The Shadowrun Thread! For All Your Shadowrun Needs!
- Thread starter torrmercury
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FaeGlade Plural
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Yes, you really really really shouldn't try to play a Technomancer as a Decker.
Why?
Well simple: You do not have a Matrix Condition Monitor. All matrix damage you take is stun damage at least.
Also: You need all mental Attributes high to match those provided by a Cyberdeck. Even then, yours will be lower. (until you've submerged a few times).
Actually, the first bit got a bit better in 5E with the re-introduction of Decks. A Deck is bricked when it's Matrix Damage is full, and useless until it can be repaired, which will actually be tougher than sleeping off some stun damage. Still, you'll accumulate penalties where a deck won't.
Oh, and of course Technomancers effectively can't be built to be physical combatants very well. Because they can't have magic (obviously), but they also can't really accept 'Ware since it'll lower their Resonance. And being a Technomancer does nothing to enhance your abilities in the physical world.
But in exchange for all those drawbacks?
You get to play the Matrix in ways no Decker can. You can play with matrix attributes and overwatch scores in ways they can't. You can re-compile deleted information from the Resonance of the Matrix. And you can compile Sprites - actual, independent things that can in turn do things no Decker can.
In other words:
They're sneaky Matrix-specialists. They can't out-force a Decker in direct combat, they're not much good outside the Matrix - but they can move inside it like nobody else can.
Why?
Well simple: You do not have a Matrix Condition Monitor. All matrix damage you take is stun damage at least.
Also: You need all mental Attributes high to match those provided by a Cyberdeck. Even then, yours will be lower. (until you've submerged a few times).
Actually, the first bit got a bit better in 5E with the re-introduction of Decks. A Deck is bricked when it's Matrix Damage is full, and useless until it can be repaired, which will actually be tougher than sleeping off some stun damage. Still, you'll accumulate penalties where a deck won't.
Oh, and of course Technomancers effectively can't be built to be physical combatants very well. Because they can't have magic (obviously), but they also can't really accept 'Ware since it'll lower their Resonance. And being a Technomancer does nothing to enhance your abilities in the physical world.
But in exchange for all those drawbacks?
You get to play the Matrix in ways no Decker can. You can play with matrix attributes and overwatch scores in ways they can't. You can re-compile deleted information from the Resonance of the Matrix. And you can compile Sprites - actual, independent things that can in turn do things no Decker can.
In other words:
They're sneaky Matrix-specialists. They can't out-force a Decker in direct combat, they're not much good outside the Matrix - but they can move inside it like nobody else can.
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https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/shadowrun-sins-are-not-forgotten.21813/
I got the OOC up for people to talk about the campaign there, ask questions, and submit character sheets.
I got the OOC up for people to talk about the campaign there, ask questions, and submit character sheets.
Revlid
blob of bugs
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This thread may be almost a year old, but by god I'd rather be a necromancer than a cloner.
A little while back in the D&D Megathread I raised a topic (in a meandering sort of way) that had been bugging me for a while. Namely, the fact that Wizards (and similar character types like Sorcerers) do not actually have a role of any kind.
Fighters fight! They deal damage on the frontline, and take damage so you don't have to.
Rogues go rogue! They do all the fiddly things like traps and lockpicking and stealthy scouting.
Clerics... cler. They heal people, bless them and buff them. Team support.
You've got all the in-betweens, like the Rangers (sort-of-Fighters-but-sort-of-Rogues) or the Paladins (sort-of-Clerics-sort-of-Fighters) and so on, but the point is that for all their possible differentiation these Classes have been built with very clear roles in mind. The Wizard, on the other hand, just does "magic" – which can mean anything from support to dps to utility to control to whatever. It's magic! So Wizards don't do anything, because they do everything. Or rather, they do one thing which does everything.
Now I'm going to continue my streak of walking into threads and talking shit about the design principle of games I played once, more than half a decade ago. Namely, I believe Shadowrun has the same problem. I know, a game that deliberately modelled great bleeding chunks of its aesthetic on D&D retains one of the fundamental problems of D&D, what a shocker, Revlid they should pay you for this – but it's different this time, because I actually have a solution. Of sorts.
Mages! Everyone hates Mages. By which I mean that everyone loves Mages, but often these Mages are on the opposite side of a conflict, and this makes us sad. "Gank the Mage" being high on the list of top tips for any aspiring runner. But what is it that Mages actually do?
