otaku mike
Jan 22 2005, 01:29 AM
Just curious to know which AAA is the least popular in your games.
Personally, I just don't know what to do with Cross, and Wuxing comes second.
toturi
Jan 22 2005, 01:37 AM
Cross. Except for the Seraphim and the Cross Babel, I hardly use Cross. I use Wuxing whenever I need a Triad connection.
BaronJ
Jan 22 2005, 02:33 AM
Nobody seems to use Cross because it seems like 9/10ths of Cross' facilities are in Qubec, and people don't like playing Quebecois for some reason. I don't know why that is. As an AAA, they've got drek everywhere, but no one ever sees it. Oftentimes, small little R&D houses that I have my runners knock off are related to Cross.
Wuxing is getting a lot more 'screentime' with me recently, mostly due to an unhealthy fascination with the triads. Also, you have to consider that Wuxing, as an AAA makes just about everything... weave that in somehow. Leveno Computers, a subsidiary of Wuxing!
Yamametsu gets my second-vote for 'least used'. The concept of a Russo-Nippon mega messes with my head. I've had a couple of players who used the Big-Y in their backstories (parents were Y-employees, stuff like that), but that's the closest I've gotten.
Of course, the biggies these days we can't get away from are Ares and Sader-Krupp.. and every good evil GM likes whipping out a team of Renraku Red Sams to scare the drek out of their players.
I think to solve the 'no one uses these megas' issue... people need to come up with fiction that involves them, and then get it posted. The more canon info we pick up, the more we know about the corps in question. (Burning Bright, Renraku Arcology, friggin' Lowfyr)
BaronJ
Gyro the Greek Sandwich Pirate
Jan 22 2005, 02:46 AM
For Cross, perhaps it has something to do with the 'personality' of the corp, as seen in Shadowrun literature.
Yamatetsu is (as you mentioned) the crazy Russo-Japanese mega, known for being keen on metas. Everybody knows Ares as Guns & Knight, Mitsuhama likes their zero-zones and scary drone security, Aztechnology is the evil blood magic corp, Shiawase is the first and most conservative Japanacorp, Renraku has their Red Samurai and the Arc, Novatech is Villiers and company, S-K is the dragon Eurojuggernaught, Wuxing has the whole PPG upset thing, and Cross....is French-Canadian.
Cross Applied owns the country of Quebec, but they don't tend to come off as terribly evil as Aztechnology. I mean, Evil Sacrificial Blood Magic vs. The Tyranny That Is The French Language? Granted, the Seraphim are nice, and supposedly anybody can be one, but again, one doesn't hear about them much outside of Quebec. Cross Applied doesn't come across so much as a monolith of megacorporate power as a bunch of guys that are annoying because they don't want to speak English or Japanese.
In terms of running with Cross, most of the missions I would see being played would be Ares vs. Cross. Other than that, they probably don't get much play. Perhaps their shtick could become the Seraphim-but they would really need to be involved in some more big metaplot splash than they have thus far. As it is, all the other corps have way more metaplot coverage than Cross.
Connor
Jan 22 2005, 03:25 AM
I had to vote for Shiawase because I can't really think of anything off the top of my head related to them currently, which is kind of odd. If there's anything going on with them currently can someone point me to some resource?
Kanada Ten
Jan 22 2005, 03:30 AM
Sure, they failed to detect (or more specifically warn) Japan about the volcano eruption, though this has somewhat worked for the Emporer since the CEO has promised his daughter's hand in marriage (and she's like twice the kid's age) on his eighteenth birthday (YotC). They run the power plant in Glow City, right on top of the old one). There's some other stuff, but they keep a low profile. Power, Waste, Envirotech.
I could actually go on for a while about them, but the big deal with Shiawase is the power struggle between the CEO, his sister, and their dead brother (who votes his shares through a fraggin' medium).
Note, that I voted them least used, since I like having them as the sleeping giant.
RangerJoe
Jan 22 2005, 04:14 AM
Oddly enough, I never put my players up against SK. Something in me still really believes the Japanacorps are going to take over the world, so I use them as the big bad guys. By comparison, SK just doesn't seem as scary, Lofwyr or no Lofwyr.
Veracusse
Jan 22 2005, 04:18 AM
I would have to say Yametetsu, just because I have not gotten around to using them yet. I have tried to use all of the big ten, and number of AA, and even some smaller corps. Usually I tend to mix things up with two or more corps per run.
