Starting an online game.

Stories about games that you run and/or have played in.

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Username17
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Starting an online game.

Post by Username17 »

http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?s ... br][br]For lack of a better idea, I'll be using an AIM chatroom thingy.

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Cielingcat
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Re: Starting an online game.

Post by Cielingcat »

Wish I knew how to play Shadowrun.
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Re: Starting an online game.

Post by Koumei »

Same here. Granted, I probably also would never be online at the right hours.

But you seriously can't access www.rpol.net and the like? Or you want it to be real-time and you can't access the special chat-based server things which presumably exist with fancy maps and dice functions and stuff?
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Re: Starting an online game.

Post by Username17 »

The latter. If I didn't care about real-time, I'd just play by post on a message board. I've been relatively unhappy with the way that works out, both as a player and as a game master. I had to bow out of one because of going to Mississippi to help with the relief effort and I had to bow out of another while providing hospice care for my grandfather.

The medium is very unforgiving of interuptions and I don't think I like it much. A real-time interaction could ideally function with the same dynamic as a face-to-face game (though of course proceeding much more slowly).

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Re: Starting an online game.

Post by cthulhu »

Alas I think you're prefered time is at an unhospitable hour for us aussies.
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Re: Starting an online game.

Post by Jacob_Orlove »

Post logs! We don't even need neat or organized summaries, just giant blocks of text. I know I want to read about how this goes.
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Re: Starting an online game.

Post by Surgo »

Concurring with Mr Orlove here. I'm too much of a newbie at Shadowrun to join myself (I played a game last year that lasted for a few months, and though I picked it up quicker than the others I never got a good understanding for the rules), but I'd love to see the logs.
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Re: Starting an online game.

Post by CalibronXXX »

If this were six months from now I would join in a second, but alas currently I'm too busy with school and too broke to even buy the book; and for a game as purportedly deserving as Shadowrun 4th I wouldn't even think of "acquiring a preview copy". Please do post logs though.
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Re: Starting an online game.

Post by JonSetanta »

At least give us a page or two of a log to chomp on, for those of us uninvolved with the playing.
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Re: Starting an online game.

Post by Username17 »

Well, I put up the list of possible campaign directions based on the areas that people submitted:

Seattle
Seattle was the only written up setting in 1989, and in the last 18 years it has accordingly received substantially more game and flavor information than any two other locations combined. This is both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand it means that there is a wealth of details to draw upon. On the other hand it means that there's a wealth of details which constrain us. I would, for example, be extremely loathe to do anything even peripherally involved with major Seattle politics because it's almost certainly just going to get retconned away in the intermediate future.

Seattle's positioning as an important metropolis has always been somewhat dubious. It's the only Pacific port of the UCAS, which is itself the second most powerful nation in North America. What sets Seattle apart from larger and richer cities with more important ports like Mazatlán, Los Angeles and even San Francisco is that its existence is extremely tenuous. Seattle is a city state in the middle of the NAN territories, and corporations know that they can push it around. The Seattle authorities spend much of their time in hiding while the surrounding big players use Seattle like a chess board. That makes it a great place for shadowrunners because any place where the authorities have to step lightly is a place where hit-and-run crime has a good chance of actually working. And with so many interest groups keeping stuff in the metropolis, there are a lot of targets. And a lot of employers.

Visit from the Old Country: Seoulpa Rings and JoPok First, a little Shadowrun trivia. The Nippon Empire was one of the big winners of the breakup of the United States and China. A bona fide second tier power before hand, the Nippon empire had the first power satellites and the first drone armies. They conquered the crap out of things and made a big name for themselves all over the world. The economic might and cultural influence of the Nippon Empire spread to every corner of the world. When the corporate court made a currency for the world to use, they didn't call it the Nusolar or the Nupound. Needless to say, this sat extremely poorly with the first people to fall under the baleful eye of the Pacific Prosperity Sphere: the Koreans. The resulting diaspora of Koreans throughout the Pacific Rim acts as a bloc which can be counted upon to harbor anti-Nippon feelings comparable to the anti-Castro Cuban immigrant community of Miami in 1967. Politically isolated, economically depressed, and socially immiscible with the Nippon-influenced corporatism of the modern world, many of these immigrant communities developed organized crime.
What makes the Seattle scene really interesting is that the Korean organized crime here made its own organization from scratch. With little or no help from the homeland, the Seoulpa Rings were formed. Using a cell structure to foment rebellion, steal stuff, and (as an organization) get away with it, the Seoulpa Rings have fought against the vastly better funded Yakuza as equals for a generation. They've spread themselves across North America. And now, they are rich and powerful and feared. Just like the old criminal organizations. And now that Korea is also rich and powerful and extending its own cultural hand across the Pacific, the actual old criminal organizations from there – the JoPok – are starting to take real interest in what the people across the pond are up to. The fact that the Seoulpa Rings pretty much treat anyone who is a metahuman or really hates the Emperor as honorarily Korean doesn't sit super well with the old guard – and the fact that they don't send money “back” to the JoPok higher ups hacks them off even more.

