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Rockopolis posted:On the other hand, ghouls also exist to run Tamanous, the loving terrifying organlegging and used cyberware outfit. If you're dealing with them, you're probably a seriously bad dude. Or thrifty. If you're careful you can actually corral your teammates behind a coffin. It's not as foolproof because you're more spread out and the ghouls can pathfind their way around to one sometimes, but on the plus side you have a ton of auto-aiming firepower. Kitsune's kind of a liability for this, though.
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Aug 3, 2014 02:52
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This part. Screw this part. Or maybe not really, but still. Here's my dumb little story. First time going through, I didn't know what to do after the strobes since I'd just completely ignored the stake for some reason. So off backtracking I go to get it, go all the way back down to Vladimir and use it. Once. Then immediately leave since I'd saved the PC hacking for later but forgot about it while getting caught up in this mess. In case it's not apparent by next update, Bremington is long. Long, tough and with a few puzzles. And then you get to the Jester only to have the bastard laugh in your face. For some reason this didn't prompt me to reload the game but rather backtrack all the way to Vlad and back to the Jester. To say the least, it was a bit upsetting. Also for a vampire Vladimir sure sucks (please don't hurt me).
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Aug 3, 2014 02:59
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Kai Tave posted:Also no running through walls or seizures from strobe lights but whatever. I don't remember if epilepsy is cured by vampirism in Shadowrun, so maybe the dude wandered in after he got fanged to see if his epilepsy got fixed. That'd explain his poor computer setup too. No clue about the wall thing though.
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Aug 3, 2014 03:02
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Don't feel too bad about missing that key Danaru. I was inspired to go and give this game a bit of a replay a month ago and I completely forgot where that key was and missed it a number of times.
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Aug 3, 2014 03:36
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If I remember correctly, vampires do become very light sensitive. Enough that they take penalties when trying to do something in bright light. I'm not sure flash strobe lights on a vampire would completely incapacitate him like Vlad here, but it would definitely piss him off.
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Aug 3, 2014 03:58
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Wales Grey posted:I don't remember if epilepsy is cured by vampirism in Shadowrun, so maybe the dude wandered in after he got fanged to see if his epilepsy got fixed. That'd explain his poor computer setup too. I do like what this section implies about Vlad. Other vampires are looking at this guy with his yard full of dead trees and his lovely network security just shaking their heads, like "Christ, what an rear end in a top hat."
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Aug 3, 2014 05:03
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Mr. Maltose posted:Other magical genotypes have different reaction to the Most Awkward AIDS Metaphor (tm) too! Including Sasquatches. Who are totally a thing in Shadowrun. You're thinking of wendigos, I'm pretty sure, which are (mostly?) orks. Sasquatches are just cool hairy dudes that hang out. Wendigos want to eat your loving face with a nice white wine. Also bravo on the subtle Dwarf Fortress reference. 
Chokes McGee fucked around with this message at 05:45 on Aug 3, 2014 |
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Aug 3, 2014 05:43
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Chokes McGee posted:You're thinking of wendigos, I'm pretty sure, which are (mostly?) orks. Sasquatches are just cool hairy dudes that hang out. Wendigos want to eat your loving face with a nice white wine. Both, wendigos are infected sasquatches not orcs. I do love that sasquatches are generally super friendly guys who are increasingly gregarious. I remember in one of the source books there was a sasquatch who was really famous just for being an amazing bartender who specialized in tropical drinks. He particularly liked preparing drinks that called for fresh pineapples as he would just rip them apart with his bare hands.
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Aug 3, 2014 05:57
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Sasquatches can become both Bandersnatches and Jabberwockies when exposed to HMHVV I and Jarka-Crioscione strain respectively, Orcs become Wendigo when exposed to HMHVV I. Basically, HMHVV has three.five types. HMHVV I turns Humans into vampires who lose essence by existing, HMHVV II or the Jarka-Criscione strain makes humans into Loup-Garou who don't lose essence but can infect people by biting anyway, HMHVV III aka the Kreiger Strain which turns pretty much every drat thing into Ghouls and is super contagious, and HMHVV IA which turns Humans into Nosferatu vampires and kills everything else. Each other genotype has their own list of things they turn into but does anybody really care? I'm pretty sure Ghouls don't require essence like Vampires because they don't have an essence leak issue, but they do have to eat human flesh. Mr. Maltose fucked around with this message at 06:26 on Aug 3, 2014 |
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Aug 3, 2014 06:14
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Maybe I'm missing something here but didn't Jake originally start with this whole thing to find out who almost murdered him and go after them? Now he's killing giant rats and vampires because If the answer is just "totem animals work in ~mysterious ways~" I'm gonna be very disappointed. E: Then again, I probably shouldn't expect super tight writing from a SNES era video game. Keksen fucked around with this message at 13:17 on Aug 3, 2014 |
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Aug 3, 2014 13:14
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Keksen posted:Maybe I'm missing something here but didn't Jake originally start with this whole thing to find out who almost murdered him and go after them? Now he's killing giant rats and vampires because Narrative-wise, we know Drake is our guy, but he's too powerful to go after directly, so we're doing this side quest for Dog to get our shaman powers back and get strong enough. It's basically a very long, very wierd training montage. Gameplay-wise, Laughlyn is the only one who can say a plot critical keyword. 
