I've been in a bunch of threads about how to emphasise the non combat aspects of the game. Trying to add in situations where the hacker, stealth dude, or particularily the face can have their time in the spotlight.

What occured to me recently is that among the games I've ran and those I've played in, not just Shadowrun, more than anything else the determining factor in whether or not it was all about combat was the existance of reinforcements.

The key concept here is that while you'll still get into combat during most game sessions, the earlier you are detected and the longer you're in combat, the more dire your situation becomes, and at some point you'd get squashed.

I personally think reinforcements of this nature are natural in Shadowrun, particularily when operating in higher rated urban settings. In seconds someone could be on a comlink mentally screaming for backup. It'll take some amount of time. But it wouldn't take very long in combat turns in principle to make arrangements for a wage mage to send over some spirits they have ready to go and have them materialize in front of the players. The speed of aereal drones means that they could be inbound rapidly as well, even if they have to launch from other corporate facilities. If Lonestar is involved they would have people on the ground in the area with some density, depending on the rating of the location. Also forces within a facility, that would initially have probably been spread out, would have time to organize and, if they suspect where the players are going, they'd be able to start setting up ambushes and getting into hidden positions to snipe from.

And of course if they players keep winning but don't flee someone could call in other Shadowrunners, their own special forces, the national guard, or the military.

When players are aware of this, suddenly the combat guys are willing to let the non combat monsters try their shtick for as long as they can manage things. Planning and legwork go way up as well. Even if the GM isn't actively trying to put in situations for the hacker and face or if they haven't worked out how other people's contacts might be able to help, the players will take the initiative to seek them, and things tend to start working out.

When players aren't concerned about reinforcements, or don't respect the threat they might pose, I find the combat types view faceish players as a time wasting nuisance outside of negotiations, and will often gleefully undermine them by instigating a fight. Grumbling about initiative passes, broken rules, and power gaming usually ensue in these games.

Does this match up with your experiences? What might a "realistic" and or appropriate escalation of reinforcements be in your opinion or your game?

One of my favorite tactics as a GM, and one I think is realistic, is the lockdown.

Once it's suspected that something big (automatic fire, multiple armed and dangerous attackers, one death) is going on in a building, the police won't send a couple agents there to rush inside and get killed. They'll secure the perimeter and wait for the suspects to come out of the building, warning them that they're surrounded and have no chance of escaping. Even if the police forces around the building is just made of unaugmented characters, it'll be much harder for the PC to get out.

And it's easy for the police to do that quickly: rotordrones can get there in a few minutes or even seconds and so can spirits and projecting mages (which will be sent: 5 people with automatic weapons, augmentations, hacking and magic are a heavy threat) and they can secure the perimeter and make sure nobody gets out until the rest of the HTR team is here. And once it is, it'll only go in if necessary and the exits will still be watched.

In the games I run NPC's tend to be very low on cyber, biotech and magic as individuals. Specially if the gear is expensive, but they are very high on backup. So for example, in a street fight the regular police response to 1 person with an assault rifle is some 30 or 40 cops, 3 or 4 ambulances, a firefighter's truck and one SWAT or HRT team, and one or two astral mages with spirits to provide some physically safe help to control the situation. The use of drone or spirits is balanced in costs and benefit, sometimes spirits are better, sometimes drones are.
Mages, riggers and hackers are very rarely in situ: the reason is they are expensive to maintain and they serve better purposes in they're fast response modes (astral or matrix wise). Conjurers, summoners, are in high demand, because they provide fast, cheap and effective support for the grunt police men in no time at all, and with, usually, no risk to themselves.
Technomancers are analogous, in security services. So the players /know/ they can shoot and overcome almost any individual opposition I throw at them with 10 dice in firearms (4 agility, 4 pistols 2 smartlink), but if they tarry too much, 30 firearms dice and 6 passes will mean shit. Such a character will simply not survive the opposition in an extended firefight.

