Shadows of the South Pacific, Why yes, Aztlan IS looking for you. With blood spirits. Options

[DocTaotsu]

So my players have pulled off the job of a life time, they're fat on hard cash and a locker chock full of shiny lightly used gear.

The smart ones have retired and gone into hiding (they're making new characters).
The not so smart ones are still partying it up in the Caribbean League, blissfully unaware that very bad things are going to happen.
Two of the players also owe the Vory a very large "favor" to avoid a visit from Yuri and his move by wire system.
Between those two I think I can convince the players that it's time to get out of Seattle and be somewhere... very far away.

Like the South Pacific.



I'm not going to lie, I'm kinda burned out on the Seattle setting and I really want to run a Blue Planet game. So I'm hoping to shift (with the players consent) the game to a free wheeling ocean going adventure (potentially including sentient dolphins because I'm a complete tool like that. I'm sorry).

So I ask my fellow DSer's:
-Anyone run a primarily water based, island hopping, campaign?
-How about (cyber)pirates?
-Run ideas?
-Setting material?
-Themes/Central Conflicts?
-Things you wish you could have worked into your more convential campaign but never got around to?
-Faction suggestions?

My goal (since we're losing the one experienced SR player for a couple of sessions) is to do a gritty back to reality, back to basics game. The players are going to have to go to ground and go to ground hard and they're going to be doing it without the direct aid of most of their support structure.

[IQ Zero]

I ran a campaign set in the Philippines for my players, but that was when it was under ImpJap control. Considering that the ImpJap is no longer in the islands, I would assume that it reverts back to its normal ultra-corrupt status. There at over 7,000 islands in the archipelago (assuming you don't even count the oil rich Spratley's) and it is near the Malaysian/Indonesian islands as well.

Sprawls:
Manila Sprawl - composed of Metro Manila, and the adjacent provinces of Rizal, Laguna, Cavite, and Bulacan. Population is +/- 50 million (today just Metro Manila has a population of over 28 million).
Davao Sprawl - Population is +/- 30 million.
Cebu Sprawl - covers the entire island. Population is +/- 20 million.
Bagiuo Sprawl - composed of Bagiuo, Benguet, and La Union. Population is +/- 20 million.
Lauag Sprawl - covers the Ilocos area (Norte and Sur). Population is +/- 20 million.

The newly revamped Philippine National Police is composed mostly of Professionalism 0 and 1 NPCs, not a corp since Philippine pride would never accept renta-cops as the enforcers of the "law".
Politics and government here would be corrupt, very corrupt.
Mega-corps would have to open up local companies, using Filipino's as "dummy fronts" to operate. (The government will have learned from inviting ImpJap in before. At least 60% of each company must be "owned" by a Filipino citizen.)

If you'd like, I can go into more detail.

[DocTaotsu]

Please, the PI will certainly be a major player in the setting. Besides, all those Huk rebels have to do something to feed themselves now that the Japanese have left.

[IQ Zero]

Well to start off, the PI is composed of 7000 plus islands. The population is most definitely not homogenous. While the majority of the populace is of Indo-Malay decent, most also have had some infusion of Chinese, Korean, and Japanese genes, as well as Spanish, and the various nationalities that made up the USA when they ran the islands. There are also the small Aeta minority groups.

I'm sorry to say, but the info given in the Shadow's of Asia is highly improbable, at least in terms of the population growth and the amount of SINless people.

Currently (2008), Metro Manila as well as the adjacent provinces of Rizal, Laguna, Cavite, and Bulacan, are home to over 22,000,000 people, this is not including the ever-present squatters (i.e. SINless) who probably number an additional 6-8 million. Considering the growth rate of about 2.5% per annum, even if we were to wipe out 20% from VITAS and ImpJap murder, would still probably end up at 30+ million SINners and maybe 20-30 million SINless.

The majority of the people are of predominantly Indo-Malay decent as I have stated above, their bloodline though is probably diluted with an admixture from pretty much around the world. Currently, about 7-8% are of pure Chinese blood, another 2-3% of pure Korean blood, add another 5-10% of mostly pure Spanish blood and 2-3% of pureblood from other genetical donors (Vietnamese, Japanese, etc. etc.).

