That would be true of pretty much any intended-as-nonlethal drug though, at least given SR's delivery systems. Even a narcoject dart, can't be certain of dosage-versus-bodyweight.

But then, since most RPGs tend toward at least a slightly cinematic take on such things ... we're back to a DMSO+Slab capsule round being reasonably effective, without a trail of dead bodies.

Even then, most surgical anesthetics are carefully dosed by plasma levels and continuously monitored - which is impossible to achive with either DMSO or a dart-gun. Sadly, the english wikipedia article is lacking the section on "problems and adverse effects".

Well, the narcoject overdose happens pretty often in our games, as anything with BOD4+ normally needs 2 doses of it, and with BOD2-3 one dose is a gamble.

One suggestion if you do decide to kill the character, & assuming the other players have no major plot points working themselves that require immediate attention, when the new player comes in, skip the time period forward 6months to a year, give them a last mission that would require a decent amount of time to lay low, let them decide to skip town for a year or so & meet back to deal with the greater problem they had, sometime one of them meets the new character & brings them in, then you can RESET the tone you want. No Retcon needed & it helps the players allow a bit of "fluff customization" for their characters.

If you consider manatech mundane, then you have some options. I think glo-moss and watcher spirits are good options, or other dual natured florae.

The key thing is to make the sec-forces -aware- of the mage, then they'll bring gas, stun rounds and electrical weapons to bear on him. A challenge, without actually killing him. Though, if he or his teammates respond with deadly force, well, then the bets are off as always.

Arsenal page 73 says most street drugs have a power of 6, but you're right it looks mostly like a suggestion.

Well, in this case, speed is more relevant that power.

The same page says that the drugs come in many different vectors, so I'll see if I can't find a general speed and put this problem to bed once and for all.

But I Wanna Get High!, page 73 of Arsenal suggests a Power of 6 for most drugs. Since Slab is a medical compound and not a street drug I normally run it at Power 8. You may (House-Rule) that each hit on the Toxin Resistance Test also removes an hour from the duration so that someone with Body 5 who gets 2 successes isn't out for the full 5 hours - those successes aren't useless in that case.


You sound exactly like all the computer programmers who complain about the Matrix rules. It's a game - get over it.


Ninja'd.

Well, i am just complaining on the lack of speed, not power - trance (which causes paralysis) got speed and power in its writeup, why not all drugs?


Well, i was in a technical high scholl with an IT focus - and yet i dont complain about the matrix rules. But i complain when certain pieces of gear make other pieces unviable, like slab does with narcoject*, or over truly silly rules (chase combat, explosives, sensor/drone perception)

*If narcoject works with a speed of immediately (which is always GM fiat, because no speed is given), narcoject is unviable, because slab has no chance of overdose and works 100% of the time (exept when the GM enforces a toxin resistance test)

The fluff does suggest you can tweak your slab, though!

In Arsenal, Jimmy No regales the reader with the tale of a runner friend who kicked in a door, and was hit with "an aerosol variant of 'Cold Slab' ", rendering him more or less comatose.

Well that could present you with a possible solution. You could have the conversation about moderating behaviour in game and in character: have a powerful mystery benefactor appear and dangle the carrot of information important to the character while stressing that they won't share it with someone who cannot control themself and draws attention from the wrong people. To show that the mystery man has real clout you can even use it as a reset button to make some of the consequences of the characters actions go away if she manages to tone down the psychotic behaviour.

The risk is that would reinforce the character's spotlight hogging behaviour, if the plot actually starts revolving around him.

Although... There is several prospects I could see for the role of mysterious greybeards...
Okey, I don't know how the AI would pull it off, but the mayor certainly could.
Dragons do act in weird ways afterall.
Just bear in mind the old sayings.
Never deal with a dragon,
and never trust an elf.

Dealing with a dragon is ... well, not perfectly safe, but it has it's merit.
BREAKING a deal with a dragon ... that's another story.

But I agree, generally. There's lots of possibilities and not all need to be forced.

There is nothing inherently wrong with breaking a deal with a dragon. It often works out better if said dragon has been turned into a very nice rug or bedspread along the way.

Good point, though one could argue that this isn't a really safe venture to undertake

And apparently everyone you know and / or has breathed the same air gets wiped out if you take dragon trophies.

Well, Sirrurg likes to keep himself occupied.

Deadly Neurotoxin is always an option. Other options...

Background count! Have a corp foster a specific corp branch of magic, and aspect their facilities to it. Any mage should find it hard to whip up some mojo in a Rating 6 Background count, while the corp mages can mojo with impunity.

GlowMoss linked to dispensers of FAB III and deadly neurotoxin that doesn't affect the FAB III. Spirits get eaten and mages get geeked.

Um...

Okay, I'm running low, I'll admit.

Well I'm damaged... I keep hearing deadly neurotoxin in her voice.

FAB III?


I don't think a corp could put up a force 6 domain. I read up on back ground count, and 6's are areas where epic level events with lasting effects for all of humanity happened. like Hiroshima, and Nagasaki. I also heard that the only force 6 domain for christian theurgy is the Vatican.

and the idea of corps having their own tradition seems off.

