Shadowrun
Shadowrun Play => Gamemasters' Lounge => Topic started by: Neongelion on <02-23-12/1134:20>
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I don't like generalizing often, but it seems like runners rarely are the catalyst of regional-shaking or even world-shaking events and a lot of GMs I meet seem reluctant to run games that stray too far from canon. The CAS cannot be dragged into the current Amazonia-Aztlan War, Damien Knight won't be assassinated, the Redmond Barrens will remain as they are, the rumors of a dragon civil war will remain rumors, and the assassin of Eliot Eyes-of-Wyrm will never be revealed. Unless the canon says otherwise in the future.
Bear in mind I've only been introduced to Shadowrun a few months ago and have yet to run a game. I'm also still learning about the setting, its personalities, its history, and so on. I'm used to running D&D games, where the PCs are often heroes that can make or break communities, nations, or even the cosmos. On top of that, their actions are often recognized. In Shadowrun I understand it's more gritty and realistic, with the runners' actions rarely being traced back to them by the masses. It is Shadowrun, after all, and many runners are just average (so to speak) people with above average skills, scraping by in the mean streets rather than glistening D&D heroes.
I'm not quite sure how to word this question but I'll try my best not to sound confusing. How often do GMs break from canon? How rare is it for runners to be in missions that could very well drastically affect the actions and reactions of power players, whether in the Seattle underworld or the international stage?
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Did you miss this (http://forums.shadowrun4.com/index.php?topic=6286.msg110205#msg110205) thread? Its right under yours...
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I tend not to break from canon as much as ignore it when necessary, but it's pretty rare that I run games where the runners are dealing with those types of world-level events. (Indeed, it seems like the only time the stuff the runners do makes the news is when they screw up royally.) I also don't run the big modules or metaplot games, although I do refer to them time to time as general info on the world. Case in point: I don't think I have ever used an immortal elf in my game but the IE's are something that conspiracy theorists go on about endlessly in my game.
So in my experience it's pretty rare. As to how often do GM's break from canon or runners affect the international stage-- that's probably going to be pretty specific to the group. My group tends to prefer street-level runs, so they don't spend a lot of time working with celebrities and politicians. Another group might prefer a more James Bondian approach to the game, and so will naturally be dealing with larger issues.
One thing I've noticed is that SR tends to have a higher level of implied ownership than a lot of other games. If you mention to other players that in your last D&D campaign you killed Tiamat, you may get one grognard who will harp about how it was too easy, but most people will just be like, "That's cool. My last group killed Lloth." If you say you killed Damien Knight or god-help-you Lofwyr, you will set off a fire of controversy or at least be openly mocked for having a too nice/mentally incompetent GM. I'm not sure why that is but I think it has something to do with the world of SR being basically the real world with modifications. Every D&D world works however the GM says it works, but the feeling seems to be that the SR world works pretty much like the real world and people have very specific ideas about how that should be.
This doesn't make those big world-shaking plots impossible to run, just more dangerous to bring up in online forums. I think the default setting of D&D is to deal with world level events (especially beyond a certain level), where the default setting of SR deals with more localized events. But that doesn't mean its the only thing you can do.
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^I'm not sure that's quite true, We have about 16 people around my circle of friend's that play dnd and not one of them has ever done anything on the scale of killing a god. Though I did have them have a whole arc of collecting 5 magical items that would bring one back, but they resealed him before he could begin to obtain his power back. (that was hard enough as is... xD) Anyways my point was anyone you said that you killed Tiamat, we'd probably just roll our eyes and think "oh one of THOSE GM's". Which in our DnD vocabulary is called a Monte Haul DM, which when someone is first DMing or still pretty new to it I believe it's hard not to do this. You want your friends to have kick ass items and do incredible things, but it's not too realistic to most of us playing.
Considering i'm quite new as well and I scoure these forums almost daily or at least weekly for information trying to familiarize myself with the setting, I can say that i generally don't know cannon so it probably change things all the time, though i try to stay away from using Cannon Triple AAA's because I don't know too much about them. The closest i'm getting to messing with them is because the DM that introduced us to shadowrun (who's probably not going to DM anymore or play) trapped one of my characters in an old Ares Technology Archive room protected by a female dragon. (Well I want my character back so I'm going to eventually use the characters to break me out when I make my get away for a distraction, and hopefully I have some valuable paydata from this :P)
My friend however has taken the liberty of creating a custom robot built for military purposes between Ares Tech and Aztechnology. (it's some freakish robot with a person inside of it, half magic half machine) Anyways, pretty sure a joint commision there is changing cannon a bit. :P
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Did you miss this (http://forums.shadowrun4.com/index.php?topic=6286.msg110205#msg110205) thread? Its right under yours...
