/srg/ Shadowrun General - Living in a toxic paradise edition

Shit player, but also can't be blamed to some extent.
The rules are a cluster fuck, most things aren't even explained in how the fuck they work and it's just not intuitive.
Maybe he even started to read them and just started to feel like an idiot for not understanding it.

Dopadrine for berserk, and Guts/Brass Balls makes you immune to any kind of fear.

Oh, good, Dopadrine is exactly what I need.

For me the problem with the Matrix is that it simulates access levels and security networks, which is just layers and layers of extra gameplay and locked doors that the rest of the group doesn't ever deal with. That's mainly why it becomes a chore. It doesn't matter that everything is wireless if you need to score marks on the master device before you can do anything. And even then your choices and scope of manipulation are so infinite as to be murky and ill-defined.

Hacking's main advantage over Magic is that it can affect meatspace outside of LOS (without needing a ritual). But this means that both hacker and GM need a greater amount of creativity and cooperation to make it relevant, which means more mechanics and hardcoded actions can't necessarily save it.

Thinking about it now, I feel like taking hacking down the path of magic or granularity is a mistake. Deckers have a lot of variables to deal with even before they get down to the procedural tests. 5e was a shitshow because while they tried to engage deckers in meatspace, they still introduced a lot of intermediary steps to getting those things done. And even then, those things that hackers can affect are usually quite small and specific, often too small to really matter.

Hacking: at once too big and too small. I have to think about this some more, I feel like something's coming on...

I'll ask him if he needs help parsing them/needs me to make calls on the ambiguous or non-functional parts of the Matrix rules. But if I ask him to again, and he still hasn't done it by next session, I'm probably going to ask him to leave the game. Sucks, since he's a friend, but I don't want to have to suggest a course of action for everything he does because he never bothered to learn what he could do.

Well, fundametally speaking, hacking should open doors for you, not present you a set of closed ones.
Being magical already opens you for all kinds of shenanigans for you.
And being really vybered up leaves the door with the vote of staying closed but it vote doesn't matter on the subject of chrome troll
Hacking is "look at all the cool stuff you don't get to do and the rest of the team doesn't even care about."

What i mean with "Megaman battle network" is that you basically buy programms like weapons, there are some damage types with effects that are strikingly similar to elementar damage and any device as or more complex as an AI you get to punch into virtual coma and then your AI can do anything with the device the owner AI could.
Maybe have the AI brin the attributes and the Hacker bring the skills to the matrix fight and some secondary skills that could be usefull but not needed in a matrix fight/action, that only run with hacker attribute+skill.

This is of course just a rough concept.

...

I don't understand the control device action. If the device has a skill related to it you don't get to defend with firewall + willpower?

I like the idea that the hacker can leave a "passive" effect on the local grid using their Persona's Matrix attributes. But again we're running into that problem of hitting up individual devices. Even if you target the local master device, trying to simulate a PAN/WAN just runs into all those mini-dungeon minutiae again.

If you want to directly link it to cybercombat, have it so that cybercombat isn't just a fight to the death but two or more opposing Personas fighting for control of the local grid. Kind of like how in BN you have that grid to work with, you can place buffs, debuffs, traps, and other residual effects that not only affect VR but also manifest as group or area effects in meatspace. The number/strength of these effects a Persona can maintain is linked to its condition monitor, so you can choose to go mano-a-mano or just purge the individual effects.

So we're not even bothering with devices or the mesh in this version of the Matrix. It's basically Astral Space that deckers lightly dip into to tweak or command their Personas. Kind of like having Stands, maybe. A technoshaman. Imagine having your tacnet, RCC, and overwatch rolled up into one package out of the box.

Don't tell me that decker stands wouldn't be the raddest shit that happened to SR in a while.

Maybe i would just flat out ignore devices that don't posses reasonable processing power/ importance. Smarguns need to have a connection to your commlink, which is now basically does all the heavy lifting for most of the cool gubbins.
without being liked to your commlink the functions are severly limited to straight out useless.
Hackstack is of course a problem, where you just buy a dozen commlinks and have your stand army squash everything.
One way would be to somehow link a limited resource to your commlink, like your brain, which would also serve the handwaving why smarter people are better with matrix stuff, so only one commlik per brain.

It always struck me as confusing that Shadowrun had a fine model for how hacking could work.

Astral Space.

It's a secondary layer where you can only affect things if you are on it, and it can only affect you if it directly manifests and the target has "mana". It even has rules for scouting ahead of time, its ever present, and to access it you have to go unconscious.

