Shadowrun Universes: a leaner and faster ruleset for SR

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Blade
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Posts: 663
Joined: Wed Sep 14, 2011 2:42 pm
Location: France

Shadowrun Universes: a leaner and faster ruleset for SR

Post by Blade »

I wasn't originally going to post that here, since I didn't think many people would be interested (except maybe to rant heavily about some of its weaknesses) and it's something I made mostly according to my playstyle, but it came up a few times, so here it is.

Why "Shadowrun Universes"?
It's called Shadowrun Universe because I think that Shadowrun needs to acknowledge the fact that it is used for technothriller, 80s cyberpunk, postcyberpunk and other nuances. While all can share similar rules, I think it's important to know which game you're playing otherwise you end up with a bland game that doesn't really please anyone.

In my vision, Shadowrun Universes would have a basic ruleset, with a few optional rules and tweaks to adapt different ambiances, but then all fluff would be divided according to their universe.

Why an alternate ruleset?

I wasn't pleased with everything in SR4, but besides that I realized that most of the time, I just threw the rules out the window regularly. From the "don't bother rolling for this, we'll assume it works" to the "let's skip some dice rolls so that we can wrap this up".
On top of that, there were also stuff I missed from the rules, like a mechanism similar to Leverage's plot points. All in all, the rules weren't adapted to the playstyle I wanted, so it was time to move to another system.

Design goals
Fit my playstyle.

To make it simple, let's check the anatomy of a standard run, and the departures I want from SR4:
1. Legwork: I want the legwork to matter. I don't want to have to gloss over it because playing the small B&E or the small Matrix intrusion would take too long playing, but I don't want either of them to bog down the game and require us to spend an entire session.
2. Planning: I don't want players to have to be expert criminal themselves. I don't want them to spend the whole session discussing points that might be completely irrelevant, thinking at length about questions their characters actually know the answer to while forgetting about stuff their characters wouldn't. I just want them to come up with a basic plan, and let the system handle all the details we can't possibly know all about.
3. Execution: I want player choices that matter, I want them to choose whether to take risks or not without relying too much on the RNG to decide if things will go smoothly or not. I want the increase of pressure as the run progresses. I want the PC to feel challenged, but not by the RNG or the GM's whims. In that line of thought, I like having the exhaustion, the wounds, etc. matter, but I don't want to end up with a group of useless PC after the first fight.
4. Climax: I don't want the narration of the climax to be bogged down by endless dice rolls. I want to focus on the story and actions, not on the dice rolls.
5. Wrap-up: I don't want a rigger to suddenly lose a part of its value because he lost his drones, I don't want the players who spend their money on RP stuff to get left behind those who spend them on boosting their characters.

Besides that there are a few things I wanted to fix like extended rolls being stupid, spirits being too powerful, vehicle and matrix rules being complex and not working well and many other minor stuff.
And finally, I wanted to be able to add some flavor, depending on the universe: for 80s cyberpunk I wanted to have style matter and loss of humanity (either through ware or magic) to be a theme.

Resolution mechanism

The basic idea is that you use your skill score as a base, and have your attributes (and preparation/legwork) provide a limited amount of expandable bonus points.

In more details:

- Skills (mostly those from SR4 with a few adjustments) go from -1 to 6 (up to 8 with augmentation/specialization, but getting 7 or 8 is very costly). All skills belong to a "pool" (combat pool, technical pool, spellcasting pool, matrix pool, social pool, etc.).
- Task difficulty go from -1 to 9+.

If (adjusted) difficulty is lower than (adjusted) skill, it's an automatic success.
If difficulty is higher or equals to skill, there are three solutions:
1. Limited failure: Fail, but without any complication other than not doing the task: if you wanted to jump from one roof to another, you don't fall between the roofs, you just don't do the jump. If you wanted to catch something to break your fall, you will fail to catch it and keep falling though.

2. Modifiers: there are three base modifiers that are available to most (but not necessarily all) actions, all giving +1 to the skill score:
- Take your time
- Botch the job (loud lockpicking, car goes through but has no doors anymore, get hit by your opponent to be able to hit him as well, etc.)
- Take a risk. In that case there's a 1/2 chance of failure. You can roll a dice or toss a coin, but since playing cards are used for some aspects of the system, they can be used as well here. You just flip a card and check: one color is failure, the other is success. In that case, failure is real failure: you fall down the roof, you destroy the lock you wanted to pick (or your pick-locking tool), you open yourself to the attacker without getting any advantage, etc.

3. Pools: Spend up to two points from the pool linked to the skill, each point spent raises the score by one. As written above, all skills are linked to a pool. This pool has a score, based most of the time on two attributes, and a current value, which goes down with use.

Each pools have two ways to recharge: the slow charge and the fast charge. Each is linked to a condition. For example, the physical pool will slow charge after a night's sleep, and fast charge after a meal. The spellcasting pool will slow charge by meditating/praying/dancing/studying during an hour or so and fast charge by spending a complex action to synchronize with local mana, etc.
Slow charge recharges half the score of the pool, fast charge allows the player to roll a number of dice equal to the score of the pool. Each hit (5+) adds one point to the pool. A charge clears the points from the previous charge (except for the Matrix, where the fast charges are cumulative, but raise the awareness level of the authorities).