The response clearly is different according to the neighborhood, but it tends to escalate from that basic example. The reason is simple: in the real world authorities don't send their men to toe to toe fights, but rather they try to control the situation as much as possible, and insetad of a shootout they'd much rather isolate the criminals and have them turn themselves in. The reinforcements I give are mainly used in that sense.

Yes, this means the 'runs my characters try to do are as silent as possible, or at least have good safehouses and safe escape routes. Faces, legwork, hackers and the skills these characters have are actually invaluable even for samurai in my campaigns.

As for analogies:
1) A grenade means heavy support with 3 or 4 HRTeams on choppers, and a screen of summoned spirits.
2) An overcast powerball means 3 or 4 astral mages with power foci and weapon foci (make them rating 3 or 4, since they can't be looted if they die, the valuable foci can be used by another mage. Throw in a sustaining focus or two, just in case.
3)A heavy weapon means the police isolate the zone, but its the federal security services that intervene (special forces characters)
4) etc.

That is any neighborhood in medium or higher lifestyle, and it escalates lower or higher from there, but essentially the message is: no, you can't do the terminator 2 scene and live to tell about it, unless my dice are so crappy that night, and yours are so good, that you should be in the casino instead of playing stupid make believe games.

P.S: No I am not an abusive GM (Game Monster), actually some players call me GM (Game Mother), but I do give them a very hard time and I do make them accountable for their decisions.

Yes. And let me rustle up a quote from one of my adventures to answer the second question.

My players, after a lot of grooming, always always always always try the subtlety (Ocean's 11) approach until that breaks down then they try the stealth approach (Metal Gear Solid) then it's the tactical, professional approach to violence (The Usual Suspects) then it's shoot everything that moves. The longer they can stay on the stealthy end of the spectrum, the better their chance of survival but I have yet to have run any run where they didn't EVENTUALLY have to shot their way out. The usual 'endgame' of a run is somehow pulling a decent force spirit out of their shot up, barely conscious asses to sustain Concealment on them and have them slip out of the facility/compound/highrise while Lone Star and Paramedics are pouring in.

That wasn't the quote, btw.

You guys are mentioning another concept that I think really helps flesh things out and it also comes with reinforcement: Preventing escalation.

Maybe corpsec responds primarily based on the location threatened, but Lone Star type forces should vary based on what they imagine the threat to be. A suspected break in at a condo complex by people fighting with just their hands and feet might get them to send in a couple cars anticipating some punks. Whereas an assault cannon might get a LAV called in along with a bunch of people.

I also like the lockdown concept.

Definitely coincides with my experiences. My players know that I don't mind a violent solution, but I do mind a sloppy solution. If you are going to go tactical it needs to be quick, controlled, overpowering, and tightly focused. When they do it right, they get in and out without much problem. When they screw up expect the reinforcements to include snipers covering likely exit routes at the very least. The reinforcement never come barging in, they wait for you to come out, unless there is an overriding situational need to take back the facility at which point expect heavily armed, highly trained specialists doing the forced entry.

When I GM, I keep in mind that while compared to the PCs, the NPCs are practically infinite, they are not really so.

If I have only 50 police/law enforcement officers and one SWAT team on standby within that immediate geographical area, then that is the force that will be responding. If the local ghoul gang has only 30 members, then that will be the number of ghouls coming to bite their ass. The amount of reinforcements are finite and should be reasonable within that area.

It makes knowledge skills pertaining to security design, police procedures and such useful. If my PCs know that certain locations make good sniper positions in the event of a lockdown, then they can plan for that. If the PCs know that the police will respond in a certain way, then they can plan for that. If they know that the response time for the military to get on site once they are requested to aid the local authorities, then the PC can plan for that.

My players generally open with subtlety and stealth. But will turn ultraviolent at the drop of a hat and then go back to finesse just as quickly.

