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The Lone Badger posted:Cyberzombies are such nightmares that they generate a magical background count just by walling around existing. The sort of thing you normally only find at the site of particularly nasty atrocities. Cyberzombies were a pre-SR4 workaround to making something like full-conversion cyborgs in Shadowrun, since adding all these cyberlimbs and augmentations would take them past their essence limits. That is until the SR4 book Augmentation came out and created full-conversion cyborgs, that were essentially humanoid drones being driven by 0.1 Essence brains-in-jars.
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Feb 1, 2022 05:03
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And I bet they're real fun to talk to in parties.
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Feb 1, 2022 05:12
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PurpleXVI posted:Are any horrors ever statted up in any SR edition or are they just "eat 1d6 runners per round, you lose" if one should happen to pop up? Powerful spirits can just conjure up wealth, but the real thing they offer is stuff like magical power and knowledge, pacts that bring unnatural fortune in exchange for sacrifice, that sort of thing. You could stat a Horror, but you can stat a Great Dragon too. They ate whatever it was that made the Great Dragons during the Second World, which is what motivated the dragons to develop formalized magic. The dragons didn't quite win the next go around, but life survived the Fourth World incursion. If I had to actually come up with a way for players to fight a no-poo poo Horror, I'd start it around Force 20 and make it dependent on objects or celebrants in its environment that were keeping the background high enough to sustain its presence in the physical world, and knock off some Force every time one of them was dealt with. (Gigantic SR: Hong Kong spoilers) Qian Ya, the final boss of SRHK, is an example of a mid-tier Horror. Her main body can be hurt, and even temporarily slain, but she can't actually be killed because she is a god -- the battle is a ritual, and you have to trick her into giving up her claim on the Walled City's misery. She can only exert her influence on the world because of a particular cascading failure of events that is the equivalent of a massive manatech/industrial accident and some unique sabotage: Raymond's Fortune Engine is literally acting as a bridge between the deep astral and the real world, and it's "stuck" with one end in her realm and one in ours, but it wouldn't work that way if the Fortune Siphon hadn't been installed without his knowledge.
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Feb 1, 2022 05:38
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spider bethlehem posted:I tried to play this and I still don't think we got the rules right but the way it was presented to us at the time Armor made the combat an intensely unpleasant slog or else instantly and irreducibly fatal, which is very true to the Cyberpunk Legacy ("everyone who didn't buy a helmet at character generation, go ahead and roll a new PC") but was no fun at all to play.
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Feb 1, 2022 09:02
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wiegieman posted:
Man, I hope they make another Shadowrun game, Dragonfall and Hong Kong were really great stories. rules-lawyering the Queen of a Thousand Teeth into loving off and getting nothing in exchange was pretty boss ngl
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Feb 1, 2022 11:05
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 F&F: Cyberpunk Red Jumpstart Kit #2: Rule Book Intro and Characters The Rule Book is 44 pages long. I'll be doing it in sections: In this first one, I'll tackle chapters 1–3, which introduce the player to the setting, guide them through picking a character, and finally show them how to chart the character's backstory with the Lifepath mechanic. After that I'll do the back half of chapter 5, which explains the general skill system. I'll finish chapter 5 along with chapter 7 when I look at the combat rules. Chapter 4 has cyberware, and I'll wrap the book up by checking out chapter 6 which is all about I can't decide how I feel about designers consistently leading with the character generation before the actual rules. On the one hand, this really sucks because you can't actually make informed decisions about your character until you've read the entire book. On the other, reading about all the cool characters you can play is way more interesting than the part that explains how to roll a d10 over a Difficulty Value. It's exactly like our world The intro chapter explains the setting in the briefest of nutshells: In the eighties, people came up with cool fiction about cool science and the ice-cold cyberpunks who lived the cyber life. This was a whole dang Movement. Well turns out what they thought was fantasy was actually becoming real! It's 2020-something ("Time of the Red") and technology is awesome now, you can plug into your car and, like, control it with your mind, maaan. The advancement of technology has been so rapid that society itself struggles to keep up, with some people turning to those 1980s visionaries for inspiration. Oh and back in 1994 both the US's and the Soviet Union's economies crashed, leaving the Euro–Combines holding the stock market up. Today, Megacorps run the world and everyone who doesn't want to live on the streets signs up for a lifetime contract. Sometimes they go to war. Last time someone nuked downtown Night City. I don't know where that is. The skies are red way more often now. Don't worry about it. The World Book has 50 pages of this stuff just waiting for us. There's a glossary, as always. "Choombatta" is Neo-Afro American for "buddy", pal. That pops up a lot in this book. Neat setting details include industrial rock being called "chromatic rock", cars running on alcohol, and people getting furry mods. Can you guess what "input" and "output" mean?  The dirty jokes write themselves Back to those ice-cold cyberpunks. In this game, player characters are called "Edgerunners" and the game really leans into that. The game gives three guidelines for players to capture the tone of the setting:
And who are the bad guys? Anyone who's crossed you, really. It's a dog eat dog world, but Maximum Mike encourages you to look out for the people close to you. More on that in a bit. I actually like the tone the game goes for, but every time I see the word "Edgerunner" I can't help but think of this:  A class act Cyberpunk Red divides characters into nine Roles with cool names like Rockerboy (punk rock activist), Netrunner (wizard hacker) and Solo (hit person). The box set comes with partly-filled out sheets for six of these archetypes for the players to pick from, with a handy description of each Role's, uh, role in the world. Some of them get a bit goofy: quote:Sometimes what you say is going to get right in the faces of the powerful people who really want to run this world. But you don't care, because as a Rockerboy, you know it's your place to challenge authority, whether in straight-out protest songs that tell it like it is, playing kick-rear end rock n' roll to get the people away from the TV sets and into the Streets, firing up the crowd with speeches, or composing fiery writings that shape the minds and hearts of millions. You have a proud history as a Rockerboy. Dylan, Springsteen, the Who, Elvis, the Stones—the legions of hard-rock heroes who told the truth with screaming guitars or gut-honest lyrics. Far as I can tell, there are no mechanical differences between the Roles in the Jumpstart Kit. The full game gives each a special ability, but for brevity all but the Netrunner's netrunning ability have been left out of this version.  Here's one of the example characters in the box, Racer the Nomad:  At the top, below the character's name, is a set of six stat lines. Roll a single d6 to determine which one you get. Some of the lines are just better than others. The Core rules have more options for generating your stats – this one was chosen for the Jumpstart because it's fast and doesn't give you awful rolls, which says something alarming about the other options. The stats are pretty much the same old, same old, and range from 1–10. BODY measures the size of your guts, COOL is what you use to stare people down, LUCK lets you spend points to boost sketchy rolls. "EMP" stands for "empathy", not "electromagnetic pulse resistance" or whatever. Spoiler alert: Dexterity is once again the god stat if you intend to do action movie type stuff, but Reflexes rule the gun fight. For Racer I rolled statline #2. That might be the worst of the bunch, but at least she's COOL as all hell. That'll come in handy later. On the downside, that EMP 3 means she has no people skills whatsoever. Below that are your hit points. You get BODY times 5 hit points. If you go below half your max hit points, you take a penalty to all checks. Your Death Save starts equal to your BODY. Tune in when we get to the combat rules to find out how these all work! Your character also has a predetermined set of skills. Eight of the twelve skills are basic skills that everyone has, which leaves four role-specific ones. For Racer here those are Driving, Marksmanship, Melee Weapons and Tracking. Like stats, skills go up to 10. Want to choose your own skills? Buy the full game! "Wait," I hear you say. "Marksmanship isn't a basic skill for Edgerunners, running on the Edge?" It isn't! In the full game, you can decide to make a character who can not shoot a gun! Thankfully, all of the Jumpstart pre-gens do to some extent. Finally, you have equipment and cyberware, which pretty much do what it says on the tin. More on those in future updates. That's it. That's your hero. You couldn't get more bare bones if you tried, and I'm still left thinking "man, death to ability scores".  