The Ends v4.01

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Thu Feb 19, 2009 11:27 am

Quantumboost wrote:So I'm playing a technomancer in an SR4 game that's starting up, and am trying to get my DM to adopt TEOTM. Am I correct in thinking that "B" powers don't work on technomancers, but "D" and "B&D" do?

B powers, forms, and programs should work on Technomancers just fine, but would not function on Sprites. Technomancers are still classically biologically alive and have fully functional brains that are as susceptible to electrical interference as any other. Technomancers are often going to be able to mobilize some serious Defense dice however.

-Username17

Fireblaze · Post by **Fireblaze** » Thu Jul 02, 2009 10:03 pm

Hello, Im new to Shadowrun and have some questions about crime in Shadowrun.

Who is enforcing the law in Shadowrun? If its the corporations wouldnt they just look out for anything prevent them from making money and skip the rest?

Im also curious about a reference about "investigating authorities" in the "Why Crime" section, what is that refering to?

Another question deeper question perhaps outside of this thread that comes up is who writes the laws?

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Thu Jul 02, 2009 10:43 pm

Fireblaze wrote:Hello, Im new to Shadowrun and have some questions about crime in Shadowrun.

You came to a place.

Who is enforcing the law in Shadowrun? If its the corporations wouldnt they just look out for anything prevent them from making money and skip the rest?

Law is handled by committee. That is to say that there are different legal authorities that have overlapping jurisdictions. Kind of like how people don't really know whether county sheriffs or city police have the right of way in many matters. The thing that makes it all go to hell is that the people actually in those police organizations are mercenaries. And they are hired by someone with a vested interest in having security in an area.

So when you go to the mall, the mall cops are basically just like they are now, except that they have actual authority to shoot and/or arrest people. And I really do mean exactly like they are now. So they are there on contract, and the contract might be paid for by the mall, or by the city, or some combination. Indeed, some stores with more to protect may very well go behind the back of the mall and the city to increase the protection level or hire an additional set of security guards.

The most out-there example in SR history was that for most of Shadowrun's print run the primary police contractors for the city of San Francisco were the Nippon Imperial Marines. That is that a corporation (MCT) hired a segment of the actual military of the Nippon Empire to enforce the law in a city on the far side of the Pacific. And the city accepted this because they were going to have to hire some kind of law enforcement contractors anyway. So yeah, this system is so messed up that you can end up paying a foreign power to invade you.

Im also curious about a reference about "investigating authorities" in the "Why Crime" section, what is that refering to?

That's going to be whichever police contractors find themselves contractually obligated to investigate a crime that has already taken place. In the case of a crime against a megacorp that may well be just the megacorp's internal security forces. For a crime in a more public area that might be several different and competing police contractors.

Another question deeper question perhaps outside of this thread that comes up is who writes the laws?

Just like today: anyone who wants to. Actually getting your laws enforced requires you to have political and/or economic power.

-Username17

Sma · Post by **Sma** » Fri Aug 21, 2009 6:26 pm

Surgo wrote:Sma, could you add paragraph indents to the equipment spotlights and anything that uses that font scheme? Not having them makes it really, really hard to read.

Done. With a nearly unnoticeable delay to boot.

New PDF here, if someone volunteers a real host please do so.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Fri Aug 21, 2009 6:44 pm

Very cool. Thanks.

-Username17

schpeelah · Post by **schpeelah** » Sat Aug 22, 2009 12:42 pm

What is the look of of Deva, Orb and Xim operating systems based on?

Sma · Post by **Sma** » Sat Aug 22, 2009 12:52 pm

There is also a Cheatsheet available, for easy reference at the table. It does not include the TM stuff though.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Aug 22, 2009 5:57 pm

schpeelah wrote:What is the look of of Deva, Orb and Xim operating systems based on?

The Megadynes from Silent Mobius, the HAL from 2001, and the the Irken computer system from Invader Zim.

