Recruitment: SR4 Twisted Minds Act 0, Who is brave enough to walk my mind? Options

[Feshy]

I've decided to try my hand at hosting a forum game.

This run should be fairly short, and will be rather open-ended. It will help me adjust to the challenges of playing online, as I've only ever hosted games in person before. If things go well, and I hope they do, at the conclusion of this portion of the run, I will be opening a much larger campaign based in the same 'world.' The world is the shadowrun world, of course, but characters will mainly interact with NPC's and events of my design (as opposed to familiar 'canon' characters and prime runners.) That, and I haven't read all the novels and what not, so certain events may be "missing."

What I hope to do, in that much larger campaign I mentioned, is see if my LARP-creating experience translates acceptably to a large forum-based game. In essence, I will be creating a large cast of NPC characters, and you are free to interact with them at will. That is to say, there won't be an overarching single plot line that you stumble through. In fact, so far I've got at least a dozen major NPC's and groups, plus dozens of lesser NPC's, all with their own agendas and plot lines. Characters can accept and turn down runs without feeling like they either have to accept the Johnson's offer, or find another game. Chances are, if you haven't angered too many people and are reasonably well connected, you'll have several offers on the table at once to choose from. Not every clue and event will tie in to the plot line you are on at all; some will just be side effects of the other NPC's pursuing their own goals.

But that part comes later.

First, I have to have a better understanding of hosting forum games in general. Thus begins Act 0 of this campaign -- learning SR4 and learning forum gaming.

So, on that note, here are the details:

Game Time:
I'm looking to start sometime in mid to late January. perhaps earlier if everything in my real life works out -- it seldom does, but I can hope.

Character Build:
You can use either the 400 point standard, or SECKSY for character creation. I won't be using SECKSY for character advancement, nor any of Serbitar's other house rules, though.

The only other exception to the standard character creation rules is that I'm capping Loyalty and Connections to a combined total of 7 for any single contact. No AAA CEO's are forever indebted to you, sorry.

House Rules:
I'm working on getting my house rules written and posted online, but they are a bit on the long side (I use too many words for most things. Hopefully this is good for a GM, where descriptive text is good) Mostly, the house rules can be summed up as follows:

• Your skill rating may affect the threshold of success tests
• No specializing in "Semiautomatics" or "Martial Arts" (other possibilities are supplied instead), try to be more creative with Perception specializations than "Visual" (try "Forensic crime scene examination" for example)
• Some minor cyberlimb tweaks (base stats are the race's base stats, it is possible to exceed the capacity of the limb)
• Ammo... ug. I'll replace the SR4 ammo modifiers with my own. Choose ammo based on the fluff text that describes it; I'll stick close to that.
• Spirits are in line with the German errata -- i.e., they have reasonable reactions.
• A couple of clarifications on points the rules as written leave confusing (to me)

Players
I'm looking for 3 to 4 players. If things work out and I do start my "big" campaign, you will have the option of carrying these characters over into that campaign.

I'm thinking first come, first serve. But that means a character sheet with at least a rough background, not just a "I think I want to play" post.

Post rough character concepts here, and e-mail me the details at Feshy@*SpamMeAndDie*mobsters.com -- I think you can figure out which part to remove to get a valid e-mail. If not, e-mail's in the profile anyway.

If you want to be mysterious to your team mates, you can just e-mail me the character concept as well.

Location
Seattle.

Well, that about covers it. Feel free to post questions, and hope those of you that play enjoy the game!

[Toptomcat]

Samuel Drake, 'Codger'
This forty-year old street samurai has been running since 2048, and he's seen it all. He's had runs involving damn near every major running event in the last twenty years, and he's still got the will and wiliness to compete with the latest crop of cybered-up street monsters, fresh off the operating table. He's not afraid to keep up with the SOTA- how else would he have survived?- but he's got a few choice bits of gear from bygone days that they just don't make like they used to.

[Jaid]

ok... what exactly constitutes the difference between SECKSY and the rest of Serbitar's house rules? i get problems when i try to download the program anyways, so a little more detail on precisely what is included in your definition of SECKSY and what isn't, as well as what the basics of the concept are. not sure if i'll use it or not, but we'll see.

anyways, i may submit two different characters (there are a couple different non-compatible archetypes that i would like to try), and i'll use one or the other depending on how the group turns out.

of course, this presumes i can get one character done in time, let alone two :P

anyways, more details later...