Veracusse
Nikoli
Jan 22 2005, 04:24 AM
Wasn't cross used a bit in the Brainscan storyline?
I remember that was the first time I can recall reading anything about them.
i'd use them for creepy Mason/Illuminati/Templar storylines
sidartha
Jan 22 2005, 04:45 AM
I've almost never seen Aztech outside of a module because they are so well known as the Blood Magic Corp!!! It's too hard to place a random corp related plotline around the corp noted for it magic.
In my humble opinion.
Crimsondude 2.0
Jan 22 2005, 06:52 AM
QUOTE (Nikoli) |
Wasn't cross used a bit in the Brainscan storyline? I remember that was the first time I can recall reading anything about them. |
Yes. The My Name is Legion run.
And they're also involved with Proteus, which makes them a fun toy to play with now, not that I've been at a loss to use them.
I pick a AAA, but only because I just haven't gotten around to fleshing it out yet with threads that exist. With the others, I'm just lazy and have no reason not to use them.
JavaLamp
Jan 22 2005, 09:09 AM
Huh, Cross happens to be somewhat centric to my latest game, maybe I'm weird like that.
I'd probably say Novatech is my least used at this point.
-JL
Snow_Fox
Jan 22 2005, 04:44 PM
We're mainly in North America so it's SK that gets the least use. Cross we use to piss off Ares and Wuxing gets the same, being used against the Japanese corps.
Paul
Jan 22 2005, 09:18 PM
I give equal time to all of them, not that my players know this. Often the runs they perform don't necassarily have any real visible connection to any one employer.
Crimson Jack
Jan 23 2005, 01:30 AM
Novatech, with Cross being a close second. Besides references to the corp, I don't think I've ever involved Novatech in a game. Not as the Johnson or job mark anyhow.
otaku mike
Jan 23 2005, 03:16 AM
QUOTE (BaronJ @ Jan 22 2005, 02:33 AM) |
Nobody seems to use Cross because it seems like 9/10ths of Cross' facilities are in Québec (...) As an AAA, they've got drek everywhere, but no one ever sees it. |
Well, being an AAA by no means guarantees that it has assests all around the world.
As the novatech case proved, it's sometimes a matter of owning the seat of a CC founder corp (in this case, JRJ). If someone owns a company that owns a CC seat, then even if the core company has been stripped to bare bones and look like a pop and mom company, he's still entitled to have a seat in the CC and be a AAA.
That's why, IMHO, some of the new AAA don't see much play. It's difficult for people to take those newcomers like Cross or Wuxing as real equals to the older AAA. What saves Novatech is that it's a third of former Fuchi, once the 2nd most powerful AAA. But the 2 others look like opportunist corpos, but I can't buy the idea that they built an international network of assests overnight once they got the AAA status... especially because getting the AAA tag sometimes is just politics (the way Wuxing got in for example). As you said, for Cross, it seems most of their assets are in Quebec. And maybe the truth is not that different from that feeling.
Garland
Jan 24 2005, 08:39 PM
I've used Cross from time to time, simply because it seems to come to mind really easily. I'm slacking off on Novatech, though. They don't seem to have as good a hook as some of the other corps. I mean, SK=all-powerful, Wuxing=magic+triads, Ares=guns, Aztechnology=evil, Yamatetsu=meta-friendly, etc, etc. What's Novatech besides the new kid on the block?
Kagetenshi
Jan 24 2005, 09:05 PM
Much as I love them in the books, I'm going to have to go with Cross as well. They've got two big things going for them: Quebec and the Seraphim. Quebec tends not to get involved in our plotlines much, and the Seraphim work on a stratum decently above the players in the games I've run.
~J
akarenti
Jan 24 2005, 11:20 PM
I actually like Cross. I'm currently running through (a modified and stretched) Brainscan with my group. The players sat out "My Name is Legion" (the players are ill suited for remote missions), but I think that since the Cross Matrix Technologies headquarters is in Seattle, that they'd be pretty keen on Deus' programming and matrix tech, esp after the events in "My Name is Legion." So I had a Cross agents offer the decker a special Evaluate utility and a LTG adress to send paydata too. It's working out well, since it gives the players a way to get a little money for expenses during all the freebies they do for Overwatch.
