/srg/ Shadowrun General

Anubody wanna share their custom metatypes/metavariants?

So... I've grown up on classic shadowrun.
Technomancers weren't a thing then.

I gotta ask though. What the fuck is a Pornomancer?

Not at all related. It's a max CHA mage with Orgasm and similar spells.

How are the Shadowrun novels? I looked up shadowrun on a whim while shopping for so some books on Amazon and I saw that the Charrette books are going for a buck each if you buy them digitally

Emotitoys and various other social boosters get broken as hell when you stack them right.

That's not what they are, Pornomancers are a min-maxing exercise in getting the largest possible con dice pool in existence by stacking qualities and magic bonuses, so they can talk the pants off basically anyone. They may well have the orgasm/orgy spells as it's thematic but that's not what makes someone a pornomancer.

>Emotitoys
A what now?

It always bugs me that Con is the skill used for seduction. Surely, there must be a way to get into someone's pants that doesn't involve deceiving or bribing them in some way.

Palming works, but the penalties to do it unnoticed are probably obscene.

Still, once you have their pants on, you can probably negotiate with a crazy bonus.

You know that's not what I meant you bloody trog.

basically tamagochi drones

>Emotitoys: Emotitoys are sophisticated electronic toys programmed
>with empathy software (see p. 60) to recognize metahuman
>body language and facial expressions, thus giving them a limited ability
>to sense emotions and react appropriately, based on their purpose.
>
>Due to aggressive marketing campaigns by Aztechnology, Horizon,
>and other corps, emotitoys are extremely popular even among adults,
>with hipsters everywhere sporting emotitoys that dangle from their
>commlinks or climb around their clothing. Emotitoys come in a wide
>variety of styles, such as the gothic Grue, the cheerful Chirpichu,
>and the colorful Moodwyrm. Some are animatronic but nonmobile,
>while others are functional minidrones.
>
>Shadowrunners have also embraced the emotitoy craze,
>bringing their “friends” along to meets to get an edge during negotiations,
>using the toy’s sensors and empathy soft ware to get a
>read on the other side.
>
>The rating of the emotitoy is the rating of its built-in empathy
>software.

>once you have their pants on
chummer, I know runners usually have to steal some things to push up their money, but taking their clothes goes a bit too far

well, con is the skill used to convince someone to do something they otherwise wouldn't
what skill would you use? Negotiation? Etiquette? Intimidation?

I felt it made a better joke than Intimidate, Impersonation, Negotiation or Performance would.

I think I could have come up with an equally good one for Leadership, but couldn't see it. Rally, I needed some more time before I could find my Inspire-ation.

It's the closest skill out of those present, and it's an action that doesn't really deserve it's own distinct skill. Seduction is essentially an act of persuasion and con would be the skill you'd use to convince someone of something. The closest other candidate in negotiation.

I suppose if your character was some sort of pick up artist, maybe you could take seduction as a form of performance.

Seduction is a specialization of Con, yeah, but I could imagine some situations where you'd use some other skill. Or none at all. Some people do it for you, and some people just don't.

Assuming a scenario where the other party was open to getting laid in the first place and you're just putting on the charm to convince them you're the one they want to go home with tonight (like a dance club or wherever the fuck normies go to perform their vulgar mating displays), I'd say it's Negotiation. If it's one of those courtly romance things, Ettiquette. Trying to score with a woman by disguising yourself as her husband? Gonna need to see some impersonation, maybe some other rolls too. Intimidation only comes up when she's into really freaky stuff.

>dad jokes
Why do you do this?

Because I'm working on an Oyaji-and-Gal NPC runner pair.

What are the major differences between 4E and 5E and is it worth it to switch? My group barely knows the 4E rules anyway so I figure if we're going to we aught to now.

Here comes the edition war, everybody!

I hope not, im mostly interested in the crunchier aspects of hacking and how the limits system actually works. It seems like a way to limit cheese, which is sort of cool and sort of not.

Negotiation as seduction just puts me in mind of this 80's movie Cherry 2000 a cyberpunkish/post-apocalypsey film which had a scene with corp types at a single bar negotiating hook ups through their lawyers, with contracts spelling out the acts performed. IT ws very surreal and makes me find the idea of using negotiation for seduction kind feel off.

>corp types at a single bar negotiating hook ups through their lawyers, with contracts spelling out the acts performed.
That legitimately sounds like a thing that happens in Shadowrun.

