Shadow Wars, A prospective game. Options

[Karoline]

"Come one, come all, to the greatest show on earth. No, not any of that circus crap, I mean Shadow Wars^TM. Thats right, several teams of skilled runners duking it out in an abandoned city and its surrounded wilderness. A multi-day survival event with a multi-million dollar jackpot awaiting the surviving team. There will be explosions, traps, hails of bullets, deadly assassinations, and of course, plenty of violence. Don't miss out this entertainment opportunity, order the premium Trido coverage and get access to RunnerView^TM at no extra charge. Get the platinum package, and you'll get to see who the Enforcers have in their sights. Think you've got the skill, the will, and the cold hard 'ware to survive and claim the 5 million nuyen pot? You don't, but sign up anyway, the audience loves a quick kill."

So, that is the basic premise for something that I've been kicking around for a while. Teams of runners compete against each other for a huge prize. Runners can either enter as a team, or by themselves and they will be assigned a team. The prize is split between each surviving member of the winning team. There are also bonus prizes handed out throughout the war, including Enforcer Kills, Bounty Collection, and Fan Favorite, among others.

Now, I'll say right now, that this isn't something I'm ready to run at the moment. I tried running a game a while back, and simply wasn't prepared for it, and it fell apart. So, I'm going to be putting more effort into getting things set up for this. This means that it may be a month or more before anything gets rolling on this. So right now I'm mostly looking at interest for this sort of game. Those not interested in actually playing the game, feel free to continue reading and/or check the end of this post.

Tentatively characters will be 400 BP + 100 Karma + 100k Nuyen + (for mundane only) 150k nuyen.
The 400 BP will follow all the normal rules for character creations, the 100 karma will follow all normal rules for character advancement. The 100k Nuyen for Awakened(And TMs and drakes/pixies/etc) will have an availability 15 limit on it, up to betaware will be accessible. The 250k nuyen for mundane will have an availability 20 limit on it, and up to deltaware will be accessible.

The War Zone will be an abandoned city of undetermined exact location, but it will be isolated. It will however still have various things that do work, can work, and don't work. You might for instance find that an old corp building still has working automated defense (which may or may not be active) or perhaps there will be a heavily armored vehicle somewhere that just needs a few good whacks with a wrench to get going again, or maybe that vehicle is missing some vital part (which may or may not be at the local auto store). Point is that hackers and riggers will potentially have stuff to do. The War Zone will also include some surrounding wilderness, mainly a forest. This can be used to great advantage for those that know what they are doing. Critters, Ghouls, or other nasties may or may not be around the city, and may or may not have been intentionally put there.

Restrictions:
No Spirits (Character, use of spirits by a mage is fine)
No AIs
No Possession traditions
No Astral Hazing
No Twisted Traditions
(more may come)

Rules:

• All characters must remain within the War Zone for the course of the War. (This includes an air space limit 10m over the highest skyscraper in the town). This also extends to drones, vehicles, or anything similar.
• The last team standing wins the jackpot, and the winnings are split evenly between the surviving team members.
• No help may be given from those not part of the War.
• The city is disconnected from the rest of the matrix, so no access to resources that are not brought with the teams or already in the War Zone.
• No firing on, attacking, impeeding, hindering, or using as cover, or otherwise interacting with Neutrals.
• No impersonating Neutrals.
• Teams are limited to three members. Alliances between teams are allowed, but only one team may win.
• Provided cameras must run at all times, and may not have their lenses covered (And should be cleaned as soon as possible in the event of getting dirty).
• No Coup'de'graceing except on 'Bleed Out' Markers
• Surrenders must be accepted unless the Player has a 'No Quarter' Marker.
• False Surrenders are given a 'No Quarter' Marker, as well as a Wailing Bounty and Priority Target Marker and Bleed Out Marker.
• Those with regeneration have two options after coming back from overflow. They may surrender/forfeit or they may continue with a Bleed Out Marker on them.

(more likely to come)

Failure to follow the rules will result in instant disqualification, and may or may not result in a Wailing Bounty and/or Priority Target being placed on your head.

