[MrJBlackBook] MJLBB, Thoughts, Reviews, Gripes..... Options

[Nomad]

Well, the good news is that Mr. Johnson's Little Black Book is out in stores. At least, it was in my neighbood store last night, so I picked up a copy. And since the requisite opinion thread has not yet been started, I guess I'll be the first to put my 2 nY in.

Overall, this book is a mixed bag. If you are an experienced GM, then there will be little which will be new for you in this book. The rules for reputation are nice, as well the modification for power levels in character creation (since its more than just adding or subtracting points from the point creation system). The contact section fills out the gap left by the absence of the contact book, with a few new ones. But over all, I felt that most of the book had less utility for me than other books which have been released recently.

However, if you are new to Shadowrun, the breakdown of a run, which is by far the largest section, will be invaluable. This section really does go through the entire process, step-by-step, of setting up and running a run, with important points a GM needs to consider at every step. Because this has never really been dealt with previously in the books, I believe this is a good idea, just perhaps not for everyone.

Overall Grade: B-

[Backgammon]

How are the simplified decking and rigging rules??

[Nomad]

I'd have to run them to know, but they are single test rules with modifiers for hacking/control pool, utlities, vcr's, etc....

[bitrunner]

Also, I think the Reputation system, while good in concept, is totally hosed - i've already posted to FanPro what the problems are and how i think they should be fixed...hopefully, we'll see some errata soon...

i did not see a problem with the Quick Resolution rules for decking/rigging...

[Nomad]

Where do you put it at hosed?

As I looked through it again, I'd change the public awareness calculations but the rest seemed ok.

[bitrunner]

On initial view, I thought the Reputation system in Mr Johnson’s Little Black Book was fantastic...

However, there seem to be some serious problems with the system, as written.

The individual sections are fine, until you come to Public Awareness (PA). PA is equal to 20 – (SC + N), and the PA is also the target number for knowing who a runner is.

With the example then, Sam would have a PA of 7 : (20 – (11 + 2)) = (20 – 11 – 2) = 7

it then states that if the runner has a PA of 15 or greater, he is a well known runner. But as the runner progresses, the PA number gets LOWER. Therefore, a runner is known by everyone in the world as soon as they start the game, because their PA is (20 – 0 – 0) = 20.

How can a PA test with a target number of 20 be a household name??


OK, so I think that what is meant to say is that if a runner has a Street Cred or Notoriety score of 15+, then they are well known. If the value of Street Cred is 15 or better, they are known as the protagonist types, robin hoods, or others that we read about in the novels as the “heroes”. If their Notoriety is 15 or better, then they are “evil” or known as “the bad guy” – they are INFAMOUS…


That would fix that portion, with PA remaining the target number to know the runner.


The REAL problem though exists at the end of the Notoriety section, where it says that characters can reduce their Notoriety by sacrificing Street Cred – for every 2 points of SC, reduce the N by 1.


Here is why that is a problem:


Take Sam, our example. He has, as in the book, a SC of 11, N of 2, and PA of 7 (20 – 11 – 2)

If he continues to do shadowruns and is a “good boy”, he’ll eventually reach a SC of 15, N of 2, and PA of 3 (20 – 15 – 2)


At this point, not only is he well known (with a TN of 3, he is actually going to be almost instantly known), but because his SC is 15, he is also considered Well Known….so, Sam decides he has become too high profile, and he no longer is getting jobs because everyone knows him – he has not stuck to the shadows enough…


The next day, Sam decides to go on a killing spree and kills one innocent random person every hour for 3 hours. Thus, his N goes to 5 (assuming he earned 1 point of Notoriety for each innocent he killed, since they were isolated incidents and not all at one time or during a shadowrun – which btw, under Notoriety it should probably say just “killing innocents on purpose” because if he takes out a guard with a grenade and accidentally kills 5 innocents that are around the corner that he didn’t know about, then I certainly wouldn’t award 5 Notoriety points…maybe just 1 for the whole SR).


Anyways, he now has a SC of 15, N of 5, and PA of 0….no problem!! He just needs to burn 10 points of Street Cred to get rid of the 5 points of Notoriety!


