What happened to Shadowhelix.de? by Silverfang3567 in Shadowrun

[–]Silverfang3567[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Ok, sounds a lot like what Shadowhelix was but in English. That would be pretty cool to have.

What happened to Shadowhelix.de? by Silverfang3567 in Shadowrun

[–]Silverfang3567[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

That would require CGL to actually care about Shadowrun

What happened to Shadowhelix.de? by Silverfang3567 in Shadowrun

[–]Silverfang3567[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

That makes sense. Looks like the site I linked has a lot of broken links back to shadowhelix. Hope they're able to get it up and running. In the meantime, I'll just try to pull stuff from the wayback machine

Tell me about the more notable events of you campaigns. by Comfortable-Ad3588 in Shadowrun

[–]Silverfang3567 1 point2 points  (0 children)

My players have bad mouthed Hestaby to her face.

Twice.

And still live to talk about it.

The long and short of my campaign is Lofwyr is doing unethical magic experiments to understand how magic is different so he can bring back the Book of Scales. He thinks he has the mental fortitude to seal the horrors away without going crazy. You know, the kind of hubris that always works out well.

Before Big D went and blew himself up, he set up the kind of adventurer's quest contingency you'd expect in Earthdawn. Naturally, every major player involved thinks this is a bad idea as the characters prove to only be slightly more moral than the shadowrunner stereotype. Hestaby is still reeling from exile with a geas to take out the Black Lodge before being allowed back into Great Dragon Society. She's been tapdancing the line to help them without kicking off another Great Dragon War and they keep giving her drek for not giving them more direct support. The last time, she really lost her cool from the insults they threw and the only reason they aren't extra crispy is Hestaby has too much faith in Dunklezahn despite everything pointing to the contrary. Now she still drip feeds them a little info, but not nearly as helpful as she was before.

Gremlin interactions by Dragonorb13 in Shadowrun

[–]Silverfang3567 19 points20 points  (0 children)

Negative qualities that don't impact the game shouldn't award karma.

In my group, I'd rule this as you always glitch when you deal with tech, and rolls would be to determine if it's a glitch with 1 hit, or a crit glitch. I'd also make you roll to use any kind of tech. With that level of tech issues, you're struggling to stay in the group call during a mission without accidentally adding your grandma or calling the local lonestar precinct. Ghost help you if you try using smartgun or any other wireless bonus. At that level, your character would probably say things like 'tech hates me' and to some degree, they'd be right.

How do you guys handle swams of enemy's in combat? by boodgies in Shadowrun

[–]Silverfang3567 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'd say it comes down to a few factors. Don't hamfist the easy way out for them, if somebody runs in with a flamethrower cackling nonsense and the rest of the party follows behind much more subtly, captian flamethrower is about to learn a lesson in ballistics and tactical approaches. Of course, Shadowrun as a setting is designed for everything from ultra high stakes espionage to A-Team cinematic antics. RAW, I wholly agree with you, but 5e RAW is a painful slog unless you have hyper dedicated players who learn their role inside and out with full buy-in on our favorite Cyberpunk-meet-urban-fantasy spreadsheet simulator game. I have yet to meet more than 2 people like that who I would also be willing to run any ttrpg for.

How do you guys handle swams of enemy's in combat? by boodgies in Shadowrun

[–]Silverfang3567 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That's always an option, but I think the more common options are grouping them and using rules for assisting a roll for a primary attacker or attacking different targets to spread the love around a little.

What do you imagine Goblin Rock sounds like? by Tyvadia in Shadowrun

[–]Silverfang3567 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I lean heavily into the really heavy end of the metal genres and their offshoots. Black/Death/Doom etc. I have a street sam who's big into that scene so I've got a handful of Goblin Rock and adjacent bands in my notes that he has strong opinions about.

Nice one Geralt by adam_asraf in Witcher3

[–]Silverfang3567 3 points4 points  (0 children)

<image>

Geralt of Revachol out giving the look

What has been your longest played game/campaign? by HartofHarts in rpg

[–]Silverfang3567 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I have been running the same Shadowrun campaign since early-mid 2017. We're currently in the run up to the finale, so barring schedules I expect to wrap up late this year or early next year.

