I'm going to be running a game soonish for my regular group and had them e-mail me character concepts and ideas. One of my players (well two actually) had a fairly interesting idea that I haven't seen done before and I would like to see what others think of it (both upsides and downsides IC and OOC).

One of the PC's wants to have Damien Knight as as 6/6 contact. He would be the characters father with her being a runner to gain experience and live (she has a better chance of surviving in the shadows than she does surviving the assassins that would be after her if knowledge of her existence leaked). Another character would be an adept that's worked for Knight for awhile and has been sent as her bodyguard. The daughter would be a technomancer (tentatively) with the Erased background (being fluffed as her father having her actively wiped from the records).

Knight would be used mostly as a general purpose contact that's rarely available. If the PC asks for it, he can get it (whether that be getting smuggled into another nation or getting the party outfitted with delta grade ware) but the more he interacts the thinner the cover between him and the PC (his daughter) gets and the more likely his enemies are to find out about her. Sure, he probably would drop a Thor shot on her enemies if necessary but it would be something guaranteed to make her existence known.

I trust the player not to try and abuse the contact (for example, the character would have to trust the party enough to let them know her parentage if she wanted to get them outfitted with delta grade ware; which IC would be a fairly extraordinary event) and think it could make a fairly interesting backstory with some pretty good built in plot hooks and character moments (The players are hired to do a run against Ares, does the character let her father know?) but I'm curious what others think.

On first blush? Seems too powerful. Can characters choose other contacts, like Great Dragons?

I mean, it could be fun, it just seems like it would be a lot of work if you want to "do it right". For both you as the GM and the player.

Seems like one possible problem is making sure all of the players are ok with the idea, and not to let Damien Knight become the NPC that overshadows the other characters.

But if everyone is onboard, sure, why not?

Oh, wow.

This is pretty much the second-most crazy place I've ever heard of a Shadowrun game going.

(The first was an epic wherein the player characters were Damien Knight (yes, himself,) the Immortal Elf Harlequinn, and the Great Dragon Lofwyr.)


Anyway, um, wow... I question the character's premise that Damien Knight's daughter would be safer in the Shadows than out of them. Remember that Damien Knight is basically the head-for-life of a world superpower. You're talking about the President's daughter, here. And unlike the United States, the board of directors and the shareholders of Ares Macrotechnology have basically no checks on Damien Knight's power if he decides to flip his shit, beyond all caring for the consequences, as any father would if his daughter was murdered. If someone hurt his baby girl, there would be war. And I don't mean that figuratively, I mean that literally: armies would mobilize to crush the people responsible, drive them out of their holdings, and hear the lamentations of their shareholders.


Nobody in the world would get away with it. Not even Lofwyr. It would probably mean World War III and the end of "civilization" as we know it, but even the Great Dragon Lofwyr would die like a straight-up bitch if he had Damien Knight's baby girl killed.




That said, it could work, if you want to go somewhere crazy like that. I, personally, favor the presumption that FastJack and Damien Knight are one in the same person (being FastJack and running ShadowSEA most likely being his hobby.) Taken for granted, it's not impossible by any stretch of the imagination to imagine that Damien Knight could be at once so simultaneously irresponsible and world-wise as to let his daughter run off to play Shadowrunner for a while. Builds character, don't you know. (And of course, she's guaranteed to have access to Jackpoint, which makes a great way for Daddy to funnel information her way without anyone being any the wiser.)

Of course, the real question is how in the world do you contain her power. There's literally no way in the world that Damien Knight's daughter wouldn't be full to the brim of Delta-grade anything-she-needed. Probably all of it low-profile stuff, of course, because image (and feel, etcetera,) are everything, but even so, this is a character who would have, functionally speaking, literally unlimited* funds to spend on augmentations and equipment at character generation. (Her bodyguard, pretty much the same thing.)

