Okay, so I played SR5 on Saturday, and started playing Shadowrun Returns, and pretty much remembered how much I love Shadowrun. Shadowrun Shadowrun Shadowrun.

I plan to run the Drop Bear Adventure right now, since that's pretty easy going, and can run with any non-negative number of players (although at least 3 would be ideal). Depending on the response I get from that, we can run a longer campaign, possibly bring in a few more plan-happy players, etc.

If we DO do a campaign, what I've been wanting to do for a while is to start in the setting of SR1, with SR1 equipment lists, and SR1 missions (but SR3R mechanics), then advance the timeline adding new spells and equipment, so we can explore the timeline a bit more. Plus this lets me run pre-written adventures, which is easier for me.

Thoughts?

(An IRL note: Work has slowed down considerably, so I have time to goof around. I *do* plan to apply for a new job in May, but that's May.)
This message was last edited by the GM at 02:38, Tue 14 Jan 2014.

Long as you don't up essence costs for early-ware I'm fine. It does mean that I'll be having a tougher time with knife-fighting, but that's also ok. Are you planning on changing karma rate to compensate?

Don't have a copy of SR1, so not exactly sure how the equipment lists differ.  If we're running SR3R rules, is there a reason for going with the old gear-list?  As I recall, we were working from a semi-limited set anyhow.  Were you wanting us to develop new characters or can we use our old ones?

(Oh - and welcome back! :>)

The gear list shouldn't see a MAJOR change. There wouldn't be alphaware to start. Essence costs may start up a little higher, but I believe in essence holes. I need to figure out how to advance the magic "tech timeline".

Having done this several times, yeah, we need to bump karma income up significantly.

New characters is probably a good idea. And like I said, possibly a few new PCs. (It is nice to have PCs who I know won't ever drop out ever ever. Makes planning MUCH easier.)

I will be pulling Thaden back as a contact and ripper clinic. The fact that I will be footing part of the bill for that clinic is no mean feat.
Where will we be sitting on the Magic timeline? Is this before metamagic has been implemented? Can we (still) use Gaesa? Are we using SR3 or SR4 spell formulae?

Also, just to check, I assume that we are also playing chronologically before Year of the Comet?

If we do this, it would be pre-metamagics and geasa, pre-YOTC.

We'd use the spell formulas as already described in the rules thread. If we agree to change formula rules, that would apply to. (I'd like to explore a timeline and shifting technology market, but a change in mechanics :P)

Realistically, I won't have time to put together a new character until sometime on the weekend.

I forgot the custom magic rules. I'll read up on them if I need to.

So I found the perfect profile pic for a male (elf) covert ops specialist, especially when the rest of the team is idiots. Male Soldier, p3 bottom row, fourth from right "mms093" (I think that's CPL Hicks). If it doesn't change, then I used it on this post.

Also, how much karma are we starting with (if any)?

I'll base my selection of type of character based on what others indicate.  I can play a mage again, but happy to play other things too.

Presume the game environment is going to be typical Shadowrun - if you make too much noise, leave too big a mess or piss off the wrong people, you're going to regret it for a very long time (and that's presuming you're lucky enough to actually last for a very long time)?

Use your old characters for Drop Bears. (Or any character. Character-sheet optional :P ) Drop Bears will buy time for me to see how many people are playing, how many new PCs I need to pick up, make character sheets, etc.

I'm planning that the default is, yes, keep it quiet when you can. But there will always be exceptions to the rule.

FF, I trust no-one as a mage more than you.
I'm going Dwarven (Koro-pok-kuru) physad infiltrator/medic. I will branch out here or there, but that will be my main job. He won't be as durable as Thaden was, but perhaps that's a good thing (don't want BB dropping nukes on the party).

Also, BB, I'm going to be running back and forth on chemicals with you. Mostly knockout drugs, nothing to lose sleep over (heh). Main goal being I will want my knives to have chem reservoirs or treated sheaths that could deliver injection-vector compounds as I stab people. Ideally, I would be able to wound people enough to make them vulnerable to the compounds, and figure out some way to deliver consistent take-downs in short timeframes. (will also be investing in a lot of DMSO and slap-patches)
This message was last edited by the player at 18:42, Tue 14 Jan 2014.

Fully understand "exceptions to the rule".  And as always, the objective is "try" - things have a way of blowing up anyway.

FF, I am looking over the "Lone Wolves" PM thread, and am thinking about a ninja mage. I think I'm smiling a little too wide for this to be healthy.

Note that SR1 tends to be a little more Pink Mohawk than SR3. Expect that in 2050, the chaos of the fall is still heavy enough that corps don't have their act together, and runners have a lot more leeway in their actions. As time goes on, that freedom will get shut down.

For chemicals, I prefer you pull stuff from actual SR materials first, then from SR fan materials, then if you can't find it from that, I'll stat it up myself. But the less work for me, the better. Kage or Plastic Soldiers may have some stuff.

This is probably a good place to start:
http://www.shadowrun.us/materi...equipment%20list.pdf

I do have a physical-adept assassin type I could bring in.

It's so nice flipping through my (very old) books.

Funny thing, no adepts in the SR1 core book. We can discuss if we'd like to bring them in anyway, if you guys really have your hearts set on them.

You said SR3R rules.  Are adepts "gear"?

Well .. adept powers sorta-kinda are. We'd have to custom-build what 2050 adepts are (probably rolling back to SR2 rules). Like I said, flipping through the SR1 book, there's no reference to them. They probably came up in the grimoire or something.

If we are strapped for gear, I would much rather have the opportunity to play Physads. Especially if we are still running off of 3rd-ed rules, it's not like it's impossible to work around the advantages (and disadvantages) they bring to the table.

What exactly is the objective with rolling back to SR1 stuff?  Is it because we're going to be playing some of the old missions and we want to ensure balance with the older threats?  Is it because we want to run a more low-powered campaign?  I think we can accomplish both of those objectives without trying to retrofit SR1 stuff to SR3R rules.  If it's because we want to more strictly adhere to the world timeline, then that's fine.  If being a metahuman sucked and magic was underpowered and cyber was clunky and physical adepts and metamagic etc. hadn't manifested in the 2050s, then I'm ok playing that way.  Though I'd still be tempted to go with SR3R gear lists and just prune out the newer stuff and/or increase costs.

For example, needing to learn a spell at each drain level smells like a rules change to me rather than a magic change.  But I'm fine if we say that the drain level of all spells is upped by 1 and that we're constrained to the spells from the main book or something like that.

Would second that train of thought. What's the major purpose we have going on here? If it's a historical examination, I'd much rather have SR3R rules, because I know them and can focus a lot more on the world. I'd say it is a lot easier (and smarter) to pro-fit (is that a word?) the kitsch into 3rd than it is to try to retrofit to 1st if we don't have to.
And honestly, the versatility of magic is one of those things I respect SR for a lot more than other games. The idea of power-level spells is interesting, true, but it's not what I look to SR for. Unless I know for a fact that we are going to be getting more karma and these more abundant spells will be available, I'm actually more in favor of the SR4 version of spells cost more, but the "buying up to [power]" is gone so a wizard can nuke themselves with backlash if they choose to and cutting the extraneous bookkeeping.

My plan was to play through the 2050 "world", which I for one missed out on, then advance the timeline (if we keep running long enough). I do also plan to at least double the karma output from runs. I'm normally a miser, but it gets pretty ridiculous to get 5 karma after playing for 6 months. I'd like to aim around the 10 karma mark per run.

Just so we're clear, I am in fact reading the SR1 spell list as though it were a gear list. There's a Staging Level: 1 attack spell, Staging Level: 2, Staging Level: 3, etc. then the same for stun and for healing. That just "is" the equipment list. I'm ignoring the mechanics change (staging levels) and translating that to the Damage Level (L/M/S/D). We don't have to go with it, but my concern is that the street sam will be suffering, as the available tech keeps moving forward, but the spell list from SR1 is otherwise the same as the list from SR5.

The only other big change in magic is new traditions, which you can't take after chargen (unless I kill you guys a lot).

I'm happy to do the SR4 magic rules if that's what people want. The 'roll to learn the spell' thing was always a PITA anyway.
This message was last edited by the GM at 15:13, Thu 16 Jan 2014.

If we stick with the SR3R rules, require spells to be limited to those on the SR1 list and up the drain, that should keep things balanced while not messing with the rules.

I would say that nerfing mages through spells won't fix the problems that Streetsams have. If there's a way to get Essence back, that would resolve a lot of the problems. Steetsams get most of their utility from their modifications, but unlike mages, they can only ever have six points (technically less), and with the Essence loss from critical damage rules as they stand, Streetsams have a much shorter life span by default.
Ironically, I think that the karma boost will end up helping the street sam as much if not more than the mages. A sammie branching skills into, say, Rigging or Decking would let them have entire units of drones at their command. Dropping the essence cost on a VCR could sidestep a lot of the essence cap issues (or figuring out some other sidestep instead). Improving cyber concealability would also help a sam stand toe-to-toe against Physads in infiltration/undercover scenarios.

What essence loss from critical damage are you referring to?

I do run with the Essence Hole rules. Remove 4 points of cyber, you can get 4 more points installed with no essence cost.

BTW, I'm planning to let any of the old players jump in if they're interested, with the note that this is the PLANNING HEAVY SHADOWRUN, so expect PLANNING HEAVY (and the counter-note, I will be limiting how much RL time can actually be spent on planning).

However, I'm expecting we'll get, at most, 4 old players, including the two of you. I'll wait until Monday, then put something in Players:Wanted for 4 new players (I expect a 50% drop-out rate). That gives us 4-6 players.

You guys are welcome to post in the Drop Bear Adventure thread whenever you like. That's like the cartoon before the movie starts. If other people come in, they can jump in whenever they like too.

Reading up, Adepts were introduced in the Grimoire, which I don't have, however their abilities were mostly linked to physical things, not so much the skill boosts we see with later editions.

It's surprising me looking back how none of the equipment has really changed in 20 in-game years. Same Viking motorcycle and FN-HAR rifle. Bioware comes out in the Street Samurai Catalog.

Right.  So we want the feel - both magic and technology-wise of 2050.  But we want as few rule changes as possible.  At the same time, we want to ensure that backtracking the gear and not the rules doesn't create balance issues.

For spells, it's reasonable to expect that the *kinds* of spells would be limited to those in the main book (unless we're talking 2050 + street samurai, riggers black book, grimoir, etc.)  But to me, saying you now need to purchase fireball as a separate spell at it's L, M, S and D versions seems like a rule change, not an availability change.

If we're using old characters for drop-bear, is it still in the original timeline?  Prequel?  Stop worrying about the fraggin' timeline and just post something? :>

The Drop Bear Timeline is whenever. That's generally the rule for this adventure. Just to get you into the swing of things, this is from the GM instructions:



TL;DR: Nothing you choose matters; have fun :)

There are rules in SR3 where every time someone suffers a Deadly wound, they have to check for Essence loss.

So one thing I was going to try out in my own SR3 game: Instead of being just "1", "5.6", or ".03", Essence is a fractional thing. Essence Loss is tracked by how much cyber is installed (so, a character with 4.3 points of cyber would write "4.3" instead of "1.7") out of how much Essence they have (so 4.3/6). Characters with cyber can then spend karma to "acclimate" to what they have installed, and would karma as if it were either an attribute being improved, or like a Mage improving their Magic Attribute. Essence increased in this way would not recover lost Magic points, unless the Essence was lost through traumatic injury.
Basically: Sams can now spend Karma or Cash (and alternate between) to pick up ludicrous amounts of cyber so that they can keep up with Mages and Physads who have no such limitations. Physads or mages who use cyber are still vulnerable to burnout however.

Only issue with allowing that is that it sort of eliminates the whole "Cyber Zombie" mythos.

Cyber zombies still happen, since anyone can still have a zero or less-than-zero essence. CZ's just spent that karma on additional "I kill you more" skills or have a buttload more cybertech.

I don't recall that. Was it in M&M? I do recall that magicians had to check for *magic* loss after a deadly wound, but never essence.

The buying up essence isn't a bad idea. The mage track gets expensive, but it's there. The street sam track basically just caps out.

It might be M&M rules, SR3 just has you check for Magic loss. Can't find permanent essence loss, so either I'm imagining it or I just haven't found it again (yet)

Smartlink and Subsystems: M&M p32, the 4 Smartlink components can be substituted Limited Simsense rig (simrig), palm induction pad (datajack), eye display (Image Link), and ballistics processor. "If a Smartlink system is not entirely cybernetic (any of the above substitutions are made), the Smartlink only provides a -1 bonus to Ranged combat."
IMO this is really a stupid idea. What I think happened is they tried to say "if you use smartgoggles", but what they literally said was "upgrading or altering any Smartlink subsystem" makes the Smartlink throw a hissy fit. So as written, a video feed does not replace ASCII cross-hairs, adding the lower half of your body to the half-simsense rig makes it a completely different augmentation, or using a wire to directly interface with a gun instead of a weird little wifi-palm-pad causes massive inherent systemic changes.
I am trying to make a character as "by the book" as possible, but some of the rules are stupid.

