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The Shadowrun Thread! For All Your Shadowrun Needs!

theweepingman said:
Okay, so I'm currently in relatively high-level Shadowrun game. Well, it's not started yet, but the chargen is Sum-13 with the stipulation Resources must at least D.

Anyway, I decided to take Friends in High Place (terrible quality, I know, but it fit the background so I don't mind much even if it proves to be mostly useless) and I'm left puzzled at... well, uh.

Anyone got example for Connection 10 Corporate Scientist and Manager? Scientist with MCT, Manager with EVO. Campaign is on Japan, no specific area though.
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For a connection 10 person, you might want to have a flip through Market Panic because anybody like that is going to owe you big time or be really high up the corporate ladder. For EVO, consider the candidates for the CEO position. Though, it being EVO most of them are not your standard human or elf. There's a Free Spirit, a CFD Headcase, and an AI. The AI in particular, Taylor Dacopral is working closely doing work with Yamatetsu Naval, whcih certainly proabbly has more than one connection with Japan. Now granted there's more than a bit of design work there but...

I'm less sure about Scientists for MCT however.
 
Sydonai said:
Has anyone speculated on what the timeline would look like if the "Magic comes back" thing happened earlier or later than it did in the OTL?
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It coming back earlier results in a lot more deaths if not an extinction level event. Big D and others believed now was the first time we could really fight back against the myriad magical predators from other planes.

theweepingman said:
It's fine! Even your comment about cyberzombie scientist is enough to help me. I don't mind if the example is a bit out of date!
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Yeah, there are certainly more references I could find but are all old like the Zoroastrian researcher who accidently released a techno-spirit that he believed was a god when trying to interface spirits with the matrix.

It is no issue to look for more modern ones though. The bigger issue is non-CFD related.
 
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Conundrum said:
It coming back earlier results in a lot more deaths if not an extinction level event. Big D and others believed now was the first time we could really fight back against the myriad magical predators from other planes.
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Depends on how much earlier. A few decades won't make a difference if the mana levels won't get high enough for the Horrors for another thousand years.
 
13th Fleet said:
Depends on how much earlier. A few decades won't make a difference if the mana levels won't get high enough for the Horrors for another thousand years.
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That depends. The Azzie blood mage cabal tried to have them arrive right now, and would have succeeded if not for Dunkelzahn's meddling. The question is where the blood mages got their knowledge from. That is never really solved. So, assuming an earlier return of magic also means an earlier rediscovery of blood rites, one way or the other, this could very well be a problem.
 
Conundrum said:
It coming back earlier results in a lot more deaths if not an extinction level event. Big D and others believed now was the first time we could really fight back against the myriad magical predators from other planes.



Yeah, there are certainly more references I could find but are all old like the Zoroastrian researcher who accidently released a techno-spirit that he believed was a god when trying to interface spirits with the matrix.

It is no issue to look for more modern ones though. The bigger issue is non-CFD related.
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Maybe Metaplanar exploration? There's some mention of it on Market Panic (5e). Artifacts hunting is possible, too.
 
13th Fleet said:
Depends on how much earlier. A few decades won't make a difference if the mana levels won't get high enough for the Horrors for another thousand years.
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It was a narrow thing already and sometimes a couple years is all it takes. Look at some of the leaps and bounds in modern times, in current Shadowrun, or in stuff like the Euro Wars. The Meteor was extremely rapidly obsoleted after spawning a new generation of missiles and Russia brought thrust vectoring tanks to the forefront of warfare.

Susano said:
That depends. The Azzie blood mage cabal tried to have them arrive right now, and would have succeeded if not for Dunkelzahn's meddling. The question is where the blood mages got their knowledge from. That is never really solved. So, assuming an earlier return of magic also means an earlier rediscovery of blood rites, one way or the other, this could very well be a problem.
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Any immortal elf had sex with a horror and birthed a son who is also immortal and he has been teaching humans blood magic even before mana levels were high enough to utilize it effectively. Even Howling Coyote is implied to have learned from him.
 
Of course there's always the Immortal Elves and Dragons from the 4th world. That, plus as you mentioned, Metaplane exploration would be a nice place to find that kind of information. Without the Matrix or a method of long range communication Big D might not have gotten wind of their plot till itw as to late to really stop it.
 