>im mostly interested in the crunchier aspects of hacking

As in, "You want crunchy aspects to hacking"? Then you get 5e, because 4e is the whole crunch is "buy a high-rating agent, fuck deckers".

Other than that, Limits stop cheese to a certain extent (specifically adept cheese), and some other things in 5e are imo better, like making rigging viable again. If you can get through the editing, I'd switch to 5. rpg.stackexchange has a decent breakdown.

4E has lower Skillcap and everybody can hack with his comlink
5E has Limits and Decking is back

Play 4E if you want better editing and plenty of powercreep
Play 5E if you want better rules and a bit less of "spec-ops at char-gen"

>but taking their clothes goes a bit too far
>not pawning underwear of the pop idol you were extracting last mission

5e has awful, awful editing but the rules are overall better. Mages are less broken
, melee is less worthless, and guns don't need full auto to do damage.

The starting power level in 5e is much lower, about on par with swat teams instead of spec ops commandos.

The rules are mostly the same, so learning one makes learning the other pretty easy.

>Mages are less broken
ha

Next Run for my players involves infiltrating a Magical Research Lab for some type of HMHVV Critter. I thought about using some Goblins for the D&D-ness of it all, but I'm wondering if anyone has some art to convince me one way or the other.

>Next Run for my players involves infiltrating a Magical Research Lab for some type of HMHVV Critter.
For what purpose? This is actually important to your selection of Infected.

ghoul, he's the chief researcher there

Depends on what sort of theme you want to go for. I always wanted to run a job to go investigate a remote lab where they were examining a wendigo, but the place's wagemage lied about his qualification and the wendigo has now taken over and is now ruling the place with his psychic coercion.

Compared to 4e, combat spells are weaker, spirits are weaker, and drain values for some of the most egregious spells like turn to goo went up considerably. Adept got better, but mages did not.

I haven't thought it through totally. I usually pick a "setpiece" or theme and just go for it. Basically, the Runners are getting twisted up with a corporation with a lot of Vampiric senior management. I want to expose them to the kind of creatures said corporation might use against their enemies. In a situation where they might not be outright killed

Start by brainstorming why Mr.Johnson would want this particular critter. Maybe it's the Dzoo-noo-qua that pissed off the Triads that the one guy bitching about being stuck in Canada knew.

>As in, "You want crunchy aspects to hacking"? Then you get 5e, because 4e is the whole crunch is "buy a high-rating agent, fuck deckers".
The buy in for basic bitch decking in 4e is low, but the complexity is higher than 5e.

What options are there for rules-light Shadowrun, and how would you rank them?

Anarchy?
That Blades in the Dark hack?
Something else?

It's a Mutaqua, actually.

Blades has flashbacks. All heist games need flashbacks.

Blades in the Dark, The Sprawl with a couple modified playbooks, homebrew FATE, Anarchy.

maybe?

Say a Runner gets hurt. Bad. No DocWagon, no Medic, No Hope. They get dropped off at a Hospital and the Hospital doesn't immediately detect their Fake SIN. When they give care, is this just the Hospitalized Life Style and regular Natural Recovery? Or is a Doctor going to apply his Medicine skills to hasten recovery?

I'd say Hospitalized Life Style and regular Natural Recovery but your mileage may vary depending on the hospital/doctor in question.

To add on to what said, hope that it's not a corp controlled hospital.

They might not do charity beyond keeping you from dying, if that.

>he thinks mages are more broken
pffft

Realistically - fellow chummers show up either to take you some place with real care or to tie loose ends.

>When they give care, is this just the Hospitalized Life Style and regular Natural Recovery

First this

If he can pay:
>Or is a Doctor going to apply his Medicine skills to hasten recovery?

Clinics are already moneygrabbers today.
If a Chummer can pay and isn't causing Problems (like some HTR of the own corp knocking at the door), he is a good customer.

Stay away from those. They get your apartments burned down.

>he thinks that romantic and sensual attraction can be anything other than a pile of lies

Get this hothead out of my dystopian nightmare.

>Surely, there must be a way to get into someone's pants that doesn't involve deceiving or bribing them in some way.
is that way

Hoi chummers, in a little bit of a bind here. Trying to find good layouts to use for a medium and minimum security lockups. Noooot having the greatest of luck, so I thought I'd take my chances out here. Any help would be appreciated; and if the Medium sec lockup has a holding area of mages or a basement, even better.