The pregen crew. Spot the character who gets to have a Special Ability. Where did you come from where will you go Right, the blank boxes. Those are for your Lifepath, which is just a fancy name for a set of d10 tables from which you can pick or roll background details for your hero. There's only seven in the Jumpstart, more in the full game. So Racer here is a Nomad, which just means she's a bootleg Road Warrior. In the post-war world, she helps run the convoys of stuff that keep civilization running. Let's roll her a Lifepath. She's stuck with a generations old family feud. Racer's motivation is keeping her word and she dreams of becoming feared and respected. She has [d10-7] no friends and [d10-5] no enemies, which is super boring and I'd have to go back to fix those if I was playing for real. She used to have a lover, but a rival got between them. As a person, Racer is shy and secretive. So what do we have here? Well, first of all, we can tell from her low EMP and high COOL that Racer's indeed a shy geek, but she's actually so aloof everyone thinks she's actually super cool and mysterious. According to the short blurb on the back of her sheet, Nomads organize themselves in familial convoys, so the feud is probably between two rival families. I could see some kind of forbidden love thing here where Racer'a lover is from the rival family and they can't be together because of the feud. She's got no friends or enemies, so she must be new here: Torn between her love on the one hand and obligation to her family on the other, she opts to take a car and flee to Night City to start a life on her own. Maybe, with the right crew, she could become big enough a player to rival both families… Who are you Here's Racer's finished sheet:  Not a lot of additions! Mechanically the characters are all dull as dishwater but the sections on how to play on the Edge and lifepaths salvage things. It's fairly clear that Maximum Mike wants the game to be about what these ice-cold cyberpunks do about the lovely world around them instead of just doing wetwork for one Johnson after another. While the Lifepath tables are a very bare-bones method, they give players some ties to the setting that the GM can build games around and really make the adventures personal. The only downside in the Jumpstart tables is that you can easily roll a character with no friends or enemies, which is pretty dumb! Next time: We learn how to add and compare integers. Siivola fucked around with this message at 19:46 on Feb 1, 2022 |
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Feb 1, 2022 11:36
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Hipster Occultist posted:Man, I hope they make another Shadowrun game, Dragonfall and Hong Kong were really great stories. Not gonna lie, I hope they make another Shadowrun game, and let HBG write it, and then repeatedly hit them with a rock whenever they try to touch the gameplay. Outsource that poo poo to some people who know what the gently caress they're doing. Siivola posted:
I'm amused that COOL and EMPathy are two separate stats. Like the idea that you can apparently dunk on people with STYLE and COOLNESS while also being completely unable to fit a room. On the one hand it sounds stupid, because if you're trying to impress or intimidate people, you need to understand them to some extent. On the other hand it sounds hilarious, the idea that you have this SUPER BADASS STAGE PERSONA and then the moment someone actually talks to you off-stage you're a mumbling socially awkward wreck. PurpleXVI fucked around with this message at 13:36 on Feb 1, 2022 |
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Feb 1, 2022 12:36
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Siivola posted:Not a lot of additions! Mechanically the characters are all dull as dishwater but the sections on how to play on the Edge and lifepaths salvage things. It's fairly clear that Maximum Mike wants the game to be about what these ice-cold cyberpunks do about the lovely world around them instead of just doing wetwork for one Johnson after another. While the Lifepath tables are a very bare-bones method, they give players some ties to the setting that the GM can build games around and really make the adventures personal. The only downside in the Jumpstart tables is that you can easily roll a character with no friends or enemies, which is pretty dumb! It's true. Max Mike's design theory, philosophy, whatever for Cyberpunk is that Cyberpunk is about saving yourself and those closest to you, not the world. If you do good along the way, great. The Lifepath tables myself I've always used if inspiration didn't strike and we generally let people just pick how many friends/enemies/tragic love interests they wanted.
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Feb 1, 2022 14:51
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PurpleXVI posted:Not gonna lie, I hope they make another Shadowrun game, and let HBG write it, and then repeatedly hit them with a rock whenever they try to touch the gameplay. Outsource that poo poo to some people who know what the gently caress they're doing. I don't mind the main combat but gently caress the decking segments, especially HK's. The TT combat is a loving mess, and there's definitely problematic elements thanks to being rooted in the start of Cyberpunk but I can't help but love SR's Sci-fi and Fantasy blend.
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Feb 1, 2022 16:07
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PurpleXVI posted:Not gonna lie, I hope they make another Shadowrun game, and let HBG write it, and then repeatedly hit them with a rock whenever they try to touch the gameplay. Outsource that poo poo to some people who know what the gently caress they're doing. I mean intuitively it makes sense, people can get far on being all front and no center. If that's worth two separate attributes is another question, but having a core attribute named COOL is a respectably straightforward way to communicate game theme
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Feb 1, 2022 16:11
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PurpleXVI posted:Not gonna lie, I hope they make another Shadowrun game, and let HBG write it, and then repeatedly hit them with a rock whenever they try to touch the gameplay. Outsource that poo poo to some people who know what the gently caress they're doing. The way the video game plays it, the conversation options that are gated by COOL are saying/doing incredibly cringy things. So it's simultaneously "Your ability to slaughter hundreds like an unfeeling wave of death" and "Your self image is durable enough that you're willing to pose for a selfie with a K-pop group."
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Feb 1, 2022 16:23
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Kurieg posted:The way the video game plays it, the conversation options that are gated by COOL are saying/doing incredibly cringy things. So it's simultaneously "Your ability to slaughter hundreds like an unfeeling wave of death" and "Your self image is durable enough that you're willing to pose for a selfie with a K-pop group." Assuming I caught everything (I don't have my book on my phone, just my game notes), the skills tied to COOL in RED are Persuasion, Bribery, and Interrogation, while EMP has Conversation, Human Perception, and Play Instrument. So the RPG divides somewhat differently from how 2077 does, but not that far off I guess?
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Feb 1, 2022 16:27
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PurpleXVI posted:I'm amused that COOL and EMPathy are two separate stats. Like the idea that you can apparently dunk on people with STYLE and COOLNESS while also being completely unable to fit a room. On the one hand it sounds stupid, because if you're trying to impress or intimidate people, you need to understand them to some extent. On the other hand it sounds hilarious, the idea that you have this SUPER BADASS STAGE PERSONA and then the moment someone actually talks to you off-stage you're a mumbling socially awkward wreck.
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Feb 1, 2022 16:32
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SkyeAuroline posted:Assuming I caught everything (I don't have my book on my phone, just my game notes), the skills tied to COOL in RED are Persuasion, Bribery, and Interrogation, while EMP has Conversation, Human Perception, and Play Instrument. So the RPG divides somewhat differently from how 2077 does, but not that far off I guess? Weirdly, the game has both Perception (INT) and Human Perception (EMP), which can both be used to spot lies. Makes sense, I guess: You can either notice the details don't add up with the facts, or that the guy is sweating bullets and contradicting themselves. Siivola fucked around with this message at 16:46 on Feb 1, 2022 |
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Feb 1, 2022 16:44
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SkyeAuroline posted:Assuming I caught everything (I don't have my book on my phone, just my game notes), the skills tied to COOL in RED are Persuasion, Bribery, and Interrogation, while EMP has Conversation, Human Perception, and Play Instrument. So the RPG divides somewhat differently from how 2077 does, but not that far off I guess? The game only has Body, Cool, Intelligence, Reflexes, and Technical Ability. Reflexes governs bladed weapons and non-tech guns, and also increases crit chance. Cool increases your crit damage and handles most of the stealth stuff.
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Feb 1, 2022 17:00
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Siivola posted:Weirdly, the game has both Perception (INT) and Human Perception (EMP), which can both be used to spot lies. Makes sense, I guess: You can either notice the details don't add up with the facts, or that the guy is sweating bullets and contradicting themselves. Gotta have Cyber-Columbo.
