Having been a huge fan of SR1/2 ten or twelve years ago I was really excited by the idea of playing some 4th ed SR. So much so that I offered to GM it. Sadly I have no experience GMing a game and some stuff I'm just plain failing at - please feel free to offer advice!

1). I noticed during character creation that my players simply ignored fairly basic things like buying commlinks, programs, contacts and edge. Having played earlier editions of the game (albeit over ten years ago now) these things just didn't strike the players as important. I imposed various house rules to restrict over spending on skills and attributes but in the end allowed everyone a 450BP character. I suspect this may have been a mistake now since the first 4 missions of the Denver campaign have offered little or no challenges (especially since my shaman can chuck around Lvl12 stun balls [and the player is prepared to take the drain hit for the team] and use spirits to 'conceal' the key team members). I know there is mention of a 'Table Rating' which I am supposed to use to tailor my NPC's to better counter the players - but I don't understand how it works or what 'TR' a party of 450BP characters equates too.

2). I'm finding it hard to obtain basic information about Denver as it exists at the start of the SR Missions campaign. The 4th ed timeline suggests that Aztechnology was pushed out of Denver by a dragon but the Sixth World Wiki suggests that Aztechnology are still present and active there - what am I missing? Is there a comprehensive list of gang territories and maps that is available for the Denver Campaign? Or do I have to construct my own from the mission briefs piecemeal?

3). Decking (sorry) Hacking. My hacker wants to hack everything to the point where he monopolises my time as a GM, effectively slowing the game down as badly as if the party had split up as per the old rules. How do I best convey the world view in such a way as he will recognise when paydata and real opportunities are presented without saying my having to say "Ok Tom - now its your turn" (which would be naff) or "Do you mind me asking what you expect to gain from hacking X? - I'm trying to understand your mindset here" (which is getting old).

4). I can't find what type of gun is used to fire a Narcoject round. Is it a special 'narc'gun? or just a type of chemical ammo for a regular pistol which I assume should then be fitted with a silencer?

Thats all I can think of right now (although I'm sure there is more). Any help is very gratefully appreciated.

.M.

Here's some, hopefully, help for your issues.

1) As a new GM and with a group of new players, I would have recommended a few starter adventures with the pre-gen archetypes found in the main rulebook. Since that cat is now out of the bag, I'd say that 450 BP characters would be equal to starting characters (400 BP) who've earned 50 karma. However, since there are certain economies of scale when you use build points for higher attributes and skills, I'd adjust that to be equivalent to maybe 60 or 70 karma characters. With that as your guide, you should adjust the table ratings appropriately.

Also, you should be aware that SR Missions (according to their coordinator) are not designed to be ball-busting runs. Their designed to be easily accessible for new players who sit down at a convention or game store table and play. Competent and experience SR players will run over the opposition as written in the Missions text. For home games, you should adjust as needed.

2) SR Missions provided a summary of Denver in 2070 on the Commando website years ago. I just checked, and couldn't find it. If you would like a copy, I can send one to you. Just send me a PM with an email addy. Other than that, there's not much that summarizes the entire situation in one sourcebook.

3) You need to take control of the hacking by making quick rolls for the stuff that doesn't matter, or that would be quick to find. When the group actually goes on the run, that's when the hackers actions need to be more detailed.

4) In the base rules, the only delivery systems for narcoject are the Ares Super Squirt, slap patches, and gas grenades.

Hope the info helps you.

Robert (aka Spanner)

I have found that almost all such headaches go away if you play in a lower dicepool game, remember that the average Professional should have a Dicepool of 6-8 before equipment modifiers so encourage your players to branch out with their 450 BPs instead of being specialists. Also never be afraid to drop the hammer on them for being stupid, ( Force 12 ) Combat Spells? He had better hope that he always has time to clean up his Astral Fingerprint or he is in a world of hurt, ( Magic 6 ) Mages are very, very rare and brainwashing is cheap in the Sixth World.

No contacts, commlinks, or Edge? Just let their own stupidity cause a TPK and then have them try again.

