Can someone explain to me why this game tries to present Street Samurai as a viable player character archetype?
The lore spends so many words talking about how "mow down dozens of security guards" isn't standard runner operating procedure, and yet goes on to pretend that an archetype that's literally all about that exact thing is as equally viable as jobs that don't have to do that to successfully finish a run.
How does this make any sense at all? You even get less karma for being a psycho murderer.
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Because shit can and will go terribly sideways even on simple "milk-run" missions and you better have a hard-boiled motherfricking cyber-psycho at your side as your contingency guy when shit hits the fan and your team starts flatlining left and right
>we have an archetype that is all about sitting there doing nothing until someone fricks up
>then the plan isn't to run away
>it's to kill everyone as fast as possible (???)
Do you really not understand how moronic this is?
Do you not understand the concept of a fighting retreat?
And you somehow need an entire person with like half a million worth of murder gear for this?
>And you somehow need an entire person with like half a million worth of murder gear for this?
Need? No
Want? Absolutely
It is always better to have the greater murder machine while retreating from a scene.
>>then the plan isn't to run away
>>it's to kill everyone as fast as possible (???)
>Do you really not understand how moronic this is?
Can you run faster than a bullet? How about a rocket? How about a helicopter? Can you escape a grapple if you’re blindsided by some garrote toting frickwit? What if you get tazed, will you be able to stand up and flee reliably before shit gets worse?
If the answer to any of the above is no, then you want at least one violent motherfricker to draw attention as you leg it, watch your back when things get rocky, and toss you over their shoulder before legging it themselves when you inevitably get got somehow
You can hop into an escape vehicle and run away. Which is what you're supposed to do. Not go on a GTA rampage with your dedicated GTA rampage guy.
>If someone brings their own street sam for whatever reason, what are you going to do agaisnt it?
The same thing I would bring against any other security crew. Which is NOT my own fricking security crew to kill them all with.
>You can hop into an escape vehicle and run away.
Not if your escape vehicle fricking explodes you maroon. Moreover, an escape vehicle could easily wind up in a high-speed chase with bullets flying, it’s not some kind of magic get out of jail free card. If shit goes down to that degree you don’t try to kill the entire local police force, you tell the street samurai to do his thing and frick off as they provide a distraction.
Also, you haven’t answered any of the other questions. What’s your plan if a sneaky cyberpsycho gets the drop on you somehow?
>The same thing I would bring against any other security crew. Which is NOT my own fricking security crew to kill them all with.
So how do you deal with the security crew as their breaching your hideout with 2 dozen trained and equipped corpo mercs, with 3 specialized murder machines in the form of a human cyborg?
The street sam is there for that very purpose, to do lead the breaching team, and to fight against the breaching team.
You can hope that what ever security forces you've hired can stop the 7 ft tall massacre machine long enough for you to get out of dodge, but do you really want to take that chance? Best to have your own dedicated one in the back pocket to deal with them.
The Street Sam is the both the Question and Answer to violence. Again, sometimes you just need someone or something destroyed, and the 9.9/10 times, unless your hiring a street sam themselves, the street sam will out perform the security crew. Quality v Quantity thing.
Okay, so we're not doing shadowruns anymore, we're participating in making up increasingly unlikely scenarios to make a street sam not a completely moronic investment? Count me out of this autism.
You asked for why you should have a street sam when it runs against the ethos of doing a shadowrun.
we gave you the reasons, due to sometimes, you gotta go loud.
Not our fault you can't possibly envision a scenario when you can't get what you want with subtle moving.
You know full well that THAT one isn't playing Shadowrun in the first place.
>we
>our
Don't claim to speak for anyone but yourself, you illiterate plebbitspacing tourist.
You're creatin a dumbass false dichotomy between escaping and going on a murder spree until there's nothing left to escape from. Try not doing that.
Exactly. Standard corporate security isn't suicidal. They're also not really equipped/trained to deal with Shadowrunners head on. Their main goal is to delay the runners until the HTR team shows up.
think about it like this.
If someone brings their own street sam for whatever reason, what are you going to do agaisnt it?
Shame you don't have your own street sam to push them as well.
They don't even have to be reactionary, a good street sam placed in the right place at the right time can enchance the other factors of your team. Their there to do in they physical world what the Decker does in cyberspace.
sometimes, you can't solve everything with tech. sometimes, you really just gotta kick the door down and drop some bodies.
>Do you really not understand how moronic this is?
Yes, your insistence on feigning stupidity or at least ignorance to generate (You)s is pretty moronic. Yet it also is pretty effective.
You claim to know what the lore says, so maybe spend some time reading it and realize that sams are more than just combat.
You're playing dumb on purpose.
Nice argument.
Oh, you're just plain ol' dumb? Silly me, giving you the benefit of the doubt, should have known better
Keep deflecting.
Keep being dishonest and dumb
This is the role of a barbarian in some RPGs, I don't see why it's not viable to have your backup plan be the living death engine
Anyone responding seriously after this point should consider offing themselves. OP is clearly trolling or moronic.
Explain how it's wrong or frick off.
OP's been explained why and how he's wrong multiple times by now, anon.
And it's been explained just as many times why he's right, moron. And with far more sensible arguments.
Sure. Case closed then, stop posting.
No matter what job you do.
No matter how many precautions you take.
No matter how many layers of Proxies and Firewalls your decker hides behind.
Eventually, something is gonna go wrong (if only because the DM and other players might want a little variety in their life), and your life is gonna be in mortal danger.
And you're gonna need someone who can slice n' dice their way out of a corpo hit squad.
Sure, the player doing the street sam might bet left out in a group that is oriented to clandestine operations and subterfuge, but it's there for a reason.
Because when the wall blows in due to a breaching charge, you're gonna want someone to absorb the blast and still be able to make sure you get out alive.
>the street sam might bet left out in a group that is oriented to clandestine operations and subterfuge
A street sam in such a group would do well to go full-on stealth assassin and suddenly they are a major asset, going in while everyone else is just kind of circling around the objective.
