>>18848099

Previous threads here, except for 3, which is marked as "Shadowrun Storytiem" instead of "Shadowrun Storytime": http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive.html?searchall=shadowrun+storytime

This one's going to be pretty short but sweet, since I have a game club event to run in two hours.

Also, I do remind people of this each time, but the 4chan format autosages storytime threads (since it does not like single IPs posting large amounts of material), so feel free to keep a running commentary.

Also, sorry for not getting to it yesterday like I promised. The art above is to make up for that.

Also, at some point in the next few minutes I gotta pop out of a connected area for about 20-30 minutes. I'll try to get a lot of material out first, though.

>>18848099

“Slainte!” cried Wildcard, lifting his mask long enough to throw down a gulp of ale.

“You gotta leave that thing on all the time, Wildcard?” Bend nursed his own beer, recalling the Buddhist attitude on excess. Spirituality was a new thing for him, and he was just as unnerved by the serene, monkish spirits that seemed to conglomerate around him as his teammates were.

“Gotta. All my tools’re in here,” said Wildcard, his voice becoming synthesized and metallic again as he slipped the mask back down. “May be nice and bright out, but I run intel for this team, and I’m not much use if I don’t keep abreast of what’s goin’ on. Even off-duty.”

There was a brief pause, and then a harsh metal ringing as Wildcard began guffawing aloud.

Geppetto stood in the shadow of an adjacent building, with his parasol held above him and his hat slung low over his forehead.

“Something we should know about, Wildcard?”

>>18848209


Wildcard spread his arms wide, opening up a large AR window.

“Well, media got a hold of this’n in a crack, diddun they?”

The third page of the day’s KSAF special action report bore a lovingly detailed 360-degree tridpic of a balaclava-wearing Dervish being tased in the middle of the forehead and falling through a table full of Chinese food, with the pudgy off-duty cop standing across from him, his moustache raised in a smile of righteous sadism.

The bulletin read “HERO COP JOSEPH GREEN SAVES INNOCENT RESTAURANTGOERS”

As the rest of the team fought down snickers, Dervish growled.

“We need a job. Otherwise I don’t know why I’m hanging around you chucklefucks.”

With flawless timing and the tapping of high heels, Brianna McReary poked her head out of the roof access stairway door.

“Are you four going to just laze around all day? I called you down here because I’d netted you a Johnson, not so you could contemplate summer’s lapsing beauty on my damn roof.”

“Thank you, God,” drawled Geppetto, as he stepped into the stairwell and closed his parasol.

Oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my god

THIS IS THE BEST NIGHT TO BE ON /TG/

>>18848324

“Mr. Johnson,” smiled Geppetto. “What a surprise.”

Geppetto and the Johnson shared a quick embrace before they sat at the pizzeria table. The Johnson was a familiar one, the squat, pudgy Irish mafia member whom had once upon a time asked TwoDee and Dervish to take care of a gang called the Phearmongers [Shadowrun Storytime 1] Geppetto was familiar with the man from Finnigan family functions, but didn’t use his real name out of courtesy.

“Good to see you, Geppetto my boy,” said Mr. Johnson, with a grin that was mostly lip, as he began greedily pouring out a glass of red wine. “And good to see you picked yourself up a quality new member. Wildcard’s got quite the history with the family.”

Wildcard nodded with a small smile and poked at an order of bread and olive oil.

“Thank you, Mr. Johnson,” said Geppetto with a predatory, canine smile, back in his element. “Since we have such a good history, I think it would serve us well to just get down to business, wouldn’t it?”

“Well, funny, that,” said Mr. Johnson, swirling his wine. “The job’s actually fairly relevant to your new acquisition. Y’see, we need you to rob a bank.”

>>18848099

Looks good

FUCK YEAH storytime.

>“Well, funny, that,” said Mr. Johnson, swirling his wine. “The job’s actually fairly relevant to your new acquisition. Y’see, we need you to rob a bank.”

MFW

>>18848503

Wildcard blinked and looked up at Mr. Johnson as Geppetto beamed.

“That sounds doable, Mr. Johnson. Any particulars?”

“It’s a Wells-Fargo in the NAN. About a day’s drive to the southeast, in NAN territory. Little town in Clark County. We need you to extract some very important papers from the safe deposit boxes.”

Geppetto pent his fingers together.

“What kind of papers, Mr. Johnson?”

“Bonds. American, pre-UCAS. Worth a fortune in this day and age.”

“And payment?”

“I’m offering 10 k plus whatever else you can take from the safe deposit boxes. It’s not a milk run, but my sources assure me that the holder of the bonds doesn’t know that they’ve been targeted.”

“That’s not really much insurance for a payment that mostly depends on the willingness of the rich to place their investments in an ignominious small-town bank, Mr. Johnson. You’re sure you can’t offer 30?”

Johnson smiled, catching onto Geppetto’s meaning.

“I can meet you halfway. Deal?”

Geppetto stood and reached over the table to shake Mr. Johnson’s hand.

“Deal. Any more info you can get us? Layout? Security procedures?”

The Johnson just sort of stared blankly at Geppetto.

“It’s a Wells-Fargo, Geppetto.”

Wildcard quickly donned his mask and brought up a Google Maps image of the neighborhood, identifying the bank from its photos.

“Oh. It’s a B5-model. Early 2060s. One of four or five variations, depending on if you count the reinforced version of the C2 as a separate floorplan. Deposit boxes are in the back, next to the spider’s office. Gonna have to watch out for spirit security, not too worried about the matrix since most of these boxes haven’t had their hardwired systems upgraded.”

Johnson slapped Geppetto’s back, causing the slight banshee to jerk forward.

“This fuckin’ guy!”

>>18848588

You know, I've often wondered what the spirits guarding these largely mundane and boring locations - bars, banks, whatever - feel about their tasks. I mean, they're beings of light, magic, fire, and nature, given form and shape by the minds of the natural world. And they're working for free - FOR FREE - at the whim of some overweight security mage who couldn't hack it at one of the big corps.

Man. That's gotta rankle.

>>18848588

The day after the Johnson meet, the team had something akin to a short summer road trip. It was one of those scenic freeway drives away from the sun that would totally be part of a coming-of-age movie, with the credits rolling over a Red Hot Chili Peppers song and the protagonist saying something like, “And then I knew everything would be okay after all.”

Except it was totally actually four professional criminals headed down to Clark County, Washington, to rob a bank, and not a coming-of-age movie at all. Still, it was a nice drive. Very calming. Wildcard even deigned to exceed the speed limit by only two figures rather than three.

Dressed in their civilian clothes and noshing on chicken sandwiches at a Dairy Queen across the street from the bank, Dervish and Bend clicked on their subvocal mics. Wildcard was sitting in the car in VR in a nearby parking lot, and Geppetto was entering the bank to make a withdrawal from one of his fake SINs’ accounts, the better to record the interior with his networked contact lenses.

“Dobie slots on the outside,” remarked Bend, eyeing the unremarkable mush that was his veggie burger (or, rather, “veggie burger”) with suspicion. “Probably don’t deploy them till night, though, and dobies are pretty easy to evade if they’re stock model.”

>>18848639

Considering spirits are sentient beings with their own lives, I imagine they get pissed pretty easy. How I tend to play it is that security mages switch out to a new spirit every few days to avoid angering the current one to the point of blacklisting him. Nobody wants the spirit bane quality, especially a security mage.

Well, regardless of however the astral security at this bank felt, they had a party coming to them. We'll get to that soon.

Also, scratch that last post. It would totally be Eve 6's "Inside Out" playing over that credits sequence.

>>18848642

Wildcard nodded unconsciously, even though nobody could see him.

“Most of these banks don’t bother. Dobies are gobshite drones anyway, they mostly use ‘em for perimeter and as a warning. Still, when we come back tonight, we’ll let ‘em take a few rounds, try to get the timing down.”

“Hey Wildcard,” Geppetto remarked, as he plugged his credstick into an ATM, “you getting this layout?”

“Yeah, thanks, Geppetto. No need to go ‘round back, this is simply confirmation that they haven’t changed the interior. Alright, lemme put up a map for all of you so we can run through the plans. Geppetto, if you don’t mind, assense the place before you pop out. General astral security protocol on these places is just the one spirit, but they might have sprung for two.”

>>18848724

“Roger,” said Geppetto, opening his third eye. After a moment, he commented, “Yeah, got a hermetic Man spirit drifting through the walls. Seems to be on a fixed rotation.”

“At night they’ll probably have it running counter to the Dobermans, shore up the blind spots. Which gives us a very, very small window to work, smaller than I’d like. Only you and Bend can even see spirits, too, so even if I get the cameras, I can’t warn you when it’s coming.”