Decker being an ass? Boil his pointless decking into a single roll and give him some poor slot's grocery list, then throw something heavy at his head.

Remember that as DM, it is your job to run your table, but be careful, being too tight is just as fun-killing for everyone as letting the players run roughtshod over you is.

Looks like I made a mistake here; "The 4th ed timeline suggests that Aztechnology was pushed out of Denver by a dragon".

Aztlan is not the same as Aztechnology.

.M.

1) Beginners forgetting to buy things is a problem. Forgotten Edge is actually rare, as opposed to contacts, which are low on the archtypes, too. Regarding ignored matrix needs, take a look at this thread, specifically the section "Programs and You". Then there are some improved archtypes in the Sample Character Archive.

2) Commando Quarterly on Denver

3) Be glad if your hacker is creative, but point out that even low margins of failure become significant if you take risks over and over again. What specific nodes is he going for? If he is actually able to handle those nodes without being detected, the quickest way of resolving this is rolling the dice, done. Or granting success, if that flies for your group.

TR for 450 BP characters, run them at least TR 3 and up. In the missions packets you'll see what to add based on TR usually. Typically it's two more mooks, and a bit more challenging main opponent. The other thing is as the TR goes up, play the NPC smarter and more dedicated. There is a lot of latitude in the Missions scenarios for you to provide whatever challenge you want to provide to the players.

As far as your hacker goes, it's possible that he's just playing with his new toy. The overwhelming majority of the time, it's not really worth hacking randomly any more that it's worth the razorgirl randomly attacking people or the magician randomly tossing spells around. If he keeps going around randomly hacking people's stuff, it's going to be noticed the same way random attacks or spells would be, and authorities will be alerted.

For the most part I agree with the first part of Ravor's advice: just keep letting him see boring mundane crap and he'll calm down once he realizes his toy is a tool, not the other way around. If you were asking me, I'd tell you to resist increasing the ratings to stop the hacker; it doesn't help, and if anything it will just give him a chance to copy high-rating software for free.

Definitly. All those random "just because" things are quite possible, hacking or otherwise, and they bog the table down only if you try to make a problem from it. Exploiting a node should be done within at most two rolls. The dicepool of the hacker is (almost) constant, and the opposing pool can be figured out within seconds. Don´t ask why, that takes longer.

Low-rated node, no defenses in place? "Yeah, you have access. What do you do next?" is a valid answer.

Thanks for all this guys - very helpful.

I would like to pick up on Ravor's comment though please; "...( Force 12 ) Combat Spells? He had better hope that he always has time to clean up his Astral Fingerprint or he is in a world of hurt, ( Magic 6 ) Mages are very, very rare and brainwashing is cheap in the Sixth World."

My understanding of Astral Fingerprint was that it could be used by a magic user to identify who cast a spell and how long ago, perhaps track back to that magic user if he carries a focus or magic weapon of some kind. I suspect I'm missing something here too but my shaman player carries no such foci or weapon (because he's played 2nd ed and doesnt want to be attacked via the astral). Is it possible that the Astral Fingerprint will attract attention on it's own in some way?

Also, Ravor says that Magic 6 mages are very, very rare. Is this true in a game setting sense or a role-play sense? I don't know anyone who would play a magician/shaman/adept character and not max that stat. It seems weird not to...

.M.

There you go, corrected your post. Does the danger make more sense now?

Astral fingerprints permit security to identify who cast what spell, and how long ago. Yes. My mages somehow try to avoid it .

Astral attacks through a focus are no longer an issue (no grounding anymore, YAY!), you just have to be careful with accidential barrier crossings. Plus you´d likely want advanced masking to avoid legality discussions with KE magicians.

Magic 6 is the uninitiated maximum. Those mages should be pretty rare in the setting. Many groups just see the utility of hard-maxed magic, which combined with the magic 6 paradigm of previous editions, leads to a munchkin standard. There is another perfectly viable way; you can play augmented magicians with magic 5->3.

