/srg/ Shadowrun General - Let's Make A Deal

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>Shoot straight
>Conserve ammo
>And never, ever cut a deal with a dragon

Getting the Gear Edition.

How do you like to do it? Face to face meetings in rainy alleys? Ordering from the darknet and getting it delivered inside a ordinary package? Do you have a deal set up with a local gang, do you know a UCAS supply sergeant, do you just throw a credstick to Sketchy Eddy taped to a picture of a t-bird and let him figure out the rest?

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It's the Sixth World.
It's not really touched upon a lot in actual games, but especially 3e fluff implies that the combination of commercially available cybernetics, biosculpting, high-tech clothing, constant media exposure, stressful megacorp jobs, top-down consumer society and the increasing glamourization of shadowrunners means that the Sixth World is a bit more intentionally freaky than ours.
When you make a living on your reputation, as well as being expected to get a shitton of biotech/cyberware, living cut off from normal people, getting a lot of cash in hand and have too much individuality for your own good, you're much more likely to use that cyberware (or bioware, or just clothes and gear) to stand out.
That's not to speak of the average citizen, who lives most of their life inundated by corporate propaganda, advertising and exploitative media, in a hyper-competitive environment where the Matrix is ever-present (and things escalate when they hit the Matrix, just like the Internet). If a GM was to actually describe the people in attendance at an average nouveau-riche kid's party, including their cosmetic mods and clothes, his players would throw him out for magical realm if they hadn't been briefed on it.
The Sixth World is a blunted, hyper-connected society where you're always being told that someone else is prettier, cooler and more successful than you, through the hyper-immersive media of simflicks and Matrix rooms, and that they've gotten that way from buying corporate products and you should too.
People care too much about more (perhaps unattainable) status and satisfaction to give a shit about many taboos anymore, and the corps are happy to provide. Someone buys all those biomods.

I go to the stuffer shack and pay for it with my fake SIN along with my microwavable burritos and soy bacon.

Anybody have the Missions S5E6 pdf? Its not in the pastebin download.

Sorry, I've never seen a PDF for Take a Chance freerange.

A couple questions about helmets.
What exactly is the difference between a helmet and a full helmet? Is the regular helmet opened? Could you wear a ballistic mask with it? Can the full helmet even be used separately from the full body armor?
And then regarding smartlink, if I have cybereyes with smartlink and imagelink, would I also need a smartlink in the helmet? Or can I just use an imagelink to transfer the data's image from my eyes to the helmet's visor?

>Getting the Gear Edition.
>How do you like to do it? Face to face meetings in rainy alleys? Ordering from the darknet and getting it delivered inside a ordinary package? Do you have a deal set up with a local gang, do you know a UCAS supply sergeant, do you just throw a credstick to Sketchy Eddy taped to a picture of a t-bird and let him figure out the rest?
I call one of my 3 contacts whose business includes selling stuff to shadowrunners (contacts form 2 different syndicates and my fixer) and see if they have it in stock.

>paying for gear with a SIN, fake or otherwise
>paying for anything with a SIN, fake or otherwise
Don't do this. Any healthily paranoid runner will only buy shit through means that doesn't leave a digital paper trail.

If your smartlink and your imagelink are in your eyes, that's all you need to have a tactical HUD, your helmet's visor has nothing to do with it.

>not establishing a cover identity for your fake SIN through regular purchases of mundane goods

0/10 trenchcoats

Not having a paper trail is far more suspicious.

>Could you wear a ballistic mask with [a helmet]?

I've never seen that allowed at any table, because it's maximum cheese and violates the rules about stacking armour.

It's mentioned that most forgers will, for X amount of nuyen a month, keep any fake sins you have updated with that,.

>What exactly is the difference between a helmet and a full helmet? Is the regular helmet opened?

One is a bucket and the other is encompassing

>Could you wear a ballistic mask with it?

There isn't any rule saying you can't, however its logistically stupid and frowned upon as cheesy (in /srg/ no less).

>Can the full helmet even be used separately from the full body armor?

Of course, though it'd probably look silly.

>And then regarding smartlink, if I have cybereyes with smartlink and imagelink, would I also need a smartlink in the helmet?