Bonus Prizes:

• Enforcer kills are worth 1 million nuyen to the killer.
• Bounties (of any type) are worth their posted value.
• Fan Favorite is worth an amount based on % of votes.
• Camera Hog is worth an amount based on % of viewers using that person's ShadowView^TM

(more to come)

Markers and Bounties:

• Bounty - This is a price placed on a player's head. Anyone not from that person's team that takes them out will receive the bounty as a reward. Players may use reward earned to place bounties on other players heads at a 2:1 ratio.
• Wailing Bounty - As regular bounty, except that the person's position is reviled to all other Players continually. A wailing bounty will generally revert to a normal or Ping bounty in time.
• Ping Bounty - Similar to a Wailing Bounty, but the person's position is only revealed for a short amount of time intermittently.
• No Quarter - This is a punishment Marker, and shows that the Player with it can not expect his or her surrender to be accepted. This is generally only given if a false surrender has been attempted.
• Priority Target - This Marker denotes someone that the Enforcers are to focus on. Keeping a 10m safe distance away from a Player with such a Marker is advised.
• Bleed Out - Someone that has gone critical will usually attempt to be rescued by Neutral medics. A Player with this marker will not be. A Player with this marker is also allowed to be Coup'de'Graced, either because they broke the rules, or they regenerate and there is no other way to keep them down.

OOC Rules Judgments:

• Number of Turret Mounts will be handled with the 'round up' rule, but recoil penalties will be applied to those vehicles/drones that have more firepower than they can handle.
• DP will be limited to 2*(Skill + Stat). In the case of the matrix this will be 2*(Skill + Program).
• Hackers: Rating 7+ Programs are available with the bonus money only. The cost for these programs is (R²*1000)

Oh, and since you'll be fighting against each other, you'll most likely not want to post your characters here. Feel free to try and form a team with other perspectives though.

As for how this game will be handled, there are two main ways I can think of. One is that people PM/e-mail me their various actions, and I'll reply, making occasional board posts to update the show. The other is if I can figure out how to get a forum of some kind up where I can restrict viewing access to different sections so that each team will have their own section/thread(s) and then a general thread would be back here on the DS forum (I'm not very internet savvy, so if anyone could help with this, that'd be great). I'm also willing to listen to other ideas for how to run this.

For those that like the idea, but aren't actually interested in playing, you can still participate! When the game gets underway, people who aren't playing are welcome to act as the spectators watching at home. Your interest and votes will help determine who gets prizes like Fan Favorite and Camera Hog, and there could even be other interactive things that you can participate in (Or not, your choice).

I'm also considering having one person to work as my Co GM. They would likely be responsible for things like the Enforcers, Neutrals, and possibly work with players when one on one situations arise (such as a hacker going into a node).

[Simon Kerimov]

Can we have a roll-call of contestants? The list I've seen so far is this:

ENFORCERS
Karoline: Head Enforcer and Shadow Wars host
Doc Chase: Co-Enforcer
unsound: Possible Co-Enforcer

CONTESTANTS: TEAM - Members
Tommytwotoes: ALAMOS 20K
Traul: MET 2000 "Big Bang", "Switch", "Birdy"
Simon Kerimov: "Sy" LFG
pgangarth "Character" LFG
Johnny B. Good "Character" LFG
nemafow: "Character" LFG
Garvel: "Magician" LFG
Acme: "Mage or Adept" LFG

Saint Sithney
Punchline
Fyndhal
Daka Daka
thespookydanger
Dr.Rockso
rinman
Martin_DeVries_Institute: Withdrawn

[EDIT]:changed entries based on responses received.

Oh my. I'll have to come up with a Solo participant.

Are Martial Arts allowed? Twisted Traditions? Infected characters? Karma generation, or strictly as you've set it out? Does taking the Restricted Gear quality allow someone to get gear with an Availability higher than 20? Do we all have to wear Spandex and fight against the Running Man?

Fun fun fun.

[EDIT] Moved the contestant list here for ease of reference.

[Karoline]

Are Martial Arts allowed?

Yep

Twisted Traditions?

No

Infected characters?

Tentative Yes

Karma generation, or strictly as you've set it out?

As I've laid it out, I specifically gave the karma to allow people to make up for some of the deficiencies of the BP system (Specialization cost, I'm looking at you) and don't want to have to worry about any sort of power balance between a BP and karmagen character.

Does taking the Restricted Gear quality allow someone to get gear with an Availability higher than 20?

No. You can however still get it during the BP portion of character creation to spend some of the BP nuyen on gear above rating 12.

Do we all have to wear Spandex and fight against the Running Man?

Well duh (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

Fun fun fun.

Sure hope so (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Traul]

That sounds great, count me in! I haven't played a combat monster in a while (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cyber.gif)

[unsound]

Haha, this is an awesome game concept. I don't know if I'll have time to participate, but it sounds like a wicked good time. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Martin_DeVries_I...]

Same here. I've already got a concept but don't know if I will be able to put the proper time into it. (Maybe for next season (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) ).

Question: As teams take losses, will the remainders be squashed together into a new team? If so, will they be allowed to--or forced to? The dynamic of the whole game could have a different feel depending on how that's answered. Also, how would you want Contacts handled? A Warrior's real-world contacts can't be used according to the rules of the game, but there's also no interaction with Neutrals. Would there be Ascended Extras the Warriors could use for those needs? Would the Corp running the show provide personnel within the network to fill the role? Or have Shadow Wars been planned in such a way as to not need Contacts at all?

