/srg/ - Shadowrun General

I'm a bad person and I like to give players a reason to interact with diverse groups. His interest in becoming an unliving, soulless robo-lich has driven them to take risky missions for murder-death cultists and literally scaly executives. They've violated the most basic rules of 'running in their quest. I've gotten them to care about their characters in a way they've never cared before.

They know they're on the highway to hell and they've got the pedal to the floor. They have accepted the risks and ruination that will one day come their way on the off chance that they might be able to fight it off if they've got Undead RoboCop by their side.

This is the best campaign I've ever gotten to run.

Bull really was played by his writer and he gave him super-special canonical status as being -the- one to do Harlequin's adventure.

But I still don't get it, why would someone want to be a cyberzombie in or out of character? Yeah, you get some power, but you lose your free will.

Hey, I'm gonna make them roll for it with no Edge. That's pretty fair, in my eyes. If they can make a solid enough case, I might just GM fiat that shit into happening (or at least a part of it). If they don't get their contacts up, I'll just tell them that he fucking dies because their chosen CyberNecromancers don't care enough to give it their best effort.

Also, never said I thought my player was in any way looked down upon for having a life goal. I think his life goal is completely crazy, but everyone is rolling with it. For the record, he came to me with the question of "Can I start as a CyberZombie?" and I pulled the criteria out of my ass. I made them kinda high, in my mind, and was surprised that he ran with it.

Not necessarily or immediately. Hatchetman did fine, and even that Cyberzombie Big D possesses just mentally regressed.

Frankly, cyberzombies get too bad a rap. They'd be fine as a lategame powerup for street sams.

I don't think they lose free will unless they get an implant specifically for that.

Did you try actually reading up the rules for making a cyberzombie in 4e? They're supposed to go on an epic planar quest and everything.

Are you sure your player actually understands what being a cyberzombie entails?

No clue. I explained the process to him, watched him read the blurb in the book, told him all the drawbacks, even said that every cyberzombie ever created was basically a 40k Servitor. Dude wanted it.

I secretly hope that he has some character on the back burner that he has a plan for that involves having a cyberzombie. Like a crazy-ass rigger that wants to jump into the zombie or a technomancer that wants to put a sprite in the unliving abomination or something.

Thats what the mages are for, in part. The team has a gunslinger adept but no serious magic guy. They had a shaman that pumped out heals, but she was the girlfriend on another player and they split up. No one has died and gotten to reroll and at this point I really don't think a new player would even want in on this mad quest. They've gotten NPC assistance with magic shit that's come up, but have mostly been full on "geek the mage" as their magic solution. Astral shit fucks them hard, but they're dealing with it in their own murder-hobo way.

Any thoughts on AI negative qualities, like persnickety renter, corruptor, easily exploitable etc?

Hey guys, question for you on 4e Techomancer builds.

Is it worth it to keep spending Karma on Skillgroups after you bought them with build points?

Or is it honestly just easier to grab individual skills from that point on? I'm mostly worried about the Electronics line. Feels like I can just buy Software and Computers separately for my needs and that Data Search and hardware are just not worth it?

Another question about source books. Which book outlines where Ghostwalker attacks the denver data haven?

I like the idea of cultural tattoos and piercings for my azzie but that seems counterproductive to infiltration

>3 Essence
>not starting the Game with 0.45 Essence including Biocomp

Weakass

>risky missions for murder-death cultists and literally scaly executives
here your players deserve it

They've done some truly horrible things. They've also done some really good things. I think it evens out. Their draconic dealings make my pants a little tight, as their GM. They have basically given me full reign on coming up with a ludicrous, convoluted plan to get them into a dragon's stomach. No idea how I'm going to do it yet, but it's on my backburner.

So.
Who here thinks intoducing a cyberzombie dragon is the best idea?
I sure do.

Also good ideas are cyberzombie insect spirits and chaining free spirits into cybercorpses.

Next edition will introduce an option for PCs to be an AI with a humanoid drone body.

As a Technomancer, you can just buy individual skills, mostly because you should be tasking Sprites to do most of the heavy lifting. Data Search is an excellent example of a skill that a Data Sprite from a high-Resonance Technomancer will perform at better than a human is even able to. Pick what you want to do, develop that and don't feel bad about leaving the rest to Sprites.

Like... they NEED to get into the dragon's stomach, they want you to find a way for them to face off a dragon or they want to get eaten by a dragon?

I need to have the dragon they dealt with make an elaborate plot to eat them. They crossed a dragon, not in a big and overt way but still. Mr. Dragon won't forget that anytime soon, but in the meantime, he finds the PCs a reliable tool to achieve his primary objectives. In his mind, they live until he's done using them and then he's going to try to eat them, metaphorically and literally.

