/tg/station P&P Night

dezzmont · Post by **dezzmont** » Mon Nov 17, 2014 3:02 pm #44000

Bottom post of the previous page:

Yeah. The point of a riot gear set up is your armor sits at 22. A heavy pistol will on average hit you for 1 stun, forget about a thrown rock or someone trying to bean you with a metal pipe. Against full rifles you actually fare much more poorly as they can do full auto brain blasters into you for 5-6 damage a pop, and while your riot armor prevents that from knocking you down, you are slow as shit and unable to effectively retaliate because you now have -2 from your wounds and -2 from your bulky armor.

XSI · Post by **XSI** » Mon Nov 17, 2014 3:39 pm #44003

The thing that I didn't understand about the riot gear is that it doesn't have any fire resistance. I mean, molotovs aren't that expensive, and they'd be pretty much what a violent riot would throw at a bunch of cops.
So why doesn't the suit have any protection against that?
Mine does though, but I had to add it myself. It's going to be a bit until we can grab bigger armour I think. Whatever happened to 4e's miltech stuff? That stuff was amazing

dezzmont · Post by **dezzmont** » Mon Nov 17, 2014 3:53 pm #44006

Molotovs are not going to hurt riot gear without fire resistance. They are at most going to be AP 2 DV 6, maybe 8, affairs. A direct hit would deal negligible damage and has no chance at an ignition, which is fire's real killer.

Milspec armor is in Sr5, its primary mechanic is that if turns you into a sitting duck for anything besides a bullet. You may be immune to small-arms fire but good luck getting out of a mage's LOS. It is also largely worthless for runners outside of very specific conditions because it has the restrictive quality. Much like your riot armor has I may add.

XSI · Post by **XSI** » Mon Nov 17, 2014 4:43 pm #44016

The riot suit is for when we know there's going to be a lot of bullets flying. For a normal run, there's stuff that actually lets you run away from the people who want to kill you

Usually there's more of them than there are of you anyway, so if you stick around it's a matter of when you go down, not if you go down.
I like having big red riot armour for style, but the more I look at it the less practical it seems. It's a shadowRUN after all. Not a slow shadowwaddle.

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Mon Nov 17, 2014 10:58 pm #44101

My bomber jacket gives me 7 AV, +2 for the ballistic mask, +2 more for bone density bioware.

It's a liiiiiittle on the light side for assault rifle and larger sized rounds. I should probably swap that bomber jacket for the (much cheaper) lined coat but dammit I gotta look good leading the charge.

I've half-considered trading it all over for an Urban Explorer jumpsuit but I'm not a Rider and this isn't a Sentai game so no.

EDIT: Did some gear shuffling to free up some Nuyen and purchase the Securetech PPP legs and vitals kits.

7 AV +4 for accessories and +2 for augmentations = 13 armor with no penalties. Should be able to cope with assault rifle attacks now.

dezzmont · Post by **dezzmont** » Mon Nov 17, 2014 11:16 pm #44107

An armored bomber jacket would be... an armored jacket.

Securitech vitals does not stack with any chest protection like a jacket or armored clothing either.

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Mon Nov 17, 2014 11:28 pm #44108

Nah man nah. I was wearing the good stuff. Vashon Island Ace of Spades.

I've traded it in though for a Lined Coat, ditched the vitals protector.

9 + 3 + 2 = 14 armor, no penalties, no conflicts. I also added nonconductivity rating 6 to the Lined Coat. Don't tase me, bro.

Looked into Decking.

Fucking hell man, they really priced these things up like crazy for what you get. over 200,000 for a deck that can run three programs at once? They really want you to be switching shit all the time.

I remember SR2 had a ridiculously complicated ruleset for decks. You had to actually count the filesizes of things between your memory and storage ratings. But in both SR2 and SR3 you could sit down with a chip cooker and a hardware shop and basically build your entire own deck from scratch with custom parts. Crazyness.

I see how they've changed things to make it a lot faster. A single matrix run could take an entire session in SR2 and SR3. SR4 was better, but SR5 looks like it'd just take maybe 15 minutes to get everything done.