*Definition of the world literally in this usage not necessarily to be taken literally. Even Damien Knight controls a finite amount of resources. Even so, it would be more than any player could practically spend, even if they bought a gross of literally everything printed in every book ever. (And what are you going to do with your new navy, anyway, Ms. Shadowrunner, to say nothing of your new squadron of orbital killsats?)

The only way I can think of that this girl wouldn't be a walking advertisement for Ares-brand Delta Everything is if she were Awakened. Not even Damien Knight can shortcut a magician's need for Karma to grow her magical power, and no amount of money buys that. (Well, with Cash for Karma it might, but I wouldn't allow it with Daddy's Background Money, only cash earned in-play.) Even so, she'd still start out with the very best armor and weapons Daddy's money can buy, not to mention a Transys Cybernaut (at the very least; most likely Damien Knight would have his company put together a clone of his own Rating 10 commlink and load it with clones of his own programs.)


The question is: how is this going to mesh with the other characters? Running the Shadows is extremely dangerous: nobody knows that better than FastJack, and if FastJack is Damien Knight, then Damien Knight knows it, too. about the only threat in the Shadows she could be certain wouldn't happen to them is the traditional Ares Doublecross. The Ares Johnson who tried to doublecross Daddy's girl's team would probably wish he'd been shot before the Firewatch team catches him. (God help him if he actually succeeds in killing her: not even a permanent relocation to a Deep Metaplane would save him.) Anything else, though, is fair game, which means dangerous game: from street gangers getting lucky to Runs going south to another Johnson doublecrossing them to just the character herself trying something stupid and desperate (like trying to swim for it with a body packed full of un-buoyant cyberwear.)

I could see him trying it - letting her run off to the Barrens of Seattle to play Shadowrunner, but Damien Knight wouldn't do it without arming her with the very best (which is bound to raise flags,) and, more than that, sending backup she doesn't know about - either hiring another Runner team (and if he is FastJack, he can basically put together a team of people he's certain beyond a shadow of a doubt are the best, and are the most stable,) or sending a group of Company Men, with orders to keep surveillance on her and her associates, let them go about their business without interfering (no matter what they do,) and only step in to pull their asses out of the fire if something goes way the hell south and they're in completely over their heads (like accidentally stumbling into a Bug Hive, or pissing off the Yaks so bad that they call a city-wide manhunt with a price on their heads, or winding up in a nasty doublecross or something.)

Anyway, I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's possible, sure, but even with newbie's skills, she's going to be so decked out with gear, and completely ignoring all Availability limitations, that she's going to be in the same league, build-point wise, with the primest of the Prime Runners.

Oh, he could get revenge if she was killed no question. Keeping her from being killed, used against him, or letting her get life experience in the first place is a far different story. Hmm, might have to work with the player on whats going on at Ares that's sufficiently dangerous for her to be safer in the shadows.


Note the technomancer bit. The player chose that specifically so she would have a believable excuse to not be loaded down with delta grade ware and the like. Same with the adept body guard (for largely the same reason). Not having the skills to use all that nifty tech also comes into play a bit.




I already tend to throw out availability limits and let the players get what they want if they can give a decent backstory reason to have it; and just veto anything specific I don't want them having on a case by case basis.

Hmm, having a Firewatch team running around trying to protect her without her knowing/her team finding out could be interesting and offer plot opportunities. It could also explain some edge uses (a character is about to die and spends edge for Hand of God, their enemy all the sudden looses his head to a sniper round.

So you are basically saying that you think it could work but it would have to be carefully handled?

Want to point out that having Damien Knight as a contact essentially gives Ares as contact which costs over 400 BP....

I'm a give the players what they want kind of GM. I'd say "Sure, Damien Knight is your father..." and then we'd fill in some blanks. Maybe she thinks Damien Knight is her father. Maybe she thinks someone who looks, acts and appears to be Damien Knight is her father. Damien Knight is actually her father, but doesn't like what she's doing. Damien Knight is her father, if count having ordered her genetic material implanted in a woman....

Et Cetera. I would then set a limit on the loyalty and connection rating you're comfortable with, explaining that yes this person has the capability of providing international assistance at the highest levels-but chooses not to just yet for you. Prove your worth and you can access the connection.

