No it doesn't it makes your character an 18 dice face, who will blow away someone with a paltry 6 dice...

Actually I think it's one of those, this will exist in 10 years and Shodowruns 3070 will look silly without it things, like most of 4th Ed

Is that similar to Frodorun: The Lord of the Blings?

This is purely a matter of opinion. I want my Shadowrun to stick to its roots, as described in the source books from 1989-1997ish. Some people want their shadowrun to continue to try to predict the near future. To each his own. I gave up on predicting the near future, and that's before you throw the return of magic into the mix.

Ohh, and its a game, silly is good. Magic returning? Like it ever existed, how silly! Cyberpunk 2070 will look silly with magic.

Actually, it does.

This right here is what we were hoping to avoid. In case you were still wondering, the goal here, is to NOT have to have an 18 dice Face to do the trick. If all one cares about is blowing someone away in dice, then we aren't even playing the same game. Since the availability and cost are so low, EVERYONE will have it, thus making it a must have, as opposed to an advantage.


I think the sensor rating thing that Edge talked about seems to work well. What we would have to determine then, is what kind of sensor array is necessary and the concealability / portability of the sensor array.

Most vehicles don't have sensor arrays above rating 2 - 4, which would denote that the sensors are rather large, and not man portable. Perhaps an interrogation room, or something similar would make this work right, and I think this is the rule that we are going to implement. Everyone having that extra 6 dice is kind of out there.

Actually... here's what it does.

Anyone with a charisma or willpower of three and no relevant social skills suddenly rolls 9 dice for resisting social tests. This cuts their chance for a glitch or critical glitch down from very possible on most die rolls to not very probable ever. This allows them to roll 8 dice on all social skill tests or an average of 2 and 2/3rd hits. This also reduces the chances of them getting a glitch or a critical glitch on these tests substantially. This software basically makes taking charisma and social skills obsolete for characters that don't specialize in it. It also makes not having a face on the team less of a big deal because your more socially retarded characters are less likely to glitch important social tests.

Does it really put my character out of a job? Not if you assume that the core mechanic is simply dice pool inflation, which frankly is a retarded mechanic to put into any game. Does it make every Joe-Blow that's willing to shell out 3k (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) creep in substantially on a Face's 'niche'? Hell yeah it does.

To look at it another way I could have built my character using this software and ended up with the same die pool and saved 71 build points. Let me say that again.... 71 build points! I understand that all things aren't equal bp wise but come on.

Well I don't think someone with a perfectly average Charisma of 3 should be glitching right and left on social tests to begin with like they will without the software... and if the Dice pool is what makes your character a face or not to begin with I wouldn't be throwing stones about die pool inflation to begin with, because your doing to much Roll Playing and not enough Role Playing

If I'm going to play a Sci-Fi game with below current day technology it's not 80's Sci-Fi I'd admit to longing for the days of. Rockets and Ray-guns, retro cool. Internet I can't access from a device that fits in my pocket, not so much.

He's got a pretty good point though. in most things the first three successes rolled are more important than successes 4-6

so the power gain between averaging 4 hits and averaging 6 hits (adding the software to a face) is modest compared to the power gain between averaging 1 hit (A char 2 character + influence 1) and averaging 3 hits. (adding the software to a regular guy)

That assumes that the targets remain static. Not all tests are static but many are.

I got this cool Portable Phone from Japan!

You ever seen someone with no negotiation skills get raped by a used car sales man? If not I'm sure you're familiar with the idea.

As far as 'roll-playing' vs. role-playing? Are you for real? You come into this thread basically saying throw 18 dice and use the software because it's not a big deal. I talk about dice pool inflation because the face is my character's niche and this software is affecting that niche. The game has a system for handling social tests, does that mean our group doesn't role-play 100% of social encounters anyhow? No. But sometimes it does come down to the dice to decide and if it didn't come down that way then characters may as well not even have charisma or social skills to begin with.

Serious comment:
You know a good Ray-gun based game? Because, I too would love to play one.

The following is intended in Jest.
Decks don't fit into your pocket! Thats a Comm(ie scum) link. Besides, what is this "intertubes" you refer to? Do you have a LTG number for a host containing information on these "nets of webs"?

Debate possibility:
There is a difference between "Behind current technology" and "Different vision of use for technology". I find the world of early shadowrun still far ahead of us technologically but where technology is used in unfamiliar ways. The Crash of '29 was the plot device I had in my head for why use may be radically different. However, it looks like another crash is a good reason to go back.

Some people want to play near future and some a parallel fantasy world. To each his own is how I feel. However, there is a strong movement that believes the game must be played near future, or at least implies such with their posting. This belief in a near future game becomes silly to me as soon as you say "Magic". By 2012, I could be soooo totally proven wrong. (probably dead from Goblinization, VITAS or riots too).

Because we have it now, does not mean we need it in game. And I think the same goes for 10 (or N) years from now. Though the item may still be nice to have.

BlueMax

I looked in detail at the Emotitoys and Empathy software write-ups as a consequence of reading this thread. It strikes me that emotitoys aren't really broken, except in as much as they make getting hold of empathy software much cheaper.

Empathy software does appear to be broken... So I'm going to try some of the fixes suggested in this thread, and I'll post to say how it's gone.

I think people may be forgetting the difference between the aggressor and the defender in a social attack. These checks are normally opposed and the penalties almost always apply to the aggressor. All this software does is make it a little more likely for the corporate chump to actually succeed when the Face doesn't roll average. The difference between 18 dice and 24 dice when you are defending is irrelevant - you need the aggressor to roll badly regardless. However, for a defender's pool the difference between 2 dice and 8 dice is very large. You actually stand a chance of not being Critical Successed all the time.

