/srg/ - Shadowrun General

What quality?

kek

Erased, I assume?
If so, I would just have the general police response be ramped the fuck up.

So fellas I've got an idea for a leg of a campaign but I'm kind of not exactly comfortable with shadowrun lore so let me run this by you

>A technomancer has uploaded his mind to the matrix and is using the resonance to kill people who're jacked in and force them to become e-ghosts who he can then absorb/command/etc to fuck with things. The FBI equivalent has mistaken it for a rogue AI and suspects it's an Aztechnology creation harvesting souls for their nefarious reasons. The players are either recruited by FBI to figure out what the fuck is going on while Aztechnology tries to hinder them from peeking at their operation too much or by Aztechnology to prove they're innocent while also hiding what they actually do

Oh ther is ways around that, for one the records exist within a day, if they act stupid there is no reason HRT will not show up and plug his ass before the hour is up,

Then he gets in jail and erased works against him because no one remenbers he's in there.

That or one cop actually just REMENBERS him, with like, the thinky part of his brain. Not everything is based on wireless.

Have them hired by Azzies, having best friend blood magic psychopaths would be novel.

And for once, Aztechnology did nothing wrong.

Hoi chummers, got a a question for you. So I've never been a gm before, and neither me or my group have any experience with Shadowrun, but I'm looking to run a game set in 2050. Which edition would be best for this, and does anyone have tips for a new gm?

Third edition is already GEARED towards it, and while its clunkier then fifth id rather play a old ass system then try to homebrew rules for hacking of all thing.

So what does an Insect Spirit hive typically look like?
At first I thought they'd probably dig underground and make a nest, but then I realized that doesn't really leave a good place for the Shaman to make a Lodge

So now I'm thinking maybe it'd be better to have them just convert the basement of a building into a nest and cover the area in gross shit as appropriate, similar to the aliens in Natural Selection, and have the Shaman claim one of the rooms in the basement as his Lodge

You can simulate 2050 by pushing the tech level down a bit in 3rd edition. Up the base cost of cyberware by 25-50%, ban bioware and remove some of the more powerful pieces (like MBW). No otaku, drakes or AIs. No laser weapons or nanites. Use the corps from the first edition book. If you want you can restrict the ratings of some gear (like no medkits above rating 3, VCR 1 and 2 (which have the essence costs of VCR 2 and 3), etc.) After that the 3e rules should work fine for a 2050 era game.

Fifth Edition has the Shadowrun Returns: Hong Kong sourcebook, which has a 7-page section at the back for how to run the 2050s version of the Matrix using the 5th Edition rules

you need more hairgel.

That's the wonderful thing about insect spirits - their lairs can be anywhere as long as there's hidden spaces for them to operate in. It can be a cave, a dirty basement, or a well-lit religious temple with an "inner sanctum". Imagine your average office building. Hell, imagine a populated and productive office building filled with normal, everyday office drones. Some corporate branch office somewhere. Now imagine that this office building has closed elevator shafts and "executive boardrooms" and crawlspaces filled with organic material and pulsing larvae and screaming people mid-infestation.

Deborah in accounting is all in a tizzy as she just got selected for promotion to Jr. Vice President of finance! It's so weird how Bob, the old Jr. VP just disappeared like that, but nevermind! She's got a meeting with the CEO in fifteen minutes, and she gets to visit the executive boardroom. Only the high rollers get to go in there! The regional manager is all smiles and handshakes. It's going to be a great day!

Only Bob didn't leave the company, he's screaming with a mouth full of cocoon detritus in the wall behind Deborah's cubicle as giant ants ram their proboscises into his stomach and inject his body cavity with eggs. The regional manager's drinking sugar water and nectar out of his thermos, not coffee. The CEO has prepared the bloodstained boardroom table for another sacrifice to his queen and monstrosities crawl around silently above the ceiling tiles selecting new hosts.

Insect spirits can be a lot of interesting and fun things!

>Hell, imagine a populated and productive office building filled with normal, everyday office drones. Some corporate branch office somewhere. Now imagine that this office building has closed elevator shafts and "executive boardrooms" and crawlspaces filled with organic material and pulsing larvae and screaming people mid-infestation.

>Deborah in accounting is all in a tizzy as she just got selected for promotion to Jr. Vice President of finance! It's so weird how Bob, the old Jr. VP just disappeared like that, but nevermind! She's got a meeting with the CEO in fifteen minutes, and she gets to visit the executive boardroom. Only the high rollers get to go in there! The regional manager is all smiles and handshakes. It's going to be a great day!

