Running the Arcology, How to do it? Options

[Endgame50]

Hey all,
I need to run the group through the arcology, but there are (understandably) no maps and only sketchy decriptions of each floor. How should I run this? I was thinking it's the closest you'll ever come to a real dungeon in Shadowrun, and you can restrict them to accessing some levels by restricting the floors elevators coudl access--but aside from that, how should I guide them into certain areas? How big should each "floor" be? I assume they're subsectioned. What should I be sure to include in the maps? How many floors should I have them go through? Any nasty / fun ideas to use? Any help, as always, is much appreciated.

[Mr.Cato]

hey endgame

When I get back from work I'll write you all the details of my runthrough of the Arc. I took my group 3 sessions to complete it... and that was the quick way!

I'll be right back in 8 hours

[fistandantilus4....]

try running a search throug hold threads.

I think Demonseed was involved with some mapping, or someone he knew. He had a link to it on one of the old threads.

[torzzzzz]

There was a thread about this a month back!!

torz x ;)

[fistandantilus4....]

...and the month before that.........

[DocMortand]

Frankly, due to how things works, you don't have to worry about how to control where the characters goes. Elevators go to random floors no matter what you press (I.E. controlled by Deus) and stairwells have been blocked or are swarming with drones/wild paracritters/Banded in the direction you don't want them to go. *grin*

And yes, this has been covered before, but that's okay. :)

[Mr.Cato]

[ Spoiler ]

Yeah... the Arc is big. To get an app. area of each floor, I drew a pyramid with a flat top. With the height set to 969 m. (RA:S p.15) I measured me to the size of the floors I needed.

I discouraged elevator use as Deus almost is omnipresent in the Arc. The elevators work with voice ID and a runner would need to make some difficult electronic to use the elevators, and if Deus every found out he would take the runners to a security floor (with a wellcome reception). Fun one... have the elevator pass the floor the runners expected...light turn off... going up .. up.. up..
Anyway I decided that the ways useable would be:
Elevators shafts (useing cabels ect. remember some shafts have room for 4 or more evelators and some go horizontaly)
Main staircases. Broad and central... these will put the runners in risk of being spotted by patrols/inhabitants.
Maintainance stairways. I guess there would be many of these, and the would not be surveied or patroled that often.

My runners used maintainance stairways the most. When I wanted them to venture out on a floor I told them that the staircase stopped at a certain level, or have a patrol of Blues come down the stairs.

I would have them out on a floor for special events:
Labyrinths. Deus conved several sections of floors into different labyrinths.. think "running man" and indiana jones traps.. with killer drones.
Encounter with drones. I would arange encounters with different drones so they could get to know them before I threw many of them together further up.
Encounters with inhabitants. Captured workers... converted workers...the spooky children carrying "dolls" (The children were used be Deus to inform and other things... he comuniated with them thorugh the dolls)
Experimental horrors. The stench .. the dead people.. the horrorable experiments (cross species crafting.. ect.)

Some floors I would draw... some I would describe. I let them find staircases easily because there are just too many floors.

If you don't have the RA:S book I will send you a runthrough of the floors I made for my sessions. I will also send you summaries of drone combat and encounter ideas if you want.

There is also the room "1835" the runners can search for if they are looking for big money. My runners were complaining that Ronin and Doder did pay them anything to run the Arc. I collected some info on "1835" martix hunt too.

Please ask if you have questions while the Arc is still fresh in my memory :)

[ Spoiler ]

[Req]

So if you send (rather than post) all that good information, hook me up too, could ya? More inspiration is always welcome; I'm in the middle of an Arc game right now (players will be here in about a half hour, actually.) :)

Once I've got a more usable outline of mine, I'll post as well. Right now it's all still pretty chaotic.

[Fortune]

I think you should post the rest rather than send it Mr. Cato. Then we could all gt the benefit from it. :)

[Endgame50]

I apologize to the search nazis. I know it's annoying to see a thread pop up again and again. If anyone cares to notice, my frequenting of these forums is rather sporadic--and I have issues with this search engine. Anyway, I'll endeavor to remember to search first next time! Mr Cato, I'd appreciate your input--either as a post or as a message. If you'd like, I can PM you my email addy or whatever's easiest.

[Mr.Cato]

for what it's worth...

first for the people who don't have RA:S a quick runthough of the floors with some notes for events.