Note also that Uncouth still can't use the Emotion Software.

Also, there may be differences of opinion of how Lifestyle works. I don't let lifestyle buy extra toys and such not. So if some corporate flunky is normally making a Medium lifestyle he has to give that up and live Low in order to get some non-NERPS toys. Corporate facilities can give their employees the software while on the job but they probably wouldn't bother to except with the guards.

Guard: (BBB 275) C 3, 0 Con, 0 Negotiations, 0 Perception
Modifiers: (BBB 122) NPC suspicious (-1), Result is Annoying to NPC (-1), NPC has Ace in Hole (+2NPC), PC has plausible evidence (+1), NPC Distracted (+1)
Pools before Software: PC 18+0=18, NPC 3-1+2=4
Odds of Getting 4+ hits: PC=89.83%, NPC = 1.35%
Odds with Software: PC = 98.01%, NPC = 44.07%
%age increase: PC = aprox 10%, NPC = 31.65%

There's barely any change for the Face Adept/Specialist and a huge boost for the mook. What does this tell me? It tells me that all this software does is present something of a challenge for faces instead of being able to sleaze their way through every social situation without any sweat.

Also if you do consider all guards and all Johnsons to have this software then you can't get rid of the Face. The Street Sam with C3, Influence 1, and Emotion software is the same or worse than all his opponents. No change.

Also, role-playing every interaction can be just as tedious as a six-hour gunfight, or waiting for the decker to find the LTG number on the SAN, with a quarter-inch amplifier jack plugged into his temple just under his hockey hair yes I am old.

If you're increasing each person's dice pool by the same amount, average net hits should stay the same though. Like if the Face has 12 dice (average 4 hits) and the Mook has 6 dice (average 2 hits) for average 2 net hits, and then they each get a Voight-Kampff Pokemon rating 6, then the Face has 18 (avg 6) and the Mook has 12 (avg 4), it's still going to average 2 net hits for the Face. Give the Mook only 3 dice on his own and it's average 3 net hits in the Face's favor, with or without the toy.

Again, this is just assuming that everyone, from the Face down to the Mook, will have the software, making anyone without it, a bit obsolete.

Just like Dikote was seen as a "must have" and was since removed from 4th ed, this is a "must have" for anyone who desires to be a face, if it is allowed at printed value. Therein lies the problem.

Its accessibility and price for what it does are out of whack, meaning that the mook is even more of a mook for not dropping less than a build point worth of cash on it, so they to can compete in the social world all the time.

While there are certain things in SR that are ALWAYS must haves... (Guns, Bullets, Stealth, Professionalism... etc) This goes a long way in to invading the space of an already endangered species of character.

What with all the idiotic min/maxing going on in the "critique my twink" threads, it's a wonder that every razorhead or super-adept didn't get this in their quest to roll 18+ dice on every combat test.

That goes off on another tangent, but suffice it to say, regardless of combat abilities, I'd much rather have the guy with the believable back story and contact web, over the animerun crapfest that's been trying to rear its head in the past few years.

Which means a guy who doesn't have the 'ware, should still be able to compete to a degree. Faces were one of the last bastions of this, before Empathy software.

there are still some extended social checks - like the one for buying highly illegal shit on the black market - and suddenly everyone is radically better at that, which makes panthercannons both cheaper AND easier to get.

I'm not sure this is a good idea. It looks remarkably like a bad idea from here. Did all the equipment in the game need a radical discount?

That's a great point, and I hadn't looked at it that way 1 hit is way better then none, and 1 - 4 is much more important then 4+.
That said though, if your negotiating, isn't it a your die pool vs. his thing rather then a set target number? so a 6 hit face beats a 4 hit face... Come to think of it this thing might be BEST for face vs. face opposed rolls.. and Poker... and that's when the rolls would mater most, when both parties are supposed to be good. As a GM I wouldn't make players roll for a ether face to trounce the 1 hit guy, unless he had the software to save him.

yeah for the most part it is opposed tests, where all the software does is reduce the randomness in the system if everyone and their dog has R6 software. Probably they do. either way it is moronic. May as well make people start with 2 less BP.

But some tests are extended tests, and rolling more dice in that makes it flat out better.

Point, and no arguments, used car salesmen with empathy software. *shiver*



Sorry, that was uncalled for.

I just don't think it destroys the Face. I think it gives the Face some toys to play with, it makes him better vs. other faces who don't have it, and it gives runners who are not faces a chance not to be taken to the cleaners, daily.

It does, if somebody is too stupid not to have it. As everybody said, if it's so cheap and so reliable, everybody has it (the +6 dice pool modifier), so nobody has it (because the differences stays the same).

Powercreep that rears its ugly head. The game developers rolled a critical glitch this time in their perception test to notice this idiocy. It happens, but it's still ugly...

May I also point out that this is Software? Which means that it theoretically runs at a Rating = Response = System? Which means that on your commercial sensors it is probably running at Rating 3 or 4?

Can I also point out that nowhere does it say that the Emotitoy running the program can actually give the dice pool bonus to the character?

So really it is already limited to rating 3 or 4. Or am I just nuts?

I hadn't thought about that Availability test--that is nasty. I'd probably say that it doesn't apply to extended tests.

Oh yeah, if the emotitoy is a straight-up dice pool bonus of (rating), it is completely screwed up, awful, and stupid. Or it's like the commlink and the Fake SIN, in that it's pretty much indispensable, but unlike those it looks dorky. I'm just saying that it doesn't change the balance if both participants are using one (it does, however, make them both look like dorks).

Also the idea of applying it to extended tests like Fencing or Swag is the kind of thing I would not have thought of at all. I bet you're pretty good at debugging programs just by reading them, no? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Can someone post the relevant text?