I agree with you on this, however do take into account that astral mages are some of the most efficient, fast and safe responses to violent criminals with heavy guns (anything from a heavy pistol up, including light pistols with burst or autofire capabilities). One mage with charisma 3, with magic 3, summoning 4 (Spirits of Man) and a rating 3 power focus (12 dice, for 3 autosuccesses for services, so you don't roll any dice), can send into the fight easily force 4-6 spirits of man with spellcasting capabilities and at least one or two services. The spirits can stunball carpet bomb the guys with the weapons and no officer was under risk of death or injury (only the mage, but his body is attended by a doctor within a minute back in the police station). Think 2 or three of these mages and you're in for a treat... And only the most basic astral support tactic I can think of.

Analogous situations can be used for Technomancers or riggers with drones, and hackers can make a communications lockdown.

My point is: Yes response ought to be reasonable and players can certainly anticipate it if they plan ahead, open violence is almost always a very bad idea in Shadowrun games, that's one of the reasons I think its mandatory for characters to have the influence and stealth group... at least in my games (and when I make my characters).

Just how many helicopters and special forces units are you envisioning being available? They'd be responding nightly to every single highway and many smaller neighborhoods!

~J

No I don't envision infinite special forces being available... I think the problem with your comment is the campaign assumptions that we make, everything else being equal. I am sure than my SR universe is a lot less openly violent than many, and a lot more subtly gritty and low life. Violence in the streets is horribly rampant, but with low-end deadly weapons: hold-out pistols and chains, knives and steel pipes. Violence comes not from exploding bodies, but rather mutitlated ones showingup in the gutter or in dark alleys under the garbage.

Grenades and heavy weapons are military gear, very restricted and only armies and mercenary companies use them regularly. A runner's most trusted and best weapon is a pistol (light or heavy, depending on personal preference).

So there are no grenades being tossed around every day. Said special forces tend to be available when that -grenade tossing- happens. Now, this situation is subject to arbitrary change by me (the GM) according to: story needs, fun needs, excitement needs and the application of logic and common sense. Outside the city said forces can take a while to show up, in a corporate neighborhood tehy are almost immediately available.

Certainly different GMs run the world differently; I just think it's worth being aware that your world appears to diverge significantly from canon (Red Hot Nukes, Spikes, Ancients (though I understand those got toned down in SR4), Halloweeners operating openly in downtown, common open carry of submachine guns in some cities, etc.), and that that might be worth mentioning when commenting on the world in general.

~J

Another thing to consider in all of this, is "territory."

If something big is going down in Corporation A's compound, and LS/KE don't have a contract for there, the MOST they are going to do is set up containment outside the periphery of the compound (making certain not to enter the property unless officially invited, and possibly not even then!) The Balkanization of the world is what gives runners who end up in a shootout a modest chance of getting out with their skins intact.

I learned about "territory" the hard way; I had a Platinum Doc Wagon account on a character who went into overflow while on Renraku premises. The HTR DocWagon team was refused permission to enter and...that was it. DocWagon logded a complaint, but there wasn't much they could do without causing an incident. In the end, my poor runner ended up on a Renraku table singing like a canary while pumped full of sodium pentathol-like drugs.

Though if heavy duty violence occurs only rarely, why the heck do the corps keep such a large amount of HTR teams ready to pop up at the drop of a hat ? That sort of force level isn't exactly cheap to maintain.

you'll need to have something like 10 to 12 HTR teams around to have three at your beck and call. (3 on call, 2x3 resting, 3 other to keep some reserve, recovering from wounds, training and otherwise unavailable). That's something like fifty of the guys and at least three choppers in town - presumably for each of the Big Ten. Times around 50 cities overs 1 million peoples in the states, that's 25 000 HTR troopers and 1500 choppers. That's a huge effort - as a ballpark, the US army currently fields about 65 000 special force and 4500 choppers, only three times more...

Add to that what's fielded by the Lone Star and other security outfits as well as the second-tier corps, plus the ordinary guard and grunts, and the corporate sector will end up fielding more troops and hardware than the US army. Even if they don't field the big ticket items like MBTs and jets, that's going to bleed a lot of red ink over their books...

