Shadowrun -- March 5 in Tsu

[Grim Ironjaw]

Now that the event's set up and players are expressing interest, I'd like to start laying the groundwork -- finding out how much experience you have with Shadowrun, who wants to play what type of character, your basic role-playing style, etc.

First, here's some basic info on SR quoted from another thread (and edited slightly).

Shadowrun (Saturday, March 5 in Tsu)

Background
The year is 2057, and the world has changed.
The return of magic to the world, the augmentation of the human body through cyberware, the evolution of the 'Matrix', the appearance of dragons and other beasts of legend, and natural and unnatural disasters resulting in famine and epidemics are just a few of the factors which have brought the changes about. Out of the abyss, megacorporations have emerged as the new superpowers, and when they need a job done by deniable assets, they turn to you, the Shadowrunners.

At the risk of oversimplifying, it's Cyberpunk meets fantasy. Menacing, treacherous, and a lot of fun.


Game Mechanics
Like Dark Heresy, Shadowrun deals in degrees of success. Dice rolls are success tests in which you roll multiple dice against a target number. The more successes you roll, the more convincing your con, the more penetrating your flechette round, or the more keen your perception.

For those of you who are familiar with the setting and rules, we'll be playing 4th Ed. game mechanics, but set a bit further back in time. I'm still undecided on whether to use the new augmented reality (AR) or stick with the older matrix. (In the past, with the matrix, I've always insisted on having deckers be NPCs to keep everyone involved in the game.)

A note about my GM-ing style and the game system
I emphasize drama, dialogue. If played to the letter, Shadowrun can become bogged down in rules, modifiers, and resistance tests. My version is slightly streamlined to keep as much emphasis as possible on role play and pace. It's also worth noting that unlike DnD, where a high-level fighter might single-handedly cleave through an entire army of goblins, weapons in Shadowrun really hurt. It's possible to take 'deadly' damage off one lucky shot from an untrained sprawl ganger. Fighting is often necessary, but reading the situation and acting creatively will take you further.

Player Slots

1. Rich
2. Pat
3. Vincent
4. <Moyashimaru in the afternoon?>
5. ...


I have a number of pre-generated characters we can use to save time. If anyone has their heart set on creating a character from scratch, let me know.

[Grim Ironjaw]

Here are some pre-generated characters. Let me know if any sound appealing:

EDIT: These are not strict character classes in the DnD sense, just directions the characters lean towards-- i.e., a mage could theoretically fire a panther cannon if he had the moxie.

From the book -- these can be tweaked a bit
EDIT: Added brief descriptions of each character.

Bounty hunter -- hunter par excellence, with troll strength and endurance.
Combat Mage -- subtlety is lost on this sadistic elf.
Covert ops specialist -- infiltration expert who can also bring a little heat.
Drone rigger -- controls roto- and doberman drones by thought.
Enforcer -- just like you'd expect from the name. +Troll
The 'Face' -- con artist extraordinare; this charismatic dwarf could even convince you to invest in his natto-mayonaise pizza shop.
Gunslinger adept -- magic channelled into augmenting physical abilities. Could star in a John Woo film if Shadowrunning career fails.
Occult investigator -- magical truth seeker.
Radical eco-shaman -- uses magic to protect the earth at any cost.
Sprawl ganger -- "Warriors! Come out and p-l-a-y!"
Street samurai -- traded human essence for the cyber to be a killing machine.
Street shaman -- draws power from a mentor spirit. Better conjurer than sorcerer.
Weapon specialist -- could make a lethal weapon from a pipe, toothpick and rubber band.

[Moyashimaru]

Street Samurai looks pretty sexy to me, but I've got some experience with being a street mage* (I think that was the class), so I could do that again.

*My spell checker flagged "mage". There, all better now.

[Grim Ironjaw]

Street Samurai looks pretty sexy to me, but I've got some experience with being a street mage* (I think that was the class), so I could do that again.

Gotcha. We can go either way.

[masaru20100]

Hi,

This is Vincent.

Among the many games I played such a long time ago, there was many of SR2. I also think I gmed a couple run myself. I also played many SR3 games. Since a couple years, I started playing less and it’s exceptionnaly true as I am in Japan. One year ago, I was in France and managed to go to a RPG convention, and among other games did a SR4 game and appreciated it. The GM was good, one of the player was a regular of her games, and a couple were new to SR. The thing that struck me more at the time was how older I felt (and was) to all those players (it was not the same for the other games I played at the convention).
I think the change to the Matrix was welcome to avoid the fact that the decker used to do its things too separatedly from the rest of the group. Many time the decker of the group just spent some time in the Matrix to search (or do other stuff) while the rest of the group did nothing else. Maybe the rest of the group should have done searches too (Contacts, etc.) but the matrix did take more times. It may have been a GMing problem, I don’t know, but it didn’t work really well. The new AR is really a good thing in my opinion. It doesn’t only affect the decker, the wireless Matrix and a couple other changes I think, because so many things are changed by AR. Even average Joe Cubicle is using AR constantly, unless in VR. I just recently saw that Infinity (the miniature game) had some sort of AR too.
Concerning style of our game back in the day, it was a mix of investigation and violence. I think violence meant things went bad but as a couple of players were focused on the fight part, it may have been because there was no other way to handle a couple things. Age may also have been a factor. Later games where probably a bit more focused on investigations. To me it didn’t felt like D&D in the future, at least not the way we played it.
I used to play deckers, riggers and mages. I may have played some combat focused characters but it’s not my thing. That doesn’t meant my character were not able to do something in combat but more that they were not combat focused.
I recently read the PDF of the core rulebooks I bought on drivethrurpg to help smooth this game and refresh a bit my memory. On drivethrurpg and shadowrun4.com, they also offer free SR quick start rule, that might be good to read for other players.
Reading the rule made me think of many characters (that happen often when I read a game), but one in particular interest me. So I’ve started to put a sort of rigger with some hacker support capabilities. I’ll play it if you think it’s fine.