[ Spoiler ]

4 UCAS being chased towards the players by 2 Medusae. Save one UCAS… he will thankfully lead runners to floor 4 (last UCAS controlled floor)
Few minutes after the fight trolls will blow up the tunnel.
B5-B2: Up through several parking garages. Avoiding drones and UCAS.
B2: Mantas and Dervishes and Blues. Has ramps to the interstate (more or less blocked)
B1: service tunnels for the mall (1) loading dock for seagoing transport. Many drones.
1: Principal entrance Renraku Mall (1-5). Fun-Zone amusement park. Forest. Zoo.. ect. Heavely battered by battles.
2-5 Monorail station. Renraku Mall. Also battle scared. UCAS guards stairs and elevators to upper floors.
6: Club quarter norther half. Mall offices southern half. Lot of fighting was here. Packs of Medusea patrol and guard the stairs. Blues on patrol with Skelbots.
7-20: Residential floors. Hospital on 13th floor. 14th “holding pen. Residential area bordered by green area with trees and bushes and big windows. All houses are empty no people at all. Utopia city abandoned. Patrol scares runners into the holding pen on floor 13 ?
Hospital, many blues… cyberware and patients.
21: Food storage. Sneaking past some guards? Food event  sign says ”hydroponic gardens and food production”
22: Electronics Manufacturing. Tight security. Drones and Blues.
23-30: Corporate offices. “The Hunt” occurs here.  Get the runner out of maintenance shaft with blue patrol.
31: Middle-class residence. Thoroughly thrashed. Occupied by blues. Outdoor gardens barricaded.
32-39: Deceptively normal residence area. Blues and Green here.
40: Hospital floors.
41: Holding pen. All walls removed sedated people under heavy guard. (Blues and Drones). Maybe have a Minidrone discover the runners.
42-50: Middleclass housing. Most houses empty now. Maintenance crew escapees hiding. Manta drone passby.(picture) With bad stealth have the Manta gas the runners with DMSO gamma sco. And a Blue team pick up the paralyzed runners.
51: Food event 
52: PC manufacturing. Runners can pick up the wrist secretary… whites sometimes comes scavaging electronics for their experiments on higher floors.
53-60: worker housing. Walls removed workers sleeping in shags. Observed by Blues.
61: worker housing with hospital. Bizarre brain surgery. “Recovery room”  Have runners forced out with patrol or cameras. Next to hospital facilities a rotten stench manifests. Turning the corner a pile of mutilated bodies lies next to a storehouse. Cyberimplants gone wrong. Picture
One patient has crawled out of the store house…
“You have to help…. Help me find my wife and daughter…..”
Inside the rovery room. Stench of urine and feces. Some patients moving some not. Starved, toxic experiments, pain exp., limbs removed or altered… cross species grafting.

62-70: Worker housing. Former patients. Brutal war zone. Survival of the fittest. Encounter with a patient ? this area can be skipped.
71: Gardens, aquaculture food storage and waste collection. Food again  better guarded against mayhem below
72: Cyberware research. Filled with gas door is aittight. Machines working.
73-80: Corporate offices. Greens working here.
81-100: Middle-class housing. Converted to prison like structure. Blues and drones roam here.
101: Food again 
102: Software development. Mostly abandoned.
103-120: Blues, Greens and non-banded Otaku live here. Worker housing.
121: Food again 
122: Greens work on simsense
123-130: Corporate office. Abandoned. Resistance base. Meet with resistance group ? … floor without electricity. Gorgon encounter… 
131-132: Greens and blues monitor the labyrinth. “middle-class housing”
133-148: The Labyrinth.  maintenance shaft is closed for 15 floors. And without light. Stair end at top floor of the labyrinth… entry point.
149-150: Monitoring for the Labyrinth.
151: Food, garden ect. 
152: Drone construction floors. “Software and Hardware Manufacturing”
153-167: Blue-collar housing. Free to rein. Patrolled by Blues and drones. Hard punishments. Encounter with the Errant Children.  Children playing sees runners and approaches. “who are you?” “can you help me find mom and daddy?” “this is for you… Deus wills it”
Very suspicious dolls. Will call players by name.
168-170: Proving grounds. Maze of catwalks, bumblebee hives.. and a spiked floor. (vacuum entry ?
171: food again 
172: computer systems manufacturing. Spiders take components to floor 72 and 202.
173-180: Corporate offices. Blues security center. Many SCIRE mainframes.
181-189: Middle-class housing. Families sealed in houses gets food brought.
190: Greens monitor floors below.
191-193: the Glass Maze 
194-199: Middle class housing. Everything disassembled. Stores well stocked.
200: Greens monitor floors below.
201: Gardens, aqua, food and waste collection. Climate control for floor 202.
202: Computer research and production. Gas. Mainframe systems.
203-209: Housing and Magical research.
210-212: Vacum cleaned mage housing.. libaries stirped down.
213-230: Coroperate offices. Hardcopies scanned for the SCIRE.
231-236: Housing for scannerheads.
237-240: “The Web” 
241: survivors from “the Web” are examined here.
242-250: Floors cleared and made into Zombie rooms. Residents jacked in… Deus monitors reactions.
251: Gardens, aqua, food and waste collection.
252-253: Asembly lines for microtronics. Bumblebee and dervish construction.
254-259: Houseing for highranking Greens.
260: Hiroshi Usida’s floor. Former director of Arcology.
261-279: White Otaku living here. Cham Lam Won wanders floor 272.

