Here's the pitch:

Docwagon has enjoyed increasing profits and popular public response to it's lines of products and services. To protect and expand it's interests management has begun to put together Code Black Teams responsible for responding to hostage situations involving clients, disaster response, and other situations at the discretion of management. Team members will be recruited both within existing Doc Wagon personnel as well as select outside assets of similar quality.

Basically in modern parlance Code Black Teams would be Team 6 to the rest of the HTRT that Docwagon already maintains. I'm still nailing down whether I want to do a higher BP system or some form of Karma gen but I'd love to hear concepts and see if there's any interest. Now obviously there's going to be a lot of call for gunbunnies and paramedics but also I intend to try and blend in a Section 9 sort of feel from Ghost in the Shell so there will be room for a wide variety of character concepts.

I'm willing to entertain most character concepts except those with criminal sins and Infected and that is more because it doesn't make any sense from Docwagon's standpoint. I would be a really hard sell on Shifters because of my own biases. Anything else I'm willing to entertain.

You have my interest

So many possibilities here... I think I'd fill in a roll as one of the actual medic types, the type who looks in your general direction and you come back from the dead feeling like you owe someone a million bucks... that's how the saying goes, right?

I'm interested. I'd love to play in a game like this.

I too would be interested in playing a combat medic type or combat/medic mage.

Tentative Concepts:
-- Gurney: cybered troll meat shield who earned his nickname by carrying more than a few injured customers/teammates out of a fire fight.
-- Samantha "Needles" Jennings: combat medic with a fondness for drugs (and body piercing).
-- the aforementioned combat/medic mage... still thinking...

They could still use someone who can de-escalate the situation with words rather than bullets. Think Flashpoint.

I have a covert military type I have been working on. I think he'd fit well into the team. He's got MBW 2 so he can use skillwires to help wherever the team lacks. Kinda resembles the Company Man archetype. He tries to fill the secondary roles when they are really needed. But he his primarily an infiltrator with combat skills. I may lean him more toward Sniping or CQ Firearms depening on what is needed.

A face or multiple faces could fill a number of roles within the team, they might be responsible for interfacing witht he public (especially members of press), a team leader might have to go before management to answer for their team or even to push for new equipment and capabilities. Plus in a crisis situation verbal jutsu can be quite powerfull as someone already noted.

I'm certainly interested... I'll see what I can throw together. I'm thinking an elven gunbunny I developed can be adjusted to fill the face role as well... Let me see what I can do with it. How soon do you need to know for sure?

Also, what're the build rules? Any house rules?

I too would be interested. Been lurking for awhile on the IC boards waiting for something of interest to come up. And... being a big fan of GitS this sounds like a winner. I'm pretty open to making any type of character needed, (filling niche roles as required) I do tend to lean more towards the combat ends in experience, but you don't learn new things doing the same over and over.

Would probably be leaning towards an Ishikawa or Saito type role on the team.

Oh, should mention. I would HUGELY prefer to do karmagen. I've been doing a ton of fiddling around with the karmagen and BP systems lately, and have found that karmagen creates much better characters. Not more powerful, but better. It is much easier to have a character that has a wide range of skills and abilities, and looks much more like someone who actually grew into their current role instead of someone who was raised in a lab for a particular purpose.

I do suggest you follow these rules for Karmagen if you do go with it:
Race cost in karma is equal to the race cost in BP.
Stat cost is 5x, not 3x.
Magic is not included in the limit for amount of karma to spend on stats, but edge is.

Using these rules karmagen will generally produce a character that would cost around 500BP, but is still about as powerful as a character with 400 BP (Because the extra BP will largely show up in costs for low rating skills and such, which are handy but not won't increase killing potential for combatants and so on, and also because it doesn't take much to reach the limit of ability in any particular skill under either system)

So, for what you're looking for, maybe something around 800-850 karma, and maybe bend the caps on availability and nuyen limit a bit (Like 16 availability and 150 karma on equipment)

Oh, almost forgot, you'll likely want to limit initiations.

Just some thoughts.

I will re-read the Karma-gen rules and make a final decision as of right now i am tentatively exploring the following build scenario.

Max Availability 16
450BP
Adepts, Mages, and Technomancers recieve their first initiation/submersion free at character creation along with the corresponding cap gain. I will also be kind of keeping an eye on the number of casters present.
Mundanes (that is people with no magic or resonance rating) receive an extra 100,00 nuyen may purchase deltaware and have no availability cap.