The Matrix should work the same way, but just... doesn't. And I wish I knew why, its a fine base for basing things on. Instead of "Mana" the determinant is "Connectivity" or "Data", and a hacker would just "trawls through" local total devices to achieve an effect similar to astral projection, seeing through cameras, pressure sensors, environmental scanners and so on. Shadowrun has all this tech in the walls everywhere. How is the hacker listening in on this conversation? Hacker is using the sensors of the coffee machine and the firealarm system and the pressure sensitivity on the rug. Why do you want a counter hacker? To avoid that scenario.

Then specific manipulations effects could only target electronically enabled devices, and you'd manipulate the environment by targetting the specific device and giving it a command / spoof / alter priviledges. Spiders and drones watch your data trail and scoop you out of the system because they don't want you to fuck over the building by messing with the autoguns or the drone cleaning schedule.

Instead its all nodes and restrictive specificity and this fucking mess that should just be a little more abstract.

Also, being able to just buy your hacking persona with it's own stats would allow everybody else to join the Decker into the Cyber battle. Which would turn "decker time" into "matrix fun time" and all you need is a juiced up datajack, a commlink and some matrix skills of your choice and the basic "totally not a matrix analogue to weapons and gear" programms.

>And never, ever deal with !yekka
???
What the fuck are you talking about, chummer?
ALWAYS deal with yekka

My GM took the "how to run a game" chapter of 5e to heart.
How do i slap that shit out of him ?

I DON'T KNOW.
Send help!

THAT'S WHY I'M ASKING.
Seriously that shit is cancer in written form.

Ask him to read the "How to GM" chapters from previous Editions?
Tell him that the Payouts in the book will lead to Awakened advancing like a speeding bullet while mundanes can hope to not become broke?

This artwork is so fucking bad

He said he tried earlier editions but those where too confusing for him.
Also railroading, so much railroading.
And before we accept any run we DO NOT GET ANY INTEL, and if we say we can just go away if we do not like the run he goes all "OOooohhH you entered a contract with the Johnson"
Which is obviously turbo bullshit delux grade.

On that note, how much karma and nuyen do you recommend giving runners per run? My runners are on their fourth or fifth run, and I'm giving them about 5-7k nuyen and 5-7 karma per run.

>He said he tried earlier editions but those where too confusing for him.
>railroading
>DO NOT GET ANY INTEL
>OOooohhH you entered a contract with the Johnson
Kill him

Depends on how much time the runs take and how often they run.
Generally, your runners should in a month make enough to pay their lifestyles, cover repairs and bribes and still be able to afford SOME upgrades. You can also (instead of increasing the pay) offer non-money payments, such as treatments in clinics, drugs, ware, guns, vehicles and similar.

>Kill him
Seems a bit drastic, but if the current johnson turns out to be a fucking soyboy again i will certainly end that Johnson..

>should in a month make enough to pay their lifestyles
On that note, it's worth mentioning that my runners completed all of those runs in under 20 days (and that includes about 5 days were I tried to force downtime roleplaying by saying "your fixers don't have a job for you. What do you do today?"), because they all rolled no-lives who spend all their down time cleaning weapons and working out. Most of the runs I give then the complete the same night it was given to them, unless it's a multistage process.

>Most of the runs I give then the complete the same night it was given to them
>I'm giving them about 5-7k nuyen and 5-7 karma per run.
I didn't even know it was possible to be stingier than the book.

Are they getting nothing but milk runs?

Just to show the progress
Karma wise, after 2 runs they have 10-14 Karma, enough for Awakened to initiate. They gain a higher MAG limit (not that important) and a metamagic (very important). This means that their powerset has noticeably increased. Especially for Adepts, who now have an PP more if they take the PP metamagic.
Meanwhile the Mundanes?They can increase an Attribute from 1 to 2, or buy a skill from 0 to 2, or from 2 to 3, or buy a few skills at 1

Nuyen wise, after 2 runs they have 10-14k nuyen. With a medium lifestyle that's 5000 nuyen gone already. If they have shot stuff or blown stuff up that's also less. If they have vehicles or drones that are shot up then that's also less. If they had to bribe someone that's also less. If they lose a fake SIN that's also less. So what are they left with? almost nothing, if at all
Meanwhile the awakened only pays for the lifestyle, SINs and maybe binding material. Which probably leaves him with 1k to 5k, which he can invest in foci that improves his abilities.

Our previous GM gave us 6000 each and around 6 karma, admittedly karma gain was more "per fucky situation we got out of during a roadtrip". The game was still cool, just not very mechanical advancement-based.