I see why people would want to roll Technomancers over paying the cash to be a Decker.

EDIT: Rolled up a Technomancer/Assassin. Probably not very helpful for a group but would make an interesting NPC. Someone who quietly opens up an avenue to their target, slinks in, gives their unfortunate mark a triple-tap from their slivergun, and then leaves as quietly as they came in.

Post by **Vekter** » Tue Nov 18, 2014 6:03 am #44165

I was gonna try and buy the van (or bring it with me, if allowed, given my background). Also I'll keep in mind and try to bring some explosives.

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Tue Nov 18, 2014 6:37 am #44170

I only bring it up because the breaching maneuvers are amazing. I would carry a compliment of flashbangs around beforehand on military-minded characters to perform those kinds of room clearings, but now we actually get bonuses as a group if we can pull it off right.

XSI · Post by **XSI** » Tue Nov 18, 2014 11:15 am #44224

Speaking of flashbangs

Everybody
Get the flare compensation stuff for your eyeware/helmets/goggles
It renders you immune to the flash part of flashbang.
Not the bang part though. That's still decently nasty

dezzmont · Post by **dezzmont** » Tue Nov 18, 2014 12:40 pm #44231

The problem is that you can't increase your vision augmentation's rating above 12. Flare is a +2 rating but most people run smartlink, which is rating 4, and thermographic vision, which is 6.

That leaves you with having to pick between vision magnification, vision enhancement, flare compensation, and low light vision.

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Tue Nov 18, 2014 3:49 pm #44263

dezzmont wrote:The problem is that you can't increase your vision augmentation's rating above 12. Flare is a +2 rating but most people run smartlink, which is rating 4, and thermographic vision, which is 6.

That leaves you with having to pick between vision magnification, vision enhancement, flare compensation, and low light vision.

What? With higher rated cybereyes you can fit more modifications in them.

Rating 3 has 12 capacity, Rating 4 has 16.

dezzmont · Post by **dezzmont** » Tue Nov 18, 2014 3:52 pm #44264

I was more talking about glasses. Eyes have a decided advantage in that department.

dezzmont · Post by **dezzmont** » Tue Nov 18, 2014 6:08 pm #44280

Alright guys, 5 hours to game.

Post links to your sheet in the steam group or here. If I don't have you on steam you better add me.

ExplosiveCrate · Tue Nov 18, 2014 6:15 pm

Wait, 5 hours? Not going to be free for another 6 or 7. Sorry.

Edit: At least, not going to be any place where I can easily play.

dezzmont · Post by **dezzmont** » Tue Nov 18, 2014 6:19 pm #44283

Being a bit late is ok as long as you can generally make it. Most of the first session is group building.

Akkryls · Post by **Akkryls** » Tue Nov 18, 2014 6:22 pm #44284

Aaaaand Character sheet.

nsos · Post by **nsos** » Tue Nov 18, 2014 8:35 pm #44313

dezzmont wrote:Alright guys, 5 hours to game.

Post links to your sheet in the steam group or here. If I don't have you on steam you better add me.

well i'll be anywhere from 30 mins to an hr late

nsos · Post by **nsos** » Tue Nov 18, 2014 8:48 pm #44317

more like 30 minutes ok i'm gucci

ExplosiveCrate · Tue Nov 18, 2014 9:48 pm

I'll go ahead and post my sheet here, then. Hopefully it's not the old one.

XSI · Post by **XSI** » Tue Nov 18, 2014 9:54 pm #44340

Wait, what
Today?

I kinda expected the announcement a few days in advance, but okay
Let me find somewhere to upload it

Edit: Or as attachment. That's easier

Because every Shadowrun game needs one
Here's your obligatory SURGE catgirl.
Contact's location left empty to allow GM to fill it in, guy's supposed to be decently wealthy so probably middle/upper class. Wherever he fits in.

With bonus picture
Edit edit:

The upload was rejected because the uploaded file was identified as a possible attack vector.

