe, you could probably buy most of your car back. Remember a dystopia applies to the police departments too. A good rule of thumb I've developed is: would the cops from Robocop (OCP Detroit) show an interest in what just happened, with all they've got to deal with? If not, the crime gets "lost in the paperwork". So sorry, citizen. Maybe if you go to your corp masters, they'll take pity on you and help you buy a new car (which then ties you even closer, via debt and/or obligation, to your corporate overlords).

5) What about GridGuide? The Gridguide system is a computer chip installed in your car. Only people who are very skilled with computers/tech work would be able to remove one and/or install a fake one. Certainly, Shadowrunners wouldn't know anybody like that, would they?

6) If corps provide everything, how/why can a Black Market for getting RID of the stolen cars exist? First, see point #1 regarding the limits of corporations. Second, see The Big Dice's post, in which he encapsulates the situation neatly.

7) So how do runners steal cars? 1) ID Target - ideally a moderately-common car located in a B or C-rated security zone. 2) Hack security system while muscle keeps an eye out for the cops. 3) Remove GridGuide Chip. 4) Install fake GridGuide chip than can be overridden by in-the-car commands. 5) Drive to Fixer. 6) Remove fake GrideGuide Chip so you can use it again later. 7) Sell car at a minimum of 30% of cost, and more (up to about 50%) depending on Social skills and relationship with the Fixer.

8) As a GM, how I do stop this insanity from happening while still maintaining verisimillitude (ie, so I don't have to rewrite all the fluff)? Two things. The first is respect, chummer. The name of the game is Shadowrun, because it's the runners of the shadows who get the rep. They're the ones who people in the know talk about on the street. They're the "rock stars" of the underworld. Play into that. A runner who makes his living jacking cars isn't gonna have any streed cred - he's no better than the Triad, Mafia, or Yakuza guys who boost cars for a living. Make sure that the bouncer doesn't let him into the 'runner bar. Make sure the groupies ignore the carjacker, no matter how 'chromed he is. Hit him in the ego, where it hurts.

The second is that most car theft is done by organized crime. Whether that's the Yaks, Triads, Mafia, or go-gangs (mostly the last in the case of bikes), they're going to look...poorly...on somebody horning in on their territory. And you'd better believe that every bit of a major city has been divided up along informal lines. Triads get this part, Yaks get that part. Your carjacking running is gonna be torquing somebody off if he makes a habit of it. Once in a blue moon to raise some quick cash? No problem. Two or three cars a night? There's going to be a knock at his door by some very upset gangers, and killing them will just make things worse. This is a core part of the world fluff, so make sure your players know this ahead of time. You won't have too many problems with car theft. :smallamused:

JaronK
2010-08-13, 01:02 AM
Or the more obvious solution... pay them enough that it's worth more to do runs than to just boost some cars.

JaronK

Swordguy
2010-08-13, 01:06 AM
Or the more obvious solution... pay them enough that it's worth more to do runs than to just boost some cars.

JaronK

When you're running a "street punks with guns" campaign, that's not always possible. Wanting to avoid horking off the Triads is advice that it universally useful. :smalltongue:

Lev
2010-08-13, 01:20 AM
The best thing I can think to say is:
If you don't enjoy reading novels, download the PDF (after buying the book?) and use adobe reader to select the ocean of fluff and string it into text-to-speech.

Seriously, it's massive fluff will BURY you.

Tiki Snakes
2010-08-13, 01:22 AM
Really, really need to talk the guy into running that Shadowrun campaign. This thread is really peaking my interest.

Pretty interesting summary of stuff Swordguy.

Though every time I read awesome stuff like this, I get that kinda come-down moment when I remember that amidst all this awesome Cyberpunk grunge there's also a ghetto full of elves and trolls in the back allys. Damn fantasy people getting all up in my cyberpunk. :smallwink:

JaronK
2010-08-13, 01:33 AM
When you're running a "street punks with guns" campaign, that's not always possible. Wanting to avoid horking off the Triads is advice that it universally useful. :smalltongue:

Fair enough, but standard build rules make you a LOT stronger than street punks with guns. If you're lowering the point buy enough to make them into actual street punks with guns, they may not have the resources to boost cars anyway. Though honestly, I could see graduating from car jacking to shadowrunning being a fun way to introduce the mechanics.

