/srg/ - Shadowrun General

>I'm not super sold on Anarchy yet

You're not sold on a game that is not yet out, and hasn't released any sort of beta or even said how it's going to work other than "It will be like regular Shadowrun, but different"?

If you're allowed to play that, go nuts. In a game that's a bit more loose on the definition of "magical realm", that character concept sounds pretty good to me, and I in fact think it makes her more memorable (not to mention that of course people do that kind of shit in the Sixth Age).
If your game is stricter, though, or has some people who're allergic to animu, let it off. The only thing it'll do is stir shit.

The social and personality impact of Essence loss can be represented in several ways.

It can look like a sense of superiority, a general disconnect with humanity, a coldly robotic personality, the jitters of Wired Reflexes, etc.

There's no one thing that Essence loss does to personality. Multiple Qualities in the game can represent some of the more extreme effects, like Superhuman Psychosis or Cyberpsychosis, but none of these are universal.

What does tend to rub out personalities is abuse of personafix BTL chips.

Does anyone here have experience with bow users?
One of my players wants to use a bow, and I want to know how it goes/ what the pros and cons are

The damage to my eyes had been superficial, with little effect on the optic nerves. The street doc Fizz took me to was pleased about that. She gave me two different models as replacements: The left a B&L Envisio 280L, the right a Fuchi-Tanner AVX. One blue, one brown.

My eyes weren't what I expected. All I knew about cybernetics, I'd learned from adverts and Trid shows. On the trid, whenever they showed something from the slick cyber-sam's point of view they'd change how the image looked. I'd never really thought about what that would mean in real life. My eyes were like little trideo cameras. The image was too sharp sometimes, with too much detail. Colors looked different than I remembered. At first my left eye changed focus faster than my right, which gave me splitting headaches; I got that fixed after about a month.Occasional bursts of static or distortion cropped up without warning. I could see shapes better in darkness, but it was harder to pick out details. The biggest changes where the most subtle. I could always feel them, especially in the morning when they felt colder than my meat body. When the rest of me felt wasted, the eyes continued to perform. They also changed the way I saw.

I'm not talking physical vision. The cybereyes changed how I reacted to what I saw; They instantly distanced me from what I was seeing. For a while I felt like I was watching the world through trideo cameras; the eyes gave everything a sense of unreality, a detachment that made me a voyeur during the events of my own life. That level of detachment lasted only a few weeks or so after I got the focus problem fixed, but it made an impact. Every now and then it creeps in, the sense of disassociation as I watch events unfold. I stare a lot, I'm told, unblinkingly, because of the electro-static charge on the outer lenses that keep the eyes clean. People say it's disquieting. I know what they mean.

Damn right. Live and let cable tie, brother.

The pros of the bow is that it's a strengthly weapon that's more or less legal in most jurisdictions, doesn't set off most metal detectors (assuming the metal parts of modern bows are replaced with plasteel), and can be fired nearly silently.

The cons are that it's about as complicated to sneak into someplace as an assault rifle, can't be broken down nearly as efficiently and who the fuck trains someone to kill people with a bow in the 2070's? Do you want the cops to know exactly who shot up a corp facility with a fucking bow? "So, Officer Fucknob, what do we know about the perp?" "Well, Officer Dingus, the perp used a bow, so I think we can safely say it's the same perp as every other bow-related homicide in the last six months. Maybe there's a pattern here."

I was sixteen when I got the spurs. Two of them, both in my right forearm. One extended past my wrist, the other in the opposite direction past my elbow. The street doc said she'd never heard of anyone mounting a pair that way. They made me dangerous, just the way I wanted. Most people's spurs only go one way, to threaten the guy in the front, they guy sneaking up from behind isn't expecting to meet a blade in his gut from your elbow. I had an edge, and I used it. A pair of street punks tried to bounce me for the cash bag I was carrying, and I took both down with a single swing of my right arm. It felt great.

My spurs gave me power. Even though I was just a courier, my spurs let me solve a couple of minor problems on my own. The yaks kept an eye on me and liked what they saw. The spurs made me cocky, and it showed. I knoew they where there. I could feel them whenever I twisted my right wrist. I lost a fair amount of flexibility in that wrist, but I thought the price was worth it. The spurs sliced some humility from me. I knew I could kill someone if I could reach them, and with practice I learned to make an attack look like a completely natural motion. I stood a little taller and talked a little sharper. ON the street I took less drek and acted a little less afraid. The yaks took notice and I moved up.