Edit edit edit:
http://www.filedropper.com/showdownload.php/katzen_2
Picture seems to not work on the thing, so I'm putting that in the attachment here(I know, not a lot of effort. But it works on the chummer file)

Edit edit edit edit:
Now uploaded as pdf file. Picture still doesn't work in the pdf though.
Good enough, I'm going to stop touching it before I break it

dezzmont · Post by **dezzmont** » Tue Nov 18, 2014 10:05 pm #44348

Convert to PDF and post as an attachment.

Bonus points for a picture.

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Tue Nov 18, 2014 10:22 pm #44353

Played around with my gear some more. I remembered I'm ambidextrous but wasn't taking advantage of it.

Two machine pistols with gas vents please. Yes commence operation bulletstorm.

I updated the dropbox chummer file but if you want PDF's I'm not sure what format they're in? I could print a character sheet from chummer using the document writer if that suits your fancy.

dezzmont · Post by **dezzmont** » Tue Nov 18, 2014 10:31 pm #44356

We are playing on IRC: Channel is ss13shadowrun on rizon.

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Tue Nov 18, 2014 10:41 pm #44363

Beep boop character sheet.

Background purposely absent because RP

nsos · Post by **nsos** » Wed Nov 19, 2014 1:25 am #44407

fuck i missed

didnt mean to noshow m8s something came up

nsos · Post by **nsos** » Wed Nov 19, 2014 2:14 am #44418

f u c k

Post by **Vekter** » Wed Nov 19, 2014 2:30 am #44422

Yo, done with mine I think. The extra guns in there are extra stuff I'm bringing.

They removed pimped van from 5E, god damn it.

Maccus · Post by **Maccus** » Wed Nov 19, 2014 2:36 am #44424

can i make Parkourdude91 in shadowrun

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Wed Nov 19, 2014 3:17 am #44436

It's probably good we stopped where we did. I was itching to see if I could antagonize some criminal scum into stepping outside for a beating so I could blow off some steam.

Incomptinence · Wed Nov 19, 2014 7:17 am

How'd it go you guys have fun?

ExplosiveCrate · Wed Nov 19, 2014 7:26 am

We made contact with Mr. J, got a job, and talked a bit at a bar. Was mostly just to introduce the group.

XSI · Post by **XSI** » Wed Nov 19, 2014 11:25 am #44519

On Dezz' suggestion, dairy of one of the characters to recap
Since it's otherwise not cliche enough, imagine the "i"s are dotted with little hearts.

Katzen's Dairy entry, day 1

Dear Dairy. today I met the group I'm going to be running with. They seem very professional and have these neat thingys where they can talk subvocal on their commlink. I should get one of those, I completely forgot about them until I saw them use the things. I was whispering into my commlink trying to talk about burning things when they told me I should get one. Anyway, I only knew Liberty, but if she trusts the others then I guess they are fine too. One of them doesn't even drink alcohol, he says he doesn't want it but I think he's just broke. I'll see if I can buy him some later.
Our first job seemed pretty simple, we piss off humanitas pretending to be some other group. But what doesn't piss off humanitas anyway? The quiet one suggested we get uniforms for it, but if we want good uniforms we might just end up spending more money than we're getting paid. I think we should just paint the logo on a van and then drive up to toss a few grenades into their building.
The other way around is easy enough, the group said they could just break some stuff and spraypaint anti-meta crap on the walls. But I think we can burn it all down and yell it's what they get for supporting metas to whoever survives. I kinda like my way better.
It's more fun that way

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Wed Nov 19, 2014 2:16 pm #44564

Humanis policlub is a murderously racist organization that exists in the sixth world to just be huge assholes all the time. They're Shadowrun's version of the KKK.

Kill em all.

litmeuplol · Post by **litmeuplol** » Fri Nov 21, 2014 5:20 pm #44944

Yeah you guys have already started playing so I bet you don't care but I'm not going to be able to play at all. Time is too late for me (GMT) so yeah. RIP

dezzmont · Post by **dezzmont** » Fri Nov 21, 2014 5:42 pm #44949

Fret not, people bitching about not getting to play.

