Starting a Game, Online even. Options

[FrankTrollman]

Settings so far suggested:

• Seattle.
• Hong Kong
• The Arctic (based presumably either out of the Transpolar Aleut or the New Soviet)
• Japan
• Amazonia
• Chicago (in 2071 it would be after the cleanup was officially over and set in the resettlement period)
• Prague
• South East Asian Pirate Waters
• Space

I would like to do more gaming. Which given my present circumstances isn't hard at all. I don't speak Czech particularly and the only edition of Shadowrun which has ever been printed in Czech Language was 2nd edition and the rights to translate the current edition are in a maddening limbo that noone even understands. Plus, while playing a pick-up game in bilingual Czechlish can be a rewarding gaming experience, it's actually a very draining experience for the Czechs and the Americans both.

So I've decided to run a game on line. My dormitory has a bunch of blocked ports at the level of the router, so I can't use any of those fancy online game servers. I'm seriously planning on running this as a simple chat window. You can roll actual dice and report the results. I figure if you aren't mature enough to be trusted with rolling dice then you have no business playing an RPG anyway.

Setting

I am open to suggestions. This isn't because of a lack of ideas on my part, quite the contrary. This is what I always do when starting a campaign. First off, every player nominates a few places where the campaign should be set, and then everyone hashes it out amongst each other which of the nominated options should be chosen.

This methodology has ended up with characters being Aztec Sun Warriors who did trouble shooting for the nation/corporation; international saboteurs based out of London; do-gooder anarchists based out of Sydney; and a Triad magical group based out of the Bay Area.

Character Morality

I will say right now that I have no problem at all with "evil" characters. I'm OK with one or more players playing a murderer, a rapist, a Toxic Magician, a ghoul, or an Insect Mage. It doesn't bother me in the least. But it's not for every game. Just as everyone has to agree on where the game takes place, everyone has to agree on a relative moral compass for the group. If one or more players has a problem with in-game canibalism (even if that problem is just "I don't really enjoy games which include that sort of thing") then playing a man-eater is destructive to the group dynamic. Once everyone's comfort zones are established, they will be enforced. If you agree to a game where you don't kill children and then your character goes off and starts stabbing in a kindergarten that really is just like cheating and should be treated as such.

House Rules

I write a lot of material. People can pretty much use it.

People should decide on a power level of course. Since I will be using the half skill price systems, a 400 BP character is actually quite effective at a number of tasks. People are welcome to play at 350 BP instead. At 400 BP, characters get 7000 nuyen for a BP. At 350 BP, spending a BP would get you 5000 nuyen.

Here's the rules:

Character Creation and Advancement

Karma Does Not Exist
When your character succeeds and gets bling, it will come in the form of extra Build Points. These are spent at exactly the same rate as when you begin play. Exceptions:

• You cannot purchase Â¥ with post-character generation BP, nor can you sell Â¥ for BP later on.
• Contacts are acquired in-game and not with BP once the game has begun.

Skills are Half Price

• Skills cost 2 BP
• Skill Groups cost 5 BP
• Specializations cost 1 BP
• Knowledge Skills cost 1 BP
  Merry Christmas.

Starting maximums are still one 6 or two 5s. You can commute raising a Skill Group, meaning that if you purchase up one skill out of a Skill group you can raise the rest of them up one for 3 BP. If you raise two Skills out of the group, you can raise the remaining skills for just 1 BP – exactly as if you had just purchased the whole group at once.

Eventually characters can raise their skills to 7 for double cost. The augmented maximum of your skill is always skill +3 rather than Skill x 1.5.

Attributes are Not
Attributes still cost 10 BP per point and you can still throw down up to 200 BP into your Mental and Physical Attributes. Edge and Magic are, of course, Special Attributes and don't apply to that limit.

We are using a less painful methodology for raising attributes. Your natural maximum in Magic only ever costs 10 BP. Raising any other attributes to the natural maximum costs 20 BP. Characters can raise their attributes past the normal maximum for 20 points each. This also raises their personal natural maximum and augmented maximum accordingly.

Varying Costs of Other Things
Contacts: A contact costs a number of “contact points� equal to its Loyalty times its Connections. You get 3 Contact points for a BP at character generation. This means that a 6/6 Contact still costs 12 actual BP, but a 3/3 Contact only costs 3 BP. This is to encourage people to know more less impressive people.

¥ Nuyen ¥: If we're playing at 400 BP starting, characters can get 7000¥ for 1 BP (cap is still 50 BP). If we are playing at 350, the exchange rate is still 5000¥ per BP.

Qualities and Races

You can take up to 35 BP of negative qualities, and up to 35 BP of positive qualities at character generation. You can purchase qualities later on with permission, but there has to be a reason. As normal.

Aspected Magicians

You can use the Aspected Magicians rules that I wrote. Aspected Magician is a positive quality which is taken instead of Magician, Adept, Mystic Adept, or Astral Sight (which is also removed altogether under this system because it is dumb). Aspected Magicians excel in their field of magic, ad this is represented by starting play as a Grade 1 Initiate with a metamagic of their choice. Unless otherwise stated, they are like Magicians. The types are as follows:

• Aspected Conjurers Cannot learn Sorcery skills, cast spells, or provide Counterspelling. They can astrally perceive but cannot astrally project. They can can use other magic skills (most notably conjuring skills). This quality costs 10 points.
• Aspected Sorcerers Cannot learn Conjuring skills, summon spirits, or Banish. They can astrally perceive but cannot astrally project. They can can use other magic skills (most notably Sorcery skills). This quality costs 10 points.
• Path Aspect Must choose 2 categories of Magic and the associated spirits according to their tradition. The character may only cast spells or summon spirits of those two categories/types. They may still use Banishing and Counterspelling against any target. They may still conjure Watchers and Allies. They can astrally perceive but cannot astrally project. This quality costs 10 points.
• Astral Aspect Cannot cast any spells on Physical Targets, nor can they conjure any spirit that has Possession or Materialization (Watchers are still OK). They can still cast Mana spells on Astral Targets. The threshold for their Assensing tests is reduced by 1. This quality costs 5 points.

Some Qualities Don't Exist

We're looking at you Aptitude, Exceptional Attribute, and Lucky. The rules for exceeding normal caps are much less stringent, so these qualities don't do anything.

Metatypes and Cost

Ork, Elf, or Dwarf: 25 BP
Troll: 35 BP

Ghouls
Ghoul (30 BP): 
 
B: 5/10 
A: 1/6 
R: 3/8 
S: 4/9 
C: 1/4  
I: 2/7 
L: 1/5 
W: 3/8 
Edg: 1/6 
Ess: 5  
M: 1/5 
Movement: 10/25 
 
Powers: 
Dual Natured, Enhanced Senses (Hearing, Smell), Natural Weapon (Claws: S/2 + 1), Resistance (+3 dice vs. Disease) 
 
Ghouls get the following Negative Qualities and gain no BPs for them (these do not count against the 35 BP limit): 
Allergy (Sunlight, Mild), Dark Secret (Ghoul), Dietary Requirement (Metahuman Flesh), Reduced Senses (Blind). 

In-Game Shenanigans

Matrix Rules

These are fairly long:
http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?show...opic=19657&st=0

Toxic Traditions

Playable ones:
http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?showtopic=15585
The bad guys will be using this system even if the players are not.

Hardened Armor

Hardened Armor provides automatic damage reduction hits. It is also half the size it appears at in the basic book. That means that a Force 6 Spirit has Immunity to Normal Weapons that provides 6 automatic hits soaking damage. AP still reduces Hardened Armor.

