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Hmm, I'm... gonna get to this tomorrow. Late night studying, just got back from exam... yeah, I'm goin' to sleep, sorry.

Also thank you Bear for handling the magicalness. That's why I hired you.

I'm still working on Gwydian's sheet (and still waiting to be sure the game doesn't fill up) but, particularly since there is free karma on the line, I thought I would go ahead and share his background:

This week on E! True Simstories...

Hollywood's been buzing over the extremely contriversial decision by the academy to accept several nominations for the outlaw sim-series "Shots and Shadows" and its renegade star, "Gwydian the Blade" for this year's Simmie awards. So it should come as no suprise that on this week's episode we'll be talking about the imfamous Gwydian himself.

Gwydian, born Gwen Stevens, is an old Hollywood hand, born here in the hills. Most of our viewers no doubt recognize his father as well known tri-D star and leading man Rob Stevens, but his show bussiness roots reach back even farther through his mother's side - Marie Barrymore ne' Stevens is the daughter of Drew Barrymore, a prominent 2-d starlet from around the turn of the century, and Drew's own ancestors were involved in film as well. With such a family, its only to be expected that the young Gwen would be involved in the biz from a very young age, and indeed he was staring in his first comercial at at 4. He went on to play supporting roles in the hit tri-Ds "Ray and Charlie" and "The 3 Stoogies - Zombified" followed by a reoccuring part in "Throk Kill!" as the lovable Vex - his first sim.

A number of minor parts followed, but it was while shooting his first big-budget sim at the tender age of 17 that Gwen's life would change. Taken captive by a group of 4 shadowrunners as a hostige while they tried to franticly work their way out of a busted run, Gwen was held for over 3 days... and kept his sim-rig active and recording the whole time. Released after the runners made good their escape, Gwen spent several weeks in seclusion recovering from his ordeal... and with the help of a few friends, editing the sim file down to a two hour broadcast. The release of "Inside with the 4" on the one month aniversery of Gwen's capture took Hollywood by suprise - and the critics by storm, breaking countless sales records and holding the number one box-office gross for nearly 2 months after release. And from these begining, "Shots and Shadows" was born.

After the release of "Inside with the 4", Gwen retreated from public life and from work for several years. In hindsight, its now clear he was already planning his new role and preparing for the demands of the life he had chosen for himself. Then, on the two-year aniversary of the initial capture, his family offically filed a missing person's report, claiming he hadn't been seen or heard from for more then a week. The same day, the first "Shots and Shadows" sim - "Gwydian Arrives" was posted annonamously to the Matrix. It wasn't noticed right away, but sales being to pick up quickly, and by the 3rd episode, it was clear that the show was a hit in the making.

Now in its 6th season, the show is still going strong and somehow its renegade star always manages to stay just one step ahead of all those out for his hide. Its hard to say just how many people have seen "Shots and Shadows" at this point - its illegal almost everywhere to produce or sell the sims, so tracking accurate sales figures is almost impossible - but our experts claim the show is most likely the 4th highest grossing sim of all time. And it may soon move into 3rd. In some ways the show's sucess is a suprise - production values are low, with only a single PoV and lacking the full team most big budget sims use to clean up the recording. Worse, the recordings are all heavily edited to 'protect the guitly,' with Gwydian's fellow runners and employers blured out, and their voices generally done voiceover style. Still, Gwydian himself is never blurred and he makes no attempt to hide either his identity or those of his targets or foes. And the show truly possesses a gritty, real quality that can never be matched on a tame set, no matter how good the actors. Its many fans are likely correct in proclaiming it 'the ultimate reality show'

Well, thank you for tuning in folks. Join us next week when we look in on John Travolta - now on his 3rd full body transplant and still going strong.

Azonalanthious wrote:

Well, thank you for tuning in folks. Join us next week when we look in on John Travolta - now on his 3rd full body transplant and still going strong.

...

*shudder*

Your character concept is made of win, by the way. Are you gonna come with a camera man and everything?

Vanya's Devil wrote:

Azonalanthious wrote:

Well, thank you for tuning in folks. Join us next week when we look in on John Travolta - now on his 3rd full body transplant and still going strong.

...

*shudder*

Your character concept is made of win, by the way. Are you gonna come with a camera man and everything?

Its a sim-series rather then tri-D, so no camera needed - sim records from inside the actor, seeing through his eyes, hearing through his ears, feeling (in both the physical and emotional sense) what he feels.

Still working on getting used to the SR4 system, so - this being a game for 4E newbies like myself - I figured I'd try my hand at writing up a sheet for it. What've you got so far, in the way of a team layout? Since I've -just- begun laying down foundation, I can quite quickly modify to fill up a lack. To get a nice, rounded Team.

Right now it looks as if we have
DevilDog - sniper
outpost_2 - undecided
Vanya's Devil - generalist magician
and Azonalanthious - face/paparazzi magnet

Bear wrote:

and Azonalanthious - face/paparazzi magnet

lol... Gonna be fun "stayin in the shadows" with the flashbulbs going off, haha.