Aspected domains can be created with the geomancy metamagic, natural occuring ones... a bit more rare.

Dual-natured bacteria, drains Magic/Force from things it contacts. And it moves.

It's the answer to "How do you kill an awakened colony?" A little FAB III goes a long way, as it also reproduces when it feeds and sucks magical critters dry. Dual natured critters die when that happens.

You're meant to. Deadly Neurotoxin emitters warming up.



Geomancy, natch.



Why? Corps love the control that proprietary stuff gives them. I can't think of anything that can be made proprietary more easily than a corp tradition, especially if the corp tradition holds as one of its tenants that to learn a new spell you must be in the good graces of the corp tradition's elders; thus preventing the corpmages from going off the reservation.

Sure, it'd be a bitch to set up, but pull it off......

(And yes, there is precedent for that; look at the Buddhist tradition from Street Magic. It forbids followers from learning spells independently.)

The corps have been providing the totality of kids' education, from Cradle to at least graduating highschool, for half a century. Many of them run their own Universities. Thus, there are plenty of 20- and 30-something,s and a significantnumber of 40-somethings, whose entire education and worldview was shaped by the policies of a single megacorporation.

And all of them have programs to find magically Gifted / Awakened kids as tweens or young teens.

So it is very, very possible that the larger corporations might be working towards founding their own Tradition ... and I wold not be at all surprised if one or two had already succeeded.

See the Wuxing tradition... it's a tradition which is heavily encouraged by the corp of the same name.

Of course they also sell a lot of magic type stuff like foci and the like.

Don't the Japanacorps heavily encourage Shinto?

They do, which is probably the only reason they haven't been the pioneers of this technique. I wouldn't be surprised to hear, say, Renraku Shinto start emerging as a magical tradition - quite possibly a negative quality you can slap on your magician, in the future.

Narcoject (50:nuyen:)is still viable in that it is significantly less expensive than Slab (150:nuyen:).


Right, but a corp could hire any sort of mages but keep the ones of certain traditions working in the same facilities to foster more mage cohesion. A corp property with magical presence would easily create a 1 or 2 BC (whichever it was for an enchanter's shop), which could then be Geomanced into said specific tradition. When enemies try to overrun the facility, at least one of the initiated mages whips out his metamagic that functions like Taint but for something not toxic.


FAB III is just mean. It's less mean when you realize that the character must be astrally active for the whole 6 hour Extended Test interval to actually lose a point of magic.

It's more mean when you realize that it's permanent until it starves at Rating weeks. Or, you know, until you kill it with Sterilize, Cure Disease, or astral combat. But other than that, weeks of no astral for you, and if there's a background count, it stays at that level.

Eh, characters are rarely astrally active long enough for FAB III to actually be concerning, in my opinion. You Assense for maybe a couple Combat Turns, possibly go astral for an hour or two at a time. It's not long enough for the 6 hour Extended Test (which means it's more likely 12 or 18 hours before FAB III actually drains anything). It seems to me to only be particularly dangerous to metasapients who are Dual Natured.

Sure, if you like to put down low willpower and body targets - to reliable put down anything with BOD>3 or WIL>3, you need 2 doses. Now its 100nY with overdosing vs. 150nY without any risk of overdosing.

If you Narcoject a capsule round then you're also doing the 5 or 6 Stun damage + net hits, which should be dropping people when combined with the 8 or so that they didn't soak on their Toxin Resistance Test. I don't see why you have to shoot more than once.

Huh, no one thought about that in our games. We normally use a dartgun for Narcoject.

Use a parashield dart rifle loaded with 15mg of chloral hydrate. Instant sleep, long enough to slap on handcuffs, and if they're someone you don't want spilling the beans, shoot 'em again for a guaranteed fatal dose.


(I doubt anyone will get that. If you do, I play on /TG/ Sibyl 2, when my computer's working.)

The toxicity information from ChemID+ states the intravenous TDLo for children at 88mg/kg, Wikipedia (german) states an estimated human LD50 for ~10g, with lowest reported lethal dosage at 4g and the highest at 30g. If you inject 15mg into someone, you will have zero effect, therapeuthic dosage is 250-500mg oral. If you meant 15g, at least 30% of your victims will die, and some will survive even 30g.

@Neraph
I think FAB III is one of those cases, where somebody did not know the rules they were writing about.
Like you said, it does nothing to mages and spirits but it totally kills ghuls, shapeshifter and the like.

I think we can safely assume that any resemblance SR drugs have to real life ones with the same name is, as they say in the movies, purely coincidental.

Just piping in to say that I really like this idea. Make sure to take the player aside at some point afterwards and explain why you did it, though. Stress that character development is a great part of roleplaying, and that you personally think it was necessary.

E: Oh, and regarding the drugchat:

As someone who's worked a great deal with drugs, the rules don't really reflect the real deal - but the kicker is, nothing else in the game does either! It's the far cyberpunk future, and you have four modes of vision in your contact lens - accept that the chemicals are cooler and move on

Also, I think you should be careful with the capsule rounds - they're standard loadout for black ops types, so any target worth dropping could well have a retardant dermal sheath, or at least a bodyglove with some sort of chem seal on. A dart gun, squirt gun or chemical weapon that eats respirators and sheaths before releasing the knockout works better IMHO.

