Okay here we go...
This thread is for the my Shadowrun game. I've already got two players on board and I'm holding a third spot for another fellow (Valgrim). If he doesn't chime in pretty soon, I'll open it up to anyone else who wants to get in.
I think I'll go with 4E for the system. I don't really have any sourcebooks for that version, but I think it will be easy enough to run all this strictly from the core book.
I'm going to only allow 300 build points for character creation, which won't allow you to create a suped up street samurai type, but will allow you to make a decent PI.
Your characters do work for a successful local Investigative firm known as Emerald City Investigators. It is located in Seattle. The firm deals primarily with local cases, but occasionally the PIs have to go abroad, and some of them do all their investigating entirely on the net. They often are called in to investigate paranormal type cases, and this is one of their specialties.
I would like you to forward me your character concept as soon as you get the chance. Don't try to stat it up just yet, let me have a look at your basic idea, and then once I give you the okay on it draft up the stats and post them.
For character ideas I would recommend- at least one occult investigator type (ie a mage PI), a detective with some hacking and tech skills (ie. can operate some surveillance drones and hack through the NET), I'd also recommend maybe a standard gumshoe type or at least someone who has some good social and people skills and plenty of contacts.
Regarding contacts, most of your contacts will be street level types and maybe professionals (ie. cops, bartenders, club owners, lawyers, criminals, gang members, prostitutes, maybe a few business types, insurance company employees, court employees, occult experts etc...)
You will get one free month of middle lifestyle paid and 1 year of basic Doc Wagon service (a perk of working for ECI). ECI can provide a company vehicle for investigations (so you don't need to buy one, unless you want your own vehicle). ECI can also provide various surveillance equipment (drones, bugs, microphones etc..). However gear such as that has to be requisitioned and is loaned out based on what they feel your need is (sometimes you might not get exactly what you want). If you want to invest in your own surveillance equipment that's fine, but you don't have to.
For the most part your characters should be legal, as in registered firearms, cyberware, magic and even real IDs. You may have families, may have former jobs (ex cops, ex IRS auditors etc...). That stuff is more or less up to you, but you aren't the typical sleazy shadowrunner types (that doesn't mean your character can't be sleazy).
I love it when players create detailed backgrounds and personas for their characters. I realize shadowrun can be quite deadly, but I don't anticipate this game being too too dangerous until you get near the end of your first case. My goal is to get through the Ivy and Chrome adventure, and then we'll see what happens after that.
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ok, since i love the '30s/'40s "pulp noir" style, would it be ok if if i used bogart/sam spade as my inspiration? you know, middle aged, a bit of a curmudgeon, a little rough around the edges, probably drinks a bit more than he should, cynical (but with a dim spark of optimism glowing in the recesses of his soul) but a sucker for a dame with a hard luck story? i think he'd only have a bare minimum of cyberware (maybe boosted reflexes, smartgun link and some internal comm stuff), but would have a wide variety of street contacts.
i'm thinking he may have been an ex-homicide detective with one of the private agencies (lonestar or something) but became jaded by the corruption and coverups and the "justice for the highest bidder" policies of his superiors. his burning sense of fairness and equal justice for the everyman caused too many conflicts with the higher-ups, so he quit and took the job with emerald city...
no wife and kids (she left years ago after he started his slide into cynicism and his stool at the local bar...), just him in his efficiency, fold out couch/bed, hotstove, small fridge, and some nutrasoy...
sound good?
Sounds great. Have you read the book "Gun with occasional music"? It's kind of sci fi, pulp, noir detective novel. Actually on the back cover they refer to it as "tech noir". The main character in it might give you some good inspiration. The author's name is Jonathan Lethem. Anyhow, I think your character concept will really help to set the mood I want the pbp to have, so go for it.
Here's a few more details about Emerald City Investigations. It was until a few months ago a successful independent corp. Your characters have probably been employees for at least a year. Things have changed. It was bought out by a larger corp, called West Life insurance. It seems that West Life wanted its own PI firm to investigate the numerous insurance fraud scams that its customers were trying to pull. Insurance fraud had long been the bread and butter of ECI and insurance companies were always some its most important clients. However, such cases aren't the most glamourous or interesting, and ECI also had a reputation for its investigations into the paranormal. Certainly, they didn't provide the most revenue, but they were by far the most interesting (and often dangerous). The buy out has led to some changes in management. Money has been funneled into the company, and the offices are receiving renovations, and some new state of the art gear is finally being ordered.
