Dranem, do you ever go back and read the things you write?

DO you read the background nfo for shadowrun

Dunkelahn and Harlequin in conversation refer to the matrix as an artificial Metaplane

In Earthdawn Artificer and a couple other named horrors can hide in MACHINES

so there is no reason a Horror can't be in the matrix

In Virtual Realities 2.0 a pair of Immortals discuss the nature of the Resonance, heavily implying in the discussion that it is either a Mad Passion, or a Horror

Both of those are Magical entities

Tech and magic fusing has been one of the darker themes of Shadowrun

Nuclear Weapon Foci (Sorry Emo, those have all been used already, and the designers were the suicide bombers)

Cybermancy

Alchemy

Technoshamans, whose Aura reads as 'Like Magic, but not'

The Deep resonance is most likely a Mad Passion, the nextmost lilely option is a Horror

so potency is not far off the mark

Do I ever go back and read things I write? Far as I can tell, I haven't contradicted any of my previous posts....

I am NOT connecting magic to the Matrix! I'm just recreating the symptoms goddammit!

I was the one connecting them

FanPRo aren't exacty removing the references, that was a Mike Mulvihill thing

Rob appears to feel like puttingin just enough to whet the appetite of those who like it
without upsetting the rest

(Shedim is mybest example of that)

Do you think I should grant potency, or should I give her a wolf free sprite? I think the wolf free sprite will be nice, but it will make anything but a resonance quest meaningless in terms of difficulty. Same with potency, but it's creepier. Then again, it would involve taking way too much control of her character, and she'd lose this power after her character-specific quests.

neither and both

a free sprite mentor would let her learn deeper mysteries and make a convenient excuse for Cash/karma exchanges (trade new hardware to live in for help in matrix learning)

but a free sprite puppy is a bit much

I was thinking of having it pop in from time to time to show her how to become more powerful in the ways of the Matrix, helping her to Submerge with less karma use. It would be a free sprite mentor that works for Eidos, and when it comes down to face Eidos, it'll take the side of FanGirl and get absorbed and de-rezzed. The nascient AI that's left over and infected with the part of the sprite mentor will be her new mentor sprite, more powerful than before.

Had my second run today; it was really, really easy for my players. I had the ant fleshforms build a mana lodge with freaky-ass goo from their mouths in the basement; the thing is, though, I didn't let them build it beyond force 4 before Vranton was able to astrally project though the barrier (it rolled 1 success against Vranton's 5) and totally ruin the shit of the collected insect spirits. One of the mages went astral in order to fight Vranton, but his meat body was smashed by the party's physad, who went in through the vents. Even though the mana barrier was over the vents, he, of course, was an adept and this didn't matter. The troll tried to channel a beetle spirit and rolled one success against five; he then screwed over his drain roll and keeled over and almost died. The gnome shaman went down as mentioned before, and the queen that got summoned got her shit ruined by Vranton's summoned Chaos spirit, which looks really cool.

It's a writhing red mist with faces and limbs constantly reaching out of their depths only to be dragged back down by whatever's inside the mist. In the middle of it is an eye with crooked red streaks constantly forming and disappearing on it; it looks at you no matter where you stand or how many people look at it, and its gaze is constantly darting over the myriad parts of your body. It casts Fear on whoever looks at it as a free action, and its elemental attack is unblockable by armor. Fortunately, I'll cut its Immunity to Normal Weapons in half so that it doesn't destroy everything in its sight.

C made Moloko Plus, who was a physad trained by Wuxing corporate security and left the company during the Crash. The man training them was claimed to be a monk, but he was very materialistic. One of the main reasons Moloko Plus left was because the man had nothing in the way of wisdom to give outside of breathing exercises and stretches. Because of this, the only powers he really knows are Critical Strikex6, Killing Hands, Armorx4, and Improved Reflexes 1. No combat sense, improved ability, etc. That's one of the main reasons he left. While in Wuxing, he loved to sneak around and into places. His brother, who was on the fast-track to executive status, always covered for him.