You can, but you don't need to. The bonus from the smartlink in your cybereyes would be higher than the bonus from the smartlink in any other optical device. Plus they don't even stack.

>Or can I just use an imagelink to transfer the data's image from my eyes to the helmet's visor?

Any GM would probably rule that data collected from one piece of your equipment could be transferred to any other piece. Whether it does anything or not would be up to the context and your GM.

Unless the gear is Forbidden I see nothing wrong with buying it from a legit source with an adequate SIN. Nobody is going to look twice at anybody buying guns and ammo unless they are straight-up illegal like in the JIS. And chances are I'm gonna run the thing through a bunch of tag erasers and file off the serial numbers before I take it out into the wild for work.

>0/10 trenchcoats
Well yeah, I am an unabashed Pink Mohawkfag. Though, isn't it that case that if anyone finds my paper trail (or more accurately, lack thereof, because it's all deposits and withdrawls with no purchases) that SIN is already burned?

>Unless the gear is Forbidden I see nothing wrong with buying it from a legit source with an adequate SIN.
If/when the SIN gets burned, you want to minimize the information that is revealed about you; purchasing things without your SIN not only hides what you've bought, but when you bought it and where and you bought it from. Ironically this makes having a real SIN convenient in some ways; you buy groceries on it and pay your bar tab with it without worrying that your day-to-day habits will be revealed on a stroke of bad luck.

Run idea:

While waiting at the game store where they were supposed to meet Mr. Johnson they get roped into playing Shadowrunners 12e to avoid suspicion.

Great idea or horrible idea?

Too meta. Better idea: the team has been unknowingly duped into playing the role of the antagonists in a LARP.

Hey, no recursing.

Also,
>Gunbunny

>Though, isn't it that case that if anyone finds my paper trail (or more accurately, lack thereof, because it's all deposits and withdrawls with no purchases) that SIN is already burned?

It would be, because you're an idiot who can't maintain a fake identity. If someone does look at your SIN, and discover a purchase for some soyburgers and 3 seashells at the Stuffer Shack, they think you're an average citizen. The whole point of a fake SIN is that it gives the world the impression that you're a regular person.

>paying someone to do basic work for you

>gunbunny
You what's funny? I hadn't heard "gunbunny" as a Shadowrun archetype/build until the last thread, and before that I hadn't heard of it at all as a Shadowrun archetype/build except for 1 mention in the official forums. I guess some old archetypes have swept under the rug as the editions went on.

When do people "look" at your SIN though? I was under the impression that SIN checkers didn't bother looking at your recent purchases, and if they do shouldn't there be a mechanic for that where your fake SIN's rating decreases if you don't buy normal shit all the time?

The automated scanners might not go through your purchase history, but a Lone Star detective following up on the Tacoma Docks Incident would. By canon that info is out there and constantly being sniffed by every commercial outlet as you walk by for targeted marketing.

And SR barely has rules for checking that SINs even exist, adding a subsystem for the production and maintenance of supporting documents is too much.

4e and 5e focused a lot more on adepts and magic as a way to "liven up" the cyberpunk genre and draw in customers used to 3.PF and MMOs, and a lot of the archetypes and fluff related to cyberware have been swept under the table because it might scare the new players off.
I personally feel it's a huge loss, as CGL seems extremely caught up on making all characters into powerful, magic-using special snowflakes with huge amounts of destructive potential, and they spare no effort in doing it (decks were turned into commlinks in 4e, technomancers tried but failed to give I-can't-believe-it's-not-magic flavor to hacking and cyberware was made more expensive and riddled with soul-eating nanobots).
By separating characters from the (technologically dominated) world around them and encouraging from-birth specialness like magic, metasapients and strange metavariants, the characters lose opportunities to distinguish themselves as characters and instead have to stand out by virtue of being different from the setting (usually in spiritual beliefs, diet, gender identity or such things that appeal to the Wil Wheaton-raised generation).
The setting is being antagonized and shot in the foot by CGL encouraging only characters and builds that are hard to properly mesh with the setting, instead relying on a feeling of alienation, victimization and being special and misunderstood to make characters who're better fit for a Tumblr-flavored pink mohawk romp without the mood or themes of cyberpunk.