They might do as SWAT Teams, they are police officers with advanced training and better pay that do their usual job until they are called up for some situation. The only true FAST response for heavy fire is sending spirits to check the place, after that is sending drones. After all that, they might have a human team ready to go. I would say it takes less than five minutes to call the Magician on call and ask to send spirits, less than 10 minutes to send heavy drones (even less if the drones are already on site) and 30 minutes to 1 hour for the elite team arrive. The job of the average mook would be to pin down the runners while they wait for the experts.

Why must only the NPCs utilize reinforcements? Why can't the PCs themselves be reinforcements?

A recent example from the campaign I'm playing in. The other three members of the team were using an Ocean's 11 social engineering approach to plant explosives in a building. I was using a Metal Solid Approach, stealthed out the wazoo with chameleon stalking after them and their guides evading security. Considering they were in the building and underarmed if something should go do, I was functioning as our reinforcements should a situation arise where they were to get overwhelming. Even if I do have to open fire, I always make sure to minimize the number of witnesses. By the end of the run, my presence may have only been known because we tried to take a hostage, who may have saw me, that later escaped.

At this point, we always plan and leverage my stealth as an ace up the sleeve. No one else wants me to be visible because my remaining hidden for as long as possible increases their survival chances if a conflict breaks out.

I think that you are looking too deeply into it, presence/absence of said teams is abstarcted even beyond random numbers for plot purposes. Said abstraction is the one worked, as well, in the unavailability of HRT in some situations and the fact that they are not infinite... but I certainly don't plan cities and make police and criminal policies in order to appropriately portray the response. I take those narrative liberties to heart. You may very well differ. But the fact is: a grenade, or an assault rifle for that matter, is a threat that authorities do take /very/ seriously, and are ready to use a lot of resources to terminate it in the most efficient way possible, be it negotiation or violence.

On another hand, the idea of characters using reinforcements is definitely good, problem is PC teams often don't have enough contacts to use this approach... you know, they'd rather have that restricted gear and suprathyroid gland than an extra couple of contacts and some social skills.

I can't remember what old book it's in, but they used to have a list of the ratings of neighborhoods, and that determined the LS response (actually they had tables like in a AA zone 2d6 squad cars will show up in 3d6 combat turns or something like that).

Anyway as I recal it's not just by region at all. With one part of the city it can vary wildly. So I envision gangs that know to stay on the "C" roads while downtown, and never take the AAA off ramp.

I like the variety that gives the players. I tend to create an atmosphere where it's almost an alien and hostile world in the higher rated zones as officers stand around saying hi to people who look right and harrassing those that don't. Where the fashion is what's high, as opposed to people in the gutters.




Well, what you're talking about is just tactics, and a good way to let both social and stealthy players have their fun at the same time (which I fully support).

Again, I highly recommend you preface with "in my game". Without that, your statement is simply factually incorrect (that is, in direct conflict with canon).


Ugh, the response time tables. Unfortunately those were so miserably thought-out that they don't even provide a vague idea of the appropriate times, insofar as the canon times imply that Lone Star has teleportation figured out—by New Seattle, in a AAA zone the Lone Star first response arrives in one to two initiative passes, which aside from being bizarrely variable on how fast the combatants are (up to six seconds for a gang fight, as few as one and a half if a heavily-Wired individual is present) is just insanely fast. Now, sure, that's just an observing Rigger or astral mage—though the mage would need to already be projecting or have some serious 'ware, since it takes an action to Project and you don't get your Astral Initiative if you started the turn in your meatbod—but the patrol car shows up between 4 and 6 initiative passes in. At most, that's 18 seconds!

