The Shadowrun Situation

Rawbeard · Post by **Rawbeard** » Mon Jul 15, 2013 10:08 pm

I stopped myself from suggesting Bull wanted to make a D&D game. Guess that was not only in my imagination then.

Ice9 · Post by **Ice9** » Mon Jul 15, 2013 11:00 pm

Reading that again, it does look like the payment is negotiated after the mission, which - what the fuck? I mentally blocked that because it was too dumb.

You could use them the proper way though - just use the impressive speed/subtlety as a conditional bonus - "if you get this done without making the news, there's another 12K in it for you". And most of the payment factors would be based on expected opposition, rather than what you personally ended up running into.

It still has the scaling problems though. Also, it's way too much "you get this fixed amount and shut up about it", which maybe people accept in organized play, but isn't going fly in a home SR campaign.

Seerow · Post by **Seerow** » Tue Jul 16, 2013 2:14 am

It still has the scaling problems though. Also, it's way too much "you get this fixed amount and shut up about it", which maybe people accept in organized play, but isn't going fly in a home SR campaign.

The scaling problems are honestly my biggest issue.

Having a codified payscale for runners isn't a bad idea. But when your absolute top end mission pay is 60k nuyen, and your average is probably closer to 5-10% of that, in a game where there is seriously gear that costs a million, and you have an entire character archtype whose job is to load up on as much of that expensive gear as possible? Yeah, there's a serious scaling problem there.

If we had a payscale that actually could scale up to the point where runners are earning a few hundred grand, even a couple million for a spectacular run, I would have no problem with the codification. But as it stands... nope.

phlapjackage · Post by **phlapjackage** » Tue Jul 16, 2013 4:29 am

And with the gear and cyberware so expensive, those runs could end up COSTING the PCs money, in used resources and healing/repairing damage to gear and vehicles.

Fuchs · Post by **Fuchs** » Tue Jul 16, 2013 7:40 am

They want magic to rule, cyber to drool.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Tue Jul 16, 2013 7:55 am

Stahlseele wrote: Well, Ares dealing with Insect Spirits, Aztech dealing with the Horrors and Blood-Magic, Renraku made DEUS, Shiawase tried to do something with HMHVV for some time . .

The question was about anything that the current devs had corporations do that was evil. All the things you just mentioned are more than ten years old. Threats 2 was written in 2002, Aztlan is from 1995, and Renraku Arcology Shutdown is from 1998.

Now, Ares dealing with the Insect Spirits can pretty seriously be argued to be "not evil", since Insect Spirits get the "evil" tag because they use human hosts, and Ares uses animal hosts for their bugs. So there isn't even a terribly coherent argument as to why or how Ares' bug spirit trooper plan is morally wrong. It is obviously extremely dangerous, but since the plan came to light in 2062 and the game timeline went to 2073 and beyond without anything bad happening because of it, Ares seems to have been right and the doomsayers seem to have been wrong.

Regardless, quoting 11+ year old sourcebooks with their corporate evils as a supposed counter example of CGL writing up corporate evil is simply missing the point. CGL hasn't come up with a single meaningful evil scheme for any corporation ever. They were supposed to do a Horizon-based evil scheme plotline, but they never figured one out and it languished in development as "Untitled Horizon Plotline" along with "Gaea Rising" and all the other plots that they never got enough writers on board with to hammer out a coherent vision for.

-Username17

Nath · Post by **Nath** » Tue Jul 16, 2013 9:51 am

Ares Macrotechnology had switched to human hosts when the plot was brought back, in Street Legends I think. The novel The Tales We'll Tell Tomorrow features Damien Knight ordering the Firewatch team escorting him to undergo the process.

CGL also technically resurrected Aztechnology blood magic plot in Corporate Guide, Dawn of the Artifacts and War!. But I gueszs it doesn't really count since nobody, including I think most of CGL freelancers, had noticed it had ended in Corporate Download in the first place (along with some extra bits in Loose Alliances).

