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Mors Rattus posted:Honestly, I’m still stuck on the fact that the evil villain plan is to fight bigotry in the most torn-from-CHUD-fever-dreams way possible, and the heroic act is to ensure bigotry continues. It's really hard for me to ignore too. The Dark Lord's religion reads like a fusion of alt-right rhetoric and Alex Jones conspiracy theory. The evil goat symbolically wants to chop off your hands and feet and leave you unproductive and helpless; the severing of limbs is repeated too often to not be a point of emphasis. The enemy speaks of peace and love but it's all weasel words to seduce you into letting them trap and convert you. The message of peace and love stops a war between bitter enemies and brings men together and this is portrayed as brainwashing and a dark omen of things to come. I'm not 100% sure what point the author is trying to make (a.k.a. "is he totally on board the chud train or is he a lovely edgy nihilist who says it makes you think about how this is bad but maybe that's worse"), but as has been stated, that this is uncertain is just as bad as if it were certain.
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Oct 16, 2020 02:29
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mellonbread posted:Magical Industrial Revolution seems like a tighter and more focused version of Electric Bastionland, with less evocative artwork but much more table-ready content. Always happy to be of service. I've been meaning to review this one for a long time, and I'm happy that I got around to it.
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Oct 16, 2020 05:51
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By popular demand posted:Re: Beneath same
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Oct 16, 2020 07:35
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At least some versions of Magical Industrial Revolution came with the printed pamphlets.
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Oct 16, 2020 07:42
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Damnation Crusade remains the best/only good 40K comic series. I am perennialy the least happy 40K fan since my earliest exposure to the setting (Ian Watson's horny epic Space Marine, Dawn of War 1) cemented Astartes as knightly spec ops operators (or operator knights), but their rules and depictions constantly go for "big dudes fighting it out in the field." A dozen of bizzare organs? Decades of training? Power Armor? Naw, it's just dudes shooting guys. The new Marneus sculpt looks stupid, it's like he has a boombox upon his shoulders. I Am Just a Box posted:It's really hard for me to ignore too. The Dark Lord's religion reads like a fusion of alt-right rhetoric and Alex Jones conspiracy theory. The evil goat symbolically wants to chop off your hands and feet and leave you unproductive and helpless; the severing of limbs is repeated too often to not be a point of emphasis. The enemy speaks of peace and love but it's all weasel words to seduce you into letting them trap and convert you. The message of peace and love stops a war between bitter enemies and brings men together and this is portrayed as brainwashing and a dark omen of things to come. When did this come out? Because "actually, popular movement are duped by EEEVIL" is in tune with the zeitgeist that Bane in the Batman movie and CoD Blops 2.
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Oct 16, 2020 08:28
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Deff Skwadron is also good
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Oct 16, 2020 08:40
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Chaos Space Marines are best as Saturday morning cartoon villains though
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Oct 16, 2020 09:49
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Ghost Leviathan posted:Chaos Space Marines are best as Saturday morning cartoon villains though I always had a soft spot for Noise Marines.
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Oct 16, 2020 09:52
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JcDent posted:Damnation Crusade remains the best/only good 40K comic series. That's not Obvious Tactics. 
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Oct 16, 2020 10:51
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When I got into 40k it was entirely through the Tyranids and I still stan for them and think they're the good guys in the setting. Everyone are just assholes ; 'nids are just hungry, at least they're not loving racist.
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Oct 16, 2020 14:23
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I remember playing in a 40k rpg game of some flavor where a genestealer cult ran around converting people by just being totally honest with them about what the tyranids did. The only addition was that anyone eaten would be absorbed into the hive mind and reincarnated as tyranids with each new planet fall. The rational being that the hivemind is benevolent, saw the galaxy was terrible and needed to be remade. This frequently won over imperials.
