Run Faster is up! Options

[Isath]

I'm dead sure that gear books sell much better than companions. It makes sense for CGL to release the money-grabbers early on in the edition cycle.

Not quite sure as to why that is though. Gear books for SR have mostly bored me, ever since the exitement over the very first street samurai catalog had past.

[Grinder]

You are the exception from the norm then, I guess. Core rulebooks with more options for characters are the major seller of any RPG line, followed by gear books. Fluff books come third, with adventures a distant fourth.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

It's a simple matter if you're the GM. Just say 'No.' Did that at mine regarding infected, metavariants, and shifters, while changelings had to be cleared by me (had none), and honestly got no complaints about it.

If info from Running Wild is still valid at the table, page 64 lists the general bounties on many of the infected in the UCAS & CAS.

Yeah, we do not allow Infected or Shifters at our table either. And we are far happier for it. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Patrick Goodman]

Sorry, Patrick, nothing personal, but long experience has shown me that PC Infected are nothing but a problem at the table, and I'm really disappointed with whoever sets the release priorities at CGL for deciding that a half dozen different bad ideas were what needed page space.

No offense taken; I quite understand.

[Sendaz]

So any idea if Regen was supposed to be removed from Shifters or maybe they meant to include a growth plan similar to what Infected have but for some reason it didn't make it into the end product?

Because I have a Werebison Burger stand (where we promise it's always the freshest cuts!) that this will be impacting on. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

[binarywraith]

Come on, you know that I'm right. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

You probably are, I just want more (and better) cyberware options to work with!

[hermit]

One of my standard runs revolves around a one-tiger shifter pelt farm in the basement of a meat supermarket, done by a street doc keeping the tiger as an aside to boost income. Though the grow-back beef also is a nice idea I might eventually steal.

I actually like the modular growth system for Infected. Nerfs them without doing away with powerful vampires, and makes them easier to handle as PCs. Not that I'd admit them for a variety of other reasons, but it's a good idea that would have made me hate them significantly less in SR4.

Questions!

1) Will there be more PACKs once ne stuff hits the ground (Cyber book, Matrix book)?

2) Will there be "Way of the Rigger" and "Way of the Cyborg" advanced rules PDFs along the lines of Assassin's Primer?

3) What happened to Missions? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif)

[Isath]

You are the exception from the norm then, I guess. Core rulebooks with more options for characters are the major seller of any RPG line, followed by gear books. Fluff books come third, with adventures a distant fourth.

Oh I am quite aware, it is just the Shadowrun gearbooks, that mostly bore me.

[Sengir]

It's not outside the realm of possibility that I got talked down from the utter doom and gloom for Infected that I'd started out with. My writing partner may have had something to do with that, but I find I'm mellowing a bit as I age. Besides, it's a player's companion; had to make it playable. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) Not doing that would have been a real dick move on my part, and in the end that's bad mojo.

It does not have to be a total homicidal maniac who revels in sacrificing cute fluffy animals and thinks Mr Darke was a liberal Hippie, seriously, how much more special snowflake does it get than a guy who only feeds on death row inmates after making sure they are rightfully there? And his friend who feeds on rapists certainly wasn't a critical comment on the dehumanization of sex offenders, but rather should also come across as a nice guy who only culls people we're not supposed to feel sorry about any more. Why not a vampire who makes people sign a consent form after a psychiatric evaluation to make sure they are capable of judging the scope of their decision? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

To be fair, you can't play chupacabras either.

Oh yes, the vampiric lizardmen. I doubt too many people would want to play one (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

I am so pleased to read that. The crunch on this one was a pain in the butt, and while I liked what we came up with, I was really worried about the possible reception, especially among those I knew to be big on Infected PCs. So the positive response so far has been enormously satisfying.

Given that I had come up with a similar idea, I could hardly bring out the Napalm. The new allergies hurt of course, but vampires are supposed to take actual damage in sunlight according to our shared subconscious.

PS: But what happened to the Ghouls' Charisma, do they really just get -1 and the lower maximum?

[Bertramn]

And again, you have missed the point. It's not about whether Initiation during generation should be allowed or not (if the concept requires/supports it I'm all for it), but about whether it is allowed by RAW...and about Karma costs, gear Rating restrictions and other details which are different during generation.

I didn't miss anything.
It is allowed RAW. (At least in the core book, which is what I was takling about)
If you would care to point out how it is not, I will be happy to read that.

The part you quoted was my opinion on it being allowed RAW,
not a point about whether or not it should be.