280-320: "upper floors"

[ Spoiler ]

[Mr.Cato]

..and then for some information I collected to do the "room 1835"

[ Spoiler ]

Dunkelzahn's Last Will and Testament gives a reward for 5 mil :nuyen: to find out whats behind door 1835 in the Arc.

ah... :)... from "the acientfiles"
"This bequest was raised to 8 million nuyen after the Arcology was shut down.

Room 1835 does not physically exist in the arcology, but rather is a virtual space within the Arcology's self-contained matrix. The enigmatic immortal elf decker Leonardo created the room to monitor the Arcology computer systems for signs of artificial intelligence.

It has not been officially stated whether this bequest has been awarded yet."

a search for "room 1835" in the SCIRE PLTG (Red 3/12/16/10/10/10) will show it to be a 4-tirered backwater slave node. a "Waste-disposal-services" host
Decker will have to go through these 4 subsystems (Orange 9/12/12/13/13/15).
* Analyse slave subsystem to find the trap door
* Gracefull logoff
* Decrypt SAN
* Longon to host

..to arrive in leonardos UV-host (Red 12/12/20/16/16/16 ?)
there, finding and downloading the data should no be that easy :) Throw in some hafty Sheafs along the way to wear the decker down. Offcourse Deus will be alterted along the way to... so the busted deckers friends also feel the heat (by Blues and drones).

[Mr.Cato]

for drone combat I jolted down some notes:

Perception. Use Sensor vs. metahuman signature of 6 (5 for trolls). Modifiers p. 136 SR3

Sensor test. Sensor rating vs. 6 (or 5). Direct LOS -2. Urban setting +1. Fog or smog +1. Tight terrain +2

Combat. Must first lock-on to target making active sensor test (can lock-on to multiple targets).
Ranged attack with Pilot rating (w. autosofts) + ½ sensor rating using robot pool and learning pool. Target # 5 (or 6). Modifiers: urban +2, direct LOS -3, half (round down) recoil before applying compensation. Heavy weapons x2
Melee attack with Pilot (w. autosofts) using learning and robot pools.

Dodge. Using robot and learning pools.

Damage vs. drones. Half power (round down). If this does not beat armor – no damage. If it beats, subtract armor and lower damage level one.

Ramming. Driving (pilot) test vs. handling. Modifiers: Maneuver -4 to +4, Terrain open -1, normal 0, restricted +1, tight +3.

Vehicle-Pedestrian collisions. Power equals speed divided by 10. Speed 1-20 (M), 21-60 (S), 61-200 (D), 201+ (D, power x 1½). Subject may use combat pool and impact armor.
Vehicle takes: same power, 21-60 (L), 61-200 (M), 201+ (S)

Hitting walls. Barrier rating times 20. Breakthrough if speed higher than this. Power equals barrier rating Level: 0-20 (L), 21-60 (M), 61-200 (S), 201+ (D)

Autosofts. Clearsight adds to sensor tests. Sharpshooter adds to ranged combat..



... I had the drones roll vs. TN 4 for all unarmed combat... no modifiers for lighting (when they have locked on a target)

The Medusa Armor of 8: It has 4 points of hardened armor and 4 xtra points of non hardened armor 4 (8). First I would check if the reduced power of the weapon was higher than 4... if it was I would deduct 8 point for armor before making the body (mostly 2's)
..and I use 3 dice pr. vehicle body as a house rule.. seems to work nicely.

[DocMortand]

The drone notes help a lot, thanks! I knew the other two, and was planning on making it part of my operation.

*engages in copy paste operations*

[Rev]

Renraku shutdown is also one of the pdf ebooks, so it is now very easy to get hold of.

[Endgame50]

Much obliged, Cato. Thanks much!