We are currently locked up for recruitment!

I’m looking for between 4 and 6 players, and things may be locked up at this point. Since this is an experiment for me, this will be a traditional-ish campaign, based in Seattle. As a result more or less traditional roles will be needed for the team. Characters should be thought of as competent runners who are up-and-coming. Anything from an official 4E book is fair game, but I ask that players avoid the more exotic races (especially infected). Those races/infected are not prohibited, I just find that a dietary requirement is distracting to players, and some exotic races can have trouble blending/fitting in. I don’t generally crack down too hard on players, but vampirism is always about the blood (or flesh), and I will not ignore such requirements. Additionally, I will award a small amount of karma, which can be spent prior to the game starting using the normal rules, to any player that gives me a few paragraphs of history/background/explanation of Qualities.

If you’re interested or have any questions/suggestions chime in here for now.

We will use the JMH standard for character creation using karmagen, so 1k karma, 625 attribute cap, metatype cost is equal to BP cost and attributes are 5* for cost.

I’m currently thinking about sessions about four hours long, every other Saturday. I’m thinking 2pm EDT for a start time. With luck, and assuming I can get a chance to review characters soonish, we can try to have our first session on the 25th of August. Since characters are being finalized at this time, and I've been bogged down with administrative tasks and learning to use this new technology, I'm bumping the official start to August 1st. I will be hosting a Hangout on the 25th anyway for a short time just so we can have a meet 'n greet and make sure that we can figure out the technology a little better. This won't be a four-hour gaming session so much as a 30-60 minute session so we know what we're doing when we go live.

Players will need to have a Google email account to allow access to Hangouts and Docs/Drive. Send me a PM with your gmail address and I’ll begin building a group contact list, then distribute it to everyone. Feel free to create a new account if you want to retain privacy or otherwise keep this account separate from others (I’m planning on using one of my alternate accounts because my own Drive space has been filling up fast lately).

Once you have a gmail account, follow this link to the Tabletop Forge application’s home page. Scroll down and you’ll find a section titled, “How do I use Tabletop Forge?” Click on the "g+ Hangout" button and it will launch Hangout, install any required plugins, and add the app to your Hangout apps list.

Like I said Im interested, I can gaurentee back story with any of my chars. I can probably cover most roles,, though Im not completely competent on the hacking system :/. I was wondering if instead of BP I could use karmagen? if not thats fine i Just prefer it :3. I could maybe add some suggestions. also have another who may be interested.

Hehe, yup, you're the previously mentioned "DS member penciled into a slot."

>:3 MWhahahaha. lol. if you seem to be lacking of members, I know Thorguild, Derezzed, and I think Fautline ( dunno if i spelled them all correctly) where looking for games. so If no one seems to be interested I could send a PM

Oh, I nearly forgot. I'm not opposed to using karmagen, I'm just not as experienced with it as the BP system. If folks looking to join would prefer to use it over BPs, we can go with it, no problem, I'll adapt. I will say that initiation/immersion at chargen will be out since I'm looking for an up-and-comer feel, but with the bonus karma for fleshed out characters, it could still be possible.

Hey all,

I can play. I have a mostly done Karmagen face-mage. I'll spruce him up.

Thorguild

What time (and timezone)?

I can be pretty flexible on Saturday, it'd be good to know.

I'm thinking mid-to-late afternoon so that folks still have Saturday nights open to them, but I'm usually pretty flexible time-wise too. The grocery list is never that long and the fiancee won't drag me to the pool once it closes in a few weeks. I'm on the East Coast, so my time zone is Eastern (GMT-4).

I have a char two basically done. adepts one uses pistols the other is unarmed. Or if need be I can easily make a combat hacker, im pretty good any time sat. If it gets moved to a weekday I do not know when will be good at the time. (also on east coast)

I'm definitely interested.

As for character generation, I'll only ask that we all use the same method and means of creation. It's the only way to properly provide for intraparty balance. I don't care if it's 400BP, 750 Karma, 1K Karma, or whatever. Just, please, "only one".

