Shadowrun 4e newbie questions

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Mon Mar 14, 2016 5:23 am

OgreBattle wrote:Thanks for all the info on metaplanes and spirits. I've also been recommended "Aetherology", have any denners read it? It was released after SR5e but comes dual statted for 4e too, but most of the content is mechanics agnostic setting details.

Now... is it heard of in Shadowrun to have a dead character "come back as a spirit"? Considering there are various traditions that say they summon ancestor spirits and that 'spirit testimony' can be accepted in murder cases.

Are there any cases of two people claiming to summon the same deceased person's spirit, but the spirits are different because those people had different perceptions of the deceased?

If "spirits are formed by belief" it seems like you can have a situation where a character the summoner has a connection with seemingly dies, but then the summoner thinks they've summoned their spirit, but then that guy comes back later.

The answer is both yes and no. Yes, there are spirits claiming to be a ghost of the dead person. No, you can not verify whether that is true or the spirit is just (unwittingly?) pretending to be one.

JesterZero · Post by **JesterZero** » Mon Mar 14, 2016 9:25 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:Since planets are alive, even barren worlds like Luna would have less background fuckery than actual outer space. But... did the clowns who did 5e seriously decide to double the size of background counts? What possible use is there for a -24 background count that wasn't served by a -12 background count?

-Username17

They did, but if memory serves they also changed the mechanics. Whereas in SR4 a background count comes out and affects Magic / Force / Rating / etc. directly, in SR5 in functions as a DP modifier, which is usually less impactful.

However, even in various places in the same publication (looking at the SR5 Street Grimoire here), it's variously described as "imposing a negative DP penalty equal to it's rating" and "reducing <insert foci, spell, ritual, etc. here> by it's rating," which are not the same thing. I'm not entirely sure if we're supposed to draw up lists where some magical doo-dads play by SR4 rules and some play by SR5 rules or what.

So the intention seems to have been to shift away from SR4 rules, where a low-level mage with MAG 2 and a rating 2 foci running around hanging out with a force 2 spirit while sustaining a force 2 spell gets completely hosed by a level 2 background count, to where they would just take a -2 DP penalty in SR5. If nothing else, the general attitude of play-a-mage-or-you're-playing-our-game-wrong would seem to support that.

Shrieking Banshee · Post by **Shrieking Banshee** » Tue Mar 15, 2016 12:15 am

Apparently they are detailing metaplanes and spirits in 5es Aetherology. Thats what I read on the summary.

JesterZero · Post by **JesterZero** » Thu Mar 17, 2016 12:50 am

Ok, here's a question for folks. How would you handle the following:

Materialization Mage A summons Spirit A, and it owes him a number of services. Along comes Possession Mage B, who summons Spirit B which successfully possesses Materialization Mage A.

So...the question raised was what if any effect this has on the services that Spirit A owes? Can the Materialization Mage issue new commands mentally even though he's possessed? Will Spirit A care if it notices that "it's" mage has been possessed? Can Spirit B impersonate Mage A well enough to deceive Spirit A?

FWIW, we decided 1) nothing, 2) no, 3) only if it conflicts with a service such as "protect me from harm" but not if it doesn't conflict with a service like "go get me a donut and come back", and 4) not unless we want to bring metamagic powers like Flexible Signature into the mix (this came up in a battle between non-initiates).

Would anyone have played that substantially differently? Just curious, especially about #2 (the rest seem fairly straightfoward, but I thought I'd ask).

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Thu Mar 17, 2016 1:21 am

The Mage is the Mage and not the Mages Body.
Otherwise, you'd have problems as soon as you astralla projected <.<
There is a, pardon the terrible pun, spiritual connection between the mages self and the summoned spirit. No need for speaking/hearing, which, technically, spirits can't do anyway. Due to lacking ears and a functional central nervous system etc.
The spirit, depending on its mood, cares little to not at all about somebody else walking away with its summoners body.
If the mage treated the spirit well, it might interfere to try and help.
If not, the spirit may actually try and help the disappearance along.
"Protect ME spirit!" is different from "Protect MY BODY spirit!"
Letter/Intent of the law/order and all that. Usually up to GM Interpretation.