Opposed rolls work similarly, and the resulting scores are compared (I'm still on the fence on whether or not to allow spending more than two points from the pool for these. On one hand, it would allow a less skilled opponent to "give it all" to best a higher-skilled opponent, on the other hand it might lead to early pool exhaustion for those who engage in opposed rolls).
Extended rolls have a base duration and a minimal duration. Each point above the difficulty halves the base duration, down to the minimal duration.

This mechanism has many advantages:
1. It moves dice rolling to the "downtime" and avoids blocking the action with dice rolls.
2. It considers that runners are professional and that the hacker won't crash the run by being unable to hack the door of an old apartment building.
3. It's aligned with the concept of runners preparing a run (especially since the legwork can boost the pools) and possibly losing grip on the situation as problems that challenges their abilities and/or preparation pile up and their pools reduce.
4. It has the possibility to scale failure, from critical failure (when botching the job and taking risks and failing) to failure (when taking a risk and failing) to limited failure (when just failing the action) to limited success (when succeeding an action by botching the job), with the players choosing the risk level.

This is just the basic resolution mechanism, there's much more to the system. I'll reserve the post below for these details, in case anyone's interested.
Blade
Knight-Baron
Posts: 663
Joined: Wed Sep 14, 2011 2:42 pm
Location: France

Post by Blade »

The rules are currently in French, but I have a short version I've made for Dumpshock. It's not the full rules, but it outlines the main concepts. If there's any interest, I can translate the full rules.

Additional details about the resolution mechanism and basic rules
- The points of the pools are called "tokens". It's recommended to use playing cards (or Mahjong tiles) to represent them, since some cases require them to be of one of two types (success/failure when taking a risk or in stressful combat situations), and some cases require them to have a value from 1 to 10 (mostly damage and drain).
If using a deck of cards, it's good to have two decks with different backs to differenciate tokens from the slow charge and tokens from the fast charge.

For rarely used pools, it's possible to use a counter dice or a sheet of paper to keep track of them and use a single stack of cards when needed.
For pools that are used often (like the pools used in combat), it's better to use the cards directly.

- "Full charge" = slow charge + fast charge

- Group actions are done by the member of the group with the highest skill, other members can help by giving tokens from their pool with a limit equal to the Leadership skill of the leader, or the professional rating of the group (whichever is higher). The GM can decide to restrict that limit if more people don't help past some point.

- Knowledge skills don't rely on pools, instead the character can spend time to get up to two extra points by searching on a subject.

- Not having the skill means having it with score 0 (unless incompentent in which case it's -1). As in SR4, some skills are non-defaultable.
Character creation
- Attributes: Body and Strength are merged into Physical, Charisma and Willpower are merged into Charisma

- Skills have been reworked to lower their number, some have been merged into a single skill. Max bonus on a skill (from gear/implants/powers/spell) is +2. When you've got a targeting computer controlling your arm, having a laser dot on top is pretty much meaningless. Skill cost make it very costly to raise skills at high ratings.

- Specialisations: They still exist and provide +1 for a specific aspect of a skill, but they can also be adjectives that color the actions. For example it can be "with style" for the Firearms skill, in order to look cool when shooting people.
The opposite of specializations also exist (weaknesses), they lower the score by 1 for a specific aspect of a skill.

- Edge and Essence have been kind of merged. For each Magic point bought or Essence point lost, the character loses one Edge point. Edge points need to be tied to something the character believes in, or something that keeps him alive, the Edge point will recharge depending on circumstances linked to that. Depending on the setting, Edge loss (from implants or magic) can mean becoming estranged from other metahumans.
Edge can be spent temporarily to ignore the limit of two tokens from the pool per actions, get an instant full charge for one pool, ignore wound modifiers for an action or raise his score by one for an action.
Edge can be permanently burnt to ignore all wounds modifier until the end of a scene or fot auto-success of a not-impossible action.
Combat rules
Combat pools: The combat pool depend on your fighting style. Intuitive is based on Reaction+Intutition, Tactical is based on Intuition+Tactics skill. (they each have a small advantage as well). To this is added the professional rating of the character.
Combat pools are slow charged by spending one complex action to check the situation and quick chargeed by spending a simple action to take a breath. (I'm considering having the slow charge give the whole pool while the quick charge gives half, to limit the number of dice rolls in combat).

Stress: There are three stress levels: no stress, small stress (in combat but not directly under fire or against a light opposition) and heavy stress (under fire or against a very dangerous opposition).
When under small stress, whenever a characters spends two token, the type of the second token is used to check if the token is valid or not. When under heavy stress, this applies to the first token as well.

Defense pool: When combat starts, players decide how many of their combat pools tokens they want to assign to their defense pool. This represents how much the character cares about not getting hit. Token assigned to the defense pool can be reclaimed for other actions at the cost of two to one. At any time, a character can switch to full defense and put all his remaining tokens in defense.

Intent declaration: When combat begins, players declare what they want to do. They're encouraged to give the big picture ("I go behind the closest cover and shoot all the enemies I see", "I move from cover to cover toward this area, shooting when I get an opportunity"). The GM then narrates, with help from the players, what happens. If a player wants to change his intention based on what is happening during the combat, he needs to either spend a complex action or a combat pool token.

Time management: All actions are considered to take the time they take in the SR4 rules (casting a spell takes the time it takes to make a double tap) and all characters are considered to be acting at the same time. If it's important to know if someone is doing something before someone else, it's decided with an opposed Initiative roll. The concept of IP is replaced by actions with extended effects: for example a character with 2 IP can affect two targets with a single shoot "action".