I literally came up with those numbers by taking the book's formula and increasing the base payout from 3k to 4k.

And they haven't been milkruns, but the players have been launching themselves into every run troll-first with minimal legwork, and completing many runs the same night there were given. Two of them have already had to burn edge to avoid death (although the second time may have been my fault. I underestimated spirits, but it's his fault for taking Bad Rep)

It sounds like you're saying karma gain is good, but nuyen should be higher?

I'm asking because I'm new to GMing this game, and didn't have the luxury of playing before I started, so I've got no reference. And on the above note, how do I make runs longer? The best idea I've come up with is force then to get one mcguffin to lead to another.

if they don't make at least 5000 each a run then you're fucking them over. 10,000 is a good incentivized.

>book formula
If you're following the 5e book formula properly and it gives you 4-7k per runner, then it's a milk run.

The multiplier is meant to apply to the entire total. So if the run hits even one condition on this table they get 6k each before negotiation. If they hit no other multipliers aside from one enemy getting 12 dice to shoot at them, then the formula gets you 9k each.

Like, to get under 6k they'd need to never face 3 times their number in enemies at once, not encounter any diepool greater than 7, not accomplish the task with impressive speed (despite finishing it in the same night as it was given?), and not risking exposure or contact with notable elements. That's practically the definition of a milk run; no risks, no hard fights, one-and-done and back in time for dinner.

It might be a good time to mention that they all dumped CHA. Should they be facing someone with a dicepool of 12 every run? I seem to be making enemies too chumpy or too strong.

And thanks for the advice, guys. I expect the next run to involve a megacorp by proxy, so they'll be a good excuse to up the play drastically, I think.

>It sounds like you're saying karma gain is good, but nuyen should be higher?
I'm saying that nuyen should be higher relative to karma rewards. Awakened need far less karma to advance than mundanes need nuyen to do so.
So either
>push up nuyen rewards
>lower Karma rewards
>give them payouts in objects
The last one is especially good since it solves three problems
>It incentivizes the players to finish the runs since the stuff they want will be given to them without paying extra for it
>it makes sense story wise. While Johnsons have expense accounts for that shit they'd rather not spend all of it. And if instead of giving you 6k they can give you something lying around worth similarly? They'll probably do it
>it still keeps awakened in normal pay grades. Because now you can just pay normal amounts for the awakened and give gear with a higher worth to the mundanes

>taking the book's formula and increasing the base payout from 3k to 4k.
user, the book's payment amounts are laughable
remember, an Adept pays 1PP to increase his Improved Reflexes from 1 to 2 and from 2 to 3
meanwhile the Sammy pays for the price difference alone 85k to improve his MBW from 1 to 2, 100k from 2 to 3, 110k to improve WR from 1 to 2 and 86k to improve it from 2 to 3. Not counting the implantation costs, the time it takes to acquire it, the Essence loss, which may necessitate buying it at Alpha or higher grade, etc.

>despite finishing it in the same night as it was given?

Eh, a courier job (go there, pick thing up, bring back) can easily be done within the day.

This chart was always bullshit to me.
It has all these payments depending on what runners run into, but neither the runners nor the johnson will know what the runners will run into at the time of determining the pay and accepting the job.

The table RELIES upon metagaming and retroactive storytelling.

So that's why we sometimes end up with simply more pay than we were promoised.
Also i'm

I'm not really trying to prescribe anything. Honestly the run reward tables are controversial themselves. If your group enjoys milk-runs, then go or it. I'm just trying to help you see that these missions may be on the easier side of the spectrum, which is completely fine if you enjoy playing that way. Or that you might not have been calculating the reward the way the books want you to, which is also fine if you prefer a different pace to your games.

My idea for milk run is locust spirits.

Paydata. Credsticks lying around. Gear in lockers, given as bribes or taken from enemies. A counter-offer from the opposition, a reward from someone you went out of your way to help, a corp exec who bribed his way to safety.
Grenades, drugs, reagents, foci, weapons, gear, 'ware, whatever. It doesn't have to be one payment decided at the Johnson meeting (or worse yet, over the Matrix in advance) that's then stuck slavishly to.
It's the reward for the run, not the payment from the Johnson.
Try a little harder before you give something shit. You can work not only around it, but with it.

The GM should have a reasonable idea of what the runners are going to run into on run. If the runners manage to avoid some of the pitfalls, so much the better.

okay, so what price does the J set?
And is this the amount they get or the amount they can possibly get?

