/srg/ Shadowrun General - All Chromed Up And Nowhere To Go

The cause of UGE and Goblinization was due to the fact that there were latent parts of peoples' DNA which reacted to magic, and once enough of it was gathered up in the atmosphere as 'background radiation', it triggered this transformation (for elves and dwarves in the womb, for trolls and orks at puberty, as we all know). The Changeling concept wasn't any different about this. The difference here is that the altered genes of the spliced individuals would react to the heightened magic levels.. and effectively burn the genes together outright. The result: Permanency for any spliced individual at the time of the Comet's passing. This came with it a variety of backlashes, such as physical trauma leading to psychological degradation of individuals (in some, manifesting as more animalistic behaviour, in less fortunate cases outright feral behaviour that was barely kept in check). GeneCo pretty much went under almost completely overnight, with the months following the Comet and the confirmation that the process was completely irreversible in those who had undergone the genetic fusing, GeneCo was dissolved and bought up in pieces by multiple other corporations.

[3/?]

When using the Life Modules system do the modules that add Knowledge and Language skills count towards your free allocation of Knowledge points ((Logic*2)+(Intuition*2))?

As a result, the splicing gig was almost completely put under, if not for a few other corporations who saw the possible uses (military, medical, or just straight up mad science) that it might have stepping in and instead managing to ensure its continued legality.. with heavy amounts of regulation instead. After proving that the process was reversible in post-Comet splicing subjects, the use of splicing was permitted, albeit begrudgingly and not without public outcry. While still commercially available, splicing now would be even more expensive than before. Furthermore, the social stigma associated with it as a result of the 'new metahuman' extremists made it so that only the most eccentric, attention-seeking rich types would make use of it, or those desperate for that edge in the field.

However, as a side-effect of GeneCo's dissolution, their research became a little more open-market as well.. leading to black market splicing, and raids on old GeneCo warehouses for any remaining genetic splicing serums and materials for the process. This underground splicing market would be far more dangerous, with a far greater risk of the same psychological breakdowns due to the inferior method of bonding utilized. As a result, and doing even less for the public image of the spliced community, gangs of splicers now run rampant through the underbellies of cities, some of them feral, others more organized, but all equally deadly and destructive.

[4/4]

chinagreenelvis.com/gaming/tools/shadowrun/map/

Thats probably the best map I've seen so far, Couthouse is around the northern border to Tacoma

What movie is this? Looks decent.

I like where this is going...

I never understood the 'there's no tech anymore' anymore. Go open up Chrome Flesh and read the charts at the back. It's all about transgenics, symbiots, nanobots, and a dozen varieties of 'ware and surgery.

Magic is important, yeah, but by far the biggest advances are being made in tech. Heck, the current metaplot of CFD is basically "We made technology so advanced we lost control, now there's AI-infused nanobots running around and they are building an interstellar space ship."

No.

>movie

Kingsman. Good action scenes, really dumb plot.

Can you please provide a reference so I can show the GM?

People being born with computers in their heads doesn't exactly sound cyberpunk. It sounds magical sci-fi.

I like a good plot. But it can be replaced with alcohol up to a point if the aesthetics are decent.

So worth watching I guess.

Play Interface Zero.

>born with computers in their heads

What? I mean, you can get them to alter your genes with Hyperthymesia or Pushed to make you smarter, but that's not the same as being born with a computer in your brain. Genetically modifying people is straight science fiction.

Per RAW you don't actually get free knowledge skills with life modules. Logically though, life modules are pre-purchased karma packages. There's no mechanical way for them to be based on the variable amount of skills you can get from your intuition/logic score.

I guess ask the GM what's supposed to happen for a character that only has 1 point in logic and intuition but winds up with 30 points in knowledge skills?

I was more mockingly referring to things like Otaku and the types who could interact with computers through some weirdass psychic link.

>Genetically modifying people is straight science fiction

not only that, but it's exactly what the user who says that SR is too magical wants. Except his genetic modification isn't subtle tweaks to certain sections of the brain, it's making furries.