Working For Mister... Johnson Overlapping jurisdictions, corporate presence from all major players, a distant and disinterested government, borders with unfriendly countries just kilometers away in literally any direction, it's like this city was designed for Shadowrunners to pick apart. And indeed it was. The Shadowrunner was conceived as being something between Repo Man and James Bond, and the grungy Seattle Skyline was forged with their work in mind.
The system of Mr. Johnsons is subtle and horrible to contemplate. They work indirectly for wealthy individuals, organizations, and corporations to give money to apathetic mercenaries and detectives to do... stuff for them in exchange for money. The runners generally do not know who they are working for, and the Johnsons will frequently throw in additional jobs just to spread confusion among those who are trying to data mine their motives. Having adventures across between Doc Savage and SLC Punk, the runners can perform criminal acts so senseless that they can feel confident that the targets will recognize the professional indifference of the direct perpetrators and respond accordingly.

Trick or Treat! Shadowrun trivia again. Lots of people in Shadowrun live in arcologies. Giant self-sufficient buildings which tower in every conceivable dimension, they are nonetheless tiny against the shadow of the Earth with respect to the staggering number of people they contain. The reasons for this are myriad. Oil is scarce and the whole “horizontal city” concept of a century ago is no longer sustainable. Modular production is so effective and vertical monopolies so pervasive that attaching different fabrication centers is extremely effective. But the really important thing to remember about this is that the population of the Earth in 2071 is not actually that different from the population in 2007 – several worldwide VITAS outbreaks saw to that. So large sections of the Sprawling cities of old are simply no longer maintained. These “sacrifice zones” or “no light districts” have no official owners and not even basic services. That doesn't mean that noone lives there, it just means that the people who do live in amazingly abject poverty and have a lot to be upset about.
Seattle seriously has a gang of dadaist terrorists who dress up in Halloween costumes and burn things right in the middle of downtown. They have a high mortality rate, but the “organization” has been going for over 20 years. They are the Halloweeners, and they don't like the corporatist society of the modern world order. And really, who can blame them? They are recruited from people in the areas of the sprawl where there hasn't been power for fifty years. In 2071, as in 2007 most gangers are in their early teens. A person who stays in the gang doing time and doing crime after their early twenties (rather than getting a family and doing something respectable) is called an “old gangster”, and the term is not really a term of respect. What this means is that the people smashing the corporate structures and doing avant garde expressionism with real fire are the children or grand children of the people who first dressed up as Spiderman and threw a flaming garbage can through a Mitsuhama Appliances store front.

Hong Kong
Hong Kong was the latest addition to the “core cities”. Hopefully they won't destroy it with a Godzilla attack this time. Filled with loving detail, Hong Kong has the advantage of having nearly all its information available in one book: Runner Havens. I'm assuming that people can read that section, so I don't think it needs much of an introduction. Also, individual campaign seeds need less background information as there isn't a lot of killer easter eggs to find.

The White Flower Benevolence Society Of course it's a Triad front. The funny thing about protection rackets though is that in Hong Kong the merchants making payments expect actual protection. So the White Flower is actually a police organization more or less. That means investigating crime, patrolling streets, the whole thing. You just have to pretend you aren't doing it because you aren't registered with the Corporate Court and aren't licensed to do this in any way.