I'll have a huge backstory to the status of martial arts at Wuxing. About five sessions in, I'll have them meet with a Johnson. He'll turn out to be Moloko's brother, who recognizes him immediately and tells them all about the suicide run he would have sent them on if his brother wasn't there. The brother will then explain that he couldn't send his brother or his friends on a mission like that, and he can't continue as a Johnson (or a fixer, for that matter; I'll explain later) with a reputation for sending runners to their deaths. Therefore, the only choice he really sees as viable at this point is leaving Wuxing with the help of Moloko and his friends. He could leave right now, but the thing is, he doesn't have much money; all of his payment was in Wuxing corp scrip. Fortunately, he also worked as three different fixers for Wuxing over the years under three different names and disguises, so he was able to launder the good they gave him to support his shadow work and corp scrip into chunks of orihalcum. They'll be paid with 20% of the valuables they extract; he'll explain that he just needs whatever's valuable and give them the plans to his nice apartment. The stuff will be all the incentive the players need. This will include said chunks of orihalcum and multiple pieces of fine artwork bought with his corp scrip, some of which generate background counts.

The party will then have a 6/6 fixer after this run, along with maybe 30 units of orihalcum and a lot of fine art.

One of the most important treasures in his collection will be a robe that used to belong to a stereotypical Shaolin-esque monastery. It generates an incredibly high background count. It was stolen by corporate mages and drones and Wuxing threatened to rip it if they didn't train one of their physads, just one. If Moloko returns it, he'll have their eternal gratitude, the benefits of the background count, and a great magical group to reduce initiation costs.

The thing is, though, the master of the monastery isn't a monk per se; he's a scary-ass dude who's always shrouded in shadow. Any features you see through it are never the same in any two encounters. He doesn't care about the robe; the other monks do because they admire him, so they give it the background count. When Moloko gives it to him, he'll shred it to pieces, anchoring the background count to himself and increasing it at the same time. He'll preach that all things are illusions, time, space, pain, etc. He'll basically prove it too, with his canon-breaking powers and stuff. The master will rock.

As for FanGirl's conflict with Eidos, she'll have a first encounter with Eidos Prime in which she gets her shit ruined. She'll get saved by the wolf pup which changes into a freaky ass 500 lb. wolf whenever she's threatened. This will help break her connection to the Matrix. She'll have to wear a tin foil hat to avoid connecting to the Matrix.

She'll eventually meet up with the remnants of Winternight and the Dissonance, recovering the code for Jormungand and releasing it on Eidos proper. She'll be backed up by most of the fragment AI's that gathered information and fed it into Eidos.

Edited.

Is that all you have to say? I'm... troubled. You've broken the status quo on the deepest level.

You know that character with 1 point of Knowledge: Bear Studies? While he was in a bar and talking about how he was raised by desert bears, I had a troll bear shaman walk in with a bear skin on his back, the top half of a bear skull for a hat, and a paw for the back of each hand walk in, look at him, and walk away.

Also, should I buy On The Run? I read that it's very helpful for understanding the game world; is it?

I've thought of involving Ysrthgrathe when, and if, I run Harlequin's Back. He'll have a starting conversation that I will write up and hand to the players. And if time permits and everyone tells me their stories, I'll have him tell a second fairy tale about the fall of Sereatha that resembles the raids of the Adversary from Fables. I'll have a single warrior walk out from the ranks of the elven knights, proud in his gleaming armor and finely honed pike. He'll slay the hordes of the Adversary 10 at a time until they form a bubble over him, which rises, then, collapses. I'll have Harlequin say "It wasn't enough; it was never enough."

I thought you were adamantly opposed to having Horrors in SR?

Oh yeah... but Harlequin's Back isn't really Shadowrun, is it?

reason to buy threats
first you want it for Tutor: he will help ya mold the evil free sprite that is goin for fangirl
second you want it for Darke, from harlequin's back
more background on him

Tutor?

you will love tutor
he is so YOU

Insane? Evil? I'm not evil!!! Or does he just fit my GM style?

it is.... difficult to explain
Tutor is perfectly sane, and only wants to prrotect his people

Yeah, Tutor is kind of hard to place as a bad guy/good guy.

If a character is an arrogant prick, sending his spirits/elementals in as cannon fodder, he'd be a prime target for Tutor. If he's just arrogant with his magical abilities, Tutor could teach him a lesson that he's not all powerful, but I don't think a lesson like that needs to be fatal necessarily.

If Harlequin's back isn't Shadowrun, how did we play it using our Shadowrun characters and Shadowrun rules? It isn't a typical run, but it's a canon adventure in the Shadowrun world.

I know, I know... I just wanted to talk my way out of my "spoiler."

What IS Tutor, anyway? Is he a really, really powerful free spirit? What force, and what powers?

What are these motivations and MO?

