Shadowrun General - /srg/

It get the cosmic themeing, but im talking about the visuals. Humanoid? Gaseous? Ethereal?

Evo has some problems to sort out on Mars first.

Its got anarchists in it? But really most Shadowrunners are just professionals who put their politics and morals aside for the job.

I was just using Mars as an example. Maybe there's a giant space station, Lunar colonies, a new tech race, etc.

people keep saying that shadowrun is inherently anarchist and i said that mercenaries who work for corporations aren't anarchists

You're both retards. They're saying the setting is anarchist because its cyberpunk. You're saying Shadowrunners are mercs. You're arguing past each other and you're both right. Anarchy is the reigning political system in places like feral cities, lawlessness is an inherent part of places like the barrens, but Runners usually only give a shit if they're being paid.

Of course thats not saying there cant be anarchist runners. But hooders like that dont usually last long.Or they end up false flagging the UCAS into destroying the Zurich Orbital and plunging the entire world into anarchy like in that one storytime.

>Or they end up false flagging the UCAS into destroying the Zurich Orbital and plunging the entire world into anarchy like in that one storytime.
what

adamultraberg.com/post/92414625742/the-best-gaming-story-i-have-ever-read
>anarchist decker and his team go up into space to wrangle a rogue AI
>they team up and pull some shit to make the UCAS think ZO has gone rogue and blow it out of the sky

>Or they end up false flagging the UCAS into destroying the Zurich Orbital and plunging the entire world into anarchy like in that one storytime.
Only when the GM uses kid gloves in responding with ZO security.

Is this the part where we get into an argument over whether the obviously pink mohawk game could happen in canon? Because I am not autistic enough to deal with that

I'm being handed the GM cap in my group and there's one area I definitely want to do differently than the previous GM. We had a fixer named Mr. Bright who was the most bland person ever. He was analogous to a video game shopkeeper, just standing in his corner doing nothing until the players interact with him and then resuming his activity of nothing after the players leave. Mr. Bright is a glorified vending machine.

My question is, how do I roleplay a proper Fixer? Or just tell me about your Fixer.

>how do I roleplay a proper Fixer?
Pimp, drug dealer, and rockstar's agent rolled together.

>
Tell everyone to look at the PACKs at the end of Run Faster; they're idiot-proof packages of gear, with lots of tailored options for different archetypes and flavours.

Everyone should at a minimum buy one of the Equipment PACKs (three options, from 4k¥ to 20k¥, as budgets allow) to get basic runner gear. Add a lifestyle and a gun and they're good to go.

Come up with something, anything interesting, no matter how small it is, then start from there. Our group designed our fixer together in session 0. It started with us deciding where they'd be meeting.
>a bar
Okay. Cliche but it works. Are they an employee or owner? whats the name of the bar?
>Diz-Busters Bar. Owner
One of our players is a big BOC fan and we thought it sounded pretty fucking good. But then came the question of why is it named after a BOC song?
>Because they're a distant relative of one of the members
And so was born Marissa Pearlman, owner of Diz-Buster's, our Fixer and grand-niece of Sandy Pearlman. Our first run for her was a lostech expedition looking to grab as much of the bands music catalogue that still existed. From that her personality was developed.

It probably helped that the player who suggest Diz-Buster made a music loving decker and they hit it off.

Can you explain? was meant for you, but I mis-clicked. I'm not tits-deep in the lore just yet, so all I know is that Evo has a colony there, and there's some ominous shit strewn across the surface.

Hey Chummers, Hugh Hefner is dead. In his honor, how would you design a run against/for/through Playboy/The Playboy Mansion?

Headcases took over the Gagarin Mars Base, and are using it as a staging ground for the plan to go into deep space. Run and Gun has a bunch of info on the current situation in space; lots of stations at Lagrange points for monitoring, research, and microgravity manufacturing.

