Latent Awakening, The Exchange and other little things, Looking for Tips and Tricks on how to run them. Options

[bibliophile20]

A couple of questions/ideas that I'd like advice and feedback on for my game before I introduce them.

First, Latent Awakening; the NPC girlfriend of my resident Lesbian Elf Stripper Ninja PC has the quality; I pretty much threw it in for the lolz when I was building the NPC. Now, I've been thinking about how to use it and possible trigger events and then how to run the subsequent Awakening and character development. Since I'm running Ghost Cartels, I'm thinking either the Awakening happens the first time the NPC tries tempo, which could lead to some interesting RP situations (NPC starts associating the drug with magic use, for example). Still figuring out what tradition the character will end up going with, and how to work that indoctrination in in-game. Advice would be useful. (Character is an ex-bunraku elf, rescued by said PC)

Second, I've got two of that rare breed in Shadowrun: PCs with ethics. One is the mage, who has a pretty decent moral code that goes against little things like slavery, unnecessary killing, etc and so forth, and the other is a Technical Pacifist Technomancer, who wants to ruin MCT and Universal Omnitech for what they did to his friends during Emergence; so far, he's drawn the line strictly at killing, but hasn't had any problems with, say, hacking a black clinic and turning down the Life Support Oxygen to the brain when their target was on the table, resulting in some nasty mental retardation for said target. I'm trying to think of ideas for situations that I can use for a slow seduction and corruption of these pure hearts; I hope one day over the course of the campaign to be able to pull a "what the hell, hero?" from their friends and allies.

Third, I'd like to use the Exchange for some of the PCs, and I was wondering if anyone had any advice on how to run it, especially the initial introduction to it and how to get past the initial paranoia inherent in a program that keeps tabs on you like that.

Fourth, multiple concurrent training tests, good idea or bad idea? What I'm thinking is a character could train a physical skill for, say, eight hours, and then cram in a mental/knowledge/language skill, instead of only being able to work on one skill at a time. Thoughts? Other suggestions? (We just went through most of February 2071 last session because people were training)

Thanks in advance!

[Shortstraw]

Treat the exchange like the enemies negative quality but roll twice for incidence one for a request from the exchange one for assistance from it to see how demanding/helpful it is going to be. If players refuse the request roll against their loyalty rating if they roll lower it falls by one. If they attempt the requested action roll against loyalty and equal or higher and it increases by one.

[Makki]

information on The Exchange and how to use it is in the Denver Mission, which are free to download. Don't ask me which exactly (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Latent Awakening could also happen during strong emotions. Like sex, or maybe sex while on tempo? You can do funny things to the PC. A sudden, uncontrolled Mask spell. Levitation. Adept Power Flexibility.

[Hamsnibit]

For the exchange : why plan it? Let them introduce via a fixer or Johnson and just play out what happens, its all a thing which can be solves though roleplay i think rules arent the best thing to use here since its a thing which should be shoolved inherently between the PCs.
I gave up in planning or railroading quite a while ago my group has a nasty habit of NEVER EVER ending up in ANY scenario i thought of while creating runs.
So i nowadays just work out NPCs, their intentions, interests and personality profiles and let them do their work.
In the end of the day thing tend to be much more funny, tense and interesting when you dont try to railroad. If they fucked up their mission or the others were simply better then thats it - for every winner out there there are ten loosers.
For the first meeting : try to keep the personality traits, worldview etc in mind of them and try to play them as good as you can and see what happens.

Regarding the training time : i recall there are rules for that in the main book. Extended Intuition test vs. 2*new skill in daily intervals for single actives and knowledge if i remember correctly.

[ShadowPavement]

When I used the Exchange I used it as a contact with a connection and loyalty rating. Granted the Loyalty rating was pretty low compared to the connection rating, but it worked out pretty well.

As the PC in question did more missions for the Exchange the connection rating went up to reflect getting deeper with the network.

At one point when I started a new arc I gave the PC with the comlink the opportunity to get in deeper and more involved which upped the loyalty rating.

[Wakshaani]

Aw heck, the Exchange is *easy* to introduce, unless you have super-paranoid people (rather than the usual KINDA paranoid types) ... some little kid wandering over, handing them the thing, saying, "The box told me I'd get candy if I gave this to you, so I did.", and off ya go.

Chasing someone down and finding one, or even having fate drop one off also works. (You're on the street when a siren blares. Ripping up the street is a van, which is followed by three Knight Errant vehicles. It makes a sharp left, and several things fall out of it. It drives on with the police in hot pursuit. Of course, once they're gone, the locals start edging forward, eager to see what kind of loot they can find...)

As long as it isn't something an *enemy* has, you're fine. Heck, the time-honored way is to have the team pnned down somewhere, then the cavalry arrives that they've never seen before. When ased why they were helping, the leader of team two says, "Dunno. The Exchange said to come here and lay down some covering fire, so we did. The reward should come soon." After that, curisoity will drive them to look into getting one for thsemselves.

[snowRaven]

information on The Exchange and how to use it is in the Denver Mission, which are free to download. Don't ask me which exactly (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

The rules for the Exchange are in SRM02-17 "Patient Zero".