Of course, I could have done pretty much the same thing with Renraku, or Novatech, or Mitsuhama. But one of the PCs has a vendetta against Mitsuhama, Renraku can directly retrieve Deus tech, and Novatech just doesn't have the kind of intellegence resourses as Cross.
hahnsoo
Jan 25 2005, 07:58 AM
Yeah, it has to be Cross Applied Technologies in our games... not a single Cross subsidiary in sight. Shiawase and Yamatetsu actually see a fair amount of play (they have literally replaced Fuchi Japan in a lot of ways). I like Shiawase simply because it is pretty generic, the corp that does everything, but masters none of it... if you need a generic "big corp" to throw at the players, Shiawase is always a good bet because they don't really have an "angle" (like Ares = American Military or Aztechnology = Blood Mages). I have some ideas cooked up for Wuxing, although the runners in our group have not selected a job from them yet.
Blue eyes
Jan 25 2005, 10:03 AM
Ares hasn't been used in our two 5 year old campaigns, sure commercials on the trid & downtown advertising screens featuring Ares products have appeared for reasons of setting an atmosphere. The reason for why we haven't used Ares in our games is that we really don't find the corp that interesting. We did have several campaigns regarding the probe race, but during those we focused on Novatech, Yamatetsu, Shiawase, SK, Boeing/aztechnology.
Maybe it's because we are european gamers playing in Seattle I don't no, but we just think that there are so many other more interesting megas out there worldwide than Ares - SK, Mitsuhama, Aztechnology, Novathech & Cross etc. But I'm sure that at some point down the line we'll get to go blow something up with the Ares logo on it........
otaku mike
Jan 26 2005, 02:12 AM
I'm surprised to see Shiawase among the top 3 least played corpos.
I certainly use it a lot.
Those who voted for Shiawase could explain me why?
Johnny Reb
Jan 26 2005, 04:58 AM
Shiawase voter here and, until a couple of years ago, I'd forgotten that Shiawase even *existed*. I can't think of any adventure that dovetails with them, nor have they been big movers or shakers. Fuchi did stuff, Ares did stuff, Renraku had stuff done to them, Aztechnology and S-K are *always* doing stuff, but Shiawase?
Nothing.
No bugs, no arcology shutdown foo, no snapping up Fuchi leftovers, no great drgaon issues, no fallout from Dunk's will ...
Nothing.
Kinda creepy, really.
I remembered seeing them in a book (The new corporate download, I think it was) and going, 'Whoah. They still exist?!' I thought that after the Shiawase Descision that they'd basicly fallen off the planet.
Fuchi, Renraku, Mitsuhama, Yamatetsu, the Big Five Japancorps... What? That's only four? Who the heck is the other ... oh right! Shiawase!
They just don't really *exist*.
Might want to move them soemwhere (Say, the middle east perhaps?) and reconfigure them. As it stands? They're not even a speedbump.
hahnsoo
Jan 26 2005, 07:51 AM
QUOTE (Johnny Reb) |
Shiawase voter here and, until a couple of years ago, I'd forgotten that Shiawase even *existed*. I can't think of any adventure that dovetails with them, nor have they been big movers or shakers. Fuchi did stuff, Ares did stuff, Renraku had stuff done to them, Aztechnology and S-K are *always* doing stuff, but Shiawase?
Nothing.
No bugs, no arcology shutdown foo, no snapping up Fuchi leftovers, no great drgaon issues, no fallout from Dunk's will ...
Nothing. |
See, that is precisely why I like using them. The players can't weasel out any hidden agendas or be burdened with OOC player knowledge, simply because Shiawase is so generic. All you can really say about them is "well, they are Japanese". It makes for a great AAA corp to work with, because they are at least average in all areas, and the players won't secretly be thinking "Lofwyr's out to get me" or "Here come the Blood Mages"
Paul
Jan 27 2005, 12:55 AM
Want to have some fun with anyone SR related? ask them to name the big ten with out looking at a book.
Shiawase is the one my players leave out all the time. I usually get them all every time. I have missed twice in fifteen years.
akarenti
Jan 27 2005, 03:25 AM
QUOTE (hahnsoo) |
See, that is precisely why I like using them. The players can't weasel out any hidden agendas or be burdened with OOC player knowledge, simply because Shiawase is so generic. All you can really say about them is "well, they are Japanese". It makes for a great AAA corp to work with, because they are at least average in all areas, and the players won't secretly be thinking "Lofwyr's out to get me" or "Here come the Blood Mages" |
Shiawase is one of my favorites, as well, but I don't really think of them as generic. They are in competition for the top slot in Bioengineering, Nanotech and Atomic Power, udesputedly top dogs in the service industry, and the MIFD is mensioned in just about every product involving Shadowrunners.