I'm aware this is somewhat radical and I will state ahead of time that i'm looking for well rounded professionals over min-maxed monsters and as always I reserve final approval on characters regardless of system.

Will you add any rule for Free Contacts? Preferably not just a CHA based one. I read somewhere about combining CHA and INT but can't remember exactly how it worked.

I'm interested as well if there is still room.

I'd probably lean towards an adept, but I could also work up a combat hacker if there is a need for that to be covered.

You could employ the dice pool cap optional rule. That would eliminate the most egregious possibilities.

I'm seeing 5 interested so we could certainly take a couple or even three more. As to free contacts no I don't see us going that way as I'm already being fairly generous.

A note on gear, buy whatever you want you will be issued a uniform/body armor and for most missions will be provided access to doc-wagon vehicles. It might not hurt to have your own or an alternate however.

On that note unless someone really wants to play a driver/pilot for many missions one will be provided for the primary transport vehicle.

Is the body armor military grade or can we buy that as our issued armor?

You may buy military grade armor if you wish.

I'd be up to to throw my hat in I have a FBI ERT drop-out that right now is a 400 bp build.

[edit] Are group Contacts open?[/edit]

Would like to toss my name in for consideration - most interested in playing a mundane samurai-type character.




AJC

So, just because I don't feel like creating a thread on the main forums. Doesn't it say somewhere that you can't wear other armor (Including form fitting) with milspec armor? I could have sworn it said that, but keep rereading through the milspec stuff and can't find it.

I'll toss my name in the hat as well.

For character concepts, I was thinking that a Team such as this would need a dedicated rigger for insertion/evac and support roles. That or a technical gunbunny, like a Spec Op communications specialist. Someone who can get the doors open when they need to be, provide Matrix Intel, Electronic Warfare, etc. Not a super hacker really, but someone who knows as much about a commlink as he does his SMG.

Sounds like an interesting campaign setting. I am interested as well. I would prefer to play a mage but a rigger pilot opening might tempt me as well.

I've got two basic builds together, one for an adept and one for samurai type. I'm now leaning towards the samurai at the moment.

I would like to second the request for Karma gen.

So I've laid the ground work for a computer specialist with a bit of drone work built in. Little bit of combat arms and athletics which I'd assume he'd pick up from on the job training.

As he's a legit character his focus is mainly on non-hacking skills, but he certainly doesn't ignore them (hacking skills) either.

Contacts I'm finding a small interesting challenge. The typical underworld type contacts don't fit with a legit character. But I'm making progress.

I just harped on someone else for not providing enough background details to make something work from a roleplay standpoint so I think i better flesh things out a little better so folks know what to expect.

The game will be set in Seattle, the build up being the Code Black concept has already been test bedded in Manhattan and has gone over very well there. Seattle is a much more complicated city then Manhattan and so it will require a fair bit more finesse. While the team will occasionally be required to operate in support of more standard HTRT teams (especially in the case of riot or disaster) more often then not their missions are of a higher caliber, hostage rescue, VIP security and medical transport and other high speed high risk missions. The basic thing that popped into my head is, Docwagon would likely get called by other megas to resolve situations that their own security forces arn't set up to handle or aren't available for but for political reasons they can't trust to KE and for competence reasons they wouldn't trust to Lonestar. Code Black teams put a high priority on maintaining that level of public and corporate good will and trust.

The PC team will be one of two or three stood up in the Seattle Metroplex. The team will answer to a team leader who in turn answers to a program director who in turn answers straight to the corporate VP's. As such you can expect corporate politics to be make up a certain part of the games flavor. The team leader will ideally be a PC probably chosen by me based on social skills and background. For example a face who's background is working in Docwagon either in the corporate office or on the teams has a better chance over a outsider hacker picked up for their technical skills. You will all be provided a group lifestyle representing your dormitory within the Doc-Wagon compound where you are required to stay while you are on stand by. This lifestyle is geared towards making black team members comfortable and in many ways glamorous to outsiders within the organization and otherwise so while it suffers for a lack of personal privacy and space it certainly falls towards the high end. In addition you will be provided with a monthly salary.

