[SR4] Street Samuraizing

[Koumei]

Year of the Comet is a clusterfail and is about people turning into furries, a zombie invasion, volcanoes destroying half the planet, and countries conquering other countries without having their population change.

Please, is there any chance that is just hyperbole or comical exaggeration on your part? ;_;

[Ancient History]

No, if anything he toned it down a little - after all, he left out the dragon clawing its way out of the afterlife and taking charge of Denver, and the magical metal rush.

[Username17]

Year of the Comet is a clusterfail and is about people turning into furries, a zombie invasion, volcanoes destroying half the planet, and countries conquering other countries without having their population change.

Please, is there any chance that is just hyperbole or comical exaggeration on your part? ;_;

Unfortunately, no. Year of the Comet is an event book about 2061, the year Haley's Comet comes back to visit Earth. And a bunch of crazy magic shit happens. It is laid out as a series of chapters that were obviously written by people who were barely talking to each other.

The furries issue is a thing called SURGE. That is: Spontaneous Unexplained somethingstartingwithR Genetic Expression. It's basically like a second wave of goblinization. Only this time, instead of everyone getting to binarily either turn into a distinct metahuman variant or not - people get mix-n-match traits. And you can buy the traits standalone with points or get paid points to accept stand-alone traits that are disadvantages. And some of these traits are pretty out there: fur, tails, funky eyes, horns, and so on. Needless to say: this system is broken as fuck. First of all, it's a points-and-disadvantages system so obviously there are some items on the list that are way over/under costed. But perhaps even more importantly, a lot of the disadvantages are disadvantageous simply because they confer no advantages but make you look distinctive - but the points value for these drawbacks don't change if you already look distinctive. You get the same points for being furry whether you're already purple or not, which since having purple skin and having purple fur are essentially equivalent social problems, means that once you go furry-freak there is a direct and large incentive to go all in furry freak. So yeah: cat girls. You seriously get points for writing "cat girl" on your sheet.

Next up, the Zombie Upriding. The Shedim are evil spirits that can only manifest in our world by possessing dead bodies. Once in the mortal world, they attack people and eat brains. This is totally different from the Loa Zombies, Ghouls, Corps Cadavres, and Wendigo that Shadowrun already had. Which were spirits possessed into corpses that ate human flesh, crazy goblinized people with super strength who ate human flesh, mindless corpses animated by enchanting rituals, and humans killed and then infected with a virus that reanimated them with super strength and a need to eat human flesh, respectively. Not really sure what the Shedim were for, considering that there was already seriously four different flavors of zombie uprising you could do with the magic that was already around, but whatever.

Then volcanoes destroy half the planet. Earthquakes and volcanoes go off all around the ring of fire - which is another name for the Pacific Rim. Pull out a globe and look at this shit: that's half the planet. This is the kind of thing that would kill hundreds of millions of people and change the climate for generations - but in this case it is mostly used as an excuse for Japan and the California Freestate to not intervene when Las Vegas conquers Los Angeles. Yes, really.

Las Vegas is the big city in the Pueblo Corporate Council, a minor country of about 10 million people that conquers the entire Los Angeles basin (population: 17.5 million). After this is done, the PCC continues to be listed as a country with about 10 million people in it. Despite having annexed a city that is by itself almost twice that.

Until War! came out, YotC was the most divisive book that had ever been made for Shadowrun. Basically people broke into two camps: the "This is so fucking stupid that it didn't happen in our campaign!" crowd and the "It's canon, I know it's stupid but fucking deal with it!" crowd.

-Username17

[Stahlseele]

Yup, sadly, one has to wonder what they were smoking when writing these things . .

Hel, there even was a shadowland poster in that book who wrote, and i do a DIRECT QUOTE:"Cat-Girls are the sign that the Totems want us to be happy!"

[Koumei]

Wow. And I thought WoD had some stupid shit. In general, for most games, it seems that lower-key events that basically make good adventure modules are leagues better than massive world-changing ones, but I didn't expect this much stupid.

[Stahlseele]

Basically, it's mostly just numbers not matching up and making stuff stupid because of that . .

[Ancient History]

WoD is still working off the stupid karma it earned from Time of Judgment, so I don't think it's quite a fair comparison.

[Aryxbez]

Willpower is crap. If you're not a caster, it basically don't do anything. The only reason not to put a 1 in it is if your MC is one of those people who makes magical teaparty effects happen to you if he finds out that you have a minimum value in an attribute.

I assume this might be going little beyond the composure rolls that Whipstitch had mentioned (recall there being one for a semi-equivalent to Sense Motive skill as well)? Otherwise wondering what the DM fiat invoked effects would be, are they essentially taking control away from the character if a PC doesn't have 2-3+ in a mental attribute?

Be an ork, they're cooler.

Agreed, Orks be cools, and they are the master race of 4th edition Shadowrun (weren't Dwarves the super race last edition?), high time people want actual incentives to play one in an RPG.