Being a member of the Shinto faith myself, here's my thoughts on it:


1) Shinto declares there's no cosmic good or evil. You are not 'rewarded' for good deeds, and not 'punished' for bad deeds in the afterlife. The universe just doesn't care. Rather, Shinto believes that right and wrong, good and evil, are human constructs, intended to help society function. Because of this, 'right' and 'wrong' are not a part of Shinto faith. The Shinto priest isn't expected to judge your actions (in regards to the faith) based on whether or not you're a good or bad person. I could see Japanacorps liking this, simply because it means that they're not going to be 'judged' by the tradition on the grounds of whether something is good or bad.

2) Additionally, Shinto tries to promote community cohesion, working with the local community to celebrate festivals and holidays. The Shinto tradition would be expected to go out among the local populace, trying to promote a sense of community and harmony within the community - fostering good will and helping people feel connected to one another. This sort of works with the Japanacorp, in that it is promoting goodwill, and the belief that the community's happiness is worth more than the individual, but it sort of takes away from the 'mindless drone', because everyone will be concerned for their fellows as well.

3) The third aspect which comes to mind is the need of purity. Impure actions (anger, greed, regret, and such) causes a spiritual pollution, and the Shinto tradition would be expected to try to purify this pollution and help the people who are suffering from it. Murder is considered the worst 'sin' in Shinto, as taking a life causes an incredible degree of this 'pollution', so the tradition would be completely against the causing of death, against anything which causes anger or sorrow, or anything which causes negative emotions. This would sort of work against the corporation, because the tradition could easily see these effects on astral space (ie: background counts which involve impure emotions or activities). You couldn't get the tradition to do things like theft, murder, or similar activities. Of course, on the flipside, if the tradition is there to simply make the community / archology a better place, then you wouldn't send them out on these kind of missions, and they'd be more of an 'overwatch' for the community, and used to purify people after they've gone out on runs or what-have-you.

All in all, I think a Japanacorp might actually want a Shinto tradition within an arcology or community, simply because it would make the place feel 'better', and help unite the workers in feeling better about themselves. Hmm, not too bad actually. Just don't expect a miko or priest to go out on Shadowruns anytime soon.

Your point 2 is probably something where the Japanacorp would try to shift the definition of community from local to the company in general (as a gradual process, of course). A background count against 'impure actions' would work in favor of a Shinto mage defending against runners, I'd think. The corporation wants to disable and detain them, so as to profit from them. The cost of using mages to kill seems too high, compared to what you can do with a bullet after some illusion or manipulation spell has stopped the enemy. Not to mention that the background count would pretty much be a catch-all against awakened runners.

Wouldn't such a mage, then, find it desirous to take the Cleansing metamagic? Because then, the mage can be a "spiritual HazMat cleanup crew", and eliminate all that metaphysical pollution ... Perhaps yet another reason for a japanacorp to value Shinto as a tradition among it's mages ...

Which then has the added effect that smoothign out a background count normally does for residents of that area, therefor improving the community as a whole ...

I think I got an idea! that fixes multiple issues!
1. SWAT capures mage
2. mage is sentenced to life on alcatraz
3. Evo clones mage
4. clone goes to alcatraz
5. clone killed in alcatraz by another inmate
6. Mage is kept in secret at Evo working on magic and science research. focusing on the folding of space (which the mage was working on)

That fixes the mage without completely removing the mage thus avoiding bad blood. an I am going to talk to the player first of course.

Secondly, at the same time as that-
Evo, Saeder Krupp, The San Fran academy of science and sorcery, and The city of San Fran announce a partnership who's goal is the development of deep space exploration. Their plan; to build a sort of space arcology that can sustain itself and explore the universe.

the metaplot of the campaign revolves around this partnership and the resurgence of space exploration.
many missions will be tied to it.
The tone gets changed to the lighter tone I wanted, with a sense of enterprise.

And for those that haven't figured it out by now, I am founding star fleet in shadowrun.

Uhh... With a mage working on such bleeding edge things, how would they let such a potentially lucrative mage out ever? That sounds like a retirement for a 'runner, not a criminal reset button.

Making the mage an NPC is effectively the same as removing it. If you intend to do that and keep him in the group... A megacorp puppet is almost as detrimental as a psycho. Being a deniable asset kinda falls flat when you got big brother corp leaning over your shoulder

I never said they'd still be a player.
just not dead

From a player perspective, that's the same thing.

And there should be ample opportunity to avoid the "capture" part in the first place. Which would probably just end up increasing the body count. Dude, just talk to the guy, but remember that some people game to blow off steam and relieve stress. Sometimes this means doing something that one can't do in real life--like killing a whole bunch of mofos.

Yup. Dead, sent to prison, etc = new character.

Which is fine, but understand that the player reaction won't be any better.

I don't agree with the idea of sent-to-prison = new character. I'd be more than willing to run the player in prison and trying to get out or dealing with prison politics.