Go cows.

Moo.

- J.

And the GM lives in a real world. If your momma wants her PC to beat the shit out of and run rough shod over your NPCs, you say, "Yes, ma'am" and suck it up. We are dealing with a game that follows predetermined rules. Else why buy the books? All it takes to shut you down is a player's definition of fun. The OP's post is just one small view of the big picture. That's all, we do not know the rest of the story. For all we know, Granny, the hypothetical entrepreneural shadowrunner, may be a great dragon's nanny, have allies who call her mom on the Corp Court AND Harlequin is her House Elf. Moo and you might get boiled grass for the next few days for dinner.

I stand by my assertion, the only defense in Shadowrun is dice and even more dice. Anonymity in SR4 simply means that Public Awareness of you is low. If you have too much Street Cred, you need to go out and commit some attrocities.

Sigged. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rotfl.gif)

Counterspelling - foci, counter spelling, mentor spirit, specialties, spirit with magical guard, resist with object rating or stat, shielding, edge.

Spellcasting - foci, spellcasting, mentor spirit, specialties, spirit with aid sorcery, magic stat, edge.

I wasn't saying that the game has no rules, what I was saying is that the world at large in Shadowrun doesn't follow particular rules-- it's not a computer game where an AI controls the enemies, and they always act the same way in response to the same situations. It's all imagination. There's no rule for what happens when you do something really big and conspicuous. Some GMs will be fine with it, other GMs will have the powers that be come and hammer you down. It's all based on how the GM wants the game to run, and how he envisions the SR world.

I would submit, however, that your character who is best friends with a great dragon and can pull strings at the highest levels of power is not a Shadowrunner. I do not know of any GM, anywhere, who would let someone build a character with that kind of background. And few Shadowrun campaigns last long enough for anyone to achieve that level of power, if it's even possible. You're right that we don't know the rest of the story, but because the GM controls the story, we'll only have Granny if the GM wants her to exist. If the GM is all down with an ultra high level campaign where the characters manipulate world politics, great. But the heart and soul of Shadowrun is desperate criminals out to make a buck, dancing on the razor's edge between working for the corps and being owned by the corps, skirting the line between good and evil. They're not CEOs, they're not best friends with CEOs, they're nobodies in a big world, and all they can hope to do is make the world a little better -- or a little worse.

In a normal game of Shadowrun, the OP's situation is utterly ridiculous, you can't start your own minigun factory without repercussions. And that is ALL that I'm talking about. I'm not saying that nobody anywhere could start their own factory in Shadowrun. I'm ONLY saying that you can't pay cash for a factory, push the "go" button, and start churning out highly illegal weapons at a profit in a NORMAL LEVEL game of shadowrun. Unless you think I'm wrong, you can stop arguing with me. I accept your point, that uber characters can do uber things, but since we're not dealing with an uber character, that's irrelevant.

After many months of hard work the facility is running well. Already she has been working nights putting out mass productions of weapons. Her first shipment had gone out a few weeks later. The first time she has had a good night's sleep is interrupted by the irritant chirping of her commlink. Just a simple message from her fixer "We should meet." She falls back into bed and dreams of money.

"What do you mean your returning the shipment?" The woman said. Everything should be fine. Everything was fine.

"Yeah. I am returning it. Got a problem with that babe?" The fixer said. He was medium height with a goatee, slightly goblinoid features and square rimmed sunglasses protecting his eyes. His leather jacket was open and he was wearing a backstage pass to tonight's big Metal Machine Mayhem concert. The M on his shirt seem to mock her. "Free of fucking charge."

Someone must have got to him. It had to be it was the only explanation. "What's the matter, didn't like the price?"

"Nah nothing wrong with the price," the fixer smirked "everything with the quality. Their crap."

"What do you mean?" She suppetered rage was getting the better of her. "Who put you up to this, Ares?"

"Look, you're new in the game, so I will give you the benefit of the doubt of just being stupid. Me I bought them on good faith on being quality merchandise. So I then sold them as quality merchandise. I trusted you. Now a couple of days ago... a business associate of mine comes back. One of the pistols blew up in the face of a friend. Now he was pissed, believed I had shafted him for the money, so of course I take them back have to replace with quality merchandise, I even have to throw in a little something to make him happy." He pulled out one of the guns from the box, looked at the magazine smiled and then slid it back into the pistol.

