/srg/ Shadowrun General – Tir Ghosts Edition

> calling your deck a 'piece of shit'

Omae, I...

Fuck year, the Renraku arcology in the background... >:3

God someone fucking help me

I'm running a campaign that has a setting pretty similar to shadowrun's setting, and I've run into a writer's block thing

The players will need to find a certain asshole high rank police officer and interrogate him for the location of the mcguffin. But I have no idea how they could find him or how to make it interesting in any way. He's only appeared briefly once or twice so far, and they know nothing about him. I don't want to railroad them to just walking into him on the street.

help me idea guys!!!

It is my first deck, I have a love hate relationship with it, it's locked up during some tight spots but got me out of tougher spots... I just don't know what to do with it

> the guy is pretty much nonexistent on the FutureWeb, but there's one picture of them together his daughter plopped on some kind of Futurebook
> gotta use her number to trace her while avoiding cyberpolice
> some facing and legwork later, it turns out that they don't live together
> the players have to kidnap and either interrogate her or use her as a hostage
> then kidnap her and

>high rank police officer
That guy should be easily google-equivalentable - you want to know the NYPD Commissioner or the head of Scotland Yard, you can find that shit in an instant, and district chiefs aren't much harder to find.

Your players can find where they work from or live, and high-ranking officials get invited to events all the time - get your players to investigate him, stalk him, and work out a method of capturing him: does he go to a certain doughnut shop because he loves their coffee? Does he go to a deli where all his brass gets him free shit? Is he having an affair? Is he attending an official dinner where your players infiltrate the wait staff, slip a laxative in his food and kidnap him when he goes to the bathroom?

yeah I should have clarified that I don't want this to take the whole 5 hour session so there probably won't be any wife kidnaps or anything.

But hacking into the cop database and looking up where he takes his poops is a good idea, thanks

At any large institution, 99% of the time, cleaners and caterers are contractors, and thus eminently infiltratable

oh that's a good ass idea, bribe a janitor or steal his clothes and then hack into a computor

u are the real mvp my friend

Hell, /srg/ seems to be even slower than usual lately.

Except for the sky night pollution and the ziggurat Seattle is really starting to look like that

Indeed.

New topic. How fast is your runner? Mine can break 70 mph while sprinting. If your runner is slow, how fast is their vehicle? Is it yerzed out?

My mage can be supersanic fast while in Astral.

Outside, he wouldn't win any medals, especally seeing how he'd been kneecapped recently.

>he'd been kneecapped recently

Aw, snap. Who the frag did he piss off?

Put too much trust in his invisibility, and decided to stroll cheerfully in front of an angry troll with a HVAR.

Running my first Shadowrun game in a few weeks, using one of the prewritten 5e modules.

Any advice for a new SR GM?

...

A couple hundred km/h booking it away with a skyhook drone rig, nothing all that special otherwise.

Don't be afraid to wing the mechanics.

The moment they decide to end the legwork and move in for the run, make sure to keep the action as fast and frenetic as possible.

Start with the core rules and wait till you're comfortable with the system to include new ones. The first time around combat is going to be very slow so just be patient about that. You will get better in time. Have cheat sheets ready for your players in case they forget how to roll or how a rule works. Also if there is a mage or decker dont slack off on making sure you understand those rules for magic and the matrix. Once again the rules can be very intimidating, but once you get the hang of it, you and your chummers will have have a good time.

I don't remember whether this cheat sheet is in the copypasta so i'll post it anyways.

Hey /srg/ ran my third game successfully last night, had a question though. How reliable is chummer5 regarding information like dice pools? Chummer was showing the mage in the party should've been rolling with a pool of 8 when his magic plus spellcasting was 11. Am I missing something obvious or does Chummer regularly have small inconsistencies like this?

So, full on werewolves.

Was thinking about a werewolf character, a sort of dick tracy investigator who during combat will drag people into the shadows and tear them apart.

How would you effectively make one?
Would they even work well as PCs?

More importantly, what's a good justification for them in the first place?

Yeah, Chummer does have some issues, especially with cyberware, it always lists my agility and strength scores as 1 point lower due to my limbs, which should be on par with the rest of my body.
Certain equipment will crash chummer5, like the bracers for one.

For your case, I would first look at your mage's sheet to see if something is bringing the score down, like stun damage or lower than normal essence.