-Frank

[Tarantula]

I'd love to play!

As far as suggestions for setting, I'll go with the standard seattle runners for hire to get by.

Moral compass... Well, I'd steer away from cannibalism and baby killing, but adults and such are fine to kill.

[Ol' Scratch]

Welcome to the Shadows, the forum for online games, is that way.

[Redjack]

Moved to correct forum

[fistandantilus4....]

heh, I was about o move it to game registry as this isn't being run here on DS, but it seems someone beat me to the punch. Frank, do you have a prefence for which forum - W2tS or Registry?

RJ :P

[Fortune]

[Redjack]

[Seven-7]

To clarify (if I may), the players nominate three places, and so here I go:

Hong Kong
Artic
Japan

[Fortune]

[Smilin_Jack]

If it wasn't a chat based game or if my work schedule wasn't so crazy I'd sign up in a heartbeat.

Frank is just a big tease, releasing all those house rules and then going and running a game. :P

[Whipstitch]

I'm interested; my IRL group appears to be slowly grinding to a halt, and well, I'm an incorrigible SR addict. But first, I'm afraid I must ask the million dollar question: What timeframe are we looking at here? Considering the whole multi-national situation we'd be be looking at from recruiting here on the boards, I figure it's probably best to get that li'l thorny issue hashed out a bit ASAP.

[FrankTrollman]

I was thinking Saturday Evening GMT. That's lunch time in North America's Pacific Coast.

And 2071, in case you were wondering aboutr that kind of time.

-Frank

[Fortune]

[Whipstitch]

Sounds pretty ideal to me, actually. Saturdays are pretty wide open for me and since I'm in the US Central timezone that'd be pretty much in the middle of the day.

Oh, and I'm one of those people whose moral compass doesn't really extend to corpses or affording women and children special status. On the other hand, I don't find cruelty for cruelty's sake entertaining either, and don't particularly feel like spending too much time rping such things. To put it crudely as possible, my "worst" characters are generally anti-sadism/rape/whatever and pro-cannibalistic blood magic rituals, wetwork, torture for information and organlegging. Basically, the latter accomplishes something while the former makes you enemies without even getting you a measly Bloodzilla or a fatter credstick to show for your efforts. Most of my characters are more scrupulous than that, but I'm not afraid of playing the odd nihilistic greedy bastard. Just don't expect me to wander around drowning puppies (without pay).

[Narse]

This sounds absolutely tantalizing. I'd like to get in on the action. However I would have to obtain whatever chat program you would be using, could you offer specifics? Also, I'm thinking that your location in eastern Europe might cause some interesting scheduling of any real-time communication (such as a chat). What time(s) were you thinking of running at?

If it turns out that I can participate, I would like to suggest the following locations as settings:
The Arctic
Amazonia
Greater Chicago Metropolitan area (Chicago's still bug city right?)

As for the rest of the setting, I modestly suggest at least Semi-Legitimate employment.
It is my feeling that there are more reasons for people to live on the shadowy fringe of society than entirely within the shadows. I also feel that this can give a group more cohesion if they are united by a Raison d'être or at least share more than per mission objectives.

As for morality, I'm pretty open. I have a few character concepts kicking around right now that involve characters who have what would typically be considered an unhealthy view/obsession with death and killing, but I can easily save them for another time. That being said, I'd like to stay generally away from 'Modest Proposal' territory, however I would be OK with Ghoul PC's. An example: Harvesting for Tanamous, while presenting interesting logistical challenges, would require more effort to suppress my natural morality than I would care to engage in at this time.

As for power level, I think I'd enjoy a game that presents some challenges, as long as that occurs, I think I will have fun.

EDIT: Some of this didn't come across exactly as I intended, so take it with a grain of salt. Also keep in mind that I consider gangs and other criminal organizations Semi-Legitimate.

EDIT 2: I see that the timeframe question has already been answered, Saturdays work for me. Although I might have to set an alarm... (I tend to sleep in more than I should).

[Fortune]

[Narse]

[Tarantula]

Ugh, my RL SR game is every other saturday...

[Whipstitch]

Far as setting goes, I'm kind of in favor of ol' Seattle, at least as a homebase, anyway. Some commutes to places like Caracas now and again would be cool though. I generally prefer sprawl campaigns and usually set my characters up as North American "out of towners" when I'm integrating into a new group.

[Fortune]

Why don't you base it out of Prague, seeing as Frank is actually there now and could probably weave some of the city's vaunted flavor and history into the game as he learns about it more intimately himself?

[FrankTrollman]

Settings so far suggested:

• Seattle.
• Hong Kong
• The Arctic (based presumably either out of the Transpolar Aleut or the New Soviet)
• Japan
• Amazonia
• Chicago (in 2071 it would be after the cleanup was officially over and set in the resettlement period)
• Prague

-Frank

[Catharz Godfoot]

How about Lago's idea: Techno-Privateers: The Search for the Black Paydata? Or hell, the similar but slightly more expensive 'runners in Outer Spaaace'?
Alternatively, what's going on down in Bahia?

If I end up being able to play I'd be down for anything not too technophobic.

[FrankTrollman]

So I consolidated a bunch of the rules into the first post, also I put the current suggested locations up on the top as well.

-Frank

[Whipstitch]

How are Initiation costs handled? Are they just a straight Karma=BP conversion or do you adjust the cost in some manner?

I like the idea of potentially having lots of skill points to play with; I like playing Awakened characters but always felt like I was being punished for trying to squeeze more than a single point or two of arcana and enchanting into a build along with staples like dodge and etiquette.

[FrankTrollman]

Initiation costs are a straight port. Note that this makes the cost of super charging your Edge to 7 (20 BP) pretty similar to supercharging your Magic to 7 (13 BP for an Initiation Grade and 10 BP for the Magic point).

Note that as described in Street Magic it is the reduction in Initiation Grade costs which are rounded up, not the costs themselves (a lot of people get that one confused). So if you undergo an ordeal and are in a group for your first initiation it costs you 7 points to get that first grade (13 * .4 = 5.2, rounded up to a cost reduction of 6).

Min/Max Advice:
A warning about the Dodge skill: as written on pages 142, 147, and 151 there is literally no time when you would be called upon to roll your Dodge skill where you would not be allowed to substitute either your Gymnastics or your Melee skill of choice. This means that any character who is already intent upon purchasing either Gymnastics or Unarmed Combat (or whatever) should from a game mechanical standpoint invest in the other skill instead of Dodge.

Dodge is a way for characters who have no interest in flipping out or kicking people in the face to have defense pools. That's not a house rule or anything, that's just how the combat system happens to pan out.

-Frank

[Whipstitch]

I hear ya on gymnastics. I always have to fight the urge to fit my Samurai with Unarmed Combat, Synthacardium 3, Gymnastics and a cyberlimb with a shock hand and a gyromount again, lest my GM murder me in my sleep. Mages and TMs are about the only characters I stick with dodge on since they are such karma/bp sinks. As an aside, I think that's why 90% of the people out there underrate melee skills; people get hung up on the offensive shortcomings and forget that they add to defensive pools as well. A decent Unarmed Combat and Edge pool are about the only things standing between you and a messy death if a troll manages to latch onto you with a subdual attack, after all.

[Cthulhudreams]

Just to clear my stupidity up, are you going to look for people to toss in locations, shortlist some players on the basis who you think is feel good, then we make characters, or did you have a different process in mind?

Edit: and to clarify your other other point - evening gmt time is what, 6pm? 7pm? 9r theres about?