>Only Bob didn't leave the company, he's screaming with a mouth full of cocoon detritus in the wall behind Deborah's cubicle as giant ants ram their proboscises into his stomach and inject his body cavity with eggs. The regional manager's drinking sugar water and nectar out of his thermos, not coffee. The CEO has prepared the bloodstained boardroom table for another sacrifice to his queen and monstrosities crawl around silently above the ceiling tiles selecting new hosts.

I love this.
Thank you for giving this example.

would bug spirits build their own secret places instead of only appropriating existing spaces?

Like for instance building a haven under a lake?

>ram their into his stomach and inject his body cavity with eggs
that should be ovipositors, not proboscises.

What sprawl would it be most appropriate to play RWDS in/Which sprawl is in dire need of ovening?

So my players are running in Boston and I want the overarching story line to dive in with the Boston Lockdown. How would I go about subtly setting it up so that its happening around them and they need to find out whats going on or else they might get geeked?
If it matters we are playing 5e and the party is a human Adept, Elven Rigger, Elven Sammy (the elves are twins) Dwarf heavy weapons specialist (He also like to beat shit to death with his bare hands), Human Decker/Sharpshooter, Human Face. Yes I have the Boston Lockdown pdf, no I have not read it maximally but enough to give Boston life for my players.

I'm new to the system, and some guys I know were thinking about running a game, so I've been tooling around with chargen. Is this character at all viable, or should I scrap him?

pastebin.com/ZzAJtb4N

I concede my lack of entomological knowledge.

>Subtle
>Shadowrun

Mate fuckin headcases are public knowledge, everyone knows why nanites are discountinued, no ones going to have to be like "What? CFD? What's that?"

I second what said about this. It's a cool twist, and

If "is Aztechnology actually involved in this or trying to cover up/recruit/ steal this guy's crazy ghost shit" is a big part of the intrigue, then having the runners actually hired by the Azzies allows you to put that front-and-center early and naturally. Especially if you have them working with a liason who reveals themselves to be a blood mage a couple runs in when he gets creative with his interrogation methods on a suspect/copycat

Depends on what the rest of your table is like, but the concept is workable. Relying on Jazz for initiative boosts isn't a great idea and no points in Perception is going to hurt you, but as far as concepts go there's nothing too egregious. A pool of 1 for social skills is woeful, but it's something you can plan around unless your GM likes to spring social situations on the beatsticks.

I don't think that's how e-ghosts are made.

What percentage of the gains do fixers usually take from runs? I believe it depends on the jobs, the contacts, the johnsons and the fixer himself but it wouldn't hurt to have an approximate % to tailor my fixer.

Compile it, make him so friendly its shady.

Its aztechnology, EVERY arrow points to them as the bad guys in everything ever, and it should in this too.

Except that, none of the actual concrete stuff actual does.

Bill from HR is so friendly its fake, is a open carry blood mage, and has a foci made from human teeth, but he actually IS straight as a arrow.

Careful Omae, there's Company Men in this thread who aim to defend Aztec against those who would besmirch their good name.

Can anyone clarify how the made man quality works regarding fencing gear?
"This status also allows him to use the
syndicate as a reliable fence for stolen goods (they get thirty percent of the items’ value)..."
Is 'they' referring to the character? as in you just get 30% no rolls required? Or is they referring to the syndicate meaning they get 30% of the sell price you negotiate for?

More importantly than what said, remember that being a blood mage is like being addicted to an expensive drug.

Sooner or later, you're going to want a hit you can't afford and are going to do something bad for it.

'They' is the character. Normally, you can sell an item directly to a fence for ~5% of the book value.

They get a finder's fee from Johnson for hooking them up with the team. They don't need to take anything from the party.

If yours does, I'd make it an even 10% for simplicity of math

Normally using a contact as a fence gets you Loyalty*5% of the base price, no questions asked, no chart amount of time taken.

It's for when you either really need money, or have something that's got the bad combination of being expensive enough to take a while to sell and hot enough to not be able to keep for that long.

So if you have Made Man, you should get 15% no questions asked, but instead get 30% and you also get the benefits for buying stuff.

