I'm about to wrap up my 1st PbP game (3 years 10 months total running time) here on Dumpshock and I'm eager to get my next game up and going.

The premise is a group of runners have been recruited to strike hard and deep against the Yakuza in Seattle. You will be receiving intelligence from a mysterious Johnson (chessy I know but go with it) who seems to have an inside track with the Yaks. I'm looking for character submissions with a strong background reason for wanting to engage in a shadow war with the Yakuzas. I am envisioning a group of veteran shadow operators that have finally reached a point where they can move against the Yakuza and possibly survive the fall out from it. Since this thread will be a little more hardcore than my last one I am upping the starting karma for this one. This thread will be intertwined with the story going on in Dancing within the Void. It won't be necessary to read the other but I think you'll get more out of the game if you follow it.

400 build points then add 300 karma after creation to spend to improve the character. You will also receive an additional 200k nuyen to buy gear and outfit yourself. Please keep it resonable with the gear - I don't want to see someone running around in all delta ware. Free contact points = 2 x your base, natural Charisma, obviously you can purchase more if desired.

I'll be running the game with an over-arcing story line in mind. This means I expect it to cover several runs, not just one. I'm expecting, based on the normal pacing of the boards, that it will go on for a couple of years. From previous experience on the boards, I'm also sure I'll lose some people. Critical mass in my mind is 5 players so when I lose 2 or more players, I'll put out a call for new ones.

Every player will be expected to post at least two times a week. Action will move forward, to some degree, every week. I'll set a target goal for where we should be at by the end of the week, and if we're not there, I'll take it upon myself to bump forward the action to the stated goal, playing PC characters as necessary. I will be selecting a leader/spokesperson for the runners who I can look to to make final decisions before I bump the thread forward. If you fail to post the minimum amount for at least three consecutive weeks, I'll find someone to replace you in the game. Yes, real life stuff comes up, and you're welcome to talk to me about it if something does come up. Real life happens and should always come first.

Please feel free to post concepts here or email characters to me at Wayfarer72@gmail.com for review or post here with any questions you might have. Thanks!

Chipping in with Bakatare, hermetic mage with too much experience with supernatural creatures and a bent towards technology.

I have an idea I've been tossing around that might fit well. I'll see if I can get it finished up and submitted today.

I have an idea for a gunslinger adept, that I will work up.

I'll throw in either Antony or Rayne depending on the final team composition.

Antony is a brick-house street sam--take an assault cannon round to the chest and keep moving. Dual Wield Monowhip death.

Rayne is a phys-ad ninja killer type, predominantly melee. Focus is on paranormal threats and magic-users who dabble in things they shouldn't.

This sounds like fun.

I have a couple characters that with some work would be fun to play.

The first is a dwarven Street Sam/Ex- Corp Courier. (a walking arsenal)

The other is a smooth talking Adept. (my concern with this one is my writing skills may not be up to how good he really is)

What kind of time frame are you looking for on completed characters? Have a few holiday things to finish up before I could update the builds.

Thanks

JD

I'm thinking about bumping Ammon (elven mage from New Moon) up for the game...

Excellent question! *blush*

I will be accepting character concepts until Jan 14th then I will make my selection from the ones submitted.

I would love to see New Moon characters pop up here so feel free.

I've always received some questions about newer players submitting characters and I am completely fine with that. I use the OOC thread to hash out mechanics and never hesitate to ask questions and get help/feedback. I'm a GM who feels that part of my role is to educate and help players learn the game so it does not bother me at all.

I'm fine with using any materials from the 4th edition source books that are out. I will be deciding on optional rules as they come up in the game.

Toying with the idea of: Eddee "Krossfire" Gates, a troll gunbunny/meat shield formly from the seattle metro police.

or

Kai "Demonrogue" Allard, a troll conjurer formerly of the Nishidon-gumi - orphaned during "the schism" brought about by Hanzo Shotozumi.

Do you have any optional rules with the matrix (such as the common logic + hacking limited by program) or do you play is straight down the line?

I'm thinking an korean or chinese ex crime family member with a long running rivalry with the yakuza who's spent several years as a shadow operator after a yakuza/his crime family drug deal went badly wrong, and he absconded with all the money and all the drugs and framed the yaks, who know it was him and are extremely pissed off about it.