Bad bait is bad. If you know what the lore "spends so many words talking about", then you also know the answer to your non-question.
On a run that goes perfectly, the sammy doesn't have much to do. They're there to get you out alive on a run that doesn't.
From a player perspective, this means you should have your sammy have some other stuff they do, even if it's just Intimidation, security knowledge, contacts, etc, or you could be kinda bored.
So was there ever a consensus on giving yourself extra limbs with cyberwere?
Luminal body seems to imply it’s perfectly fine, to the point it may even come with an essence discount if your just adding more metal to metal.
There's a reason nobody plays Shadowrun. Speaking of street samurais, they were also traditionally screwed over by physical adepts who are Street Fighter style muscle mages who can do everything the street samurai can do without cybernetics. It's a messy setting. If you try to fix it you run into the wall that nobody actually gives a damn about Shadowrun except for a few Germans who are too charitable for their own good.
Hahaha look at this homosexual and his incorrect opinions
>traditionally
>dating from the 4th edition and second publisher
Even then CGL didn't screw up so badly that the two were interchangeable
Shadowrun is a mix between force, talking/social, and stealth solutions. With two derivative paths between magic and technology. Crunchwise the Adept didn't become a thing until like 4e and was so weak they needed cyberware to compete.
>Crunchwise the Adept didn't become a thing until like 4e
Tell me you didn't actually play pre-4e in a single throwaway sentence.
Shitty classes don't exist until they get a supplement. Adepts didn't exist until Way of the Adept. Reach into your heart, you know it to be true.
I played an adept who was a cowboy in second edition so idk where you think they are 4e
>was so weak they needed cyberware to compete.
More like 4e augs were incredibly cheap and you weren't gimping yourself by spending 1 point of Essence on quality of life shit. Adepts were also the thing that broke 4e in half with pornomancy gaining moronic amount of dice to do their shit.
>magic
Agreed, although that always comes with painting a target on your head.
>riggers
That I doubt. Despite being able to dish it out just as good, drones are notoriously fragile and the cost of their repair by RAW is almost prohibitive.
>we have a player whose only job is handling the last 5% of the run
No. You don't know what sams actually do hint: most of it isn't combat and your entire premise is faulty.
If a Sam's main job isn't fighting then they aren't a Sam. Street Samurai as an archetype are defined by combat and nothing else. Physical infiltrators are a completely separate archetype.
>Can't believe we have morons defending this stupid shit.
Anon, anyone who plays the game or at least knows a bit about it can immediately tell that you're wrong. As you've already been told, your core premise is faulty, and most likely deliberately so. You got some tards to swallow your bait, yay you! And now what?
>a supplement
3e alone had several you muppet.
Keep appealing to that invisible crowd, moron.
>we have a player whose only job is handling the last 5% of the run
>except said 5% doesn't even come up more than half the time
Can't believe we have morons defending this stupid shit.
The whole system is moronic because the authors don't have the courage to break the dnd mold and therefore design the system around local adventurers and reskin dungeons. In my opinion, the whole system would have won if it gave more options of who to be - street gangster, cop, etc., but instead we are forced to play only as a local analogue of adventurers, which, moreover, does not make sense and contradicts the logic of the setting.
>the whole system would have won if it gave more options of who to be - street gangster, cop, etc.,
You literally can. There is nothing stopping you from making your game Knight Errant SWAT or shitty street gang fighting over turf.
>local analogue of adventurers
Anything is local adventurer analogue if you squint hard and tilt your head.
>contradicts the logic of the setting
Being a freelance merc in a world where corporations hire mercs as deniable assets to handle shit for them that they don't want attached to their brand is illogical? homie there are corps today that do that.
4/10 bait, obvious you didn't read shit about the setting or play, but got me to respond anyway.
>There is nothing stopping
But also nothing supports it, need ideas for a campaign or mechanics? You're on your own, my friend.
>Anything is local adventurer analogue
No, there is a difference between being part of the system and being just a nobody who can stand up to the governments and most powerful corporations in the world, this crap is a legacy of dnd and it is no longer interesting.
>Being a freelance merc in a world where corporations hire mercs
Is okay. But being a glorified special freelance merc with own culture make no fricking sense. Shadowrunners as sspecial snowflakes who exist in own ecosystems is the dumb attempt to corporate adventures in modern world and the reasons why no one play Shadowrun.
>nothing supports it
I feel sorry for you that you need everything spoon fed to you. The system works just as well to make a team of super cops as it does professional criminals.
>this crap is a legacy of D&D
Shadowrunners are very much so a part of the system, which you would know if you actually played the game and knew the lore.
>But being a glorified special freelance merc with own culture make no fricking sense. Shadowrunners as sspecial snowflakes who exist in own ecosystems is the dumb attempt to corporate adventures in modern world
Yeah, you're totally right, criminals would never form subcultures and communities of their own in which they can do business. It's not like there are vast networks of criminal cartels and gangs in the real world, after all.
>the reason why no one play shadowrun
I ran a five hour session last night b***h, try again. You personally not liking something doesn't make it dead in the water.
>contradicts the logic of the setting
Most cyberpunk games have issues with this because they invariably revolve around being violent in a society that's even more tech-heavy than real life. It's already pretty hard to be violent in real life without the powers that be shutting you down, and your own robo-arms can't squeal on you yet.
Don't forget that runners exist on the explicit behest of the powers that be.
Shadowrun has a slightly better excuse than most settings, but I still don't entirely buy the idea of a corp waking up one morning to find their precious whatever has been stolen/destroyed, knowing exactly who did it and choosing not to do anything violent and retaliatory with that information.
>knowing exactly who did it
That's debateable. You don't need to go full black trenchcoat moron like that anon above, but you're also not meant to leave your ID on site. And if you overdo it then retaliatory measures are definitely in the cards. It's just not the standard outcome.
Even if you don't leave your ID they presumably still could. If you broke into Google right now and you were dumb enough to bring your phone they'd know who you are. If you used any of their services (or anyone else's services they can buy data from) while planning your raid they might still be able to find out. They could potentially get a shortlist of possible suspects by filtering for people who conspicuously left their phones at home during the time of the raid when usually they take them out of the house, etc.