[FrankTrollman]

I honestly have no idea how much real interest there is, and in my experience if you get 7 Shadowrun players who express interest you probably have 4 or 5 actual players. If it gets to be a problem with large numbers of players I'll think of something.

But for now, interested players are throwing out setting/affiliation ideas. I rather imagine that by the time specifics are hashed out and more precise times arranged that a manageable number of players will be actually on board.

I mean location suggestions go from the largest city on the planet (Metropaulo) to the Transarctic Passage. From bustling Indonesian pirate bases filled with desperate men using spears to the highly scientific platforms in Space. It's a pretty open call that people are looking at. I find it doubtful that every game would appeal to every player. Which of course is where the bargaining comes in. I expect that between some players wanting (or not wanting) to be gangers in the Chicago sacrifice zones while other players want or don't want to be gentlemen saboteurs in the exhaustively detailed Seattle Sprawl - that people will come to some sort of compromise where sufficient players will be on board to get a game going.

That's how it has always worked for face-to-face games.

-Frank

[Seven-7]

Here are the interfaces I can handle/do:

• AOL Instant Messenger
• Yahoo! Instant Messanger
• MSN Instant Messanger
• Gtalk
• Jabber
• Internet Relay Chat
• Rendezvous
• ICQ
• MUSH/MUX
• Telepathy

[DTFarstar]

You have no idea how much I wish I could play in this game, but it is unlikely due to the timing. Most saturday afternoons I spend with either my girlfriend or my real life friends and it is basically the only day of the week I really get to do either so...

Sadly enough, it is tempting anyway. I'll be keeping an eye on this, and if someone would log the game and post it here as it goes or just e-mail me the log I would love to snoop on you guys the whole time.

Chris

[Seven-7]

[Smilin_Jack]

[Jaid]

just on a side note frank, if you ever do decide you need online dice rolling, this is a handy little site for it. even if you trust your players, it means anytime you are online you have a set of 'dice' handy ;)

(now if only it automatically could track hits... )

i have to admit, i'm interested in this (even if i think your long-range brain hacking is crazy talk) but i have an unfortunate tendency to plan on playing, and then something comes up =S

you'll probably cause me to come up with half a dozen characters just as the result of being interested though =P

[Tarantula]

Jaid, it can. If you wanted for example 6 dice, you just do
6d6.vs(5)

This tells it to roll 6 d6 dice, .vs is a function call to track how many get the number 5 or higher.

Also, for edge tests used before to get exploding 6's you can do .extra(6). So our example above with say 1 edge (so 7 dice with exploding 6's) would be 7d6.extra(6).vs(5)

Also, you can do either .ascending() or .descending() to have it sort them, so you can count your 1's for glitches easier.

So, last, our edged example sorted would roll like this:
7d6.ascending().extra(6).vs(5)

[FrankTrollman]

So here is a brief rundown on potential campaigns to run out of the suggested areas:

Seattle
Seattle was the only written up setting in 1989, and in the last 18 years it has accordingly received substantially more game and flavor information than any two other locations combined. This is both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand it means that there is a wealth of details to draw upon. On the other hand it means that there's a wealth of details which constrain us. I would, for example, be extremely loathe to do anything even peripherally involved with major Seattle politics because it's almost certainly just going to get retconned away in the intermediate future.

Seattle's positioning as an important metropolis has always been somewhat dubious. It's the only Pacific port of the UCAS, which is itself the second most powerful nation in North America. What sets Seattle apart from larger and richer cities with more important ports like Mazatlán, Los Angeles and even San Francisco is that its existence is extremely tenuous. Seattle is a city state in the middle of the NAN territories, and corporations know that they can push it around. The Seattle authorities spend much of their time in hiding while the surrounding big players use Seattle like a chess board. That makes it a great place for shadowrunners because any place where the authorities have to step lightly is a place where hit-and-run crime has a good chance of actually working. And with so many interest groups keeping stuff in the metropolis, there are a lot of targets. And a lot of employers.

Visit from the Old Country: Seoulpa Rings and JoPok First, a little Shadowrun trivia. The Nippon Empire was one of the big winners of the breakup of the United States and China. A bona fide second tier power before hand, the Nippon empire had the first power satellites and the first drone armies. They conquered the crap out of things and made a big name for themselves all over the world. The economic might and cultural influence of the Nippon Empire spread to every corner of the world. When the corporate court made a currency for the world to use, they didn't call it the Nusolar or the Nupound. Needless to say, this sat extremely poorly with the first people to fall under the baleful eye of the Pacific Prosperity Sphere: the Koreans. The resulting diaspora of Koreans throughout the Pacific Rim acts as a bloc which can be counted upon to harbor anti-Nippon feelings comparable to the anti-Castro Cuban immigrant community of Miami in 1967. Politically isolated, economically depressed, and socially immiscible with the Nippon-influenced corporatism of the modern world, many of these immigrant communities developed organized crime.
What makes the Seattle scene really interesting is that the Korean organized crime here made its own organization from scratch. With little or no help from the homeland, the Seoulpa Rings were formed. Using a cell structure to foment rebellion, steal stuff, and (as an organization) get away with it, the Seoulpa Rings have fought against the vastly better funded Yakuza as equals for a generation. They've spread themselves across North America. And now, they are rich and powerful and feared. Just like the old criminal organizations. And now that Korea is also rich and powerful and extending its own cultural hand across the Pacific, the actual old criminal organizations from there – the JoPok – are starting to take real interest in what the people across the pond are up to. The fact that the Seoulpa Rings pretty much treat anyone who is a metahuman or really hates the Emperor as honorarily Korean doesn't sit super well with the old guard – and the fact that they don't send money “back� to the JoPok higher ups hacks them off even more.

Working For Mister... Johnson Overlapping jurisdictions, corporate presence from all major players, a distant and disinterested government, borders with unfriendly countries just kilometers away in literally any direction, it's like this city was designed for Shadowrunners to pick apart. And indeed it was. The Shadowrunner was conceived as being something between Repo Man and James Bond, and the grungy Seattle Skyline was forged with their work in mind.
The system of Mr. Johnsons is subtle and horrible to contemplate. They work indirectly for wealthy individuals, organizations, and corporations to give money to apathetic mercenaries and detectives to do... stuff for them in exchange for money. The runners generally do not know who they are working for, and the Johnsons will frequently throw in additional jobs just to spread confusion among those who are trying to data mine their motives. Having adventures across between Doc Savage and SLC Punk, the runners can perform criminal acts so senseless that they can feel confident that the targets will recognize the professional indifference of the direct perpetrators and respond accordingly.

Trick or Treat! Shadowrun trivia again. Lots of people in Shadowrun live in arcologies. Giant self-sufficient buildings which tower in every conceivable dimension, they are nonetheless tiny against the shadow of the Earth with respect to the staggering number of people they contain. The reasons for this are myriad. Oil is scarce and the whole “horizontal city� concept of a century ago is no longer sustainable. Modular production is so effective and vertical monopolies so pervasive that attaching different fabrication centers is extremely effective. But the really important thing to remember about this is that the population of the Earth in 2071 is not actually that different from the population in 2007 – several worldwide VITAS outbreaks saw to that. So large sections of the Sprawling cities of old are simply no longer maintained. These “sacrifice zones� or “no light districts� have no official owners and not even basic services. That doesn't mean that noone lives there, it just means that the people who do live in amazingly abject poverty and have a lot to be upset about.
Seattle seriously has a gang of dadaist terrorists who dress up in Halloween costumes and burn things right in the middle of downtown. They have a high mortality rate, but the “organization� has been going for over 20 years. They are the Halloweeners, and they don't like the corporatist society of the modern world order. And really, who can blame them? They are recruited from people in the areas of the sprawl where there hasn't been power for fifty years. In 2071, as in 2007 most gangers are in their early teens. A person who stays in the gang doing time and doing crime after their early twenties (rather than getting a family and doing something respectable) is called an “old gangster�, and the term is not really a term of respect. What this means is that the people smashing the corporate structures and doing avant garde expressionism with real fire are the children or grand children of the people who first dressed up as Spiderman and threw a flaming garbage can through a Mitsuhama Appliances store front.