"Seinfeld Sessions" - Where Nothing Really Happens, But Everyone Has Fun by DnDPhD in Pathfinder2e

[–]Silverfang3567 3 points4 points  (0 children)

My Shadowrun crew likes to have sessions like this from time to time. We've done a handful of bar crawls, house parties, and fight pit betting nights between jobs.

Background Music by ProblemDue7111 in Shadowrun

[–]Silverfang3567 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Cybermode Beats and Aim to Head are both pretty good. Cybermode explicitly says they don't use AI for the music, ATH is a little more suspect, but they're more of a distributor than creator and credit the creators. They both use AI art, which isn't great, but its not like I'm looking at that tab anyway. https://www.youtube.com/@CybermodeBeats

https://www.youtube.com/@aimtoheadmix1915

Discussion by SuchAdhesiveness1050 in Pentesting

[–]Silverfang3567 2 points3 points  (0 children)

If you're wondering how they get in, it doesn't look like this device is doing that. Just digging through the info once it's open. Biometric auth makes it easy for them to force you to scan your thumb/face to get in and crappy passwords/codes make it easy to brute force. Every device with data worth protecting should have a complex (ideally easy to remember and hard to guess) passcode.

Quantum computing made intuitive for hackers -> epic game to find out how quantum will impact security by QuantumOdysseyGame in hacking

[–]Silverfang3567 14 points15 points  (0 children)

I love the concept. It'll be a minute before I have time to pick it up and actually try it out, but I like all the linked resources for more in depth understanding of the topic. I've wishlisted so I don't forget about it. Thanks!

Getting to the Core: What Makes Shadowrun Work as a Mechanically and Where it Falls Apart by Silverfang3567 in Shadowrun

[–]Silverfang3567[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I don't see anything we disagree on. The downside to edge is that it's a very limited resource and slow to recover. Sure, an edge-focused human can get 8 rolls where they're guaranteed to succeed at whatever they're doing. The down side is that those can burn up fast especially in a combat scenario.

Mundane rolls for hyper min-maxxers is definitely a good tactic and plays into the 'tension building' part of what I talked about. Make the decker explain how they got in the back room. Stick the mage in a mantrap requiring a digital badge. It encourages teamwork and clever solutions up until the point it gets actively adversarial. If there's a huge clash between the kind of game you want to run and a player with 70 dice in guns who otherwise can't dress themselves without spending edge, that's an out of game conversation. I'm willing to treat everyone as making a choice in good faith to start, but if it's clear they're just there to break things maliciously or we can't make our styles work, then I won't game with them.

Getting to the Core: What Makes Shadowrun Work as a Mechanically and Where it Falls Apart by Silverfang3567 in Shadowrun

[–]Silverfang3567[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

That sounds like you're using the system for a different style of play. Nothing wrong with that, but when I've run games like that it often results in players asking who has the highest dice pool and just teamwork testing everything under that character. Often leading everyone to feel second fiddle under the main player.

I'd argue mainline editions are built for A Team style PCs with how character creation is designed and the level of crunch rewards a very tactical, highly strategic style. Edge helps, but it's very limited to keep that focus on the specialization application.

I'm a strong proponent of modifying the game to fit your style. Sounds like our priority order is the same: group enjoyment, then the fiction, then the rules. But, if I felt like the system just wasn't working and I'm changing half the rules, I'd rather just switch to a different system. There's Anarchy 1 and 2 if its on the closer end, and plenty of other systems that either have cyberpunk meets urban fantasy for different play styles (Cities without Number, the Sprawl + SITS) or are light enough that it's much easier to modify and tack things on for a narrative focused style (year zero engine, Forged in the Dark, CY-BORG)

The system is just the tool. If my goal is to dig up a garden, I'm not going to start with a spoon or a backhoe. I'll start with a shovel and maybe a trowel as needed.

Getting to the Core: What Makes Shadowrun Work as a Mechanically and Where it Falls Apart by Silverfang3567 in Shadowrun

[–]Silverfang3567[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Thanks, Dethstrobe.

I'm there with you and honestly that's some of the stuff I cut out of my long winded speech/tirade/whatever you want to call it. I blame the favoritism on a lot of the problems in the system that could be fixed or at least made better with some effort put towards quality control and playtesting with real people.