Well, stop me if this sounds familiar, but Mages can do quite a lot. They can safely acquire information, by using scrying, or invisible spirit scouts, or telepathy, empathy, psychometry, tracking spells and so on. They can monitor an area or set up formidable fixed defences using wards and spirit guards. They can produce expendable, guilt-free mooks which nevertheless require their personal attention, in the form of spirits. They can get other people to do what they want, using tools ranging from mind control to charm spells to empathy-enhanced persuasion. They can get into places unseen by using invisibility, illusions, shapeshifting and so on. They can dish out a lot of hurt with elemental blasts and other damage-dealing effects.
Face, Infiltrator, Investigator, Artillery, Guard, and more. Just about the only thing a Mage isn't typically expected to do is tank, and it's not like they can't do that if they're so inclined.
Perhaps this isn't a problem! After all, most Mages don't fill all of those roles, or at least, not all of them at once. Most of the time, at least. And it's not like Shadowrun characters are forced into strict niches anyway. Besides, who else can fill this role in the setting? Who else can cull information on a target or scout out a fortress from miles away? Who else can see through their foes' eyes, or command packs of unfeeling, inhuman servants, or ensure that his group's deeds go unseen and unremarked upon? Who else engages in occulted duels between their peers with deadly consequences, invisible to the naked eye? Who else can peer into a strange and incomprehensible realm that contains clues to things happening in the "real world"? Who else-
Oh, wait, I'm literally describing hackers.
So to finally roll this post around to What I'd Do: just fuse Cyberspace and the Astral. I mean, one of these is a strange and often-unnerving amalgam of leftover sentiments and accumulated thoughts that have taken on a life of their own, which requires specialised knowledge to really understand and influence, though dabblers throw themselves into it with all the caution of Julia Childs cooking meth. The other… isn't the internet.
The inception of the Sixth World brought the Astral Plane, once aloof and ethereal, crashing into the Material World. The (sometimes literal) fallout made reality of myths and legends, and mystics discovered that the programming language of their occult beliefs finally had a medium it could run on. The internet, which had swallowed and parasitised the human collective consciousness, became hopelessly entangled with that which was called the Dreamtime – literal daemons running rampant and deus ex machine emerging from the digital depths.
Cyberspace is a network of oil rigs above the deep, divine and dangerous ocean of the Astral.
There are purists, sure. Fanatical materialists who scrub their drives after every hack, lest the code start getting ideas. Devoted spiritualists who regard a smartphone as a degrading, false gateway to the realm of the soul. But there are also those who just see them as different tools, or even fuse them into new mystical practices.
An arcane eye or a spy camera? An illicit face-rec camera sweep or a scrying pool? A flock of angry gun-drones or a swarm of acid-spitting elementals? A hacked cyberarm or a cursed limb? An invisibility spell or baffled cameras and cybereyes? All the same tech, just a different approach and focus. You can use this to further play up the whole divide between tech and spirit, if you like (street samurai become cyberzombies, adepts become pseudo-spirits?), or completely collapse it in favour of literally making spirits into nasty, smart emergent programs that a hacker can harness, incapable of hurting someone without cybernetic bits unless you slot them into a drone or stab a dataspike USB into a stray dog's skull so they can start using that gray matter to run flesh-reshaping programs powered by the Astral.
Even narratively, the fantasy Mage and the sci-fi Decker fill much the same niche. There's a problem, so we have the weird dude with the stuff wiggle his fingers and say some strange words and then the problem is fixed. Sometimes he cannot fix these problems, and we do not really understand why. In a setting that merges fantasy and cyberpunk ideas (the head of the big corrupt megacorp, who devastates communities, greedily accumulates wealth and thinks he's utterly untouchable is literally a dragon), what makes more sense than merging hackers and wizards?
What's that, you say? A solution that starts off with "first, rewrite a massive part of the setting and its rules" isn't a great solution to a problem that doesn't seem to bother many people?
Well, I never said I was perfect, just amazing.
A little while back in the D&D Megathread I raised a topic (in a meandering sort of way) that had been bugging me for a while. Namely, the fact that Wizards (and similar character types like Sorcerers) do not actually have a role of any kind.
Fighters fight! They deal damage on the frontline, and take damage so you don't have to.
Rogues go rogue! They do all the fiddly things like traps and lockpicking and stealthy scouting.
Clerics... cler. They heal people, bless them and buff them. Team support.
You've got all the in-betweens, like the Rangers (sort-of-Fighters-but-sort-of-Rogues) or the Paladins (sort-of-Clerics-sort-of-Fighters) and so on, but the point is that for all their possible differentiation these Classes have been built with very clear roles in mind. The Wizard, on the other hand, just does "magic" – which can mean anything from support to dps to utility to control to whatever. It's magic! So Wizards don't do anything, because they do everything. Or rather, they do one thing which does everything.