Shooting: Shooting difficulty is based on the distance (0,1,2,4) modified by visibility and other modifiers (such as movement). GMs are encouraged to get a table of the most common shooting difficulties for quick reference. The target's defense pool is added to that difficulty. If the attacker score is higher than the target's pool, the target is hit. The DV of the attack is equal to the base DV of the weapon + a value of a token (the number of tokens used depends on the firing mode and/or if aiming, etc.). "Net hits" don't count, if a good shooter wants to make more damage he needs to aim. Otherwise he's just shooting the center of mass just like any other shooter and doesn't do more damage.

Close combat: When a character attacks another in close combat, the target can choose to fight back or just try to stay out of reach and keep on doing whatever he's doing. In the former case combat is an opposed test, in the second case the attacker needs to beat the defender's defense pool. DV is weapon DV + 2 for each "net hit". When the DV is based on the Physical attribute, it's not halved.

Damage: Stun damage is soaked by armor (if it applies) + half of the character's Physical attribute. This is directly removed from the DV, without a need for a roll. To make it easier, players are encouraged to have the "soaked" boxes above their condition monitor. Whenever a character checks more boxes in one hit than twice his Physical attribute, he's knocked out for some time (don't know how long would be appropriate, maybe until the stun damage is recovered)
Physical damage is also soaked the same way by armor (if it applies) but contrary to Stun damage it's not cumulative. Players always start from the beginning of the track. If the first line is filled, they'll lose one (cumulative) token in their current pool and all future slow charge and quick charge. If the second second line is filled, they'll suffer from a (cumulative) -1 modifier to all actions. If the third line is filled, the modifier is -2. If the whole monitor is filled the character is out and will die if he doesn't get medical attention soon. If the character gets too many negative modifier, he can be considered out as well.

A character can choose to ignore the effects of a wound in exchange for a long-term effect (the bigger the wound, the worse the effect)
Magic
Awakened can create their tradition by using positive and negative options. These options are small limitations or tweaks to the way the magic works (not being able to bind spirits, or having to do it, not being able to cast some spells, not having access to metamagic, being able to use spell formulas from other traditions, etc.)

Spellcasting: The value of the spellcasting skill, adjusted by modifiers, give the maximum force of the spell. This value, adjusted by the drain modifier, gives the number of hits. For example a spell with (F/2)-3 drain will have power-3 hits. This means that the caster will need at least a score of 4 to cast it properly. The value of the resisting attribute is removed from the hits. If the caster has at least one net hit, the spell works. In any case, if he used tokens to cast his spell the highest value is the DV of the drain (limited by the power of the spell). If the power is above the mage's Magic attribute and the DV is 3 or more, the drain deals Physical damage.

Counterspelling: a mage can put up to [Counterspelling] magic pool token in counterspelling. This is added to the spell defense. They can be reclaimed at the cost of one per two.
Active counterspelling: a mage can battle against another mage for control of the local mana. The target can choose to ignore the attack or to fight back. In the first case, the attacker needs to beat the defender's counterspelling. In the second case, it's an opposed counterspelling test. The loser looses one magic pool token per net hits of the winner.

Summoning: the summoner splits his Summmoning score (skill value + modifiers) between the power of the spirit and the number of services. For example a summoner with a score of 5 can have a Force 4 spirit with one service or a Force 2 spirit with 3 services. If he uses tokens for the summmoning, the highest value (limited by the number of points of his score the summoner used) is the drain DV. If the Force of the spirit is higher than the summoner's Magic attribute and the drain DV 3 or more, the drain deals Physical damage.

Binding: Opposed test between the summoner's binding and the spirit's Force, except that both of them add the value of a token (limited by the summoner's Magic for the summoner and by the spirit Force for the spirit). Each net hit of the summoner gives one extra service. The value of the drain is the sum of the tokens, each one limited by the spirit's Force. If the Force of the spirit is higher than the Magic attribute of the summoner, the drain deals Physical damage.

Banishing: Opposed test between the banisher's Banishing and the spirit's Force. Each net hit of the Banisher removes a service from the spirit. The drain is handled like the summoning drain.

Spirit Powers: Banishing can be used like counterspelling against spirit powers. Movement power doesn't affect the speed of the target, it just changes the "safe speed" (see vehicle rules).
Matrix
- We don't care how hacking or the Matrix exactly works just like we don't care how exactly a mage casts spells. We care about the effects of the hacking.
- I'll use the term "hacker" for hackers, deckers and technomancers. "Matrix security" is a broad term that encompasses security hackers, ICEs and security procedures/routines. In any case, it's got a value for 1 to 8. A "hack" can be something legal, it's just a non trivial use of the Matrix to reach a goal. A "node" can be pretty much anything, from a device to a network.
- Hacks can be done on nodes or signals, it doesn't really matter. The only special case is wireless where you must make sure that you can actually connect to the target (see below). The only important thing is whoever is the authority (and handles the security) on the target.

- Contrary to other pools, the Matrix pools quick charges are cumulative. But each quick charge can add to the tracking index of the targeted authority. Matrix pools point have a limited lifespan of one week.

