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streetangelj
I’ve added the following Qualities to my game. (Admittedly, I just modified other people’s work here, but I think it’s cool to have a Bounty Hunter or Gang after you or have a Patron or Gang willing to help you.)

Enemies: (variable) – You have made someone or some people mad in the past either through extreme failure or too much showboating. You now possess an enemy with a Hatred/Connection rating (same as contact rating.) You earn a number of points equal to the Hatred + Connection rating.

Hunted: (10/15/20/25) – You pissed someone off and now they are gunning for you (consider them to have hatred/connection ratings like enemies- average total 7). Each level of this quality sends a different level prime runner after you (follow prime runner creation and advancement rules). At 10 points you have a 80% prime runner. At 15 points you have a 100% prime runner. At 20 points you have a 120% prime runner. You can also have groups after you. For 15 points you have a group (4-9) of 50% prime runners. For 20 points you have a group (4-6) of 70% prime runners. For 25 points you have a group (2-4) of 90% prime runners.

Allies: (10/15/20/25) – You’ve got a powerful friend or group of pals that are willing to help you out on occasion (consider them to have a loyalty rating/connection rating like contacts, average total 7). Each level of this quality represents a different level of ally willing to help you (follow prime runner creation and advancement rules). At 10 points you have a 80% prime runner. At 15 points you have a 100% prime runner. At 20 points you have a 120% prime runner. You can also have groups of allies. For 15 points you have a group (4-9) of 50% prime runners. For 20 points you have a group (4-6) of 70% prime runners. For 25 points you have a group (2-4) of 90% prime runners.
Kyoto Kid
...my one issue with the Hunted Quality is that it frequently becomes a negative quality for the rest of team without the other PCs gaining the benefit of the bonus BPs.

For allies I feel this is handled sufficiently through the contact mechanic in the existing rules. The last thing as a GM I want is to run an NPC runner "cavalry" against my bad guy NPCs.
hyzmarca
Gun Bunny, holding a big gun to the back of Hunted Teammate's head: Lisiten, chummer, here's a ten million nuyen bounty on you, dead or alive. So. Well. Frag. You know how this is going to work. We all have bills to pay.
WeaverMount
I've so been there. There have been times that I had to meta-game to keep from TKing my team's sloppy and ineffectual hacker who earned himself a bounty. I even wanted to off him OOC so that he could re-roll and we'd stop getting punked the matrix
Thomas
QUOTE (hyzmarca)
Gun Bunny, holding a big gun to the back of Hunted Teammate's head: Lisiten, chummer, here's a ten million nuyen bounty on you, dead or alive. So. Well. Frag. You know how this is going to work.  We all have bills to pay.

QFT
Cain
Enemies can also be easily abused, as written. There's nothing preventing people from taking a bunch of 1/1 enemies, or even a 5/1 enemy, with a big mad on but little actual power to do anything.
streetangelj
Well, GM approval of characters can prevent ridiculous abuses and the cavalry may not always be available, especially if they're very effective (represented by higher connection ratings). I found the Contact system a little lacking if you wanted to build a gang lieutenant for example, unless you dumped inordinate amounts of points into contacts, thats why I converted the Allies Advantage from GURPS, basing it off the already written Hunted Quality. I can see the point about Hunted being a flaw for people who don't get BP for it, but a lot of Neg. Qualities are like that.
Cain
If you want to be a gang lieutenant, or a Mafia made man, or a Yakuza soldier, you can simply buy a Gang or Crime Boss at Loyalty 6. That way, you're strong within the organization, and can call upon its resources when necessary, by asking the Boss for what you need.
Marwynn
If it's not abused it can be a great little in-between-runs filler and advancement for roleplaying.

Though I didn't get any points for it my background has my ex-ganger/ex-PR corp guy/ex-wagemage making a lot of enemies along the way. Some of whom used to be friends and part of his extended guanxi network in Hong Kong.

Having some rank 1 nobodies come after you is trivial, sure. But if they all band together and get wise? Surely they have their own connections and people who owed them favours, so you can imagine my character's surprise when he made his way back to one of his low-lifestyle safehouses to find his hidden drones squealing warnings. This was right after a run too and he was low on ammo, patches, and a bit high up on stun damage from casting.