>told him all the drawbacks, even said that every cyberzombie ever created was basically a 40k Servitor.
That's ... not really it. They're detached from humanity, not 100% removed from any vestige of personality.

I see.
From what you wrote:
>They have basically given me full reign on coming up with a ludicrous, convoluted plan to get them into a dragon's stomach.

I pictured it ending up something like pic related.

...

Thats not how it works omae. Dealing with a dragon and doing awful things does not get offset by doing few good things.
Soon you find yourself in a corner where the shadowcommunity hates you and the Johnsons sees you as even more disposable.

from which book is this? Seems like its gonna be an interesting read.

Dragons of the Sixth World.

Last time my players dealt with a dragon it ended up with the dragon getting into the party's technomancer, if you know what I mean.

You could say the dragon really fucked her...

Literally...

My party is a wreck

If that's the worst the Dragon did to your party, I think you Qualify as a soft GM.

Who cares, Clockwork got a bullet in the skull because he went too far in one of the novels.

He didn't live past 2074.

No I get that, I don't care about clockwork, I'm interested in winternight.

Do dragons shitpost?

Dunklezhan did all the time.

Well, one character awakened as a Drake, every Dragon in the NYC area smelled it in the astral and sent mercenaries, runners and other drakes after them to catch them. The group got away, but heavily beaten as they tried to defend their suddenly scaly friend.

Drake payed off some of the Karma debt with the wanted and enemy qualities, so I guess that's the worst thing that was done by a dragon so far.

Also the other dragon came about as a joke in a "milk run" where two rich people made a game about having runners deliver a gift basket to each other each year. Turned out the recipient of their gift basket was a (rather laid back) dragon. I expected the group to GTFO and never look back, but then the technomancer simply offered herself as part of his hoard, and the street sammy incorporated him into their delusions, stating as a matter of fact that he is their uncle.
So... yeah, They ended up part time working for a dragon who actually just wanted to be left alone until this age had settled a bit. Also Lots of side ERP happened

Are you me? Almost literally the same thing happened with my party.

There were a few 4e characters being used as freelancer mouthpieces, seemingly with the expectation that the writers would be able to make it happen in 5e.

See also; Stormfront and Infected dying to regen dragging cyberware through their brain. There was so much salty shit about that 5e expectation in these threads.

That's kinda hilarious.
Apparently a large amount of players would totally just throw away their independence and safety for the off chance to such dragon dick.

Fuck, who am I kidding, I would in a heart beat, too.

in the game i DM'd, one of my party members (a physad musclegirl punch machine) fell in love with herr brackhaus instantly and now wants the dragon dong

Is there ever a benefit to AI actually going into Depth 7 and beyond?

You're A Boss Nigra.

Meanwhile everyone in my group is a decent metahuman who runs for his own reasons. Have his own code of honor and tries to not be an asshole. Hell in the last 6 runs we killed only 1 guy and thats because he was a piece of shit and we were paid to.
Are we that strange?

Not me, I consistently play folks who are of the opinion that you can't trust -any- immortal being further than you can lob ICBMs at them.

Granted, you can lob ICBMs at them from quite an impressive distance.

So I wanna make a John Wick-esque finesse based gun fighter, but don't want to be an adept or awakened at all and use relatively little big cyberware. Is it possible to do it viably? If so, how? I imagine edge would probably be key.

Bioware. An edge heavy build will also help.

How could you possibly know that?
Alao goddamn finally. AIs have had broken special snowflake rules for too long, which is a travesty given how important these themes are to the genre.

You think I want to be anywhere near to one of those fuckers when I try to off one of them!?

You're a shit GM and I really hope I never accidentally play with you.

Why the fuck is it the tropey thing to do for immortals to betray you?

They are IMMORTAL. They do not need to betray you. They just need to trade you some baubles in exchange for massive long term benefit.
Like, is revenge their hobby? Otherwise it is pointless to an immortal who can take a nap until you are dead.

Does munging work on deckers?
Or is it specifically for eating technomancers?

Literally every major fuckup with the Matrix after Echo Mirage has had dragon dickery involved in one way or another and you want to make one into an insane monstrosity lashed into a prison?
Same reason you don't make deals with dragons. You're so far below their frame of reference that they have no particular need to treat with you fairly, and working with them means you're getting involved in a plan that may have taken decades to reach this point; any enemies the immortal may have that are interested in this may consider you to be a weak link or acceptable collateral damage. You seem like the kind of person that wears a cape and drinks red wine from a goblet at the gametable.

>Insane imprisoned monstrocity robpot

This is the best fucking idea. Mechagodzilla here we come!