I'm playing a hand-to-hand adept martial-artist, but they've recently lost a limb.

Should I learn to fight with one arm, or take the power loss to fight two-handed?

aren't cloned limbs a thing?

Cloned limbs are definitely a thing, but are also definitely expensive. Generic ones work as well but have an essence cost associated with them.

>How would you effectively make one?

The closest you can get is either a Lupine shifter, or a HMHVV Strain II "Loup-garou". Problem is neither are close to the traditional werewolf. The forme is just a wolf that can somehow transform into a human, the other is 'stuck' in a monstrous half-human form by a magical disease.

>Would they even work well as PCs?
Not really.

>More importantly, what's a good justification for them in the first place?
Shifters are (wrongly) considered animals and loup-garous (rightfully) as dangerous monsters by the rest of the sixth world. Working the shadows isn't really weird ford them, just to survive.

Capoeria, tae kwon do, other leg based systems

>always lists my agility and strength scores as 1 point lower due to my limbs, which should be on par with the rest of my body

Well, if you set the standard amount of limbs to 2 arms, 2 legs and torso in te options and purchase those 5 limbs the attributes are correct. I guess if you don't have all limbs, Chummer averages cyber and meat attributes out and rounds down.

Hey, I'm my guild's tank, it's a responsible position. And no addiction – can quit anytime I want as well.

Take a cyberlimb. It's 1 essence, but you won't be at a disadvantage at everything you do. Also, if you can get a better grade, you can possibly fit in some high grade muscle toner in there too and be at a net gain from the ordeal.

>Shifters are (wrongly) considered animals
No, it's quite right to consider them animals. They are, just with the ability to look human.

Animals that are as intelligent as humans are morally indistinguishable from them

Humans are animals, after all.

Let me just finish my dolphin steak burger, then consider that.

Even if dolphins were as intelligent as humans (they're not), I wouldn't judge you for that. I don't judge killing people either, you see. The point is that you should treat beings of similar intelligence in the same fashion, else you're committing a cardinal sin of having moral double standards.

> Humans are animals, after all.

Yep! That's why Hestaby likes them so much.

>Erased quality
>Wears a scramble suit, has never shown his face to the group
>Rest of group doesn't realize this
>has caches of cash and fake SINs
>First time shit goes south the character will disappear

Pretty damn paranoid

I don't particularly care what you would or wouldn't judge me for, user-kun. That's your beef to chew on.

Shifters are animals. Drop their essence, magic, or raise the background count? Animals. Reproducing? Animals. Instincts? Animals. They can masquerade for a while (even indefinitely, if lucky), or possibly find a community that accepts animals, but they'll never be human.

>it's a 'gm two characters getting married episode'
>players enjoying roleplay, congratulating the two pc's that are getting hitched
>decide to spice things up by having a low loyalty contact turn on one of them to claim a bounty
>he does a drive-by so I can instigate a high-speed chase between him and the gang
>rolls a shot
>8d6 pool, eh, should be enough to hit some props and startle the players into action, whatever
>I roll 8 fucking 6's
>what started as a hijinks episode turned tragic as a random fag pulled up in a limo at an outside wedding, rolled down a window, and killed the groom in one horrific spray of bullets, before driving off, everyone at the table too stunned to do anything

I don't think I have ever felt so bad gming a game in my entire life

That's why fudging is a thing, user.

Sounds horrible, but you have to remember what rolling dice means - introducing a little chaos. If you're not ready for that, narrate the results.

I ended up offering a bit of a compromise to the player after the session. I let it be him feigning his death to protect the rest of the crew from a group with bad blood to the PC, and will return to the game once his character recovers from the extensive injuries the ambush gave him. basically I gave him an edge to burn so everything wouldn't be tears. Maybe i'm coddling him a bit, but that was total rng bullshit that shouldn't hose him over completely.

Though he's playing a temp character for the next few sessions and keeping his characters condition under wraps to the other players, do at least it did a good job putting the fear of God into the rest of the table.

My Phoenix doesn't go that fast yet, but it is yerzed out to hell and back to live up to its name.

Man, wtf happened that srg is so slow right now?
Wrong time?
Coordinated swat teams due to common searches on security design, floor plans and weapon discussions?
Pre-Crash?

HESTABY A SLUT

SLUUUUUT

You're just angry she didn't choose you for one of her toys.