Also Frank, you mentioned "6th World Almanac" is on the same terrabad quality that of "War!" could you provide an explanation as to why that is? Or very least, slap down some links to threads/specific posts that give such needed detail. All I recall hearing, was how if looked at too closely, story bits start to fall apart, like some Brazil dragon being a threat to the AAA MegaCorps or something.

Lastly, I'd ask about the whole World of Darkness biz, but I think that's already been covered in the thread about it being of failed design?

[Silent Wayfarer]

I'd like to hear about it...

[Username17]

6th World Almanac is a clumsy and offensive piece of failure. The big selling point of the book is the fact that for the first time they produced a map of the whole Shadowrun world. Unfortunately: that map is wrong. Like, hugely wrong.

Basically what they did is steal a piece of sattelite imagery (and yes, I do mean "steal" because they didn´t pay for it) and scribble the map borders over it. This has the problem that they were working from 2011 borders, which are in many cases quite different from the sixth world borders described in previous works and even in that book. For example: I live in the Czech Republic, which according to the description in 6WA has lost Silesia and added the Pfalz, shifting its border south relative to Poland and west relative to Germany. But it´s drawn in on the map with its 2011 territory. Czech Republic on the map literally does not contain the same cities as what are described on the page next to it.

And they didn´t even put in all the Shadowrun countries. The book´s entire reason to exist is to include all the countries, and it doesn´t. The Naga Kingdom that they talk about in Running Wild? It is full stop not on the map. Or described in the text. The authors just plain forgot it exists and it´s not there.

What countries are in there mostly don´t have descriptions. You´d think that in a book like that they would name drop all the countries and spend a few pages doing demographics and GDP for the planet or something. But they don´t. Most countries don´t have any writeup at all, and those that do have weird incomplete entires that aren´t formatted the same so you can´t even do appples to apples comparisons on things.

Some sections of the Shadowrun world have been badly underdescribed. Notably Africa and to a lesser extent Latin America. In that book, that´s still true. They have actual Africa on the actual map, and like half the continent is just "Here be Black People". The countries aren´t named and the borders aren´t drawn. It just says that there are a bunch of countries and kingdoms there and then leaves the area blank. I´m not even kidding.

Editing is atrocious as you might imagine, and there´s the little thing where large sections of it are plagiarized from Ancient History´s work. There´s a timeline, but the events are pretty damn random until you remember that there are a couple of event-related timelines on Ancient History´s old site that were obviously used as templates for the whole thing (otherwise why the fuck would insect incursions in Malaysian politics get on a timeline that left out so many other crucial details?).

And it´s all held together with rambling fanfiction that uses up space that could have and should have been used for actual information that the authors obviously didn´t know and couldn´t be fucked to look up or even make up.

-Username17

[Stahlseele]

low willpower is bad if you have an enemy with lower attribute(willpower) spell.
you have problems resisting and every time it's harder and once you hit 0 willpower you are basically paralyzed if i remember correctly.

[Username17]

low willpower is bad if you have an enemy with lower attribute(willpower) spell.
you have problems resisting and every time it's harder and once you hit 0 willpower you are basically paralyzed if i remember correctly.

That is meaningless. Anyone who really cares about eliminating enemies with spells is going to use Stun Bolt. Because it only needs a single hit to fill in 10 boxes of stun when cast at Force 9, and because it only has 3 points of Drain. If someone hits you with a Stunbolt, you will go down. They are rolling Magic + Spellcasting + Foci + Mentor Bonuses + Spirit Aid, and you are rolling just your Willpower (plus Counterspelling if you have an ally mage in the room). If they get a single net hit on you, you go down. So you go down. It's really simple.

Worrying about resisting hostile magic is basically a sucker's game, because even if you invest quite heavily in resisting enemy magic, you still pretty much aren't going to. The correct way to avoid getting dropped by enemy magic is to shoot the mage in the face. Twice.

-Username17

[kzt]

Worrying about resisting hostile magic is basically a sucker's game, because even if you invest quite heavily in resisting enemy magic, you still pretty much aren't going to. The correct way to avoid getting dropped by enemy magic is to shoot the mage in the face. Twice.
-Username17

Yup. Though a group mages running teamworked counterspell can routinely generate a lot of successes.

The main reason why mage=win at low karma is overcasting. If you eliminate that things are not so ugly. It takes two stubbolts then, just like everything else.

[unnamednpc]

A gunbunny can do his two shot trick twice per IP though, so then the magic folks will feel sad in the pants when you expect them to invest two complex actions to reliably drop a fool.
Someone will always feel underpowered. It's a game you can't win.

[Stahlseele]

If you have a Mage complaining about being underpowered, hit him with some background count and drink his tears . .

[TheFlatline]

low willpower is bad if you have an enemy with lower attribute(willpower) spell.
you have problems resisting and every time it's harder and once you hit 0 willpower you are basically paralyzed if i remember correctly.

That is meaningless. Anyone who really cares about eliminating enemies with spells is going to use Stun Bolt. Because it only needs a single hit to fill in 10 boxes of stun when cast at Force 9, and because it only has 3 points of Drain. If someone hits you with a Stunbolt, you will go down. They are rolling Magic + Spellcasting + Foci + Mentor Bonuses + Spirit Aid, and you are rolling just your Willpower (plus Counterspelling if you have an ally mage in the room). If they get a single net hit on you, you go down. So you go down. It's really simple.