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Feb 1, 2022 17:05
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Robindaybird posted:I don't mind the main combat but gently caress the decking segments, especially HK's. Oh the main combat worked but it was just so... bland and completely undemanding that you could sleep through it. SkyeAuroline posted:Assuming I caught everything (I don't have my book on my phone, just my game notes), the skills tied to COOL in RED are Persuasion, Bribery, and Interrogation, while EMP has Conversation, Human Perception, and Play Instrument. So the RPG divides somewhat differently from how 2077 does, but not that far off I guess? I would absolutely say that bribery and interrogation would be more about empathy. How can you bribe someone if you can't understand what they want? How can you wriggle information out of someone if you don't know what they're afraid of or interested in? What matters to them? Persuasion I suppose I could see in that sometimes you can absolutely take in some suckers just by saying absolute bullshit with perfect confidence, but even then you have to have some faint understanding of your audience(or a good script writer).
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Feb 1, 2022 17:18
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You're thinking of the wrong kind of "interrogation". Edit: That got dark. To me, COOL without EMP is the kind of character archetype who doesn't care what other people want. They just autopilot through interactions with cues like "people like compliments" and "crooks want money" and fill in the rest with a firm handshake and an ice-cold glare. There's a vibe in Cyberpunk Red that every interaction should be one bad move away from a Mexican Standoff and its COOL is the kind of cool that doesn't take "no" for an answer. But also, holy poo poo lmao is Racer inept at people skills. More on that tomorrow. Siivola fucked around with this message at 18:04 on Feb 1, 2022 |
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Feb 1, 2022 17:39
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PurpleXVI posted:I would absolutely say that bribery and interrogation would be more about empathy. How can you bribe someone if you can't understand what they want? How can you wriggle information out of someone if you don't know what they're afraid of or interested in? What matters to them? Persuasion I suppose I could see in that sometimes you can absolutely take in some suckers just by saying absolute bullshit with perfect confidence, but even then you have to have some faint understanding of your audience(or a good script writer).
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Feb 1, 2022 18:08
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So it's mixed with Cool from olde Warhammer?
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Feb 1, 2022 18:13
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Dawgstar posted:There's a house rule I like for RED's armor that makes pistols dangerous and tamps down on indestructible PCs (or NPCs). Instead of like normal just give the armor ratings of 1-4 (1 for like Nomad leathers, 4 for the heavy stuff) and subtract that from each damage d6 rolled. This is a good house rule. I also think the Cyberpunk 2020/Friday Night Firefight combat engine really kind of predates the idea that an rpg campaign is just a series of fights culminating in a big last fight where you kill someone - the bleed-out tables and the constant need to recalculate based on pain thresholds is at least Hollywood realistic, but it's not conducive to a game where characters grow and evolve together. That said the gruesome math of the system (legendarily said to be based on the 1980s FBI report on violent crime statistics, I think) does lead to some good stories, like the whole "everyone who isn't wearing a helmet dies instantly" or the time a pc in a white tshirt with the cheapest shittiest gun got a high ranking corpo exec enemy alone at a beach resort and instantly killed him with two shots, but at the table, it was always either heavily armored murder men very slowly chewing each other up with battle rifles or else someone getting splattered first round. I have used it effectively for a Resident Evil 4 style zombie gunfight, and it might be fun for an explicit funnel-generation character meatgrinder kind of scene, but I think Cyberpunk as an rpg series has always had better ideas and more fun on paper than it does at the table. Adding the X-men in was still a weird choice tho.
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Feb 1, 2022 18:49
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God, look at the codpiece. The musculature. The way his face is all crowded into a tiny wedge of his head. Incredible. I misread this as "going after Public Enemy" and I was like "Wow frank did not care for It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back" And this is a generator for Cyberpunk2020 lifepaths. For some reason I keep getting ukrainian pirates whose families are extremely split about them.
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Feb 1, 2022 19:00
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Infinity RPG: Haqqislam Deserted Lifepath So, we're going to make two characters this time - both human, because there's not an alien option for this book. Both will be mostly through standard chargen, not point buy, except that we're going to assume they both roll human and Haqq. Our characters will be Aisha bint Raman and Syed Fazzari. Decisions 1-2 We go with normal human Birth Host for both our characters, since we don't have a solid idea of what they'll be yet. They also both roll Haqqislam without spending any points, mysteriously, by magic. This means both get Medicine and Education Expertise. Aisha takes Medicine as her first Signature, while Syed takes Education. Aisha bint Raman Faction: Haqqislam Agility 7, Awareness 7, Brawn 7, Coordination 7, Intelligence 7, Personality 7, Willpower 7 Skills: Medicine Expertise 1 Focus 1, Education Expertise 1 Signature Skills: Medicine Talents: Physician (standard Medicine reroller) Syed Fazzari Faction: Haqqislam Agility 7, Awareness 7, Brawn 7, Coordination 7, Intelligence 7, Personality 7, Willpower 7 Skills: Medicine Expertise 1, Education Expertise 1 Focus 1 Signature Skills: Education Talents: Disciplined Student (if you get at least one success on an Education roll, you may roll a bonus die and add it to your result) Decistion 3 We continue as normal in the core, rolling on the Haqqislam homelands table. Aisha rolls a 12 - she's from the Al Medinat Caliphate on Bourak, gaining Arabic, a reroll on the table for a second language, and a boost to Personality, Willpower and Science. Her second roll (16) gives her Arabic again, so she's monolingual. Syed rolls a 7. He's from Gabqar. He gets Arabic and Kyrgyz, and bonuses to Brawn, Willpower and Survival. Aisha bint Raman Faction: Haqqislam Agility 7, Awareness 7, Brawn 7, Coordination 7, Intelligence 7, Personality 8, Willpower 8 Skills: Medicine Expertise 1 Focus 1, Education Expertise 1, Science Expertise 1 Signature Skills: Medicine Talents: Physician Languages: Arabic Syed Fazzari Faction: Haqqislam Agility 7, Awareness 7, Brawn 8, Coordination 7, Intelligence 7, Personality 7, Willpower 8 Skills: Medicine Expertise 1, Education Expertise 1 Focus 1, Survival Expertise 1 Signature Skills: Education Talents: Disciplined Student Decision 4 This is where we go to the Haqq book. Haqqislam has a slightly lower chance of rolling Demogrant social status, as they have a unique social status chart that includes the Al-Mustaslaha status. This is for children who are wards of the state - orphans (the Orphaned), those donated to the state by their families (the Donated), or those rescued from slavers, pirates or other threats (the Delivered). Ak-Mustaslaha do not receive Cubes until adulthood, and indeed are equipped with memory recording inhibitors until then. They cannot die until after their first Career; if they would, they instead get -2 Vigor and +1 Resolve due to being saved from the brink of death. Once their first career is done they can spend 1 LP to gain a Cube, but once they have one, they can die in chargen as normal. You lose your Al-Mustaslaha status at Decision 8, becoming officially Middle class, as it is purely a status of childhood. All are raised in service to the faith and the state, receiving an excellent education and increased access to government service jobs. Not all enter the military, but many do, and all can choose Akbar Doctor, Military or Special Forces as their first career automatically. So, let's get rolling! Aisha rolls 2 - she is Underclass, a rarity on Bourak because it only happens when someone entirely refuses the Demogrant. She gets +1 Willpower and Earnings 1. She also rolls a 2 for home environment - Violent. It's possible her parents were criminals who rejected the demogrant to get off-grid. +1 Brawn, +1 Athletics. Syed rolls a 7 - Middle class. +1 Coordination, Earnings 3. His home life was Rebellious (4) - +1 Awareness, +1 Pilot. He rebelled against his average, middle-class upbringing and admired the Kum. Aisha bint Raman Faction: Haqqislam Agility 7, Awareness 7, Brawn 8, Coordination 7, Intelligence 7, Personality 8, Willpower 9 Skills: Athletics Expertise 1, Medicine Expertise 1 Focus 1, Education Expertise 1, Science Expertise 1 Signature Skills: Medicine Talents: Physician Languages: Arabic Social Status: Underclass Earnings: 1 Syed Fazzari Faction: Haqqislam Agility 7, Awareness 8, Brawn 8, Coordination 7, Intelligence 7, Personality 7, Willpower 8 Skills: Medicine Expertise 1, Education Expertise 1 Focus 1, Pilot Expertise 1, Survival Expertise 1 Signature Skills: Education Talents: Disciplined Student Social Status: Middle Earnings: 3 Decisions 5-6 For youth event, Aisha rolls 17,5 - gained a mentor, roll on faction table. She rolls an 8 there. Her mentor is from Yu Jing. We can figure out how that fits in later. Her Education roll gets us...5, a Creative Education. Aisha attends a local philosophical and art school. No charge, because even if her parents rejected the Demogrant, education is universal on Bourak. This is likely where she met her Yu Jingese mentor, who is probably there to help teach something. +2 Personality, +1 Willpower, -1 Brawn, training in Discipline, Education, Lifestyle, Observation, Persuade and 2 of Analysis, Pilot or Tech - we take Pilot and Tech. She also gains a Cosmetics Kit, a Recorder and 1 Asset. Four our Signature skill, we'll take Discipline. Syed rolls 2,1 as his youth event - he witnessed perjury, likely as part of his obsession with the Kum. His parents, hoping to get him to stop admiring criminals so much, ship him off to a caravanserai for Orbital Training School (18). +2 Intelligence, +1 Awareness, -1 Personality. He gains skill in Discipline, Education, Pilot, Spacecraft, Extraplanetary, and two of Lifestyle, Resistance and Tech. We grab Tech and Resistance from those, and his second Signature Skill is Pilot. He gains a vac suit with locational beacon and 5 Oxygen Loads. Aisha bint Raman Faction: Haqqislam Agility 7, Awareness 7, Brawn 7, Coordination 7, Intelligence 7, Personality 10, Willpower 10 Skills: Athletics Expertise 1, Discipline Expertise 1 Focus 1, Education Expertise 1 Focus 1, Lifestyle Expertise 1, Medicine Expertise 1 Focus 1, Observation Expertise 1, Persuade Expertise 1, Pilot Expertise 1, Science Expertise 1, Tech Expertise 1 Signature Skills: Medicine, Discipline Talents: Physician, Stubborn (basic Discipline reroller) Languages: Arabic Social Status: Underclass Earnings: 1 Gear: Cosmetics Kit, Recorder, 1 Asset Syed Fazzari Faction: Haqqislam Agility 7, Awareness 9, Brawn 8, Coordination 7, Intelligence 9, Personality 6, Willpower 8 Skills: Discipline Expertise 1, Education Expertise 2 Focus 1, Extraplanetary Expertise 1, Medicine Expertise 1, Pilot Expertise 2 Focus 1, Resistance Expertise 1, Spacecraft Expertise 1, Survival Expertise 1, Tech Expertise 1 Signature Skills: Education, Pilot Talents: Disciplined Student, Ace (basic Pilot reroller) Social Status: Middle Earnings: 3 Gear: Vac Suit with Locational Beacon, 5 Oxygen Loads Decision 7 Here we go back to the Haqq book - we have a 50% chance of getting the new Haqq table, and a 50% chance of one of the core book tables. Aisha rolls a 4, getting Adolescent Table A from the core. She rolls a 5 on that - her geist's personality undergoes a rapid shift overnight, as it is transformed into an ALEPH Aspect. She may choose to swap to ALEPH faction (but doesn't) and can freely join Bureau Toth as her starting career. She also gains the Watched By the AI trait. Syed rolls a 2 - the Haqqislam table. He rolls a 10 on that. On his way home from the caravanserai he trained at, he takes a stop at the University of Medina and becomes fascinated by it. He gains the Insatiably Curious trait and may freely choose Academic as his first career. Aisha bint Raman Faction: Haqqislam Agility 7, Awareness 7, Brawn 7, Coordination 7, Intelligence 7, Personality 10, Willpower 10 Skills: Athletics Expertise 1, Discipline Expertise 1 Focus 1, Education Expertise 1 Focus 1, Lifestyle Expertise 1, Medicine Expertise 1 Focus 1, Observation Expertise 1, Persuade Expertise 1, Pilot Expertise 1, Science Expertise 1, Tech Expertise 1 Signature Skills: Medicine, Discipline Talents: Physician, Stubborn (basic Discipline reroller) Languages: Arabic Social Status: Underclass Earnings: 1 Gear: Cosmetics Kit, Recorder, 1 Asset Traits: Watched by the AI Syed Fazzari Faction: Haqqislam Agility 7, Awareness 9, Brawn 8, Coordination 7, Intelligence 9, Personality 6, Willpower 8 Skills: Discipline Expertise 1, Education Expertise 2 Focus 1, Extraplanetary Expertise 1, Medicine Expertise 1, Pilot Expertise 2 Focus 1, Resistance Expertise 1, Spacecraft Expertise 1, Survival Expertise 1, Tech Expertise 1 Signature Skills: Education, Pilot Talents: Disciplined Student, Ace (basic Pilot reroller) Social Status: Middle Earnings: 3 Gear: Vac Suit with Locational Beacon, 5 Oxygen Loads Traits: Insatiably Curious Decision 8 Both our characters still have 5 LP. Aisha is going to spend 1 to roll on the new, expanded Haqqislam Career Table for her first career. This is a d20 table, but she rolls a 19 - reroll on the faction table of your choice. We reroll...on this one again. This time we get a 4: Terraforming Scientist. Aisha manages to excel in her artistic career and is chosen to join a Gardening Guild as a landscape sculptor. This is a core book career, so we check what it gives us. +2 in Awareness and Intelligence, +1 in Brawn and Personality, +3 Coordination. We get Science, Education and Observation, plus two of Pilot, Tech and Extraplanetary. (We take Tech and Extraplanetary.) We take Science as her final Signature Skill. She also gains a Survival Kit, an Analytical Kit with 5 Reagents, and a Sensor Suite. Her Earnings for this job are 2+1dN - we roll and get 2 plus an Effect. This means that she goes up to Earnings 2, then advances to Demogrant status. She has chosen not to continue her parents' life of living entirely off the grid. We roll for her career event - 50% chance of new Haqq table, 50% chance of one of the original 3. She rolls a 2, so Haqq table, and a 3 on that. She is forced to choose between her ideals and her job - either she is Fired or drops Status by 1 and gains a Trait based on