Group contacts are fine subject to my approval. Basically when it comes to character concepts i'm very open and if I don't like something on your sheet I will just suggest a compromise or tell you no, I rarely do this and when I do it's usually only for storyline reason (take the Infected issue which i would normally be cool with) or for the most egregious of munchkinism. Now obviously this will deviate from the shadowrun framework in that your team are company men. They are not paid per job (although there may be op bonuses for certain objectives and good work) and they certainly cannot turn down jobs without risking disciplinary actions. Nor do they buy guy or services in the traditional manner but get them requisitioned. Now if you want to buy gear outside docwagon channels or approval you may do that with your salary and such but if you use your mortar to torch an apartment block expect to be in the directors office with your team leader fairly quickly.

Darque: I have been hoping that at least one (and preferably a couple of people) would want to play tech heads of some flavor so yes I would encourage that sort of build.

Daedalus: I am open to rigger/drivers however I will caution folks that while the occasional hot insertion might be necissary if Docwagon has to do a running car chase or fire fight away from the site something has gone well off the reservation. You may certainly build towards a rigger but I would make sure you have other skills or you might get bored.

Lurker: So just to be clear, I'm picking up a strong "Black Trench coat" vibe here (which I prefer) and not so much "Pink Mohawk", right?

Do those have to be mutually exclusive?

Ever seen GitS? It is about as black trench coat as you get. Reasonably sure this will be very very black trench coat.

P.S. My heavy milspec armor looks sweet. I haven't decided who will wear it yet, but it is sweet none the less.

The black trench coat vs Pink Mohawk debate always amuses me so I will try and clarify the image I have, you are company men and women so in that regard you are fairly black trench coat, at the same time this will have a action movie vibe (ala Ronin and to some extent the first Transporter movie) and as long as you are operating within your legal rights and mission parameters you can bring any solution to the problem you like up to and including heavy firepower (where it's appropriate) and no one will blink as long as it plays well on the trid and the job is done. Once in a while the black teams may be called upon to do something "illegal" the realm normally left to shadowrunners but of a mission deemed too sensitive, important, or time critical to bring deniable assets in. In those cases you will be expect to run very dark and as quiet as possible.

One caveat from standard material is Docwagon teams are normally expected to use no lethal methods in all but the most critical of cases and even then they are expected to pick up the combatants they have wounded for care even enemy combatants. Code Black teams don't have to answer to that mandate.

Does this mean that the availability cap goes away completely for mundanes, or does it mean that only the extra 100,000 nuyen has no cap?

I'll throw my hat into the ring, be a TM/face, help protect the equipment from being hacked and so on. Same question I ask anyone who allows TMs: do you want only the core 8 streams, or will you consider player created ones?

Given that an Awakened PC can start with an Initiation, it is possible one might want to select a Metamagic that requires the expenditure of Karma. So, for example, if Quickening is available, can the PC start with a Quickened spell, paid for by Karma at the 2 karma = 1 BP rate? Or, say, Attunement(Medkit).

***

It has occurred to me that if one is trying to get in to rescue an injured or disabled client, maybe it would be helpful to enable him to get out to the team, rather than have the team endure deadly fire. So, send in a spirit to possess him and have him walk out, immune to bullets. Is a Possession Tradition a viable option? (I know a lot of GMs don't like Possession, so I thought I would ask and see the reaction.)

***

I'm toying with the idea of transporting Radar from the M*A*S*H series into the Shadowrun universe, crossing him with Sydney Fox of Relic Hunter, and have a PC who is very good at perception, detection and various gettings in and out. Not necessarily a first rank shooter, but more of a guide:

"No, there's no point going that way. Collapsed ceiling closes it off around the corner."
"There's life inside this railway container. Get the blowtorch."
"Cutting the red wire causes an explosion!"
"I'll climb up and have a look."
"Choppers incoming!"

I am open to additional streams although I'd like to think that being a big Otaku/TM fan i'm pretty familiar with them and some of the balancing act that went behind their creation. So while i'd be fine if you wanted to "re-theme" an existing stream i'm going to look very hard at a Cha based stream with Crack, Machine, Paladin, and Tank sprites.

Mickle: Go nuts, I might be, but this is the way we're going to try it. We're already working under the premise that this is a high powered team of badasses with serious corporate backing.

pbangarth: Sorry man, I dislike the possesion rules intensely so no poession traditions are out. Thank you for asking ahead of time.

Also as of this moment i think we've got right around the right number of people.

Would it be possible to get a basic list of who's in and what role they are filling?

