Ripples in the Lake: A Seattle Adventure in the Sixth World (Inactive)

Game Master Evgeni Genadiev

Hello, omae. Welcome to a GMCP Adventure, one that hopefully will be exciting, action driven, and even heartfelt and depressing at moments. Because Shadowrun.

I say we start with any outgoing mechanics questions - the Gameplay will open on Tuesday, and there's bound to be plenty of stuff to know until then. So, any mechanics that need smoothin' out, smooth them out.

Some of the players are very experienced in the system, probably more than I am, so they'll be able to help out.

Also, if you could send me a copy of your Chummer sheets, if you'd used them that'd help me considerably.

Afterwards, I think I'll have some questions on your contacts.

Another note: The fixer you all have is below:

Friedrich "Berlin Freddy" Lausitz
Berlin Freddy is a tall, thin human, visible age around the early fifties. With his long gray ponytail and groomed white beard, he looks like a neo-pagan or an aging hippie or an artist. Adding to the initial impression, he's often prone to wearing t-shirt of long-forgotten bands, showing off his tattoo-covered arms.

One would be wrong to dismiss him, however, since the usually good-natured look in his blue eyes can turn cold in a moment, and calculating in the next. He's usually operating from his place, Der Gute Messer, a pseudo-retro bar-restaurant with Flux State and anarchist motifs, popular amongst aging deckers, hackers and wageslaves.

Thanks for the selection GMCP - didn't use Chummer (hence the slow pace for my build) as I had some issues running it with my Mac.

I can probably try and get a Chummer Sheet generated via my work PC, but grabbing the time to do that can be problematic.

From my perspective I need to really dig into the Rigger - particularly the VR side of the role. Still getting my head round "cold" and "hot" SIM etc and use of Drones (software/hardware etc) - which I think I'll need to expand far more into to support the team.

I'm chipping away at gear, but may have to pair back on some augmentations and vehicle builds if drones are a necessity.

Thanks ahead of time - looking forward to running with this interesting group :)

Thanks for the selection GMCP - didn't use Chummer (hence the slow pace for my build) as I had some issues running it with my Mac.

I can probably try and get a Chummer Sheet generated via my work PC, but grabbing the time to do that can be problematic.

From my perspective I need to really dig into the Rigger - particularly the VR side of the role. Still getting my head round "cold" and "hot" SIM etc and use of Drones (software/hardware etc) - which I think I'll need to expand far more into to support the team.

I'm chipping away at gear, but may have to pair back on some augmentations and vehicle builds if drones are a necessity.

Thanks ahead of time - looking forward to running with this interesting group :)

Hey, if it weren't a good sub, I wouldn't've picked it!

I'll need to take another look at the Rigger, as well, thankfully it's a quiet weekend for me. And don't worry about the Chummer if you don't have it - that's an excellent character sheet, and I think I'll be able to check it in a matter of minutes.

Speaking from (limited) experience, drones are excellent for extending your narrative power, if that makes sense. Even the best outfitted combat drone isn't going to stop a street sam, nuyen for nuyen. But fly drones, swim drones with hands, those let you get information about a location, and are pretty damn useful when you need to be in the getaway vehicle, but still need to help the team. To be fair, combat drones help there, too, but they're pricier and IMO, not terribly worth the cost. Excellent toys for militaries and securities, though!

My advice is that you want drones to do things you can't. In one of my games, the combat rigger's most used drones were the fly, and the noodle vendor. And there is a Lake in the game's name, so there might be some segments where water's involved. Just a hint.

From experience, again, there's three ways to do a rigger:

- The Decker/Rigger, who is a rather brainy champ. Less going in guns blazing, more being an outright menace on wheels and in the Matrix. A lot more difficult to run mechanically (since it requires knowledge of the Matrix), but a lot of parties like 'em since they're just so useful to have around.

- The Combat Rigger A Rig, Wires, heavy armour and an assault rifle. Your essence is probably lower than the sam's, but you could hold your own against him for a couple of rounds, which is more than 99% of the metahuman populace can say.

You keep a drone scouting ahead, while you're waiting to pounce on something and shoot it to pieces. Then you get in the van, and run away, since you're one with the road. A lot easier to play, the issue is hostile deckers can hack your car (if you're not jacked in via wire), and your drones (no save there). But you can also beat the s#!% out of the decker with your bare hands while your drones are offline.

- The Full Vehicle Rigger. Jacked into the cheapest car imaginable, this guy can outrun a Bugatti. Jacked into a Bugatti, you can do speeds on land that makes helicopters and even some planes unable to catch you. Viable for fully vehicle games, or where the party is a highway gang, less so here, and it's really not much use outside of vehicle sections.