I did miss it, whoops :-[ Though glad to know someone else was asking this question...
If you say you killed Damien Knight or god-help-you Lofwyr, you will set off a fire of controversy or at least be openly mocked for having a too nice/mentally incompetent GM. I'm not sure why that is but I think it has something to do with the world of SR being basically the real world with modifications. Every D&D world works however the GM says it works, but the feeling seems to be that the SR world works pretty much like the real world and people have very specific ideas about how that should be.
Your entire post was awesome, but I wanted to share something familiar here. Some time ago I said on this forum that a GM friend of mine had a party actually managing to kill Lofwyr. But this was long ago and I didn't know the specifics when asked just how they managed to pull off such a feat. I might have been looking into it too much, but I think there was an unspoken statement that they probably thought this GM had made things too easy for the group.
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You can't forget those GMs (especially Forgotten Realms GMs) who have a tendency to have the named NPCs have all the power basically and come in constantly to "save the day" because the situation is too big for the PCs.
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Hmm. Elminster vs. Ehran in a mage-duel...
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Hmm. Elminster vs. Ehran in a mage-duel...
Better idea, a Yo Mamma Contest!
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Hmm. Elminster vs. Ehran in a mage-duel...
Better idea, a Yo Mamma Contest!
You would go there Canray..... but what does that leave for Fastjack? :P
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Hmm. Elminster vs. Ehran in a mage-duel...
Better idea, a Yo Mamma Contest!
You would go there Canray..... but what does that leave for Fastjack? :P
Making them tag transit vehicles?
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In a 'typical' Shadowrun campaign, the PCs would rarely have the opportunity to actually influence or change the major events of the Sixth World. Shadowrun's roots are in dystopian, film-noir fiction and the heroes are lucky enough to survive, let alone change how things are done.
The runners are more like pro-active reporters, who occasionally get glimpses of what's behind the curtain but don't get a chance to do more than ad-lib a few lines of the play. Consider that in SR4, one of the world's most capable spies and assassins was unable to change events in the Tir; Lugh Surehand survived.
Of course, not every campaign, GM and group will be happy working on the sidelines, and if they're happy with re-writing the universe, that's fine; but I think many players are drawn to Shadowrun partially because of those roots I mentioned, and wouldn't be content with a campaign that deviated too wildly from canon.
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Which in our DnD vocabulary is called a Monte Haul DM, which when someone is first DMing or still pretty new to it I believe it's hard not to do this. You want your friends to have kick ass items and do incredible things, but it's not too realistic to most of us playing.
Well like I say, there's always one grognard who thinks you had it too easy, but all sorts of groups play across all sorts of power levels. If someone says they killed Tiamat, we may think they had it too easy or we may think I don't enjoy games at that power level, but we don't typically think, "You can't kill Tiamat she's a gawd!"
That said, if you bring up how your old group killed Damien Knight you're basically going to get a lot of bad noise about how everything you've every done in your life after touching a d6 has been wrong. And probably rightfully so. But the weird thing about it is that Tiamat is a five-headed immortal dragon goddess or something, Damien Knight is basically just a guy. He's a smart guy with a mind-boggling amount of wealth at his disposal, but he can still get head colds and food poisoning and he needs to get his hair cut every so often. He's still basically mortal. But in the context of the system, he's generally viewed as being more powerful-- or at least harder to kill-- than the gods are in D&D.
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That said, if you bring up how your old group killed Damien Knight you're basically going to get a lot of bad noise about how everything you've every done in your life after touching a d6 has been wrong.
Here's the thing... it's obscenely easy to take out a ViP; especially if the guy hiring you is smart enough not to make noise to put security on alert before hand. Even easier if you're just a couple people that get a bee in your bonnet and decide to go whack a CEO for giggles because, unless you're stupid and get yourself noticed, you'll have no visibility on the threat radar when the time comes.
The trick is doing it and getting away with it with life, limb, and freedom intact.
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It might be extremely easy to take out a stupid VIP, but anyone with an ounce of intelligence is going to be very very well protected both physically and astrally. I would imagine Damien Knight having a security detail rivaling the secret service (physical, matrix, and astral), some of the best armor around (suited up with DA coating), and likely a spirit or to serving no greater function than being tasked to protect him. Between being able to easily wear 9-10 points of formal armor (more if he takes the precaution of putting on a FFBA suit for protection), having the resources to have his security mage constantly cast an armor spell on him, and having said spirits ready to wisk him away, you'd really only have one shot to pull it off. On top of that, at most public events, he'd probably have a physical barrier put up around him unless he's in motion. All this of course, at a realistically high force.
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Making them tag transit vehicles?