[Karoline]

Same here. I've already got a concept but don't know if I will be able to put the proper time into it. (Maybe for next season (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) ).

Well, depends on how heavy my fall schedule ends up being (It isn't alot of classes, but they're hard and I need to do very well in them), it might not happen, or at least not be in full swing until next year. Will likely start but go slowly before then, but we'll have to see exactly how my schedule works out like I said.

Question: As teams take losses, will the remainders be squashed together into a new team? If so, will they be allowed to--or forced to? The dynamic of the whole game could have a different feel depending on how that's answered. Also, how would you want Contacts handled? A Warrior's real-world contacts can't be used according to the rules of the game, but there's also no interaction with Neutrals. Would there be Ascended Extras the Warriors could use for those needs? Would the Corp running the show provide personnel within the network to fill the role? Or have Shadow Wars been planned in such a way as to not need Contacts at all?

The game is set up so that you don't 'need' contacts from the outside. There is food in the city (Oh right, no more than one day's food is supposed to be a rule) in various unnamed places (Like maybe a grocery store?) and there are other 'edible' things around. Similarly there is ammo, medicine, and various other supplies to be found, some actually left from when the city was vacated, some purposefully put there by the proprietors of Shadow War. The rules in fact specifically forbid any kind of outside help, but that doesn't stop at least one team trying each year.

So, contacts (like social skills) will be of fairly limited use for the most part, but if you are clever, they can be worked in.

[unsound]

Well, depends on how heavy my fall schedule ends up being (It isn't alot of classes, but they're hard and I need to do very well in them), it might not happen, or at least not be in full swing until next year. Will likely start but go slowly before then, but we'll have to see exactly how my schedule works out like I said.

If you do decide to run this under 2072, I'm sure there'll be a few people willing to pick up the GMing slack for you on some of your busier weeks. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[pbangarth]

Will there be a dice pool limit?

[Traul]

There is food in the city (Oh right, no more than one day's food is supposed to be a rule) in various unnamed places (Like maybe a grocery store?) and there are other 'edible' things around. Similarly there is ammo, medicine, and various other supplies to be found, some actually left from when the city was vacated, some purposefully put there by the proprietors of Shadow War.

So how much external gear are we allowed to enter with? Anything we can pay for? Anything we can carry? Any limit on drones and vehicles?

[Karoline]

So how much external gear are we allowed to enter with? Anything we can pay for? Anything we can carry? Any limit on drones and vehicles?

Anything you can bring with you. There will likely be a limit on a loaded clip of ammo in each gun, and then some number of extra clips. I need to do more work to figure out how many exactly.

[Traul]

There will likely be a limit on a loaded clip of ammo in each gun, and then some number of extra clips.

That's OK: I'll just bring more guns (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rotfl.gif)

[Karoline]

That's OK: I'll just bring more guns (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rotfl.gif)

Which is totally what they want (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Simon Kerimov]

As far as having a website that allows for all of the controls you want, we could try the EclipsePhase website. We have some EclipsePhase games running here, so they might not mind us running a Shadowrun game there.

[Simon Kerimov]

I have a few questions and an idea.

Questions: Cyborgs? If not, what defines a Cyborg? Can we have Biodrones? Can I rig clones? What cheesy Qualities can we not take?

Idea: Corporate Sponsorship to provide some smallish stack of corporation-specific advantages. Things like a 5% discount on x-type of gear, for instance.

[Simon Kerimov]

Another question: can we purchase Qualities with our Karma?

[Traul]

What cheesy Qualities can we not take?

That's a big one. Many qualities do not make sense in that setting. Things like Day job, Bad rep (maybe this one could hurt for the Fan Favorite contest), SINner,...

[Karoline]

As far as having a website that allows for all of the controls you want, we could try the EclipsePhase website. We have some EclipsePhase games running here, so they might not mind us running a Shadowrun game there.

I'll have to check that out some time.

I have a few questions and an idea.

Questions: Cyborgs? If not, what defines a Cyborg? Can we have Biodrones? Can I rig clones? What cheesy Qualities can we not take?

Yes, Cyborgs are allowed, but their brain jar must remain inside the War Zone the entire time, just like a regular hacker/rigger. Biodrones are allowed. You cannot rig a clone (No official SR4 rules that I've seen for it).

