[Shadowrun] Broken Glass and Broken Dreams

[Silk]

I've been using the online pdf myself. Though I have been thinking really hard about buying the book. I like this setting a lot

Though my brother will probably hate it, he likes simpler games. :/

[Jondera]

Since you're switching from 4e to 5e, are you changing the build rules? Build points aren't really used in 5e...

Also:

Application Name / Alias: Rebecca Laughing Wind / Maii Metatype: Human Intended Role: Mage & Face (Shaman; Coyote/Raven mentor spirit) Description: To be completed Background: Growing up in a small town in rural Arizona did not fill Rebecca's heart with joy and wonder, as it were. She was always getting into trouble, poking around in things that weren't her business, and playing pranks on anybody and everybody that she could arrange to embarrass. When she awakened at 13, it only got worse - her pranks graduated from the practical to the, shall we say, spiritually inspired. As time went on, she seemed to have a sixth sense for knowing exactly where to be and what to do to cause the most chaos without ever actually hurting anybody or causing any serious property damage. It didn't take long for the others in the town to realize that Coyote spoke to her, and she listened. As such, nobody (with the possible exception of her parents) was especially surprised - or unhappy - when she took an old beater of a pickup truck and went off wandering after graduating high school, taking to the road to explore the world with all the curiosity and irresponsibility of a teenager. Wending her circuitous way northwest through the Pueblo Corporate Council and then the Salish-Sidhe Council, she eventually crossed into Seattle, breezily charming her way past an inattentive border guard with a smile and a small spell. That was where she got into trouble. Coming into Seattle from the southeast, she drove straight into the heart of the Puyallup barrens, where her truck ran out of gas. Realizing that she wasn't in anything even close to a good part of town, she managed to sneak the rest of the way through the barrens on foot, but saw quite a few things she hadn't really expected - or wanted - to encounter on the way. Getting up into Tacoma, she was able to find a place to stay and make some local contacts, but when she went back to pick up her truck, she discovered that, well. Leaving anything in the open in the barrens is a recipe for not having that thing any more. With her truck gone, she set about making contacts to build up some cash and buy a new set of wheels for whenever she decides to move on. She might stick around for a bit, though; she may have only been here for a few weeks, but she's definitely noticed that there's plenty of people around Seattle who would - in her opinion - benefit greatly by having their egos taken down a notch or five. Roleplaying Example: to be completed

[Beychaliban]

I‘ll change the build rules, just haven‘t found the time to edit (no Fun with a small screen)

[Blackfyre]

Isaac Name / Alias: Nikolai "Isaac" Tepes Metatype: Human Intended Role: Hacker/Chemist Description and/or Picture: Nikolay has short black hair that stands in stark contrast to his fair skin. Vividly orange eyes lie deep in their sockets in a narrow face, that seems even longer due to a soul patch on his chin. The young man, who looks like he might not have reached his 20th birthday yet, is of very slender built and gives the impression that a stiff breeze might well blow him away. His clothing is generally well kept and tries - but fails - to convey the idea of belonging to some stereotypical middle to lower class joe average, though he does not go so far as to wear NuZoots or ME MetaLs urban fashion lines. Several tattoos mirroring the color of his eyes can be seen on his neck and head. Background: Viktor is the child of property shark Vladimir Bondarev, who is known for his ruthless but profitable behavior in his dealings and has amassed a not so small fortune. As a result the only want Viktor may have known - if he had realized it - in his young life would be that of true friends and carefree play. His father’s wealth meant that any 'friends' Viktor had were equally rich and superficial and Vladimirs ruthlessness made him be overly protective of Viktor, often sending a bodyguard with him, when the young man left the family property. Not that he had that much interest in outdoor activity. He had three passions: science fiction, chemistry and the matrix. The first inspired him, the second fascinated him and the third allowed him the freedom that maid, nanny or guards did not. Not to mention that the matrix presented a lot of possibilities and catered to his skills, that were rather lacking on the social interaction side. The older he got, the more he tested out the limits of what he was able to do and what he was able to get away with - not that he cared for the morality or legality of his actions. He did not have a lot of problems convincing his father to sponsor cyberware to make his exploits even easier, though he claimed he wanted it for purposes of his education. That, he soon figured out, was an argument that got him very far indeed with his sire. With the necessary 'ware his 'mischief', if it could still be called that, got easier and easier and before long he was bored again. It's only natural that in the course of his exploits he stumbled over some, who made their live in the shadows and not long ago, he decided to try his own hand at such work, seeking the thrill of it more than anything. Roleplaying Example: You know my style - please let me know if you’d like an RP sample anyway.