[Grim Ironjaw]

Hi Vincent,

I've only got time for a quick reply but here goes...
It sounds like you've played much more than I have! Like you said, decking was always such a separate part of the game that we always 'outsourced' to NPC deckers to avoid the whole thing. In fact, you'll notice that I didn't list any decker/hacker/technomancer types in the sample characters above because I was planning on doing the same kind of outsourcing tomorrow.

For your character, how about focusing on the rigging, instead of the hacking?
Keep in mind that we'll be playing SR4 basic rules, but the setting is 2057. Still, why don't we say that the drones in the SR4 book are all available and you can control them per the SR4 rules.

One last thing: People should definitely check out the Quick Start Rules that you linked to, but please stop at page 14.

This is my last chance to check the site tonight, so I'll see you tomorrow!
If you've got any questions we can discuss them at UST in the morning.

[masaru20100]

From the Defense Cheat Sheet, I read that Dodge is only added when defending against melee (and added in any case when going full defense). Was it some mistake or some house rules? I also saw that damage below Armor where reduced Stun instead of Physical; which is rather new to me.
A way to try to reduce combat duration would be to try to reduce rolls by not doing resistance rolls but using it in a way to reduce the attacker dice pool or hits. For example having a 3 dice mean 1 hit kind of thing, like if the defending character has 9 reaction, it means 3 hits removed from the attacker. Those can be calculated in advance (like melee dodge, normal dodge, full melee dodge, full normal dodge) except that penalties should reduce those pools. Problem with this is that it creates some kind of plateau, because you need 3 dice of something to get a 1 hit reduction, except with injuries penalties.

The books mentions dumpshock.com when pointing to online ressources and I found the archetypes (including Luigi) in this thread. I think they are more viable characters than the sample ones, and aren’t broken as the stuff mention in that thread.

Anyway I had a very good time playing, thanks everyone for that.

[Grim Ironjaw]

Thanks to you fellas for coming out and giving your all in that marathon session! I had a lot of fun, and I hope you did, too.

This was my first time running 4th edition (with its major rules changes from previous editions), and only my second time running Shadowrun at all in the past 10 years, so I made the odd mistake here or there. Still, I don't think any of it killed the game. But I DID go home and think of ways to speed things up, especially the combat.

@Vincent: Those are some good suggestions, and in fact a few are similar to what I was thinking.

From the Defense Cheat Sheet, I read that Dodge is only added when defending against melee (and added in any case when going full defense). Was it some mistake or some house rules?

Vs. Ranged/Firearms:
Use only reaction.
If using Full Defense, use reaction+dodge.

It's possible I made mistakes with this, not house rules or anything.


--having browser trouble. will continue in another post...

[Grim Ironjaw]

...continued from previous post

I also saw that damage below Armor where reduced Stun instead of Physical; which is rather new to me.

This is a new rule in 4e. I tried to be aware of this as we were fighting but it was hard to keep track of with all that was going on. Having used it once, I don't think it's a necessary rule; in fact, the rule book even suggests that it could be dropped in favor of simplicity.

A way to try to reduce combat duration would be to try to reduce rolls by not doing resistance rolls but using it in a way to reduce the attacker dice pool or hits. For example having a 3 dice mean 1 hit kind of thing, like if the defending character has 9 reaction, it means 3 hits removed from the attacker. Those can be calculated in advance (like melee dodge, normal dodge, full melee dodge, full normal dodge) except that penalties should reduce those pools. Problem with this is that it creates some kind of plateau, because you need 3 dice of something to get a 1 hit reduction, except with injuries penalties.

I was thinking of this earlier today, actually.
Calculate all values at the beginning of the session, kind of like DnD armor class, and apply them in combat. In most cases, the only rolls that would be made in combat would be:
1) Initiative -- but, roll it for say 5 turns at a time and just note the values on paper. Keeps the flow going from combat turn to combat turn without having to stop to roll initiative each time. Just adjust values if someone takes damage.
2) Attack rolls -- the drama is a lot of the fun.
3) Rolls where edge is applied. (Attack or defense)

As for the plateau issue, it's a bit of a problem, but similar things exist in other games. It's a tradeoff I'm willing to make to keep combat flowing.

The books mentions dumpshock.com when pointing to online ressources and I found the archetypes (including Luigi) in this thread. I think they are more viable characters than the sample ones, and aren’t broken as the stuff mention in that thread.

Anyway I had a very good time playing, thanks everyone for that.

Great, I'll have a look. I hope we get to play again someitme.

One last thing: I'd like to make a reference sheet for players, especially new ones. I'm thinking a 2-sided A4 paper. What kind of info d oyou guys think should be on it?
-- Complex/simple/free action list
-- Combat modifiers
-- What else?

[masaru20100]

Concerning the reference sheet, I’d add Edge uses, what a magic user can do (separating astral viewing as some adept can use it if they have the proper power), and eventually a resume of matrix uses. Concerning magic, the spells are on the sheets but spirits and astral are not, so it’s really useful I think.