Other things for your consideration:
One of the ideas I had was to start using injection-vector knockout drugs to coat knives, so I can try and "pull a punch", only deal S damage (instead of D), and make the target resist a dose with the S wound modifier as a penalty on the test. Mechanically, this makes sense, and I was going to say that my character really prefers not to kill people but still needs that tactical option. Since I have Biotech of 6, I was going to handwave the "pulled punch" as knowledge of where to and not to stab.
What I was considering as an alternative to knives and the knifegun (bayonets should be matter of course on pistols), was to have a retractable spur with a retractable hand blade for my off hand. The only downside to this plan is I can't think of an easy way to coat the blades. My knife idea just had a wet seal in the sheath with a fluid reservoir and a liquid-only injection version of Neurostun. I could say "I coat the blade and the inside-arm sheath is sealed", but the only option I have to maintain the toxin is either applying it every time and hoping, or using a modified Auto-Injector (which I am not sure is on the equipment list anyway). So, am I applying the toxin by hand or do either of you have a better idea?

2nd idea, as we discussed yesterday:
BB has voiced a concern over magic "slowly rising" during the 2050s. I have mentioned that if he does not allow players to use Physads from the starting gate, it gets harder to make them "pay" for it down the line while still making the priority spent not gimp them in the beginning. I had mentioned that we could instead drop the priority for Mages, Physads and their ilk by one or two slots, but instead your character starts with a Magic rating of 2. As play progresses, you can buy a Magic Attribute up to 6 as if it were any other attribute (so 2x the desired rating in Karma). Every point after 6 would have to come with Initiation, per MITS after it has been discovered in-universe.
Concerns:
1 Street Samurai become even more powerful straight out of the gate. If we are trying to keep game balance, this has to be acknowledged.
2 Casting offensive magic becomes intensely more difficult. Either you are constantly frying yourself, or you are relying on your ability to roll more dice than your target pretty consistently.
3 Physical adepts are less hindered by this than Mages are.
4 If you can buy a MA up to 6 as an attribute, what happens when you get cyber? Is it taken off the top and made into a new cap (so 1.8 Essence lost makes your Magic-as-an-attribute stat 4)? Is it subtracted from your starting Magic?

Huh. I was looking at Retractable Spurs and Hand Blades for the "surprise I stab you" effect, but I just realized that in addition to the huge price gap, and additional Essence loss, you can't ever really get implanted weapon foci. I guess a boost to attack power and concealability isn't worth that much after all.

Smartlink: Check out the errata: http://old.shadowrun4.com/resources/errata_mm.shtml

p. 32 Smartlink Subsystem Game Effects [3]
Change the remarks in parentheses, found in the second paragraph, to read:
    "(any non-implant substitutions are made)"

So your reading is correct, but you're safe.

Chemicals: Chemicals delivered how you describe. However, wound modifiers from a knife wound do NOT apply to resisting damage from chemicals (SR3 p. 126 lists what wound modifiers apply to, and specify it does not apply to resisting or avoiding damage).

Gun-knife: I said we could work something out on this. I'll do some research and come up with a model. Expect that it won't be as effective at gunning or knifing as a dedicated tool.

Magic Rising: There are some SR3R rules for this. I'll need to read through them and get back to you.

Pulling Punches: Martial Arts maneuvers frustrate me, because they're for martial arts, but nothing else. I would like to either drop martial arts maneuvers as its own category of rules, or get a list of maneuvers for other combat styles. In general, if I "drop" them, that doesn't mean that they aren't available for use. Pulling punches is a thing, whether you're trained in boxing or not. I'd use the maneuver rules as guidelines, and tweak them as appropriate. (Expect it will never be easier than the rules described. How much harder depends on what the maneuver is. Any idiot can pull punches, but sweeping or ground-fighting are very tough.)

I would like some thoughts on the Martial Arts maneuvers from people (and also the magic, once I come back with something).

I'll put out a Players Wanted ad today.

Also I plan on deleting unused NPCs (which is basically all of them). Give me a head's up if you want to keep anything.

I found some rules for buying up magic piecemeal, however it requires the Build Point chargen method (of course). After that, Magic and Power Points would be bought like a normal attribute (so adepts would be paying twice for each power point, once for magic, once for the PP. Buying that last point would be 24 karma.)

I'm thinking that may be a touch too expensive, plus we'd have to go to point-buy which invites all sorts of power-gaming. Thoughts?

Smartlink substitution: Excellent. Glad that works out.

Chems: Ok, good to know that now instead of when I am depending on it. Still, I think I'll keep the idea around in case I want to do it anyway.

Pulling punches: I thought there were rules for preventing max damage. If there aren't, we could call up the called shot rules. Take a called shot penalty, then instead of adding damage or bypassing armor, we set a cap on the damage code with the +power for over-deadlier-damage rules applied (maybe). That way your character has a harder time with the fight (you are restraining yourself while they are not) but (assuming you hit), they also have a harder time reducing it below your cap.

Martial Arts are useful, the biggest hangup is that they suck for character creation. 2 skill points does not equal 2 karma in chargen, no matter what the game devs think. The way I usually run it:
Martial Arts have their inherent bonuses and drawbacks as written. If a martial art says that you can use maneuvers with certain types of weapons, then you can use any maneuver as soon as you purchase it the first time, with any weapon of that class. You do not have to buy maneuvers, and there is no built-in cap for how many maneuvers you can take.

In my games, I would consider also allowing the martial art's specific benefit and drawback to be applied to any weapon to which it ascribes (so for example, Pentjak-Silat gives you a bonus to called shots and a penalty to subdual. You have the option of applying that style bonus to Edged Weapons and Implant Weapons as you please).
The other optional rule I'd consider using is that instead of treating every martial art as a singular skill, you can learn to mix and match them. Once you have a certain number of points invested in a new style you can learn to swap out one set of style bonuses for another while still using your highest skill rating. The reasoning being most martial arts are based off of similar foundations, so it's not impossible to apply the principles of one into another. We could talk about an actual blending of styles, but these are my two cents.

Martial Arts maneuvers can be really useful. Things like Whirling gets rid of the threat of a swarm of Watcher spirits or Kip-up allows you to quickly escape hostile territory. Basically, I'm in favor of the Martial Arts rules because they are discrete and pre-written so we don't have to spend a few weeks in a rules thread going "but how do I throw that bad guy off a roof?"

Point-buy makes my head hurt. Also, having the Magic Attribute, Power Point distinction invites other questions like "can I buy PP without MA upgrades" and "do I have to spend build points on Magic Attribute lost to cyberware installation?" So on the one hand it would encourage players to have widely skilled characters from the get-go, but on the other hand it takes a lot more work to make them.

Looking back, Pulling Punches isn't a martial art, it's a general rule for melee combat. So no MA required, hurrah!

My issue with martial arts is exactly what you are illustrating. Assuming Carver doesn't know Arnis De Mano, does that mean he can't throw people?

1: I found the rules for pulling punches. Cannon Companion p86. The short and sweet is you set a limit on the number of successes and +1TN. After the attack rolls are compared, you deal damage as if you had *only* rolled that many successes. The only downside as written is that characters who roll abundant successes also lose additional Power added to their attacks. IMO if you roll well enough to earn extra power (through over Deadly damage), you should be given extra power for the attack, since there's no reason not to.

2: As it stands, the Throw maneuver makes it easier to throw people effectively, farther and deal more damage. So someone throwing someone else would roll their STR vs the target's BOD (after a Melee attack) to determine distance thrown. Characters with the Throw maneuvers deal their Unarmed damage, and reduce the target's BOD for the distance check by how many successes they score on the attack. (I.E. people not trained in a maneuver can still do most of them, it's just harder, exclusive, and you don't deal damage in addition to pulling off the maneuver)

Overall the most useful maneuvers you can pull are Blind Fighting, Close Combat, Evasion, Ground fighting/kip-up, Herding/Throw, Multi-Strike, and Whirling. So from the mechanics perspective, it's like modifying your weapon to suit a circumstance. Characters use maneuvers so that they can prepare for the worst or use a little smarts to change the odds to their favor.
Ex: A Physical Adept with the Blind Fight adept power and maneuver takes only a +2 TN modifier when fighting blind. So if they are facing a superior force in a warehouse, they can bust all the lights and go all "whatchAAAA!" on them.
Pretty much the biggest reason why I like maneuvers is that they allow you to change a fight actively, instead of sitting back and going "cool, you rolled five successes, that means you punched him a lot".
The situations you can turn around using maneuvers:
"to bring an advantage or take away a disadvantage": Blind Fight, Close Combat, Kick Attack
To fight large groups of people: Evasion, Multi-Strike, Whirling
To survive & GTFO: Evasion, Ground Fighting, Kip-up
To actively take advantage of your surroundings: Blind Fight, Herding, Throw
This message was last edited by the player at 19:07, Wed 22 Jan 2014.

So we have 4 new players (hurrah!) Including a few who have probably been playing Shadowrun longer than I have, and can actually answer my SR1 questions.

There's been some talk about archetypes, so here's the deal;

I ran a looong campaign which I wrapped up in 2010 (wow, doesn't seem that long) which had a full party. Since I'm kicking this up again, we only have two of the original players:

Carver - new PC for this campaign, seems to be a knife specialist (physical adept?) and also a knife specialist (combat doc).
Firefox - old PC, the player hasn't mentioned the plan for the new PC.

Six characters means I expect a little overlap; that's fine. I can always tweak as need be anyway.

I'm still fighting off a head cold, so please excuse me if I'm losing details.

FYI, I plan to wipe all of the old threads and old NPCs. I'll do that tomorrow unless someone says 'no please don't!'

In reply to Papa Bear (msg # 46):

Hey. New guy here. Just gonna throw out a few ideas/opinions.


1)BP character building:
I like these kinds of builds myself, as I have more flexibility over what I can and cannot do with my character. As for power gaming, the GM has final say does He/She not? :)

2)Rules Changes:
I am seeing a lot of suggestions about rule changes and whatnot here, I have not gone through everything, but I think maybe we should decide as a group how crunchy we want to be with this. Adding things like MA rules, and changing around the magic system etc have a large learning overhead. If we just stick to the equipment & spell lists that were available in 2050, I think this will be the simplest way to accomplish this.

3)Character Archetypes:
I was thinking of playing an decker style character, or a face style character. Is anyone thinking of playing something along those lines? I am totally flexible here, so if someone is planning either or both, I can choose differently.

In regards to mechanics, don't forget that testing SR3R is a goal in itself. In play, I normally hide most of the mechanics (unless people want to get into them). But this game is also a testbed for the modified ruleset.

And yes, most of us are grognards who just like to talk about Shadowrun rules a lot :P

Oh, I am all for that. I just wasnt sure where the line between talking about and implementing was. I have a _LOT_ of catching up to do.

I totally understand. I plan to tidy up the Rules thread today, hopefully dropping it below 3 pages.

And no, I've never caught a firing pin that's been launched across the room :P that did get a laugh.

BTW, a note for Thaden/Carver/Kiku and Firefox -- To help keep things from getting stuck, I'm planning to 'advance the clock' every Tuesday and Thursday morning (excepting of course for days when I don't -- if we're already moving fast, holidays, etc.)

Welcome all.

Haven't decided on a new character archetype yet.  Combination of letting the newer folks figure out what they wanted (because I'm flexible) and not having the time to write one up prior to the drop-bear run.  I have in interesting fellow drafted up who's a physical adept assassin-type, but if we're not doing physical adepts, he's sort of out.

The question was asked about "starting karma", but didn't see an answer.  Do we all start from ground zero again?  (I'm ok with that, but it definitely effects character design.)

Yeah Carver is a dwarven combat doc, cat burglar, pistolero and knife man. Physical Adept with a little cyber. He's not big on social skills unless you plan on quibbling with him while you bleed out. But for healing or hurting, he really likes knives.

Warlock, you are more than welcome to play a socialite decker.

Am I the only one who would love to see Kronk from Emperor's New Groove as a Shadowrun Ork?
This message was last edited by the player at 17:32, Thu 23 Jan 2014.

Well I just PMed the GM on this but this seems like a place to really ask it.

How many active PCs are there here?  what archetypes are represented.

Warlock, I was thinking along those lined for a character for myself, or a B&E specialist, or a weapons specialist....

Well it looks like 6 players active, though only 4 have posted thus far. Far as party balance goes, we have found that 2 mages makes things a lot easier, but we are also actively trying to make Street Samurai better because they do lag behind very quickly (and that's bad). As far as archetypes go, I think all we have covered really solid is "generic Adept". In case you haven't played before, a few infiltration skills are always recommended.