So, /srg/ I have a question
I am GMing a SR 4e game (inb4 "I'm so sorry for you")
One of my players is playing a druid mage, that at some point wants to initiate
Street Magic says that to initiate you should do an initiation rite for it, giving as an example:
>A shaman may perform a vision quest in the tribal sweat lodge;
>an aboriginal koradji may go on a walkabout;
>Aztec nahualli may need to bond with her animal twin in the wild;
>a hermetic mage may have to study diligently;
>a qabbalist may need to perform intricate purification rituals;
>or a shamanic adept may need to best her totem animal in combat.

what would you say should be the initiation rite for a druid?
How much of a obstacle should this be?

>what would you say should be the initiation rite for a druid?
Grow some kickass weed?
Forge a sickle?
Brew a magic potion? Asterix and Obelix style
Maybe tame an animal or something?

Should be something related to nature I guess, kind of hard to thing of something in Seattle though.
Maybe participate in some kind of environmental project?

first: not seattle, AGS. So there is far more than enough green space in the vicinity
second: yeah, those seem good, thanks chummer

Hey now, you've forgotten something important: the thing that really makes makes a futuristic dystopia dark isn't the complete lack of light. It's the few remaining sparks of brightness that make everything else seem so terribly pitch black by comparison; those last bits of light that you encounter too rarely for them to brighten up the place, but also too frequently to let your eyes adjust to the darkness.

He needs to go on a Spirit Quest with the forest nymphs and get super trippy spirit sex before being tasked to toast some factory that's shitting out highly flammable waste.

>He needs to go on a Spirit Quest with the forest nymphs and get super trippy spirit sex
Do you want some kind of freaky half-spirit/spiritborn kids? Because that's how you get freaky half-spirit/spiritborn kids.

I second growing some kickass weed. Kickass deepweed and sharing it with the unwashed masses and fight some corporate goons because they don't wanna share your kickass weed.

Where? Downtown Seattle, small town in the PCC, Renraku industrial facility? Also, what size?

Sorry, should have been specific. One is a small low-security lockup, the other is a larger Medium Security lockup (but not gigantic). Both are located in Denver, the CAS sector specifically.

Relabel the towers as guard outposts, the dorms as cells, and you have a lovely Panopticon.

Thanks, this has some potential.

I've also got a secondary question, unrelated to the first. How would you guys say an Aztex Tradition Shaman that's on the verge of becoming Twisted, and who follows the Seductress Mentor spirit (who is twisting alongside her) would act?

She's recently been freed from an incredibly degrading and traumatizing captivity and is in the care of one of her former students (and lovers); who hasn't realized how badly she's been affected. I want to give them a chance to talk her down, but what sort of warning signs should there be in her behavior?

>How would you guys say an Aztex Tradition Shaman that's on the verge of becoming Twisted, and who follows the Seductress Mentor spirit (who is twisting alongside her) would act?
>I want to give them a chance to talk her down, but what sort of warning signs should there be in her behavior?
EVERYBODY'S GETTING LAID THIS SESSION

>How would you guys say an Aztex Tradition Shaman that's on the verge of becoming Twisted, and who follows the Seductress Mentor spirit (who is twisting alongside her) would act?
Let me answer this question with a question:

Is this an ERP campaign?

Keeping that question in mind, frame it as you deem appropriate.

>If a Chummer can pay and isn't causing Problems (like some HTR of the own corp knocking at the door), he is a good customer.
On that note, how many dice does the good doctor roll for Medicine while helping out a patient at a hospital?

Strong feelings of helplessness with an equally strong urge to gain control of the situation by any means necessary. Forcing her lover to get weapons and be ready to use them at a moment's notice (and strapping a K-10 autoinjector to him she can remote activate) when he was not a violent guy before, throwing every seduction technique she has at someone to convince them to go with her on trivial things (like choice of meeting spot, what brand of soymilk to get, etc). A desire to indulge in excess and lose herself in the music, the moment, you own it, but her paranoia forces her to stay on top of every minute detail of the arrangements and ongoing party, with the whiplash of going back and forth making it clear she's going to break at one of these events into either total debauchery or an anal-retentive massacre over the colour of strapon the street samurai is using.

>who follows the Seductress Mentor spirit (who is twisting alongside her)

No,

Nooot really, but the group has some fairly large boundaries on what they'll put up with, especially if it's for legit RP.

>No.

I meant it more in terms of the Dark Twin phenomena, or does that only happen when the mage has fully succumbed to the Twisting?