“We could always kill it,” grunted Dervish, over a literal pile of chicken burgers, his modified metabolism kicking in.

“Negative,” said Bend, eventually deciding to take a bite of his veggie burger and immediately regretting it. “We kill the spirit, the mage knows. And then backup rides in.”

“Right up our arse,” agreed Wildcard. “Any ideas for an incap, gentlemen?”

“One,” said Bend, “but I’ll need a ride to the nearest parabotanist.”

Geppetto chuckled as he exited the bank.

“Haven lily? Really, Bend?”

“It worked on us.”

Wildcard took a brief moment to look up “Haven Lily” on the Matrix.

“We’re going to stop the spirit by getting it stoned?”

“That’s the idea.”

“Bloody brilliant. I’ll drive.”

[Ref: Shadowrun Storytime 6]

>>18848785
Why is it that the plans that use magic marijuana are always the best plans?

>>18848817
Because you're too stoned to realize they're stupid

>>18848817

That question answers itself.

>>18848785

The team returned to their stakeout bearing, for lack of a better word, a shrubbery. It hadn’t been hard to purchase: Geppetto had popped into the Merlyns chapterhouse and a fellow member, Mars, had referred him to a relevant botanist. Though a suspicious purchase, Haven Lily was not technically illegal, and “Merlyns business” offered a fairly convincing—pardon the pun—smokescreen for what the plant was going to be used for.

On the drive back, Wildcard ran the team through the possible options.

“So, this sort of bank’s got two back doors. One leads to a reinforced hallway that connects the vault room and spider room. The other is the normal back door, but you can get to the reinforced hallway from the inside, too. They’ll prolly have dobies and the like patrolling the hallway, so we’ll need to get me into the spider room first. Which is a problem, since that’ll mean going through the very hallway that the spider’s monitoring.”

“Invisible?” suggested Geppetto.

“Negative. You’ll still need to open the door, and the spider’ll notice.”

Fucking hell, this is the second time I've been banned for posting prohibited URLs in a section of story with...no URLs. It's a 1-day ban, but I'll try to evade it in about 3 or 4 hours when I'll be at another location and can reset my IP. Fucking hell do I hate the moderation on this board sometimes.

>>18848099
Fuck yes TwoDee is back! I LOVE YOU TWODEE I LOVE YOU LOVE YOU LOVE YOU

>>18849005
Reported for ban evasion.

>>18849095

...Really dude? It's a well-known error.

Trying to rephrase this for no EVIL OBJECTIONABLE MATERIAL before I bounce, so I don't just get banned later.

"We could try to drill our way in," offered Bend. He gestured to Wildcard's duffel bag full of tools, which sat snugly in the back of the car.

"The security room's up against the back wall. With the right tools we could probably bust in even before the dobermans round the corner."

"That'll be way too much noise on our hands." Wildcard shook his head.

"Well..."

With a snap, Geppetto activated a silence spell. The car engine went so quiet that for a moment Wildcard thought it had died.

"Good man, good man."

Actually, I'll just dump what I have. Don't want to keep you guys waiting.

>>18849234

The rest of the team discussed the plan as Geppetto slipped around the back of the bank and carefully hid the haven lily behind the external generator, outside of where the patrolling drone would be able to see.

“That’s one security measure taken care of. So we’re going with the drill plan, right? I go gaseous, float through the hole, plug you in?”

“This is the only time that I’m going to thank my lucky stars to be running with a banshee, so enjoy it, Geppetto,” remarked Wildcard, taking a close look at what data he could manage from sniffer scans. “Bend, the vault door and the drones are off the network. You sure you can dodge the drones and trick the door? It’s got a full retinal-thumbprint suite.”

“I’ve got spy tools to spoof both of those,” commented Bend. “Just erase me from the cameras.”

“That I can do.”

That night, as the employees cleared out and two drones deployed on the outside of the bank and began a circular patrol, the silence was punctuated briefly by the whine of a power drill that swiftly became silent. Bend and Geppetto, tacsuited and rendered invisible respectively, sprinted for the outside wall of the spider room, beside a dumpster, as soon as the drone passed.

>>18849259

Bend carried the di-coated power drill, while Geppetto trailed a long black datajack extension cord, connected two dozen yards away to their hacker’s cranial ports. Wildcard was zonked out in VR in his car, while Dervish kept a watch for passing cars, pedestrians, and whatnot. Wildcard commented over the team’s tacnet,

“You have 30 seconds till the next drone, gentlemen. Make it count.”

Bend slid to a stop at the side of the building, immediately deploying the drill at about foot level. The concrete of the exterior wall gave way quickly, although the two did have to make a quick dive behind the dumpster as one of the drones rounded the corner.

“Another 30 seconds. Keep drilling.”

Bend took the drill to the wall again, and this time he hit open space. Leaving the drill atop the dumpster for Geppetto to retrieve on his way out, Bend slipped the extension cord through the hole and then made for the hardened external door to wait for Wildcard to open it.

Geppetto melted into a noxious green gas and flowed through the hole, finding himself at the foot level of the spider, sitting at his nexus. As Geppetto flowed past his feet and rematerialized behind him, he noticed that the spider was watching a rather…flavorful scene involving two male orcs and a female elf on one of the nexus’ screens.

“Idiot’s watching porn,” Geppetto hissed over the subvocals, “We could have just walked in.”

“Don’t get cocky, Geppetto,” Wildcard responded, scolding. “Just plug me in then get out. Your part’s done.”

Dervish snickered.

"What is it, spotter?"

"Don't get...nevermind."

Grumbling, Geppetto plugged the cord loosely into the nexus—so that it could be disengaged with just one quick snag and reeled back—and, for good measure, hit it with an invisibility spell. Even if it was just a thin black cord, that alone could be suspicious when leading back to the car.

“You’re in, Wildcard. Get hacking.”

“Our spirit out?”
Geppetto passed by the generator as he fled with the drill, taking a cursory moment to identify a hermetic spirit of Man hovering aimlessly in space by the lily, giggling and doing loop-de-loops.

“It’s gone.”

“Alright, this may take a few hours, especially dodging the spider. Even if he is distracted. Bend, gecko grip your way up to the roof above the doorway, keep out of the drone’s sight while you wait.”

“Ten-four.”

Bend sat atop the doorway and watched the drones pass by in their endless rounds as Wildcard hacked. Two hours later, there was a low “clack” noise as the locks disengaged.

“You’re in, Bend. I’ve got the cameras looping footage, but watch out for the drones. There’s another dobie to dodge on the floor in there.”

“Then I won’t use the floor.”

Swiveling to open the door while upside-down, Bend used his gecko pads to crawl along the ceiling of the hardened hallway, crawling directly above the Doberman as it rolled along the hallway, its camera and submachine gun scanning the space. He didn’t stop until he hit the vault, at which point he flipped down from the ceiling.

>>18849311

“I think the vault door itself is a blind spot on the drone’s ordinary patrol, but I’ll try to make this quick.”

Synching up with Wildcard to grab some employee biometrics, Bend deployed his tools to spoof a false retinal scan and identification. He slid his specially prepared maglock passkey into the ID slot, hoping that the inbuilt algorithms would defeat the door.

After a brief moment of holding his breath, he heard the richocheting pinging noise of multiple locks disengaging.

“I’m in.”

“Bloody good show. Grab the bonds, then anything you can. You got the duffel bag?”

“Yep. Hell and a half hiding it from the drone though.”

“Whatever. Time’s money, and money’s in the vault. Take anything that’s not nailed down.”

With a little help from Wildcard over the tacnet, Bend quickly identified which bonds were the correct ones, and then proceeded to slam open every safe deposit box he could, cramming everything shiny into the bag. He avoided cresticks and electronics: those could be tracked.

>>18849335

After tens of thousands of nuyen worth of gems had been thrown into the bag, Bend found a slightly more interesting haul.

“Hey, they got a painting up against the wall here. Old as all hell. Beardy guy. Looks distinguished. 1800s, I’d guess?”

“Will it fit in the duffel bag?”

Bend placed his gloved hands on either side of the painting, gauging its size.

“Negative. I could probably carry it by hand, though, it looks like it’s got a special carrying case stored in the deposit box linked to the same account. Think it’s worth anything?”

Looking out the back window, Dervish gawked.

“Guys?”

Wildcard didn’t notice him.

“Go ahead and take the painting, Bend. We’ve got the time.”

“GUYS!?”

Wildcard snapped briefly back into reality to see Dervish pointing at a grey van parking a few spots down from them.

“Oh fuck.”

Men in ballistic vests and Wells-Fargo uniforms with submachine guns stepped out of the van. Dervish began to go for his gun, but Geppetto hissed at him to not make any moves yet.

