[Shadowrun] Ares Special Projects: The Six Million Nuyen Man [SR5]

[AlphaZ]

Game Name Ares Special Projects: The Six Million Nuyen Man [SR5]

Game System Shadowrun 5e

Theme Special forces, clandestine jobs, corporate politics, potential mystery & intrigue

Flavour Shadowrun, but corporate

Summary INTRO The sixth world is a dangerous place, full of magic, monsters, machines, and megacorps, all just as likely to have you for breakfast. And while life in the shadows may be nasty, brutish, and short, at least you're free. You live on your own terms and, while you might rent your soul to the megacorps, at least you don't have to sell it. Except you, chummer. That's exactly what you did. Welcome to corporate life. We hope your tenure is both long and profitable. SETTING Shadowrun, 5th Edition California Free State, 2076 WELCOME “Good morning, and welcome to Ares Special Projects. You may still be experiencing some mild neurological symptoms from your procedure, which could include nausea, disorientation, headache, and memory loss. Don’t worry, the effects are usually temporary. If symptoms persist, treatment options may be available at a reduced cost for our valuable associates. Speak with your operations administrator for more details. As a reminder, all Special Projects personnel are retained in perpetuity and any agreements made to Ares, including all subsidiaries, partners, and affiliates, shall remain in full force until your unexpected or facilitated retirement. However, Ares reserves the right to modify or terminate any or all terms of said agreement, up to and including any assurances, benefits, salary, or other compensations, without affecting the remainder of the agreement, including your rights or obligations as described therein. In short, we’re in this together. For life! Once again we’d like to thank you for being a part of the Ares family. Your talents, contributions, and unwavering commitment help secure a brighter future for our investors, as well as our associates. Please take a few minutes of complimentary unpaid medical leave to find your feet, then take this commlink and check in with your operations administrator. Good luck, associate!” ABOUT THE GAME This game centers around a team of Ares special forces and a single prototype transhuman asset, the titular six million nuyen man (or woman, if you prefer). Together you will go on missions to further Ares interests. But rival corporations, internal politics, shadowrunners, and even your own priorities may come to complicate what was once billed as Ares most promising new black ops initiative. Will you do what it takes to keep your nose clean, keep your head above water, and keep your quarterly bonus? Or are you playing a different game? As this is Shadowrun, it may wax darker at times. We may explore social issues including poverty, prejudice, and politics (as they fit into the setting), but will not be exploring any kind of disturbing imagery not suitable for RPGX. We keep our grit intellectual. Additionally, while there is a "campaign" outline, I want real, organic, self-interested characters. We should spend some time exploring each character's background, goals, and hobbies. We may even have "missions" around them. So be ready to play a character, not just a sheet. ABOUT ME I'm a longtime RPG player, including Pathfinder 1e, Shadowrun 4e/5e, D&D 5e, and a few others. I don't GM much because I'm busy, I can be a perfectionist, and frankly I have no idea what I'm doing. But I recently concluded an IRL D&D 5e game that actually turned out alright, and I've been thinking of this game concept for a while, so I thought I'd give it a shot. Maybe I'll fail. Maybe I'll be awesome. Maybe something in between. Let's find out together! ABOUT YOU You, the player: I'm a stickler for spelling, grammar, and consistency. We all make mistakes, but if your post is difficult to read or breaks the immersion, I will break your immersion. Right out of my