Runner's Co-Op: Rules and Scratch Thread Options

[Divine Virus]

NOTE: This is not fully updated yet.

Current House Rules
Updated July 22, 2008

No Software Degradation:

We should remove the softwear degradation and piricy rules to keep down book keeping

Basic Build Guide

450BP (225BP limit for Attributes, regular skill caps, 50BP cap for Resources)
3x Charisma free Contact Points
30K
1BP = 7 000 nuyens
1x 12+ avail item per PC

Current Rulings/Interpretations
Updated August 1st, 2008
None


Proposed/Unresolved House Rules, Ruling, or Interpretations
(This is not a complete list, and we have had a lot of things mentioned but not actually suggested. Ff I missed something, let me know.)
So, I think everyone can agree on, or at least tolerate, the following. Vote either yes, no, and as soon as we have majority, it passes.


Availability for Karma FAILED

availability<12= 0karma
13-16= 1 karma
17-20= 2 karma
21-24= 3 karma
25-28=4 karma
etc
This is the exception to karma having to be spent after chargen

For: Divine Virus, Dumori, De Badd Ass, Alex,
Against: Mister Juan, Dionysus, DireRadiant, Trigger
Undecided/Abstaining: Blackhat,

Team Lifestyles

Team lifestyle. - I vote we let individual players decide for their PCs. If, for example, Mr. Juan and Dumori think their PCs can get along,... I realize that some (would you believe most) players might decide that their 4 PCs get along great, and other players might think that that is cheesy. Just recognize that a shared lifestyle could turn into a liability (depending on the amount of role-playing going on.)

For: Divine Virus, Mister Juan, Dumori, De Badd Ass,
Against: Dionysus,
Undecided/Abstaining: Trigger, Blackhat, DireRadiant, Alex


The Agency
Nothing is known for certain, yet.

Proposed by DireRadiant:

For what "Agency"... As the thread suggests. why not a Shadowrunner Co Op? All the characters are in the co op together, only a certain number of them go on each run, some of the characters handle the a'fixing and a'johnsoning for the Co Op. The more experienced characters started it, the newer members are recruits. The Co Op gets a percentage, which is used for the benefits programs, maintaining contacts, facilities, tools, equipment, safe houses etc.

Proposed by Dumori

I think we should run the agency as a group of like minded fixers in the shadows with a pool of runners they use fits the basic setting and allows for almost any run type. I think 4 charitors on roster 1BBB and 3 what ever your like chummer (within what books people have)

Proposed by Alex

If we base in the CAS you have the CAS equivalent of the FBI and CIA all rolled up together. (That's assuming I am remembering my SR3 correctly.) They could bend either way on the ambiguity scale - not to mention that politicians sometimes often due what's in their own best interest.

Proposed by ???

Corporate Troubleshooters

Books

BBB- All
Street Magic- Divine Virus, Alex, Dumori, De Badd Ass, Dionysus, Trigger, Blackhat
Augmentation- Divine Virus, Alex, Dumori, De Badd Ass, Dionysus, Blackhat
Arsenal- Divine Virus, Dumori, De Badd Ass, Dionysus, Blackhat
Unwired- Divine Virus, Blackhat, Dumori, De Badd Ass, Dionysus, Blackhat

[Mickle5125]

for those of us who are uber busy at the moment, will you be accepting more characters later on?

[Trigger]

I am for the lack of software degradation and piracy rules because a) I don't yet own Unwired and b) from what I have seen they are bloody annoying to keep track of.

Edit: Also, I think the rosters should be three characters per player, one of them strictly BBB and the other two with any books available.

Also, for the sake of balance between each of the characters (again, not letting different builds fall behind) each should be created with the same amount of BP. I think 450 is a good amount for an idea like this, but anything else is feasible as well depending on what we decide the Agency is like.

As for The Agency, I like the idea of like minded fixers running the Agency, which is in turn run by someone else from the shadows. The Fixers and their Agency are the tool of whatever is running this all from behind the scenes...that sort of thing.

[Divine Virus]

So, I agree that software degradation shouldn't happen, because I don't think it is fair to have characters penalized if they are not used frequently. Also, I think it would be a real drag to keep track of.

I don't like the skill restriction houserule. I have never had any kind of a problem with the advancement caps/starting skills, in fact I like how it works. I could see it might be a problem in a some tabletop games, but I think that forum games tend to accumulate karma slowly enough that it shan't be an issue.

I am undecided about which version of the agency I like best.

