Skype IM players wanted, Shadows of the valley 2073. Options

[HunterHerne]

Looking to run a game on Skype Instant Messenger. Character creation is 400 BP, low power campaign.

I have no players, at this moment, so all types are appreciated.

The setting will be mostly rural, with corp and criminal influences. There are a few cities within easy reach, and will be used at some point.

Behind the spoiler is the optional rules and house rules I choose to adopt. If you are interested, feel free to PM me.

[ Spoiler ]

Knowledge Skills
- These skills can be used to enhance your active skills, similar to teamwork tests.
Subject to GM allowances on a case-by-case basis.

Background
-Is appreciated. If you can tell the GM what happened to your character's family, that is
a good start.
-Basic descriptions of Contacts is appreciated, as well. Not just their job.

Social Skills
- The beginning of every social encounter will involve an Ettiquette test, and will give a
general understanding of how each character is percieved. Note, if everyone but a face rolls
poorly, the face`s dice will suffer quite a bit for being associated with you.
- Heavy roleplaying is not necessary, but some roleplaying is appreciated. You don`t have
to say everything you do in a socail encounter, but a general idea, within the GM`s interpretation
of the aforementioned ettiquette roll, is required.

Combat
- Movement in combat will be handled at the IP the movement occurs, when necessary for
tactical combat. For movement purposes, combat takes 4IPs. Trolls will move at 3m/IP; Humans,
Elves and Orks at 2m; and Dwarves at 1m. Running, Trolls 7m; Humans, Elves, Orks 5m; and Dwarves
3m. This does not line up with the typical landspeeds in the book, but should provide more real-
istic movements. When sprinting, you use your action that IP, and add an immediate .5m to your
speed.
- In order to provide a more gritty campaign, the optional severe damage is enforced, with
a small change. The test is now an Edge-[wounds-7, minimum 0] (1) test. This will cause more
severe effects to happen more often.
- Whenever armour is bypassed (the attack does Physical damage instead of Stun), the armour used to resist the attack is reduced by one. This can be repaired.
- Ramming will use a slight variation. The speed will be relative to the vehicles. If they
are both travelling the same direction, the slower vehicle will be subtracted from the higher speed.
If the vehicles run into each other head on, the speeds will be added together. Each vehicle will
use it's own body to determine what the other vehicle takes as damage.
- Armour maximum before encumbrance will be Body+str.
- Blast/acid damage: This damage will break/corrode armour when it is used. The armour makes a test against the force (or base damage), and reduces the value by the number of hits (x2 for blast) the armour makes. This modified value is reduced from the armour, in addition to
the effects of damage>armour, if applicable. This only reduces from the impact armour's full value.

Healing
- Body-wound modifiers for physical damage. Body or willpower- wound modifiers for stun
damage. Healing modifiers will also be enforced.
- Heal Spell, et al. These spells will automatically set force at the boxes the target
has taken. These spells may still only be used once between wounds/effects. If the spell's
force exceeds the magicians magic, the drain is physical. If the Force exceeds the Magicians
magic x2, the spell cannot be completed (no drain). The new Drain is F/2-2 for Heal.

Magic
- Direct Combat spells in the meat world will deal only net hits damage. This will limit
their abusability, and allow other combat spells some versatility. On the Astral and in the metapanes,
Direct spells will be F+net hits, as usual.
- Even though they are physical spells, elemental spells are ultimately decided by their
damage types whether they deal stun or physical. This means Smoke, Sound, and Electricity spells
deal stun damage, and Fire, Ice, cold, water, Metal, Sand, Acid, Blast and Light deal Physical.

Lifestyle
- Advanced lifetyle is the preferred method.

Alternate Character types
- Most alternate characters are allowable (fomori, Vampires, Centaurs), however, the Nos-
feratu is banned.

Geas
- Adept Geas is allowable, at the GM's discretion.
Matrix
- Programs are limited in dice to the Logic of the character using them. For example, an
Ork with Logic 2 would only get 2 dice when using a rating 4 analyze program.

Ware
- In order to find a useful place for Adrenaline Pump, and to bring it in line with what I
reason to be it's complexity, I have reduced it`s price to 1/5 of what is stated in the book.
This makes the Adrenaline pump cost ratingx6000.

Edit: Have a mage, a Phys Ad, a hacker, and a Rigger.