>>18849371

The tension was broken as one of the Wells-Fargo employees cracked some kind of joke, and another laughed. Backup had been called, but this was probably a regular thing. Maybe the shoddy AI in one of the Dobermans had caught something. The team wasn’t found yet.

But they would be, since two of the men were actively making for the back door.

“Fuckin’ hell! Bend! Get out of there!”

Bend hefted his bag and the portrait case, but the two men made it to the door before he could make it out of the vault.

“Oh fuck. Fuck…wait.”

Instinctively, Wildcard backdoored back into the spider nexus and removed the headphone hardware synchronization software.

And, in an instant, the entire bank began reverberating with the sounds of interracial fetish porn.

Bend asked over the comms, meekly,

"What did you just do?"

>>18849399

Showered in cries of ecstasy and a tasteful background soundtrack consisting mostly of OONTZ OONTZ OONTZ, both of the guards recoiled, startled, and then walked past the slightly-open vault to the spider room, not noticing the intruder. As they peered into the spider room, snickering loudly, Wildcard yelled over the comms.

“This is your opening, Bend! Cut across into the bank offices, then take the other back door!”

Bend made a mad sprint for the bank offices right before the other members of the tac team came through the hallway door to check out what the ruckus was in the spider room. With a quick jerk, Wildcard disengaged the cord and reeled it back in to the car. Bend abandoned all pretense of stealth and sprinted past the Wells-Fargo van into the back seat of the car.

“Buckle up, everyone!”

And, as an alarm sounded inside the bank, Wildcard wiped his sedan from the parking lot records and then disappeared into the streets at high speed.
That's what I've got thus far but I don't want to have to post from this crappy little device if I actually have to type it out. If the thread's still up later when this ban bullshit gets resolved I'll continue on to the next story, featuring politics, dating, sasquatches, and cyberzombies.

YUS!

I BUMP THIS THREAD!

>>18849452

YOU CAN'T STOP THE SIGNAL

SHADOWRUN STORYTIME!!!!

>>18849600
Oh my god I had forgotten bubbles...

Aww yiss, muthafuckin' storytime!

Moar 2d!

>Inspiring someone to play the game is the highest praise I can ask for.
Guess what, you inspired me to play the game too.

So, analogy question, SAT style.
cyberware:chrome :: bioware: ?

>>18851433
Yellowish Green. But it depends on the bioware, anyways.

CANT STOP THE SIGNAL!!!

>>18851708
I mean slang-wise. What do you call someone loaded up on bioware?

>>18851887
Bionic Barry
or, wait

http://www.intercom.net/user/logan1/glossary.htm

mmmmm Vatjob seems to be the closest

>>18851887
Muties? Hulks? Furries? really, depends on the bioware. If it looks like creature parts, especially furred ones, you can call him a Furry or a Beast. If they're not, use Muties or Hulks.

>>18852004

I always went with "Frankenstein" or "meat."

>>18852167
Hmm, those also work well.
Anyways, before you provided us with pictures of 2D, I've always pictured him as a blond version of Gorillaz' 2D. I may have to draw my own interpretation of the folks sometime.

>>18852013
>Furry or Beast
I guess if you want to pay them a compliment; they "asked for this", after all. Now, if you say that to a Changeling, maybe not so much.

You know what reading these threads always makes me want to do?

Play SR4.

To bad I'm a foreverGM, and my group isn't even interested in SR4 anymore.

This might be the wrong thread. But surprise rolls, when exactly do you roll them?

Say, bad guys just busts down a wall and starts shooting out of nowhere. Surprise, right?
But what if they know that bad guys are on the other side of the wall, but they don't know that they are about to bust down the wall? Surprise? I don't know.
But what if they know that there are bad guys on the other side of the wall, and they know that they will likely bust down the wall, but they don't know when. Can I be sure that's no surprise?

You are standing next to a next to some body guard while you are posing as the body guard to your party's face.
There isn't much hostility in the air, and in the midst of the conversation, you slash the guy in one and the same action from a sheathed sword. Surprise, right?
But what if there is hostility in the air, but no one has their weapons drawn? Surprise?
Then, what if they have their weapon drawn and they just did not expect you to be able to draw and slash with your sword in one and the same action?
And what if you had a firearm drawn pointing at eachother, but before any actual action happened, you dropped the gun and slashed with your priorly sheathed sword out of nowhere? Surprise? I honestly don't quite know.

What if two people are fighting in hand to hand combat and have already done so for a couple of rounds.
But then one guy's synthethic limb pops open and bursts the other with shrapnel with some cyberware they didn't know the guy had. Is that a surprise? Certainly he didn't expect that, but he was already focused on the fight.

What should I do?... My friend has bonus modifiers on surprise checks, but I am not quite sure when to apply it. I don't want to be boring and never have it be rolled, but I don't really want to apply it all the time even when I perhaps shouldn't have.

For the first time, I am live in Shadowrun sorytime thread! Woo!

And your stories always make me want to play Shadowrun (again). Our groups meets really seldomly, but it's fun nevertheless. My char is a minotaur street sammy who happens to be a huge nerd at the same time (higher int than even possible for trolls, fuckimg high knowledges in biology, philosophy and computer science). Not very social, however, I'm currently working on sinking his fear of touching people from medium to light.

We've seen two infiltrators in the story so far, Trout and Bend. Both of them leaned toward the 'ninja' style of things, using optical camouflage to become basically invisible. But how practical is social infiltration, using disguises and lies? Is it viable? It seems like it requires much more in both necessary bio/cyberware, supplementary skills like forgery and hacking to create fake IDs and orders, and prep time to create a convincing cover ID and story.

>>18852361

I'd love to see it! Drawfaggotry always gets top billing in my threads, as I consider it to be a huge compliment.

Alright, I don't have too long before I need to crash (obligations took longer than I'd thought), but I'll wrap up this story in a few more posts and try to set up for the next one.

>>18849452

As the team merged off the freeway into Tacoma, they went over the loot, aside from the bonds. A sack full of gems and jewelry and a portrait of a distinguished looking man circa sometime in the middle of the 19th century. Deciding offloading the goods sooner rather than later was probably for the best, Bend and Dervish hit up Brianna for any experts who could identify the painting while Geppetto and Wildcard plumbed their mob contacts for a "reputable" jeweler.

The portrait was quickly identified with some cursory searching around on Brianna's part: it was the gubernatorial portrait of Leland Stanford, the first Republican governor of California, director of Wells Fargo (ironically), and founder of Stanford university. It had been stolen from a Sacramento archive a few years back and the bounty was 20,000 nuyen.

Bend was very happy with this development, as returning an important, historic piece of art to its rightful owner almost balanced out robbing a small town of all of its valuables.

Wildcard and Geppetto were directed to Vincent Valachi, nephew of Wildcard's fixer Luca, widely reputed to be the best jeweler in the Gianelli family, but also the worst. Wildcard asked Luca,

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

Luca had responded,

"Well, he's very good at identifying jewels."

>>18853404

> best jeweler in the Gianelli family, but also the worst

Why don't they just say he's the only jeweler in the family?

>>18853345
First four all seem to (though checks may prevent it on three and four), others do not, by my interpretation. But I'm new to the rules, so...

>>18853345
>>18853390

>this might be the wrong thread

All Shadowrun Storytime threads double as Shadowrun Generals. It helps keep them alive, and makes them more /tg/ relevant! If this thread is still around tomorrow, I'll tackle you guys' questions, but as it were I can only get a few posts out before I go to bed.

>>18853404

Out of character, Vinnie "The Grin" Valachi was an old player character of mine from a Shadowrun game long past. He was a dick. I was very happy to see him return in a bit role that was extraordinarily appropriate for him. But I digress.

The team made their way to "Grinnin' Vinnie's Pawn Shop" in Auburn. The sign out front read, 'Our Prices are so low, they're Criminal!' Geppetto sighed loudly as he passed by the two armed men in suits out front.

"Not exactly subtle, is he?"

Vincent Valachi was a guido of the highest order, with an awful tanning-salon tan, manicured nails practically obscured by ostentatious gold rings, an open-chested polo shirt with a suit jacket thrown haphazardly over it, and a dyed, greasy mop on his head that resembled the ass end of a bird more than human hair. The only sign of actual violence on his person was a thin half-Glasgow-grin running out of the left side of his mouth and up his cheek, doubtless the source of his name.

"My friends! Brothers! Good to sees yous! My uncle tolds me you'd be comin'! Now let's get a looks at them goods, y'know?"

The team began regretting this referral.

Is he good at appraisal but horrible at actually making anything?

>>18853420

As you will quickly find, Vinnie has the analytical and business aspects down but not so much the people skills.

>>18853478

When Bend opened the bag of gems, Vinnie literally snatched forward and grabbed the entire bag out of his hand, pouring it out on the table before slapping on a pair of magnifying AR shades.

