Well, he did have some sort of non-tech connection, though it seems very basic. Remember from when he destroyed those hunter-seeker bots at the end of the second movie?

Except that mages can use a skill (in game effect) to look at a person to figure out their exact essence score. Oh, and most everyone knows when they can't take any more and that if they do either they die, or they have a mage on hand to turn them into a cyberzombie.

They can overcast CF? I don't see that in core, am I missing it?

How could a hacker not get the same skillsofts for kungfu?

Threading.

That and the "blind-but-can-see" scenes lend credence to the theory/interpretation that we as the movie goer never saw the "real world" in those films. Instead Zion and the machine city were another layer of the Matrix.

Otherwise the movies make no damn sense.

Okay, I misunderstood what the poster meant. Thanks.

Heh... Or you could just look at a guy and notice that he's got two replacement limbs, cyber eyes, and skin that doesn't look quite normal.

Mages... Always trying to light fire from their fingertips when there's a perfectly good book of matches sitting right there.

I dunno. It's a simple balancing mechanic in my games, nothing more. Casting a spell like the one you just mentioned seems about as helpful as casting a detect evil spell in Ravenloft ("Great. The land itself is evil. Way to blow a spell for the day, wizard.").

A lot of cyberware is internal or well concealed.

Sure, but as a runner, you should probably be going off the assumption that everyone is packing some kind of internal hardware that can lay waste to you if given a chance. After all, it's better to suspect everyone of carrying a gun than to let your guard down.

This is what I meant: Neo could easily insert a chip in his head (actually a chip on a computer conected to him by a datajack) and learn kung fu through a skillsoft. A technomancer can't do that without skillware, unless he learns the emulation echo (or something similar, it is in Unwired) and now he can use skillsofts.
The point of essence. Since there is magic AND astral perceptions, souls become a really real thing (although only a small percent of people can see it), using the concept of "improving your body with tech defiles your soul" is not cheesy, it is a good mechanical way to balance things and is completely acceptable by the context of the universe.

That and a cyberarm isn't always 1 essence.

I didn't mean essence itself is cheesy, but the way it is tracked is. Specifically things like replacing your bones with titanium or plastic resulting in different amounts of defilement.

For a standard Shadowrun game I tend to not use...

1.) Heavy use of metavariants outside of their home region. Having a distinct look is rarely a good thing for a shadowrunner. It's a lot easier to track someone down, when they one of only a few dozen members of their kind in the city.

2.) SURGE. I've resented it since it was introduced. It doesn't fit my view of the setting at all... So it is exceptionally rare in my games, except for in specific mana-rich areas of the world.

3.) Hacking (up until 4e).

...and I think that's about it.

Now I have also made up my own history for a cyberpunk-meets-magic (only the magic is less tolkien fantasy and more "the gates to the 9 hells have opened and the end times are upon us") campaign setting. It's a totally different alternate history/future that ultimately ends up in much the same place though maybe slightly more post-apocalyptic. A few races got dumped, others got revised/reskinned... and I've got a shadowrun that uses a brand of fantasy I enjoy a little more personally. The demon hordes make the area you know as the NAN uncrossable and uninhabitable, California remains safe due to the pact it's leadership made with the devils (reskinned orcs), tentacled elder things that incite madness have claimed Chicago, and so on... It's still very much in development, and admittedly a vanity project that'll likely not see much play.

You might like Alpha Omega then. As that is the backstory. There's also less SURGE stuff (there are a whole list of qualities that fall under "genetic deviations" but are more in line with "you have a better respiratory system, so you don't get fatigued as easily" to "your nervous system SUCKS, penalty to initiative and you always go last in the first round") and hacking is basically non-existent.

An object enchanted to help focus one's power is quite different than... "Here, paint yourself with this. Now you have Hardened Armor, Mystic Armor, and can hear really well." WTF? But if you want to gear up your adventuring party by heading to the lore store to pick up some healing potions and such, be my guest. This example is probably the worst, but they're not all this bad.

Maybe the plastic is made with real humans? Organi-plas?

*gasp* You've never seen Big Trouble In Little China?

I refuse to allow any of my players to use the vampire or nosferatu infected. After watching one Vampire and one Nosferatu use their powers to get through everything in almost no time, and use the corp sec against each other, and slip around obstacles in mist form, and eventually end with the entire group getting infected.. Ended up throwing vampire hunter after vampire hunter at them until a hastily statted DeVries turned up waged his own guerrilla war.