[pbangarth]

The rural nature intrigues me. I've been toying with trying to get a rancher/shepherd kind of adept to play. Heavy on the animal interaction kind of thing. (No, not THAT kind of interaction!) Does something like that fit your plans?

How often would Skype gaming happen? How long a session?

I've only used Skype one-on-one. How well does it deal with multiple connections?

EDIT: Ah. IM, not video/audio. I see.

[HunterHerne]

Yep, Skype IM. It saves the conversation so we can look back through later, and it can have multiple people in one conversation. Also, where my work schedule is hectic and includes dreaded 3 am work times twice a week, I don't have a set schedule, instead having the "sessions" when they can happen, or acting more like PbP most of the time.

As for the character, it's one I haven't seen done before, and therefore intrigues me. Since it is a rural area, there are a number of areas that have farm animals, however, the vast majority is forested, with rocky outcrops. That would make ranching difficult. It'd probably be worth a try, anyway.

[Faranji]

Hey,
is this idea still up to date? Depending on which times you want to play (me sitting in Germany) I'd be in with a character which is still to be decided on (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) I'm available for playing from september onwards...

[Sephiroth]

By the by, I also might be available beginning in September. Maybe. I was thinking of being the weird one and going with a naga adept with roles split between semi-decent Matrix stuff and melee combat (especially the niche role of water combat, since he is as fast or faster in the water than most boats) who also has a creepy Spirit Affinity with bug spirits that he doesn't like at all. It's like having a bunch of stalkers. Except the stalkers are alien insects. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rotate.gif) Feel absolutely free to completely veto me from your game for my character idea.

[HunterHerne]

Sorry folks. I didn't see any movement on this thread, so I had ignored it for a bit, but I have found the players I need. I apologize for not letting it be known sooner.

[pbangarth]

No problem. It was taking me a while to make up my shepherd and his dog. I will continue to work on him, though, in case another opportunity shows up.

[Faranji]

Since there is a certain amount of interest we could set up a second Skype group, hm? We'd have three interested players already and would then need a GM and could get going.

Admittedly though I don't have any idea of how RPing via IM would work - atm I imagine it being rather chaotic (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

/Edit: As for the character: I would play the hobo with a shotgun weird (clinically) paranoid rigger who lives in a bunker somewhere in the forest.

[ScooterinAB]

I'd be up for contributing to another online game. I would rather play, as I am still really rusty on the rules. I've played Shadowrun a number of times, but most only lasted a single run (if that).

A character depends on the GM and what they want to do. That said, ideas I've been tossing around are an aging rocker turned Rigger, a psychic "Mage", and a social adept (if I can find the character sheet).

[Tecumseh]

I'm going to commandeer this thread and see if I can revive it. I've been thinking about the potential behind a rural campaign for a week and am interested in trying it. I am willing to GM.

Subject to discussion, here's an outline of what I'm thinking:
• A rural campaign in Salish-Shidhe territory near Seattle.
• Due to the setting, there would be a magical emphasis. Tech and the Matrix would be lower priorities.
• Lower-powered campaign. I'm thinking dice pools of 12 or less, 14 at the most. Caps on IPs / availability / etc. Sub-optimal builds welcome.
• Karma builds, 750 at chargen.
• 3-4 players, each with an interesting character they have a crush on.

There are some other tweaks and house rules I have in mind but first I'd like to gauge interest. As for character builds, they need to fit the setting. A cybered sammie in his prime is probably in the wrong place, but a gunslinger who made it to retirement and wanted a place in the country (and whose skills are starting to get rusty) would fit well. An adept who is a shepherd/rancher sounds perfect. I'd prefer to keep things less exotic but a suitable shapeshifter (e.g. a bear or a cougar, not a penguin) could work.

I haven't played by Skype IM before (nor play-by-post, for that matter) but I'm intrigued by how it's described. If it would allow for logged discussions (basically PbP) interspersed with occasional live sessions to speed things along then that sounds great. Other suggestions are welcome too.

If you're interested or want to discuss, reply here or PM me.

Tec

[pbangarth]

Life is a touch hectic at the moment, but I am close to having the shepherd adept ready for posting.

[Tecumseh]

This is what I'm thinking for game-specific chargen rules:

1) Availability limited to 8. ®estricted or (F)orbidden is fine. The Restricted Gear quality raises the limit to 12. No cap for fake licenses and fake SINs, although these won't play a large role in a rural campaign.