Now he is at a SC of 5, N of 0, and PA of 15!!!! Now, the TN to know him is 15, even though he STILL has an overall career Good Karma of over 150, but no one will know him, and his Street Cred assures that he’ll only get jobs of a level he got 10 years ago when it was still early in his career – oh, and he’s totally wiped the slate clean of ALL his misdeeds…


Here is what I propose…

change the Notoriety to “for every 2 points of KARMA POOL permanently burned, you can reduce your Notoriety score by 1”. By doing this, it forces the player to continue to earn Total Career Good Karma in order to get more Karma Pool dice, also reducing the amount of Karma Pool dice that high level characters have. Note that this seems harsh for metahumans, which need to earn an equivalent of 40 Good Karma to earn back those 2 burned Karma Pool points (instead of the human’s 20 points) – but this helps to reinforce the fact that a Troll or Orc killing innocents is going to be played up a lot more than if a human did it….it makes playing a Metahuman more of a commitment, and also for those that use edges/flaws, the Bad Karma flaw more meaningful – this flaw is noticed a lot for humans because it is considered a “freebie”….”who cares if I earn karma pool every 20 points instead of 10??”


So, in Sam’s example, if he earned up to a SC of 15, he goes to SC of 15, N of 2, and PA of 3. If he wants to get rid of his N of 2, he can burn 2 points of Karma Pool (which if he hasn’t burned any to date, he’ll have 16 to start, and 12 afterwards) … this still leaves him with his SC of 15, N of 0 and PA now of 5….his bad reputation was coloring the public’s image of him, inflating his “presence” – but by getting rid of it, he is still known in the public eye, but less of a controversial figure. Even if he earns more N during his next run, he is ALSO still accumulating SC as well…in Sam’s example, the Karma Pool is also a limiting factor, as at this stage in his shadowrunning career, he only has enough Karma Pool (16) to rid himself of 8 points of Notoriety….and if he were a Troll, he could only get rid of 4 points – thus the public’s conception of “big nasty baby-eating trolls”…they always have to try harder to prove themselves and avoid Notoriety.


Even if you don’t like my solution, I think you can see that there is an error somewhere in the conceptions of Reputation as published…

[Kagetenshi]

[Nomad]

I like the suggestion. Even if it doesn't make it into an errata, I'm adopting it as a house rule.

[mfb]

i don't like the reputation rules because they're too concrete--if you gain X karma, your social tests become easier by X amount. real reputation is not based on what you've done, it's based on what people believe you've done, and what their opinion is regarding what you've done.

i think Reputation should be a Cha-linked skill that can act as a complimentary test to all social tests, with specializations including Street, Corporate, Military, etcetera. i'd apply 1/20 of your karma to it as extra dice. i'd keep the Notoriety rules. the Public Awareness rules would work the same way as they do now, but clarified to remove the current inconsistencies.

if you use your Reputation skill in a social situation, the Wrong Party test recieves a TN mod of 1/4 of the dice you rolled, including the extra dice from high karma.

[Sepherim]

[Adam]

side note: the MJLBB forum will appear after we get the server stability issues worked out and the upgrades done.

[Bull]

[RunnerPaul]

Just went through my new copy of this tonight. My first impression: "Why has the Shadowrun Hobby had to wait 15 friggin' years for the content that was in this book? This is stuff that should have been included in the original Big Blue Book back in '89."

Seriously, the outline of a shadowrun from the call from your fixer all the way through to the post-run downtime is exquisite, and will be a big help in introducing SR to new players. As far as the the Contacts and Location archetypes, they're worthy 3rd edition replacements for the older materials.

I'm sure there will be nay-sayers who will claim that any SR veteran already knows 95% of the concepts presented in the book, but I feel that in the long run, this will become the sourcebook that everybody fondly remembers. One big debate that always comes up about RPG Product is Crunch vs. Fluff. This book is certainly a Fluff book, and between this and the other recent big Fluff book, Sprawl Survival Guide, I think SR has finally overcome the glut of Crunch that dominated the majority of the early third edition releases.

That's just my take on it.

[Siege]

This is a topic of discussion on the "Power of a Doc" thread and I suppose this would be the better place to ask:

How should we interpret the "Surgery" skill listed in the Beta-Grade Shadow Doc contact?

