As usual a place for our discussions.

Here’s what you currently know about your neighborhood: https://stormy-waters-2075.obsidianportal.c...is/touristville

Here’s our shared lifestyle: https://stormy-waters-2075.obsidianportal.c...gative-services

Game calendar so far:
==================
Chapter 1: Sunday, September 18, 2078
Chapter 2: Monday, September 26, 2078
First Interlude: Saturday, October 1, 2078
Chapter 3: Monday, October 10, 2078
Second Interlude: Sunday, October 16, 2078
Chapter 4: Sunday, November 6, 2078
Third Interlude: Wednesday, November 23, 2078
Chapter 5: Thursday, November 24, 2078
Fourth Interlude: Sunday, November 27, 2078
Chapter 6: Thursday, December 22, 2078
Fifth Interlude: Sunday, January 1, 2079
Chapter 7: Friday, January 17, 2079

Characters
=========
(beta: https://brexbasicbackups.obsidianportal.com...aracters/jawsey )

gilga: https://stormy-waters-2075.obsidianportal.c...rs/rebeca-jones

Jack_spade: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/107f...dit?usp=sharing

Tecumseh: https://stormy-waters-2075.obsidianportal.c...characters/mato

This discussion was modified 0 days ago by Beta

I'm really enjoying the clothing situation! I hope the location doesn't derail this too much.

@gilga
What does this mean? I didn't quite follow what sin AM is referring to.


@Beta
As an aside, I know this location extremely well. I've been there dozens if not hundreds of times. One of my favorite sandwich shops, Gilbert's, is on the south side of the block, maybe 50 meters away. When I was in college, the apartments/condos just a few steps to the west were where I wanted to live after graduation. The park across the street is indeed lovely. This is an AAA neighborhood today - all Microsoft and Amazon money - so it's not hard to imagine it as such in the future.

Separately, the ice cream sold there today (Molly Moon) is excellent. I don't go to this one because I live four blocks from a different Molly Moon, but it's top-notch. Their strawberry is my son's favorite ice cream. Their vegan coconut chunk is in my Top 2 or Top 3. (I'm not even vegan, nor lactose intolerant. It's just that good.)

The 'fish out of water' aspect can be great for RP, both for lolz and also some tense moments.

@Tecumesh I did a lot of editing and that comes out of context, writing comes with a lot of effort (which I like doing).

Unlike Ichante that uses magic for everything including cooking and fashion, and never feels regret about it. AM studied a very traditionalist form of shamanism that frowns upon excessive and overly liberal use of magic. So using it to solve clothing issues, is very new to her and is part of the gradual drift she has from the fundamentalist approach.

@Jack
Let's transfer this over to Bobby:

Zoé: Executive Suite (armor 12)
– Custom Fit
– Newest Model

Seems like we can leave Custom Fit, given AM's magical tailoring. Newest Model may or may not still apply. Probably not, but maybe it doesn't matter since it only is relevant for buying Lightly Worn (i.e. Used) versions of the same.

Intuition 6 + Fashion 2 + Men's High Fashion specialization 2: 10d6t5 3 hits

Will do, thanks

@Tecumseh the adventure gave the name of the shop, but not the location in Bellevue -- so I just googled ice cream shops in Bellevue and chose one that sounded like more of an indepenedent, figuring that the location that would be good now would be good then.

By the way, we did not really get a sports car at that mission we traded it for their old car + money (as in AM's post I am not sure it's a dodge but did not have time to check).

Well what do you know. We did go for the extra cash and the Dodge Xenon. I had it wrong all these years. (Relevant posts are from August 31st in the Chapter 1 IC thread.)

I have a fish-out-of-water post but I'm not sure if I'll get it up tonight. If not, tomorrow for sure.

One of these days this software will pay for itself but it's not today.

Charisma 4 + Intuition 6 + Social Software 3: 13d6t5 2 hits

Mato is averaging 20.5% on Judge Intentions tests so far (16 hits on 78 dice). Guess I should just leave it up to Assensing!

@Tecumseh operating the bug scanner is logic + electronic warfare. Is he trying to actually scan? Or just waving it around?

(I'm working on an IC post, may break it up as it is getting long)

It was mostly for show, the theater aspect of playing for the audience.

I'll run the scanner with wireless on so that I can use the scanner rating in place of my non-existent Electronic Warfare skill.

Logic 3 + Bug Scanner 6: 9d6t5 2 hits

Seems appropriately bad.

I'm weakest on Matrix rules and, conveniently, so is Mato. My posts will be full of half-remembered concepts from skimming Unwired and Data Trails, which I've never read cover-to-cover. I have no idea what's actually feasible per the rules.