Of course being the inquisitive types, you did some research on West Life and found out that it was owned by another company, which in turn was owned by another company, which in turn was owned by Saedar-Krupp, and Saeder-Krupp is of course known to be the world's largest mega corp. A private corp that is nearly 100% owned by Lowfwyr the great dragon. It is said that Lowfwyr's incredible draconic intellect enables him to manage the intricacies of the megacorp nearly single handedly. He has a reputation for occasionally swooping in and micro managing his various operations. This of course has led to a few troubling nightmares involving meetings with a dragon. So far you have seen no evidence to suggest that Lowfwyr has any interest in ECI, and you pray that continues to be the case.
ECI doesn't pay too badly, but there are plenty of ways your lifestyle could be reduced to the couch/bed and nutrasoy (ie. gambling debts, alomony payments, booze and babes etc..). Feel free to work some things like that into your background, and I'll try to include some it in the game (ie ex wife or girlfriend hounding, family members asking you for money etc...).
ok, since i love the '30s/'40s "pulp noir" style, would it be ok if if i used bogart/sam spade as my inspiration? you know, middle aged, a bit of a curmudgeon, a little rough around the edges, probably drinks a bit more than he should, cynical (but with a dim spark of optimism glowing in the recesses of his soul) but a sucker for a dame with a hard luck story? i think he'd only have a bare minimum of cyberware (maybe boosted reflexes, smartgun link and some internal comm stuff), but would have a wide variety of street contacts.
i'm thinking he may have been an ex-homicide detective with one of the private agencies (lonestar or something) but became jaded by the corruption and coverups and the "justice for the highest bidder" policies of his superiors. his burning sense of fairness and equal justice for the everyman caused too many conflicts with the higher-ups, so he quit and took the job with emerald city...
no wife and kids (she left years ago after he started his slide into cynicism and his stool at the local bar...), just him in his efficiency, fold out couch/bed, hotstove, small fridge, and some nutrasoy...
sound good?
Valgrim if you check this out. I should let you know that I've tried to contact a couple of my old gaming friends who are now scattered to the winds to see if they want to get in on this game. If they do, I'm giving them first dibs on the remaining couple of spots in the game.
Looks like you have the gum shoe investigator i'ld be open to playing either of the other characters if the other player has a preference either the techie or occult let me know and i'll start putting together a background.
Ugh wish I had picked up the 4e rules now. How do they play if ya don't mind me asking?
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Ugh wish I had picked up the 4e rules now. How do they play if ya don't mind me asking?
i've never played with them either, but im going to drop by the gaming store this weekend and grab a copy. luckily, i think this game is going to be more roleplaying than crunch, so i think we'll have an easier learning curve to ease into the new edition.
from what i understand, though, is they cleaned up a bunch of the dice conventions, and integrated the hacking stuff into the meat world stuff (timing wise, they run together instead of the old way where you had to kinda run the decker stuff seperate from the other stuff), and they made the tech more in line with a projection of how modern tech works (more wireless and smaller devices, for one) instead of keeping the very dated assumptions of earlier tech...
humm may have to see if I can order this been looking at my well used 2e books for a while now thinking of bring some shadowrun back into my gameing may have to hunt me some reviews up.
I have at least one player done play by post.
So here's a few things you need to know.
1. I will create a new thread on the play by post section once we have the characters ready.
2. Create an alias for yourself that will be your character. Under the alias post all of your character info, so you have an online character sheet. If you click on someone's name the profile will come up, so you can see your character details.
3. When making a post you will find that your name becomes a drop down menu and you can select one of your alias' to post with instead of your regular avatar.
4. When rolling dice visit invisiblecastle.com Select roll dice and input your character name.
Then decide the dice you want to roll, enter it in the field, click roll dice. Once you have your results you can click on the BBC code at the bottom. Your computer will then have a hyperlink to the roll that you can paste into your post. To use invisible castle for shadowrun things are slightly different. For example if you roll 5d6. It will just total your rolls. We don't want that for shadowrun. In order to get the number of successes you achieved enter you code like this- 5d6.hits(5). Now the dice roller will roll 5d6, but look at each die individually and tell you how many rolls were 5 or better to give you the number of "hits". I've posted an example below. The good news about 4E shadowrun mechanics is that there are no TN# anymore. A success is always a 5 or 6. Thus, modifiers add to the dice you roll not the #TN. For instance, if you have a smartgun link you no longer take 2 off your #TN instead you roll 2 additional dice, but your #TN remains the same. Recoil might reduce the number of dice, so it often require a brief calculation to figure out how many dice you need to roll. However, once you have that figured out you just roll dice and then look for 5s and 6s, which invisible castle will do for you.
