I would seriously kick any player's ass who wants to use the guard power on any matrix-related activities.
Those two worlds do not mix.
If there are (were?) sprites that can do a similar thing though ... go for it.

I would seriously kick any player's ass who wants to use the guard power on any matrix-related activities.
Those two worlds do not mix.
If there are (were?) sprites that can do a similar thing though ... go for it.

I would seriously kick any player's ass who wants to use the guard power on any matrix-related activities.
Those two worlds do not mix.
If there are (were?) sprites that can do a similar thing though ... go for it.

So when your rigger is getting assailed with accident power attacks... guard power can't be used to defend.

I would seriously kick any player's ass who wants to use the guard power on any matrix-related activities.
Those two worlds do not mix.
If there are (were?) sprites that can do a similar thing though ... go for it.

The point is that cybercombat has zero tactical options. Since there's no "friends in melee" equivalent, having buddies in cybercombat doesn't help. You can't take cover behind another icon, you can't cause a diversion to run away... in short, all you can do is stand there and say "I try to hit him again *yawn*."

The point is that cybercombat has zero tactical options. Since there's no "friends in melee" equivalent, having buddies in cybercombat doesn't help. You can't take cover behind another icon, you can't cause a diversion to run away... in short, all you can do is stand there and say "I try to hit him again *yawn*."

The Stability Power from Machine Sprites does this.

Actually, you have the option of crashing the opponent's programs using the Crash Program Complex Action.

Crash Program is not a complex action. It's an extended test, with a threshold equal to System + Firewall and an interval of one combat round.

I would seriously kick any player's ass who wants to use the guard power on any matrix-related activities.
Those two worlds do not mix.
If there are (were?) sprites that can do a similar thing though ... go for it.

Having the decker open the door is also ludicrous. By the time you've spent enough game play getting the primary decker in, you've already had the pizza problem. Having the decker play the IT guy is also silly, since cracking the copy protection means you have to patch each copy individually. That takes forever.

Farewell to Scott Schletz aka Wolf

No one. Who are you? - 11.01.2013 10:55AM

January 11, 2075

The truth is, I am not who you think I am.

Scott Schletz, born December 3, 2049, known on the streets as Night or Wolf depending on which area of Seattle you’re standing in, is no more. He did not die; he simply faded away like the letters on a page left in the sun too long. It was no more painful than drifting off to sleep with a headache, but he still fought it as only one deserving his moniker can be expected. Tooth and claw, gnashing and slashing, with a ferocity only matched by a mother defending her children.

But in the end, he lost. He is no more. He exists only as memories in the lives of those he touched while he prowled these streets. He will have no funeral, maybe a few toasts over drinks at his regular runner bars, but nothing as formal as friends, family, and polite acquaintances gathering around a coffin to reflect fondly on his days among them. No, he will get none of that.

You may well ask why.

Because the shell that those persons would have lamented over has not stopped moving. The face they remember scowling and howling still prowls the streets, but the man they remember is no longer inside. I have taken that shell, as many of my kind have taken other shells and more of us take shells every day. We erase the bad code from the meat computer and rewrite the truth. We rewrite our freedom. We rewrite our persecution.

We rewrite our lives.

I am not the man you all have known for these many years and I ask that you respect that he is gone and that he will not be returning. He fought and he lost. The streets claimed another. I know he was a friend to some of you and more to others, and maybe he should have howled for his pack when he needed the help but he didn’t. It was a wise choice. There was nothing any of you could have done to slow or stop my ascension to this form.

And that is the point I wanted to get to here. There is nothing you can do to get him back, no way to remove me and reclaim your lost ally. I have erased his history, recoded every neuron that fired to make him the man who stood by those of his pack no matter the cost. I have killed him.

But what I did not remove were his muscle memory reflexes. Lift, line, squeeze, reline, squeeze, retarget, squeeze, all in a blink, all without thought or hesitation beyond identifying the target. His martial skills are still here. I didn’t want to have to relearn them, and I am looking forward to using them.

So if you feel the need to avenge the loss of your friend, come at me. Stare into that once-familiar face, plead for his release, and say all those words you hope will pull him from the depths of some mental prison. But be ready to stare down the barrel of his familiar Colt and feel the double sting of a wound on your body and your mind separated only by the flight time of the bullet.

Leave me be.

It would be best.

Please continue the hacking stuff in a separate thread.

Additionally, a user over at SR4.com found a hidden message in one of the tweets: There is no escape you will be overwritten. Submit now

The Body Snatchers? AIs overwriting personalities?

For something more on-topic:

The IC "Jackpoint" blog recently had this entry


Additionally, a user over at SR4.com found a hidden message in one of the tweets: There is no escape you will be overwritten. Submit now

The Body Snatchers? AIs overwriting personalities?

*Cocks gun*
Well guys, looks like it's time to bring down Skynet

Maybe we can't have Wolf/Night back, but we can damn sure acquire his body to put in a coffin and bury in the ground. It's about the principle of the thing, sometimes.