- Gear: A deck/commlink has a rating that's used for the matrix pool and for matrix defense and that's it. If playing when cyberterminals are new, using one gives a +1 to +2 modifier. If playing when DNI is the norm, not using it gives a -4 modifier, and hacking without a hotsim module (which can require a deck if you like the concept) gives a -1 modifier. There aren't any program: we consider that characters have the programs they need for what they need to do. However, a hacker can put up to [Software] points of his hacking pool inside an autonomous program with a lifespan of one day. That program can do quick hacks (see below) using his rating as a score. A program can be made with a single purpose (unlocking doors, disabling cameras, etc.) in which case it gets a +2 modifier to its rating.

- Matrix security rating goes from 1 to 8 (but 2 to 6 are most common). A node with a higher security rating might be less user-friendly. This has no impact in terms of rules but explains why a corp can't just put rating 6 nodes everywhere. This rating isn't just a firewall rating, it also takes into account the tricks the admin might use, so no need to come up with "clever" encryption schemes or tricks that would make a hacker's life harder. In case of a communication between two devices, the highest security rating is taken into account. Remote services (such as the banking services of a commlink) will use the security rating of the remote operator (the bank), so hacking a commlink doesn't mean the hacker will get access to everything. He'll just get a positive modifier when trying to hack the bank for that specific account.

- Wireless access : Wirless devices can have their wireless explicitly turned on or off or use an occasional connection. In the first case, it's always hackable: if there's a signal, there's a way. In the second case it's never hackable, but can't never ever connect wirelessly unless he throws a physical switch. In the last case, the hacker needs to suceed an infosec test against the infosec skill (or Logic-1 if it's better) of whoever set up the node, with an optional modifier of -1 (if the connection is very rarely used) or +1 (if the connection is quite commonly used).

- Quick hack: A quick hack is something that comes up during a run, like disabling a camera, listening to comms, controlling a drone, stopping an alarm, etc. To do a quick hack the hacker needs to have access to the device. The difficulty of the quick hack is the matrix security rating of the target, modified by the impact of the hack: a hack that leads to a -1/+1 modifier will be easier (-2) than a hack that let the runners get past a major obstacle (+2) and controlling a drone for just one action is easier (0) than taking full control for one day (+4). Also, having a clever hack idea or things that can help (access codes, security chip) can make the job easier.

- Matrix defense : A hacker can protect up to [Infosec] nodes with up to [Infosec] points taken from his hacking pool, increasing the security rating of these nodes. Only one hacker can protect a node at any given time. Points used for matrix defense can be reclaimed for hacking at the cost of 2 per 1.

- Cybercombat : A hacker can spend a complex action to attack another hacker. The target can choose either to ignore the attack or to fight back. In the first case, the attacker needs to beat the defender's Infosec rating with his Hacking. In the second case, it's an opposed Hacking test. In both cases, each net hits of the winner removes one token of the loser's matrix pool, unless black ICE is used, in which case the defender suffers physical damage with DV equals to the ICE's rating +2 per net hit.

- Detection index: Most nodes aren't under constant matrix defense for multiple reasons. One of them is that matrix security workers rely on the detection mechanism to tell them when they actually need to look for something. Every time a hacker quick chargees his hacking pool, the GM rolls a dice. If the result of that dice is higher than the node's admin infosec rating, the result of the dice is added to the detection index. Otherwise, the hacker isn't detected at all.
Once the detection index is equals or higher than the hacker's Infosec skill, the hack is detected. Security knows something fishy is going on but doesn't know much more about it. Most of the time, the security hacker will start a matrix defense of the node.
Once the detection index is equals to or higher than twice the hacker's Infosec skill, the hacker is detected. The physical position of the hacker is found (despites possible attempts at hiding it).
If the detection index gets equals to or higher than four time the hacker's Infosec skill rating, the hacker loses all tokens and can't do any quick charge on nodes under the same authority until the end of the run.

Informations are rarely exchanged from one authority to the other in a timeframe short enough to matter in runs. In some special cases, the index (-2 or -4) can carry over from one authority to another.

The detection index is valid for the whole duration of a run. At the GM discretion it can be lowered if the hacker lays low for long enough.

- Big hacks: Big hacks are hacks that are the main objectives of a run, or that are a large part in a run's plan (such as getting full control of the security system of a run's target). The difficulty is equals to twice the security rating of the target node, with a modifier of +4, +6 or +8 depending on the impact of the hack.
Any runner can get tokens for this hack by doing stuff like getting security passwords or keys, getting information on the security systems used on the target node, getting or developing an ice-breaker meant for that node etc. Most of the time, one task would bring 2 additional tokens.

- Technomancers: Technomancers follow the same rules with three additional features.
-- Resonance hacking: TM can add up to 2 points of their resonance pools to a hacking test. When they do so, they suffer a drain with a DV equal to the highest token's value, limimted by the rating of the target system. If the rating is higher than the TM's resonance score and the DV higher than 2, the damage is physical.
-- Resonance field: A TM can use his resonance field to influence all nodes and signal in an area around him (physically or in the Matrix when in full VR). The TM decides the effect of the field ("we are the security team", "I want to listen to everything", "all drones should get there as soon as possible" and does a Threading test. The score of the test is the rating of the field. All devices with a security rating below the rating of the field will be affected.
If the TM spends tokens, the value of the highest token is used as a DV for the drain, with a limit equals to twice the rating of the field. If the rating of the field is equal to or higher than the TM's Resonance score and the DV higher than two, the drain is Physical.
The field is active and follows the TM as long as the TM can concentrate to keep it up. The TM suffers from a -1 modifier to all actions while maintaining such a field. A TM can have multiple fields active at the same time.
-- Sprites: Sprites work like spirit and are considered as hacker with Infosec and Hacking ratings equals to their own.

