The Twilight Chamber: A Shadowrun Story (Inactive)

Game Master JDPhipps

Still around, have the mechanics wrapped up (I think) in this profile. I know I mentioned to you a day or two ago that I was done tweaking, but I wasn't, and he's now a little more focused on close-range combat and infiltration, without longer range things--I realized that wasn't something I really wanted on this character, and I'm sure other folks will cover that end. I don't have Knowledge Skills picked out yet, but I've got a solid plan for them.

As far as guns go, it varies from character to character. I actually prefer Sport Rifles for most long-range stuff--there are powerful enough ones that you can get them working as well as a sniper, if with a little less AP, and they have the added benefit of being "concealable"--to the tune of "No, officer, I have a hunting permit for this!"--as well as being fully functional regardless of fighting situation, transitioning well from sniping to shorter-range combat if needed. This character has one of my favorites, the HK Urban Fighter, which is lovely for its suppressor and being made entirely of composite materials, making it that much easier to sneak in places.

And, as a rule of thumb, every character smart enough to do it has an Ares Predator IV as a throwaway gun. It's relatively cheap, it's very functional, and everybody and their mother is packing one, so they're much harder to trace or pin down on an individual.

I wasn't able to find the time to build a character. Going to have to withdraw from this one. Happy gaming, folks.

Loup, character looks good.

I'm not seeing a lot else I need to give feedback on, but everything that's been said character-wise since my last post is all set and seems fine to me.

In terms of heavy weaponry, I usually like to have it available if things go south, so one of my favorite weapon modifications is to add an under-barrel grenade launcher to my weapon just to have them as an option (specifically, I prefer White Phosphorus grenades because setting people on fire is both fun and awful), but I agree it rarely ends up being needed in my experience. Sniper rifles are useful if only because sometimes the team will need a spotter to watch making things don't go south, and you can easily get some that pack a real wallop and don't require investment in Heavy Weapons for an Assault Cannon (that usually is SS and deals practically the same damage). Most of the time that you'll need big guns is when you're in your vehicle and being chased, but those are already built into whatever you're driving, usually.

Also, Doomed Hero (assuming you check this thread again, anyway) I did extend Recruitment until the 29th. I don't know if you'd have the time by then to build a character, just figured I'd let you know.

Thanks, I'll try to get it done. Life has me really swamped right now, and building a character on a system I'm not super familiar with takes a lot of time.

Thanks, I'll try to get it done. Life has me really swamped right now, and building a character on a system I'm not super familiar with takes a lot of time.

If you want any assistance with putting it together, I'm happy to help, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who'd offer. I'm the first to admit I'm not super familiar with Shadowrun, but I've familiarized myself with most of the workings.

Agreed. I can whip up the bones of pretty much any archetype you're thinking about, for you to flesh out as you see fit...makes it a bit less stressful sometimes & I'm probably gonna be making characters anyways.

Posting from my phone since I can't sleep:

I'm free to help ad well, and my weekend is looking pretty free. Let me know if I can help, here or through PM. Here may he the best place now that I think on it though, as then all of us could potentially lend a hand.

did you get the background for my decker I sent you?

@ DM Jon: Hey Jon, I think you missed this question above: The spell Shapechange (SR4 pg 211) restricts the base change in the BOD attribute to +/-2. Will you allow any way around that, perhaps for a higher drain?

I sent the final copy of Blue's .chum file.

I did get the background, yes. Haven't had a chance to look it over, though.

Thanks for the final copy. Also, I think it ate my post in responding to your Shapechange question. In short, yes you can, but I'm not sure of exactly what the change to Drain will be for it. I'll figure it out.

I realize my input wasn't asked for, but if I were to houserule that, I'd probably make it a spellcasting test. As-is, you can do +/- 2 body from your own, the spell auto-succeeds, and hits are used to buff your physical stats. I'd say for each +/- 1 away from +/- 2, it would be a threshold (x) test, with *net* hits being used to buff your physical stats.
So if you had 6 body and wanted to go down to 2, you'd have to make a spellcasting (2) test. If you got 3 hits, you'd have +1 to physical stats from the 1 net hit. If you got 1 hit, you failed and the spell fizzles.
Just an idea.

As for my concept, I haven't had time to sit down and adjust the chummer in detail, but the general answers to your previous inquiries are as follows.

So, decided to do a bit of creative writing while I wait for the announcement, that's under the Now spoiler. Also, here's the fully updated character sheet, nothing different in it except the change to Vindinctive for Taiyo's negative qualities, just posting it as the final version.

I believe today is the big day, looking forward to it with anticipation.

That seems like a workable method, D-Kal.

Two ideas I had were to 1) make the drain physical regardless of the force, and 2) to increase the drain the same way overcasting is done in the houserules. So, using the same example, instead of (F/2)+2, the drain would be (F+2) + 2 more for pushing the limits of the spell for a total drain of F+4.

An idea that just popped up would be to make the minimum force of the spell be equal to the difference in Body ratings.

