Heh. Maybe the runners will provide that heroic death sequence, then see it on the trid when the movie comes out. Then afterwards, there's a commercial for "Marshal Law II! The successor to the original Marshal Law hunts down the cold-blooded criminals who murdered his predecessor!"

No, he's resurrected with crazy evil technology, and the first thing he does is take out the sniveling punks who dropped him. The resurrection process has to be painful-looking; the whole setting is dystopic and stuff. Which cybermancy helps with; it also makes you a great target for astrally projecting mages and spirits.

And it's Judge Dredd. Get your comic book fascistic supercops right.

How do I get somebody to be psychotic and fascistic like this? I don't how somebody could be motivated to take the risks that Judge Dredd does.

Judge Dredd is pretty cool. But have you ever read Marshal Law? That dude is crazy. What can you say about someone who wraps barbed wire around their arm? Plus his costume rocks.

Now, as far as why someone would be so fascist or psychotic, the latter isn't really that different than most shadowrunners. He takes risks because his training and augmentations allow him to do things that would seem superhuman to other people. And he's a fascist because he thinks that extremely brutal methods are needed in a society that has broken down so far.

Since you plan on making him the bad guy, you can go all out with him. He could torture a BTL addict to find out where the warehouse they're selling them from is. He could hack up a ganger and leave his body tied to a chain-link fence as a warning to the others. Maybe you could make him a bit racist against orks and trolls to add to his "pleasant" personality.

Or maybe he only superficially resembles Judge Dredd. Maybe he's actually a bent psychopath who goes on a delirious killing spree. Think about it - he's an ultra-augmented being who's been given ultimate power over a decaying neighborhood full of people who have been written off by the rest of society. He can literally do anything he wants to. Especially when the cameras are off.

Yeah, any world where shadowrunners risk life and limb repeatedly so they can 'stick it to the man" is a world where a different brand of looney would make the same risks to "stick it to the criminals."

Especially if he was paid and given a kickass gun and bike to do it.

I thought of a game idea in which a former troll Templar infected with HMVV, the vampire kind, got it into his head that his infection was a sign from God telling him to repent. Because of this, he quit on his own volition, cleaned out a neighborhood, sold off his armor, and has become a beloved resident of the neighborhood. It has spread to his shoulder and he is afraid for his life, so in a moment of "weakness," has decided to give the runners his sword, a force 8 weapon focus, in return for a run on Shiawase biotech.

When they finally do find the cure and bring it to him, he'll refuse it because he feels as if he's bribing Fate or whatever mechanism God used to bring him to this state of repentance. When he passes out from the infection, the runners will be surrounded by agents from the Vatican, including a very businesslike magically active bishop who watched Shiawase Biotech so that they could track the runners back to the knight. He hid himself quite well, and they, being the Catholic Church, have no contacts or means of infiltrating, since most templars could not cover very well and resorted to camping the facility. He'll be very businesslike, and I'll take steps to make the players feel as if they're being used.

interesting story
but V non canon

go read threats 2 for Templar data

I was thinking of running a street-level one-shot where the characters are tenants of an apartment. He is a very good landlord who always finishes his repairs promptly and efficiently and is very genial and efficient when dealing with tenants. The thing is, he is a ghoul, and will accept payments solely in pounds of flesh. One pound of metahuman flesh per month per room, and it always gets paid, one way or another.

The players haven't paid their rent and must find a way to do so, or permanently lose a point of body each.

I think this idea is awesome.

I think most people would rather live on the streets, although there would definitely be on shortage of people happy to prey on others for their rent.

Does it have to be fresh meat or can you whack some 300 pound dude and freeze the stuff?

Long-term, that doesn't seem very practical, even for the Barrens. I mean, ghouls have bounties on them, and there's this guy who's a landlord, right out in the open, charging people human flesh to live in his apartment? The people willing to do that kind of thing would be just as willing to kill the ghoul - and people don't really even need a reason to kill a ghoul. I could see it, maaaybe, if it was a ghoul gang leader demanding "protection", but a landlord? Nah.

What if he's a really good landlord, who fixes people's toilets on time, and even their vehicles, if they're early with their payment? I'd imagine someone like him would get a lot of support, and if "metahuman flesh" includes human fat, then I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard to get their pound of flesh. All they need is a Home Liposuction kit and a tranq gun and ambush some fat guy.