His career as a shadow operator has been punctuated by bouts of yakuza instigated clockwork orange style ultra violence, and he can see significant personal advantage if a whole bunch of yakuza get shot as part of an internal power struggle.

(I'm trying to think of a motivation other than killed family/partner/friend and its tough. Hopefuly I'll come up with something better)

The man himself is a scheming, lying, double dealing trickster with a strong aptitude for both magic and technology, firmly believing that the old elemental spirits are the 'old world' and the 'new magic' of technology is the way of the future.

Kinda thinking Odin from American gods, but instead of being the old ways, he is the *new* way.

Thanks for the info on the Deadline.

I've looked over stuff and I'm thinking I will be doing my best to get my Elven Social Adept bumped up and ready to go. It's just alot of work to go from 12 Karma to 300.

JD

For now I have been playing with the straight from the book rules since I haven't had a lot of hackers in my games yet but I am totally open to trying things out.

I'll be using either Jim, my matrix specialist/jack of all trade. Or Jack, my heavy weapons/explosives expert. This brings up a few questions for me though. First, like Cthulhudreams, I'd like to know if your using any special matrix rules or not. Second, I'm curious if I would be allowed to buy Heavy weaponry (read rocket launcher and rockets) with that starting money. Third, I was wondering if you would mind using a nanohive rework I came up with http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?showtopic=19919 (look down about 8 posts for the most recent version.) Fourth, will using heavy weapons be an option at all, or is it pointless to try? (Such as being required to not use lethal force. I'm willing to accept some trouble moving the stuff around, but your not going to totally squash me on it are you?)

I think those are all the questions I have for the moment.

Ok I just flipped through the matrix section of the main book and didn't see the optional rule mentioned, can any of you point me in the right direction?

I am completely fine with heavy weapons, while every run may not be the one to use rocket launchers there will be runs where you all will get to use big guns. You are trying to gut the Seattle branch of the Yakuza.

I am going to so no now to custom items like the nanohive since I haven't run very much in the new edition and want to get a better handle on the game before I start tinkering, sorry.

I'm not even sure it's in the book, it's just a popular house rule round the dumpshock way

I don't want to look like I'm pressuring you to do something, just that the matrix is an area that tends to attract house rules so if I'm thinking of throwing down a matrix-y guy it behoves me to ask.

Next question anyway: If we've got 300 karma, can I be assumed to have broken the copy protection on my software?

Ok, as you may have seen I started a thread asking for suggestions on building my character for this game.

I was given two suggestions I wanted to check on.

#1 - Joining an Initiation Group (Street Magic page 62)
A. is this ok?

Also, looking through the grops I don't see one ofthe pre-made ones that really fits my character (at least on first glance) so I made need a custom made one.
B. Would I or you be developing that group? (I'm fin either way, just want to cover it all at the begining)

#2 - Doing Ordeal - This ok?
It looks like the Meditation Ordeal would be the one I would use.

Thanks

JD

Taking on the Yaks?
Sounds like a blast - count me in (in case there's still room/I get accepted, anyway).
I take the fact that your last game managed to stay alive so long and even reach conclusion as a very good omen btw.

I have several char hooks in my mind atm (working hard on concept crystallization), and some clarifications would help a lot:

1. Are the additional 200k after basic 400BP chargen or can they be included at this point?

2.

All great questions.

The additional 200k is after the basic 400 BP chargen.

The reasonable part was for after chargen, follow the normal rules for the 400 BP portion in regards to gear and availability. So to clarify I wanted to avoid characters chocked full of delta grade cyber or bioware. I wanted you all to be prime runners since you would be tackling a crime syndicate but I do want to avoid almost cyber zombies and mages with Rating 10 power foci. Reasonable for me is a few pieces of elite gear (some beta ware, a Rating 5 power foci. etc) with the rest being above average (armor, guns, etc). I'm not going to just reject a character submission back because of a miscommunication. I'm the type of GM that would talk to you about it, to see if the adjustments I need to bring the character in line with my game idea would still make the character compelling enough for you to want to play it. Does that make sense?