So, as a GM, I am shocked and amazed that my attempts to get my team to not get into trouble have failed so spectacularly.

Three fifths of my team are pregnant and four of five are male.

Have you tried telling them that you really, really don't have time for this horseshit right now?

>How to get gear edition
Call a contact or a buddy's contact. It really depends on the contact. My Fixer is the crazy paranoid type, so he calls me in a few days informing me there's a dead drop 3/4 of the way across the city in an alley. My fence usually has something on hand, but wants to trade in kind rather than in Nuyen. Buddy's techno friend makes a BTL file that has him wind up in front of a dead drop when it's done.

Its hilarious because I totally have time for it.

So my strategy should be to be so horrifically violent that no one has the guts to do a follow-up investigation?

Okay, but seriously, how often and in what scenarios do SINs get checked instead of just passively observed by nearby authorities? Because I can think of 4 scenarios, and I'm not sure they'll ever come up in my current group:
>purchasing stuff (not going to happen because I only pay with credsticks)
>border crossings/airports/trainstations etc (not going to happen under our GM, as Mr.Johnson always provides a complimentary private flight or get-past-border-security card when we have to take a working vacation)
>pulled over/caught by cops (current supply of horsepower and firepower makes this unlikely)
>socially infiltrating a fancy place (not something our group is terribly inclined to do)

>Three fifths of my team are pregnant and four of five are male.
There had better be one hell of a story behind this, or I'm calling bullshit.

Well the fact that shadowrun has magic at all sort of separates it from proper cyberpunk. The fact that magic can't interact with the technology of the world sets up problems from the get-go. Sure, CGL is a big pile of shit but the problem you're describing is built right into the game. It has two really strong elements that, by the rules they've set, can't work together.

>alienation, victimization and being special and misunderstood
That was a thing since 2e. Shadowrunners are despised terrorists, the world is full of dehumanising tech, media and alien influences. It's very clear that metahumanity is constantly being ground into the dirt by the powers that be and the only way up is to heavily alter yourself. If anything 4&5e are much more friendlier and accepting settings than previous editions.
>pink mohawk romp without the mood or themes of cyberpunk
Dude, pic related is how 3e introduces itself. The art in old editions is full of punks in fetish covered jean jackets and cargo pants doing commando shit. It has over the top gunfights and explosions. It's a crazy setting where crazy things happen, that's how it's always been.

>Unless the gear is Forbidden I see nothing wrong with buying it from a legit source with an adequate SIN.
Unless it's availability --, you have to order it, and the default rules assume black market sources like a vendor at the local crime mall.

Do the attack and stealth dongle from Data Trails actually serve a purpose ? A 6/6/6 Transys Avalon sounds like a very decent hacking tool for the price, but I know nothing so.

I need an all purpose vehicle for my team, Chummers. Something that can function as a mobile home/base for them.
Likely to be a van, so which ones do you recommend?

>If anything 4&5e are much more friendlier and accepting settings than previous editions.
That's the thing though, now you have to go further to be an outcast.

Put it on a toaster and shred hosts

Are Roadmaster, always Ares Roadmaster.

Isn't that practically an armored tank though?
Sure, it's legal, but likely to draw suspicion. Also it's fairly slow.

>Sure, it's legal, but likely to draw suspicion.
Paint it up as a delivery vehicle for valuable goods, no one will blink twice at it.
>Also it's fairly slow.
It can be upgraded to Speed 5 and Acceleration 2 if you've got the cash.

Yeah but from the most of the books I'v read and games I'v played in the results less in tumblr-ism and more black-hat style play. It definitely is a problem in the setting but a different kind of problem than what is describing.

Early editions assumed PCs where fairly morally decent people in a shitty world doing what they need to do. Current editions assume a functional world which leads to PCs being people who actively chose crime.

I never thought about this until now
Any relationship between runners beyond friends is pretty much a death sentence, huh?

Nod rili, why would it have to be?

Eh, I kind of like it better that way. I'm not into going full black hat or anything, but after all that D&D and other stuff, it's refreshing to have a setting where the default assumption is "you kill people, take things that don't belong to you and otherwise do morally dubious shit and you have no delusions about it".