As for qualities, instead of doing a comprehensive list I'll just say 'use your brain'. Most incompetent qualities won't be allowed (Unarmed, dodge, and infiltration being notable exemptions, among potential others), day job, SINner, the various matrix social penalty ones, etc. If it has near 0% chance of coming up during the course of the war, it likely won't be allowed. Some because of IC reasons, some because of OOC reasons. Uncouth might get allowed if I figure out a way to include social skills more. Also, if there is a quality you really want to take that might not fit, feel free to ask, I might think of a way to make it fit. Bad rep for example will have a big impact on fans. Votes will be decreased, though there is some chance they might have a higher view count thanks to people seeing what the 'bad guy' is up to.

Idea: Corporate Sponsorship to provide some smallish stack of corporation-specific advantages. Things like a 5% discount on x-type of gear, for instance.

Hmm, I kind of like this, I'll have to think about it more.

[Minchandre]

I don't want to participate, but if you're still looking for a venue, Myth Weavers should definitely fit your needs. It allows "private posts" where only the specified parties can read the text, and everyone else doesn't even see that private text is there! (though presence is, of course, often easily inferable)

[Dr.Rockso]

Color me intrigued. Think I'd give it a shot.

[Doc Chase]

You still need a CoGM, let me know. Running the Neutrals/Enforcers sounds like a hoot.

[Simon Kerimov]

Yes, Cyborgs are allowed, but their brain jar must remain inside the War Zone the entire time, just like a regular hacker/rigger.

Oh, goody. Since Cyborgs need a weekly 2,000nY maintenance that requires a shop, and every missed week adds one to the monthly Sanity test Threshold, a Cyborg could be a good crowd draw as it slowly (or not so slowly) deteriorates on camera. Hee!

Other weaknesses of Cyborgs:

• They can't resist Physical spells (although they can't be targeted by Mana spells unless the caster can see inside the CCU).
• Every time the drone they are rigging gets hit, they have to deal with biofeedback damage, so hurting them hurts twice.
• Hacking a Cyborg puts them in the position of dealing with 2 nodes at once or ignoring their body (which can be bad).
• Without some form of flotation device, they sink, and can't swim.
• If you engage them in a philosophical debate, they have to stop killing you. If you win, they shout "Does not Compute!" and explode.
• Since we don't have access to delta-ware with our 400 BP, the 250,000nY cost of the CCU has to come from the extra cash we get, and not from BP. Therefor, the vehicle/drone the Cyborg wants to have needs to be purchased with the 400 BP, and the CCU requires the Restricted Gear Quality.
• The Mitsuhama Cyborg bodies are beyond our pay grade.
• Other than the cyberware that is inherent in the CCU (12 Capacity, and the built in stuff), the Cyborg can have no cyberware, or bioware.
• The Cyborg's Essence is 0.1. A spirit with the Astral Gate power kills them very quickly.
• Missing maintenance sessions means that any glitch can mean they lose power.
• Cyborgs must take into account operating times for vehicles and drones, so they will need a fuel source.

[Karoline]

Other weaknesses of Cyborgs:

• Cyborgs must take into account operating times for vehicles and drones, so they will need a fuel source.

THE BLOOD OF THEIR ENEMIES!!

I mean... there may or may not be power sources they can tap into around the city (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Dakka Dakka]

THE BLOOD OF THEIR ENEMIES!!

I mean... there may or may not be power sources they can tap into around the city (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Fat and muscle may be better, though. And there is the multifuel engine mod.

Hmm I just thought about a Defiler/Soulgrinder type vehicle that eats its victims. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/devil.gif)
Which brings me to a question. Since this is supposed to be a broadcast and marketed event, am I right that deniability is not that much of an issue as with traditional shadowruns? Does the event attract more real runners or other professional athletes like Combat Bikers or Urban Brawlers?

[Karoline]

You still need a CoGM, let me know. Running the Neutrals/Enforcers sounds like a hoot.

Oh, and yes, I still do. I'll certainly keep you in mind, and if no one else asks for the post, you'll get it (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Which brings me to a question. Since this is supposed to be a broadcast and marketed event, am I right that deniability is not that much of an issue as with traditional shadowruns? Does the event attract more real runners or other professional athletes like Combat Bikers or Urban Brawlers?

Deniability is mixed, as are the contestant. Some are 'professional' combatants, including merc squads, some are actual runners, some are gangs with dollar signs in their eyes. Some groups will be very weak, some will be quite strong, some will have a mix of characters.

The enforcers will kick your ass three ways till Sunday, which is why there is a huge bounty on them.

Back to deniability. Some people love all the fame and glory, and others don't want it personally, and so will hide their face and use a handle. Thus the merc group and gangs may use their real names and not hide their faces, while runners may keep their faces covered or disguise themselves, but make sure their name is know so they will get plenty of street cred without becoming instantly recognized.