@Tecumesh I will move this question to Beta because the rules are not exactly very clearly written. So as I play the matrix girl and knows about as much as you on matrix rules:
- which trace options do we have? can we mark the Sprite or Bert and then trace them or the satalight link to the matrix they have or anything else in there?

Please roll your teamwork to conclude the roll to speed things up.

Negotiation: 13d6t5 4
Negotiation help dice: 5d6t5 1

She'll reroll failures because she really wants to prove herself when Jawsey is not with us.
reroll failures: 9d6t5 4
reroll failures help dice: 4d6t5 1

So somewhere between 8 and 10 hits in negotiation depending on help.

hahaha look at AM putting the screws in the kiddos.

I'll roll Negotiation for Mato to help represent the seeds that he planted about the difficulty of the job:

Charisma 4 + Etiquette 2: 6d6t5 1 hit, glitch!

Ahh dang. Not sure how to represent the glitch. I'd probably negate the hit, and maybe negate help from Bobby as well (not that Bobby can help much, given that he would be defaulting).

AM's base Social Limit is 7, which I think is now 8 because of Increase Charisma. So I'm not sure that she could keep more than 8 hits anyway. I guess she could get another +1 if she's wearing the Berwick Dress and letting it run wirelessly.

Actually, the boy could trace himself, or - if his tenuous connection to the matrix prohibits this - could give his sprites some marks on himself and let him do the tracing.
Because the boy isn't actually disconnected from the matrix, the noise levels are just too high for him to do anything useful.
I suspect he'll also be behind some magical cover, so Trouble will have trouble finding him too.
Our best chance is to hack the home surveillance system of his house, and use each camera along his way to school to find out where he got abducted.

@Tecumesh not sure how to represent the glitch.

Limits are not a problem once or ever: The improved charisma brings her limit to 9.
(16( 8 cha) +5 (5 will) +6 (6 essence))/3

Her designer dress brings the limit to 10 (and cooperation even higher).

Etiquette: 6d6t5 1

1 Hit, no glitch from Bobby.

Edit: The dress also adds +1 to social tests if it is wireless (and why wouldn't it?) I forgot about it.
So the additional dice
The first roll is:
Results 5d6t5: 1 [5d6t5=5, 2, 1, 3, 2] so 1 hit still.
The second is just 1 dice:
4d6t5: 1 [4d6t5=1, 5, 2, 4]
so no hit...

In total we get 9 hits and 2/3 edge remaining. Very nice.

The tracing will depend on how this "anonymizer" works (not a common matrix thing, since the Corps don't like people to be anonymous, anything like that will be boutique or hacked together)** if AM can trace the sprite that far she might figure out more.

** this was a fourth edition adventure originally, I don't know if they were a thing in the rules then, or if they should be strictly speaking possible in 5th, but I'm going with "yes, it is possible "

iC response tomorrow, sorry. It was the sort of day where I dropped everything else and went for a long bike ride tonight. (Besides I need time to think of how to deal with AM's negotiating position -- this should be a short chapter so I don't want to inflate the reward that much.)

I don't blame you! I was in a very good gym routine last summer but I haven't had a good rhythm for at least the last month or so. I'm hoping to get back into a better cycle very soon.

As Beta says, anonymizers were a thing in 4E but not in 5E. They work(ed) - more or less - like I described in the IC post. I think they're clever and a reasonably good plot hook. They make a decent explanation for "one-way only" traffic.

I was thinking about the cash reward. One interesting idea would be to have an up-front payment (due in January 2080) and a balloon payment due when Brent reaches the age of maturity (May 2080). That could be a fun way to add a chunk of change a few chapters down the road without dumping a bunch of cash on us all at once. Plus it opens up some interesting possibilities, like a chapter in May that doesn't explicitly involve nuyen rewards.

Well, I did not intend to make a fuss and cause metagame problems.

I actually gave it some thought and tried to respond to the story as I understood it.

The kidnapped kid (which is likely the one hiring us), is believed to be worth 2 million (!!!) and the kids in the hacker club say that the problem is that he does not have access to all the family funds to pay so much (but he will soon once he inherits his parents). So 100k seemed like the kind of money that Bernt could pay us without excessive troubles.
Perhaps not all at once, but eventually, it is not that much money for him - and we are saving his life, he does not have many options.

If it was a middle-class manager looking for his kid (like in Lorebane's story) we'll do the same job for much less (look at the reward in Lorebane's story a used car and some money). I'd say we did it for 30k or so, perhaps less because a second car is not something we would buy (or can sell at sticker price). So my point is that I was trying to respond to the story, and balance IC/OOC considerations with that number (and I also rolled the negotiation roll before I named a price).