What we really need:
Magic (caster preferred), socialite, and ranged strike capability (somewhere between SMG and sniper rifle). If you need help, I can pull you through character creation. You can make any archetype fill pretty much any role, so if you want to play a wizard sniper that is both awesome and doable. Having some vehicle skills (even if you aren't a rigger) is also handy. If you want to help us give the GM a headache, demolitions is always a thing.

What Carver brings to the table: quick quiet take downs, medical assistance, and durability (I'm not as tough as a street sam, but I'm still a dwarf). I have invested in a few contacts, but I'm not skilled enough to really use them (yet). I'm not going to be as powerful as some of you, but I'll never run out of ammo either.

I like this. Taking social engineering to the Nth level. Skills and ¥ will be an issue though. I'll see what I can toss together.


Are we using something akin to chummer for chargen? I have the old SR3 chargen as well.

I'm an old had when it some to shadowrun, I've run several SR3 games so I think I can some up with something nice.

If Warlock is going decker/face then I may go with B&E specialist and flesh that out some.

Unsure of the other 4, but FF & I are usually the sort of party members who will take some of our cut to make sure you can upgrade your decks and programs. Same with Riggers usually, 'cause I honestly don't know what I'll be spending my cash on aside from "gear that hasn't been invented yet".
Oh right - ALE AND WHORES!

Also on that subject, Carver is actually a true-blue doctor. He's got a ripperdoc contact, and works at a good quality clinic. It might not be like it was the first time BB ran a game, but Carver can certainly set you all up with a discount when it comes to installing cyber. He will even promise to use a medical laser-scalpel instead of his kukri.

We usually use sum-10 chargen from the SR3 core, so you can lower one priority (say B to C) so you can raise another (say, D to other C).

Warlock, the more I think about it, the more I like a Decker-Face. You'll have a tough time keeping up in combat (cause every game gets bogged down once in a while), but you can definitely mix infosec specialist with honest-to-god fixer. We had another player, Vigo, whose in-character goal was to become a fixer. Seemed like fun.

As long as you all don't start running off and stabbing people for no reason, or slaughtering the guards I took great pains to incapacitate instead of kill, Carver will do his damndest to not let you all die.

I appreciate the sentiment, but I am unlikely to take you up on that right away. Whatever character I play is probably not going to want to feel indebted to a bunch of people he barely knows. However, if we start accruing a "group pot" THEN I think it would be ok.




I agree, the more I think on it, the more fun it could be. ANY decker/face is mostly going to be shite in combat. I suspect this will be no different, however, it will be amplified. I may just take throwing weapons so I can toss rocks at the enemy :)

I've made a decker face before, they are quite useful and good fun.

For us group pot is SOP

If you are going to play social and decking though, remember to post frequently. Or else we shall have to pout at you.

If you run out of skill points, get a skillwire and a decent gun chip. I already have Carver ready to use knowsofts and datasofts (I don't know if linguasofts require a full rig). We could have encyclopedia exchange parties :)

I figured as much.

I know, These fingers are gonna have to do some typin.

IDK, I have always felt skillwires were cheap. :P But I will probably use them, but I gotta leave space for all that cool headware! Encephelon and whatnot coming down that pipe!

BTW, are we using social cybernetic penalty rules?

Well pooh, my original concept was a raccoon shaman decker but then I noticed the cast had a lot of spell casters so I submitted an idea for a street doc but that seems to be covered also.

Any ideas what the group needs still?  I could play a physad I guess.

I noticed that the companion is being used but we are not using build points is that correct?

Are there any rigger types?  I don't really like them but I can make any character fun.

Hi everyone, I'm here.  I've been looking over everything and am still trying to wrap my head around it (there is a lot to look over).  I am very new to this, but Shadowrun always seemed so fun and interesting and I will definitely do my best not to bog you guys down with my inexperience.  I don't really have a specific character in mind yet and would be up for filling most roles.  All I really have so far is a bit of potential backstory for my guy.

Warlock - not that I know of. At the least, I never got penalties when playing my cybered and fully kitted up combat dwarf. FF kept playing after I left the first time.

PCO.Spvnky - "the cast" page is actually a lot of holdovers from the last crew to play through this game. As it stands, we actually have no spellcasters and only one decker (Warlock offered to take that on). So if you wanted to try being both, then good on you mate! (Riggers are also currently not taken)

So current crew docket may be:
Carver - Medic/Physad
Warlock - Face/Decker
Spvnky - 'coon shaman/Decker

Cloudbreaker - Being a new guy isn't bad at all. This game was originally made to teach my high school friends Shadowrun, and so that Papa Bear could run ('cause I'm actually a godawful GM as it happens). I think we'd never really want to get rid of that part of the experience - we're here to help you learn.
If you decide you need help with character creation, I know PB is usually pretty busy. When I'm a little less caught up in trying to get my usual crew eaten by tremors I'll be happy to run you through it (to the best of my abilities). You would just need to figure out what kind of character you want to play.
IMO Street Samurai are the easiest, Physical Adepts are barrel-o-monkey fun, and mages are explosives on two legs (or less)! Just don't ask me to help with a Decker, because I've been reading these rules for 9 years and I still don't get them (I'm *starting* to understand Riggers).

It has been my experience that Tech characters start out strong but after a long period of gaming magic characters over power them.  Although in pbp that probably won't happen.

I'm glad that being new isn't a bad thing and that's one of the main reasons this group was so appealing.  Shadowrun AND open to total newbies?  Sign me up!

I'm thinking maybe I'll be a knowledgeable, sciency, skill-type... with a shotgun.  Someone who is good at knowing where and how to look for the answers they seek.  Someone who can find ways around obstacles that aren't immediately obvious and are good at connecting the dots... with a shotgun.  What skills would someone like that need?  Intelligence?  Astral sight? Are there spells that would help out? (is there a spell list or something somewhere?  I didn't see one anywhere yet)  I'm thinking maybe a trickster mage could be cool.  (You know, with a shotgun)

EDIT: A raccoon shaman isn't a trickster mage, is it?  Because I don't want to be stealing anyone's character ideas.
This message was last edited by the player at 02:55, Fri 24 Jan 2014.

If we have enough people looking to play, and we have a bunch of redundancy, I am happy to split up the face/decker role and just focus on one or the other.

It seems that no one is going the street sam route so I may take that up (they are very useful).  The raccoon shaman is a bandit type shaman.

I really need to go through all these rules to decide what I want to play and I also want to make sure all our bases are covered.  I can make any character for shadowrun fun although I was really getting into the street doc concept....:(

Holy crap! 20+ posts in 12 hours and I wasn't one of them.  I think that might be a game record :>


Exploding or smoking rocks (or even rocks that look like they might explode) can be fairly effective :>

Still looking for an answer on starting karma and whether we're weakening magic (and if so how)

Carver covered most stuff.

Cyber penalties to social skills: No, I never enforce that. Street sams and the like get screwed over enough as it is.

Cloudbreaker, don't stress. The entire party is advanced except for you, but I'm happy to take as long as you need. Magic is probably more utilitarian, although if you want to be a mage/specialist specialist, that works too.

When it comes to magic you have a few choices. Firstly, you can be a hermetic mage, who approaches magic like science. Everything is repeatable and testable (well, usually). He doesn't get any bonuses, but doesn't get any penalties either. He can conjure Elementals, which take hours and thousands of nuyen to make, but are extremely tough. Alternatively, you can be a shaman. For shamen, magic is a spiritual connection to the world. Shamen follow an animal totem, which gives them certain bonuses (and penalties) and guides their behavior. They can spontaneously conjure nature spirits, which are less powerful than elementals and a bit more ornery, but handy to be able to spontaneously call in a fight.

The second big choice is you can be a full magician or a partial one (a 'groggy'). Full magicians can cast and conjure. Groggies can only do one of them. Full mages can also send their spirit out to do magical stuff in the world, while groggies can only see the magic in the world. However, groggy is a fewer points spent.

Or you can always go with the electronics specialist (who is normally also the B&E specialist or the rigger), or whatever other crazy combination you settle on.

Karma ... yes, I plan on starting at 0 karma (plus whatever you earn in the drop bear threads).

Firefox: 12 hours without your posting?? Yep, sounds like a record to me!

Tidied up a little. Looks much nicer here, I think. I still need to straighten up the rules thread, but I've been fighting off a head cold, and my littlest one has been pushing me to run 8 hours of D&D in the past four days.

Cloudbreaker - Connect the dots on buckshot? What kind of questions do you want to answer? You could certainly pull a Harry Dresden and make a wizard private-eye. You don't get to quite his power level, but that's because the rules are different. And I can certainly find you a good totem if you need help.

To add on "Groggies". They are called Aspected Mages. Basically you start off with more spell points but are a much more focused caster. You actually have three options - Spellcaster, Summoner, or Totemic aspect. Spell casters and Summoners can only use sorcery or summoning (resp.); Totemic can summon spirits/elementals and cast magic based on their element/totem of choice.

PCO - We could always have two doctors. Carver could even set you up with a day job.

on D&D - at least we know where he gets it from.

As requested, added the 'knife gun' to the Rules thread:

Ares Taurus (custom-designed weapon, not in the books)
This gun doesn't seem to quite know what it is. A sword, the size of a sawn-off shotgun, with an integrated handgun. Built as a ridiculous show weapon, mostly for buyers with more testosterone than brains, but with a little tweaking it's an ideal close-combat one-two punch.

The weapon looks almost like a short machete, with an oversize handle and wide spine. The blade is considered adequate, with a conceal of 4, damage of (STR+2)L.

The firearm has an internal magazine holding four rounds (plus one in the chamber), which it can fire single shot. Because of its awkward configuration, it suffers a -1 penalty to attacks, however it does have quite the punch (9M). It can receive an additional top accessory for $100 extra, due to the costs of re-balancing the blade. While not designed to support barrel accessories, street shops have designed a silenced barrel for $600.

Just curious, why not something like this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballistic_knife

Ugh have to decide what to play before I post IC.  lol

I think the idea is something he can shoot while the enemies are approaching (or while he's approaching), then stab once he's in melee range. A ballistic knife would hit the target at short range, but then he'd just be holding a handle for melee.

Twitch- it's a drop bear adventure. Worst case, you say you're on a BTL bender and you THOUGHT you could do magic, but really you're just a hobo with a shotgun.

Uhhhh I would prefer to not be a btl junkie....lol.

I think I am going to go with a tech gun bunny right now, if I change my mind later I don't mind making up a new character.

I have seen lots of discussion but nothing saying yes or no, are we using priorities or point build?

priority system, but you can drop one priority to raise another.

Yay! I have more testosterone than brains! two whole points!

I like Warlock. I like them a lot.
This message was last edited by the player at 17:50, Fri 24 Jan 2014.

I seem to get forgotten a lot lately, I stated before that I was planning on going with a B&E character

In reply to st_nougat (msg # 79):

Please note, I am willing to split up the decker/face duties. Ive not even started on a character yet in a bid to be flexible.

What do you mean by drop one to raise another?  The priority system (As I remember it) is Race, Magic, Resources, Skills, and Attributes (with levels of A,B,C,D,E).

As a techie human I completely eliminate both the race and magic priorities.  So does tha mean I can place them as A,B,B?  or since I am dropping two categories can I do A,A,B?

Thanks for all the magic info guys.  It was really helpful.  However, at work today I came to the realization that a magic user probably isn't the best choice for me until I get more familiar with how everything works.  Just too many unknowns right off the bat.  So I went a different rout and came up with a new character concept that I think would be fun to play.

A troll who is the hired muscle.  Strong and tough and good in a fight (and thinks he is way smarter and charismatic than he really is).  If you need brute force, he's your man.  Pretty straightforward on the surface, but I came up with a whole backstory to go with him too, although I'll spare you guys the details.  I'm not married to the idea though, so if you guys think he will overlap too much with someone else or you still need a different niche filled, I'm flexible.  Constructive criticism is much appreciated.

Twitch: The sum-to-ten works like this. Imagine A=4, B=3, C=2, D=1, E=0. You can mix and match however you want as long as it adds up to 10. So A, A, B doesn't work (11), but A, A, C does, and so does A, B, B.

Ok, that makes sense.  Are we doing knowledge and language skills in this?

Absolutely.

Everyone has 5 * Intelligence in Knowledge/background skills. These are things you know; biology, favorite bands, Seattle neighborhoods, etc. Note that for every Active Skill, you get the Knowledge Skill at the same value. So if you have a skill in Rifles, you also know something about the history, make, and operation of rifles.

They also have 1.5 * Intelligence in their Language skills. You should probably have at least 3 points in your native language, but it's not required. Your read/write skill is automatically equal to your normal skill, unless you have a reason for it to be otherwise (like you took Illiteracy as a flaw).