Conundrum said:
Any immortal elf had sex with a horror and birthed a son who is also immortal and he has been teaching humans blood magic even before mana levels were high enough to utilize it effectively. Even Howling Coyote is implied to have learned from him.
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In the old Aztlan sourcebook it was implied the general cabal had taught Howling Coyote. But anyway, the point remains: If magic comes earlier again, blood rites can also be taught earlier again...
 
Alright, so if magic starts to comes back sometime during, lets say WW1, then the Earth is screwed?
Well then, what if it doesn't start to come back until the 2050's?
 
Hmm...that's a tough one. One thing for sure is Cyberntetics would have even more focus on it. However what is really interesting is the effects the Awakening had on the world are no longer there. That means Nuclear Power never became so unreliable because of the lowered mana count, rain forests didn't suddenly spring up etc. More than likely the resource rush is at least lessened. Without Magic, the US won't be splintering, and a lot of the world will be quite differnt.

When the Mana does come back though, the energy crisis might be a good deal worse than was around the turn of the Millennia in Shadowrun. All these nuclear reactors and missiles are suddenly majorly unreliable again, people like Cayote are suddenly got magic that is just as game changing...but the government has Adam Jensen / JC Denton level cybernetic operatives so there might be a more even fight on the part of the established states. Would the way magic screws with general probability effect people who were augmented BEFORE the awakening? Probably not but its a thought.

Would the decision to grant Mega's extra territory remain? Hmm...I think it would but it would certainly go down differently. The awakening had a huge effect on just the way we generate power and gather resources. Would the Matrix Crash obe a thing? Again, possibly. VITAS? Possibly, possibly not.
 
Bel said:
Would the decision to grant Mega's extra territory remain? Hmm...I think it would but it would certainly go down differently. The awakening had a huge effect on just the way we generate power and gather resources. Would the Matrix Crash obe a thing? Again, possibly. VITAS? Possibly, possibly not.
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I'm pretty sure VITAS and many of the catastrophes in 2011 were related to the return of magic. So we might see the world get wrecked less overall at that point. As for megas, the Seretech decision which set the path to exterritoriality was in 2006 in the Shadowrun timeline, IIRC, i.e. before the return of magic.
 
Susano said:
I'm pretty sure VITAS and many of the catastrophes in 2011 were related to the return of magic. So we might see the world get wrecked less overall at that point. As for megas, the Seretech decision which set the path to exterritoriality was in 2006 in the Shadowrun timeline, IIRC, i.e. before the return of magic.
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It was before the first sighting of Ryumo, but magic levels were still going up IIRC. It was part of the entire resource rush that both had the entire world in a resource rush. Nuclear power was becoming dangerously unreliable as well. So yes, the decision would go down, but the the events leading UP to it probably would be different in my view. The food shortages in NY might still be a thing but they might be quite different.
 
I'd always thought an Awakening in the Early Modern period could be highly interesting. The birth of new races interacting with race-based slavery and scientific racism, the Enlightenment applied to Magic, alchemy as a living tradition suddenly having mystical oomph behind it, the many and varied mystical cultures due to be colonised by Europeans suddenly getting the juice to fight back more effectively, the first massive extraterritorial megacorps already extant, religious and political turmoil and revolution through the lens of the added stresses of Awakening.
 
So what your guy's favorite location? I know Seattle is the default but is not my personaal favorite, I enjoy the Carib League for the hilarious politics including Cuban Neo-Communism which is canonically whatever the Cuban government says it is plus the pirates and varied parazoological threats. China because it is potentially one of the most pink mohawk viable areas, this is an area where it is honestly pretty viable to have the team rigger run point in a vintage tank during long transit. The last is Eastern Europe because it is just a giant mish-mash of so much. I generally run Eastern Europe with a bit of a feel of the cliche corrupt oligarchy states, constant vying between powers of the surrounding regions (both national and corporate), and I like to throw in a lot of cross-border operations.
 
My favoriate has probably been Seattle, despite it being the default because I first got into Shadowrun when I picked up a copy of the Archology Shutdown book and just fell in love. As for other parts I'm fond of...I've always wanted to know more about Metropole (and yes I know they put a book out, which I have yet to get around to reading through) just because of how weird it is.
 
Seattle aside, my group's really enjoyed New Orleans; there's a ton of potential hooks there, even if it's never been as developed as a lot of other places.
 