Worrying about resisting hostile magic is basically a sucker's game, because even if you invest quite heavily in resisting enemy magic, you still pretty much aren't going to. The correct way to avoid getting dropped by enemy magic is to shoot the mage in the face. Twice.

-Username17

Zombieland (and Mageland) Rule #2: Double-tap.

[TheFlatline]

WoD is still working off the stupid karma it earned from Time of Judgment, so I don't think it's quite a fair comparison.

I still think the best ToJ ending was one of the ones for Changeling. Then again, it basically, totally ripped off The Shawshank Redemption, right down to ending the story at an uncertain, but optimistic point.

Though for sheer giggle factor the Werewolf storyline where you destroy the moon and like arm wrestle with the Wyrm and shit (Ragnarok IIRC) was pretty fucking hilarious.

[Whipstitch]

A powerful mage has little reason to feel small in the pants offensively since direct damage spells allow a roll to avoid taking damage entirely but no subsequent soak test, so one shotting people instead of two shotting people is totally on the table. I mean, yeah a Force 10 Stun Ball has drain attached but nobody will feel too bad for you since threatening 10+ unsoakable DV to everyone with a 10 meter blast zone makes it pretty easy to come out ahead on that exchange. Magicians also have the option of multi-casting, which can be surprisingly effective when facing opponents that don't have counterspelling support since a dedicated Magician can often split their pool and still beat someone's Willpower attribute.

I mean, honestly, given that gun skills just let you violence people and the spellcasting skill lets you defend yourself and graft on new utility at a rate of 3bp/5 karma per spell I have a really hard time feeling bad for magicians. Plus, you know, we left out spirits and Mob Mind. The worst thing about slinging "I win" mojo around is that you can end up leaving background count your magical signature all over the place, which is why my Combat Mages usually have high agility, a good gun and a grab bag of utility spells instead. Sure, it's a pinch sub-optimal but Shadowrun magicians are good enough that you can sandbag quite a bit and still not hold the team back.

Edited for a blatant grammatical error and because I called a magical signature a background count for some reason.

[Lago PARANOIA]

No one actually throws out 9 Force Stun Bolts though except in dire emergencies or if they're out in the boonies or such. Waving and flailing your mage penis that hard just creates a trail that will point the police department straight to your cock.

[kzt]

No one actually throws out 9 Force Stun Bolts though except in dire emergencies or if they're out in the boonies or such. Waving and flailing your mage penis that hard just creates a trail that will point the police department straight to your cock.

Really? No magician would think to spend a full 3 seconds to erase their signature?

[Mask_De_H]

If you're in a situation where you feel the need to wave your dick that hard instead of just shooting 'em or getting spirits to do stuff for you, then 3 seconds might be three too many.

[Whipstitch]

I don't want to discount completely the drawbacks of leaving your astral signature around, but the worst case scenario is that you're forced to leave a magical thumbprint that is only visible to the magically active and will fade away in Force hours assuming you didn't get a chance to erase it in the first place. A legit worry, to be sure, but it's not really an insurmountable problem that prevents hit mages from finding regular work, either. The other thing is that anyone with a decent Spellcasting+Magic pool can go ahead and treat Illusions and Detection as their bread and butter but still have a back pocket nuke tucked away just in case for 2 bp/5 karma. Mind, you'll still want to have a great Initiative total if you expect to seriously win fights that way, but overall I'd say that magicians have plenty of ways to defend themselves and that if anyone is going to overshadow them I'm not worried about it being the Street Samurai.

[kzt]

If you're in a situation where you feel the need to wave your dick that hard instead of just shooting 'em or getting spirits to do stuff for you, then 3 seconds might be three too many.

After I cast a 9+success 20m diameter stunball it's really likely that before I leave there will more than 3 seconds free for me to contemplate the pile of unconscious gunmen. ...

[Username17]

If you're in a situation where you feel the need to wave your dick that hard instead of just shooting 'em or getting spirits to do stuff for you, then 3 seconds might be three too many.

After I cast a 9+success 20m diameter stunball it's really likely that before I leave there will more than 3 seconds free for me to contemplate the pile of unconscious gunmen. ...

27 seconds. But that's also 27 seconds on each affected target, with an apparent range of touch. Any ranged attack makes that somewhat problematic. If you cast a spell on someone who was within Line of Sight, what makes you think it's going to be trivial to spend half a minute touching their body?

-Username17

[Whipstitch]

Yeah, like I said, it's admittedly non-trivial although I'd point out that a lot of other forms of evidence you can leave lying around have no expiration date at all, so it's sort of a mixed bag even if having a team of forensic mages is obviously a worse outcome than some cop picking your bullets out of the wall. Ideally, you use such magic when you think you'll have a chance erase the signatures and have a source of extra IPs since erasing a signature takes a number of Complex Actions equivalent to Force rather than combat turns. That can cut down time time considerably, but yeah, group takedowns can take a while.