I may have an idea... It will materialize probably after two weeks.

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Fri Nov 21, 2014 7:36 pm #44985

The new called shot locations and expanded melee combat rules make for some really ridiculous combinations.

It's actually worth it against superior opponents to try to suckerpunch them in the gut or stomp on their foot to open them up for more damage.

Fucking melee combat is so good now holy shit. You can be a goddamn Troll Luchador phys ad and just splatter people with crushing throws and aerial maneuvers. There's a fucking professional wrestling martial art. This is the greatest addition to any RPG ever.

nsos · Post by **nsos** » Fri Nov 21, 2014 7:50 pm #44988

are we doing tuesday again

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Fri Nov 21, 2014 8:33 pm #45000

We should hang out and door more IC job planning before then.

dezzmont · Post by **dezzmont** » Fri Nov 21, 2014 8:37 pm #45002

Called shots are fantastic for skilled shooters too. Especially pistol wielders. You may not be as damaging as other people but there is no worse surprise in the world than a quickdraw shot to the groin.

Any skilled combatant should seriously consider making a called shot on any attack they make, unless the opponent is near equal in skill to you its almost always better to make a doubletap/aimed burst/brainblaster vitals shot than a regular old automatics shot, and a called shot to some locations will probably instantly end the fight against an opponent who normally would be hard to damage. The fluff always had people kicking trolls in the gut in order to one shot them, now its actually a thing.

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Fri Nov 21, 2014 8:59 pm #45007

It jives with the idea of limits really well.
If you have any reason to believe you're going to hit your limit, call the shot.

miggles · Post by **miggles** » Fri Nov 21, 2014 10:01 pm #45027

dezzmont wrote:Fret not, people bitching about not getting to play.

I may have an idea... It will materialize probably after two weeks.

i might be up for this idk

dezzmont · Post by **dezzmont** » Fri Nov 21, 2014 10:39 pm #45036

My plan was to do a forum game with a much lighter focus on combat and heavy focus on investigation and roleplay. Tailing people down crowded streets and breaking into their homes rather than their skulls to poke about. Very paranoid. Tradecraft focused.

Sort of like WoD in terms of combat utility: Most stuff will get done outside of combat but knowing how to throw down is smart and people who invested in learning to fight will just destroy pretty much everything, even if they still are required to be good at something outside a fight. Knowledge skills and technical skills like medicine and engineering will be more useful than they would be in a traditional game, though of course mages, hackers, infiltrators, riggers, and faces are all extremely good at investigation style runs.

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Fri Nov 21, 2014 11:27 pm #45057

The problem with an idea like that is you only need two well made characters to accomplish everything.

Everyone is going to be overlapping like crazy, and the volume of potent skillchecks means no stone should go unturned and no clue unnoticed.

I had a similar group once where the game was about a bunch of newsnet sleuths whose whole purpose was to investigate stories to keep their screamsheet's ratings up. They weren't getting paid directly for solving stuff or digging up clues, but indirectly for the quality of their work and how thorough they could be.

It also gave them more things to do, like taking photos, recording interviews, etc.

If you want to do something like this I would recommend moving away from just making it an "brainy" shadowrun game and try an alternate group setting like a detective agency or cell of some political activist group.

EDIT: Oh I forgot to mention the newsnet group was only three people.

dezzmont · Post by **dezzmont** » Fri Nov 21, 2014 11:43 pm #45065

It will be fine, because unlike traditional SR you guys won't be on one team... It is going to be a traditional Noir plot, think shadowrun meets SS13. Sure you know that guy from the previous investigation... and he is offering to help you infiltrate that yakuza meet... but what if his job runs counter to yours? It will never be as overt as an assassination, but more of a "hey, Mr. Johnson says Ms. Johnson can suck it, I am taking the deeds, so why don't you stew there cuffed to a chair for a bit?" situation at the very worst.