Here's an example.
#5 If you want to send someone a message that others aren't supposed to see you can use the spoiler tag codes to do that. They are example under "BBCode tags that you can use".
Lots of players tend to use the bold tags and the out of character tags. I usually can't be bothered, but feel free to use them.
It's up to you. We can have more than one gum shoe type investigator, you would just have to distinguish the character in your personality. Or maybe a few other details- perhaps your character is an adept with astral sight or something, or maybe a different race. You aren't totally restricted to the few archetypes I suggested. However you are working for a PI firm, so the character has to have some ability to function as an investigator.
Looks like you have the gum shoe investigator i'ld be open to playing either of the other characters if the other player has a preference either the techie or occult let me know and i'll start putting together a background.
Houstonderek's pretty much right on with the main changes. Technomancers (Otaku) are now core character types and rules for creating them are in the core book. 5's and 6's are always hits. There are no #TN. All modifiers influence the number of dice you get to roll not a #TN. That means you don't have to worry about rolling a 6 and then rolling it again and adding it to the old roll. I find this makes for a smoother mechanic that will function better for pbp.
Ugh wish I had picked up the 4e rules now. How do they play if ya don't mind me asking?i've never played with them either, but im going to drop by the gaming store this weekend and grab a copy. luckily, i think this game is going to be more roleplaying than crunch, so i think we'll have an easier learning curve to ease into the new edition.
from what i understand, though, is they cleaned up a bunch of the dice conventions, and integrated the hacking stuff into the meat world stuff (timing wise, they run together instead of the old way where you had to kinda run the decker stuff seperate from the other stuff), and they made the tech more in line with a projection of how modern tech works (more wireless and smaller devices, for one) instead of keeping the very dated assumptions of earlier tech...
Right now I have Khaladon (old gaming bud), Houstonderek (new gaming bud), Questorc (old gaming bud), and I believe I will soon have a cousin of mine as a confirmed player. That means our roster is set. I don't want to take more than four players for this particular game. You guys can get to making characters and we can get rolling. If you don't have the 4E book, you can also buy it as a pdf from this site or drivethroughrpg.com. I tend to prefer the hard copy, but the pdf is certainly a little cheaper if you don't want to make such a big investment.
Just a quick post to let you know I'm here. Been on the road and not able to post. Will post again tonight or tomorrow when I have some time.
I'll be trying to find a copy of the book tomorrow as well. Once I look over 4th edition I'll put a character outline together for your approval.
If no one minds I'd like to take the Mage PI slot. He will be a slight revision of a past SR character but with a continuing story (PHD his name is escaping me at the moment and all my sheets are in Mexico but if you happen to remember please lemme know)
Basic Background:
'He' was a young musical flute progidy when 'The Change' struck him and he overnight went from a slim, 'pretty' 12yr old into a hulking brute of a Troll. He also began developing talents for magic instead of music. He racsist father kicked him out of the house warning him to "...never show your disgusting face here again!" so he didn't. He fell to the streets and fell into Shadowrunning. He had a fairly good run of it for a while teaming up early on with a tiny Elvin covert ops specialist who was cyberwared to the hilt. But they started to realize they had some fundamental differences as she became more and more violent and he began to long more and more for his old life. Finally, after a few runs went down real bad, they lost touch and drifted their separate ways. He still cares about her though and hopes she's ok somewhere.
He realized that if he wanted any chance of ever reconnecting with his family he'd have to become more 'respectable'. So he went about it in the best way he could think of by becoming a PI. Eventually his positive results and unique skills landed him a cushy job at ECI. While he may not be the most experienced investigator on the team, what he lacks in PI skills he makes up for in combat experience and his teammates are always happy to have him around on the rare occasions when things go sideways.
He has finally gotten in touch with his mother and sister and slowly began to rebuild a relationship with them but his father still wants nothing to do with him. His mother tells him that his dad is proud of his job at ECI but he doesn't believe her.
And his flute still lies there, unable to be played by his huge fingers and thick lips. Sometimes he gets real sad about it...sometimes he gets Real angry...