Timewise, I can make time almost any day of the week, except one Sunday a month - because I GM a face-to-face game of Shadowrun. First actual session is in 10 days, in fact (which means it's about time to study up on the adventure - I'm using Missions Season 4).

Yeah, I wouldn't want the headache of having some characters built with one method and others built with another. So far people seem to be leaning towards karmagen, which does have the major advantage of making villains easier to scale and if new/replacement characters are needed, they can leap in with comparable stats (I don't like bringing new characters in at a power level below the rest of the group).

So far it sounds like we have four folks who are interested, and I have a friend local to me who is also interested, I'm just waiting to make sure he can clear it with the wife since he's part of my own Sunday group also.

My plan for the next few days is to play around with the Tabletop Forge app for Google Hangout, try and hammer out a specific time, and write up the intro adventure. Once we can get a schedule folks can agree to, we'll start PMing email addresses to build an email list and setup a shared Google Docs folder for general use and so that I have easy access to copies of everyone's characters.

So far it looks like a magician face and a combatty adept, what else are people thinking about?

Pax and I are often active on this board at the same time, maybe its time for me to change my profile pic to something a little less common

EDIT: Buddy doesn't think he can commit after all. I kind of expected that, but no biggie.

I was thinking about a hacker/rigger or infiltrator as long as magic and face were already taken care of. I could probably put something else together instead if there were skills we were missing.

I'd agree with standard 750 point karmagen. It is 5 points per stat, and pay the BP cost in karma (20 karma for orc, for example) for race? Anything anyone is considering for their backstory that would not work out well with other character types (astral hazing, an elf, hermit who never leaves the barrens, etc.)? Areas of town people want to live?

well my gunslinger is an ex SWAT member, I like the backstory I did for him. the other. doesnt really have one yet :/.

I'm definitely interested. Kind of a noob to 4e (have played two 4e runs since playing 1st edition back in the mid 90's) but I've been working my way through all the books and am not completely clueless .

I've got a couple human CQC focused 400BP runners w/ backstory (amnesic gunfu adept living on the fringe of the tourist strip off the 405 in Redmond and an ex-MCT legacy street sam w/ yak ties w/ an apartment in Tacoma) ready to roll; a dryad adept con artist pacifist infiltrator w/ Master of a Thousand Faces (w/ as modest of an apartment you can find in Bellevue) that is ready to go aside from writing down her backstory; and another 3 (healer/fire support mage, quadriplegic hacker/rigger, and a fire support/infiltrator sniper) that are ~85-90% finished.

Never tried karmagen but it shouldn't be too hard to convert if you still have space.

I'm also in the eastern time zone. Saturdays are generally pretty flexible for me, only regular conflicts I've got are Wednesday and every other Sunday night tabletop games and work on weekdays to ~7PM though.

I would really, really like to play a Rigger. I've tried a couple times, and had the game die out from under me. I'm determined to get a decent chance at it, eventually!

Second choice would be a hacker. I've got a really good 1K-karmagen workup for a Hacker Adept.

Failing that, I've got several other general concepts I could work with. Most of them Adepts; I'm fond of Adepts for some reason. 'Course, I'm also fond of Ghouls as PCs, so maybe the fondness for Adepts isn't so surprising after all.

With that said ... I just need to know what generation method we'll be using, and if it's Karmagen, which version of it we'll be using.

5 people. Do we have 5 specialties? Mage, rigger, face, maybe a non-rigger hacker. I had an idea about a story for a rigger that's been knocking around in my head for a bit, but I could see what I could come up with for an infiltrator.

Speed Wraith, what kind of security would we be looking at? Cyberware scanners, unmanned scanners, assensing, pressure plates?

My 14-year-old son would also like to play if there is room. I'm good with this as long as we are playing a PG-13 game. I'm not big on graphic sex, swearing, or explicit torture. Not just for him, but for me as well

Can we stick to a Big Budget Action Movie style of violence and debauchery level?

Thanks,

Thorguild

I'm very rigger-friendly if only because my first character was one Actually, my first character was a decker, but I just never liked him as much as old Speedie. Travel will be on the table, which can be hard on vehicle or large drone riggers, but most of the work will be local. Idunu is looking at a rigger/hacker concept, so you might want to work together to see if you guys can cover different angles of the hacking/rigging thing. Perhaps one of you has a focus on virtual combat and observation drones/utility vehicles, the other does traditional hacking and has the combat drones/vehicles? Just a thought.