Fuck over anyone who treats spirits badly

He has a power that makes spells easier to cast for you... the more you use it, the more of your damage boxesbecome his to play with

when he so chooses he can fill in thoseboxes and make you unable to heal that damage (it fills from the dead end of the line first and fills up both stun and phys)

thus making you weak sick and lethargic

What if you do things like banish spirits that attack you?

Seattle:Nothing

Aztlan: if that spirit is a Free spirit and a citizen, you get executed for murder

Tutor: do you make a habit of finding spirits and fragging them? if so tutor will hurt ya

if there is a single magicin who is sending spirits after you even if it means the sprit gets regularly fragged, then tutor will target HIM/her

I see... and what does banishing do to spirits? Does it destroy their minds, or does this just send them back to the metaplane they were randomly torn from?

no I was just confusing this thread for another one for a sec
was adding the law concerning spirits into it

the edit tells ya what tutor would do

I saw it.

sends them back and weakens them

Does it reduce their force or something?

temporarily

oh Emo, next time ya are online, gimme a buzz over AIM

Thought I'd post this here instad of in FanGirl's thread in case the answer was campaign related:

Why the strong desire to force FanGirl into a position where she kills someone?

The funnest part as a GM for me when running characters like that has been to put them in situations where killing was an easy out, and sometimes where it's the only obvious way out, but I'd never massage events to force it. Where's there's a will there's a way, unless you force the issue with Almighty GM Powerz.

All I'm doing to force the issue is making the kid a complete bastard. And of course the Johnson will pay her less if she doesn't kill him, but I might give her the full karma payout if she roleplays it well.

I'm mostly puzzled by a bar owner who thinks that 1) a stunt which is pulled off regularly at his bar turning fatal will help sales, and 2) that even it does mean good publicity it will hardly be 200 grands worth of good publicity, come on how much does a bar make?

I'm assuming a lot, at least in his case.

And in the session I ran, a dude jumped off the bridge after the one with protection spells, got himself nearly killed, and was cheered WAY harder by the crowd than the first guy.

As for the corp kid, I'm assuming they'll knock out the shaman and anyone who could help the kid.

Ah, it looked to me like you were trying to remove the option of letting him live, because of the "putting self defense back in" comment.

If FanGirl opts out on killing the guy and tries hard, oh so very hard, to make it so he lives, she'll get extra karma for the huge-ass paycheck she'll miss out on. It's like a martial arts movie in which the master gives the young grasshopper a secret test of will and character that the student does not know he is getting into and passing it anyway. This will be FanGirl's test of will.

As for making it harder for her not to kill the kid, they're meeting with the shaman in Ares Corporate Park. When they see the shaman, some chameleon-suited guys will pop up out of nowhere and kick the crap out of the shaman; if he sees them, he'll PM them on their comlinks and tell them to opt out, since if they jump in, they might be linked to him. The corp kid will stand right there watching him and silently gloating.

At a corporate party that FanGirl's debutante detective contact set up so that she could talk to CK's bodyguard, I'll have CK drunkenly hit on her to the point that she throws the drink glass at his face. His bodyguard friend will angrily heal him and walk him out.

So pretty much all the railroading I'll be doing is make CK look more and more like an asshole and get Mr. Johnson to put more and more heat on the players, both very plausible IC things.

I'm not NEARLY as linear as people think I am. Yes, I'll have power armor in my game, but the story will be extremely convoluted.

Maybe someone's English is a little rusty... in the classic case of Jerk hitting on woman gets glass thrown at him.. it's the contents of the glass that are tossed, not the whole thing. It's symbolism for 'cool your heels, you're being an ass.'

You really have a sick sense of excitement Emo, maybe it's all that sheltered boarding school immaturity coming out. Just when you start coming down to earth, you post this concept that shows many how little grasp you have on reality.
And as a note: realisme doesn't mean a lack of imagination. It's easy to create something far-fetched, the trick is making it plausible.

I know about the drink getting thrown at the dude; I've also read Neuromancer where Peter Riviera throws a glass at Molly's eye, and I wanted to take the cliche one further. There would be even fewer long-term repercussions in Shadowrun than in Neuromancer, since you can not only get animal melds and cybereyes, but immediate magical healing.

And how does my last post show that my English is rusty? Are you just being a troll? Should I just ignore you completely from now on?

How about I play "speculate as to what Dranem looks like." We'll add another detail every time he is a dick. They will get worse over time.

So... he has.... Glasses!