Mercenary Army: Macao is for drunkards and losers. Some of the most successful mercenary companies are registered in Hong Kong. They get rented out to fight in the brushfire wars in China; the ghastly civil war between the Esprit supported Republic of Cambodia and the Naga commanded Kingdom of Nag Kampuchea; the Cola Wars; the ongoing Indonesian Conflict; the border disagreements of Trollish Myanmar; and even wars going on elsewhere in the world.

Treasure Hunters Hong Kong is well known to be the only really civilized part of China. Ask anyone in Hong Kong, they'll tell you. What this means is that taking the treasures of Ancient China off the mainland and getting it to safety in museums and private collections is practically doing the world a favor. Or something like that. It's profitable, that's my point.

The Arctic
If Shadowrun had been written today, there would be a lot more Global Warming going on in it. As is, there is still a lot more trade going over the pole in 2071 than there is in 2007. Part of this has to do with the advent of Magic. With spiritual assistance you can take the Northwest Passage in relative safety and comfort. And people do. People do with container ships. There is a huge amount of traffic between North America and Eurasia and a tremendous amount of it goes through the poles. Thus, despite their lack of population, the Trans-Polar Aleut are quite influential as the Sixth World counts such things. And why isn't there much global warming anyway? It's not like people stopped using oil before we ran out. It's not like corporations stopped polluting.
No. The Arctic has currents which run at the bottom of the sea and come out in well over a thousand years around the equator. Through expeditious algae farming, one can fill those deep currents with huge amounts of carbon. And thus, the problem of Global Warming was solved for all time (qv. Futurama).

Free Traders The Yakut have a weird idea of what contraband is. So do the Québécoise. And a pretty pile of ¥s can be made giving these people the things their governments say they don't want. The Transpolar authorities basically approve of this sort of thing as long as you've assimilated somewhat into Inuit culture. But they can't officially condone your actions. It's kind of like working for a Johnson who happens to be the Tribal Council.

We Are Green War. Being a nation whose entire economy is an extension of the ability of Shamans to control the weather, the Trans Polar council really really supports peoples in their attempts to clean up the environment. Of course, Saeder Krupp has no intention of slowing down its pollution and pretty much tells the STC to go hump a splintering tree on a regular basis. The people of Trans Polar territories are groomed for Green War duty in much the same way that second sons of Saudi families are frequently sent off to work with the Jihad in 2007.

Night Hunters When the sun doesn't come up for days at a time, the horrors of the dark come in force. The trackless taiga is home to some scary, evil stuff and those who are tasked with destroying it are undermanned and underfunded. Hundreds of kilometers from a matrix hub and surrounded by cold so intense that pulltab burritos don't properly heat themselves, it can be hard to remember you're in the twenty first century sometimes. When the Lurkers come to harvest villages it all snaps into place – these were just stories in ages past.

Nippon
Corporate Enclaves comes out “very soon” and signs point to NeoTokyo being the Hong Kong of that book.

Expatriotism The Nippon Empire carved out a niche for itself all over the globe. But one of the things about globalism is that it also brings other people into your country. Shadowrunners from afar have a special place in society. On the one hand, they are treated mercilessly as gaijin ninja. On the other hand, a foreigner can see weaknesses in a society that a native cannot. And a monolithic society like Nippon has a lot of weaknesses.

For Love and Justice The Sentai tradition is alive and well in Neo-Tokyo. Seriously, there are monsters and vigilantes take it on themselves to rid the world of them and keep the second largest city on the planet safe. On the ugly side, there are people who use this as an excuse to get into groups and beat up trolls. But for those with real balls there are actual liver-eating youma out there who seem to mostly evade corporate security.

Yakuza Honor Being a member of the Yakuza is an ancient and honorable tradition. Well, sort of. The Yakuza are so firmly a part of Nippon society that they spread anywhere that Nippon corporations do (that's pretty much everywhere). And here in the center, there's more work for Yakuza then ever before.