Conundrum said:
Do you go heavy on the voodoo or how is it rolling there currently?
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A mix usually with an emphasis on magic (we tend to play magic-heavy parties), though we like to lean on NOPS being a much more corrupt setup than even the Star or KE. The smuggling and criminal factions are fun to play with too. Plus some of the more disreputable things going on there (like legal prostitution) combined with twisted and toxic mages can lead to some very interesting concepts.

One semi-recurring villainess is a high-level Voudinista bocor of Erzulie red eyes (a very tantric-oriented Loa) who enjoys using spells like mob-mind, opium den and agony among others, combined with trusted servants, spirits and an ally spirit, to collect blackmail material as leverage against people of high standing and importance.

One scenario involved her crashing the dance at a very exclusive private girls school with some hand-picked orc and troll gangers, in order to get leverage against the parents of the students. You can probably imagine how.
 
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TempestK said:
A mix usually with an emphasis on magic (we tend to play magic-heavy parties), though we like to lean on NOPS being a much more corrupt setup than even the Star or KE. The smuggling and criminal factions are fun to play with too. Plus some of the more disreputable things going on there (like legal prostitution) combined with twisted and toxic mages can lead to some very interesting concepts.

One semi-recurring villainess is a high-level Voudinista bocor of Erzulie red eyes (a very tantric-oriented Loa) who enjoys using spells like mob-mind, opium den and agony among others, combined with trusted servants, spirits and an ally spirit, to collect blackmail material as leverage against people of high standing and importance.

One scenario involved her crashing the dance at a very exclusive private girls school with some hand-picked orc and troll gangers, in order to get leverage against the parents of the students. You can probably imagine how.
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Sounds pretty fun, if you are gonna go magic heavy New Orleans seems like a great place for it and the campaign sounds pretty fun in general. Corrupt police are often enjoyable, makes ones who stayed clean even more of a shock to players.
 
It's been over a year since a post, lets come back to this with a quick survey;
What do you think of the various Megacorps?
Which is the "best"?
Which is the "worst"?
Which is the most profitable?
Which is the least profitable?
Which is the least morally objectionable?
Which is the most morally objectionable?
 
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It has been a while hasn't it. And apparenlty Kill Code (Second Matrix book for SR5) is pretty good, so I'm looking forward to that, though how long before the PDF is up on DriveThruRPG I have no idea.

As for the Megas....I kind of like Saeder-Krupp Heavy Industries in lore mainly because as a AAA that's owned by a Dragon, there's all kinds of fun shenanigans going on and you have no idea how much information Lowfyr has. That being said actually dealing with them can be a pain (especially when 'Mr. Johnson' might actually be a Dragon). That said , I got into Shadowrun because I found a copy of Renarku Archology Shutdown and was reading through that mostly for the snippets of Captain Chaos etc talking about wha'ts going on, so I always have a soft spot for them. My least favorite...it would probably be Spinrad mainly becaus they are the new kid on the block Big 10 Wise. With NeoNet goign the way of the some of others....


At the moment, I believe MCT is currently ranked #1, but you know Lowfyr isn't going to sit with that for long. Least Profitable? Not sure at the moment. Neonet would be the obvious answer (since it basically got sold for parts). Not sure who would be the at the bottom.

Most morally objectionable? At the moment, probably Ares (....fucking hell, deciding to weaponise Bug Spirits is stupid with a capital S) but if not them, there's always the dark side of Horizon or the corp that has a Great Dragon at its helm....they are all pretty bad.
 
Sydonai said:
Which is the "best"?
Which is the "worst"?
[...]
Which is the least morally objectionable?
Which is the most morally objectionable?
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I feel like those questions kinda miss the point of cyberpunk. The entire point of the corporate dystopia is that the names at the top don't matter. The names may change, but the system still stays the same.
 
Corporations are neither evil or good. In the end they are the ultimate single-action machines. They exist to expand themselves. They are as moral as a virus.

They also have far more resources than anyone can possibly comprehend. Which is why when some newbiew runners thinks he's negotiating big by limiting his megacorp mark to 'two vehicles' and then having the corporate functionary - who doesn't even rate a spot on the org-chart, the equivelant of a McHughes manage - show up with a pair of fully-armed attack helicopters to massively outclass said runner in firepower and capabilities.

The only reason they paid you off, is because it was cheaper than requisitioning the ammunition and cleaning up the mess.
 
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