I really like the option of some of the money coming in the future. On one side it feels consistent with the story, and on the other few months delay are like years of delay in OOC so it is mainly fluff money without mechanical effect on the game balance but with storytelling flavor. We can balance it at that time by doing a personal job (e.g., finding Mato's biological parents), and then we do not need to worry about cash rewards. If any, once we clear out debts and have some spare cash we can start thinking about personal goals. Perhaps it can help you get a better grip of Jawsey if we come up with a story of a good friend in trouble that he asks SIS to help pro-bono? Would expose some of his history and life?

Lorebane's chapter was ¥32,000 plus the Dodge Xenon. I looked it up a few days back because I would have sworn on my life we took the Hyundai instead. I've had that wrong for years.

Mato doesn't mind the big price tag. Let the kids poop themselves. That said, OOCly I was only expecting ¥40K, give or take.

I've actually been thinking about Mato's parents in recent days. We know who his mother is but she died in an auto accident. His genetic father is the question mark and I recently had some good ideas about who it is and the circumstances of his involvement with Mato's mother. Whether these come up or not within a chapter is somewhat secondary; I'm pleased to have thought of them for my own understanding.

100k might seem much, but as a payment plan it's not that much, considering US healtcare prices right now. And they are hiring matrix and magic specialists. I doubt those resources could be gotten legitimately for much less than that somewhere else.

Just to be clear, I think the ask by AM was great! I just hadn't been ready for it and needed to think about how the response would go.

The entire SR economy needs to be revamped, top to bottom.

Shadowrunners should either be A) paid a lot more or B) be sent on much smaller jobs, or C) both. The ROI on shadowruns is insane. ¥50K to retrieve a priceless artifact? Or to steal a prototype that's worth millions? Speaking from experience, businesses will generally spend ¥1 if they can reasonably expect to make ¥2. What about spending ¥1 to make ¥10 or ¥50 or ¥100? They'd be doing that every night of the week. Granted, not every shadowrun will succeed, and some might generate blowback, but there should be enough ancillary benefits (tweaking your competition, disrupting their operations, satisfying petty rivalries, etc.) that they should be happening all the time. Maybe there's enough supply of gangers and wannabes that help depress the overall prices, but competent runners with a reasonable chance of success (which is the default coming out of chargen) should be making many multiples of what they do in the base rules.

Given their rarity and power, even the crappiest magicians should be pulling down six figures. The powerful ones should be be making seven figures. There probably shouldn't be any in the shadows unless they're looking for revenge or just really hate money. Probably the simplest solution from a game-world perspective is to boost the supply, to have the growing mana levels of the world produce more Awakened.

I'd love to hire a brain trust of economists, anthropologists, historians, and social scientists to tackle the premises of the Sixth World and to really squeeze them for the implications, to make the game world as realistic as possible. I feel like the earlier editions (especially 2nd) did a better job of this. Nigel Findley was particularly good at following implications to their conclusions.

Heh, best not to think to much about it.
Same problem with Battletech (it's why we regularly have to remind ourselves we are playing Battletech not Logitech)

But to be fair, we aren't paying tax on our business and pay out every cent we make directly as wages to the employees. If we'd have to put money away for investments, pensions and tax, we wouldn't wonder nearly as much about prices like that.

I like my worlds to be internally consistent. I don't mind outlandish premises - like UGE or VITAS or GOD or any of the other acronyms - just so long as the consequences of such things flow logically throughout the setting.

Some of this results from how the setting has evolved. The earlier editions were very cyberpunk, the Underdog vs. the Man, the SINless vs. the System. A certain degree of hooding was assumed. I don't think the 2E/3E core rulebooks even gave guidance on nuyen compensation. The rewards from the early adventures were all over the place.

Things changed in 4E when Catalyst took over. The tone became centered more on mercenary supercriminals, where cold-hearted cynicism is closer to the default and Better Than Bad exists to add fluff around having a conscience.

Indeed, just pulled out my old SR3 core book. You rolled how much money your fence had to buy all your loot off of you.

It's likely the same mindset that turned Karma from a ressource you got for good deeds and could use to get you out of sticky situations into just experience points with a different name.

Yeah, I had totally forgotten about that until I saw it a few hours ago! You were expected to be opportunistic and pinch data/prototype/rarities along the way, which would be anathema to today's professionals.

A couple years back, Sphinx compiled the payouts from the early adventures. They're all over the place! From ¥1,000 per runner to ¥75,000 each and up up up up (see Harlequin). See below:


What's interesting to me are the team payments, the ¥115K or ¥120K that you can divide up. More runners = less risk, less reward. Fewer runners = more risk, more reward. Plus it let you deduct team expenses (like repairs for the rigger's van getting shot up) before dividing the net profit. I know why they don't do things that way in Missions (where a bunch of randos show up and run together), but it's an interesting model for established teams where there's some inherent trust and mutual interest in long-term success.