Amazonia
I don't actually think that Shadows of Latin America will ever be published. Creative differences between the original designer and several of the authors basically kept it in limbo until well after its own freshness date. At this point it wouldn't even make sense to read it.
Amazonia is a little hard to justify honestly. It has, indeed basically is the largest city on the planet. Yes, it takes up a huge area on the map, but that's all park reserve. The people all live in a single city on the coast called Metropaul. Unfortunately, the dragons, jaguars, and spirits at the top basically don't know how to administer metahumans and couldn't care less anyway. Larger cities are hard to manage (for reference, in 2007 the national government has “no-go zones” in 8 out of 10 of the world's largest mega cities). The result is catastrophe. With 200 million people living in a single metroplex, the government probably actually has any real control over maybe 40 million. The rest of the city runs itself or not according to the fickle wind of fate the competency of local criminal syndicates. Some of it is on fire right now. Some of it will be on fire tomorrow as well.

Warring States Individual neighborhoods in Metropaul are often left to govern themselves. They figure out how to get water and power, they defend themselves from crime and other neighborhoods, and... yes. Other neighborhoods. In areas where the state does not have control, the entities who do have control are in essence the state. And when states see other neighboring states who have resources they want or feel they need the result is war as often as not. There is a concerted effort by some neighborhoods to actually conquer other neighborhoods and form larger areas of contiguous empires. It's a lot like uniting China except it's all city the whole way.

Ghost Cartels Much of the Amazon is off limits to metahumans who don't have proper identification as a lover of nature or something. But you know what? The people of Amazonia are confined to the coast and they can't possibly patrol the 11 million square kilometers the country covers. The Amazon is full of some really crazy, really expensive stuff, and it's guarded only by wild animals and inhospitable terrain.

Chicago
Chicago played “host” to one of the largest battles between spirits and metahumans so far to date. But unlike Alice Springs, the metahumans won. The battle was ugly, and Chicago residents spent a good portion of it walled off and literally eating each other. The new construction is leaving much of the irradiated portions untouched. Broad swathes of the city lie in ruins – mute testament to the horrors of trans-planar war.

Shattergraves 4 Life Not everyone left when Chicago fell apart. Some fought for survival and succeeded. These individuals and families consider themselves the real inhabitants of Chicago. The newer residents consider them to be dangerous psychopaths who might actually be insect spirits. Tensions rise.

Recovering the Hive The Universal Brotherhood was simply a bad idea. Metahuman society simply cannot be expected to accept induction to the hive without fully understanding the truth. But while the entire hive truce was ultimately worth nothing and less than nothing in the hands of those honey tongued buffoons, the fact remains that there are a lot of relics that could be useful in forming a new hive buried under the stones.

Prague
I physically live here which is I assume why it was suggested. There frankly isn't a whole lot of information available on Czechia in Shadows of Europe or the Germany Sourcebook. Even less in the rest of the world. It's a beautiful, international, and weirdly xenophobic place.

Vory Movements It is an all consuming fact of life in Czechia that the Russians are right over there and that the New Soviet is big and powerful and wants Czechia “back”. Massive amounts of criminal activities go on here of course, and Russian Criminal syndicates are only slightly more powerful locally than the Italian ones. As Slavic shadowrunners, you can work for any of the sides. Hell, it's traditional here in a nation which recently scored worse on a transparency index than Sicily.

Manila
Recently freed from direct control by the Nippon Empire, the Philippines still haven't retaken all of their resources or islands from the Nippon corporations who purchased them from the occupational authority for couch change. At the beginning of the 21st century, the nation was running a population growth rate of 6%, leading to one of the most underserved and uneducated populations on the planet.

Privateers Piracy is a big noise in this part of the Pacific and it is a really ugly affair. As pirate hunters though it is actually considered OK for you to seize ships, murder the occupants, and keep all heir stuff. You just have to make sure that it's pirates that you're attacking.

Divao Death Squads It is common practice in Davao for vigilante groups to murder undesirables in an effort to eradicate “crime”. Undesirables include homeless, ghouls, metahumans, certain ethnic groups, and girls. Also the bodies are frequently sold to Tanamous. Often while still alive.

Space
Space in Shadowrun actually isn't very “cyberpunk” - it's more like Traveler. Not only are there stable Moon and Mars bases, but there are multiple competing space stations. Some of them are located on the far side of the sun from the Earth. There's even a space station operated by smugglers in order to do crime. In space.
Part of this is because the advent of Magic makes it really easy to get stuff into orbit. Telekinesis can send something most of the way out of the gravity well with no energy inputs at all. And part of this is because Shadowrun has sufficient Fusion that you actually can go on 1G trips around the inner solar system and get to crazy destinations in weeks and not years.