"Opposed Negotiation + Charisma [Social]
Tests. The final price the buyer offers is twenty-five percent of the item’s listed price, plus five percent for each of your net hits, or minus five percent for each of the buyer’s net hits."

it's better than 5%, but assuming the rest of your post is correct the quality skips the finding the fence roll and gives you a guaranteed net hit on the selling role.
though actually pretty good if you want to play a klepto character with shitty social skills

20% is industry standard in-setting and IRL for work done investigating and acquiring jobs, masterminding, fencing, and other crime logistics. Other options include just giving them one (or two) standard, even shares of whatever you're paid.

Most GMs I've known just have the fixer have already negotiated their finders fee with the Johnson beforehand, though, so that it never even comes up as a component of a run's pay.

Okay I should've also stated that this is their first time playing a system that isn't 3.PF and when I tried to get them to read what was essentially the SR Timeline Condensed they said fuck it except the decker who got really into it. Also they are IRL friends too

Uh, no, the shady thing about Aztech is that all of the arrows point away from them. They have astoundingly good PR and almost nobody knows they're shady, except among high-end anticorporate types, like professional shadowrunners. They're supposed to be the spotless company who everyone's shocked and horrified to find out the kind of truly sick shit they do begins closed doors.

>what do you mean the guys who make my Stuffer Drank (tm) and my Shoes for Yous are human-sacrificing blood mages? That's insane.

Still, I'm just saying most of the supplements are in character and all of them mention headcases.

So finding out about them isn't even a contested roll, googling BOSTON will figure it out.
Hell people should be openly talking about it in the lockdown, given that they of ALL people should be most concerend.

It's like saying "Im running in chicago, how to introduce insect spirits subtly."

Thanks, boyo. Does the FBI still exist in SR, or what organizations would fill a similar niche? What corps would be super interested in seeing them rule against the Azzies?

iirc nobody really knows how e-ghosts are made, the theory is that they're people who were trapped in when the crash happened. Shouldn't be too hard for the resonance to remember that phenomenon and a particularly skilled technomancer to manipulate it.

Right, but Aztechnology is common knowledge in the sinless world. Sure average joe doesn't know, but anyone who ever got into running or knows a runner knows about them.

The trick isn't that everyone in game think they are evil. The trick is that it should look like, by pure out of character rules of cliche, that they did it becauses Azzies are such a common antagonist in SR.

And they didn't.

Azzies are the fourth greatest world power in Shadowrun, their blood mages are fine.
Of course they are dangerous because there is no greater power then skinning someone alive so they die in agony and hate, but they can get that whenever they want.

You don't have to worry about a Azzie being unpredictable or unreliable, (Atleast not to the way you have to worry about neonet or the japancorps going all "I must clense you to avoid dishonorabu conducto being revealed to my ancestors! Banzai!") a Azzie knows what he's doing.
You have to worry about the Azzie willfully and in sound mental health, deciding to kill you.

There is plenty of secret goverment groups, thing is the good ones like Wildcats just do it themselves.

The Ucas have the UCAS Intelligence Commitee, google them. They are much smaller then before, given that so much is privatized, but... the CIA has kind of dissapeared.

Not as in they aren't there, its just, no one really has heard from them in a while, they just persist in the background.

And so they are probably very dangerous. CIA doesnt have you arrested, CIA gets a guy in Knight Errant to hear you have a plan to bomb Ares and then you get shot in a woeful case of police brutality against orcs.

shadowrun.wikia.com/wiki/Federal_Bureau_of_Investigation

Apparently the FBI does still exist in the UCAS. They even have a Paranormal investigator group, so that fits. However, part of me thinks that the FBI'd prefer to do thin stuff in-house rather than outsourcing to shadowrunners. The IRL FBI, despite its insane funding and diverse skillset, adheres very strictly to protocol, because at the end of they day the people they arrest have to answer to the court system, and improper actions can sink a case quickly. It'd probably be hard to have evidence gathered from shadowrunners be admissible in court, given that they often fuck up in ways that end up in the news

I'd still say have them employed by the Azzies directly, though, b/c it puts the cool corporate intrigue front and centre, and it's a bit more unique.And then you can do things like the surprise blood mage.

And with megacorps, there's enough sneaky stuff going on that you can get some left hand/right hand stuff going on, so the runners could suspect that they're helping Aztechnology chase their own tail.