the experience. When asked to look the other way on corruption in the Gardener Guild that would harm a demogrant community by ruining their local weather patterns, Aisha sticks to her guns. She is fired, gaining the Defender of the Poor trait. This lasts 3 years. Syed, meanwhile, takes Academic automatically. He gets +1 in Agility, Coordination and Personality, +2 in Awareness and Willpower and +3 in Intelligence. He gains skill in Education, Medicine, Science and two of Discipline, Education and Tech. We'll grab Education and Tech off that and his final Signature Skill will be Tech. He's very, very well educated. He also gets a 3-month lease on a laboratory. He has Earnings 2+1dN, and rolls a total of 4, so his Earnings rise to 4. For his career event, he rolls 3, so Haqq table, and 6 - he spends a lot of time on a caravanserai, so much so that it feels like home. He may freely choose Trader or Caravaner as his next career without rolling. This lasts 4 years. Aisha bint Raman Faction: Haqqislam Agility 7, Awareness 9, Brawn 8, Coordination 10, Intelligence 9, Personality 11, Willpower 10 Skills: Athletics Expertise 1, Discipline Expertise 1 Focus 1, Education Expertise 2 Focus 1, Extraplanetary Expertise 1, Lifestyle Expertise 1, Medicine Expertise 1 Focus 1, Observation Expertise 1 Focus 1, Persuade Expertise 1, Pilot Expertise 1, Science Expertise 2 Focus 1, Tech Expertise 1 Focus 1 Signature Skills: Medicine, Discipline, Science Talents: Physician, Stubborn, Scientist (basic Science reroller) Languages: Arabic Social Status: Demogrant Earnings: 2 Gear: Cosmetics Kit, Recorder, Survival Kit, Analytical Kit, Sensor Suite, 5 Reagents, 1 Asset Traits: Watched by the AI, Defender of the Poor Age: 21 LP: 4 Syed Fazzari Faction: Haqqislam Agility 8, Awareness 11, Brawn 8, Coordination 8, Intelligence 12, Personality 7, Willpower 10 Skills: Discipline Expertise 1, Education Expertise 3 Focus 3, Extraplanetary Expertise 1, Medicine Expertise 1 Focus 1, Pilot Expertise 2 Focus 1, Resistance Expertise 1, Science Expertise 1, Spacecraft Expertise 1, Survival Expertise 1, Tech Expertise 2 Focus 1 Signature Skills: Education, Pilot, Tech Talents: Disciplined Student, Ace, Natural Engineer (can reroll any failed dice on Tech roll, but must accept the new result) Social Status: Middle Earnings: 4 Gear: Vac Suit with Locational Beacon, 5 Oxygen Loads, Laboratory (3 month lease) Traits: Insatiably Curious Age: 24 LP: 5 Decision 8 - Second Career Aisha spends another LP to roll on the Haqq table. She rolls a 2 - Hassassin Fiday. Her strong idealism and refusal to bend on what is right has attracted the Hassassins to her and she has become a new recruit. Her training gets her skill in Stealth, Persuade and Thievery, plus two of Close Combat, Ballistics and Hacking. We grab Ballistics and Hacking, plus a Ballistics Talent. She also gets a Fake ID 3, another Cosmetics Kit, a Climbing Plus gear set, a Grazeblade, and a DT Sniper Rifle with 2 Reloads. Her Earnings for this Career are 1+2dN, rolling a total of 2 - no change. For her event, she rolls on Career Table A in the core, getting an 8 - an affair with someone wealthy that ends badly. Her lover ends up being an ALEPH Aspect, which is probably part of why it goes badly. She gains the ex-lover as a Trait. Her time as a Hassassin trainee lasts 6 years. Syed moves directly into Caravaner, deciding to stay aboard the caravanserai he worked on last career, becoming a Caravaner. This is a new career from the Haqq book - he's taken up a job on a trade vessel servicing the caravanserai. He gains skill in Extraplanetary, Lifestyle and Observation, plus two of Persuasion, Pilot and Tech. We grab Pilot and Tech since those are two skills Syed likes, and another Pilot Talent. He also gets two doses of Blu Khat, a set of Riha Rations, another vac suit, two more Oxygen Loads, a powered multitool and inlaid palm circuitry. His earnings are 2+3d6, but he only ends up rolling a 2, so no change. His career event is on Table A, rolling a 17. He takes part in a secret medical experiment that allows him to push past his limits, but increases the effects of aging on his body, gaining the Curse of the Mayfly trait but the ability to take an Aging roll to gain an Infinity point. He is on his crew for 6 years. Aisha bint Raman Faction: Haqqislam Agility 7, Awareness 9, Brawn 8, Coordination 10, Intelligence 9, Personality 11, Willpower 10 Skills: Athletics Expertise 1, Balliastics Expertise 1, Discipline Expertise 1 Focus 1, Education Expertise 2 Focus 1, Extraplanetary Expertise 1, Hacking Expertise 1, Lifestyle Expertise 1, Medicine Expertise 1 Focus 1, Observation Expertise 1 Focus 1, Persuade Expertise 1 Focus 1, Pilot Expertise 1, Science Expertise 2 Focus 1, Stealth Expertise 1, Tech Expertise 1 Focus 1, Thievery Expertise 1 Signature Skills: Medicine, Discipline, Science Talents: Physician, Stubborn, Scientist, Marksman Languages: Arabic Social Status: Demogrant Earnings: 2 Gear: 2 Cosmetics Kits, Recorder, Survival Kit, Analytical Kit, Sensor Suite, Fake ID 3, Climbing Plus, Grazeblade, DT Sniper Rifle, 2 Reloads, 5 Reagents, 1 Asset Traits: Watched by the AI, Defender of the Poor, Bad Breakup With An AI Age: 27 LP: 3 Syed Fazzari Faction: Haqqislam Agility 8, Awareness 11, Brawn 8, Coordination 8, Intelligence 12, Personality 7, Willpower 10 Skills: Discipline Expertise 1, Education Expertise 3 Focus 3, Extraplanetary Expertise 1 Focus 1, Lifestyle Expertise 1, Medicine Expertise 1 Focus 1, Observation Expertise 1, Pilot Expertise 2 Focus 2, Resistance Expertise 1, Science Expertise 1, Spacecraft Expertise 1, Survival Expertise 1, Tech Expertise 2 Focus 2 Signature Skills: Education, Pilot, Tech Talents: Disciplined Student, Ace, Natural Engineer, Push the Envelope 1 (When making Pilot rolls, get bonus Momentum equal to your ranks of Push the Envelope.) Social Status: Middle Earnings: 4 Gear: Vac Suit with Locational Beacon, Vac Suit, Blu Khat (2 doses), Riha Rations (1 unit), Powered Multitool, Inlaid Palm Circuitry, 7 Oxygen Loads, Laboratory (3 month lease) Traits: Insatiably Curious, Curse of the Mayfly Special: Can roll an aging check to regain an Infinity Point 1/session Age: 30 LP: 5 Decision 8 - Third Career Aisha spends an LP to get a third career and opts to roll on the general table. She rolls an 8 - Military. She's been placed in the Sword of Allah by the Hassassins to further her combat training. She gets skill in Athletics, Close Combat and Ballistics, plus two of Survival, Acrobatics and Tech. We take Survival and Acrobatics and an Athletics Talent. She's getting a very wide skillset, though not an in-depth one. She also gets a set of Medium Combat Armor, a Rifle, 4 Standard Reloads and 3 Stims. Her Earnings are 2+1dN, for a result of 2. Still no change. Her event is Haqq table, result 14. Her unit is assigned to guard the Silk Maglev and gets ambushed. The fighting is brief but intense, and she receives a lasting injury, giving her -1 Vigor but +4dN Assets in hazard pay. The roll comes out to 2. Her stint lasts 4 years. Syed spends 2 LP - one for a 3rd career, one for the Haqqislam table. He rolls a 1 - Special Forces. He finally manages to ride with the Kum, his childhood dream, though he does so by bribing his way into the military. He receives training in Survival, Resistance and Ballistics, plus two of Close Combat, Hacking and Discipline. We take Hacking and Discipline, and a Hacking Talent. He also gets some Medium Combat Armor, a Combi Rifle, 5 Standard Reloads, a Combat Jump Pack and a Garrotte he has no idea how to use. He rolls on the Haqq event table, getting a 2. After a wild night with the Kum bikers in his unit, he is followed home by Muhafiz agents suspicious of his loyalty. He