2) Free contact points: (Charisma + Etiquette) x 2 karma. If you have an etiquette specialization then you can have the extra points but they have to be spent on a contact related to the specialization.

3) Contacts limited to Connection 4. (Rural, remember.) Loyalty unlimited.

4) Free knowledge skills like in a BP build. (Inituition + Logic) x 6 karma. They don't all have to be useful; I'll be looking for skills related to your background here.

5) No point cap on positive or negative qualities. If it fits into your character's background then it's more color for the story. (Be reasonable though. Don't take Allergy and Incompetent seven times.)

6) Given the setting, I'm going to allow specializations off the Outdoors skill group as long as all the specializations are the same. (Forest or Mountain suggested.)

I'm trying to avoid specific limitations on skill levels but I will reiterate a general guideline of dice pools of 12 or less, maybe 14 for your specialty. Make an interesting, well-rounded character that has some flavor. There might only be a few players so there won't be a specialist for everything.

I would prefer initiative passes to be limited to 1 but I don't want to change the game mechanics too drastically. (Specifically, I don't want to change the Astral/Matrix initiative rules, nor do I want to tilt the balance of power in their favor by only capping physical initiative.) If, in the spirit of a low-powered campaign, we can keep the initiative passes reasonable then I'll make sure that the opposition is similarly balanced.

Sound good? Let me know if you have other proposals or suggestions.

Tec

[pbangarth]

Sounds good overall.

I will have to think about the shepherd, though. With INT 5, Animal Husbandry Group 4, Animal Empathy Quality and Animal Empathy (6) adept power, he gets Animal Handling and Animal Training pools up to 17. These are basically skills on which he has concentrated all his life. I guess I could drop INT a bit and the adept power a couple of levels. The INT applies to a lot of his other skills too, though. Would a pool of 15 in these two skills be hard on game play?

At this draft he has the adept power improved reflexes (1). He's been beefing up combat ability since evicted from his farm by those corporate, factory farm bastards, and he means to take his revenge. If this power is a problem I'm sure I can spend the points on something else.

He's got one dog left, a border collie named Jake. With metamagics Attunement (dog) and Empower Animal he's got a good buddy in Jake who can do some amazing things.

I had to think through what kind of dog a border collie is, in game stats. From Running Wild, p. 34-36, I figured a purebred, not cloned, top quality herding dog would be 1000 nuyen base, and then highly trained by the shepherd to against instinct level with WIL of 3 should be a multiplier of 20, making Jake's cost 20,000 nuyen.

The animal stats don't reflect the variety in the canine species. Taking the SR4A base dog (german shepherd size) on page 299, I would like border collies to be modified a bit:

decrease BOD and STR by 1 each (smaller dog than the examples)
increase AGI and REA by 1 each ( bred for these traits)
I wish I could increase INT or LOG by a bit, but I'm trying not to make a super dog here, despite my bias in that regard. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

decrease unarmed combat by 2 (the last step of the killing instinct bred out of herding dogs)
increase intimidation by 1 (it's how they move and control sheep and cattle)
add dodge of 1 ( I don't know why all animals don't have this skill, but you have to see these dogs duck and deke)

What do you think?

[Tecumseh]

For the Animal Husbandry Group, I'm willing to consider allowing specializations off the group like I am for the Outdoors group if the animal types for the specializations are the same ("canine" presumably), excluding Riding.

As for the character's attributes and skills, I would suggest keeping Intuition at 5. My recommendation would be to take a couple levels out of the Animal Empathy adept power and spend them elsewhere. If you choose to specialize in canines for Animal Husbandry then that could free up more power points or you could drop the Animal Husbandry group by a level. But, to your point, I agree that a dice pool of 15-16 in these skills would not break the game.

If you feel that Improved Reflexes is an integral part of your character as you've imagined him then you can keep it. If there are other ways to spend the points that would make you equally happy then that works too.

Are you using The Way of the Adept? The Totem's Way sounds like a good fit.

For the border collie, I would say keep Body at 2. Reducing it to 1 seems unrealistically low, especially for an outdoor, active dog. Given what I've just learned on Wikipedia, the boosts to Agility and Reaction sound reasonable. Extra points for Intuition or Logic are plausible too, especially since other canines are listed elsewhere as having Logic 2.

