I just took a glance at the alternate gameplay sidebar, and noticed something rather odd. Street level only really penalizes tech-based runners: dropping the starting cash, availability of gear, and starting karma.

This doesn't really hurt mages. Actually, considering the pitiful cash for even high-level priorities, it helps them by giving them a dump priority. Street sams, on the other hand, are really going to suffer.

Let's look at an (mystic) adept with priority A magic vs a Street sam with priority A resources.
With 75 grand you probably get wired 1, rating 1 reaction booster, and an implanted smartlink... if you're lucky.
Mystic adept gets 6 PP worth of adept powers, plus potentially a bunch of boost spells to add to that. 6 grand of starter gear isn't going to kill you if most of your shtick is mysticism and badass magic powers.

Considering that the game is already considered to favor magic over tech, how is making tech virtually unplayable without noticeably hindering magic at all going to create a street level game rather than just Magicrun?

It doesn't. "Street level" play is 100% magicrun in 5th edition. Also, unlike SR4, there aren't really plausible upgrade paths for mundane characters if the resource level stays "gritty" and "street" and you'll start running into issues created by SR5's wonky economics. By that I mean the income you get from low level runs is going to be dwarfed by what you can make by ganking anyone you encounter with 'ware or a deck and ripping it out/off of them, and your runners will have to face the question of why they're spending enough liquid cash to keep themselves sustained in the style to which they are accustomed in perpetuity on achieving marginal upgrades in effectiveness when engaged in their criminal enterprises.

You might want to use the Street Scum or High Life variants instead, p 354-355.

Agreed, I would probably also tone down the magic and maybe even skills a little, to compensate and get a real street level game.

Here's what I would try-
A magician or adept needs to take the next priority up to get the same benefit. So B becomes A, C becomes B, etc. i.e. For an adept to get Magic 6, one active skill at 4, they need to take magic priority A, instead of B. The highest a Magician or Mystic Adept can start with is Magic 4, 7 spells, 2 rating 4 magic skills (if they choose priority A). And eliminate magic priority D as an option. Still won't really level the playing field, but it at least has an impact on everyone.

... Hang on, the high life variant means that LITERALLY EVERY RUNNER IS EITHER A TECHNOMANCER OR AWAKENED! Does that mean that every CEO, high roller and noble is magical?!?

... Yeah, that's a little bit weird. But here's the thing: SR4 wasn't actually better. It's suggestion for a "street level game" left you with too few BP to create an average member of a metatype.

only the ones who don't burn out first.... i guess...

So what if you were a mundane who somehow was on the fast track to the CEO level? Is there some kind of magic elitism for every high-roller in the world? If so, why isn't there a metric ton of propaganda that magic is good, rather than still having it viewed with suspicion?

The problem with that is that it doesn't fix advancement. It might work for a one-shot or very short campaign, but even if you manage to get characters coming out of chargen broadly equivalent you'll still either need to immediately undermine the premise of a street level game by handing out gobs of money to mundane characters or you'll find magical characters outpacing their mundane counterparts by leaps and bounds.


This is unambiguously true. Adjusting the BP limit downward too much did some seriously wonky things to character creation. I always thought it was better to simply put tighter restrictions on BP available for Resources and the lower the Availability limit to 8 or 10, with a small reduction in overall BP. And ban full mages. That left you with competent individuals with a lot of room for growth and gear that felt appropriate for "street level."

If advancement by karma is outpacing advancement by money, then cut karma awards. Or double/triple karma costs for everything.

Yeah, because THAT will go over well with players.

~Umi

Of course it will! Didn't you know that players want to do everything for no rewards to maintain the status quo, just like in TV shows?

Yeah, there's a reason I stopped watching Burn Notice, despite how fun the characters were...

~Umi

Ironically, they did actually change the status quo later into that series. Granted, it took 3-4 seasons for elite runner Western to upgrade from a low lifestyle. He does get out of street-level runs at the end of season 2 (I think? I can't remember when the burned spy organization started yanking his leash), which is about, what, 30-40 runs?

I stopped at season 6 I think.

He kept doing things and meeting people, but nothing changed. Every time he tied up a loose thread, it simply imploded and another identical one took its place. He was always in the same place literally, professionally, and even personally. They tried making him a little more interesting with the whole Fiona complexity angle, but by that point I'd lost faith and didn't stick around to see if anything actually ever developed.

So yeah. Michael Weston is a great inspiration for run ideas and smart running behaviors, but a terrible inspiration for character advancement.