OK, well, 2016 era downtown Puyallaup is actually just inside Shadowrun Tacoma. Basically along Meridian from River Road south to the fairgrounds. Your Courthouse and District hall are currently surburban residential areas.

At a guess I'd say 50 years of development has moved Puyallup east from the Meridian corridor into the Meeker neighborhood and south into McMillin and Alderton.

The old Puyallup downtown, now being part of "Tacoma" is probably either a slum, or a high-end hipster shopping district. Or possibly both.

(I suppose using the freeways as boundaries makes sense, in a way, but whoever drew them had no Idea how Seattle-Tacoma actually works...)

I know HeroLab isn't the be all to end but after adding the modules that also add the knowledge skills I'm also left with knowledge points according to my attributes.

This is of course the calculation of what my attributes are after improving them with karma.

Is HeroLab wrong or is there something I'm missing in Run Faster?

HeroLab does get duplicate qualities, that can't be advanced, wrong and won't let me change one of them for equal karma. (pg. RF 84)

OK, that's more science fantasy sort of stuff. Not what I was talking about, but it's definitely part of SR.

You can cut out the technomancers entirely, or leave them in, and that doesn't change the fact that Shadowrun technology has been evolving and getting better and more commonplace, just like tech is supposed to do.

You say 'better and more commonplace', I say 'less cyberpunk, more Doctor Who's Sonic Screwdriver.'

I never liked how changelings were handled, myself. Seemed like a lazy way to avoid having to stat up more races.

If the idea of people going into a clinic over several months to get microadjustments made to their metabolic system to make them better suited for cold enviroments is Doctor Who to you, or Aztechnology using surrogate wombs, advanced genetic alteration, and militarized indoctrination techniques to create an army of supersoldiers isn't cyberpunk as fuck, I'm not going to argue. I think it's a disservice to throw all that out as 'magical make-believe' while saying that people can go be catgirls with no repercussions because technology, but that's your choice.

So basically your answer to all the 'so far-out weird science that it looks like magic' stuff is to point at all the stuff that isn't like that and say 'see? we have this so that other stuff you don't like doesn't exist and doesn't totally play a major part in the world so shut up and stop wanting to come up with alternatives because I'm content and so should you be.'

Got it.

>This is the district's transportation hub. The Charles Royer station is a boarding point for people wishing to take the bullet train to San Francisco. It is also a major heliport with flights to and from Sea-Tac and all the other major helipads in the city. The station is a large building built in the style of a 1930s train station.

LOL.

Amtrak's pretty much already moved to Freighthouse Square, a few blocks to the west. Greyhound and the local commuter rail are already there.

I get that this is a 25 year old game, though. Best to treat it as alternate history, rather than straight predictive sci-fi. Until I start seeing elves around here, anyway.

It's been a while since I've been to a movie theatre, projection technology really has advanced.

Man, I agree that technomancers are magic bullshit. They're not technological bullshit and never have been. They aren't 'weird science', nobody can say that they're science at all and not magic, because they don't follow the rules of science or the Matrix as established. Their entire shtick is, "break the rules of computing like mages break rules of physics."

I'm saying that when you actually look at the technology of the Sixth World, as opposed to the magic stuff (and the nebulous category technomancers occupy) is that it's straight cyberpunk, fitting into the category of "close enough to real science that it's acceptable to anyone who isn't a Legend of the Galactic Heroes sperg." I also encouraged you to play your bullshit, because it's your bullshit and you like it so there's no reason I should stop you. I don't give a rat's ass if GeneCo splices everyone on the planet in your campaign, but I will point out that you're wrong about things in canon when you're wrong about things in canon.

You can do whatever you want, but you can't say, "There's no technology in Shadowrun anymore, it's all magic, boohoo," and not expect someone to point out the error.

Shadowrun is pretty blatantly alternate history man, even then most geopolitical stuff makes no sense and is based entirely on stereotypes/because FASA liked natives,

Why not submachineguns in your boobs and shotgun in your dick?