In an E-zone you have a bit more time—up to a minute and eight seconds maximum, in fact. That sounds reasonable, maybe a bit quick—except this isn't when the patrol car shows up, they never send that. This is when the "Citymaster with six fully armored officers, one rigger for weapons and one combat mage" (emphasis added) show up! They apparently live in the van with the engine on! For reference, this crew shows up in a AAA zone in at most 36 seconds. Even taking into account a Rigger's ability to get 10 successes per acceleration test, if that thing starts parked it'll be 4 turns until it gets to top speed, so 8*120+105+75+45+15 means that they can't have been more than 1200 meters away as the wolf runs (or the Citymaster drives).

Ugh. See what happens when you get me started?


Just to be clear, Ballard is AA-rated and has a "local gang", considered pretty low-key because they mostly defend their turf instead of actively picking fights. The Troll Killers operate roughly in the Inverness/Windmere area, both of which are AA. In contrast to the "low-key" Berserkers, this gang exists mostly to go out and bust metahuman skulls, and is described as taking horns and tusks as trophies from Ork and Troll victims.


Sure, but there's a difference between that and breaking out the HTRs over a grenade or two.

~J

How the runners deal with security mages and spirits is something each team must address eventually. Even if the answer to that is a carrier of MADS.

of course, part of the problem with having super insane fast police response, is having super fast combat, where you could easily be in and out of a building in a couple of minutes.

I knew there must have been some reason I never used the table.



Hmmmm. Though as in real life today they can't really do much until someone is actually doing something. Still thinking back on various texts and novels I get the feeling that the people doing the rules didn't talk to each other enough on this matter. One gets the feeling they may have spent more time discussing what wired 2 should cost.

Ooop, gotta run.

To me the Troll Killers are mostly young members of Human Nations, they'll go beat up orks and trolls and the Lone Star officers won't care about it... when they don't join them for fun (and arrest the orks ans trolls afterwards). A bit like during the Zoot Suit Riots.

There is that, sure, and also the inflated speed of the typical Shadowrunner (a typical Quickness 7 Shadowrunner walks comfortably at 5.2 miles per hour, while a typical Quickness 11 Shadowrunner-with-some-bioware is at 8.2 miles/hour—still well below the olympic speed walking records of >9 miles/hour, but this is without breaking a sweat), but I don't think the combat speed is as amplified as it might seem. At least in my games the PCs tend to play combat very aggressively, making use of indirect fire, creating one-sided vision mods, making use of mage or drone abilities to attack from unexpected angles, etc. against unprepared adversaries. If the opposition manages to fortify, things suddenly take much longer. I'd have to do more serious research and thinking to be sure, but my guess is that Shadowrun battles are probably no less than one-tenth as long as they should be, and that we don't see the extended kind because the setup discourages it so heavily (see the current discussion about reinforcements).


I doubt it, considering its relative pricing to the VCR

(Actually, that one is a conundrum broadly similar to the cost of being a mage. Much more expensive and Riggers become non-viable at chargen, but Wired is a nearly-static benefit (ok, it grows with your skills in the sense that your extra passes are now more valuable, but skill growth is fairly slow) while a VCR has huge growth potential tappable only with cash, time, and some Avail rolls)


Granted they're targeting a section of the population that Lone Star officers tend to dislike, but the horns and (in particular) tusks bit makes it clear that this is pretty violent—the victims don't necessarily die, but we are talking about yanking out some of their teeth here. At least in my eyes that's a few steps up from just a beating.

~J

That jogs something in my memory. I think where I first came across ratings and the response tables wasn't New Seattle. Something earlier. And in that source it mentioned that the response times for the ground vehicles were unrealistic, but that playtesting found them to work well from a gaming angle.

I can actually see that. In 30 combat turns, maybe only a couple minutes have passed, but in real life it'll probably have taken at least 30 minutes, probably longer, and so in that sense it "feels" right that reinforcements might be showing up.

In my games only in the higher ranked areas might ground forces show up fast on anything resembling a regular bases, and that's largely to them already being in the vicinity and would be patrol officers on foot, bikes, or cars, not a citymaster.

