Leafing through the gear section in the 5th BBB the other day I was wondering about this: All gear sections are full of items which are really just everyday stuff, ported 1:1 with a random price tag added. Like the aforementioned disposable syringes, or rappelling gloves and light sticks (which btw went up in price from 5 ¥ to 25 ¥, are you kidding me?). This does not just clog up the book, it also encourages players (and builders of sample characters) to clog up the charsheets with line upon line of random stuff which sounds like it might be useful at some point.

What to do instead? Well, in most cases the obvious solution is just a few paragraphs up or down:
Medkit: The medkit includes drug supplies, bandages, tools, and a (talkative) doctor expert system I'm sure "drug supplies and bandages" includes some syringes and needles
Climbing gear: This is a backpack full of rope (400-kilo test), an ascent/descent harness, gloves Gloves already included, huh?

So why for example does the section for B&E gear not look like this:
B&E kit (R 1-6): This inconspicuous bag includes lock picks, electronics tools, a crowbar, and everything else needed to pick or force non-biometric locks. Adds its rating to tests for picking locks and gives a DV of [something dependent on rating] against barriers.
Power tool: A monofilament chainsaw, heavy-duty angle grinder, thermal lance, or other tool for cutting through serious obstructions [generic version of the mono saw, same stats]



PS: And if somebody wants to fill his word count on the cheap, at least do some sanity checking
The syringes are listed as Avail. 3, cost 10 ¥ A PIECE. I know, IRL there are places which restrict sales, but in SR? Cheap body mods everywhere but no needles, because of the dozen or so people still using IV drugs? Yeah, sure...

Broadly agree, particularly about the need for kits (piecemeal it's tedious and easy to forget things, which is bloody silly), but I assumed syringes were there solely for delivering drugs to unwilling targets and were very serious hard-wearing deals, given their ridiculous prices (should be more like 10 for 1¥ if they're just normal).

Why yes, we could make every bit of gear even more generic and thoughtless so that you won't have to look at unsightly clutter in a rulebook already crammed to the gills with pointless exposition and sidebars full of questionably useful and often outright confusing examples of play.

Buuuut.....

...we won't.

That would imply a listing "Glowstick. Works like a glowstick" is thoughtful and specific. I don't quite think so...


Auto-injectors (the kind intended to be rammed through NBC suits) would make sense for that, and since they are not totally run-of-the mill items would warrant a separate gear entry. But the entry in the book just says it's a disposable syringe, everybody who cannot wing something like that also needs stats for plasters, wound dressings, AA batteries, (non-electronic) earplugs, files...

Steel Spoon:
Bod: 2 Str: 1

Weak against acids. Exposure to a corrosive substance results in an opposed test....

Because it's funnier to say that if it's not explicitly on your character sheet YOU DON'T HAVE IT DAMN IT. NO SIR YOU DO NOT HAVE A GUM STICK IN YOUR POCKET, YOU NEVER SAID YOUR CHARACTER CHEWS GUM!

Personally I actually enjoy exhaustively listing gear and odds and ends on the character sheet.

Personally, I'll take what we've got. 5th Ed has shown some improvements by putting the amount a seats cars have over say, oh I don't know.... penile implants for instance?

Besides there are GMs out there who are very finicky about what's on character sheets and how much it all costs.

"Wait, you used 3 glow sticks last run. Did you expend the 6NY to buy them back?"

Situations like this are what a straight Edge roll is for. First time in an adventure it has a Threshold of 1 and it goes up one threshold each time the player attempts it. It has to be a mundane item that makes the scene more interesting, not just a roll to make your character's life easier. Good examples are small bottled water or flavored drink (8oz or so), chewing gum, paper clip, lip stick or gloss, rubber band or hair scrunchy, and other random odds and ends that could be in the pocket or bag of pretty much anyone.

Or they're what knowing what's in your character's kit is for. Sometimes you're just that idiot who's infiltrating a site via a drainage pipe, and didn't think to buy a damn flashlight.

