Shadowrun

Dang, normal restriction is 12 availibity rating? So many things to keep in mind... Its hard to keep track of what the hell I can have on my char :P

BTW, does alphaware and other stuff affect all cyberware including the eye and ear and other stuff? And is it possible to upgrade rating later in play?

You can get any cyberware as alpha-/beta-/whatever- ware. The only thing is does not affect is Capacity cost, I think.

It IS possible to swap out an implant for a higher-grade one. However, it leaves your character with an Essence-hole. Basically, it means that your character has the same Essence, but gains a number (or fraction) of "free" Essence points equal to the difference between the old and new cyberware. When you install more cyberware, these points are consumed before reducing whatever Essence you have left.

Essentially (pun sort-of intended), upgrading your cyberware's grade lets you make room for more.

If you meant upgrading 'ware like boosting Muscle Replacement's rating from 2 to 3, you have to replace it. The Essence-hole rule still applies though, so you shouldn't lose too much Essence by upgrading. Cash, on the other hand...

Yeah, I meant boosting ratings.

Anyway, so many things to keep in mind <_< Price... Availibility... Essence... Alphaware only.. I wonder if there are even more restrictions of what I can have at start x-x;

There was something about +4 attribute cyberware being max at start, but I'm not sure what that meant. Does that mean I can only distribute 4 extra attributes to cyberlimbs? Or +4 strength/agility per limb in total?

edited 17th Apr '14 9:44:00 AM by SpookyMask

How fucked is Chicago and how screwed will the players be if I throw them into a run that takes place there?

AFAIK, after the Bug War it's pretty much No Mans Land-era Gotham City on steroids, only with much less criminal gangs and a lot more Horde of Alien Locusts (well, "alien" in the sense of being extradimensional bug spirits). And that's after they blew up a goddamn nuke in it, then threw a specially design bioweapon in hopes that it will finish the job. It didn't, but it did very well in devastating the local bug population.

edited 27th Apr '14 3:44:48 PM by MarqFJA

Sounds like a great place for a shadowrun.

More like a horrible place for shadowruns (then again, maybe you are looking for such horrible places). For one, AFAIK there's not much there left that would be worthy of such an op, especially after Knight Errant detonated that nuke and then bioweapon-bombed the remains. For two, barring naive and brash newcomers who think they can earn a name for themselves by tackling such a place, runners far and wide avoid the place like the plague, knowing full well that there is a significant bug presence in the uncharted depths of the walled off city^note Unfortunately, nobody knows how big or how fast it's growing, or (in the case of the UCAS gov and the megacorps) is willing to spare the resources to determine those facts, especially since they're still recovering from Crash 2.0 that hit soon after the Chicago incident., and they'd rather keep the hell away from those implacable monsters.

edited 29th Apr '14 5:02:17 AM by MarqFJA

Yeaaaah, doesn't really sound like much of hiring opportunity over there. I mean, I guess someone might hire them to retrieve something from there, but who the hell would accept that mission?

There are, of course, some runners and affiliates who are doing their best to investigate the bug presence in Chicago and determine whether or not there's a risk for a new disastrous outbreak, seeing as the White House and the corps have gotten complacent about the whole issue... and that's despite the fact that Ares knows that untold scores of bugs that it had been covertly experimenting on for potential use as Living Weapons escaped their custody just before Crash 2.0 by possessing Ares personnel (Ares was too preoccupied with fighting Winternight's apocalypse plot to respond in time).

edited 29th Apr '14 6:14:09 AM by MarqFJA

Hmm, this is a problem.

The game that I had in mind requires a place that has little to no law.

edited 29th Apr '14 1:52:44 PM by Rosvo1

Well, unless it's been changed, Shadowrunners pretty much have immunity to the law while they're on the job, at least if they're being sponsored by a megacorp. So long as they don't massacre a museum staff for seeing their faces, they don't have to worry about the cops.

It's not the runners that I'm concerned about.

It's the rest of the criminal population.

edited 29th Apr '14 1:57:09 PM by Rosvo1

... They're called shadowrunners for a reason. IIRC, in almost every major city out there in the Shadowrun world, there are many slum-like places that are effectively lawless and off the near-omnipresent wireless grid, where you don't have to worry about Big Brother's ever-watchful eye (i.e. you don't have to worry about something arresting you for lacking a valid SIN, which nowadays can be checked for and tracked wirelessly) — the "shadows" of society, so to speak.

edited 29th Apr '14 2:38:44 PM by MarqFJA

True.

I dunno, there's just something about Chicago that makes me want to run a game there.

I might use the Criminal Syndicate alternate campaign from the 5E core rulebook.

It's because Chicago is gangster-land. Apparently, the writers of Shadowrun wanted to avert that cliche and that's why Chicago was eaten by bug-ghosts.

You could just ignore it, it's your campaign after all. Say the Interdimensional bug spirits were scared of the locals and went home.

edited 29th Apr '14 5:04:51 PM by joeyjojo

No, I have this pathological need to follow the fluff.

Hmm, I got this idea of a game that's essentially STALKER with gangsters.

Basically, it'll follow these members of [INSERT ORGANISED CRIME SYNDICATE HERE] as they try to survive in this wasteland.

STLAKER huh? Now you have wet my interest.

edited 29th Apr '14 11:57:08 PM by joeyjojo

^That sounds like name of vampire killing game

Heh. Assuming I ever manage to get my gaming group to try Shadowrun, I was thinking about DMing a campaign that would have an early run in Chicago- basically, an extremely isolated safehouse would be needed, and there are a few spots in Chicago that the Johnson thinks could be warded well enough to keep the bugs out while still being safe from prying corps eyes.

Cue the runners trying to clear a half-ruined orphanage to the tune of creepy children singing while the statues move every time they're not looking as I steal from the Doctor Who episode 'Blink' as blatantly as I think I can get away with

Are there any supplements for 5E?

Not yet. Catalyst has released previews for Run & Gun (the guns and equipment book) through DriveThruRPG. Gun Heaven 3 has 5E stats for the weapons in it.

I found a stack of old shadow run tie in novels today in a book donation :)

So is there that big a difference with the editions? I heard that fourth and 5th are fairly similar but 1st, 2rd and 3rd are a very different beast.

edited 6th May '14 12:42:19 AM by joeyjojo

I just read that nanotechnology more or less "collapses" as an industry and area of technology at the end of Fourth Edition's metaplot (source: Nanomachines article), as all kinds of nanotech structures suffer inexplicable catastrophic failure (like a "Nanotech Crash"). Is that true? I don't see why the hell would you want to do this, from a meta POV.

Because if you get nanobots too advanced, they become a Deus ex Machina that kills all tension in the game. Or worse, it'd be abused harder than DMSO.