SR Game, I am considering starting a game Options

[tisoz]

I am considering starting a Shadowrun game. Probably using Discord and maybe Roll20, but last time I tried Roll20 I didn't think the outcome was worth the time it took to set everything up.

I'm in Eastern time zone, I think it is UTC-5. Saturdays and Tuesdays are possible, but definitely not on a weekly basis. Sunday afternoons is my preference (especially during NFL offseason.) Other evenings are possible.

Is there an interest in 2E?

I'm not sure the poll is showing up, so 2E or 3E?

[Koekepan]

I'd have been interested, if the time worked. Alas, it doesn't.

Pity the shadowrun game isn't multiplayer, like Neverwinter Nights for the Streets.

[Bodak]

I am considering starting a Shadowrun game. Probably using Discord and maybe Roll20,

I got into Discord with the release of WoW Classic and have been very impressed with its technical infrastructure, latency, resilience, voice quality (the GUI is a total shocker though with peekaboo scrollbars that don't scroll to where you drag them, and nonstandard widgets in a preferences window that took me a year to find and quits the program every time I close it). It's becoming more popular than mumble / teamspeak / ventrilo. I only ever tried Roll20 as a player, not a GM, up until my account abruptly stopped working and they announced a massive data leak. I haven't recreated my account there since I haven't met anybody who uses it since then, but for realtime mapping that doesn't rely on everyone installing VNC, it's definitely got advantages.

Pity the shadowrun game isn't multiplayer, like Neverwinter Nights for the Streets.

The Shadowrun Returns engine? The thing with designing a module for SRR is that it requires a mammoth effort from the GM and once it's built it's relatively static. If the players decide to disembark the train at an unplanned stop, or thermite through some bars in the sewers, the game just goes on hiatus for a couple of weeks while the GM builds that part of the map. I am so grateful SRR was developed and I really enjoyed Dragonfall but it isn't really a Rapid Application Development environment for dynamic real-time play.

But I absolutely agree with you that co-operative multiplayer would have been fantastic.

I'm in Eastern time zone, I think it is UTC-5. Saturdays and Tuesdays are possible, but definitely not on a weekly basis. Sunday afternoons is my preference

I'm in UTC+10. I work about half the weekends of the year (but not every second weekend... it's skewed towards the Winter (July~Sept) with very little work in the Summer (Dec~Feb)). I'm happy to play in the middle of the night local time if it means a game, or in the middle of the day since I don't have work during the week. Whatever.

I'm not sure the poll is showing up, so 2E or 3E?

I do not see the Poll showing up. I've played 3rd. I have not played 2nd but I would be up to learn it: Program Carrier, Grounding, riggers using Skillsofts through Encephalons. It looks to me like SR2-SR3 is a smaller distance than SR3-SR4. No guarantees of being optimal, but I'm sure I could make something viable. Jive has a whole bunch of threads that walkthrough the various steps of rigging, decking, astral in SR2 and 3 but it has been offline for so long now -- it holds a mine of super valuable worked examples and explanations.

But my preference in the pseudo-poll would be SR3 (where I am mostly familiar with rigging and magic minigames and have not yet tried decking).

[pbangarth]

Hey, Bodak, thanks for the shoutout to a Canadian band! The song has gone on my SR Spotify list.

[Lionesque]

UTC +1 here, so scheduling might be an issue, but I'd love to play with new people and learn how other people do it. And by 'it', I mean play Shadowrun, chummers, none of that gutterthink here, please, I are sophistummacated, you scan?

Re. system: I don't care. I never grokked much more than (most of) the basics of physical combat in 1st through 4th edition anyway. But setting-wise, I'm partial to the punk sensibility in 1-3. The struggle is real, and The Man needs to be brought down a peg or three! So in that sense, earlier edition (and year) = better. If I were to re-invent Shadowrun, I'd reduce the price of (most) cyber by 75% to make sure that even the lowliest wage slave can afford that datajack, and Ed, the obese mall guard over at the Galleria, can afford a cybereye to replace the one he lost in the unfortunate Umbrella Incident in '49.

I know how to join a game and roll dice in Roll20, and know how to join a channel in Discord.

[Shev]

I'm CST, so an hour behind, Sundays would work great for me. All of my experience is with 3e but I'll play 2e if that's the GM's preference.

[Bodak]

Look at all the vicennials coming out of the chromework!

[tisoz]

I'd have been interested, if the time worked. Alas, it doesn't.

What time works for you?

[tisoz]

Bodak, Lionesque, Shev: what day and time? Sunday morning for me? Is there a good preliminary time to get together for a session zero and discuss which edition or a mishmash, as well as what folks want to play PC-wise and either cover the bases or what type of game can everyones' preferred PC fit in (like if everyone wants to play the same archetype.)