By the time I was twenty, I ran the couriers. They all answered to me, I told them where to go and what to do. I also carried a gun by then, an old colt commanche complete with smartlink cyberware. That wire was caustic, I had to replace it twice before it worked right. By then I'd moved up to a bonafide yak cyberdoc, he wired the smartlink through my right arm, which made me wish I'd installed the spurs on the left. He actually left a little scarring, but I didn't' really care that much. Actually, I liked the scars. I thought they made me look like bad news. I was Somebody.

It requires a fair amount of optimization to make it competitive, especially because you are probably going to be spending karma on adept powers and abilities to max your STR while other people can just spend nuyen on guns for the same effect.

It's silent, you can get cool arrowheads, and it's stylish as all hell, which ought to be enough. I'd recommend having a backup weapon like grenades or a machine pistol for when you need to fight groups of enemies.

They've said Anarchy will be compatible with regular Shadowrun, which has rules I'm not personally a fan of. It's not that much of a leap to suggest that maybe the final product also won't be what I'm looking for.

pros
>hackproof
>silent
>good for taking down people without killing them
>able to do damage similar to a gun
>not restricted
>good for ambush or sniping

cons
>ammo is expensive
>difficult to conceal
>ammo is also difficult to conceal
>bad for assault
>no full auto mode

covered most of what I'd say, but the other downside to bow use is that like melee, it requires more stats and effort to make viable. Bows can be startlingly effective on a troll or ork thanks to their high STR, but a human will have to invest harder to keep bow damage in line with guns.

They're not the best, but they work.

Outside the core book, the relevant rules are in Run and Gun and Hard Targets.

A high strength user is doing about the same damage as a lower-tier sniper rifle. Variant arrowheads and shafts add some options firearms don't have, and the stick n shock arrowheads with static shafts are the top damage option for lower strength users.

The Archery skill also covers a few other oddball weapons, like the harpoon gun and the slingshot which you may find a use for every now and then.

There's a few archery-specific adept powers, but they are not so powerful that a mundane is not also a perfectly competent and viable archer.

The big advantage of bows is that they're completely silent.

Thanks guys
BTW, so you know: we're playing 4e (so no hacking anyway) and he's a mundane street sam ork with 6 in the physical attributes + WR2

The smartlink interface made the commanche feel warm when the safety was off. Neat trick, and it brought a real meaning to the adage 'Happiness is a warm gun".

[...]

Eventually, my entire left armor became chrome. It also got banged up a long more than the meat right. I guess I treated it less careful. I knew it could take more punishment, except for the fragging skin (Don't let anyone sell you on the paradise of synthskin, chummers, the drek is a pain. It may be slightly more durable than real skin, but it doesn't heal. When it gets scragged up you gotta replace it. I've had enough new skin over the years to cover a thousand limbs. My line of work isn't kind to a body)

I kept sticking my arm where it didn't belong. I trashed it once, a surreal experience. I'd paid extra nuyen for the full-function pain receptors (If the option comes your way do it, it will safe your life) so despite the weight and motion differences the arm felt like it was mine. Iscragged it tangling with wendigo up in Athabasca. The beast and I where equally surprised when the arm came off in it's claws. Pain dampers automatically cut in when something like that happens, so I felt a hellacious twinge and then, pop! The wendigo staggered backwards holding my arm. I stared at it. THe beast stared at me and then tried to nosh on my limb. WHile it was tasting metal and getting more confused I picked up my fallen comanche and put two rounds in it's eye.

In time I got a bunch of add-ons for the arm, but I kept it looking as normal as possible. Looking like two tons of death can be beneficial sometimes, but for me looking like a tough but-still-human SOB was a better choice. Plenty of people suggested that I get the right arm done, too, some docs believe things work better in pairs. I don't know if they meant physically or psychologically. I resisted, I figured one arm was enough.

What are the best SR books to read through, in your opinion? Looking for stuff that nails the feeling of classic Shadowrun. Right now I'm just puttering through Market Panic and the Sixth World Almanac.

I got my first set of wired reflexes right after the wendigo incident. I hated them. They gave me a terrific edge, but I lost total control of my own body. With wired reflexes, you're -always- on edge. Any little noise, any little motion, could set me off. It took me years to train myself to handle the edginess. They're called wired reflexes for a reason, a reflex action is automatic, you react and the reflex takes over, removing the thinking/judging/responding time from the equation. Perceived threat equals reaction, so you better hope the threat's real. Early on I took steps to lose control. As dangerous as it was, I kept my gun turned off. It took only fractions of a second to bring it to a ready-state, and I needed those milliseconds to bring things under control.