Hong Kong
Hong Kong was the latest addition to the “core cities�. Hopefully they won't destroy it with a Godzilla attack this time. Filled with loving detail, Hong Kong has the advantage of having nearly all its information available in one book: Runner Havens. I'm assuming that people can read that section, so I don't think it needs much of an introduction. Also, individual campaign seeds need less background information as there isn't a lot of killer easter eggs to find.

The White Flower Benevolence Society Of course it's a Triad front. The funny thing about protection rackets though is that in Hong Kong the merchants making payments expect actual protection. So the White Flower is actually a police organization more or less. That means investigating crime, patrolling streets, the whole thing. You just have to pretend you aren't doing it because you aren't registered with the Corporate Court and aren't licensed to do this in any way.

Mercenary Army: Macao is for drunkards and losers. Some of the most successful mercenary companies are registered in Hong Kong. They get rented out to fight in the brushfire wars in China; the ghastly civil war between the Esprit supported Republic of Cambodia and the Naga commanded Kingdom of Nag Kampuchea; the Cola Wars; the ongoing Indonesian Conflict; the border disagreements of Trollish Myanmar; and even wars going on elsewhere in the world.

Treasure Hunters Hong Kong is well known to be the only really civilized part of China. Ask anyone in Hong Kong, they'll tell you. What this means is that taking the treasures of Ancient China off the mainland and getting it to safety in museums and private collections is practically doing the world a favor. Or something like that. It's profitable, that's my point.

The Arctic
If Shadowrun had been written today, there would be a lot more Global Warming going on in it. As is, there is still a lot more trade going over the pole in 2071 than there is in 2007. Part of this has to do with the advent of Magic. With spiritual assistance you can take the Northwest Passage in relative safety and comfort. And people do. People do with container ships. There is a huge amount of traffic between North America and Eurasia and a tremendous amount of it goes through the poles. Thus, despite their lack of population, the Trans-Polar Aleut are quite influential as the Sixth World counts such things. And why isn't there much global warming anyway? It's not like people stopped using oil before we ran out. It's not like corporations stopped polluting.
No. The Arctic has currents which run at the bottom of the sea and come out in well over a thousand years around the equator. Through expeditious algae farming, one can fill those deep currents with huge amounts of carbon. And thus, the problem of Global Warming was solved for all time (qv. Futurama).

Free Traders The Yakut have a weird idea of what contraband is. So do the Québécoise. And a pretty pile of ¥s can be made giving these people the things their governments say they don't want. The Transpolar authorities basically approve of this sort of thing as long as you've assimilated somewhat into Inuit culture. But they can't officially condone your actions. It's kind of like working for a Johnson who happens to be the Tribal Council.

We Are Green War. Being a nation whose entire economy is an extension of the ability of Shamans to control the weather, the Trans Polar council really really supports peoples in their attempts to clean up the environment. Of course, Saeder Krupp has no intention of slowing down its pollution and pretty much tells the STC to go hump a splintering tree on a regular basis. The people of Trans Polar territories are groomed for Green War duty in much the same way that second sons of Saudi families are frequently sent off to work with the Jihad in 2007.

Night Hunters When the sun doesn't come up for days at a time, the horrors of the dark come in force. The trackless taiga is home to some scary, evil stuff and those who are tasked with destroying it are undermanned and underfunded. Hundreds of kilometers from a matrix hub and surrounded by cold so intense that pulltab burritos don't properly heat themselves, it can be hard to remember you're in the twenty first century sometimes. When the Lurkers come to harvest villages it all snaps into place – these were just stories in ages past.

Nippon
Corporate Enclaves comes out “very soon� and signs point to NeoTokyo being the Hong Kong of that book.

Expatriotism The Nippon Empire carved out a niche for itself all over the globe. But one of the things about globalism is that it also brings other people into your country. Shadowrunners from afar have a special place in society. On the one hand, they are treated mercilessly as gaijin ninja. On the other hand, a foreigner can see weaknesses in a society that a native cannot. And a monolithic society like Nippon has a lot of weaknesses.

For Love and Justice The Sentai tradition is alive and well in Neo-Tokyo. Seriously, there are monsters and vigilantes take it on themselves to rid the world of them and keep the second largest city on the planet safe. On the ugly side, there are people who use this as an excuse to get into groups and beat up trolls. But for those with real balls there are actual liver-eating youma out there who seem to mostly evade corporate security.

Yakuza Honor Being a member of the Yakuza is an ancient and honorable tradition. Well, sort of. The Yakuza are so firmly a part of Nippon society that they spread anywhere that Nippon corporations do (that's pretty much everywhere). And here in the center, there's more work for Yakuza then ever before.

Amazonia
I don't actually think that Shadows of Latin America will ever be published. Creative differences between the original designer and several of the authors basically kept it in limbo until well after its own freshness date. At this point it wouldn't even make sense to read it.
Amazonia is a little hard to justify honestly. It has, indeed basically is the largest city on the planet. Yes, it takes up a huge area on the map, but that's all park reserve. The people all live in a single city on the coast called Metropaul. Unfortunately, the dragons, jaguars, and spirits at the top basically don't know how to administer metahumans and couldn't care less anyway. Larger cities are hard to manage (for reference, in 2007 the national government has “no-go zones� in 8 out of 10 of the world's largest mega cities). The result is catastrophe. With 200 million people living in a single metroplex, the government probably actually has any real control over maybe 40 million. The rest of the city runs itself or not according to the fickle wind of fate the competency of local criminal syndicates. Some of it is on fire right now. Some of it will be on fire tomorrow as well.

Warring States Individual neighborhoods in Metropaul are often left to govern themselves. They figure out how to get water and power, they defend themselves from crime and other neighborhoods, and... yes. Other neighborhoods. In areas where the state does not have control, the entities who do have control are in essence the state. And when states see other neighboring states who have resources they want or feel they need the result is war as often as not. There is a concerted effort by some neighborhoods to actually conquer other neighborhoods and form larger areas of contiguous empires. It's a lot like uniting China except it's all city the whole way.

Ghost Cartels Much of the Amazon is off limits to metahumans who don't have proper identification as a lover of nature or something. But you know what? The people of Amazonia are confined to the coast and they can't possibly patrol the 11 million square kilometers the country covers. The Amazon is full of some really crazy, really expensive stuff, and it's guarded only by wild animals and inhospitable terrain.

Chicago
Chicago played “host� to one of the largest battles between spirits and metahumans so far to date. But unlike Alice Springs, the metahumans won. The battle was ugly, and Chicago residents spent a good portion of it walled off and literally eating each other. The new construction is leaving much of the irradiated portions untouched. Broad swathes of the city lie in ruins – mute testament to the horrors of trans-planar war.

Shattergraves 4 Life Not everyone left when Chicago fell apart. Some fought for survival and succeeded. These individuals and families consider themselves the real inhabitants of Chicago. The newer residents consider them to be dangerous psychopaths who might actually be insect spirits. Tensions rise.