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Mon Mar 21, 2016 10:06 am

What's media like in Shadowrun, any major campaigns or story arcs involve 'em?

Say, a Gawker equivalent with runs for/against them in the trade of million nuyen gossip

phlapjackage · Post by **phlapjackage** » Mon Mar 21, 2016 12:34 pm

You wouldn't happen to be referring to this recent story about Gawker would you?

www.nytimes.com/2016/03/19/business/med ... rdict.html

As for SR, I can't remember any major arcs or campaigns about media. The majority of major arcs were magic or AI related, iirc.

(did some searching here to jog my memory: http://shadowrun.wikia.com/wiki/List_of ... adventures)

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Mon Mar 21, 2016 1:14 pm

The Media is as bad, if not worse, than it is today in shadowrun.
One of the BIG PLOT HOOKS of SR5, if i remember correctly, was mainly a news coverage story about how bad Ares new Assault Rifle was . .

Blade · Post by **Blade** » Mon Mar 21, 2016 1:21 pm

Media were really present in the first adventures published for Shadowrun. Maria Mercurial, Queen Euphoria, Dreamchipper... all had some ties to the media industry. IIRC Shadowbeat even had a journalist PC archetype.
The Over-mediatization of the world was a big theme in 80s cyberpunk (see Videodrome) and the "stringer" a very common role. However, it was mostly "TV everywhere".

The media angle was then mostly ignored. There were a few news agencies and that was it. Then Shadowrun 4 had Horizon appear as a media-centered AAA but the game left capable hands before anyone was able to do something interesting out of it.

In Style Over Substance (thanks JesterZero for the hosting), I've written some (non-canon) stuff about media. I've tried to keep the cyberpunk approach while allowing for independant broadcast and sousveillance stuff, but I don't go into the details of media corporations.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon Mar 21, 2016 9:27 pm

If you count rock and roll, media featured in a whole lot of adventures. Maybe even most of them in the early days. In Shadowbeat, they tried to make Rocker and Journalist be playable archetypes. SR1 and SR2 took their guitars and camcorders very seriously, but sadly the mechanics behind it were never good. Open Tests and all that.

SR3 consciously abandoned all the media pretensions. There was goofy, cartoonish stuff, but no one was expected to play a reporter. They split gun skills into like a million fucking pieces, but never brought back performance or interview tests.

SR4 actually was supposed to get back into the media stuff in a big way, and even had a media megacorp that was supposed to be the big story mover of the edition. Unfortunately, FanPro was too busy collapsing to make Destroying News, and Catalyst drove out all the talent before they made Attitude. So the attempts to do anything at all with the media were late and shit. Really, really shit.

-Username17

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Mon Mar 21, 2016 9:30 pm

Stahlseele wrote:The Media is as bad, if not worse, than it is today in shadowrun.
One of the BIG PLOT HOOKS of SR5, if i remember correctly, was mainly a news coverage story about how bad Ares new Assault Rifle was . .

On the other hand, their reality TV is a whole lot better. CBS never had the guts to have Survivor talk place in a minefield, for example.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Mon Mar 21, 2016 11:19 pm

*nods*
i still say all area combat golf is the best idea ever.

Whipstitch · Post by **Whipstitch** » Tue Mar 22, 2016 1:35 am

One area I wish Shadowrun had explored more was the notion of how simsense could be applied to propaganda. I appreciate that Burning Chrome and skeezy bunraku parlors are part of the cyberpunk canon but as long as we're edgelording it up I have to ask: Where the fuck is my BTL copy of Triumph of the Will? The future isn't just weird sex, dammit.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Tue Mar 22, 2016 3:14 am

How would you translate Triumph of the Will to Simsense/BTL?
Simsense/BTL is actually recorded experience. Something has to be produced in Simsense for you to be able to get it as such.
Otherwise all you get is the experience of watching the movie. AS SOMEBODY ELSE.

Whipstitch · Post by **Whipstitch** » Tue Mar 22, 2016 4:35 am

First of all, the specific title was just an example. Second, the entire point of simsense is that it blurs the line between the simsense actor's experience and your own, with some recordings even going so far as having an emotion track. So even if you have to use a simsense recording of an actor enjoying the film, that's still attaching a positive association to something that many people would only watch as a curiosity.