As for the matrix rule I would like to stick with the base rules for now until I have a little more experience under my belt with running hackers/riggers/technomancers. I was referring to the optional rules they provide in sourcebooks when I stated I was okay with different rules, sorry for the confusion. Since my intention with this thread is to run at least as long as my last one, I am completely open to the idea of revisiting it after a bit. My hesitation is I hate games where things are tossed out but the GM didn't really consider the impact and then yanks it away when they discover it doesn't quite work for their games so I'm trying to avoid that situation.

Initiation Groups are fine with me, feel free to use the ones in the book but if making a custom one make sure you flesh it out. I'm not looking for a group that is only there for you to get the discount. I would require the group to have some purpose and sincere connection to the character, they are doing all sorts of intimate magicky things together. Ordeals are fine though I would prefer a little back story to go with them since they represent a significant experience for the character so be prepared to add a little substance for each ordeal.

Same for contacts and flaws, I will use them in the game so consider them carefully and I will reject flaws that aren't really flaws (allergy to tanning lotions as an example). As far as limits on initiations, if you choose to spend all your karma on doing that - perfectly fine with me.

Copy protection is a question that has come up before and I have had a character do it as a hacker (my only one so far to have in my games) and it really didn't bother me or wreck the game so have at it.

Thanks for asking questions all.

Hey there, I'd love to play if you'll have me; I'm pretty new to play-by-post games but not to SR in general. I'd love to play a wujen (easier to write up a background for, I'm sure; seoulpa rings & former triad guys don't get along with the yaks for obvious reasons) or maybe even an Aztec or Islamic tradition magician (harder to justify, but damn do I LOVE those traditions!) if at all possible. Also, what level of "grit" do you usually look for from your campaigns? It's not like I want to create a blood mage (not that I'd complain if you'd let me; after all, what's more vengeful than a pissed off nahuali? ) azzie magician or a baby eating organlegger raised by ghouls, but I've found knowing the "tone" that people are looking for ahead of time smoothes out the character creation process for me, although the vengeance angle already has given me some ideas.

[EDIT] Screw it. I'll probably just write up a kannushi (Shinto Magician).

I'm pretty sure this game will be darker than most since the motivation here is revenge and absolute annihilation of the Yakuza. That being said while I may set the tone it will be the players who take it from there. I prefer to let my players have free will and not railroad them into a storyline.

As for submissions, people are free to submit characters until the deadline of Jan 14th. At that time I will pick characters for the thread so if you're really interested in the game just make sure you send me a completed character by that date.

Please feel free to discuss characters with the other potential players, I like the idea of people have intertwined backgrounds.

Well, in the spirit of potentially collaborating on backgrounds, I'd like to have my magician be a member of Black Star (not the rap duo ) from the Loose Alliances 3rd edition source book. If nothing else this gives me a chance to show Buddha72 my preferred initiatory group and see if he'd be willing to approve.

For those unfamiliar with the group, Black Star is a multi-national but secretive organization of neo-anarchist shadowrunners (the book's shadowtalkers were actually reluctant to give too many details due to professional courtesy!) and has a high percentage of Awakened members (usually chaos mages, coyote shamans and adepts of all types, but they're pretty egalitarian for obvious reasons). They often serve as sort of a black ops training network for up and coming young shadowrunning anarchists and even have an initiatory group jokingly referred to as the Triple-A Club (the Association of Awakened Anarchists). They love to target the corps, so they are obviously not popular with the international law enforcement community and are considered a high-threat terrorist network.

Anyway, it's easy to see why a group like Black Star could have a bone to pick with the Yakuza, since the Yaks are a structured mob of racist and elitist bullies led by a power hungry drekhole called the oyabun who are often not-so-secretly joined at the hip to megacorporate interests. I was thinking that as a prime runner level mage it'd be easy to see my character as waging war against the Yakuza in reprisal for the death of some of his comrades and students in Black Star and the Triple-A. Besides, like I said, it's not hard to imagine the Yakuza and such a group being natural enemies to begin with; whether or not the Yaks realized who they were messing with when they killed a few young punk runners is irrelevant.