EDIT: I have a Street Sam\ Infiltrator with a bent toward being a detective. Uses Skillwires from MBW to fill in any gaps.

I have a couple of ideas for characters. I sent you a message about them, hopefully there is still room for one more. Love the DocWagon team idea!

No problem, I don't want to go that route anyway. I am interested in your opinion about Karma for various metamagics. If someone wants to Attune[Item] (for example), it needs Karma, so can we spend some at chargen? I've seen the 2 Karma = 1 BP trade elsewhere.

Ok

So far we've got

Karoline: Medic
Method: Medic/Guard or Mage
pbangarth: Pointman/Technician
ravensorcale: Infiltrator/Support
Grimwulf: Tech
Crank: Undeclared Maybe Combat Hacker
bmcoomes: Shocktrooper / Guard (Assuming that's a good description of ERT)
AJCarringon: Some sort of street samurai
Darquewing: Tech/Combat
Daedalusk71 - Driver or Mage
Sleepincarnate - Technomancer/Face

Wow that's a lot of people I guess i should have kept a closer on that, at the same time I'm a big softy and won't turn anyone away now. However I will note if your not willing to put in a fairly strong commitment of quality roleplay in this game please save me the headache and drop now. As far as time commimtent i'm going to be difficult and ask at least one post a day MOST days. Now i understand folks go out of town and what not or just get busy but what I ask from folks as a courtesy is if they know in advance letting me and the other players know about idle periods. I will return the favor.

Unfortunately brain I need to cut it off here, I have just too many. I will let you know if a slot opens up.

I'm wondering what your decision is on the going karma vs BP route is, and if so, how much karma? If we're doing a 2 karma = 1 BP conversion, then we'd be starting with 900 based on your prior mention of a 450 BP build idea.

I settled on a Samurai type. He's a former Urban Brawl player that joined the DocWagon team after he washed out of Urban Brawl.

I dub thy callsign: "Jock"

We will use a 1bp = 2 Karma ONLY for the purposes of purchasing initiation/submersion related items. You may also purchase ONE additionally intiation/submersion under this system.

Yes i'm insane.

So still going with the 450 BP build then, not allowing karma builds (with the exception mentioned)? And can have a second initiation/submersion at the cost of 8 BP, with the first one free?

Edit: Also, are we assuming roughly March 2072 or is this going to be another time of year or different year entirely?

Second Edit: Since we're not buying lifestyle at creation (all living in the barracks), what's our starting money looking like then, lifestyle wise? Low?

am I in or not? I wasn't on your list of people...

Your in sorry missed you on my first pass. Sleep we'll calculate starting cash based on mid.

if it's OK, I'd like to keep one of my lifestyles in that it's part of the background and flavor of the character.

[edit]I'm going to be way from the computer for some time, I'll should be back on late tonight so I'll update were I'm at with my characters background.[/edit]

Yes you may certainly maintain a side lifestyle in fact it could arguably be a very good idea if for no other reason then a place to get away from work.

Spoofing works wonders for that.

As long as your don't get caught. Everyone should be taking the 5 point Sinner flaw for the free points. Yes you can assume roughly 2072. LS's is for the most part out, KE is in and some of the fun related to that. Tempo is currently a popular party drug.

Should each of us be able to patch people up, or will there be regular DW crews on hand (but out of the line of fire) in our situations to patch people?

Did you mean 1BP = 2 Karma?



Actually, from my experiments with karmagen, 800 or so karma would likely be a better match to a 450 BP game. The fact is that most things cost less than 2:1 in karma. Notable exceptions are soft maxing non-human stats, and technomancer complex forms.

I liked the possess and make the injured walk to us idea. Could be accomplished almost as well by just having a spirit poof in next to the injured and carry him/her to us.


I don't think that each of us need to be medics, but I think our team will need to contain at least one (which I plan on covering). And I'm sure a skill of 1 or 2 and a rating 6 medkit would at least be a good idea for everyone if for nothing else than RP reasons. DocWagon is going to want anyone working for them to have at least a vague idea how to stop bleeding.

Oh, question: Crud... what was it.. had it ten seconds ago............. It was... medic... oh, yeah! Will you allow us to buy up skill groups and then break them? What about skill groups over 4? What about more than the normal 1 6 or 2 5s max for skills?

I ask mostly because I want to get the biotech group but don't want to be limited to a 4 first aid.