[Beychaliban]

@Orgetorix: Sorry that you read the 4th ed book for nothing. But at least it gives you a good view of the setting.

@Blackfyre: I think I know you style well enough. No sample needed

[Zazaq]

Question for both the gm and other players as I haven't played a lot of shadowrunner. My character is either being run as a big tanky melee troll, or a stealth gun slinging commando. Is melee combat really feasible in shadowrunner? If so which of those two rolls would be more useful, I chose tank cause it looks like there's already one stealth expert in the party.

[Beychaliban]

Originally Posted by Dvorak

When are you looking for this by? I am completely new to Shadowrun But have been learning the rules and lore for another game on here. Would that work ok for you?

I guess I‘ll be ready to pick characters and start in about two weeks.
I don‘t mind if someone is new to the game. But in this case I am not much of a help, since I am learning it, too.

[AlphaZ]

Originally Posted by Zazaq

Question for both the gm and other players as I haven't played a lot of shadowrunner. My character is either being run as a big tanky melee troll, or a stealth gun slinging commando. Is melee combat really feasible in shadowrunner? If so which of those two rolls would be more useful, I chose tank cause it looks like there's already one stealth expert in the party.

Well if you recall the OP, the GM has said that combat will be a lower priority and that utility (hackers, mages) will be more important than muscle (street sams, etc). I would say to prioritize a non-combat utility (social skills, infiltration, illusions, detection, driving, hacking, etc) and fluff (GM is looking for plot hooks), then worry about making your character combat-capable.

[GeoAvanti]

Originally Posted by Zazaq

Question for both the gm and other players as I haven't played a lot of shadowrunner. My character is either being run as a big tanky melee troll, or a stealth gun slinging commando. Is melee combat really feasible in shadowrunner? If so which of those two rolls would be more useful, I chose tank cause it looks like there's already one stealth expert in the party.

There are usually a lot of small, little details in Shadowrun that can add up to be either problems or solutions for both individual 'Runners and entire teams.

One of those is almost always overlooked: Redundancy. While it can be less fun to have an entire group of super-sneak skill monkeys, being able to team up a super-sneak skill monkey with another, slightly less sneaky, but much more shooty-stabby monkey is often extremely helpful, and regardless of whatever you want your Core concept to be, you should never overlook a few side skills that may be necessary when the character built for that situation is unavailable or unwilling to step up and do it. I have played many different RPGs over the years, and SRis the only one I have yet to play a game of that involves the entire party staying together throughout it. This is even more true in PbP, where player attrition can be staggeringly high.

That said, Melee in SR can be extremely potent so long as you have the ability to get to your enemy. It has its own strengths and weaknesses, but it is most certainly viable (I'll still put my money on a PhysAd over a Street Sam any day). As for "best role", well, that's more loaded than my baked potatoes. Much of it depends on what you want to do. Do you want "AM SMASH, EXPLOSIONS!!11!" and a load of pink hair dye? Troll Street Sam plays that wonderfully. However, if you want the versatility to be able to fit into far more jobs and roles within the game, you will most assuredly find that much easier with a human or elf with even the most basic of social skills.

In my experience with 5E SR, a team of Runners needs only what it needs to handle the given mission. There are plenty of places in the world where a Decker is utterly useless. There are places that any Awakened would 'nope' out of because there isn't enough Nuyen in the world to make them deal with those Toxic spirits again. Even if you do need a decker, but no one wants to play one, that just gives your GM plenty of reason to have a new NPC to make life a little more interesting for you. SR is a complicated system, but one that offers a lot of simple tools to allow a team the flexibility to play what the players want over what the team "needs".

The very same mission could be run multiple ways by different teams, all depending on what skills the Runners bring to the table. A Troll with a big hammer is going to look at a plan very differently from the Elf Face with the forgery kit.

[Zazaq]

Okay, so super sneaky commando with tons of urban knowledge and decent combat is probably okay. Even given there's a fairly sneaky sniper already in the party.

Thanks for the tips, I'll finish my app tomorrow.