This is another angle where you should be careful with increasing the opposition. If you balance magical security for the magic 6 - combat mage, the players will adapt their perception to that. Anybody below magic 6 will just be considered weak. So tell your player that he should tone magic down, say to an effective 4, and that you will follow him on that with the security magicians. All you are really setting here is the mundane vs. awakened balance. My group has magicians with an effective magic of 3-4, and adepts with magic 5+.

I obviously need to re-read the magic section rule book. I suspect my problem is linked to my frenzied aquisition of the various suppliments and optional rules that I just havn't taken it all in. I think I have just assumed that grounding would still exist. Now you mention it I don't think I've specifically read it in the 4th ed books.

Oh well, off to bed with a book (or six) for me

Thanks again guys,

.M.

Yeah, that´s another one. Keep low on the houserules and optional rules until everyone is familiar with the rules-as-written. We had a half-year ban on houserules, back in the day. Make all houserules/optional rules you do use explicit by handing them out in written form.

Yeah, one of the devs (I think it might have been Synner but I could be mistaken.) stated awhile back that Magic follows the same averages as the rest of Metahumanity's Stats. So yeah, anyone with ( Magic 4+ ) can claim to be a Magical Badass, and it isn't really very hard to figure out roughly how powerful any given spell was simply by keeping track of how long the Astral Fingerprint lasts. Once people realize that they either have an Intiate or a very badassed spell slinger throwing ( Force 12 ) spells on their hands the gloves should come off as people scramble to capture such a rare and prized assist and turn him into their loyal pet with a liberal dose of brainwashing.


Also something to remember is that visual mods affect Spellcasting Rolls, and any security consulant worth his pay is going to take advantage of the fact that the corp has control over the enviroment, which includes things such as turning the lights into strobing mode, releashing spores/smoke, blasting Goblin Rock, ect. That should make your "pure" Shaman really wish that he plucked out his own eyes and traded them in for some tricked out chrome.


But then again, I am a huge fan of the following saying, "A good Mage can make your head explode with a thought, but a great Mage has the wisdom to use her trusty predator instead." Magic is still fragging rare in the Sixth World, enough so that anyone that isn't crazy can virtually write his or her own ticket if they are lucky enough to Awaken into a full mage, and as such it will draw more attention when used then mundane methods would.

Don't worry, you're just going through the same adjustment difficulty a lot of us went through.

As far as decking goes, I'd advise using the buying successes rule. Just ttotal his dicepool, divide by four, and the result (rounded down) is his successes. If he's throwing 12+ dice, that's 3 successes, enough to penetrate a low-rating node. For cybercombat, or hard-core decking, use the normal dice rules.

Magic-wise, there's no way to resist a stunball except with willpower and counterspelling. But there are some things that can lower the magician's effective magic, such as background count. Don't go too heavy on this-- you'll start an arms race as your players come up with more clever ways around it. But a point or two of background count (which could come from enough violent death ) is entirely fair.

They can correct that stuff in game. The key is letting them know it matters (they get harassed when going one of the many places that require a comlink transmitting a SIN, they don't know anyone to fix them up after a run or get them equipment because they didn't get the contact). The only trick is edge which is hard to rise, and can leave them stranded. But still not totally game ending.



Something about SR that I believe has been around from day 1. It's lethal. PCs finish most people off in one complex or two simple actions.

The enemy that is the biggest threat is the one the runners haven't noticed (mage gets surprised by a guy firing a compensated assault rifle, and they're down, also in a single complex action.)

On magic. Many GMs forget that there are backgrounds counts, wards on most buildings and many vehicles, and some other magic defense stuff.



I'd say 1BP ~= 2.5 karma so that would make them veterans.





Hacking in SR is pretty fast. Most of the time they roll to break in once and you roll once to detect them then they're free to act. And you can let them buy successes. Or pre roll (you write down numbers on paper and just read through them when needed).

Remember to go between players (i.e. he hacks, someone else does something, then a third person does something, then they hack something else)

Thanks for that look-see, Ryu. Anything else for SR in the Quarterly's?