Now I'm going to continue my streak of walking into threads and talking shit about the design principle of games I played once, more than half a decade ago. Namely, I believe Shadowrun has the same problem. I know, a game that deliberately modelled great bleeding chunks of its aesthetic on D&D retains one of the fundamental problems of D&D, what a shocker, Revlid they should pay you for this – but it's different this time, because I actually have a solution. Of sorts.
Mages! Everyone hates Mages. By which I mean that everyone loves Mages, but often these Mages are on the opposite side of a conflict, and this makes us sad. "Gank the Mage" being high on the list of top tips for any aspiring runner. But what is it that Mages actually do?
Well, stop me if this sounds familiar, but Mages can do quite a lot. They can safely acquire information, by using scrying, or invisible spirit scouts, or telepathy, empathy, psychometry, tracking spells and so on. They can monitor an area or set up formidable fixed defences using wards and spirit guards. They can produce expendable, guilt-free mooks which nevertheless require their personal attention, in the form of spirits. They can get other people to do what they want, using tools ranging from mind control to charm spells to empathy-enhanced persuasion. They can get into places unseen by using invisibility, illusions, shapeshifting and so on. They can dish out a lot of hurt with elemental blasts and other damage-dealing effects.
Face, Infiltrator, Investigator, Artillery, Guard, and more. Just about the only thing a Mage isn't typically expected to do is tank, and it's not like they can't do that if they're so inclined.
Perhaps this isn't a problem! After all, most Mages don't fill all of those roles, or at least, not all of them at once. Most of the time, at least. And it's not like Shadowrun characters are forced into strict niches anyway. Besides, who else can fill this role in the setting? Who else can cull information on a target or scout out a fortress from miles away? Who else can see through their foes' eyes, or command packs of unfeeling, inhuman servants, or ensure that his group's deeds go unseen and unremarked upon? Who else engages in occulted duels between their peers with deadly consequences, invisible to the naked eye? Who else can peer into a strange and incomprehensible realm that contains clues to things happening in the "real world"? Who else-
Oh, wait, I'm literally describing hackers.
So to finally roll this post around to What I'd Do: just fuse Cyberspace and the Astral. I mean, one of these is a strange and often-unnerving amalgam of leftover sentiments and accumulated thoughts that have taken on a life of their own, which requires specialised knowledge to really understand and influence, though dabblers throw themselves into it with all the caution of Julia Childs cooking meth. The other… isn't the internet.
The inception of the Sixth World brought the Astral Plane, once aloof and ethereal, crashing into the Material World. The (sometimes literal) fallout made reality of myths and legends, and mystics discovered that the programming language of their occult beliefs finally had a medium it could run on. The internet, which had swallowed and parasitised the human collective consciousness, became hopelessly entangled with that which was called the Dreamtime – literal daemons running rampant and deus ex machine emerging from the digital depths.
Cyberspace is a network of oil rigs above the deep, divine and dangerous ocean of the Astral.
There are purists, sure. Fanatical materialists who scrub their drives after every hack, lest the code start getting ideas. Devoted spiritualists who regard a smartphone as a degrading, false gateway to the realm of the soul. But there are also those who just see them as different tools, or even fuse them into new mystical practices.
An arcane eye or a spy camera? An illicit face-rec camera sweep or a scrying pool? A flock of angry gun-drones or a swarm of acid-spitting elementals? A hacked cyberarm or a cursed limb? An invisibility spell or baffled cameras and cybereyes? All the same tech, just a different approach and focus. You can use this to further play up the whole divide between tech and spirit, if you like (street samurai become cyberzombies, adepts become pseudo-spirits?), or completely collapse it in favour of literally making spirits into nasty, smart emergent programs that a hacker can harness, incapable of hurting someone without cybernetic bits unless you slot them into a drone or stab a dataspike USB into a stray dog's skull so they can start using that gray matter to run flesh-reshaping programs powered by the Astral.
Even narratively, the fantasy Mage and the sci-fi Decker fill much the same niche. There's a problem, so we have the weird dude with the stuff wiggle his fingers and say some strange words and then the problem is fixed. Sometimes he cannot fix these problems, and we do not really understand why. In a setting that merges fantasy and cyberpunk ideas (the head of the big corrupt megacorp, who devastates communities, greedily accumulates wealth and thinks he's utterly untouchable is literally a dragon), what makes more sense than merging hackers and wizards?
What's that, you say? A solution that starts off with "first, rewrite a massive part of the setting and its rules" isn't a great solution to a problem that doesn't seem to bother many people?
Well, I never said I was perfect, just amazing.
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TikiTau
Commander Pangolinski
- Location
- Texas
Amusingly, In some of the Jackpoint Fluff you have annoyed mages and or hackers/technos complaining about people assuming such a thing.