Impending Doom The Evo Mars station has indeed found ancient troll bones on Mars. Also, they have a team of thaumaturgical researchers working on some ancient puzzle. Possibly some kind of gate. They don't know where it goes, but even with all the discoveries made so far it may be the discovery of the century. There is some reticence as it appears that some of the ancient metahuman corpses died by violence. Extreme violence.

Eden Station The heart of Ares Firewatch operations is a metaplanar gateway they have constructed in Eden station. It goes to The Hive, and they use it as a final stick against hives and nests which refuse to join the Ares team. A Firewatch team can fight a Mother or a Queen on their own plane and destroy them forever. It's a powerful incentive.

Lost Contact Every so often something in space just stops communicating. Sometimes this is as simple as a grain of sand hitting a satellite at high speed and taking out the comm system. But what when a whole space station just stops sending data? It's known that it's still there. The mass hasn't changed much, and it's still the same shape. It just isn't talking. And in a few weeks, help will arrive.

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Re: Starting an online game.

Post by the_taken »

As usual, a nice read, Frank. But wait? Impending Doom? Oh the roflz.
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Re: Starting an online game.

Post by cthulhu »

But you could be the rock, and that would be awesome
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Re: Starting an online game.

Post by MagnaSecuris »

I have to say, the Arctic sounds the most interesting to me, not that I'll be playing.

Actually, Chicago and Manilla also seem pretty cool.
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Re: Starting an online game.

Post by JonSetanta »

Pulltab. Burrito.

Hmm. Been watching Cowboy Bebop lately? Or is that in a Shadowrun book I haven't read yet..
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Re: Starting an online game.

Post by Catharz »

So based on the two suggested games, I've got two ideas for characters bumping around in my head. Unless there ends up being a gaping hole in the party make-up (or for whatever reason I can't play), I'll probably go with one of these two.

1) Ilya Zelezny (pseudonym). I've already mentioned this guy. He's half-Russian, half-Georgian. He's a freelance hacker. His main gimmick is using a little drone to get LoS, and being sneaky. His head is completely stuffed full of 'ware, but other than that he's unaltered. His main contacts are his dad and his fixer, but they won't be too useful on Mars.

2) Wang Lao Peng (pseudonym). He's an antiquarian, old and from an era of poorer nutrition. He walks with a cane, both because of his unsteady gait and because he's blind from cataracts. He's a luddite but an all-around nice guy. He also happens to be a ghoul and a Rabid Dog mage (bet you didn't see that coming..), and herein lies the question: I was thinking aspected summoner with a possession tradition, but I was worried that it might be (a) too limited by his charisma max of 4, and (b) too limited in general (i.e. the ease of getting things for spirits to possess and transporting such objects). Any thoughts? Is Rabid Dog taking this too far?
I'm planning on maxing Charisma and the social skills anyway, as well as keeping Intuition high for Masking.

I could give more history for both the characters, not sure if anyone would want to see that.
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Re: Starting an online game.

Post by Username17 »

Well, Wang Lao Peng would obviously seem to work better in Treasure Hunters than in Impending Doom. While a Ghoul can survive on Mars it is actually exceedingly difficult for one to survive getting to Mars. Ghouls are dual natured, which means that extreme backgrounds (like space) actually kill them. That being said, I could see a Rabid Dog ideology about how people abused their toys and now they don't get to have their history anymore. Just remember to learn an ancient language that happens to be readable in braille like Bronze Script - because it's just embarrassing to have to get a compatriot to scratch lines in the sand to try to show you what the paint on a turtle shell looks like.

Contacts on Mars may actually be more useful than you'd think. They can't get stuff to you, but a message to Earth gets there in less than 20 minutes, so you may actually be able to get some specific information from Earth. At least, eventually.

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Re: Starting an online game.