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Oct 16, 2020 14:29
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Ghost Leviathan posted:Chaos Space Marines are best as Saturday morning cartoon villains though Look at the hosed up scale between the marine boots and the robot nerds. Are they like 4'6"? Epicurius posted:In sorry, but I just love the idea of a giant hermit crab that lives in church bells, because of course it would. Don't damage the bell, it's what we're here to get!!! Can't attack the crab from behind. Speleothing fucked around with this message at 16:53 on Oct 16, 2020 |
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Oct 16, 2020 16:50
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JcDent posted:The new Marneus sculpt looks stupid, it's like he has a boombox upon his shoulders. WOOOOAAAAAHHHHH EVERYONE WAS WEARING GIANT PAULDRONS WOOOOOAAAAAHHHHH I SAW A CATACHAN DOING THE BARTMAN
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Oct 17, 2020 09:06
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Chapter 8: Bazaar, pt. 8 Degenesis Rebirth Katharsys Chapter 8: Bazaar PALERS Sun Eye The ancient RG NVGs that Palers have maintained and decked out with decorations over the years. They're charged by motion: quote:The energy reservoirs of the Sun Eyes are weak, and the sight darkens after a few minutes. However, the reservoir slowly recharges if the devices are moved. Palers with a leg malalignment and a limp rarely have problems with their Sun Eye. Palers: handi-capable.   Bet you can pick up some tribal hotties with this one. Sunburst Similarly decorated and cherished flashlights... but the batteries are out, and they're mostly used as clubs (game classes it as “Light source/Fire,” so idk if the melee weapon part will pan out). If you find an E-cubed, it power it for 100 hours (so, forever). Submachine Guns It's an SMG. quote:Some submachine guns are equipped with a bayonet and can be used like a knife, although with the handling of a gun, not of a light melee weapon. The bayonet takes up 1 slot. Yeah, whateverthefuck that means. Sun Discs The various dongles controlling the RG bunkers. Come in a myriad of varieties, can be upgraded with code (apparently, none have ever gone over level III), can beep, blink with light, maybe vibrate. So, dongles. >Phaeton: shines brigther with every level and quote:At level 1, the disc opens most of the outer portals of Dispensers Had almost forgotten that stupid word. >Cataract: sonar to be used with the Orbital disc. >Orbital: lovely e-ink screen showing bygone rail lines and the bunkers it has access code to. Works as screen for Cataract. >Arbiter: one disc to rule them all: quote:The front of the Arbiter disc is covered in dull sheet metal and indented with stylized fingers. They point outward from the center, forming a weird star. The Arbiter forms a radio connection to systems of the RG and hacks into them: the monitors show the cursor prompt for administrator commands. Also, the disc reboots countless RG artifacts and can deactivate all Sun Discs within a 2 m radius; it can also restart them. Every Arbiter level gives the Paler +2D to INT+Artifact Lore whenever he wants to modify an RG system. >Quantum: apparently, it's only use is detecting the proximity of other Quantum discs. >Quasar: battery charger for other discs. Grim Sun Useless talisman made by Palers not worthy of getting Sun Discs, gives them +1D to mental defenses.  Palers don't really know what words "jungle" or "style" mean. Electronics Tools poo poo to repair your bunker electronics with. +1D to manipulating electronic devices (not specified in which way) and probably very attractive for your group's RG Atlas lovely old RG map only usable because Palers have marked landmarks on them. Sesamite Thowinhg Pulsor EMP grenade with a terrible description. quote:St. Elmo’s fire dances across the cylinder, and then the fluorescent lamps burst in a shower of sparks. The displays blink and fade. All electronic devices within a radius of 10 paces are dead, dead, dead. Only two things are immune: Sun Discs and Dispenser locks because, I swear to God, if the players get in there Strips of Gold Currency of the gold, revivers trade them for hard cash on the surface. Next time: GUNZ GUNZ GUNZ
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Oct 17, 2020 11:09
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JcDent posted:Chapter 8: Bazaar, pt. 8 For what seems to be a post-apocalyptic setting (I can't really recall what Degenesis is about right now) there seems to be an awful lot of poo poo for sale in the Bazaar. JcDent posted:Thowinhg Pulsor And presumably any electronic device that's been disconnected from a power source because physics.
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Oct 17, 2020 15:00
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Everyone posted:For what seems to be a post-apocalyptic setting (I can't really recall what Degenesis is about right now) there seems to be an awful lot of poo poo for sale in the Bazaar. This is but a taster, the next bit (read: bajillion posts spread out over 5 years) will be the Real poo poo when it comes to inventory.