Is that an LED doo-hicky on your keys? *rolls edge* Why yes, I do believe it is...

I tend to give out one "pulled a dumbshit" roll for the whole group, but it's always going to be the lowest-powered version of the item I can imagine in the most frustrating version I can imagine. Free LED keychain sounds great until every little wobble makes the keys rattle (+1 threshold to Infiltration checks), you realize the pinching it is something that has to constantly happen, and the dicey grip means that nothing else can be in that hand for the duration of use.

i would imagine that ordering something on the matrix that's legal could be delivered via a drone in under 8 hrs, or 2 with a higher delivery fee

You know, I used to like exhaustive gear lists. I mean, you never knew when something would suddenly become useful, so the safest thing to do was to make sure you had everything. However, some things rapidly became ludicrous: no matter how useful a 10' pole might be, you couldn't realistically be carrying one everywhere.

Later, even though I had the habit of buying everything under the sun, I realized that most of the items I never used. They were just sitting there just in case the GM decided to be nitpicky. Then, I realized that even in gear dependent systems like Shadowrun, a lot of people didn't do precise accounting. Even the most nitpicky GM didn't actually keep close count on ammunition, for example, and only the most serious dick GM would screw you for forgetting to buy extra clips to hold ammo. I also started playing a lot of gear-light systems, and I discovered that extensive gear lists weren't even necessary: just letting people have anything reasonable worked just fine.

Nowadays, in Shadowrun and similar systems, I only account for significant gear. Small stuff is free, and if you would reasonably have it, you have it. If it's not on you, you might have it in your trunk. I also don't account for normal ammo; that's folded into your lifestyle costs as a Shadowrunner. Even specialty ammo, I only require that they buy more every so often; I don't count rounds, and I always assume that they've got enough rounds in their guns. It might make things a little easy on the PC's, but it makes things much smoother.

Ha! jokes on you, my character has a mild addiction to Betel and so definitely has a stick or two of betel chewing gum on him. (seriously, 1 nuyen for a +1 dice to perception? I assume every runner with half a brain has chewing gum)

Not a fair quibble - Penile Implants were in Augmentation, which is a splat book, and the typical seat numbers for SR4 vehicles did get errata'd in.

And to be fair, SR5 shipped with plenty of much more glaring omissions, incomplete sections of rules, and indecipherably ambiguous language. So don't tout the fact that they included vehicle seating on the first try as some sort of success.

~Umi

Oh man, I fetishize counting ammo, rounds in magazine, how much you can carry, and all this stuff.

See, now that's what I like to hear!

Some people might denigrate options like the penile implant, but some of the (shall we say "saucier"?) options allow for some interesting character concepts. My current PC/NPC is a looks human Ork former working girl turned assassin/street sammy with both breast implants and my own personal add-on cyber, a vaginal implant. A completely sealed system and controllable wetness would enhance not only the working girl's health and reproductive safety but also the fantasy that the girls offer their clients. Strictly necessary? Not really. Adding bits of flavor that drive some potentially interesting roleplaying opportunities later? You betcha.

The ability to go from Double Devastators to flatter than a bitch on a Big Wheel on command adding some "oomph" to her disguise skill? Yes, please.

I never quite understood how they turned a quid of leaves, nuts, and lime into chewing gum.

~Umi

Not mention the fact that it turns your teeth black.

Well, that's with habitual longterm usage.

~Umi

I used to, but then I realized that it served no purpose except for the to screw players over with.

One time,I was running a sci-fi game, and the local munchkin spent every penny on the biggest gun he could find. During the first combat, I gleefully pointed out that he had forgot to buy ammo for it; and the next move was for someone to break his gun. Okay, he was a munchkin, but that was still a dick move on my part. After I matured some, I realized exactly how vicious that move was, and learned that strict accounting didn't really help anyone.


I don't mind options like the penile implant, as long as it serves a purpose and is treated maturely. IMO, the stuff CGL put out was handled with all the decorum of a Beavis and Butthead video. Inflatable breasts might make a good cover for a concealed pouch, so I can see purpose in it; but treating it as a seduction bonus is just immature and demeaning.