Post by Username17 »

Psych Report
by Zdenka Ondráková

Remote and hostile, the surface of Mars is bad for the psychological health of workers. The following have been determined to be key points that threaten the wellness of mission staff, as well as steps which are being taken to counteract these influences:
  • Limited opportunities for human contact: Social activities are encouraged amongst mission staff. Games, trid nights, and scheduled meal times have been introduced to facilitate
  • Non-standard daily cycle: While the Mars day length is actually closer to the metahuman internal day approximations than that of Earth, the fact that a Martian-based clock falls farther and farther behind that of the Earth day has shown to exacerbate “cabin fever” among mission staff. For this reason, Earth time at UTC (GMT + 10) is used exclusively. Lights inside the base are cut to 2/3 normal from 190 to 220 and from 20 to 60. Lights are cut to 1/3 normal between 220 and 20.
  • Hostility of outside environment: While the short periods of the surface being warm enough for ice to melt are not something which can be directly addressed by the psychological staff, virtual weather has been provided in background, overwrite, and BTL formats to cosmonauts.


Mission Critical Staff (10/11)

  • Dr. Viktor Wollstonecraft
    Position: Biothaumaturgical Researcher
    Origin: Bern, Switzerland
    Profile: Viktor is distinctly prejudiced against metahumans, a group which he considers to include humans. His transhumanism and low-moderate corporate loyalty mark him as a suicide and treachery risk. Dr. Wollstonecraft is extremely reluctant to actually finish projects, preferring to begin new research. Dr. Wollstonecraft has requested a pet of some kind on each resupply and has grown bored with it each time.

    Dr. Michael Praetorius
    Position: Thaumaturgical Researcher
    Origin: Venice, Italian Confederation
    Profile: Dr. Praetorius is mildly addicted to a list of chemicals long enough that he has lost count. He is essentially always in withdrawal from something. Most of the time he is also under the influence of one or more chemicals.

    Dr. Boris Dellenov
    Position: Facility Administrator
    Origin: Moscow, Russia
    Profile: Classified.

    Dr. Yamato Kochi
    Position: Cultural Anthropologist
    Origin: Edo, Nippon Empire
    Profile: Dr. Yamato is severely autistic and incapable of interacting with other metahumans on an empathetic or emotional level. Dr. Yamato is hyper analytical with respect to metahuman interaction and keeps track of an extremely detailed and elaborate “point system” of his own devising.

    Dr. Vladimir Kurchek
    Position: Archeology Researcher
    Origin: Grozny, Russia
    Profile: Dr. Kurchek has social anxiety disorder, a condition for which he refuses treatment. He is also noticeably discomfited by loud noises or direct physical contact.

    Dr. Ayanami Yui
    Position: Thaumaturgical Researcher
    Origin: Tokyo, Empire of Nippon
    Profile: Dr. Ayanami is obsessed with a massive war she believes will inevitably occur and spends most of her time making elaborate plans to “win,” something she has said would be worth any price. Also she believes that proper use of magic can render metahumans immortal.

    Dr. Neela Amirthakaii
    Position: Chief Linguist
    Origin: Chennai, Tamil Nadu (Elf)
    Profile: Dr. Amirthakaii is borderline flat affect disorder, and she has reported having suicidal thoughts “very frequently.” She also cuts herself and is largely to be kept away from sharp objects when alone.

    Dr. Kauravya Saikia
    Position: Thaumaturgical Antiquarian
    Origin: Wokha, Nagaland
    Profile: Dr. Saikia has almost no respect for metahuman life, and is openly contemptuous of the rules which govern society. A staunch proponent of the headhunting activities of the Naga people, Dr. Saikia himself has four life beads and is considered a threat to co-workers.

    Dr. Victoriya Kuchma
    Position:
    Qualifications:
    Origin: Zhytomyr, Ukraine
    Profile: Dr. Kuchma has an inflammatory disease of her bones which causes excruciating pain. She is addicted to a cocktail of painkillers, and presses the button on her auto injector thirty to forty times a day.

    Dr. Ljubomir Nemanjiæ
    Position: Virtuakinetic Researcher
    Origin: Smiljan, Croatia
    Profile: Dr. Nemanjiæ considers himself to be friends with the base AI and has little time for contact with metahumans of any kind. He mutters to himself about the effects of various lesser known rays.



Technical Staff (15/20)

  • Taro Sato
    Position: Director of Technical Operations
    Origin: Handa, Empire of Nippon
    Profile: Taro is convinced that he is capable of replicating the effects of a biological sleep regulator by willpower alone. Competency tests have proved this conceit to be unwarranted, but so far Taro has rationalized contrary information as being atypical.