'Seriously, the Resonance Realms are NOT metaplanes! We have checked!'
'*Something something something cryptic*.'
'Dammit, Man Of Many Names...'
...not really helped by whatever the HELL is up with the Matrix Foundation after the latest Crash/Rebuikd/Upgrade cycle they went through in setting, where the Matrix gets so realistic some of them are worried they never jacked out...
Still, eh, I wouldn't do it personally, but easiest way would be to merge technomancer and mage rules, I guess, and treat decks and the like as if they were foci, off the top of my head.
Still needs a lot of work, but technomancer rules are closer, anyways, so it might be an easier starting point.
Hell, Geek The Techno is apparently higher on some priority lists in some of the fluff I have read just because Technomancers are new and people are nervy of what they can do.
Mind, I like the current set up, really.
Do a task via magic? Awesome.
Use high tech? Groovy.
Just do it with fleah, blood, skill, equipment, and Edge? Ballin'.
The flexibility is nice.
'Seriously, the Resonance Realms are NOT metaplanes! We have checked!'
'*Something something something cryptic*.'
'Dammit, Man Of Many Names...'
...not really helped by whatever the HELL is up with the Matrix Foundation after the latest Crash/Rebuikd/Upgrade cycle they went through in setting, where the Matrix gets so realistic some of them are worried they never jacked out...
Still, eh, I wouldn't do it personally, but easiest way would be to merge technomancer and mage rules, I guess, and treat decks and the like as if they were foci, off the top of my head.
Still needs a lot of work, but technomancer rules are closer, anyways, so it might be an easier starting point.
Hell, Geek The Techno is apparently higher on some priority lists in some of the fluff I have read just because Technomancers are new and people are nervy of what they can do.
Mind, I like the current set up, really.
Do a task via magic? Awesome.
Use high tech? Groovy.
Just do it with fleah, blood, skill, equipment, and Edge? Ballin'.
The flexibility is nice.
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FaeGlade Plural
Semper Legens
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Technomancy should be a subset of Magic, like Summoning or Alchemy.
Cyberware should no longer impede Magic as much, if at all (possibly with some compensation)
Magic should be easier to access. It's not a skill everyone can train, that some people are just talented at, and that most people don't have the opportunity to really explore (but Runners often do).
Well, some quick houserule ideas for that:
- Essence loss no longer decreases magic. Instead, each point of Essence loss requires you to take a Geas if you want to use magic (which can include "don't use a specific kind of magic", so you can focus on alchemy but not spellcasting, for example. But it also includes "use specific items" or lots of other potential restrictions).
- There are no more Adepts, Mystic Adepts, Magicians or Technomancers. If you use the Priority Table, keep the "Magic or Resonance" table, but everyone uses the "Magician" table. In place of "Spells" you can take power points, complex forms and the usual rituals, "magic skills" can instead be resonance skills or active skills.
- Everyone can buy up their magic attribute using Special Attribute Points or Karma. Likewise, everyone can learn Magic and Resonance Skills
- Astral Perception, Astral Projection and Matrix Immersion must be learned by everyone. This is done via Initiation and Metmagic, and acts as prerequisites for a lot of things (Resonance skills obviously require Matrix Immersion, Summoning requires Astral Perception etc.). Maybe make Initiation a bit cheaper
Obviously it'd need a lot more work and have a HUGE impact, but I think this is a good start.
Also, interestingly, this is actually in line with a lot of the videogames, including Shadowrun Returns. The main character can always learn magic, even if they don't start out with it, and it's much more feasible to combine magic and augmentations - it just pushes your magic more into a support role.
Technomancers as of right now have way too little real-world application, AND are often outdone by Deckers. They're not good enough in most groups. Giving them access to magic would solve that, as well as the fluff merge making way more sense that way.
While your first thought might be "this will make magic stronger", it has another effect: It means that you can have some small magic attribute without burning it out via ware. Right now there is a strong dichotomy - either you go full magic, very little ware, or you go all-in on the ware. Unless you're trying for a mundane face, but that's another case of hyper-specialization.
See the above two suggestions. That way, every PC can have access to some magic. Only want some illusion magic, or one reliable spirit you can call upon, a talent with alchemy or technomancy, or just be really good at running? Take the appropriate skills, spells and adept powers. Don't sink most of your character concept into it, it's just a knack you have. Full magic is instead represented as being fully invested into magic - an "awakened" person is simply someone who has honed their magic gift a lot, knows a wide variety of spells, has learned to assense the astral plane and has Initiated once.