~Umi

Character advancement is EVIL! it must be, or why would GMs keep paying runners so little?

Are you suggesting that the GM might be... wrong?

Blasphemer! GET HIM!

Tell my cyborg Fixer I love her!

*is carried away by the angry mob*

~Umi

Ok, we've got him...

uh... what do we do with him now?

I don't think we thought this through.

Okay, I know it's kinda hard to avoid when you're collectively hoisting someone aloft, but... can whoever is grabbing my left buttcheek be a little less rough with the goods? At least until you figure out what you're going to do with me?

~Umi

Set him down, it is time for his punishment.
*deep breath*
Umidori... Don't do it again!
That should do it. Good work everyone, tea and biscuits for all in the auditorium!

So wait... does this mean I have to tell my cyborg Fixer I love her? Because she freaks me out, man. Like, in a good way? But also in a way that makes my back teeth wiggle and my brain shut down? Ya know?

Are you sure you can't, like, tar and feather me or something, so that one of you can go tell her for me? Or, heck, I'll pay someone 5000 to do it?

~Umi

Sure, I'll go and do it. Sounds like a milk run.

#Three hours later#
*Stumbles back in, missing an arm and bleeding.*
You didn't tell me she already had a boyfriend, and that he's a fricking troll!
I just hope I can find a discount cyberarm for a measly 5 grand.

Sorry, used cyberlimbs aren't as available as standard grade for some reason...

~Umi

Can I at least grab some painkillers?

Here, have some NoPaint.

(Don't worry, at 15, you can actually afford it!)

~Umi

Thanks. Looks like I need at least 15 grand for the new arm. That'll take... Hmmm, carry the two, divide by zero... 30, maybe 35 runs? Better get to work then.

Do you need a good Fixer? Because I could totally set you up with my... oh wait...

~Umi

Alternately, you could let players pick twice from Skills / Resources. Might get a little wonky if they pick twice from Attributes / Metatype ...

I'm a Dwelf. Deal with it

For that variant even more so then the standard chargen, a point buy priority system is the way to go.
You get 15 points and priority costs are
A=4
B=3
C=2
D=1
E=0
So a mundane could go A for Stats,Skills and Recources and B for Race.

Actually it was better, because in SR4 you could indeed play a street level hacker/rigger/sam with the lower prices.

SYL

So for street-level play, what's needed? (divorced from any particular chargen system)

- lower availability of gear
- lower amounts of money
- lower available starting magic
- no lifestyle higher than Low (or Squatter?)
- ?

The GM and players talking about it and agreeing that this is how they want to play, thus enforcing this themselves...

Hmmmm - I agree with this sentiment (communication is good), but doesn't it also help to have guidelines, so that when everyone agrees they want to play a street-level game, they can have a shared something to help them hold to the concept? "Welp, I dunno, would my street character have an Ares Predator?" "Just check it's Availability!"

I've never really understood the appeal of Street level games, to be honest. It always felt like "Shadowrun: Gimped Edition".

I like this. A high end mundane with doubled skills/money is a pretty nice deal.

My group started one a while back. It's really not all that terrible, but we had to houserule stuff to get it to work right. Our end result was character sitting around 300 effective BP, but forced to be a little more versatile than your typical character.

We also started the street campaign with the explicit understanding of accelerated character advancement, because we were running into issues where the GM had trouble keeping high powered characters in check, so if we started characters under the default rules, we'd only see like 1-3 karma a session, and relatively low money rewards, to keep the characters in the area he was comfortable with longer. By starting a street level campaign, we were able to meet at a middle ground where our characters get to progress at a reasonable rate and we don't hit levels that he isn't comfortable with too quickly.

My favorite games have all been Street-level campaigns. I think what I like best about them is that they force the players to be creative and resourceful since they can't rely upon their toys and their F12 spirits to do the work for them. You could call it gimped but I think the restrictions take the game in less-explored directions which are often interesting and fun. Plus I like a gritty style of play, where a pack of punks with guns represents a material threat instead of a minor speedbump to be disposed of in one initiative pass.

But I also like that Shadowrun is flexible enough to accommodate continent-hopping runs that start with a deal with a dragon, continue onto the metaplanes, then end with world-changing events. Not everyone likes the same flavor, so it's good that the same system offers Mild, Medium, and Hot varieties. (Or Black, Mirror, and Pink.)

Release the Frogzards! Leave no Dwelf alive!

~Umi

"Sum to 10" was a popular option for Character Generation in Prior Editions with Priority.