Add 50 years of development in facial recognition cameras everywhere between your hideout and their building, gait recognition, cybernetic eyeballs squealing on you... I don't see how it works.
>I don't see how it works
That much is obvious. Have you tried reading the books? I'm not even facetious here. Data balkanization and all that? How using tech and the matrix works?
You just don't want to face consequences for your bad decisions.
No, I'm all for consequences, especially for bad decisions. But that full black trenchcoat moron's baseline is off by more than a few notches.
My ID is fricking fake anyways. What are they going to do with it?
Hell, you can use a fake ID as a false flag. Become Raymond Greene, employee of Evo Biomedical for a run against Universal Omnitech. Laugh like an butthole as you hand over the goods you knocked over that UO van for to your Ares Johnson.
It's great as a moron filter. Instead of doing murderhobo shit during runs, they're forced by their team to sit in the van the entire session.
Because the classic heist team is Face, Hitter, Safecracker, Infiltrator.
Shadowrun adds "magical support," but otherwise is trying to retain the heist archetypes.
Realistically, most runs devolve into gunplay at some point. At that point the street sam is supposed to shine. Unfortunately, magic and riggers are just flat out better at it.
The Shadowrun heist team:
>The Mage
>The Hacker
>The Infiltrator
>The Rigger
>The moron
>Hitter
>Infiltrator
These both run off agility and are usually the same guy.
>Safecracker
Hacker. Otherwise it's anyone who threw a modest sum of money at the problem.
Yeah, safecracker directly translates as decker for Shadowrun.
Hitter and Infiltrator both relying on Agility is one of the game's mistakes, but it also doesn't really matter because someone who is focusing on stealthy entry and bypassing physical security is going to have a different set of priorities than a sam.
Yes, magic is outright and totally superior which is only (theoretically) mitigated by the fact someone may want you dead.
I say riggers are better because a clever rigger won't ever have to expose their drones to direct fire to effectively cover the group's retreat. Plus, when drones *do* move they're faster than the sam in most cases, so they can more effectively fight that fighting retreat.
Heck, gunads are flat out superior despite being a "gimped" magic variant.
>I say riggers are better because a clever rigger won't ever have to expose their drones
Honestly that's a hypothetical thing. Like yeah Speed when translated to regular combat movement rates is nutty but that also hedges on the assumption that you'll always have the space to maneuver and outrange your enemies.
>Heck, gunads are flat out superior despite being a "gimped" magic variant.
Gunads sling bigger offensive dicepools but lose out in versatility and resilience. In long running campaigns they'll probably pull ahead thanks to initiation but out of chargen the gap isn't there.
I'm not sure it's worth examining submaximal hypotheticals when you're trying to compare outcomes for the archetypes. "What if we made a rigger but he never did anything right?" is a fun role-playing premise, but it's not valuable data for outcome comparison.
While I agree that adepts really start to win out later on with initiation, they start out basically the same as sams. While a sam might pick up their 'ware faster if your GM isn't as conscientious about nuyen bloat as they should be, they're going to end up inferior because they can't boost like an ad natively and rely on a magician/sham deciding to boost them.
>anyone who threw a modest sum of money at the problem
AGI - doesn't cost money
Locksmith skill - doesn't cost money
Locksmith kit - 500¥
That's all you need to open modern locks that are not connected to the matrix (because if they are then that's the easier way). Maybe a lockpick set (250¥) or autopicker (rating x 500¥) for old locks. The expensive stuff is for people who don't have the skills.
>someone who is focusing on stealthy entry and bypassing physical security is going to have a different set of priorities than a sam.
>A sam is going to have a different set of priorities than a sam.
Do you people hear yourself talk?
>there is a difference between being part of the system and being just a nobody who can stand up to the governments
Are you trying to say that runners are NOT being part of the system? Because oh boy...
>Street Samurai's main role in the team is to step in and start mowing frickers down when shit hits the fan
No, anon, it is not. It's not letting it get there in the first place, but being ready for when it might.
>AGI - doesn't cost money
>Locksmith skill - doesn't cost money
And anyone who doesn't have them can tell your specialised locksmith character to frick off after they throw some money at the problem. That's the point.
Try again, turn that jumble of words into something that makes sense.
>No, anon, it is not. It's not letting it get there in the first place, but being ready for when it might.
Headcanon. Their only job is killing people and surviving bullets. They even have that moronic code.
>Their only job is killing people and surviving bullets.
If that's your premise then you're not only wrong but you won't find anyone defending it either. No, it doesn't make sense, but that doesn't matter since it's neither true nor relevant. Players that approach a table with a one-trick pony character like that are made fun off or pitied and told to come back with a runner.
>damage damage damage damage combat tough damage cyberware damage deadly damage code
>but they're not all about fighting!!
Shut the frick up.
the word "damage" appears in your image exactly twice
if you had better evidence, you'd have used it
you are wrong, QED
Anon, is your "point" that there's this one moronic 5e blurb written by an underpaid know-nothing CGL freelancer? Because no one will disagree with your there.
On the other hand there are close to 35 years of lore (including 5e!) about what sams actually are and do. You decide on how moronic you want your argument to be.
>I would posit that was rather their point
Yes, it is. As long as you've got the Locksmith skill and do it that way you don't need the gadgets. And as long as a decker can walk up to it and connect directly you don't need either. Skill and basic tools, expensive gadgets, matrix. Those are your three standard ways for regular maglocks (ignoring brute force, explosives, etc).
>Any problem where you can just throw nuyen at it will often enough be solved by doing just that
The gadgets are far far more expensive than the non-gadget ways (and their mechanics aren't that great either). So much more so that you rarely if ever see them in actual play.
Neat bait, almost believable.
>i-it's just 5e
It's the same across every edition. Street Samurai are guys who shoot people. That's their only job.
>You decide on how moronic you want your argument to be.
Looks like you have decided.
>still not a single screenshot
>The expensive stuff is for people who don't have the skills.
