Talk:Shadowrun

Vehicles

[[1]] - I think these are in 2nd edition rules, but its a good list and we could convert the vehicles needed.

Magic Group

Here are my initial thoughts on the magical group in our game. First, the more members in a group, the harder it is for members to join. As a result, most large magic groups are technically split into smaller groups. I would suggest having a state-wide California Free State Magic Guild (CFS:MG) for all government employees that have magic. Each employee is divided into an individual chapter depending on their job. If you decide to mage magic more rare then maybe Intel has a group, the military, etc. If you decide to make it more common then FATE would have one, the CIA, the Army, the Navy, etc. I am not sure how many employees CFS has compared to modern CA. On the one hand, police and other jobs are contracted out; on the other, they have to have their own intel, military, etc that the federal government currently does. As a side note, our office has 3 people that could join (adepts count and can enjoy the benefits of reduced initation costs.) Many of the sample groups only have a dozen or so members per chapter. (Joining involves a test of Arcana+Logic diff:1(+1 per 5 members), if you fail you can try again in a month, if you fail again you can never join.

I imagine the purpose would be to uphold either the government and/or the individual agency. Customs (which include things like rank and status) would probably be based off of government agency stuff. Groups generally have 3 or 4 strictures. I would suggest: Deed (Missions for FATE/CFS), Fraternity, Secrecy, Limited Membership (CFS employees or FATE employees), Oath (essentially makes the purpose and customs matter magically). Different traditions CAN be in the same group. I would imagine they would provide us with Luxury or High resources (it says most corps provide this level. Also, I imagine that CFS is our patron since it would be silly for them to pay us and then make us pay dues.

Opinions? BTW, when we make the group it costs 5 karma to join, which I would like to pay and have Eric retroactively join.

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The more I think about it, I think F.A.T.E. would have its own group, not even associated with a larger CFS group. We're a covert agency, I don't think we should have to deal with the hinderances of the larger mage group unless there is a really beneficial reason.

There are at least 4 F.A.T.E. members (3 PCs and Desmond, maybe more). I read somewhere that mundanes can also be part of magic groups, although it's very rare. The idea is that a mundane can take a lot of work off of the mages (preparing materials, doing research) and leave the actual magic to the magicians. I think Dr. Yau could potentially be in, given his background in magical studies.

I agree with the retroactive membership, since we're just now fleshing this aspect out, that's fine.

I noticed you added changed one of your Knowledge Skills to Arcana. In the Street Magic book, Arcana is actually a Logic skill, not a knowledge skill, so it would cost more karma to increase.

I'm going to start saving Karma for the group initiation, I imagine Eric would be interested in doing that somewhat soon?

Kirkland 08:56, 9 February 2011 (EST)

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The only benefits to a bigger group are 1) the same benefits any group gains from more manpower and 2) you need one member of your group per level of initiation to get the discount (ie one for first initation, 2 for second level, etc). A mage can be in multiple magic groups, though, as long as none of them has the stricture that prevents it.

I would think every FATE office has at least one magic user of some type considering the work they do. Are the mundane members magically bound or just "members." I am not explaining myself very well, but do you get what I am asking?

I think I thought Logic skills were knowledge skills. I dont know. I changed it back regardless.

Eric will probably do it very soon. I have the karma, it is only 8 for the first level with the group initiation and the initiatory ordeal discounts. The groups strictures could affect which ordeal he does, so I have been putting it off.

--Macabreengel 09:53, 9 February 2011 (EST)

Glitching Damage Resistance Tests

You can glitch damage resistance tests, and the effects are described on p. 120 of Augmentation. It's an optional rule, but I like it. There's also rules for taking heavy damage (more than 7S or 7P in a single hit). You make an Edge(1) test, and if you don't pass it, there are some serious consequences. Kirkland 18:09, 4 February 2011 (EST)

Reputation, Notoriety, and Public Awareness

Public Awareness of 3 means that you are known in the shadows and that the police have probably started a file on you. I imagine for us it means that we are known in the law enforcement/government communities and that interested corps and criminal syndicates would have files on us. 10 means that you are a house hold name. Anna is at 9. Dimitri never leaves the base on missions, so it seems he should get some kind of negative modify since people will have a hard time with being unable to place a face with the matrix ID. I dont know how much we want to play up and down these aspects. I just thought we would bring it up.