This was our version of the Manila Sprawl (composed of the Metro Manila/NCR Region, as well as the provinces of Rizal, Laguna, Cavite, and Bulacan) in 2070
Area: 8,025.518 square kilometers
Population: 20 million +/- (SINners) + 40 million +/- (SINless)

I'll have to convert our old SR2 versions of the Integrated PNP/AFP (Philippine National Police/Armed Forces of the Philippines) to a basic SR4 model.

If you have any questions, feel free to post here and I'll try to answer it as best I can.

[DocTaotsu]

Cool, some questions for Shadows of the PI (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

1. How much interconnectedness do those islands have? Better or worse than today? Is boat/ferry still the primary way of getting around between island clusters?
2. How much of a unified front can the PI present to it's Pacific neighbors. What's the primary reason they are able to keep othe powers from gobbling them up.
3. How does the PI interact with the rest of it's neighbors?
4. What are UCAS/CAS relations with the PI? Are they still exporting Chief's to the Navy?
5. Who are the big players? Corporate or otherwise.
6. Specifically what are the major crime powers, or have the Triads/yak's/Vor pretty much absorbed all of them?
7. Does balut grant you super powers now or is it still a disturbingly tasty meal in the form of an absolutely revolting package?

[IQ Zero]

Cool, some questions for Shadows of the PI (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

No problem, bring them on.

1. How much interconnectedness do those islands have? Better or worse than today? Is boat/ferry still the primary way of getting around between island clusters?

Boats and ferries would definitely be the way to bring heavy cargo around. For light cargo, many places have small airfields present.

2. How much of a unified front can the PI present to it's Pacific neighbors. What's the primary reason they are able to keep other powers from gobbling them up.

Who would want such contrary folk around? Seriously though, when there is no OVERT invasion, the squabbling here would be extremely great among the various factions. What keeps other nations from taking over? Nothing ... taking over is easy, maintaining control on the other hand ... the PI are famous for its skill in guerilla warfare.

3. How does the PI interact with the rest of it's neighbors?

They bellow loud, but are just shaking their fists. Of course, assuming that the oil-rich area around the Spratley's still belong to the PI, then they would have the addition of oil with which to help their economic balance. Other than that, mostly workers (skilled, semi-skilled, unskilled).

4. What are UCAS/CAS relations with the PI? Are they still exporting Chief's to the Navy?

I doubt that is still around. Of course, that does depend. Do Filipino-bred but UCAS citizens still count as PI natives? Maybe.

5. Who are the big players? Corporate or otherwise.

Anyone that is willing to grease the palms of the government. Local players in our game include
Ayala-Araneta: Malls and housing development.
SM-Robinsons: Malls and housing development.
Jollibee Food Products: Major PI provider of cheap food.

Unlike the UCAS/CAS, the PI will have thousands of little corps (not even A rated probably. More like B or C players) that handle most of everything.

6. Specifically what are the major crime powers, or have the Triads/yak's/Vor pretty much absorbed all of them?

After the year of the comet, the Yaks have probably all been run out of town by the Triads. Vor wouldn't have been able to really put their fingers in the pie.

Still, I'd say that the majority of the crimes would be under the control of the various politicians, military generals and colonels, and police generals and superintendents.

7. Does balut grant you super powers now or is it still a disturbingly tasty meal in the form of an absolutely revolting package?

Definitely the latter.

[DocTaotsu]

You made Jolibee into an evil corporation? My god man... have you no soul?

Seems like a pretty decent breakdown. What were some of the plot arcs your ran in your game?

[IQ Zero]

You made Jolibee into an evil corporation? My god man... have you no soul?

I'm sorry, but I'm extrapolating the 'what-ifs' here. Currently Jollibee is gobbling up any and all food companies it can. It already owns Chowking (Chinese fastfood), Red Ribbon (cakes and pastries), Greenwich (pizza), and about 3 or 4 others off the top of my head.

Seems like a pretty decent breakdown. What were some of the plot arcs your ran in your game?

Well when we started (SR1), FASA still hadn't given any details about the PI, so we assumed that it was more or less the same, corrupt and venal, a runner's favorite environment.

Most of the Johnsons (Mr. Juan de la Cruz here) would either represent various political families, military families, or economic families. Corps tend to be purely family owned/controlled. Sometimes there would be the fun of a family feud (Ayala-Araneta-Soriano-Joaquin-Gonzalez) that led to the team being hired by various members of the family to kill the patriarch of the clan, as well as to kill other members of the extended clan. The runners accepted all the commissions, money placed in the hands of their fixer, to be released upon completion. Then they bombed the house of the patriarch during a family get-together. They earned lots of nuyen there, of course, most of their clients ended up dead.