I will be updating the initial post shortly to reflect decisions on character build and a narrower time frame. It looks like we have five folks ready to tweak characters and toss them my way, so it would pay to have that settled.

It occurs to me that I have an older version of the Runner's Companion at home, since I saw 3*Attribute for karmagen and I thought it was 5* like post-gen karma costs, was there also a change in metatype costs? Any other changes from the first printing?

That question I'll leave up to the rest of the group to decide if they're comfortable with it or not.

I will warn you that I do have an occasional tendency for casual swearing, and while I'm rarely as bad as my namesake (Speed Wraith was a prolific cusser, once used it as a special skill to replace intimidation when she had a really bad day and just didn't want her Toyota Elite getting scratched by pesky go-gangers), my dialogue or impromptu responses may be sprinkled with vulgar language, depending on the situation. Those rare times I've seen a romantic relationship go to what The Sims calls, "Woohoo!", it is always off-screen. In fact, the last time that happened the character involved didn't even remember the encounter as he'd succumbed to peer pressure earlier in the evening and had smoked a Laes cigarette.

Usually I avoid having folks who are really young due to unpredictable maturity levels, but with a parent directly involved, it makes it a little easier. I was once that age playing Shadowrun, so I'm a little sympathetic, but again, I'd prefer the other players make that call, since he'd be their teammate.




Wouldn't you like to know! Seriously, it all depends on the job at hand. I try to avoid needless scenes of harassment outside of a run, but if it exists in the rules (and sometimes even if it doesn't), it could show up on a run. Note that when I say "run" here, I'm not talking about the whole adventure, but the core-run itself. Assuming there is one; sometimes stories are about cleaning up old plot points or individual character's problems/development needs.

We could probably take a look at the character background (or the parts our characters would know about?) to see if we agree with the maturity level. Then again that might mean we'd all have to prove we can be mature.




I remember seeing somewhere Ancient History posted his errata for karmagen, but I haven't been able to find it. It hasn't made it into the non-German Runner's Companion. That explaination is probably also better left to a forum search.

I started converting the dryad con artist/infiltrator using the default 750 karmagen rules in the latest version of Chummer last night w/ the CHAx2 free contacts house rule turned on. Looks like it's got 1 to 1 Karma to BP for metatype, 5 to 1 for attributes, 2 to 1 for qualities, 4 karma for a new active skill and rank x2 past that, no free knowledge skills, 2 karma for a new knowledge skill and 1x rank after that, 2 karma per point of connection/loyalty on contacts, and 1 karma/¥2500.

It seems like she might turn out a bit more powerful (or well rounded) under these rules than the 400BP build. I was able to add stronger tech skills to her, so she could do some back up hacking (or ECM if that'd be more useful). She's got an OK medicine rating as well. I could swing her secondary proficiencies towards a more active combat role rather than matrix support as well if that helps more.

I'm totally flexible as far as what character/role(s) to play, so just let me know what roles we need and I'll adapt or create a new runner to fit.

Left to my own devices, most of my character concepts and typical dialog can tend to wind up closer to R rated than PG-13, but I don't feel the need for explicit sexual descriptions/content in a game (can't necessarily say the same for graphic violence, judicious profanity, drug use, and adult themes however, it's Shadowrun after all).

Spellcaster
Face
Rigger
Hacker
Shooter
Infiltrator
Melee

... with many possible hybrids, of course.






I'm fine with that in general - though I'll probably be on the high end of PG-13, just as a matter of habit. We can always use a "fade-to-black" deal, and as for language, when playing SR I tend to use SR-specific "swears" (frag, drek, etc) anyway.

Also, what Sid said in his last paragraph.

EDIT TO ADD: in fact, I've made characters your son's age - including for Shadowrun. One of which I'm pondering using for this game, even.

Okay, so it sounds like it is 5* for attributes and the metatype cost is what isn't in the book. Everything else looks to track with the standard rules for karma. I really need to get the revised thingy up, but I'm being lazy while my boss is away and skimming forums while flipping around Memebase, heh.