Since it's available for free download, I see no harm in quoting the section:

[ Spoiler ]

The Exchange
The Exchange does not follow the rules for a normal contact. Instead, use the following.
At the start of each adventure, the GM makes a secret Opposed Test between the
character and the Exchange, using a dice pool of 3 for each. If there are no net hits on
either side, the Exchange remains quiet for the adventure. If the player receives more
hits, the Exchange will at some point in the adventure quietly provide a benefit
equivalent to Favor Rating equal to the net hits. If the Exchange wins, the Exchange will
ask for a favor with a Favor Rating equal to the net hits at some point in the adventure; if
the character fails to perform the favor, the Exchange tags him or her as unreliable and
no longer gives the character access to the Exchange network. For more information on
Favor Ratings, see SR4, p. 280-281.

[fistandantilus4....]

For Latent Awakening, just try to make it memorable. For one, with tempo specifically, you could wait a while for the other affects to kick in, depending on whether or not the PC is going to find out about that, or is going to use the stuff enough. That's a call for you to make. If the player is interested in that sort of thing, you could make a mini section of the game focus on the events that lead up to that. We've used it in the past with a couple of different PCs. One triggered because of a power site, another was a highly emotional moment (trying to save the life of a kid who'd been shot, resulting in healing).

As for figuring out the tradition, think about the character's background and attributes. What ones does the char have higher? Are they religious? Any strong cultural leanings? Any totem they would identify with? Also decide whether it's going to be as a full mage, aspected, or adept. Full mage can be fun to explore, but is also very expensive to develop from scratch.

[Darkraven]

Not to hijack this thread, but I have a question about the Exchange. Being it is what it is, is it limited to when your running in Seattle or can you be elsewhere in the world?

[bibliophile20]

Not to hijack this thread, but I have a question about the Exchange. Being it is what it is, is it limited to when your running in Seattle or can you be elsewhere in the world?

Well, given that Kay St. Irregular mostly hangs out in DC and is a member of the Exchange, my bet is that it'll still operate elsewhere, but perhaps not at that same level of effectiveness.

[snowRaven]

...and the rules for the Exchange appeared in the Denver mission set, with at least two people in Denver being members (possibly three - I can't remember for sure).

So, if nothing else it's spreading...

[Udoshi]

Third, I'd like to use the Exchange for some of the PCs, and I was wondering if anyone had any advice on how to run it, especially the initial introduction to it and how to get past the initial paranoia inherent in a program that keeps tabs on you like that.

Fourth, multiple concurrent training tests, good idea or bad idea? What I'm thinking is a character could train a physical skill for, say, eight hours, and then cram in a mental/knowledge/language skill, instead of only being able to work on one skill at a time. Thoughts? Other suggestions? (We just went through most of February 2071 last session because people were training)

Regarding training: Splitting learning dice pools should be a fair way to handle this - just let Instruction Bonuses for each skill apply seperately. Don't forget that edge CAN be spent on these, if people really need to learn stuff fast, or that it may be Rush Jobbed for a time discount(it IS extended, isn't it?).


As for the Exchange. There's a section on it in Vice, that mentions there are -two- exchanges now. One with Karmic Benefits, and one without.
I decided to work this into a character concept at one point. A technomancer Spy, working on behalf of the resonance. Less a matrix nut, and more an AR user. His paragon was Alias, for those of you who don't know, he's the matrix god of spoofing, essentially tricking people into giving you what you want(and free shit. Alias followers are required to spoof their lifestyle). I decided to work these two things together, and pitched the idea to the GM. He was thrilled and it was approved. He's a fan of the older sr3, so i think the split-exchange introduced in 4th may have been dropped entirely.
So one of the Exchanges, maybe both, are actual grand social/shadow experiments run by the Resonance entity to see just HOW far a purely digital entity can affect and manipulate the real world. It starts by tempting people with anonymous karmic backpats and establishing rapports with people who happen to find exchange links, and goes on from there. Because, lets face it, the matrix is firmly rooted in the real world with servers and cables and the like(symbiotic relationship, almost), so the resonance kind of has a vested interest in monitoring it and keeping tabs on it. Nobody wants another stock exchange fiasco/crash 2 to shake up the resonance again(the Jormungand worm is a dissonant paragon now, doncha know?), so some people/entities there have taken a bit more active role in trying to anticipate and prevent another event like that. Somewhere along the lines, curiosity took over, fascination at all the little mortals running around their little lives, never knowing the touch of a networked consciousness..... it started Meddling.
And because you basically need Shadow influence in the sixth world to get anything done....
Well, the Exchange was born. Partly as an experiment to see what they could get away with, partly to start building a power base of support for their assets, and partly because metahumanity is just so damn interesting.

The idea that the exchange is controlled by an inhuman, but metahuman-sympathetic entity(protect,guide, use for its own ends instead of burning it to the ground like a filthy dissonant) managing all those little deals to further some sort of Agenda is... rather appealing, because it gives enough of bais to a formerly completely anonymous entity/group that the gm can work with it.
Its an idea you may wish to consider stealing.