I know. Thanks. But MY hellhounds are AWESOME. I don't know about your hellhounds.

mine are friendly and healthy with shiny coats. But that's because I only feed them the bestfoods and groom them regularly

Their moods, seeing as they're standard Office Space wageslaves, are probably constantly "open the cage walk the dog open the cage walk the dog open the cage walk the dog open the cage walk the dog." Nothing insidious there.

Having been a corporate wage slave, I can assure you that moods aroudn the office are rarely just "get the task done, get teh task done, go to the bathroom, get the task done." I for one would welcome special training when handling dual-natured animals, but I don't know if it's necessary. Normal animals are already something you have to train yuorself to act calmly around, and I don't know that it would be a lot worse if they could see your emotions instead of just smell them.

This might be a problem with barghests, who, while much larger than dogs, are no more intelligent. Hellhounds might be better at adapting their baser instincts.

I got another idea for a run today. In it, the runners would be told by an apparently Ares Johnson that they gave some other runners a prototype laser weapon for field testing, and they never returned it. What's strange about this is that the man acts like the sort of jingoistic Japanese company man who would spit on the American soil he treads on. Very not-Ares. He says he's afraid that the runners will sell it to a competitor; the job is to retrieve the SOTA laser rifle from the runners.

Several bribes and hours of legwork later, they'll track the gang back to a hideout for a wizgang, who have decided to offer the enemy runner team protection in return for the muscle, the laser, and the electronic assets they provide. After a few rounds of frenetic combat, several Mitsuhama soldiers and Hachiman security drones will de-cloak and hold up the players and the antagonists, with beads from unseen snipers drawn on them for dramatic effect.

They'll interrogate both the runners who "stole" the rifle and player characters on the uses of the rifle and means of counteracting it that they thought of. Because of the plans that were stolen from Ares in an earlier run, they will be able to provide these things to their security men. But because Ares were the ones who developed these plans in the first place, they want to be able to fight against these things in case they send people without laser rifles. They'll pay the gang not to intervene, and they'll pay the runners for playing to their plan.

Very nice

Oh and as someone who warks with security dogs, no you are not trained to hide your anger,ust your fear. You are trained to dominate the dogs and make them fear you

Which should be hard, since they're as large as you are and much, much stronger.

Why don't they just pet them on the head like they do with shelter dogs?

It isnt as hard as ya think
most of the rottweilers have learned not to fight me

What about hellhounds? You'd have to be a ninja, a troll, or a fire elemental to put those things down.

Power glove bitchslapping.

And I don't mean the glove from The Wizard.

I mean the thing from Fallout.

You... could just pet them... couldn't you?

not if they are trained guard animals

You need to show dominance as well as affection

it is a complex mind game

See, you've got to be really mean and scary, and then be all nice. It confuses them; makes them love you. You smack 'em with the power glove, then you're all like, "Baby, why you gotta make me hit you?" And the dog's like, "I know he hits me, but it's only 'cause I make him so mad. I'll be better."
See, with people, it's called an abusive relationship, but with dogs it's called discipline.

Yes, that was a bit of a grenade, yes it was intended as humor. Not trolling.

So short Summary: Pimps make good guard animal trainers

Yes, we do

On the subject of pimps, any suggestions for using them in-game?

But... but there's a huge industry for that! Why not?

Because they're there.

I would use them to procure sexual encounters without having to go through the hassle of picking someone up at a bar.

A pimp could hire the runners for something. Putting down opposition springs to mind, or perhaps trackign down someone who is attacking their girls.

Hmmm...

James, you may have inspired our young explorer.

(He might have gotten an idea for a run, too.)

Philosophically, I have nothing wrong with your first suggestion. Picking someone up at a bar is no less artificial than picking up a prostitute, if not more so, since there are more lies involved. That said, I have never done that, nor do I plan to.

This idea seems too... blah. My ideas all involve laser rifles, hellhound swarms, and freaky character backgrounds. Maybe I should bring in Tamanous with all the organs going into a gigantic flesh beast.

It's not something I would do either. Maybe if I lived somewhere where prostitution was legal, and therefor regulated by the health department. I'd also need some money that I don't have.

What if it were a pimp for people with exotic tastes? Maybe he's hiring the runners because his star tranny hellhound ninja with lasers-for-eyes prostitute got beaten up by a giant, Japanese robot pirate.

She'll be a prostitute with a meat-body-like Mechashiva rig, and she'll be able to give
And that's why he wants her back.

And a catgirl too no doubt

Those would be Those hurt where one should not be hurt, and they don't bring in customers.

You just have to open your clientele a bit. Some folks are into that sort of thing.

They aren't into castration.

Some are, as well as bisection (or more). Besides, you just have to train her not to remove the target, just scratch it up a bit.

But that produces scarring, and scarring produces desensitization. That's completely beyond the point.

I never claimed to understand it, but it exists today, so it would almost certainly exist in 2070 when you can get desensitization fixed.

You can also buy spare tools.

There you have it, life is much easier on sexual deviants in 2070 than it is in 2006.

Dude, can I get banned again for FYAD'ing my thread the way I did Master Shake's thread? That would be fucking awesome. I'll use my dedicated campaign and character threads for legitimate purposes, and then I'll post a new thread under false pretenses. Like, "HOLY SHIT WE NEED POWER ARMOR" or "The uses of ninjas in a post-objectivist world."

*shrugs* It's not like we don't need powered armor...

EVERYONE needs power armor.

But can your power armor transform into a juicebar? Or at least have blender arms?

I'm in the mood for a badguy smoothie.

Powered armor is one of those things that, given the level of other tech in SR, I'm surprised has never really been developed.

This may be because the FASA devs never wanted to deal with players stomping around in milspec body armor that also gives them stat bonuses and lets them drag out enormous frigging guns, but anyone who wanted to do that just plays a troll with muscle aug, bone lacing, and dermal plating instead. Powered armor, IMO, is a much better solution.

Actually, Shrike, the framework is there. And, well, in SR4? It doesn't look like it'd be too difficult to do.

A couple of options for Power Armor. I can't believe I'm actually doing this.

Figure out the cost for an Anthroform and maybe bump it up by half, to get some internal carrying space. Add strength, body, agility, and armor by using the Cyberlimb upgrade costs, except with no capacity or something.

Or just make it a flat cost and allow people to pick and choose fun bits up to a max until the rules for vehicle creation/modification come out. Also, you could take the JIM suit and make a more expensive land version.

Keep in mind that most of these options are more suited for rigger-types. So be it.

I'll allow it. It's just impossible for infilitration missions.

"I run the shadows; always on the razor's edge, always one step ahead of the..."

CLANK CLANK CLANK!

Of course, with that much power, you don't NEED to infiltrate.

The only problem being that if you find one, it'll probably be guarded by people wearing those suits. And if you get it, I'll basically have you marked by everyone who wants one. Which includes EVERYBODY.

This clanking reminds me of the order of the stick.

Well, in your universe, Emo? Why not have them pull an Eva and require a constant power source? So that they're not very useful out of Zero Zone facilities?