Again, this being Shadowrun, you can dabble and dibble in all three, and some other stuff. But the general advice is, get stuff that lets you do stuff others can't. Even the base rig makes a minivan into a Porsche.

EDIT: I managed to build that in Chummer in about 5 minutes:

- All checks out, kudos to your maths. Even the damn gear. Damn.
- You have 3(13) karma left off at finish.
- If you put 10 in Money, leaves you with 50,000 more to play around with. Since you don't have armour or ammo, you might want to set those as priorities. ^^
- The rest can stay. Don't think there's a lot you can put it on right now.
- You might want to spend the extra on 2 seats more for the car, since there's 6 runners. That's 4000 and 2 body slots. Or you could not.

Hoi there!
Thanks for the selection! I, too, have had problems running Chummer: I'll make another try today, and generate the sheet again, with a bit less Edge and a bit more toys.
Looking forward to being your sniper!

Greetings!

I'll work to clean up the profile shortly.

RE: chummer files, here's a Drive link with the details:

Clicky for info!

RE: Riggers, the most important thing to remember about SR is that we're (most likely) trying to get an objective from a secure location quietly. Having small, perceptive devices that can provide, for example, an overhead map with our relative positions, the known positions of enemy emplacements, and any observed movements, can be the difference between success and failure.

If you're familiar with Call of Duty, think about the UAV scorestreak talent. It reveals all the positions of the enemy on the minimap, which allows you to set up ambushes, close off angles of attack, and the like.

Also, having different methods of observation (ultrasound, radar, thermal, mag-sensor, radiation) can be extremely useful in and of themselves.

In a PbP, having the "eye in the sky" as it were gives the rigger an opportunity to help define the scene, especially points of interest and drama, and effect the action even when remote from the point of contact. Imagine Nomad and Blacksap both infiltrating a building, probably from different points of entry, but each carries a little bug or flying eye drone, stashing them in garbage cans or vents or the like. Now the Rigger gets to effectively scout other points of access and help define the scene while his normal skillset might preclude physical infiltration.

I'm back home sunday night, so I'll push the chummer sheet then. Profile is basically the text output.

Rules-wise, I might need a few hints for how magic stuff works the first time I try it, but I'm expecting everything to come together as I see it used.

Looking forward to getting down & dirty (though I've got a good start on that bit already :)

I had made my character using Herolab...but if you want I could transfer it to chummer. It's not a very difficult build.

Cheers GMPD - Combat Rigger looks the best fit (and the one I've been inadvertently building toward).

Still nailing down gear and spending the yen... ammo and armour will be on the list lol.

Decided to go with the Ford Titan van for the team transport - beast of a vehicle at a decent price and with plenty of mods it'll fit our purposes.

Duly noted on the drones gang - will have a dig into them (particularly on scouting and surveillance) and have a look see at the water based stuff too.

Nice. A smooth talking, well dressed human face, a Tir elf gun-bunny ex-cop, a chromed put sniper, a street dwelling Rat shaman, and a hobgoblin rigger so far.

I have a feeling this team is gonna work out well, and it's nice we have a bunch of languages covered, that should help Operational Security and let us chat with the locals better.

Nomad's early goals include scoring enough cred to get into a stable Middle lifestyle (ar least), while picking up some Armorer, Automatics, and possibly Demolitions skills. Long term, hes got a rest back East who needs exterminating.

Wraith rolls her eyes so hard its audible. "So, what the frag does that make me, Nomad? Sheyah, Blacksap wishes he had chrome as fine as this."

*hee* And I'll be playing the roll of "Just How Much Chrome Can You Have And Still be Human."

@Road Rage: Yes, you have to envision yourself when the team is breaking into a secure facility, what are you doing to be doing? Whether you're in the vehicle or with the team, that is a perfect time for some drones to be doing some work.

Have you read the (couple of) rigger stories in the basic handbook? Those are good examples. Even if you're in the Titan, the team could carry in some fly drones to scout as needed, and you could even have a flying drone with a gun to aid in shootin'.

(I mean, at least once I'll probably climb up and upon a high building, so your flying drone could come with then. =)

"The eyes get the job done. The arm was, well, not a choice, but it's still fine enough to crush a windpipe, so fine enough for me."

Two elves in the party. Just my luck.
One question, do cats count as common or uncommon for the purpose of allergies? I put them as uncommon but maybe there's a number of strays around.

Hmmm...

Looking at the rulebook, I'd say you might encounter cats about as often as you encounter grass. Which isn't terribly often. Uncommon is fine.