Recovering the Hive The Universal Brotherhood was simply a bad idea. Metahuman society simply cannot be expected to accept induction to the hive without fully understanding the truth. But while the entire hive truce was ultimately worth nothing and less than nothing in the hands of those honey tongued buffoons, the fact remains that there are a lot of relics that could be useful in forming a new hive buried under the stones.

Prague
I physically live here which is I assume why it was suggested. There frankly isn't a whole lot of information available on Czechia in Shadows of Europe or the Germany Sourcebook. Even less in the rest of the world. It's a beautiful, international, and weirdly xenophobic place.

Vory Movements It is an all consuming fact of life in Czechia that the Russians are right over there and that the New Soviet is big and powerful and wants Czechia “back�. Massive amounts of criminal activities go on here of course, and Russian Criminal syndicates are only slightly more powerful locally than the Italian ones. As Slavic shadowrunners, you can work for any of the sides. Hell, it's traditional here in a nation which recently scored worse on a transparency index than Sicily.

Manila
Recently freed from direct control by the Nippon Empire, the Philippines still haven't retaken all of their resources or islands from the Nippon corporations who purchased them from the occupational authority for couch change. At the beginning of the 21st century, the nation was running a population growth rate of 6%, leading to one of the most underserved and uneducated populations on the planet.

Privateers Piracy is a big noise in this part of the Pacific and it is a really ugly affair. As pirate hunters though it is actually considered OK for you to seize ships, murder the occupants, and keep all heir stuff. You just have to make sure that it's pirates that you're attacking.

Divao Death Squads It is common practice in Davao for vigilante groups to murder undesirables in an effort to eradicate “crime�. Undesirables include homeless, ghouls, metahumans, certain ethnic groups, and girls. Also the bodies are frequently sold to Tanamous. Often while still alive.

Space
Space in Shadowrun actually isn't very “cyberpunk� - it's more like Traveler. Not only are there stable Moon and Mars bases, but there are multiple competing space stations. Some of them are located on the far side of the sun from the Earth. There's even a space station operated by smugglers in order to do crime. In space.
Part of this is because the advent of Magic makes it really easy to get stuff into orbit. Telekinesis can send something most of the way out of the gravity well with no energy inputs at all. And part of this is because Shadowrun has sufficient Fusion that you actually can go on 1G trips around the inner solar system and get to crazy destinations in weeks and not years.

Impending Doom The Evo Mars station has indeed found ancient troll bones on Mars. Also, they have a team of thaumaturgical researchers working on some ancient puzzle. Possibly some kind of gate. They don't know where it goes, but even with all the discoveries made so far it may be the discovery of the century. There is some reticence as it appears that some of the ancient metahuman corpses died by violence. Extreme violence.

Eden Station The heart of Ares Firewatch operations is a metaplanar gateway they have constructed in Eden station. It goes to The Hive, and they use it as a final stick against hives and nests which refuse to join the Ares team. A Firewatch team can fight a Mother or a Queen on their own plane and destroy them forever. It's a powerful incentive.

Lost Contact Every so often something in space just stops communicating. Sometimes this is as simple as a grain of sand hitting a satellite at high speed and taking out the comm system. But what when a whole space station just stops sending data? It's known that it's still there. The mass hasn't changed much, and it's still the same shape. It just isn't talking. And in a few weeks, help will arrive.

-Frank

[Seven-7]

My vote (In order of priority):
For Love and Justice The Sentai tradition is alive and well in Neo-Tokyo. Seriously, there are monsters and vigilantes take it on themselves to rid the world of them and keep the second largest city on the planet safe. On the ugly side, there are people who use this as an excuse to get into groups and beat up trolls. But for those with real balls there are actual liver-eating youma out there who seem to mostly evade corporate security.

Treasure Hunters Hong Kong is well known to be the only really civilized part of China. Ask anyone in Hong Kong, they'll tell you. What this means is that taking the treasures of Ancient China off the mainland and getting it to safety in museums and private collections is practically doing the world a favor. Or something like that. It's profitable, that's my point.

We Are Green War. Being a nation whose entire economy is an extension of the ability of Shamans to control the weather, the Trans Polar council really really supports peoples in their attempts to clean up the environment. Of course, Saeder Krupp has no intention of slowing down its pollution and pretty much tells the STC to go hump a splintering tree on a regular basis. The people of Trans Polar territories are groomed for Green War duty in much the same way that second sons of Saudi families are frequently sent off to work with the Jihad in 2007.

[Cthulhudreams]

Depending on the timeframe (if it's pushed back just a bit, I can play a game that starts at 8pm GMT, but 6pm is getting kind of savagely early, especially when it goes back to non daylight savings time.

If thats a bow out, then alas ;)

but as I'd like to play, my favourite three concepts in order of priority are:

Visit from the Old Country: Seoulpa Rings and JoPok First, a little Shadowrun trivia. The Nippon Empire was one of the big winners of the breakup of the United States and China.

Warring States Individual neighborhoods in Metropaul are often left to govern themselves. They figure out how to get water and power, they defend themselves from crime and other neighborhoods, and... yes. Other neighborhoods.

Privateers Piracy is a big noise in this part of the Pacific and it is a really ugly affair. As pirate hunters though it is actually considered OK for you to seize ships, murder the occupants, and keep all heir stuff. You just have to make sure that it's pirates that you're attacking.

Impending Doom The Evo Mars station has indeed found ancient troll bones on Mars. Also, they have a team of thaumaturgical researchers working on some ancient puzzle. Possibly some kind of gate. They don't know where it goes, but even with all the discoveries made so far it may be the discovery of the century. There is some reticence as it appears that some of the ancient metahuman corpses died by violence. Extreme violence.

However, treasure hunters hong kong would be pretty cool as well, and I'd definately be more than happy with that game.

[Whipstitch]

I like these 3, in order of priority:

Hong Kong: Treasure Hunters
Seattle: Working For Mister... Johnson
Nippon: Expatriotism

[Fortune]

[FrankTrollman]

So far it looks like 3 or more people are willing to do Treasure Hunters based out of Hong Kong, provided that we start at 18:00 (Edit: or was it 20:00? hard to tell - I need more explicit time schedules from people) GMT. That's fine with me.

Obviously the most helpful book for this purpose is Shadows of Asia, followed closely by Runner Havens. The information available on the Sixth World Wiki is pretty sketchy, but it's here:

http://wiki.dumpshock.com/index.php/Asia

A brief piece of history is probably in order. "China" is a single country in much the same way that "Europe" is. The language of "Chinese" is actually a grammar and pronounciation free written code that the emperor Qin Shih Huang Ti imposed on the region. The "dialects" of Chinese are different enough in grammar and vocabulary that were they to appear side by side in Europe or Africa they would be classified as different Language Groups. For those of you without linguistic know-how, that means that Wu and Yue lack the inherent similarity that is present between say French and Hindi.

So while any one who knows any "Chinese" language can write down some thoughts on a piece of paper and have that be interpretted successfully by anyone else in the region, actually speaking to other people is a chore. The difficult part of this is that in Hong Kong people speak Yue, but the dialect in most use is Guan. All of the following are different languages (despite having the same written code):

• Gan
• Guan (over 800 million speakers)
• Hui
• Jin
• Kejia
• Min
• Wu
• Xiang
• Yue (probably your native tongue).

Even this is a simplification. In many systems Eastern Min and Central Min are themselves different. But for the purposes of expediting the game, we'll deal with only 8 distinct languages of Chinese. In any case, expect that in a game involving running ancient archaeological sites taking ancient treasures that having someone who can speak all these languages is probably important.