So long as the seduction bonus has reasonable restrictions, I don't see the problem.

It'd be like having Corporate Knowledge - sure, that helps you with Corporate types, but it'll probably do more harm than good if you try using it with Neo-Anarchists. Large breasts should help you seduce the kind of people who are into that, and they should also hinder you efforts with those who find it to be a turn-off.

One person's kink is another person's mood killer, after all.

~Umi

So now we have a growing population of Runners who are now Betelheads?

For me the biggest problem with the syringes is that they're included while the canon has patches that do exactly the thing syringes do but are a lot more practical to carry and use. Syringes should be obsolete in 207x, except maybe for labs and other edge cases.

*angry feminist hat on*

Because saying huge breasts is automatically seductive is demeaning to women, and insulting to me. Women are attractive in all shapes and sizes, having a set of inflatable balloons on her chest does not instantly make a woman more desirable! Also, you're assuming that "the people who are into that" will be judging the woman solely on her breast size, and not on any of her other characteristics. Big breasts are not the magic wand of seduction, and encouraging gamers to judge women by their bra size is demeaning, insulting, and rude.

*angry feminist hat off*

Seriously, breast size is only part of the overall aesthetic. On some women, their breasts are too large for their frame, which isn't attractive. Assuming that one feature is going to grant a significant bonus is really stretching things in my book.

Nobody is stopping you from keeping track of chewing gum supplies or a character's menstrual cycle (remember the rules for pheromone scanners...) and tampon supplies. Given the finite size of a book, 99% of the stuff such a...detailed character might want to have will not be in the book anyway, which means you are already making up stats for 99% of the stuff, therefore making up stats for syringes does not seem like a burden.

The "kit solution" wouldn't change anything if your charsheet includes "flask of booze" or even a complete listing of all the character's worldly possessions. What it would change is:
a) The amount of "trivia items" in the books, which clog up pages and still only represent the tiniest fraction of possible items.
b) The amount of mandatory clutter you need to put on your charsheet when for example building a cat burglar. The simple choice "my character is able to pick locks" already generates a good dozen entries.



Not big breasts, breasts 100% matching the target's preferred size and shape. Which may be big, or boyish, or...

But anyway, where did you find the rule that breast size factors into Seduction rolls? I could see it making sense, but haven't seen that in RAW anywhere.

But the dick move wasn't pointing out that he'd forgotten to buy ammo (at least not if it's a game that actually tracks ammo, SR-style, rather than working at a higher level of abstraction most of the time), it was the part where you immediately had someone break his gun. Or arguably, the part beforehand where you waited to tell him that he'd forgotten to buy ammo until combat started.

I mean, yes, those of us who GM probably have memories of doing in-retrospect-dickish things like this (I once ran a WEG Star Wars RPG game in which I let the players design a ship to start with, then declared that they'd been mashed into a fine paste by acceleration because they forgot to list inertial dampers—hell, the ever-popular "Ring of Three Wishes" scenario is so predicated on dickishness that no one bothers having people make characters for it), but the lesson isn't that strict accounting is bad, it's that everyone needs to be on the same page about the level of abstraction being operated on. A game like Shadowrun encourages a certain amount of careful planning and equipping (or at least appears to try to), and while it isn't the end of the world to say "the hell with it" I do think it goes against the feel of the game. (Of course, I'm speaking about SR3 and earlier—this may have changed in SR4 and SR5.)

Admittedly, the flip side is that typical Shadowrun characters are experienced professional criminals with specialized skills, which the players are generally not, so it's appropriate to give some quarter. Nevertheless, I feel it's appropriate to put some of the responsibility on the players, and in particular to expect them to not make the same mistake twice gear-wise.

~J

Jesus Christ. 4E was written by children.

That rule was introduced by 3rd, C&P'ed by 4th, and finally killed by 5th -- that's one change among all the issues with security devices which get carried over since the SOTA books

Intravenous drug use didn't stop just because slap patches started existing for legal drugs.