>shotgun in your dick

Two Pump Chump

thanks, man, helped a lot :)

Except I never said there was 'no technology'. That was what you decided to interpret my statement as. My statement was that the balance was heavily skewed towards a magic focus, where technology most of the time just resembled magic in the first place and what little didn't resemble magical-technology was largely negligible compared to using straight-up magic instead. That's the issue that I, and to be honest a lot of people that I've talked to about the way SR4 and onward turned out. It doesn't FEEL cyberpunk. It feels like magic dominates the setting while technology is in there as an afterthought or "we have to include it because it's a future setting" rather than being treated as its equal. If you don't feel that way about it, great for you, but there's a lot of people who really do feel that Shadowrun around SR4 and onward became too magic-centric rather than a balance between the two. Again, just cause there's tech in there, doesn't mean that it's the main driving force of the setting anymore.

Hey can someone tell the name of the core rule book for 5E? I can't seem to find it in the maga, and I want to check out this game.
Can anyone help?

Don't suppose anyone is willing to help me with this question?

If you don't like HeroLab that's fine but I'm looking for clarity on the RAW.

Core rulebook? How the fuck can't you find it?

It's literally called core rulebook.

Thanks my phone was messing with me and wouldn't load anything after lockdown.

Sorry above lockdown. It wouldn't load anything above lockdown.

>muh feel
right
Love that argument

Clearly I should have just left it at my original post, and ignored the pedantic 'nuh huh but' remarks. Lesson learned.

Okay then. What would you do to focus more on the tech? Cause your original post (with the furries) just shifts it from "people get unnatural traits (through magic)" to "people get unnatural traits (through magic and tech)"

Well, when you're objectively wrong, you should have expected people to say so. Or you should have started with "muh feels" right away.

Well, my post had the intent of, for one, introducing a new element or race to the setting that was created through tech, with their existance finalized by magic. The flipside to this would be the Otaku, who were clearly created through magic, utilizing tech. That's literally all my post was about, balanced contributions. How many races aside from AI have been introduced as playable in Shadowrun around SR4 and SR5 that aren't manifested by magic, or the every-increasing presence of magic?

Aside from making things touch screens and wi-fi for the sole purpose of making the game reflect OUR modern tech, what major leaps and bounds have we made in technology in the Sixth World that don't practically resemble magic? I mean, we have freaking Sprites in the Matrix at this point. You're telling me data-spirits lean more towards the Tech end of the spectrum than the Magic?

Furthermore, I was at the very least trying to add a level of agency to the splicer concept, that it was the result of people doing it to themselves and then shit went sideways. The original version boiled down to 'whoops I woke up a catgirl!' The same way Otakus just popped out of their mom being able to talk to toasters. Not only did it just go jizz Magic all over the place and create another magic-oriented calamity, it did it in the most sloppy way possible.

The closest we got to some kind of technology-based incident was just a retread of a previous event - they literally even call it Crash 2.0. It wasn't new. It was the same shit, just done as an excuse to cram wi-fi into things (which, yes 'muh feels', to me personally lessened the cyberpunk feel of using a cyberdeck and jacking in when you now just stand there, roll your eyes back and go 'kay hacked it'). And the aftermath of that is, as I said, more magic with ghosts and spirits in the machine.

The closest that I can think of to anything resembling an original technology-themed event is that weirdass AI-Zombie-Virus shit.

>objectively wrong

Again, you spouting off the shit that isn't tech-that-resembles-magic doesn't mystically magic the 'tech-that-resembles-magic irrelevant. The irony is that you're so quick to say 'muh feels' because I have my stance based on how I perceive the way that the series has played out as coming to the conclusion of 'magic outweighs tech on the thematic scale', and your stance boils down to your own perception, only you'd rather present that perception as 'I don't think so, therefore I am objectively correct'.

>AI-Zombie-Virus shit.
CFD which is generally regarded as one of the worst decisions CGL made

*doesn't mystically make

Fucking brain.