There are just few shadowruns there because it is taking things to the max. There's corporate espionage, and there's blowing up a multi-billion dollar facility and leaving debris in orbit that makes the area impassable for decades until it disperses. Not to mention the difficulty of actually getting runners into orbit. You get runs at ground level against launch facilities, you get extracting rocket scientists, you might even get moving against Zurich-Orbital Gemeinschaft Bank assets, but the rewards for shadowrunning in space are almost always not worth the costs.

Not to mention how assfucked the Awakened members of your team are.

>implying I let manafuckers on my team

I didn't get steamers full of FABIII because I like the smell of petri dishes.

The picture just reminded me of something I wanted to ask: are there any recoil reducing adept powers ? I'd like to try making a gun adept with a minigun.

So would a splat set 25-50 years into the future where space travel/stations/colonies are far more common be reasonable?

And does magic straight-up not work in space? Is it cause it's off Earth?

Extraction for a talented, popular, or ludicrously attractive bunnies (or possibly inserting them from a rival faction). Sabotage publishing facilities, shooting locations, or the mansion itself. Hack into the Mansion's security during a gala or party to obtain paydata on wealthy visitors.

Theres no mana in space so magic doesnt work in space.

It's cause there's no significant life to generate a manasphere, so you have huge background count penalties.

Ah, thanks. I'm thinking of writing some stuff out regardless and see how it turns out. If it's any good, I'll share it.

We don't, but I was hoping some severe auts would oblige.

Literally just play Eclipse Phase.

I ask myself a few questions when I design NPCs

The usual "Who are they, what do they do."

Then I ask myself: Why did they become a fixer, why did they want to be associated with shadowrunners. What happened to make them become fixers, how did they get the rep ?

What's their goal with the current group ? Do they like them ? Do they really want to find a new group ? If so why are they sticking to them ?

I try to give fixers a place or a base of operations so my players don't always just call them up. Give them a reason to be there in person.

Have you ever made a 'base' for your runners, kinda like how Dragonfall and Hong Kong do it?

Eh. I enjoy the Shadowrun universe more, and I think the potential for runner hijinkcs would be more entertaining than battling existential threats.

Corporations are already on Mars, have colonies on the Moon, rent out space pods to even the lower rated corps with zero interest in space technology, have enough stations in orbit of Earth and the Moon that it's viable for a significant percentage of space population to be scavengers for pre-crash artefacts and spy-sifters of corporate junk.

'Space populations' has been a relevant sixth world term since the 20s, and this has been viable for a book since the 60s.

So should I even bother writing stuff up? I just thought it'd be interesting to explore and extrapolate on a (mostly) untouched setting of the Shadowrun universe.

From what I've seen (and for the reasons given in this thread), it seems like most campaigns don't touch space.

Depends on whether you feel like digging through 3e to add something to it, or starting fresh.

As for locations, I was thinking of adding stuff like Martian and Lunar colonies (both Corporate and National), a few huge, lawless mining colonies in the Asteroid Belt (like Ceres from The Expanse), a space elevator, and a giant station that serves as the staging point for all of this (basically the Seattle of this splat).

For equipment, it'd be cool to have some new guns (mostly upgraded laser/mag tech), intercept ships for raiding shipping lanes, rovers, some dedicated EVA equipment/armor.

No solid plot threads yet, but I was thinking a conspiracy revolving around the Corporations terraforming and colonization of Mars would be cool.

I let the players come up with their own hideouts. In our last campaign, they had "The Garden," which was a warehouse in Puyallup they had modded up with solar panels and security bots. From the outside it was a derelict hellhole, but inside they had aquaculture and greenhouses that they used to grow everything from organic carrots to deepweed. That was their "house."
They found a disused storm drain/maintenance tunnel out in the ash wastes of Redmond. A little touching up and it became their favorite bolthole and place to hold extracted corporate types while Mr. Johnson handled his end of things.
And finally, they had an automotive/machine shop way up in Everett where they worked on their rides and their secret projects.
All these were places the characters decided they wanted, and invested their nuyen in. It made them invest in the game, and they even started doing stuff for their neighbors, to "keep the neighborhood friendly."

>What are your favorite and least favorite ways cyberpunk mirrors the modern world?
I like the way that it does not do that at all because the genre was to mirror the late cold war.