>Runners fuck up, huge amount of security shows up
>now they magically have to get more money because reasons

If they avoid the pitfalls, they get less money.
To get ideal money, you should blunder into every one of the problems on that chart. Fight as many guards at a time as possible, get exposed in public, encounter many spirits, encounter many critters, stay and fight HTR for at least one round...

>The table RELIES upon metagaming and retroactive storytelling.

I've pictured it as an assumption of after-the-fact negotiations where the face is meant to complain or brag about how the run went, in an effort to squeeze money out of the johnson beyond what was initially offered. And that this kind of post-facto modification to pay is part of the standard formula, as opposed to having J set one price at the beginning which is the same price they get at the end.

Last I checked, payment negotiations were made before the run. If the runners manage to get the McGuffin without alerting HTR, they still get the full sum.

That just plays merry hell with all kinds of causality. And why should the johnson even believe you, or pay more for these things?

Payment negotiations DO go at the beginning of the run. However, the pay chart that determines how much you get paid is determined entirely by how much bullshit you ran into in the run, implying they are negotiated after the fact.

In conclusion, that chart is bullshit any way you slice it.

so the table just shows what is planned? So if the runners know the pay is low they can expect not to face any dangerous opposition?

You know what narrative is about?
It's not immersion-breaking or metagaming to adjust rewards based on the stakes or the challenges.
It's part of a completely normal tension curve to give rewards or have positive things happen to the main characters when things are going against them or when they've overcome a trial.
In fact, it's such a basic part of human storytelling and narrative that most players will expect to be rewarded if they have to go through something difficult, because there are simply very few stories or games where that doesn't happen.
If you care about "realism" to the point of ignoring basic narrative, even your Roll20 games are going to end right away.
Set the price a little bit low, then decide a margin you're willing to let the players have. They can bargain their way up to that point - if they manage to get a too-good-to-be-true deal through persistence or amazing rolls, have things go a bit further sideways later on to compensate.
Realism is all well and good, but what matters is the realism perceived by the players - and the most important thing is that there's a well-paced, interesting, rewarding narrative that's not too easy and not too hard.

>And why should the johnson even believe you, or pay more for these things?

Because if he still wants to pay us peanuts after we were forced to fight 16 gangers at once, then we'll donate his extraction target to the patrons of a barrens strip-bar.

It is, however, both immersion breaking and metagaming to have rewards explicitly be based on challenges run into, and not pre-agreed pay with perhaps some wiggle room after the fact.

Then I guess nobody gets paid?

He'll pay after he realizes what will happen if he doesn't. If he still doesn't, then everyone has some fun and goes home.

Can possesion spirits be affected by K-10 taken by their hosts?

I ma thinking about running the adventure with the rampaging troll adept on K-10, except said troll is not an ordinary troll but a dzoo-noo-qua in heavy milspec armour being possesed by great form toxic guardian spirit.

Yes and no. The Johnson will offer money in accordance with what he knows about the task he wants done, and that is if he's playing fair with the runners. That's what legwork is for.

But at the core, yes, Johnsons will put less money on the table for an easy job.

>literally everything about the character.
What the actual fuck man ?

May I recommend the "Contract Nullification Fee?"

20 to 40 kilos of the best high explosives you can get. 10-20 kilos of homemade bathtub napalm. Achieve this with gasoline and styrofoam. Get it all together, put it in a trunk of a stolen car, and ram it into the front door of that Johnson's building. Detonate that bitch and laugh.

so 20 HE-Grenades, 15 litres of gasoline and some styrofoam?
Simple enough.

user why

>Simple enough.
t. zero ranks in demolitions

probably the same reason I would throw a metal gear at some street scum raiding a warehouse for novacoke.

Because THE RUN GOES SIDEWAYS

Grenades are literally the best explosive in the game.

I don't understand.
Why would you do this instead of filling a car with ghouls and crashing it into a place?

Because the ghouls would die.

Our target is the johnson, not his entire neighborhood

I don't understand EVEN HARDER.

Dead ghouls wouldn't do any harm

And what the fuck have the johnsons neighbors done ?

Because the troll adept would be obliterated in first initiative pass.

Don't ghouls have enough regeneration to cover the initial crash?
And I'll tell you what they've done. They've been nice and juicy and vulnerable to ghoulification that could render this entire area uninhabitable for a period of time.

Why not cyber sam then?

You can get impressive amounts of armor just by armoring each cyberlimb.
Then you dress him into softweave milspec with elemental protection (nonconductivity and chemical seal obligatory, other elements optional), give him pain editor and magic resistance 4. If you wanna play dirty, give him astral hazing too, wizards love astral hazing.

