Recruitment: Down in the Puyallups, Making the rent, shadow style Options

[Redjack]

Hey everybody! I've joined a few games here on the dumpshock and while there are several games starting right now, i'd like to fire up one more - if there are enough players left looking for a game.
I've been running the shadows since v1.0 both as a player and a GM. This will be my first GM for a Shadowrun forum game, but not my first forum game and far from my first time as a Shadowrun GM. I have a game on another board still going strong almost a year later now, so I'm a bonified forum game addict for the long term.. :D

As this is a forum game and they tend to take months to get to a point a table top game can in an hour, I may award karma based upon good role playing during the course of a game or even award skills/contacts/etc during gameplay to keep enthusiam high (better be some real good roleplaying though. ;) )

I would like to set an expectation of two posts per week. Real Life happens though. If a player will be AFK for more than a few days, just post in the OOC and give us a heads up. PM me instructions and I can remote your character in order that the game can continue with your presubmitted actions. (We all know that sometimes you can take a week or two of vacation and still make most of a combat scene)

As a note on posting style, I would appreciate it if posts that make assumptions on NPC reactions/scene details/major new events would be cleared via PM till we get a good feel for each other's posting styles. I will also use the SPOILER tag to provide private information inline as well. All dice rolls should use http://invisiblecastle.com/rolldice.py and reference in in the OOC thread.

I'm looking to pull together a new team of character low in power, but not necessarily newbies. Start with the basic book rules for a starting character and add in the following limitations:
- 380 build points
- No skills at level 6
- Max one skill at level 5
- Max one contact at rating 4. None above rating 4.
(As in the book, loyalty is only limited by your ability to pay for it.)
- Max rating availability 9
- I will consider certain items with availability of 10
(if the back story/concept is well developed and supports it.)

Don't rush out and make a character yet. I'd like to start with a concept - maybe even an abbreviated history. If this draws the interest of more than five players, I'll select from the posts and build a team of five. As appears to be tradition on this board, multiple concepts will be considered. Concepts may be posted in this thread or sent via PM.

Assuming I have sparked enough interest, I will select the team by 2/10 and will open up the IC thread on 2/18. The game will be in the Puyallup Barrens, Seattle; March 1, 2070.

The feel for the game will start at the street level, you can have an AK-47 but carrying it out in the open may draw the attention of Lone Star. A shoot out with gel rounds or regular ammo happens in 2070. Explosive rounds may warrant an investigation. Pay attention to the security rating of the neighborhood you are in. It may mean the difference between being overlooked by the Star for looking like runners and being brought in for 'questioning' just for being on the sidewalk. Characters can come from any and all walks of life, but should have a reason for dropping off the grid and entering the shadows. They need not live in, nor come from the Puyallups, that's just where the campaign will start.

I've tried to answer most of the questions I could anticipate, but if you have more feel free to drop a post or PM.

Thanks for any and all interest.
-Redjack

[Thanee]

Mark me down as interested...

Aeryn, Elven Smuggler

Aeryn is an elf, born in '43. She was a member of an all-elven street gang in the Puyallup Barrens in her younger days, but when the gang was wiped out by one of the bigger, meaner gangs around, the Spikes, she decided that she was better off on her own. Looking for some ways to make a living, Aeryn finally became a smuggler. Being quite athletic and stealthy, and good with the bike, this was something she could really excel at. The grudge against the Spikes grew lesser and lesser the more she became detached from her past. Over the years, Aeryn earned some decent Nuyen and a few affiliations, mostly with one of the local Yakuza clans and the organization running an underground marketplace known as the Crime Mall, who were always in need for new goods, which obviously needed to be transported to the Puyallup in some fashion. The money was quickly spent, in order to make her better at her job. She aquired some cyberimplants, hot new wheels, forged papers, and various other equipment, even a few drones to act as additional eyes for her.

Bye
Thanee

P.S. some suggestions for the character generation:

[ Spoiler ]

- keep BP at 400, just allows for a bit more versatility
- limit BP spent on Attributes to 30 each, one Attribute can be one point higher
- limit BP for Magic/Resonance/Edge to 30 each (i.e. 4, or Edge 5 for humans)
- maybe limit Resources to 200k (40 BP)

[Redjack]

[Syndicate_killer]

Since it's Puyallup...would a ganger from the Chulos be an appropriate concept?

[Redjack]

[HeySparky]

Brass...? Check. Moxie... chutzpah...? Check and check.

Ever since the lightning strike - and the clinical (and legal) death that followed - Grace Fontana has has had a special spring in her step. A certain spark. A willingness to take risks. She's a small-time thief, fast-talker and lightly-cybered adept who lives life on her own terms now. Not that she was ever a stickler for rules or propriety.

[Syndicate_killer]

Ancients Go-ganger, who resides in the Ghetto of Tarislar in Puyallup.Part muscle, part speed demon, all attitude. (lol)

In Runners Haven it mentions alot of the 'younger' members are disgruntled by the long life span of the current leadership.

[Redjack]

More notes on the Puyallups:
Underworld 93: A fixture in the Seattle Jazz scene, this bar situated in the northern most part of the Puyallups, it is known in some circles as a Yakuza establishment.