My only remaining question is:

Do we use 750 Karma, with 375 max for attributes?

Or do we use JMH's 1000 Karma, with 625 for attributes?

I'm fine with either, I just need to know before I start building (all my existing karmagens were builtwith the 1K version).

I've updated the original post for this thread and I recommend everyone skim it at least.

In addition to basic email and hangouts using the Tabletop Forge app, I will likely create a shared folder for the group for general purposes, background stuff, post-run fiction (I do that sometimes), and whatever other random but useful items I can think of. I might even check into using Google Groups to see if it offers any additional functionality, but I'm not sure that will be necessary.

Actually, a Google+ account seems to be fine for accessing Hangouts, too.

EDIT: everything's installed A-OK, as far as I can see,

Meanwhile, since we're using the 1K KarmaGen version, I have the following characters to choose from and give a final spit-polish to, without having to make anything new:

• (Unnamed) (99%) Human hacker-adept. Has a milspec commlink, and generally mid-to-high teens die pools.
• (Unnamed) (98%) Pixie Magician Adept Druid tradition, Great Mother mentor; Pacifist, primarily a healer. Has mid to very-high teens spellcsting pools, solid drain pools. Doesn't know a single combat spell - but has mind-control covered. Uses Intoxicate and/or Nauseate in place of Stunbolt etc.
• (Unnamed) (99%) Human melee and stealth adept. Ex-ganger kid, still quite young; age ~14. Despite Strength 2, pulls off high-teens unarmed attacks for 5P(cold) damage vs half armor; has low-teens stealth skills.

I've a few other ideas floating around, but haven't actually put pencil to paper on them yet (figuratively speaking). I enjoy making characters for their own sake, though, so if the above niches/roles wind up going to other people, I can deal.

Sounds good, I'll get started on adapting and nailing down my CQC/mid range fire support street sam, sniper/infiltrator, and con artist/infiltrator runners using the karmagen system you linked tonight.

One small potential scheduling glitch for me: I've got fast track vSphere training the 22nd through the 26th so I wouldn't be able to make the 25th. I should be good to go from then on.

I just finished rounding out my rigger/driver character with 750 karma. Enough to be functional in combat, stealth, and coversations (aren't all runners?). Good at mechanical and electronics stuff. The extra 250 points should help smooth out knowledge skills and a few more interesting skills.

New to the shadows, but hopefully useful.


Also, Sid's working on a Saturday. Ouch.

Haveing internet problems. Will get everything sent when I can. Think im gonna go unarmed adept of death/face or infiltrator.

We're moving along well, so I wanted to start sooner rather than later, but if we have to delay another week, that won't hurt me any. It just gives me extra time to review all the character's histories and stats, and get a jump on getting more writing/planning/outlines done. If folks would like to start anyway, I'll make sure you're not left too far behind. Still plenty of time to figure it out

Oh, one question. how do you feel on magical chars having 1 lvl of initiation at start?

No worries from my perspective, you guys do what you do

I have no problem catching up if you do wind up starting next weekend.

Oh I meant to ask if you've got any issues w/ my street sam using the following martial arts styles I wrote up a few weeks ago:

Kendo, Martial Arts Style
Kendo, meaning "Way of The Sword", is a modern Japanese martial art of sword-fighting based on traditional swordsmanship (kenjutsu) which originated with the samurai class of feudal Japan.

While traditionally focused on use of the katana/tachi, nodachi/odachi/nagamaki, and wakizashi/kodachi and their blunt training equivalents, techniques practiced in this style apply to all balanced melee weapons greater than 35cm/14" in length gripped at one end.

Advantages:
"+1 DV on Blade attacks; +1 die on Parry melee Defense Tests; +1 die on Dodge melee Defense Tests; +1 die for Receiving a Charge


Iaido, Martial Arts Style
Iaido is a Japanese martial art associated with the smooth, controlled movements of drawing the sword from its scabbard, striking an opponent, removing blood from the blade, and then replacing the sword in the scabbard. Iaido was first formally established as a separate discipline in the 17th century.