Well, some quick houserule ideas for that:
- Essence loss no longer decreases magic. Instead, each point of Essence loss requires you to take a Geas if you want to use magic (which can include "don't use a specific kind of magic", so you can focus on alchemy but not spellcasting, for example. But it also includes "use specific items" or lots of other potential restrictions).
- There are no more Adepts, Mystic Adepts, Magicians or Technomancers. If you use the Priority Table, keep the "Magic or Resonance" table, but everyone uses the "Magician" table. In place of "Spells" you can take power points, complex forms and the usual rituals, "magic skills" can instead be resonance skills or active skills.
- Everyone can buy up their magic attribute using Special Attribute Points or Karma. Likewise, everyone can learn Magic and Resonance Skills
- Astral Perception, Astral Projection and Matrix Immersion must be learned by everyone. This is done via Initiation and Metmagic, and acts as prerequisites for a lot of things (Resonance skills obviously require Matrix Immersion, Summoning requires Astral Perception etc.). Maybe make Initiation a bit cheaper
Obviously it'd need a lot more work and have a HUGE impact, but I think this is a good start.
Also, interestingly, this is actually in line with a lot of the videogames, including Shadowrun Returns. The main character can always learn magic, even if they don't start out with it, and it's much more feasible to combine magic and augmentations - it just pushes your magic more into a support role.
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TikiTau
Commander Pangolinski
- Location
- Texas
Yeah, it's interesting.
I dub this new variant of house rules 'Jake Armitage Edition'.
Cause everyone loves the local morgue-bed snoozing, glasses wearing, magic slinging, gun-using decker-Dog Shaman-Street Samurai.
Also, yeah, even a bit of magic is useful. Gods know I love having just enough magic in Shadowrun Returns to snag a passive totem bonus and the ability to drop a heal, haste, and aim spells. Usually Conjuring 3, if I recall.
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In Shadowrun mages do not do everything, mages do support and blade bunnys have a great deal of versatility compared to 3.X fighters, I also assume you are referring only to 3.X since in AD&D and 5.0 wizard primacy is far lessened at worst. Mages have 12 different magic related skills and need to grab several of those while also spending karma or priority on magic and while mundanes do need more nuyen usually for their gear still often pull ahead in skills. D&D also has the issue that the fighter does one thing well, he deals damage with one weapon and just one weapon due to the feat trees, meanwhile street samurai have a golf bag of options to deal with every situation. Sure mages can do damage but while that mage throws a fireball at a street samurai the street samurai has better odds of soaking the fireball than the mage does of soaking the retaliatory fire from the street samurai's AGS-30 automatic grenade launcher. If you do not throw them into arena situations and instead use the usual Shadowrun situation stuff both the mage and street samurai are playing rocket tag on who sees who first but that is how Shadowrun works, if the mage sees the sam first he can throw a mind control spell but if the sam sees the mage first he can kill him from 1.5 kilometers out reliably. A street samurai can go into a situation carrying two pistols one loaded lethal and one loaded non-lethal to deal with various threats.
In 3.X if you run an all wizard party you DM can just go home, you can do what you want, in 3.X if you run an all fighter party you cannot deal with a large portion of potential problems, in PF a barbarian can fly with just 2 rage powers so even they can deal with things like a chasm in their path while the fighters sits on his thumb. Meanwhile, in Shadowrun an all mage party runs an extreme risk of getting outgunned or losing to threats they are only partially aware of if they try to act like a normal group an deal with more than just magical threats. Meanwhile an all street samurai team is just as vulnerable due to a complete lack of magical overwatch if they intend to act like a normal team and engage magical threats. In Shadowrun if you intend to do usual runner stuff you need matrix, magic, and mundane or you will die, full stop.
In 3.X if you run an all wizard party you DM can just go home, you can do what you want, in 3.X if you run an all fighter party you cannot deal with a large portion of potential problems, in PF a barbarian can fly with just 2 rage powers so even they can deal with things like a chasm in their path while the fighters sits on his thumb. Meanwhile, in Shadowrun an all mage party runs an extreme risk of getting outgunned or losing to threats they are only partially aware of if they try to act like a normal group an deal with more than just magical threats. Meanwhile an all street samurai team is just as vulnerable due to a complete lack of magical overwatch if they intend to act like a normal team and engage magical threats. In Shadowrun if you intend to do usual runner stuff you need matrix, magic, and mundane or you will die, full stop.
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13th Bee
Worker
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- Tennessee, USA.
There is even justification for this in the setting. One of the old Earthdawn continuity things is that everyone is a mage if the background count gets high enough due to the magic cycle. I've seen blurbs about this in some of the 4th Edition books, so it could easily still be valid. Next edition could easily say the magic levels got high enough.
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We are a couple hundred to a couple thousand years short of that though I think.
