SPOILERS Review of CMP 2011-04: Ancient Pawns Options

[squee_nabob]

[ Spoiler ]

We are having a special today on our 2 for 2 nonviolent resolution horrible murder package

I played this mission as Cypher with Geoff Raye. I had a great time at this mission and it was my favorite shadowrun I played this year at Origins. Geoff did a great job with a well written adventure. If you are reading this, you probably played it already (I hope). If you haven’t, stop reading this and go play it.

I just want to take a moment to say how great this adventure is, why I think it’s great and thank all of the players who helped make it so great.

What I liked:
The premise: you are on a high-powered mayhem oriented scavenger hunt. It’s silly, it’s wacky, it’s timed.

The NPCs: Despite Geoff being worn down from 4 previous days of running Shadow Run, he still brought them to life as dynamic individuals.

The Challenge: While this mission boils down to “do 5 simple jobs quickly”, we had an out of game clock of ~1.5 hours to do the first 4 jobs. Every job has multiple ways to resolve it, from brutal violence to stealth to negotiation. Every part of the adventure feels open ended, like you could make choices and change how you approach things. The short clock means you can’t debate it however, and the team needs to work cohesively in order to hit all 5 objectives.

Basically the challenge is working together well. If you agree easily, and work well together, the clock is no problem. I really like that as the challenge.

Plenty to hack, face, shoot, etc.

What I didn’t like:
I can’t think of anything to dislike about this mission. The pay is on the low side (7,000 base), but not insultingly low. The job is easy, but the challenge is working together, not combat. Each role has something to do, and everyone at the table got a moment of awesome.

This mission is a rollercoaster crossed with a jetplane. From the moment you sign on, it’s a non-stop flight to fun down where you deliver awesome bombs.

[UmaroVI]

[ Spoiler ]

I played at the same table as Squee; I was Banshee.

I don't really have a lot to add to his review; this was a really good mission with no flaws I could see. I think everyone at the table had fun and there was a lot of flavor and a lot of fun stuff going on.

I thought a lot of what made it good was that even though we had clear goals, we had a lot of options as to how to deal with them. For example, we chose to talk to the Orc guards and bribe them to hand over their badges; we could have tried to steal the badges, shoot them and take the badges, or probably do something else.

I also thought the stuffer shack truck jacking was a clever challenge and set up very well.

[Critias]

I'm going to break the spoiler-post trend, and just say awesome.

I had a blast writing this, I've had fun every time I've run it (playtest groups, local conventions, that sort of thing), and it's great to hear that other folks are having fun with it, too. The way you guys are describing it are exactly how I hoped it would someday be described -- over the top fun, bringing a little of the flair and silliness back to the shadows, and some fun NPCs, all wrapped up in a race-against-the-clock format with individual jobs that can be solved a variety of ways.

One of my favorite things about the times I've run it was that no two groups have done anything in exactly the same way. If you've got the time and inclination, I'd love to hear how your crew handled any of the mini-jobs.

[UmaroVI]

Here's how we handled the tasks:

[ Spoiler ]

The Spikes and Humanis: we decided that we would solve these two in the direct way, so as to get them out of the way fast and leave time for the less easily done ones. We drove up to them, stepped out of our van, shot everyone until they stopped moving, cut off their heads, and burned down their bases. Also, we didn't like racists.

Jimmy the Chin: we got into the Crime Mall by leaving our heavy weapons behind, being polite to the guards, and bribing them for directions. Banshee then walked up to Jimmy the Chin and informed him "We have a present for you from the Ancients, and it rhymes with Funbolt." His bodyguard Dragon Punched Banshee and then got stunbolted by Zara, we then proceeded to shoot johns who didn't leave, Detox the elf we were hired to rescue, and leave with her. Cypher told the other girls to call him if they ever wanted to leave their life of prostitution; Kaz told them to call him otherwise. We left the bodyguard unconscious with a note saying that he was pretty awesome and no hard feelings, so we were going to let him live. We didn't like pimps either. We liked bodyguards who had the balls to start 6:1 fights.

Ork Badges: Banshee (with a newly-minted Friend of the Ork Underground token) went to talk to them [he was the most face-like of the orks and trolls], and pretty much straight-up told them what we were doing, and suggested that it would be best for them to just hand over the badges in order to not have to fight with the Ancients. We did this largely because we liked the Ork Underground and didn't want to beat them up and steal their badges. After some discussion, they accepted some nuyen and a very fancy Custom Look AK-97 in exchange for their badges.