I'd then go over all the disadvantages that go with this friend in high places. Nothing is ever completely secret. Welcome to the high stress world of corporate kidnappings, assassins, and intrigue. Welcome to the world of assorted political and religious terrorist's trying to mess you up to send a message to Daddy.

Approach it reasonably, and make sure they understand there is a drawback for every advantage. Just like real life.

Ahhh. I see. That does make things more understandable - though you might want to remind the player that sometimes even magical characters get augmented. A point of Deltaware wouldn't be out-of-place on such a character, especially if it was implanted BEFORE she got her techno-awakening.

Still, even without having many skills, Daddy probably wouldn't let them go unequipped. If nothing else, good gear can be worth more than its weight in gold in the Shadows. Remember that Daddy employs some of the best gunsmiths in the world, so any equipment she buys is likely to be modified to hell and back.

I'd start with, for instance, an Ares Bravo, perhaps with the Bayonet Lug to move the bayonet forward so it can have its underbarrel mount back.

And of course, we can't forget the armor. While she's unlikely to go around in a full military gear, Damian Knight - especially if he is FastJack - can probably provide the next-best-thing to a full Schlock Mercenary set of low-profile carbon nanotubearmor. So, Softweave everything, and it's likely to be very, very well-made.

Also, don't forget the Commlink. While she may be a Technomancer, she might not want to risk getting her brains fried every time she engages a regular old IC. That's when you pull out the Tranysys Cybernaut. Heck, a Rating 9 Commlink can run some nasty Agents/IC that could provide her with a lot of backup in the Matrix, above and beyond whatever Sprites she compiles herself. And Daddy would be all about giving her the backup.

(That's also another point, on the 'hidden backup' thing. Stalking her through the Matrix would probably be hard, but Damien Knight probably has some of the best hackers on the planet working for him. If he is, in fact FastJack, he is the best hacker on the Planet as well. So if she got into deep shit in the Matrix, she might be able to call for help and Daddy himself might come to rescue her, Liam Neeson-style. This is, of course, if you assume that Damien Knight is, in fact, FastJack.)






Yeah, more or less. I'll trade you the Possession-tradition mage who runs a junkyard converted into a paracritter training facillity.

Per Runner's Companion group contact rules, add 22 to the connection rating for cost (1000+ members, global area of influence, vast magical resources and pervasive matrix integration). That puts it at a 28/6 contact, a bit cheaper than 400 BP.

Personally, I'd be against it for a game I was running. Namely because it makes that one character (or that character's contact) the biggest deal in any party. Any run, any job, any action would have to be weighed against that 300 lb gorilla in the room.

Other characters in the group would pale in comparison to that one thing. And it creates a lot of suspension-of-disbelief requirements to make it work. Why don't they, as others have stated, have the best gear possible? Even adepts and 'mancers can make use of high grade gear, be they foci, 'links, cyberware, etc. Wouldn't DK have a constant shadow on his daughter, ready to bail her out at a moments notice?

That said, by all means, if that's the kind of power level your group's comfortable with, then run with it? The important question would be: why is she running, at all? That would need a plausible description, as to why she'd give up the excitement and intrigue of corporate politics, traveling the world, and living in the lap of luxury, for slumming with criminals, terrorists, and ne'er-do-wells. She's obviously not doing it for the money...and I can think of a number of things that are as exciting/thrilling without the tedium/danger/etc. Especially in a world with virtual reality, as a technomancer.

I get it now - this thread is an April Fool's Day prank. Heh, you got me.

I really hope it wasn't, because now I want to hear how this game goes.

I too would be against it in any game I was running. I mean, seriously? Damien Knight letting his daughter play at Shadow Runner where she can end up dead in a heartbeat "to save her from the possibility of assassination" if she stayed safe at home with him?

If you are happy running with the idea, don't let me or anyone else stop you doing what you and your players find fun, but if you do go ahead with it I would recommend that not just the adept but the entire team are her bodyguards/protectors, anything less would just not make sense to my mind ...