I said 'original'. I didn't say 'good'. I think it's pants-on-head-retarded but at least it's not a retread like Crash 2.0, or 'magical technology.'

>How many races aside from AI have been introduced as playable in Shadowrun around SR4 and SR5 that aren't manifested by magic, or the every-increasing presence of magic?

None. Species don't just spontaneously appear UNLESS magic is involved. And while there are plenty of people getting cosmetic bioware and gene therapy to look different (or for certain tasks), there's no lab out there growing entirely new species because that doesn't make any sense. Even in Eclipse Phase they are not creating self-propagating species, because there's no point in doing so.

Your complaints about the tech being outshined is because Proteus is making people into fishmen to live in underwater arcologies, and not breeding a new kuo-toa to do it for them? That's not cyberpunk, that's fucking Doctor Who bullshit.

>what major leaps and bounds have we made in technology in the Sixth World that don't practically resemble magic?
Sufficiently advanced technology, motherfucker. A computer network so complex that it's spontaneously generating turing-complete AI (as compared to Deus et al., these things are explicitly growing from the fucking pilot programs in drones and personal assistants), nanobots and lab-designed symbiotic lifeforms, gene therapy and related advances to making better people (including a half-dozen different ways to refresh cells and prolong life). You just sweep that all into, "it's like magic," to avoid the fact that those things are classic scifi.

As for SURGE being random, yeah. A big theme of cyberpunk is getting the short end of the stick through no fault of your own, because the world works by rules you can't understand or predict. Maybe you got SURGEd, maybe you lost your wageslave job due to downsizing, more likely you never had a SIN to begin with because you were born in the wrong place. Then the character has to deal with that. SURGE is another case of ill-fitting pegs being tossed aside.

Quick, /srg/ if a social/infiltration adept can have one spell (at spellcasting 1), what should it be?

It's an "user doesn't realise that multiple people are pointing out his mistakes" episode.

Ironically, I (the user you're lambasting) was going to ask if the person I was replying to was the same one who said 'well you can just ignore technomancers', given it would have been ironic to tell me to ignore the precise thing I'm complaining about while telling me that my complaint is unfounded.

Side note- Year of the Comet was in 3rd edition, and Otaku are older than that. You're having to go back to 1e to get your pure golden age, where everything was in balance.

One Less(self)

magic fingers

Is kiai any good, /srg/?

I'm aware of all of these things. It's also why I decided to pick the Year of the Comet, because it was still at the point where things were still aesthetically cyberpunk, even despite the Otakus.

>original technology-themed event

Just pulling stuff out of the memory banks for 4e/5e

>Sojurner AI taking over a space station, threatening the world
>cotton candy grass
>nanofabrication, including space factories churning out products in zero g
>space elevator at Kilimanjaro
>mass starvation and corporate shenanigans after Sirrurg destroyed Azzie farms
>GOD and the attempts to control the Matrix

The trouble is you're trying to separate it into "this is magic, this is tech". Tempo is a magic drug, but it was being dealt by mundanes. The Az-Am War was fought over national boundaries and territorial disputes, but dragons were involved. SURGE was a surprise, but there's already people getting surgery to turn themselves into creatures. The space elevator is on sacred ground and the spirits are waging a terrorist campaign against it. It doesn't divide neatly, it's all mixed together.

not him, but honestly
>It doesn't divide neatly, it's all mixed together.
IMO this is actually a great sign. It means that the setting isn't "tech with magic stapled onto it" or "magic with tech stapled onto it" but instead "setting consisting of tech and magic"
In a setting where both are (maybe equally) important there should be scenarios where magic and tech work together (the Az-Am War) or against each other (The space elevator)

Technomancers come straight from Gibson's bridge trilogy, so I think they can be considered cyberpunk.

Fuck, not bridge, sprawl.