Horizon original plan for evilness, with the Consensus, the CEO fake background and all that, got dropped at some point as not-so-evil (and it remains unclear if it was planned all along or just got pulled out once people started complaining of Horizon not being evil). The Twilight Horizon was abut Horizon doing evil things, like making technomancers look bad so they would only receive job offers from Horizon, and magically torturing spirits in search of a way to punish spirits they don't like (clever, heh?).

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Tue Jul 16, 2013 10:42 am

Nath wrote:Ares Macrotechnology had switched to human hosts when the plot was brought back, in Street Legends I think. The novel The Tales We'll Tell Tomorrow features Damien Knight ordering the Firewatch team escorting him to undergo the process.

CGL also technically resurrected Aztechnology blood magic plot in Corporate Guide, Dawn of the Artifacts and War!. But I gueszs it doesn't really count since nobody, including I think most of CGL freelancers, had noticed it had ended in Corporate Download in the first place (along with some extra bits in Loose Alliances).

Horizon original plan for evilness, with the Consensus, the CEO fake background and all that, got dropped at some point as not-so-evil (and it remains unclear if it was planned all along or just got pulled out once people started complaining of Horizon not being evil). The Twilight Horizon was abut Horizon doing evil things, like making technomancers look bad so they would only receive job offers from Horizon, and magically torturing spirits in search of a way to punish spirits they don't like (clever, heh?).

I can say that when I was still nominally working for them during the FanPro to CGL handover phase, that the Horizon "big reveal" was still being discussed. Due to the slowdown because of the funding fights and the developer strike at the end of the FanPro era, the Horizon plot had been back burnered. There were some attempts to revive it, but having seen some of Jason's ideas, I am actually just as happy that they never went anywhere. Jason wanted to do a thing about how communism was bad or something, and absolutely insisted that there be no brain hacking or electronic mind control of any kind because reasons. It never made much sense, and even the hacks he brought to his banner couldn't pretend to find enough fucks to give to bring it to a semblance of life.

As for those other things, all you are saying is that the CGL era hasn't come up with any new corporate evil and can't be fucked to even discuss the corporate evil that is a decade and more old with any sort of familiarity.

If Ares is having humans voluntarily merge with Insect Spirits and those people keep their memories because they make good merges, then it's not even morally wrong. The argument against them doing that is that they are playing with fire and the new breed of super soldier may be more loyal to the bugs than the corporation and take over and do bad stuff or something. But if the "bug hybrids turn on Damien Kinght" plot line never gets picked up, then for all the spooky music the bottom line is that Damien Knight was right and the doomsayers were wrong.

In order for Ares to have been wrong back in the Betrayal plotline of Threats 2, the Insect Spirits they cut deals with actually have to do something that is bad. As long as they are just making super soldiers that fight Ares' battles and make gateways to the Insect Metaplanes so that Queens of hostile hives can be destroyed, then Ares was not wrong.

-Username17

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Tue Jul 16, 2013 10:46 am

A large part of the problem was the high developer turnover, which basically left metaplot in the hands of the freelancers for a bit. Of course, then Jason Hardy happened, and we got War! and all that came after.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Tue Jul 16, 2013 12:07 pm

Recycling of Plot-Ideas:
"Discovering just what NeoNET is doing under the heading of Project Imago."

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Tue Jul 16, 2013 12:46 pm

It won't be a literal turn-back-the-clock unless you see Fuchi re-emerge.

sabs · Post by **sabs** » Tue Jul 16, 2013 2:09 pm

I always run Horizon as being this super creepy Megacorp that's actually being run by a group of fully Autonomaous AI. It's not uncommon for Horizon board meetings to be held in VR, and when someone from the board actually has to show up in person, it's almost always a body double being ridden like a biodrone.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Tue Jul 16, 2013 2:34 pm

So, yeah, the 200+$ Limited Edition Books will be the same as the first printing . . no errata etc. it seems . .
Because these are, obviously, meant for a Bookshelf somewhere, there is no need for them to be useable for playing.
What the Hell?