The Seloupa Rings still make a killing smuggling heroin in, after all.

Indeed... Hard drugs for the Dregs...

...is not at all what I said.

I said just the opposite, in fact. I said it was situationally seductive. Which it is.
I never said it wasn't.

Look, you and I and other people may have more complicated tastes, but like it or not there are people out there for whom large bust size is going to be enough on its own. The GM should be smart enough to realize these are going to be a very select number of NPCs and characters, but if the Runner in question is trying to seduce some drunken idiot in a strip club, they should probably get the bonus.

Naturally this applies across the board. A character with a penile implant who is advertising it in a cruiser bar is going to draw propositions from certain NPCs - women, men, non-gender-identified spivaks, it doesn't matter. Someone hanging out at in an appropriate location like a strip club or casual sex meeting place will be interested. Others, elsewhere? ...not so much.

And anyway, how often do Runners end up in those places and situations? Inflatable hooters or a tally-whacker that can stand up and salute while whistling Dixie might impress the oversexed with loose trousers and somewhat low standards, but it's not going to help you negotiate with Mr. Johnson for more nuyen or sweet talk the lady Knight Errant officer who pulled you over because the shoestrings of your latest victim were dangling out of the trunk. Hell, it probably won't even help you convince your barrista to give you extra whipped cream on your soykaf.

Please don't jump to conclusions. I'm not actually a male chauvinist - promise!

~Umi

Wait a second, I thought you were joking. Really? That's a rule?

if only...pg 262 SR4A
pheromone scanner table condition dice pool modifier
Character exertion (lifting, running, fighting) +2
Menstruating (females only) +2

The underlying concept is sound, it's just the bizarrely selective rules implementation that makes it awkward.

If the scanner gets a bonus to detect Androstenol released by women, it should realistically also get a bonus to detect Androstenone released by men. Heck, for that matter there should be extra dice to detect diseased individuals (they even mention using such scanners to detect disease in the fluff!), or individuals who have recently eatten a certain kind of food, or individuals who need to go the bathroom but are holding it, et cetera.

~Umi

I have the urge to have fun with this. If you're a manly man, you also get the +2 due to your Chuck Norris esque testosterone.

"Remember how in the last fight you got 6 successes in Unarmed Combat on that guard and killed him with a punch? Yeah, that was so manly that now there's +2 to detect your manly hormones."

Screw hormones. Primates are the only critters that release methane 24/7. Set up a methane detector in a room and you can skip all the pressure sensors, motion detector, thermal imager, etc. crap entirely unless they enter in a fully sealed suit.

But then you need to make Willpower checks to not fart into your sealed suit, which causes stun damage.

In addition to irritant effects. Treat as tear gas for character modifiers.

I think the best part of the rule was the "(females only)" -- thanks a lot for clearing that up.


But speaking of female hormones, I think one thing should finally be fleshed out:

Just like penile implants or household drones, a bit of worldbuilding by showing civilian (and certainly popular) adaptions of new tech...

It was all a dick move on my part; I'm not going to try and excuse my behavior, I'm going to try and learn from it. However, looking back, the reason why gamers in my era were trained to have exhaustive gear lists was to prevent the GM from screwing us over. Bought 50' of rope, but forgot to buy a grappling hook? You're out of luck. Hell, I could do it now, in Shadowrun: people always forget to buy spare clips, so I could say they only get one shot in their guns before they have to start manually loading.

There are two easy ways of fixing that. The first is to go over gear lists, and point out to players every possible thing they've forgotten. The second is to just handwave it, and assume the character was competent enough to get the right stuff. I strongly prefer the second approach.


Never said you were, and I apologise if it came across that way. The point is, unless they do something useful in game, there's no point in opening that can of worms. Why should we even open the door to that kind of sexism, if there's no good reason for it?