"Oooh, this is some good stuff," he absently commented as he went through the various rocks and pieces of jewelry, surveying each carefully but then tossing them into a small pile whenever he finished, "you got at least 15 k in here, good haul."

Geppetto smiled.

"Excellent. We'll take the fifteen thousand, then."

There was a pause as he made eye contact with the jeweler, and then Vinnie broke out in a tinny giggle that swiftly devolved into a full-blown belly laugh.

"Oh shit, yous was serious? Getta load a this guy!"

He looked between each of the team members as though expecting them to be equally incredulous about Geppetto's request.

"I can give you five k. MAYBE. There's no profit in this for me!"

"But it's jewelry. Most of this is raw."

"And most of it is STOLEN. At Grinnin' Vinnie's we sell reputable goods."

>>18853390
>But how practical is social infiltration, using disguises and lies? Is it viable?
Oh it is very viable. Play it well enough and you practically become this guy.

Geppetto glared at Vinnie.

"I'm walking if we don't get a full ten grand."

Without skipping a beat, Vinnie riposted,

"Nine."

Geppetto continued to glare.

"Nine thousand five hundred."

"Nine thousand two hundred and fifty."

"Nine thousand four hundred."

"Nine thousand three hundred."

"Nine thousand three hundred and fifty."

"Nine thousand three hundred and fifty but I want your tie."

Geppetto looked down at his tie, irate.

"Are you serious?"

"Nah, I'm just joshin' you. But seriously, nine thousand three hundred twenty five."

"The difference at this point isn't enough to cover a dinner. Are we really going to keep arguing this?"

Vinnie crossed his arms.

"I eat large desserts. Final offer."

"Fine. Fuck you."

Dervish took a moment to retract his cyberblades. He had instinctively deployed them for some reason.

"Pleasure doing business with yous. Here's your cash, the boys will see you out."

Looking at his three glowering teammates, Bend offered,

"Hey, at least we did a good deed?"

He shut up as six evil eyes turned his way.

"I'm beginning to think that my Buddhist tenet of abandoning material possessions may conflict with my choice of profession."

SHADOWRUN STORYTIME 11: END

Might get around to 12 tomorrow, might not. Depends on how busy I am. If the thread's still up tomorrow though, I'll keep commenting on the Shadowrun General material.

Yeah, I only wanted to say that I like you. A lot.

>>18853649

I like you too, anon!

>>18849600
>>18850780

He is like my goddamn shadow. I am convinced he is multiple people. His ability to find my threads is uncanny.

That said, g'night everybody! Till I return with Storytimin' intent, let this hereby be redubbed SHADOWRUN GENERAL.

Gnight, TwoDee! We love you!

>"I'm beginning to think that my Buddhist tenet of abandoning material possessions may conflict with my choice of profession."

Oh god. Oh god, oh god this. I am laughing so fucking hard.

OH god, 2D. I want to play shadowrun so bad right now. Damn you, damn you to the deepest pits of hell.

Oh god, my gut. I need to see a doctor. Oh god.

>>18853738
I know how to search by author. But I am not Bubbles. And it would require, well, repeatedly searching. It's not like we can just summon up a bit of ourselves, wrap it in code, and send it off into the Internet.

I'm afraid this pic is three or four Storytimes late, but I felt the need to humbly depict the night Dervish ascended to being AMERICA-SAN

Enjoy!

I'm Commander Shepard, and this is my favourite storytime on /tg/

On Technomancer

Is it 'worth it' to go full techno (complex forms and all)
Or would it be better to just immerse a few times for echoes and then buy a comlink with pirated-programs-a-plenty

Complex forms seem to get redonkulous (1 week extended test at rating x2? Sheeesh.

At least Biowires allow for some skillsoft shenanigans

>>18856616
Also: What's the best way to make a new drone 'from scratch'?

Some things (such as mechanical arms) have very high availability (16 IIRC) despite being on low availability drones

I want to make a 'drone back-pack' similar to that in the pic.
I originally went with Shiva Arms and 4 cyberlimbs, but that cost a lot of essence and money for something that was mostly a flavor thing (going on runs with 6 arms seems like a good way to let the cops home in on your identity), so I was looking at rebuilding the character with a small (medium?) drone backpack. But I didn't really spot a good 'base' drone

>>18855238

Badass! Consider that saved and sent to Dervish's player.

>>18856616

Before I knew how technos worked, I played 2D very much like the former, just buying every complex form up separately, but the latter is far more optimal. The nice thing about having a bunch of complex forms, though, is that a techno is never without them, so it's smart to keep the basics, like attack, armor, black hammer, browse, data search, exploit, spoof, and stealth.

>>18856691

You could ask your GM if your rigger could repurpose the torsos from a few Renraku Manservant-3 drones (Arsenal). They're basic humanoid service drones with humanlike hands.

>>18856616
Naturally yeah.
For starters, there is actually a little rule that states that ressonance skills and ordinary computer/matrix skills, are seperate. Meaning, that if you for an example want to be efficient in terms of forms and ressonance skills, as well as conventional usage of ordinary commlinks and softs, then you need to buy all the skills twice. Once for the ordinary and once for the ressonance.

That said though, even disregarding that rule. If you have spent points on ressonance, it's typically a waste not to go for forms, given how they and ressonance related skills are basically a technomancer's greatest strength. And threading is by far their best tool. Whereas sprites sort of compliments you wherever, including in terms of forms and threading.

Just remember, a Technomancer's main schtickk is that he can go above conventional soft-ratings, in the 6-7+ range, and essentially outclass any ordinary system/hacker in said field(s).

Whereas a conventional hacker's strength lies in utility, having all softs available at all times, as well as most if not all soft-option combinations available, coupled with clever use of botnets, trojans and viruses that actuallly does mange to cover valuable fields that sprites and forms don't really cover.

Are sniper drones viable option?

>>18856691
Nothing wrong with the martial arts rules. In fact they are sort of good. But they should have been in Runner's Companion or something and Arsenal should rather have had a chapter covering building/designing drones and stuff from scratch.

That said though. Look at typical drone attributes, averages, and things that makes sense given their typical size. And then come up with a reasonable cost with your GM.

>>18856974

Oh, absolutely. In-universe the Crimson Samurai is often used as a sniping platform, whereas I'd suggest flying drones like the GMC-Nissan Rotodrone or the Lone Star Strato-9.

>>18856925

We tended to disregard these rules, since the only mundane hacking things that 2D used were Agents rather than softs or programs, and he didn't abuse the matrix rules too hard; at the very least, not as much as Wildcard does.

That said, despite the technomancer benefit of high-rating softs, those get EXPENSIVE. They're more a theoretical benefit than a practical one.

I will agree with you, though, that sprites are fantastic, and I'll add that threading is also a crazy useful ability. In particular, using threading to come up with specialized autosofts and linguasofts on the fly is golden.

>>18857204
>he didn't abuse the matrix rules too hard

No worms with replicate?


I keep wondering what's to keep a hacker from simply keeping a few slaved comlinks filled with worms to let loose if he ever mucks things up (a veritable pandora's box of self-replicating ass-kicking). Mind you, the Matrix rules still mystify me a bit, I might be overlooking a limitation.

>>18856974
>Are sniper drones viable option?
Very.

You could always go for my favorite.
Slightly modified Renraku Stormclouds. A lighter than air medium reconnaissance type drone with some native clearsoft software originally.

With a flexible weapon mount installed though, as well as some chameleon coating and or armor upgrades, you will have a very cheap, yet very mean combat drone that goes under 4000-5000 nuyens a piece. That's just a fabulous price given its capabilities really.

Buy them in packs, identical to eachother. This enables you to copy and have them share all software. Heck, with identical models you can even copy over the Pilot software if you were to upgrade it, naturally upgrading all your copies.

So yeah, buy some cheap camera upgrades for each drone to upgrade its individual sensors in its sensor array to its peak. Buy all the given autosofts for the drone at the maximum given ratings (including a better clearsoft), and just install it on -all- the drones. Which should still be very cheap given it upgrades all of them.

With that you can have a stealthy pack of sniper/spy drones scourging the skies, following you inside of or below the clouds, gathering data for you, or singling out and dispose of threats for you "out of nowhere" to the surprise of your enemies.

And remember, if you bind all the drones into a closed system, any lock-on attempt by any sensor of one drone can be copied over to any other drone in the system. Essentially, the best lock-on modifier is something all your drones can benefit from, which should relatively easily grant them a decent lock-on rating.

>>18857231
If your team were to have Tac-Softs (which you should have if your GM allows it), a pack of them would also allow you terrific Tac-Soft ratings with their numbers, different perspective, and sensors.

