Hey guys, I've been having a great campaign with my players I've been running parts of the Denver missions and parts of my own homebrew mission. One of my players characters is a Otaku turned Awakened Fighter. Basically hes a mystic adept with living focus and self buffs himself with his spell and using abilities such as hadouken (Shockwave) and her fists. Her magic tradition is basically that video games (mostly old ones) and magic taught her magic, so nearly everything she does is basically a refrence to our modern pop culture. Even the spirits are references such as summoning Capitan Falcon spirit (Spirit of man with fire spell). I decided that her tradition did exist and other mages practiced similar traditions. The player is a great player and brings good humor to the table and has his share of awesome moments. Anyways, I recently give her a mentor where she asked the mentor to learn the "Point Break Technique" aka I-kill-everything-but-leave-myself-weaken-state.
I figured the most appropriate thing will be to learn this technique would be through a metaplane quest. So I've been trying to think of what sort of meta plane a video game based tradition would have. I imagine such a plane might just be a tribute or mishmash of videogames with "levels" inside of it. Anyways I've been trying to think of how I should design this quest. I'm thinking that the dweller should be something along the lines of questioning her why she is Otaku. I think it should probaly be heavily puzzle based with one to two combat scenes. Anyways I need some ideas for:
*The Metaplane's quest
* How much influence the party's technomancer should have
*The technique (Perhaps I should make it so its a step by step aka initiate several times)
I'll have the other PCs be able to help after all thats part of what will make it exciting. It'll definitely be different from most missions. Thanks guys.

Wow this is strange:
- Otaku do no longer exist in SR4. They could not awaken in SR3. Technomancers cannot awaken either.
- For self-buffing the living focus is absolutely useless. Sustaining your own spell gives you -2, using the living focus ability gives you -2 as well, so either way you will be at -2 for sustaining your own spells. Better use the power point for something else

My suggestions for the Quest:
- make an 8-bit metaplane and take inspiration from all sorts of video games for the actual quest. Something along the lines of save the dragon, kill the princess, or was it the other way around?
-I'm not sure if Berserk (Street Magic p. 175) is what you are looking for. It is not a metamagic technique but a normal adept power. Maybe you could augment it by a metamagic technique. For example: The technique raises the bonus to Physical attributes by the initiate grade but after the power wears off, the adept is a -initiate grade on all rolls until he rests for MAG hours. You may even make the bonus a dice pool bonus instead of raised attributes so hat the cap is not in effect.

Perhaps I wasn't clear, I was refering to the character concept as a otaku, I forgot that in shadowrun otaku were "children of the matrix." For simplicity's sake you could replace that word with "video game nerd." I explained to the player that magic works on the power of clap your hands if you believe. So that player decided that he was a nerd who learned magic through video games and Internet forums. I remember reading somewhere that magic can be base their magic on anything from ancient myths to the cartoons, so video games sounded fine to me, although slightly technomancerish. I made it clear that he can't have his spirits act as sprites or do anything with technology/
Beserk actually sounds quite appropriate, although its a little boring static bonuses.
The plot idea is a good start. I'm trying to figure out the player's favorite old 8 bit video games so I can make references and such.

I like the idea of a video game based magic tradition. Reminds me of Unknown Armies' postmodern magic and fits SR too, IMHO.

I like my Dwellers on the Threshold to really challenge the core beliefs of the characters by making the price they pay for being the way they are obvious. How about this: She suddenly finds herself in a familiar room with a vintage game console. As she is about to turn it on, a close friend or family member appears and tries to convince her to leave it alone. "Haven't you played enough yet? We hardly get to see you anymore. Come on, everybody is waiting for you. We miss you very much."
In order to access the metaplanes she has to turn on the console and "lose" herself in the game.

You might allow the other players to appear as "cameos" of video game characters that are in some way similar to their normal characters. The street sam becomes the Doom marine, the face turns into Mario, etc. The mission: Find the princess (prince?) - but in what castle could s/he be?

The Point Break Tech is a bit difficult. Basically, that's what the Attribute Boost power is for, so I'd try to work from there. How about a metamagic technique that allows you to activate multiple Boosts simultaneosly?
Just a quick idea:

Overdrive (Adepts only)
An initiate who has learned this power my activate multiple Attribute Boosts with a single Simple Action. The number of Boosts chained together is capped by intiate grade. You only make a single activation test for all powers with Magic + the average of all Attribute Boost levels. When the boost runs out, you have to resist Drain equal to the combined Attribute Bosst ratings.

Siobhan suddenly finds herself in a pinch and decides to activate her Overdrive, turning into a warrior-saint of the Tuatha De Danann. Being a grade 3 initiate, she can activate her Strength Boost 2, Agility Boost 5 and Reaction Boost 3 simultaneously. Throwing 9 dice (Magic 6 + (2+5+3)/3) she scores 4 hits, so her Strength, Agility and Reaction are increased by 4 for 8 rounds. Afterwards, Siobhan will have to resist DV10 Drain.