I played 2E a lot when it was current, and quite a bit of 3E. I like speed paying in 2E. I like the gang/tribe & Followers idea from 2E. I like on skill for Armed Combat and 1 for Firearms. I like the pre-3E Encephalon.

I think 3E initiation curbs magic users. I don't like how 3E makes a magician buy Centering AND a Centering Skill AND whatever magical skill he wants to use Centering to help. (Ok, the last is a given, but I'm pointing out it requires investing 3* over for a secondary benefit.) I think cyberlimbs are too expensive in both editions in nuyen and Essence to the point hardly any PC will use them beyond a storage space.

What are your likes/dislikes?

[Lionesque]

Your Sunday morning would probably work for me. Like I said, I'm not big on rules, so I'm kind of edition-blind (at least between 2e and 3e). I've mostly played as and with mundanes. Magic, rigging and decking never really worked for our group.

My alter ego in Shadowrun is a human street sam (originally developed in '89 or '90. Yes, I am that old) who is posing as a bodyguard for the elite, e.g. Vloggers and other media personalities. He's chromed to the gills and does a lot of pro bono work in the shadows since he no longer has to scare squatters to make a living.

I also play a human private detective (Archer, formerly of Spade & Archer) with just a little chrome, and an eagle Shaman (Clouddancer), who was sent by Eagle to see what could be done to cleanse the city - mostly in an attempt to practice the magic rules, but I kind of like him. He doesn't like people much, though.

I like a believable narrative, which, for me, means that characters must be somewhat consistent (or consistently inconsistent) in their motivations, desires, action etc., and that there is room for ordinary people to go to work, eat lunch and go shopping without necessarily being kidnapped, driven down by a tank or shot for no reason. I like the option of 'core' metahuman races as PCs and NPCs, i.e. orcs, trolls, elves and dwarves, but the more outlandish ones from 4e onwards sort of break the setting for me. Something about the level of cartoonishness, I guess. I would like, as mentioned, that cyberware was more prevalent, especially in the lower eschelons of society, than the rules really allow for.

And I like a PC-driven narrative. I have loved to play the (few) published adventures that we have played (DNA/DOA, Mercurial, Missing Blood), but I also really enjoy letting my characters decide how they want to spend their lives and talents (to the unending horror of my poor GM).

I can come up with a character and background faster than it takes to write it. I've only ever played a human, and I do have a soft spot for the street sam, but I'm ready and willing to play anything. The level of crunch I'll leave up to you, just point and I'll go that way.

[Bodak]

I like speed paying in 2E. I like the gang/tribe & Followers idea from 2E. I like on skill for Armed Combat and 1 for Firearms. I like the pre-3E Encephalon.

I think 3E initiation curbs magic users. I don't like how 3E makes a magician buy Centering AND a Centering Skill AND whatever magical skill he wants to use Centering to help. (Ok, the last is a given, but I'm pointing out it requires investing 3* over for a secondary benefit.) I think cyberlimbs are too expensive in both editions in nuyen and Essence to the point hardly any PC will use them beyond a storage space.

What are your likes/dislikes?

Yes. Agreed, and IIRC, 4th is little better (although the idea that you can take 0.6E of Cyber + 0.6E of Bio for a total of 1E loss is nice) usually amounting to installing a cyberhand solely because it is cheaper to install a nanite hive in the hand's capacity than it is to install it itself, and the hand can support a few other perks (snake fingers, etc.) The only time I've seen a player purchase more cyberlimbs than just a hand was the rigger picking up second-hand explants (grade didn't matter) and then trying to fashion them into an anthroform walker drone that could wear personnel armour and wield swords using Gunnery. This way, the prohibitive Essence cost of limbs / torso / head didn't matter. In any other scenario though, yeah, cyberlimbs just don't seem to jive with the game mechanics as well as they should given how core chrome is to the lore.

Honestly, it sounds like the SR3R project might be a grand nexus to host the ideas, concerns, bugbears and bugfixes expressed, and to produce The One Edition To Rule Them All or something equally plug-n-play to tune a ruleset's grit / accessibility / etc.

Failure: when your best just isn't good enough.

The SR3R Project: polishing the rough edges of Shadowrun, 3rd Edition. Contributors always welcome.