I think some for at least character we should be able to start with more BP or karma. I am unwiling to purpose exact numbers at this stage of the game.
One idea I have (but do not yet wish to purpose) is that after chargen, everyone gets a fixed amount of karma (say 75) that they can divide amoung their characters anyway they choose. So give all 3 characters 25 karma, or one character 50, another 5 and the last 20, or whatever.

Lets also collect an official list of who has what books. Just post what you have and I will edit a list in the first post.

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Current Opinions

Skill Restrictions: Against
No Software Degradation: For

[Trigger]

I currently have only the BBB and Street Magic. I should very soon have the others, I have just been getting my finances in order recently after moving and all that jazz.

[ludomastro]

Any rule interpretations that we need to hash out up front. The Matrix and it's workings appear to be the biggest problems I run into.

[De Badd Ass]

I think some for at least character we should be able to start with more BP or karma. I am unwiling to purpose exact numbers at this stage of the game.

I'm for a house rule that allows buying karma with build points during character generation, and another house rule that allows buying karma with nuyen after character generation.

Anybody care to propose numbers?

Now for something completely different. How about a game without karma awards? I always thought the neat thing about Shadowrun vs ADnD is that Shadowrun character generation does not create "Level 1" characters. What's the point in creating 350, 400, and 500 BP characters if they are going to advance? {{Note: this is an mutually exclusive alternative to the previous suggestion!}}

As for house rules and bookkeeping, I am not in favor of creating more work for GMs; therefore, I think the GMs should decide on the amount of bookkeeping they want to deal with.


I have BBB, Street Magic, Unwired, and access to Augmentation and Arsenal.

I use the OpenOffice.org spreadsheet. It can save in xls format, but isn't compatible with excel macros.


Skill Restriction Proposed by Alex
Against: Don't see the need for this.

No Software Degradation
Abstaining: Let the GMs decide

The Agency
Abstaining: Let the GMs decide

[Mister Juan]

Here is what I have to chip in the current discussions:

-House Rule:
Z amount of free points to spend for contacts at the rate of X times Charisma

-Skill Restriction:
Against

-No Software Degredation:
For

-The Agency:
for some reason, I'm really into the Corporate Trouble Shooters. As I mentioned; it gives us a certain leeway gear/ressources wise, and it is a side of SR I'd very much like to explore. But this is the RP/write in me speaking. I can easily understand how others might prefer to run actual freelancing Shadowrunners. Overall, I'm opened to pretty much anything

-Books:
BBB, Street Magic, Arsenal, Augmentation, Runner Havens, and almost all the SR2 and SR3 books (great for hooks, ideas n shit (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif) )

-Character Creation, BPs and Karma:
I was a strong supported of having multiple characters with different amount of starting BPs, but now, I've sorta change my mind. Senario building wise, I know it can be a GMing hassel when you have a lot of PCs to "write for"... you've got to create at least one "challenge" for each so everyone gets to play. That's already going to be intense considering there are 9 of us, and so, 8 PCs per run. If one has to deal with 8 characters, all with varying amount of BPs, thats going to be a pain in the ass.... and the higher BP PCs might end up outshining the regular guys a little too much. So, in light of this, I have to side with Trigger: let all the PCs have the same amount of BPs, but lets not start at the usual 400. Once again, like Trigger mentioned, 450 is a good starting point. Not too powerful, but seasoned enough to allow us to create pretty much anything we might fancy.

I also agree with DV on the fact that we should get a little karma package to distribute amongst our PCs. I say this mainly based on the fact that some people might want to give their PCs abilities that can only be gain through karma (like Initiate Grades).

What we have to figure out is: do we get one lump sum and distribute it amongst 4 PCs, or do they each get a certain fixed amount?

Or like DBA suggested, we might just figure out a way to transfer BPs to karma. Personally, I feel very comfortable with this idea.

-# of PCs per Player:
Four. Four seems like a good number to me.
Thats a pool of 36 characters.

-Recruitment:
For now, I think we should close it. There's already 9 of us, which I feel is quite enough players.

[BlackHat]

Books: All

I like the free contacts rule. I always feel like they are wastes of BP, or that they benifit the GM (as plot devices) more than me as a player. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

I'm against the skill restriction rule, just because I never had a problem with the caps on skill ranks being too high. If we're talking about having more points and possibly karma to play with, we're should be pretty good at what we do.

For ignoring Software Degredation. I don't thin kwe can do this on a GM by GM basis, as someone suggested, because otherwise everything will be fine until you hit one run where your programs suddenly plummet in points because you wern't maintaining htem or buying new ones. I don't mind keeping the concept in there as fluff, but we could jsut say that the agency has a team of hackers that never see action, whose sole job it is to keep the real runner's programs up to date.