Also consider the following, you got 4 archtypes that are real power players in investigation games: The faceman PI, the occult investigator, the matrix datatrawler, and the two fisted infiltrator/athlete ready to get into all sorts of foot chases. I am kinda forcing "The lab nerd" to be a 5th archtype by making the technical skills and medical skills better. So that is 5. And you get the omnipotent 5-7 times a run edgelord. So that is 7. And in SR5 you generally can mix two archtypes effectively and still be viable. So not counting the edgelords. That means you have 10 potential combinations of archtypes with edgemaster as the 11th. And considering niches fuse in SR to make a unique character in SR it isn't like the two people who both took hacker are stepping on each-others toes. An infiltrator hacker and a face hacker hack rather differently. So they can fit in the same party even if they were woring together towards the same goal 100% of the time.

And finally, to take a note from Gumshoe, the greatest investigation RPG ever written: It is actually a bad thing for the players not to get all the clues. As they put it, CSI isn't about how what the actors don't find hurts them, it is about them finding everything that is important to find eventually to piece together the mystery. It is the bane of a mystery plot for clues not to be found.

That said you bring up something I wanted to touch on. While being a shady shadowrunner would fit Noir: 2075: Like Tears In The Rain: The Dame who Slayed Me edition very well, a variaty of backgrounds is completely appropriate. Lonestar detective, private eye, street informant, blogger looking for a scoop, or a femme fatale foreign spy all work and would up the potential intrigue. Everyone knows the cop and the journo are on the up and up, but maybe your client doesn't want an aspect of the case reaching the cops and the journalist getting involved may embarrass the department.

nsos · Post by **nsos** » Sat Nov 22, 2014 4:18 am #45110

ncis 2075

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Sat Nov 22, 2014 8:39 am #45135

One guy who puts priority A as skills, priority B as resources, and priority C as attributes can easily become "The Brain" of the group who perceives everything and has all the cracking/technical skills to double as both the groups decker and lab nerd.

Add to him a magician who isn't completely retarded and you're done. The Brain does most of the heavy lifting outside of the random assensing or magical knowledge skill that's required, which the magician fills in the gaps and pulls double-duty as the combat blaster of the group. Be even smarter, and make them a charisma-heavy conjurer for face/magic-knowledge/spirit army trifecta.

If you must you can crowbar a third cyber infiltration/combat spec into the group, but now you need to start adding scenes just for that person to go do their thing in. Hey there's this juicy relevant macguffin you guys should go get...IF ONLY ONE OF YOU WAS SNEAKY ENOUGH TO PULL IT OFF (DUN DUN DUNNNNNN).

In my experience if you want to run Shadowrun games that focus on intrigue, drama, and investigations you need to cripple the PC's (as in street level PC's) and then burden them with a bunch of extra responsibilities (being a legal SINner, actually spending time running a business, requiring them to dig up hard evidence vs. "yeah we shot the guy who was responsible trust us everything is okay now".)

dezzmont · Post by **dezzmont** » Sat Nov 22, 2014 2:15 pm #45163

An0n3 your experience, while numbering more years than I am alive, is pretty much completely wrong, because you are assuming the players move in a blob, which doesn't work in a regular shadowrun game let alone one focused on intrigue where you may not even be able to be in the same neighborhood at times let alone the same.

First of all you assume being sneaky in a game about intrigue is a 'side thing' which is, I am sorry, completely stupid. I mean powerfully fucking stupid. "What the fuck is this guy talking about?" tier. B&E is a pretty standard trope in these stories. In case you didn't notice, shadowrun already requires you to add scenes to display the skill of one character, even with the streamlined experiences of 5e astral and decking. The infiltrator is probably going to be more consistently useful in a group scene than the hacker because he easily could help out without diving into the digital world by just lifting something from someone's pocket, planting something on someone, or fuck with something in the scene without anyone noticing.