Anyway, as far as the Triple-A initiatory group is concerned, I could understand how you may have some misgivings about a magical group made up almost exclusively of shadowrunning anarchists, but I still think there's several strictures that are pretty appropriate for a group of neo-anarchists. Here's a rundown of how I envision them:

The Association of Awakened Anarchists (The Triple-A Club)
Members: Whatever the GM is comfortable with having in the local "chapter". The book doesn't give an exact number, however they are multi-national and have associated runner teams in pretty much all the major runner havens, including Hong Kong, Chicago, Denver, Vladivostok and of course good ol' Seattle.

Strictures: Secrecy (only reveal themselves to trustworthy potential recruits), Belief & Limited Membership (Black Star neo-anarchists; company men and the power hungry need not apply, may not knowingly further oppressive megacorporate/government interests), Fraternity (they're egalitarian; nobody's magical growth is considered any more important than anyone else's; any member can expect help with initiatory ordeals provided they are not putting the group at excessive risk) Service (teach new members, protect allied political radicals, educate the masses, further the cause; sticking it to the man via shadowruns against criminal, corporate and government oppressors often counts towards the 20 hours a week).

Resources/Dues: Strictly voluntary, no official dues, although it'd probably be appropriate for the GM to expect powerful members like the PCs to act as patrons and "voluntarily" contribute what he deems appropriate to the local "chapter" resources, since they're after all true believers in the cause, right? Anyway, the group's primary benefits are initiatory groups and prime runner caliber magicians as mentors and patrons. The last part likely doesn't benefit the PCs that terribly much aside from the initiatory group, however, since they likely ARE some of the local chapter patrons at this point in their careers. Plus, being associated with what amounts to a terrorist cell (even if they do see themselves as a bunch of hoods) is just another one of life's potentially fatal complications.

Whipstich - I need to think on it a little but if Buddha72 is good with your suggested goup, this may not be a bad group for my Social Adept to be from.

It would allow us to do some tie in if you wanted.

JD

Yeah, I wouldn't have a problem with a li'l background intermingling; it'd be fairly easy to justify with the group I mentioned; like I said, they're an egalitarian and multinational group. The only thing needed to be a member is a healthy dose of idealism. Or fanaticism and some guns. However you want to look at it.

A few other details from Loose Alliances. Apparently it's not uncommon for members to learn and adapt Esperanto to shadow slang for use as a "code" language on runs, and it's not uncommon for Awakened members to incorporate various phrases into their centering techniques. It's also worth mentioning that a few members take the idealism pretty far as well; one shadowtalk conversation mentions a mage who debated with their air spirit as to why it was in the spirit's best interest to take out the LoneStar Yellowjacket that was tailing the team. Sort of makes sense to me; even if you believe Spirits are created on the fly by their conjurors, they do after all exhibit a certain amount of sentience, which means by all rights they should be treated as equals regardless of origins.

Of course, nothing says you have to be THAT idealistic, and with a Social Adept it's trivially easy to bring people around to your way of thinking without anything so crass as brute force anyway, right?

Exactly, thats where t power is, getting people to do what you want with out holding a gun to their head.

I'm actually trying to work on a customer group that i'm going to float by Buddha72 once I finsh it.

I'll let you know as soon as I know what i'm doing.

Thanks for the additional details and examples.

JD

This group definitely makes for a great tie to pull the characters together as a team.
So to kick out some details about my proposed character: He is a nearly 40 elven initiate grade shaman who has masking/ext masking and makes heavy use of Physical Mask to move about and blend. He doesn't have a mentor and a quirk about him is that he has been seeking the call of a totem, without success for over two decades. I'm still working on his personal motivation to hate the Yakuza. I could see his initial draw to the group being in support of eco-terrorism against corporations.

Tradition as always is the trickiest part for me to decide since it's so integral to the magician's outlook. I'd kill for a materialization tradition with Task Spirits, but such an option is conspicuously absent from Street Magic. Most likely I will be a Nahuali with the Adversary Mentor which is represented by his spirit twin the jaguar.

The group looks fine and its structure allows for the characters to be diverse but still have a unifying theme or goal, works for me.

I really like that initiatory group as well, and am rethinking the characters motives and morals to align with it.

I've nearly finished my character design, but I am running two points of karma over because I forgot the 5 points of karma to join an initiatory group And I'm slightly too poor to afford all the programs I need to be an effective hacker.