Kenran-Kai Yakuza: This clan operates in the Puyallups. Their primary focus is as gang control with hijacking and protection thrown in for variety. They also, to a lesser degree, manage some of the local smuggling through the Puyallups. In the end however, they are under the strict control of Shotozumi.

Crime Mall: This abondanded three story mall on the edge of the Puyallup downtown has been used by criminal elements as a merchants bazaar since just a few years after the crash of '29. It is only open on certain nights of the month to guard against raids by the Star. Those in the know can easily find out when.

The farther south in the Puyallups you go the more you need a respirator. As far south as Tarislar, everyone wears a filter all the time. The residual effects of the four volcanos worth of lava and ash.

[Trigger]

I am thinking maybe a ork movement adept...powers like wall running, great leap, freefall....an adept who plies his powers towards being the best damn courier he can be. Inspired by the likes of Parkour and free running, he is one agile little guy (for a ork). Works as a courier out of the Ork Underground (I think there is an entrance in Underworld 93 if I am not stupid) and he specializes in working the old highrises and large apartment buildings of the area.

[Draug]

Color me interested.

Trigger stole my idea, though. :P

[Redjack]

Yea, I got an adept of the invisible way in PM as well. Seems a popular choice. I think we are destined to have at least one adept. :D

[Trigger]

Well, I don't care much for Invisible Way adepts.....I like me a Parkour Athlete's Way adept :D

[HeySparky]

Oh man, a whole group of free running adepts would RULE. That would be awesome. Some more brawn, some more brain. It wouldn't be hard to make Grace conform. I'm all over that if others are interested, and then no worries Draug.

Maybe a set of adept powers to get and then after that you go your own way. Like, I was thinking of taking Killing Hands just to get the Elemental Strike (Electricity) as a fun part of Grace having been struck by lightning, not as any direct furtherance of her other strengths. Though, having hands that carry an electrical charge has plenty of non-combat uses... :grinbig:

[Trigger]

I would love to run in a adept group...it would be so awesome :D

[Thanee]

I have added a character concept to my initial post, based on some of the stuff you posted above. :)

Bye
Thanee

P.S. One more question about the character generation... do you use the fairly common house rule with free BP for contacts equal to CHA x2 (or x3)?

[Redjack]

[Redjack]

[HeySparky]

I guess a big decision the free-running types need to make is are we a pre-existing group with a shared background, or do we OOC pick some set skills and powers we should have and then work our backgrounds together. I tend to lean toward the former.

Which means my concept is and will be undeveloped until there's some consensus about that.

Are we together from the start? If so, what are the motivations for working/playing together?

- Exploring the adept powers? (We just like to hang out, hone our skills and challenge each other...)
- Something more nefarious? (Imagine if we all had face-sculpt the stuff we could pull...)
- Purposefully making a shadowteam? If so, then we'd need to pick or assign roles or be choosy with the jobs we take, since we'd probably not be a general purpose team.

[gobogen]

I would love to play in this game. I really feel like playing a troll by the way. So here's one concept and I'm also considering the idea about a group of adepts.

Markus Carlton

Mark used to be a bouncer for night clubs downtown of Seattle. He's a well-connected guy who knows the ins and outs of the night life in Seattle. He's a big strong guy that got involved with the wrong crowd at the wrong time. With his now criminal SIN, he can't get any kind of legal job that he would be good at, like bouncing and bodyguarding, because no one wants to deal with an ex-convict. Therefore he can only turn to the shadows for income now.



Also, I like the idea of an adept team. I think we could work something out along the lines of what ES Sparky is saying. I'd like to be a troll myself, and as such could focus on melee combat on top of being the fastest troll you've ever seen. He could also take astral perception and a weapon focus for some pretty awesome dual-being fighting power, to have a member focused on magic.

I think to be realistic, this group would have to have a common background to some extent. I think that for such a group to make sense, they have to have decided to intentionally learn adept powers of similar nature in order to work well together. It seems unlikely that you can find the perfect combination of adepts just by chance. For instance, they could have all grown up together, in an orphanage, boarding school, or on the streets of the barrens (or pullayup) for example.

I'm in favor of a group that complements itself, to be the least one-dimentional possible, although all getting the same adept power(s) can be a tremendous advantage that we can't ignore.

[Redjack]

[Syndicate_killer]

It'd be a rather simple matter of making my Ancient into a PhyAd...focusing on driving....being a daredevil...and a little fighting skill to boot.

[Draug]

So? An entire group of Parkour Adepts? That's the plan?

[Syndicate_killer]

Not sure we are going for an all adept team, I was only making mention of how easy it would be to use my concept along the lines of such a team. (No need to go out looking for an intiate group later lol)

I believe Redjack wants a balanced team (whether that team is all adept i suppose is left to his judgement and/or the type of submissions he recieves.)

[Redjack]

Storm has already changed to a mage. If everyone else wants adepts I'm ok. The diversity I'm looking for is the various elements for a team: face, driver, muscle, etc. The backgrounds are already pretty varied: Former ganger turned smuggler, top-tier ganger, former bouncer...

Good stuff. Keep it coming.

[Storm]