Shadowrun

Mark. Lol. Hey you can handle just about any crazy thing. Like a runner team who infiltrated Lone Star HQ and put a back pack nuke in their basement after lacing the office space with bounding mines.

Matrix: Nope. Never heard of them. Do give them skinny on those.

https://roll20.net/ and http://www.rptools.net/toolbox/maptool/

They are both things that allow people to connect over the internet into what is essentially a chatroom with dicerolling capability and a grid map for moving tokens around on. Maptool is a java program that you download, while roll20 is browser-based. Maptool has more functionality than roll20, but is more complex and can be finicky at times, especially if you use frameworks. Roll20 is quite simple and easy to use. It also has one feature that Maptool doesn't: a music player, which is connected to Soundcloud. If you want voice communication, you can use one of the many programs out there which allow you to do that, such as Skype, Steam, Evolve, Ventrilo, Teamspeak, Mumble, etc.

Tuef: fair enough. I just hope if I ever play Shadowrun with said character, we do an interrogation. Because I am SO reciting the breakfast scene from Pulp Fiction verbatim.

Matrix: Well blow me down. Or don't I know how runners would take that then take what was in my pockets. Those seem rather interesting I will have to find a way to test those out.

Question: How big is the insect spirit presence in Chicago?

How about "big"?

Seriously though, its not so bad nobody lives there, but enough bad there are sections of city in quarantine. Aaand there are multiple different insects spirits if I understood right so that would mean they have pretty much their own ecology there? xD I don't know exact numbers since I haven't read sourcebooks, but from what I heard(well mainly that oneshot I played took place in chicago), its something like that

edited 4th Sep '15 3:41:50 AM by SpookyMask

As far as the bug spirits in Chicago go, the simplest way I can think of putting it is that (at least in the 2070s, when 4e is set) they're kind of like muggers in New York in the 1980s. Obviously, you weren't going to get mugged every time you stepped out your door, but just about everyone either had been mugged, or personally knew someone that had been mugged.

The government and the corps have done a lot to clean up the bugs, but Chicago is still pretty much a no-man's land with scattered... villages, I guess you'd call them... in the urban wasteland, with enough nests still around that it's really not a good idea to do a lot of exploring unless you're rather heavily armed or have exceptional stealth capabilities or sensors.

... oh. And there's also the massive dormant (but still living) swarm in the Cermak Blast Zone, where magic is warped to the point that astral forms get obliterated on contact and the radiation is too intense for any living thing to pass through. Apparently attempting to nuke magically shielded bugs can have unexpected results >.O

Why not send armed remote-controlled robots/drones to wipe them out?

I'm assuming it's too much effort for too little gains for all involved. The NOX is also supposed to be cleaned up by the corps eventually but they are mostly doing profitable experiments in the barren wasteland.

Yeah, but the NOX is not well-known to be chock full of a Zombie Apocalypse-level threat waiting to happen, which has proven at least once so far to be more than capable of infiltrating human society with terrifying ease through a seemingly innocuous self-help movement.

Plot demands mostly. This is a dystopia where self interest in profit outweighs collective survival.

I am looking at those online capabilities for a game because I would really like to play a good Shadowrun game again. I haven't done that since 3rd Ed was around.

Tuef: if you get an online Shadowrun game going lemme know.

It's been a while since I looked at it, but I always got the impression that the Cermak Blast Zone was functionally impenetrable, to drones as well as people and spirits. At the very least, you wouldn't be getting anything remote-controlled through the radiation field, since it would garble the signal pretty royally, I'd think.

Not only does Chicago still have an unresolved insect spirit infestation, but Ares also carpet-bombed the city with Strain III FAB, an Awakened bacteria that consumes mana. FAB3 is extremely dangerous to dual-natured creatures like ghouls (who live in Cabrini Green) and regular mages who go astrally active, whether by activating foci, switching to astral perception, or simply casting spells. It's really difficult to see pockets of FAB3 without looking astrally, which is like checking to see if there are hornets in a nest by hitting it with rocks.

Actually if I ever play Shadowrun I think rather than the loud guy, I'll probably play a crazy Russian rigger whose driving style is somewhere between "reckless" and "Warboy".

So a normal rigger then.

Tuef: Pretty much. Only I'll talk in a funny Russian accent, fix thing via wrench hits ala Lev Andropov in Armageddon, and wear my fur hat to each game, lol.

More I think about it, that idea seems more fun to do than LOUD HOWARD Shadowrunner. Easier on my voice, too.

"American Components, Russian Components. All made in Taiwan." -hits with wrench- Lol.

A unique approach is a rigger sniper. I personally prefer to be a straight personal sniper/small gun guy.

I'm going to aim to be a Loony, but an effective and funny one. I'm not just gonna do random shit for teh randumz, I'll calculate "will this be funny?" before I do shenanigans.

Dark: So, any mages in my Chicago game are fucked up the ass if I go with the canon?

edited 14th Sep '15 9:22:18 AM by Rosvo1

Only if you're regularly lit up like an astral Christmas tree. Always check for FAB3 pockets before going live with magic. The stuff will go after spirits, active foci, and sustained spells. Maybe invest in a flamethrower to burn out FAB3 when you encounter it.

Say, the whole Magi Babble in one of the Third Edition sourcebooks (and probably referenced again in later edition material) about how all of the Awakening-related phenomena (magic and metahumanity as prominent examples) is governed by "secondary DNA structures" that are also tied to "astral shadows"... Doesn't it sound like justified Magic Genetics?

edited 19th Sep '15 10:25:38 AM by MarqFJA

I think that is the point actually.

Then it makes me wonder why nobody caught it before. Neither the Shadowrun article nor Magic Genetics have any entry for this, even though it was a thing since Third Edition years ago.

I would double check current sources and see if they stuck with it. It sounds like they tied epigenetics and magic together.