When Cyberpirates came out and the RP was under ImpJap rule, we tossed the entire campaign out the window and restarted. Most of the players stayed the same except that the ImpJap Security Forces were a lot less easy to fight (tougher and more dedicated, less corrupt at the lower ranks). Many of the players started in the shadows but ended up joining the Huk (some were paid to join by ImpSec). They were still runners, but they had a hard-on against the Japanacorps. Some transfered their characters to a Seattle campaign (emigrated) and then there was the group of Triad members that had a major beef against the Yaks.

[DocTaotsu]

Hm.. would it be safe to say that Jolibee has spread down the production line to include growing/engineering raw food stuffs?

[IQ Zero]

Hm.. would it be safe to say that Jolibee has spread down the production line to include growing/engineering raw food stuffs?

They already do that now. They used to use earthworms as their protein for their burgers, but over the bruhaha that ensued when it was discovered they are now raising cattle in Batangas and Isabela provinces.

[Snow_Fox]

best bet is somewhere not too built up. try indochina- Laos or Viertnam they have areas with lots of ex=pats. get set up there, pay nice bribes to get on the locals side and they will love to help you, warning about outsiders.considerinbg you one of the nice outsiders, as long as you play fair with the locals

[DocTaotsu]

That's pretty much what I'm going to point them towards.

"Say goodbye to the cities kiddies because Azzie hitters are sleeping in the rafters"

[IQ Zero]

Heck with all the islands in the PI, you can do the same thing, with the advantage of having a sprawl nearby in case you need to get something quick.

[Triggerz]

Hmmm... I don't know whether that's going to be of any use to you, but the anime "Black Lagoon" is very much like a water-based Shadowrun type of thing. The show follows a "shipping company" based in a fictional city somewhere in Thailand. They use a torpedo boat to travel the area. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it.

[stormcrow]

Oddly enough, in semi-parallel storyland, our group just left the San Francisco/Oakland area after pulling a mob of Ares security (from a highly restricted research facility in San Jose, and from built up positions between there and the Bay) into an incoming ImpJap troop convoy. They sat that battle out in a sealed water craft, just under the surface, then split to the South Pacific, specifically to the Plastic Castle. The Plastic Castle is a condensation of the plastic crap caught in the gyres of the Pacific currents (IRL it is currently the size of Texas and slightly north of where we place it, but, hey, global climate shift produces current variation, neh?). The plastic blag is gathered using old ghost nets (the plastic, miles-long nets used for stripping the sea of life) and then corralled. The center of the Plastic Castle is a Drone Carrier (sorta like an aircraft carrier, but with fewer people, lots more drones, slightly smaller size and both sea and air drones) circa 2040 or 2050. The Plastic Castle is currently situated over the former island cluster of Tuvalu, which has sunk beneath the waves as ocean levels rose. There is cultured coral connecting the Plastic Castle to the (just) underwater island cluster. (Mages on the lam favor the subsurface hidey holes that the cultured (live) coral provides--excellent protection from Astral intrusion.

Fuel is one of the hot commodities and the Commodore and his crew maintain a strict monopoly on it. Fire is a strong concern--the plastic burns and is toxic--so several of the deck guns of the Drone Carrier have been modified to fire foam rounds (a 50' diameter blast of foam, targeted by infrared from aerial drones) and the Fire Fighters are kitted out in Full Body Armor and are the Don't-Fuck-With force. The black and grey markets thrive and, while many syndicates have offices and contingents on the Plastic Castle, none have risen to prominence.

Quote from gamelog: On a pub crawl, Ink (a PC) sees an art installation on the Strip that is blowing fire tip and catch a cart on fire. The crowd flips the fuck out and surges. One of the main guns on the deck of the Carrier rotates and fires—a burst of foam that plasters a 50' ring. A minute later a cluster of people show up in skiffs in slightly patchwork full body armor with flame badges on the shoulders. The skiffs are all the same. They are all carrying water cannons and they pump seawater from the skiffs, do spot checks and secure the scene. Within 15 minutes forensics guys are scanning the scene.