gains the On The Watchlist trait. He is in the army for 2 years. Aisha bint Raman Faction: Haqqislam Agility 7, Awareness 9, Brawn 8, Coordination 10, Intelligence 9, Personality 11, Willpower 10 Skills: Acrobatics Expertise 1, Athletics Expertise 1 Focus 1, Ballistics Expertise 1 Focus 1, Close Combat Expertise 1, Discipline Expertise 1 Focus 1, Education Expertise 2 Focus 1, Extraplanetary Expertise 1, Hacking Expertise 1, Lifestyle Expertise 1, Medicine Expertise 1 Focus 1, Observation Expertise 1 Focus 1, Persuade Expertise 1 Focus 1, Pilot Expertise 1, Science Expertise 2 Focus 1, Stealth Expertise 1, Survival Expertise 1, Tech Expertise 1 Focus 1, Thievery Expertise 1 Signature Skills: Medicine, Discipline, Science Talents: Physician, Stubborn, Scientist, Marksman, Rigorous Training 1 (+Rigorous Training ranks Momentum to all Athletics rolls) Languages: Arabic Social Status: Demogrant Earnings: 2 Gear: 2 Cosmetics Kits, Recorder, Survival Kit, Analytical Kit, Sensor Suite, Fake ID 3, Climbing Plus, Grazeblade, DT Sniper Rifle, Medium Combat Armor, Rifle, 4 Standard Reloads, 2 DT Reloads, 5 Reagents, 3 Assets, 3 Stims Traits: Watched by the AI, Defender of the Poor, Bad Breakup With An AI Special: -1 max Vigor Age: 31 LP: 2 Syed Fazzari Faction: Haqqislam Agility 8, Awareness 11, Brawn 8, Coordination 8, Intelligence 12, Personality 7, Willpower 10 Skills: Ballistics Expertise 1, Discipline Expertise 1 Focus 1, Education Expertise 3 Focus 3, Extraplanetary Expertise 1 Focus 1, Hacking Expertise 1, Lifestyle Expertise 1, Medicine Expertise 1 Focus 1, Observation Expertise 1, Pilot Expertise 2 Focus 2, Resistance Expertise 1 Focus 1, Science Expertise 1, Spacecraft Expertise 1, Survival Expertise 1 Focus 1, Tech Expertise 2 Focus 2 Signature Skills: Education, Pilot, Tech Talents: Disciplined Student, Ace, Natural Engineer, Push the Envelope 1, Hacker Social Status: Middle Earnings: 4 Gear: Vac Suit with Locational Beacon, Vac Suit, Blu Khat (2 doses), Riha Rations (1 unit), Powered Multitool, Inlaid Palm Circuitry, Medium Combat Armor, Combi Rifle, Combat Jump Pack, Garrotte, 5 Standard Reloads, 7 Oxygen Loads, Laboratory (3 month lease) Traits: Insatiably Curious, Curse of the Mayfly, On the Watchlist Special: Can roll an aging check to regain an Infinity Point 1/session Age: 32 LP: 3 Decision 8 - Final Career Aisha spends her last 2 LP to get a 4th career from the Haqq table. She rolls an 8 - Grey Market Spy, a new Career in the Haqq book. After mustering out, she sets up as a corporate espionage agent for one of the biohealth corps, secretly still working for her Hassassin masters and hunting for those who would betray the faithful or the Search for Knowledge. She receives training in Lifestyle, Stealth, Thievery and two of Observation, Hacking and Tech. We grab Hacking and Tech, and take a Thievery talent. She gets a Djinncloak, a Breaking and Entering Kit and a Vrabec Pistol. Her Earnings are 1+5dN, for a result of 4 and 2 Effects. She rises up to Earnings 4 and Middle class. Her event is Table A, result 9: she is called in for questioning by the cops over her definitely less than legal activities, but is let out by the actions of a PanO agent, who wants her to do a job for him. She now owes PanO a debt of 1d6 (3) Assets, which she pays off from her current surplus and does the job, clearing out her debt. This takes 3 years. Syed spends 2 LP - career 4 and Haqq table. He rolls an 11 - Kum Ganger. After mustering out of the army, the Kum have accepted him as one of their own. Syed is the nerdiest biker ganger that there's ever been, but he's finally achieved his dreams. He gains training in Ballistics, Resistance, Pilot and two of Command, Tech and Thievery. We grab Command and Tech, plus another Pilot talent. He gets a Smoke Grenade, a Chain Rifle, a Knife, a Signal Flare, a Kum Motorcycle, Ad-Qali Armor 2, and a single dose of ExcelRate. His event is Haqq table, event 15: He ends up wandering into a secret meeting of spies while with the Kum, gaining a mercenary rival thanks to ruining the business deal. He loses 3 Assets as the rival makes sure he loses out on work in revenge. His Earnings for this career are 1+2dN: 1 and an Effect. Thanks to the mercenary, Syed drops to Demogrant and Earnings 3. He is with the Kum for 3 years. Aisha bint Raman Faction: Haqqislam Agility 7, Awareness 9, Brawn 8, Coordination 10, Intelligence 9, Personality 11, Willpower 10 Skills: Acrobatics Expertise 1, Athletics Expertise 1 Focus 1, Ballistics Expertise 1 Focus 1, Close Combat Expertise 1, Discipline Expertise 1 Focus 1, Education Expertise 2 Focus 1, Extraplanetary Expertise 1, Hacking Expertise 1, Lifestyle Expertise 1, Medicine Expertise 1 Focus 1, Observation Expertise 1 Focus 1, Persuade Expertise 1 Focus 1, Pilot Expertise 1, Science Expertise 2 Focus 1, Stealth Expertise 1, Survival Expertise 1, Tech Expertise 1 Focus 1, Thievery Expertise 1 Signature Skills: Medicine, Discipline, Science Talents: Physician, Stubborn, Scientist, Marksman, Rigorous Training 1, Thief (basic Thievery reroll) Languages: Arabic Social Status: Middle Earnings: 4 Gear: 2 Cosmetics Kits, Recorder, Survival Kit, Analytical Kit, Sensor Suite, Fake ID 3, Climbing Plus, Grazeblade, DT Sniper Rifle, Medium Combat Armor, Rifle, Djinncloak, Breaking and Entering Kit, Vrabec Pistol, 4 Standard Reloads, 2 DT Reloads, 5 Reagents, 3 Stims Traits: Watched by the AI, Defender of the Poor, Bad Breakup With An AI Special: -1 max Vigor Age: 34 LP: 0 Syed Fazzari Faction: Haqqislam Agility 8, Awareness 11, Brawn 8, Coordination 8, Intelligence 12, Personality 7, Willpower 10 Skills: Ballistics Expertise 2, Command Expertise 1, Discipline Expertise 1 Focus 1, Education Expertise 3 Focus 3, Extraplanetary Expertise 1 Focus 1, Hacking Expertise 1, Lifestyle Expertise 1, Medicine Expertise 1 Focus 1, Observation Expertise 1, Pilot Expertise 3 Focus 2, Resistance Expertise 2 Focus 1, Science Expertise 1, Spacecraft Expertise 1, Survival Expertise 1 Focus 1, Tech Expertise 3 Focus 2 Signature Skills: Education, Pilot, Tech Talents: Disciplined Student, Ace, Natural Engineer, Push the Envelope 1, Hacker, Combat Pilot 1 (when making Pilot rolls in a damaged vehicle, reduce damage penalties by 1 step per rank) Social Status: Demogrant Earnings: 3 Gear: Vac Suit with Locational Beacon, Vac Suit, Blu Khat (2 doses), Riha Rations (1 unit), Powered Multitool, Inlaid Palm Circuitry, Medium Combat Armor, Combi Rifle, Combat Jump Pack, Garrotte, Smoke Grenade, Chain Rifle, Knife, Signal Flare, Kum Motorcycle, Ad-Qali Armor 2, ExcelRate (1 dose), 5 Standard Reloads, 7 Oxygen Loads, Laboratory (3 month lease), -3 Assets Traits: Insatiably Curious, Curse of the Mayfly, On the Watchlist Special: Can roll an aging check to regain an Infinity Point 1/session Age: 33 LP: 1 Decision 9 After finish touches, here's our two PCs! Aisha has become a skilled jack of all trades and Hassassin agent, while Syed has gone from wide-eyed scholar to hardened Kum biker, bringing with him a talent for piloting and a surprising understanding of history and technical skills. Aisha bint Raman Faction: Haqqislam Agility 8, Awareness 10, Brawn 8, Coordination 10, Intelligence 9, Personality 11, Willpower 10 Skills: Acrobatics Expertise 1 Focus 1, Athletics Expertise 1 Focus 1, Ballistics Expertise 1 Focus 1, Close Combat Expertise 1, Discipline Expertise 1 Focus 1, Education Expertise 2 Focus 1, Extraplanetary Expertise 1, Hacking Expertise 1, Lifestyle Expertise 1, Medicine Expertise 1 Focus 1, Observation Expertise 1 Focus 1, Persuade Expertise 1 Focus 1, Pilot Expertise 1, Science Expertise 2 Focus 1, Stealth Expertise 1, Survival Expertise 1 Focus 1, Tech Expertise 1 Focus 1, Thievery Expertise 1 Signature