ATTEMPTED rapist, and that was while he was too drunk to remember...

Okay, I'll have a hard time justifying him.

So... now I have the opposite problem. Originally I was going to make him iredeemably evil, but now I can't sell him. How do I justify his drunken attempted rape?

You don't have to justify it. It was only attempted. No harm, no foul. Most importantly, people do stupid things while they are drunk and often they regret those stupid things. If you Play it right it makes him more human, not less.

Also, watch A Streetcar Named Desire, certain epiodes of Law & Order SVU, or season 6 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Buffy is one of the better examples. Spike has tortured countless people to death in the most horrific ways imaginable, he has attempted to kill the scoobies on several occasions and the only reason he is only fighting the good fight is because a brain implant prevents him from harming humans but wants to kill things. He's still sympathetic to the audience even after he very nearly rapes Buffy. Heck, Willow is still sympathetic to the audience while she is attempting to destroy the earth.

I actually thought of Spike when I was wondering how to sell CK to FanGirl.

I guess I'll just have him just look down when he talks about it and not try to justify it to her.

I'll have a cult of C.A.T.S. from All Your Base Are Belong to Us for a street religion; they'll even have a shaman in the ranks. They're preparing for the year 2101 when war will begin and all our base will belong to C.A.T.S.

You do realize that stopped being funny about 6 months before it existed?

No it DIDN'T!!!!

How do I get pirates and ninjas to fight each other?

Dude, I sent Randy an e-mail about my suspicions that he was a poster here because of the general crankiness around here, and he posted it on his livejournal. You can read the ensuing discussion and my response to it; it's very awesome.

Randy who? I followed the link and it told me nothing. I guess I'm not up on my web-geek-fu.

Writer and artist of Something Positive. Yang Gu's my name, and his post is the entirety of the e-mail I sent him.

Ah, I suppose that would make sense if I knew what Something Positive was. Is it a web comic?

A very popular one that I LOVE. And the random-ass e-mail should be funny by itself.

If being funny equals the posters making fun of your random-ass-email and making fun of you, then you definately have succeeded. YOU definately were the joke of the day, and probably some are still chuckling about it now...

If you want to make him redeemed (somewhat) for it. Then don't let the character hide behind the, "I was drunk..." reason. That reason, and anyone that uses that reason is lying.

When you drink you accept the responsibility for the things you may do under the influence. You can't shrug it off because you were drunk, you made yourself drunk. You put yourself in position to do whatever it is you did. Don't hide behind it like it's a wall. It's a paper-thin transparent shield to the coward behind it.

Have him fess up, accept responsibility. He did what he could to right the wrong. Wether it was accepted or not isn't relevent. And he can still be a real jerk in general, it's just this one thing he regrets.

I was definitely going to make him regret everything and just sit there quietly when confronted about it.

Good, it would add alot of depth to a character that on the outside appears morally bankrupt - but is given to sudden and self-less acts of true kindness and generosity. Would really make other players wonder about him.

Kind of like the sort that wouldn't bat an eye slicing a man's throat while he slept, but apologizes profusely for bumping into someone in the elevator.

When I introduce my character to the campaign in the flesh (The pc's have a chance to talk to him today) it'll be when FanGirl's fixer tells him that his psychiatrist is missing. He went to the park for his weekly session, and he was gone. He'll explain about how he really, really needs it and would gladly pay good money for their help.

In yesterday's campaign, FanGirl decided to knock on wood after seeing one of my spirits catch another mugger and hang him by the back of his shirt over a lamp post. I said he was only 10 feet off the ground, but the other two (male) players said he should be higher, since the lethality of a fall should by all rights be assured. FanGirl called Vranton to take the kid down, Vranton refused to even after being offered 1000 , and Johann was called to help out by Vranton. Johann called the Mafia, the Mafia tried to recruit the kid by saying he could come down one of two ways: have his jacket shot so that he falls and breaks his spine, or use their extendable ladder, which they insisted was powered by promises of servitude. The kid took the ladder, Shen got pissed and had his fire spirit engulf the engine of the car, and all the spirits present used Fear power to scare the shit out of the mafia dudes. Vranton's fire spirit Psychokinesed the kid down from the ladder, and the mafia don decided to punish his underlings and call everything off if Shen and Johann paid for the car.