And there are cool mission ideas, like say, kidnapping a leading expert on Black ICE from a research site or university to get his opinion on the brain scans of the deceased victims of the "Matrix Murderer". Scans that you grabbed from the medical data log aboard a DocWagon ambulance you tracked down in an earlier run. And then he says "this doesn't look like any Black ICE I've ever seen. Just look at these patterns." and then that could clue you in that it's some resonance stuff going on.

HA you think the justice department exists.

>Aztechnology is common knowledge in the sinless world.
No, it's not. Something like 20% of the UCAS is SINless.

It's common knowledge in the elite, anti-corporate criminal operative world - Shadowrunners.

And even then, it's more vague, ominous rumors, with the specifics - blood mages, human-sacrificing cults, breeding programs, cyberzombies, and so on - being more or less completely unknown.

You have to understand, the setting is presented to us, the readers, with far, far more clarity and detail than most people - even most shadowrunners - actually know.

Except most of the lore stuff in the books is presented in a "This is public forum in jackpoint" position.

So you as a random joe, will know about bloodmages if you looked, thing is, most don't.

But these aren't stuff you aren't supposed to get even without checks, shit like Horrors, which are only in things like earthdawn and the wiki, are.

If its one of the first things you read as a player its also one of the first things you know as a runner.

Jackpoint isn't public though, it's invite only

>"This is public forum in jackpoint"
>public
>Jackpoint
Chummer. Come the fuck on.

I think you're very confused about how much of the setting is common knowledge.

But... then why can I read its files for 30 dollars?

If its so top secret why is it one of the first examples used in the matrix page.

I can understand if only 60 people can POST but only 60 people can READ IT.

Besides the few who get the special one time privalege to post on A FORUM THEY CANT READ?
That doesn't make SENSE.

In regards to my previous questions about the made man quality would the Ancients gang be an appropriate option?
I'm toying with an Elf infiltrator with kleptomania

Nope, Gangers are not nearly on the level of organized crime.

thought so, which syndicate would fit best?
Is there a weird elf land organized crime group I can't remember?

So I might run Shadowrun again, but I need ideas for the movie that my players will be filming.

The basic pitch is a promise of the slice of life shenanigans of actors on and off-set, coupled with 'runs' that are scenes from the film which are played out.

In Seattle 2072 its mentioned that the Lasea are a group of elve exiles that basically sell talismins and sweet expensive elven prostitutes to overthrow a council that got dissolved.

Now they just do it because they are bad people.

Also everyone likes elves in shadowrun (despite elves doing nothing that warrants being likable, having a tendency to just form their own gated communties and leave everyone else in the cold) so all the organized crime groups have elves.

Bear in mind there is NOTHING wrong with being a member of the mafia, they OWN italy.
They are very scary.
Just Cyberpunk a bunch of movies that shouldnt be, and cobble them together. If you arent playing a dark setting its fine being tongue in cheeky.

My friend who swears by shadowrun convinced me and my group to give it a try. Thing is, he absolutely insists on me running the Food Fight scenario they have. Does anybody have any idea as to why?

Because people find it fun for whatever reason.

I don't think it is, but, whatever.

It's the "you all meet in a tavern" of shadowrun. Short adventure that gets the party together.

>mfw today was a good day
>troll waifu went into heat

SO what you're saying is that I should be running Cyberpunk Guardians of the Galaxy.

Holly shave your armpits and move your underwater bus, you're tweaking off the local dolphins.

pleb tier fapping taste, user

I thought you spoke sperethiel, show some more class.

also post tits

>"We're sorry ma'am, Doc Wagon is not medically equipped to remove shattered pelvis fragments from your inner thighs."

>"Ma'am, your lover died of severe internal hemorrhaging, a shattered pelvis and, in his final Aresbook Post, tweeted 'I'm pressing F to let go'."

One of my favorite runs of all time had the party captured by Horizon, drugged, rigged for simsense recording and hooked into a UV host. We were then forced to star in a simsense shooter game, drugged again, and released with a copy of the game.

So I'm reading the Shadowrun storytime of TwoDee and I saw that That Guy was wearing a "Tacsuit". Is that core armor? Where can I find it?

How long were you guys out?

Hard to say. They hit us with neurostun in the limo then laesed us once we finished recording, so the length of a laes dose plus some additional unconscious travel time.

Isn't that just a chameleon suit?

I was more referring to development time, but thanks for the answer.

It's in 4e, because TwoDee's story is a 4e story. I think the 5e core equivalent is the Chameleon suit.

Oh, okay: that makes a lot of sense.

Thanks for the hint!