Oh, and drakes. I like the idea, but too underpowered thanks to implants not working. I understand why, but still. Especially for 130 karma.

Edit: Hm, that's an idea. Do genetech optimizations work in drake form?

I wouldn't allow pixies as player characters and have never included them in game as NPCs. It's not anything I've really thought about before though, to be honest. I guess they just bug me-- "dystopia" and "pixie" just aren't concepts that mesh well together in my head.

I'm going to WTF that statement to because AFAIK that kind of manatech doesn't exist.



I would hazzard yes. Mind, they still cost essence, so if you want to spend the BP to raise magic an extra point....
Also: I figure SURGE works in both forms to, to some degree. Current character has chameleon skin, extravagant eyes, cat-like, and albinism.* All of the effects of which make sense to work in both forms without too much of a stretch.

*I figure that he's not actually stark white, due to the chameleon skin, but that sunlight causes sunburns, etc. Same penalties, but no obvious visual recognition.

I don't use:

Surge
Otaku PCs
4th Edition (not because I hate it or love 1/2/3rd, just that I have most of the 1/2/3rd books)

Street Magic p88, Spirit Strength.

"Shouldn't exist," I would say.

Touche.

Now, based on the rules surrounding them, they should be really fucking rare as it takes a mage (rare) 28 full days to make one dose. The availability rating (16F) does make it a tad difficult to get a hold of, although with its price cost, the interval on the "find it" check is only 2 days. However I would say that the last three price modifiers would always be in effect:

Market monopolized (there are going to be very few magicians who spend 28 days making the stuff, and they'd probably band together)
Law enforcement crackdown (the stuff is fucking forbidden!)
Market dry (it takes a month to make one dose)

There is a sidebar section that gamemasters should think before including them, so....yeah.

It's nice to see someone offering ways to handle objectionable content which don't involve banning it outright.

I agree. In fact, it's nice to see someone using the built-in limitations (granted sometimes more fluffy than chunky) as they should be used, thereby making objectionable content manageable.

Keep in mind though as well that some Awakened are Aspected Enchanters or simply aren't very proficient at other forms of magic due to personal hangups, laziness or simply following relatively limited magical traditions, in which case having them devote their time to making things like Spirit Strength may actually be a pretty worthwhile use of their time. Admittedly, that's probably pretty rare, but it does help explain why the stuff is very rare and hard to get a hold of instead of practically not existing.

Point, which of course, just backs up mine.
There are few who would be willing to devote that time, and of those many are likely as you said: all they can do.

I don't ban it outright, I just explain to the player that we're not playing D&D, and they shamefully withdraw the request. And if they insist, I let them do it anyway, because even though I'm the GM, it's not my game, it's our game. Or in the case of monofilament chainsaws, they order them because they know how much I hate them!

Chainsword
Monofilament Chainsaw (1 Reach; 5P; -2 AP) [4, 350]
[1 Slot] R1 Custom Look (Sword) [2, 100]
[1 Slot] Personalized Grip [2, 100]
[1 Slot] Reduced Weight [6, 350]
[1 Slot] Gecko Grip [6, 100] (+6 Str vs. Disarm)
[1 Slot] Skinlink [6, 50] (+4 Str vs. Disarm)
[- Slots] Lanyard [10]
Av: 6
Cost: 1,060
Notes: Because of the custom look (sword) and reduced weight, the -2 penalty on attack rolls and parry tests should be negated.

Thankfully most of my players have been around since SR1 or SR2 and can explain everything to the newbies. With the rich background of the shadowrun setting, we don't have much problems using almost everything as canon.

Minor changes for purposes of the game were introduced, such as many part-blood Amerindians (even those that are very diluted) that 'feel' their ancestry, going to join the various NANs. The Vancouver Metroplex and the Seattle Metroplex are both UCAS territory. The VITAS plague wiping out 25% of the population (or more) mostly in heavily settled areas (i.e. cities) with lesser effects on loose ranging folks. Oh, and just to make things fun, a portion of New York/New Jersey is now home to a large semi-independent black state (named Harlem of course).

You could use the reach and personalised grip to negate it sans handwavium.