game. You, the character: Prime runner, availability 15, Priority creation (or if you're experienced, Sum to 10). Use Chummer. I have several books, but if you use something I don't have I may or may not accept it. This is for my own sanity. Thank you for understanding. Additionally, you will start with a number of negative qualities by default (without the bonus karma). These include SINner (corporate), Records on File (Ares), and Borrowed Time (a remote-controlled contingency to prevent Special Projects data from falling into the wrong handskink bomb). Technically you have a Day Job, but this game *is* your day job, not working around it, so no Day Job quality. If you want to be the six million nuyen man, you're a human. Your Priority A is money, except you get 6 million. This must be spent primarily on cyberware/bioware, including implanted gear. You have no availability or grade limits for implants, including implanted gear. You gain the Prototype Transhuman quality (Chrome Flesh) for free, with the Wanted (Ares) drawback. Don't worry, you're not actually Wanted unless you go off the reservation or something.   UPDATED: I am taking applications until spots are filled. I will take up to 3. We have a mage, a decker, and a samurai (6mil). So no 6mil man and don't worry about having to cover a crucial role. NAME: Your character's actual name. You don't need a street handle, unless you're living some kind of double life. If you are, secret tags. METATYPE: I'm not big on Pixies or other super weird variants. Also not looking for vampires, ghouls, awakened critters, etc. If you have a special request, secret tags. ROLE: What are you good at? You don't have to fit a traditional role exactly, but be good at something. DRAWBACKS: Let other players know your hang-ups. List any negative qualities that I didn't give you for free*. DESCRIPTION: Picture's worth a thousand words. Please don't actually give me a thousand words. You can also use this section to tell me about your character's mannerisms, quirks, favorite matrix game, favorite bar, whatever. BACKGROUND: Who are you? Do you have a family? A book club? Are you in a cult? Why are you working for Ares? Did you grow up corporate? Are you from the CFS? What do you think of the CFS? What do you think of Ares? Do you like money? Are you humanitarian? Are you just a lonely troll looking for love in what may actually be all the wrong places? Give me 2-3 paragraphs. If you write a lot and I get bored reading it, I can't promise I'll finish. So if you can't make it short, make it engaging! SHEET: Give me a link to your Chummer generated PDF sheet. Format = "Shadowrun 5 - Skills grouped by rating > 0"   What metavariants are allowed? Basically anything that doesn't dramatically change the metatype. Stay away from flying, regeneration, extra limbs or eyes, dramatic size changes, cthulu-esque mutations, and whatever other crazy stuff you pull out of an obscure German splatbook. What books do you have? The ones I can find right now are: Run Faster, Run & Gun, Street Grim, Rigger 5, and Chrome Flesh. I'm familiar with limited material from several others. Just use what you want and I'll tell you if it's a problem. Posting rate? One quality post per week. See here for more details. As the 6mil nuyen man, how much money can I spend on other things besides implants? 500,000 with the normal availability limits (15 for Prime Runner). NOTE: Don't worry too much about transportation or specialized hardware as you can always requisition Ares resources when a mission demonstrates a clear need. Is Forbidden gear permitted? No, but it may be available on a per-mission basis via the requisition system. EDIT: Technically yes, up to avail 12, but you can't take it on jobs so like, buy it at your own risk? Initiation/submersion at chargen? No. Can I use nanites? No. Nanites are extremely unpopular just right now in 2076 and Ares will send you to a lab. Not the kind you come back out of.