The lab nerd is blowing pretty much everything he has on being smart. 46 active skills and 10 skill groups doesn't take you as far as you seem to think when you have to cover cracking, electronics, half of engineering at best, biotech, and your basic skills. Many of your logic linked skills are either going to be sub-10 or you are going to have to ditch stuff like etiquette, sneaking, and a combat skills. I am having a hard time fitting in perception on this character, which in a game about intrigue is not really cool. With priority C attributes you either will end up being an amazingly shitty hacker or just physically and socially incapable with multiple 2s and 1s in attributes. You effectively make a contact rather than a character doing this, and his hacking ends up starting at around 12, which is really not that good to start out with but works in this game because most targets will probably be civilians and you beat them around 80% of the time with that pool. He actually fares a little better if one ignores your advice and rolls him up as an Sherlock adept as the power points make him less dependent on putting 5 in most of his skills, or if he slots cash C and take a less powerful deck to start with so his stats other than willpower, logic, and intuition are not complete garbage.

The mage fairs much better because you could roll a shaman and go mage-face, and because mages are less attribute dependent than hackers. Furthermore you can slot magic to priority C and metatype to D to get to magic 6 while placing skills B and attributes A. You just get decent spellcasting pools, a good conjuring pool, and learn assensing and you are set to spend the rest of your skills on the basics of facecraft. You aren't amazing but you get the job done.

But that still leaves quite a large skill gap, contact gap, and knowledge gap. The hyper nerd can really only afford to get 4-5 knowledge skills up depending on if he takes them at 4 or 5, assuming he completely dumps physical stats. If he doesn't then he is looking at only 3 at a dicepool level high enough to be notable. They likely will be lab work, leaving room for someone with street knowledge and contacts, because while the mage is a face they probably can only get 1 really good knowledge skill and a smattering of others, and magical theory is a prime candidate in an investigation game, as are the special professional skills in SG. A hypothetical third character could be an infiltrator/face, or the aforementioned Sherlock adept who is actually much better at finding clues in the field than the lab guy, and could bring in valuable knowledges at high ranks like underworld, fences, street life and gangs. Even assuming you absolutely don't value unique permutations of skill combos, which you really should because two people who know facecraft may play completely differently because one is a mage and one is a hardboiled combaty detective, you got room for about 4 concepts if one is the face-mage and one is the decker-nerd: a social infiltrator able to work a room full of people and then slip away, and a street detective able to find clues in the field for the nerd and keep him alive when they inevitably have to face down thugs with lead pipes. In reality you probably can handle 5 or 6 if your GM doesn't suck and makes sure to hold the hyper-autist nerd accountable for the fact he sucks at pretty much everything and can't actually go to those fancy dinner parties with the rest of the group to try to bug the ambassador's office, and if the plot requires the party to split up. Still, you got the l33t cybernerd, the weirdo mystic mentalist, the femme fatale, and your hard boiled self narrating private dick with only minor overlap. Pretty neat party for everyone on the same team.

Also, just the obvious point that social characters basically have no-overlap because you could always use more actors in a con.

But none of this matters for this game, because, I am going to bold this for emphasis it is a forum game where I can easily seperate out the players and don't plan to have you guys working together 100% of the time. That means you absolutely want to go out of your way to cover your bases so you are not worthless alone while still having a specialty to be useful to other people. If that isn't enough skill dilution for you then I guess that is fine. But you severely overestimate how far a character can spread and felt that having people just OOCly writing news stories was sufficient so I don't see the problem.

Ricotez · Post by **Ricotez** » Sat Nov 22, 2014 3:21 pm #45174

This all sounds pretty interesting. I'm definitely interested in joining as whichever gap needs filling up.

nsos · Post by **nsos** » Sat Nov 22, 2014 4:10 pm #45183

it sounds interesting but i also remember the last forum rpg i played when i was like 15 and that ended really badly so im kind of biased against them

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Sat Nov 22, 2014 7:10 pm #45204

Dezz you know you can disagree with someone without saying their perspective/opinion/whatever is "powerfully fucking stupid". I'm not going to bother to read any more of what you just wrote.

Let's not turn another thread into a sperg-y argument between the two of us.

Hey there /tg/station! Play games?