I started doing all the things that I'd spent years laughing at street sams for doing. I sat with my back to the wall, not just so that no-one could sneak up on me, but also to force my friends to approach me from the front. That way my wires couldn't overreact and geek them. I kept my eyes open, tracking everyone, watching the movement around me I became paranoid by necessity. I was lucky, I never accidentally killed anyone. I punched my brother Fizz too many times to count and sent more than one poor slob who stumbled too close spinning across the pavement, but that's it.

I picked up some headware communications gear along the way and learned why street sams always seem to be talking to themselves. They're actually talking to Johnsons and Fixers and contacts and anyone else that might give them a job. I found out that some of them talk to themselves to make everyone else think they're hot in the biz and tracking the scene. All too often, those guys are talking to their moms or calling the voice-sex line where their girlfriend works.

Now I know there is that augment that lets you not get knocked unconscious when it's active, is there something that works the same way for adepts? Because that seems useful as hell.

The Neo-Anarchist Guides. The Guide to Real Life, and the fan Guide to Everything magazine.

and take off your fucking trip. If you actually follow through and make your hack, then it's theoretically useful, for now it's just pretentious. Nobody cares that you're someone thinking of porting a game from one system to another, every fa/tg/uy has tried and most of them still have the half-finished PDF lying around.

Bioware frightened me, and I resisted it for a long time. To me, chrome was chrome. It was a machine and I could deal with that. Parts of my body had been replaced by metal, null grief. Docs had been replacing parts of people with machine bits for years: Hearts, lungs, stomachs, livers, kidneys and so on. No one thorught wice about it and neither did I. ut bioware, that drek is gengineered body parts grown to be better than the ones nature gave you. Also, cyberware tends to replace parts that don't work anymore, with bioware they actually go in and replace some part of you that's perfectly fine with a hunk of vat-born cells that do the same job and more, they hope.

So that drek spooked me. After a long while I opted for muscle augmentation, which I convinced myself wasn't all that different from cybernetic muscle replacement except in techno-babble ways the docs could argue over. In the end, I was pleased with my choice. I could feel the difference: I could hit harder and faster, and handling really heavy guns or other gear wasn't nearly as much of a strain. I felt like I moved a lot more smoothly, too, though I'm not sure if this was real or just a psychological quirk. It felt like my body was more in sync with itself.

As with the metal, my first piece of bioware made the next ones easier to deal with. I had a street doc inject me with some symbiotes to get me on my feet faster after I'd screwed up and gotten hurt. They made me feel incredibly good, and I didn't mind having to carry around pocketfuls of stuffers. I'd always been a big eater and needed to exercise a lot to keep my weight down, so the symbiotes did me something of an extra favor. They also make me feel like I'm running a slight fever, but I'm willing to put up with that minor discomfort. Funny thing, I haven't gotten a cold since the symbiotes where put in.

Assuming you're talking about a Pain Editor, then no. You can give up some Essence (and Magic) and get one installed, though.

Sorry about the trip, I wear it in /wodg/ and forget to take it off. Thanks for the suggestions!

My last piece of bioware was a nasty adrenal pump for emergencies. It's come damn close to giving me heart attacks twice, the most embarassing of which happened at an urban brawl game that I had too much money riding on. They're not kidding when they tell you these things are touchy. My regular doc also tells me my blood pressure's slightly elevated and warns me against salting my stuffer fries too much. Small price to pay, though, for a biogadget that's saved my life more than once. Because of that pump, I've taken hits that would have felled an elephant and kept on going long enough to get out of bad trouble. I paid for it with fucking-near-total physical collapse, of course. I'm talking a few solid days flat on my back, then another week feeling weaker than a baby. but I stayed alive, that's the important thing.

I've gotten nothing much new in the past six years, except for minor parts and incremental upgrades to software and firmware. I had my bones laced with plastic four years ago, and I can feel that all the time. I'm not sure if the docs did a bad job or what, but I swear sometimes I can feel my joints grinding together. Then again, it might just be old age creeping in.

Oh God, why do those pants make me horny?
I blame Peg Bundy

Hatcheman cyberware dump complete.

Good job.

aw that's a shame. Ah well, guess I can just get that adept power that gives me a few more boxes of stun before I pass out instead.