The Stuffer Shack Truck: we tried to have a spirit jack the truck, only to find out it was empty. We then tried to hack it, only to discover it was offline. Cypher then explained that nothing is safe from Ceiling Cat, God of the Internet, and sent a crack sprite through the resonance realms to hack into the truck from the resonance realms (look it up in unwired), then use its new legit access ID to spoof the truck into stopping and opening its doors so Fingers could jump in and hit the manual override. We saw the other runner team approaching; Banshee decided to try the spirit-jacking again without considering that having a fire spirit Fear the driver was probably not going to make him come to a safe stop.

With a van wildly careening towards us, Kaz shot a telephone pole into their path and then Cypher had a sprite Gremlins (crash test at -5, threshold 3) their van into a wall. We checked they weren't dead and then drove off. We were afraid of a 100+ km/hour collision, and appreciated that the adventure started them off at 20km/hour before we fucked up and spooked them.

We then went back to the meet, waited as the other team came in and shot us dirty looks, and played a Greatest Hits music video with the nonviolent conflict resolution edited out and horrible violence playing to Chop Suey.

[LurkerOutThere]

[ Spoiler ]

I'm pretty sure you've got that wrong, the technomancer needs to be on the node to get it a sprite to come into it via the resonance, glad you have fun though. We just literally threw our gnome technomancer at it.

[Hida Tsuzua]

I was in the same game as Umaro and Squee (I was playing Xerxes).

[ Spoiler ]

While normally real life time limits annoy me as a mechanic, it works well as a missions game since you have a time limit anyways. The mission felt to be 5 mini-runs in a row which was a nice change of pace. The amount of challenge varied, but honestly is impossible to do reliably much less well in missions.

I think because we did so well in the mini-runs we avoided a final melee fight. If so, I think that's a good way to handle missions adventures. You may not get 100% completion but you do still succeed overall. I'm a tad worried it was "your best melee against my NPC melee" challenge which I don't think it's a good idea. One person then makes or break the adventure just cause. Then again it gives the melee skills an use.

Overall, I share the opinions of my fellow teammates. It was an enjoyable set of challenges and pretty cool. There's now a gnome shadowrunner with Ancients label bike racing armor which I'm sure to pull out at some point or another.

[squee_nabob]

[ Spoiler ]

My interpretation of Unwired page 154

As creatures of resonance, sprites may travel to and from
the resonance realms as they please. This allows them a kind of
shortcut, taking a path from one node to another via the resonance
realms, rather than through the Matrix. This does not, however,
give them a free pass to bypass firewalls and system security. A
sprite may only use this shortcut to access a node in which the
technomancer to whom they are registered is present (i.e., the
technomancer calls them into the node), or in which they have
legitimate account or backdoor access. Otherwise, the sprite must
hack into the node, following the same rules as any other hacker
(p. 221, SR4)

Is that you can hack into a node from the resonance realms, because the resonance realms connects to every node. Basically if you have an account, you don’t need to go through the matrix, and if don’t, you can hack on the fly through the resonance realms due to the fact that hacking on the fly requires mutual signal range (which you can get via the great connection (Unwired 175)).

If that isn’t the case, we could have just flown a repeater drone onto the truck, made it wireless, and hacked it from there. It would not have changed the mission except for a Command + Piloting: Aircraft check.

[LurkerOutThere]

[ Spoiler ]

I think you are misreading the rules to get the outcome you want, if the intent was to allow hacking from the resonance realms they would have put that in writing You can use the resonance shortcut to get a sprite onto a node A) The technomancer calling is already present on the node B) The sprite has an account pre-setup. It's pretty cut and dry. Just because there is a resonance realm that has a metaphor for everything being connected doesn't mean you can use it to have your sprite connect to "the node of the off the grid corp system xyz on demand.

[squee_nabob]

[ Spoiler ]

I’m glad that isn’t how it works actually. It’s the outcome that I thought was true and accepted, but wasn’t really comfortable with. My interpretation of the second part of that paragraph was basically “This doesn’t mean you don’t have to make a hacking test” rather than “you still can’t hack something outside of mutual signal range / connected to the matrix”. That’s better for game balance and makes SRM02-17 “Patient Zero” much better and less difficult (although it is still nearly impossible).

Again in this case it doesn’t actually matter, since a retrans drone could have still made it signal 4 (or am I misreading those too? Please correct me if I am), but this does mean that a wired server in wireless reducing paint rating 10 still requires an infiltration. That’s a good thing. TM’s already have a great deal going for them.