The basic concept is for an ally spirited up dual initiate hacker/rigger/conjurer who believes that elementals are 'old skool' (sic) and god truly comes from the machine. I sort of initally envisaged him as a technomancer, but I cannot really make that fly, so went back to a mage. Possibly going to try a custom tradition so I can ditch the elemental spirits and empower drones with sprites, but could also drop some of that language and use chaos magic.

I'm assuming joining the group doesn't cost Karma if the character in question isn't awakened yes?

Anyway, unless we find ourselves in need of a good hacker (I'm looking at you Cthulhudreams) I'll be running Hads (Previously called Jack), who is a heavy weapons expert, as well as demolitionist. I'll have to figure out why exactly he would be in the group or hate the yaks, but I think it will work out well.

Oh, and a quick question: are we allowed to use phobias/manias? I've already given Hads pyromania (Couldn't find the term spesificly for explosions, so that will have to do) but I can take it off if you want.

I'll also write up my hacker, just in case we find we need him. (And because I'm curious as to how he does with 300 karma and 200k put into him.)

edit: Argh I forgot first aid. Gragh.

Edit: It looks like I'm going to have to throw the traditional rigging (jump into a steel lynx with a gunnery score of a million and blow things away) overboard, I am struggling to make the character stretch that far. I'll still have drones though, just not gunnery and a high pilot score

Edit2: The rigging is back with gunnery 6 and the ballistics spec and pilot 4, and I managed to find points for biotechnology group 1!

To some degree we should also have some common contacts, at least for runs. To that end I submit for your approval. I am flexible on the connection rating [4 or 5] and am looking for guidance from Buddha72 on that. I was inspired to Victor given the description of Black Star.

Fixer [R4] Victor Legos
Victor has been a fixture in the Seattle Shadows for the better part of a decade, growing his network each year. He specializes in runs against corporations and given the details some rumor his primary clients are in fact more governments than other corporations.

Much as I think having the same contacts makes sense from an in game perspective, from an out of game perspective it is alot of points burnt in order to have everone know the same person.

I mean, why should each person in a 7 memeber group spend the 7 points to have this guy as a contact, when only one could have him, and the other six could all have 1-3 other contacts. Thus for 7 points per member we could either have 1 guy we can all turn to individually, or we can have 7-20 guys we can turn to as a group, though it would take different team members for each guy.

Now, do keep in mind that contacts can be made in game too. So maybe the one guy who spends 7 points to get this guy, can then introduce everyone else to him, then we all get him as a loyalty 1 contact. Same can be done with other contacts to some degree.

Whiskey
Concept: Pistol Adept. Former Hong Kong Police Officer turned Neo Anarchist Shadow Runner.

Background: Whiskey used to be one of those self diluted investigators, working for Mitsuhama. He was good at what he did, a little too good in fact. It was in the last days of Mitsuhama's hold on security. He was working on the Yakuza Squad, working to pin back the influence of those criminal organization. He really believed that he was doing the right thing and went home to his wife and child each night a happy man.

It all changed one night, as he was sitting down for dinner. His house was stormed by thugs, and while he managed to kill a number of them he was still shot down. As he lay bleeding they ended his world in front of his eyes. Ares had made a deal with the Yak's, giving them the names they needed in return for them causing enough trouble to get them the Security contract.

A neighbor who had been a combat vet managed to save him and got him treatment. He came to later to find that he was out of a job. Abandoned by everyone, his neighbor took him in. He was the introduction to Black Star. Whiskey would begin again, not for hope but rather for revenge.

@Karaden
My intent was from a story perspective, not from a point counting one. I'm willing to sacrifice points to intertwine backgrounds. Not a problem if we don't.

@Toras
Very close to a concept I was working up. My shaman favors masking to obscure his identity and has been known by a number of street names. When his girlfriend and child were killed by the Yakuza (she was Japanese) for reasons as yet unknown to him he took a new street name, Godzilla. Hunting Yakuza is his primary method of grieving.... and he has a lot of grief to work through.

I don't think black star is really -that- organized. They're secretive neo-anarchists, after all. They're affiliated but I imagine there's likely a lot of different goals.

I don't know about you, but my character is shaping up to be so hardcore that we are likely to be the chapter leadership for black star, and as such we'd probably want to know several fixers between us.
Edit: This character that was here is now dead.