I would posit that was rather their point. Any problem where you can just throw nuyen at it will often enough be solved by doing just that, because nuyen is less finite than karma.
Which is one of the reasons street sams are undervalued. Because the fundamental truth of the street sam is that they're nuyen you're throwing at a problem (combat). Which means they are by default less efficient than karma being thrown at the problem, and obviously more expensive.
SR3 ssssssssssssort of addressed this by allowing rewards for runs to flex so that 'wared characters could upgrade their stuff faster in exchange for having dogshit karma. This ended up being really bad for the long term viability of those characters. (Can't remember if this was an optional rule or not, too lazy to check.)
It's one of the inherent problems of using two resources for upgrading characters. You've just default doubled the difficulty of balancing advancement.
Look at this waterbrain. The mean streets aren’t the place for you chummer, slink back to whatever midcorp arcology you escaped from before Thumbnail the troll over there twists your arms off.
>he thinks that being a street Sam means all you can do is kill folks
My street samurai also knits beanies, scarves and jumpers for local street kids, Berlin is cold in winter.
The problem with any and all Shadowrun concepts is that there was nobody competent on staff. Nor was any real-world input considered when they were writing their book. I've had some tenuous ties to organized crime way back when and Shadowrun is a joke. If you're a career criminal, you don't act anything like how the books describe Shadowrunners. Mirrorshades is the only proper approach and anything beyond that is just homosexual anime troonyhomosexualry that has no place in game about criminals. I hate normies so much.
Buying pizza from a guy you found on eightchan isn't a connection to organized crime, no matter how tenuous you want to portray it.
Astoundingly, in something that /tg/ will never ever learn, sometimes an rpg isn't an attempt to deliberately and accurately model the real world.
Since I'm Anon, I don't mind admitting that I was involved in the Ukrainian flesh trade back in the early 2000s.
And what's the point of playing something that calls itself X, if you're going to play it like Y instead? Why not play a game that does Y instead? If you want to play a game that's about criminals planning crime but with fantasy and sci-fi elements, play Shadowrun. If you want to play a bunch of 80s action heroes, go play that instead.
Sure thing. Better be behind 19 proxies before the van rolls up.
But you're not going to plan and act out a perfect crime hanging out with your buddies for 3 hours a week. And you're definitely not going to do it pretending to be an orc in a world specifically designed to allow you to get away with daring crimes against high-profile target. Unbutton the top of your trenchcoat, it's cutting off the blood supply to your brain.
I think you forgot the part where no one gives a frick.
Clearly you do, since you're buttblasted.
If I was afraid of being v&, then I wouldn't be posting on Ganker, which is glowing right now. More to the point, we've spent multiple sessions doing planning and legwork and like half a session on actually executing the plan. It's where the fun is.
>gets btfo by the rules
Dragons summon F30 spirits. Corps can do ritual summoning. You bypass the threshold increase by doing a search pattern, meaning that if the power fails, you move 1km and try it again.
And Resonance Dives are not risky for an optimized techno, and the corps can afford optimization. More to the point, Shadowrun is a game about underdogs. The corps are supposed to have all the advantages, and the runners are supposed to win by being unnoticeable, smarter, and exploit the few weak points of the corporations. Otherwise you're just playing a superhero or 5e D&D game.
>Corps can do ritual summoning. You bypass the threshold increase by doing a search pattern, meaning that if the power fails, you move 1km and try it again.
Don't post screenshots from the 4th edition core rulebook if you're going to start playing by rules I can only assume are from other editions. None of this is from 4th edition, sounds like some 5th edition broken shit.
>sounds like some 5th edition broken shit
No, it's directly out of his ass, where his head is parked firmly.
Are you people moronic? Were you dropped on your head as a baby? Are you trannies? Yes.
In-game entities know that the Search power gets harder the more distance is between you and the target. So, when the Search power fails, you just move another km and repeat it, and it's perfectly rules legal. You're just bad at the game.
I have no skin in this argument, but they seemed to be taking issue with "ritual summoning", not conducting a search with a search grid.
>realism
anon, this is a game where you can play a literal magic troll who focuses his spells by shitposting, I can say with some certainty that realism went out the window a while ago.
Someone brought in the fact that magic is better, this is true. You're always better with an extra mage in your team, because fun fact: you can be a mage and still do other things. The karma costs aren't steep and you can easily afford to be good at several things. Especially if you have stat-boosting magic.
It's called being the back up plan my dude. Street Samurai's main role in the team is to step in and start mowing frickers down when shit hits the fan. If you're blessed enough to have a team of professionals that don't set off every alarm, then you aren't going to be doing a whole lot. But when it happens, you're the guy that has to clear a path so everyone can escape.
>god I wish I was the guy who sat in the van waiting for the party to fail so I can actually play the game
Hold onto your hat, socks, mind, and papers. 'bout to blow your fricking everything.
>Gee, only being able to do one thing is kinda shit
Create characters who can do two things.
I'm not sure if I should equip my plague marines with bursting fart cannons or poopie-dookie launchers
The lore is full of shit. Going into every run guns blazing with a party full of sams and sam derivatives is Shadowrun on easy mode.
I have a sneaking suspicion that that's how the devs intended you to play this game - in and out in minutes, splattering corpo wagie scum across every surface. Game never ran as smoothly as when we just stopped overthinking shit and started blasting.
Naturally you have more fun when you stop denying your weapon its purpose
Yeah and that's a moronic way to do it. You're a bunch of criminals. If you pull out your guns and start blasting, you know what's going to happen? The Mega is going to summon an F16 spirit with the Search power and get a mage with the power that lets you touch an object and get information from its past. Then they're going to use the Search power to find you. Then they send a HTR squad, backed up by said F16 spirit. And then you're going to lose because the corp has more resources than you.
To put it another way - if you're not playing Mirrorshades, you're doing it wrong. Go play 5e instead you fricking tourist.
Nope, it doesn't find us.
It would explicitly work, you're just bad at the game.
Just because you're shit at the game doesn't mean it wouldn't work. If the Megas want you, they find you. You can wail and gnash your teeth all you want.