Applicant	Character Name	Role	Status
CMRawles	Mabel Armand	Decker	Hired
Marshmallow	Geneve Dubois or Sparrow Armstrong	Mage	Hired
Gwythion	Alexander XII	Mage	Unknown
Imveros	William Graves	SMNM	Funding lost
RainyDayNinja	Francis Taggart	Samurai, Astral Combat	Discharged
TheRatQueen	Daenerys Whittier	Summoner, Healer	Unknown
Auntmousie	Mercedes Vasquez	Rigger or SMNM Rigger	Hired
Dylan Scott	Marcus Samuel Bishop	Infiltrator	Discharged
Leg0block	John "Krieg" Kruegar	Weapons Specialist	On leave
Hiruma Kohaku	Max Hartley	Technomancer	Unknown

[Kenjitsu]

I just wanted to stop by to show my support for having another even if it using the 5th editionShadowrun game. While I would love to play, I already have too much on my plate to take on another commitment. But I do want to thank you for being willing to run a game and wish you well.

[Silk]

I wish I could join your game but I recently dropped four games due to RL issues. Maybe if my life settles down and Arialles game finishes before the deadline.

Until then, I just wanted to say I've been in a few games with AlphaZ as a player and it was fun.

Good luck with your game AlphaZ.

[Marshmallow]

An SR5 game advertised on my birthday?!

Oh NO.

Edit: Will you be allowing metavariants such as Minotaurs or Nartaki? You mention no Critters/Pixies/Etc, just wanted to know if Metavar are allowed or just a hardline no.

[CMRawles]

Awwww, the six million nuyen man has to be human? Bummer.

I'll have my character in sometime tomorrow.

[AlphaZ]

Originally Posted by Marshmallow

Will you be allowing metavariants such as Minotaurs or Nartaki? You mention no Critters/Pixies/Etc, just wanted to know if Metavar are allowed or just a hardline no.

Minotaurs seem alright. Ogres, oni, things like that are all good. But when we get into tiny sizes, flying, extra limbs, stuff like that I'm trying to avoid.

[Imveros]

What kind of posting rate were you looking for?

[AlphaZ]

Originally Posted by Imveros

What kind of posting rate were you looking for?

I can commit to one quality post per week, and I'd ask the same of the players. That said, for the sake of expediency, I welcome any number of lower-quality posts in between to keep things moving. Example:

quality post How could she be so stupid? And after she'd told off Blitz for being careless with the payload, now she was standing there empty-handed with Johnson's goons on one side and a Yakuza kill squad on the other. "I left it in the truck. I thought we were going straight home." Nova grumbled quietly. She knew she was going to catch hell from Mr Tuzuli once they got out of this. But first they'd have to get out of this. So, with no other options and the figurative fuse burning down, she decided to improvise.

lower quality post "I left it in the truck. I thought we were going straight home." Nova grumbled quietly.

quick reply "I left it in the truck."

The first is a post that engages the reader in the story and sets the stakes as well as reflects Nova's reaction to the situation. The second post at least gives us a small reaction out of Nova and useful information that can let others keep posting. The third post is the bare minimum to let the posts keep flowing. All of these are ok to post, but I'm looking for at least one quality post per week.

[Hiruma Kohaku]

Will be posting character app over the next two days. Six million Nuyen man is definitely appealing. What is the ratio/bare minimum Nuyen to be spent on cyberware/bioware?

[AlphaZ]

Originally Posted by Hiruma Kohaku

What is the ratio/bare minimum Nuyen to be spent on cyberware/bioware?

Good question. I'd say you can spend up to your original half million on whatever extra toys & gadgets you want. The free 5.5 mil needs to go into implants. You don't have to spend it all, but gammaware does get expensive. The real point is that I don't want you spending on sweet rides, topped out cyberdecks, extravagant lifestyles, etc. It is ostensibly money that Ares sank into your reconstruction, and your spending should reflect that. So if you want to carry around a customized military laser cannon, sorry but no. However, if you can find a way to cram that customized military laser into your chest, by all means.

[Marshmallow]

I've currently gotten stuck between making either an Elf (Dryad or Nocturna) Psychologist Mage or a big Minotaur gunner.

[CMRawles]

Let me know if any changes need to be made to fit better with your ideas.