Skills: Medicine, Discipline, Science Talents: Physician, Stubborn, Scientist, Marksman, Rigorous Training 1, Thief, Self-Treatment (remove the penalty for using Medicine on yourself) Languages: Arabic Social Status: Middle Earnings: 4 Gear: 2 Cosmetics Kits, Recorder, Survival Kit, Analytical Kit, Sensor Suite, Fake ID 3, Climbing Plus, Grazeblade, DT Sniper Rifle, Medium Combat Armor, Rifle, Djinncloak, Breaking and Entering Kit, Vrabec Pistol, 4 Standard Reloads, 2 DT Reloads, 5 Reagents, 3 Stims, 11 Assets, Cube, Geist Traits: Watched by the AI, Defender of the Poor, Bad Breakup With An AI Firewall: 10 Resolve: 11 Vigor: 7 Infinity Points: 2 Age: 34 Syed Fazzari Faction: Haqqislam Agility 8, Awareness 11, Brawn 8, Coordination 10, Intelligence 12, Personality 7, Willpower 10 Skills: Ballistics Expertise 2 Focus 1, Command Expertise 1 Focus 1, Discipline Expertise 1 Focus 1, Education Expertise 3 Focus 3, Extraplanetary Expertise 1 Focus 1, Hacking Expertise 1, Lifestyle Expertise 1, Medicine Expertise 1 Focus 1, Observation Expertise 1, Pilot Expertise 3 Focus 2, Resistance Expertise 2 Focus 1, Science Expertise 1, Spacecraft Expertise 1, Survival Expertise 1 Focus 1, Tech Expertise 3 Focus 2 Signature Skills: Education, Pilot, Tech Talents: Disciplined Student, Ace, Natural Engineer, Push the Envelope 1, Hacker, Combat Pilot 1, Born to the Wheel (-1 Difficulty for all Pilot rolls in ground vehicles) Languages: Arabic, Kyrgyz Social Status: Demogrant Earnings: 3 Gear: Vac Suit with Locational Beacon, Vac Suit, Blu Khat (2 doses), Riha Rations (1 unit), Powered Multitool, Inlaid Palm Circuitry, Medium Combat Armor, Combi Rifle, Combat Jump Pack, Garrotte, Smoke Grenade, Chain Rifle, Knife, Signal Flare, Kum Motorcycle, Ad-Qali Armor 2, ExcelRate (1 dose), 5 Standard Reloads, 7 Oxygen Loads, Laboratory (3 month lease), 4 Assets, Cube, Geist Traits: Insatiably Curious, Curse of the Mayfly, On the Watchlist Firewall: 13 Resolve: 11 Vigor: 10 Infinity Points: 3 Special: Can roll an aging check to regain an Infinity Point 1/session Age: 33 Next time: How to Play Haqqislamite
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Feb 1, 2022 19:13
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spider bethlehem posted:God, look at the codpiece. The musculature. The way his face is all crowded into a tiny wedge of his head. Incredible. Punisher 2099 was a lot of things, and one of them was self-aware.
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Feb 1, 2022 19:30
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Mors: So Aisha is technically an AI now?
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Feb 1, 2022 19:50
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Dawgstar posted:Mors: So Aisha is technically an AI now? No, but Aleph watches her and she dated an Aspect for a while.
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Feb 1, 2022 20:53
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Snorb posted:One of them could join your party temporarily in Shadowrun: Dragonfall. The optimal outcome for that mission was your team hacks his OS and restores his humanity and free will, and the first thing he does is put his hydraulic piston arms up to his head and crushes his skull flat. Boy really wish Cyberpunk would stop being so needlessly edgy
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Feb 1, 2022 21:07
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It's a hosed up world, living on the Edge.
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Feb 1, 2022 21:22
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PurpleXVI posted:Are any horrors ever statted up in any SR edition or are they just "eat 1d6 runners per round, you lose" if one should happen to pop up? None were started up in Shadowrun, but they were in Earthdawn. It's broadly assumed that Aztechnology is covertly run by a Horror though.
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Feb 2, 2022 01:14
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Humbug Scoolbus posted:None were started up in Shadowrun, but they were in Earthdawn. It's broadly assumed that Aztechnology is covertly run by a Horror though. Imagine if Shadowrun was the kind of setting were writers were like "You see how poo poo things are? You can CHANGE IT. You see those dragons making things worse? You can slay them" instead of it being some of the worst of the 90's metaplot driven "no players can't do anything ever" RPGs. Like Forgotten Realms and Elminster, except Shadowrun is worse about it than Greenwood's Magical Realm.
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Feb 2, 2022 04:06
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Fivemarks posted:Imagine if Shadowrun was the kind of setting were writers were like "You see how poo poo things are? You can CHANGE IT. You see those dragons making things worse? You can slay them" instead of it being some of the worst of the 90's metaplot driven "no players can't do anything ever" RPGs. Like Forgotten Realms and Elminster, except Shadowrun is worse about it than Greenwood's Magical Realm. The problem is that The Dunkelzhan's legacy thing is a loving goldmine for poo poo like that. "Oh welp you tripped some weird escape clause in the dragon president's will, here's 50 gazillion bucks to do that thing you've always wanted to do." But they've never really done that. Instead using it for just a bunch of vague references and digs at people. Shadowrun is really bad about creating really neat ideas and then just loving squandering them. Like, technopaths were real interesting, the idea of there being a literal magic analogue within the realm of technology that people can access without a rig was neat. But shadowrun technology is *wholly* incompatible with magic, and that's a hill that they will die on. And then they just completely abandoned Technopaths or made it so the rules to run them are so orthogonal to regular gameplay that wanting to play one is seen as a sign of being a problem player.
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Feb 2, 2022 05:23
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Fivemarks posted:Imagine if Shadowrun was the kind of setting were writers were like "You see how poo poo things are? You can CHANGE IT. You see those dragons making things worse? You can slay them" instead of it being some of the worst of the 90's metaplot driven "no players can't do anything ever" RPGs. Like Forgotten Realms and Elminster, except Shadowrun is worse about it than Greenwood's Magical Realm. Actually...the Dragons are actually trying to crank tech up to a level where it can fight back against the Horrors' magic. That's why Lofwyr is always pumping so much into Saeder-Krupp's research arm and why half of Dunkelzahn's bequests were made the way they were. They tried fighting the Horrors' with magic alone and almost got annihilated.
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Feb 2, 2022 06:17
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Humbug Scoolbus posted:Actually...the Dragons are actually trying to crank tech up to a level where it can fight back against the Horrors' magic. That's why Lofwyr is always pumping so much into Saeder-Krupp's research arm and why half of Dunkelzahn's bequests were made the way they were. They tried fighting the Horrors' with magic alone and almost got annihilated. I like the idea of a couple of horrors materializing at the apex of some magical ritual, being completely immune to the first wave of attacks, and then one of them just gets bodied by a cruise missile covered in glowing runes, the one thing they haven't dealt with before. But I like the idea of a missile like that being turned on the dragons even more.