I wish I had that really nice screen cap from a while back, but I'll summarize.

Imagine that you are the age you are now, and like, maybe 20 or so other folks are well, but everyone else in the world stopped aging at around 3.

The shit you can do compared to them is god like. Sure, you're in trouble if they get sticks from your backyard and charge you, but in truth, there's very little they can do to you, and you can run rings around them mentally.

"Betrayal" is a word for equals. A Dragon doesn't betray folks. He uses them exactly as he intended to use them, and if they are broken in the usage, that's just because the dragon didn't give a damn if the tool was broken in the usage or not.

Clockwork is very well alive atm, you turd, considering he gave plenty of shadowtalk in recent supplements like rigger 5.

Plenty if you are rigging a Drone with Pilot Heritage.
Because then, your Depth is used as a substitute for a fuckton of things, eg Pilot and thus the agility of your arms

Can someone think of a good actual play episode in which the party goes through a cool combat encounter?

I just want to listen to/watch a group going through combat in Shadowrun for some reason.

No he definitely got a bullet in the head from netcat. It was very -very- final. It must have happened after rigger 5.

But I usemy tools and minions well. They're mine, I don't want them to break. And if they do, I repair them.

>dragon repairs you
>welcome to being a cyberzombie

Considering the lack of books coming out after Rigger 5, that sounds like bullshit.
Which Novel is this crap supposed to be in?

Acceptable!

Dark Resonance Gonna go read Rigger 5 though.

How do dragons go about courting in this day and age, anyway?

Aside from "carefully".

Could get a reasonably fun string of runs out of two dragons exchanging clandestine affections at range. Rare flowers, their very DNA sequenced with messages of romantic poetry. Security trucks that turn out to be filled with high-quality dragon-digestion-friendly chocolates, worth more than their weight in gold. Hyper-encrypted files escorted through the Matrix under a barrage of journalistic and corporate espionage, finally unpackaged by their recipient to reveal draconic dick pics.

we have absolute no clue at all. Canonically, nobody even knows if dragon eggs are around in this day and age, except that the assumption is that great dragons must reproduce -somehow-

Do you guys think that Lofwyr is a virgin? If so, do you think he claims to be asexual?
Asking for a friend.

>The draconic equivalent of that guy who has a huge, disturbingly pristine toolshed with racks and racks of carefully organized, perfectly maintained tools and equipment of every size for every purpose, including that set of bizarrely shaped wrenches that only work on a particular kind of nut that was only produced in a short-lived eastern european country in the last century.

Okay, I need to figure out when Rigger 5 was published canonically and when dark resonance was.

And there are apparently males and females, which has implications.

Since it came up in my game, via the technomancer getting kanoodled by the dragon, I homebrewed that dragons dont have the same idea of relationships as we have (duh).
In the fluff, dragons only ever seem to have one known parent, so I made up that for dragons creating an offspring is more of a massive investment, than a result of love/lust.

They still reproduce sexually, but the resulting egg always stays with one parent who pays the other an exorbitant amount of assets and favors for the "service" of helping make n offspring.
After that, the other parent's involvement basically stops and interfering with the offspring in any way is seen as a break of contract.
Because no dragon wants to SHARE such a valuable asset as a perfectly loyal young dragon with another dragon.

Dragons still have sex for fun, too, butt it's usually more an "asserting dominance" sort of thing.

Still chasing my dream of a rigger/samurai, currently wondering if i should adjust my priorities. Currently they are; Race D, Stats C, Magic E, Skills B and resources A. Race, magic and resources are obviously "set" but i was wondering if i should swap Stats and Skills.

Cool. What rating should I be aiming for? 2, 3, or is even 1 enough?

As for why there is apparently no eggs around this time, I decided that Dragons need magic assistance to progress though their life stages (egg - hatchling - young dragon - adult dragon - great dragon) And that eggs don't hatch until their parent (or some mana anomaly) makes them hatch.
And compared to the lifespan of most dragons, the 6th age has been incredibly turbulent and chaotic so far. Not a good time to raise a hatchling and risk losing it.

>if dragon eggs are around in this day and age
They are. 4e Clutch of dragons talks about some runners who had to steal some dragon eggs, delivered them to the johnson, who subsequently smashed them
and Conspiracy Theories talks about some cruise missiles that went off course towards madagascar. The cave system they were headed to was rumored to contain an egg repository

so there are eggs, we just don't know if any greats have them

Dragons are two things. Apex predators, and hoarders of valuable things. To get their attention you have to be one of either, and that means they're either going to kill you, sabotage you long enough to kill you, or own you. If you're anything less important, then you don't get their attention. Which gives them a kind of psychohistory bent, as they couldn't give less of a shit about most people, but still make them dance to their tune.