    Dr. Henry Adams
    Position: Medic
    Origin: Suffolk, United Kingdom
    Profile: Filled with replacement cyberware from numerous injuries received during his time as a CrashCart combat medic, Dr. Adams goes by a number of nicknames such as “Captain” and “Patch” in reference to his single glowing cybernetic eye. His forced jollity wears thin on him more and more frequently.

    Dr. Joy Kellogg
    Position: Medic
    Origin: Sherbrooke , Quebec (Changeling)
    Profile: While the actual SURGE effects on Dr. Kellogg are quite modest and she can trivially pass for an unchanged human, the fact she has lost all of her birthmarks and asymmetric qualities has left her feeling distinct from herself, with a crushing desire to conform coupled with a deep and angry resentment to declare her own individuality.

    Dr. Wen Xia
    Position: Medic
    Origin: Guyuan, Shannxi (Elf)
    Profile: Dr. Wen is a surgery addict. She has confided that she really wants to conduct unnecessary implant surgery on other people.

    Kira Smith
    Position: Fusion Technician
    Origin: Las Vegas, Pueblo Corporate Council
    Profile: Kira has been conditioned by an abusive family to accept virtually any behavior from others as “normal” and is virtually incapable of direct confrontation, even while being sexually tormented. She signed on for space work as much to get away from others as anything.

    Takeda Akio
    Position: Lead Reactor Engineer
    Origin: Osaka, Nippon Empire
    Profile:

    Takeda Machi
    Position: Reactor TS
    Origin: Osaka, Nippon Empire
    Profile: Machi is alternately pleased and insulted that his younger brother Takeda was promoted above him.

    Jack Chapman
    Position: Matrix Security
    Origin: Rapid City, Sioux Tribal Territory
    Profile: Jack feels compelled to fulfill the ethnic stereotypes of both his Sioux and Navajo lineage, which has driven him to excel at the cerebral pursuits of Matrix manipulation and the aggressively visceral pursuits of

    Captain Jason Calhoun
    Position: Matrix Security
    Origin: Montgomery, Confederation of American States (Elf)
    Profile: Jason is a former political radical. With his alienation from his former political agenda has come a growing despair and pervasive apathy which is beginning to affect his work.

    Ilya Zelezny
    Position: Machine Operator
    Origin: Sukhumi, Georgia (Ork)
    Profile: Ilya is directly uncomfortable being an ork and is in passive denial about his non-human subspecies.

    Jacob Shark
    Position: Machine Operator
    Origin: Arctic Transport Administrative Region, Trans-Polar Aleut
    Profile: Jacob is a show-off who is desperate for the attention and approval of his peers.

    Gilbert Belfast
    Position: Air Filtration Engineer
    Origin: New York, UCAS
    Profile: Gilbert is a hopeless and persistent romantic. While he is actually quite shy, he nonetheless is frequently making elaborate relationship plans with people who in reality barely know him. Gilbert has a gambling habit.

    Michelle Wan
    Position: Water Filtration Engineer
    Origin: Changsha, Hunan
    Profile: Michelle collects and breeds fish. She is in hard denial that other metahumans don't find fish as interesting as she does, and will obsessively turn conversations to her fish collection when she is uncomfortable, which is often.

    Mark Apfelman
    Position: Diagnostic Technician
    Origin: Europort, United Provinces of the Netherlands
    Profile: Mark has a severe case of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, an ailment for which he was specifically recruited given his position.

    Kelly Hernandez
    Position: Communications Operator
    Origin: Yautepec, Aztlan
    Profile: Kelly hates all organic life.


Support Staff (9/20)

  • Zdenka Ondráková
    Position: Psych Chaplain
    Origin: Pøíbor, Czech Republic
    Profile: Feeling Fine.

    Elizabeta Katenin
    Position: Cook
    Origin: Kernerovo, Russian Federation
    Profile: Elizabeta is an attention seeker and atavist.

    Colonel Sarah O'Sullivan
    Position: Human Resources
    Origin: Dublin, Tir na nOg (Elf)
    Profile: Colonel O'Sullivan was injured severely in a now-classified incident where a friend lost her life. As a result, Colonel O'Sullivan has been outfitted with the skin of another person, and reacts badly to mirrored surfaces and verbal descriptions of her appearance.