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Feb 2, 2022 08:05
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Cyberpunk Red Jumpstart Kit #3: Getting It Done Having a character is all well and good, but are they any good at what they do? We have to figure out the rules to the game to find out. Like I mentioned last time, the book is laid out rather unhelpfully. Chapter 5 starts with laying out the rules for initiative and movement on the tactical grid map, and then explains the actions you can do in a turn. Only then does it explain how to make skill checks, which is what I'll jump to here. We'll come back to this chapter when I do the combat rules tomorrow. Casting the dice To do a check, you roll a d10 and add your stat, skill, and any appropriate modifiers, and compare the result either to a set Difficulty Value or another character's check. If you beat the DV or the defender's score, you win. That means you have to roll over the given number. The defender wins ties. There's no margins of success or anything like that, this is a strictly binary setup in the finest eighties gaming tradition. I don't know if this is just something that got cut from the Jumpstart, since both combat and netrunning rules have actions that scale based on how high you roll. It's something that people will mod into the game anyway by sheer accident, but it'd be nice to have more GM guidelines in the beginner product. There are rules for critical successes and fails, but that just means that if you roll a 10 or a 1 on your check, you roll a new d10 and add or subtract the result from your total. You'd think rolling a 1 would already mean failure and 10 a success, but considering the range of DV values possible, that'd be way too swingy for this game. Never tell me the odds Speaking of which, what are these DVs like? A 10 is something that "might be hard for a small child". Most checks should probably be either 14 or 18, for challenges that range from "everyday" to ones that "require actual training". 22 is "best of the best", 25 is "once in a lifetime" and 30 is a DV value that also exists. I'm going to be charitable here and assume everyday tasks are things like "singing a Johnny Cash tune at open mic night" instead of banal poo poo like changing a lig– quote:Changing a lightbulb might be an Everyday [DV14] task but changing a lightbulb in an earthquake is an order of magnitude tougher. On top of these base level values there's a table of suggested modifiers. If you don't have the right tools or parts for a job, you'll take a -2 penalty, if you're actively being shot at it's -3 and if you're high as a kite it's -4. If you're willing to take your sweet time on the task you get a +1, and if you first use a suitable skill to make the job easier you can get another +1. There's no rules for helping another character, so you're on your own, choomba. Let's go back to Racer from the last update. Surprising no one, her best skill is Driving (REF) at +7, and her REF is a 9. That adds up to a sweet 16, which means she's got a solid 80% chance of succeeding in DV18 tasks and will absolutely annihilate everything easier. If there's a chase scene, you better move over and let her grab the wheel. Her worst skills are Education (INT) and Local Expert (INT), both +2, and her INT is a mediocre 5. With a 7 total she'd fail 30% of elementary school assignments, if schooling still existed in the Time of The Red. Changing the lightbulb is probably not an Education check, but if it was, she'd be lucky to not stick her finger in the socket. What about situations where a character doesn't have an applicable skill, like if Racer wanted to use Human Perception (EMP) to tell if Ms. Johnson is trying to set her up? You guessed it, you just roll the stat by itself. With an EMP of 3, Racer has problems with things like, uh, people. (She's great at telling them what to do, though. That runs on Persuasion (COOL).) To make a lovely situation less bad you can lean on Cultural Familiarity, which represents learning about things from media. If you're enough of a nerd, you might remember how to run a nuclear sub from a detail in a Tom Clancy book (this is a real example from the book) and can use your EDU/3 (round down) in place of a skill. Cold comfort, unless the skill happens to be one that's tied to one of your good stats. You can also boost your odds by spending Luck points from your Luck Pool before you roll. The pool holds points equal to your LUCK stat and each point spent on a roll gives you a +1. I know some players really hate spending resources before they roll, but at least the Luck Pool refills at the start of every session. This rule is hidden in the "what if you don't have a skill" section, but as far as I can tell it can be used for any roll.  I don't know what this tank has to do with skills but here you have it. Art by Adrian Marc. Adding it all up My first impression of the system is that it kinda sucks. After seeing so many sleeker systems, I don't have the patience to learn the ins and outs of all these moving parts. (That's a lie; Being a boondoggle of a system is why I'm reviewing it!  )The difficulty values are tuned so that "everyday" poo poo requires a +10 total modifier to have 50:50 odds, which are not good, and Racer falls short of this baseline in any task that's not action movie hero stunts. The game doesn't actually remark on any of this, which is frustrating. Because stats only go up to 10, being in any way competent in a skill actually requires a solid skill bonus as well. On the other hand, because skills also go up to 10, the spread of possible odds on an everyday task ranges wildly between 99% and <1%. Meanwhile, the only yardstick the GM gets for measuring check difficulty is a vague sense of how hard it is IRL, and the modifiers are so steep that trying to do risky poo poo at night quickly spirals into a comedy of errors. I realize this is a whole take, but this game might work better if you simply replaced the d10 with a d20. All the characters come with decently large Luck Pools which mitigates some of the issue, but that hinges on someone at the table actually doing the math. Even then, it seems to me players should spend luck only on their good-but-not-great abilities and forget about trying to shore up their weaknesses altogether: Trying to boost a lagging skill up to even "everyday" level would likely drain your entire Luck Pool in one go. At least Call of Cthulhu has the decency to straight up tell me my character has 01% chance of operating heavy machinery. Next time: We try to throw a cyber-mook through a wall and fail  Edit: Now that I think about it, I'm not actually sure whether a critical fail is actually an automatic fail. On the one hand, says so right in the name. On the other, you could conceivably still win a check even if you crit "failed". What a weird game. Siivola fucked around with this message at 14:38 on Feb 2, 2022 |
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Feb 2, 2022 08:44
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Kurieg posted:The problem is that The Dunkelzhan's legacy thing is a loving goldmine for poo poo like that. "Oh welp you tripped some weird escape clause in the dragon president's will, here's 50 gazillion bucks to do that thing you've always wanted to do." But they've never really done that. Instead using it for just a bunch of vague references and digs at people. I think my main problem with Shadowrun is that they just kinda dropped the fantasy stuff into the real world so they could economize on a lot of world building instead of actually building a near-future version of a fantasy world, but that was how it was done in the 90s, i suppose.
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Feb 2, 2022 12:26
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PurpleXVI posted:
It was. The Luftwaffe shot down Firewing when she went crazy the first time. One of the problems the dragons keep running into is that any weapon that will punch through a spirit's resistance to harm will also go through theirs. Conventional armor defeating warheads, manatech weapons, FAB3 bioweapons; they all are a threat that the dragons don't like having around. They compensate by building a wall of money and influence to make it infeasable for them to be used. About the only anti spirit weapon that won't seriously threaten a dragon is Blight toxin. As an aerosol, it just makes astral forms solid enough to hurt and forces mages to resist drain, which dragons are really good at.
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Feb 2, 2022 15:54
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Panzeh posted:I think my main problem with Shadowrun is that they just kinda dropped the fantasy stuff into the real world so they could economize on a lot of world building instead of actually building a near-future version of a fantasy world, but that was how it was done in the 90s, i suppose.
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Feb 2, 2022 16:27
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Halloween Jack posted:It's been years since I really sat down and read the background, but I think the thing that bothers me was the pretty sloppy and silly way that the US balkanized. Like there's a stereotypical Neo-Confederacy, an Elf Nation, a lot of inexplicably large indigenous nations, etc. Of course, magic was part and parcel of justifying all this. It's true. While in a way Shadowrun should be credited for actually having Native portrayal the way they went about it was in a very white way. They feel like mostly tribes the writers had heard of (Sioux, Ute, Pueblo) and a couple of lesser known tribes and then they proceed to focus on future Seattle anyway. The CSA (with pains to point out that it's the Confederated States, not a Confederacy) is lazy and has never received much focus in the game save for an entry in I think Shadows of North America. Tir Tairngire is okay as an idea - Elf nation, sure, whatever - but the fact they scammed their way pulling the wool over the Native American Nations by pretending to be Native sure isn't. The elves essentially pulled redface like they were extras from a Randolph Scott movie. It just goes on.
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Feb 2, 2022 16:37
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Quackles posted:Like the GM principles, these don’t come with explanations. I would really argue that the main use of GM moves is to present things in the world for the players to respond to. Sometimes it's because they honked a dice roll and you throw in a threat or a loss, and the response to a threat or a loss is bloody obvious. But whenever it's the GM's turn to talk they should be throwing one or more GM moves in there, so the players have something to respond to when the conversation goes back to them. The GM makes a move that follows, of course, you don't go nearly as hard when Winnie the Pooh's gotten stuck in Rabbit's house again as you do when everyone's fallen into darkness and you're creeping along a cobblestone pathway from a forgotten world, lit by dying lights like distant stars. But if you don't give players something to respond to, they'll have nothing to respond to. But, wow, just principles and moves with no explanations? No threats, no locations? No sample threat/location moves? No fronts? I'm feeling GM abandoned. In games like Monsterhearts 2E they did tone down the importance of standalone threats, but that's because Monsterhearts is all about that synthetic teen drama and you don't need a big push to make that go. KH is way more a heroes-and-villains story, with the worlds operating on their own tempo for their own purposes. A threatdown would be huge, but... like, looking at the playbooks, were they expecting your playgroup to take all sides, have a couple people 'nort it up?
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Feb 2, 2022 16:42
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There's also the problem that Shadowrun makes the Dragons SO IMPORTANT That if they die, the Horrors immediately invade and everyone is hosed. This is, personally, stupid.
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Feb 2, 2022 16:51
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