13th Bee
Worker
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- Tennessee, USA.
Yeah, but the specific point never really got stated, so you have some room if you want it.
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It is true we do not know when but it is supposed to be closer to the mana peaks, around the time we are supposed to start worrying about horrors coming through on there own which is like 2,000 years away still since I think each cycle 5,000 years unless I am remembering incorrectly.
FaeGlade Plural
Semper Legens
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Eh, that can easily be explained away in several ways. After all we already had several manaspikes (Great Ghost Dance, Halleys Comet, arguably now the Dragon War) which brought magic back much faster than anticipated. I mean, we already had a near-breakthrough by Horrors (fixed by Harlequin and Dunkelzahn) and offing the Great Dragons would bring them through in less than a decade (according to Shadowrun Returns Dragonfall).
Combine that with arguably richer magical traditions this time around (because there are more humans, because we share information more readily, because of scientific approaches etc.) and that allowing more people to find the tradition that fits them well, and I don't see why we can't have a "magic is a very hard skill to learn, better hope you're talented" instead of "you're either born with it or shit out of luck".
And that's all I'm arguing for really. Make magic less special, and make it accessible to everyone the same way that augmentations and the matrix are accessible to everyone - for the purpose of making characters. Which does not have to - and already does not - have to represent how common or rare magical talent is in this world really. You already have (almost) every runner team with an Awakened character already, that points more towards a ~20% awakening rate (and the justifications for why there would be more awakened people in the shadows are rather bad, given how much corporate and state employers are willing to forgive to get their hands on rare magical talent).
Really at this point I'm only seeing benefits. It allows for more character options, it fits several lore issues the game has, it fixes several game problems posed by magic.
Combine that with arguably richer magical traditions this time around (because there are more humans, because we share information more readily, because of scientific approaches etc.) and that allowing more people to find the tradition that fits them well, and I don't see why we can't have a "magic is a very hard skill to learn, better hope you're talented" instead of "you're either born with it or shit out of luck".
And that's all I'm arguing for really. Make magic less special, and make it accessible to everyone the same way that augmentations and the matrix are accessible to everyone - for the purpose of making characters. Which does not have to - and already does not - have to represent how common or rare magical talent is in this world really. You already have (almost) every runner team with an Awakened character already, that points more towards a ~20% awakening rate (and the justifications for why there would be more awakened people in the shadows are rather bad, given how much corporate and state employers are willing to forgive to get their hands on rare magical talent).
Really at this point I'm only seeing benefits. It allows for more character options, it fits several lore issues the game has, it fixes several game problems posed by magic.
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While I would be fine with technomancers put under the magic umbrella properly I should note with that I am not a fan of the Unified Magic Theory so think there should still be a solid line between technomancers and hermetic mages.
I am pretty sure that several books have gone into why awakened individuals are so much more common.
A lot of the manaspikes have been 'fixed'(ish) by Dunkelzhan after he became a spirit and possessed a cyber zombie going around with an ancient Earthdawn artifact and began destroying mana bridges and stuff. Despite that of course they could make it so the mana levels rose enough for everyone to potentially be a mage but I am honestly not a fan of that, I like magic standing out a bit and being something different and not entirely understood. For character creation purposes magic already is available to everyone and you can even have a late awakening if you want to take it later, I like that cybernetics and intrusive surgeries affect your soul on some level and your connection to mana. So many of my favorite characters in lore have been greatly affected by their ties between magic and technology while at the same time making the ability to access both at will feels like it would lead to more unified and optimized builds. In Shadowrun at the moment for most tasks such as information gathering, breaking and entering, combat, etc you can go about it using technology or magic and have roughly equal effectiveness or close enough that flavor makes up for a few dice lost. If everyone has both, well, we can already see what adepts with a little cyberware or mystical adepts can do since those are both archetypes that get to double dip and generally surpass their peers
I am pretty sure that several books have gone into why awakened individuals are so much more common.
A lot of the manaspikes have been 'fixed'(ish) by Dunkelzhan after he became a spirit and possessed a cyber zombie going around with an ancient Earthdawn artifact and began destroying mana bridges and stuff. Despite that of course they could make it so the mana levels rose enough for everyone to potentially be a mage but I am honestly not a fan of that, I like magic standing out a bit and being something different and not entirely understood. For character creation purposes magic already is available to everyone and you can even have a late awakening if you want to take it later, I like that cybernetics and intrusive surgeries affect your soul on some level and your connection to mana. So many of my favorite characters in lore have been greatly affected by their ties between magic and technology while at the same time making the ability to access both at will feels like it would lead to more unified and optimized builds. In Shadowrun at the moment for most tasks such as information gathering, breaking and entering, combat, etc you can go about it using technology or magic and have roughly equal effectiveness or close enough that flavor makes up for a few dice lost. If everyone has both, well, we can already see what adepts with a little cyberware or mystical adepts can do since those are both archetypes that get to double dip and generally surpass their peers
Okay, time to discuss firearms. The Marlin 3468SS sporting rifle fires the .45-70 Government cartridge for 13P damage. The M1 Garand fires either .30-06 Springfield or .308 Winchester for 12P damage. The most powerful of the three, the .45-70 Government has a muzzle energy of 4,676 joules.