Master has praised machine sprite! Machine sprite is pleased.

Not me. I didn't get a grenade launcher put atop my doom van so I couldn't murder cops.

What's a good firearm or tactic for a mage when the bullets start flying.

Flinging spells all the time sounds like a quick way rack up the drain and make yourself the target of everyone who heard of "geek the mage first". So what do I do when I'm not shooting a power bolt or hiding behind my spirits?

Magical Tear Gas.

Effective, only need to drop a few clouds if you do it right, and people can chalk it up to grenades or something else. Solves the problem of Mage Geekage.

Or, make that gas combustible as well for added tactical fun.

Is that from a book, or did you write it yourself?
Cyberware is basically an adept power you have to give up money for. It can be worth considering sometimes.

Pot shots at enemies with whatever firearm you have.

I run a mysad setup where I rely on my weapons first before i start slinging spells.

Take a gun and fire full auto.
Also, why are you ever not hiding behind a force 6 spirit?

4e, Stunbolt/stunball is -really good- and you should be using that over a firearm most of the time. 5e, it is bad and you should use a gun instead.

It's from Cybertechnology, a 2e book.

>Kids today don't know about Hatchetman
>sadness.btl

Poor bastard.
One of the first poeple to voluntarily undergo Cyberzombification.

I want to play Shadowrun as a human streetsam with cool armor, a sword, and a light machine gun.

is this too generic?

If that's EVERYTHING? Yes.

>... I asked him if I was alive.
>He said yes.
>I asked him if I was going to stay alive.
>He said yes, as long as I remembered.
>Remembered what, I asked.
>Remembered that I was alive, he answered.

As long as you're having fun, who cares?

Nah. Gear isn't what makes a character, personality is.

Think about what makes this guy tick, what he believes in and how far he's willing to go for it.

The "20 Questions" on page 19 of Run Faster are a good exercise to flesh that out.

what if I name him "Bobby Bananas" and make his armor yellow

Thanks, I'll check it out.

Are there any books about the Tirs? Does anything even happen there?

Elves. elves happen there.

And political backstabbing. And racism.

What's your hometown like in Shadowrun?

It's in aztlan now, so pretty bad

Shadowrun New Orleans isn't too bad, all things considered. But if we're talking about current location, I'd be in the middle of the Barrens of Seattle.

>Denver
Not really sure. But at least it'll be fun.

Would running a killing floor/raccoon city themed campaign be a bad idea at low level with guys who never played Shadowrun before?

>Dayton
Uh, probably not that much changes.

An independant city-state/rundown hellhole perpetually circled and occasionally engulfed by an exceptionally dangerous manastorm, horribly neglected by its "Government" and run entirely by Megas without even a hint of a charade, apparently infested with bugs, tormented by various gangs.

And yet, it's a thousand times safer than living outside the city.

If they have fun? Then it sounds like a great idea.

But I have a hunch they won't have fun.

There's one from way back in ye olde days. tl;dr: the tirs are dumb and are good at everything even though they really shouldn't be
DC probably has more canadians and less southeners messing around with it, but

>Gangers going ghoul hunting in the sewers

Seems like a fun way to start for me. If they're more used to D&D style dungeon crawling it might help to ease them into things. You'll certainly get practice with the combat system, in any case.

>San Diego

Safe and sound inside Aztlan.

Both Tirs have eponymous sourcebooks in 2e, along with other works, though I do admit that it's time for them to be fully updated with fresh books and not just rely on statements elsewhere (Tir Tairngire at least is close enough to Seattle that it should get a full working).

Dunno, we never get mentioned anywhere. But there's a basketball team there now, and a soccer team, so it's probably going well.

But all they love doing is killing stuff and buying useless shit. That and buying hookers, drugs, and land.

One hates dungeons but the rest will do anything to get loot.

Well, not to sound elitist or anything, but Shadowrun might not be the kind of game you and your group are looking for. Shadowrun certainly can do all the stuff you want, but there are probably other systems better suited to you.

In that case, Shadowrun may not be for them, but if you must then do a standard chargen, set it in Chicago, and have them kill bug spirits and gangster warlords.

>will do anything to get loot.

Anything? Like do legwork, plan an illicit operation, and execute without a hitch? If yes, then maybe you should give them an opportunity to do the typical Shadowrun things rather than just having them kill a bunch of stuff legally.

(it can be wetwork if they really, really love killing).

They've wanted to try it, it's just that typically they really want combat most of the time.