- There are rules for "cyber adventures" in which all characters can participate with their skills (while the hacker can do "magic" with his hackings skills), for those who like the concept of a full VR cyberspace.
Social rules
Social defense : Social defense is the rating of the target's Logic, Charisma or Intuition, depending on the persuasion style. Default is Charisma (which now includes Willpower). Modifiers can apply on top.
Social protection represents things done to avoid persuasion. It can be dogmas, rules, social pressure or many other things. If it comes from someone, the Leadership of that person is used. if it comes from something (religion, prejudice, etc.) the rating depends on the importance of that thing for the character. This rating is added on top of the social defense.

Active defense : A character can spend up to two points from his social pool to actively resist a persuasion attempt. That's only possible when the character is conscious of the attempt (resisting a sales pitch for example)

Fast-talk: Fast talk is used for situations that come up during a run, without the need to get too much into details. The persuader does a Con test with a difficulty equals to the social defense of the target and the necessary modifiers. If he gets at least one net hit, the target is persuaded, the more net hits he gets, the more the target is persuaded. (1="Ok I'll let you in but I've got my eyes on you", 2="Ok, you may enter, have a nice day", 3="Here, take this pass, it will make your life easier.")


Long cons: Long cons are used for cons that need to work on a longer term (such as infiltrating a group) or when the stakes are too high to just solve this in a fast-talk test. The rules are similar to the big hack rules, but adapted to social situations.

Street-cred: The PCs street-cred is made of many different rumors. When a PC does something that can get him a specific reputation in some circle, he adds it to his rumor list with four values: the label ("good guy", "psychopath", "thief", "impulsive", "coward", etc.), the place ("Seattle", "The Crimson Crush", "Seattle's Shadows"), the area (from a few people (1) to international (7)) and the impact (from anecdotical (1) to legendary (7)). In most cases, a rumor will apply in the area above the current one with one less point per step. For example a legendary (impact 7) fighter for a small gang (area 2) will be well-known (impact 4) as a fighter among gangers in the metroplex (area 5).
The impact of a rumor can be used as a negative or positive modifier during social interactions in a group where it is known.


Vehicle rules
- There are two main uses of rules for vehicles: maneuvers and chases. For the maneuvers, a simple test of the pilot skill can be used, with a difficulty set accordingly (the tables of SR4A can be used as a guideline). The chases are handled with specific rules.

- There is no maneuverability score for the vehicles. Instead, they get adjectives such as "compact", "off-road" or "massive". These can be used to ignore negative modifiers when they apply.

- Chase values: At the beginning of a chase scene, the GM sets three sets of values. The first is the score of each participant. It indicates the distance between each one. The higher the score, the further ahead the vahicle is. The second is the end value. It can be either a score to reach, or a difference of score after which the chase is over, or both. The third is made of the three different speeds: the safe speed (the speed below which anyone can drive safely), the excessive speed (the speed above which even a good pilot is taking risks) and the limit speed (the speed above which it's not physically possible to go). The speeds can change during the chase if the conditions change. The safe and excessive limits are set regarding the conditions: climate, traffic, etc. At rush hour, the safe speed will be something like 5km/h, while it can be 150 km/h on the same road when it's empty. They're also set considering a basic vehicle (basic car on road, basic propeller plane in the air and regular civilian motorboat on the sea). The limit speed will most of the time depend on the vehicle, though in some cases the conditions can also change it.

- Chase resolution: Each participant choose his speed, in the limits of his vehicle. Above the excessive speed, they suffer from a -4 modifier, below it but above the safe speed they suffer from -2 and below the safe speed they don't suffer from any speed modifier. Each adjective that helps the vehicle will remove one point of modifier, or can even let the driver ignore all modifiers in some cases.
Some conditions might add additional negative modifiers (going at excessive speed during rush hour when there's a snowstorm is more dangerous than going at excessive speed during rush hour on a sunny day), which can also be reduced by adjectives.

The difficulty of the pilot test is one. Any participant who wants can decide to do a maneuver to get an edge over the others. In that case, the difficulty depends on the complexity of the maneuver. If someone decides to do a maneuver, anyone can decide to do one as well in reaction.

Characters who succeed their pilot test increase their score by 1 if they were going below safe speed. Above safe speed, characters get 1 point per multiple of safe speed. For example if the safe speed is 50, going at 100 will give 2 points and going at 150 will give 3. Characters who failed their roll get no point. If they tried a maneuver they've got the choice between losing point (one per point below the difficulty) or taking damage (as a rule of thumb 2 or 3 box per point of the maneuver).

Characters who successfully tried a maneuver get a bonus according to the maneuver. It can be a bonus to the score (as a rule of thumb 2 points per difficulty point of the maneuver), reducing the score of an opponent, damaging an opponent, changing the conditions of the chase (getting on a road where the character will be more at ease) or even ending the chase (jumping off a bridge and landing on top of a passing train).


Drones and rigging
Drones can be used either by giving orders or by direct controls:
- Giving orders: The player gives the order to the GM who then plays the drone. If a situation comes up where the orders might not do what the rigger would like, the rigger can do a Logic test to check if the rigger has prepared for such a situation. Drones usually have the skills they need to do their job at a rating equal to their Pilot rating. They don't have any pool.