The dweller on the threshold idea sounds quite interesting rping experience. Power vs Relationships and humanity is an interesting theme.
So heres how I envision the level so far, there will be 7 levels. One for each shadowrun stat. The list is as follows
logic-pokemon
body-doom
aglity-centipede
Strength-King of fighters
Inution- not sure
reaction- Galaga
cha- dweller
I like the cameo idea Its tough to decide heres the list of the other PCs:
Gun Nut Elf- Hes the closest thing to a street sammie that the party has, only 'ware he has is wired reflexes II
Face Adept Elf-Not a pornmancer but hes decent at what he does
Dronomancer- Our hacker/rigger driver technomancer, is a Quadriplegic, has a pimped wheelchair
Infiltrator Adept: Stealth adept that uses throwing improvise weapons to kill things

Any of these levels could easily change. Heres how I envision the quest will go:
The PCs arrive to the world of pokemon. The start will be a lot like the video games where the professor talks about how wonderful they are, their names, are they boys or girls?, etc. Then they will see themselves for the first time as whatever video game persona fits them the best. The professor talks about their quest to get the important mcguffin (Haven t decided what it should be) from the castle in the virdian forest. The professor also advises to avoid eye contact with strangers. Soon the PCs will have to battle a trainer. However all the "pokemon" the trainer use will be mostly video game characters like Samus from Metroid. The main character will either have to use his spirits to fight or his party members.
After that they will unknownly go to the next zone. Where the castle is will be easy to spot. The PCs notice that there is something amok because the forest is actually made up by mushrooms. They will find a surivor who was trying to get to castle, known as "high score" until the giant creature got him. He asks for one more quarter he then dies. The PCs will be stalked by the centipede and other monsters will wander around. Combat is discouraged because combat just makes smaller centipedes. Killing draws the centipede closer. They will get to castle and be told: "I'm sorry your mcguffin is in another castle."
The castle will then get attacked by multi centipedes and are quickly lead to the space ship where they can escape. They will take off then encounter the alien ships, who are in search of a "fighter jet" like ship that apparently wiped out their fleet ahead somehow.
The PCs may talk or fight their way through this through diplomacy.
They will then land on the moon of mars where the next castle is located. Turns out the castle is a military base where hell itself has taken over it. After fighting their way to the center the reach the treasure of the next castle which is a teleporter.
Which leads to a fighting arena run by the free spirit: The challenge. The spirit will pit the main character against his own allies in this arena. After doing so if he succeeds the spirit decides he his worthy and explains the whole quest was a if he was willing to become something better. He learns the metamagic technique and initiates.

Anyways thats how I envision how I'll run the quest. Its more linear then most of the missions I've ran but such is the nature of video games. Let me know what you think.
EDIT: Almost forgot to reply to the point break technique, I think it works quite well sounds cool only problem is the player didn't take the temp power boast. I guess I could change that with the next think seeing how living focus is useless.

Intuition - Zork.

I like this idea, but should point out that a mechanic for multiple magickey things with the same action already exists. Overdrive should work using the same principles as Multicasting Spells, but also add your initiate grade to the dice pool. (after the split if you want to make it good).
For those off the top of your head: Your split dice pools between the actions, and all drain for all the spells you cast with the same action goes up by 1.

Thanks for all who replied, the power needs a little tweaks but am I worried about the story more then the technique, because I can always change it. The run is tommorow. So any feedback on the metaplane story?

Ok, it's a bit late for that now, but I'm sure everything went well on your end. Normally, I'd had recommended that you keep it simple so that what is essentially one character's day in the limelight does not overshadow the whole campaign, but in this case I feel that you're fine. It's a solid concept you got there and since the other players get to participate, too, they should have no reason to feel left out.
So, how did it go?



Well, as per RAW this only an option for multicasting spells and nothing else. You can't summon two spirits simultaneously, for example. Furthermore, how are you supposed to calculate the dicepool when you have different Attribute Boost ratings? Or more than two powers to activate? Try to apply that to my example above and you will see that it doesn't work.

Actually things didn't go as plan, the key player couldn't make it because of a family emergency, so I had to throw something together in about 10 minutes, it worked, but it was very improvised, but everyone seemed to have a blast. So next week I suppose. I'm thinking if some of these levels take too long I can cut them. I think I need to develop doom and the fighting stage a bit more

Good catch. There ARE mechanics in place for such a situation(dual wielding weapons with different skills, in which case you use the lowest), but they kind of suck.

Splitting the magic pool only seems to be the best way to do it, and encourages people to take more than one level of attribute boost if they are doing this.
IE, 2 dice magic + strength boost, 3 dice + agi boost. In this situation, i would probably remove the +1 drain per attempt.