If we're talking about likes/dislikes with RAW, then I don't like that the Spirit Power Materialisation is a Physical power. Physical powers cannot be used unless the being is already present on the Physical plane. You see the problem there. The other thing is that a spell's Area of Effects can be moved (an infinite distance) every time the caster gets a Complex Action to spend on it. If you're moving slowly, blitting 3 times every 3 seconds might not be noticeable. But when you're living on a planet that's moving at 627km per second you're leaving behind your Area of Effect the instant you update it. This can be a problem if you're trying to keep a Physical Barrier around a moving vehicle without crashing into the barrier itself. SR2 has the mage only pay the initiation cost in Karma and awards a familiar of unspecified Force gratis; I am glad SR3 addressed this. Ally Spirits cannot possess Language Skills. The allocation of Spell Defence to non-consenting hostile units (in order to interfere with their Heal / Detection spells) feels dirty. Fetish-limited spells should not require a dispeller to carry a matching fetish (it is called a Limitation for a reason!) A Chipjack is a Datajack and you can buy both. You can also buy an Eye Datajack but not an Eye Chipjack, but I want one. The Basic Turret (SR3.312) is possible to obtain whereas the Remote Turret (R3.141)'s availability is recursive.

If we're talking about likes/dislikes in the game, then I love that I can create a character with Digestive Expansion, permanent High Lifestyle, surplus cash to splurge on modcons and then retire in the lap of luxury. That's not only an option that fits in the setting; it's actually possible to make such a success story during chargen. Which gives weight to the fact that you have chosen not to do that, and you've volunteered to forfeit that comfort zone and safety net by getting your hands dirty with weapons, streetdocs, dirty deals and body bags. You're the scum of the slum not because you had no other option, but because you had that option... but this life is better in some meaningful way. That agency is significant.

I like pet classes. Conjurors and Drone Riggers. I like taking augmentations on Awakened characters; you're going to suffer Magic Loss during play if you don't volunteer for it during chargen so you might as well get something for it (ie the very nice perks augmentation offers). I also like therianthropes in every setting and I don't mind that SR Shapeshifters are unplayable / nonviable. I like Edges and Flaws.

I like stories that make sense. I don't like it when in Diablo I kill a bat and it drops full plate mail; where was it hiding 25kg of iron while it was flying and attacking me? I don't like it in high-fantasy games when you loot a sapient opponent to discover a health potion; they could have consumed that themselves to survive! It makes no sense they would bequeath it to their assailant (unless they died from an alpha-strike in their sleep or something). Likewise goons fighting to the death for no reason; if a dragon's going to eat your family unless you die defending this door, OK, I get it, you sacrifice yourself rather than accept a fate worse than death. But generally under most other conditions there should be a morale check when the guards hit 20% health and it's clear they are outmatched; they have a sense of self-preservation and they shouldn't be afraid to use it!

I like playing characters with a skillset that supports them discovering what's going on, uncovering plots, working through clues, advancing story. Since conflict is part of the genre I am not above wielding a Dikoted ally spirit in order to cut to the chase and get back to the story (well, that's an exaggeration, but you get the gist; I'll minmax for combat but my motive is because I find combat dull, whereas it seems common for some players to minmax for combat because they wish every system to be wargaming). I like all my characters, somewhere beneath their trenchcoat and mirrorshades, to have a pink mohawk (usually thematically linked to my Flaws) I can brandish now and then for comic relief. Even if it's only a little mohawk, everyone in reality is a bit mad and if cyberpunk turns everything up to 11, a splash of the quirkiness that makes us (meta)human keeps my characters relatable.

I am happy with street-level or high-octane. I'm happy all the PCs being Awakened (our own Initiation Group!) or all cyber-focussed Sam/Rigger/Decker (we have all the B/R skills and contacts covered!) or a one-of-each-role type-party. I'm happy wherever, on the mirrorshades-to-mohawk continuum. I like choices (good or bad) to have consequences in order to be meaningful. I am fine with a backdrop of occult / sheddim / Cthulhu / Eclipse Phase / Horrors pulling the strings of conspiracy theories as a smokescreen to mask their sanity-splitting psychocide but plots dealing with racism, sexism, and persecution of marginalised groups (Otaku) needs to be planned with sensitivity and maturity if it's to avoid echoing the ostracism and violence we've experienced IRL from society punishing our ability to use computers or our defiant hobby of playing games despite being adults. I think anything can be fun with the right players and mindset.

I work IRL about half the weekends but Sunday morning for you / Sunday night or Monday midnight for me should be fine. I should be able to make Session Zero if you create a server and pick a time.

[Shev]

Anytime Sunday works, though obviously I'd prefer not to have to get up before 10am (11 your time). That being said, if it was the difference between having a game or not having one...

I'm free to meet this Sunday for Session Zero, list a time and I'll be there. If we lack players, I may be able to line up another one for you as well.