-Siege

[mfb]

which character? the Elite Black Clinic Cybersurgeon on pg 65 doesn't, and i don't see any other high-end docs listed.

[Siege]

It's actually listed as a knowledge skill, but it's on the elite surgeon.

-Siege

[mfb]

not in my copy. the one on page 65, right?

[Siege]

Hah! That's what I get for reading too fast and in dim lighting.

"Surgery" is listed as a specialization of Biotech.

Bah, ignore me.

-Siege

[Sepherim]

[Eugene]

I just picked up the book over the weekend, and I have to say that it's really quite good. Frankly I think it's a great model for other RPGS, too, about what a "GMs Guide" should really be about. Not many extra rules, but thorough advice on how to run a game and plenty of examples and sample plots.

[Skeptical Clown]

Overall, I'm unimpressed.

Chapter 1: I suppose this is pretty useful to someone who is brand new to GMing. In fact, I thought a fair amount of the information was pretty good, and it gave some shape to adventures for a novice to try to adhere to. On the other hand, some of the information was more or less stating the obvious, even to a novice, and some of the advice was just plain bad. For example, it tends to advocate railroading and even occasionally 'teaching the players a lesson,' which I don't think are good ways to introduce someone to gaming. But whatever; Overall, chapter is a B- for new players, D for anyone else.

Chapter 2: So it's basically Contacts. No serious complaints here; most of the contacts are reasonable enough. But Contacts was always a pretty boring book, and not one I ever got much real use out of. I mean, who needs stats for a Taxi Driver, or a Dock Worker? But some of them will probably come in handy. Overall grade: C

Chapter 3: Sprawl Sites, except without the maps, thus sort of defeating the purpose. Some of the locations are interesting, like nightclubs and bars. Some are just boring, like apartments. Overall grade: C+

Chapter 4: Adventure seeds. This stuff is decent. I might use some of it someday. Overall grade: B

Game Information: Barely a chapter, just a couple rules. It's a mixed bag really; don't care for the reputation rules, but the low-end campaign character creation rules were pretty good. The decking rules are ok I guess, but simplifying decking seems to sort of defeat the flavor of decking too.

Overall grade: B-


Other Stuff: The art in the book ranges from OK to terrible. Some of the Contacts portraits are just freakishly weird, and all the art in the "On the Run" chapter is awful; it's all pixellated, like someone scanned it in with one of those roller scanners from like fifteen years ago. Overall, I give the book a C-. C+/B- maybe if you're a really new gamemaster.

[RangerJoe]

NERPSC

(still waiting to get a copy)

[mfb]

i recently used the simplified decking rules. no real complaints, i guess, though i modified the optional wound rules so that extra successes on the original test could be used to negate successes on the wound test.

[blakkie]

Has anyone else used the simplified decking rules? Does it make it feasible to have a decker PC without sending the rest of the table out for pizza and a movie while you resolve matrix excursions? Does it require a lot of legwork up front to distill existing computer system descriptions into the format you use? Can you resolve a fairly simple matrix run. For example say linking through 3 systems, find some info, then linking through another 2 systems to find more info based off the first info you found.

[mfb]

basically, the simplified rules render everything down into one test. the decker rolls his computer skill + hp against a TN determined by the host; every success he gets equal one operation he can perform. the host can then roll against the decker's DF, and deal icon damage; it's not in the rules, but i allow the decker's extra successes to negate the system's.

the real problem with these rules is that they negate a lot of the decker's hard-bought hardware and software, and also takes a lot of fun away from the guys playing deckers. imagine you're playing a street sam when bunch of sec guards show up, and the GM says "okay, roll your SMG skill one time. each success equals one guard killed." you'd be kinda pissed, right? all of the sudden, your carefully-modded weapon makes no difference, your million-nuyen reaction boosters are useless, the SUT skill you spent so much karma on doesn't have an effect on combat.

the simplified decking rules (and rigging rules, i guess--haven't tried them) should be used for short-notice jobs where the outcome either isn't really in doubt or isn't important. if you're sneaking into an apartment, and the decker suddenly decides he wants to hack the telecomm for paydata, use these rules. don't use them to replace important Matrix runs.