    Sergeant Isaac Karloff
    Position: Security
    Origin: St. Petersburg, Russia (Dwarf)
    Profile: Addicted to jazz. Gambles heavily. Isaac has a particularly cavalier attitude to his own continued existence, which he justifies with a litany of depressing Russian poetry.

    Sergeant Takamura Hoshi
    Position: Security
    Origin: Tokyo, Nippon Empire (Ork)
    Profile: Hoshi is somewhat prejudiced against humans and people from the Nippon Empire, a position which he himself agrees is unreasonable. This has led to him being somewhat patronizing in his attempts to deal with either group.

    Sergeant Leila Ortmeyer
    Position: Security
    Origin: Essen, AGS (Troll)
    Profile: Leila complains of claustrophobia. As is normal for her subspecies, outdoor areas are important to her. The requisite time spent inside on the Mars mission wears heavily on her.

    Sergeant Ghenadie Heines
    Position: Security
    Origin: Bucharest, Allied Counties of Romania
    Profile: Ghenadie is addicted to the attentions of vampires, a habit he is unlikely to long survive indulging. He has but to space in part because he realizes that his survival depends upon moving to a place where vampires cannot go.

    Julia Gilmore
    Position: Janitor
    Origin: Salem, Tir Tairngire (Elf)
    Profile: Julia holds unpopular political and economic ideas, which motivate her to speak out against management.

    Takenaka Juichi
    Position: Janitor
    Origin: Seattle, UCAS (Dwarf)
    Profile: Juichi is extremely motivated to impress his superiors and is exaggeratedly helpful to the point of provoking disbelief and paranoia among management.
Catharz
Knight-Baron
Posts: 893
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Re: Starting an online game.

Post by Catharz »

"Ilya is directly uncomfortable being an ork and is in passive denial about his non-human subspecies." :P


Those are some amazing one-liners. How many of these are actually players?
CalibronXXX
Knight-Baron
Posts: 698
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Re: Starting an online game.

Post by CalibronXXX »

I think they're all NPCs.
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the_taken
Knight-Baron
Posts: 830
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm
Location: Lost in the Sea of Awesome

Re: Starting an online game.

Post by the_taken »

Frank is really selling this. I'm almost willing to buy Shadowrun just to play.
I had a signature here once but I've since lost it.

My current project: http://tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=56456
Username17
Serious Badass
Posts: 29894
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Re: Starting an online game.

Post by Username17 »

Catharz wrote:Those are some amazing one-liners. How many of these are actually players?


Four of them.

-Username17
User avatar
josephbt
Knight
Posts: 325
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm
Location: Zagreb, Cro

Re: Starting an online game.

Post by josephbt »


wrote:Dr. Vladimir Kurchek
Position: Archeology Researcher
Origin: Grozny, Russia
Profile: Dr. Kurchek has social anxiety disorder, a condition for which he refuses treatment. He is also noticeably discomfited by loud noises or direct physical contact.


Kurchek means Little Dick. No wonder he's got social problems.
engi

Blood for the Blood God!
RandomCasualty
Prince
Posts: 3506
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Re: Starting an online game.

Post by RandomCasualty »

Kinda funny how all the mission critical staff are mentally fucked up, lol.
Captain_Bleach
Knight-Baron
Posts: 830
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Re: Starting an online game.

Post by Captain_Bleach »

FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1195037415[/unixtime]]The latter. If I didn't care about real-time, I'd just play by post on a message board. I've been relatively unhappy with the way that works out, both as a player and as a game master. I had to bow out of one because of going to Mississippi to help with the relief effort and I had to bow out of another while providing hospice care for my grandfather.

The medium is very unforgiving of interuptions and I don't think I like it much. A real-time interaction could ideally function with the same dynamic as a face-to-face game (though of course proceeding much more slowly).

-Username17


Have you found a schedule/plan that fits best for you?
Username17
Serious Badass
Posts: 29894
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Re: Starting an online game.

Post by Username17 »

Right now we're going to be playing Saturdays at 200 GMT via ICQ/AIM chat window.

-Username17
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