[edit] also, how do you rule the targetting autosoft as it relates to the ares alpha? [/edit]

This post has been edited by Jaid: Dec 17 2005, 10:45 PM

[Feshy]

Toptomcat
Looks like a really fun character concept! Looking forward to seeing how the character comes out. Sounds like it'll be pretty contact heavy, which if you stick around for the larger game will be great!

Jaid
Serbitar's document contains rules roughly divided into two portions -- the first part is a unified karma / build point system that uses karma for character builds, with the intention of using the exact same system for character advancement (to avoid min/maxing.) The second part is a hodgepodge of house rules, changing the way the matrix works and making stun damage harder to do.

The karma build system is good in that it allows characters with many low skills to not be penalized (in comparison to characters with few high skills) as harshly as the build point system does. Of course, by not using it for character advancement, I don't get the benefit of completely avoiding min/maxing. Attributes will still be cheaper to raise after character generation than skills (proportionally) -- but I've seen very few characters take that to an extreme, and those that do don't' live long (body 1 reaction 1... oops, critical glitch on a damage test... ouch)

If you are having trouble downloading it, here's the basics:
[list]
[*]Use karma advancement rules for building your character -- assume attributes start at 1 (+ racial maximums) and skills start at 0.
[*]The 8 standard attributes (Body, Strength, Reaction, Agility, Intuition, Logic, Willpower, Charisma) cost 5 x new value instead of 3 x new value.
[*]Don't take metahuman bonuses into account when raising attributes (that is, an elf raising charisma from 3 to 4 costs as much as a human going from 1 to 2)
[*]Do take metahuman negatives into account when calculating karma cost (that is, an ork going from logic 3 to 4 pays karma equal to raising the attribute to 5 (25 karma in this case)
[*]Specialization costs are doubled, 4 karma for a specialization.
[*]Contacts cost rating x loyalty in karma
[*]you get (logic + intuition ) * 10 karma for knowledge skills
[*]resources are 3,000 :nuyen: per karma.
[*]Metatype costs are: Elf, 40 karma; Dwarf, 35 karma; Ork, 35 karma; troll, 50 karma.
[*]you get 600 karma for character creation.

It's certainly more complicated than the original BP system; and I'm not sure if it's any more balanced -- with the exception of being easier on characters who prefer breadth over depth. Since I find that the game is most fun with a good mix of both breadth and depth (jack of all trades and one-trick ponies) involved, I prefer to allow either system to be used.

If you download the actual document, it has tables that calculate the cost for a given skill or attribute level.

Actually, if I'm going to allow it to be used, I might as well host the files. Hope Serbitar doesn't mind -- grab the PDF here if you are having trouble with his link. Be gentle on my server please, it's literally running out of a cardboard box.

As far as the targeting autosoft and the ares alpha, I'm not certain what you mean. I'd assume it falls under automatics -- except the grenade launcher part, which would fall under heavy weapons. I confess I never followed the threads on the discussion -- generally speaking, anyone hit by an automatic weapon system with an expert system fired from a completely recoil-absorbing smart platform . . . well, they're in hand-of-god territory long before you have to be concerned about grenades.

Looking forward to seeing your character concepts!

[Jaid]

basically, i was wondering if you need 1 or two targetting autosofts, and more particularly, if it comes with an autosoft capable of handling both.

IOW, i buy a smart firing platform for 2k :nuyen:

it comes with a pilot 3, sensor 3, and a single targetting autosoft 3

according to the rules for the targetting autosoft,

[Feshy]

Ah. I'm going under the assumption that the section heading *should* be "Targeting (Specific Weapon Type)" and they just ran out of room in the column.

In other words, since skillsofts and everything else mimic a whole skill rather than a very specialized subset of it, that autosofts do too.

Yes, that means you have to have two autosofts to use both parts of the Ares Alpha -- Targeting (Automatics) and Targeting (Heavy Weapons.)

On a related note, I'll let players start with cracked software if they can be reasonably sure of success -- a logic + software of 6 will succeed with room to spare on the easy tests, and given a couple of tries, the harder ones too. So I figure if you meet that threshold, you only need to buy one copy of each 'soft. (For a hacker with a lot of programs, I'd be inclined to raise that a bit; for a rigger with only a few I might lower it too.) So you'll only need one copy of Automatics and Heavy Weapons no matter how many smart platforms you buy (don't make me regret saying that.)

Oh, and it's your choice as to which the smart platform comes with for free. Heck, it's your choice regardless of what weapon you mount. If you want to load it up with Pistols 3 and mount a mossberg there, I won't stop you ;) (but I would default to pilot for the tests.) I assume the smart platform weapon is interchangeable. Of course, to get that versatility without any complicated connectors means it wirelessly accesses the smartlink, and so you may want to hardwire a weapon in place instead.