Two of his goons slid out and slammed her into the table pinnign her head against it. "Now there are three things that can happen at this point. The gun fires and you die, or the gun does not fire and you survive, or even more likely is that the gun barrel explodes and I lose my hand and if you are lucky you die. All three still means we're finished here." He puts the gun to her temple, cold muzzle against sweaty flesh. The hammer pulled back the fixer's finger on the trigger. "Let's see if you really stand behind your product."

Was Granny's real name Mary Sue?

Explain that the facility while able to make new firearms is only capable of prototyping not mass production. And even then I'd make it clear that the production of firearms is a long process that the PC WILL be doing it him/her self EVERY STEP.
Who does the design? The PC.
Who finds, acquires and pays for materials? The PC.
Who has to do the machining? The PC.
Who has to assemble the gun? The PC.
Who has to sight in and test fire? The PC.
Who has to fix it because blank is wrong with it? The PC.
I'd say if they give you any lip pimp slap them.

Any interesting question... If you make a firearm and want to integral-smartlink it do you pay the total overhead cost for the weapon?

"Go ahead. Let's see you pull that trigger."
The fixer froze as his goons lifted their own pieces. This wasn't in the plan.
Then he saw his own devil grin reflected on Granny's face. "You know what they say about trust. Your friend didn't know the butt of a pistol to its barrel. When amateurs use my products, I can't be responsible if they screw up. You screwed up by selling to a wannabe. I do not do business with wannabes. Retire him, boys."


Granny's was a transvestite who underwent a sex change. She was Gary "Yo Momma" Stu. Granny's live in girlfriend is Mary Sue.

The SR world at large do follow particular rules, in effect it is a game where you as the GM simply uses the appropriate rules. There are rules for what happens when you do something really big and conspicuous, follow the rules.
You might not be dealing with uber characters, but I am or at least I am considering them as part of the subset of characters I deal with. After all, the heart and soul of Shadowrun is "you get the job done". And who better to get it done than uber characters.

Funny, as a "Cannon Law Foo Ninja" or whatever, I would think your objection would be the letter of the RAW certainly does not allow a Facility to be used as a mass-production factory, or allow a character to ignore the B/R rules that normally dictate how long it takes a character to build an item.


Good for you, I'm glad you like playing that way, but you should recognize that the vast majority of Shadowrun games don't run at the "I can flip Damion Knight off without repercussion" level. In fact, at virtually every table the threat of their being someone out there with a bigger gun/sword/whatever than you has always existed, no matter what the game or system.

If you don't like playing that way, that is certainly fine. I imagine playing a round where the players in fact have all the biggest guns and get to run about willy-nily laying a smack down without repercussions might be fun for a while. But it's not the norm.

Heh... yeah... part of me thought "with contacts like that why the heck are you a shadowrunner?" I mean being a dragon, or knowing a few dragons or being buddy buddy with whole bunch of AAA corp execs, and can wail on three attack choppers at once... you don't really need to run in the shadows.

... and the GM can choose to piss on those rules in an instant, if so inclined.

I think you missed the point of Larme's post. At the end of the day, its the GM which governs the game, not the rules.

- J.

Did you read the mans sig? The wrong person to have an argument about that.

I've read his sig, and it seems like the last few times I've seen him jumping into an argument, it hasn't been from a RAW perspective, but rather some personal bias or off-the-wall point of view. This is just one more example of that.

By RAW, there is nothing that states or prohibits a facility from being an automated item. It can however be *inferred* that the facility requires tools and heavy machinery, such as hydraulic lifts, cherry pickers and similar items to allow the person to work and do what they need when they manually construct things. This is an SR3 thread, so no nanoforges, which means they need to have the casting, heating and molding equipment necessary to produce custom parts for whatever they're making. By RAW only, there's no info saying they can't, but based on the progression of tools, there's no principle or basis for thinking they *can*.

Yeah. Even if someone from the Ford assembly line inherited a backwater machine shop with an auto maintenance wing it would be pretty laughable for him to try to mass-produce Taurses. Maybe he could with intensive effort and much expense build a car from spare parts or something but mass production entails a steady stream of raw materials, workers, maintenance staff for the machinery, quality control, etc.