Mostly the timely responses come from security riggers/hackers (who can be in cameras on the street almost instantly), areal spotter drones (which I figure are above much of the city cranking out parking tickets and moving violations ), a mage or spirit if the situation warrents, and than an autogyro or two in fairly short order since they have a fast movement rate and at altitude have a lot of range and the ability to see quite a distance.

Those are the threats a team might face if they're managing to quickly gun their way through a situation. But that can be enough to make 'em nervous.

Heavier stuff would only have time to arrive if the players get bogged down, if a chase ensues, or if they failed to shake a tailing drone or spirit and they get followed to their safehouse.


I don't suppose any of the new books clear any of this up? I've been resistant to buying yet another Seattle Sourcebook.

Its a perfectly valid rant. Some of the response times are faster than the amount of time it takes to convey the situation and determine what kind of response is needed, and in some cases to to authorize the response.

In some of the extreme response cases given by others posters, I hope they take into account the amount of time it takes to organize and mobilize that many units. Also in the case of large numbers or cars or units (or small armies in some cases apparently) responding they don't all get there at once, even if there was enough road for them to all show up on the same combat turn its going to take them several combat rounds just to park, get out of thier vehicles, and organize things. Reinforcements on turn 3, doesn't meant that after turn 3 theres 20 security vehicles neatly lined up in a barricade with officers taking cover behind them, a swat team busting down the door, and a couple of snipers in perfect position across the street.

Damn... i had made a good and nice post answering a lot of the issues my posts seem to have given birth to in this thread... and it got deleted. I'll make a fat answer then:

In my games I try to take fluff and RL as basis for some responses from the people populating the universe. Theya re not crazy psychopaths killing for money (like the characters often are )

To illustrate some inspirations for authority responses, I'll leave you with some links:

Grenades are serious:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3274501.stm

Bomb threat response, arguably grenades are bombs, not just 10P and reduced power according to distance:
http://www.kent.police.uk/about_us/our_org...ies/m/m026.html

An incredibly well made raid to save hostages:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_embassy_hostage_crisis

Response for a "possible" gun:
http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2...Police-Response

Automatic weapons (AR) and the failure of police to respond properly. They still sent a couple choppers:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Hollywood_shootout

Hope this helps in understanding my point.

The Hollywood Shootout is the dictionary reference for the subsequent upgrading of arms and armor to civilian police forces in the U.S. It's why they've got an M4 or M16 instead of a pump-action in the car now.

Or including the pump action.

IIRC, it's also why SWAT marksmen are carrying anti-materiel rifles, beisdes the fact they make vehicle escapes...difficult.

To the extent that your point is "I play my game this way", or maybe even "this is based on how the modern real world works where there's some semblance of government", we understood that long ago. Again, though, my counterpoint is that while however you decide to play at your table is just fine, once you move into the forum of public discussion you need to start considering whether the way things work at your table is reasonable, not from the perspective of the world you've created, but from the shared reality created by canon material.

To that end, your links are irrelevant—they're not about canon, and they can't be used to infer things about a part of canon that isn't well-covered because this area is well-covered. The Spikes control Interstate 5, and Lord Togo's lieutenant-slash-girlfriend likes to ride around with a rocket launcher in one hand (and an SMG in the other, presumably as an afterthought). The Red-Hot Nukes go around demolishing corporate research installations with high-grade home-cooked explosives. The Ancients have bleeding-edge military equipment supplied to them by the Tir. Your campaign simply does not, for significant purposes in this thread, resemble canon Shadowrun.

~J

SR combat is unreasonably fast, so responses unfortunately also need to be unreasonably fast.

I remember an adventure featuring the Anciencts, and as I recall they kept all the combat to the barrens. I think I still have that old book somewhere...

Corp facilities are usually outside of LS jurisdiction.

Still, I think cannon is inconsistant on these matters. I don't know that it's neccessarily more correct to call some gang stuff "right" over other sections.

I'd think about the only way to incorporate everything would be by using various rationalizations, such as various groups having "special understandings" with LS. Which I suppose would fit with the setting...