[Jaid]

ok... considering making a hacker/rigger or technomancer as one option. not sure yet.

already have the first char done... although i may go back over and double check the math on my resources. anyways, option 1 is a hermetic mystic adept named Spook. born on the streets, acts as hired 'muscle' (mojo?) for gangs, mostly by beefing up gang members with magic (since as a mystic adept his offensive spellcasting ain't much to speak of) and patching them up later. not much in a direct fight (although he's not completely incompetent either... everyone knows to geek the mage first, after all). He's decided he's tired of working for gangs (who don't pay very much) and so now he's headed for the big times (or such is the plan).

[Feshy]

Sounds great! And nice to hear an idea for a mage that doesn't involve the words "pyromaniac" or "army of avenging spirits."

[Jaid]

heh... definitely not the army of spirits kinda guy... maybe like... a squad. or half a squad. of not-very-impressive spirits, that is. assuming he doesn't mind blowing all his conjuring ability in one swell foop, that is (which he does mind, for the record).

of course, so far as i can tell, you can endlessly summon spirits as long as you don't bind them, and as long as you send them on remote services, but i am going to assume that's a rules loophole that i'm either seeing that isn't there, or that isn't supposed to be there, and ignore it.

as far as pyromaniac... well, assuming he had an appropriate spell, he might be able to light gasoline on fire :P his offensive spellcasting isn't gonna look so great with his magic attribute ;) mostly, if he needs to kill something, he's more likely to use his predator, unless we're looking at long range or something.

anyways, Spook has been sent. you should be receiving him shortly (unless i guessed wrong and i was supposed to remove the mobster portion of your email address, and not the *SpamMeAndDie* part).

[Feshy]

I didn't notice that remote service actually has the line "Spirits on remote services no longer count against the limit of summoned spirits." That's a pretty scary loophole; with some good drain resistance you can have an almost endless supply of spirits. Forget the lead hose, the "astral hose" can hit anywhere in the world even harder!

Yea... definitely going to have to house rule that. :P

You got the e-mail address right, I responded.

[Jaid]

yeah, that one's pretty scary... and if you don't mind sending force 1 spirits, not all that hard to achieve, you don't have much to worry about with drain anyways.

of course, even better, i have recently been looking through the technomancer rules... and... uhh... well... i can't find where it limits unregistered sprites. sure, you're limited to charisma registered sprites. but it doesn't say 1 unregistered sprite limit as far as i can tell. of course, once again, i am going to assume that this is a freakish loophole that never should have been (or perhaps never was, really), and ignore that too. even though a hacker can do it with agents.

[edit] re-sent email.[/edit]

This post has been edited by Jaid: Dec 18 2005, 05:03 AM

[Feshy]

p. 234:

"A technomancer can only have one unregistered sprite in his service at a time; if he wants more, he needs to script a sprite for longer service"

Got the e-mail, replied. Everything looks good!

[Jaid]

well, that's good to know.

on another note, not too many people seem to be applying... maybe if you mentioned something on the SR4 boards as well? i mean, while it is possible to do a 2 person team (or 2 person + NPCs team), i think it would be much better with at least 3-4 people... and by people, i mean players, not characters.

on another note... any ideas on technomancers and commlinks? ie, do i need a commlink to manage my PAN, or just to hold data? can i use my living persona instead? is it possible to skinlink into a technomancer? if a technomancer doesn't have a commlink (or a lousy one), can he force people to try to hack through his living persona first? can you even hack through a living persona in the first place? if so, what effect does that have on the technomancer?

just some thoughts i had...

[Feshy]

Give it a few days of weekday time -- I've noticed weekends are quite dead around here. I didn't even realize until after I posted that it was late friday -- so I expected relative quiet until monday at least. If there's not much in a day or two, I'll start pestering people to come join :) I agree though, more people is good -- the interactions between players are often the best part of a run.

So far as I know, none of your technomancer questions are answered by the book, so here's how I'd house rule those situations:

(big chopping edit)
Ignore the bit about skinlinks and what not here... thinking about it more I've got a better answer that I will post soon.
(end edit)

You probably wouldn't even need a full comlink to store data -- an optical chip reader/writer would suffice. I'd assume such a device was so cheap as to be included in lifestyle costs (in other words, I don't feel like making up stats for it.)

As for the hacking / PAN related questions.. .I've actually got a pile of thoughts on this... but they are a bit contradictory. I'm going to post in the SR4 forum, and see what ideas other people have come up with. At the very least, trying to present my thoughts might help me straighten them out a bit.