Cheers for the input and advice gang - heartily accepted and appreciated :)

Will nail down outstanding crunch and purchases today GMCP.

Starting Cash (Low Lifestyle): 3d6 ⇒ (4, 3, 1) = 8 x 60 = 480¥

One quick question on timelines... I'm trying to nail down Danyel's starting age (I know, I know I'm sweating the small stuff lol) - Know Orks live shorter lives than other meta - do they mature quicker? Would young Danyel be tried as an adult at a younger age because of his Ork/Hob race.

Current timeline had him jailed for 5 years for contraband trafficking - spent first year or so in juvie, then transferred to gen-pop when he met one of his contacts (old con now released). When the old timer went so did any calming influence and RR committed a number of assaults in jail - which increased his sentence to 8 years total (maybe 10).

Am trying to get a timeline of his incarceration (am presuming he's been released 2 years) so he came out in 2074; but what his age when convicted is the head scratcher.

Any pointers would be appreciated :)

No worries on that, small details can be amazing for story reasons!

Well, if he was SINless before the fact, he could've been tried as young as 12-13 - Orks (and most metavariants) age and mature faster than humans, and an angry trog is automatically old enough to be tried. Racism's alive and well. An early maturing 10-11 year old ork can easily look as mature as a 15-16 year old human, and a 16 YO humans can and have been tried as adults. Especially since, "well, he looks all grown up to me."

If you were say, 13 when you were convicted, it's entirely possible you're about 23-24 at the moment. Which is the equivalent of an early 30s human, but without all the benefits years on Earth give you. Remember, the average age of orks in the book is also including the dangerous occupations a lot of them have, and the tough life.

@Everyone: Don't worry, if you can't submit a Chummer since you haven't used it, I'll build it for you. Should be easy enough, since nobody is A BLOODY SPRITE-HEAVY TECHNOMANCER!!!

"No disrespect intended, by any means. It's comforting to know real professionals, I've had a bit of bad luck working with green runners lately. Seems that won't be such an issue, which is nice. By the way, if anyone's in need of some chemical assistance, or maybe some specialty ammo, I know a guy, maybe already have a line on it. Depends on your chem of choice, natch, but it doesn't hurt to ask."

Nomad is all smiles as he chats with th others. He pats the side of his black synthleather briefcase as he talks about chems.

"Anyone follow the fashion scene? I heard the new Vashon Island line is dropping soon, but everyone's being tight lipped on the designs and colors and such."

"Pssh. As if. Mortimer is the only way to fly." She spreads her arms breifly, displaying her own Berwick'n'Argentum. "Vashon's aces don't know which way they wanna go. Put 'em all together, you might have something. Steampunk is kinda not-lame. Sleeping Tiger is supposed to be good, put I haven't seen one." She smirks, enjoying her little joke.

See, because Sleeping Tiger has Ruthenium Coating, which adds to your sneak, so you wouldn't--ah, never mind. =)

You know what, I'll open the Gameplay thread in a while so you guys can chat along Shadowrun topics to your heart's content.

I know I want to read it.

So, heads up, you're in Berlin Freddy's place in a separate room. Place is mostly empty, and the Dude himself isn't yet present. Food, drink and all that galore (long as you pay for it - but Lifestyle covers most of that, unless you are at Street level. Even Squatters can afford a cheap soybeer or two)

Feel free to continue with the mechanics questions here!

EDIT: Gameplay's open! Don't kill eachother in the preamble to the prologue!

Even Squatters can afford a cheap soybeer or two)

I can think of nothing more gross than a beer made of soy. =p

Ooo! I found this. Apparently on Reddit there's an /Shadowrun (of course there is because reddit).

Right here (scroll down a touch) is a list of brands of booze.

GM Captain Placeholder wrote:

Even Squatters can afford a cheap soybeer or two)

I can think of nothing more gross than a beer made of soy. =p

Hey, don't knock stuff off before you try it. I've gotten a little more interested in beers in the past year or so due to a job I did a while back, and I think one of the best ones I've had so far was an Italian one with lentils, and another decent one was a Lithuanian one with peas.

So it might be good, who knows!

@GMCP: Have put him at 23 years old - was convicted at 13, did the 8 stretch and has been out for 2.

Still chipping away at the gear and sheet (bear with)...

Chummer file at Glass
Have returned home with Con-crud. Normal(ish) service will be resumed tomorrow

Ok, I'm updated with a motorbike, a stronger cyberarm and enough weapons to light up a building. Here is the Chummer file, which includes some things I'm not quite sure about.
I also wanted to buy fake licenses for all the amount of F or R gear I'm carrying, but I can't find them in Chummer. I'll calculate the amount by hand and subtract it later.