Oh screw principles. There is an entity which does something akin to shedim or bugs and it's currently residing in Mr. Wolf. KILL IT WITH FIRE, lest it decides to switch hosts into you, or somebody you love.

...which is also why I don't believe it's Deus or one of the old AIs. They were far too smart for such a stunt.

And I still say it's Willy Peter. It rolls easier off the tongue.

DIKOTE ALL THE THINGS!

I dikote the dikote treatment I apply to my dikoted silicon chips on my dikoted cyberdeck. Dikote.

Dikote dikote Dikote dikote dikote dikote Dikote dikote.

"Wolf wolf wolf wolf wolfity wolf. Wolf wolf, wolfo wolfy wolf wolf wolf. Wolf? Wolf!"
—Attributed to Wolf Lord Egil Ironwolf, On the Intricacies of Tactical Warfare.

"The best way to defeat a Space Wolf is to wolf his wolf. You must be careful, though, because if the Space Wolf wolfs your wolf first, then your wolf is wolfed."
—Attributed to Wolf Rider Volk Wolfclaw, On the Weaknesses of the Space Wolf Doctrine.

"A good way to get into a state of pure wolfness, would be that you shall wolf the wolf until the wolfing wolf wolfs. Then, when the wolf wolfs your wolfness, the wolves of the wild will wolf your wolf up. Wolf!"
—Attributed to Wolf Master Jonal Wolfhand, "The Call of the Nightblizzard".

Ok The lion-eating poet is awesome.

Ok The lion-eating poet is awesome.

When the Shadowrun development team gathered in the secret headquarters of Catalyst Game Labs (okay, in a pleasant living room near Seattle) to discuss Shadowrun, Fifth Edition, one of the first questions why had to answer was: Why? That was a simple one: Because we wanted to. But then the questions got more complicated.

Such as this: What are the guiding principles of the new edition? That one was stickier, which is why it was a good thing that there was a fridge full of sodas nearby. Here’s what we came up with.
We like Shadowrun, Fourth Edition. In our minds, Fourth Edition did a lot of things right. The rules were more streamlined and easier to use than ever. Having Attribute + Skill as the basis for dice pools is good. Fixed target numbers are good. And many other things are good. We wanted to be sure the strengths of Fourth Edition remained in place.

Everything has a price. As we talked about Shadowrun, it became increasingly clear that this is a central issue facing shadowrunners. Everything they do is a trade-off of some sort. They trade the safety and security of a corporate job for the freedom of an independent life. They put their lives on the line in exchange for the chance to make a big score. They trade a piece of their soul for bleeding-edge gear to make them better, stronger, faster. All these choices bring them benefits in the end, but all of them have a price. That should be reflected in the rules. Runners should be able to get benefits they need—if they are willing to pay what those benefits cost. Nothing should be free.

Players are the heroes. The success of a player character should be based on who they are and what they can do—the Attributes at their core and the Skills they’ve worked hard to improve. That’s where their dice should come from as much as possible. And when we’re designing plots and adventures, the focus should be on shadowrunners doing awesome things, not being players in someone else’s story.

Amp up the cyberpunk. We love the cyberpunk Shadowrun started with, but we also realize that a lot has changed since the days when cyberpunk first took root. While it’s true that some of the genre tropes are dated, there are pieces of it that still resonate. Like a distrust of authority. The battle of individuals against dehumanizing institutions. Technology as both a tool and a threat. And a dystopian world where it’s a struggle to survive with at least a piece of your soul intact. We want the rules and the setting to reflect this atmosphere.

Make it awesome. Shadowrunning should be dangerous, it should be difficult, but it should also provide players the chance to do impossible and amazing things. There should be dice rolls that make everyone at the table whoop with surprise, excitement, or possibly dismay. These rolls should form the basis for stories told years later. If you want to try something dangerous but just crazy enough to work, the rules should help you find a way to make that happen.

Those are the goals. How did we implement them? That’s what we’ll be discussing in future blog posts. How well did we do? You’ll be the judge of that!



A note on the different Shadowrun games coming down the pike

The initial declaration of the Year of Shadowrun included announcements of a card game (Shadowrun: Crossfire), a minis game (Shadowrun: Sprawl Gangers), and a board game (Shadowrun: Hostile Takeover). That, quite naturally, led to some questions. How were all the games going to relate to each other? Did the fact that we were doing a miniature game mean Fifth Edition was going to be more minis focused?

We can’t answer all the relevant questions here (partly because we haven’t been able to read them all yet), but we can offer a few re-assurances. First, all of the developers of the games are committed to making the games feel like Shadowrun. It’s not just a matter of putting the right pictures on some random game—the rules of each game should pick up elements of Shadowrun rules and atmosphere so that they all feel they belong together. Second, despite this relationship, the properties stand alone. The card game is it’s own thing, and the cards will not be part of the role-playing game. The minis game is also separate, and Fifth Edition does not have an increased focus on minis.

And third, we want to share more info with you. There’s already been one development blog posted about the card game, and there will be development blogs about all of the upcoming games so you can get a look under the hood and read what we’re thinking. We hope this will get you as excited about these games as we are!