General Questions

You have created a monster...

Question for you Marissa! For rigger mechanics, is there a difference between cars/trucks/driven vehicles and aviation/helicopters/planes/hover transports in the skills? Can you cross into both ground and air transports?

Looks like there is pilot ground/pilot anthro (drones)/pilot. Will the campaign setting support all three? Limited on some? Room to grow on others? Is it cool to come up with stuff to develops towards?

I'm reading up on how others work out riggers and rigger/hackers. If someone else wants to go decker, that's kewl. But for some fun, I may mix them together a tad. Otherwise, going to do some wacky shit as a side thing.

Examples of crazy ideas for long term goals (no idea if these exist):
- Holographic plating: chemical structure with technology mixed to display a holoemitted image over a vehicle or drone as a "skin". Could provide bonuses for stealth, being lost in traffic, blinding people, etc.
- EMP Pulse Plating: protects electronics within the vehicle/drone from shorting out and losing chips. Has so many dampener uses before needing to be skinned.
- Stealth Detection Plating: hiding completing from a signal scan may be impossible, but displacing the results to a skewed location even a couple of feet could save a vehicle one hit and get the drop on the baddies

Also thinking about options like meshing vehicles. What if you made a heavy rig with tons of blast plating, etc for protection with a smuggler / get away jack into it. You blast off the heavy and jettison at top speed to gtfo?

Bwahaha, I know I have!

No limits, you can train into all the skills you want. The only restrictions I place are based on your background - if you're starting with Aviation piloting, your character will have had to get training somewhere.

Joe Bob Troll of the Barrens was not teaching anyone to bulls-eye Devilrats in a Yellowjacket when they were a kid.

The biggest difference in terms of skill mechanics is ground vs Aviation. I do treat them as separate skills, because Aviation deals with both different propulsion/vehicle shapes as well as travel over three dimensions.

Drone piloting can be taken as a separate skill (for riggers that just want to drone-rig), or I allow you to just take it as a specialty from ground piloting and/or Aviation. You can even further specialize into specific kind of drone, home built drones, ect. I also do not restrict the number of specialties.

A little decking skill makes sense with Rigger, IMO - so even if we have someone who wants to go devoted Decker, others are more then welcome to pick it up. Worst-case, everyone has a bit of decking and we do all-party Matrix runs occasionally.

As for the crazy ideas:

- Holographic plating hasn't really been invented, but in the long term (especially if you guys jack some special research from a major corp lab) very possible!

- EMS Pulse plating is totally available now, if very expensive/hard to get on the street.

- Stealth Detection Plating not so much at this point in Shadowrun. But you can do the same thing via electronic counter measures, programs that interfere or distort other programs/hardware trying to locate you. That kind of program would be advanced military grade, highly illegal - but could be a fun project for you to handle on the decker side.

Now, for meshing vehicles. That kind of thing is very possible - building a inner rig for speed/escape, with basically an outer shell of armor/plating/disguise as another vehicle that can be jettisoned so the inner rig/vehicle can run for it.

The restriction would be expense - unless you work out a way to retrieve the outer shell from the baddies, that's basically dead nuyen. You'd have to buy all the materials for the outer shell and rebuild every time you ran into trouble. Could be well worth it depending on what you're smuggling though.

Excellent. Thanks for the feedback. I think I'll get a better feel for the talents and skills when we actually discuss how points, priorities, moola, and specialties work. I like the idea that she has a ton of ideas, lots of blueprints, has sunk money into all the tools etc...now just needs a damn car!

As for the Shell Car idea, could rig it with self detonation. Boom shaka laka. Or it propulsions with a "home seeking" application inside. To a place I could later find it. But that is way advanced and down the way.

Heck, if she came up with the concepts and schematics, then sold them to the tech firms, that works for me! I see her having been supporting other riggers and deckers, and now is busting out on her own. Makes for alot of flaws in the systems and fun drawbacks for reality testing the stuff she dreams up.

Aviation is something she wants to learn. So I see that being a find a teacher/mentor sorta option. Gives a ton of room to grow and see if it really could work for the concept. I don't want to break outta the gate knowing everything, or completely suited up with gear. Should be fun!

I'm refreshing my own memory right now on the rigger point system atm, since it's been a while since I rigged.