You're in serious drek now chummer. Attacking the mob means generally the same thing as attacking the Star. Possible consequences were listed in your blog thread.

I find it hard to believe that the mob would just say "ok, you blew up my car. Pay for it and we're cool." When someone hits your organization you have to hit back, or all sorts of people start having uppity thoughts. They might not kill you, but finding and burning down your house is an option, as is blowing up your car if you have one (preferably while you're inside).

Time to learn Detect Explosive.

In another game I might let it slide. It would take more than just replacing the car, but it would be doable. I'd probably make them "an offer they can't forget" to do a job as payback, but since this is a GMPC there's really no risk involved in any job they might offer you unless you elect someone else temporary GM for it.

Shadowrun though is different then other games IMO. It's darker, grittier, and more dangerous. The people that rule do it as ruthlessly as they need to in order to keep their kingdoms steady.

But the mafia don might be a more reasonable kind of guy, kind of like Uncle Enzo from Snow Crash, or Fisheye, who, while not necessarily reasonable, was very practical and smart when dealing with outsiders of all kinds.

Think of it this way. Four of his stupid, stupid muscle went out on a bullshit opportunity, and they lost the company car. The man has reasonably offered to pay for it with the help from the stupid subcontracted muscle that got them there in the first place. The man meant no harm from it and offered his apologies; if anything, a smart don would want to distance himself somewhat from the idiocy of his underlings and make nice with the strong-willed mage. He's a more old-school kind of don, very courteous like.

I can see it as just barely plausible - if the don was angrier at his men (for screwing up) that he was with the PCs, he would be forgiving provided that they showed the proper respect and paid restitution (which they were smart enough to do), letting him save face (which is all-important in the shadows).


I don't think there should be zero consequences, though. Even if they lucked out and didn't get on the Don's bad side, they still got his attention. The don might try recruiting one or more of them if he is impressed, or, if they seem to have too much of a social conscience to be part of his organization, he might indirectly clue them in to some suitable targets for their do-good impulses. Things like bunraku parlors, sex-slave kidnapping rings, and so on. All run by his "competitors", of course.

And when the group manages to get in deep trouble with the Yaks or Triads, the kindly don will be there to offer his protection. For a price, of course. That price being either a position in his organization, or a special job that they can do for him - breaking in somewhere and getting a bit of cutting-edge Ares miltech for him, or something similar. And maybe he will mislead them a bit. Like, he might tell them they are destroying a bioweapon, when they are actually destroying a cutting edge antidote that would ruin the profitability of a street drug that he deals in.

Sounds like fun.

I have a new idea. Shen will have a Free Spirit contact instead of Smokey the Bear, a ranger. She'll be the spirit of the forest next to his house that he awakened from a coma; she went into hiding when the forest was cleared, and my character went in, spied her sleeping in astral space, and poked her. All the natives never did it out of respect and fear, but Shen did it anyway. She helps him with his materials by making nice with the rangers, and when she's bored, she shows him to the awakened wood. His clout with the rangers plus his shaman landlord helped him get his official Salish magical license.

Later on, Vranton will be contacted by her to help free her from her binding to the forest. The reason that Shen or a NAN shaman isn't asked to do this is that they both think of her too much as the spirit of the forest to do anything but unconsciously strengthen the bindings in the metaplane, and she can't trust anybody else not to use the opportunity to learn her true name and bind her. To do this, he'll need to go on an astral quest where he encounters the Knights Who Say Nee. Instead of chopping a tree down with a herring, they'll ask him to bury one under a tree. He'll notice that the physical form of the Knights Who Say Nee are just a skin-deep shell, and that the leader represents the forest spirit. To solve the puzzle, he'll have to realize that this shell is not her desired shell, and that the forest wishes to strike at the knights and yet won't because it cares for them. He can either skin off the knight who says nee, or he could summon a chaos spirit to remove it for the knight. They will then have to do battle with the other knights after the spirit is free, who all have random tribal tatoos and headdresses, meaning that they represent the tradition-bound expectations that keep her marooned in the forest. When the other knights are gone, all the verdant trappings will be gone and she will go free.