Modern America is a far cry from the situation in the UCAS of Shadowrun. Our police are government funded, rather than being contractors hired out. There are relatively few areas in a city where the police are not allowed to go due to jurisdiction problems. In the UCAS, only high or very high security areas have the sort of police protection that we take for granted.

Think about it this way. Wearing a Heavy Pistol on your belt will get you noticed by the cops and possibly arrested (depending on where you live, permits, etc.) If you're in Shadowrun's Barrens, you had BETTER be wearing a Heavy Pistol at least, or you should expect lots of trouble.

Well I think we all agree on the Barrens bit. The question is what happens if you're wandering around with an assault rifle or rocket launcher downtown, or frag a few rooms in a nice hotel.

That being said in real life the police are usually only good for showing up to examine your corpse and see if they can figure out who did it. I think eight minutes is about the time it takes to get someone on scene, which seems fast...but it's also an eternity. I'm just saying owning a firearm might not be something you want to do in real life as well as fiction.

As acquaintances of mine are fond of saying, "When seconds count, the police are minutes away."

In light of such, I would think owning a firearm is exactly what you want to do in real life and in fiction.

The opening scene of Elven Fire has the Ancients gear up and go to war, gathering on Westlake Avenue to go seize the turf "from Dexter to Aurora, starting at Harrison and going on down to Denny" (Google Maps link). It's only a few blocks, but if you'll scroll five, maybe six hundred meters to the West, you may notice the Space Needle—this isn't the Barrens. The weaponry they describe packing isn't full military-grade, but, well, I'll list it and you can judge for yourself:

(This is obviously non-exhaustive, it's just what gets explicitly mentioned in the text)

A Ranger-Arms sniper rifle, an Ingram of unspecified make (presumably one of the SMGs), multiple LAWs, an HK227, and a mage powerful enough to cast a spell (presumably Lightning Bolt) at high enough Force to affect a heavily-armored vehicle and then multiple Fireballs and some form of single-target combat spell without taking Drain.

Their opposition, a gang of significantly less exceptional lineage, fields: two "heavily armored trucks", an AK-97, and a trained Barghest.

All, again, less than two-thirds of a kilometer from the Space Needle.

(As an aside, this is part of what I love about Shadowrun—that it was set in a city that the writers were deeply familiar with. How many games can you take a piece of intro fiction, pull out a map, and find out exactly where everything is going down?)

~J

I suspect it's best to just not think too hard about whether a certain amount of armed response "makes sense" and instead focus on whether running it a certain way leads to the type of game you want. If you think too hard about what "makes sense" you quickly realize that the only sane way to have security work is dual-natured wards, and a network of mages who astrally project, speed over, and swamp the area with spirits. And that's not very fun.

Sometimes LS/KE might secretly applaud gangs for raiding extraterritorial corporate facilities. Especially if those facilities were pissing LS/KE off by not extraditing fugitives seeking shelter from LS/KE.

Also, consider this. Any run in a corp facility, is going to have security, obviously, and possibly the building is rigged with mics in every hallway, so any gun shots could be heard by the security office, and know where they came from, instantly.

In a non corp loc, i call LS/KE in when it "feels" right.

Yup. If you piss off the people who control the land around your facility you can expect that investigation of the sniper attack that kills the VP is going to be investigated as a misdemeanor "discharging firearm inside city limits". Because to LS, that is the only crime. People dying in other countries isn't their problem. And they will of course arrest anyone from the corp that tries to do their own investigation.

Hmmmm. I wonder if there has been authority creep across the editions. You're right, the book was "elven fire". But it was very first edition.

Though when looking up when it came out (1991) the tag line indicates that LS was planning to use the violence as a pretext to declare martial law, so they might have had some ulterior motive there.

All and all it has more cyberpunk flavor and less of the post-cyberpunk flavor shadowrun became known for.

