Emo Samurai's Dedicated Campaign Thread, The Next Generation Options

[Glyph]

You should plan for all possible reactions - maybe they will feel sorry for the shaman and/or the mantid spirit, and maybe they won't. It's a distopian world with lots of shades of gray, so the players may NOT always agree with you on who the "good guys" are.

Like, maybe you will do a run where an eco-activist is on the run from Ares because he stole a super-weapon from them. He plans to use it to blackmail the corps into using more environmentally friendly processes. Only, when the group hears his sob story, they stunbolt him, and auction him and the prototype back to Ares! Their rationale? They feel a weapon prototype is safer in the hands of a reputable weapons manufacturer than it would be in the hands of an unstable eco-terrorist.

Now, a lot of times, the players may wind up being wrong on which side they pick, and will suffer some consequences (or at least twinges of conscience) for it. But try not to "punish" them for disagreeing with your choice, if that happens. I know I've had to fight the tendency to be a less-than-neutral GM enough times myself.



Now, as far as crazy ideas in general, they work - but pace yourself. If you throw one crazy idea after another at the players, then the game could degenerate into desperate one-upsmanship on your part, and a jaded sense of wonder on the players' part. Mix in enough "normal" stuff that the crazy stuff will still seem crazy. If they go from fighting bug spirits to battling zombified mercenaries, it won't seem as shocking. But if they fight the bug spirits, then do a bodyguarding job, then fight a gang encrouching on their neighborhood, the zombified mercenaries will seem crazy and off the wall.

[hyzmarca]

Male mantis shamen do not live long. If no one else kills them then their mother spirit will. And since all female mantids are mothers, any male mantis shaman who summon's one is destined to die very soon.

[emo samurai]

They have a complicated relationship. She's more human than the average mantid; that doesn't mean she doesn't like eating the faces off of people who irritate her, which is exactly what she does. And the gnome dude tries his best not to irritate her.

And what if I vary the weirdness? Follow my mantis spirit girl with the "Happy Jumper" campaign and the fight to keep the secret partyers off of Horizon's radar?

[emo samurai]

I have an idea for a rigger contact. His name is Scarecrow, and he'll float in a vat and will have badly atrophied muscles. Because he does all the technology mods and stuff for the Yakuza and even redirected a power cable to their building, they constantly supply his vat with top-of-the-line nutrients. He mods their cars for free, which takes up about 5 hours a week. On his off time, he modifies cars and drones that other people give him in exchange for pieces of tech. So if you want him to mount a hidden minigun on your Ares Citymaster, you bring him a box of car parts and a Doberman. Any tech you want modified you bring to him; he rarely if ever uses his own parts except in exchange. This is the only type of payment he takes. That, and weapon and vehicle specs, and services. Since he has all the simsense he wants and all the basic needs gratified, the only thing he could be short of is technology. He even has a gigantic modified underground forge that constantly experiments with new alloys.

He'll come into conflict with another rigger named Mungo. He lives in a junkyard and has multiple sniper nests in the myriad gigantic piles. He's an expert with demotions, heavy weapons, and military vehicles. His crown jewel is a chopper, which he never flies. Scarecrow wants the chopper so he can modify it and make it better; he has really nothing else he wants to do with it. He wants you to steal it, which will inevitably bring down the wrath of Mungo and his fleet of modified military vehicles. If you negotiate with him well enough, then he'll make a little arrangement with Scarecrow and allow him to work on his vehicles. He'll also work as a rigger for the players if no one wants to play rigger.

[Grinder]

Bad Mungo - gonna kick you in the face!

(close to Turbonegro)

[Dranem]

Ok, now I'm stumped on this one... how does a rigger, with attrophied limbs, floating in a vat, do any kind of vehicle modifications?! That would require oh, say mobility, and say muscles in order to work with the parts and componets of the vehicles and drones... All the things your suggesting would require some sort of manual dexterity and/or strength. (which is why many mechanics are pretty buff, all that manual labour and all)

My second question is: why would someone let themselves pretty much rot away to such a degree? What does he benefit from it? Why does he do it?

I mean I could see if you have a rigger or decker that is always plugged into the machine, and rarely if ever leaves it.... and I don't think I want to know how/when he eats or where he goes to the bathroom, one possible thought makes me absolutely sick to my stomach....

[emo samurai]

BTL's and VR addiction. And people in RL have IV's. I'm sure you know that. And any waste could probably be taken out with tubes. It is, after all, cyberpunk, where they have things like vats and creepy medical equipment. Like, you know, cyberware.

And he'll rig with drones; they'll be controlled by his brain. See? Simple. Simple explanations for simple people.

[emo samurai]

I have an idea to make the technomancer in my party awesome. She'll have a home server on which to maintain a Resonance entity. The more money she spends on it, the more sprites she'll be able to register; it'll be like an insect spirit Queen for technomancers! She'll get potency and everything from it. How about that? It'll help her submerge and everything.

