Ive been reading the RH book for a while now and i started to think about acid rain and winds with ash (thats if you are in the puyallup or glow city).
Does anyone use this in there games?
How does it effect the charactors / the ppl who live in seattle?

Many Thanks

Iceman

Everyone's in a bad mood all the time, and most stuff's dirty.

*shrugs* I don't assign it, y'know, a damage code or anything. It's just mood. Ambience.

Respirators are very common in Puyallup.

I'm always torn on how to handle acid rain. In some of the fluff, it sounds terrible, like health threateningly bad. In other stuff, it's just "there".

In my games, the few times I've tried to bring it into play for mood and ambiance, it received such a negative reaction that I just stopped bothering.

I could say "according to the weather channel, the rain is going to be particularly acidic today in the greater Seattle area" and they would immediately jump to the conclusion that "the GM is being a jerk and making us roll resistance to go outside, bad GM BAD" before I could get to explaining that it was more for fluff and to get a "well, better make sure to put on the hats and raincoats" type of reaction for story and ambiance. And heaven forbid I ever do make it part of a run scenario and bad enough to do some light damage!! OH NOES!!! Never mind that it's mentioned in several places.

Oh well.

Well i think it all depends on the ppl who you are playing with. Realistic or hack slash.
The ppl who are play RPG's with like to play very realistic, which tbh i like.

In our games we mostly use it as ambiance and to occasionally cause problems for people who took the Infirm or Allergy, Pollution qualities. Except in really extreme cases the most that acid rain is going to do to a healthy person is give them a rash if they don't cover up.

acid rain would be more likely to cause long term health problems like cancer or birth defects than any immediate damage. If exposed to it for a long time (such as a street person in a week long storm) an individual might develop a rash or posibly even sores but to require resistance tests as soon as you walk outside seems both unrealistic and unreasonable.

If acid concentrated enough to cause physical damage was falling out of the sky it would be a worldwide ecological catastrophe. Remember the early 80's when everyone was drinking powdered milk because of Chernobyl? Multiply that exponentially. Vegetation around cities would be nonexistent and threatened elsewhere. Damaging acid rain should be the province of post apoc. societies (which is still streaching it), not cyberpunk.

I think acid rain and general poor air quality are a cool cyberpunk thing. Honestly, it doesn't play a part in my games cause I always forget about it. But if I actually remembered to use it, it would lead to really cool atmosphere.

Going on what's mentionned, Seattle has several smog alerts per month, during which breathers are required if you're sane. That's cool cause you get to describe this low hanging dirty fog, and everyone wears a respirator. Taking it even further, the Aztlan sourcebook describes how the air in Techno-tit-land (sorry, thats how we call it cause its funnier that way...) is so bad, you NEED a respirator, which led to this huge respirator-as-a-fashion-accessory market. Plus you have the great quote, that not wearing a respirator scream "too dumb to live or too cybered to die".

Second, acid rain: perfect reason to have everyone wear them cool looking trenchcoats. You can never have enough cool looking trenchcoats in cyberpunk.

Also, bad air means serious skin damage, and we all know how much the ladies hate skin damage. This means there would be this huge pharmaceutical market in skin protecting creams and such. The corporate wage slaves would all sink their money into superficial beauty, keeping their skin good looking, while the poorer would be stuck with rinkled and dry looking skin as young as 30, creating another level of class-struggle prejudice: if you have bad skin, you must be a low-life barrens criminal scum.

So, yeah, pollution is cool.

I hadn't thought of skin damage but that makes perfect sence. Makes you wonder why Oil of Olay isn't a AAA megacorp though

They got bought out by Ares.

Have toy tried looking in target wastelands for ideas on acid rain? The first chapter is all about pollution and its effects on the game world

Thanks for the reply guys. some good idea's and i have taken some on board for my campaign.

in second edition, every one (or maybe it was all metahumans) started with allergy mild-acid rain, and the rain is always acidic.
as a side note, teh way our group determines what the weather is like is we look out the window and thats what the weather is like (unless it's particularly necessary to the story.) Living near Sceddadle that works. WOuldn't use that system if I lived in the desert.

yeah, but that's because Humanis Policlub was doing the editing.

"Look at the metas! They're all sickly and a burden to the health care system!"

...so I guess there will be no Shadowrun Swimsuit edition.

I ruled that because the acid rain was so frequent and a regular part of life, combined with the ash storms that armor and clothing all got chemical resistance 1 for free. It just makes sense to have a product out there that doesn't melt off your body while you're walking down the street. I usually use pollution as a mood setter. If I want the run to have a darker tone then it's ash storms and smoggy. A standard mood is just overcast or slightly smoggy which can mean using a respirator if you want but not necessary.

Actually you should look into the ash stuff more in puyallup. It's nasty. It's not paper ash - it's volcanic ash. Look it up. It is basically volcanic glass shards that you are breathing in. It screws up cars and will grind down things. It's dangerous stuff. The homeless would often be wandering around bleeding from it. Welcome to a dark grey hell.

Nice idea - did not think of incorporating acid rain so far. Also nice touch to add chemical protection 1 for free.

I think no sane person ever took allergy: pollutants under SR2. Too much time in the sewers.

And remember, if the clothes melt off your body, you can go to a vending machine and get a new set for a few nuyen.

...it's not so much the clothes as it is the skin melting off one's body.

Doesn't matter how good looking a model is if she is covered in rashes and blisters from exposure to the rain. I could almost see Victorian bathing suits making a comeback.

Maybe a Shadowrun Hazmat Suit Edition would be more appropriate.

Screw Hazmat suits, XE all the way.

...yeah, but until Arsenal comes out, hazmat's the best you can get for now...

Acid rain isn't going to melt the clothes off of you for drek's sake. If you're not covered up or not wearing appropriate clothing its going to become an irritant though, certainly worth some die penalties depending on saturation and duration along with possible allergies.

When it's raining, you wear a coat, problem solved, just like in real life. If acid rain was melting clothes without chem seals cars and their wheels wouldn't last through more than a couple storms.

...said Captain Literal.

"....tonight's Acid Rain Index for the greater Seattle-Tacoma area will be at 4.3, so the Metroplex Department of Health advises all pedestrians to wear their Totes ™RainSlikkers™ if their attending the Concrete Dreams Farewell Tour XII concert broadcast tonight at Dante's Inferno. Totes, for your rainy-day protection; a subsidiary of Artes macrotechnology."