Well, we had a new book pretty recently, but I think we've done most of the discussion for that already.

College groups might be on hold for the summer, so that could be a factor. I'd think we'd see more activity with more free time, though. Maybe the rest of Veeky Forums is moving faster and keeping /srg/ lower on the pages, which means less incidental posting from non-regulars.

Final hypothesis: not enough lolis and/or cybercatgirls for people to sperg over.

I want to sperg over drakes and dragons but nobody ever gives me an excuse :

Your drake waifu a shit and you know it.

But I'm my own drake waifu :

I'M MY OWN WAIFU NOW

For all his achievements, man is still capable of such depravity.

You heard what I said.

You're just angry you can't hang at the cool kids table.

Can you upload the sheet somewhere? Dicepools for character abilities are generally accurate, unless you've got certain edge-cases I haven't gotten around to fixing.
That'll be meatbod averaging; if it's inaccurate, upload your character sheet and I'll see what's what. That code should be functioning properly. Which weapon causes the crash?

Drek.
I really want to read some of the novels, but I fucking hate to search for every single one.
Do you guys have a link to download all of them? Or the best, at least.

Ah, didn't actually expect to e answered.
The average is no big deal, I have three limbs, two legs optimized at 5/5 and one arm with a flametosser, so no optimization required.

The Bracer things cause the crash, those metal bracers you can get for +1 armor and a couple slots?

Sure, omae. You have fun making deals with dragons - I'll be over here doing literally anything else.

About to fire up the Hong Kong game. Is there any predisposition towards what the PC should be like there kinda was in Dragonfall?(Only Decker is either the PC or an optional hire with the weakest backstory, who'll take up a spot from the better characters).

Is0bel is your decker, and she's insufferable. Does have a grenade launcher though, so that's fun.

Are you joking, chummer? Job security for life? A choice between a dozen distinct, powerful, ideologically driven employers, including the surviving dynasty of the late great Dunkelzahn? The possibility of earning the respect of a great dragon, and the honorific form of your name from them? Dracoform sex? Flight? Thousand year lifespan? Being a Drake is pretty much a guaranteed meaningful existence in a world of drek. I can see why you'd be jealous. In fact, the only clear way to frag it up is to try to go underground, but even that has the aura of rebellion about it; the love of freedom above all else. So even revolt against the gifts you've been given is still a gift.

Lofwyr pls go

Don't you have something better to be doing than posting useless propaganda for your own amusement?

Charisma checks are pretty much the only thing that your team can't do for you. If you want to be able to talk through things, then investing a bit in Charisma might be a good call.

Unlike Dragonfall, Hong Kong throws boatloads of karma at you, so it's pretty easy to throw Charisma onto a street sam of decker.

Hong Kong does keep you really poor nuyen-wise, though.

I saw that, chummer. You can't hide your mistakes.

Yes sir. Sorry sir.

And you can't hide your location. Goodbye.

Sure thing boss, let me get back home and I'll find somewhere to upload it to. Appreciate the response, I was just assuming I was doing some math wrong or forgot to deduct dice from a roll.

I carry a bottle of bleach with me. If I get shot in combat, I use the bleach to destroy any forensic evidence from my blood splatters. I have done this even before the shooting has stopped.

The bleach bottles are stored in an area of toxic mana around an illegal radioactive waste dump, to hopefully confuse any attempts by police wizards to do their magical sensing forensic shit.

I got a question about imaging devices and cameras. If I were to own a pair of glasses with image link, would its visual input be applied to a camera in the same PAN?

Hey Veeky Forums, new storyteller here. Any tips on getting my combat oriented (street sam and adept) players to be more involved in the legwork section of a run? Right now they just kind of sit there browsing Overwatch rule 34 while my Face and Decker does everything. I'm probably doing it wrong.

Nevermind, here.
I asked the player to send me a picture of his character sheet so I could compare it to what Chummer5 was saying. He was adding shit wrong and I was too caught up in the game to catch it at the time. Sorry for the false alarm omae.

Do they have any good Contacts they could rope in? If they're more comfortable in a certain part of town (the Barrens? maybe the Ork Underground?) setting up some runs in that are might be a good way to get them involved.

Does the face need more muscle behind him for intimidating people?