This
Is the Pfeifer Zeliska. It is real. It exists. It's been around since at least 2002. It fires the .600 Nitro Express cartridge, generating 11,146 joules of energy.
And this
Is the .950 JDJ rifle. It masses between 80 and 110 pounds and fires a 3,600 grain (8.2 ounce) slug at 2,200 feet per second with a muzzle energy of 52,450 joules. For comparison, an 800 grain .50 BMG round yields 20,195 joules and a 20x102mm round (as used in the M61 Vulcan Gatling cannon) delivers 53,554 joules.
These both exist right now. They're both completely legal with no more restrictions than any other hunting or sporting firearm. In a world of Trolls, Minotaurs, and Giants, I imagine they'd still be legal.
How would these translate into Shadowrun 5E?
This
And this
These both exist right now. They're both completely legal with no more restrictions than any other hunting or sporting firearm. In a world of Trolls, Minotaurs, and Giants, I imagine they'd still be legal.
How would these translate into Shadowrun 5E?
- Location
- Australia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
So, uh, I'm running a PbP Shadowrun game, starring a team of high level runners. It's also a Stargate crossover.
I have no idea why I liked this idea so much, but I thought of it and it kept bugging me so I'm gonna run it
I have no idea why I liked this idea so much, but I thought of it and it kept bugging me so I'm gonna run it
- Pronouns
- They/Them
So, uh, what's with, having not read the full Shadowrun story and knowing some elements...the whole, uh, Native American thing? *waves hands slightly vaguely*
(Has mostly read the 'world today' stuff in one book, which wasn't a history lesson.)
(Has mostly read the 'world today' stuff in one book, which wasn't a history lesson.)
From what I remember off the top of my head?
Indians rounded up and forced into concentration camps, people got pissed off and Great Ghost Dance happened.
Daniel Howling Coyote
Great Ghost Dance
Native American Nations
Treaty of Denver
Someone else will probably know much more than me, but for now these are some useful Wiki Links for the basics.
- Location
- Varies
On mobile but will give some basics, imagine if the North Dakota protesters tried to seriously fight back and got put in camps as a result. Other Native American groups try to protest and fight over the injustice and get put in camps as well to control them all. Then one day a shaman says, "fuck that noise," and suddenly starts conjuring tornadoes and shit. Army tries to shoot him but the winds pick up so fiercly the bullets veer away and the dude just walks off with his followers. The shamans proceed to kick in the US Army's teeth over and over but are limited in number, power, and cannot be everywhere so the fighting is back and forth a lot but mostly in the Native American favor. This culminates in a massive blood magic ritual sacrificing the souls of hundreds of shamans to hit the US with a magical WMD triggreing every active volcano killing thousands if not millions of people. The US has absolutely no response and as far as they know the shamans can now do this whenever they want. They rush to sign a peace treaty giving almost every concession to the new Native American Nations mostly just holding onto some spots like Seattle where their forces had survived as a bulwark and were strategically vital to the US.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
...that's really weird.
Also, Shadowrun's even darker than I thought.
- Location
- Varies
If you think that is weird you should read the novels so you can learn all the other fun details like how Eva Braun was an immortal elf, or how Big D became a spirit cyborg free spirit zombie that went to war with an evil Aztec pantheon to save an immortal elven goddess and destroyed a bridge between realities with a magical laser.
13th Bee
Worker
- Location
- Tennessee, USA.
It falls more and more apart the closer you look at it. It's best to just not think about it too much.
Remember that Shadowrun was originally published by FASA, with all the FASAnomics jokes that go with it.
- Location
- Varies
It makes sense in universe pretty solidly, you had a half-elf/half-eldritch abomination running around teaching Native Americans about the power of blood magic, a bunch of immortal elves using their magic to aid the native Americans, and the army trying to figure out how to kill people who can deflect bullets with their minds. It was not a fair fight to begin with and the US had no idea how to fight a magical war, they were panicking. if the NAN had the numbers they could have easily pushed over the Mississippi. Montana the state still glows like a radioactive hot spot in the astral from all the blood magic unleashed in the war.