My first fixer my GM gave us was a Vory affiliated guy who ran a club where we could meet and generally got us good job, though owed several rather powerful people some favors, so the runs got a little sketchier when they wanted something. But then again, shadowrunning is always sketchy, so, you know, par for the course. He's generally a nice guy, though tough, and somewhat protective of his family. He had contacts and connections from old friend from his Vory days and managed to stay out of the Vory by gaining enough power and granting enough favors to keep it workable.

A good fixer should look to take care of their runners or risk losing them to some better offers, or be stuck with shitty runners. Or have some sort of hold over them, or unbreakable personal tie or something. And plenty of contacts and good negotiating skill. Make them memorable too, with a life and such outside of being your fixer.

Semi-new, haven't play much of anything when it comes to deckers. How hard can you mess with someone? I know you can fry brains, but if they've got enough chrome, can you *really* mess with them?

How much initiative do you need to reliably get 3 passes for a combat character? Is 12+4D6 sufficient or should I take a point off STR and put it in REA to make it 13?

It's the difference between a 94.6% chance of getting at least 21 and a 97.3% chance.

So worth it then. Only had 4 strength for the recoil bonus and physical limit increase. Going fast seems much more important.

just don't play 5th

>ask a question about a game system
>'hurr just dont play game system'
You and people like you are fucking scumbags and I hope you get aids.

Problem is it's really hard to get aids if you're not a fag
If you would've asked a coherent question in the first case you could've gotten a real answer, but based off your question you seemed to be better fit playing 4th edition

>reliably get 3 passes
This is pretty meaningless in 5th edition, at least without defining reliably first. If you had defined reliably at all, you'd have something to work with. As it is, playing 4th edition would suit you much better, since initiative passes are clearly defined without any roll.

You can, although it's autistic and you shouldn't

I need to create an adept who excels in dispatching magical threats via counter spelling and potentially other things, any advice?

mysad

Why would they need to be chromed? Control Thoughts and Quickening is all you need.

This is the most amazing thing I've ever heard of

If only I could afford 5+ contacts

Is a gold docwagon contract worth the cost at chargen?

and how would I get more contacts in chargen? Spending karma?

>Is a gold docwagon contract worth the cost at chargen?
Depends.
How often will you take jobs against AA+ Corps?
How dangerous are your enemies?
How much damage can you resist?

>How often will you take jobs against AA+ Corps?
>How dangerous are your enemies?
I have no idea yet

>how much damage can you resist
10 physical boxes, 11 stun

Thing that's important to consider is, that DocWagon respects Extraterritoriality.
So if you are on such space (like AA corps, AAA corps and their extraterritorial subsidaries) then DW will drive to them and then wait outside the borders. If you are only a meter from the border you still have to crawl the meter before they help you.

So if you are running against those there are better ways to keep safe. If not, then it's okay.

ah, I don't really need that extra point of reaction

The friends in high places quality also helps, gives you a potentially very powerful sugar-daddy

An important thing to consider is this is not clear in any way, and RAI it seems to be quite the opposite, that DocWagon will come and save you regardless of circumstances. Ask the GM, DocWagon RAI seems to be very much intended to attempt save you in all but the most far-fetched of circumstances. If your GM is a retard from here, you're probably boosting cars or some retarded bullshit instead.

what kind of contact would be able to hook someone up with something like backstage passes, a Fixer?

Journalists

Don't know if they changed it for 5e, but 4e made it pretty clear
>DocWagon will not respond to calls on extraterritorial government
>or corporate property without permission from the controlling authority.
SR4A, p337

It's clear, but permission is never defined, which is why you need to ask your GM. They might ask for each person individually at the time of entrance, they might have blanket permission with a corp, they might ask to help with a firefight (aka corp sec goes down and docwagon saves them and you), etc. It's very unclear and there are a bunch of ways to interpret it, so ask your GM. End of discussion.