I read Neuromancer when I was like 10, I don't remember that scene off the top of my head.

Actually I was mostly pointing out that the classic 'throw the drink at someone' is typically the contents....
You seem to be assuming that FanGirl will follow your concept, which would be again, why we're wondering this dire need to railroad your players to fit your game. You mentioned your plot is quite convoluted, yet how much freedom in this mesh are you allowing for player drift.. in my 10 years as a GM, I've discovered that - no matter how well thought out the plot can be - there's always the chance your players will go a completely different direction.

I'm not trying to troll your board Emo, just merely offering another point of view. Sometimes you talk as if you're running with blinders on.. you see your goal, and you disregard any other concept as trivial. As for my insults... some times you seem to be so far into your own thoughts that the 'verbal slap' is about the only thing that seems gets your attention...

One thing that a few people who post to you discussions ask is that you think about their suggestions, rather than shrug them away as meaningless. That you seem to ignore comments, criticisms and only get excited about those who lead you on is probalby why fewer people post here. I noticed you making a comment further back about the lack of 'gasps and boos' to your ideas... I realize you live for this sort of conflict, but some are probably feeling the game is getting old. Perhapse if at least 'some' of your concepts where a little more plausible you'd gain more of a 'fan base' that you are seeking.

I said I'm starting small, and that they'd get worse with time. It's like a beautiful grotesque, except it's not in any way beautiful. Over time, your portrait will probably have a gaping head wound with botfly eggs in it and a stinky adult diaper, but that's about 15 comments down the line.

And as for her appearing in public, have you ever heard of "nanopaste disguise" or "physical mask?"

Plus, I'm not really railroading them; the whole party thing happened because FanGirl called a contact I didn't expect her to call; and like I said, if you consider making him an asshole railroading, then yes, I WILL treat those comments as meaningless.

What do you do when the players do not play out the scene the way you plan? What if the drink is never thrown? What if the character accepts the advances and doesn't think much of it? And still does not want to kill the target? These are all decisions and actions in the control of the player. Are you going to tell the player, "No no, your PC does this now! Roll your throwing drinks in peoples faces skill."

For me the greatest moments and fun in running games is when the PC does the perfectly logical to the player action that I as the GM never expected. I then have to run through all the permutations and evaluations of the story and NPC characters and work out what to do.

I'm talking about the contact throwing the glass, not FanGirl. I control the contact; I do not presume to control FanGirl. At least, not directly.

Sounds like your trying to move the action to something you can control, where as before, it sounded like you were going to have the kid hit on FanGirl...

Now, a guy being a jerk to someone else, makes a rude public display... Now while - generally - socially unacceptable, and would draw some negative opinion, how does this make FanGirl so mad/desrespectful of the kid that she would forget her morals? FanGirl already stated that something drastic would be needed for her to kill.

And if FanGirl doesn't kill the guy, Vranton will; his player assures me that his death will be spectacular and theatrical. He'll get the money and the karma, FanGirl will just get the karma.

I'll also make it obvious that the dudes in chameleon suits were hired by the kid. It'll make the threat to the Johnson's life that much more real and make it into a genuine case of CK's life versus shaman's.

I had a change of heart while making dinner today. I'll have CK talk to FanGirl over a small amount of wine about how he hates how selfish and cutthroat his life has become, and how Shiawase doesn't have the decency to be cutthroat over something that matters, like acumen. He'll also tell her about how he doesn't really want to hurt the shaman; he never planned to do it and he hoped that threatening would have been enough. If the shaman didn't sell, he'd just have the underground paper that he secretly owns disseminate information on a failed buy offer from Shiawase and make money off the increased circulation.

FanGirl, hopefully, will take the opportunity to offer to fake his death. FanGirl's corp princess contact is an Evo girl, so she'll be able to get cloned bodies of them easily. He'll actually be really smart and good-hearted; he's kept his offer to buy the bar off his daddy's radar, and the chameleon-suited thugs will all be hired by his daddy.

He'll make money in the shadows as a freelance telecommuting stockbroker for Shiawase; during the Crash, he had a hacker make a new SIN for an unknown freelance stockbroker. Shiawase's lacking in daring businessmen, so they take skillful freelancers wherever they can get them. He'll also pay the group an extra 60,000 for their trouble.

Of course, I'll continue to badmouth CK on the rest of these boards to misdirect FanGirl. If you want to, please play along.

I thought he was a rapist?