If the forest the spirit inhabits is a power site, what kind of connection rating should I give the spirit, and what kind of loyalty rating should Shen have for her to let him use it every so often?

I was thinking that the spirit should leave behind a genius locus to care for the forest. It'll talk to people and control the trees to either stroke people or hurt them, but it won't manifest itself as a spirit the way the old management did. If it doesn't like you and you walk into the forest, it'll make you get lost until you either exit the way you entered or die of starvation. And, of course, it'll let my PC's and a few NAN shamans use its power site.

I think I'll have there be a huge battle over the power site between Vranton, Shen, and the more conservative NAN shamans. Vranton will end up summoning the spirit of the forest by speaking her true name in order to have her sort things out, and the shaman will try to bind her when she comes.

Wow, it's a good thing he has his tactics already laid out ahead of time or he might be in trouble when the fur flies.

hey guys
ANyone else here irritated at the Emo-Sammy bashing?

if so why don;t we start a pseudo Emo Sammy fan club, we add out emo sammy fanclub memberships to our sigs and watch as ppl like Geekake go apeshit

KREMLIN!!!! JAMES!!!! HOWAREYA!!!!!

Can I join the fan club? It sounds kinda neat.

As for my saying Vranton will summon the spirit, that's just because it seems like the most peaceful and logical thing to do. The spirit is revered by the shamans in general, just not the asshole trying to claim the power site, since he'll do the hardlining thing and say that she's not the true spirit of the forest anymore because she undid her bindings and left the forest. And even if Vranton doesn't go for the peacemaking thing, he'll still like to have a powerful free spirit on his side in a magical duel. Hopefully, Vranton won't try to bind her beforehand; otherwise, Shen will have a little talk with him.

Trying to predict PC behavior is just asking for trouble. Not that it can't be done, mind you, but every so often they will come up with something completely different than anything that you would predict. I would figure out what the goals and motivations of the other people involved are, then let things unfold. But be ready for it to do in a direction you weren't expecting.

And don't think that the player will automatically know what to do, either. He might not have a clue what he's "supposed" to do in the astral quest, or that he is supposed to summon the forest spirit at a certain point. Also, if he tries to bind the spirit and Shen has a "talk" with him, it might seem, to the player, that you, as GM, are using your pet GMPC as a plot hammer.

I'll give weirdass hints. The knights who say Nee will pick at themselves, the trees will pick at them, and an assensing test will show that the Knights Who Say Nee feel "Of the same matter, but are separate from the forest. There is an urgency within the Knights Who Say Nee, and they seem to be rid of their skins." That last clause I'll say only if he gets a ton of hits on his assensing test.

And if my character has a "talk" with him, which he would definitely do if she was bound, he'd do it with rolled stats and stuff. It's not plothammer so much as "Dude, you did something to a friend of my character." I suspect Vranton would EXPECT Shen to do something, and might send the spirit after him in anticipation of this if he were selfish enough to bind the spirit of the forest.

As for the NAN shamans, I've got a general idea for their personalities. There'll be one old dude with scars from a war of some sort and he'll be the boss of the other dudes. The other dudes will be teenagers and college kids who respect him for his age, knowledge, and scars. When the forest spirit pops up and he tries to bind her, I'll tell Vranton's player that the kids seem to be waffling a lot and are really conflicted over whether or not to help the spirit. This will be a lot more of a diplomacy game than anything else.

Emo Samurai talks about all this stuff I can't find info on...Bug spirits (Other than the history section) and miniguns and blood mages and cybermancy and cyberzombies and what else?

WHAT ARE THEY?

2nd and 3rd editions stuff. The only reason I know about all this stuff is because my college's sci-fi house's library has no less than about 20 SR books, a lot of them old-school.

Ah, I figured as much.

Isn't it something like in the old editions if you lost all your essence you became basically a mindless killing machine?

Nah. That's Cyberpunk, a totally different game. In Shadowrun, all that low Essense did was affect social skills slightly and make magical healing more difficult.