Mabel Armand NAME: Mabel Armand METATYPE: Elf ROLE: Sneaky Shooty Hacker DRAWBACKS: Poor Self Control (Thrill Seeker), Distinctive Style, Prejudiced (Specific, Outspoken; Technomancers), Scorched (Anxiety; Psychotropic [Judas]), Lightweight, Big Regret (Criminal past [Having gotten caught, anyways]). DESCRIPTION: Short and lithe, Mabel is an elven vatjob with fully replaced cyberware eyes, ears, and right forearm, along with several other cyberware implants in her head that make her job easier. She's got white hair and generally goes with teal for her eye-color, though that's highly variable depending on what she's feeling like from day-to-day. She wears her hair up most of the time, not wanting to deal with how loose hair acts when she rides her motorcycle. She generally uses subtle makeup, eye-liner, blush, lipstick, and eye-shadow, none of which are ostentatious except on the rare days when she wants to be very flashy and glam. Mabel has a wide variety of tattoos which extend from her neck down to her feet essentially, mostly involving lots of lilies and thorny vines, but also a set of stylized wings taking up most of her upper back. Personality: Mabel likes to have a good time; Her ethos is that if she's not having a good time doing something, she'd better be making a lot of money doing it instead. She is generally carefree and likes to verbally spar with her friends and coworkers to keep the mood light. Likes: Decking, strawberries, power metal, Neo-Anarchism, Hockey, competitive Pong. Dislikes: Capitalism, Cucumbers, Government, country music, boot-lickers, Basketball, Technomancers (She's envious). BACKGROUND: Mabel was born to factory workers in Montreal and quickly became enamored with the rejected tech they brought home to sell on the black market. Her skill as a Decker quickly grew, at the same time as her interest in the Neo-Anarchist movement. She quickly found herself involved with Cracker Underground and several other amateur Deckers in Montreal and when her circle of friends attempted to perform a data heist far above their skill level, Mabel found herself not only in jail, but scorched from the Psychotropic IC that ended their amateur jaunt. Cross Applied Technologies offered to commute her sentence if she worked for them as an in-house decker and she gladly agreed, leaving prison on a probationary basis. Though she chaffed under the corporate structure, she soon got used to working with them (And did some shadowrunning on the side). When CATCo folded she became an Ares Macrotechnologies asset, and in the chaos of the handover quietly changed all of her records in CATCo's systems to wipe away any link with her radical and criminal past. When Ares finally did functionally organize CATCo's old assets into their own system, as far as they were concerned she was simply a highly skilled and underutilized security spider. She quickly found her way into their special forces division and has made a home for herself there ever since.   The same, only better! Mabel Armand was born to a poor family in Montreal who made a meager living working to produce wireless Matrix parts, like most of the population of the city. They frequently brought home rejected or damaged Matrix parts (whether or not they were allowed to) to try and recover or flog on the black market, and Mabel quickly developed a knack for working with these parts and -once they were functional- working within them. Since her parents had no particular aptitude with these machines aside from the very basic work of manufacturing them, they started to incorporate Mabel into the process of illegally scrapping and selling the broken and unfit parts that they smuggled out of their workplace. This might seem a bit exploitative, but Mabel greatly enjoyed her time working on what she thought of as otherwise worthless trash, her parents didn’t tell her about how what they were doing was illegal and Mabel didn’t figure out that it was was until she managed to put together a fully functional machine for herself and started surfing the Matrix. It was when she started doing that that she exposed herself to -among other, far less wholesome things- the work and writings of Neo-Anarchists. She was quite taken up with the movement’s goals and ideals and quickly started trying to find ways to get involved; It didn’t take her too long to find references to organizations such as Cracker Underground, Attack! and Black Star, and she started to obsessively dedicate her time to finding ways to join them. Through that process she steadily learned the tools of the trade of a Decker, first through dubiously legal guides, then through trial-and-error, then through far less legal sources and occasionally through direct contact with people who were skilled at the trade. Through that process she very quickly found herself in contact with various criminal elements, some of whom were far more serious and dangerous than any of the blue-collar criminals that her parents were involved with. She very nearly got herself in very serious trouble a few times as well (Sometimes alongside the aforementioned criminal elements, sometimes from the criminals themselves) but