To be fair to Stahlseele even that little bit is pretty damn offensive.

Of course it is.

I had nothing to do with War! And the bits he mentioned are offensive. However, as Grinder pointed out, it's made to look like it's done regularly and by everyone involved with CGL, which is not the case. It wasn't the reference to the particular material that bothered me, it was the EXTREMELY broad brush being used.

All that said, I'm done with that particular line of discussion.

Anybody have any luck printing this in a decent way?

The document starts with front, rear, pages 2-16, adept front-rear, hacker front-rear, street samurai front-rear, street shaman front-rear, pages 17-31.

So if you just print it as is, you will end up with the rear cover on the inside of the book, all the even number on odd pages, odd numbers on even pages, the characters will not be front-rear but on opposing pages. and the cover cannot be used as a screen even though it should be.

So the correct way to print it would be:
Front, pages 2-16, characters, pages 17-31, rear.

But I can't make it print that way, since the rear page does not have a page number.

If I print 1-40 it will print all pages, but in the order I described above.
If I print 1,2-40 it will print pages 1-39 correct, but I'll never get a print of the rear page.

Any ideas?

Lars

"Print Current Page."

That way you can print the back cover on demand, but you'd have to do it as a separate print job.
(And may have to determine which direction to stick the last sheet into the feed tray)

Has anyone figured out why the attributes have boxes under each one, and why the Body boxes on the Adept don't match the number?




-k

That would work for a full page print. But my printer can make stabled booklets, and I usually print all these small books a booklets, which are quite handy for use with new players.

I've just tried with PDFcreator, which can usually print the pages in any order, and then merge them afterwards, but for some reason it refuses to print this document

I'll keep looking for a solution.

I'll see if I can reorder them. I've got Acrobat Pro.
(Only v8, but I shouldn't need a newer version)

Edit:
Ah, they've put some security on the document. This might be a tad trickier. Un momento.

Gotta love how "there's a criticism I don't like" automatically means "nothing but irrational snark"...


Anyway, the MARKs system...while the matrix rules traditionally get heavily simplified for the QSR, I assume the MARKs system was not made up just for them: A big quarrel I had with the old (I guess we can call it that now) matrix was different account levels could do was never concretely specified. This token system solves that neatly, the cost for each action tells you you deep you have to be inside the system.
I just hope that the final version will have some mechanic for initially overcoming the firewall, because anything else would really break with the idea of nodes being actual places where you break in. Something like the "dice combat" for on-the-fly hacking -- it often took too much IC time, but the basic concept of "risk another round even though the FW needs only 2 more hits, or retreat?" made for interesting plays and also drove home the image of trying to literally break into the enemy node while the digital watch dogs come ever closer...

Can you risk your NDA as well to confirm or deny that mage combat spells do net hits or base damage + net hits?

SYL

Man, the Good Idea Fairy let that one get all the way from the writers, past proofing, editing, and into print. AFAIK, it hasn't been pulled or redacted, or even had anyone responsible go 'Yeah, that was bad, mea culpa.'

If they're going to print something so absurdly racially insensitive that it likely had to be edited out before it could even be considered for German publication, then they get to deal with being called on it.

I still have the confirmation of delivery post cards from my letters to CGL and WizKids(?) about how terrible War! was sitting on my desk.
Meaning I know that my complaint was received.

When is the last time you had to worry about Fire damage? In all my years of Shadowrun, Tazers came up FAR more often than Fire Damage ever did. *shrug*

You don't know the people I played with. The two people we had who GMed games managed to get into a "set each other on fire" pissing match.

It started on accident and while not intentionally perpetuated, it just kept coming up.* Jim's character(s) ended up with Phobia (fire) after one such event.

An actual flame thrower was only involved once.

*More of an amusing fact of events than any kind of revenge agenda.

nice!
my group lacks such running gags, sadly.
well, there's me, but i don't count somehow.

Not a gag exactly, but yes. Shame Jim is now in the [REDACTED FOR SECURITY REASONS]* branch of the US gov't and I haven't seen him in five years and the other GM moved to California.

So. It's been a while since I've been in an SR game.

*He works as an Arabic translator, or so I've been told. He would also find the redaction humorous, as the only GM who ever ran Paranoia.

Then why not put Non-Conductivity on your normal armor and Thermal-Insulation on the FFBA?

Because that might make sense.

Why not?
Because FFBA is cheating.

No, It Isn't...

You and I aren't going to agree on this, TJ, just drop it.
It is of my opinion that FFBA is cheating, even though it's in the rules. There is literally NO REASON why everyone is not wearing the stuff, all the time. And doing that turns a gun fight into a nerf-bat pissing contest.

Except that there are reasons not everyone wears it. It is not cheap, it is hot and possibly even somewhat constricting (to a degree). Hell, I have many of my characters that do not wear it, and many of them for those very reasons...

But you are right, we will probably not agree. *shrug*

Form Fitting Armor is nice, but it literally boils down to +2 (or 3 if you use the full suit, head covering and all) armor above what you would normally have. If that small of a difference turns your gun fight into a nerf-bat pissing contest, then so does having 1 point of body more than average. Your hyperbole isn't doing you any favors here.


(That said, while I don't find FFBA cheesy in of itself, I do think adding mods to it [or secure tech gear] is on the cheesy end of things, because this makes buying a bunch of weak armor piecemeal way more effective than getting regular armor, because you can fit so many more mods on it. Making all armor have capacity for mods equal to 1.5*armor [round down], would be much better, even if it gimped weaker armors)

Aka mechanically meaningless, roleplay-only reason. To which most security firms would tell their employees: "Suck it" and to which many runners would say "Hmm, hot...or bleeding? I think I'll go with hot."