I do like the ideas for shell car with exploding/recovery options. Exploding it as some real potential to dispose of evidence (removing ability of foes to trace you with it) or to turn it into a giant missile at your pursuers if you really time/aim it well. That much hardware exploding is going to wreck havoc on anyone chasing you.

A big theme with Cyberpunk in general and especially Shadowrun is the perpetual 'out of nuyen' issue. It's a world of spectacular power, money, science... but typically damn little of it makes it to the hands of the average Jim Bob. And particularly starting out, most Runners are going to be scraping to pay for ammo, parts and protection money to the bigger dogs. It's a good atmosphere of adversity to get players and characters to hustle.

If you've ever seen Cowboy Bepop or Samurai Champloo, they're pretty good examples of the heroes-as-perpetually penniless outside of cyberpunk.

It's been a lot of years, but I loved Shadowrun 2nd Edition. ^_^

For my character concept, what I had in mind is on page 50 of the Second Edition main book - the combat mage. My mage would have different spells, and skills (obviously keeping in step with the actual character creation numbers). He'd have a number of jewelry foci to boost his combat effectiveness, also making him almost powerless without his rings and earrings. a man of wealth and class, he's known as being cold and cocky (sound familiar? Onyx's personality was based on my old combat mage ^_^)

If this sounds ok to you for a starting point, Marisa, I'll go ahead and try to work on building an actual character this weekend.

Welcome aboard! A cocky, cold combat mage is an excellent starting point, and should work just fine. Right now you have a rigger with a side of decking, and a potential face-man in the form of a local ork smuggler with a mean sniper rifle.

With that personality, there are lots of great possibilities for him to have honked off the wrong people to end up on the streets, hiding out in the Barrens or otherwise run into the rest of the party.

Some things to keep in mind when you get started on creation:

1. Born/raised in Seattle?
   
2. If not born in Seattle, then where?
   
3. Where did he get his formal training?
   
4. Who paid for it? Family, corporate scholarship, crime syndicate?
   
5. If corporate scholarship, those come with a price - they require you work for them for 3-5 years after graduation. Did he serve out his term or run for it?
   
6. Crime syndicates have their own prices. Either trained in-house by one of their mages, or you had the connections to get you sent to school. You rarely walk away from the crime groups - does he still work from or is he on the run?
   
7. If family was well enough off to pay for it, does he have ties to them still? Are they the ones who paid for all the nice jewelry?
   
8. Does he still have ties to the crime syndicate or corp?
   
9. What are his goals with running the shadows? What is he working toward?
   
10. How does he make money when he's not getting run work?

Now I do have some house rules for SR 2nd Ed. One for Metahumans, and the other is how I handle skill points. I've got 'em all posted up now so you can take a look.

Here's a little more background on him.

He's like batman in the sense of having a very different public image than his "real" life.

He's known among high society as a fop, a trust fund baby that's regarded as generally worthless unless its a bit of gossip or a good time you're looking for. The story goes that he's a huge disappointment to his parents and family (from Denver), but that they would rather let him party it up to his heart's content in Seattle (out of the way) than risk any sort of scandal involving disowning him. A few years ago, he landed in Seattle after spending a number of years traveling the world, having a good time.

The truth of the matter is that Nova is actually a very hard working combat mage. Even as a young boy (he's in his late-twenties), he saw magic as the answer to everything and was determined to learn all he could. He spent a number of years studying under the tutelage of a mage under the employ of the Aztec corporation in Denver. He did well, but would only perform to the bare minimum to pass whenever tests came up. As such, he was used for the next 3 years making simple fetishes and foci for Aztec. What they didn't realize, was that he studied harder than anyone guessed and became very skilled at empowering jewelry into foci for his own spells. Given the unlimited access of resources he was able to use at Aztec, he pushed his abilities to the limit and quickly developed a plan for his future.

When his time was done in Denver, he decided it was time to strike out on his own in Seattle. Being a corporate mage may be a relatively boring job, but it paid well. He listened in on innumerable business meetings when some underling wanted to keep his client on edge and used the knowledge gathered there to invest his own money quite well. By the time he left, he had amassed a small fortune.