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Aug 3, 2014 13:25
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Wasn't somebody making a Shadowrun Returns module for this game? Did that ever get finished?
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Aug 3, 2014 14:43
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Rockopolis posted:On the other hand, ghouls also exist to run Tamanous, the loving terrifying organlegging and used cyberware outfit. If you're dealing with them, you're probably a seriously bad dude. Or thrifty. I played a (non-feral) ghoul in 3rd edition. It worked out well enough, though my in-character best friend (played by another guy) had a day job as a coroner. Getting food wasn't that hard for me. Would imagine it would be a nightmare if you didn't have a connection like that.
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Aug 3, 2014 15:05
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Basically, whatever nonsense you think we're doing right now, it'll all be worth it and self-explanatory once we reach the conclusion of this revenge quest. Because believe me, if this were optional, you'd still do it just because of how much bullshit we're going to have wade through/face.
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Aug 3, 2014 15:06
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Anoia posted:Wasn't somebody making a Shadowrun Returns module for this game? Did that ever get finished? Yup! It should be available from the DLC menu. I'm not sure the quality, but it's one of the top rated modules.
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Aug 3, 2014 16:15
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mauman posted:I played a (non-feral) ghoul in 3rd edition. It worked out well enough, though my in-character best friend (played by another guy) had a day job as a coroner. Getting food wasn't that hard for me.
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Aug 3, 2014 17:50
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Poil posted:Eh, in 4e you can pay an extra 20% (or maybe it was 30) extra for your lifestyle and any meat and blood you need is taken care of that way. I assume a ghoul fixer who's running, under cover obviously, a cleaning company specialized in crime scenes would be a good contact to have too. Yes...well...me and my friends tended to ignore the existence of 4th edition after the first time we tried it. Also most groups I've been in would balk at the idea of using a flat money fee for something like this. You'd have to have the connection AND role-play it out (in addition to any money involved).
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Aug 3, 2014 18:51
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Anoia posted:Wasn't somebody making a Shadowrun Returns module for this game? Did that ever get finished? It's available on steam workshop here. It is very much not finished, but it's rated very highly. Whether that reflects the actual quality of the module or just people's hopes for the finished project I couldn't tell you.
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Aug 3, 2014 19:18
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mauman posted:Yes...well...me and my friends tended to ignore the existence of 4th edition after the first time we tried it. Also most groups I've been in would balk at the idea of using a flat money fee for something like this. You'd have to have the connection AND role-play it out (in addition to any money involved).
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Aug 3, 2014 19:49
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Poil posted:Yeah I assume you have to at least set up something in your backstory and not have it magically appear in your fridge. That landlord is a seriously sketchy dude.
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Aug 3, 2014 21:32
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I know cloned limb/organ replacements are a thing, at least in 4e. I think Cybertechnology had the actual rules. I always wondered if there were a market for selling limbs for food and getting them replaced, like a really metal version of selling blood plasma. I recall it being super expensive, so probably not. OTOH, it'd be something to throw into the backstory of a street sam, although I'm pretty sure ghouls already eat surgical scraps. EDIT I think the logistics on it were pretty terrible in all senses of the word, it was something like a pound or two of flesh every week or two, which doesn't sound like much but builds up to a huge amount with any length of time or population. Rockopolis fucked around with this message at 22:14 on Aug 3, 2014 |
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Aug 3, 2014 22:09
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Well, by 2070 or so, they're not really growing limbs and organs for Ghouls to eat but they are making basically 'Metahuman Steaks' that they can buy in some areas for food. Ghouls still aren't universally accepted as people, although folks are more willing to accept it at that point what with some civilized Ghoul nations actually existing, but it's certainly not guaranteed that to be a Ghoul is to be 100% illegal.
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Aug 4, 2014 12:38
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Oh my gods, Dwarf Fortress references! My day is complete!
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Aug 4, 2014 13:44
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As I recall, you could hack both of the computers in the Dark Blade's PC room - the other one contains a solid chunk of money.