It fails its check.
And F16 spirit? Considering it'd be rolling 32 dice? And you just need 5 successes? That's a 99% chance, my dude.
So yes, it succeeds. Too bad, so sad.
You need way more successes than that. Sorry, but it fails.
So you've never played a game of Shadowrun in your life? PROTIP: That's the target number, aka the number of successes that the F16 spirit needs to get in order to find your dumb ass.
It really isn't. Binding materials are 500/rank, so it's 8k per Force rating. And the Megas have enough mages to make it doable. Which is actually my point - if the players get into a slugfest with the Megas, they lose, period. The runners have to be perfect to not lose.
>And you just need 5 successes
What, are they standing right next to it? Did you even read the thing that you posted?
He in fact did not notice that every km increases threshold difficulty, and that not every crew runs in Seattle.
Hilariously, one of my crews ran out of the far northern favelas of Sao Paolo-Rio supercity which meant basically anyone with the resources to try to find them was automatically too far away to have a reasonable shot at success.
Plus you can have a ton of boltholes in the favelas.
Isn't Shadowrun Seattle way bigger than real life Seattle?
Yes. But the UCAS enclave of Seattle (which is what most people there are SINned for) is only like 130km across? I can't remember, I'm not that autistic.
NYC has a radius of about 20 miles or about 32 km. So yes, you are correct in that you would get a -32. However, the corp would set up a search pattern. You shove the mage and spirit into a helicopter and the use of the Search power takes 10 minutes. You ping 1 km, then the next one, then the next one. And eventually you narrow it down.
Nevermind the fact that if a Megacorp has a technomancer, they can just go on a Resonance Dive and just find ALL of your information, including where you are currently, and so on.
As far as favelaBlack folk, lol, you don't even need to bother with a spirit. Just start throwing money around and then the fricking poor people will squeal because poor people are morally bankrupt and have no understanding of camaraderie or honor among thieves.
Which was my original point - that the people who wrote Shadowrun were fricking moronic and didn't have a single criminal on their writing team. Or even bothered interviewing one. They based it off action heist movies and the game suffers for it. You're just an idiot.
>However, the corp would set up a search pattern. You shove the mage and spirit into a helicopter and the use of the Search power takes 10 minutes.
Oh, a fapfic. Let me get my lotion.
>Nevermind the fact that if a Megacorp has a technomancer
Hol up. Do you even know what game we're talking about? A megacorp with a technomancer? What?
>Just start throwing money around and then the fricking poor people will squeal because poor people are morally bankrupt
You clearly have no fricking idea what you're talking about.
>Which was my original point - that the people who wrote Shadowrun were fricking moronic and didn't have a single criminal on their writing team.
Bob Charrette was an Ivy educated man famous and lauded for his sculpts. Paul Hume was a game designer. The good news is that things have improved on that front in recent years as several people involved in producing Shadowrun have real world experience engaging in embezzlement against corporations.
But your position is stupid prima facie. So no one who hasn't served in the military can write a war game?
>A megacorp with a technomancer? What?
Shadowrun noob here, what's wrong about this?
They like to tear technomancers apart for research.
>The good news is that things have improved on that front in recent years as several people involved in producing Shadowrun have real world experience engaging in embezzlement against corporations.
kek
>waahhhh the megacorps can't use their wealth and power
if you want to play a game of superheroes, just go play 5e instead
>wahhh the megacorps can't use technomancers
PROTIP: 4e had several subplots of Megacorps abducting or recruiting technos
>wahhhh poor people are moral
no
>wahhhh there was embezzlement at CGL
No frickface, I'm talking about real criminals. People that do break ins, or murder, or run weapons, or drugs, or cars, or flesh trade.
>someone who hasn't been in a war can't do a war game
Literally yes. They would have an armchair general view of things and it would be nothing like the real thing and thus just regurgitate Hollywood nonsense.
troony
>if you want to play a game of superheroes, just go play 5e instead
I mean I do. I'd ask if you do not, but your nogames status is implied by your posting.
>PROTIP: 4e had several subplots of Megacorps abducting or recruiting technos
Protip: read things all the way through. They were abducting and recruiting technomancers to cut them open and see how they ticked. Corps are basically risk-averse superentities. They have highly paid deckers who run their security. They're not going to just pull a technomancer out of a freezer and put them on search patterns.
>No frickface, I'm talking about real criminals. People that do break ins, or murder, or run weapons, or drugs, or cars, or flesh trade.
Picrel.
>Literally yes. They would have an armchair general view of things and it would be nothing like the real thing and thus just regurgitate Hollywood nonsense.
I have great news for you. I'm a combat veteran and I'm here to tell you that you're fricking wrong. Not only are you wrong about this, you're wrong about everything. There are several popular games that were designed by military veterans, but I'm pretty sure you couldn't tell me which ones off the top of your head.
More to the point, you have no idea what game design functionally is, which explains why you jerk off about Shadowrun instead of play games. Games are simulations. They are necessarily, by definition, a dumbing-down of their root material for the purposes of gamification and (often enough) demonstration.
More to the point, I've done break-ins and murder and weapons running. I'm not a criminal because I did all of those things under the umbrella of national agency and sponsorship. I've also done interdiction, so I have a pretty solid grasp of drug/car/persons smuggling.
Shadowrun's representations thereof are, for the purposes of a game, absolutely fine. As accurate as they need to be.
In summary: shut the frick up newbie.
>games are simulations
Okay buddy.
BTW, stolen valor is pathetic. You haven't even seen a gun, nevermind held one.
First, go look up simulation's definition. It'll be really helpful to you in the future when you're about to make a huge ass of yourself.
Second, I'm not going to defend my service on Ganker, but honestly? Frick you for being an enormous piece of shit do nothing couch monkey frickwit who thinks he can talk about stolen valor. I don't even need to ask if you've served, I already know you haven't.
I know what simulation is. It's when you try to try to create a system that replicates to some degree of accuracy something else. And the fact that you say that Shadowrun is a simulationist system shows that you have no idea what you're talking about.