Took out one of the more powerful guys and now they're after him too, so it could snowball into something much more dangerous.

This of course has attracted the attention of those who also dislike my character's enemies.

However, as he says, "The enemy of my enemy is my enemy's enemy; no more, no less." Lots of backstabbing action and mistrust... all for the filler!

Think I can beg for more BP? We're still in the prelim stages after all...
hyzmarca
QUOTE (Cain @ Aug 20 2007, 12:15 AM)
Enemies can also be easily abused, as written.  There's nothing preventing people from taking a bunch of 1/1 enemies, or even a 5/1 enemy, with a big mad on but little actual power to do anything.

A 5/1 enemy can pretty well shoot you in the head. Who needs elaborate revenge plots and excessive string-pulling when shooting in the head is so much simpler and easier.
I'd just shoot in the head in that situation, with a sniper rifle or possibly a drone if I had the spare income.

Of course, there are an infinite number of revenge plots that require only the bare minimum of connections. The Kansas City Shuffle, for example, only requires one infamous assassin contact.

Come on now. Not every revenge-driven enemy has to be the Count of Monte Cristo. The Count of Monty Cristo, in fact, had an absurdly over-elaborate revenge plot.
The best revenge is not living well, friends. The best revenge is killing with guns. And it is a rather inexpensive revenge, too.
kzt
As the Evil Overlords handbook points out: "Shooting is not too good for my enemies.".
kzt
I have considered having a fairly ineffectual hunter modeled after Carie Fisher from the "Blues Brothers" chasing my character in a game.
Cain
QUOTE (hyzmarca @ Aug 19 2007, 11:45 PM)
QUOTE (Cain @ Aug 20 2007, 12:15 AM)
Enemies can also be easily abused, as written.  There's nothing preventing people from taking a bunch of 1/1 enemies, or even a 5/1 enemy, with a big mad on but little actual power to do anything.

A 5/1 enemy can pretty well shoot you in the head. Who needs elaborate revenge plots and excessive string-pulling when shooting in the head is so much simpler and easier.
I'd just shoot in the head in that situation, with a sniper rifle or possibly a drone if I had the spare income.

Of course, there are an infinite number of revenge plots that require only the bare minimum of connections. The Kansas City Shuffle, for example, only requires one infamous assassin contact.

Come on now. Not every revenge-driven enemy has to be the Count of Monte Cristo. The Count of Monty Cristo, in fact, had an absurdly over-elaborate revenge plot.
The best revenge is not living well, friends. The best revenge is killing with guns. And it is a rather inexpensive revenge, too.

The problem is, with a 5/1 enemy, they not only lack the resources to track you down, they need to make Connection tests to even lay hands on a gun to shoot you with. Sure, you can artificially contrive up a few situations where the PC just happens to fall in the Enemy's lap, but those should be infrequent at best.

With Connection 1, you're going to be lucky to lay hands on a sniper rifle, or a combat drone, let alone have the skill or software to operate it. And then, you'd have to use that Connection of 1 to get accurate real-time data on the location of a paranid shadowrunner, who's most likely taking precautions against snipers. Not bloody likely.

I've pulled this trick many times, and if you're following the same rules for enemies that you are for contacts, some things are just impossible to pull off. About the worst they can do is trash the character's reputation, except with Connection 1, few people are going to be listening....
hyzmarca
You mean that a Connections 1 character does not understand the concept of stores? You mean that a Connections 1 character cannot use the Yellow Pages? That he can't go to the mall? That he's never heard of things called Pawn Shops?
He can go into Wal-Mart and buy a sniper rifle and a combat drone, assuming that he has a SIN.

But, to be realistic, an enemy will have his own stats, including social stats, which he could use to make social tests, in addition to his connections.
Bira
You just have to define what Connection means for enemies. "Hatred", I guess, would be what the enemy wants to do to the character, and Connection is what resources he can spare for this.

Me, I'd say a Connection 1 enemy is just one guy, about equal to the character in personal power (or else he wouldn't be worth any points at all). Higher ratings mean it's either an organization or a more powerful guy with access to his own goons.