[Patrick Goodman]

So any idea if Regen was supposed to be removed from Shifters or maybe they meant to include a growth plan similar to what Infected have but for some reason it didn't make it into the end product?

Not a freakin' clue, I'm afraid. Sorry.

[binarywraith]

Well, here I made a statement about not buying this, and I get it for Christmas from one of my players. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Reading through the character creation seems to confirm it. Nowhere do I see anything stating that Shapeshifters can't have cyber or bio anymore.

Infected characters can generally accept
augmentations, though of course they need to be
aware of their balance of Magic and Essence, as well
as Magic loss from any Essence loss. Infected with the
Regeneration quality need high-quality augmentations
to keep their body from pretty much spitting the
augmentation out, meaning they can only accept
deltaware augmentatons.

Same is true for Infected. I really wonder if they playtested this...

Edit : The 'DOMESTICALLY DISTURBED' short is great. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Patrick Goodman]

Reading through the character creation seems to confirm it. Nowhere do I see anything stating that Shapeshifters can't have cyber or bio anymore.

Same is true for Infected. I really wonder if they playtested this...

I know the Infected stuff was heavily playtested, and a lot of changes incorporated into the final draft. That, incidentally, was one of the changes the playtesters brought up. They wanted some backwards compatibility, and Infected could have deltaware in SR4, so they wanted it here, too. I'd come out in my draft saying, "Too bad."

There were a lot of other instances of playtesters asking for changes in the final doc, so while I can't speak to anything else, I know that my section got looked over a great deal.

Edit : The 'DOMESTICALLY DISTURBED' short is great. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

It's a nice, happy little story, ain't it? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[binarywraith]

Glad to hear it. I hope it doesn't become the issue in play that I feel like it will, guess we'll have to see.

So, more questions pop up as I go along.

BASIC SPEEDBOOST PACK
(40,000¥/20 KARMA)
(8R) (2.1 ESSENCE)
Cops use jazz. Soldiers use kamikaze. And shadowrunners?
Shadowrunners get wired. In the old days,
they never turned off, which gave you a shorter lifespan
one way or the other. These days, you can control
them with a mental switch, but it’s still the single
most jarring transformation you can get. The data-
jack’s there for general utility and quickly loading in
firmware updates.

Wasn't this the whole point of everything being wireless? You know, not needing a datajack for that kind of thing? I guess I'm not really sure about the whole point of the 30-odd page PACKS section in total. Much of it is a single item with a bit of advertising copy attached, in a format that takes up a lot of page space to reprint gear from SR5.

[DeathStrobe]

I know the Infected stuff was heavily playtested, and a lot of changes incorporated into the final draft. That, incidentally, was one of the changes the playtesters brought up. They wanted some backwards compatibility, and Infected could have deltaware in SR4, so they wanted it here, too. I'd come out in my draft saying, "Too bad."

There were a lot of other instances of playtesters asking for changes in the final doc, so while I can't speak to anything else, I know that my section got looked over a great deal.

But I think it makes sense for something like Vampires to not be allowed to get cyber/bio since their regeneration power would kick in too quickly. Maybe the docs can cut off the vamps arm with wood or UV light to force regeneration to not work.

But, I guess its not a real problem. Delta great is expensive and moderately impractical to get. So maybe it should be allowed. Its not like it'd through game balance out the window or anything.

[DrZaius]

Glad to hear it. I hope it doesn't become the issue in play that I feel like it will, guess we'll have to see.

So, more questions pop up as I go along.



Wasn't this the whole point of everything being wireless? You know, not needing a datajack for that kind of thing? I guess I'm not really sure about the whole point of the 30-odd page PACKS section in total. Much of it is a single item with a bit of advertising copy attached, in a format that takes up a lot of page space to reprint gear from SR5.

I would guess that it's been a while since you've been a new player of Shadowrun. The #1 issue I've had convincing people to play is that they think of it as "the shopping game". It takes a long time to make a character, especially compared to other RPGs. Anything they decide to do to streamline that process is welcome. As for the utility of having 30 odd pages of a sourcebook on it; well, they could have had 30 pages less? I don't think it took a lot of effort to put together, so it's an item that's useful to new players without really taking anything (read: developer time) away from the rest of the book.