--Macabreengel 22:21, 30 January 2011 (EST)

I was thinking about this today as well. I spent some of Dmitri's Street Cred to lower his Notoriety, which in turn lowered his Public Awareness to 0, where it should be. In general it's an awkward system to use for our situation, but I think we can make it work. I think I will have Public Awareness drop on occasion, for example dropping it one point per month if the character managed to stay out of the news. Or simply just re-evaluating it on a monthly basis and adjusting it to where it should be. Public Awareness is also somewhat tied to a SIN. Corporations absolutely have a file on Vincent White now, but Eric Black is an unknown. The dice modifier would only apply if someone recognized you as Vincent or you were playing as Vincent.

This will be most relevant to Ana, who really needs to be careful if she wants to continue being a field agent for F.A.T.E. I think 9 is a good place for her PA at the moment - she was all over the news in the biggest news story of the month. So was Vincent White, but I think people are more likely to remember Ana's name than Vincent's in the long run. Anyone knowledgeable in politics knows Anastasia's name, and she came really close to being a household name with the recent news exposure.

Kirkland 23:07, 30 January 2011 (EST)

First Aid

More bad news. First aid takes a number of combat turns equal to the number of boxes you are trying to heal.

--Macabreengel 22:21, 30 January 2011 (EST)

Another thing I've overlooked. You don't heal a number of boxes equal to the amount of hits you rolled. You heal a number of boxes for every hit over the threshold (of 2). From SR4 p. 242

Roll a First Aid + Logic (2) Test, applying
appropriate situational modifiers.
...
Each net hit over
the threshold reduces 1 box of damage.

Also, a clarification in Augmentation p. 124:

The maximum number of boxes that First
Aid can heal is the Rating of the medical equipment or the First
Aid skill of the character, whichever is higher

We can't heal more than 6 boxes of damage with our medkits. I don't remember if Doc has ever exceeded that on any rolls so far (it would require 8 hits).

Kirkland 18:56, 1 February 2011 (EST)

Cyberware Question

I have a question about how you calculate the final cost of cyberware in the case of alphaware, betaware, deltaware, etc. If you have something like Cybereyes (Theoretical cost 1000, for easy math) Would you only apply the cost multiplier to the cybereyes, or would you multiply the cybereyes + all the things added into the cybereyes. Remember that the cybereyes are the only thing with an essence cost, everything else just takes capcity. So there is no reason for a smartlink in deltaware to cost 10 times what it costs in standard cyberware right? I think I've been doing this wrong, I believe I've been building the cybereyes and adding all the enhancements and then multiplying the final cost. So I'd be paying too much for beta/deltaware right?

Let me know if that doesn't make sense...

--FyreFly 14:42, 28 January 2011 (EST)

I was actually wondering the same thing and failed to find an answer in the book. Dumpshock might have an answer. I could see it going either way really. The question really comes down to if different levels of ware are directly compatible with eachother or not. I find it hard to beleive they would not address the question somewhere.

--Macabreengel 15:41, 28 January 2011 (EST)

I may have found an answer here. On SR pg.303 where it talks about cyberware and bioware grades the last sentence reads "Note that cyberware accessories must be of the same grade as the implant they are added to." -I would take that to mean you must build your cybereyes with accessories and then multiply the total cost for high grade ware.--FyreFly 16:46, 28 January 2011 (EST)

That was always my understanding as well. Kirkland 17:09, 28 January 2011 (EST)

FATE Office Location

Any ideas where in San Francisco our headquarters should be? We have pretty free roam with the design of San Francisco. This should be of some help, though the city is certainly different 62 years later - [2]. Kirkland 01:50, 19 November 2010 (EST)

Standard Armament

We should come up with a standard armament (number of grenades, flashbangs, ammunition, etc.) for the characters that is assumed to be refreshed when they go out on a new mission. FATE will foot the bill for "consumables" like these. This would probably vary per character. Maybe provide a typical armament on your character sheet. Kirkland 18:05, 12 November 2010 (EST)

New Storyline!

As we have discussed we are planning to start up a new Shadowrun storyline. Right now it looks like Brian is going to be the primary storyteller with Dan and I filling in where need be. (Similar to Grass Spiders) Not too much has been fleshed out so far, but we have a place to start. Looks like we'll be playing a small team of shadowrunners (probably not really shadowrunners by definition) that work for a part of a government body, most likely investigating all things paranormal. We expanded on some things beyond that, but I'll let Brian go from there.