Little Vegas—the strip alongside the Carrier. Hong Kong Capitalism Gone Wild.
The Krillage--food production. Lots'o aquaculture
The Floats—barges with neighborhoods of cargo containers. Constantly shifting cities of Shipping Containers (the metal ones that fit on ships and 18-wheelers). Gang turfs/tolls.
T-Town (TankerTown or TrollTown)--tanker ships with big hoses and high volume. Trolls concentrated here for jobs drones are less adept at and space to be a troll
.

general agreement to use gel/plastic rounds. Stronger stuff gets more notice and reply in kind. Can escalate badly, with brutal consequences from the Carrier
serious infotrade
Trolls extremely rare and get lots of attention anywhere outside of T-Town
Near a shelf or trench, so that energy is generated by heat/tide
Difficulty of e-currency verification (ie. Needs satellite comm time) leads to heavy use of certified credsticks and even some hard currency. There is a ledger with exchange rates for dead currency—dependent on difficulty of counterfeiting and available supply. Curry. Fossil curry or live curry--refers to currencies, many dead currencies (ie. nation defunct, corp swallowed etc.) still live on the Plastic Castle.

Cyber/bio—anything but a deltaclinic

Cybertolls—want to access that? It'll cost ya.


A retired-as-they-come Fallen Seraph runs a bar, Wings
best hot wings. Totally wired and surveilled and open access/webcammed, because he's avoiding biz like the plague. Runners still show up, throw a wired hub on the table and jack in to each other. Lotsa casual biz. The big screens randomly flip cameras, so be prepared to have that simple exchange up on the big screen.



Who's in charge?
Underwater: The Commodore 64 (runs the underwater drone army and the Carrier)(has airports and submarine bays)(can unload without ever surfacing)(maintains enough security for trade and firefighting services)(Indian)(Carrier, a couple destroyers, a couple submarines, a few tankers, a buttload o' drones)
Jaws: underwater magical security/response team, initiatory order
Krillfarmers Grange
The Firemen—stormtrooper firefighters who take no shit
some of the large guns on the carrier have been repurposed for foam
Consulate Row
front offices for most of the major syndicates. All Syndicates have a toehold, but not much more.


Hope that's useful.
Pax,
stormcrow

[DocTaotsu]

I've gotten several suggestions for a place like this, I paritcularly like the bit about using the plastic as a building block.

I intend to include several of these types of floating cities.

[DocTaotsu]

Some other ideas:

The ImpJapanese military was ordered back to the mainland right? Did they abandon their facilities wholesale or did they leave significant forces behind? These reduced strength depots or bases could be interesting places for runs, if only to bribe the garrison commander for access.

In that vein I've got an idea for a "Heart of Darkness" run against an ImpJapanese commander that refused to come home. I'm thinking that he's a grade 2 initiate who took his entire awakened force deep into the jungles/ocean. Magical Threat=Yes

Getting vehicles is going to be a hassle, fueling them even more so. I hope I can encourage the players to come up with some interesting solutions such as doing runs against courier services for their air cushion vehicles and stealthly stealing fuel from various sources.

[WeaverMount]

Crow, so glad you beat me to the punch on that one (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

[DocTaotsu]

Are all you guys playing in the same game? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Drogos]

I was in a CyberPirates game in SR3. Set in the Carib League, so a bit different, but the big part of water based games is the ship. It's actually a great game for a rigger character to shine in, so make sure you convince one of your players to make a (sea)rigger if you won't have one already. Fuel is a huge concern (we used sails and solar recharging batteries, cause our Bird of Prey was SICK) and can make the basis of entire runs, but requires you to come up with a fair and, more importantly, fun system to incorporate it into the vehicle rules. Just try no to make it too detailed so as to bog down your games. We were out and out pirates, so our games involved a lot of leg work finding cargo to sieze, ensure a safe as possible ambush, then how best to disable but still take the ship. In SR3, the ships were EXPENSIVE, but I'm talking a full on light cargo ship. If you have a small enough team, a medium pleasure craft could 'fit' all of them, but they'd have to be really good friends. In our campaign, we were given WAAAAAY too much leeway when we designed our own ship that the GM couldn't keep up the challenge level for us. He talked about restarting the whole game and we decided if he did that, we'd just go submarine instead of surface ship.

It's likely a good idea that the first run involves the players trying to find an appropriate vessel for their new lives in the islands. Maybe give them a few options with varying levels of security. That way you design the vessel they get, but the players don't feel like they got the GM shaft without any input ("Why do we have a fragging fishing boat again???" "Because sneaking onto the Yametetsu facility to boost the new sub prototype was deemed 'too hazardous to our health' given the timetable we had...what with the Aztechnology Jag Guards kicking in the doors of the building accross the street.").