Remember that while there are certainly ancient pieces of crazy magic lost in the dirt, that the vast majority of ancient treasures are valuable "just" because they over 2000 years old and filled with workmanship and history. So while an Indiana Jones hat and a whip is certainly appropriate, you won't spend your entire time stealing valuable magic weapons from Nazis.

Most of the time it's more along the lines of removing historical artifacts from war zones.

-Frank

[Cthulhudreams]

I'd like 20:00 GMT, as thats 7am local time which is quite achieveable. Earlier and I'd have to bow out.

[FrankTrollman]

[Seven-7]

Good time for me.

[Whipstitch]

The language situation sounds interesting. Especially since I hope for a bit of dangerous, traditional big city legwork between the dangerous middle o' nowhere scavenger hunts (after all, that's what seperates SR-4 from the typical dungeon crawl). Somehow, I doubt I'll be disappointed on that end though; Hong Kong's pretty friendly to "treasure hunters" and the like, but I can't imagine we'll be able to just wander around pumping every 3rd street vendor for information and expect to get reliable, discreet information. :)


20 GMT would be fine for me; that's like, what, 2 pm in Central US time?

This post has been edited by Whipstitch: Nov 17 2007, 04:26 AM

[Narse]

My votes, in rough order of preference:
Impending Doom - I think shawdowrun has great potential as a survival horror system (if I am interpreting this right)
Lost Contact - similar reasoning
The White Flower Benevolence Society
We Are Green War

If we do end up doing Treasure Hunters (assuming I'm in the game....) would it be more indiana jones style, find the ruins and loot, or more "liberating" artifacts from museums or some of both?

Oh, and what chat program? Like I said, I don't have any so I will need to acquire one for this game (if this works out, I may be busy with school for a while, I may not).

Thanks in advance.

[Whipstitch]

Impending Doom is pretty cool, I'm just selfish and want to play a magician, so I have some reservations about flyin' around in deep space. :S

I think I'm mostly attracted to Hong Kong treasure hunters because I really liked Runner Havens and because I'm hoping for Narse's " some of both?" scenario. I'm all about the variety and surprises. :love:

[Cthulhudreams]

I thought mars had a gaiasphere of a sort? The presence of thermataughical researches certainly implies that.

As for character wise, I'd like to play a hacker with a seasoning of rigger and use the new rules Frank has produced, possibly a technomancer if it is suitable for the campagin. (Hows the matrix in china?)

[FrankTrollman]

Chat Programs: I use Trillian, which can emulate all kinds of things. Emulating AIM seems easiest though.

On Impending Doom: It has been confirmed that magic does function on the Moon, Mars, and continuously operated space stations. In all of these places, mana ebbs are the norm, but magic does work. Space ships geerally fly through areas of strength 10 to 12 Mana Voids. That essentially means that magic doesn't work at all(you'd need a Magic attribute of 16 just to cast a spell in even the high magic regions of space). As Evo security employees, you wouldn't have to pay money for any Evo Security grade or hostile environment equipment. So the Hellas Planitia Research Facility will have air tanks, thermally insulated pressurized suits, gyrojet weapons, food, surveilance equipment and digging tools available for your use. You have to pay for your own conjuring materials, cyberware, and other specialty equipment. The lifestyle you purchase 3 months of at the start of the game indicates your security clearance, not the size of your flat or your theoretical bank account back on Earth.

On Treasure Hunters: The area which was once part of China has over 1.2 billion people in it, literally dozens of nations, and slightly over four thousand years of history. There's a lot to steal acquire protect. As such part of any particular endeavor would be to choose what to go after. History can't all be preserved. Much of it will be ground to dust under the heal of the relentless march of time. Or under the tank track of a Shan Xi expeditionary force. You know either way.

-Frank

[Narse]

I'm really stoked about Impending doom, but I could run with Treasure Hunters (or really any of the other options). Sorry for my gross ignorance but would I need an aol account in order to participate in an AIM chat? I'm not sure I'd want to get one, AOL uses some pretty underhanded tactics.

[Redjack]

ICQ is on the same IM net as AIM.

[Narse]

And ICQ is.....what exactly?

(once again please excuse my ignorance)

[Redjack]

(Please excuse the momentary thread-jacking in order to educate)
ICQ is a program that uses the OSCAR messaging protocol. (Yahoo (YIM) and the MSN Messenger, for example, use different protocols.)

A number of other programs like Pidgin & Trillian are able to login to the ICQ network (amongst other like Yahoo's & MSN's) allowing users to instant message.
OSCAR is the same messaging protocol used by AOL/AIM.

[FrankTrollman]

I've been pretty happy with Trillian, which can be downloaded Here.

My own AIM/ICQ contact name is just my name.

-Frank

[Catharz Godfoot]

When are you thinking of starting the game up for real?

[FrankTrollman]

The Saturday after people get their character sheets in.

Edit: So it looks like 4 people are fine with Treasure Hunters and with Impending Doom. Can I get a roll of hands?

Also, what power level do people want to play at?

-Frank

[Whipstitch]

With your houserules 400bps looks about spot on for Impending Doom. The higher amount skills and nuyen characters start with would make sense since it'd be dumb as hell to expect Evo to hire a bunch of green gutterpunks for a big job like that.

For Treasure Hunters I'd slightly prefer to keep it at 350 but 400 sounds pefectly fine too; I generally prefer playing slightly inexperienced guys rather than playing prime runners right out of the box, and that particular setting sounds like it could support any power level pretty easily.

Neither setting or power level is likely to be a deal breaker for me.


The more I think about it, the more I believe I want to play Treasure Hunt. I vote for that and 400 bps.

This post has been edited by Whipstitch: Nov 19 2007, 01:51 AM

[Cthulhudreams]

I'd like 400 or maybe a bit more power level wise. I'll tentatively vote Impending Doom.

[Seven-7]

400BP and T.Hunt.

[Catharz Godfoot]

I'd go for the 350 BP, as it tends to keep things a little tighter, but I'm more interested in how min/maxed people want to get. I mean, are we talking deckers with Hacking dice pools of 9 or 15? Again, I'd lean towards the former, but both options can be fun.

I'm also going to take a wild guess that a lot of the people interested are going to want to play hackers, at least in part to flex the house rules. If I'm right that might be significant in to the scenario.

"Impending Doom" sounds rad, but it seems like it might take a different skill set. I guess what I'm saying is, I'd like to play and anything sounds good. But playing a hacker of some kind would be cool. That or a Radiation summoner. Fuck yeah!

[Cthulhudreams]

I was thinking technomancer actually, but that might not be suitable for the front running games.

[Whipstitch]

I'd think a TM would work out just fine. If anyone is helped by the skill cost reductions, the removal of Agents and the elimination of BP-to-Karma inflation, it's the Technomancer. Then again, I'm not terribly certain what you mean by front running either.

Warning! Rant Incoming!
I have a hard time putting into words how much I hate the standard TM complex form costs; I can't decide if they're merely asinine or filled with draconian malevolence aimed directly at new players and those who just don't feel like min-maxing. Complex forms range from costing an arm and a leg at chargen to prohibitively expensive once you switch over to karma. It always appeared to me that the only rational way to build an effective TM was to pour every potential BP you had into your powers and then bootstrap your way up to being a reasonable facsimile of a well-rounded human being through play- provided you lived that long, of course. Considering that TM powers have been expressing themselves for well under a decade by the fluff, it is incomprehensible to me why the devs would construct the BP/Karma system in such a way that "beginner" Technomancers whose primary skills lie elsewhere would have near insurmountable hills to climb in developing their powers later through karma.