-Username17

Crakkerjakk · Post by **Crakkerjakk** » Mon Sep 14, 2009 3:15 am

Beyond that, there are geosynchronous satellites that
orbit the world somewhere over 40,000 kilometers from the
center of the Earth (which puts them comfortably outside
the 30,000 kilometer cutoff for high density signal). These
satellites all rotate around the Earth such that they pass over
the same point on the Earth once each day at the same time

Geosynch satellites stay over the same place all the time.

EDIT: Is there a .doc or .odf version of this? I found some grammatical/spelling errors, and would be willing to run through and do a rough edit for you if you'd like.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon Sep 14, 2009 8:27 am

Crakkerjakk wrote:Geosynch satellites stay over the same place all the time.

That's a common error. Geostationary orbits are ones where the period of orbit is exactly the same as the period of rotation of the planet below them, allowing them to stay in "one place." This happens in the Clarke Belt, which extends a few degrees North and South of the Equator. Geosynchronous orbits are ones in which the orbital period divides evenly into the period of rotation such that they are over the same point on the ground at the same time each day.

Seriously.

EDIT: Is there a .doc or .odf version of this? I found some grammatical/spelling errors, and would be willing to run through and do a rough edit for you if you'd like.

Sort of. The .doc version is written out in bbcode, making it kind of hard to read. It seriously looks like this:

Code: Select all

&#91;b&#93;&#91;size=2008&#93;The Ends of the Matrix&#91;/size&#93;&#91;/b&#93;

"&#91;i&#93;Let's go talk to our Matrix expert and get him to do… whatever it is that he does.&#91;/i&#93;"

&#91;list&#93;&#91;b&#93;Foreword&#58; What this Is and Why it was done&#91;/b&#93;
&#91;spoiler&#93;The Ends of the Matrix v4.01 is a set of full replacement rules for the Matrix of Shadowrun, 4th edition. That means that these rules are intended to be used &#91;i&#93;instead&#91;/i&#93; of the Wireless World &#40;&#91;i&#93;SR4&#91;/i&#93;, pgs. 206 – 240&#41; and &#91;i&#93;instead&#91;/i&#93; of &#91;u&#93;Unwired&#91;/u&#93; &#40;all pages&#41;. It is &#91;i&#93;not&#91;/i&#93; a full replacement of Shadowrun world story, so books like &#91;u&#93;Emergence&#91;/u&#93; and &#91;u&#93;System Failure&#91;/u&#93; stand on their own. This piece is admittedly quite long, but when you factor the number of pages of material that it replaces, it's not &#91;i&#93;that&#91;/i&#93; bad.

It's not that I added the formatting after I set up the text, I write it already bbcode formatted. I do this because I am insane I guess. But yeah, if you want the .doc file you're welcome to it. It's 809kb, so it should email fine.

-Username17

IGTN · Post by **IGTN** » Mon Sep 14, 2009 8:44 am

I write my stuff BBCode formatted. Of course, I write it all in notepad, so it's fully expected to look ugly.

Crakkerjakk · Post by **Crakkerjakk** » Mon Sep 14, 2009 4:31 pm

I stand (well, sit) corrected.

My bad.

Surgo · Post by **Surgo** » Thu Oct 08, 2009 1:35 am

Now that I finished all the Tomes a while back and, despite having a shit-ton of WikiWork to do, I feel like putting this up well-formatted on a Shadowrun wiki somewhere. Doesn't look like there are any worthwhile out there, perhaps I shall start one (or adopt the old one on Wikia).

That should substantially enhance reference-ability during play.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Thu Oct 08, 2009 4:33 am

There's Sixth World Wiki, but I honestly have no idea if they would be keen to have a set of house rules on there or not. It's associated with dumpshock, and Bull is a mod at dumpshock who - and I am not making this up - temp banned my account for several weeks for talking smack about 4th edition D&D on the "other games" section of dumpshock in a thread about 4th edition D&D.

-Username17

Surgo · Post by **Surgo** » Thu Oct 08, 2009 9:06 pm

Yikes. I won't be touching anything Dumpshock with a ten foot pole.

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Thu Oct 08, 2009 9:08 pm

Surgo wrote:Yikes. I won't be touching anything Dumpshock with a ten foot pole.

That is probably a good policy.