Right, but the default PC assumption is SIN-less, which means they're specifically excluded from functional society.

Some may have burned their SIN and left society behind by choice, but there's plenty of people for whom Shadowrunning is their best shot at getting out of the Barrens.

One dude is fucking the chick of the party and one dude is fucking an NPC. In the interests of fairness, the men also get the pregnant quality with mental modifiers instead of physical, because they are human.

I would let them ignore that but none of them are sociopaths, and if they were, I would force them to take relevant qualities to reflect it.

>In the interests of fairness, the men also get the pregnant quality with mental modifiers instead of physical, because they are human.
Oh, I thought you were saying there was some mpreg shit going on. Mental modifiers due to the anxiety of being a future dad.....well, that's an interesting and perhaps fair way to handle it.

Whats more, I have some rules for pregnancy that are simple and stupid and you would have to be arrogant or unlucky to fail them.

And/or fuck a shitload of times a month to fail it.

Long story short they were all three, but the NPC was the most arrogant.

>the NPC was the most arrogant.
I really want to hear the details of this now.

Nah. Just because you've got a paper trail doesn't mean that you had a (proper) banking account.

And even if you did, the only thing at risk is whatever's in that proper banking account... unless it's a proper underworld ran banking account.

For all the time and space dedicated to military arms, ammo, armor, and other gear are there any actual wars being fought; at least ones that aren't low-key shadow wars in the middle of bumfuck nowhere? And speaking of armed conflicts, since corps are considered their own territories and have their own armies, are skirmishes between corps a thing? Do corps ever back national armies openly (barring the nations who pretty much ARE corps like Aztlan and the PCC)?

Aztlan and Amazonia recently fought a war over Bogota, but that's wrapped up now. It's covered in the War! sourcebook for 4e.

>are there any actual wars being fought
not anymore, though I think there was some conflict in east europe
>are skirmishes between corps a thing
chummer, why do you think Shadowrunners are a thing? It's exactly so there ISN'T any open armed conflict between them. Instead there is a constant cold shadow war where each corp sends Runners against specific targets. If they succeed? You got that thing, and the other one will most likely get runners as revenge. If they fail? Well, you've never ever seen them before. Can you show anything that would prove that? No? well frag off then

s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/7f/89/96/7f8996ccef061cdf68c9b7c494b63561.jpg

cheese you say?. That's what I do with my guy when fights are going to go down or sneaking.

It's amazing how many people on here don't know about underworld bank accounts.
It's like nobody read Unwired at all.

Fucking christ, what happened to him?

The helmet of the most protective armor in the game provides only +3 armor. If you think that wearing 2 pieces of headwear together is going to get you +4 armor somehow, then you can go staple your dick to a tree.

>For all the time and space dedicated to military arms, ammo, armor, and other gear are there any actual wars being fought; at least ones that aren't low-key shadow wars in the middle of bumfuck nowhere?
Yes. It happens less rarely though between developed countries because in a full-scale war it you need to maximize use of your economy to fund it, and the economy is no longer under control of nation-states in the Sixth World.
Areas like mainland China, Southeast Asia, and the Phillipenes are full of low-intensity conflicts though. There's enough violence out there that some pretty big mercenary companies make a lot of money doing their thing.
>
>And speaking of armed conflicts, since corps are considered their own territories and have their own armies, are skirmishes between corps a thing?
Yes, but their armies aren't nearly as big as nation-state armies, which the exception of Ares Macrotech and Aztechnology I imagine. They generally go for deniable asset attacks though; shadowruns, namely.
>Do corps ever back national armies openly (barring the nations who pretty much ARE corps like Aztlan and the PCC)?
Ares is so American that it's founder almost certainly predates the creation of the UCAS and CAS as nation-states in age and likely served in the origina USAF.

YOU CAN GET +8 USING GEL PACKS! THAT'S DOUBLE! YES DOUBLE THE ARMOR FOR HALF THE PRICE! CALL NOW! CHUMMER5 DOESN'T KNOW THE DIFFERENCE AND CASH IS ACCEPTED!