[GleefulNihilism]

Alias: Augur
Intended Role: Decker with a little Rigger mixed in.Ghost in the Machine
Metatype: Elf
Description: The Augur is on the short side for an elf, which usually means about the same as a human. Thinly built and with sandy blonde hair, he is either a living proof of elven grace or a living disproof depending on how you consider the fact that he's also completely blind with milked over eyes. He can still move pretty well, though with the inbuilt sonar that's not to hard. He does joke about this as an excuse to dress with a slacker vibe, hawaiian shirts and sandals when he can get away with it. A bit brash and showy, like the decker stereotypes play anyway.
Motivation: The Shaper-Anarchist. Knowledge is Power, the Augur seeks Knowledge. Treating the Matrix as a sort of living artwork the Augur wants to see how he can reshape the digital world, and from that reshape the real world into something less dystopic. He is Free, he wants others to be Free too.

 

I sometimes wish everyone could see as I see. The surface of things is something you are all stuck in, the Awake can add new surfaces which is keen but I see below surfaces. I see in the cracks created by the system they made and the smaller systems we all made. I have too, or I'm in the dark completely. My real name doesn't matter, I am the Augur.

Elves like to sell themselves as graceful and charismatic, but then I came along. Neurologists will tell you that your eyes and your brain, especially the occipital lobe are so deeply interconnected that some of them just flat out consider your eyes to be a part of your brain. I rolled snake eyes on my DNA in that regard, I have a genetic disorder that killed most of the nerve tissue in my optic nerves and chunks of my occipital lobe. Maybe I could of ended up normal if my parents could of afforded the gene therapy when I was still in the womb but by the time they could afford the procedure I was almost a teenager and it was just damage control. As a result I've not only been blind my whole life but my brain developed without learning how to process visual data. Even if I do get the hardware fixed, I don't have the software to run it.

That's alright though. The brain can rework itself if it tries early enough. Mine did, in ways that nobody expected until much later. There isn't anything really left for the genuinely blind, since 99 out of a 100 times you can fix the problem with some quick cybernetics. When even the most expensive market bioware would only half fix things at best there's really not a whole lot they can do and I certainly can't afford the good bioware. I grew up in the dark, relying on whatever my parents could clip together to find out my world - until they found the braille adapter for a basic 'trix link. It was the first time I ever came across something that I could control, but only if I did everything right. When I did something wrong, which happened a lot, I had nobody to blame for myself.

Actually, I got pretty good at it. A blind programmer can't really get a legit job because most HR departments just see a drain on the health plan but I could do a few favors for my parents, then some family members, then some friends - and soon some 'Runners started asking a question or two. Granted, very minor stuff even by runner standards but just the whole idea that there was an under layer to society was enough. The idea that if I got good enough I could be in that world was enough.

After my first official job I got my head chromed to work the data around me better and to function better. I still can't really see physically but I can make up for it in other ways. In a way, I can sort of see using data streams now. I picked up some drone knowledge and started seeing that way too - through my Drone-Doberman's Scanners. Handy for weapons too. And with the improved decking I picked up its really incredible the kind of things I've hacked open. Information's natural inclination is to spread, and I'm good at liberating it. Augur, as in like the seers of old. The Augur, who sees all - for a price of course.

 

So I've been asked how I can do what I do, exactly. I get it a lot at my day job actually. MediComp Consulting isn't the most glamorous job and isn't really affiliated with any of the official megacorps - at least not the point that it shows favoritism. My boss says he gets accused once in a while of just hiring me as a sort of novelty act. I say let them think it, personally.

My name is Augur - I'm a decker. A good one too in my not so humble opinion, specializing in data retrieval. Information wants to be free and I'm good at liberating it, what can I say? I've also been blind sense birth thanks to rolling snake-eyes with my DNA. Not in a way that cybernetics can fix either. My brain can't handle visual data thanks to large chunks of my occiptal lobe being dead tissue since I was in the womb. You can get chromed up to fix hardware issues but my brain doesn't a lot of the software needed to handle sight.

So yes, Henderson at MediComp ended up hiring me. People say its the novelty of a blind decker in the back of his shop like I'm some sort of sideshow attraction but I'll let you in on a little secret. Brains are more flexible then most people think. Give it time to adjust and it gets workarounds laid down, and information can be worked around in other ways. The old wive's take about your other senses being sharpened when you lose one isn't really true, but your brain does figure out how to pay attention to the others better.

Henderson is an old man, a street doc that actually gives it a shot even if you can't pay the whole bill right then and there. He's not stupid, but you can tell that leaving someone in a gutter really hurts - that says something. I'd done business with him before, I've been under his knife even so he knew about my skills when he emailed me that night. Hush hush project, just said he had a data retrieval job for me and was hoping I'd keep it on the down low.