As for once you have them there, the run possibilities really turn endless. Plant cargo onto ship in transit without being seen. Smuggle this family into Hong Kong (it's really not that far from your home base). The ship's low on fuel again and the only fuel depot in the area is held by a gang we just pissed off, so if we want to continue working, we have to run them off and hold em back for a few minutes. Plus all the other ideas spewed forth already. This makes for a rather interesting idea and I think it will be filed under likely to be run in the future for myself.

[DocTaotsu]

I think half the fun of this campagin will be in the loving attention the ship gets. We have one full time rigger and one ocean rigger so I think the skills will be there for some fun times. Additionally one of them just bought a ship (with the ability to submerge) so that will figure prominetly in their initial escape from Seattle. How they intend to make it all the way to The Plastic Castle is on them though.

But yeah I intend to expand the modding rules so they can really make this ship their own. What kind of mods did your team use? What was retardedly overpowered and what was just right?

[Drogos]

This being one of my favorite Shadowrun games that I got to play in, I could gush about it. And the ship got a whole lot of tender love from one of our players in particular because he was the rigger player.

As for your specific questions, we were able to up our Signature rating to rediculous levels (like 20 something) with the use of Sails, Ruthenium Polymer Coating (RuPo), and Hydrofoils. This made sonar and visual scanning completely useless against us, then we jammed radar. Basically ship to ship combat (which if you have a big enough ship, you'll have to figure some rules out for it) went, we swoop in undetected, pop out of inviso with a flurry of anti radar missles and pull along side the vessel. Then the captain and the crew board the ship (with simrecording running on the captain because this is Cyberpirates afterall) and the rigger lets loose a broadsides of assault cannon fire. Then sweep the ship and move onto the next one.

I would suggest keeping the RuPo out. Hydrofoils really only make sense if used on a fast ship (but we were within the rules limit on them, so it was allowed). We were going to do the submersible route as well, but we would have had to switch our power source and there was no way we were going to give up our Sails (I mean, we were fragging Pirates).

In short, some of the features of our ship and how they worked:
Submersible - Good
RuPo - Bad
Hydrofoil - Mixed Bag (would really only add speed in the current system)
Sails - Good for style and fuel, but not likely
Electric Motors with Solar Cells - Great way to cover distance, but not usable for speed engagements (so go Hybrid)
Anti Ship Gun - Bad (it's just not right in SR3)
Torpedoes - (we didn't use them) Good
Missles and Rockets - Good, but keep them on the OMFG, not use every time...same as torpedoes really
Assault Cannon Broadsides - Flavorful, but avoid
Drones - AWESOME
Remote Controlled Purpose Craft (TBirds, Small Subs, etc.) - Really flippin cool

Those were most of the highlights of our ship and attached vessels. We used Rigger 3 and Fields of Fire (iirc) to construct the Bird of Prey as we christened it. I HIGHLY reccomend Rigger 3 because, though I haven't seen Arsenal yet, the customization rules and options are really expansive. It'll make your riggers feel the (IMG:style_emoticons/default/love.gif)

[DocTaotsu]

My riggers new so I really don't feel like crushing his soul under Rigger 3 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Arsenal has workable rules for mods and I'm open to suggestions that pass the "not retarded' tests.

RuPo was all that bad? Would it have been as bad under SR4's take on it? (minus dice pool to detecting)?

And yeah, getting a honest to goodness deck gun sounds like it could get stupid fast. We'll have to see how the game pans out.

Thanks for all the responses folks. You're really helping me hammer out this new campaign.

[Drogos]

RuPo killed in SR3. In SR4, it is just improbable the players would get their hands on so much of it, but I suppose it's not that bad (as long as it doesn't affect sensors). Having heard all the various moans and groans around here about Arsenal's modding rules/options, I still reccomend Rigger 3 at least for you to be able to present the options to your players. I'd just photocopy (not sure if it's legal or not, but whatever) the charts of mods out of the book and use them. You can make up the appropriate rules for them.

Out of curiousity, what are you using for their ship?

[masterofm]

Hey Stormcrow don't forget about some of the fluff I added (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

There is also a shortage of vitamins and fresh fruit on the plastic castle, and everyone is always hurting for energy and/or fuel. Honestly the setting made GMing so freakin' easy to be able to come up with and run some really fun missions.