Way back in 1E there was a thing called cybermancy from one of the splat books that would let you go negative essence. I don’t think they have used it since. However it came at a significant cost. You’re basically having a mage cast magic on you to keep your soul from leaving your body. This creates significant astral pollution as you might imagine and anyone who is astrally aware will be able to find you with no issue. Also cyberpsychosis is a thing, as the mind and soul try to dissociate from the body. It was a bit OP so I’m guessing that’s why it hasn’t been used in subsequent editions. I was also displeased when they ditched Bio Index in either 3E or 4E and made bioware use Essence. This was somewhat balanced by making alpha grade cyberware available off the shelf even at character creation if you were willing to spend the nuyen, but it didn’t quite make up for it.
My regular gaming group rarely gets together anymore because most of us have kids and a couple have jobs where they work a lot. Maybe it’s time to branch out and look for a group I can actually play with.
I thought Shadowrun had a similar-ish rule… But the last time I played it was 3rd or 4th, and was playing with someone who knew how to make the system cry by creating legal-ish characters with fractional Essence and enough cyberware to make Robocop feel inadequate.
Actually, that campaign was kind of interesting because one of the two guys that could do that kind of stuff ended up playing a ‘face’ character that had skillsofts rigged so he could be Above Average at almost anything effortlessly. But like 4 skills at a time. Definitely A priority in Resources to afford all that. It was an interesting campaign, but I feel like it fell apart because we had a bunch of oddballs and the campaign had us going undercover at the training academy for one of the private police forces. Our team was… not suited for that task. Besides Skillboy we had “edgy nonconformist cyborg” (Specifically using the ‘raptor’ legs that were originally from one of the novels), a couple less weird characters, and my mage with a hobby of forging melee weapons (that he barely knew how to use).
I haven’t played ShadowRun since the days of 1e / 2e. I bought a copy of the 5e rules on an impulse but haven’t even opened the book. And my gaming group is so woeful that we’ve managed 1 game session this year.
You guys are lucky to have established groups where you can play on a regular basis.
That’s 1 more than me. I had to bail on my previous group due to scheduling issues.
I nearly went in a shop that might do D&D Adventurer’s League events a month or so ago, but couldn’t do it. Too many bad stories from those events of players that I don’t want to deal with and my general social anxiety.
I’d like to make it to GenCon again but the room rate is kind of ridiculous and I’m too old to share with randos off the internet.
I’m at the point where I basically go through groups of people I interact with and start playing a thought exercise of what games/adventures I’d suggest for them:
D&D is a pretty common ground because people have actually heard of it and if they’ve ever played an RPG, it’s a good chance that’s the one. It’s also the ‘popcorn’ of D&D in that it’s generally not going to be controversial. It can be, but by default isn’t: It’s a game about heroes doing heroic stuff.
Shadowrun is pretty close to this, as I feel it’s take on cyberpunk social commentary is generally pretty shallow. I do feel a disconnect in Shadowrun has always bothered me: The fiction (both inspirational and their own novels; Some of their campaigns I think) tend to follow the through-line of “The antagonists are criminals who get wrapped up in a larger issue that is world-threatening and end up pulling together to save the world.” while actual play seems to be more 'cool criminals who do crimes."
That said: There are so many games I love but I feel like I’d be hesitant to run with people I don’t know well. Paranoia (2016) looks interesting, but I wouldn’t run it for new players because it’s playing with the whole ‘cooperative’ aspect I consider important to RPGs. Call of Cthulhu is another favorite (Running the Beyond the Mountains of Madness campaign is on my RPG bucket list) but I’d need to have a firm discussion about the historical nature of the game. Even with D&D I’d feel obligated nowadays to discuss that if the topic of older editions (Also on my bucket list is the 2e Great Modron March/Dead Gods adventures) as 1e has some really old-fashioned stuff (gender-specific stat limits) and even 2e has some (the Amazon kit in the early splat-books is really dated and sad).
I may be overthinking things a bit, I admit: I’ve even though about ‘group dynamics’ stuff that is probably putting the cart before the horse.
It can be either, depending on the GM and the players. Some players play Shadowrun to play as shadowrunners, doing illegal stuff and sticking it to The Man (the corps). Others play it to also stick it to the corps, but because the corps are (nearly entirely) evil bastards (I’m looking at you, Aztechnology!) and they want to be a force of good in the world.
Generally in RPGs I play and run, I tend to take Spoony’s view of it: You may not necessarily be paragons of virtue, and you may have to do shady stuff to get along, but you should at least be good people.
It may be that I’ve been involved with Shadowrun mostly in short-term games. The PCs weren’t terrible people necessarily, but never seemed to get into anything more grand than the usual beginner-missions.
(Shadowrun also has the “known issue” that so many GMs want to do the archetypal mission where a Mr. Johnson (the stereotypical middle-management who’s hiring shadowrunners to do things) hires the group, they do the gig, then have to deal with the Johnson’s sudden but inevitable betrayal. (For bonus points, the Johnson also has a goon squad that they can use to try to kill a bunch of Shadowrunners, but didn’t use the Goon Squad for the initial mission which would have been a cost savings and overall much easier for everyone involved.)
Yeah, that’s a fairly typical thing that happens (mostly because corporate Johnsons are trying to eliminate all witnesses or something). I tend to reserve that for more long-term games though, since it very easily sets up a follow-up series of runs where the runners can go dig up dirt on that particular Johnson and either go get their paycheck or get revenge.
Perhaps I’m misremembering the canonical example: It might have been a string of adventures/suggestions from the developers that the Johnson would ‘solve’ the problem of Team A (the PCs) being potentially loose-lipped by hiring Team B, even more expensive veteran runners… With no one thinking of what would happen if Team B gets exposed to the information, since they’re potentially even more difficult to take out.
I know the “Johnson screw-job” is kind of canon to the cyberpunk ethos and Shadowrun in particular, but I kind of feel like it’s akin to every D&D adventure having rust monsters, practically invisible gelatinous cubes, and a ‘captive woman’ in the dungeon that certainly isn’t a demon/devil/daemon/changling/doppelganger/very talented mimic/that thing with a bunny on top of it/otherwise a trap. More fun to talk about than actually experience in 2019.
I’ve really become fascinated with how RPGs have evolved over their short-ish history.
Back to Shadowrun: Has the setting technically become a sort of alternate history as the canon was previously tied to 2012 as the date stuff started to get weird?
I would think so. However canonical history of Shadowrun actually starts in 1999 IIRC (mostly concerning how the corps got to be so powerful). 2012 is just when it kicked into overdrive.
Yep, it’s still an “alternate history future”. 99 is when the US ruled that corporations could have private armies and they started down the road to extraterritoriality. 2012 is still when the dragons started appearing. 5e’s official setting time was 2075. 6e is supposed to be some time after this, but reading the first chapter (the setting overview chapter) I could find fuck-all that actually said what year the game is set in now.
When I got my first (2e) Shadowrun books it was still set in The Future!!!’ with 2012 as impossibly distant sounding.
(I also remember some of the 2e books had pages of gear marked ‘Banned in 2e’ because they did the minimum to upgrade to 2e and wanted to keep page number compatibility.
That’s probably true, as ever since 4e they were incrementing the story in 5-year gaps, but who knows? Certainly not the writer of the setting section.
1E- 2050
2E- 2053
3E- 2057, later source material took place as late as 2061 (mostly the Year of the Comet stuff)
4E- 2070, later books bumped it to 2072
5E- 2075
6E- 2080?
And my gaming group is so woeful that we’ve managed 1 game session this year.