Is the adept or sam stealthy at all? Can they pickpocket commlinks for the decker to hack or help him apply wiretaps to otherwise non-wireless networks?

So a few dozen threads ago, there was an user looking for info on 3D Printing in Shadowrun.

If you're still around dude, I've got good news and bad news.

The good news is, what you're looking for exists, and can be found on pg. 130 of Arsenal (pic related)

The bad news is on pg. 131:
>Another problem for shadowrunners is that the megacorp’s attempts to control the flow of desktop manufacturing have led to many laws requiring feedstock to be tagged with stealth RFID tags for identification purposes. As long as just a few parts of an item are made from feedstock, the chances of a critical mass of
stealth tags being included in the final product so that it can be identified is fairly low. Making a full item entirely using a desktop forge, on the other hand, will almost invariably mean that
it includes enough stealth tags to allow its owner to be tracked down. You can reduce the danger with a tag eraser (p. 320, SR4), but even this cannot give you 100% certainty, especially when it comes to electronic equipment, where the eraser can only be used to a limited extent. The likelihood that an item can be tracked is up to the gamemaster’s discretion.
>Characters can obtain “clean” feedstock that does not contain RFID tags, but of course it is heavily restricted and ostensibly forbidden to all but the megacorps. As a general rule, assume an Availability of 20F and a cost modifier of two to five times the standard feedstock price.

This keeps happening to me too, where I put in some little obstacle for the players that should easy and turns into a mess.

Had 2 low level security mooks guarding the miguffin that should have died in 1 hit. Ended up getting bullshit rng and they nearly geeked the mage.

Total noob here.

What's the difference between Cyberware and Bioware?

Has anyone ever used the Shadowrun Returns Map Editor for making maps for pen and paper? Was it worth the effort, and if so, where can you download it?

Cyberware is made of metal, bioware is made of meat.

Or rather, cybeware is made of artificial material, bioware is living tissue.

Is the essence cost still the same?

And, I've read a bit about cyberzombies, can the same happen with Bioware?

Most 'ware has its Essence cost listed in its price table.

As a general rule, though, Bioware tends to have lower Essence costs, but higher monetary costs.

Bioware costs less essence usually, and it also comes in the various grades like cyberware, but it costs a ton of nuyen

There are some things that can only be done with one kind of 'ware, but for things both can do, generally speaking, bioware will do it for less essence, but more nuyen compared to its cyberware counterpart.

Not really since my players are also fairly new. My street sams contacts all appear to be illegal drug related.

My adept's stuff is mostly related to Russian things as he's playing as an Evo plant in Seattle doing runs to get contacts and influence (yeah I know this is probably dumb but we're all new so I figured I'd see where this shit would end up.)

Ah, nice.
Thanks, mates.

An Evo or Vory related run could be a great way to get your adept involved, then. If your face doesn't speak Russian, then your adept gets to translate.

If the same run also involves the drug trade (Vory drug smugglers think they're getting ripped off by the people reselling the product) then your street sam's Contacts could become very applicable.

Got an issue adding knowledge skills to a post-creation character. When I add one, it doesn't let name it, or pick a category. And if I try to add a rank to an existing one, it credits me karma.

Are you referring to a run for Evo or that would harm them? I haven't really thought of involving them much but I probably should now that i'm going over backstories and contacts again.

I do have a subplot going on that the Russian mafia is into some fucked up human trafficking shit in Seattle. I'm talking selling people for organs / bunraku shit. Probably not canon but just a thing I did since, coming from D&D, I thought my players would want to do Hooding runs.

Anyone use the subreddits Shadownet or Runnerhub? If so, how are they? Looking to start running rather than GMing.

I've only ever used it for making my character's home; it's a fairly involved process, you'd generally be better off using something like Campaign Cartographer imo.
That's... interesting. I know about the knowledge skill issue, the karma's a new one.
They're like playing Missions. Very little personal character growth, but the interplay you get from bumping into the same characters occasionally can be fun. I wouldn't say they're bad, but it's definitely nothing compared to playing with your own regular group.
No worries, I had a vague suspicion it was going to be something like the player adding his magic and his skill and his pool or something silly like that.

The Vory is involved in smuggling just about anything in or out of Seattle. Guns, drugs, sex slaves, you name it.

As for a run involving Evo, it doesn't really matter. Either way is a hook for your player to do a little more roleplaying.