For the sum-to-ten method I came up with the following for my character, but I'm not really sure where to go from here.  If I give someone my character concept, can you guys help me flesh him out?  (for instance, his attributes in order of importance are: strength, body, quickness, intelligence, willpower, charisma).

4-attributes 30
3-skills 40
2-troll
1-resources 20k
0-no magic

well, aside from some gm approval I think my character might be done....:)

So since I'm playing a Koro-Pok-Guru I have the 1 and 3-point Natural Immunity edge, so immunity to one natural and one artificial disease or toxin. I was thinking of taking Alcohol and Neurostun/Narcojet, so that I can drink liquor forever and don't have to worry about accidentally dosing myself while coating my weapons with knockout drugs. Anyone have better ideas?

God that is horrible!  Why would you want to be immune to alcohol?

So that way when I invest in the karma necessary to get my Charisma from a measly 2 to a billion, I can play Sam Axe (or Bruce Cambell, whichever works). I never said it wouldn't affect me, just that he would be immune to hangovers and loss of coordination.
Besides, there's something appealing to me about Carver being able to drink my ex-Spetznas hobgoblin Vassili Sevchenko under the table that appeals to me, especially in light of how much property damage Vassi has caused already.

BTW, I forgot to mention: I bought rating 4 encryption for a radio. I will be sharing this with the group with the understanding that Carver isn't paying out of pocket for the next upgrade.

st_nougat is now Snow.

We will miss his deliciousness.

Cloudbreaker, do you want me to change your name to St. Velveteen?

BTW, I need decking gear info.

DAAARRRNNN ITTTTT ...

Okay, I'll work on getting it up in the next two days.

I think I'll hold off on changing it for now.  I picked it as something that Saint Velveteen thought was cool when he chose it, but is actually pretty lame.  And I think it fits that goal, but I think I'll try to find a different name.  One that doesn't start to annoy myself after a while.  Thanks though!

Just makes things easier for the rest of us if your posting name and in-game name are generally the same.  (Adding descriptions would be welcome too - once everyone has their characters sufficiently nailed down.)

In reply to Papa Bear (msg # 95):

You knew I was gonna make your life hard playing a decker :)

It's cool .. I've updated the thread. I forgot the tough part isn't the equipment list. Are you familiar with playing a decker?

(I'll still be adding non-software encryption as I get there, but that's already in the old thread.)
This message was last edited by the GM at 20:49, Mon 27 Jan 2014.

In reply to Papa Bear (msg # 99):

Yes, but I am going to have to re-visit the rules a little bit. Its been a while.

Question:
When you purchase equipment at chargen you do NOT count street index.  However, you're limited to an availability of 8 and rating of 6 (yes, that applies to your cyberdeck as well, but you can still buy as many programs as you'd like.)


How are we setting the rating of the deck? Can I assume that we are using persona rating as the "rating"?

Also, are we using any custom deck creation rules? IE, during character creation, can I add, or pay to have added reaction enhancement, memory etc to the stock decks?

Not sure on the Papa's thoughts about sharing karma pool, but I'll re-roll if he oks it.

Oh, I meant I would donate it to team Karma pool.  Generally speaking team Karma pool is much more useful than personal.

In reply to warlock4u (msg # 100):

Decks and programs have an availability like any other piece of equipment.

they are listed on page 304 of the core book unless the GM wants to tweak them.

In reply to Snow (msg # 103):

Oh, I know. But they dont have a "rating" per-se like the software does. I am assuming the "rating" is the persona rating of the deck, but I wanted to be sure.

Correct.



The deck has a number of ratings, but I assume you're referring to the MPCP chip? The MPCP chip is the number that is 'free points' to be divided among the decker's four persona ratings. Your decker sets them himself before logging in. They take a few minutes to do, and they can't be done while you're online.



I'd have to say not at this point. Decking is something I've never been fantastic with, so it's tough for me to spot what's going to be unbalancing.

Can you be more specific?

Just checking whether sharing of karma pool is allowed.  (I don't recall it being something we've done in the past)

I suppose that team Karma pool may be something that my old group made as a house rule but basically people donate their personal pool to a team karma pool and that way the whole team has access to it when needed.

I've heard of the team karma pool concept. Yeah, I'm curious why it was brought up. It really hurts the humans, though. It also works better at a table, where people can say "hey, I'm going to use the last KP, that cool?" and he doesn't have to wait a week for a solid answer.

So my answer is, I wasn't planning on it.

In reply to Papa Bear (msg # 105):

Cool. Thanks.


Are hardened deck cases available? I am willing to pay a premium to get one if its "not available" per rules.
This message was last edited by the player at 22:17, Mon 27 Jan 2014.

Given that everyone's starting at ground zero on this run (except for Firefox, but she's getting replaced once we're finished the intro run), I'm not sure that this would necessarily be the time to draw on pool anyhow.

Why does it hurt humans?

Because Karma Pool drains karma from humies (at least) twice as frequently as it does from metas. Contribute more, use less I assume is the hurt.

Also, Snow, that coulda been phrased a little nicer, especially since the payday is 10k apiece and a helmet is 250 straight with a tag of 2k at a stretch.
Don't start hissing at party members in front of the Johnson.
This message was last edited by the player at 00:00, Tue 28 Jan 2014.

Oh, we always just played that you donated what you wanted to and kept what you wanted for personal.  This of course assumes that the entire group gets along and plays nice....:)

Like Carver said. Humans getting more Karma Pool is their one 'bonus' compared to other races. Now they have no advantages (well, except bonus points because we're using sum-to-ten, yaaaay!) Even worse, the human now 'loses' access to twice as much karma feeding the group karma pool, but presumably uses it the same amount as everyone else.

Yes, reinforced deck cases are available. $600 for the sealed and robust one for easy transport. $2,000 for the 'ruggedized' one you can hit an ork over the head with and it still works.

Two other things I wanted to bring up...

Customizing equipment - I generally stick to the main manual for stuff (at least for now). This makes things a lot easier for everyone. Experienced players don't need to track the twenty little mods they put on their favorite item to maximize the bonus. New players don't need to wonder why they're hitting one time out of two but the other guy has yet to miss. And I don't have to give all of the NPCs those same tweaks because they're standard and available. The only downside I see is you don't get to open up with full auto whenever you want because you don't have the 10 points of recoil compensation to drive the TN down.

However, I do permit customization when you have that 'really cool idea' or piece of gear that's core to your concept, or the piece of equipment that exists in real life and you want one for your character. I've done the knife-blade, and reinforced deck cases are another great example.

So push the story, not the target numbers :)


A second note, please avoid specializations in knowledge skills. I'm pretty lenient about what 'falls under' a particular knowledge skill (but not to specializations), but if your skill matches what's required 'on the nose', you'll get a super-bonus of information. So it really helps you to make your specialization into the actual skill. The exception here is if your specialization is really, really narrow. So "Punk Bands" is a great skill, while "Sex Pistols" would be a specialization.

In reply to Carver (msg # 113):

security helmets aren't legal, so a street legal one doesn't exist, making 'expectations' like that is silly at best, insulting to the Johnson at worst.  besides, he's eating cats I don't think a little bickering is going to hurt anything.

though to the faces of the group I'm sorry if ive overstepped a little but snow would be quite adept as a face as well.

I have always consider it useful to the group, who cares if I get away if the rest of the group is hosed.  Shadowrunning is kinda a group effort....lol.

For the record I would consider it unprofessional for anyone except the face to be doing the talking until the particulars are over.  Talking about the best way to kill someone is not something one does in a posh restaurant with the Tres Chic rich about (which is why I didn't explain that I am a gun bunny).  Actively showing the Johnson that you have little to no respect for another teammate would also be a taboo (at least in the groups I run with).

Twitch isn't a face btw but he does have two etiquette skills (and good rep of 1) in order to know what is going to cost him money in the long run.

I agree that typically negotiation would be done primarily by the face.  In fact, odds are that in a typical situation, only a couple of people would be at the table.  Others would be providing over-watch, running research on the fly and communicating over a secure channel.  We'll know each other (with the possible exception of 1-2 new people), have established a degree of trust, know primary & back up roles, etc.

However, this starter game is extremely non-typical.  We've got a super-diverse set of runners who've never laid eyes on each other before, are totally "new" to this line of work and get thrown together at a high-end restaurant where most of them don't fit in *at all* with a couple of minutes to say "hi how are you" and play tic-tac-toe with crayons before the Johnson shows up and starts eating kitties.  He then makes a starting offer of $60k for a snatch and grap staged by a bunch of newbies.

"Typical Shadowrun" this ain't. :>

If we weren't doing a bit of suspension of disbelief, Firefox would have walked on this a couple of times already.  Nuyen is important, but keeping your hoop intact for the next run (and the rest of your life) is more important.

My understanding from Papa's description is that this run is more than a bit over-the-top.  Therefore, I'm ok with people playing it a bit over-the-top.  I'm not terribly good with over-the-top - at least not with a character who I've played staight for many years, so I'll probably keep responding that way - other than letting slide things that would normally have gotten my panties in a wad.

Once the dust settles, we'll come up with some "standard operating procedures" that will ensure we come across as a tad more professional (and behave in ways a little less likely to make us dead).  Only risk with starting over-the-top is that people get used to it and continue to play that way when we move into a more typical "careless = dead" genre of runs.  But I'm sure we can address that with some up-front discussion of expectations before we start round two.


As for a legal security helmet, that's technically possible.  Trick is to get a fake id that shows you as a registered member of an appropriate security/corp outfit that would need to wear one.  That's not going to be cheap.  Downside is that running around dressed up as a lone LoneStar or KE officer is going to look a bit strange.  As is wearing the helmet without matching body armor.  So while theoretically feasible, don't think it's gonna happen this time around.  That said, having a newbie runner asking for one is semi-reasonable IC.  And if the whole conversation blows up and we end up toasting the Johnson, Firefox won't mind.  He had it coming for eating live kittens . . .

Yeah I was put off by the kitten thing too....lol.  And the waitress though my order was icky.....:)

I wasn't trying to be snarky btw.  I was just pointing out that things were not going professional so there was no need to be arguing amongst ourselves.

Firefox basically got it right :) Completely over the top and silly, so breaking etiquette is fine (as long as you recognize the NPCs will also break etiquette all over your head, because, well, I don't think you've encountered one yet who IS polite).

I'm not too worried about this carrying over to the 'real' game. Almost everyone has significant SR experience; this isn't going to teach you bad habits if you didn't already have them. Of course, I've been wrong before.

IMO it's not hard to disguise a security helmet as a fancy motorcycle one, especially if you leave all the extra little bits off. I would buy an RTL helmet and shut up, but that's in Cannon Companion and I can't get it. I get that it doesn't have a Concealability rating, but I'm under the impression that this is because it is obviously a helmet and not some fancy hat.
At least as far as the demand goes, until Carver trusts you to ask for his gear (and until he knows what the J can pay with) the standard is "ask for gear as payment" (as PB has explained to me in the past, sometimes you *can* just get paid in APDS rounds). If J says no, it's fine - I still have cash and can ask for that from my fixer (that's what they're there for); if J says yes but quibbles on time frame then I am in a position to barter and can talk him down from 2k nuyen; if the J miraculously gives me a helmet beforehand, then I can have a super nifty helmet before we go up against a meter tall brain-eating fuzzy murderbear.

Yeah, no problem. I may ask for a little extra time at the end of the scene to posture with you in the alleyway that way Carver doesn't have to act all grumpy later.

And yes, I am playing over-the-top on purpose. If this were real, then Carver wouldn't be eating at all, would have exclusively tactical questions, and would probably be sending his Fixer a request for the helmet and a Paranormal Animals r4 Knowsoft right now with whatever funds we negotiate up-front.

In reply to Papa Bear (msg # 116):

I will take orc crusher for ¥2000 Alex.

eating ... I ... I wrote this and I never saw that. I am ... so terrible ...

yes

yes you are.

In reply to Papa Bear (msg # 125):

LOL that was an ACCIDENT??!?!?!


EVEN BETTER!

Wow, that is hilarious.

As a head's up, I've yet to see anyone say "hey, my character is ready for review". That's a pretty important step.

Also, I read over Silver Angel. Looks like this is going to be a breeze for experienced runners. I may kick the planning stages off while the Drop Bear Adventure is still winding down (assuming characters are ready).

In reply to Papa Bear (msg # 129):

I can have my char ready later today.

Carver has been helping me with my character, and I think we are almost done.  Should be ready for review soon.

Was waiting for a final list of who's doing what before I did mine.  Where did everyone land?

I guess I would call my guy a physically powerful troll street samurai?

I stuck with face/decker/social Engineering

Oh yeah, I knew there was some step I was skipping. I have my character ready, I just didn't put my character sheet up. At present I've been working off my hard drive, and my current rpol character sheet says I am a terse Japanese elf sniper who is, in the words of Legolas, "still the prettiest".