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Oct 17, 2020 15:47
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TK_Nyarlathotep posted:I know this is only issue one of an ongoing and it hasn't had time to develop its themes and yadda yadda yadda, but if this is the standard of quality from written 40k works lately (and Chaos help the comic division if this is the best art they can get), it does nothing to dissuade me from my conclusion. No, that's easily the worst art they've ever put in a comic and the writing in the last several years of novels has vastly better than that. They even branched out into a shared setting for telling crime stories in 40K that's starting very strong with noir detective stuff. Your current gold standard in 40K is a fan film though, Space Marines as the terrifying murder monsters they're supposed to be to normal humans: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVXEYksoE6c
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Oct 17, 2020 17:52
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SHADOWRUN 5E a few days ago I had a thought bubble up. “hey you should read and run shadowrun”. I have not known peace since. It’s a fascinating game. There’s a lot of things that are probably bad, a surprising amount of things that are Actually Good, and plenty of overlap between the two, but it’s always interesting. It’s a fantasy cyberpunk rpg emerging from the 80s about paralegal pro-criminals getting involved in bullshit, with multiple huge dicepools for nearly every action, bonkers lore and intense granularity, at least 3 nearly exclusive dimensions for things to happen in, and lots of gear. I don’t have any real experience with shadowrun. I’ve got a lot from osmosis: a broad overview of the concept and themes, as well as specific highlights like > There was a dragon who became president and then exploded in some sort of magical ritual and left a huge will that hosed with everyone in incredible/hilarious ways, including flat million nuyen bounties and big shadowrun opportunities. > There’s an elf called harlequin everyone hates. >Insect Spirits are bad news. I thought this was regular insects for a while but there’s apparently other planes of existence that hate this one and want to make it suffer as some sort of crossover with another fantasy rpg called Earthdawn. Not sure if that’s still a thing though. This is a good point to clarify I’m not familiar with the actual product directly. This is a first timer, though I have actually read the book in prep. I’m expecting to get things wrong, either ruleswise or with the story. There’s a lot to take in. The book starts immediately with an intro telling you how badass you need to be to become a shadowrunner and also are, and then giving you a slang dictionary. Tone could not be set better. Mostly its standard cyberpunk slang from neuromancer as well as hackneyed fantasy racism like Dandelion Eater (elf) or Squishy (non-orc/troll). Ones that aren’t those tend to be good, like Mr Johnson and Chummer, which is a lot stronger than Cyberpunk 2020’s Choombatta. It’s also got one of the frequently occurring short stories. It’s not badly written though it’s a lot of setting style at once: Weird out of date iconography, lots of proper nouns and a general aesthetic mixing pot that’s hard to take your eyes away from. quote:“So next time you geek the elves, end the firefight, an’ get here on time. You ain’t back in your precious Portland. You gotta earn your nuyen in Seattle, kid.” “Right.” Gentry sighed and rolled his eyes, ignoring that, if anything, he was probably a year or two older than the ork.  Lets go, chummers. Wrestlepig fucked around with this message at 22:24 on Oct 17, 2020 |
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Oct 17, 2020 21:46
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SHADOWRUN 5E Part 2: Setting Overview  I like shadowrun's commitment to places that never get attention in other similar media. This is Seattle The book makes an extremely powerful decision to follow up the prose with another section of prose. Then it gets into explaining the setting with some in-character writing going over everything with worrying insistency. I’ll translate as best as I can see. I’m well aware there’s more to it but I’ll work with what I have. Everything has a price: Apparently that’s the thematic core to the game. Solid choice for cyberpunk. Everything is heirarchies defined by conflict to control resources. And also in Shadowrun. The book then starts talking about magic, and how it returned to the world in force officially on 24/11/2011 (so I presume there’s some alt history going on). People had been getting born as Elves and Orcs for a little while, but a Dragon flew around in japan that day and made it official and not some weird genetic condition. After that people figured out how to be wizards, and fantasy stuff is by this point relatively normal, though wizards are rare enough. Dragons are apparently a big deal and tend to be in positions of power. You kind of just have to go with it. It mixes the formula up, and works for RPGs pretty well, at least. It’s dumb, but a dumb that works. Then come Megacorps: the book glosses over how these got started and just say they got a special legal claim to ‘Extraterritoriality’, which lets them act a lot like nation-states, and exert huge levels of control over everyone and everything in their grasp. The world is dominated by 10 different Megacorps, who control the Corporate Court, a UN-style system of arbitration between them. There are other corporations, but the 10 are the main powers. 