A large part of this discussion is predicated on the assumption Damien Knight cares if someone kills his daughter. It might be less "The West Wing" and more like what happened to Veronica Mars in "Spartan".

Here's my take on it. If you take Damien Knight (or Lofwyr, or the Prime Minister of Japan) as a 6/6 Contact, what you get is a 6/6 contact. You get the bonus dice on the usual tests, and the contact is in your corner. But that's it. You can't call in airstrikes from the Ares Air Force.

No Ares is a group of group contacts

Ares America, Stoner-Ares Weapon Systems, Ares Small Arms, Ares Arms Africa, General Dynamics, Weapons World, Ares CAS, Ares Arms California, Knight Errant of California, Leviathan Technical, Osprey Technical Publications, Silicon Valley/Apple Computer Products, Ares Integrated Solutions, Ares Makrotech, Knight Errant Security, Mitchell Holding, Ares Global Entertainment, National Broadcasting Service (NBS), Ares Macrotechnologies (Tir Tairngire), Ares UCAS, Ares Seattle, Hard Corps, Inc., AresSpace, Ares Global Commsat, AresSpace Lifters, AresSpace Security, AresSpace Special Operations Division, NASA Consulting Inc., Qantas (Australia), Bank of America, General Motors, Knight Errant Security Services, Knight Errant—Tir Tairngire, Crystal Optics, Lifescape, Mercury Express, Mostrans, Quick Trigger Systems, Pratt & Whitney

It wasn't an April Fools day joke. The player asked and it seemed both reasonably interesting and potentially a significant problem so I figured I would see what others thought.

Make sure your player understands and acknowledges this point. We've had one player play the daughter of Jenna Ni'Faira (an Immortal Elf), and after pissing off a major corporation (Saeder-Krupp, to be exact) and facing retribution, said player threw a tantrum about "diplomatic immunity" and "Tir forces will protect her".

Every advantage should be paid for.

I'm sorry, but this doesn't hold water. Unless the parent doesn't actually care for them (in which case, why are they a Loyalty 6 contact,) then they're going to do everything in their power to bail them out.

I will now quote from Page 286 of SR4A]. Ahem: "Loyalty 6: Friend For Life. The contact will do whatever he can for the character, even if it means putting his own life on the line."

Check that again. If a contact's Loyalty rating indicates that he's willing to grab a gun and wade into a firefight to pull the character out of trouble, or confront Ultraviolet IC in no-holds-barred hot-sim cybercombat, or go on an astral quest to locate them in Bug Country or whatever, that means that they will do anything they can if it becomes necessary.


Yes, that would mean sending a Firewatch team or a band of Tir Ghosts (not sure if Tir na Nog has those; whatever they equivalent is) to pull the character out of the fire if they got in way over their heads (pissed off Lofwyr, got outed as the scion of a AAA megacorp in the middle of a negotiation and now every Runner in Seattle is looking to kidnap them for the nuyen, etcetera.)

This is what Loyalty 6 means. So, yes; Tir forces would protect her in such a situation. If Saeder Krupp put her on their "kill immediately" list, Tir black ops forces would mobilize immediately to extract her back to the homeland.

In that situation, the group's goal should probably be to survive the Saeder-Krupp hitmen long enough for their Big Damn Heroes to arrive.

It would also probably mean the end of that character in viable play. That's it - the character is Outed, they won't be safe out in the world again. Damien Knight's daughter gets taken back to her father who tearfully throws her in a bearhug and tells her he never wants her more than ten miles from him ever again and tells her that he's got some spymasters who are very interested in developing her talents. Probably something similar for the daughter of the Immortal Elf. (The Immortal Elf's daughter might get to go Running again in a century or so, after she's had an identity swap.... Though maybe not if it was Lofwyr she pissed off; dragons have long memories.)