[Kremlin KOA]

potency?

so this thing is evil?

remember potency is the advantage evil gets to counteract good getting more karma

Gods MITS was so alignment filled

[emo samurai]

It will be. Then again, you don't get good karma just for doing good things...

The AI she helps will be more like a Matrix horror than a matrix god.

[Kremlin KOA]

awwwwwww That's sooo sweet

Artificer wants to be friends with FanGirl

Say hello to Artificer kiddies

*Sounds of children screaming, chainsaws, and other mechanical torture sounds*

[emo samurai]

THE NET WILL RUN RED WITH THE BLOOD OF THE MATERIAL

ALL WILL BE KNOWLEDGE AND SILENCE

I didn't mean Eidos would be a horror; it would just have horror-like propensities and lure people into helping it with gifts and influence. It'll start with the Novatech server; the AI on it will make its matrix icon one of a small dog wanting to get in a glass door, which will be the reality-filter metaphor for FanGirl's firewall. Her head will hurt for a few days until she uploads it onto a server that it has her build in her sleep. Ever night in her sleep she will make random upgrades to its hardware. She'll build it out of parts from a personafixed toxic shaman who makes fucked-up Artificer-like contraptions. It will be a hulking monstrosity of steel and smog. Nobody will touch it. The free sprite on the server, though, will be her loyal friend. It'll probably be killed by Eidos, though.

Maybe I won't give power to FanGirl directly; I'll just make the puppy more powerful over time. She will be able to use it like a registered sprite. It'll grow into a large protective wolf, but there will always be a sense of a large presence off in the distance that it absolutely has to go back to.

At the end of the day, it'll always go off into the distance and look sorry, as if was called by a master whom it has no choice but to obey. Its home server is, of course, the steampunk engine, but she'll have no way of knowing how to find it until someone reads her with a Geiger counter and follows her back to the thing.

[Dissonance]

Out of curiousity, have you ever read Snow Crash, Emo?

It seems like your last couple ideas have been cribbing from it, somewhat. At least in the way of vat-flavored riggers and radioactive 'dogs'.

[emo samurai]

The vat-flavored rigger was partly Snow Crash. The radioactive dog had nothing to do with Snow Crash; it'll just be the icon of a free sprite that lives in FanGirl's head every so often. Its server will be some freakish thing made out of parts made by a toxic shaman.

[emo samurai]

Speaking of powergaming differences, there's a player in the party who wants to be a physad in the Hong Kong movie tradition. How do I make it up to him? Johann will get awesomely upgraded bioware; Vranton will get foci for half-off and freaky chaos spirits; FanGirl will get a powerful free sprite friend. Should I give him a free spirit friend? That feels too much like duplication. He's not into weapons; he likes hitting people more.

How about an awesome-ass teacher who gives him crazy good adept powers?

[Kremlin KOA]

Bruce Lee's training gear

It still has resonance and thhus a Background count from the Great Master's death

Training in uit reduces initiation cost as if you have a group and It allows for the astral quest and Meditation ordeals even for an adept wthout astral perception

[emo samurai]

Seriously?

[Apathy]

[emo samurai]

That was part of the inspiration...

[Kremlin KOA]

Emo I came up with the Bruce Lee thing off the top of my head

but it should work for SR

It also adds just a touch of ED flavor

[emo samurai]

Hmmm... cheaper initiations... would this stack with ordeals and stuff? Groups, even? If so, this really, really makes up the difference.

In a general sense, this is a great idea. I'll allow him access to a Shaolin monestary that has a background count to help him initiate. He'll travel the world looking for senseis.

[Dranem]

[emo samurai]

Dude, I said it would be LIKE potency. You know, because resonance is like magic and stuff. I don't think even you lack the imagination necessary to imagine vaguely malicious beings giving people power in return for their souls in the Matrix. Like insect and toxic spirits. Because those can't, in any way, resemble sprites, and the artificially inflated powers of said magical threats can't in any way resemble those of a technomancer. :S

I know they aren't good or evil by design; this one wants information to be the new truth. Hell, Plato wanted that to happen. Eidos isn't necessarily "evil," either, just lacking in concern for the meat.

[Dranem]

[emo samurai]

I KNOW all this shit, Dranem. I'm just saying that entities on the Matrix could, conceivably, artificially manipulate technomancers to their own ends with promises of power that they can, at any time, take away. If there weren't insect spirits or hell, potency, you could still have this concept applied to technomancers. I'm not giving FanGirl the ability to summon sprites and have them materialize; I was going to give her Matrix potency which would increase as she did tasks for her horror-like benefactor. And if you read my post, you'd realize that I gave up on the idea of Matrix potency, so from a grudge standpoint, your behavior doesn't even make sense.