Tabletop Game Thread

[Svata]

Oh, no doubt. Shadowrun is great.

[Tolpuddle Martyr]

Question though Svata, is Shadowrun the future of Earthdawn? Because there's sort of a chat thread between anonymous posters in the Aztlan sourcebook which strongly suggests it but I'm not sure if it was ever canon.

[ironbite]

From what I've read of the various lores and such, yes.  It's supposed to be.  Of course I love it because it's a different system then say Pathfinder.  A lot of fun and a whole lot more character driven then say Pathfinder or DnD.  Players can drop in and drop out with very little loss of story or penalty.  Right now I'm running a rigger who's got a veritable army of surveillance and combat drones.  Though I'm thinking of running a bullet sponge troll from Russia.

Ironbite-cause...reasons.

[Askold]

Reading the Shadowrun 5th ed rules and pondering what type of characters I would like to play. So far I've come to like most of the magic/qi/resonance using characters. Riggers and regular deckers not so much and I'm undecided on the street samurai archetype. What I am saying is that I like the non-cybered characters. Although I am not sure if aspect magicians are any good even though in the fluff they are the most common kind of awakened person.

[ironbite]

I do 4e and play a rigger.  Me and my drones have put up such a body count I'm technically considered a mass murderer.

Ironbite-and yet I will never run with Humanis Policlub.

[Askold]

Isn't killing people a bad thing for Shadowrunners? Gets you attention and the (hypocritical) shadow-community loathes killing and specifically dislikes people who take jobs to kill people. ...Although they usually are willing to kill for personal matters and nobody minds self-defense even if you are defending yourself from the guards at the mission site. ...But taking a job to specifically go in and kill a person? That's bad karma.


Seriously though, I think the kinds of characters I play rarely are bloodthirsty so going in all sneaky-beaky (or through the power of fast-talk and forgery) and getting out without shots fired would be the optimal result. Even non-lethal force is likely to be used if viable.

[ironbite]

We've never done wetwork jobs if that's what you're asking.  Mostly B&Es, kidnappings, and surveillance jobs.  And then there was one recovery job that kinda went tits up and caused 30 Yakuza mooks to show up and try and ruin our day.  There's 30 bodies we salvaged after that with the only real casualties were my drones.

Ironbite-which I just bought new ones with the money we got from the job.

[Askold]

That reminds me. There was talk on the net about how big the rewards should be for runs and it was pointed out that low rewards will hurt the non-awakened characters more. If the mage survives a mission, gets 5k nuyen and a huge pile of karma they can improve their character and even if they got hurt medical bills might not bankrupt them. If the rigger lost 50k worth drones and got the same 5k nuyen in return they have been set back a lot even if their rigger skills rise with the karma.

Meanwhile, if the characters make "too much" money that may cause different problems but unless the characters decide to retire it won't completely cripple any of them.

Also, a while ago I found a series called Roll4it with a Youtuber I subscribe to being a GM for a Shadowrun game. It was partially the reason why I reactivated this thread. They have had a few great shenanigans filled runs in the series so far and it is actually quite entertaining to watch them play. (OR to have the video running on my phone and listening to it on earplugs while I work.)

[ironbite]

MY DM actually records most of our sessions if you wanna see how we run Shadowrun.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrogm6G-OckdAB_6QY0QEHKnnOLiR0Mqb

Ironbite-not everything as some files got corrupted but it's a pretty good show of how we do Shadowrun.

[Askold]

BRAIN, why you do this thing?!

...So I was reminded that a few months ago I had been thinking about an RPG campaign where the players are in a SWAT-team. The game would be action oriented, possibly using cliches from action movies more than realism and tacticool weapon tinkering and combat tactics would play a big part of the game. Now I got to thinking how to run that in Shadowrun. Basically, Lone Star or Knight Errant HRT unit going about and fighting crime.

Naturally this would be a good excuse to let the players face the kind of bullshit that players usually do in Shadowrun campaigns... "Yeah, your mission is to protect the VIP as some runners are trying to kidnap him. Now they are throwing drones loaded with explosives at you as a distraction. I know that the VIP is in danger of dying from this, particularly now that the runners hacked a plane and will crash it into the building, but they seem to be having too much fun to worry about the minor details."

Then I naturally reasoned that the average Shadowrun player might want to work in the shadows and living under the rules of a corp and obeying the laws (well, at least most of the time. ...Or at least you only break the laws when your boss tells you to.) would get boring so if/when they get fired they could either do a "you have 48hrs to clear your name and get your job back" quest or simply turn the game into a regular Shadowrun campaign.

...In the first session I would explain to them what life as a wageslave is and how the spam-filter on their comms unit lets all the spam from Ares and affiliates through since they are Ares employees. And when one of them jokes about penis-extension ads in their mail I would note that the ad software is so good at studying what the potential customer does that they only get penis-extension ads if they have been looking into such things on purpose. ...And they would likely be heavily personalized stuff like "We know that you've been looking at PRODUCT X from EVO but did you know that Ares affiliate biotech company also has a similar product with much better warranty and if you buy it through us you will also get bonus store credits which you may use for further purchases from Ares corporation!"

...These are the kinds of things I think about while doing a brain-free job.

[Askold]

Bad news is that one of the games I'm in came to an end as the GM got bored. The good news is that I managed to get into a Shadowrun game instead.

The team needs another magician because the one they already had is not reliable due to the player missing sessions and the GM is afraid that even a single spirit will cause a TPK so my presence is to help prevent situations where the team has no magical support.

...I will also try to put some good tactics in use as the team is pretty much flailing about in combat.

[ironbite]

....the GM is afraid of a TPK from a single source?  Hey I got an idea...don't use spirits against the team if the mage isn't around?

Ironbite-it's what I'd do.

[Askold]

But when he has designed a mission thinking that the mage is playing but gets a cancelation 5 minutes before the game is supposed to start it means he has to redesign the mission.

Also, not having any spirits or magical defenses in corp secret base is not how the game works. You'd need a different mission as well to justify the complete lack of mages on enemy side.

[Askold]

This keeps getting better. GM had to think of a reason why my character, and the two others that missed the first session of this run, are joining the others mid-mission.

The fixers have been talking with the Johnson behind the scenes: "You sent WHO to do WHAT?! Without backup?! This mission is going to be a disaster and we will lose valuable assets unless we reinforce them immediately!"

Picture a dark night, at an undisclosed location near Seatlle three runners are planning to enter a secret corp facility. Their "sneaky beaky" approach has failed as the Decker was unable to get them access and the alarms are about to go off at any second. The team has quickly decided that plan B is: "Go in guns blazing and shoot anything that moves." Just as they are about to kick in the door a helicopter flies over the group. Three figures jump out of the copter and suddenly slow mid fall (my character burns a point of Edge to succeed in casting Levitate on three people at the same time) and all three land in front of the runners (making a dramatic "hero landing" by landing on both feet and punching the ground.) The new trio are the team face/leader, the original magician of the group and my support-shaman.

Now all I need is an appropriate CSI-Miami one-liner. So far all I've got is "Looks like this blacksite... Is about to go dark."

EDIT: For clarification, the characters can't jump out of the helicopter with parachutes or rappel down on ropes because they lack those skills and would probably break a leg or die from the fall. And they can't simply arrive in a car because it would not be dramatic enough.

[Zygarde]

So I've been interested in getting back into wargaming miniatures again. I've been looking around you guys have any suggestions? (don't say 40k cause I still have my set and I refuse to take them out again and repaint them.)