- Direct control: The rigger controls the drone as if it was his own character (using his own skill and the drone's Physical attributes) but the only pool he can use is the rigging pool. If the rigger is remote controlling the drone (as opposed to jumped into it) he suffers from a -1 modifier (-2 if not using DNI). If he's jumped into the drone in hot sim, he gets a +1 modifier.

- Group actions: Since drones don't have pools, they can't use the normal group action rules. Instead the drones ratings are cumulated and the result is divided by the rating of the person or drone who'll do the test, rounded down. The resulting number, limited by half the person's commlink rating (in case of drones assisting someone) or half the rating of the drone doing the test (in case of a multi-drone action), is added to the score of the test.


Legwork and infiltration

- Legwork can give "one-shot" tokens the runners can use whenever they need during the run.

- Infiltration: security systems are abstracted, because you can't expect all players and GM to be able to think about every security stuff that could exist and be used in 20xx. Any room is just given a security rating that represents all these. This rating is the difficulty of the infiltration test needed to get past the security system. It can also be used as the difficulty on a security system knowledge test when a runner wants to help the other to get past security. Patrols can do perception test opposed by the infiltration skill of intruders.
It's recommended to have one roll per room and one per patrol. This leads to a slowly erosion of the infiltration pools, increasing tension as the runners get further in.
If the PC had time to plan the run and do legwork, when the GM reveals a new obstacle, if the players can come up with an explanation as to how they managed to get rid of it during the legwork phase, they can do a test of the relevant skill against a difficulty equals to the rating of the obstacle. For example, if the GM announces that a guard is standing in front of the door they need to get through, the face can explain that he befriended and bribed him during the legwork phase. He can then do the Con test and spend the nuyens for the bribe. If he suceeds, the PC will be able to get in, if he fails, the guard is still a problem (maybe he's refused the bribe, or he's under watch and can't let the runners in or any other satisfactory explanation).


Gear, powers and stuff

- Investments: Most runners have a list of gear they always like to have. This includes both "permanent" gear like ware and drones but also consummables like ammo, grenades, medkits and so on. To make it easier to handle them, runners can spend karma (1 per 1000 nuyens) to turn gear into "investment". They will then always be able to easily find replacements/repairs (at least during downtime), and the cost of these will be divided by 5. A good practice is to bundle all little common consummables so that the player just has to spend x nuyens at the end of each run, regardless of what he actually spent. If he really spent too little that cost can be ignored, if he spent a lot, it can be doubled.
Gear obtained at chargen is considered an investment without having to spend karma.

This is done to limit bookeeping, but also so that riggers can lose a drone or two without suddenly losing 10% of their initial karma/build points.

- Lifestyle : When playing outside of a campaign, the lifestyle is quite hard to handle correctly. In that case, it is recommended to use the following mechanism. To keep nuyens at the end of a run, a runner needs to spend 1 karma point per 1000 nuyens. This karma cost can be counted in a future investment. The rest of the nuyens can only be spent in fluff spendings, consummables and lifestyle. The lifestyle the runner gets at the end of a run will dictate the amount of nuyens he'll start with at the beginning of the next mission.

- Encumbrance : Characters have a maximum encumbrance equals to twice his Physical attribute. Each piece of gear has an encumbrance rating (based on a table). For each encumbrance point above the maximum, the character loses one point of his physical and combat pools. Extra points also lower the speed of the character and make him tire faster. Armor encumbrance is counted in this rather than have its own rule.
Armor encumbrance can be doubled for groups who want to play in a world where punks run around in shorts and t-shirt against slow heavily armored cops. On the other hand, groups can decide to divide by two armor encumbrance to play in a world where armor won the arms race and either enormous guns or close combat are necessary to take out armored targets. But in that case, combat spells should be made less powerful.
- Heavy pistols are what their names say : HEAVY pistols. They were made to counter new threats such as trolls and cybered characters. Heavy pistols are heavy to counter the ludicrous recoil of their extra-powerful ammo. A character needs a Physical attribute of at least 4 to handle one with one hand, they've got a DV of 9 and a AP of 1, but only shoot in SS due to the recoil and the heat. (In contrast, SA weapons get new shooting options, making the choice of packing a LP vs a HP something more interesting). Optionally, other kinds of gun can get the heavy treatment, making them more powerful but with a higher encumbrance and a high Physical attribute requirement ("this gun is meant for people with two spines").

- Armor: Armors go from rating 1 to 6, there are no extra options or ways to raise that rating. Wearing two rating 2 clothes on top of one another makes a rating 4 armor. Combining armors to get above rating 6 leads to very impractical suits, so 6 is pretty much the limit of worn armor someone can have while still being able to move.

- Options: Options are stuff that add adjectives to objects ("smartlinked" or "silenced" to weapon) or characters ("disguised", "cloaked"). These adjectives can cancel negative modifiers or raise the difficulty of an action made against a character (but should very rarely give positive modifiers to an action, that's the role of powers and ware). That modifier is equal to its rating. An option can be single-use or multi-use, and an option can be "undefined". In that case, the player can reveal what the option is when he decides to use it.
Cost: 100 nuyen (rating 1)/1000 nuyens (rating2)
Single use: /2
Undefined: *2
The option needs to make sense. It's up to the GM to accept or refuse an option.