Azonalanthious, that seems like a cool idea for a character, though. This seems to be shaping up well!

Are we playing with focus addiction?

Yes there will be the risk of focus addiction if you are too reliant on focuses. It won't be a serious risk unless you are running around with focuses active for an overly long amount of time.

That may be a concern, actually. What are the rules going to be on it? My character is going to have two sustaining foci on 24-7, and as things stand that means 9 points of foci constantly active. During a run, that increases to 14. If I lower the force of the foci, will that make addiction less likely?

I will have to talk with Durandana about it when she wakes up. Its just going to have to be a risk you take if you are going to be that dependent on focuses. There are reason magicians don't keep foci running 24/7.

Bear wrote:

I will have to talk with Durandana about it when she wakes up. Its just going to have to be a risk you take if you are going to be that dependent on focuses. There are reason magicians don't keep foci running 24/7.

Beyond focus addiction, it also means they'll be blazing like a giant glowing bonfire in the astral, which can atract all sorts of negative attention, and they leave a nice big astral signature with the ill-intentioned can use to track them - not a good thing for shadowrunners.

Azonalanthious wrote:

Bear wrote:

I will have to talk with Durandana about it when she wakes up. Its just going to have to be a risk you take if you are going to be that dependent on focuses. There are reason magicians don't keep foci running 24/7.

Beyond focus addiction, it also means they'll be blazing like a giant glowing bonfire in the astral, which can atract all sorts of negative attention, and they leave a nice big astral signature with the ill-intentioned can use to track them - not a good thing for shadowrunners.

This is exactly what I was alluding to. Having your focus active 24/7 is the astral equivalent of the street sam walking down Main Street with a heavy machine gun slung over his shoulder and bullets falling out of his pockets.

Hm. Okay, what if I turned them off when sleeping at home and when in safe locations, but generally went out with one or two foci active? Part of the character concept is that he doesn't let people see him without either an shapechange or a physical mask...

Then he sounds like somebody who would have an addiction to foci anyway.

Actually, I was more worried about the lighting up thing. My last GM didn't really enforce that, so I pretty much ran around with shapechange and improved reaction bound to two sustaining foci 24/7 without ill effect (it was a similar character, but for 3rd). How quickly will the foci start to light me up too bright? As for focus addiction, he's not addicted yet, but I'd like him to be close. I just don't want it to be so bad that it's unrealistic he's managed to avoid addiction thus far.

As soon as a focus is activated it lights up on the astral. The stronger the force, the brighter it shines. That said, I am not the type to just have tons of spirits randomly searching the astral for focus. However, as a shadowrunner you just need to be aware that any magical threat will instantly single you out as a threat based on your aura, and you will be easier to track. Magical threats like that won't be common, but they will occur.

I see. That's not too bad. Are we using the addiction rules from MitS?

Sorry, had to get caught up.

Okay so I'm not gonna lie, I have very little idea about most stuff magic in Shadowrun. I like the cyberpunk side of the game. Anyway, that's why I got Bear involved, heh. But I have been reading Street Magic, and this caught my eye:

Quote :

Possession of some magical goods, particularly foci and other offensive
items above a certain power level, without valid documentation
(which is, of course, nearly impossible for anyone without
a SIN to obtain) is a criminal offense even if you haven’t
committed any other crime with them.

So Bear's example of walking down a street with an LMG over your shoulder seems pretty adequate. It's just that this LMG is invisible to most people.

What is MitS? From what I can tell based on the info in Street Magic it sounds like you should probably take at least a mild focus addiction.


Azo, definitely +2 Karma for that background, sounds like you've definitely thought it through. Looking forward to seeing the sheet for it (unless you already posted it and I missed it...?).

3rd Edition Magic in the Shadows had rules for focus addiction. Basically, any time you use more than double your magic rating in foci, you role for focus addiction.

I have my own ideas of what will lead to focus addiction. Don't worry too much about it.

Haha, yeah, that's not ominous at all.

Don't worry I have no desire to screw you, and things will be fair. However, I will be honest with you. The way your character is built, its not a question of if he will get addicted but when.

Haha, sorry, I didn't mean to imply that you'd be unfair or anything like that. If one of my players played this guy, I'd be hitting him with focus addiction, too.

That said, I think I am going to tone down the foci a bit. I really don't need two force five sustaining foci, and the BP could be useful elsewhere.

Durandana wrote:

Azo, definitely +2 Karma for that background, sounds like you've definitely thought it through. Looking forward to seeing the sheet for it (unless you already posted it and I missed it...?).

Nope, didn't miss it. Its not up yet - tonight hopefully. He was almost done for Darkwolf's game, and I'm still going through the painful process of deciding what to cut out to get him to fit more traditional character gen rule.