I'm also for ignoring freeware and opensource code. They make sense, since they exist in the real world, but once you include them, everyone might as well have rating 4 freeware knowsofts for every knowledge skill imaginable.

I like all proposed ideas for the Agency. I'm not advocating any particular one.

I like the idea of a BP->Karma conversion, but am more interested in awarding karma after character creation. One of hte things I like about karma, that you don't see with BP, is things scaling up in cost the more rediculously awesome at something you become. I wish character generation was more like that (I know there are some popular houserules for this), but I am not advocating we use them. I am just advocating that we don't dispense with karma as the means of advancement. If we only award extra BP to characters, but then let them convert BP to karma, it pretty much only makes sense to do so for things that you can't buy with BP (like initiation/submersion).

That said, I've also never been fond of individual experience awards (in any game). I prefer giving all players the same experience based on what they all did, not arbitrarily calling out one character as having done a "better" job playing his character than everyone else. I also think this would make aawarding the GM (which would be just as arbitrary a decision - and which character of his would get it) a lot easier - since he could just get the same karma as the PCs, which would keep everyone on about the same page. That idea wouldn't work if we have a lot of people with spotty attendence, but is an idea.

If we're going to award karma, extra BP, and potentially a way to convert BP to karma, I would really like to see extra cash (and a lifting of the availability/rating limits from chargen) too. Someone suggested a nuyen->karma conversion, and if we did that, it would be important to have a karma->nuyen conversion too.

[BlackHat]

Also, in the initial post, you gave me credit for DireRadiant's idea in the Agency section. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[De Badd Ass]

The Agency

I earlier expressed the opinion that the GMs should decide this issue. That being said, I am now adding $0.02 to the discussion.


When I think of agencies like this, the most obvious is the IMF team from the sixties TV show. Less obvious is Murder, Inc. In between is the Alliance of Twelve, especially SD-6 (I'm trying to ignore the A-Team).

If seems that most of the discussion is revolving around a Mission: Impossible style campaign. In the sixties TV show, the Force Director, Mr. Phelps, ostensibly selected agents whose qualifications were needed to perform a mission provided by an anonymous Johnson. In reality, the TV episodes were that subset of the missions that involved the same core group of agents (sometimes plus one).

Murder, Inc. was a real agency about which a movie was made. All the "agents" had similar qualifications. The deciding factor in agent selection was anonymity. They chose out of town assassins that had no connection to the victim. The various "missions" (hits) were usually unrelated. Agent availability was also restricted by the agent's need to "lay low" for a while after completing a mission.

Alias highlighted a subset of SD-6 missions involving one team of agents. The various agents all had similar qualifications, and were typically busy on similar assignments. The various "missions" were directly or indirectly related in that there was one client, the Alliance of Twelve.


Enough of me reminding you of something you already know.

I read in our discussion some concern about agent selection in the following areas:

• relative experience
• choosing between agents with similar qualifications
• rule books used to create and equip agents
• real time length of missions
• hey, I don't need to list these. you already know.

Anyhow, I would like to propose that the best scenario would be to run multiple overlapping missions so that every character is employed in one and only one mission at a time. In reality, characters would have down time between missions to train, heal, or just "lay low". The availability of missions would probably vary as well.

If the missions were not "equally important", I could imagine a key agent pulled off one mission to assist on another. I can imagine missions that run "short handed", or with relatively inexperienced agents. In fact, it would be realistic to have one (or more) experienced agent leading a team of relatively inexperienced agents, or one (or more) inexperienced agents accompanying a team of veterans.

In a mission rich environment, Team leaders can't just select "the best of the best", cause the best are usually busy. In that situation, there is no need to award karma to the uninvolved characters. Their turn will come. In addition, some of the PCs can be background characters, like M and Q in the James Bond series, or Marshall in Alias. This relieves the GM from having to run some NPCs if, for example, the fixer, the talismonger, the doctor, the hacker, the mechanic, etc. are PCs. So what if they rarely leave the office for the field?

Another point: If there is a stable of "BBB only" agents available for GMs with limited rules familiarity, and these agents are only used on "BBB only" missions, then it wouldn't matter if a player has two versions of the same character (different names, of course).