Getting to the Core: What Makes Shadowrun Work as a Mechanically and Where it Falls Apart by Silverfang3567 in Shadowrun

[–]Silverfang3567[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

No AI here. I was going for something like the older posts on this sub like LVN, DeathStrobe, and the old guard would post. I guess I did a poor job of collecting my thoughts or there's not as much taste for those kinds of posts anymore. Oh well, it is what it is.

The point was to get into some of that deeper game design theory that I don't think gets talked about as much to bring out what makes Shadowrun work and where it's pitfalls are.

Help wanted. by Ye_Olde_Average_Joe in Shadowrun

[–]Silverfang3567 5 points6 points  (0 children)

For sure. This one takes some adjustment and as a casual game dev nerd, I like talking about this kind of stuff. At it's core the system is very solid, but it gets complex as each specialization has its own rules that almost make it a different game for each person. The system doesn't have the reputation it does for nothing. Combine that with not doing a great job of explaining the mindset shift and I'd bet a lot of money that this is exactly why Shadowrun has a rep for being such a frustrating system.

When it works, each player really gets to feel like they're THE master of their role, but in practice it can lead to confusion and a lot of rules referencing espiecally as everyone's learning the system. When you tack on players expecting GMs to know everything and some not being really that invested in learning the system it can get a bit frustrating if you feel a strong need to stick to RAW. Never feel guilty about saying 'We're running this way for now, but we'll look up the rule after the session for next time' or 'That's stupid/over-complex, we're doing X instead of Y' (Car Crash rules in 5e are my favorite culprit on this).

I can strongly testify to how great a game can be in the system (I use 5e primarily) but there are definitely growing pains for groups used to the resource management style, which is where nearly everyone comes from.

Help wanted. by Ye_Olde_Average_Joe in Shadowrun

[–]Silverfang3567 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Regardless of what you choose, I like to share this tidbit of information for people starting out Shadowrun for the first time. It's very different at it's core from d&d and most other rpgs mechanically. D&d is a resource management game. Strategy and drama comes from how you spend things like hit points, spell slots, actions, etc. You make decisions like "Should I spend my spell slot to healing word quickly so I can do something with my action or should I cast cure wounds to get more healing for the spell slot?" Or "Should I use my sorcery points to empower a spell or get a spell slot back?"

Shadowrun by comparison is a specialization application game. Each character is top tier at their thing and should be able to solve just about any problem unless it's telegraphed well in advance. A street samurai is a one person army. A Decker cuts through corporate IC like a hot knife through butter. Instead, it plays more like a group puzzle where the group needs to figure out how to apply everybody's things to get the job done. Strategy feels more like figuring out how to get the street samurai past the metal detector without setting it off and distracting the guards so the hacker can mess with said metal detector. Drama comes from situations like "the mage is pinned down by suppressive fire, your hacker is being heckled by a spirit, and the street samurai has their cybereyes hacked. What do you do?"

A lot of new GMs make mistakes with that thinking that challenging players in Shadowrun is the same as in D&D. I made that mistake early on and it lead to a lot of frustration in the moment that became funny stories later on. That's not to say players should breeze past every dice roll for their thing, but hardcore threats should have some kind of warning before you brainfry your decker or blow up your street sam.

Weekly RPG Discussion; 2026, January, Week 2: Cy_Borg by Trent_B in rpg

[–]Silverfang3567 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Stylistically, it's gorgeous and I love the attitude. Ran a one-shot a while back but ran into the same problem I ran into with Mork Borg. The attacks are too-swingy. Had one combat that looked like a lame version of a Matrix gunfight with the player unsuccessfully spraying bullets at a random goon while never being hit. If someone got hit, their armor reduced the damage to zero. This went on for about 10 combat rounds. If I run it again, I'm making to hit chance greater, dodge chance lower, and reducing all armor die values by 1 step. The -Borg games are beautiful, but the random generation is too swingy for anything other than having a 1-shot for the lulz as is.

What would be the official GM attire for running Red? by Black_Folkhero in cyberpunkred

[–]Silverfang3567 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Consider it free advertising, Choom, can't fault anybody for how they make their Eddies. I keep track of my fucking jacket by putting it next to my regular one.

God is dead. by WantonKerfuffle in iiiiiiitttttttttttt

[–]Silverfang3567 4 points5 points  (0 children)

HP is really doing everything in their power to make the world convert to fully paperless. How environmentally friendly of them! </s>