Hatred 1 means he's content with spreading bad rumors. Higher ratings go from "total humiliation", to "maim", "kill" and "kill his family while he watches, then kill him".
WeaverMount
The way I use enemies in my game is to let players exceed the BP cap for starting cash if they want to. However all the EQ over the first 50 is considered super hot. Someone wants it back and you dead. I abstract the amount of heat giving the amount they exceed the cap. One of my characters is a rigger with a stolen bull dog. That draws attention and he has to be real careful where he parts it, but thats about it. I also have 350,000 nuyen rouge cyborg and Man-O-Man does Proteus Subsystems want him back.
Cain
QUOTE (hyzmarca)
You mean that a Connections 1 character does not understand the concept of stores? You mean that a Connections 1 character cannot use the Yellow Pages? That he can't go to the mall? That he's never heard of things called Pawn Shops?

According to RAW, nope. Especially if the player is careful enough to define the enemy as having no SIN, like a squatter or something. With a connection rating of 1, he'll be lucky to buy a fake SIN, let alone a permit.

QUOTE

He can go into Wal-Mart and buy a sniper rifle and a combat drone, assuming that he has a SIN.

But, to be realistic, an enemy will have his own stats, including social stats, which he could use to make social tests, in addition to his connections.

You can't go into Wal-Mart and buy a sniper rifle today, so why should you be able to in 2070? You can buy a high powered hunting rifle, but that's hardly the same thing. I'll let the gun experts explain the difference.

But anyway, by the numbers, a Connection 1 contact is useful only for information. To reverse that for Enemies, he'd only be able to research stuff, and not be able to act on it. To do otherwise would mean you're artifically pumping up the power of the Enemies, past what an equivalent Contact could do.
Glyph
QUOTE (WeaverMount)
... 350,000 nuyen rouge cyborg

What? A rouge cyborg? So, was he part of a sentai team?

"We have the blue cyborg, and the gold cyborg, and the green cyborg, but until we get the rouge cyborg back, they can't combine and form one giant cyborg!"


You know, that would actually be a pretty cool background for a cyborg. cyber.gif
DireRadiant
QUOTE (Glyph)
QUOTE (WeaverMount)
... 350,000 nuyen rouge cyborg

What? A rouge cyborg? So, was he part of a sentai team?

"We have the blue cyborg, and the gold cyborg, and the green cyborg, but until we get the rouge cyborg back, they can't combine and form one giant cyborg!"


You know, that would actually be a pretty cool background for a cyborg. cyber.gif

All I could think was...

"Why do I got to be Mr Pink?" has a different meaning....
PlatonicPimp
My origional enemies rules existed with the context of some other house rules, notably a karma creation system where contacts cost loyalty X connections. In that instance, a pidly 1/1 enemy gave you a measly 1 Karma. And as the GM, I know that homeless bum who hates you for always stiffing him when he wipes your windsheild will be the one who finds you first when you are dumped bleeding in an alley.
Cain
QUOTE (PlatonicPimp)
And as the GM, I know that homeless bum who hates you for always stiffing him when he wipes your windsheild will be the one who finds you first when you are dumped bleeding in an alley.

That's also artifically pumping the power of an enemy to not be in sync with contacts. Unless you're in the habit of having your 1/1 contacts finding you bleeding in an alley and saving your life, then it's unfair to reverse the process.
Cthulhudreams
QUOTE (Cain @ Aug 21 2007, 01:29 AM)
QUOTE (PlatonicPimp @ Aug 20 2007, 09:18 PM)
And as the GM, I know that homeless bum who hates you for always stiffing him when he wipes your windsheild will be the one who finds you first when you are dumped bleeding in an alley.

That's also artifically pumping the power of an enemy to not be in sync with contacts. Unless you're in the habit of having your 1/1 contacts finding you bleeding in an alley and saving your life, then it's unfair to reverse the process.

Does that matter? Maybe 2 points of 'really angry dude' is balanced vs specialisation: Semi automatic.