I don't care how nice the guy is, I'm not cutting myself or anyone else up. It shouldn't be too hard to find a place to live where paying rent doesn't make you risk going to prison (or just disappearing if you're SINless). Pretty much the only people that would live there would be sadistic or masochistic people who liked paying that rent.

I'm pretty sure a pound of flesh is easier to get than 2,000 nuyen, and his maintenance is good enough for lower middle lifestyle. And if it makes you feel better, all you're doing is making a fat guy thinner; patching him up afterwards shouldn't be too hard. Anybody who has fat isn't currently in need of it.

The problem is that it's 1) disgusting, 2) something that requires medical knowledge most people don't have, 3) illegal enough that there's no community service option, 4) not worth the alternative, and 5) disgusting.

You won't find any "normal" people living under those conditions, because cutting yourself or others up for personal gain is not "normal" behavior. I think it could work as a concept, but it would be mostly populated by the kind of people that go to Europe so they can enjoy themselves at the Hostel (from the movie of the same name). The rest of the tenants would probably be fat masochists who can do it to themselves and enjoy it.

I figure a home liposuction kit would be pretty safe and painless... I mean, it's 2070. Of course they sell those at an affordable price, right?

Ask yourself if you would torture and maim someone to pay the rent. If the answer to that one is yes, get some psychological help. Also ask yourself if you would want to be tortured so someone could pay their bills. Most people would answer no to both questions.

Even if they're unconscious the whole time, waking up somewhere with missing time and a strange scar is going to be psychological torture. It's not a matter of "painless home liposuction" it's a matter of being psychotic enough that you can justify these things to yourself.

Keep in mind these are not long-term characters; it'll be a 350 BP game with pre-rolled characters. There won't be much room for psychological nuance, since it'll be a silly little game.

Even one-shots should be logically consistent IMO.

Unless they're MY one-shots.

Touche

I was thinking of having a campaign leading into the "Super-powered AI Eidos" involving one of the original researchers for Black Hammer and Psychotropic IC. He is the greatest mind in the world when it comes to neuroscience, but he hates the general mass of humanity.

Have you ever read Snow Crash? The virus attacks programmers, all of whom, according to Hiro Protagonist, have similar wiring in their brains because of their similar occupations. Snow Crash attacks those pathways with a program/drug.

He'll arm his deckers and technomancers with tailored Black Hammer programs that only affect the parts of the average consumer's brain that are the same as any other average consumer's brain; in effect, it attacks the herd instinct. He came to hate humanity while he studied it; he originally came into the field with a sense of wonder at the infinite variety of mankind and came away from it with the sense that all people were basically the same. That's why he wants to use this virus.

More on this tomorrow.

How well does toxic magic interact with technology? I was thinking of having FanGirl getting possessed in her sleep and being tricked into programming a server built by a personafixed toxic shaman.

There'll also be one Winternight cell left. In the real Ragnarok, there was supposed to be one man and one woman left to beget the entire human race, Lif and Liftrasir. I'm wondering what to do with Lif and Lifthrasir; maybe they'll want to create the idyllic world through conspiracy, or maybe Lif and Lifthrasir will be two AI's. Or maybe Lif will be a small boy magician, and Liftrasir will be an AI.

How should they interact with the world around them? It seems boring to make them good people.

Do the voices ever answer back?

Yes, that's where I get the ideas.

I also have another idea. Brett Favre is considered by his fans incredibly overpaid and a drain on his team; he's paid 12 million a year, enough to finance a shitload of rookie talent, and yet he doesn't play that well because he's old. He refuses to retire, and anyone who forces him to will look like the world's most evil team manager/coach. In SR4, a futuristic version of this will happen to a cyberware sports team; the coach hires you to "convince" the player to retire through whatever means possible. Since he's all cybered up, it will be difficult to do this through injury, and any cyberware will have to be replaced at great cost to the team. This will be an infiltration/face-type run.

He will have many bodyguards and shitloads of fans.

How do I make a run against Brett Favre fun? And challenging?

I wasn't going to have them kill him, just convince him to retire somehow.

Make a nice photo album of his friends and family and send it to him?

How do I make it hard for them? I mean, the best way is to intimidate him... maybe that's the challenge, make a football star with a ginormous security budget quit through intimidation, do it in such a way that he will never feel safe.