Fast is one thing I wouldn't call it. Even with buying successes, it's been my experience that deckers are the legwork kings, rendering everyone else moot unless they've got a contact in just the right place. Jumping back and forth only works for a short while. At a Missions table, everyone is clamoring for your attention at once; if they see you overfocusing on one guy, they'll take off and go for pizza so you can settle up with the decker. (And no, I wasn't the GM on those occasions.)

People who can routinely use a force 12 stunball won't get hired to hit a stuffershack. That's like trying to hire the chicago bears to be ringers for your Junior Varsity squad. You can't afford it and it just won't work. They'll get hired (and paid very well) to hit a lone star precinct house during shift change or something equally crazy (exact mission depending on whether they are stealth or violence oriented).

You need to offer a challenge to players. If they are walking all over lower power scenarios they should be offered higher threat/higher reward missions. You can make the job tougher. Increase the toughness of the locks and firewalls, Have fully wired and isolated networks so the hacker has to get past the defenses to gain access, employ wards, use patrolling spirits, patrolling paranormal animals (for example Barghest handlers), use slightly more and better skilled guards (like at least 10 dice before smartlink), arm them with alphas, use biomonitors, provide rapid magical astral response teams, Have HRT's available, have all the surveillance data copied off to the KE etc HQ, have multiple combat drones armed with MGs and grenade launchers using radar on-site and ready to rumble.

And have people lie to them a lot about what the purpose of the job is. If they are being hired to take down the LS precinct house their client isn't going to tell them that job is so the client can spend 45 minutes emptying the vaults of the diamond mart while every HRT and cop in the city is busy firing up the players due to a timely 'anonymous phone call' from a 'concerned citizen'.

Crucially, are you making sure that the shaman isn't healing Physical Drain with Magic, as per the FAQ? That might calm things down a bit.

See Shadows of North America for Ghostwalker freaking out and revoking the Aztlan Sector's right to exist. There's a whole section on Denver. There's also the 2nd Ed Denver boxed set if you can find it. Between those, the Commando Quarterly and the info in the Missions, I was able to get a pretty good picture of what Denver looks like. I then ported it all to a wiki and Google Maps and it works like a charm.

Re - Narcoject, you can also use capsule rounds from Arsenal.

1BP = 2 Karma. If you didn't increase the cap on how much they could spend on Gear, then they're 100 Karma characters and have a TR of 4.

For hacking, remember that it takes in-game time to do stuff, and most things won't yield anything like enough to make random hacking worthwhile. In combat, Hacking IPs run alongside combat IPs, so your hacker takes their turn like everyone else. In the legwork phase make sure you apply the time intervals for extended tasks to everyone. Even good seraches can take some time before they turn up a result.

How?

Sorry but i'mn newish to the game, and I was just wanting to see how he is going this as it seems very hard to me, even with a maxed out starting character.

Lv 12 Stunball, would have a drain code of 7P. So for him to not take (a lot of) physical damage he would be requiring on average i believe 21 dice. Now 6 from his Magery, maybe 6 from his linked attribue, that gives him 12 dice, average of 4 hits, so he takes... 3 boxes of Physical damage every time he casts?

Now remember he can't magically heal this damage, he needs rest, days of it, to recover from this, while all his rolls (apart from drain) are at negatives.

This may be alright to take out one big guy, but its not something he can keep doing in a running combat. That's not counting the people showing up after the combat, seeing a kickass astral signature and tracking him back quickly to where he currently is trying to recover from the spell.

I may be wrong, my numbers or understanding may be wrong, and I'm sure everybody wil correct me or something, but just wondering all the same.


Max.
Dunedin, NZ

The munchkin standard: Willpower 5, Charisma 7. Edge for reroll and you have a 30% chance of 7 hits.

30% is still pretty low if you want to repeat it a few times, plus I think he said that the PCs didn't go for much or any edge, which means they won't be able to do that option very much either

Edge is your friend!


Max,
Dunedin NZ.

Everybody within the AoE is basically dead. Pretty good thing if you can´t do it over and over again.