Contrary to the mechanics, otherwise it would encumber just as much as other armor, which it does not. Ergo false.

.... which is just as canon as the Schrapnell bar in Berlin, or Sentinel drones (which have shown up in warehouses as well as restaurants in past publications). You may not like it, which is your perfect right, but it can't be said to be either new or entirely unfitting.


McHugh's has, according to NAGTRL: seven guards with assault rifles and a system that will flood the entire restaurant with NeuroStun. That seems just as over the top as two gun emplacements with machine guns.

It's not about me not liking ist (since I actually have next to no objections to it), it's about others not liking it and them - even to your own words - having the right to not like it due to a perceived difference that you yourself don't seem to see at all.



And I'd still say that there's a difference in "feeling" that these two descriptions create. They both fit into cyberpunk settings in general ... the question is: Do they fit in SR as well? Some quite obviously answer that with "Not so much".

Saying heavy security measures in McHugh's never was in the setting is wrong though. Liking and disliking is both entirely okay, but saying it never existed is factually wrong.


Wehther it fits into someone's idea of Shadowrun is one thing, whether it has already been written into the setting in old books another. Personally, I disregard the entire dragon wars plotline and good parts of War and it's follow-ups; I would not claim these are not canon though, much as I would like to.

Believe what you like... Does not mean that you are right. *shrug*
And you are Wrong, becasue it DOES encumber, just not as much as other armors do. *shrug*

From experience, I can tell you that no, a Security Firm's commands to "suck it up" do not enforce its policy on wearing hot and annoying body armor if the Guard does not like it. I have seen it a LOT.

Like I said, you and I will not agree on this, no matter what.

I suppose TJ is a bit ahead of you in terms of contractos, heavy and uncomfortable body armour, and hot conditions.

Been there, done that... On at least 2 Continents

Edit: Fixed, Apparently Central America is part of North America.

He might be, but let me put it this way:

Would you rather wear a flak vest

OR

Form fitting body armor?

(Assume both provide the same armor value)

FFBA is less encumbering than regular armor (benefit), less obvious (benefit), lightweight (benefit), but three times as expensive (oh le noes).

You wear what you are given, and I can guarantee you that the bottom line is more important than the grunts comfort level.
In a world where Money is no object, well.....

Plus: regular armour can be bulk-ordered; form-fitted body armour is massively customized. I could see an FFBA as part of expensive troops' kit, like special forces, who can afford to demand the best gear available (probably not the UCAS army, but Aztlan, megacorp, I could see them having FFBA as part of their kit), or infiltrators for whom inconspiciousness is more importan than cost (paid for from black funds), or some el Presidente's personal guard that gets the best gear el PResidente can afford because they keep him alive and in power.

Regular grunts? Get the bulk-ordered stuff that effectively does the same job for a fraction of the cost, that is easily replaced if damaged/lost in the field, that can easily be repaired with standard pieces, ect. Yeah, it might be a bit less comfortable to wear. It'll break command's heart, I'm sure.

Yes, they do indeed get all broken up about their ground unit comfort levels, while they are back in their air-conditioned headquarters building.

IMO, "regular grunts" in SR would be close to what qualifies as special forces today. Large armies have bee diminished together with the countries that used to maintain them, the Awakening and cybernetics have drastically increased the combat value of each individual, and the CC will not even tolerate war on a large scale unless an anti-CC country is at the receiving end. Not much room for the guy who signs up for a few years and can call himself nothing more than rifleman in that world, is it?


Besides, custom-fitted does not equate custom-made. The fitted suits you can order online are customized to your specifications, but not built to those specifications from the ground up.

Maybe I misunderstood the armor mod rules from Arsenal, but it seemed to me as though modification limit and capacity were two different factors; non-conductivity (6) requires 6 modification slots, out of (1.5 x largest armor value), and 2 or 3 capacity, with only heavy armors like security and milspec having a capacity rating. FFBA doesn't have a capacity and therefore couldn't take any modification which requires one, unless I'm mistaken (being without books currently).

They are two seperate rules, and are not meant to stack with each other. Or you could go with the base book, which has no limits on such things at all. All up to your table. I have seen all 3 variants in play.

Because they evolved the SR4 QSR sheet design (That quickstart is a giant visual mashup of SR4, SR4A, and the SR4 Quick-Start Rules), and I put boxes on the SR4 one because having a quick visual way of comparing a character's attributes is good at a convention or other public game session, when people only have a few minutes to compare and choose characters.

Ah, so there's no game mechanic reason. Thanks!

Making an Excel character generator based off info as it's released, and I was wondering if the boxes were some future thing I needed to plan for.


-K

Well, I picked up a copy at the RPC yesterday, because the physical booklet is pretty fancy: A4, full-color, with an actual soft cover (i.e. cardboard rather than just paper). I mean Mantikore sells the same kind of starter rules for a freakin 10 bucks...and yes, it made them the laughingstock of the German RPG scene


Did anybody get a chance to actually play?

I just realized, that profiency in a melee skill seems to no longer help when defending against melee attaks. Melee defense is now only Reaction + Intuition. A Kung Fu master now has roughly the same chances to defend against melee attacks as any untrained person...

-CJ

Unless there's something different in melee defense. I consider this to be wrong as well.

Maybe they are not wrong, but just quick Start Rules, which could be simplified for beginners.

Just like a mage in the QSR always casts a spell at a force equal to their magic attribute.

Maybe you know more than me...
And there are indeed some things missing in the QSR that will (hopefully) be included in SR5. Things like full defense and a dodge skill for instance.

Okay, I will wait and see.

-CJ

Maybe I do, but it this case I really can't remember, and all my files are not within reach.