And just looked it up: It's the same:
>Doc Wagon does not respond to calls on extrater-
>ritorial government or corporate property without per-
>mission from the controlling authority.
SR5 CRB, p450

Thing is, why would such a corp allow DW to extract a wounded assailant? and any corp with ET should have enough medical care that they don't need DW

>why would a corp outsource something?
Way outside the scope of this. Short answer is money, and DW saves corp lives too. Again, refer to 'permission' is way to vague to be discussed with literally anyone except for your GM if you're a player.

>Short answer is money, and DW saves corp lives too
Why money? The corp doesn't get any money if it lets them enter.
And just because they denied access to one person doesn't mean they have to deny it for everyone. You can totally have them deny entry when they want to extract an assailant but allow entry when it's a normal customer, visitor or corp member who needs medical attention

You're too dull to continue this on your own clearly, so just google it to see the numerous other discussions that spell out the reasons.

The Question was perfectly clear to anyone sufficiently familiar with 5e (i.e. those qualified to answer see ). Furthermore people building characters will usually have system and build method dictated to them by the GM, so they can not just change systems, and insisting on such would make them that guy. So is correct, your response was cancer.

And some corps will work on a case by case basis and some will have a blanket wave through policy. The thing you don't seem to grasp is that shadowrunners exist because the corps allow them to exist, if they really wanted to stamp them out they could. But they don't because they mostly view runners and runs perpetrated against them as a cost of doing business, it's just how things are done.To avoid running afoul of the corporate court, corps carry out their shadow conflicts through runner proxies. It's not personal for they most part and if a runner is able to leave alive it doesn't matter too much, especially if they were forced to scrub the mission in the process.

>gives you a potentially very powerful sugar-daddy
Several of them, probably. With Charisma*4 points for Contacts, you've either got Charisma 4 or less or it's probably going to be more than one.

The problem with space isn't that there's a lack of content - there are tons of books with fluff and mechanics for space-related hijinks.

The problem with space is that magic doesn't work there, full stop.

So, any crew with a mage will never go to space. It just won't happen. So nobody goes to space.

One of the themes and details of Shadowrunners was always that they tended to be people with political or ideological leanings, not just professional mercenaries.

People in tight with anarchist policlubs in Berlin, taking one corporation's money while hurting another, sticking it to both in the process. People whose family members got killed by dirty cops, so now they're killing two birds with one stone by getting paid to drop badges.

People whose family members went missing, so they funnel half of their run rewards into trying to track them down, no matter the cost, even if it means storming into a megacorporate prison with a hundred shadowrunners all hired for the job of a lifetime. People just trying to provide for their community any way that they can - it's not like anyone else is going to look out for a bunch of SINless orks, right, omae?

Professional, cold runners, who only give a shit about getting paid at the end of the day? They're the exception. Maybe they're the ideal shadowrunner, but they certainly aren't the norm. It's not just the setting itself that's full of anarchy, the runners are supposed to be part and parcel with all of that political punk shit. It's fine if they aren't - if they're the professional badasses that runners strive to be - but that's not normal.

>My question is, how do I roleplay a proper Fixer?
Depends on the Fixer. A Fixer is literally just a middleman, a networker. They're someone who introduces someone to Johnsons, or drug dealers, or street docs - whatever. They're the person who gets a foot in the door on all your other Contacts.

And in return, they usually get a finder's fee for bringing in a new client.

So, when your Fixer introduces you to someone with an Ares job? It's because the Fixer knew someone who handles dirty work for one or more people in Ares, and passed it along to hiring some professionals instead of handling it personally. When your Fixer introduces you to someone with a smuggling job? It's probably because the arms dealer he knows passed along a juicy rumor that a smuggler gang he's worked with before were looking for some extra muscle.

That kind of thing.