There is no actual reason for power of zee bad dudes not to be pumped up, and they don't have to be related to friendly connections.

I mean heck if that 1/1 contact will feed bodies to his pigs and hush it up for money, he's probably worth knowing at some level.
Cain
QUOTE

There is no actual reason for power of zee bad dudes not to be pumped up, and they don't have to be related to friendly connections.

There is if you're balancing them against the level of contacts. A 1/1 Enemy should be exactly as wimpy as a 1/1 Contact.

QUOTE

I mean heck if that 1/1 contact will feed bodies to his pigs and hush it up for money, he's probably worth knowing at some level.

A 1/1 contact probably won't do that for you, and would definitely spill under the slightest sign of pressure. I'd put it at least a L2 or better contact before I'd feel safe having them dispose of bodies for me. A L1 contact might not even *like* you.
hyzmarca
QUOTE (Cain)
You can't go into Wal-Mart and buy a sniper rifle today, so why should you be able to in 2070? You can buy a high powered hunting rifle, but that's hardly the same thing. I'll let the gun experts explain the difference.

The label on the box is often the biggest difference.

700 Remington Model 40x hunting rifle was adopted as a sniper rifle by the USMC during the Vietnam War and designated the M40. The M40A3 currently used by the USMC is a hand-customized version of the same rifle.

mfb
QUOTE (Cain)
You can't go into Wal-Mart and buy a sniper rifle today, so why should you be able to in 2070? You can buy a high powered hunting rifle, but that's hardly the same thing. I'll let the gun experts explain the difference.

in general, there actually isn't much difference. it depends on what you think of as a "sniper rifle". the vast majority of the weapons snipers use have civilian hunting rifle versions. it's only when you get to the insane stuff, the .50 cals and whatnot, that you get into things you can't pick up at Wal-Mart.
NightmareX
QUOTE (Cain)
Enemies can also be easily abused, as written. There's nothing preventing people from taking a bunch of 1/1 enemies, or even a 5/1 enemy, with a big mad on but little actual power to do anything.

Ex-girlfriends wink.gif

But seriously, I see no problem with that.
Cthulhudreams
QUOTE (Cain)
QUOTE

There is no actual reason for power of zee bad dudes not to be pumped up, and they don't have to be related to friendly connections.

There is if you're balancing them against the level of contacts. A 1/1 Enemy should be exactly as wimpy as a 1/1 Contact.

QUOTE

I mean heck if that 1/1 contact will feed bodies to his pigs and hush it up for money, he's probably worth knowing at some level.

A 1/1 contact probably won't do that for you, and would definitely spill under the slightest sign of pressure. I'd put it at least a L2 or better contact before I'd feel safe having them dispose of bodies for me. A L1 contact might not even *like* you.

Would a connections 6 loyalty one fixer spill under the slightest sign of pressure?

I mean, you might have to pay the 'don't spy on me fee' - but his entire role in life depends on him being a trusted source to arrange things.

If he folded the first time lone star came around and asked about those rocket launchers, he wouldn't be a fixer for very long, because lots of people would want him to stop breathing *right now*

Cain
QUOTE
Would a connections 6 loyalty one fixer spill under the slightest sign of pressure?


According to RAW, he would.

Remember, a Loyalty 1 contact doesn't even have to like you. In fact, he could hate your guts, but is willing to work with you because the money's good. Turning over someone you hate for cash? That's just business, and a Connection 6 Fixer might just have made his rep on people he likes.

QUOTE
I mean, you might have to pay the 'don't spy on me fee' - but his entire role in life depends on him being a trusted source to arrange things.

If he folded the first time lone star came around and asked about those rocket launchers, he wouldn't be a fixer for very long, because lots of people would want him to stop breathing *right now*


He wouldn't spill the first time he was under pressure. He'd spill the first time someone asked about *you*, because he's got no real loyalties to you. He might even detest you, and turning you over to Lone Star might brighten his day. He wouldn't outright turn you in, because that's bad for business; but he'd have no qualms about accepting a superior bid or two. He wouldn't turn over his buddies, (those to whom he has a higher Loyalty) but he'd turn over the Loyalty 1's quickly enough.
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