>I homebrewed that dragons dont have the same idea of relationships as we have. They still reproduce sexually, but the resulting egg always stays with one parent who pays the other an exorbitant amount of assets and favors for the "service" of helping make n offspring.
I wouldn't suggest they have relationships. Or sex.

>Dragon eggs are a little like alligator eggs, except it’s a lot more complex and goes way beyond boy or girl. A newly laid dragon egg is pretty much a blank slate. e form of the dragon that’s born from the egg is created by the aura of the dragon that nurtures the egg. Dragon type is determined by an aura imprint of the dragon that ‘sits’ on the egg through development. And this is the really important part: no development occurs without a dragon nurturing the egg. It doesn’t die; it stays on hold until a nurturing aura gives it what it needs to develop. A dragon can keep an egg for a long time until she—or he—has the time to nurture it through development. How much time is needed? She told me producing a dragon requires three hundred and sixty days for the proper aura to completely imprint, and then another forty days for the newborn’s body to be strong enough to break out of the shell.

Clutch Of Dragons does mention different dragons having eggs. Just read the bit about the great sea dragon preparing for the 400 days required to nurture multiple eggs, which would produce 12 new great sea dragons.

Dark Resonance was canonically supposed to be sometime before 2072, but it got updated for SR5 as part of >lol delayed for three years.
Also, it's fucking awful. Also Clockwork doesn't get shot in that book? Slamm-O! punches him with his weirdly-fit man-hands and then he gets arrested by the PCC police.

>12 new anti-metahuman great dragons shutting down all trade in the oceans of the world

What is this? Arpeggio of Blue Steel?

just a reminder that the Sea Dragon is currently the most powerful dragon

I coulda sworn he gets shot in the back of the head finally... damn. I guess I'm just misremembering.

it would produce young hatching. To become a great dragon you need few thousand years under your belt. Only after that do they move from adulthood to great dragoning

What you've done is made me remember that fucking book.
Fucking blood magic hacker otaku dwarf bounty hunter, god damned hestaby out of nowhere, 'this company has no physical assets! It has to be an AI PRETENDING to be a company!'

Urghhhh.

I doubt dragons don't have sex. For one thing, they appear to be biological creatures in addition to magical, and function using roughly similar biology to other flesh-and-blood creatures of the world they live in; metahumans also have flesh bodies and magic, after all, dragons simply have both to a much greater degree. They have a heart and bones and other organs. And all other vertebrate lifeforms have sex - some rare species gave it up, but they went through it at some stage and still have vestigial elements of it - so why not dragons? It's an advantage, overall. Besides, if they were sexless, then they would all probably identify either as asexual beings or as one sex, rather than some dragons calling themselves male and others calling themselves female.

Plus, if you want to draw lines between Earthdawn and Shadowrun, there's speculation that some of the dragons are the same individuals, and in Earthdawn there was a female dragon noted as being unusual in that she raised her children herself. Which implies both sex and some form of traditional gender type behaviour.

>Dragons are two things. Apex predators, and hoarders of valuable things. To get their attention you have to be one of either, and that means they're either going to kill you, sabotage you long enough to kill you, or own you.

This makes me think of dragon courtship as possibly being a super long, drawn out process over centuries and millennia of individual pairs attempting to maneuver themselves into a position of absolute total dominance over the other's every potential asset. Which would mean a) dragon "romance" would consist mostly of intense rivalry and war by proxy coupled with posturing displays of how desirable a mate one is and b) I'm pretty sure all the dragons in shadowrun are just trying to get into each others' pants.

I want to write a campaign around this now.

>All dragons are tsundere
I like where this is going.

Then don't take jobs that require that kind of infiltration. Jobs don't get offered to teams that have the wrong makeup top complete them.

hmmmmm
scariest thing in shadowrun: awakened blue whale.
Yes or No?

Why would that be scary? Do blue whales naturally attack humans?

I really want to know how that could possibly be more terrifying than the Horrors or a Great Dragon.

>I doubt dragons don't have sex. For one thing, they appear to be biological creatures in addition to magical, and function using roughly similar biology to other flesh-and-blood creatures of the world they live in
Here's the difference; I cannot make your unborn child racially closer to me by sitting near your wife. Dragons do that, sans wife.

>in Earthdawn there was a female dragon noted as being unusual in that she raised her children herself
Dragons exchange eggs.

Alright listen. An awakened koala is vicious drop bear. Awakened armadilo is 14 meters big machine of destruction. What happens when you take creature as big as a dragon in normal state and apply awakened shenanigans on it ?