(Sorry for the poor prose guys but I had to write this real quick. And I'll make an Avatar for Him as soon as I Remember His name ;=)
I didn't mention anything about posting frequency. Post when you get a chance, but if possible try to check it daily. I'll generally be looking at the thread first thing in the morning (but not likely posting much then), and then I'll do a bit of posting sometime in the evening. I won't post during the day at all because work is too busy.
In 4E the "Hackers" are certainly a bit more mobile and part of the team than deckers in previous editions, they also tend to fill the roll of a rigger to some extent as well, so IMO they are a more fun to play than they have been in the past. Of course they are still one of the more complex character archetypes.
I had been thinking of an uncybered gumshoe, but I'm happy to play a decker type to give us some tech investigation abilities. I could recreate my old 1e character... :)
Sorry I don't recall the name of that character. But the background stuff sounds good. As I recall the last I saw of his elven lady friend she was in Hawai'i raiding a secret Mitsuhuma research facility and being fired on by a gunship, while trying to escape in a boat. I think there might have been a Kraken involved as well. Fun Times!
If no one minds I'd like to take the Mage PI slot. He will be a slight revision of a past SR character but with a continuing story (PHD his name is escaping me at the moment and all my sheets are in Mexico but if you happen to remember please lemme know)
Basic Background:
'He' was a young musical flute progidy when 'The Change' struck him and he overnight went from a slim, 'pretty' 12yr old into a hulking brute of a Troll. He also began developing talents for magic instead of music. He racsist father kicked him out of the house warning him to "...never show your disgusting face here again!" so he didn't. He fell to the streets and fell into Shadowrunning. He had a fairly good run of it for a while teaming up early on with a tiny Elvin covert ops specialist who was cyberwared to the hilt. But they started to realize they had some fundamental differences as she became more and more violent and he began to long more and more for his old life. Finally, after a few runs went down real bad, they lost touch and drifted their separate ways. He still cares about her though and hopes she's ok somewhere.He realized that if he wanted any chance of ever reconnecting with his family he'd have to become more 'respectable'. So he went about it in the best way he could think of by becoming a PI. Eventually his positive results and unique skills landed him a cushy job at ECI. While he may not be the most experienced investigator on the team, what he lacks in PI skills he makes up for in combat experience and his teammates are always happy to have him around on the rare occasions when things go sideways.
He has finally gotten in touch with his mother and sister and slowly began to rebuild a relationship with them but his father still wants nothing to do with him. His mother tells him that his dad is proud of his job at ECI but he doesn't believe her.
And his flute still lies there, unable to be played by his huge fingers and thick lips. Sometimes he gets real sad about it...sometimes he gets Real angry...
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Questorc played in a 3E shadowrun game I ran, and his dwarven street samurai (and team) was responsible for fighting there way up the Renrakru arcology after the lockdown and defeating the AI, Deus and his Otaku minions in his ultra violet host. It was a great campaign. I also did a few solo adventures with him where he played an uncybered dwarf PI (brother of the other dwarf) and solved various mysteries. They were great fun as well.
So far it looks like with have:
1.- Gumshoe detective type
2.- Troll occult investigator
3.- The Hacker/Techie (assuming Leo Getz ends up being played)
4.-? (not sure what Questorc wants to play yet. Maybe another Gumshoe, maybe something else).
I realize that it will probably be a few days before your characters are complete, but I'll probably start the pbp thread soon, so that you can start making some initial posts. You won't need all the stats all done up right away anyhow, so feel free to start posting when you get to it even if your character isn't fully finished.
I put up the first post
http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/community/gaming/playByPost/pHDsCyberp ulpGame7716y
Finally sourced a book in my area but will not be able to pick it up until tomorrow. Right now I would like to revive Enoch convert him to fourth and mod his background a bit. Enoch is a former Lonestar Vice detective, hired through Affirmative Action. Though competent at his job he quickly realized the the glass ceiling had been lowered to accommodate his height. He could have lived with this. By taking satisfaction in doing his job well on the street level and, he believed, making a difference. But when the department made being cybered a requirement it was too much. He has a deep distrust of Cyber tech since his brother died from complications after what was supposed to be a routine enhancement. - After checking out the source book tomorrow I will flesh out the character further. I have a few ideas but want to re-familiarize myself with the material before committing to anything. I'll submit the rest for approval tomorrow afrernoon my time tomorrow evening your time.
C
Awesome Collin, I look forward to the return of Enoch.