Over its history, the practice of this art has varied widely between theoretical and applied focuses. Most Iaido training of the 20th century consisted of perfecting the kata against an imaginary opponent exclusively. The majority of contemporary schools take a decidedly more practical approach with equal concentration on perfecting cutting technique and drawing/sheathing kata and a much greater emphasis on speed and efficacy of the first strike against an actual opponent.

Due to the extremely specific nature of its kata and techinques, Iaido advantages apply only when wielding katana/tachi and wakizashi/kodachi and their blunt training equivalents.

Advantages:
"+1 DV on Blade attacks; +1 die on Surprise Tests when initiating an attack; Ready Weapon (see p.137, SR4) becomes a Free Action; +1 die on Charging attacks

They're all standard advantages from other styles in Arsenal, just grouped differently w/ different style name and description. Given the way that MA ranks/advantages are purchased, these new styles are really 100% cosmetic/flavor.

If you'd rather not deal w/ them I can go ahead and take the ranks in the 'canon' styles to get the advantages my street sam wants. Just seemed more logical for my Japanese heritage katana wielding runner to have studied Kendo and Iaido than Krav Maga, Ars Cybertechnica, Escrima, and Tae Kwon Do...

Wow, that is a lot on attributes. Out of curiousity, I increased my stats until I hit the limit. Soft maxed all stats but one, which is a 4. That includes soft-maxed human edge. Not a problem, just something I found while tinkering.

Technically, you can, however you can't spend the initial karma on it. You can use the five points you're allowed to save from karmagen, plus any bonus karma I provide for decently fleshed out histories to initiate prior to the game start though. I know it really comes from the same place, but that's how I'd prefer to look at it. Also, if you want to start as a member of a magic group, you can use that bonus karma for that as well, but no ordeals which require actual action/dice rolls before the game begins. I don't remember if that leaves any ordeals available off the top of my head, so if not I might just figure out a way to get the mechanics done ahead of the official start.



To be honest, I'm working on a new martial arts style specifically for one of the members of the long-term story arc's opposition anyway. I'll review this a little bit this weekend and give you a solid answer or suggest changes, but just at a glance it doesn't look much different from any of the other styles so I doubt it will be a problem.





I find that humans are generally favored in all the build options, this is something I was a little concerned with. Still not as weird as using the Priority System to make a human magician with a 6 Magic and 8 Edge...

Ok, Do we have a face? if so, do we have an Infiltrator? I have a couple of adepts that would work for either spot. both melee. if both are covered and the group feels we need more firepower I can just bring my Ex-Swat gunslinger adept into it. works as a part time PI :3

I think we had a mage/face confirmed.

My dryad con artist/infiltrator can provide overlap on either of those roles if you want to use the gunslinger. My sniper has some techy infiltrator skills and high sneak if you want to go for social skills. My street sam is pretty much entirely specialized in ass kicking at medium to short range aside from a respectable sneak skill.

I wouldn't think it would be too bad for us to have most roles double covered to some extent or another, just as long as we still have all the bases covered, but ???

I would love to hear about how it goes with G+ Hangouts, strengths, weaknesses, best practices, etc.

The only tough ones would be rigger and anything else that costs money. 250,000 goes quick if you want a vehicle. Although you can have all of the skills with good stats to back it up for a second (non-gear) skillset pretty easily at 1,000 karma. I'm having a hard time justifying the mass of skills and stats I have. Why is my rigger so buff?

grab teh born rich quality, +50,000 nuyen is a nice bonus to techies. and I enjoy the 1000karma, it lets me specialize in what I want, and round out other att, instead of having them at the dump levels. though logic is still pretty bad on most my non techie guys XD

Oh by the way Sid, if he approves those new martial arts, can I steal them for another char for mine? basically a ninja assassin I will prob wind up playing in another campaign. because when my adept martial artist is doing 3-4 more base DV then a katana for the ninja.. something feels off XD

Don't forget that KarmaGen includes Edge, Magic, and Resonance in that attribute cap.

Sure man, go for it.