Just for the record, my main purpose in this is not to make him able to assume the shapes of large apex predators, though there is a time and place for that, but to allow him to increase his BOD past 2 and still have access to becoming a small creature like a housecat, or a raven or something like that.

I believe today is the big day, looking forward to it with anticipation.

Just because recruitment closed today doesn't mean they will be picked today. Choosing players is a hard thing to do.

S'true, but hey, anticipation a good thing isn't bad either.

I'm quivering with implant-induced neuralogical damage anticipation.

I'm quivering with implant-induced neurological damage anticipation.

LOL

Okay, so this is a notice that recruitment is closed to new interest, not that I'm expecting to get any. Doomed Hero, I'll be pretty busy tomorrow but if you want to post in a rough sheet or something like that you'll be up for consideration as long as I get it by Tuesday (my normal cut-off point after recruitment ends). I expect some people may make some character changes once picked to better mesh the group together.

As for selections, they should be done soon after that point.

Was just talking to a friend about SR, looks like I missed the cutoff here. Let me know if you need a new player in the future.

Haha, careful, you get THAT many implants and the smiling men from Aztlan won't be far away, offering you one of their "benefit packets".
And before you know it....WHAM! Cyberzombie.

llol. I played with a guy once that by the end of it, had .05 essence remaining on his character.

Haha, careful, you get THAT many implants and the smiling men from Aztlan won't be far away, offering you one of their "benefit packets".

And before you know it....WHAM! Cyberzombie.

Bah! Small Azzie jaguar no match for Red Army bear.

0.05 is insane. I did once try to build the six-million-nuyen metahuman, and it was successful, though he did end up costing six-million-nuyen. Not the shabbiest street sam, though.

I was the GM for a short campaign where everyone was playing an escaped clone trooper, genetically modified to be able to accept extra cyberware, and tanked full of Deltaware grade Bioware and cyberware.
Every character was worth roughly 100 million nuyen.
Let's just say that Ares wanted it's toy soldiers back.

The power did get to the players head and they made a few too many enemies.
Irony was that it was a red samurai squad that eventually took them down, not the Ares goons they were constantly trying to avoid.

red sams aren't to be trifled with. Honestly, my old groups biggest triumph was taking out two entire squads in one run, we only lost one guy. haha. We had the luck of the dice gods on our side that time though.

Wow. Power going to people's heads is many a good character's downfall. Though that's a fight I'd like to see on trid. Or vid. Not picky.

In my perspective, firepower is only for when a run goes terribly wrong; do it right and nobody ever has to draw a gun.

Indeed, that's the very essence of a milkrun is to never havint to draw your weapon, and also why so very VERY few runs ever ends up as said milkruns.
Honestly, it seems like the words "It'll be a milkrun" is the best way to jinx something in the shadows.

Thus, a HMG. I'm afraid I don't have all that much experience with Shadowrun, but the most memorable encounter I had was when our team was attacked by road gangers while transporting a truck full of low-end cyber upgrades towards Seattle. It involved dangling behind a truck with a shotgun, and kicking the occasional biker at 100+ mph.

Another one was fighting Awakened critters in Northern Scotland, and involved a battle between an all-American prize bull and a Baskerville-inspired Awakened wolf. (It was 'mostly' a serious game, too). There was a round where everyone else missed every single shot. Mostly due to not wanting to miss the fight next to them.

In the third edition corebook there was a story about a gang of runners who were hired to do a little B&E at a factory producing a new soft drink aimed at Trolls and Orcs.
I decided, just for fun, to make a scenario based on that myself, including the twist, because I was sure nobody in my group would have read it.

During the inevitable shot-out in the plant, the Street Sam elf with a pink Mohawk who went by the uninspired street name of "Pinky" and the physical adept who used the more unique handle of "That guy" decided that they just HAD to get into melee with one of the security guards.

The reasoning was that he was a troll, so it would be fun to try and drown him in a vat of soft drink made especially for troll.

When the two biggest hitters break from the combat to indulge in a little horseplay, it became a touch overwhelming for the rest of the crew, seeing as how they were a lot less combat capable.

There were no survivors...NO survivors, on either side.

My point isn't that the job is easy, but that you don't do the job with your own two hands.
Infiltrators, hackers, illusionist magicians--these guys are the real shadowrunners. Spirits and agents, misdirection and stealth, manipulation and spying. Anybody can be a Merc; it takes talent to be a 'runner.

@BoggBear - "That Guy" takes the most inventive alias spot in my experience.

My point isn't that the job is easy, but that you don't do the job with your own two hands.

Infiltrators, hackers, illusionist magicians--these guys are the real shadowrunners. Spirits and agents, misdirection and stealth, manipulation and spying. Anybody can be a Merc; it takes talent to be a 'runner.

I agree completely. My own view and personal opinion (which is quite narrow, as I haven't played the first three editions, and take it with a grain of novacoke), is that while the essence of shadowrunning is exactly the quiet professionalism that you described, the essence of Shadowrun is to be someone of who the other shadowrunners tell tales of, the folk heroes of the oppressed world - Like FastJack, Hatchetman, etc. Could be an interesting discussion to continue IC if we get there!