And as far as me serving, no I have not, because risking life and limb for a pittance is for morons. However, neither have you. ;^)
>seething this hard over being told by some vet
lol
>However, the corp would set up a search pattern. You shove the mage and spirit into a helicopter and the use of the Search power takes 10 minutes.
That's... not how extended tests work. You keep doing it until you succeed or give up. You'd set the spirit to search and give it a few hours at most, you don't personally escort it around with a fricking helicopter. The person making the extended test doesn't know how many hits they're getting, so the spirit can't tell they've gotten 5 hits and therefore perfectly searched within a 1 mile radius. You roll until you're done or you choose to stop.
>Resonance Dive
Resonance Dives are dangerous and the rules write them to not just give you all the answers. They might give leads, but no GM on the planet would allow the players to resonance dive to solve a long running mystery immediately, so the NPCs shouldn't be able to do that either.
The megacorps won't risk their limited technomancers on a risky resonance realm quest to find a group of shadowrunners that were hired by an outside group, they'd go after the outside group.
Did you not read the fricking table YOU posted?
5 is the minimum, then every kilometre of distance adds another 1 to the target number, and then hiding behind concealment and mana barriers (which you would do after a run in your safehouse) further reduces the spirits dicepool.
a 50 km away safehouse, not even that absurd, gives you a threshold of 55 to hit, a barrier and concealment of 8 each further reduces the dicepool by -16, leaving this unreasonable "force 16" spirit you think they'll summon at only a dicepool of 16. averages 11 tests to reach the threshold of 55, so nearly 2 hours. In a bizzaro world where the corporations actually summon force 16 spirits to track down runners, which they don't do, dragons summon force 16 spirits, regular people don't.
>Binding materials are 500/rank, so it's 8k per Force rating
BINDING?
You've never played shadowrun 4e in your fricking life dude. A force 16 spirit has THIRTY TWO (32!!) dice to resist binding.
>After the Opposed Test for the binding, the magician must resist Drain. The Drain Value is equal to twice the number of hits (not net hits) the spirit generated during the Opposed inding Test (minimum 2 DV).
32 dice averages out to like 10 hits, enjoy resisting 20P of fricking damage in a world where a beefy mage might have 11 physical condition boxes.
>The spirit will go uncontrolled (see Uncontrolled Spirits, above) if the magician is rendered unconscious from Drain damage
Not only that, when the mage falls unconscious/dies from the drain, the corporation now has an angry force 16 spirit loose on their hands.
Dragons have bound Force 16 spirits, Metahumans don't.
I get your point "if you fight with the megas you'll eventfully fricking lose" but you're moronic if you actually think they're throwing force 16 spirits around.
I have no idea what you would have to do to piss off a mega to the point that they launch a Force 16 spirit at you. That shit's expensive.
>black trench coat gays are illiterate
That certainly explains why someone would think Shadowrun is anything but pink mohawk.
>doesn't even read the cumulative -2
>requires spirits strong enough to cause physical damage to mages
>doesn't include background counts
>trying to forum warrior knowing all this
nnnnogames
I'm starting to suspect that many of the "problems" with Shadowrun stem from the fact that its player base is pants-on-head moronic.
Genuinely can't wrap my head around this cult-like tumor of black trenchcoat gays that decided to latch on to Shadowrun of all fricking things in order to enact their hyperrealistic operator fantasies. Have you not seen a single fricking named NPC written for this setting?
>Genuinely can't wrap my head around people buying into these low effort troll shitposts
There you go.
I know shadowrun has books that expand the setting, how are they?
Each and every book that doesn't only contain fluff-less crunch expands the setting, so what are you on about?
Jesus Christ I enjoy a bit of operator style shadowrun but holy shit.
>who the frick cares about the runners who attacked you, the real target is the Johnson and they’re behind five intermediaries
>going to get the runners means paying people to find them, people to go acquire them, it may entail a certain amount of bribery or negotiation to moved armed personnel through a jurisdiction that’s not your own
>what if the runners win the ensuing gunfight now you’ve got a bunch of employees dead if you’re a moron or just some hired mercs if you’re not. You can take another pass but maybe they now know you’re gunning for them and will come back at you
>if the runners are good enough to blow your office’s vault open they could probably do it to your competitor, why waste a potential asset
>runs are almost never against an entire megacorp. You’re probably running against a middle manager of a subsidiary of a megacorp, a manager who has rivals and resource limits and problems
>the security is actually just not that competent at times, they’re largely a bunch of morons paid minimum wage in corp scrip
>even if they kill this runner, there’s some punk with a Saturday night special and some discount dermal implants ready to take their place tomorrow
In a setting where the runner culture of LA exists, why would you ever assume that black trench coat hyperautism is the only way to play
To be fair
>the runner culture of LA
meme is even more moronic than
>black trench coat hyperautism
The latter is just boring, but holy frick is the former a puddle of brain diarrhea.
>the "runner culture of LA" meme is a puddle of brain diarrhea
That's 4e writing for you. Sadly one of the moronic things no freelancer has fessed up to yet.
I ran an LA campaign and I think you can make it enjoyable provided you can handle hefty levels of pink Mohawk.
>crew works for a fashion designer for a while, seriously camp and seriously eccentric dwarf
>demands a specific dance adept to launch the big reveal of his new dress
>but she’s stuck deep in a megacorp film contract
>bust into the filming lot, dropping some security (non lethal on this one)
>get the girl but a physad in heels is a real close combat threat
>manage to bundle her into the car where the Johnson trideo calls, she’s immediately far more willing since she’d love to work with the weirdo dwarf auteur tailor
>her security are less pleased and a car chase ensues, all while the starlet is getting changed in the back seat
>make it to the studio, samurai laying down suppressive fire through the doorway, face making some calls to get it smoothed over, everyone else inducted as backing dancers
>eventually work out an appearance fee and the whole thing is swept under the rug as a joint publicity stunt
That doesn't sound half bad if you're into pink mohawk. It does deal with the weird Hollywood vibe that's somehow still alive in that hellhole, and there's nothing wrong with that. But I bet anon was talking about that meme of LA runners apparently regularly livestreaming their runs. And that one is such a fricking pain to make work without fricking over the established world that it's barely worth thinking about.