@Buddha72... Just wondering if you got my PM on the group I was looking to use?

Thanks

JD

Fairly cool, but two quick questions:

1. What do you mean by having your hacking tasks 'backed up by another 12 dice'?

2. Well, more of a statement, but drones can't mount HMGs, unless I've missed something perhaps? Would be really handy to be able to do though.

Ok, I suppose I'll go ahead and put what I have on Hads, though I know his background needs a bit more fleshing out.

Hads - human heavy weapons expert.

Hads was an experiment by Ares in creating soldiers. Not the generic type you may think of from old flatvid movies like star wars, but the kind that are spesificly good at something, and good at working with a small group of similar individuals. Special forces teams, perfected from birth and before to work together, to each be good at spesific tasks, for a team to be able to handle absolutely any situation that came their way.

Hads was picked from his parentage, had his genes modified before birth. His role was that of heavy weapons and demolitions. Even his name reflects this, Hads is actually an acronim (Heavy Assult and Demolition Specilist).

Unfortently, if anything, the experement went too well. Each member of the group was a true mast at what they did, always able to support one another and able to work in perfect harmony. The conditioning they had gone through made them enjoy their work too much however. After Hads took down half a building to eliminate his target, Ares decided that the team was getting out of control. Ares set up their team to take a fall at the hands of the Yakuza.

Providing their team with plenty of false data, and the Yakuza with all the right data, Ares was able to ensure the destruction of their team.. almost. Hads alone managed to survive, though it cost him his left foot, a large explosion of his own design catching him, though it managed to secure his escape.

Having lost his team, and his support by Ares, Hads didn't know what to do on his own. Being SINless and never having learned how to operate in 'proper' society, he only had one true option, to sell off his weaponry skills to those who would pay for it. Eventually he was found by Black Star, his often reckless methods seeming to have drawn them to him. He quickly proved himself among them, his methods often over the top, but always effective. It may not be nice and quiet, but if you wanted to ensure someone died, Hads was the one to call.

There you have it. I'll send in the sheet as soon I've shored up his stats a bit (Strength came out lower then I wanted) and spent about 40k on ammo

Here are the notes I made looking it over. I would definitely be interested to see your point break down.

PM your email address I'm mail you the sheet - its in excel with my karma advancement plan in the 'margins'

I'll fix the incompetences, thanks, I forgot that. Edit: Fixed.

You're correct about the summong pool, I goofed because I'd added gunnery, and taken the points of conjuration, but forgot to change my highlights scream sheet. But you missed I had a power focus, so we're both wrong! Whoops.

It's actually 13 to cast and conjure with 14 points of drain resistance. I'll go fix that.

Edit: Fixed.

I've taking the maximum magic hit and then initiated 3 times to compensate, so my max magic goes down 4, (while, because I've cheesed it, my current magic goes 2 -> 1 -> 2 -> 1 -> 7, hence my question about advancement), then back up to 7. I'm not sure what the best way to represent that is (or even fi I am allowed too), magic 7 seems like an issue.

Edit: Outstanding still.

Sheet offer still stands, but my BP breakdown

Build Points
Stats 70
Race 25
Edge 0
Magic 29
Skills 234
Know./Lang. Points 26 /-27
Positive Qualities 25
Negative Qualities -35
Resources 50
Contacts(House Rule) 4 /-2
Total 400 / 400

And my Karma Breakdown

120 advancing stats other than magic
178 advancing magic, initiating and my ally spirit
2 points for specing ballistics

All the cash is on the equipment, if you want price lists, fire me your email.

I guess I've lost my ability to read. What ware do you have?

*edit* I mean seriously, how can I be missing 4 essesnce worth of ware on your character?

Yes I have paid to advance my magic stat to make up for that loss - a total of 178 karma has gone into magic on this guy

Karaden: This is why I post my sheets for early critique! I've forgotten to add it, it is

Control Rig
Pain Editor
Platelet Factories
Cerebral Booster 3
Datajack
Cybereye Rating 3
-Thermographic Vision
-Vision Enhancment 3
-Smartlink
-Flare Compensation

I'll update the first post. Thanks for the shout out. (it's only a bit under 2 essence though

Edit: Redjack the sheet is in your box.