- Kits: Some players don't want to bother searching and keeping track of each and every little piece of equipment they need for their job. They can use the kit rules. Kits are a pack of gear that serve a purpose. Common examples are B&E kits, sensor kits and of course medkits. Kits come in three ratings.
Rating 1: can be attached to the belt or put into different pockets of a tactic vest. Contains the basic tools that are small enough. (500 nuyens)
Rating 2: a bag/briefcase. Can be used for most situations except really special cases (1000 nuyens)
Rating 3: a backpack. Contains nearly everything a runner could need on site. Still not as complete as a Shop, though. (5000 nuyens)
When a runner needs some gear, if it's for a common case it can be found in all kits, less common cases will require at least a rating 2 kit while edge cases will need a rating 3 kit. In doubt roll a dice, if the value is below 2*rating, the kit contains the tool needed for the job.

- Shortcuts: Shortcuts are one-shot objects that can be used to bypass problems. They include disposable fake SINs, fake access cards, etc. They add one pool point per rating point. Players only need to specify the pool of the tool, the exact nature will be revealed when the character uses it.
Cost: 1000 nuyen per rating

- Implants:
The way implants are handled depend on the setting.
Technothriller : Implants are tools, characters need to "invest" karma into them (see investment rules) to represent the time and effort it takes to learn how to control implants.

Cyberpunk : Implants make you less human. Or do they? Implants don't need investment, but characters can spend karma points (not during character creation though) to reclaim an Edge point lost because of implants. Cost is 10/20/30/40/50/60. If the character decide to burn this point for implants again, he loses it for good, along with this connection to his humanity. A character can end up with 12 essence point invested in implants, but at that point he's completely lost touch with his human side. (mages get more or less the same stuff with initiate grade)

Post-cyberpunk: Implants are part of your indentity, or just something you swap like you change clothes. Implant costs are divided by ten, but a character needs to spend 10 karma point to turn an Edge point into an Implant point. Each point needs to be explained with the philosophy that goes with it ("only the strong survive" for muscle replacement for example) and the character needs to stick to that philosophy, at the risk of losing that point. Character can buy new Edge points, but their philosophy need to be aligned with the others.

- Generic implants:
The SR4 implants can be adjusted, but it is recommended to use the following framework. Implants come in five kinds:
-- Bonus to skill (-1 Edge point, 10 000 nuyens for +1, 50 000 nuyens for +2). Either a bonus to a single skill or to multiple skills but only under some conditions.
-- IP bonuses (-1/-3/-5 Edge points, 10 000/50 000/100 000 nuyens). See "multiple actions" in the combat chapter
-- Bonus to pool (-0.5 Edge point, 10 000 nuyens for pools that can be quick chargeed in one complex action, 5000 nuyens for the others, price is doubled for each additional implant for the same pool) : Give one additional token at every quick charge. Up to 4 tokens for one pool.
-- Bonus to attributes (-0.25 Edge point, 5000 nuyens): +1 to an attribute, max is 1.5 times the natural maximum
-- Options: (-0.5 Edge for undefined, -0.25 Edge for defined, 1000 nuyens) : An option can be an option of an implant or a small independant implant. Options can either provide a +1 bonus to very specific actions, provide an adjective (to ignore negative modifiers in some situations), cause negative modifiers to opponent in some situations, or provide a small effect (such as being able to breathe under water). Defined options are defined by the player when bought. Undefined options can be defined at any moment by the player. (For example, a character restrained with ropes can decide that one of his undefined option is a wrist blade that can be used in that kind of situation). Once the option has been defined it will stay the same until the end of the adventure. But at the next adventure, the optiond can have been changed to something else.
Last edited by Blade on Fri Sep 02, 2016 3:52 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Stahlseele
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Post by Stahlseele »

So, with the inclusion of pools, this sounds like a mix between SR4 and 3 to me somehow.

2 questions.
a.) You mentioned there being 3 resolutions if difficulty is higher than skill, but you only mention 2 in the jumping and only 1 in the falling example. care to expand on that a bit?

b.) I think adding a second resolution mechanic to the game is not helping. Rolling dice has always been good enough for SR. Where do you get the cards from all of a sudden? Just roll 1d6, even success, uneven fail. Or 1-3 fail 4-6 Success. Done.

Also, why does the mage get to use a complex action on going to quick charge and the mundane has to eat a meal?
How do you define a meal. When is it worth the quick charge?
On the run, open mouth, insert Soy-Energy-Bar, chew. Enough?
Last edited by Stahlseele on Fri Sep 02, 2016 12:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Welcome, to IronHell.
Shrapnel wrote:
TFwiki wrote:Soon is the name of the region in the time-domain (familiar to all marketing departments, and to the moderators and staff of Fun Publications) which sees release of all BotCon news, club exclusives, and other fan desirables. Soon is when then will become now.