I'm pretty open as far as character concepts go. Adepts and Mages are the two I have most experience playing, but I've also GMed a lot so I have at least passing familiarity with just about every archetype besides deckers which always fell to NPCs and which I imagine will require extensive houserules no matter what edition we choose.

And speaking of edition, as I said before, I'm open. I don't think 3rd particularly hampers magical characters, it was a pretty good balance. The Centering thing is a bit silly, I agree. We handled it by just linking the metamagic technique directly to whatever non-combat skill of the players choice.

[tisoz]

... If we lack players, I may be able to line up another one for you as well.

Feel free to invite friends. I posted on Dumpshock first, but am planning on inviting from some discord channels I play on. I a going for numbers first because from prior experience it seems like absenteeism and drop-outs will take a huge toll.

And speaking of edition, as I said before, I'm open. I don't think 3rd particularly hampers magical characters, it was a pretty good balance. The Centering thing is a bit silly, I agree. We handled it by just linking the metamagic technique directly to whatever non-combat skill of the players choice.

I think I was influenced to state my opinion about Magic because on a certain discord channel there is someone claiming the opposite and that mundanes got curbed. I hope part of Session 0 will allow everyone to voice if they have any big opposition to an edition or if there is something about an edition which they think makes it a deal breaker sort of thing. Or if there is something from an edition that can be incorporated into the other to make it more fun for everyone, or at least the one player without ruining everyone else's fun.

This Sunday is fast approaching and I have yet to reach out to other potential players from other sites. We can try to get together on Sunday, if for nothing else, to keep interest, but I am not sure how many others will be able to join. Maybe the following Sunday would be better?

[Shev]

That works!

[Lionesque]

20 March is problematic; I'll be working away from home, but might be able to join via phone. Next sunday would suit me much better!

[tisoz]

By phone should be ok because I am going to assume most of it will be voice chat. I did create an availability channel which would be good to get a consensus.

[Bodak]

I think I was influenced to state my opinion about Magic because on a certain discord channel there is someone claiming the opposite and that mundanes got curbed.

Such objections tend to come across as naive to me. Each edition is placed on the timeline later than the previous edition. Zooming out to Earthdawn and Shadowrun and Horrors and Ages we know that Shadowrun is pitched at a time where magic is steeply rising. So it makes sense that awakened characters in later editions steadily have more options and more oomph. But technology is also rising. It's just that technology rises at the rate that researchers and waveslaves make discoveries and factories whereas magic rises like a tide.

I'm OK with that being part of the background. Nobody is forced (not) to play any archetype. A big part of the ethos is that no matter how long your character runs the shadows, they will still be small fry and no match for the big players like Dragons and Immortal Elves. So... what's the big deal if a magician is 3% as powerful as a Dragon and a streetsam is 2.9% as powerful as a Dragon? If one's motive for playing an RPG is to be top of the food chain, Shadowrun is the wrong game. This game involves flying under the radar to score spoils without drawing the attention of megacorps and Threats. Bumping up against that ceiling by casting spells of an illegal Force is more of a liability than anything else. Surviving that balancing act is where the fun is; other games exist to reward running rampant.

[tisoz]

https://discord.gg/NzRe5hvJ

I was sending personal invites and realized there is no good reason not to post a general link. If you want a voice regarding the game, you should attend Sunday, 3/27.

If you want to play, be sure to post an available time. If you want to eavesdrop... ok, but mute yourself. Be a disturbance and get banned. There was a question about streaming the game and maybe recording for youtube, which I do not have the expertise, but someone volunteered. So a SR3(?, but looking that way) actual play may be forthcoming.

[tisoz]

https://discord.gg/7fUqQqmCe6

We can use a couple more players. Running the same game for more than 1 group, so there are a few times available.

[Iduno]

Aw, Discord just stopped working for Windows 7 about a week ago.

[Bodak]

I'm using Discord on Solus Linux. It's free and works as well as Discord works anywhere. Its technical implementation is impressive, even if its GUI is highly unconventional. The only trouble I've had is occasionally microphone sensitivity needs reducing. You can install Linux to a flash drive if your internal disks are full. Don't let Microsoft's obsolescence by design philosophy keep you from a good game!

[Tiralee]

Old-school fossil just enjoying that someone's running a 3E-era game:)

Best of luck, shoot straight and run from ANY dragons making deals.

-Tir

[Lionesque]

Old-school fossil just enjoying that someone's running a 3E-era game:)

Best of luck, shoot straight and run from ANY dragons making deals.

-Tir

Thanks - I'm sure we could scrounge up a chair for you if fail to stage down the Itch To Play (8S) to something manageable