Licenses are under the ID and credsticks tab in Gear

@All: Remember chummers that Road-Rage has a big a$$ van for hauling us all around (and a Zip Scooter that he uses for his day job should anyone prefer to use their Nu¥en elsewhere?)

Licenses are under the ID and credsticks tab in Gear

So I thought, but they aren't appearing in the menu.

I'm keeping my motorbike so I have a secondary vehicle in case we need to split for any reason.

You might have to add them as Gear under the SIN entry.

Yep, add a SIN, then select it add the licence to the SIN

@ Licenses - damn, I too wondered where they went. Must be something as part of the last Chummer update? Good sleuthing, Glass (and others).

Anyway - everyone's here, and so far all the maths seems in place. If there's any final questions, I'd be willing to tweak over the details until we're finished with the prologue.

Tomorrow (at roughly this time), I'll be posting the first GM post of the game, and we'll be moving from there.

I'll do my best to offer jobs suitable for the party (as will Freddy, since he likes getting paid, and getting good rep) at the start. Later on, things might change, as the sich changes too.

And with that, our game is officially started!

*confetti flies*

Feel free to chat around what you do, what your talents are at, and tomorrow (or the day after, depending on what's being discussed), I'll post about the job(s) currently being on offer.

I decided that Freddy knows some of the locals, and the others came 'highly recommended' on RunAdvisor.

Hey guys - quick update - I couldn't squeeze in the time to post today, so I'll do my best to make it up with a longer one tomorrow.

If someone told me that picking up a Shadowrun game on the forums would be the reason I started freshening up my German, well...

... I wouldn't've believed them.

Right - couple of things that popped to mind, purely in terms of administration.

- Unless there's any objections, I'll be rolling Initiatives and passive Perceptions, so do your best to make sure your signatures under your names are correct. I think Sunset and Nomad are the two missing it. No sweat, but it'd help.

I find that this speeds up PbP at least twice, if not more. Prevents me from shouting ROLL INITIATIVE at the top of my lungs, but that's a sacrifice I'm willing to take.

- From this point onwards, we're on the Honour System regarding Knowledges and Perception/Judge Intention spoilers. Meaning I'll be posting the information in spoilers under the post, with success threshold. I might add additional information in a PM if there's something that is for too many successes. If you feel like you can't resist peeking/abstaining from being influenced, then do give me a shout, and I'll think of a way to do something about it.

- I did mention I'm new at this, like, several times! Pacing is something that is important for a PbP, so if you feel like I'm going too fast, too slow, or anything at all, feel free to shoot me a PM. Criticism is an important part of improving!

- I did mention I'm new at this, like, several times! Pacing is something that is important for a PbP, so if you feel like I'm going too fast, too slow, or anything at all, feel free to shoot me a PM. Criticism is an important part of improving!

My advice to ALL PBP GMs is to ALWAYS go TOO FAST.

Going too slow kills a game. _Maybe_ one person will say the game is too fast. Fine. Have a good life. In three months that slow game you joined will be dead and you'll see us in a new light.

Going too fast is just called "fun". I don't mean "Why did you roll for me? You just shouted ROLL INITIATIVE an hour ago!?" I mean "It's been 24 hours since I asked Wraith if she was wearing pants. I haven't heard from her so I'm making a judgement call and moving on."

Also: Do the Rule of Two. The INSTANT two PCs agree on an action, that action happens. Left or Right? Got two Rights and one Left? We're going Right. All you Lefties are tooo slooow and should've posted sooner.

Normally this is where I'd be all 'IMHO. YMMV.' But I'm unapologetic on this. I've had too many games die because we were being courteous. To someone. Who was going to quit anyway.

Rule of Two works... to a degree. Depends on the timezones of the group involved. I'm in the UK (GMT) and have been in games where decisions have been made and dialled in from other timezones before I've even had a chance to mull how/what my PC would have contributed.

Now sometimes this would be in accordance with the majority rule... but sometimes not.

Enforcing the Rule of Two rigidly will often marginalise players who are outwith the aforementioned majority's timezone. Nothing more demoralising than being a passenger in a game you're actually invested in and enjoying. In my experience that will often force good players to quit.

There's a BIG difference between waiting a reasonable amount of time for PC input, and INSTANTLY making a call on an action (For example 2 more "bloodthirsty" characters can have the group kicking in the doors and going murderhobo before a sounder stratagem is considered... - seen it happen plenty of times where Rule of 2 is rigidly in play)

Long story short I'm not a fan - but its my personal view and I ain't GM so don't have to make the final call :)

Might be worth doing a poll of whose situated where on Planet Paizo, to give GMCP clarity on our merry miscreant's geographical locale etc.