How do I make it hard for them? I mean, the best way is to intimidate him... maybe that's the challenge, make a football star with a ginormous security budget quit through intimidation, do it in such a way that he will never feel safe.

Oh, getting close to his family and famous friends should be quite a challenge... taking the pictures without killing anyone doesn't make it easier.

Dude, he's so old he doesn't have family... then again, he'll have clones... He'll be the clone of Brett Favre! Maybe they'll have to observe him for long enough to find something he's neurotically attached to...

Killing him would be a whole lot easier than "convincing" him to retire, and it leaves a lot less loose ends to boot. Not to mention he might change his mind later when he's not in as vulnerable a position and you'll have to deal with a very pissed off cybered up millionaire who wants payback.

Another idea: the reason they can't make him retire is because of his popularity, right? So destroy it. Set him up for a scandal that makes him look like a monster that no decent person would ever idolize, and he'll retire of his own accord without even needing any prompting on your part.

Great idea. Thanks!

As far as the how goes, I would leave that up to the players. Don't think about it too much, or you might get upset when they don't do it the "best" way. There are lots of ways, from blackmail (slip a mickey into his drink, then get the sim or trideo of him in a compromising position with two trolls in leather chaps), to intimidation, to simply killing him.

Football players are boring, though. It might be more interesting if you made him a star of one of the more recent sports such as urban brawl or combat biker.


This is the kind of run that can teach a team about recon and legwork. If they don't check things out first, they might bust into his penthouse, only to find out that he's throwing a house party for his teammates - twenty or so max-cybered monsters just like him.

I was thinking of letting them do it however they wanted.

Yeah... that sounds 4vv350|\/|3.

And making it a clone of Brett Favre would be kinda lost on them, probably, since they might not care about football that much.

The toxic mage dude's background will be this: he was a normal Tir Na Nogian college thaumaturgic student until he was taken hostage by a toxic shaman. The toxic shaman was trying to court a toxic free spirit for a hidden life pact and wanted to impress it, so he took a school of magic hostage. The spirit didn't think too highly of the shaman's sycophantic foolhardiness and so decided to invest itself in the toxic mage as a young man, since he had intelligence and connections. It gave him a deal, allow himself to get killed by the mad shaman, or make a pact with the spirit and gain the strength necessary to punch a hole through his torso. He took the latter, but was changed by the experience. He has spent years infiltrating Tir Na Nog's high society. His company disposes of toxic waste in 3rd world territory, increasing his spirit's domain.

I have a few sample descriptions in mind. "He seems as if he once had a human soul, which has since mutated into a sharp-edged cube of iridescent nuclear waste." "He is beautiful like oil slicks glistening on the surface of seaweed, or the glint on the edge of a glass knife in moonlight."

I remember hearing on this board that the Hidden Life pact, in earlier editions, granted bonuses to physical stats but incurred mental flaws. I will be using this version of the pact. How did it work, by the way?

The Tir lady will have a very Edna Pontellier view of the toxic mage, and when she sees him alone, she'll tell him, "We should play-act! You'll be the lonely wizard in his tower, cursed to eternal life, who has never known the love of a woman, and I'll be the rebellious but noble runaway princess who has seen through your veneer of cruelty and independence!" I have no idea how to show them this; maybe Mr. Johnson will be her husband, and he'll pay them to follow her on the job.

Who is Edna Pontellier and why does her name sound so familiar?

Chick in Kate Chopin's The Awakening.

Eh, so that's why it sounded familiar...I read The Awakening back in high school. By which I mean I was supposed to read it. By which I mean I didn't and slept through all the class discussions.

Ah, good times.

What should the characters' names be? And what do you think of my dude?

As for the Edna Pontellier reference, I was basing it on when she talks to Robert and they have a play-acting moment where he watches over her while she takes a centuries-long nap when in reality she was just taking the afternoon off.

The husband will think of her as having a certain courage in her romantic flightiness that he will never match; that is why he keeps her.

What do you think of my Victorian cast of characters?

I'm trying to figure out why you don't write short stories ... or even attempt a novel.

Maybe I should pitch this storyline as a novel to WizKids.

Here's a link to my short story. It involves Shen. If you don't want to read the rough drafts, skip to the second page.