And if you read the Shadowtalk in the old merc sourcebook Field of Fire, you'd see that mercs like Matador wouldn't want to be considered shadowrunners. They'd argue that they have an organization behind them, regs, a TO&E, resources, and a professional ethos. Shadowrunners can be anything from jumped up gangers all the way up to professional ex-corp or government agents. There's nothing that defines a shadowrunner other than the fact that they're independent- which a professional merc or soldier would consider a liability- and, as far as the corps are concerned, expendable. A Johnson screws over a runner crew and there's another half dozen waiting in line to do the next job. A Johnson tries that with MET2000 or 10,000 Daggers and there's going to be a lawsuit and maybe even a black-balling in their future.

It's funny how saying something's a milk run almost guarantees it won't be... oh shoot, what did Derek call this job?

I agree that a perfect run means you never draw your weapon, but I don't think I've ever had a 'run where that happened. Much better to be prepared for an all-out firefight than be stuck with your thumb up your ass when Knight Errant comes knocking. Even when I play a social character I make sure to be a competent gunman; Loup ought to remember the time I inadvertently became a combat monster when we got ambushed in a parking garage. I didn't have anything but an Ares Predator, but some ADPS rounds solved our problems. I did almost die when I got shot in the back by a sniper, though...

True, and as a lot of novels/game logs etc shows, in the shadows, it's important to work as a team, even when you don't like each other.
And a runner who back stabs his team or his employer soon finds himself to be isolated.
And in the Shadows, being isolated is as good as dead.

There are plenty of roles a runner can have, Face/negotiator, contact network, infiltrator, wheel-man etc etc.

In most novels, there tend to be a large pool of runners that works together some at the time, depending on what is needed and who works best together.

A typical player group is actually a fair bit unusual, as a permanent mostly static group is the exception rather than the norm.

One of my characters augmented specifically to bring his essence down. He was changeling with the mod that gives a background count in a radius equal to your essence. He augmented specifically to keep people around him from feeling like crap. Still he kept his final essence about .7, if I recall.

His handle was Spellbreaker...

@Philo - I love it.

Re: the perfect 'run - I've never had it happen either, but it's always been an ideal. I feel like creating your character/team on the assumption that there will be a hail of gunfire misses the spirit of Shadowrun (but fits well enough in Pathfinder). That said, you'd be crazy not to have at least one backup plan and two backup guns.

Best job I ever ran, and the only one where no shots were fired, involved hiding an unconscious extraction target inside a (modified) functional vending machine. The look on the GMs face was pure gold when the vending company extracted our target for us without knowing it...

Quiet and professional is my preferred type of run. One day I might even get one. :)

When the other players think that 'Troll with bad attitude and Assault cannon', or 'Shark Shaman on a hair trigger' are great concepts things never go quiet.

Huh. I've never played a game of SR without at least one Street Sam sort of PC. Maybe they're ex-Lone Star so they've got investigative skills or are a pretty boy elf riding hot wires, but I've yet to see a runner team go on a mission without somebody else main field contribution was being able to shoot better than everybody else.This 'perfect run' thing sounds like a pipe dream.

We did once equipped for a run around those jacked-up paintball guns shooting non-lethal DMSO/MAO pellets. The point being that if the corp goons realized they weren't getting killed maybe they'd try not to kill us so hard. It was nice that they ignored armor and put the guards to sleep, but the GM figured in the heat of the moment the was no time for word to get around that we were using non-lethals, so it was moot. That was kind of the end of that experiment.

I've never been much of a fan of using DMSO, it always feels sort of against the spirit of the game to me. It's mechanically effective but it feels so utterly silly, and as much as pink mohawk style games can be fun they're usually not the kind of stuff I like to play in or run. As for street sam type PCs, that's one of my favorite rolls to play. You definitely need to be good at something else that's useful for the group, but being really, really good with a gun is always going to be a plus.

That's fair. I like pink mohawk and black trenchcoat equally well, but definitely prefer the grittier corporate dystopia of early SR. Wireless matrix was too long in coming but I feel like 4E cleaned up the world too much.

Though I'm happy to play whatever if you have space in the future, of course. I got the SR itch from talking with friends about the setting and would love to play any version.

I agree that street sams are fun. Honestly they're emblematic of Shadowrun itself. Nothing says sixth world like a half-metal guy with a wired spine slinging blades and bullets. I'm just saying that you don't lead off with the blades and bullets.

It is always fun to triumph over the bad guys by main strength, but I find it also fun to completely hoodwink them.

Oh yes, especially if you can make it seem like you were never there at all.
"What's going on? I KNOW the files should be here! Bob, did you take the account files?"

The only thing better is setting it up so it looks like Bob really was the culprit.

Subtle is really hard to do but amazing when you manage it. Even if you have to deal with one or two people you can frame them for the theft.

Well I'm thoroughly ready to run the shadows now.
Suddenly wishing I'd made more of an infiltrator. Technically I have a few hours, right? :D

Poor Bob, always the scapegoat...
Then again, it's BOB! Sod him, he deserves worse!