UTC -7 MST Mountain Standard Time Live in the great Canadian north!!

Also UK-based, so looks like me & R-R have more in common than coming from the dirty sides of Seattle :)

I'm in Central European Time too, and I usually see most posting going on while I sleep, so while I enjoy a speedy game, some leniency during decisions would be much appreciated.

I'm in the UK as well. Represent! That means I'll rarely be updating before everyone's had a chance, so we dodged that bullet, at least. I'll be doing my best to post once a day, and I'll keep mind of the general pace as well.

- There's good point here. I think that holding off the Rule of Two is a reasonable choice for the moment, since I think we're split evenly from both sides of the pond. Although, I don't mind some planning going on in Discussion. Planning IC is sometimes good RP, but it can slow down games a bit, so I think we should stick to the main pitch there and the 'sync' in the characters' minds.

- Another thing I was considering is rolling Knowledges for you - that allows me to give you the information in a spoiler in the same post. It feels a little like taking agency away from you, but considering that agency is (I search my memories), I'm not so much against it.

- Since this is Shadowrun, and not a d20 system - there's defensive rolls and soak rolls. I'll usually be rolling your dodges and your soaks and acting accordingly, but if you choose to go Full Defense or spend a point of Edge to add to those - I'll update on my next turn. Sounds fair?

I am loving the RP so far! Like I said, I'm going for one Gameplay post on a weekend, and I'll update tomorrow.

I'm ok with any "passive" roll you wish to do on my behalf, including anything that I forget to do (e.g. forgetting to roll for concealment in Pathfinder), especially as I'm very much a newbie in Shadowrun.

I'm OK with you rolling the passive and defensive stuff to avoid things getting bogged down.
As a Shadworun newbie too, there might be some other stuff I forget to roll, but hopefully I'll soon get to the point of remembering (most of) it.

Ditto from me - also as a shadowrun newbie it'll be good to have that safety net whilst learning the various action channels of the system.

Sounds good to me!!

Cool - cool!

We're well on our way to our first run, and I'm pretty excited. I don't think I've been in a SR campaign in the Paizo forums that managed to complete even one (I know some of you have!)

Freddy's currently keeping a closer eye on you, since you're a new team (and as a useful way for the GM to help the newbies, if need be), but he'll eventually be working the numbers and searching for the jobs a lot more than hanging around and giving wisdom.

Note: Planning IC might take a long time, so footnotes in the Discussion thread are encouraged.

Do we want to talk about us not having a decker?

Usually (I think) there's a phase where the decker talks about making sure no alarms go off, etc. As we don't have one do we need to hire one, or do we wanna hand-wave all that, or....?

Uh.

First of all, the Johnson had a vocabulary not usually possessed in the shadows, so a TL;DR.

- The house should remain intact, it's just the occupants need to be dead or terrified enough to reconsider Humanis as an employer.

- Any information that you could find would be good, but it's not the thing he's worried about.

That's about it - nice and simple, for a beginning mission.

About the decker - Freddy's well aware you lack a decker, and he'll be trying to find jobs that don't require massive amounts of Matrix work. There's a lot of places with very long response time (and in the Barrens, there's places where KE won't even go). And not having a decker means you have a bit more in other areas than your average team, so that's that.

In my opinion, it's entirely possible to run a Shadowrun game with 6 troll sams, as long as the GM and the players are prepared for it. Less fancy parties, more gang warfare.

There may be jobs where you want to take, despite the need of a decker you don't have - in that case, Freddy (or another fixer, if that's how the dice fall) can arrange for a 'contractor'. That'll cost you some of the paycheck, and may include risks, but for some jobs, you may decide it's worth it.

Don't get me wrong, deckers are incredibly useful - but not irreplaceable.

- The house should remain intact

Well, there goes my best plan.

@GMCP: Just a heads up that with your blessing I'm doing a little rejigging of R-R's skills. Came across the 52 Blocks Martial Arts style in Run & Gun and think it fits Rage perfectly.

Means reworking some of his Skill selections and Karma purchases but figured last minute tweaks should be ok.

Regards planning for the job - need to brush up on Drones methinking :) IF I can afford it in the aforementioned rebuild might try and add in Chameleon Coating for the van. Giving the nature of this job, might be a booster to get us in and out of the district?

I've really got to get my head round magic, and alchemy.

Edit:
Just realised that Chummer let me grab the alchemy version of Improved Invisibility without knowing the normal version. I think we'd better assume that I know the normal version instead, and I'll pick up the alchemy version when I have the Karma for another spell