>gel packs
But the moment you take any damage your ass is on the ground. Also don't you need to buy new gel packs every time you get shot?

>ones that aren't low-key shadow wars in the middle of bumfuck nowhere?

The thing is that you can't have wars that aren't low-key shadow wars in the modern age; if it goes all out, people bomb each other back into the stone age. What we get are low-key shadow wars that erupt into quick and decisive battles.

Aztlan bans all non-Aztech megacorps? Things go quietly for a couple years, then Operation RECIPROCITY.

The dragons get into a tiff? Sniping and shadow-work, then people mount up and storm Mt. Shasta and slaughter everyone there, bringing Hestaby to heel.

The South American rebels pushing against the Azzies? Guerrilla war for a decade, the Sirrurg blows up half the Yucatan and the Azzies respond with a massive army to take out that Great Dragon.

If you want to see what places are leaking gas mains waiting for a spark, WAR! has several in the back of the book; the Balkans (because of course the fucking Balkans), sub-Saharan Africa and the Chinese states are a few I remember.

Also this
>why do you think Shadowrunners are a thing? It's exactly so there ISN'T any open armed conflict between them

The whole point of the Corporate Court is that it was founded when BMW waged open war with Keruba, and it turns out that's bad for business. So wars between corps are regulated by peer pressure; step out of line, and the rest of the megas will turn on you and cut you to ribbons. So Aztechnology can wage war against Amazonia, and Horizon can broadcast fluff pieces about the brave Amazonians fighting against oppression and ship a few hundred thousand rifles to a middleman who may or may not have connections in Amazonia, but Horizon and Aztechnology won't go to war.

>Also don't you need to buy new gel packs every time you get shot?
Only when they're punctured, aka you take physical damage.

Hell, they're kinda mentioned in the 5e core. Just like for a line or two, but they're mentioned.

I'd still go with a fully legal bank account for any SIN I'd use as a long term/secure hider.

The 'important' SIN checks are the validity ones. Background data is part of it, but honestly the only cause of lack of recent purchases should be that's the first explanation for what happens on a tie.

The most common check (and one I ignore because it's not going realistically to matter unless you're using a rating 1) is when entering corp held places. Fortunately, most places spring for cheap-ass scans at the entrance, so as long as you're not actively trying to hide from a crime you committed, I just let it pass.

And even non-corp places do it, I just, again, ignore the low chance of it finding anything for most cases. It just becomes putative dice rolling when you're not trying to use the SIN to hide.

They have a few uses for the infiltrator that doesn't want to risk being seen with a commlink, but for actual decking purposes, you'd need to have the skills and passes to do good AR decking, or having to switch modes around a lot. (Or have a drone that can do it for you.)

You don't, but it's probably going to be a bonus to people looking for you until you replace the busted ones.

ONLY IF THE DAMAGE GETS THROUGH! PLUS YOU CAN COUNTER THAT BY HAVING A HIGH BOD! SO PUMP UR LIMP BODY WITH ROIDS AND WARE AND GO OUT THERE AND TACKLE A COP CAR!

>If you want to see what places are leaking gas mains waiting for a spark, WAR! has several in the back of the book; the Balkans (because of course the fucking Balkans), sub-Saharan Africa and the Chinese states are a few I remember.
Truth be told, the Balkans and Africa are a given.

So only worth it for really heavy armor? What a coincidence, I'm in the market for heavy armor. Pity they have to be installed externally, because they're really fucking ugly.

THROW ON SOME DERMAL PLATING AND LET IT ALLLLL STACK!

Seeing how often bad fluff comes up in this thread, I figured I should at least offer to barf up a setting document I have for my own cyberpunk novel.
It ended up growing huge before I even wrote on the novel, but now I have enough pages written on the novel itself that I don't have to keep the document close to my chest because of Deviantart syndrome.
Of course, this is assuming you want 218 pages of setting notes, megacorps, products, cities, technology, geopolitical speculation, fluff and God knows what, interspersed with some old attempts to make it into a roleplaying system.

It goes without saying that it's up for use, reuse and abuse in your own games - I'm not going to use more than half of that in any even remotely readable novel, so it would be a waste to sperg out if people use it for their own games and even cut it up a bit.