JaronK

Kaun
2010-08-13, 02:32 AM
Damn fantasy people getting all up in my cyberpunk. :smallwink:

They totaly should have had a troll bow sniper in LotR

Raum
2010-08-13, 06:57 AM
1) Corporations do NOT run "everything".

2) Why don't Corps run everything?

3) Can people even have privately-owned cars? Exactly. A couple more reasons why they don't run everything: Not everything is profitable. Profit, or lack thereof, was a specific canon reason for the megacorps not taking over all government functions.
Also due to cost, only valuable employees will live in the arcologies. Easily replaceable wageslaves are stuck in the city or burbs on their own. And yes, many of these will be able to afford cars.
They'll also need and desire cars just as much as today. The US is a car culture - balkanization would exacerbate that. After all, most of the public transportation options aren't going to cross borders between recently warring countries. Beyond the car culture, the western US is a big place. It's simply not cost effective to put in cheap public transportation outside of the cities. (Amtrak is run by the government for a reason.)

Earthwalker
2010-08-13, 07:05 AM
Or the more obvious solution... pay them enough that it's worth more to do runs than to just boost some cars.


Of course then they can take the high paying run and also boost cars.

I am of the camp that people in 2070 can boost cars and make money. The skills needed to do so successfully are more then pistol 4. You are going to need electroics, computer (hacking) and maybe some electronic warfare.

Really this can make money but the hacker / rigger of the group is proably best off doing this alone not taking magical backup and muscle.

When GM I so don't want to be GMing a game of GTA if I want to GM shadowrun. I also don't want my players telling me what they get paid, I would like some way to limit the power gains of the players.

Like most RPGs everyone plays their own version of the game. In mine in the long run shadowrunning pays well but only enogth to keep you running. Very few players have characters that retire into the light, also alot run for reasons other then money.

The Big Dice
2010-08-13, 11:30 AM
Pretty interesting summary of stuff Swordguy.

Though every time I read awesome stuff like this, I get that kinda come-down moment when I remember that amidst all this awesome Cyberpunk grunge there's also a ghetto full of elves and trolls in the back allys. Damn fantasy people getting all up in my cyberpunk. :smallwink:

I totally agree. On both points. Swordguy knows his stuff and has a way with words when i comes to making his points.

And all that silly fantasy stuff gettin' in the way. Why bother with it when you have gun, knives and bombs?

Edit: That said, which game is still in print, Cyberpunk or Shadowrun :smallwink:

Raum
2010-08-13, 04:36 PM
Edit: That said, which game is still in print, Cyberpunk or Shadowrun :smallwink:Well, CP 2020 was...broken. My one and only character was (by accident more than intention) a melee monster (the martial arts rules were fairly powerful) and somewhat immune to small arms fire (skin weave). He wasn't even built as a combat centric character, he was the face. We did move to Shadowrun fairly quickly so didn't play long but I still remember killing someone (by accident) with an Aikido throw...

It would be interesting to see a cyberpunk game released with one of the more recent, and lighter, systems. It'd be a small niche though. Don't think the dystopian 'punk' worlds have the same immediacy as they did in the 80s.

The Big Dice
2010-08-13, 05:28 PM
Well, CP 2020 was...broken. My one and only character was (by accident more than intention) a melee monster (the martial arts rules were fairly powerful) and somewhat immune to small arms fire (skin weave). He wasn't even built as a combat centric character, he was the face. We did move to Shadowrun fairly quickly so didn't play long but I still remember killing someone (by accident) with an Aikido throw...

It would be interesting to see a cyberpunk game released with one of the more recent, and lighter, systems. It'd be a small niche though. Don't think the dystopian 'punk' worlds have the same immediacy as they did in the 80s.

CP 2020 wasn't so much broken as it was an arms race. Skinweave could easily be beaten, you just needed either AP ammo and a high RoF, or an assault rifle. But it was easy to get an SP up in the mid 20s with very little effort.

Which meant even bigger guns with even more exotic ammo were needed.

Things like that are why I consider it the game system of choice for 80s style action movie play. It's over the top, loud, brash and works best on full auto.

But you are right about cyberpunk in general having lost it's impact in the 21st century. It's 2013 in less than three years, and I remember playing CP 2013 when it was new, thinking that it was so far off as to be almost inconceivable. Iconic movies like RoboCop and The Terminator seem old and dated now, while definitive books like Burning Chrome and pretty much anything by Bruce Sterling in his early days are either out of print or just feel clunky.

And modern computer technology is almost always more impressive than the stuff featured in cyberpunk media of all kinds.