Hopefully Gustav will stay away. Best wishes on that one.
quick note: depending on what gustav decides to do, im not too sure of my availability for the next couple of days. if he tacts a few degrees to the west, my butt is heading to odessa. just wanted to let you know...
sure, you can take disadvantages.
So to recap again
1. Khaladon (troll occult investigator)
2. Houston Derek (human? gumshoe, with a little cyber)
3. Questorc (Dwarf gumshoe, no cyber)
4. Rob/Ken (Human, hacker)
That should work out pretty well. My only concern is regarding Hacking. In the 2070's there is so much data available on the net that a lot of mysteries can be solved purely by some good hacking. I plan to tone this down a little because I want the game to have a more noir/pulp feel where the characters are out on the streets interacting with the people of the world and not just surfing the web and digging up all the answers they need. A hacker will still be very useful, but I don't want the game to focus too heavily on all the new Augumented Reality (AR) tech that 4E has added. Therefore, Ken you are more than welcome to play Getz, but if you would rather play Hoss let me know, and I can have a NPC Hacker working at ECI that you guys can contact to dig up info off the net when/if you need it.
wow; just found this thread; it has really taken off.
I would like to play a shaman; havent played one before; :)
I hadn't really planned on running this with more than 4 players, but I don't really want to turn you away either since you did express an interest in a shadowrun pbp a while back. However, I need to think a little on how to integrate a fifth player. Right now having 4 PIs on one case already seems a little weird, but I managed to justify in the story. I suppose adding a fifth isn't really that big a deal, but I was thinking that maybe we could come up with something a little different for your character. For instance, maybe your character could be working directly for the client who is hiring the ECI. The client is a famous female simsense star (Julia Avalon), but I see her as a new age back to earth kind of girl, so having a shaman on retainer would be about right for her. You think you'd be up for something like that? If you have other ideas let me know.
I would like to play a shaman; havent played one before; :)
I was thinking a bit about how you guys might want to post your online character sheets. I saw that Questorc has started his character and put a post up online, which is great. You don't need to have your character completely finished to start posting.
Since the ablilities in the profile page don't exactly match up with Shadowrun attributes, I suggest you do most of your character in the background section of the profile.
If you can try to more or less follow the format of the Archetypes in the 4E book.
Start with all your attributes.
Then do your skills
The qualities and drawbacks
Then your cyberwear/spells (if you have any)
followed by gear and contacts
The basic info (ie. name, race, occupation etc.. can go in the fields the profile sheet provides for you)
By the way Questorc, congrats on finding an avatar pic that pretty much works for Enoch. I think it will be a bit of a challenge finding good shadowrun avatar pics on this board.
k; will just hang till your ready; no biggie; am always around :)no worries, this run or the next or next after that; all good.
Okay guys, lets see if we can get those characters finished over the next couple of days. As I said before, you don't have to have your PC totally stated up before you start posting on the pbp thread. Feel free to jump in any time. You likely won't need to refer to stats for a little while anyhow. Questorc has already put in a post. I'm eager to see some more.
Now that you have created the alias, when you go to post it should say "Post As" under the box where you type in the text. Your regular name has now become a drop down menu and when you click on it it should give you the option of picking your regular name or one of your alias's.
It's totally up to you, whichever character you prefer to run is fine by me.
It's totally up to you, whichever character you prefer to run is fine by me.
Well, sounds like Hoss is the way to go. For those of you who don't know about him, here's a bit of a background...
You've only ever heard of him referred to as Hoss... but he's not a "loud mouth Texan" style at all... in fact, he's quiet and moody at the best of times. You're guessing he's in his late 40s, early 50s with a bit of a paunch. He tends to wear the duster and fedora that seems so common of the street types now a days, especially in ECI. This is the first time you've worked with him at all and you're not really sure why this old man was brought into things... he doesn't seem particularly tough or to bring anything special to the table... but there's something about him. Maybe it's the commanding note in his voice when he does speak that makes people listen to what he says, or maybe it's the way that the management seems a little uneasy around him. He's never acted threatening at all, but it's obvious that those who's worked with him before are a little on edge around him. The only thing not calm and collected about him is that he does have a twitch periodically that seems to bother him. Whatever his past is, nobody has seemed inclined to bring it up with him yet.
I still might use Leo Getz as an NPC/contact for the party. He'll be spending most of his time at the office, but he won't be hard to get a hold of.