I should be ready to review as soon as I get that up. Cloudbreaker should be done by this afternoon by the latest.

Cloudbreaker is a Troll street sam with some pretty clever knowledge skills. Also, he is heavy weapons guy (AND THIS is his weapon). I'm Dwarven ripperdoc (sounds familiar) with knives, LeSneak, pistols and a Knowsoft. We got our Decker-Face. I assume our orange-afro-otaku us a Mage of some sort.

Breaking in and entering specialist.  Standard issue grifter.

Ya know, maybe I'll stick with this name after all.  You can go ahead and change it.

Good grief I finally got a character submitted.  Physad SMG user.

Hmm.  So we're short on magic and rigging.  Not things that go together terribly well.  Of the two, mage is probably the most important, so I'll go that route.

We can always grab vehicle skills as karma rolls in. I think Velveteen or Snow may have to get extra money thrown their way, since they are the ones we can afford to make Riggers. I can plug in, but VCRs hurt like a bad mutha.

ummm no.  Snow is not getting a VCR installed.

Twitch is a street racer but not a rigger.

Rigging is easy to forego, especially in 2050. Riggers tend to sit out more than deckers right now.

Too bad they never came up with magic riggers like they did for deckers.

My experience with our last rigger is that having drones around is *nice*.  But agree that it's less essential.  We can re-evaluate when one of us dies ;>

Skill boost can be used to make Physads pretty good getaway drivers (assuming a helpful application of GM Handwavium), but VCRs have wonderful little bits like reducing driving TNs to insanely low levels. I once tried to make the Transporter (Jason Statham one, not the Star Trek wibbly one) a Physad. I got pretty close, but I ran out of points and money because it's hard to make a good character with priorities A & B for cash and magic, resp.

Hey, Twitch, if you have it a datajack can be used to add +1 to your Reaction when you plug it into a car. Just remember, jackpoint good, cigarette lighter bad.

I have a data jack because I got a smartlink....:)  Figured that if I already lost the magic point I might as well use it up.

Actually, that's Firefox's build, so it's certainly possible to make it work.

Trying to decide whether to go the same route this time.  Nice thing about money as A is you can start out with some sweet foci which really boosts effectiveness.  Downside is you loose astral projection and are more limited in spell repertoire.  That wasn't much of an issue when we had two mages, but might be more of an issue when I'm the only one.

Opinions?

Preferences on hermetic vs. shamanic?

Ma Thump redefined my understanding of 'rigger'. Although really, she redefined a lot of things.

I believe that shamans being able to summon on the fly is very useful (I also think they are more interesting than mages so i might be biased....lol).

Riggers without the black book are about as pointless as a magic user with a magic rating of 0 however.  :)

In reply to Firefox (msg # 148):

If you are going full caster then I would go for Shaman.  I have found that summoning nature spirits to be more useful (and cheaper) than elementals.

if you are going Aspected with just sorcery then it depends on what flavor you want for the character.

As a quick note, I'm not going to ask people to actually figure out how to pay the bill. Remember, nothing bad will follow you out of this adventure! That includes restaurant bills.

I wish life was so kind ;)

Shieeeet. I aint payin for NUTHIN! :)

"DINE AND DASH."  lol

Sorry I keep forgetting to color my text guys. I'll get better, I promise.

Coloring the text is an artistic preference. I like doing it because I forget to put in quotation marks sometimes, so you know when I'm talking and when I'm not. You can do as you please, long as it's legible.

Also worth noting, everyone needs to make an INT (4) test to be able to read Doc Carver's handwriting.

Thinking on this, I'm going to give everyone a free fixer, so I can have one guy everyone knows. I'll stat him out later. Meanwhile, if you already have a fixer contact, you can swap him or her out, or specialize her, or whatnot.

So I've finished reviewing everyone's character sheets. If you haven't heard from me it's probably because I don't like you, but you should poke me anyways just in case I just forgot to hit send.

I feel your pain. I have a 7.3l Ford with one or more bad glowplugs. I can barley get it to start when cold.

Ah, well then I guess that means my fake ID decker contact is back in!

Does Or'zet exist right now?  Dunklezahn willed it to the orcish community on his death.

Oh, good catch. There's certainly no mention of it. I'd have to imagine that no, it isn't really around yet.

The timeline for this mission is a little wonky.  I think our previous game was somewhere in the 2060s (though that may be off - we were never terribly specific).  For Firefox, this occurs some time after that.  However, once she gets swapped out with my new character, we're at the beginning of the 2050s, when Dunklezahn hasn't even announced he's running for president yet.  For sake of continuity, let's just assume everything's early 2050s.

Warlock, I like your robes.

In reply to St. Velveteen (msg # 164):

Are you trying to get into my kilt?

Flattery will get you everywhere. :P

No comment. ;)



Hmm, Twitch "likes to use guns and race bikes."  St. Velveteen "likes to use guns and raze bikes."  Their interests overlap almost to the letter.

If I were awarding karma, that would've earned a point.  Thanks for making my evening :>

That's as good a reason as any.

+1 karma, St. Velveteen.

Well now that Warlock and Velveteen have started pairing off, I guess it's not worth mentioning I haven't decided if Carver is bi or not. Still has a thing for trolls, though. That's definite.

I don't think ... that's quite how Velveteen and warlock are pairing off.

As a note, in previous years I was the control freak who updated everyone's karma for them.

I don't plan on doing that. I will try to post a summary of karma distributed at the end of the run, but it's the player's job to:

1) Record when you got karma, preferably with a date or a note so if I'm looking back to fix things I can figure out where everything went (i.e., audit-safe :P)
2) Really, that's it. Record your own karma.

Same with other character changes. Just keep a log saying 'X increased'. This also helps me, since I keep a lot of notes offline for quick access, and I can double check the notes to see if anything has changed lately.

Haha, well if it makes you feel any better Carver, I was thinking I was going to have Velveteen be interested almost exclusively in dainty elf ladies.

Oh, some other notes...

I'd like to get the actual extraction started this week HOWEVER, I will be out of contact probably Wednesday until Sunday.

I'll try to answer all planning questions early next week, then push the extraction the week after. The big questions are:

1) Are you extracting from the studio, the hotel, or some third location?
2) Are you doing anything special prior I should know about? (No, you're not, this is the extraction of a 40-pound non-sentient marsupial and you don't need to be making it about anything else.)

Can we have a thread for the plotting place?  Carver's warehouse or whatever?  That way we could continue whatever is going on after the meet and start planning also?

I don't have a pun for that, sorry.

How bout "warehouses, dropbears, and shadowrunners OH MY!"

-_-

I at least expected something to the level of 'Meeting at the Bearhouse'.

"with the right koalifications everything should go as plant" sounds a little long, but it's all I got.

Oh wow, going for double credit there. Let me see if that works.

Jeez I been slacking I just now posted my character sheet and found a picture.

Will we be using social and athletics pools?

Just curious about that.

In reply to warlock4u (msg # 180):

there are no social or athletic pools in 3rd edition

In reply to Snow (msg # 181):

Oh GD, I didnt even _KNOW_ that. Ive always run 3rd edition with those pools.

They didn't get carried over.

now if the gm wants to house rule them in....

In reply to Snow (msg # 183):

_I_ would be PERFECTLY happy with that. IDK about everyone else :)

I really don't see the need for them?  just adds more dice to everything.

In reply to Twitch (msg # 185):

I happen to _LIKE_ dice. The more of them I roll, the happier I am! DICE! Nothing like rolling 18 body dice for your troll when somebody attempts to shoot him with something as puny as a panther cannon.

My issue with those is that you're rarely if ever going to split them. For instance, with combat pool, you split between taking multiple shots, dodging, and soaking. Social pool just dumps on your one test.

And that is very true. I am not going to put up a big fight here to try and shoehorn them in. They will most directly effect my character, so I am totally ok with letting them R.I.P.

I laughed so hard reading about St. V getting felt up by a blind man.  Hilarious!  I think it made my night.

Do any of you guys have pointers on using the matrix?  St. V knows the basics, but I don't.  At least not from a game mechanics perspective.  Any pointers would be helpful.  Like what sorts of skill tests (if any) should I have him perform?

I would guess that the Gm can help you?  I do not know how he is going to run it.  It could be a few dice rolls or an entire new thread.

Probably depends what you're going to do.  Just some general research probably won't require more than a roll or two.  Breaking into the security company's database to insert a few of us as employees is going to take a bit more :>

Hopefully I did that right.  If not, let me know.

In reply to St. Velveteen (msg # 193):

Define right. That was a pretty drekky roll.

Yes, not a good roll at all.  Luckily Velveteen doesn't know that. ;)

Hacking uses the Computer skill almost exclusively.

If you're just doing research, I figure out the TN and the number of successes tells me how much you learn.

For hacking, I try to keep it to basically a 'realistic' network architecture, but network features are represented by whatever the VR metaphor the system uses. So a file store looks like a library perhaps and you'd search for a particular 'book' to find that file.

Matrix only has a limited set of actions. They each fall into a category (so reading files falls into the FILE category). The categories are Access, Control, Index, File, and Slave, or ACIFS. The matrix system defines the basic difficulty (TN) for each of those ACIFS. The programs you have on your deck reduce those TNs. So a super-skilled decker can run without programs, but he'll be rolling against TNs of 9 or 10. Programs bring those TNs down to something more reasonable.

The system has defenses located in different places. They also almost always have an Intrusion Detection System (IDS), which notes suspicious activities. Every time your hacker does anything, the host rolls against your Masking rating. The number of successes is added to the security tally. As the tally goes up, it tells the host that it may be under attack and it begins activating more defenses.

Hosts also have a general rating, for instance Green-4 or Red-9. The number indicates how twitchy it is (how sensitive the IDS is), the color how deadly the host's defenses are.

I think that sums it up in a nut shell :)

That clears up a lot of the basics that I was unsure about.  Thanks!  I still don't think I fully understand it (and I probably won't until I see an actual scenario played out at some point) but I do feel like I have a much better grasp now.

What about for the Shadowrun equivalent of a basic (but very specific) google search?  Would Velveteen be able to use his electronics skill if isn't really hacking, but trying to find obscure information that's probably sitting out there somewhere?  Like, say, a basic map of the hotel from an old travel brochure or something.

SR3 and later, you can roll a Computer skill test. The TN depends on how tough the information is to find. This is just to find information that's publicly available.

SR1 and SR2, there is no 'google search', and the Matrix is not available for casual browsing like the Internet is, so no mechanic for it exists.

Of course, if the information isn't available, it isn't available. Succeeding on the test still won't net you anything. (Blueprints are almost never posted online, for instance.)

Wait, did you just name the rival gang the Cutie Mark Crusaders?
Excuse me a moment, I need to sigh extra long this time.

I'm kinda unsure what i should be doing. I can case the joint with my Security Systems skill, but other than that I'm waiting for the right opportunity to roll up.
This message was last edited by the player at 15:57, Tue 11 Feb 2014.

Is there a pun here I'm missing?

It's a My Little Pony reference, if I'm right.

Also, I finally updated my character description in The Cast section, so I stop getting described as a 28 year old girl.

that definitely explains why I didn't catch it.

That's alright. There's no accounting for taste.

Carver, you should be telling people to get a wiggle on. I can say straight out, the data I'm about to provide is about all I've got written. Regarding the whole 'who owns the company, what's up with the contestants', Firefox will probably get the most, since she's asking pretty specific questions, and no one has any special contacts in media that could provide anything deeper.

Poor Snow will never know how cool Scootaloo is. Also that it's spelled the 'Mane six' (Michelle assumed that I was cracking a joke when I explained this - this time it's not my fault)

Yeh, if I can roll my Security Systems knowledge skill off of photos and blueprints, I'll be happy to Leverage it.

You sure can, if you'd like.

BTW, when doing your own rolls, it's probably easier to post all of the results, so if the TN is 6 or 8 or whatnot, I can pick how many successes you got. Plus, I still get a little weak in the knees when I see Big Numbers.

I prefer the same in my games but I was just using the default setup on the dice roller

Snow, I realized the best response from the dinner thread. "Hey! Some of my best friends are tall!"

Man, I should have gone with Snow. I coulda been a bit more useful..

Snow can get through the doors but each time he does something like that the risk of the drek hitting the fan gets higher.

I'm trying to move the recon and leg work ahead so that we can get to the actual run and those who are more action oriented can be more active.

Does anyone have any good suggestions for a specific sourcebook I could look into getting for this and/or a good place to purchase it?

In reply to St. Velveteen (msg # 210):

Please define "it".

I think the SR3 book would be a good start. Ebay should have a few. I think you can get a digital copy from drive thru RPG or more nefarious sources.

sr3, unless the GM has strange rules for decking....as I do when I run a game.  also should look into getting the matrix book also.

http://echopulse.net/game_rela...SR_RPG3rdEdition.pdf

Umm...  This made my jaw drop.  In a good way.  Thanks!  Looks like I have some reading to do.