1. Ares Macrotechnology: Very american style weapons, manufacturing and tech, with a lot of industrial power. Their CEO is named Damien Knight, a name that screams Metaplot. 2. Aztechnology: Kind of like Amazon in a lot of ways. They dominate low level consumer goods but get all over the place, including magic and military stuff. The book says they allegedly love blood magic and evil conspiracies. Also like Amazon. 3. EVO Corporation: Transhumanists looking to take humanity to the next stage of evolution. The next one after the whole magic and metahumanity. Lots of cyberware, genertic engineering and spacefaring, as well as services and products for non-humans. They have a touchy-feely corporate culture, so I hate them more than the aztec guys. 4. Horizon: Specialists in manipulating opinion via media, as well as pharma and real estate (moreso than the regular nation-level megacorp.) They’re apparently nice to Technomancers, unlike me. 5. Mitsuhama Computer Technologies: Computer and robotics focused, as well as a lot of magical goods. They’re apparently very closely tied to the Yakuza, and have a Zero tolerance policy against Shadowrunners, but pay well if they’re hiring and you succeed. 6. Renraku Computer Service: Japanese traditionalists who control huge amounts of data and the internet in Asia. They have some scary military guys called the Red Samurai. Guys I think cyberpunk has a weird relationship with japan 7. Saeder-Krupp Heavy Industries: A german megacorp almost entirely owned by a Dragon named Lofwyr, who’s apparently a tough one to deal with. Mostly in heavy industry, chemicals, finance and aerospace. 8. Shiawase Corporation: A Japanese Zaibatsu that is also traditionalist. More of a family business, which tends to have a lot of infighting that’s good for runs. 9. Wuxing Incorporated: A chinese megacorp that controls a lot of the pacific. Attempts to be very culturally chinese and steeps employees with that culture. No yellow panic there. 10. NEONET: I hosed up the alphabetic order and can’t be hosed fixing it. NEONET do the internet, including managing the Grid Overwatch Division, so gently caress these guys. They have a fractured board full of weirdos, including a dragon, and tend to be unpredictable clients for runners. Next time: The rest of the setting, with Cyberware, nations, crime and Shadowrunning. Wrestlepig fucked around with this message at 22:26 on Oct 17, 2020 |
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Oct 17, 2020 22:23
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Wrestlepig posted:Guys I think cyberpunk has a weird relationship with japan It was the Eighties, everyone had a weird relationship with Japan.
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Oct 17, 2020 22:36
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Madurai posted:It was the Eighties, everyone had a weird relationship with Japan. shadowrun still has it in a pretty incredible way with stuff like katanas being objectively better than regular swords. I love it as a weird retro period piece and part of shadowrun's weird aesthetic charm, but it is Problematic
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Oct 17, 2020 22:59
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As someone who has run SR in the past at the behest of a friend I can straight up tell you that the contrast between its own hype and the reality of playing the game are like night and day. It has all the worst elements of 90's game design, on top of a poo poo ton of problems that it creates for itself. Running this game was infuriating and if anyone asks me to run it again I might literally punch them in the stomach. SR is a game for people who enjoy the idea of growing up to be an accountant, but also love the Highlander franchise. It's a game that loves cyberpunk aesthetics, but only skin deep. However, it's a great game to go shopping in, I will give it that. But it doesn't have any weird rape stuff so I guess it could be worse. Although there is a ton of tone deaf ethnic stereotype stuff that is problematic.
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Oct 17, 2020 23:08
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Ithle01 posted:As someone who has run SR in the past at the behest of a friend I can straight up tell you that the contrast between its own hype and the reality of playing the game are like night and day. It has all the worst elements of 90's game design, on top of a poo poo ton of problems that it creates for itself. Running this game was infuriating and if anyone asks me to run it again I might literally punch them in the stomach. SR is a game for people who enjoy the idea of growing up to be an accountant, but also love the Highlander franchise. It's a game that loves cyberpunk aesthetics, but only skin deep. However, it's a great game to go shopping in, I will give it that. rest assured when I get to the mechanics I will froth at the mouth, the rules are generally overcomplicated and super-granular nonsense. But interesting nonsense.