See, I don't mind a mix. I'm fine with a mix. But my problem is this: Shadowrun situations fall into one of the following:
- Tech-focus
- Magic-focus
- Tech-Magic mixed evenly and complimenting each other
- Magic influencing tech to create strangeness (see: Sprites)

I can't think of any situations at all where tech has influenced magic in a strong and meaningful way. Instead, any interplay always manifests itself as tech that has resulted from the influence of magic (sprites, Otaku, etc), or just the two of them co-existing with one another. If you can think of any situation where magic itself has been fundamentally altered or influenced by tech I'd be happy to hear it, because as far as I can tell, it doesn't exist, and that's where I draw my annoyance and perspective of 'leaning more on the side of magic.'

Okay, fine, I'll concede on that - though to be fair, I don't even dislike Technomancers. I really, really don't. I just.. would like more things that don't just fall into the categories I mention here:

Also, even as I typed this, I am aware that I probably should have included cybermancy. But then cybermancy also predates the shift in balance that I'm complaining about.

Oh! I just remembered an actual tech event that affected magic heavily in some way! It's also before the balance shift, but still: the chemicals that were used to bomb the Bug Spirits in Chicago created a huge fuck-zone for all things Astral.

>Tech influencing magic

If you're not counting technomancers and otaku as "technology influencing the manasphere to make technowizards"...

How about dragons? Not in the 'dragons run companies' sense, but the 'people can kill dragons' sense. Dragons can fuck shit up for mortals easily- just look at Tehran. But now mortals can fight back- Feuerschwinge was shot down, Sirrurg got his ass kicked by the Azzies, and there's plenty more cases. It's no longer the case where the scalies have all the power in the relationship. Heck, during the Dragon Civil War shadowrunners were smashing eggs left and right. There's a fucking anti-dragon rifle for sale.

Or Ares and their bug spirit experiments. If they're half as extensive as is implied, they've done a hell of a job with taking creatures from distant and hostile metaplanes, and turning them into useful cogs in the corporate machine. Heck, 5e Core starts with a story where a Bug shaman is working as a guard at an Ares facility, instead of doing bug stuff.

Or toxic spirits. IIRC, Earthdawn had some blood spirits, but the idea that people could control the manasphere and shape it in such a way as to be actively hostile to most spirits, and turning the local spirits into twisted mockeries, is something new.

Or FAB. Growing and modifying mana-sensitive bacteria until it comes in several different useful strains. Similarly, magecuffs using glomoss and a light-sensing circuit to deliver shocks.

Or Quicksilver cameras, the first step on the road to mundanes being able to look at the astral world.

Magic tends to be more obviously corrupting, if that's the right term - you can see magic influencing tech, largely because we're used to technology and the impact of magic stands out. But it only takes a bit of effort to see the reverse. Technology is doing what it always does, taking what's available and turning it into useful tools. The magic may shape the mundane, but the mundane is enslaving magic.

Is there a wheelchair drone/vehicle? I'm trying to figure out the smallest possible drone I can install a Rigger Cocoon into.

AFAIR there are. What edition?

The shadowrun returns hong kong game.

Its a massive spoiler, but the crux of the plot is using technology to do some major magic manipulation

Well, aside from sprites and e-ghosts, care to bring up some other examples of technology looking like magic to get a better idea of where you are coming from?

Dragons would perhaps fall under the point I made of 'stuff predating the balance shift' that I was talking about, but fuck it, there's so many dragon-related things I'll concede on it.

Did not know about Ares managing to make that much progress with their Bug Spirit fuckery - I'd been under the impression that as with most things involving fucking with the Bugs, it went horribly awry. Guess I was wrong there.

- Not sure if that's so much a result of technology as it just is more an indicator of how fuck-rotten mortals are in the Sixth World by comparison.

- I mentioned FAB in a prior post, it falls into the 'before the balance shifted', but I'm still happy to concede to it.

- Another thing I did not know about, so again, I will concede on that. Quicksilver cameras actually do sound really fun and awesome.