[Feshy]

LOL, I realized that chopping out the section I edited, I didn't leave much of substance in that post. I'll try again.

For the skinlink, my initial thought was "no." However, I had a long, in-depth look at "technomancer physics" (it's been a weird day). I've posted it below, in case you're curious, but it's a bit long and weird.

[ Spoiler ]

Technomancers use "Resonance" to "manipulate" electronics. How they do it, no one knows. At least part of how they do it doesn't matter -- we'll call this ability SPAAD -- for the physics term SPooky Action At a Distance.

By manipulating and listening to this SPAAD, in theory, technomancers can manipulate electronics. But just what parts of electronics? The way I see it, there are three possibilities:

1) SPAAD affects "any" part or an "undetermined" parts.

This has the right "vagueness" for the rules. However, this leads to the ugly consequence that a techomancer can manipulate any electronic device at range -- when according to my understanding of the rules they can only manipulate (and thus hack) wireless devices. That'd be a pretty big loophole, so theory 1 fails.

2) SPAAD affects only antennae.

This is a lot more specific than the vague descriptions in the book -- but it isn't ruled out either. However, it has a failing. According to this model, only the technomancer's rating would apply to the signal -- as the device does not actually need to broadcast! In the extreme case, this would have another big unintended consequence: skinlinks. A skinlink is, in essence, a range 0 (not signal 0) antenna. Technomancers would be able to hack skinlinks at range! So this theory fails too.

3) Manipulating and listening to electronics is actually two distinct processes. SPAAD affects an unknown part of the electronics, but the technomancer listens by some other mechanism.

This theory holds together much better. The technomancer can manipulate any electronics, but only has enough feedback to get actual results if the device can broadcast wirelessly to him. Skinlinks are not hackable at range (though they are in a grey area. The skin could very well be the technomancer's wireless receiver, or connected to it, and then technomancers can use skinlinks as normal.)

The short result is this: Skinlinks are a gray area. Since technomancers are supposed to have the equivalent of a commlink with no storage, I'm going to say they can use skinlink normally. At the very least, I like the flavor it adds -- someone who "talks" to electronics aught to be able to do it just as well holding it in his hand as broadcasting a few hundred meters.

[BlackHat]

I know you said no "I think I woudl like to play" posts. ;-) So I know this won't reserve a place, or anything, but when I get off of work (Yeah, I troll the forums at work, but don't have my books with me), I'll email you a character concept/sheet (assuming this hasn't filled up), cause it sounds fun.

If 2 other people get back to you before me, though, don't worry about it. No hard feelings. :-) I played in some D&D Play-by-post games a few years back, and they were the most fun I ever had roleplaying.

[DireRadiant]

Does either of these ideas work?

Bubbles, Female former Troll Ganger. effervescent Teeny Bopper troll gangerette, thief, thrill seeker looking to go "pro" and not knowing what it means. Recently hit a few big scores, and fresh out of the street docs clinic with one or two pieces of cyber to try out!

or

DES, Male Human Rigger/Shaman, City rigger, Tribal spirit son , smuggler, runner, conflicted by the lure of the machine, and the recent discovery of his spiritual heritage. Or is it all just the spirits in the machine?

[Feshy]

[GingerKid]

This sounds like an interesting idea for a game. If you don't mind a first-timer...

I was thinking of being Elf face that can do B&E. A little cliche, but I've had this guy in mind since I picked up the book. Here's the beginning of his background.

[Feshy]

Any format I can read or get the software for free to read is fine with me. Well, the software also has to be in english; I'm not going to learn an interface in russian or something ;)

First time players are definately welcome! And nothing wrong with cliche stereotype characters -- in fact, it's often most fun when there is a good mix of stereotypes and mold-breakers. It makes the player-player interactions very amusing :)

[BlackHat]

Email sent. (Hope I got it right). Let me know what you think, and then I could post some more details here if need be. (Wasn't sure if you inteded the players to be an existing team fo Shadowrunners, or a group of poeple who were goign to be forced to work together).

[Feshy]

[BlackHat]

[Jaid]

unless the team is desparately in need of a hacker of some sort, i think i'll just leave the technomancer thing alone... although i am still definitely interested in finding out how the heck it works.

oh, for the record, dunno if this bothers you or anything (actually, i'm guessing you could care less), but due to my personal dislike for actual swearing in combination with the fact that from the time my character was first born to the time he was 17 it is a recorded fact that people didn't use real swear words anyways, my character will be using the old SR "swear words" instead of real ones.

[BlackHat]