Also, remember that you can be creative. Some electronic rope, a basket, and any number of grenades or whatever, you can easily just bind it to your drone which can easily carry such a load, without modifying the drone. And then simply send a signal to drop the basket and rain grenades/gas/whatever from above at your desired locations.

>>18857204
>That said, despite the technomancer benefit of high-rating softs, those get EXPENSIVE
Expensive how? You mean starting out with rating 6 in all fields? Yeah, that's EXPENSIVE.
So yeah, that's sort of where the hacker has the edge, utility.

Ironically almost, despite the threading's useful ability of coming up with shit on the fly, it's still the hacker that wins the versatility competition, given how any hacker worth his salt, doesn't need to come up with anything on the fly due to how they should already have at least something for any given situation.

Threading however, can easily buff your favourite form over its natural rating on the fly. And aside from drain/strain that's the result from threading, buffing the rating in this manner is essentially free. That's far from expensive.

In terms of threading things on the fly though. Due to the various quirks of threading, conventional hackers with some programming skills usually wins the option field as well. Threading a Psychotropic option on the fly is just classy use of the threading craft though, given the near infinite number of ways said option can be used. That's one option conventional hackers won't really have the time to code every aspect of. Oh the ways you can mess with people with that option.

>>18857320
Technomancers must learn complex forms from either another
technomancer or a sprite. The cost to learn from a technomancer is usually his Instruction skill x 1,000¥, though deals can be made to trade for favors or other goods. To learn from a sprite, the sprite must be registered, and teaching costs one Aid Study task

The technomancer must expend 2 Karma point and succeed in an Intuition + Resonance (5, 1 day) Extended Test. Instructors can make an Instruction Test to add extra dice to the learning test. If successful, the technomancer learns the complex form at rating 1. The test to improve an existing complex form by 1 point is the same, but the Karma cost equals the improved rating.


Remember, Technomancers aren't mages; learning more powerful 'spells' costs Technos an arm and a leg

An... wait
a level six form costs
2kama (initial) + 2 +3 +4 +5 +6 =22karma?

Hooooooly shit
Mind you, I have an old version, maybe errata makes it better.

>>18857320

>Expensive how? You mean starting out with rating 6 in all fields? Yeah, that's EXPENSIVE.
So yeah, that's sort of where the hacker has the edge, utility.

That is indeed exactly what I meant. 2D mostly had fours and fives and picked sixes up over the course of the game.

You covered it, but threading really is the go-to option when you want preposterously high complex forms.

As far as versatility with threading, what I meant is that a conventional hacker won't necessarily have the time to grab a linguasoft with Sperethiel when the party is ambushed by Ancients who've been duped into attacking you, and that's where the techno shines, in his ability to suddenly become fluent in an obscure language, or pull up a program that only applies to very specific circumstances. Whereas a techno gets nailed by his karma costs, a conventional hacker very much has the nuyen costs of various programs to consider, and he can't always have everything.

>>18857229

Worms with replicate are DICK. They are the mutually-assured-destruction of the Matrix. I've been tempted to pick some up for Wildcard but they're so cheesy I'm pretty sure it would piss the GM off, especially considering Wildcard already runs a ten-agent botnet off a mobile nexus in lieu of a commlink, which is the cheesiest of cheese options.

>>18857231

Ooh, clever. Consider this idea stolen.

>>18857401
Yeah... well. Yeah. Get them at chargen for cheap BP or don't get them at all.
Spend your karma on submerging and echoes, or on something else entirely.

>>18857401
Wait... Technos can .... for lack of a better term, assimilate Skillsofts, no?
How expensive is that and why not have them assimilate pirated programs too?
Mind you, how much does turning a skillsoft into a complex form cost? Might be more expensive than simply learning the complex form for all I know.

>>18857411
>They are the mutually-assured-destruction of the Matrix
Nah. Not quite. Sort of. They have the potential for it, but all it really does is lure out the more skilled types of the matrix to dispose your little digital pest.

Though of course, if you build a good enough worm with replicate coupled with a good enough metamorphic engine, and a self-destruct option or something, you can essentially become this guy if you are skilled/clever enough at using it. Not letting it become defeated or captured.

>>18857536
>assimilate Skillsofts
Sure they can. They need the echo or to actually sacrifice some ressonance/essence to get the cyberware in order to use it though. But otherwise yeah.

>and why not have them assimilate pirated programs too?
Naturally. Thread up that search/browse form and pirate all the best skillsofts, and there you have it.

>>18857411
>a conventional hacker won't necessarily have the time to grab a linguasoft with Sperethiel when the party is ambushed by Ancients
He might perhaps not become fluent. Buy hey, neo-google-translate my friend. Just a click away.

>>18857608
>>18857608

>2072
>Not using Babel Leviathan
>ISHYGDDT

>>18857231
This all around. I've been wanting to use Stormclouds as sniping platforms for a long time, but a lack of games of Shadowrun around here has kinda prevented it.

Alternatively, if you a straight busta or are expecting to deal with trolls in milspec, load them down with anti-vehicle missiles. Expensive as all hell, and probably pushing the weight limit a bit. But nothing says, "Fuck You," quite like a five-pound shaped charge on the end of a rocket falling out of the sky.

Step 1) Buy a Conestoga Vista (Body 20) ~25000nuyen
Step 2) Outfit with Mechanical Arms x2 (STR = body) ~8000nuyen
Step 3) Buy big-ass-bow and arrow (If arrows are not available, use street-lamps)
Step 4) Find Troll Archer

Step 5) Archery contest

So, anyone have the safehouse and parabotany books?

Hey, a shadowrun thread. I'm joining a Shadowrun game soon, and aside from the GM we're all pretty new to the system and setting (we're using the Shadowrun 20th anniversary edition), and I figured I wanted to play a sort-of combat hacker character, and I was reading through the books and came up with this backstory and quality combination. I really just want to know how badly fucked/terrible an idea this character is, if it is going to be terrible? If not, suggestions for building the character would be appreciated, too.

Tricia O'Mailley was a troll. Specifically, a Formori. Born to Formori parents in Tir na nOg, she was a bit of a dissappointment. Not very strong or tough (by troll standards), she was, however, amazing with computers. As she grew up, she worked hard, and eventually saved up enough money to go to college, getting a degree in Computer Science from the University of Dublin, and afterwards took up a job with Evo Corp. They paid her way to emigrate to their Seattle offices, and she worked as an IT guy there for several years.

Until Crash 2.0 happened.

Not only was she plugged into the Matrix at the time, and very nearly died from lethal levels of biofeedback, but her identity was completely erased. She was no longer, legally speaking, a person. Evo didn't want her back--showing how much the AAA cared for it's workers. And whenever she tried to get her SIN back, to become a person again, it just wouldn't go through.

continued in next post. stupid field length restrictions.

>>18858422

She went a little crazy. She had a head full of 'ware, a heart full of mad and hurt, the physique of a troll and nothing left to lose. She turned to the Shadows to make a living. She trained hard, shaping her body like she had shaped her mind. It was time to make use of her natural talents. Eventually, she ended up getting a body full of 'ware to match her head full of 'ware. If it needed to be smashed, burnt, eradicated, destroyed, stolen, erased, or exploded, she could do it. On the Matrix or on the streets.

She has a bad tendancy, however, to record all her runs with her implanted simrig, editting the data to remove her face and the faces of everyone involved, and uploading them onto the matrix to various anonymous imageboards and similiar, through several proxies and using disposable commlinks and hard data transfers when she can. It hasn't come back to bite her in the ass yet, but it's only a matter of time. Additionally, she much prefers going after Evo when she can, to the point where the AAA, whenever it can find her, keeps trying to kill her, specifically.

>Positive Qualities
Erased, 10 points
Codeslinger (Black Hammer), 10 points
Toughness, 10 points
Bilingual (Sperenthiel), 5 points

>Negative Qualities
Erased, 5 points (a homebrewed 'upgrade' to Erased that means everything gets erased after a time, period, even stuff that I don't want to be)
Poor Self Control, 5 points (representing the above run-uploading)
Enemy (EVO), 25 points (Adversary)

>>18858373
http://www.4shared.com/office/xQY2X_UQ/Shadowrun_4E_-_Safehouses.html

0.00001 seconds on google.

So
You can put a pilot program into your gun, right
...
What does it DO?
Does it use the pilot rating when attacking?
But it can't move, so how's it aiming?

Is it useless unless you give your gun limited propulsion?

>>18859126
>Is it useless unless you give your gun limited propulsion?
Sort of, but not quite.

You can, put it into a flexible weapon mount and let it control the mount.
It can also handle autosofts however, so if it has a camera or a image link or whatever you could use it as a sensor or whatever, or even as a tracking device if you were to install Trailblazer on it, using its pilot rating.

