Loose Ends Ad

Oh, yeah, what city will this take place in? Seattle?

Yup, good ol' Seattle.

I guess it's a bit late to point out (even though I did specify from the get go) but this is going to be a newbie campaign for the new players... don't go expecting any city-wide, multiple-nation-influencing, ancient magic-awakening, world-threatening affair here guys. There's time for that later, this is just to help folks get a feel for the Shadowrun world and mechanics.

That's not to say that your actions won't have directly observable and tangible-but-hidden effects. Every action: a reaction. Your decisions do matter... just don't expect an epic scale here.

Also realize that as new players, mistakes are bound to happen and they might lead to your death. Don't be sad if this happens. Also, blame Durandana and not me.

Oh nuh-uh, I don't think so!

If you die it will be because it is your own fault. I don't randomly kill characters and I won't make you die because you missed a threshold for a roll. If you die it's because you were doing something really stupid like rushing corporate security without cover or backup waving a sword around or jumping off a fifth story balcony as a faster way to get to the ground or something like that.

That's not to say if you make a mistake you will die... but if you die it's definitely because you were doing something horribly wrong. Make sense? XD

Oh, man, that reminds me of my first Shadowrun character, who was an expy of Hansel/Gretal from Black Lagoon. She decided to break down the door without immediately getting out of the way. The door was covered by a sentry gun, which blasted her up really bad. Luckily, the team sniper managed to stabilize me, and the rest of the run went fine, but man, that was such a dumb thing to do. Lesson learned: when the GM asks you "are you sure?" the answer is "NO!"

Yeah, that's dumb. If I ever did that there'd be a number of clues, like a faint beeping if you succeed a perception test, plus the thing has to target you which might take a second giving you enough time to move if you win initiative, plus you could always just spend Edge to go first and get out of the way...

If I had won initiative, I would've just shot the thing (with a Vindicator, natch), but trying to beat a rigger's initiative is like trying to out-drink a troll: you can try it, but you'll probably end up a mess. Anyways, my point was that I was stupid. I didn't even bother listening at the door or anything. I just went and ripped the door out and walked in without looking first.

Initiative is not such a big issue, since your first action would normally be classed as a "Surprise round." The problem in that situation is what you choose to do with that guaranteed action. Which falls back on Dura's statement that a death is the cause of a really stupid action. When you go first, and you noticed that there is a gun pointing in your direction, usually moving out of the way is the smart choice... choosing to take your shot at the sentry gun is not generally the best of options in that situation.

Now, in a grizzled-player scenario, Dura may NOT give the "Surprise Round" to the runner. Since there may have been subtle queues for the rigger that the runner was about to break down the door. In that case, sometimes the "Surprise Round" actually goes to the gun, and your only chance for survival was to have broken down the door in the same action as getting out of the way... Then it becomes a "Moving Target" for the gun, and a more difficult shot. That being said, she denoted this as a "Newbie Run" which would likely result in the player being given the surprise round, and being given every oportunity to rectify their stupidity before death.

Well, I also didn't realize the sentry gun was rigger controlled, hehe.

And yes, Gala is completely right. The approach taken does depend a lot on the level of the game and the GM. I just think that putting deadly turrets behind doors (unless they're very important plot-obvious doors) is a good way to terrify 'runners and make them spend way too much time on all doors, which really isn't a good thing. Being cautious, always good. Being scared into inaction... not so much...

Ah, I see. Yeah, my old group had some old hands (I was the new guy at the time, but even I'd played quite a bit of other systems) so the GM saw no reason not to let me have it. He was also probably a little peeved that I'd conned him into letting me get away with abusing connected to make almost a million nuyen with a few days of work.

Bear wrote:

Also realize that as new players, mistakes are bound to happen and they might lead to your death. Don't be sad if this happens. Also, blame Durandana and not me.

lol. I only hope that if/when I die, it is a hilarious or otherwise memorable death

It will at least be funny to me.

Azonalanthious wrote:

*cough* *cough* Check the personel files and think this through before doing that Mokoto. *cough* *cough* Think about the number of cars Aretmis saw in the parking lot. *cough* *cough*

^ that's a direct quote from the OOC thread of a game I ran last fall. The team hacker had decided the best way for them to get into a facility was to hack them all into the database as new hires. The building only had about 20 employees - everyone knew everyone and knew there were no openings for new hires. And the job descriptions he decided to asign everyone didn't even exist at that site. I tried to talk the players out of it, but they went ahead with the 'plan'. Lonestar showed up on their doorsteps the following morning. The run kinda died after that.

*Falls over laughing* Oh, man, I'm just imagining that.

*Door opens*
Secretary: Excuse me, sir. May I help you?
Runner: I work here.
Secretary: (momentarily stunned by this strange troll wearing battered body armor making such a baldfaced and obvious lie) I...see. Okay, then. Um...sure. You'd better get to work then.
Runner: *grunt* (walks on)
Secretary: (on the phone) Hello? Lone Star? Yes, we have an intruder in the building. Please bring lots and lots of guns.

Yes, I know that's probably not what happened, but it's the picture I got in my head.

hahaha... that is pretty funny... Guy prolly thought he was uber clever deciding to hack their database and all... so sad he lacked common sense

Count me in. my Technomancer still needs a little work to get down to 400 build points. You sure you didn’t mean 460 build points. So much to do so little room to develop.

Jump-nut

Hmm yeah, pretty sure.

I know how hard building a technomancer is though, so I'll let you (and only you) get up to 40 BP of negative qualities if you want.

There, don't say I never did anything nice for ya.

I think that gives us 6 people that are building characters. I am going to go ahead and say full recruitment is now closed. If somebody flakes, we will open it up again.

Well hey now wait a minute, if another newbie shows up then he has precedence over Azo. (sorry Azo, nothing personal)

O yea forgot about Azo. ((no offense Azo)) Yea we have room for one more newbie, but unless the rest of the players take weeks to build their characters the odds of another showing up are slim. Though the site has been on an upswing lately, so we'll see.

Durandana wrote:

Well hey now wait a minute, if another newbie shows up then he has precedence over Azo. (sorry Azo, nothing personal)

No prob, I understand and agree. And from a purely selfish perspective, if folks new to the site find a game to play in, they are more likely to stick around, which means there is a better chance of one of THEM starting a game, ultimately giving us all more games to play in.

Way ahead of ya there, Azon. I'm already looking into campaign ideas to run. Ideas include: Secret war fought in the streets and tunnels of Manhattan, Chicago adventure where the PC's are being slowly corrupted by bug spirits, joining Karavan for whatever reason and just taking it from there because, seriously, Karavan is just cool.

Azonalanthious wrote:

No prob, I understand and agree. And from a purely selfish perspective, if folks new to the site find a game to play in, they are more likely to stick around, which means there is a better chance of one of THEM starting a game, ultimately giving us all more games to play in.

Exactly!

Character revised to have a Pain Editor and Trauma Damper. Drain can now officially go frag itself.

Just a test of the dice system.