Just wondering, if you had to create a cursed, sentient weapon, what would you give it aside from or in addition to "weapon personality"?

>inb4 "Auschwitz killing shiv"

I never understood the dragon-fucking fetish, but fucking hell Dragonfall makes it hard to not wish to have loving and fulfilling sex in the missionary position with Feuerschwinge.

>made from iron walking stick Fuhrer himself threw away when it broke while he was visiting the establishment

>I never understood the dragon-fucking fetish
it goes both ways

This shit's good, but really any executioner's weapon would fit the bill.

CGL beat you to it. Fucking WAR!

Blokhin's execution pistol?

So is Detroit still a shithole in the Sixth World (at least, any more so than the rest of the world)?

I suppose, if guns are viable to become cursed, sentient weapons.

IIRC no, it's the HQ of ARES

It's the headquarters of Ares, so no. There's large wageslave areas and the slums are relatively small. Apparently they switched around a couple of irl neighbourhoods in terms of which are nice and which are shit, but only a local would know.

>market value: 10,000 nuyen
Bullshit, it's got to have 5 times that price for the historical value alone!

When is a Magician better than a Mystic Adept?
While building what I originally thought was going to be a Magician, I find myself gravitating more towards spells like Decrease/Increase Attribute and Increase Reflexes. However, I still want to be able to do very well with spirit summoning, as well as illusion/utility spells.
Am I better off staying full Magician, or should I make the switch?

Magician is better early-mid game, mystic adept gets ahead later in the game. The thing is, characters/games don't usually last that long.

If you have Karmagen and Sum-to-ten as available character options, how much extra karma does karmagen need to match up against sum-to-ten?

It lives. Somehow.

>Sprite builder never ever

Just use Sum-to-ten it's objectively better

>scrooge mcduck inspired incestion
I do believe it was Paprika, you faggot.

Considering that my next character will be a Petnomancer, it's next in line. I kind of regret not having started with it since its scope is smaller.

Some people like having complete freedom in how their resources are allocated, user.

>incestion
is that the porn parody of it?

And no, there is a scrooge mcduck comic where he's sleeping and the beagle boys invade his dreams using a special machine to either get him to reveal his deepest secret or get him to transfer all of his money, I can't remember

AAND found it
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dream_of_a_Lifetime
>The Dream of a Lifetime is a 2002 Donald Duck comic by Don Rosa. It appeared in the May 2004 issue of the Scrooge McDuck comic book (Uncle Scrooge #329).[1] It is famous for sharing many similarities with the blockbuster Christopher Nolan film Inception, which was released eight years later in 2010.[2]

The latter is very true. Maybe a little too true. How much later is later game? We're starting at 1000 karma.

What are some nice cyberware and bioware things to have outside of initiative boosters, body/armour boosters and agi/str boosters as a street sam?

Why the fuck would that redskin be inside the van behind the box like that

Vision and hearing enhancements. You can't kill what you can't see. If you're into going full auto, you'll want a cyberarm gyromount.

Have some way for it to simsense what the victims feel straight back to you. Everytime it kills it feels like you're dying. Get addicted to the btl sensation and driven to murder suicide.

In theory a sprite builder should be able to use the same architecture, since in practical terms they're just spirits that have different skills and powers. That's how Chummer handles them anyway.
Difficult to say, in terms of pure karma efficiency sum-to-ten can work out to between 800 and 1000 karma, but those calculations were before it was RAW that you got contacts and knowledge skills for free with point buy.
>Starting at 1000 karma
Wut

I know, it's a lot. But with that said, would a Mystic Adapt build be more advantageous?

Probably going to go longarms with a heavy pistol. Hoping an EBR will be a good enough substitute for an automatic, when its needed

There are 2 fully automatic shotguns in Run&Gun, just so you know. One of them's even chargen legal. Don't forget to deck them out with Gas Vent 3 and Shockpads either way.

I'm not sure, you could build the character both ways and see which is better.

Do you have any recommendations for attribute spending at least? How much is too much Karma to pump into stats and such like that?

Depends on whether you're allowed to initiate during chargen with that extra karma and how many other rules you're allowed to break.