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Aug 4, 2014 15:09
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Ah ghouls are just karma fodder for Joshua's street sammy build.
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Aug 4, 2014 15:36
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MaskedHuzzah posted:As I recall, you could hack both of the computers in the Dark Blade's PC room - the other one contains a solid chunk of money. I wanted to make a mention of this myself earlier but I'm guessing he might be holding off on another update to show that off. After all, he hasn't shown off what's next door either. 
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Aug 4, 2014 19:52
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Zeniel posted:Ah ghouls are just karma fodder for Joshua's street sammy build. Or decker, if you want to like plink one of them and run out afterwards. All those programs don't buy themselves.
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Aug 5, 2014 05:47
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One thing I'm confused about is what Orks and Trolls are supposed to look like. 90s Shadowrun art depicts them as hideous, warty, wrinkly calloused disfigured freaks, but Shadowrun Returns depicts them as pretty normal looking people when you get past the brow ridges and tusks and body mass. Is it just 90s art being 90s art? Or has there been a thing where goblinoids got rehabilitated? One thing that's been bugging me as well: I'm not sure I understand how the "punk" side of cyberpunk continues to survive in Shadowrun's urban areas. Like, with the resources of the megacorps how does Redmond Barrens in Seattle or The Pit in Manhattan continue to exist? Seems like they could walk in any time they wanted with renta-cops and armored bulldozers and go all Gaza on their asses. Who would care enough to stop them?
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Aug 5, 2014 10:50
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That would cost money. And spending money is a heinous crime. Leaving a breeding ground for runners also means you don't have to spend any resources training up your own.
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Aug 5, 2014 10:57
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Arglebargle III posted:One thing I'm confused about is what Orks and Trolls are supposed to look like. 90s Shadowrun art depicts them as hideous, warty, wrinkly calloused disfigured freaks, but Shadowrun Returns depicts them as pretty normal looking people when you get past the brow ridges and tusks and body mass. Is it just 90s art being 90s art? Or has there been a thing where goblinoids got rehabilitated? For both your questions. 1. Orks and trolls CAN look human like (once you get past the teeth, muscles, horns, eyebrows, jutting jaws, etc), they can also look like they got hit by the ugly tree and ALL of it's branches. Art just likes to focus on the latter I suppose. 2. Why would they care?! The gangs and whatnot don't get involve with what little holdings corps hold in those locations and they sure as hell don't give a drat about the general populace.
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Aug 5, 2014 14:56
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Arglebargle III posted:One thing I'm confused about is what Orks and Trolls are supposed to look like. 90s Shadowrun art depicts them as hideous, warty, wrinkly calloused disfigured freaks, but Shadowrun Returns depicts them as pretty normal looking people when you get past the brow ridges and tusks and body mass. Is it just 90s art being 90s art? Or has there been a thing where goblinoids got rehabilitated? If you'll notice, all the "normal" looking goblinoids (aside from Eiger, who's attractive for obvious reasons  ) are in socially accepted positions of power: Beckstein, Kluwe, the guy in charge of the communist gang, etc. Guys like Adrain and the ex-military troll have much more noticeable goblinization, although they also have some physical damage/deformities to mask it. It's more to do with sample skew than art IMO.
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Aug 5, 2014 15:12
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mauman posted:2. Why would they care?! The gangs and whatnot don't get involve with what little holdings corps hold in those locations and they sure as hell don't give a drat about the general populace. Presumably land in downtown Manhattan is still valuable. Would you want to develop in Soho or Midtown for X-zillion nuyen when you could kick out some squatters and develop for the price of a security detail, if even that? It probably wouldn't be too hard to convince MDC to pick up the tab for muscle based on their potential second-order take. The difference in the potential value and current value of the land is enormous and in effect just lying there waiting for someone to claim that payday. It's money left on the table, and that's not in character for the megacorps. Oh well, I shouldn't expect RPG writers to be too concerned with economics no matter how basic. Every urban center has to have its punk zone I guess. But Manhattan as a gleaming fortress of sleaze seems more interesting to play in than Manhattan, gleaming fortress of sleaze except for this dedicated punk zone. I take it Shadowrun has had some push and pull between the cyber and punk demographics. I mean it's not Shadowrun: Urban Developer but considering how vicious and shady land development can be in the modern day it's not a bad idea for a story hook. Land: it's the only thing they're not making more of. Arglebargle III fucked around with this message at 15:29 on Aug 5, 2014 |
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Aug 5, 2014 15:27
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Arglebargle III posted:Presumably land in downtown Manhattan is still valuable. Would you want to develop in Soho or Midtown for X-zillion nuyen when you could kick out some squatters and develop for the price of a security detail, if even that? It probably wouldn't be too hard to convince MDC to pick up the tab for muscle based on their potential second-order take. The difference in the potential value and current value of the land is enormous and in effect just lying there waiting for someone to claim that payday. It's money left on the table, and that's not in character for the megacorps. And this is exactly the kind of initiative that creates work for Shadowrunners. Remember that this lore is written to serve as a setting for a tabletop RPG, so the world is best populated by stuff that's about to happen. A world that raises questions like yours is one creating hooks to run games around.