Now, I know what you're thinking - how did a blind guy get to the little MediComp shop without Halloweeners having some fun. It's simple really. I have two Dobermans I bring out for just such cases, and I'm not talking about the dogs. Is it legal? Hell, I write them off on my taxes as seeing eye drones. Granted, I don't tell them about the modifications I've made - but who does really.

So I get inside MediComp and immediately pick up that we're not alone. I can hear four other heartbeats around, firing up my link to get ready for some jumping in on the Dobermans but it turns out they want to cut a deal instead. Shadowrunners, apparently they had a run that went partially to drek. They were doing a recovery, got their target, but their decker got slotted and needed a data retreival before they could deliver the goods so they could get paid. If I could get the data, I got the other decker's cut - simple as that. Maybe I should of asked a few more questions but the money was good and I was behind on some bills so I agreed.

It was in the back room that I found out why they needed my help. The data they wanted unlocked was a personality. Her name was Alice, some rich guy's niece that got Bunruku'd by the Yakuza. He got the money together to hire a team to get her back, and physically they succeeded. However, their decker was slotted during a surprise reprisal by Yaks during the personafix wipe and personality reset. So the lights were on and nobody was home. In theory though a decker could use her chrome and mods to essentially hot jump in and finish the job. Hell of a shaky theory though, hot trips are meant to be taken sparingly and with hardware. Wetware is just roughly analogous to Hardware at best and at least half of what I'd be dealing with was Wetware.

What can I say? I needed the money? I could tell right away it wasn't like any other jacking in. I've never felt like I was falling before - never felt it sense either. Deckers program their interfaces. How we experience cyberspace is always at least partially under our control. Alice though, Alice was a human being with some neural interface work done. I know I wasn't really hacking her mind, I know that - but with the damage from the last attempt there had been some bleedover. This thing would have to be cut out when I left, which given what Alice had gone through was probably for the best. Somehow I got that message out, I don't know how. I just know that I got a confirmation from the Doberman feeds.

I remember thinking it was very important that I stayed on the cyber-side of things. The cyber-side has rules, rules that I can follow and survive. The meat parts didn't. In there it felt like concrete floors where tenticles of pulsing flesh were breaking through. The tentacles moved, sometimes they moved fast and they whipped up storms of data and memory in their wake. I got lucky more then once, and I still think that if my interface was using visual set-ups I would of been caught by surprise. A glancing tag infected me with a few of Alice's memories, which is why I still have a hard time processing everything I found in her. Memory codes, the basics are the same for everyone but the exact programming code is unique - I got the raw information but I couldn't process it. I think my blindness saved me then too, a normal brain would of stroked out trying to recovery what it absorbed but mine gave up when it figured out that it involved visual data.

I found the other decker's code for the personafix next to what felt like manniquinn with a person stuffed inside, gooey flesh leaking out of the joints like puss on the floor. I remember thanking a few gods of choice as I got to work fixing it so that Alice could "reboot" properly. Chunks of plastic on the manniquin fell off and crashed loudly, breaking through concrete below my digital feet. I remember just backing off and letting her mind do the rest after that as mushrooms started ripping through concrete floors abd growing from fleshy tentacles. Cats and Playing Cards danced around me, cutting into my digital form as I tried to log out. I don't remember how I succeeded exactly but apparently I did it with only some minor memory loss about the run for my troubles. Probably for the best, I don't like the idea of being able to hack the human mind even when its me doing it.

I got paid two days later when Alice woke up. Really couldn't get angry at them for waiting until they knew about results even if I needed the nuyen. Her memory is drekked, but her personality resurfaced and some rich guy has his niece back. She says its total amnesia, didn't even remember her own name before she woke up after my run. Might be for the best, considering. I'm good, but I don't work miracles.

Sometimes though, I have these weird dreams about puppets, manniquins, old kid's books, and people talking in Japanese. Like I said before, it doesn't really matter because the exact programming code of memory varies from person to person but sometimes I wonder if the reason she lost all of her memories is because she really doesn't have them anymore...

Extras: Theme music.
Augur on the Matrix.
Follow the Rabbit.
For A Better World.

[Zazaq]

Well my app is officially done, I suppose in hindsight I should have chosen something other then a firefight for my rp sample given its a low combat rp but oh well. I'm happy with it, still feedback is appreciated, in case any of you are wierdos like me who like reading other people's applications.

[Silk]

Only when I'm board Zazaq.

[Beychaliban]

Ok, now, here for some feedback and questions.

Also, I guess I'll be done with all necessary preparations on 11th of November, so that's when I'll put a team together.

[Blackfyre]

Thanks for the feedback.