Surgo · Post by **Surgo** » Wed Oct 14, 2009 1:14 am

I have a question about signal ratings. Is it possible to voluntarily lower your own device's signal ratings if you're engaged in some long-range combat and start getting your ass kicked, thus pulling you out of handshake range?

Also, remembered my other question. A signal 5 commlink is 3000 nuyen, while a signal 5 directional retransmitter is 1000 nuyen. Aside from the fact that it's in your head in the case of an internal commlink, what's the point of shelling out the extra 250 nuyen for the signal 5 commlink, instead of getting one with no signal and using a retransmitter?

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Wed Oct 14, 2009 2:10 am

Surgo wrote:I have a question about signal ratings. Is it possible to voluntarily lower your own device's signal ratings if you're engaged in some long-range combat and start getting your ass kicked, thus pulling you out of handshake range?

Yes.

Also, remembered my other question. A signal 5 commlink is 3000 nuyen, while a signal 5 directional retransmitter is 1000 nuyen. Aside from the fact that it's in your head in the case of an internal commlink, what's the point of shelling out the extra 250 nuyen for the signal 5 commlink, instead of getting one with no signal and using a retransmitter?

Size. The retransmitter is a handheld device. You pay a substantial and proportional premium to link devices together.

-Username17

cthulhu · Post by **cthulhu** » Wed Oct 14, 2009 9:34 am

Surgo wrote:Yikes. I won't be touching anything Dumpshock with a ten foot pole.

It's not so bad, some posters and mods are good, some are awful.

/me shrugs.

endersdouble · Post by **endersdouble** » Fri Oct 23, 2009 8:35 pm

This stuff's great, Frank. I'd second the calls for some in-play examples, though, just so I can be more sure that I'm understanding it. Just little stuff, like:

Tammi the Technomancer is on-site with her team at the Ares firebase. They've gotten past the physical defenses; time for her to get the decently-protected files they came for!

Hannah Hacker's team is in a firefight. That damn mage on the other team is causing problems--time for her to brainhack the fool! Of course, he's got a commlink...

Hannah works for Ares. Tammi is on Aztechnology's payroll. When they both show up at the firebase, it's matrix fight time.

If you could just go into detail on what each scenario entails (from both sides of the attempt) that'd go a /long/ way towards making things clear. As it stands, I'm joining an EOTM game next week and I'm not convinced I actually understand what I need to do on a roll-to-roll basis.

Quantumboost · Post by **Quantumboost** » Sat Nov 14, 2009 2:46 am

Question from one of my players: What exactly does Cancel do if you, say, use it on a camera which a Rigger is getting sensor excerpts from?

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Nov 14, 2009 8:11 am

Quantumboost wrote:Question from one of my players: What exactly does Cancel do if you, say, use it on a camera which a Rigger is getting sensor excerpts from?

Then it reduces the Rigger's perception tests made through that camera as bits get lost and resolution craps out.

-Username17

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sat Nov 14, 2009 10:20 am

Frank, if you were in the Shadowrun universe, you had the Death Note, and people had no ability to track you (which means that you could get away with anything), who would you personally schedule for heart attacks if you wanted to become or facilitate:

A) Richer than Nazis.
B) King of the planet.
C) Have the United States taken over by jingoistic nationalists and squash entrenched minorities into the dirt.
D) Wanted the entire planet to go communist.
E) Send everyone back to the Dark Ages.

Lokathor · Post by **Lokathor** » Mon Mar 01, 2010 11:40 pm

It does not specifically specify, but are Technomancer matrix stats assumed to be Generic stats? Does the mid-level Technomancer want a commlink with a badass Signal and Firewall and a Receiver 1 hooked in, or do they want to avoid shitty commlinks with a firewall of 2?

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Tue Mar 02, 2010 5:38 am

Lokathor wrote:It does not specifically specify, but are Technomancer matrix stats assumed to be Generic stats? Does the mid-level Technomancer want a commlink with a badass Signal and Firewall and a Receiver 1 hooked in, or do they want to avoid shitty commlinks with a firewall of 2?

I don't understand the question. What you'd want would vary for different purposes.

-Username17