Vietnam War Sterotypes mod for SR3!, Making SR3 more dramatic and gritty Options

[Wounded Ronin]

Vietnam War Sterotype mod for Shadowrun

Here on DSF, a poster named Sabosect posted about PTSD sanity rules for Shadowrun here, in a thread discussing “the perfect run”: http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?show...topic=9349&st=0

The idea he put forth got me completely pumped up to make a “mod” for Shadowrun which emphasizes the chaos, terror, and violence of the firefights which the Shadowrunners get involved in. As it is, gun battles in Shadowrun are relatively lethal, but they also run smoothly, all the combatants are always perfectly efficient with their body movement and ammunition, and it’s easy to plan your actions like so many stages of clockwork because you always know exactly how long it will take you to complete a certain action, and for the most part no one ever does something stupid due to terror, mental trauma, or rage. This strikes me as being somewhat at odds with the gritty, desperate nature of many of the firefights depicted in Shadowrun artwork, and also seems more artificial and less compelling than the psychotic, screaming gun battles portrayed in popular cinema in the context of the Vietnam War. As I read through “the perfect run” thread carefully, I decided that if I made some rules modifications to SR3 to make the “look and feel” more closely resemble that of a typical Vietnam War film, I would actually end up with an improved version of Shadowrun; the Vietnam War mod Shadowrun would be dramatic, hard-hitting, and the characters would be forced to grapple more intensely with the violent and dangerous nature of their profession.

Therefore, the “Vietnam War Sterotype” may be implemented in your SR3 game by making the following changes:

1.) The mod uses Raygun’s guns for increased lethality and realism. Since single rounds from assault rifles now have a reasonable damage code and rate of fire, an entire team of runners using suppressive fire in frantic unison now becomes as dangerous as it should be.

2.) There are no more dodge tests. Dodge tests didn’t exist back in SR2, and SR2 had a much better gritty feel. Furthermore, nothing dampens getting your ‘Nam screaming freak on like being able to flail your arms like Neo and survive everything. However, you can still use your Combat Pool to help you avoid suppressive fire, since otherwise the suppressive fire rule wouldn’t work, and also because that represents how well you scrunch behind cover instead of how well you bend backwards at the knees and flail your arms.

3.) Reloading is now clunky and slow. Reloading is no longer just a Complex Action.

*Removing the magazine from your gun is now a Simple Action. You need to have a free hand to pop out your magazine, and the Simple Action puts the magazine in your free hand. You may then drop the magazine on the floor as a Free Action. If you have a Smartlink, you may eject the magazine and let it fall on the floor as a Free Action, but if you want to put the magazine in your hand it’s still a Simple Action.

*If you are holding your magazine in your hand you may slide it neatly back into your ammo pouch, but this requires a Simple Action.

*Drawing a new magazine from your ammo pouch requires a Simple Action, and inserting the magazine into your weapon also requires a Simple Action.

*If you are using a Cylinder-loading or Internal Magazine based weapon, you must first ready Qui rounds with a Simple Action, and then load Qui rounds with another Simple Action.

*If you don’t already have a round in the chamber, you must chamber, which in turn requires another Simple Action. If you have a Smartlink then chambering is a Free Action.

*Lastly, and very importantly, any of the Simple Actions described above may be performed as a Free Action if the character performing the action succeeds in a Quick Draw test for each Simple Action. However, if the magazines and ammunition are not being held in proper ammo pouches or bandoliers, the Quick Draw test is performed at a +2 TN penalty.

The net effect of these rules is that usually nimble people will be able to reload their weapons as quickly as usual, but there is always going to be the risk that under stress things might take a bit longer than you want.

4.) You can now go insane due to cumulative cinematic PTSD. Nothing is cooler than screaming, firing from the hip, and basically walking right out of a ‘Nam movie. Therefore, Sabosect’s idea should be implemented.

*Each character in the game gets a Sanity score which is equal to Willpower x 15, for a range of scores from 15 to 90. Once per “encounter” (where “encounter” is defined by the GM, like for karma refreshing), if the “encounter” involves intense combat, each character must roll Willpower versus a TN of 21, and add their Sanity score to their highest roll. If the player’s roll succeeds then he maintains his self-control. If he fails this test he begins cinematically PTSDing and goes berserk. This test may not be augmented with Karma Pool, although the player may find that he feels better if he says, “Get some, get some, get some” as his character runs about hosing everyone down.

*Characters lose Sanity points for participating in violent acts, provided they can see or astrally sense the effect of the violence they have unleashed; a character who sits in an air conditioned room all day firing cruise missiles at enemies he’ll never see won’t lose sanity, but someone who fires a missile from a helicopter and sees the resulting body and wreckage will lose Sanity. Each time a character kills a resisting and at least somewhat dangerous opponent in combat, he loses a single Sanity point. Each time a character kills more than one resisting and somewhat dangerous opponent in combat, or any number of potentially dangerous but unaware individuals (like sleeping soldiers or coffee-drinking rent-a-cops) he loses two Sanity points. Each time a character kills a helpless and non-resisting person, such as a prisoner, he loses three Sanity points, or five if he kills many such people. Finally, if a character kills an innocent he loses 6 Sanity points, and if he participates in some kind of horrible massacre he loses 10. These Sanity point losses are doubled for shamans whose totems have berserk rage as a drawback.

*The effects of going berserk are handled as per the default SR3 berserk rules for shamans, with the following modifications. Firstly, the character won’t attack his allies, but rather will only attack enemies and neutrals, unless the character is a shaman whose totem has berserk rages as a drawback; in such a case, he will turn on his allies if there are no more enemies or neutrals left to kill. Secondly, a character who has gone berserk will keep attacking and killing enemies and neutrals in a state of psychotic rage until the “encounter” as defined by the GM is over.

*Once per campaign, a character who has lost Sanity may attempt to regain it by visiting a psychological therapist. The psychiatrist makes an Open Test using his Psychology score and his highest roll is equal to the number of Sanity points that he manages to restore. Because psychotherapy is a pretty tricky thing it may only be rolled for once per campaign, and the character who is being treated must set aside a reasonable amount of time over the course of that campaign for his counseling sessions. The Sanity points probably should be regained at the very end of the campaign, but that’s up to the GM. A character can never have more Sanity points than his Willpower x 15.

*If you use karma to raise your Willpower score, you gain 15 Sanity points per Willpower point gained, since you’re entitled to more Sanity points for having a higher Willpower.

*NPCs theoretically also can fail their Sanity tests in a firefight. This actually can be used to help the GM help the players, because if things are going badly for the PCs the important NPC can always fail his Sanity test and start fighting boldly yet stupidly.

*Lastly, there is a new Edge available to players to balance all these Sanity rules out:

Edge: John Mullins
Available at 5 points, and at 10 points

A character with the John Mullins edge can massacre a thousand screaming enemies by day but can still sleep at night, provided he has a good pillow. This edge is named after real-world Vietnam vet John Mullins, who also was a character in the Soldier of Fortune series of video games.

At 5 points, this edge halves and rounds down the amount of Sanity loss each time the character loses Sanity.

At 10 points, this edge practically transforms the character into a Soldier of Fortune II whirlwind of one-man army death. The character never loses Sanity, ever.


With all that being said, I dedicate this “mod” to Richard Rouse, the man who learned everything he knows about war from Full Metal Jacket for the purpose of making a video game about modern conflict.