Peculiar properties of spacetime ensure that the perception of the magnitude of Soon is fluid and dependent, not on an individual's time-reference, but on spatial and cultural location. A marketer generally perceives Soon as a finite, known, yet unspeakable time-interval; to a fan, the interval appears greater, and may in fact approach the infinite, becoming Never. Once the interval has passed, however, a certain time-lensing effect seems to occur, and the time-interval becomes vanishingly small. We therefore see the strange result that the same fragment of spacetime may be observed, in quick succession, as Soon, Never, and All Too Quickly.
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Post by OgreBattle »

"like a mechanism similar to Leverage's plot points"

I'm interested in how you do this part
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Post by Blade »

Stahlseele wrote:So, with the inclusion of pools, this sounds like a mix between SR4 and 3 to me somehow.
The pools are very different from the SR3 pools, but the concept of combat pool/rigging pool/spellcasting pool does recall SR3.
a.) You mentioned there being 3 resolutions if difficulty is higher than skill, but you only mention 2 in the jumping and only 1 in the falling example. care to expand on that a bit?
Looks like my explanation is not good.
The three possibilities are:
1. Accepting to fail/not attempt the action
2. Applying a modifier
3. Spending points from the pool

Let's take the jumping example:
Player: "I jump to the next roof"
GM: "Difficulty is 4, your skill is 4, you're not sure you'll be able to make it"

1. Accepting: "Ok, I'll find another way"
2. Modifier:
2.1 "I take my time to make sure I do it correctly" => Spend more time to do it, but succeeds
2.2 "What if I aim for the window of the top floor instead of the roof?" => Won't land on the roof, but will be able to jump to the next building (the landing might be more painful)
2.3 "I'll take my chance" => Reveal a card, if it's a success, jumps successfully, if it's a failure, falls between the buildings
3. Spending a point from the pool : "I spend one point from my Physical pool"
b.) I think adding a second resolution mechanic to the game is not helping. Rolling dice has always been good enough for SR. Where do you get the cards from all of a sudden? Just roll 1d6, even success, uneven fail. Or 1-3 fail 4-6 Success. Done.
The value of the card is used in some cases: when shooting the value of the card is used as a bonus to the damage, when spending tokens to cast a spell, the value of the highest card is used for the drain DV, etc.

I guess you could use dice even for this (using D10). Originally, it was for my Hong-Kong campaign, so I was using mahjong tiles for flavor. Another advantages of cards over dice is that it's fast and easy to stack them and revealing them is faster than rolling the die. But if you prefer dice, you can use dice.
Also, why does the mage get to use a complex action on going to quick charge and the mundane has to eat a meal?
How do you define a meal. When is it worth the quick charge?
On the run, open mouth, insert Soy-Energy-Bar, chew. Enough?
It's not for the same pool.
Eating (in the rules it's "a hot meal" and I guess that if I were to publish it I'd reword that to avoid the video-gamey "I'm eating 10 steaks to replenish my HP") or taking a nap is for the quick charge of the Physical pool, which is used for physical skills like Running, Gymnastics, etc. Both Mundanes and Awakened will quick charge this pool the same way.

Spending a complex action for the mage is for the quick charge of the Spellcasting pool, which is used for Spellcasting, Counterspelling and Ritual Spellcasting.

Likewise, each pool has its own charging methods.
Last edited by Blade on Fri Sep 02, 2016 1:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Stahlseele
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Post by Stahlseele »

Ah, i see.
Welcome, to IronHell.
Shrapnel wrote:
TFwiki wrote:Soon is the name of the region in the time-domain (familiar to all marketing departments, and to the moderators and staff of Fun Publications) which sees release of all BotCon news, club exclusives, and other fan desirables. Soon is when then will become now.

Peculiar properties of spacetime ensure that the perception of the magnitude of Soon is fluid and dependent, not on an individual's time-reference, but on spatial and cultural location. A marketer generally perceives Soon as a finite, known, yet unspeakable time-interval; to a fan, the interval appears greater, and may in fact approach the infinite, becoming Never. Once the interval has passed, however, a certain time-lensing effect seems to occur, and the time-interval becomes vanishingly small. We therefore see the strange result that the same fragment of spacetime may be observed, in quick succession, as Soon, Never, and All Too Quickly.
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Post by Blade »

Forgot to mention : I updated the second post with a summary of the rules. It's not the full ruleset but it explains the main concepts.
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Post by OgreBattle »

Just to be clear, I can do stuff without spending points right? Like I can do a combat or bypassing security action without spending combat points, so the idea of having X amount of points is to auto-clear some tasks because my modified skill is higher than the difficulty, until U run out and start taking the risk of rolling a lower skill vs higher difficulty.
Last edited by OgreBattle on Tue Sep 06, 2016 4:28 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Blade »

If the difficulty of the task is lower than your skill, you auto-succeed without spending points.
The points are there for when your skill alone is not enough.

Let's take an example:
Alice and Bob are driving manual cars on a narrow mountainous road, Alice has a Driving skill of 3, Bob has a Driving skill of 1.

They realize they have been going the wrong way and need to do a U-turn. The difficulty of the task is 1. Alice auto-succeeds, and can even decide to do it without slowing down too much (difficulty of 2) and still auto-succeed. Bob will need either to spend a point from his Driving pool, take his time to do the U-turn, take the risk to go off the road or accept to damage his car on the mountain cliff/barriers while doing his U-turn.

It starts snowing and they need to make for lost time, so they have to drive fast down the narrow mountain road. The difficulty is 3. Alice will need either to spend a point or take a risk (to fall off the road or crash the car) or accept to damage her car. She obviously can't "take her time" since the point is driving fast.

Bob can spend up to two points of his Driving pool, but the rules don't allow to spend more than two without spending Edge. This leaves him with a score of 3, which is still not higher than the difficulty. Unless he is willing to spend Edge he will need either to take a risk or to accept to damage his car on top of spending his two points in order to get to a score of 4.
Last edited by Blade on Tue Sep 06, 2016 8:17 am, edited 1 time in total.
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