For the skill changes, I would recommend a specialization in Intimidation instead of a base skill increase. You can specialize the other skills too as you deem appropriate. A point or two in Dodge sounds good too.

I was initially going to suggest a reduced price tag for the dog, given that you trained him yourself. Instead, why don't we go with the price you suggested (20,000 nuyen) plus the 6 karma needed to attune to Jake and you can have the stat boosts. The 20k will represent the opportunity cost of you honing Jake instead of undertaking other profitable enterprises like learning the harmonica or sitting in a field throwing bricks at cows.

Let me know how that sits with you.

Tec

[pbangarth]

Awww... no bricks at the cows. Oh... OK.

I'm happy with your recommendations. I don't have Way of the Adept, sadly, so I don't know what goodies it might contain for my guy. (I should name him. The dog has a name, for crying out loud.) As I recall from elsewhere on DS, in any particular Way certain adept powers are less expensive. That could be a real bonus here. But, I don't have it.

I'll see what I can come up with for the adept powers. If I lose the Increase Reflexes and two levels of Animal Empathy, then there is a whole 2 points to play with.

[Tecumseh]

Just a quick post to refresh this thread and let people know that it is still active and open to one or two more players. The game hasn't started yet; in fact, we're still figuring out a game format (despite the original thread name). Let me know if you're interested.

[pbangarth]

I'm still here and shepherding the... shepherd.

[phlapjack77]

I'm on my way to having an eagle-shifter mage ready to go...as discussed with Tecumseh

[AtroposReborn]

I would be interested in joining your game if you don't mind someone will little experience. I'll understand if you'd rather have someone that knows all about the game, but if you want to give me a chance all I need is a little assistance.

[Tecumseh]

Hi Atropos,

I'm open to working with a new player but I'll be upfront that this might not be the ideal introduction to Shadowrun. A rural setting is rare and will lack a lot of the gritty, urban cyberpunk elements that give the game world a lot of its flavor. A rural environment is somewhat of a novelty in this universe and will be a bit of an experiment for the group.

That said, if you're still interested then send me a PM and we can work out the details.

Tec

[Tecumseh]

And with that, I am going to close recruiting for the moment. Here is where we stand for players who have expressed interest:

pbangarth - shepherd adept
Faranji - rigger
phlapjack - eagle-shifter mage
Aerospider - TBD
AtroposReborn - maybe/TBD

I'm not in a any hurry but just to keep things moving along why don't we try to have character sheets done by the end of the month. That gives everyone a full week to get a draft ready. Whenever they're ready, let me know and I'll go over it with you.

Everyone should have a background for their character. It doesn't need to be extensive but I'd like to see a few solid paragraphs (more is certainly welcome) to get a sense of everyone's character. I will read them and will comb through them for plot hooks as appropriate. I'm not worried about your character's height and weight; I'd like to know about their personality and identity. Filling out the 20 Questions is an option.

As previously stated, the game will take place in Salish-Shidhe lands near Seattle. The background for any humans (non-metas) should include a hint of Amerind heritage to justify being there. It doesn't have to me much; a trace is enough. You might find a quick review of the Sixth World Wiki to be helpful:

http://wiki.dumpshock.com/index.php/Salish-Shidhe_Council

Questions? Let me know.

[Tecumseh]

How is my happy little family coming along? I've received drafts from most people but nobody's been finalized yet.

Let me know how you're doing on timing. I wouldn't mind starting the game relatively soon. I'm not adverse to kicking things off while people put the finishing touches on their characters and backgrounds. I imagine that we won't need much dice rolling for the first few days.

If you've asked a question that I haven't answered then I've lost it in the mix. Please remind me and I'll address it promptly.

For those of you who are play-by-post veterans, any tips or features of previous games that you particularly liked? This is my first time with PbP so I'm operating on theory rather than experience (or would that be "karma"?).

Post here or drop me a line. I'll be in touch.

[AtroposReborn]

Just noticed the post. You never responded to my last message (just a reminder) but after that I should be pretty much good to go anytime.

[pbangarth]

Thanks for rattling my chain. I'll get back on this.

[pbangarth]

I will try to get my guy up by tomorrow. Tomorrow night I am going to England for a week, so if things would be held up by me not being around, please just leave me behind and I will try to catch up, if possible, when I return, or wait till the game has room for a new guy.