Again, I'm not actively trying to be a curmudgeoning fuck who just wants to hate on the way things went. It's just that I don't feel (yes, muh feels, for fuck's sake) like I'm seeing the tech influence as strong as I'm seeing the magic. I do see your points though, particularly about how the mundane or scientific is enslaving magic. Hell, isn't that basically even the dichotomy at play in the Longest Journey stories - Stark (Order) influences Arcadia (Chaos) and the balance is constantly in flux, flowing back and forth.

I actually loved that about Hong Kong, but I wasn't sure how canon I should be considering it to be.

5e.

Beer tap nipple.

My copy of SR5 is falling apart after only having it a few months.

Is it worth complaining to Catalyst customer support about it?

>ARES bug spirits going well

Dude, Ares is currently in a secret civil war between Knight and (Aurelius? I can't remember which board member heads the bug spirit division) because the half under bug spirit influence is trying to take over the world, starting with Ares. Their breeding ground in the space station is basically untouchable without declaring to the world that they fucked up big time.

Basically, half of Ares is working for the bug infestation either willingly or simply unaware of it, and only a small fraction of the other half is aware and actively fighting back

Ares is in very much a lot of shit right now. The whole shtick of bug spirits is that you only find out when it's too late (like how you find out about a carpenter ant infestation when your house is falling apart)

>Catalyst customer support
kek

>but I wasn't sure how canon
all of the shadowrun video games are canon
hong kong even has an official book about it
even the super nintendo one with the protagonist that is a shaman decker cyber samurai who kills a nameless dragon in the end

Shit, even the garbage not-quite-mmo is canon and has an official splatbook for it.

That means that the horrors are still canon, right?

The horrors are always canon, they just can't do anything with them for some reason (legal reasons? not sure)

I remember reading there were conflicts in canon due to Dragonfall's handling of the Firewing?

The license holder for Earthdawn has the rights to the Horrors. When FASA split, different hands got SR and ED.

Only one ending is canon (the one that doesn't touch the status-quo)

By raw you can install a rigger cocoon into a Shiawase I-doll. Just putting that out there.

Basically the using drones with the standard vehicle mod system makes no god-damn sense and you're pretty much going to have to eyeball it. Alternatively, you could base the profile around the horseman (rigger 5.0 p 41) which is basically a mobility scooter cyberpunk style. Or just get a wheeled Liminal body, though I assume this is because you've taken paraplegic and that would compromise the disadvantage.

Kinda. They can't call them horrors, but they still can use horrible extradimensional things

..not sure which one that is. I mean, as I recall, Firewing was in Iceland in the sourcebooks, which would mean the canon ending would be the one where you reunite her soul with her body, talk her down and let her go.

>Shit, even the garbage not-quite-mmo is canon and has an official splatbook for it.

Wait is that this one or something else?

Something else. Shadowrun:Lockdown

I still say that game was pretty good, but about 5 years before it's time.

>Iceland
what?
Are we talking about the same Feuerschwinge?
The one that rained fire on the ADL?
The one that was shot down by the Luftwaffe?
The one that crashed in the SOX afterwards?
That Feuerschwinge?

How the fuck did she get to Iceland?

>Plays Shadowrun: Dragonfall
>Decides to save the dragon
>Decides to work for a dragon

I came to destroy a dragon, had a chance to kill all the dragons. I save the dragon, because I didn't want to destroy the homeless shelter I give so much money to. After saving the dragon, I was invited to work for a dragon and accepted it to see how deep the rabbit hole goes.

Am I a terrible shadowrunner for doing this?

>playing a pink mohawk as fuck street sam
>he livestreams everything, except for the runs
>star spangled and bald eagle cyberarms
>has a SKB Concordat
>need a distraction to get into building
>decker isn't available
>mage and I hatch a plan
>mage levitates me and my 65,000 nuyen luxury sedan
>all the way to the 60th floor
>rams it into the building
Successful distraction.

Yes, because you broke the rule about dragons, but that's alright.

don't worry
killing all dragons would have destroyed far more than just your homeless shelter