I even had a friend that installed a couple of mechanical arms on his laser rifle. Making it a small drone.
I am not quite sure what other GMs would say about that though.

Ignoring the flight propulsion, it was more mobile than the other two versions of propulsion. It did however drain the gun's energy packs, essentially draining its fuel and ammo at the same time.

Bumping a Shadowrun thread.

Hey, let's say I wanted to play a siren-type character using SURGE (Probably class 3). Amphibious, social benefits. Going for an infiltrator/face type of character. What sort of positive and negative metagenic qualities should I take? I was thinking biosonar, glamour, gills, webbed hands/feet, underwater vision, maybe bicardiac, keen eared, and electrosense for the positives, and bioluminesence, mood hair, extravagant eyes, strikng skin pigmentation, symbiosis, probably some sort of allergy, and low pain tolerance for negative, but I'd like some advice.

Also, this wouldn't put me into That Guy territory, would it? It's my understanding that SURGE is kinda frowned upon, but I swear I'm not a furry and I'm not gonna use it to put my fetishes into the game. But still, I worry about being the That Guy in my group because I want to play a Changeling.

>>18861464
I'm kinda wondering about that "at least 30" too. Does that mean take all you like, but balance it back down to 15 BP?

>>18861729

That's how I've always interpreted it, yeah. You take however many positive and negative qualities as you like, so long as it balances out to a 15 difference with class 3, 10 difference with class 2, or 5 difference with class 1.

Though I ask my players to take Class 2 if they have at least 20 positive points, and Class 3 if they have at least 30, for balance reasons, yeah?

>>18858373
if have them if you have questions

Bumping Shadowrun Storytime.

So, the attribute*1.5 augmented cap.

When does this apply? Is it just the flat + to the attribute augments? Does it round up or down?

>>18864231

It rounds up and it's the cap for how far you can go with stats, with the natural cap how far you can go before you can't buy it up any more naturally.

So a natural reflexes cap of 7 leads to an augmented cap of 11. And you can buy for instance Wired Reflexes 2 and then Reflex Enhancers 3 to buy yourself up from 6 to 11 even though your natural cap is 7.

.

bumpo

I want to do awesome stuff with a Matrix character as some have described here, but the SR4e Matrix rules might as well be the Voynich manuscript for how easy they are to process sometimes.

>>18868346
They really aren't that bad. I thought as you too at first, but when you read through it you start to realize that's its simpler than what one might think at first.

Just remember to read unwired, it actually simplifies things quite a bit.

All you need to know really is what actions does what stuff, and what attributes can do contribute to what actions.

It's really simple aside from that. Cause most of the times they are simple rolls against thresholds, and the few occasions when it is opposed rolls.

I don't suppose anyone is recruiting for a SR4 game online, are they? I'm getting the craving something terrible for this.

So I have a question. A dude in an Iron Will is the size of a troll, yes? So does that mean that the Iron Will can pilot another Iron Will with Metahuman Adjustment (Troll)? Also, what other upgrades work on I.W.s, anyways?

Also, on a similar note, Attitude mentions that Iron Will was originally meant for manual laborers. Following this train of thought, I decided my next guy would be an ex-construction worker with the I.W. he got in place of a pension when his company went bankrupt. How viable would this be?

I'll never get to dogfight in this.

>>18875786
what?

>>18875522
I sort of think that even with the metahuman adjustment, it would lack dexterity in terms of size of fingers or whatnot even when compared to a troll. In either case, that's up for your GM to tackle.

As for the construction worker thing? That's of course viable.

Sha-bump

>>18877968
Wouldn't that be a meta- or para-bump, since Shadowrun likes those affixes so much?

>>18878721
Beats me, chummer.
Side note: I'm a little sad 4e didn't emphasize the Shadowrun lingo as much as previously. Now it's general curse words with a smattering of Japanese occasionally.

>>18878878
Yeah, they dropped the ball on that one a little. Although, I will admit, in some of the older stuff, their use of slang swears as a quick method of censorship did sort of irk me. Nobody says, "The fragger just did us up the hoop," in a stressful situation. Maybe when they're summarizing the whole story later over drinks as a means of celebrating having strung the offender up by his shoelaces, but no sooner.

On a related note, are there any Shadowrun novels out there worth reading? I read the three with Kellan Colt and her gang already; and they were alright, but I guess they didn't quite scratch the itch, or at least not completely.

>>18879000
There are Shadowrun novels?
I suppose you could always look for Japanese replays of Shadowrun.

>>18879039
Yeah, loads according to wikipedia. I've only read three though, from the WizKids period f; Born to Run, Poison Agendas, and Fallen Angels, all by Stephen Kenson. They're set in the general second/third edition era (deckers are still a thing, riggers don't use the Matrix, etc.).

Apparently there were a shit-ton during the old FASA days, three more by other authors during the WizKids tenure, and Catalyst put out four.

>>18879121
Oop, scratch that thing about the Catalyst novels; one's a short story anthology, and the other three haven't actually been released yet. Bloody wikipedia, grouping TBAs with on-the-market stuff.

>>18878878
I like about Augmentation: It tells you about who's who in what fields.
What I like about the corebook: It tells you how people talk about things.

now, if Augmentation did the latter, and Arsenal did the former, I'd LOVE them.

>>18879000
If you're in the habit, REALLY in the habit of using a word, no matter what it is, you'll use the word. No matter if it is a bowdlerization or not.

Waiting-for-TwoDee bump

>>18879478

I'm checking into the thread every few hours, but I'm currently playing in a Pathfinder game so I can't really dedicate any time to Stortyiming. Either way, I don't have enough material to continue Shadowrun Storytime just yet, so continue to treat this thread as a Shadowrun General and just let it die naturally if no one wants to discuss.

As far as a forecast for the next story goes, I'd hazard Saturday afternoon, or maybe Sunday.

>>18879651
Cool.

Expect a baller as fuck drawing my bro did.

>>18880186

Oh man, now you've got me all excited and wanting to bump the thread again.

>>18880311
Oh yeeeah, I still need to do fanart of this shiznit! i'll make one in about 4 hours.

>>18880531

I don't think I will be awake for that, but I await seeing the results in the morning!

>>18880531

If I was at all a decent artist, I'd do fanwork, but instead all I get to do is bump by saying that 2D has inspired me to hunt down a shadowrun game and try my hand at Technomancy (sexy internet brain!), which previously I have avoided like the plague (along with decking and rigging) because I was afraid of the rules.

NO longer shall I like the rules RULE ME! Now... I shall... RULE THEM! AHAHAHAHAH

Here's three so far... just need to make Dervish and Wildcard.
First up is TwoDee.

>>18882799
Next is Gepetto.

>>18882803
And then we have Bend. It's getting late so I'll make Dervish and Wildcard's pics tomorrow.
Maybe even Tank and Trout!

>When combining armor and a shield, only one of them provides the modification bonus (wearer’s choice).
??

>>18884345
Except for the Form-fitting Body Suit in Arsenal, armor doesn't stack in Shadowrun. It's always the highest one value from whatever piece you get it from, for both ballistics and impact?

>>18884430
Meant to be a period at the end.

Then why are shields listed as +x/+x like helmets?

>>18882799
>>18882803
>>18882849

Fuck. Yes.

Saved.

At some point I should show you guys some of the art I did of Trout. It was back when Geppetto wasn't a banshee and thus albino, and when 2D still wore a poser-trenchcoat instead of embracing his channerness, so they look a little wonky, but the crazed look in Trout's mildly wall-eyed expression is gold.

>>18887064

Whoops, still had my Bizzaro /tg/ thread trip up.

>>18885963
because they are accessories that don't count towards armor stacking rules - I.E. the best piece of ballistic armor counts for balistic armor and the same for impact.

(excluding the exception of ffba on purpose)

What would be the better option for a face/infiltrator type elf changeling with a bunch of water-based qualities and glamour, magician or mystic adept with the Moon Goddess Mentor Spirit?

>>18887258
My one Shadowrun character (when I wasn't confident in chargen yet) is just the premade Face character in the corebook with the qualities shifted around. He's gotten plenty of work out of that silver tongue of his. I managed to walk one of my team members and our VIP out of a high-security prison just with some smooth talk.

>>18887258

Bend is a Moon Goddess mysad, for what it's worth. Although he doesn't pick up the mentor spirit quality till a little later.

>>18887384

Cool. Also, as a rules question: mystads do have to pick a tradition, yeah? Shamanism, hermeticism, whatever? I assume they do, but they're also supposedly just adepts on the path of hte magician, so I don't really know?

>>18887611

Ayep. Bend uses the Buddhist tradition, himself.