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Oct 17, 2020 23:13
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There are a lot of games with a great setting hobbled by terrible mechanics, but do you ever get the reverse? I can't think of any.
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Oct 17, 2020 23:28
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I first picked up Shadowrun in the early 90's as a wee lad. I still remember thinking that the worldbuilding was freekin' awesome, and that the combat system was way, way too complex.
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Oct 17, 2020 23:31
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megane posted:There are a lot of games with a great setting hobbled by terrible mechanics, but do you ever get the reverse? I can't think of any.
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Oct 17, 2020 23:34
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megane posted:There are a lot of games with a great setting hobbled by terrible mechanics, but do you ever get the reverse? I can't think of any.
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Oct 17, 2020 23:34
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Hostile V posted:When we were talking about Dogs in the Vineyard this more or less came up. "The mechanics are really great but wow this setting". It's less a totally horrible setting and more that people have, I think reasonably, a lot of skepticism for the project of 'Mormonism is right and good and you are the heroic defenders of the faith from subversion' as a story structure. The setting itself is pretty minimal, but the thematic core certainly turns me off.
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Oct 17, 2020 23:40
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megane posted:There are a lot of games with a great setting hobbled by terrible mechanics, but do you ever get the reverse? I can't think of any. It's something that's going to be very unlikely, because mechanics typically aspire to enable and present the setting--mechanics are often judged on how well they integrate the setting--so if the setting is dire the mechanics are probably going to be middling at best. Sometimes you can find neat ideas, but rarely a full mechanical system that would be great for an entirely different game.
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Oct 17, 2020 23:42
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megane posted:There are a lot of games with a great setting hobbled by terrible mechanics, but do you ever get the reverse? I can't think of any. arguably Shadow of the Demon Lord (for a lot of people anyway)
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Oct 18, 2020 00:00
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Gynovore posted:I first picked up Shadowrun in the early 90's as a wee lad. I still remember thinking that the worldbuilding was freekin' awesome, and that the combat system was way, way too complex. There's never been a 'good' edition of Shadowrun. I think you just hit it with a hammer enough until it more or less does what you want and then you suck it up and play with a very rough rule system. For me that was Shadowrun's third edition which I can run but I would never defend it. I had such hopes for Anarchy but CGL gonna CGL.
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Oct 18, 2020 00:15
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Dawgstar posted:There's never been a 'good' edition of Shadowrun. I think you just hit it with a hammer enough until it more or less does what you want and then you suck it up and play with a very rough rule system. For me that was Shadowrun's third edition which I can run but I would never defend it. Everyone seems to have an edition of Shadowrun that works best for them, and no-one agrees on which one that is. For me it's 4th.
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Oct 18, 2020 00:23
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Shadowrun ended up being one of those things that translates A LOT better as a Video game because all the stupid fiddly bits were either dropped or handled by the computer.
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Oct 18, 2020 00:38
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Tsilkani posted:Everyone seems to have an edition of Shadowrun that works best for them, and no-one agrees on which one that is. For me it's 4th. Yeah, 4th has it's problems with min-maxing and how karma could insta-win, but it's still the best version to me, because it breaks down the hacker experience to a couple of dice rolls to hack some IoT gizmo instead of the hacker doing their own minigame while everyone else plays X-Box or goes for food.
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Oct 18, 2020 00:52
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Robindaybird posted:Shadowrun ended up being one of those things that translates A LOT better as a Video game because all the stupid fiddly bits were either dropped or handled by the computer.