Rawbeard · Post by **Rawbeard** » Tue Jul 16, 2013 2:47 pm

Ok, that is just a fuck you. I actually used my LE of SR4, to me that shit is not a collectible, it's just a pretty thing to use as I see fit. I don't plan on owning any SR5 anyway, the release alone took me by suprise, but that pisses me off on principle.

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Tue Jul 16, 2013 2:56 pm

Payment negotiated afterwards isn't entirely crazy. Look at e.g. Snatch, where Sol tries to demand the diamond, and Boris counters with an extra 10K.

Dragon Instincts · Post by **Dragon Instincts** » Tue Jul 16, 2013 2:57 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:Jason wanted to do a thing about how communism was bad or something, and absolutely insisted that there be no brain hacking or electronic mind control of any kind because reasons.

If your first big idea for a scary plot about corporate capitalism is that a corporation becomes communist...

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Tue Jul 16, 2013 3:01 pm

fectin wrote:Payment negotiated afterwards isn't entirely crazy. Look at e.g. Snatch, where Sol tries to demand the diamond, and Boris counters with an extra 10K.

That was re-negotiation.

Fucks · Post by **Fucks** » Tue Jul 16, 2013 5:23 pm

Stahlseele wrote:So, yeah, the 200+$ Limited Edition Books will be the same as the first printing . . no errata etc. it seems . .

Has it ever been different? Do you know a LE of any game system that wasn't based on the first printing?

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Tue Jul 16, 2013 5:27 pm

Those don't cost that much money usually though, do they?

Fucks · Post by **Fucks** » Tue Jul 16, 2013 7:24 pm

Dude, what are you talking about?

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Tue Jul 16, 2013 7:42 pm

Fucks wrote:Dude, what are you talking about?

What I gather is that someone on the internet said something stupid and offensive.

Basically, Limited Editions are almost always printed early and contain whatever typographical errors the original printing had by default. But apparently someone in Catalyst land said that a bunch of errors being in the limited edition wasn't a big deal because you weren't going to actually read and play with it anyway. And that had the predictable result of pissing some people off. Also, the limited edition is relatively expensive and comes with ugly ass synth leathers that provide 2/1 Armor.

Personally, I think the relative quality or lack thereof of the limited edition is fairly inconsequential. I don't think I've owned a limited edition of any edition of any game. And that includes editions I've written for. But Catalyst seems to have a knack for doing annoying and shitty things.

-Username17

Previn · Post by **Previn** » Tue Jul 16, 2013 8:17 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:Basically, Limited Editions are almost always printed early and contain whatever typographical errors the original printing had by default. But apparently someone in Catalyst land said that a bunch of errors being in the limited edition wasn't a big deal because you weren't going to actually read and play with it anyway.

I often wonder how CGL actually makes money, let alone enough money to have it embezzled.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Tue Jul 16, 2013 8:26 pm

Also, the limited edition is relatively expensive and comes with ugly ass synth leathers that provide 2/1 Armor.

Win.

Fucks · Post by **Fucks** » Tue Jul 16, 2013 8:57 pm

FrankTrollman wrote: Basically, Limited Editions are almost always printed early and contain whatever typographical errors the original printing had by default.

That goes without saying (did you understand that, Stahlseele?

).

FrankTrollman wrote: But apparently someone in Catalyst land said that a bunch of errors being in the limited edition wasn't a big deal because you weren't going to actually read and play with it anyway. And that had the predictable result of pissing some people off.

CGL should train their freelancers what to post on public boards.

sabs · Post by **sabs** » Tue Jul 16, 2013 9:04 pm

Fucks wrote:
FrankTrollman wrote: Basically, Limited Editions are almost always printed early and contain whatever typographical errors the original printing had by default.
That goes without saying (did you understand that, Stahlseele? ).

FrankTrollman wrote: But apparently someone in Catalyst land said that a bunch of errors being in the limited edition wasn't a big deal because you weren't going to actually read and play with it anyway. And that had the predictable result of pissing some people off.

CGL should train their freelancers what to post on public boards.

Cause that worked so well with Frank