>>18887611
>>18887685

That said, tradition only matters insofar as your casting attribute, what spirits you get and, depending on your GM, the availability of foci. Whether a water spirit is your combat spirit or your manipulation spirit really doesn't matter crunch-wise compared to getting a water spirit at all.

Also, for the love of god, grab a tradition with Man spirits. You can give them your spells and they have Movement, both of which are invaluable abilities. I know that I'm approaching this from a somewhat optimization-heavy standpoint, but there's cheese and then there's just having better utility.

If you really want to win at everything, pick a possession tradition, but then I will hate you.

>>18887143
>>18884345
These do not fit together. Where is this "armor does not stack with shields"?

What is your take on paying for 'race' (as I'm not talking metatype) with Karma Gen?

I can see where 250 karma is steep to play a free spirit, but Free Spirits get VERY silly powers to make up for it!

I just made a very silly Viking Ghost [See Shadowrun Storytime... earlier, I'm not checking the logs for you people!] in Chummer for the hell of it to see how things worked out without trying to be cheesy, and if I had to swallow the 250 Karma hit, all the character's knowledge and flavour skills (beer, western European history, blades, clubs, unarmed combat, Etiquette (Norse), Leadership (Gut Check), tracking (wilderness) etc.) would be the first to face the chopping block and his focus on more useful skills seems like it would make him EXTRA cheesy despite simply not having the karma to spare.
(Because, really, why learn blades when you can use Magic to 'cast' axe at people's face?)

>>18888801

With Free Spirits and Artificial Intelligences I think the karma sink is a very good thing. Same for the more powerful infected like Banshees and Nosferatu. Geppetto was paying off his banshee quality FOREVER before he could start buying skills and qualities again, but it balanced out because he was a goddamned banshee and he could eat people for fantastic arcane power.

However, with stuff like some of the metavariants and drakes, I think it's unfortunate that the game basically taxes for rarity. I've established before that I'm no fan of the special snowflakes, but it seems counter-intuitive that if people want to play a unique race or metavariant, they basically get gimped statistically for it.

>>18888950

Whoops, my trip was off because I was posting in other threads.

>furry
>frowned upon
>>18888950
Also basically all the shapeshifters are fucked because they can't use 'wares in metahuman form. Also something about the metavariants being more expensive than just applying SURGE to a nonvariant.

test
>>18888888

>>18888353

Hrm, well, that's pretty sad. I was thinking of picking up Christian Theurgy and have this character basically run to help fund an orphanage that a contact (possibly sister) is running, because they live in a war zone (what isn't a war zone in 2072?) and neither of them have SINs.

But Christian Theurgy dosen't have Man spirits. Fire, Water, Air, Earth, and Guidance. Damn.

>>18889263
You could, you know, ask your DM to make the switch
Saying you're a priest, not a primitive animal worshiper

Guardian
Guidance
Man
Task
Annnnd... water for baptism
Water gets a pass

>>18889737
Primitive element worshiper*

>>18889737

I prefer making things legit by the book whenever possible, but I guess that is an option. It's not elementals a christian theurgist is calling down, though, by their interpretation, it's angels associated with one of the Archangels who all have an elemental association.

Hmm. We'll see how things go.

What drone best represents DUM droids?
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/DUM-series_pit_droid

Notable the space-saving features

(other than the efficient storage, I figured manservant drones or a bigger Bust-A-Move toy drone)

>>18889737
>>18889263

I think you can also pick up more spirits with initiations, like how Geppetto picked up Guardians.

And, frankly, Guidance spirits are really nice to have, too. Our current mage just ABUSES them.

>>18889806

Yeah, I'd go with the manservant as far as looks.

For repair function, though, you're better off with Lockheed Vulcan.

Okay, so...the books seem to imply that Grid systems are basically omnipresent.

so why are GridGuide systems not standard?

>>18890265

I always read it as that, since the Grid will have different operators in different areas, and each city is a gigantic patchwork of corporate territories, actually leaving your driving completely up to a computer would result in a crazy roundabout route to avoid passing through eight sovereign nations on the way to work.

How important is essence? Should I spend a few points of it on implants or is it a thing to keep at 5 or 6?

>>18884430
But what modification bonus?
I really don't get how shields apply.

If I have armor and a shield. Do I choose between my armor rating and my shield rating or what?

And can't I benefit from a helmet/PPPs at the same time as a shield?
Heck, what about dual wielding shields?

>>18891021

Don't go below 2 and you're generally good. Below 2, you start approaching cyberpsychosis range.

Also, if you're magic/resonant, it's generally better not to take implants unless it's early on and they'll have good returns that synergize well with your magic. A classic cheese build is a mage using telescoping cybereyes to spell-snipe people from a stupidly long distance.

Gary was here, Falcon's a loser.

>>18891021
There are penalties to healing for lowering your Essence- 1/2 for natural, 1/1 for magical.

There are also a couple of things that can lower it offensively, and having Ess 0 will kill you.

>>18891154

Cyberpsychosis can be fun to roleplay, though. I once had an elf razorgirl who started the campaign with 0.9 essence, and was fighting to stave off cyberpsychosis and sell off her less useful implants (that were there from her time as a bunraku puppet) and upgrade what she had to gamma and deltaware, and spend as much downtime as she could buying back-alley psychiatric appointments and gene therapy to stay sane.

She ended up becoming a cybered-rights advocate, getting a real SIN, retiring from the shadows, and started starring in several well-made, accurate action movies about Shadowunners (which were halfway to autobiographical) before being found mysteriously dead in her apartment, overdosed on novacoke and with an Ares Predator IV emptied at point-blank into her skull from an angle that had to have been done by someone else.

Was ruled by the courts as a suicide.

Gotta love pissing off the corps.

>>18891594
>>18891542

>There are also a couple of things that can lower it offensively, and having Ess 0 will kill you.
>Cyberpsychosis can be fun to roleplay.

Funny you guys should mention this. In a considerably later Shadowrun Storytime, Wildcard will be attacked by a succubus and go below the threshold. Things get...interesting.

>>18891594
But... upgrading to higher grade wares, as well as selling off/removing ware, doesn't help in regards to Cyberpsychosis.

Essence holes are enough for you to suffer the full of it.
Cyberpsychosis also essentially cripples the character for all its worth. It's more or less the element introduced for GMs to implement when characters are overcybering themselves if one were think it was broken, or that it is unrealistic/boring for people min-max to such extents.

So basically.
GM: "Hey, Fred, if you continue to minmax I will kill your character with psychosis, alright? Do we understand eachother?"

>>18892079

Hence the gene-therapy, which can remove essence holes.

>>18892079
>and spend as much downtime as she could buying back-alley psychiatric appointments and gene therapy
>and gene therapy
The core book denies it, but with Augmentation's rules you can re-fill Essence "holes" when your implants no longer occupy the full reduction of essence.

>>18892079
>. It's more or less the element introduced for GMs to implement when characters are overcybering themselves if one were think it was broken, or that it is unrealistic/boring for people min-max to such extents.


>Hey, Fred, you've god cyber limbs, torso, skull, eyes, chipped brain, different intestines, a secondary nervous system, vat-grown muscles... the only part of you that's still you is you brain, and you've got that chipped to hell and back

>Yeah, but I'm still totally a normal person who just likes hanging with his buds and drinking a brew!

>You can't even get a buzz! You have a refinery where your liver used to be!

>So?

I can kinda see the GM's point

>>18892223
>>18892130

Relevant image is extremely relevant. Cyber dehumanizes you. Or demetahumanizes, as the case may be.

>>18892432

Indeed it does. Some cyber more than others.

Bunraku parlors creep me the fuck out. Like, even the real things, the puppets? Because I associate the term Bunraku with the shadowrun meaning. And that is creepy as fuck, dude.

>>18892432

Sooo....our GM banned all IP-enhancers outside technomancy and hacking. How fucked are we?

>>18892565

If none of your enemies have them? Not too hard. Still, that's taking away a major advantage, and IPs are also useful for just getting important parts of ops done quicker, like infiltration and larceny.

>>18892565
Play free spirits, you get extra IPs AND immunity to normal weapons for free (and other spirit junk)

>>18892432
That annoys me. Unless you died during the night your cybernetics would stay at body temperature from radiated heat.

>>18892565
IP-enhancement is overrated. It might still perhaps be one of the best buffs/strengths in the game, but it doesn't change how it is by far one of the most overrated things in spite of it.

The martial artists with Finishing Move that hits as hard one can and blocks the best of meta-human capacity while being trained to take multiple attacks each turn tends to do just fine. (They also became true monsters of beasts were some third party to buff them with extra IPs)

The hulks that can take any kind of damage including rockets to their face also tends to do just fine. The extra essence/money/BP saved from not taking the IP Enhancement can be the difference of life and death when that rocket is flying towards your face.