I think they're underused because Shiawase does mostly resonable buiseness. I mean, they don't have any "crazy 6th world gimic". Seriously, would anybody run with S-K if Lofwyr was instead a board of directors? As exiting as the world of natual reasources, heavy industry, and phone companies are, I doubt S-K would get much playtime without the good dragon. And Aztechnology? They invest primarily in CONSUMER GOODS! How many players would be proud to infiltrate a Pyramid to get their hands on the newest top-of-the-line prototype toaster? Add in human sacrifice and Blood Spirits, and suddenly it feals like your character's doing something.
Shiawase doesn't get respect because they settle problems with lawyers and analysts and general cleverness (not unlike an actual corporation) instead of Blood Mage or Great Dragon crazyness or overengineered trap laden guaranteed death automated killing everything zero-zone everywhere there's a company presense.
Shiawase is subtler than that. They don't need Hachiman to tear you apart, or Red Sams to hunt you down--they can just have the MIFD keep an ear to the ground and send someone to your home to talk things over with you before anyone has to resort to violence or acts of more questionable legality.
hahnsoo
Jan 27 2005, 03:40 AM
QUOTE (akarenti) |
And Aztechnology? They invest primarily in CONSUMER GOODS! How many players would be proud to infiltrate a Pyramid to get their hands on the newest top-of-the-line prototype toaster? |
I once had my players infiltrate an Aztechnology facility to get "valuable data", which turned out to be a new recipe for Fruit Salad. Later, in another Shadowrun, the players had to infiltrate an Aztechnology "NuFruit Inc." facility. *grin*
When I run Aztechnology, I severely downplay the blood magic and play up the fact that the majority of their business is making food products and consumer goods.
fistandantilus4.0
Jan 27 2005, 03:58 AM
That's awesome! I love that! I know with my group, they would have been jumping at shadows the whole time waiting for a blood spirit to jump out at them in that situation! probably make for a ad end for some sad night janitor!
Pistons
Jan 27 2005, 03:59 AM
Actually, IIRC Shiawase was in the last adventure in Corporate Punishment regarding the Elemental Scroll.
fistandantilus4.0
Jan 27 2005, 04:23 AM
Since we seem stuck on wether or not Shiawashe is doing anything.. back to the marrying daughter.. Himoti is it?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't she the vampire groupie/otaku from Psychotrope? If so, that could sure lead to something interesting.
hahnsoo
Jan 27 2005, 05:07 AM
QUOTE (fistandantilus3.0) |
Since we seem stuck on wether or not Shiawashe is doing anything.. back to the marrying daughter.. Himoti is it? Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't she the vampire groupie/otaku from Psychotrope? If so, that could sure lead to something interesting. |
There are story elements in the Shadowrun metaplot that involve Shiawase (the Shiawase Decision, the weird Ryoi Shiawase ghost channeling, the above Psychotrope reference... was that Shiawase?), but nothing that distinctly fits into the Shiawase MO. If there is are plot hooks worth fishing (and you really have to fish deep), I would recommend doing something with either the HMHVV vaccine they are working on, or the MIFD (this is the marketing department of doom, for those unfamiliar with it... it is the Orwellian Big-Brother information-gathering juggernaut, a common theme in cyberpunk). Plus, the Fuchi acquisition gave them a lot of good legacy Fuchi plot hooks that you can use. Or you can just play them as the straight-up generic Japanacorp.
And, as it says in the "Corporate Download"
QUOTE |
The public eye has never lain long on Shiawase, and the corporation likes it that way. Even the average Shadowrunner knows little about Shiawase, possibly less than any other megacorporation. |
One possibility to indirectly use Shiawase with a paranoid runner group is to have the Johnson make up a Shiawase background identity. The runners check out the Johnson's skinny, find out he's allegedly Shiawase, and then assumes "oh, this is going to be a vanilla shadowrun" (since Shiawase runs tend to be rather cut-and-dried and professional). Big mistake when the (insert corporate baddie) arrives.
Not that Shiawase can't be vicious on its own, but it is conventionally violent as opposed to Aztlan, S-K, Ares, MCT, etc. Just another way to make your paranoid runners even MORE paranoid.
otaku mike
Jan 29 2005, 03:41 AM
QUOTE (Paul) |
Want to have some fun with anyone SR related? ask them to name the big ten with out looking at a book. Shiawase is the one my players leave out all the time. |
Funny, I usually leave Yamatetsu out, for no reason I can understand since I use it regularly. Maybe because it's the smallest japanacorp.