Jaw-dropping indeed! However, I would recommend actually buying it. It's only $20 on drivethrurpg.com. Without paying for it, the developers who make the products can't make rent, and that means they have to pursue more lucrative pursuits.

Yeah, it's also the type of thing I would like to have on my bookshelf just for the sake of it being there.

Random fact: Once upon a time I actually owned a bunch of Shadowrun books.  My dad's cousin and her husband actually helped make the game (they are credited in the linked sourcebook, Sharon Turner Mulvihill and Michael Mulvihill) and they found out I was interested in this sort of thing, so shipped a TON of Shadowrun books.  Unfortunately, I wasn't quite old enough to understand and appreciate what I had been given at that time.  And when I finally read a Shadowrun novel and realized what a goldmine I had been given, all the books disappeared.  They became tragic victims to spring cleaning. :(
This message was last edited by the player at 01:54, Fri 14 Feb 2014.

This.

This is what we need to do.


https://31.media.tumblr.com/00...0t1rvoAv41qebcl8.gif

Haha, now I know why everyone keeps voting for Becka's cuteness!

In reply to St. Velveteen (msg # 215):

ebay. amazon and half price books are all good sources for SR3 material. I have a bookshelf full of source books from editions 1-3.  I keep thinking about getting the 4th ed books just to keep the collection going but I really just don't like 4th ed.

I was actually very surprised to find that.  I own multiple copies of most of the 3rd ed (and have at least one copy of all of them).  I also still have my 1st and 2nd ed hard covers as well as most of the 2nd ed supplements.  All of the adventures also.  And of course I have all the pdfs too.  I do have to say that nothing beats holding the hard copy and reading it (although my kindle is pretty nice).

I would never buy the 4th ed but I have been thinking about 5th ed.

YOU'RE RELATED TO MIKE MULVIHILl?????

(and great plan, Warlock. +1 karma.)

Sadly, IMHO, its shite.

Mechanically it's pretty much SR4. Can't put my finger on why, but flavor-wise it seems a lot more like SR3. It's still not a favorite, but I enjoy it.

I cant stand the shoehorning bullshit that goes on with deckers. Who in their right mind would connect their gun, or cyber ware to the matrix?

Ok, TBH the decker to physical crossover gets deckers combat-capable. The big problem with deckers (and why I don't let my players actually use them) is they are a money sink that can do practically squat when drek meets fan. Tack on the fact that the Matrix rules make my head hurt...
But my proper tangent is I would absolutely use those kinds of Decking rules for things like Mass Effect. Considering the way Sabotage, Overload and Damping work in-vidya-game, I could really make a killer Mass Effect RPG with very little mechanical fuckery.

I actually bought most of the SR4e stuff because it's better organized and a little neater. I also haven't found SR3 things for nearly as cheap as SR4 is.

The wireless BS is pretty bad. However, it's only a single item, and easily patched.

Yeah, by playing a grumpy old Dwarf and demanding to have all of your equipment hardwired instead of on this "damn newfangled wifi bullshit" <waves cybercane>

yea ill be damned if I am going to let someone hack my smartlink and cyber eyes

nuts to that

In reply to Papa Bear (msg # 226):

Really, that is just the most glaring example. I was very dissapointed with my 5e purchase :(

I will admit, I have yet to actually READ any SR5 material :P

Seeing as we don't have a planning thread up, I'll post this here for now.  (Don't like to use the IC thread for OOC stuff, and OOC is a bit faster.)

Papa: You gave us a general blueprint.  Can we have more info about what's on the target's floor (and the one immediately above and below)?

My thoughts:
It'd be best not to grab the critter too much prior the delivery date because then we just have to sit on it.  I'd rather not have it starve to death or something, or have too long for someone to try to track us down and steal it back.  So I'm thinking Saturday or Sunday might be best.

It might be useful to try to get a bug planted near the security console so we could get a sense of things like who are the guard's names, what's their frequency of rotation, etc.  A couple of days worth of radio calls would be invaluable for knowing call-signs, how they tend to patrol, etc.

Obviously we're going to need to take control of the security cameras.  That means decking, either from inside or outside.  Being able to deal with the drones is going to matter too.  I thought we had a decker, but I'm gathering that Warlock went mage?  Do we have any decker contacts other than Twitch's?  (I'm gathering that relying on St. Velveteen for this function might not be wise given that he was rolling 3 dice for a data search :>)

I do like the idea of feeling out the other competitors (or better yet, the other competitor's managers or other entourage members) for someone who might be willing to buzz in a special delivery package to a near-by floor if it meant a chance of cutting down on the competition.

I think it'd be wise for Warlock or I (or both of us) to drop by the site and check what they've got going on for astral security in case that wasn't detailed in the hacker's material.  Also, anyone think it might be a good idea to dig up what we can on "Mr. F"?  We've got a first initial, an association with Ears, a description, and some sort of direct or indirect connection with someone in the competition.  Given he's happy to gutter-scrape together a pool of runners, he's not likely that high up on the totem pole, so that should be enough intel to figure out who the frag he is - and maybe give us a sense of what sort of double/triple-cross is likely involved.

I also wouldn't mind going and talking to someone with a parabiology background.  The info we've got right now doesn't indicate any powers or susceptabilities.  It'd be handy to know if they have magic resistance, weapons immunity, teleportation or anything else annoying before we try grabbing them.  It'd also be good to know if they've got a severe vulnerability to water before we accidentally trigger the sprinkler system and dissolve our cash prize into a puddle of goo.

HMHVV-II isn't something I'd like to mess around with if I can avoid it.  However, we should probably assume it's infected at least one or two people around it, so silver weaponry/ammo would be wise to take along.

Make some sort of a security layout roll for the blueprints. Things are complicated slightly as you don't actually know what room Becka is in.

Remember, you didn't get a delivery date, just a delivery deadline. You can deliver Becka whenever you please.

Yeah, St. Velveteen won't be any help there.  His skills are even worse than he thinks they are.


He might be able to help a little here though.

As for getting someone to buzz them in, their motivation doesn't even have to be cutting down the competition.  There are many other vices that could tempt someone to breach security too.

I have a decker contact, but he's more of an ID guy. What I *do* have, however is a L2 contact in Lonestar who could be useful.

If we had photos, I could try and get Mr. F through Lonestar databases, but aside from that we have (at best) a physical description which takes time and is less accurate. Man, maybe I should have sprung for the opticam.

Knowledge: Security Systems roll, 5,3,1,4

So I believe we *do* know which room she's in - assuming normal numbering convention, she'd be on the first floor housing "lesser trideo personalities and stars".  So she'd have business offices below her, and she'd be on the same floor that employees have access to.  All goodness.  I'm guessing her room would be one of the larger ones towards the outside rather than one of the smaller employee rooms towards the center?  Some sense of how her room is positioned with respect to other nearby rooms, elevators & staircases would be useful.

Now, it's probably wise for us to verify that the Johnson's information is accurate.  And it'd be good to know who's in the adjoining rooms, so some research might still be in order.

In terms of IDing the Johnson, we do have his phone number.  While it's probably unlisted, it may help narrow things down a bit.

I've probably got the right contact to get me in touch with a paranormal expert, it'll likely take me a day or two to set up the meet though.

I've got a contact with Lonestar as well.  Also have a biker friend who probably wouldn't mind stirring up a bit of trouble if that was helpful.

Hah! You passed my little test. Very good.

Pants' investigation reveals that it's probably not on the first floor. The 12th floor seems more likely.

Good grief, I take one night to go out with friends and you have the run almost done....lol

Agreed. I think that grabbing it the night _AFTER_ the show might be ideal. In theory, everyone's guard should be down a bit, and there may be more partying going on we can take advantage of.



This might be tricky, and risky. It may tip our hand if someone stumbles on the frequency we are using to bug on. Any ideas on how to get the bug there in the first place?



Well, currently I am playing what I am playing now for play time. I did _NOT_ go mage for the OG game, I am just playing this right now.



I think this might also work better the night after the show, if we can make that happen.



Both of us checking it out would probably be for the best.

And I say we call him Mr.Carpetmuncher. :)





Yes, someone with parabiology is a must. I should have thought of that :P



Depends on if you are sparkly or not.

I had an intellectual response till I reached this part....

Warlock:
Agreed. I think that grabbing it the night _AFTER_ the show might be ideal.

Except for the fact that we need to get the little bear _BEFORE_ the next show.  Unless you want to hit the place in the next two days which would negate any need for surveillance and planning and you might as well all had just gone with Snow.

Firefox:
It might be useful to try to get a bug planted near the security console so we could get a sense of things like who are the guard's names, what's their frequency of rotation, etc.  A couple of days worth of radio calls would be invaluable for knowing call-signs, how they tend to patrol, etc.

A couple of days with a scanner in close proximity would net us the same result with a lot less risk.  Though I don't have a scanner they are easily obtainable.  the only hard part would be if they are encrypted and that's only an if, given the cost of encryption we may get lucky and they bosses decided to skimp in that field.

Firefox:
Obviously we're going to need to take control of the security cameras.  That means decking, either from inside or outside.

Given the lack of a decker in the party as PCs or NPC I say we think differently, there are other ways to deal with cameras that don't involve decking.

Warlock:
I did _NOT_ go mage for the OG game

I did not know that we were playing Original Gangstas, Yo

Firefox:
I do like the idea of feeling out the other competitors (or better yet, the other competitor's managers or other entourage members) for someone who might be willing to buzz in a special delivery package to a near-by floor if it meant a chance of cutting down on the competition.

I like this idea but if we talk to the wrong person they may tip of security.  there are other ways in than this, I say we avoid it.

Fox:
I also wouldn't mind going and talking to someone with a parabiology background.  The info we've got right now doesn't indicate any powers or susceptabilities.

The information we have at this point doesn't suggest that the bear is anything more than a regular old drop bear.  Not an awakened creature, parabiology wouldn't tell us anything.

Fox:
HMHVV-II isn't something I'd like to mess around with if I can avoid it.  However, we should probably assume it's infected at least one or two people around it, so silver weaponry/ammo would be wise to take along.

Did I miss something?  where did this come from?
This message was last edited by the player at 14:28, Mon 17 Feb 2014.

Sorry, that's my fault. We'll also be using the optional Gangsta karma rules. Your karma per run equals the number of inches your pants sag below the belt line.



Drop bears are carriers for HMHVV-II.

In reply to Papa Bear (msg # 241):

ah, yes so I did miss something.

alright so if I recall correctly there is an antidote for HMHVV but it has to be applied within a certain amount of time.  Though I've never been able to find evidence of this when looking for it.  if there is we should probably get a couple of doses before the run.

*Pants is not Saggy Pants, Fo Shizzle*

(no fair Trolls have farther to sag than the rest of us)

Have I assaulted your brain meats?

So a kilt,being non-pants, is infinite sag? So infinite karma? Did I just win shadowrun?

So we are dealing with a carnivorous Koala bear that can turn us into some sort of creature that has to eat essence to survive.  Wonderful.

If she is on the 12th floor perhaps we could grapple over and then rappel down the side of the building when leaving?

It's decided.  St. Velveteen is now doing the entire run with his pants around his ankles.

NO PANTS = NO KARMA!! I thought I established this in the opening scene.

pants is now wearing 10 pairs of pants (all sagging below his butt)

10 times the karma

Now *that* is a shadowrun player.

In reply to warlock4u (msg # 238):


I'm pretty sure I can get to the front desk.  Ought to be able to dress and act the part of the trid star and make eyes with the desk guy.  I presume there's broadcast stuff all over in this place - wireless cams, assorted broadcasts from the studio, etc.  Security desk is in the middle of a public area based on my understanding of the description.  I suppose a bug sweep is theoretically possible, but it'd be surprising.  If they find it, odds are we'd know, and they'd still have no clue exactly what we were after.

That said, I'm fine with a scanner too.  Whichever we can get our hands on is ok.  (My contacts aren't ideal for acquiring either, though I suppose we could try Rock . . .

Fine with going the night (or even morning) after a show


Unfortunately, I miss the reference.  I'm sure I will feel most embarrassed once someone points it out :(


Well, we can take out the desk guy and hope the feeds don't go elsewhere.  Or we can cut the feeds.  If warlock has the right spells, we could try invisibility.  Best I can do is fill a hallway with flaming embers that'd obscure the view.


We can explore the idea in a way that minimizes the risk of anyone getting tipped.  If we have a good prospect, we can then put an insurance policy in place that would discourage tips being made



As for pants, you just have to wear the right kind.  Though for this run, I think a short skirt will be more appropriate.  For me.  Though if St. Velveteen can pull it off, more power to him . . .