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Oct 18, 2020 01:01
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SHADOWRUN 5e more broad setting concepts The setting chapter continues talking about Cyberware. Originally for prosthetics, it became another way to get ahead of your competition in the rat-race everything is now. Get a new hand so you can type faster, or directly interface with tech, or something. It hasn’t gone especially wild with the tech, there’s no Full Borg conversions like in Cyberpunk 2020, but it’s a prominent part of the setting. For whatever reason, getting your form altered affects your soul: draining away at something called your Essence. There’s been a lot of dialogue about this: It’s a metaphor for losing yourself by embracing tech and conflict, selling out in pursuit of power and so on that doesn’t line up with questions like: “isn’t this saying transgender people have less of a soul?” or “If I’m disabled and get life-changing medical treatment why am I a lesser being on some level” or “hang on, there’s elves and orcs, so the concept of metahumanity is pretty flexible, and they have the same essence, so why is tweaking Human-ness negative?” or “Why not just get this on a pair of glasses or my commlink?” Some of these have answers. 1. Its magic: If you lose essence you also lose a roughly equivalent magic stat. So there. 2. It doesn’t really have too much of an impact if you aren’t a Wizard or Adept. A Social character will want to avoid it to an extent as it has an uncanny valley effect that reduces your Social skills a bit, but you’ll come out ahead if you don’t go overboard. Other than that as far as I can tell it just makes it easier to survive a vampire attack. 3. 70% of the time you’ll want it on an external device. Unless you’re a Rigger and need a direct interface control to possess vehicles and drones, or a Street Samurai wanting the most out of a Smartlink and Wireless Reflexes, you’ll probably just look for some stat boosts and minor things. I would put ‘game balance’ as reason four but this game doesn’t give a poo poo and even if it did it’d gently caress it up somehow.  The game gives a little chat about the general lives of people. There’s a broad class divide between people who have a System Identification Number, or SIN, that gives them a place in government and corporate systems, and SINless people who form a broad underclass. SINners are generally wageslaves working dull 12-hour shifts in a faceless corp who suppress your freedoms and self-expression and keep you in their ecosystem, and SINless people, mostly people convicted of crimes, or victims of discrimination, generally anyone who ends up with a bad permanent record, who live as best they can in the shadows, generally in poverty unless they strike it big. As a shadowrunner, you’re probably without a legit SIN. It’s some solid flavour, though it’s a pretty big mechanical thing: Either you invest in a solid fake one if your GM is potentially going to gently caress you over or you like the taste of the flavour stuff, or you don’t care too much. All the nations of the world are still around: They’re generally interesting at least at this broader level. America was split apart by native american secessionist movements shortly after magic arose, and got shuffled up pretty heavily. They don’t go into much detail, which is interesting: The book doesn’t even mention the Ghost Dance or Howling Coyote in the broad strokes. The main players are UCAS, a united northern America and Canada that’s close to the current USA. There’s the Native American Nations, a broad banner of different countries built around coalitions of different first peoples. There’s a Confederacy but the book doesn’t say how racist they are, just that the security corp Lone Star is from there. There’s a couple other independent city states as well. California and Quebec seceded, Denver’s hosed up and there’s an Elven nation called Tir Tairngire.  Down past Texas everything is split between Aztlan where Mexico is, dominated by Aztechnology, and Amazonia, run by a eco-friendly dragon. Asia has Imperial Japan coming back, and it has a lot of megacorporate power sourced from it. Hong Kong is a runner’s haven with lots of action, and Russia is split up into pieces but has a lot of weight to throw around, including the industrial hub of Vladivostok. Europe is pretty lame: Germany has expanded under the control of Saeder-Krupp, but has a high Neo-Anarchist presence and a lot of ecological disaster. The balkans are politically unstable, but everything else is business is usual. It really says that. I’m pretty sure Ireland is supposed to have gone to the elves, no mention of that though. Africa has a lot of radical changes going on: Egypt has expanded though the neighbouring nations hold it at bay, including Ethiopia which seems to have grown. There’s a Ghoul Kingdom of Asamando (Badass unless it gets into weird territory with cannibal tribes, it doesn’t say), The Kingdom of Nigeria is expanded and has tribal infighting over oil revenue, Kenya is a hub for space travel, and the south is dominated by a growing but fractured nation of Azania. Pretty cool on a surface level, but plenty of room to go wrong. Oceania is wild: Australia has an outback swept by wild magic and has all sorts of strange para-zoology going on, and Tasmania is sentient and hates