It is dumb, but I can see it making at least a little sense for someone hiring hitmen or whatever and wanting to send a message. Streaming the bloody murder of the guys who tried to backstab your corp/criminal organization/whatever live on future-Twitch is unconventional, but comparable to modern cartel chainsaw executions ending up on liveleak and such.
Not safe or smart in the slightest for those carrying out said murder, but they're probably crazy junkies.
Now, livestreaming thefts or kidnappings on the other hand is just full moron.
cringe
>Can someone explain to me why this game tries to present Street Samurai as a viable player character archetype?
Because mages need protection.
Street sams can double as physical infiltrators pretty easily given that they usually have decent agility. All you need is a chameleon suit/that one bullshit fancy suit and some points in stealth, and some gecko gloves if you wanna be fancy and not break in through the front door. If you're not getting seen in the first place, being an obvious chromed-up killing machine doesn't actually matter much.
Also, they make very good distractions.
Infiltration, recon, backup driver or main driver if there's no wheelman rigger around, general physical stuff, being streetwise, knowing more about physical security and tactics than others, keeping a cool head when things go south... the list of things sams regularly do outside of combat, or even to prevent combat, is long.
>why would you need muscle in a heist
jesus christ
Assuming your Street Sam is not exclusively an assault cannon specialist who has never touched any other form of weapon, their skills at killing people in combat also double as skills at quickly and quietly removing guards.
Sneak attacks go against their code. Do people not know why it's called a Street Samurai?
Anon, keep your fingers away from the keyboard and read.
5e CRB:
>Code of Honor
>Warrior’s Code: The character who follows a Warrior’s Code maintains a strict sense of personal honor. In 2075, this likely means a character will not kill an unarmed person, take lethal action against an opponent who is unaware or unprepared for an attack (i.e., a guard who doesn’t know the runner is there), or knowingly take an action that could kill someone who is defenseless (i.e., from a stray bullet or allow someone to be killed from a sniper shot). The character loses 1 Karma per unarmed or defenseless person that they kill or allow to be killed through their actions.
Run Faster:
>THE PATH OF THE SAMURAI
>Restriction: May not kill anyone from surprise or via treachery. May not break his word once given.
Do you know what "quickly and quietly removing guards", which anon mentioned, does nor require? Killing an unarmed person, taking lethal action against an unaware opponent, or killing someone from surprise or via treachery. Sit down and stop your moronic and baseless b***hing.
Have you ever heard of a leadership and management philosophy known as "Plan B?"
It's fascinating, really. The idea is that you have a Plan A (the primary plan, sometimes it is even a Standard Operating Procedure if you do the same thing enough times). Plan A is for when things go as expected. Contacts are in the right places, have the right gear, and are affected (restrained, killed, suppressed, misdirected, whatever) as intended. It's when the objective is where it's supposed to be. It's when you don't even have to wiener your weapons to finish the operation.
The Street Samurai is, perhaps, THE plan B. When shit hits the fan, as it is want to do, and there is someone that wasn't geeked, when the enemy has bigger guns, when they noticed you and attacked you well before your extraction, the Street Samurai is not a bump on a log. A good one will pray that plan A works, but will be more than ready for when (not if) it does not.
>A good one will pray that plan A works
Very important point. And they will not only pray, but actually help ensure that it works. Because good sams can do more than just kill.
Whats the difference between black mohawk and pink trenchcoat?
Officially? Read Run Faster, page 18. Inofficially? That really depends on who you're talking to and how moronic they are. But it's definitely a spectrum, not a binary switch.
The idea of the Street Sam has never made sense outside of the bullshit that is Shadowrun when you consider you have a character type who's concept is to be a meat blender who somehow casually walks around town with military grade augmentations looking more like the terminator then a person and strapped with equally military grade weapons and armor while also have 4 extra limbs to carry their guns and swords with.
How do you even live your day to day and not be recognized as the dude who turned some shitty affiliate office into smouldering ash heap all just to steal a piece of paper?
Imagine that one dude from cyberpunk2020 who is basically a head on a massive killbot body going to get groceries on his day off
Shadowrun is Shadownrun but the dedicated "I frick people" type class makes more sense when you're playing the dude from Sicario rather than T1000
Well, unassuming people that can do magic are in fact way better at murdering people than T1000 looking fricks.
>The idea of the Street Sam has never made sense outside of the bullshit that is Shadowrun when you consider you have a character type who's concept is to be a meat blender who somehow casually walks around town with military grade augmentations looking more like the terminator then a person and strapped with equally military grade weapons and armor while also have 4 extra limbs to carry their guns and swords with.
While I agree with your questioning of SR's reality, the lore pretty clearly makes a case that the vaaaaast majority of people in the world do not look deeper than the SIN displayed on their AR setup. They don't have a reason to and they don't care enough to find one. Apathy is the identity shield on a fundamental level.
Now, it gets a bit silly when you're running around blasting giant holes in the side of the Renraku arcology, but the one thing the game is horrible at conveying is that most actual runs would take place weeks or months apart *at best*. But huge periods of downtime aren't fun so they aren't really wedged into the game.
>Now, it gets a bit silly when you're running around blasting giant holes in the side of the Renraku arcology, but the one thing the game is horrible at conveying is that most actual runs would take place weeks or months apart *at best*. But huge periods of downtime aren't fun so they aren't really wedged into the game.
Yes. In game time would be like movie time where you cut past the downtime unless its relevant for some reason or another but this is also a setting where there is an established culture of such people who do this all the time. I'm also willing to give leeway in the fact that there is plenty of ways for violence to occur that doesn't necessarily translate into domestic terrorism as there are plenty of violent events that don't make the news all the time in all parts of the world so perhaps your less that meta-human cyborg monstrosity gets to flex his artifical muscles and exotic metal claws fairly often against gang members and various corpo/government types who do the dirty shit as their day job.