with enough luck, managed to avoid serious consequences. By the time Mabel was 14 she was relatively comfortable performing the sorts of tasks that an amateur decker would be expected to master and got herself in contact with Cracker Underground, who were perhaps the least dangerous of the Neo-Anarchist organizations she’d read about, but also by far the easiest to get in contact with for someone of her skill-set. Now of course by this point her parents were quite concerned about her. They hadn’t been oblivious to her daughter’s newfound interest in radical politics and they knew that it would be quite dangerous for all of them if she was allowed to continue on the path that she was on. But no matter what they tried they couldn’t stop her. The back-and-forth arms race between Mabel and her parents is largely irrelevant to the events as they unfolded, rest assured simply that she continued to be in contact with Cracker Underground and performed more and more risky illegal activity, sometimes directly doing minor acts of cyber-crime on Quebec’s homegrown megacorporation, Cross Applied Technologies. She grew a group of friends in Montreal with similar interests, a couple of whom were local members of Cracker Underground. One fateful day one of them (Mabel doesn’t really remember) came up with the idea that they should try some serious business, some real decker drek that would get them a great deal of recognition and prestige in the community. They decided, stupidly, to attempt to infiltrate into a Cross Applied Technologies headquarters to steal some valuable data. The details of what they decided on are of little importance. Needless to say, the mission went terribly wrong from the word ‘Go’. CATCo had countermeasures that were good enough to make any Shadowrunner think twice, and their rag-tag little group weren't even half as skilled as the average Shadowrunner. Though they managed to get surprisingly far, the straw which broke the camel’s back was when Mabel attempted to break through a particularly dangerous security measure, a Psychotropic IC; Specifically a Judas Psychotropic. The mission almost immediately fell apart as badly as it could, the whole group were captured as Mabel practically flagged down every guard on their way out and did everything she could to slow the group to a crawl. Mabel spent the next five years of her life in prison, getting off comparatively light to her comrades because she was a minor. Cross Applied Technologies saw an opportunity with her however, and offered to commute her sentence if she would work for them (for rock bottom wages). She was eager to get out of prison, so she agreed to their terms and was made a minor security spider in some tucked away facility in Quebec City. She spent five more years there, shadowrunning on the side to make up for her terrible pay with the corporation. She honed her skills and quickly made a niche for herself as a skilled infiltrator and decking specialist while Cross Applied Technologies was none the wiser. In her time on the job she steadily started to pick through CATCo's matrix structure, poking around in their data archives and steadily building up a little roster of places where her name and past were mentioned, planning to request a transfer and quickly erase all the black marks on her record. Of course, that plan had to quickly change when Ares launched their lightning hostile-takeover of Cross Applied Technologies in 2065. In the confusion of it all she started a frenzy of erasing and moving data around. She saw the opportunity with Ares' acquisition to make much more radical changes than she otherwise would have felt safe doing, and not only erased anything inconvenient, but added in all of the credentials that she'd gained from her 'running on the side (As well as a note in a file or two that she'd 'applied for consideration' for CATCo's in-house special forces sometime recent to the hostile takeover). Ares, none-the-wiser to her actual history, saw her as a valuable asset which had slipped through the cracks somehow in Cross Applied Tech's system, and promoted her to special forces quickly and transferred her to a theater that saw more action than Quebec; The CFS, where she has spent some time proving herself valuable to them. SHEET: See Attachment.

[SpatulaOdoom]

All I'm gonna say is whoever takes the 6 million new yen man better be rocking a red jumpsuit at some point.

[Preacherwolf]

Originally Posted by Marshmallow

I've currently gotten stuck between making either an Elf (Dryad or Nocturna) Psychologist Mage or a big Minotaur gunner.

Its funny how similar our ideas are. My first thought was an elf mind mage or a troll rotary gunner. However I'm really tempted to make a rigger/pilot ala Airwolf. And Ares Venture is only 400k....

[Dylan Scott]

Is the use of Chummer a requirement when making a character?

id love to throw my hat into the ring and join a shadowrun game but i have zero experience with the system. a program to help character creation would be ideal but i find myself currently on a chromebook and cant run Chummer on it, is there an online version of it available or an android app version?