Fixers are rarely just 'Fixers.' They usually have a specific type of clientele that they tend to associate with, based on their backgrounds. In no particular order, some of my Fixers have been:

>someone who became a Fixer after going to some posh university in Hong Kong, uses the contacts made there and networked after to get corporate surveillance, blackmail, and other 'office politics' jobs

>an Awakened monk with feelers out in various Awakened communities who tends to grab jobs relating to curses, spirits, paracritters, cults, and other Awakened hijinks; runs tend to be light on nuyen, but big on mystical rewards

>a Barrens kingpin who managed to unite a half-dozen warring gangs, and is constantly kicking dirty-but-profitable work our way, usually relating to smoothing out internal politics, dealing with traitors, providing extra muscle, or hitting external entities

>a cynical old chief of police who had the crew run ops against criminal outfits who were too well-connected for the normal cops to handle, and then paid us using cash, drugs, and other valuables seized at the scene

>are there any recoil reducing adept powers ?
Anything that boosts your Strength gives you additional RC at 4, 7, and 10 Strength. That, and dice pool bonuses. I know you might not like to think of them this way, but getting a +3 to your dice pool does offset the -3 from Recoil. You get what I'm saying?

Once you've hacked full access to a piece of cybernetics, you can issue Commands to do anything in its normal range of operation.

Make an auto-injector dump all 6 of its held doses of Jazz into their bloodstream simultaneously? Sure. Command a Cyberarm to extend its Spur and then stab the fool right in the face? Definitely (though Remote Control requires you to roll your own dice for something like that). Brick their cybereyes, leaving them blind? Feel free.

The problem with all of those, though, is that it takes long enough to do any of those things that you're better off just shooting them, and the mechanics themselves are unfun.

>So worth it then.
Being 2.7% more likely to get 3 IP is worth losing 1 RC and 1 Physical Limit to you?

Can Ruthenium Coating mimic the effects of Electrochromatic?

I've always wanted to play an Adept rocking Astral Haze as a sort of anti-magic crusader, but I've never taken the time to put a build together for it.

It would be cheaper to buy that 4th strength point than that 5th reaction point.

Buying Attributes with Karma is so expensive that you should never both.

Nope
Have to go cyber for that one
Gyros and Foot Anchor are the shit

Oi, I need opinions on a thing.

Page 368 lists qualities that confer Notoriety when you take them. In the case of qualities like Gremlins that have multiple levels, do you receive a notoriety penalty for each level of the quality? For qualities that can be taken multiple times (like Addiction), does the penalty apply each time, or is it one and done? If you remove the quality in play, does your Notoriety drop?

Do gyros stack if you have two cyberarms?

Man, that's too far-reaching and too unexplained for us to weigh in on. You're going to have to ask some faggot at CGL and hope you get an answer someday.

absolute pure RAW?
the text refers to "minus one level per negative quality" meaning it is only for the quality regardless of level
Also the fact you can not earn notoriety point for thing that you have already done.
So if you kill a civ or cross a Johnson that is a black mark regardless of how much time you have done it. And if you are bad with machines it would be a black mark regardless of how bad
Addiction is iffy thing that you make take it as new quality and get point of notoriety or refer to the rule about not getting points only one for a thing(which is more of in game thing) and If you are a junky you are a junky regardless of how much or how little.
This is my take on the rules

Reading it out now I think I forgot what I was typing half way through
Ah well

My SR players know nothing of subtlety or nuance. Sometimes they even question the usefulness of having a fake SIN if they're gonna end up making a new one in the next city they hop to after a murder-hobo spree. I mean, Pink-mohawking is fun, but I want to mix it up a little... I suppose I'm being a little too lenient, but it's still very early in the game.

They're also convinced they're going to stand a chance against the Red Samurai that are after them after seriously pissing off Renraku in their home turf in their collective backstory.

>They're also convinced they're going to stand a chance against the Red Samurai that are after them after seriously pissing off Renraku in their home turf in their collective backstory.
Even if they have a chance against the first batch of Red Samurai, Renraku will just keep doubling down every time they're humiliated. That's the thing with fighting a corp's heavy hitters. You might win the fight, but you officially just made it personal when you humiliated their special forces like that.

You don't want it to be personal.

That makes me want one of the players to come up with their own fake deaths or something. I wish they were as proactive to come up with crazy plans like that.

Well I don't see why not
If you are using two handed weapon ofcourse
Cyberlimbs are suboptimal enough for this to be allowed anyway

gyros are just turkish tacos mang