One of them tries to take charge as party leader but barely thinks at all and most of the time, lands the party in hot waters.

One always min maxes and the last one only want to live a quiet life as a hired gun.

And since I've played Shadowrun for a bit, I've been chosen to GM.

They're willing to plan heists and stuff. It's just they usually don't think it all the way through and get caught, which results in just plan out killing anyone in their way.

Unless the person in the way has a vagina, then the "party leader" will try to convince her to join them even if it means the other PCs are pushed to the side.

This then causes party conflict of pettiness that continues to grow larger and larger til they accidentally blown up a city.

Yeah, put them in Chicago or the Barrens where they can't do any harm (at least not to people with the resources of nations), crank the mohawk up to "Hot Pink", and have at it.

I recommend the gang warfare surrogate idea from a week or so ago, if anyone has that cap.

>They're willing to plan heists and stuff. It's just they usually don't think it all the way through and get caught

In that case, have their initial runs be against people who can't go to the law - extract a girl from an illegal bunraku parlor, steal a shipment that was already stolen by some Vory, kill gangers, that kind of thing.

That way they can practice actually succeeding at missions with softer consequences if they completely fuck up.

If/once they've managed to improve, then they can start running against megacorps and whatnot.

literally on the border between the Caribbean league and the CAS. so aside from having to deal with pirates, minor border skirmish's, aztlan, the heat, magical critters from the everglades,the heat, more slightly more mutated than usual mosquitos and the heat, thing are pretty nifty

The season's are Summer, Triple Summer, not Summer, and Sudden Unexpected Cold Flash, right.

your mostly right expect replace "not summer with "slightly less hot summer". in truth its the humidity that's the real killer more than the heat, shade provides no relief whatsoever..

I usually just sort it into "Summer" and "January and February" which are schizophrenic crap shoots.

Look, I live in another part of the Gulf Coast so I understand totally.

From what they say about Milwaukee, it has some megacorps and refugees from Chicago.

(Wisconsin forest adventures book when?)

How do I calculate damage for the Ares Duelist drone? Right now I'm house ruling it as Strength=Body but I was wondering if anyone here knew more than I do.

That's the proper ruling, as far as I'm aware.

Oh, sweet. That makes it easier.

>Moscow
Dunno, pretty fragged up I guess. Haven't searched info on it yet.

I'm from Australia, so there are even more things trying to kill me, plus I have to deal with mana storms all the time.

Is there a decent index for spells? It's my first time playing a mage, and the character builder lists only names, not descriptions for any of them.

> mana storms erry day
Less often than you'd think, by the way people talk about it. Unless you live on the outskirts of Sydney, that is. Getting in or out of the city is testing your luck.
Storms otherwise are dangerous and unpredictable enough that getting near one is potentially game over, and then there are crazy storm spirits that are just as bad and twice as mean. Doesn't need to be common for anyone with half a brain to be worried.

There's not much on russia, but from what I understand Gorby's reforms were immediately undone after the fall of the USSR, and things are still mostly the same, although they're open to "joint projects" with megacorps.

No, but it should also list the source book and page number so who cares?

I was looking for more like a quick listing with maybe a 1-sentence description of what the spell does, so I could more easily find out what I want rather than chasing through 4-5 source books.

In that case, nah. I'd advise setting up that thing where you just click on the source and chummer opens up the sourcebook in your pdf reader, it saves a lot of time later.

Going by the 3e table, there's a minimum of a 5.46% chance of a Manastorm in the outback every day.

Which rises fairly significantly if you're near a Background Count.

I live less than an hour outside of Sydney. Mana storms, all day every day.

In which city would the hardest core, best runners live in?

Do people start in Seattle and "graduate" to other places?

>Going by the 3e table
I wouldn't. Background counts are basically everywhere in 5e.

You can try plastic balls to beat invisibility on the cheap. The colors let you tell if someone walked through while you were looking away.
Imachine Plastic Play Pit Balls, 100-Piece, 2.7-Inch, Assorted Colours $10.40 on Amazon.

The hardest core, best runners live wherever they want, because they're fabulously wealthy.

They might even have the dosh to get onto an orbital, Zurich-Orbital being the absolute pinnacle of swanky living.

Keep posting lolis.

Nothing I'm aware of. Herolab gives you the whole text, but I'm told that's because they have a licencing deal. I'd be happy to build the functionality in to Chummer if someone did the scut-work of providing the text; we couldn't get away with it being a ctrl-c, ctrl-v though.