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Aug 5, 2014 15:45
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Another answer is that the Urban Brawl guys might secretly own the Barrens and a bunch of terrible places so they can have kickass arenas for the Best Sport. Hell, even if they don't own it, Urban Brawl and things like it serve as cake and circuses for the masses. apostateCourier fucked around with this message at 16:16 on Aug 5, 2014 |
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Aug 5, 2014 16:11
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Arglebargle III posted:Presumably land in downtown Manhattan is still valuable. Would you want to develop in Soho or Midtown for X-zillion nuyen when you could kick out some squatters and develop for the price of a security detail, if even that? It probably wouldn't be too hard to convince MDC to pick up the tab for muscle based on their potential second-order take. The difference in the potential value and current value of the land is enormous and in effect just lying there waiting for someone to claim that payday. It's money left on the table, and that's not in character for the megacorps. I always assumed it was a sort of side-effect of the semi-cold war going on between the megacorps. Horizon tries to redevelop, and in the process get the land rights to, downtown Manhattan, and suddenly three different Shadowrun groups are hitting Horizon interests and runners are suddenly unwilling to take on jobs for Horizon (and really, when you're kicking out/killing the runners for the land, you can't blame them). Horizon doesn't know for sure who sent them, but doesn't want to escalate things into a war they might not win. It's money left on the table that may cost more than it's worth to claim.
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Aug 5, 2014 23:08
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Which is one reason corp(-owned) runners get paid very well; as useful as shadowrunners can be, sometimes loyalty is more important than deniability. As was previously mentioned, shadowrunners aren't solely motivated by money.
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Aug 5, 2014 23:58
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Arglebargle III posted:One thing that's been bugging me as well: I'm not sure I understand how the "punk" side of cyberpunk continues to survive in Shadowrun's urban areas. Like, with the resources of the megacorps how does Redmond Barrens in Seattle or The Pit in Manhattan continue to exist? Seems like they could walk in any time they wanted with renta-cops and armored bulldozers and go all Gaza on their asses. Who would care enough to stop them? Somebody else's problem. The megacorps don't own the entirety of Seattle. It can be useful to hide resources in a part of town that nobody really owns - a safehouse, a dumping ground, a lab for the kind of dangerous crap that you don't want to play with near your valuable holdings. And some places are just too polluted to clean up. Magical pollution is a real factor that feeds on (and feeds into) metahuman misery and makes for unhappy, under-powered magicians. And conventional pollution can turn the natural magic of a place toxic, such that it actively tries to kill life.
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Aug 6, 2014 02:21
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Gabriel Pope posted:If you're careful you can actually corral your teammates behind a coffin. It's not as foolproof because you're more spread out and the ghouls can pathfind their way around to one sometimes, but on the plus side you have a ton of auto-aiming firepower. Kitsune's kind of a liability for this, though. Grifter fucked around with this message at 17:50 on Aug 6, 2014 |
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Aug 6, 2014 17:43
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Gabriel Pope posted:If you're careful you can actually corral your teammates behind a coffin. It's not as foolproof because you're more spread out and the ghouls can pathfind their way around to one sometimes, but on the plus side you have a ton of auto-aiming firepower. Kitsune's kind of a liability for this, though. You don't even need to corral them. Select them and you can tell them what to target, and where to move to. So just tell them to move behind the coffin, too.
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Aug 6, 2014 21:14
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Arglebargle III posted:One thing I'm confused about is what Orks and Trolls are supposed to look like. 90s Shadowrun art depicts them as hideous, warty, wrinkly calloused disfigured freaks, but Shadowrun Returns depicts them as pretty normal looking people when you get past the brow ridges and tusks and body mass. Is it just 90s art being 90s art? Or has there been a thing where goblinoids got rehabilitated? Some of it is 90's art being 90's art, 2nd Edition Shadowrun had a lot of cartoonishly exaggerated artwork. Something that the SNES game doesn't show, and unfortunately the actual RPG doesn't show as often as it should either, is that every metahuman from elves to orks to trolls has the same variance in ethnicity and skin tone as regular ol' pre-magic humanity, so you can have Hispanic trolls and Chinese orks and African elves and so on.
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Aug 6, 2014 21:33
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