That's my thinking at least. Next time I get to run a game, I'll be able to quickly run a new player through gear rather than flipping back and forth through the gear section to make sure they got everything. I hate the "gotcha" GM aspect that can happen, i.e. "Oh, you didn't purchase a commlink, something I neglected to explain was vital but you may have glossed over in the gear section? I guess you aren't going to make the meet!" The PACKS is both an homage to the original PACKS creator (who i'm sure did it for utility), and a good way to explain what gear is necessary- "You'll need X PACK because you have to sneak around a lot, Y PACK because your gun needs this type of ammo.." etc. etc.

YMMV.

-DrZ

[binarywraith]

Yeah, I think I can honestly say it's been a while. Couple decades, even. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rotfl.gif)

I preferred it when they were doing the same sort of thing via Shadowland comments and expanded descriptions in the main book, though. The original Street Sam Catalog is in nearly the same format, but is more useful in my opinion because it gave advertising copy, runner commentary on how it would be used in-game, and a picture to give you an idea what things looked like.

I do appreciate the way they flavored the PACKS, though. Pointing out that the high end gear like the Ares Alpha is vanishingly rare for 'runners to actually carry around, and laying out some of the classic archtypal builds is a nice way to set new players' expectations.

[Sengir]

Much of it is a single item with a bit of advertising copy attached, in a format that takes up a lot of page space to reprint gear from SR5.

Probably the same reason as the entire page of Karma costs in the BBB, they think players are a bit slow with math. But at least somebody seems to have noticed there is potential for improvement in the gear purchases...

As far as deltaware is concerned, I'm a bit on the fence. Regenerating bio-adepts are something I fully support, on the other hand we were previously told about the vampire who started to reject his cybereyes. A throwaway line about this having been an isolated case would have been nice, ditto for the fact that HMHVV lost its immunity to ARV drugs (I assume that is an intentional change).

[binarywraith]

Finally got a bit to sit and read the Infected rules tonight, and I've got to say, they're well done. The two perspective pieces from Red and Hanibelle are well done as well, although I really don't like the possible implication that Red's an HMHVV carrier that's older than the Awakening.

That said, my favorite line is at the start :

"The description of the Infection power in the Shadowrun, Fifth Edition states that Infected PCs become NPCs and pass to gamemaster control. These optional rules offer a way around that."

Making these rules explicitly optional takes a lot of pressure off of GMs to allow Infected characters, and I appreciate that.

[Patrick Goodman]

Finally got a bit to sit and read the Infected rules tonight, and I've got to say, they're well done.

Thank you kindly. Appreciate the kind words.

The two perspective pieces from Red and Hanibelle are well done as well, although I really don't like the possible implication that Red's an HMHVV carrier that's older than the Awakening.

It does get explained later, and it's not unprecedented in the game fluff over the past 25 years. Kevin Czarnecki, my writing partner on this, has a novel coming out sometime next year that talks a lot about Red.

Making these rules explicitly optional takes a lot of pressure off of GMs to allow Infected characters, and I appreciate that.

Happy to help out. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Sendaz]

If you pick up the Dark Resonance Novel there is an 2 chapter excerpt from Crimson, Mr. Czarnecki's forthcoming novel on Red, at the back which touches on his circumstances so its a nice start off.

Though if he keeps having these circumstances putting him to 'sleep' for long periods the boy is going to end up in the BattleTech or Eclipse Phase setting (depending on how your pathing goes. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) )

[binarywraith]

It does get explained later, and it's not unprecedented in the game fluff over the past 25 years. Kevin Czarnecki, my writing partner on this, has a novel coming out sometime next year that talks a lot about Red.

Oh, sure, I'm just seeing a slow trend of more and more magic that existed before the Awakening, and it makes me wonder why the Awakening was such a big deal sometimes. Just me being picky, I guess.

[Patrick Goodman]

If it helps, none of my characters Awakened before the Awakening. And I don't plan any exceptions.

[Jaid]

for clarity, the official "awakening" is marked by the sighting of the first dragon. not necessarily by the return of magic, but specifically the day that the first dragon is seen (which may or may not even be the day that the dragon woke up).

so consider that while the awakening officially happened on a certain date, magic was almost definitely gradually returning for years, perhaps even centuries, before that. it's not like the world was at zero magic energy the day before, and then jumped up to the appropriate level as soon as ryumyo showed himself.

[Sengir]

although I really don't like the possible implication that Red's an HMHVV carrier that's older than the Awakening.

Unless you believe HMHVV popped into existence spontaneously and just in time for the Awakening, carriers are a must. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)


Although interestingly, Run Fasta eliminated all mentions of HMHVV passing in the germ line...any particular reason for that?