Immortal elves before this war were able to kill anyone they came into contact with using a ritual if willing to expend some of their limited magical reserves and could call upon The Wild Hunt and other insanely powerful things when needed.
Immortal elves before this war were able to kill anyone they came into contact with using a ritual if willing to expend some of their limited magical reserves and could call upon The Wild Hunt and other insanely powerful things when needed.
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13th Bee
Worker
- Location
- Tennessee, USA.
It's more on the political side. Rounding up an ethnic group and putting them in camps is simply not something that would be done in this day and age. The Japanese Internment is really hammered as something that shouldn't have been done and was wrong.
Agreeing to cede a massive amount of territory, that will then undergo ethnic cleansing, is not something the government would agree to, possibly even if there are enemy troops marching down Pennsylvania Avenue. Most of the population of the US doesn't live anywhere near a volcano.
Even if for some reason the government did agree to the demands, the US would just attempt to retake the territory inside of twenty years. There aren't that many Native Americans, either.
I know that, Doylist wise, to get the sort of corporate ruled world they wanted they needed to break the power of national governments, especially the USA, but they went about it poorly. FASA's other major IP, Battletech, also has a whole ton of stuff that falls apart if you look at it closely, mostly stemming from the early days. They made cool settings, but they weren't always the most coherent ones.
- Location
- Varies
The US ceded a lot off land but almost no population.
The planned ethnic cleansing never happened because when the NAN begn to try it realized they had no way to actually enforce their plan of deporting everyone who could not claim Native American heritage and so just said that the people who stayed probably had some Native American heritage so were good to stay. The NAN was the shadow of a paper tiger and the only reason they were not attacked in 20 years as you said the US would is because the US was gone and the UCAS was dealing with major issues, the world had major issues at that time with things like the Second Eurowar going on. The UCAS and CAS are also counter-balancing each other, UCAS could take on the Sioux and PCC but Tir still holds a definitive magical edge in North America and UCAS has border disputes with the CAS. The CAS has border disputes with Aztlan and the Carib league while Aztlan has border disputes with everyone who borders them.
FASA has some issues at times with how their worlds work but by accident, design, or retcon the current continuity makes sense to me at least due to the overwhelming magical edge the NAN held at their formation.
The Native Americans were put into camps after the US went in to get resources from their land and the Native Americans said no so were forcibly moved again and there was a series of terrorist attacks by Native Americans. While I doubt most people would support putting them in interment camps it is not a large leap from modern events, there were calls for putting Muslims in camps after 9/11 and years later there are still fringe calls for that, if a sustained series of attacks are carried out it would be possible to do so with some support. In particular if the government lies saying the camps are temporary while they move the Native Americans again they could get away with it. Compound that with how things were significantly worse for the US at the time in Shadowrun. For the past 20 years the US federal government has been weakened by poor leadership and growing corruption and quite frankly since the late 80s in Shadowrun the US government has been looking for a way to regain some of it's former soft power, taking Native American land for the oil and other resources was supposed to help them economically.
The planned ethnic cleansing never happened because when the NAN begn to try it realized they had no way to actually enforce their plan of deporting everyone who could not claim Native American heritage and so just said that the people who stayed probably had some Native American heritage so were good to stay. The NAN was the shadow of a paper tiger and the only reason they were not attacked in 20 years as you said the US would is because the US was gone and the UCAS was dealing with major issues, the world had major issues at that time with things like the Second Eurowar going on. The UCAS and CAS are also counter-balancing each other, UCAS could take on the Sioux and PCC but Tir still holds a definitive magical edge in North America and UCAS has border disputes with the CAS. The CAS has border disputes with Aztlan and the Carib league while Aztlan has border disputes with everyone who borders them.
FASA has some issues at times with how their worlds work but by accident, design, or retcon the current continuity makes sense to me at least due to the overwhelming magical edge the NAN held at their formation.
The Native Americans were put into camps after the US went in to get resources from their land and the Native Americans said no so were forcibly moved again and there was a series of terrorist attacks by Native Americans. While I doubt most people would support putting them in interment camps it is not a large leap from modern events, there were calls for putting Muslims in camps after 9/11 and years later there are still fringe calls for that, if a sustained series of attacks are carried out it would be possible to do so with some support. In particular if the government lies saying the camps are temporary while they move the Native Americans again they could get away with it. Compound that with how things were significantly worse for the US at the time in Shadowrun. For the past 20 years the US federal government has been weakened by poor leadership and growing corruption and quite frankly since the late 80s in Shadowrun the US government has been looking for a way to regain some of it's former soft power, taking Native American land for the oil and other resources was supposed to help them economically.