I am just going to assume that by sparkly you are referring to serenity and not the movie that shall not be named....:)

Seeing that we do not have a decker I still believe an outer assault may be the best option.

Big Papa Bear what does it look like the difficulty of that would be whe we look at the blueprints?  We can get some sort of online map I am sure that will show us the building next to it.


*Singing* I love it when you call me big papa.....lol

The room overlooks a small park, so it won't get you close to the 12th floor.

The windows you can be sure will be reinforced. You'll need something special to break them.

If we want to go in loud some commercial explosives would make short work of ballistic windows.  I don't think the 'glass cutter' in one of the SotA books would be available yet.

I completely missed the existence of the clues thread, my mistake
This message was last edited by the player at 14:11, Tue 18 Feb 2014.

I'm sorry if I missed it, how tall is the building? We could scale the outside and go top-to-bottom then zipline or fastrope back out.

If Carver decided to sag his pants, they would start and end on the floor. Pass, unless someone's buying him a birthday hooker.

One thing we haven't addressed yet: how do we intend to keep the fluffy thing restrained and not eating us? I imagine she's a little tall for a suitcase, seeing as how she's as tall as my character if not taller. I'd rather we had something thicker than a burlap sack, besides.

good point carver,  actually one of Snows contacts is an 'escort' but that's besides the point.

we could get some plasteel restraints and a suitcase, or maybe a large dog traveling crate

I'd leave the window as a back-up for egress.  Using it as an entry point is going to be really noisy and noticeable and if there are issues (e.g. our bear has gone for a walk), things are going to go down-hill fast.

If we can get people in under some sort of cover, we can blow the window as a fast exit if things go badly.  (If things go well, taking the elevator down to the parking garage would be a lot cleaner.)  Whether going in as delivery people or guests of one of the other performers or repair people or something, we should be able to come up with a plausable reason to get to the floor.  We can then have a distraction to keep the guard on desk duty from noticing that we're going to the wrong room.

Question: Presume the cameras are in the halls, elevators, etc. - not in the guest rooms themselves?

In terms of managing the critter, splat gun would be good, but don't know it exists yet.  Drugs could be ok - depends on meta-physiology, thus the need to chat with a parabiology expert.  (Same goes for stun spells, though best I can do is area effect which wouldn't be ideal.)

The good news is the bear is only 2.5 feet tall and around 20 lbs, so shouldn't be too hard to carry once constrained.

The building is 25 stories tall, so you're hitting it almost in the middle.

Twitch has both gel rounds and stun grenades.  Unconscious is good, although we don't know if the damn thing regenerates.  lol

The building's also plastered with trid displays, meaning passer-bys are going to have incentive to be looking up, which makes going up (or down) the side less likely to go unnoticed.  I'm sure most of the locals ignore the displays, but odds of some touristy types, fans or even those looking for free entertainment looking is pretty decent, depending on time of day/night.

alright so we are not going to being going in by the side of the building or up the building.

that leave ground floor or subterranean.

Getting out, well we will figure that out when its time to leave.

I have no contacts that would be suitable for finding anything out about paranormal animals, so that info in on someone else.

Alright I think we have everything planned so lets go.

Go - as in go get more intel (I want to get more parabiology info, we ideally want to monitor the security channel, we need to figure out what our cover is to get in, see if we can dig up more on Mr. Carpetmuncher, etc.).  Also need to acquire any special  gear.  We should be ready to execute in 2-3 days game time?

I was being sarcastic because we have been running around on this 'planning' nothing is actually getting planned and nothing has been advanced.

basically no decision on anything has been made

Alright, lets get going on this:

How much money do we have in the kitty for gear and supplies?

I have 1400 I can throw in
This message was last edited by the player at 18:37, Tue 18 Feb 2014.

I think preliminary plan is:
- talk to a parabiology specialist and learn as much about drop bears as we can that may impact mission (vulnerabilities, powers, etc.) - I'll take the lead on this
- research those on the 12th floor and identify any possible ways to get invited up (someone wanting to sabotage a competitor, someone needing a "special" delivery, someone we can blackmail or otherwise arm-twist)
- Decide how to listen in on security (scanner, bug or other)
- acquire gear needed to secure & transport the critter
- acquire a vehicle to transport us?

Plan is to go in on some sort of invite, have a distraction to keep security from paying too much attention to us (Firefox will be happy to suggest arson :>), drug/stun/otherwise subdue the critter, come down the elevator if things are going well, blow out the window and rappel down when things don't go well.

In theory, I've got 13k available, though I doubt I'd be willing to actually kick that much in.

Welcome to Shadowrun!!

http://i29.tinypic.com/2qxb86x.jpg

yup, that's basically how it goes.  I'm trying to cut down on the planning some.

in the TT dnd game I'm in the group started trying to for a plan for something so my Halfling druids plan was: full frontal assault

the reason: its whats going to happen anyway.

the group agreed and we went in with the full frontal.  But that was dnd, its a lot less lethal than SR.

In reply to Firefox (msg # 264):

All of this sounds reasonable.

What gear do we think we need? Would a standard dog carrier be enough?

I can facilitate transport if need be.

We won't know for sure what we need in the way of a carrier until we've got a bit more info on the thing's capabilities.  But given the expectation of razor-sharp teeth and claws, I think the average plastic pet carrier might be a tad sub-optimal.  Also, it'd be good if it couldn't be heard, though knocking it out would accomplish that.  (And we do want to ensure the critter can breath . . .)

Well maybe we could infiltrate during the day and make the grab at night?  I prefer hurting as few people as possible.  :)

The longer the time-window between infiltration and grabbing, the greater the chances for things to go wrong.  If the infiltration mechanism requires separation and we can come up with a good plan for where to hang out, I'm ok with it, but preference is to keep them close together.  Agree with minimizing casualty count (and ideally keeping fatality count to 0).

I got about 1400 to chip in.

St. V could probably use his woodworking knowledge to build a nice wooden crate or something if needed.  And I am sure he could carry it around if it is restrained.  Simple zip ties and rope might be enough.  Velveteen could always use his stun gloves on it too, but there is a good chance it wouldn't recover from that...  He has climbing gear too if they do need to get out the window.

St. V isn't too good at talking to people, but he does have an interest in Paranormal Animals, so he may or may not come in handy when talking to the expert.  But at the very least he might know of an expert in the area we could try and get a hold of:
St. Velveteen rolled 1 success using 3d6 with the Shadowrun system with a target of 4. A Paranormal Animals expert in the area. ((2,2,4))
This message was last edited by the player at 23:27, Tue 18 Feb 2014.

Well many of us are good at socializing.  Perhaps we could bluff our way past the guards?  I do have a rigger contact who may be able to get us up to the top (if we want to use that option).

A single four will direct you to the University of Seattle's Parabiology Department. (Not any particular person in it. But you know where the building is.)

Someone with the proper contacts should probably look into getting a scanner and/or bug.  If warlock and I are going to check the astral security on the place, I may as well plant the bug while we're at it.  Fewer trips is best.

An idea came to me as I was trying to sleep.

Drop bears like to eat prey that they drop onto.  Our runners need a way to carry Becka.  So how is this for a plan:

We get a crate, fill it with raccoons or something and deliver it to becka's room.  We would need to get our names added to a delivery list, but I would think that would be just as easy or easier than hacking cameras or bugging a security office.  So we deliver the shipment of raccoons to Becka's room with permission, go in, dump out the coons, put Becka in the crate, then walk back out with our prize in hand.

Edit: And if someone tries to sign for the raccoons and send us on our way, we can use the excuse that live animals are only allowed to be handled by qualified professionals.
This message was last edited by the player at 06:33, Wed 19 Feb 2014.

Decent plan St.V..... Do we know that she specifically likes raccoons?  Where are we going to get a crate full of raccoons?

Hopefully Firefox can find out what some of their favorite local treats are when she talks to the expert.  They will have to figure out how to get the critters though.  Maybe raid animal control?

Ah, I must have misread the height - 2.5 feet =/= meters. I wondered why dropbears were so tall all of a sudden!
In that case, a good hard-suitcase or strong duffel should do. Add in some blankets to keep it soft...

Entry - I like St V's plan. It's the smallest amount of human contact (Snow can schmooze his way in still), least chance of a screwup. How to get five or six people in with that one excuse is a little challenging though.

Ah, the Batman exit. FF, I like it. You keep looking for smarter ways in, and I will continue sighing wistfully* over the stupidest ways to make an exit :D
Anyone up for a garbage chute? I hear the tentacle monster in the trash compactor gets lonely. (his name is "huggy")

I've invested plenty in Neurostun. One in-the-room tactical option we have is for Carver to charge the bear and pull the pin on a pair of NS-VII grenades. I'm immune to them, so as long as I keep her fighting me in the cloud, we're good. I think St V could help out long as he's got his rebreather on - or he can block the door, or help to take down the Elvis impersonators.
Snow, do you have concussion or gas grenades?

Get me some Neurostun or Narcojet doses and I can go for a nonlethal stabbin. If it's available, then Freeze Foam is ideal - we knock her out, drop her in a case, foam it up, and she cannot suffocate (it says so in the rules!).

I've been thinking of what to use the last of my chargen cash on. Final options are Bug Scanner, Sequencer, Maglock Passkey, and FF's Scanner. Where do people weigh in?

I can run Mr. Cats-In-Bags through Lonestar, see what comes up.

*since when is there no 'h' in wistfully?

Ok, I'm just going to start shouting orders here.

St. V.  Since you have the Parazoology skill you are on the hook for getting us the information on the drop bear.  Head to the university of Seattle and take Fox with you.

Carver, as far as starting gear goes: Sequencers and passkeys are great if you don't have the B&E skills.  Snows has the skills to make those obsolete unless the party splits, he's severely injured, or you just want to play with your toys.  you would also need an electronics tool kit to use the sequencer.  They also have the downside of being easily rendered useless by the maglock being of a different type, "Hey guys I only brought the passkey, this is a keypad, I cant do anything."  Bug scanners are nice but you can hold off on those until the team get the rep to warrant extreme paranoia (not long).  But the scanner we can use for this job now and it saves us the problem of hunting one down (not hard) and waiting a day to get it.  I say go with the scanner.

Warlock and Fox:  I want you to assess the astral security of the place.  You can do that right here from the warehouse, just go astral and have a look.  I want each of you to make 1 pass of the place each, one during the day and one at night.  Keep an eye out for spirits, elementals, watchers and any astral signatures such as foci, barriers, wards, or astrally active people or things (awakened critters etc).  If Becka is infecting people with HMHVV they they become dual natured and stick out like a sore thumb in the astral.  Remember only one pass each: if they do have active astral security (and its a pretty safe assumption that they do) then the same astral signature (your astral form) paying to much attention to the area will be reason for them to tighten security.

Carver and Twitch:  You two are on security detail.  rent a room at a nearby hotel and listen to the scanner that Carver has in his starting gear.  take shifts, only 1 person at a time, except at night when you two need to be in bed together (sorry we're limited on women and she's busy with a troll right now).  Make yourselves appear to be a couple to account for two guys sharing a room, how far you go with that ruse is up to you.

Snow will go down to Animal control and get his hands on some devil rat traps and then head out to the barrens and get some devil rats.  going off of St. V's idea: Instead of food for Becka we pose as animal control, a pack of devil rats in the basement or sewers would necessitate a several man containment team. That's our in, plus a trap for securing the Bear if necessary and then NS-7 and tasering her into nap time.  then a reinforce canvas duffle for carrying her out.

things like freeze foam and other gear:  I want to avoid buying stuff as much as possible because I'm a cheap bastard.

Carver to answer your question: snow's only weapon is a taser.  Grenades make to much noise.

We deal with the elvis impersonators as quickly and quietly as possible: Sneak with taser and V's shock gloves idealy if at all possible.

we all know that regardless of how much we plan we are still going to have a fight on our hands.  the issue is how much.  and dealing with devil rats through the hotel will give us a reason to make a lot of noise if need be.

Raccoons aren't a typical part of the australian diet.  Getting hold of something that is would require, at best, a job against the local zoo - which carries its own set of risks.  Though we could always lie about what kind of critter we've got . . .

Bigger issue is the fact that no matter what we're carrying up to Becky's room, the guard is going to phone to confirm delivery before waving us up.  If Becky's manager says "no" for any reason (maybe he doesn't want her to put on weight before her next show), then we're screwed.  It's not that it's a significantly worse plan than trying to find someone with a reason to buzz us up, it's just that I don't think the risk is significantly less.  So I think it makes sense for us to explore our options.  If we can find someone to buzz us up, great.  If not, then pizza . er . raccoon delivery is a reasonable back-up.

I'm guessing we don't want all 6 people going up.  We need a driver, we need someone to initiate a distraction when/if necessary and we need someone to deal with the guards if things get messy.  I figure about 3 people going to Becky's room is sufficient.