It is interesting to read how the perspectives change over time. I must admit that I would probably not relate to the cyberpunk "stick it to the man theme" too old too cynical for such a naive good/bad world. The heartless mercenary seems very interesting, but it is usually very difficult to play because most adventures would have the players be the protagonists.

What I like about this game is that I can relate more to our story because our players are in situations that I can easily imagine. They operate between all these criminals and essentially provide a legitimate service to people, sometimes breaking the law when a client offers a really generous payday. That says these negotiations are like the first time I felt the 'stick it to the man' theme when my SINless character that was alone on the matrix all her youth gets to squeeze the hacker club of rich kiddos that live the life that she wanted at their age.

My feel on the early editions was that most PC were expected to be of the shadows because they didn't have a place in legitimate society, but were not expected to be so exclusively focused on being professional criminals. There was a lot more adventures where you were hired in other rolls or got pulled into things for more personal reasons. In that way I feel this game reminds me of my limited experiences in playing SR1.

Alright.

Judge intentions: 16d6t5 5

assensing: 10d6t5 5

My stretch of incompetence at Judge Intentions continues:

Charisma 4 + Intuition 6 + Social Software 3: 13d6t5 1 hit

Luckily AM is on the ball.

I'm going to have Mato nod subtly along, a "tell" to represent his glitch.

I also find the "grey" legal setting to be interesting. That may play into one of my chapters in the future.

You are a real anomaly with these rolls.

Yeah, 17 hits on 91 dice is 1st percentile rolling (0.06% really). It's almost like Orokos is telling me, "Let the people with Assensing do this."

I found a decent IC explanation to cover it. I'm pleased with Mato's introspection if not his performance.

Tecumseh, those rolls are just wild!

@Gilga:

That was just me being tired and brain-dead and forgetting things. I'll try to do a clean-up post later this afternoon.

Dice will be dice. At least the situation is non-lethal. I've had a couple instances of rolling 2 hits on 20+ soak dice, then Edging the failures and only getting 2 more hits. 4 hits on 40 soak dice really takes the wind out of your sails.

In my home game we concluded that a magical mcguffin was actually a cursed artifact due to the way that from the moment it was picked up my son's dice rolls went consistently terrible (and picked up once his character dropped it). Odd rolls are expected, it is the runs of odd rolls that feel more surprising I think.

I have a PbP game that started 6.5 years ago where I was trying to be the sneaky/infiltration guy. Like Mato, I suppose, but an adept. For the first Chapter I think I rolled about 18% on my Sneaking dice, which is about how Mato is doing on Judge Intentions. OOCly, I kept saying, "I'm good at this, I swear." The dice, however, did not agree.

wow, I had bad rolls in the past but this is the first time it lasts so long.

It wasn't for all 6.5 years, just the first chapter, which was about 1.5 years. Although there were several moments where I was thinking, "If I keep rolling like this, am I going to make it to Chapter II..." Especially when you're rolling Sneaking to get behind enemy lines.

Eventually I gave up and went to shooting people, which is what happens when they notice you after you fail enough Sneaking tests. Luckily the shooting/dodging went better.

OOC, the anonymizer is designed to pass data through, stripped of all trace of where it came from. Standard PAN (or simplay avatars) can't pass through. For whatever reason, however, the sprite seems to be able to pass through.

Gilga can attempt a matrix perception or some related knowledge skill to try to learn something about the anonymizer.

And a quick matrix search reveals that SATMAX satellites are more or less orbital matrix nodes, designed to collectively relay data between other satellites and between other satellites and base stations. By extension, it seems likely that that the anonymizer is also on a sattelite.

Matrix perception:
Matrix perception: 10d6t5 6
Matrix security:
Matrix security: 9d6t5 4

Hi, I am taking a vacation this weekend. I'll have a phone and probably read, but will probably be very brief as I am really a keyboard person.

Assuming AM shares the tidbit about the Reality Hackers, I'll roll a knowledge skill.

I thought that Mato had some gang-specific skill but he doesn't. The closest he can get is Underworld:

Intuition 6 + Underworld 1: 7d6t5 2 hits

Because the skill is somewhat tangential, I'm going to treat that as 1 hit regarding the Reality Hackers, by which I mean just basic knowledge. Mato, as a cyber-enthusiast, would probably be familiar with that aspect of their gang.

Bobby can probably help you there: Gang Knowledge: 10d6t5 5

AM would agree to the terms as I assume they reflect the negotiation roll. Otherwise she would try and make the finding out part as a best effort rather than a commitment.


She will share the knowledge and had 2 hits on "gangs" knowledge skill.
https://orokos.com/roll/898355.

Feel free to narrate her as I will be away until Sunday.

Oh dang, Bobby knows everything. Maybe that's why I didn't bother with it.