And Riggers, while they can make use of extra IPs themselves, really aren't that reliant on it if they make good Pilot scripts and have well configured networks and Agents/Pilots working for them.

And the Faces, Mechanics, heck even drivers or more or less any other archtype that has places outside of combat, aren't too reliant on them either. So I really do say, that IPs are overrated despite of how good they are.


That said, your GM surely have messed up the game balance. Say hello to any rigger worth his salt to take all the spotlight lime if they have monopoly in extra IPs.

>>18892701
I think we're all new to the game.
>The hulks that can take any kind of damage including rockets to their face
Our troll has something like 23 dice of resistance. Does that count?

>>18892845
That's good. But I was thinking more of the 30-40+ range.

Then again, I don't know what gear he has. Have him contact some fixer to search for some millitary grade armor for him. And have him get a full set of Secure Tech PPP gear coupled with full Form Fitting Armor, and he might enter the 30+ range depending on his attributes/wares.

>>18892635
A group of meddling ghosts and their paracritter buddy travel around the area, uncovering the schemes of kids in costumes

bump for awesome.

So, I may be joining a group soon, and I'm wondering what to build SR20th, pretty much every book allowed.

The current group looks like this:
Gunther Reginald Smith, AKA Hammerhands, Troll PhysAd and the local 'Plan B'.
Jim O'Toole, AKA 'Meal On Wheels', elf rigger/face.
Kimiko Mikahara, AKA Jane Stone, japanese human shaman who is reverse-weeaboo for the NAN.
John Doe, AKA TickTock, dwarf hacker/backup rigger.

They seem to have all the bases pretty well covered, except maybe an infiltration expert? Game's set in Seattle and the GM says it's pretty standard Shadowrun fair, so.

>>18896550

Just for laughs, play a pixie (Runner's Companion, pg65 for intro, pg84+ for rules)

You'll be a ~45cm (~1.5ft) tall, fly, astral perception, the Concealment power, and then whatever stats you actually take. (note, you're not automatically a magician, so don't go taking magic spells without taking the quality)

>You'll be a ~45cm (~1.5ft) tall, fly, HAVE astral perception, etc.

>>18897207

That does sound pretty cool. Maybe a Pixie Adept? Can I play a pixie that punches people to death, take Critical Strike and Killing Hands and all that?

Or do Pixies not lend themselves very well to Cage Deathmatches?

>>18897390
>Can I play a pixie that punches people to death, take Critical Strike and Killing Hands and all that?
I don't see why not

As long as you don't expect to out-damage and tank a Troll with an identical build (but higher natural strength and body to lend to the task, as well as cyberware without issue)


Anyway
I was thinking about Shaundi from Saint's Row
Not RAWR GRRL POWAH REVANGE Shaundi from SRTT
But cool, hippy-chick who's slept with everyone Shaundi from SR2

Then I realized I wouldn't have enough Contact points if I left her at 1s across the board

>>18898035

Hmm. Well, the group's Plan B is a troll physad who is probably all about the punching (or archery), so perhaps pixie adept who punches things isn't the greatest idea.

Eh, I'll figure something out.

... Maybe a pixie Lucha Libre wrestler...

>>18898237
If you're looking for offensive viability, why not a Pixie Fencer / Disarm-ist

Specialize in disarming people with your toothpick-sword! (I know, I know, pixies aren't THAT small, but I do like the idea of a pixie jabbing someone in the hand with a toothpick to make them drop their weapon).

>>18898933

Ooh, that could actually be really fun. Hmm.

I'm thinking spanish. Tiny little mustache. Wait, no, french. Overblown accent. Yes.

This will be a character to remember!

...d'you need a Kit to use Hardware?

Waiting for gotodee.

THA'SSRIGHT i SAID GOTO

>>18902131
As a reference to KoToR II?

>>18902352
No, as a programmer joke. Gotos are generally very deprecated commands.

Also "waiting for Godot" or some shit like that chummer.
Fnord.

>>18890999
>>18891594

God I love Shadowrun.

So, I've never played SR and don't even have the book.

Is it an easier system than Exalted?

Also, did anyone take Raj and Bunny as contacts?

>>18856691
>Vehicle Mod: Mechanical Arm (Full Arm): Availability 6

>>18903540
Right you are
Threshold's 16

You may be asking, how did he fuck this one up? Did he:

>Wear his tacsuit while driving a vehicle, making the vehicle look like it was being driven by a fucking ghost?
>Drive Dervish's incredibly pimped-out loud-as-fuck flame-decaled motorbike, the most conspicuous vehicle in the sprawl?
>Shadow the media convoy from about 10 feet away?

The answer is all of the above.

OH GOD I AM FUCKING DYING HERE

>>18904292
What's a tacsuit? Is it the Chameleon Suit from corebook?

>>18904346

>is it the chameleon suit from the core book?

Yes, although we rule it with slightly better benefits than a normal polymer coating. Technically it's cheaper to just buy an armor jacket or armor vest and put a chameleon coating on it, which is stupid.

>>18903529

>Is it an easier system than Exalted?

No, but it's less stupidly breakable and way better-organized.

>Also, did anyone take Raj and Bunny as contacts?

Nah. We didn't really trust them enough for that.

Reminder that SR Storytime continues tomorrow if I can manage it. Operative word being "if," but I'm feeling lucky.

>>18904481
Forgot your trip. Also, by what, 300Y? It IS harder to get the coating (12R vs 10R).

I'm going with the chameleonsuit just because it's 1 body easier to wear.

>>18904346
>>18904481
My current hypothetical favourite (haven't gotten around to using it) is a holowear jumpsuit (3/2) from Attitude, with Ruthenium (stealth) and Delta-Amyloid. (+3/+1 armour for clothing)
It lets you project relatively convincing holograms (perception + intuition (2)) within a 5m diameter, centred on the jumpsuit.
Or you can take colour shifting for -2 to perception tests, at 175¥.

.

>You will never be able to join a Shadowrun group
>;_;

>>18904481

I know that feel. We should find a GM and start our own!

>>18908034
>>18907827
That feel when I've never played shadowrun, yet have little desire to despite my love of sci-fi and cyberpunk because I'm wary of the fantasy elements.

>>18907827
My group finally finished our campaign this past week. It was something to keep us busy through the semester. Over the course of the game, we
got arrested,
escaped from a high-security prison,
prevented a major intercultural mafia war erupting in Seattle,
ended a Triad civil war,
ruined a UCAS senator's career forever,
got half of us arrested again in a crackdown,
and broke out of prison again.

Funny how things come full circle like that.

>>18908093
Is it perhaps an online group with an open slot?

>>18908129
Nah, it was an IRL group with college friends. Besides, the campaign has ended, and we're moving on to another system for the summer (D&D 3.5 gestalt).

>>18908134
sadfrog.png

>>18908142
>Tfw you have no one to play Shadowrun with

>>18908161
That makes us two.

>>18908165

Makes us three.

>>18908206
>>18908165
>>18908161
Now we just need a DM.
Is there yet hope?

>>18908161
>>18908165
>>18908206
>getaroom.gif

>>18907827
>>18907827
>That Feel when your group refuses to play anything other than 3.5 because they can't be arsed to learn the rules of a new game.

>>18908878
I know that feel. Even worse, there was one guy who just happened to love DMing, so I was stuck forever player. This is why I no longer play RPGs

Bumping with sexy burgers

Okay guys, here are the options.

I can pick up Shadowrun Storytime tonight. However, I'll also be working on a project for tomorrow and my buddy wants to run a game, so I'll be distracted and have no preparation. Basically you'll have to deal with only a few posts at a time.

Alternatively, I can do SR Storytime tomorrow. I'll still have some projects, but I'll be able to write up some material in advance, and with any luck I'll have a picture of Geppetto being assaulted by a blender.

The context will make sense next storytime.

>>18911865
I don't mind waiting an extra day.

>>18911865
You know very well that we of the internet are an impatient lot, eager to devour any scrap of tale that can be produced as quickly as you can write it.

Sooner would, therefore, be preferred over later.

>>18911865
Do it channer

>>18911865

I don't mind waiting.

So, am I the only one who regularly forgets to take a few contacts?

It's not that I dislike contacts (I do), it's just that it feels ... 'weird' to buy people-known and I can't seem to accept it

>>18913189
Same here, I have a hard time not buying 90% of my contacts at loyalty three and up. It's just that the idea that people you regularly talk to aren't even considered acquaintances. Hell, under RAW, "That one guy who works at Walmart" is a legitimate L1 C1 contact.

>>18911865
> assaulted by a blender
I think we can wait so as to take in this glory.

>>18913478
Welp, looks like we got a 3/2 majority in favor of waiting.

>>18913992

It is decided, then.

Time to arts.