I wrote up Jeet Kune Do as well if you're interested (the gun fu adept I mentioned earlier in the thread is, shall we say, inspired by Spike Spiegel ):

Jeet Kune Do, Martial Arts Style
Jeet Kune Do, or "Way of the Intercepting Fist", is a hybrid martial arts system and philosophy founded by martial artist Bruce Lee in the second half of the 20th century using direct, non-classical, and straightforward movements. It is referred to as a "style without style" and trains no specific techniques or forms but rather provides a framework of concepts for effective self defense and self expression. The practice of Jeet Kune Do was described by its creator as the process of casting off what is useless, freeing the practitioner from clinging to styles, patterns, or molds to allow the direct expression of one's feelings with the minimum of movements and energy.

The system focuses on minimizing movement and striking and counterstriking with efficiency, maximum effect, and extreme speed. The system centers around the proposition that the best defense is a good offense; perfecting simultaneous parrying and striking in one motion; and on the use of different 'tools' for different situations. These situations are broken down into ranges (Kicking, Punching, Trapping and Grappling), with techniques flowing smoothly between them. It is up to each practioner to "fill in the blanks" within these ranges as to which specific techniques and stances are most suited to their individual strengths and the tactical dynamics of any given moment of combat. As a result, the majority of Jeet Kun Do training consists of "real combat" or all out sparring as it is only in these environments that a student can effectively judge a technique worthy of adoption.

Advantages:
+1 die on Unarmed Combat attacks (may be taken twice for a cumulative +2 dice); +1 Defense Tests against melee attacks; +1 die on Interception attacks (see p. 151, SR4)

I can find it hard to make a pure rigger, even on 300,000 nuyen. I could easily spend twice that, and still feel like I don't have everything I need, let alone want.

thats true, Im not very good with all the techie stuff but from looking at it I see so many things to get. let alone the drones that cost 200,000+ T.T

[*] (Unnamed) (98%) Pixie Magician Adept Druid tradition, Great Mother mentor; Pacifist, primarily a healer. Has mid to very-high teens spellcsting pools, solid drain pools. Doesn't know a single combat spell - but has mind-control covered. Uses Intoxicate and/or Nauseate in place of Stunbolt etc.


lol. normally I would use the spell orgasm but since we may have a 14 year old with us I wouldn't but let me tell you, casting that spell on Mr.Johnson while trying to negotiate with him can turn out to be VERY hilarious.

Yep. 625 karma is still a lot to throw at stats. I can do well as a mundane with moderately high edge at the 375 with normal 750 point karmagen.



I can blow about 250,000 on either drones or the rigger without realizing how much I spent. Uh...It's ok if the rigger van is actually a used Dodge Scoot, right?

Nah, I was able to get a slightly modified stepvan.

LOL, for real.

My quadriplegic hacker/rigger had blown through his 310K (Born rich, In debt for 10K, and a Trust Fund: High to offset the required high lifestyle cost to boot) by the time he had his headware/commlink/hacked programs, wheelchair (a Horseman PMV w/ adv. rigger cocoon, speed mod, a bit of concealed armor, an extra fuel tank, and a small nexus), a couple of Fly Spys and Repeaters, and a pretty pedestrian Ford LEBD I as his only attack drone.

Hell, I had one character - not a rigger, even - where I had to revamp a large portion of the concept, because it was too expensive to kit him out with what I wanted his Day Job to be: an owner-operated "roach coach" based on the Nissan Coda from SOTA73. With, as mentioned in the shadowtalk for that vehicle, a rail-based drone "chef". Darned truck turned out to just be too bloody expensive, in and of itself.

...

Meanwhile, I think I've settled on playing either my Hacker Adept, or, my young-kid stealth adept (whose street name is now Frost - because his given name is Jack, it makes a great pun, and, yes he has elemental Strike (Cold) among his adept powers).

Because we're likely to have a youngster in our midst, I've elected to forgo trying to bring in one of my (many) Ghoul characters. They'd be just a wee bit too grisly to fit a PG-13 game, IMO.

(Other players: "Why'd you kill those two guards?!? They hadn't seen anyone!" Me: "Grocery shopping." Heh.)

are we allowed to keep 5 or 10 extra karma from chargen?