Street level play also requires GM support of, "You don't face NPCs with super security and drones and spirits and can see everything with their spy networks" kinda stuff. Running into SWAT team or better stuff should be rare otherwise yeah, it'll feel gimped.

Yeah, Street Level play I feels takes effort from both sides. Now, don't get me wrong, sometimes being Street Level means there is a lot of stuff out there better than you and you should be careful what you bite off, but at that SAME time, the GM shouldn't force them into stuff that makes them want to start minmaxing and optimizing left and right. (I have the opinion that the Powergaming-GM throwing huge opposition at the PC's issue is a chicken-egg thing that has no clear answer, since some GMs end up throwing huge opposition due to PC powergaming...but then some powergamers end up doing what they do because the GM insists on throwing giant opposition at them and they have to if they want to survive.)

That being said, hell, we play street games with our 'No Availability Limit at Chargen' in place, simply because we talk about the level and what to expect. (There was an amusing instance where I let a street level PC have a Panther Cannon. With no ammo, mind you, and they had no Gunnery(SR2) skill. But they used it to scare people. I liked the idea so much I let them run with it-they spent most of their starting nuyen on the thing and it was literally just a prop. But their idea that they looted the wreckage of a merc situation gone awry and ended up with it worked for me, so we ran with it.)

There's also different levels of 'street.' Is it literal gutterpunks, is it more 'Snatch' like? Is it somewhere in between? Are the gangs more pro or are they third-rate? Is your street game a bunch of sickly bums who were wageslaves that got fired from a corp a decade ago and want revenge? All that stuff should at least be hashed out, and I think it's hard to give actual hard rules for *all* of it. In this case, the rules seem to give 'rough guidelines' and go from there(the same can be said for Prime games-the SR5 'Prime' game in the chargen section is very very tame in general; do you want to go more 'Equilibrium' with it? Then increase some stuff.)

Street Level games have always been low in cash, skills etc and Magic has always been more powerful there too. Which is why the last time we had a Street Level game the rule was (to a 6 player party) ONE of you can have Magic. They were literally a low time gang that had all of a block for turf. The game was about getting more turf, grabbing the nuyen when they could from the "Fixers" they knew and the efforts they went to to protect their Mage was amazing.

That's one thing I am missing from SR5 though, no threat to Magic stat from high end damage. I may have to house rule that back in.

It'll be probably be in a later book. I never liked it that much, but I don't like permanently nailing players when others can essentially 'get new, and possibly better toys*', so I have a variant where the Magic loss is temporary(I do call for a Permanent roll if they burn a permanent point of Edge to survive.) Works fine all in all since temporary(1 month-a Magic test-with the current, lower rating-each hit knocks off 2 days, no Edge allowed on this roll) is still enough of a hindrance that could put a damper on things(oh, crap, the job is in 2 weeks and Bobby the Troll Combat Mage over here isn't running on full), but not enough to screw the player over too much. (And yes, this can be cumulative-if Bobby ended up taking Deadly AGAIN, he could lose another temporary point for another Month-Roll weeks, starting from the day he took the wound. Eventually Bobby might decide to sustain his Armor spell instead of his Increase Reflexes when he's casting glowing mana carrots at people for the next several months because he's fizzling, or he ends up 'fired' because he's weaker for awhile.')


*''Wedge likes his new shoulder better, anyhow.''

Normally I'd be on the same boat. But for SR (especially with where initiation can take you) I always liked the Risk that came with being a magic character for getting hurt badly. Don't forget that in MITS (sr3) you could take geasa to offset the Magic Loss from injury so it wasnt like options didn't exist, it just meant you might have to pay to keep that power...

Of course if I felt the situation warranted it I also applied the other stat penalties and even some damage to cyberware (I didn't use stress rules, but people sometimes had to find a cyberdoc to fix their stuff that bullets had ripped through).

Oh, I'll pop some 'ware now and again-but like the temporary Magic, it usually won't be anything 'unfixable.' I don't use the stress rules either, FWIW. Now...to a POINT I'm nice about it.

If a player INSISTS on, despite a 'Are you SURE' or two, or doing something like ''HEY GUYS! Watch me go flick Lofwyr on the nose!'' Yeah...at that point they aren't getting much help from me.

Nawww, he just forgot to spend his Karma.

Are you also going to houserule in cyberware maintenance?

We usually tried it because we wanted to be a) a gang taking over the streets, or b) altruistic runners trying to reclaim the streets from gangs. In either case the appeal is in domain building which SR always ignores.