The 30% are for a full soak, and can still be improved, while any residual damage can be healed rather easily by mundane means. Compare to the damage half a dozen guards with SMGs could have done. (Then there is the option of doing it at force 9 and hoping for some net hits...)

Yep, and that's a large AoE, 12m radius, but then again unless you needed such a large area, how about doing a few force 6, probably going to reduce all the drain without using the edge (whihc they don't have), and only Stun if you don't. You are still probably going to be rolling about 12 dice against their 4 dice, so going to get a few net hits, and since they have a strong element on call, hide the caster while you do it.

I suppose everybody has their own methods, me personally I guess my mages aren't willing to take that much (physical) drain for the party unless things are really going badly, and it sounds like this isn't the cast for their team.

I suppose it does leave the grunts to take care of any drones though, as it is a Mana spell.

Max
Dunedin, NZ

How'd he get the 12m radius? It seems to me that if he's withholding that many dice, the baddies can resist much more easily. Alternatively, if he's got Magic 12, then yeah, he should be tossing death hither and yon.

He's casting Force 12 Stunballs... which means they have a radius of 12 meters...



He's only got magic 6, but apparently the mage is willing to take the drain form a Force 12 spell for the party. (see first post)


Max
Dunedin, NZ

Yeah, one of these days I'm going to create a mage with Edge 8, and see what happens.

But those numbers are for a full soak. He'll likely get a partial one: with 12 dice, that's an average of 4 successes vs drain. That's just a Moderate wound. He could cast it two more times, and not keel over. Granted, that isn't something you want to try lightly, unless you've got a specialized build. But it isn't a "One and Done" type of deal.

Yeah, I gave numbers for the full soak. Should you do it with Edge 8, base drain resistance 12 dice, you get a 48% chance to fully resist a drain of 9P (add Edge to pool).

The key message here is to watch the power level of mages. The very, very common combination of max. magic (5 or 6) and soft-maxed drain stats is extremely powerful. Even without other tricks like overlapping mentor bonus and specialisations, power focus, and increase attribute spells. If you permit such a build in your game, you should seriously consider removing availability caps on gear and cyberware.

Having spent the weekend putting some more thought into the way I run my campaign I suspect my shaman player is prepared to take the drain because we play a very convention style game where a whole run can be acheived in 5/6 hours and the next session starts with a 'clean slate' so wounds etc reset.

I've done this because I have about 15 or so players - all in their thirties with kids and real life commitments that mean it was impossible to put a regular game together on a regular night. By having so many players and by hosting the game at different venues and days each week, I can normally find 5/6 people who can make the session and it means I get to play with most of my mates at least once a month.

I think that given that set up - taking a few boxes of physical damage (knowing it won't be there next game session) in order to wipe out small security teams (which may be in two by two cover formation and all within the area of effect) is probably a wise tactical decision.

I'm going to;

introduce more drones... which chemical weapons,
take background count into account where appropriate,
use more counterspelling and more capable magical defences,
generally be aware of the relatively high table rating of my players and increase the opposition as appropriate.

Thanks for all the comments so far folks!

.M.

If you're into convention style play, you may want to check out the Shadowrun Missions page. Even if you don't use the story arc, they've got a good tracking system for wounds, etc. Very handy.

One really really important thing to remember for any Mana based spell, ie stunball, is that ALL the people have to be in line of sight to the mage at the time of casting. It doesn't matter that the spell is an area effect spell, and that they may still be in the actual area of effect, if the Mage didn't see them at the time of casting, they don't get effected by the spell. This is the advantage of Physical spells like Fireball. If you are in the area of effect of that, even if the mage didn't see you, you still get roasted. This is one of the reasons that physical spells have a higher drain code to Mana spells.

Also, another way around this is to have hostages intermixed with guards, so you cna only area effect nuke them if you are also willing to do the same to hostages, ie injured or captured team mates, the target you are trying to rescue, etc.


Have fun.


Max,
Dunedin NZ.

@CoyoteNZ

I hadn't spotted that - Cheers!