True, but the intro section that that battle features in is entirely unrelated to the violence that LS is up in arms about—some time after the intro, a group backed by a Tir faction rivaling the Ancients' backers appears that repeatedly and aggressively provokes battles with the Ancients, triggering essentially open warfare between the Ancients and everyone with a grudge against them. The plot summary also mentions that this sparks other unrelated gangs to take their rivalries into open warfare. The entire city basically became a war zone before the crackdown came onto the table.

(It should also be noted that when the tagline says "martial law", it quite literally means Governor Schultz deploying the Metroplex Guard. Lone Star doesn't get paid for the actions of the Metroplex Guard, so plausible ulterior motives mostly center around not having to expend their own assets on the cleanup.)

(As a side note, I need to quote the Debugging section of the first part of Elven Fire now: "If the runners get geeked by a pack of punks like these, they don't deserve to play this adventure. Go to Character Generation. Go directly to Character Generation. Do not pass Go. Do not collect 200¥.")



I'd argue that the full leap into post-cyberpunk was an SR4 thing, though there was a trend towards it from around Shadows of Europe onwards.

~J

I guess my point is that I wonder if gangs having open warfare downtown has gone the way of cyberdecks. The different editions don't just try and recreate the same thing with different rules. They advance time, taking out cities, corporations, arcologies, adding things like Otaku and technomancers, and changing the flavor and setting somewhat each time.

Which would feed back into my argument that SR1-3 and SR4 cannot meaningfully be discussed as the same world. Bad thread-starter, not using edition tags!


Otaku are old; I think they got brought in with the first Virtual Realities. The big changes you're talking about are pretty much unique to SR4 as far as by-edition demarcation goes, though there's a visible trend towards it starting late in 3rd edition (I generally set the line at Shadows of Europe).

~J

Well, I think most people like their fluff enough to consider them all the same world. It's simply that the times, they be a changing. I mean we're talking about a span of what, about 25 years now? That's more than enough time for dramatic change.

Now that I'm thinking about it I'm getting the feeling that, while inconsistant, the flavor goes something like:

1st edition: Gang wars downtown
2nd edition: Lone Star sourcebook gives them some teeth, somewhere the first response time table appears, with roughly the flavor text of the later one, but with a disclamer that the times listed are unrealistically fast, but have been found to play well.
3rd edition: Amped up response time table
4th edition: The cameras and drones! They're everywhere! Big brother has an RFID tag stamped on your underpants!

Also within edition LS seem to get buffed by sourcebooks, which often introduce an array of new vehicles, drones, and sometimes cyberware or combat drugs for them, and upgrade whatever sidearm they have in the main book with the Ruger Thunderbolt.


Obviously I'm basing this off of memery, and editions have a way of blurring together. But how does that seem to you?

I think that this only appears to be the case because of the poorly-defined nature of "fluff", and that in fact the fluff is incompatible, but I don't have time right now to do the research and thinking necessary to present a proper argument for that.

Timeline-wise, assuming that the changes have been gradual (not sure either way, need to do the research on that too) this is still an argument for clearly separating them; consider many discussions here as if they were historical discussions, only the period under discussion spans from the Great War to the Great Patriotic War and people rarely specify a more specific sub-period.



I don't believe this trend to be the case, at least not in a smooth manner, but I don't have time at the moment to do the research.

(So about half of this post was "I'll get back to this" )

~J

I could prove it if I could, but I can't right now, so I won't. But consider it proven.

Hey, it's not quite like that! I could be wrong!

Pretty sure I'm not, of course, but it's possible

(Also, I'm not asking anyone to consider it proven during the interim, either.)

~J

I'm pretty sure about the Thunderbolt part, at least for editions 2-4. I think making the switch would have a big impact particularily in 4th edition where LS grunts in the main book are armed with a Colt L_ame36 or something weak like that.

One quibble. A visible Heavy pistol better have the reflexes to back up the threat in the deep Barrens. Otherwise, the bearer is one ambush away from supplying a ganger with a weapon upgrade. A firearm is not a defense. It's an offense. What is far more effective in the Barrens is having freinds with you - people who watch your back.

No disagreement, here.