technology. They tried to annex Papua New Guinea and it only kind of stuck, so there’s a resistance movement there. It’s interesting since the core is clearly “This is what someone from 1980 knew about Australia” Governments still exist but generally don’t have much power to stand against Shadowrunners or Megacorps on a local level. Political groups are a big deal for Runners though, either as targets, clients or hired goons for someone else. There’s a lot of racial supremacist groups, like Humanis, basically the proud boys or Maga fucks of 2070, and a lot worse beneath. There’s metahuman equivalents of varying niceness, like the political Ork Rights Commission or the violent Sons of Sauron. I think the Elf equivalent was super successful since there’s multiple elf nations that are probably supreme assholes. Any runner I’d play is probably going to be cool with Ork Malcom X, they get discriminated against a lot in the setting. And also in the mechanics but whatever. It talks a little about organised crime around here as well, since you’ll engage with it a lot. The mafia is practically a megacorp, the Yakuza almost is since they’re so tied to Mitsuhama, the Triads are doing well since they’re decentralised, which helps them adapt to new demographics like metahumans and magic users. The russian mob, Vory v Zakone, are a lot more direct and violent than others, and the Koshari, the native american crime syndicate, specialise in smuggling and dealing magical gear and talismans. Regular street gangs and bikies are common, and generally have a dumb theme. There’s also Neo Anarchists, which is a broad label for basically the whole left. Since the world’s run by megacorps, they’re pretty reasonable. They get recommended as useful allies, if annoying.  There’s a couple broader conspiracies and other Shadow Groups it namedrops as well. Jackpoint is a super-expert hacker collective, The Denver Nexus is a hacker group guarding a secret haven of data, The Black Lodge is bad news: a group of secretive wizards that have a lot of secretive political control that you don’t want to cross. New Revolution is dedicated to bringing back the United States of America, a move that will piss off practically anyone with any point of view at all. As a minor note as well: Academia. Most universities are corporate training, but a few are still independent and useful clients and contacts, since they’re free thinkers. Magic is a big subject of study: there’s some relatively benign groups like the Draco Institute or MIT&T, or the Atlantean Foundation that appreciate a mage’s help, or need a run done to grab archaeological finds, magic critters or other useful info. Next Time: Culture and Shadowrunning
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Oct 18, 2020 02:34
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And there are a couple of FitD and PbtA Shadowrun hacks. Forged in the Dark seems tailor made for anything cyberpunk-related, especially the heist/caper setup that SR is built around.
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Oct 18, 2020 02:47
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Young Freud posted:Yeah, 4th has it's problems with min-maxing and how karma could insta-win, but it's still the best version to me, because it breaks down the hacker experience to a couple of dice rolls to hack some IoT gizmo instead of the hacker doing their own minigame while everyone else plays X-Box or goes for food. The ne plus ultra of exclusive hacking minigames was in CP2020 wherein there were optional rules for playing a game of the old Netrunner CCG for hacking attempts.
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Oct 18, 2020 03:04
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mllaneza posted:And there are a couple of FitD and PbtA Shadowrun hacks. Forged in the Dark seems tailor made for anything cyberpunk-related, especially the heist/caper setup that SR is built around. The modern hacks work very well, but the abstraction comes at a cost of having more interesting execution and decision making. I'd love to see the complexity done properly. I like the core of a lot of the systems, as well as poo poo like going through lists and customizing your gear to an absurd degree. Maybe something like the one-roll engine, or just a Heavy pruning of this one. Wrestlepig fucked around with this message at 03:12 on Oct 18, 2020 |
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Oct 18, 2020 03:08
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honestly there's really nothing wrong with the fixed TN d6 dice pool system used as the core resolution mechanic from 4e onwards, the issues stem from all the things surrounding it (though there's also no real need to stick with it) I'd also like a crunchier iteration, Shadowrun has a lot of sacred cows in need of slaughtering, but imo supporting gear porn is a worthy goal and something that is sacrificed by most of the well-intentioned attempts to un-gently caress the system something like Anarchy seems a move in the right direction, just, y'know, not woefully incomplete and executed about as poorly as could be imagined (I'd also like some bolder design decisions - i.e. dramatic editing/flashback mechanics to better support heist gameplay)
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Oct 18, 2020 03:25
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