But the player was absolutely right that Tir forces would do everything in their power to extract her alive. Diplomatic immunity, not so much, because that requires that the character be some sort of diplomat or high official in the first place, but that her mother would send black ops teams to get her back? Absolutely. Of course, it would've meant the end of the character as a playable character, but still.

Fair enough. The other side of the coin is that the connection in question is rating 6, meaning that a 6/6 will do whatever he can for the character, even if it means putting his own life on the line, with the whatever he can part limited to the power of rating 6.

As ShadowDragon said, Knight (or Jenna) would pull out all the stops. The character would survive (especially if they burnt a point of edge for Hand of God) but they would be over in the campaign. Time to roll up a new character.

Sorry, still leaking like a colander. A numeric system to determine what a character's contacts can do has its advantages, but at some point, you have to take a sanity check on the situation.

Another Connection 6 contact might be a Mafia Don (in fact, it's right there in the list of possibilities.) If your character did something really important for him - such as being squirted out of his wife's womb, or he owes you everything - you know, a Loyalty rating of 6 - and you call because you're in deep shit and need a friend who can bail you out, you're getting your bail-out. Probably burning the biggest favor ever, and you're going to owe him your soul when it's over, but if you're in dire enough straights that you have to pull that ace out of your sleeve, you'd better believe that within ten minutes, every bagman, capo, foot soldier, made man, and consiglere in the city is looking for you, with bullets for your enemies and an unmarked car gassed up and ready to get you and your loved ones to an airport where people are being bribed and forged papers are being drawn up to get you out of the country, beyond the reach of whatever enemy you made that's bad enough to burn this favor.

If it was a major politician, perhaps, then within ten minutes then FBI is looking for you to take you and your beloved ones into protective custody and shuffle you out into witness protection, if it was a Rating 6 Mr. Johnson or Fixer then a team of big-name Prime Runners (read: Jackpointers) will be hired to extract you from whatever pile of shit you've fallen into with extreme prejudice, etcetera.

If your Loyalty 6 contact is Damien Knight, then that means all the reasonable force that Ares Macrotechnology (and all of its subsidiaries, holdings, etcetera,) needs to bring to bear to get you out of your mess, will be brought to bear, whether that means just sending a Firewatch Team to rescue you before the Prime Runners your enemies contracted to kill you run you to ground in the barrens, or massively mobilizing their armed forces and getting into a staring contest with Saeder-Krupp until the wizworm decides you're not worth it and lets him have you.

Nuh-Uh

But seriously are you suggesting that I could get every AAA CEO and every great dragon as 6/6 contacts and rule the world?

Obviously. I personally try to go for a lower power level and just add JackPoint as a group contact

If I were even to allow a Connections 6 contact, I would have to limit the number thereof to one at chargen.

And if you somehow, through roleplay in-game, manage to get the heads of every AAA, ever Great Dragon, and every national government (yes, they still exist and they're still relevant,) as Loyalty 6 contacts...

Well, you already rule the world. Though how you could manage to have both the people who run Azt/lan/technology and Sirrug as Loyalty 6 contacts at the same time is beyond me.

No, that's pretty much what 6/6 is. A loyalty 6 contact is a guy who will die for you. He will do everything in his power to help you if it's important enough. Connections 6 is a person who has real international pull, these are individuals who can move nations with a word.


Sure, if the GM let you and you had the weirdest back-story ever. And 99% of the time those contacts wouldn't be available and would be off doing other shit; but when you call in that favor, they will go to the mat for you with every resource they can lay their hands on.

Pixie adept artists way do everything you can to boost artisan (baking) skill make sugar cookies using edge. Gain 1 loyalty per cookie eaten.

That really is what a Connections 6, Loyalty 6 contact is. You're only going to get to pull the trigger on that kind of all-stops-removed rescue once, mind you, but if the alternative is certain death and you have no other options, call that emergency number and tell your friend you're stuck between the rock and the hard place, the rock is made of uranium and the hard place is the nuclear initiation, and you're going to straight-up die if you can't find a way out, and a way out will be made, or your friend will die trying.