The showstopper is, of course, the number of GMs and available missions. The biggest advantage of this whole agency concept is that the Johnson (GM) doesn't choose the agents. The Johnson employees the agency, the agency chooses a team leader, and the team leader assembles his team. This relieves the GM of the need to design a mission around the characters. A GM has a mission concept. The GM presents the mission to the Agency, and the agency chooses the PCs to fit the mission. This allows anyone on Dumpshock that wants to run a game to submit a mission to "The Agency". It can be a "one-shot" or a "multi-run" campaign. The only restriction he puts on the players is the source books allowed. If we go with BlackHat's suggestion of uniform Karma awards (or no Karma awards) then the GM is relieved of that responsibility, too.

Actually, I can imagine some other problems. One is that GM might want to deal with characters with a certain maximum level of experience, if he thinks that the mission would be "too easy" otherwise. The GM might want to specify BP, Karma, and Gear (availability, rating, total nuyen value, etc).

THE BIG ISSUE always seems to be game flow. When players post slowly, infrequently, drop out, etc. and hold up the game. I think the GM should be able to specify a minimum posting interval, and that the Team Leader be responsible for maintaining it; especially if the Team Leader is the one choosing the PCs (and players). A cool compromise would be to have the Team Leader run the PC if a player can't post, or designate an alternate Team Leader if she can't post.

I think these suggestions will make GMing more appealing, and help increase the number of available missions.

Ok , maybe that was more than $0.02

[Dumori]

Right then rule wise:
I'm against the skill restrictions idea and I purposed the no software degradation rule. I'm also for ether FrankTrollman's contact rule found here or the

Z amount of free points to spend for contacts at the rate of X times Charisma

rule purposed by Mister Juan

As for the agency I'm for corps or freelances. As this leaves the filed open for designing adventurers and GMing.

On a side note I have an old forum (if its still on the web) that I could revamp for this idea alone but this should only be done if we find keeping track of everything hard on dumpshock.

[dionysus]

Anyhow, I would like to propose that the best scenario would be to run multiple overlapping missions so that every character is employed in one and only one mission at a time. In reality, characters would have down time between missions to train, heal, or just "lay low". The availability of missions would probably vary as well.

If the missions were not "equally important", I could imagine a key agent pulled off one mission to assist on another. I can imagine missions that run "short handed", or with relatively inexperienced agents. In fact, it would be realistic to have one (or more) experienced agent leading a team of relatively inexperienced agents, or one (or more) inexperienced agents accompanying a team of veterans.

The showstopper is, of course, the number of GMs and available missions. The biggest advantage of this whole agency concept is that the Johnson (GM) doesn't choose the agents. The Johnson employees the agency, the agency chooses a team leader, and the team leader assembles his team. This relieves the GM of the need to design a mission around the characters. A GM has a mission concept. The GM presents the mission to the Agency, and the agency chooses the PCs to fit the mission. This allows anyone on Dumpshock that wants to run a game to submit a mission to "The Agency". It can be a "one-shot" or a "multi-run" campaign. The only restriction he puts on the players is the source books allowed. If we go with BlackHat's suggestion of uniform Karma awards (or no Karma awards) then the GM is relieved of that responsibility, too.

I love all the above, think it sounds like a lot of fun. Esp re opening up the Agency to the boards in general.

My votes:
Skill Restrictions: against
No Software Degredation: for

My only opinion on The Agency is that it not be a "justice league" type of thing, where the runners are a mysterious force for good. I'd rather it be more mercenary than that, but that's just me.

Books: I have SM, Aug, Arse, BBB & UW (pdf)

[Mister Juan]

I'm actually a big fan of what DBA has just suggested.

The way I see things is the following:
-GM either volunteers or is randomly selected amongst all the players.
-GM puts forth a mission statement (basic mission outline, primary and secondary objectives, time frame, location, etc...)
-A Team Leader (a PC with a higher BP pool, considering we should each have 1) is either commonly or randomly selected.
-Said Team Leader then picks his team amongst all the remaining PCs (taking, of course, 1 from each player except the GM)
-GM runs the mission
-Karma is distributed
-New GM comes forward
-We start over again

So, this is based on the concept that we would each have 4 PCs: 1 Team Leader and 3 Agents
I can see two "issues" with this sort of game:
1- High BP PCs will never get to "interact" with each other
2- Some PCs might "always" get picked, depending on the team leaders and missions, and so others PCs from one player might get a lot of bench time.

Personally, I think we should only run ONE mission at a time. Too many missions at once might distract people from one thread over the other, and spread our "creative" energy a little too much.

[DireRadiant]

Personally, I think we should only run ONE mission at a time. Too many missions at once might distract people from one thread over the other, and spread our "creative" energy a little too much.

The advantage of this is when there is a drop out(s), or something is not working, we do a "Fade to Black" and start the next mission proposal.