>There are approximately sixty members of JackPoint, and another sixty individuals have been invited onto the network as guest users over the years.
Approximately 120 people have access to reading shit on Jackpoint.

That's how exclusive it is in-setting.

That's what you're failing to base your understanding on.

Just be a member of the Mafia. They consolidated the majority of ethnic organized crime groups into one mega-mafia in-setting, and they own at least one entire country outright.

You can even have a SIN issued by them.

What is a good nickname for a runner why has a reputation for overkill?

So far all I've got is Kidd (from the expression "to treat with kidd gloves" which means to act with a lack of severity or force), Feather, and Eleven. The first two are meant to be Ironic.

Thank you for your help.

Go with Killsplosion, and have it be a nickname that's successfully followed him since, like, primary school, after that time he firebombed a teacher's car.

Dead.

Blasty McSplode, if they use the right spells or explosives.

10k or Voltner if there's shock weaponry being used.

9-11, because KE/LoneStar are always going to show up if he's around.

Brings-down-our-pay is also a good one, since having a shit reputation tends to earn shit jobs.

Deathgasm.

How long does it take to git gud at shadowrun?

There's so much to learn, what with all the mages, hackers and the gear that doesn't immediately tell you how many dice you have to roll to hit and to damage...

Pick one slice of the pie and start by just getting gud at that in particular. The rest will follow.

Chummer build 5.187 is now available. Quick release increment due to an issue with magic unlocking that crept into the previous release.

github.com/chummer5a/chummer5a/releases/tag/5.187.0

Incidentally, we've recently started using Slack for team communication, because I'm attracted to buzzwords and Horizon P2.0 isn't out yet. Currently it's mostly tumbleweeds blowing through some empty channels, but if you'd like to participate in the conversation, you can get an automatic invite from here: chummer-slackin.herokuapp.com/

As always, the single best way to get an issue noticed and worked on is to report it on the issue tracker: github.com/chummer5a/chummer5a/issues

Aside from that, nothing terribly new and exciting going on at the moment. Personally, I'm tilting at the windmill of getting AIs to work in priority mode (Custom tables based on metatype selection make it awkward to implement without refactoring everything a lot) and refactoring some parts of the UI to support the creation of shapeshifters (Seriously, why do they have to buy up their stats separately?).

Asked in last thread but didn't get an answer. Assuming I have a sufficiently large demolitions dicepool, how much explosives should I buy?
Also, should I vary what kind of explosives I buy or is there one type that's better than the others?
Also, dynamite is mentioned in run and gun but there's no info on what rating it should be. Should I just treat it as commercial explosives?

Explosives are a good way to make no net money on your runs. They're a great option to have but if that is what you are building your character around you are going to be blowing up huge chunks of your payout all the time.

Also, best explosives are the hardest to detect placed around the job site ahead of time on an infiltration run with remote detonators for when you need a distraction/when everything lines up just right. As for sheer destructive power, tamped explosives. Learn a thing or two in knowledge skills about building supports and how they collapse them to maximize the damage you can do with less explosive.

You shouldn't stockpile bulk explosives. Buy them for specific tasks - bringing down a building, punching a car-sized hole through reinforced concrete, door-breaches, and so on. Keep them separate on your sheet so you know what's what, and only break them down and improvise using them as raw materials in serious emergencies.

Aside from that, HE grenades and some duct tape works surprisingly well in conjunction with Demolitions for making all kinds of holes in things.

Not building a character around it, don't worry. Explosives is a side thing.
Didn't think of going and grabbing knowledge skills, good idea.

>You shouldn't stockpile bulk explosives
Well I got 25k left after chargen and no clue as to what else to spend it on. I already got a basement shop to cook explosives in, not sure what else to get.

Are most UCASers all-American ethnic mutts tending strongly towards a range of light browns, or has de facto racial segregation continued to the point that people are still mostly split into obvious ethnic groups, on top of some of everyone being trolls and dwarves and shit?

Basically, is being white or black or whatever still the norm, or is the norm being some kind of mixed race outside of places with an explicit racial purity motive, like Japanocorps?

Do you have a car yet?

It's a dystopia, so I'd assume de facto segregation is still very much a thing.

No, so that's a good idea. Can't take explosives on the bus.
Could a guy with a duffel bag on a dodge scoot get away with shit or do I need to go bigger?

Get something with a trunk. The Shin-Hyung is the classic, but a coup is fine too.