Uh, yeah, rant aside, I wanna play a mage. :vegm:

This post has been edited by Whipstitch: Nov 19 2007, 03:26 AM

[kzt]

If it's Saturday afternoon at GMT -7 I'll give it a shot. My regular group (which played then) seems to have melted down. Never done a chat game before, so I might bail after a session or two.

My actual interests in order would be Eden Station, For Love and Justice, Impending Doom, Ghost Cartels, Privateers, Expatriotism, Night Hunters, Treasure Hunters, The White Flower Benevolence Society, Trick or Treat!. But I'll play whatever.

400 pts is good for me. Lots of languages are expensive if it's going to be treasure hunters.

SR4 has the bizarre rule that you can NEVER speak a foreign language fluently like a native. How do you handle languages?

[Cthulhudreams]

[Narse]

My vote is for Impending Doom at 400+ BP (keeps the magicaly active from being seriously gimped).
If we run treasure hunters I would prefer something along the lines of 350BP. I can certainly work with 400 though.

I tend to end up with dice pools closer to 9 than 15 as long as I keep my munchkin tendencies firmly squashed.

Oh and um, I think there would definitely be networks on mars. Research base implies computers which imply networks. Security employees implies really useful networks that we probably don't need to hack into. If we played impending doom I had a nice Matrix sec. specialist concept kicking around, but for the sake of not being overly redundant I'll figure something else out. My current thinking (for T.Hunters at least - could probably be adapted to Impending Doom) is along the lines of Adept. [although the prospect of initiating at chargen makes mages really tempting.]

[Seven-7]

You guys do realize the Impending Doom is all a faux Doom 1, 2, & 3 make up, right?

Regardless, with the new rules for matrix, Treasure Hunting wouldn't terribly ruin hackers.

[FrankTrollman]

Matrix penetration in the former PRC is highly variable. There are essentially zero computers per square kilometer in Tibet, while most of the states in the Canton Development Council have full matrix penetration.

The Poles have a pretty decent set of Chinese history in Shadowrun on their wiki:
http://pl.shadowrun.wikia.com/wiki/China

The Mars base of course has the latest and highest tech computers available to the Evo corporation.

-Frank

[Whipstitch]

[Cthulhudreams]

I actually view that as a plus. This is an online game and they tend to benift from a tightly focused and short story arc. We might actually get to finish it!

But yeah I'm pretty much equal on both.

[Whipstitch]

Yeah, I'm more of a sandbox type player who's perfectly used to having sessions that go from "let's pursue the plothook" to "let's go steal that Westwind... I always wanted a Westwind". Not that I endorse derailing games here, mind you, but I must admit that I've always been rather more interested in collaborative problem solving than collaborative storytelling. Focus and direction in a campaign is a beautiful thing, but the ending has never really been a motivator for me.

[FrankTrollman]

400 BP seems to be a clear victor. We'll work with that.

Currently Impending Doom is very slightly ahead, with Treasure Hunters close enough behind that it could go either way (several other settings have two votes, but that's basically out of the running at this point). So here's some backstory in either case:

Impending Doom
The Hellas Planitia Research Station is located near the middle of the largest crater on the planet. The ridges of the crater are 1100 kilometers away the short way. The rim is 9 kilometers up from the facility. The crater is deep enough that ambient pressure can sustain liquid water when the temperature rises above zero degrees. It does this for about two hours each day around noon (longer in the summer, shorter periods during mid-winter, but about 2 hours right now). 7 kilometers up and pressure is low enough to hit the triple point of water, and partially due to the amount of water the station ends up pumping into the air the ice clouds at that height are continuously shifting in phase. The result is a prismatic haze which casts a rainbow pattern in the sky whenever the tiny and distant sun deigns to shine through it. The facility itself generates enough waste heat that the water around it is always liquid, giving you several meters of sloshing before you hit the ice even in the middle of the night.

Thaumaturgical surveys located this region as a point of interest as it represented a relative mana spike: for a hundred meters in any direction the background count measures at only a mana ebb of -1. Digging down it was discovered that a stable mana region was available 10 meters below the surface. The excavation began almost immediately. The first stage of the mission is essentially an open pit mine. Massive drilling machines operated by riggers cleaved the stone down to the perceived mana source: a small set of caves with some interesting artifacts going back about 7000 years.

The base has three layers. The external layer is a series of individual buildings which are each separately pressurized. The main base is a complex built into the rock itself which is continuously pressurized and has most services in it. And the Dig, which is pressurized with nitrogen gas in order to facilitate work and minimize damage to the artifacts. The base has a very helpful and powerful network overseen by an AI. As an Evo construction, it runs Orb. The total staff on site is 50 people, including security staff. The next supply comes in four months, and the requested supplies must be finalized in 94 Earth days. Satellites are in place which supply a GPS system and limited remote power, but the base itself runs off of a fusion reactor.

Treasure Hunters
Before 2011, no substantial archaeological evidence of the Xia Dynasty or the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors had been found. Since that time however, substantial numbers of relics have been found from that period. With newfound arcane insight, a number of sites have been reinterpreted, and the racial type of various historical and mythical figures has become politically important. There is more to be collected than can be taken in a lifetime, the team will have to pick their targets. Here are some examples:

Writing on a shell in oracle bone script indicates the existence of an additional Daxi walled city whose walls were made of wood. Unfortunately, it is presently under water behind the Three Gorges Dam.

Continued fighting in and around Chengdu over the succession of General Liang threatens the existence of pottery and other artifacts from ancient Baodun settlements. Lung could clearly save these pieces of history, but for whatever reason he does not.

The Guwan Shichang of Tianjin is going to be holding an auction selling off some of the weapons recovered from the tomb of Qin Shihuang Ti. Some of those should probably not go to just anybody.

A wealthy and mysterious benefactor is willing to finance your trip to Tibet in order to reclaim a statue of Buddha which he insists is in a temple that was revealed by receding snow caps in 2035. It is the stated policy of the Theocracy of Tibet that noone is allowed entrance to that or several other temples without being a hereditary priest lord.

The bloody ethnic purging of Hui people from the Gansu region continues unabated, and the ethnically Han Army of Insurmountable Wisdom has declared that relics of non-Han cultures are abominations and are to be destroyed. This includes Majiayao bronzes, Dadiwan stone blades, and Mongolian tapestries.

The Empire City of Beijing is under siege. The Forbidden City subject to shelling. When two thousand years of history resides in a building, what can you save before the mortar rounds destroy it?

Language Information: I would consider anyone who had a 4 in a language to be “native� in any living language. However, dead languages such as Oracle Bone Script, Bronze Script, and Xia Script are never “native� no matter how many point you have in them.

-Frank

[Whipstitch]

The Guwan Shichang of Tianjin Auction and the Infiltration of Tibet sound cool.

It's somewhat limited for actual negotiations, but I'd be willing to take the Translate spell on my Mage if that's a concern. My goal as a mage is typically to be exceedingly useful rather than a combat monkey anyway. A full suite of combat spells is nice and all but frankly, it's the samurai's job to handle that crap. I say let his dermal plated ass get shot at, and besides, full bursts don't require drain tests. :cyber:

[Narse]

Oh, I should probably state that while I currently reside in GMT -7 (U.S. Mountain Time) from approximately Dec. 15 to Jan. 15 I will be in GMT -9 (Alaska Time) and will probably have a harder (although not insurmountable) time making the scheduled game times. I may be in transit Dec. 15th and unable to make that game. I will have to check my ticket.

[Cthulhudreams]

Aha, wireless power projection exists?