[ludomastro]

It looks like my skill idea is going to die. Oh well. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

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Otherwise, I'm excited to see this get off the ground.

[Mister Juan]

It looks like my skill idea is going to die. Oh well. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

-----

Otherwise, I'm excited to see this get off the ground.

Don't take it personal (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) Win some, lose some (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

[Dumori]

I just had a good idea for how the agency could be run. It could be a privet security firm that a using this as a front for all the gear and high spec staff members uses its high skilled workers as rapid response units and shadow runners. This leaves the missions and clients open while having a different feel to the basic shadowrun.

Also how much detail do you want out of the action? some RP time back at base, pure action with maybe the odd meet or a mix of both?

[De Badd Ass]

It looks like my skill idea is going to die. Oh well. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

I know the feeling! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rotate.gif)

[dionysus]

This doesn't really fit under "rules," but I'm not sure it warrants a whole new thread. Are we thinking about doing the actual in-game stuff on the boards? Might IRC be a speedier way of doing it?

[ludomastro]

Feeling a bit dense at this late hour. IRC = chat, right?

[Mister Juan]

Feeling a bit dense at this late hour. IRC = chat, right?

Yes indeed.
Altought this might ease some things, it brings along a whole other set of issues... The main one being that we probably don't all live in the same timezone, and that having a gaming scheduel that works for 8 (or are we 9? I forgot...) people is going to be hell.

I suggest we concentrate on the main questions that we need to answer now:
1- The Agency question: what are we?
2- The Actual Game: how do we run it? Do we use the template I brought forth earlier?
3- PC Build Rules: How many BPs? Karma?

[Dumori]

450bp to start for all keeps it simple. I want to keep it simpel while the team leader idea is good it could clog things up so I'm for each player pick the runner that they think fits best or the GM picks the runners the latter would make GMing easier as you know what the group can do. And I feel ive given my idea on who we would all be.

[dionysus]

Yes indeed.
Altought this might ease some things, it brings along a whole other set of issues... The main one being that we probably don't all live in the same timezone, and that having a gaming scheduel that works for 8 (or are we 9? I forgot...) people is going to be hell.

Point taken. I retract the suggestion.

I suggest we concentrate on the main questions that we need to answer now:
1- The Agency question: what are we?
2- The Actual Game: how do we run it? Do we use the template I brought forth earlier?
3- PC Build Rules: How many BPs? Karma?

[edit]
1- I like DBA point below: I vote mercenaries & we chose the team as a group based on the details of the offer.
[/edit]
2- I like the idea of a rotating GM (not random, so that people can be prepared to run a game, or warn if they're not going to be able to make it). I also really like the idea of offering the agency's services to Dumpshock in general: it would give us all experience with very different GM styles.
3- I vote for a uniform BP across all characters, no karma at chargen. Mainly to keep things simple.

[De Badd Ass]

I suggest we concentrate on the main questions that we need to answer now:
1- The Agency question: what are we?
2- The Actual Game: how do we run it? Do we use the template I brought forth earlier?
3- PC Build Rules: How many BPs? Karma?

Okay.

I would put #3 above #2. I bet a number of people are waiting for that, so they can start building.

I would reduce #1 to: "Are we good guys, bad guys, mercenaries, or anarchists?";that is,. the info needed to design missions, and characters.

I'm guessing that this is the template. I saw it, and didn't recognize that it is a template.

The way I see things is the following:
-GM either volunteers or is randomly selected amongst all the players.
-GM puts forth a mission statement (basic mission outline, primary and secondary objectives, time frame, location, etc...)
-A Team Leader (a PC with a higher BP pool, considering we should each have 1) is either commonly or randomly selected.
-Said Team Leader then picks his team amongst all the remaining PCs (taking, of course, 1 from each player except the GM)
-GM runs the mission
-Karma is distributed
-New GM comes forward
-We start over again

So, this is based on the concept that we would each have 4 PCs: 1 Team Leader and 3 Agents
I can see two "issues" with this sort of game:
1- High BP PCs will never get to "interact" with each other
2- Some PCs might "always" get picked, depending on the team leaders and missions, and so others PCs from one player might get a lot of bench time.

I don't think it is necessary for a Team Leader to have a higher BP pool. IRL the grunts are often specialists who have seen more action than their "leader". The leader just needs leadership skills, and since he is leading PCs rather than NPCs, these leadership skills do not cost points.

I do like the idea of PCs with an expressed interest in Leadership. I don't feel it is necessary that every player have one, especially if a player has no interest in roleplaying a leader.