EDIT
Just to doublecheck, The Great Connection from Unwired 175:

Embedded deep within the resonance realms is a
giant tree whose roots are hidden in a lake of data:
The Great Connection. This realm is said to link to
every node in the Matrix, no matter how isolated or
secure . Each leaf reflects a node, with newly connected
nodes represented as sprouts, active nodes
as fully-grown leaves, and the leaves of disconnected
nodes withering and blowing away in the wind. The air
is full of pollen, reflecting the constant flow of data
traffiic. Sprites in the form of birds, bees, squirrels,
and other animals crawl the branches.

Is an optional rule?

[UmaroVI]

[ Spoiler ]

A shadowrun supplement with ambiguous phrasing! Why I never!

I think probably the interpretation I will personally take when I GM is that the Great Connection is a specific place in the resonance realms, and if you are in THAT part of the resonance realms, you are Ceiling Cat. Otherwise you can only hop to places your techno has access to or you have a legitimate account, and otherwise you need to hack in normally (ie, get in mutual signal range from another node in the meat world). IE, I think Lurker's interpretation is better for game balance, and I can see how it might mean that.

This wouldn't have changed this adventure too much since we would have stuck a drone on the car. But it's probably good that sprites cannot hack an offline node inside a box stored in a vault or something like that.

[DWC]

[ Spoiler ]

There's still an easier way for TMs to hack anything. Check out the Skinlink Echo from Unwired. It's how we stopped the truck.

[squee_nabob]

[ Spoiler ]

The problem is that sprites can freely travel to the submergence realms without any of the hassle that TMs take (Unwired 173: “(though sprites move freely between the realms and the Matrix).”)

Because there are no guidelines for getting to the Great Connection, I would highly advise against your course of action UmaroVI. What would you do if a TM ordered a sprite to go to the Great Connection and then hack in?

It is far better to just declare the Great Connection optional (I’d actually like to see the entire submergence realms and metaplanes declared optional) and not use it in missions.

OTOH if it stays in, all it means is that boxes stuck in vaults need to be unplugged rather than offline. You can’t hack something that isn’t generating a node (because it is offline). As long as adventures that are supposed to avoid the Great Connection solution use that strategy, there isn’t a problem.

[LurkerOutThere]

[ Spoiler ]

Think of it this way, it is said that all roads lead to Rome. Now this is both not actually true but presents some challenges.Even if you were to suddenly plunk yourself down on a road in Ardola, without the ability to speak Italian or knowing the specific address of the house in Rome you need to get to could you navigate there? Maybe, but it's certainly not likely. Sending a sprite to the resonance realms would be much the same effect. Just because it's said that the realm has a connection to everywhere doesn't necessarily mean it's true and even if a sprite can get to the resonance realm without hassle doesn't mean it can navigate it any better then anyone else.

[UmaroVI]

[ Spoiler ]

I agree with Lurker. Like, "go through this not-metaplanar portal and escort this free not-spirit through the not-metaplanes to the Great Connection so he can hop into a offline node" could be a valid adventure, but you can't just have a random compiled sprite find the Great Connection because it doesn't necessarily know where it is / dangerous things might be in the way.

[squee_nabob]

[ Spoiler ]

It sounds like what you guys are suggesting is the same as what I agree to, except I would like it updated in the FAQ so that others aren’t confused. The information about a plane discussed in metaphors, is located in a vague book; and while I think the idea that sprites can’t use the great connection to get anywhere is a good one for game balance, I don’t think that is clearly explained and should be noted somewhere for players.

The fact that we are using metaphors to figure out how it works is a problem.

[LurkerOutThere]

Just because you read something as exactly the opposite of what was is intended and spelled out doesn't require a FAQ update. The resonance realm shortcut only works if the technomancer is in the node or if the sprite has regular node access. The great connection as a fluff piece doesn't invalidate that actual rules language.

Once again, you actively reading something wrong and then reading something else as maybe sorta kinda doesn't require a FAQ update.

[DireRadiant]

P. 154 Unwired.
"As creatures of resonance, sprites may travel to and from
the resonance realms as they please. This allows them a kind of
shortcut, taking a path from one node to another via the resonance
realms, rather than through the Matrix. This does not, however,
give them a free pass to bypass firewalls and system security. A
sprite may only use this shortcut to access a node in which the
technomancer to whom they are registered is present (i.e., the
technomancer calls them into the node), or in which they have
legitimate account or backdoor access. Otherwise, the sprite must
hack into the node, following the same rules as any other hacker
(p. 221, SR4)."

TM must be in node already, or else Sprite must hack into node just like any other Hacker.