No, he'd do something... Original. ;D
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It might be extremely easy to take out a stupid VIP, but anyone with an ounce of intelligence is going to be very very well protected both physically and astrally. I would imagine Damien Knight having a security detail rivaling the secret service (physical, matrix, and astral), some of the best armor around (suited up with DA coating), and likely a spirit or to serving no greater function than being tasked to protect him. Between being able to easily wear 9-10 points of formal armor (more if he takes the precaution of putting on a FFBA suit for protection), having the resources to have his security mage constantly cast an armor spell on him, and having said spirits ready to wisk him away, you'd really only have one shot to pull it off. On top of that, at most public events, he'd probably have a physical barrier put up around him unless he's in motion. All this of course, at a realistically high force.
I feel like starting the "How would you kill a Megacorp CEO" thread, like that How to kill a Dragon thread.
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It might be extremely easy to take out a stupid VIP, but anyone with an ounce of intelligence is going to be very very well protected both physically and astrally. I would imagine Damien Knight having a security detail rivaling the secret service (physical, matrix, and astral), some of the best armor around (suited up with DA coating), and likely a spirit or to serving no greater function than being tasked to protect him. Between being able to easily wear 9-10 points of formal armor (more if he takes the precaution of putting on a FFBA suit for protection), having the resources to have his security mage constantly cast an armor spell on him, and having said spirits ready to wisk him away, you'd really only have one shot to pull it off. On top of that, at most public events, he'd probably have a physical barrier put up around him unless he's in motion. All this of course, at a realistically high force.
I feel like starting the "How would you kill a Megacorp CEO" thread, like that How to kill a Dragon thread.
Ask Cross how you kill a megacorp CEO.
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For me context is a huge component when hearing about canon-shattering games. If someone posts something like "my character killed Lofwyr," then my reaction is along the lines of "one of *those* GMs." But if they start their post with something like, "So I was in this 4 year long campaign, playing about once a week, and the last year and a half of it our group spent setting up the assassination of Lofwyr, we had to develop contacts in no less than 4 corporate militaries, 3 national governments, and had to orchestrate the assassination of a Corporate Court Lawyer, an Azzie Blood Mage, and three AGS diplomats in order to set it all up and out of the original 6 runners that started it only 1 made it alive to see the fruits of their labors harvested..." well, that sounds like a fun campaign to me :)
In general, I try to keep as peripheral to canon as possible and as a campaign progresses then where the PCs focus their efforts is where canon can be "tweeked" and possibly changed.
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Ask Cross how you kill a megacorp CEO.
Must ... resist ... urge ...
It was just bad timing that he was landing at SFO when an EMP bomb detonated just off the ... Ahem ... Golden Gate Bridge.
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My personal attitude is that PCs might not ever get put into a situation where they can affect the metaplot, but if they do end up there, they should be able to succeed or fail on their own merits. In other words, don't turn the game into a non-interactive video game cut scene, just because the group stumbles onto a pivotal moment in the larger story. Don't give major NPCs plot armor just because they are major NPCs. PCs may rarely be powerful enough to go head to head with the power players, but they can be the tipping point or deciding factor, when those power players go up against each other.
I think a good way to think of your campaign is that it is an alternate universe that starts out at some point in the "main" game universe, but can diverge wildly from there.
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My current group has only played sporadically over the last few years, and we haven't done anything with the metaplot that I'm aware of. It's mainly be short campaigns and one shots and as a general rule our GM's generate their own content. But back when we were playing on a weekly basis for 2-3 years (this would have been SR2-3 to give you an idea of how long ago that was), we did some modules that were tied into the metaplot of the game. The one that I remember was "Super Tuesday" which led up to the election of Dunklezahn. We didn't finish that module and I'm not even sure how far we got through it-- it was actually our back up game for when the whole group couldn't make it-- but it was kind of a neat moment when we had to take a meeting at the Draco Foundation building and my character was thinking, "Holy crap, I'm talking to people who at some point or another will talk to Dunklezahn."
Granted, that's not exactly the same thing as killing Lofwyr or Damien Knight, but for a old school SR nerd, it was still a neat moment.
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having the resources to have his security mage constantly cast an armor spell on him
Downside to that is that he would glow all the time...
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having the resources to have his security mage constantly cast an armor spell on him
Downside to that is that he would glow all the time...
Not necessarily. Some armor spells glow, others may not. Depends on the construction of the spell. There is nothing that says the armor spell has to glow.
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^Beside's don't dragons make their own rules? :P
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Not necessarily. Some armor spells glow, others may not. Depends on the construction of the spell. There is nothing that says the armor spell has to glow.
The Armor spell, which was mentioned, has this to say: "This spell creates a glowing field of magical energy around the subject that protects against Physical damage." (p.210, SR4A)
Now, you might create a custom Armor-like spell (let's call it Fortify) that didn't glow, but the Armor spell itself always glows by RAW.