Lemme put it this way: I give Shadowrun tons of credit for having Dreamchipper and Personafix chips. That shit is cool as hell. The problem is that they no longer do a great job of carrying that shit forward or talking about whether or not similar technology gets abused in smaller ways.

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Thu Mar 24, 2016 4:38 am

So in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure the more humanoid stands like Star Platinum pop out of the stand user, like having a ghostly pair of arms block for you.

Can you do that in Shadowrun, have a spirit that's able to phase in and out of its conjurer? Like have it occupy the same space and functionally act as armor, but also be able to deployed further away to punch things.

---

Can sorcery be used to create stuff like a ball of fire that you can sustain and direct around?

Zaranthan · Post by **Zaranthan** » Thu Mar 24, 2016 5:12 am

For the stand business, you certainly could order a spirit to manifest and provide soft cover for you. It would probably be a waste of a perfectly good earth spirit that could be crushing things instead of being an expensive meat shield, but it would work great.

Grek · Post by **Grek** » Fri Mar 25, 2016 12:01 am

For the persistent ball of fire, there's Shape Fire or (technically) Wall of Fire.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Fri Mar 25, 2016 1:32 am

Or, again, using a Fire-Spirit/Elemental.
Just tell it to manifest as a floating Ball of Fire and then order it to float around the room and burn your enemies.

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Fri Mar 25, 2016 4:33 am

How complicated can a sustained spell get, could I make a spinning energy disc that can provide cover but also cut people, or a sustained "magic drone" with arms that can punch and grab things or even provide sight? It wouldn't be acting on it's own like a spirit but directly controlled by the caster.

This is more out of curiosity than game mechanics effectiveness, as having an ally spirit do that stuff is probably more efficient.

There any precedent for a magic user's subconscious forming their own metaplane, or they summon a spirit "from their soul" that comes from a metaplane that represents their subconscious so if you go there you see funky representations of that caster's psyche and history.

phlapjackage · Post by **phlapjackage** » Fri Mar 25, 2016 6:58 am

SR4 had a pretty decent spell building system in Street Grimoire. Yeah, it could've used some tweaks (drain codes grew crazy high really quickly, the discount for S spells was overpowered, etc), but for the most part it seemed to work. Lots of particular spells can be reduced to their effects and built like that, then fluffed to look however you wanted.

For the spinning energy disc, how does it provide cover? Like, does it have to stay right in front of you? I'd call that something like an energy aura that also gives you some armor bonus, buildable with the spell-building system.

A magic drone could be something like the existing poltergeist or magic fingers spell. Add another effect like Clairvoyance for the sight part.

pragma · Post by **pragma** » Fri Mar 25, 2016 5:25 pm

OgreBattle wrote:There any precedent for a magic user's subconscious forming their own metaplane, or they summon a spirit "from their soul" that comes from a metaplane that represents their subconscious so if you go there you see funky representations of that caster's psyche and history.

In 3e every astral quest (and possibly any trip to the metaplanes don't recall) required that the PCs start by talking to the Dweller on the Threshold. The Dweller was a vaguely sprit-like creature who knows all of the projecting mage's secrets and used that knowledge to mock and discourage the mage. There are hints that the mage's subconscious mind creates the dweller as a warning about going to metaplanes.

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Tue Mar 29, 2016 9:26 am

I've read somewhere on here before that there's a way to mix magic and vehicles to make ridiculously fast airplanes. Does it involve spirits?

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Tue Mar 29, 2016 9:36 am

OgreBattle wrote:I've read somewhere on here before that there's a way to mix magic and vehicles to make ridiculously fast airplanes. Does it involve spirits?

Yes. Spirit's Movement power gives flat multiplier to the subject's speed. In SR5 you can break speed of light with a bike.

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Tue Mar 29, 2016 9:52 am

Thanks, also found the thread I was thinking of (early Assymetric Threat stuff):
http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=48836

Are there other crazy "spirits/magic+machine" combos out there? Flesh form inhabitation spirits in vans is mentioned here: http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?p=453368

Can a drone be inhabited by a spirit and still be controlled by a rigger?
Can a gun be inhabited by a spirit, a monowhip?