Anyway, again, I'm in for either game with potentially with a slight plus vote to Impending doom 'cause of the defined structure, though raiding an auction has fun 'hudson haw' feel. I'll definitely play a technomancer in either.

[kzt]

In Impending Doom, what would the PC's role be that they should be competent in? Are the PCs supposed to be multi-talented "expert in one field, plus ok in combat" or something else? Is it reasonable to assume that Evo wouldn't staff a 50 person team on Mars with people who couldn't do something useful every day, so no hyper optimized combat monsters?

[Cthulhudreams]

The blurb mentions evo security employees, so I'd imagined that we'd either be top shelf evo commandos similar to the plot line presented in Doom the computer game, senior evo corporate staff to oversea operations, similar to the guys you only find when they are dead, or highly rated evo research scientists working on evolutionary weapons programs or whatever.

But thats just what I'd imagined, how do you guys see it?

[Narse]

I don't really see top shelf commandos. Certainly most people posted to mars will be higher echelon personnel in their usefulness, but it could also be seen as a backwater posting for security personnel (actually I think that was the reason Doom's protagonist was on Mars). So I see definite needs for: highly skilled Thurmatugical/Magical (cause that's one of the primary researchers, and Matrix defense specialists (I am assuming that the station has a link to the wider matrix, as well as some VERY secret data on its networks. Of course there would be a time lag on outside attacks, but still the threat would be appreciable, things like agents only need to transfered once before they start working in realtime.) also talented security would be needed (risk of physical attack is rather low, but reinforcements are a LONG ways away) Highly skilled riggers (they're just really useful when short on manpower), of course fusion reactor engineers and research station managers would also be necessary although they make less intriguing PCs.

The primary survival concern in Hellas Planitia would be the low level of atmosphere. Mars is actually much more habitable then other extraterrestrial objects in that you could actually survive a short period of time unprotected during the nice part of the day. I'm guessing form the fact that the atmosphere is about 1% of sea level (at the bottom of Hellas)earth atmospheric pressure and that it is only 0.2% oxygen that you would asphyxiate long before you froze. I'm guessing that the next biggest threat to survival is the lack of pressure in the thin atmosphere. It would probably cause Ebullism which would probably be fatal. Much later you'd freeze.

Oh, one more thing. The only ShadowRun books I have are SR4 and Street Magic. That won't be a problem will it?

EDIT: This won't be like doom in that switches in one place open doors several hundred meters away will it? Who the heck designs facilities like that anyway?

[Whipstitch]

Bleh, we'd be company men? I must have skimmed that part... I won't be playing a mage in that event. The mage concepts I have floating around in my head atm just wouldn't really fly with that. I have a neat li'l designer baby samurai in mind though that would make sense as company man though.

[Cthulhudreams]

Agents are not a feature of Frank's rules for 'trix stuff.

Onto more serious stuff - don't multiple corps have bases on mars? If you are working on a top secret project, you might want to be able to fend off the others if they get wind of it.

The top shelf commando in doom is actually the guy that is body guarding the 'review team' leader.

But you do make some really fair points.

(Also, I'm still keen for treasure hunters too guys)

[Whipstitch]

Frank, I was thinking of taking some genetech but noticed that the prices in the book don't all match up. Would you prefer us to use the prices listed in the chapter or the prices listed in the back of the book? Provided you really want us screwing around with Aug at all, of course.

[FrankTrollman]

[Whipstitch]

Speaking of the movement power, how do you handle the whole "within terrain it controls" portion of the text? It's pretty cut and dried with the elemental spirits, but pretty vague with stuff like Guardian and Beast spirits (most Spirits can take Movement as at least an optional power). Frankly, if you ruled that the Movement power is essentially useless for such Spirits outside of their home plane, I could hardly blame you. Movement is a great power, and with a strict interpretation, it makes Hermetics/Chaos Mages into unparalleled masters of terrain instead of merely being saddled with a fairly redundant Spirit selection. On the other hand, that'd still leave me puzzled to just what exactly it is Beast Spirits are supposed to be good for if their movement power is crappy (animal control is alright, I guess, although Guardians can get it too, for some reason).

[FrankTrollman]

"Within the terrain it controls" is flavor text. In previous editions, some spririts (notably Nature Spirits and Loa) were limited to specific terrains while using their powers. But Elementals always controlled the terrain wherever they happened to be. Now all the spirits do that.

-Frank

[kzt]

Are there any wacky things about summoning spirits on mars that we should know about?

[FrankTrollman]

[Narse]

[kzt]

[FrankTrollman]

[kzt]

So I sent my (mostly finished) reactor engineer in to Frank and was wondering if anyone else had actually put together and submitted a character?

[Cthulhudreams]

I'm working on one as we speak - I wasn't totally sure we'd committed to Mars, but I might just get onto it then.

[Whipstitch]

I'd have a character done but all the sheets I keep coming up with are leaving me cold or else would be fairly worthless anywhere near a mana ebb.

[FrankTrollman]

Warning, I didn't actually get kzt's submission. I haven't been able to adjust my controls in some time and I don't think I get the emails through the "send mail" button in Dumpshock. My current email is:

ftrollman @ gmail.com

(No Spaces). My AIM is:

FrankTrollman

And sending it to me through either should work. So it looks like we have an Engineer and a Janitor so far. Looks like it's going to be more Half-life and less Doom, which is fine. Once everyone gets their sheet in or at least declares their occupation I put together the whole roster of the base staff. I should be able to have that up by Friday because I don't have an Anatomy test this week.

-Frank

[kzt]

Hmm. I did send it to that address, which looks like the same one from your insane journal. But it's not in my gmail sent folder... Odd.

I guess I'll try again.

[Whipstitch]

<--- Mage

I've decided to basically just sheet up one character that I could use for either setting; I still favor treasure hunters. I'm also busy trying to figure out just what the hell a 400 bp janitor sheet could possibly look like.

[kzt]

how about a rigger with a PhD in microbiology and several useful PS like Life support systems, plumbing and cleaning. And possibly an unusual, shall we say neuritic, interest in cleanliness. They are unlikely to haul someone to mars who can just clean floors. Even though supervising the cleaning robots might be his main job.

[Whipstitch]

Agreed. I'm just willing to bet that calling the character a janitor will be in many ways akin to saying Jesus was a carpenter.

[Catharz Godfoot]

Are useful drugs (i.e. cram & long haul) available at the station? It looks like I'm going to play a local netadmin or tech, and therefore also a communications guy, and I'm wondering if the usual combination of programmer drugs will be available :)

[Whipstitch]

And Psyche! Don't forget Psyche. Gotta have Psyche!

[Narse]

Well, as for the Janitor concept I was thinking of taking things like:
Exotic Ranged Weapon (Chemical Spray)
and probably a smattering of technical skills.
Don't worry, I'll find some way of using all 400BP :D - even if it is just having tons and tons of contacts.

[FrankTrollman]

If you want to call them "sanitation engineers" that's fine. I'm sure that their actual job title is something like that, but in Russian.

And yes, you can get drugs for free for as long as you are on the mission. When you get back to Earth you'll have to pay for any you still want out of your own pocket, which is part of why they do that.

-Frank

[FrankTrollman]

Oh, and something Kzt stumbled upon: If you write up your contacts before the roster gets finalized, then you can grandfather in characters to specific tasks on the base. For example: the cook is named Elizaveta Katenin, and she's from the New Soviet near the Mongolian and Turkestan borders. That means that when left to her own devices she makes Uighur food although she is trained in classical Russain Haute (similar to French Cisine as it happens).

-Frank