Bored of the corporate life, he was determined to have a more exciting life and after a couple of weeks in Seattle, devised his plan of working the underground circuit as a combat mage, finally putting his skills and talent to their full potential. He goes to great lengths to ensure his clients never get site of his true face though. When on the job, he will always wear a billowing black-hooded cloak emblazoned with mystical symbols (and matching gloves), underneath which his face is covered in what in our time would appear to be spandex and mirrored glasses. He has worked extremely hard to keep his two lives completely separate.

Denver is an excellent birthplace city, and my third favorite place in the SR universe. It's jointly run by most of the major North American governments, and there's a lot of old-money families there. Overall the background works perfectly. I'll start hammering out relevant background for them and figure out what his monthly stipend is from the family trust fund and what strings they're attaching to it.

If he's recently left Aztechnology, he'd be between 25-30 years old. Depending if he served out his full contract (typically five years) with them, and how long he spent bopping around UCAS before showing up in Seattle. Aztechnology does NOT like parting with mages, but they'd let him leave at the end of the formal contract if he hadn't done anything they could use to legally 'gotcha' him.

Something I throw in, because this isn't something you can change later. If you're wanting to play a Metahuman, it's totally possible with that age range that your character got caught in Goblinization while a baby and your parents to still be human. Though I admit I'm just easily amused by the idea of a Dwarven playboy.

Now some follow-up questions - and you can answer these in private message if you'd prefer.

• Is his disguise physical (cloak/masks/glasses) - an illusion spell, or a bit of both?
  
• Is it mainly boredom that has him running the shadows? Does he have any plans or goals in becoming a street mage?
  Not everyone runs the shadows purely for money - some have a grudge to settle against a corp or organization, or a ideological axe to grind.
  
• What is his Shadowrunner handle?
  
• Any other identities?
  
• PM me this: What is his real name?
  

Since we are starting early in SR (Late 2050-early 2051) your age is important to the setting. I'll be giving everyone a time line of "shit you are old enough to remember".

Is his disguise physical (cloak/masks/glasses) - an illusion spell, or a bit of both?
Combination of both - the hooded cloak, mask, and "glasses" (as dumb as it sounds, think spiderman, except all black with more runes like the cloak), are all physical. A small diamond nose stud he wears contains a basic illusion spell that's activated in the event his mask is removed by anyone not matching his DNA. It would show him as an individual of the same age, etc - just different features, shorter hair and blond instead of black.

I didn't add it above, but since this part came up, he's relatively handsome, has long, straight, jet black hair, and insists on wearing the finest clothes he can find - Suits cut in the latest business styles, etc. He has a ring on every finger, and 4 earrings (2 in each ear). All of these are spell foci, without which, his abilities are far less than they appear to be. He's about 5'8", thin, with that generally athletic look, but not remotely bulky.

Is it mainly boredom that has him running the shadows? Does he have any plans or goals in becoming a street mage? He's a glory hound, always needing to do things to separate himself from the rest of the family that never thought he was very good at anything. He plans on revealing the true nature of what he is when Novastorm is a name that even those of his family would recognize as impressive.

What is his Shadowrunner handle? Novastorm - his friends and close associates just call him Nova.

Any other identities? No - just his day to day playboy identity, Tiberius Sorin.

Sounds fantastic to me. I'll continue work on the behind the scenes stuff for all the party characters, as well as information packets for what you all individually know + finishing up the active plot hooks stuff and resources.

I've also still got to get the RPG software tested, the maps done and make sure the technical end will work - since we've got one (possibly two) people who will be connecting in from out of town. AKA I know what I'll be doing all weekend, haha.

Also going to be reminding our fourth member to get their asses on the forums and posting, as well as corralling our potential fifth.

Overall we're closing the gap between Soon (TM) and Very Soon (TM) - so feel free to prod me with questions, tweak characters, collaborate, ect.

For both SR and Exalted, I've also got really great tentative news about my schedule for the foreseeable future - tell you guys about it Thursday.

Forgot - he's 27. And yep - served his time with Aztech, now doing freelance work. Here are a couple of pics - playboy face, and runner outfit w/mask.

Very nice, on both counts!

And for our third member so far, it took a looooot of hunting - not a lot of female SR Ork's on the web. But I believe I found something that you'll like Katy:

Totally lol I think its a perfect fit.

Hey Eric....I think Loki would rock too for Nova.

Yeah, he would fit pretty well.