Just don't do it.

I meant more in that the Mentor Spirit itself wouldn't be twisting. Her understanding of it, and it's relationship to her, may be taking a dark turn, but despite what the Dark Twin says about 'maybe it's all in the mages head, maybe they're actually changing the spirit' you can't alter a mentor spirit. It's not an idea supported anywhere else, that one practitioner should have the ability to alter these primordial superspirits.

Alright, poor phrasing on my part there then.

Other than that, some very good suggestions, thanks.

I've more interpreted it as "embracing the dark side of the mentor's philosophy" anyways...though disappointingly, Street Grimoire did not go into any detail of what that entailed. Pity, I was quite curious to see what the "dark side" of having a Shark mentor spirit would look like.

free cyberpsychosis even if you have no cyber to speak of

>have cyberpsychosis
>become Burnout Adept
>gain Dark Shark mentor spirit
>now you have double cyberpsychosis

>cyberpsychosis even if you have no cyber to speak of

This makes me think. Would cyberpsychosis apply to someone who got really low essence from things like bioware and gene-modding? Or a person who got 5 Leonizations?

It could.
>Low essence Bioware
I remember people talking about those before. Called 'em Franks.

What does Goblin Rock sound like?

id give average suburban hospital doc 12 dice, street doc 9, and downtown med facility doc 15. I'd bump it 3 if they were like a veteran, leader-type, or some kind of specialist.

youtube.com/watch?v=ryD8bPwFaAM

youtube.com/watch?v=KsMKOx6fumc

Bull actually doesn't rite much dialog for Bull anymore, allegedly.

Well the plan right now is that she's going to try to seduce one of the party to gain an advantage in the new situation when she comes too, but her target is kind of heavily involved with another PC. Like devoted to the point that IC he was possibly contemplating suicide by combat to free her up to find a compatible mate to give her the children she wants. Soooo yeah, that's going to fail hard, but it'll give the break for the other PC to at least try and get through to her while she's dealing with someone suddenly *not* wanting to treat her like a disposable piece of ass.

SR133
Always look to the books before asking. They're a poorly edited fucking mess but it's in there.

>Bull is, perhaps metaphysically, no longer himself

>SR133
But that's the "physical active skills" page.

>Like devoted to the point that IC he was possibly contemplating suicide by combat to free her up to find a compatible mate to give her the children she wants.
Oh boy, I remember reading about this on the Shadowrun forum. She's a wolf changeling, any they can't have babies because humans and wolves don't have compatible genes, right? Honestly, those two would be so much happier if they were science nerds who could "create new life" together in a lab or something.

>She's a wolf changeling, any they can't have babies because humans and wolves don't have compatible genes, right?

>how many dice does the good doctor roll for Medicine while helping out a patient at a hospital?
I wonder how things like teamwork and medkits would factor into that.

Say you have a good professional doctor. He rolls 12 dice on his own because he knows his shit. He has a decent 750¥ rating 3 medkit running wirelessly that gives him six extra dice. He has two or three lower-expertise assistants in the form of nurses or intern-level kids (probably 6 to 9 dice each) working a teamwork test to give him like 5 extra dice. That's already 20 dice.

If you have a really nice hospital willing to get really talented and experienced doctors (16-18 dice?), give them fancy-ass 3000¥ medkits (+6), plus assistants/grad-students who know their stuff (for teamwork), you could easily top 30 dice, maybe even push it to 40 for legendary medical professionals.

That's not even counting things like a wage-mage buffing the doctor, or casting heal with reagents if it's an ER.

>Furries.jpg
Oh do I even want to open that?
>edit of a comic into anons slaughtering furries
Oh phew, it was worth it.

Yeah, I abandoned the science angle altogether, going with an amalgam of the various magical suggestions. A ritual, that needs a specific artifact, which turns out to be only part of the actual artifact to make the ritual stable and not produce random SURGE in everyone in a five mile radius. All leading back to the whole shebang being a 4th Age deceased Great Dragon's pet project for crafting hybrid races (like the centaurs).

And of course all the problems and competition that comes from chasing *any* artifact, but especially one related to the Dragons.

Nooot quite like that. Balthazar is kind of a misanthrope to start with, and until he met his current team his view of metahumanity as a whole was that they were all untrustworthy backstabbing barbarians that wouldn't piss on him if he was on fire.

The fact that the first person to help him out of pure altruism was an animal kind of reinforced this image.