You'll obviously need synaptic booster so there's gonna be some betaware, but the basic loadout I described already has 60+ armor, which is additionally protected from elements and also is pretty resistant to magic. Now you give him something heavy and collect the tears of your players.

For each session a run takes, about 2 Karma and 5000 Nuyen.

What would you folks reccomend would be the best edition to get for a complete newbie to shadowrun? Like, i've read some fluff and like the setting conceptually, but I don't want to fall into the trap of assuming the latest edition is "the best" or whatever.

The free introduction PDFS with super light rules.

From there on, 5e.
There is a metric fuckton of people around who can help you on the meh-tier editing, and the rules are the least shitty of all editions.
You could also try Anarchy. Its not fit for you if you can only play games where you optimise the shit out of everything (thats why /srg/ hates it), but if you can look past that, its pretty neat.
I'd run it if i wouldn't already have to manage 3 groups in meatspace + a boardgame-night

None of them are good for beginners.
I would recommend 2e
5e gives me migraine attacks.

>unironically recommending a shitty edition you only play due to nostalgia to a beginner.

You are both an asshole and an idiot.
Nobody should have to fuck around with those derpy damage-codes and retarded changing target-numbers that make sensible chance calculation a fucking nightmare on the fly and having literal pizzaruns, where having a decker in the group made single to double hour solo sessions mandatory.

Really, fuck you, thats how you scare newbies away from the setting.

>thats why /srg/ hates it
chummer, we don't hate it because it doesn't allow us to optimize (it still does)
we dislike it because it's not light. lightER, sure. But the amount cut out is not enough to justify not just taking 5e proper
It's like saving 50 meters on a 5km hike

Factually wrong.
Yes, its not a shitty turbo-light system, but it is MILES away from the convoluted behemoth that is Shadowrun (any edition), double so if you factor in the added growth through splatbooks.

>From there on, 5e.
>and the rules are the least shitty of all editions

tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=55158&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

This review is spot on. 5E also rapes the tone estabilished in previous editions with magical crystaline cyberlimbs, ressurection spells and shit.

4E = 2E (matter of taste) > 3E > 1E > animal feces > 5E

>unironically recommending 2e and 4e

Frank Trollman pls go.

>linking that alcoholic crybabie Frank "my ass is bleeding worse than a beheaded cow" trollman

>taking his "wawa, CGL hurt muh feels and i took it personally" rants seriously

Ahahahahahha
Opinion completely disregarded. You just destroyed all of your credibility, 2e user.
Like, permanently.
Frag off back to dumpshock or similiar holes where you can bath in nostalgia-clouded shit.

Listen here What this whole thing boils down to, Shadowrun is an awesome setting (recent developements are debatable) but the system behin is is a hot steamind turd.
Some turds might be smaller or stink less, but it's still a turd.

4E has initiative passes and doesn’t use silly priority build.

4e Has initiative AND ini passes combined.
Literally the worst out of both worlds.

>initiative passes being good
>thinking the retarded pointbuy of 4e was not total bullcrap

>(recent developements are debatable)

There were very debatable developments as early as 3E (Year of The Comet), but in 5E they really got out of hand so I hope 6E simply ignores them or outright retcons them out.

Is murder allowed in Urban Brawl matches, like, straight up? Or what are the rules?

>thinking the retarded pointbuy of 4e was not total bullcrap

It was way ahead of this shit. So was priority build in 2E and 3E.

>it was ahead of this shit

It was utter and top tier retarded. Just as priority or anything else that isn't karmagen (with upscaled amount of karma).
Which both 5e and 4e have/had as an option, you idiot.

>Which both 5e and 4e have/had as an option, you idiot.

Not on release, moron!

>on release

Irrelevant, since people who are asking for recs on an edition NOW aren't going to give a fuck about how it was the day it got printed, you strawmanning retard.

complete rules are in some old 2e Adventure.

There are restrictions on guns, certain cyberware is prohibited, its illegal to attack players who give up and certain other shit.
So while it is very well possible to kill somebody or die during the game, using the game as an excuse to definitely kill (not "put him down with the big ??? of him maybe surviving because the medic treats him") is a rather poor choice.

How is 5E better than previous editions?

I fail to see anything. The metaplot is dumber, the wizards are more OP, the limits exist because the devs are too dumb to porvent pornomancers by other means, the wireless bonuses are insulting, the technomancers are unplayable.