Neurostun isn't a bad idea, so long as we think our critter is going to be vulnerable to it.  Narcojet probably won't be that useful.  Those darts are intended for humans wearing clothes.  My guess is that we'd need differently designed veterinary darts to deal with animal fur.  Doesn't mean we couldn't find some, just that they'd be a bit harder.

Not sure what the point of Bug Scanner would be.  Do we know whether sequencer or passkey would be more use given current security?

Also, do we know from the blueprints how high the ceilings are in Becky's room?  If she's got 30 foot ceilings and artificial trees to help her feel at home, that's going to complicate things a tad.

Is freeze foam available?

In terms of parazoology, I've got a level 5 contact that should be able to find someone.  I've already dialed.

I'm an aspected mage, so no astral projecting for me.  As well, most buildings typically have an astral barrier around the shell.  This one certainly would - don't want wiz fan-boys/gals snooping on the stars.  So our visit will need to be in person - and if we're planting bugs, would rather do that at the same time.

Devil rats might give them a reason to let us into the basement.  How is that going to get us to the twelfth floor?  I'm assuming that in a place like this, the elevators require a card to get to different floors

Getting in is the hard part. Security is generally a perimeter, once you get past that perimeter then things get easier.  Basements allow access to all of the utility and staff areas where tight security hampers things significantly.  there are ways to move about that are easier and safer than elevators.  Elevators have cameras and its very easy to lock someone in an elevator and wait for security to show up.

There are two ways to get from the basement to the twelfth floor: elevators (public or staff) and stairs.  There's going to be cc cameras on all of them.  Pretty sure the guard at the desk is going to notice 3 guys who are supposed to be chasing devil rats headed upstairs.  You can get locked in a stairwell as easily as an elevator, and twelve floors is a long way up.  I suppose you could disable an elevator and go up the shaft, but that's going to be hard to do without being noticed at either the bottom or the top (and requires some pretty decent athletics to boot).

I'm not opposed to it in theory, just need a better idea of what you've got in mind.

Actually, I have the toolkits already. Sequencers and Passkeys give their rating as a bonus to Electronics test (or was it drops the TN? I forget...)
I never really got why there are both Sequencers and Maglock Passkeys. Terminator 2 has John Connor using a sequencer on a card reader with no problems.

I got no problem sharing a room with Twitch. Hey Velveteen - take pictures! :p

Animal Control in the basement usually means the officers go to the basement, not the high sec areas behind security checkpoints. On top of that, an AC officer on call would usually be followed by a security guard. If we're delivering food, they'd be much more likely to let us go up and no questions. Besides, if we pose as "caterers", it's a lot easier to get at least three people up. Regardless, this is an acceptable option to get us *in*, but it's not the end of the plan.
I got no problem considering this the back-up, FF. Let's get our intel first.

You said you had stun grenades, I was asking gas or concussion because it makes a difference. I am not immune to concussion grenades.

Bug Scanners let us kill tracking bugs on other little gems we lift in runs, and lets us search & destroy for any tracking tags that the fuzz(y one) has.

Just from your perspective.



I did not until just this moment realize your awful plan. Geez...



It works like a hotel, so keypads aren't too very likely. Snow noticed they use little badges, which would be passkeys.



Good question. Lemme check ...

"It has four rooms, two bedrooms, a main living room/kitchenette and a bathroom." I'll go ahead and say this is the troll-friendly level, so 10-foot ceilings. Posh.



Sure.



They do a goofy competing rating thing. You roll a number of dice equal to your sequencer against the rating of the lock, and the lock rolls a number of dice equal to its rating against the rating of the sequencer. It's supposed to be dummy-proof. Your electronics skill doesn't enter into it.

Actually that not at all how Sequencers and passkeys work.



Passkeys work the same way.  no bonus to your skill, no TN modifier just a straight opposed test between the two devices.


you must be mistaking me for someone else.  the only weapons Snow has are a Taser, a Manriki and pepper punch.

and yes bug scanners are useful but we don't need one at the moment.

So the problem with caterers: the hotel most likely has a kitchen staff that profides meals for all of the guests.  Cattering would be difficult.  Animal control is general not something they would do internally.

Fox: I guess astral recon is on Warlock then.  a woman stepping into the lobby and then astrally perceiving may raise some red flags and draw attention if they have active astral security.

Its almost impossible to lock a group of people in a stair well, there are doors on every floor that can be opened with the right sets of skills.  and saves us the trouble of climbing a service ladder in an elevator shaft for 10 floors.

If a security officer escorts the group then great, we have an escort who can be rendered unconscious after he serves his use.

Devil rats don't need to stay in the basement, animal control would have to search the whole hotel to find any other nests and just steer the search to the 12th floor.

Failing that there would be the possibility to switch disguises and pose as service staff to access the upper levels (taking food to the contestants).

Hotel would have cooking staff, but probably wouldn't have a supply of live critters typically on the menu of an awakened auzzie critter.  I suspect they have to make special arrangements just to get bamboo.

I've got a few concerns with starting in the basement:
1. It's indirect.  Every minute from the point we fast-talk our way past the guard desk until we're out of the building is an opportunity for the guard to re-think things and double-check our story.  The shorter we can make the time from guard desk to bear in a bag, the better

2. The building is plastered with cc cameras.  It's going to be hard to knock out an escort, swipe kitchen uniforms or whatever without being noticed.  (Not to mention the chances of finding a dwarven and troll-sized uniform sitting around is pretty slim).

3. The plan gets us to the basement but requires improvisation to get us to the twelfth floor.  I'd rather a plan that gets us to where we need to be and fall back on improvisation when the plan goes to hell rather than starting with it.

Getting out of a locked elevator doesn't require a lot more skills than getting out of a locked stairwell.

alright then, I am open to hearing other peoples opinions and we will go with them

This is as much for St V as it is for me.

Yeah, got you and Twitch mixed up. My apologies. Twitch, what kind of stun grenades do you have?

I don't like the idea of a firefight in a stairwell, though. Just putting that out there. Though this is supposed to be a gung-ho session so might as well, hai?
Also, elevator shaft is a *little* iffy, but also doable. Especially with the cieling escape hatch and all the other mandatory safety measures. I might lose a grappling hook or some rope, but otherwise I'm fine with either. I know that St V and I both have climbing harnesses, cause we're prepared to fall off of or onto a lot of things.

re: full floor sweep - Point taken, king's to you.

Anyway, I'd like to get some intel before we start wizzing ideas back and forth. Answers before more questions.

Then can we fast forward to tomorrow since planning is contingent on the information fox is going to get from the PhD?

if this is supposed to be a gung-ho session then lets just go with the smash and grab
This message was last edited by the player at 16:36, Wed 19 Feb 2014.

I have concussion grenades.  I can also be a get away driver if need be, provided someone has a vehicle we can use (data jack and vehicle empathy).

Stealing a vehicle might not be a bad plan.  Avoids it being traced and we don't have to worry as much if it gets shot up or if we have to driver through a barricade or something.  We can torch it when we're done.

Happy to fast forward to the PhD.  Lets see if we can confirm acquisition of a scanner.  If not, we need to look into bugs.

In reply to Firefox (msg # 291):

Carver has a scanner in his starting gear (I'm assuming from the discussion we've had)

It will be done by tomorrow morning.
I'm in favor of moving on to the recon bit.

Is St. V still going with as Snow said?  If so, Velveteen can wear his fancy clothes!

HAHAHAHAHAHA....I just got a picture of the crocodile hunter.  "Now I'm going to stick me thumb up it's arse, that oughta REALLY piss it off.  Yep he's really pissed off now!"  lol

Now tha's the most dangerous awaykened crittah on tha planet. One boite from that little bloighta and oi'm dead. Tha neurotoxin from one tooth alone could kill a grown man a dozen times ovah.
Oi'm gonna touch it!

Wotch out, Phteve-o!

I considered doing the accent, but for the sake of legibility, I decided against it.

I remember Ma Thump. Much as I loved her, she bordered on unintelligible.

I think she crossed that border regularly . . .

Please, please tell me that Binwin will be coming back. Please please please.

Also, we're going to be smuggling shrink-wrapped foundant at least once. It's pretend C4 one moment, cake the next!

So, we may need to add a goat to our team roster...

No V, you cant bring your girlfriend with you on this run

But she's so cute!  And our horns even match.

Reminder from your friendly neighborhood spy show: day-glo and flour mixture inside your front door, check if people came inside with a blacklight.

That's pretty close to a dwarf, isn't it?

lol....Dwarves don't have horns...:)  Although goats do have beards.

I was thinking dwarves tend to be pretty hair all over.  About the right height & temperament.  Similarly reinforced skulls . . .

The main difference is how they smell.  One smells like a sun-baked garbage heap behind a sushi restaurant, the other smells like a goat.

Loving this thread. +1 karma to everyone.

Note to self: hair gel makes horns. Facepunch the bad guys!

Good grief,  Do we have any other karma yet?  Carver you should do your hair in liberty spikes....:)

Just got my Steam Key for Shadowrun: Dragonfall.  The expansion to Shadowrun Returns.  Now I just need to wait until the 27th to play it...

Also, woohoo! More karma!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?f...p;v=SkmND_nFg74#t=63

I saw that too. I have to be careful because my youngest is also playing SR:R, and I don't want to mess with his saved game files.

Then again, I didn't play SR:R for like a year after it first came out. I guess I should be able to sit on my hands for another month, right?

SRR is nice 'cause it keeps save files pretty distinctly separate based on characters. You'll be ok, it's not like that time you erased my Pokemon Yellow file.
Jerk.

Hey, you were taking every single file slot. Give me a break.

Awesome, Dragonfall seems to be a lot better than SRR was (even though I loved the game).  Can't wait to play it!

This is PERFECT!  we use the hunter as a distraction to get in and take the drop bear! lol.

I'm thinking a hunter and camera crew make a pretty good way to fast talk our way past the guards.  And camera crew have bulky equipment bags . . .

Where it gets tricky is after the run.  We need to find out from the Johnson whether he actually needs us to transfer the bear, or whether he's happy if the bear just disappears - like back to the outback.  Alternative would be to swipe the bear from him after we get it out of the building.  We might need to "fix" the cameras to avoid having a record.  Something to discuss anyhow.

Is anyone investigating others on the floor to find alternative ways of getting invited up?

I am pretty sure that we are supposed to deliver the marsupial....:)

hm, that is a good idea.

We were asked to deliver the marsupial.  However, the Johnson's declared (though not necessarily real) objective was to get her out of the contest.  If we achieve that by other means, we might still be able to get paid.  Best bet on the research is probably to pay a decker to do a first pass.  We can then do a bit of legwork on the one or two prospects that seem most promising.

Edited post....:)

On the one hand, having Irwin go in and handle the critter (or even just offer cover stories), release it back to the Outback and such would be excellent. On the other hand, it might violate our contract, he might be working for another mega that would look down on people "liberating" a contestant, and I'd hate to disappoint one of Carver's heroes.
Especially on his birthday.

Well if I get in I will start working on getting a party started...lol  Still waiting for the guards to say something.

Remember that in the game, tonight is the night of the show, so tomorrow would be a good day for people (who remain) to call in the pizza, booze, and strippers to celebrate.

In reply to Snow (msg # 325):

I thought we were supposed to grab her before the show, which would be tonight, correct?

the show is tonight (Tuesday, in game) we need to grab the bear before the next show (a week from tonight)

assuming I understand things correctly

Yeah, the show was supposed to air shortly after we left the restaurant, so it has probably been done for quite some time. (Are we really still on day 1?)  So we have about a week, but the sooner the job is done, the sooner we get paid.

Edit:

And he would try too, if asked.  He thinks he can be a real smooth-talker if he feels like putting in the effort. (Hint: If anything, effort makes it worse.)
This message was last edited by the player at 23:09, Mon 24 Feb 2014.

Given that this is a public voting show, I presume the episodes broadcast live (though perhaps with a couple minute loop delay).

We're on the afternoon of day 2 now, which I believe puts the show tonight.

Well, it seems Operation: Tasty Goat is a bust unless we want to go through a considerable amount of effort.  But at least the mystery of the beefsteaks' origins is solved.  There must be some way to cash in on that...  Maybe a book deal?

There is ONE market, if you're still interested ...

Oh, I took that to mean that the only way you can make money off of goat meat (the goat meat market) was to sell it as beefsteak.  Excuse me while I go make a post.

I'm just picturing us wandering in as a group of hookers, a couple of body-guards pulling along a goat on a leash and asking if someone can direct us to the twelfth floor . . . :>

Goat dressed as a hooker too, with the Birwin's camera crew following them around.  St. V can wear his golden speedo and body glitter.

In reply to Firefox (msg # 333):

alright so that made me laugh, and then my boss ask what is so funny....

damnit

In reply to Firefox (msg # 333):

You assume I already am not playing a hooker. Kilt for easy access baby.