I'm thinking of running a game in which a mafia don wants to go legit and start a business park, except some UCAS government dude won't let him. I'm borrowing this from Godfather II, for those who're asking. The don wants you to make the bureaucrat accept his incorporation into UCAS society through whatever means possible.

I'm thinking of adding a twist to the "happy jumper" run. There will be a master shedim wandering the site of the assassination who wants to possess the head of the Corp Kid's security who's willing to help with the assassinations if the party will help him possess the man's body. He's an initiate grade 3 physad, and he's unwilling to just let one of the party members walk by with some deepweed, since he doesn't want to risk it with this guy. Instead, he wants them to kill the security chief discretely so he can take over his body without risk to himself. The big challenge will be leading the man away from the security detail into some back alley and somehow ambushing somebody with Combat Sense 6 and Increased Reflexes 3.

I have another idea. To promote their new Judge Dredd movie, Horizon cybers up some dude, gives him a kickass bike and a super-awesome gun, and sends him into the Barrens with newsdrones in tow. He actually kills people and proclaims that "I am... the LAW!" a lot. He'll attack mostly gangs and escaped prisoners and stuff. After a while, the gangs will pool their resources and put out a hit on this dude.

What do you think? I think this would be the awesomest promotion ever.

Sounds cool, although actually killing people could damage the film once word gets out. As dystopian as it is, most average folks in SR are probably still opposed to killing people for fun or profit. I think the number of people that would be appalled by it would outweigh the number of people that would be intrigued by it.

How should I make this work, then? I really want the players to take out Judge Dredd and get his awesome shit.

Release the flick. Have some lunative decide he really is Judge Dredd, make himself some cool gear, buy a Stallone mask, and go haywire on all the lawless scum in the Barrens.

He could be a high paid and eccentric bounty hunter, or maybe an escaped attempt at cybermancied super cops.

Maybe... maybe that "lunatic" could be outfitted by Aztechnology itself secretly, and Aztechnology is just waiting for a sweet news story about some lunatic killing people dressed as Judge Dredd rigged up like a mofo. The story will come in conveniently just as they're about to start their advertising campaign in earnest and it will draw attention to the movie.

Negative publicity is usually good publicity. Maybe he goes on a killing spree but the advertising guys say he was supposed to only capture criminals. You get the carnage coupled with deniability, and because this is Shadowrun, the majority of the public believes the claims of the corporation. It could even lead the players to try and prove that Judge Dredd was ordered to kill people, if they feel like doing some pro bono work.

Two Words: Personafix Chips.

The Azzies are rumored to make these and leak them out in to the market for a little extra cash. Besides for marketing what would be better than a few hundred instant Mega-Fans, of course then the ones that really draw attention could be outfitted by some specially trained handlers and tailed by corp controlled news crews.

How would a dude like that live? Seriously... He can't operate alone and survive, but for this to work, there has to be a lone ultra-badass psychopath.

Maybe he'll start a gang called the Judges, and he'll get supplied by Aztechnology. For the forensics report, they'll use standardized Ares parts to try to frame them. The movie will be released by a shell corporation.

He doesn't have to live long on his own.

One other option than the movie would be to take your inspiration from the comic book character Marshal Law. He was an officially-sanctioned vigilante, and one of the reasons his employers liked him was that this highly visible psycho was much more cost-effective than really patrolling a neighborhood would be. I could see such an NPC as a max-cybered and insanely dangerous Lone Star operative going on search-and-destroy missions in the Barrens. The top brass will show real-time vids of him doing things like taking out a BTL distribution network. "See, we do care about the poor people in the Barrens!"

The runners could be hired by underworld types who operate in the Barrens, by civic activists who are outraged by the cynical ploy, or, in a twist, secretly by Lone Star - maybe their pet is breaking his leash and taking out criminals who he's not supposed to - the ones who have kept up on their bribes.

Sounds really awesome.

Maybe Lone Star is trying to make a Judge Dredd movie, since they're practically a megacorp themselves, and they're secretly trying to make a heroic death sequence for their man after everything you've just said.

Thank you so much.