Fixed that for you. When Lofwyr throws down, he's not afraid to get his claws dirty if that's what it takes. Just ask Nachtmeister.


Granted, I don't know what in the world you could do to engender such loyalty from someone so completely self-focused and alien, but if you did it, well... Getting a Great Dragon as a Loyalty 6 contact pretty much means that when it's his turn* to throw down for you, he's not pulling any slashes. (As opposed to you going out of your way to help advance his interests, the sort of back-and-forth thing that creates a Loyalty 6 contact. You need to get your hands on some milspec gear at cost and you don't have a tight time-frame? Drop an email in your buddy Lofwyr's in-box, and 1d6 days later you'll find an avenue to the entire Saeder-Krupp catalog open to you. There's a guy in Seattle with information that the wizworm would prefer never see the light of day? Guess who's getting the job.)

Yeah, but even if that happens, they'll go to war with each other, convinced that the other side is bamboozling you and manipulating you for their own ends.

Thus began the great cookie war. The final cost 4 billion lives and the good figures of 2 billion women.

Isn't that more than the population of the Sixth World? Just how long did the Great Cookie War last?

4 years of real hostilities after a 2 year build up. Also women can get fat and then die.

Note: Cookies are a better reason for war than trees.

But you are not purchasing all that, you are only purchasing Damien Knight. His connections are completely irrelevant to the situation. Just like any other contact. You are not purchasing Ares, you are purchasing an individual within Ares. What that Individual chooses to do with HIS contacts is irrelevant to what you want HIM to do.

True that, but still, that's nasty.



Yes, but the ruination of the figures of two billion metahuman women is just inexcusable, no matter how just the war.



Right. You'd only have to purchase all of that if your character wasn't Damien Knight's daughter, but Damien Knight himself.

Social Adept with Aptitude (Etiquette).

I like having a 1/6 Dragon contact a lot more. They will do anything for me and they hang on my every commcall. "Hey, did you call? I thought I missed a call from you... No? Oh, well, what's going on?"

I'd say make the story on the mother's side explain why the character has to 'hide' in the shadows. There should be good reason why daddy can't just have his significiant pull with Ares (and other groups) hide/protect the character - something that makes calling on daddy's favor risky for both of them. Or, have the character responsible for something even daddy can't protect them from: the murder of someone really important, for instance.

Use something like the 'Big Regret' flaw and 'Enemies' or 'Wanted'.

The character has to hide from someone with vast resources, daddy suggested a faked death and the shadows, and sent along some protection (possibly as punishment for their involvement in the debacle?). The campaign will center around the character trying to stay hidden and find a solution (the classic 'find the true killer' may be a bit too much...)

The world's most introverted dragon being your best friend for life?

He probably stays invisible most of the time and helps abused kids find families.
Last seen in a small town in Maine.

A Connection 1 dragon? That ain't a dragon, it's a baby drake made with 300BP ...

This sounds more like a feasible backstory for Damein Knight's daughter to be hiding in the shadows.

6/6 contacts should be used sparingly if at all, and I think everyone is right in that if you ever have to make that call then it's game over.

I'd think that if you regularly tap that contact by begging for gear, getting in trouble and requiring extraction and similar crap, there's a chance for either the loyalty rating to go down or for the character to get grabbed and sent to get some sort of counseling for his own good. A modern day version of the medieval 'I'm sick of your shenanigans, off to the monastery for a few years for your own good'.

Pull too often on a rope and it's going to break.

Oh and depending on the nature of the ties, I'd expect that loyalty rating to be at least somewhat two ways. A loyalty rating of 6 usually needs some ukpeep to show you're not just an hungry bastard willing to milk suggar daddy for all he's worth without giving a thing in return.

Yes exactly. And the sort of favours a Connection 6 contact would ask for would be pretty daunting.

Get me a freshly made Chicago donut.

The first thing that popped into my head for Damien Knight's favor: Spend Christmas with him and your mother.

(If you're trying to do a run in late December, this can be pretty damn tough.)