Because even if a Street Samurai does jothing for an entire run, je's there on the run where it really matters. Sams are a necessary backup and thus a core aspect of running.
Further, most street sams are still perfectly capable of doing legwork and frequently have other secondary roles, even if it consists of sitting in a van, tardwrangling during a kidnapping, or straight-up torture of someone for information or assets.
Street sams usually ahve high agility and reactions, so they can easily moonlight as second-story men, drivers, and so on. Hell a sam with decent social skills can bluff hsi way in as a repair guy or maintenance worker.
Again with this moronic logic. Imagine if someone in a real life heist crew insisted on buying a tank for the heist.
>but what if we really need one suddenly?? it's good backup
Your comparison is absurd. It's more akin to bringing a weapons guy for what is meant to be a quick in and out casino heist. Ideally the weapons specialist won't be needed, but if shit goes sideways and the alarm is tripped, won't you be glad you brought the weapons guy for when the cops pull up?
Also you're entirely ignoring the other half of the point, which is that nothing stops Sammies from doing other things. The average Sam can double as a physical infiltrator, and if he put points into Reaction(Which he absolutely should have) then he can be a wheelman. Couple points in charisma and some social skills, he can make a decent half-face/interrogator. Be fricking creative, any character who can only do one thing is boring when his thing isn't happening.
>Also you're entirely ignoring the other half of the point, which is that nothing stops Sammies from doing other things.
Street Samurai are defined by having tons of augments and firepower. Them being able to half-ass some other things is not relevant. Everybody can do that, yet they also bring far more practical abilities to the table.
>far more practical
Like what, magic? Drain is a motherfricker. Definitely useful, but a double edged sword. Drones or hacking? Well and good, but drones are notoriously fragile and expensive as frick to repair or replace, and frick your remote access if they decide to not turn on their wireless devices.
>moving goalposts
>Insulting framing of my words
I'm right and you know it. Sammies can afford to spread around their karma and thus can posses a wide array of skills on top of being combat specialists. Every Sammy will have decent to high agility, infiltration potential right there, just need to grab some B&E toys to go along with your guns and Synaptic Boosters. Intuition, good for defense tests as well as judge intentions. Toss a couple points into Charisma and Intimidation and you've got an interrogator.
>Because a mage has more utility, better at combat, and can "do other things."
You're right that magic has better utility in a lot of circumstances, but generally spells aren't as good as just shooting people for damage dealing, and in practice Drain will rapidly take chunks out of the mage's ability to cast Mana/Stunbolts, especially if the mage is pumping up the Force to hit the same efficiency as guns. Reagents can circumvent the issue of high Force drain, but those are expensive and tough to replace without expending way more cash than a Sammy would for a magazine.
The only combat spell worth taking is Lightning Bolt/Blast, because it does full damage to drones potentially causing them to shut down and can stun metahumans. The mage is better off grabbing a gun and doing FA, taking out the damage spells when there's drones or spirits.
Drain is trivial with the right build. I can build a 400 bp mage that is going to be almost as good as a 400 bp street sam, but with the added utility of being a caster.
Holy shit, moving the goalposts this hard.
>Well, okay m-maybe the Street Sam can do other t-things? Um, they h-have a high Agility, they c-could be a wheelman or a f-face? I'm sorry...
The cumulative -2 is for psychometry, not search, dummy.
Ritual summoning can fix drain.
Nobody uses background counts because then the party mage will seethe.
I have too many games and am considering dropping my Friday one.
If he was a real vet, I'd be fine with it. But some dumbass who doesn't know what simulation is AND claiming stolen valor? Frick that crab.
Counterpoint. You can bring another magician instead of a street sam. Because a mage has more utility, better at combat, and can "do other things."
There is no circumstance where bringing a mage who can do combat and possibly other things over a street sam.
>Counterpoint. You can bring another magician instead of a street sam.
Counterpoint. The more guys you bring who are fricked up by the same things, the easier it is for some enemy to figure out that they should frick up your whole team by bringing/doing/using those things.
>If he was a real vet, I'd be fine with it. But some dumbass who doesn't know what simulation is AND claiming stolen valor? Frick that crab.
The thing is, you're not a vet. You don't get to call out stolen valor. It's like being able to call Marines crayon-eaters and airmen air mattresses. It's an earned privilege.
You just assume your privilege covers you. It comes across in the shit-tier quality of your posts.
What kind of moron logic is that? If I see a 30-year old with an Iwa Jima medal, I'm gonna call him out on it.
Furthermore, why the frick do you assume that the dude is telling the truth. You do know people on the Internet lie, yeah?
Same logic as yours that someone without a criminal background shouldn't be writing Shadowrun.
Unearned. If you want the privilege, earn it. Or shut the frick up.
>You do know people on the Internet lie, yeah?
We all see your comments, kid.
>why do you assume he's telling the truth
NTA, but I know three vets and two of them play in my shadowrun games and they both like street sams.
>it's for psychometry
yeah, which you gotta do a lot to get your 4 hits with a wagemage.
>but ritual summoning
But background counts
>but nobody uses background counts
nobody uses ritual summoning
>I have too many games
You seem to not have any.
Imagine if one of the guys who is already an integral part of the heist is also a hotshot gunslinger. Wow. Doing two things. Whodathunkit.
>how "mow down dozens of security guards" isn't standard runner operating procedure
Until a milk run stops being a milk run.
They're there for when everything inevitably goes completely breasts up or where a subtle approach isn't necessary.
The answer OP, is that the system is nonfunctional and CGL are garbage designers.
I just spread all my points equally across every skill and attribute. Never had any issues.
A good mage that can also bring the pain.
Lots of dice in automatics and blades, good dice in spellcasting and summoning, acceptable dice in assensing and visual perception. I will admit to low edge, but I think edge should only be used for burning if shit goes REALLY breasts up.
True he has a low reflex score, but he has 4 IPs that he can sustain indefinitely thanks to his Health Focus.
Not everyone plays black trenchcoat
Once again, OP is a homosexual
I bet you're too fricking moronic to understand why people have guns, too.
>cant refute
>starts deflecting