I did not say that by SR3 RAW that a facility is automated. I am saying that by SR3 RAW, there is nothing stopping someone from using a facility to build something to automate itself or something else. The GM just needs to pick the right skill for the test. The last few times I jumped into an argument, it has been from a RAW perspective, it does not necessarily mean that it is the common held perspective but it simply means that you can use the rule set to accomplish what you want to do or not do.



I did not say that he ignores the B/R rules, he still has to follow them. I just said that he can mass manufacture whatever he wants, if he is good enough to do it.

For example,

At first, his first few B/R whatevers, TN is may even be Exotic level (8+) because this is the first few times he is doing it. Gradually it is not Exotic anymore, it becomes something Fancy. Granted the item would probably not be anything less than Technical, so the item would have a minimum TN of 5. So a Vindicator Minigun requires a base time of 250 hrs. Automating the facility only helps in so far as it can be counted as Superior Working conditions, hence TN 4. Say Granny has a lot of dice and she rolls many successes, say 10. 250/10=25, so every 25 hours 1 minigun. Honestly I do not see the problem with this.

Umm... where? Where is the rule that says what Llofwyr does when you send him a photocopy of your ass? Where is the rule that says what happens when you sell illegal knock-offs of commercial products? Where is the rule that says that the nail which sticks up gets hammered down? Or that it doesn't? I'd appreciate a page cite -- otherwise, I don't have any idea what you're talking about.

What are you trying to do by sending him a photocopy of your ass? Intimidate him? Negotiate with him? Introduce yourself(Etiquette)? Use the right skill, get the right response. P93 SR3.

When you sell illegal knock-offs of commercial products? Same thing when you fence any other loot, roll Etiquette(Street)... and get the money at the end of it. P237 SR3.

There is no rule that say there is a nail sticks up or there is such thing as a nail in the first place .

Toturi I think why people are jumping on you is because it seems like your playing a "what if" game. Personally the whole "what if she is friends with a great dragon and is totally buddy buddy with it" I have a problem with. If someone has a contact like that why the hell would they be in the shadows and even more importantly why would they be making illegal weapons in the shadows for street consumption?

If the whole argument is the character has enough power not get squashed and can go legit then just have the character go legit and get out of the shadowrunning business, live in a penthouse, and have the player re-roll another character.

I am saying that as long as the rules permit or does not forbid, the PC can do anything within their capability. Including making and selling weapons. It may offend your sense of what Shadowrun should be, but it does not mean that the rules forbid it or do not allow for it.

My whole argument is that if the character has enough power not to get squashed, then he does not get squashed. If the player wants to continue playing the character and is having fun with it, why make him reroll?

You're missing the point. The rules don't say what Llofwyr is like. Maybe he loves silly mail, and if I send him a photocopy of my ass, he'll write back saying that he appreciates the joke. And maybe he has no sense of humor at all. Maybe he would spend a million nuyen just to have me tracked down and torture me to death. The rules don't say either way. There might be fiction about it, but there's no rule that I have to read or follow that.

A dice roll can't control the game universe. It provides guidelines. But there's no rule saying how precisely the world reacts. If I pass an etiquette test with an NPC, it is absolutely up to the GM to decide what that means, within reason. If I make an etiquette test, it might mean that the Johnson considers me favorably and lets slip a bit more information. Or maybe he makes a higher initial offer with his fee. Or maybe it doesn't do much at all, since the way to get stuff out of a J is to negotiate, and all etiquette gets you is a slightly better rep with this J. The rules don't say, so there's no rule to follow.



So... you're implying that there are no nails in Shadowrun? Or, to be less literal, are you implying that IC actions do not have IC consequences? Because per the rules as written, you might be right. There's no rule that says enemies come after you when you assassinate the president of UCAS in broad daylight and yell out your name, address, and SIN while doing it, for instance. That's something the GM has to make up all on his own, using common sense. The rulebook provides a framework, but that's all.

IC consequences to IC actions that have no OOC equivalent should themselves have no OOC consequence.

OOC actions create IC actions as well as OOC responses which in turn translate to IC responses.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/question.gif) Does that make sense to anyone?

Nope, and he does say he is insane. Right there in his Sig.

I concur: what???