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Yeah, I've always treated it as the non-glowy Armor spell is Increase Body.
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Yeah, I've always treated it as the non-glowy Armor spell is Increase Body.
Would that increase your physical boxes temperarly now that i think about it? o.O' and your overflow boxes???? O.o'
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Yeah, I've always treated it as the non-glowy Armor spell is Increase Body.
Would that increase your physical boxes temperarly now that i think about it? o.O' and your overflow boxes???? O.o'
Yes, yes it would. ;D
They're both derived from your Body stat, after all.
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Yeah, I've always treated it as the non-glowy Armor spell is Increase Body.
Would that increase your physical boxes temperarly now that i think about it? o.O' and your overflow boxes???? O.o'
Yes, yes it would. ;D
They're both derived from your Body stat, after all.
Badass.... <.< I'm totally going to make a mage with that now. Not that it's a big deal really, but i think it would be cool. :D
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Yeah, I've always treated it as the non-glowy Armor spell is Increase Body.
Would that increase your physical boxes temperarly now that i think about it? o.O' and your overflow boxes???? O.o'
Cast Increase Body and Increase Strength on the troll melee tank and just watch as things die.
Yes, yes it would. ;D
They're both derived from your Body stat, after all.
Badass.... <.< I'm totally going to make a mage with that now. Not that it's a big deal really, but i think it would be cool. :D
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Yeah, I've always treated it as the non-glowy Armor spell is Increase Body.
Would that increase your physical boxes temperarly now that i think about it? o.O' and your overflow boxes???? O.o'
Cast Increase Body and Increase Strength on the troll melee tank and just watch as things die.
Yes, yes it would. ;D
They're both derived from your Body stat, after all.
Badass.... <.< I'm totally going to make a mage with that now. Not that it's a big deal really, but i think it would be cool. :D
I'm guessing the Bold is what you said, and indeed, though if i recall correctly my troll bulletstopper would have a mage almost killing himself in drain to even attempt to increase his body which i believe is 12-15. Somewhere in that range which means you need to cast a minimum of a F12-F15 which is going to hurt most likely. xD It's doable tho!
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Equally nasty on the enemies are Decrease Body and Willpower. Take away their CM boxes (and lower their armor limit in the case of body) while the spell lasts.
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Equally nasty on the enemies are Decrease Body and Willpower. Take away their CM boxes (and lower their armor limit in the case of body) while the spell lasts.
Just gotta use the Street Magic rules to make a LoS version, so you don't have to get geeked trying it.
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Equally nasty on the enemies are Decrease Body and Willpower. Take away their CM boxes (and lower their armor limit in the case of body) while the spell lasts.
Just gotta use the Street Magic rules to make a LoS version, so you don't have to get geeked trying it.
Yeah, indeed, I was about to say that it was touch spell....
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Unless you are fairly certain you can incapacitate an opponent with one, the decrease attribute spells are rarely worth it. You can cast a Force: 5 decrease Willpower spell with one net success, and temporarily decrease someone's Willpower by a point - as long as you are sustaining the spell (which penalizes you, too). Or, you can cast a Force: 5 stunbolt with one net success, and do 6 points of stun damage to someone.
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Unless you are fairly certain you can incapacitate an opponent with one, the decrease attribute spells are rarely worth it. You can cast a Force: 5 decrease Willpower spell with one net success, and temporarily decrease someone's Willpower by a point - as long as you are sustaining the spell (which penalizes you, too). Or, you can cast a Force: 5 stunbolt with one net success, and do 6 points of stun damage to someone.
What are the odds of only getting 1 success? :P a Dice pool of around 12 will probably get 3 hits (if the enemy has the average human will 3 that will get 1 hit against their's. (4-1=3 hits)) This would cause the "average" human to go down to 0 will incapacitating them without actually inflicting any damage if I recall correctly. :D
Though it's mostly just player style and flavor.
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Using Decrease Body on a heavily armored troll, however, can be quite effective, if you get enough hits. Reduces their damage track, may make them take penalties from encumbrance, gives them fewer dice to resist damage, and so on.
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It's cheesy, but Decrease Charisma is probably the better choice for paralyzing a troll. A F4 Decrease Logic would probably be enough to stop any non-techie or hermetic, and you could probably stop them with a F3 Decrease Strength.
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It's cheesy, but Decrease Charisma is probably the better choice for paralyzing a troll. A F4 Decrease Logic would probably be enough to stop any non-techie or hermetic, and you could probably stop them with a F3 Decrease Strength.
Indeed. Though it would difficult if you didn't turn it into a LOS spell. :D