Now, if you want something more general, you can achieve that using the SR4.5 rules: I believe there was a generic cosmetic surgery that raised your Charisma by one. You can call that breast adjustment plus other changes, if you like; since there's a game benefit, you can argue that the sexist implications are worth it, provided it's handled tastefully.

Actually, that's an excellent choice of examples to get at what I think is an important distinction. Tracking magazines can be important for extended periods without downtime where characters may be carrying loose ammunition, but forgetting to purchase/bring any magazines at all is clearly player/character mismatch—barring pathological cases like toting around half a dozen different magazine-using weapons, or maybe a character who is supposed to be completely new to 'running, it's simply not a mistake the character would ever make. In that case, handwaving it is totally appropriate (again, excepting pathological cases like taking the 500¥ option and genuinely having to replace something important to fit magazine cost in).

The grappling hook is a different story. Again, it depends somewhat on the character, but in general there are many uses for 50' of rope that don't require a grappling hook—I don't think it can be clearly said that forgetting to bring one is something a character would almost certainly not do. Of course, different groups have different expectations as to how much planning and conscientiousness will be required, but I don't think it's generally unreasonable to require a player to have specifically decided to bring along the grappling hook. In particular, I think it's fully reasonable to expect a player to only have to get bailed out by handwaving once (at least for a conceptual category of gear)—the first time a player forgets a grappling hook may be handwave territory, but the next time is much harder to justify.

~J

Normally, for the magazines, I'd remind the players they had to buy magazines. As a literalist at the time I would have made them manually drop a round in the chamber if for some reason they didn't. And probably say something how this was causing enhanced wear on the extractor or something.

That being said, years later, I now know that when you buy a firearm it usually comes with a magazine in it. So if I did it today, I'd still tell players they need to buy magazines, but that each firearm purchase comes with one (1) magazine in the weapon if applicable.

Just make sure they understand the meaning of mags, had one player show up with a Predator and a Playboy

Hmmm, this is the second time in the last couple of days Dumpshock is giving me nostalgic feelings about JA2...

I disagree with the second case. If a player bought rope, crampons, and pitons, but forgot to buy a grappling hook, I can't see how being a stickler about the gear list is helpful. Handwaving it, along with most unimportant gear, is for me, the easiest and fairest way of doing things. For the most part, that's all a grappling hook is: it's a plot device, so the PC's can scale that wall. By itself, it's not important, it's just part of a puzzle to get inside the castle. I don't like heavy accounting, and I really don't like my narrative stopping because the players forgot something, so I find handwaving the small stuff to be for the best.

Here's another example: in one game, our mercenary group finds ourselves in a dungeon crawl. We reach the lower levels, only to discover that no one had thought to bring torches, or any other light source. The entire adventure ground to a halt, and the party was about the retreat, when my half-ork berserker came up with a solution. Granted, the character only *plays* dumb, but still, it was the team brute who McGyvered a torch out of things we had on hand.

Anyway, the point is that it makes for a better story if you're not super-strict about gear, particularly insignificant gear. If it comes to a choice between giving the players a mildly significant item (like a light source) and having the entire story come to a complete stop, I prefer to handwave the light source. I find that, for me, only accounting for significant gear makes my job much easier; there's less math and accounting to deal with.

Of course, even if you forgot to list a flashlight on your charactersheet or a Maglite (suitable for administering beatings), if you were the tacticool guy you had a light mounted on your gun.

I was never sure why as best I recall SR splat books I read never had a separate listing for a "tactical illuminator" or "gun mounted halogen light" or whatever you wanted to call it. Seeing as it's pretty low tech or unimaginative compared to some of the stuff in the books, but it's also something that in real life SWAT teams almost always have.

I had written some house rules for those guns, as well as for trying to blind someone with the light (I decided that you could default to the Pistols skill for blinding someone with the light OR use the Laser Weapons skill, ha ha), back in the day because I thought it was ridiculous not to have these items exist.

Of course, if the GM was as big of a dick as I was, he might still get you for forgetting batteries.

Seriously, no one wins at the accounting game.