I personally think the California Free State would be a cool place to play, though I'm pretty open to playing anywhere. (North America or otherwise) We could always open the SL to international paranormal events as well, mostly need to decide what government is hiring us for a central location. I found a Cal Free sourcebook for 2nd edition that could provide some additional info. It's a bit outdated, but that leaves a bit of extra room for us to expand how we'd like. The big changes seem to be the liberation of San Fransisco Bay Area from the JIS, Los Angeles defecting from Cal Free, and Southern Cal flooding due to epic earthquakes.... Semi-major but I think we can fill the gaps if need be. (Demonoid has a massive SR torrent, you can DL or I can distribute if people want to take a look.)

Didn't get much commitment from anyone as far as character creation goes, though it was obviously a bit early to be committing to a character idea. Wanted to know if anyone had any thoughts yet? I'm still planning to play a modified version of my character, Kumiko Nakamura. Obviously he won't be in the Yakuza, but the fundamental character that I like doesn't need to change much. Kumiko doesn't have a super well defined Shadowrun role or class and he is pretty adaptable. He builds in my head as a sort of Jack-of-all-trades and master of none type, but I can easily shade him in one direction depending on what the group has. He's going to have a pretty respectable Biotech Skill Group and Firearms Group based on the character concept, his logic should be pretty good and he's not much of a strength/power dude. Otherwise he can be adapted pretty well to help us out if we need additional combat support, some face skills, infilitration, or even a little hacking/rigging. I don't have him built as a mage of any sort at the moment, but if we think its going to be a magic heavy SL and most or all characters should be magic users, he'd build pretty well as an adept. Let me know what you guys were thinking and we'll go from there.

--FyreFly 19:33, 12 October 2010 (EDT)

I haven't completely fleshed out the group that the characters are employed by, but my line of thinking is that it's a division of the government that deals with Magic -- setting policy, enforcing laws, etc. The characters would be a small group that investigates the most mysterious or highest profile cases. I haven't thought of anything catchy to call it yet.

I also think CalFree is a good place. I picture this group's headquarters to be an urban setting -- San Francisco is appealing -- and there's plenty of interesting rural areas, including the disputed territory in northern California.

I have no idea what the CalFree government is like, so I need to do some reading.

An important question you should ask when creating your character: why is he working for this division? The hours are long, the work is dangerous, and the pay is sub-par. Is it a desire to serve and protect the public? Is it a fascination with the magic and technology the group deals with?

I'll start posting information on prominent NPCs, though I'll need at least a character concept from DK so I don't make someone that overlaps. Like we discussed, feel free to flesh out NPC contacts as well: the agent chained to a desk that collects information for you while you're doing field work, the street mage your boss doesn't know about that you get information from, etc.

It's a magic-based storyline but that doesn't mean Kumiko needs to be a mage. There will be a blend of magic and science/technology in the story.

Kirkland 20:47, 13 October 2010 (EDT)

I bought the 4th edition Street Magic book off Amazon, just waiting for it to ship.

Kirkland 15:41, 26 October 2010 (EDT)

I moved our discussion to here, Talk:Shadowrun, because it makes more sense to be here. Also the Shadowrun page will be the main page for our campaign, for now. Feel free to add to what I have posted, I just started to put together an outline of the setting as I see it. NPC characters will go up soon. Also the Street Magic book arrived, it will definitely be useful. Kirkland 19:03, 28 October 2010 (EDT)

Funding

(I was doing some reading and a bit of thinking about our organization, considering it doesn't seem like our organization would be overly supported by the megacorps and the Sacramento government is mostly controlled by the agribusiness corps it makes sense for FATE to be outside of Sacramento to avoid the agricorps and Sacramento puppet government. So I was thinking a bit about how we get our funding and justification, looking through a few things I came up with a few little ideas.

Basically the President (or some other figure in the government) supports the formation of FATE and gets corporation funding privately from a few corps that are more or less opposed to the agricorps that run the rest of Cal Free. A few corps that come to mind are Lockheed, who would like our general opposition to Ares and therefore support FATE and our presence in San Fran instead of the capital. Also, Horizon which is a huge media corporation that would dislike the general Sacramento racism that is supported in the valley and is HQ'd in the area. Horizon is also mentioned as being interested Technomancers so might be interested in our existance. Novatech is another competitor of Ares that might like to see us exist and has a San Fran HQ.) --Tony

I did some thinking on this topic, and I agree your general assessment of FATE's funding. I picture there to be a board of directors (of the largest "shareholders" if you will). They are bound by a common charter, that gives FATE a purpose and fully autonomous functionality. The goals listed in the charter are the glue that keeps FATE together -- it's a set of goals that all the parties have signed on to, that all stakeholders have a mutual interest to accomplish and protect. And the goals are so important that it keeps the funding free-flowing. Kirkland 18:23, 15 November 2010 (EST)