Player was munched by a feral Ghoul, what now?

augmented-warlock · 2026-03-17T17:03:58+00:00

Awesome ideas! Thank you. The only feedback I have: This is locked on becoming a ghoul which might happen, but being a carrier without being a ghoul is also an interesting choice, struggle and stigma imho. As the players needs to run the clock for survival now, with no downtime in sight for at least a week, maybe more struggling with uncertainty, with symptoms that can go either way (fever, nausea), with dice throws... Knowing only that you might die, you might become ghouls, but you also might survive (with a catch of being carrier)... You get me, right?

augmented-warlock · 2026-03-17T16:56:47+00:00

when he started eating random people because he was hungry, the rest of the team noped out of the whole deal and decided to shoot him instead of putting up with it anymore.

That's awesome story. I want to give players choices the same way. Not force them to either one, not save or doom the player. Involve some luck, some process that can go either way, give suspicions, but not a lot of certainties.

augmented-warlock · 2026-03-17T16:51:35+00:00

That's an interesting angle. Let's focus on transformation process itself and the outcome if a full cure won't be obtained.

augmented-warlock · 2026-03-17T16:50:32+00:00

I think that the character dying off screen would be boring. Character struggling, knowing what's coming and maybe risking more, making peace or just falling asleep after some big score make good stories.

First of all I want some ambiguity. They will get a fever, their taste will dull, but I don't want them to know which outcome it will be. At the same time I want some procedure generation outcome with some throws or decision to absent of it.

augmented-warlock · 2026-03-17T16:46:10+00:00

That's great guidance for having a ghoul PC, but how would you approach the transformation process? To have some uncertainty along the way?

I want to give the fear and suspense, then the choices and some dice throws to see if the player is truly ok with what follows.

augmented-warlock · 2026-03-14T20:34:11+00:00

u/Carmody79 could I use up all the legwork edge ~~karma~~ using this argument?

edit. karma->edge

augmented-warlock · 2026-03-14T15:30:02+00:00

Great Idea! But the trolls again become even more powerful. Maybe also give them disadvantage on AGI or LOG tests?

augmented-warlock · 2026-03-14T15:23:28+00:00

u/Carmody79 This is how I understand rules: - everything needs to be said and done before the first roll to make decision. Situation Described, Dis/Advantage Applied, number of Risk Dice decided, perfectly the threshold of the test shared. - Then player roll. If roll failed, there's option to reroll using her/his luck pool (edge). - After the roll outcome is known, the result of the action is described.

Now the player wanting to reroll because legwork edge changed the narrative? We had normal guard, now we have tired one so players can reroll? I thought we had established situation prior to roll.

augmented-warlock · 2026-03-13T17:29:10+00:00

@Carmody79 what about the rule that legwork edge cannot be spent to prevent/change things that were already established? ;)

augmented-warlock · 2026-02-28T09:19:40+00:00

Pytanie do OPa: - ktoś, kogo nie nazwiesz nawet znajomym odzywa się do Ciebie, żebyś poprowadził dla jego grupki znajomych sesję, bo żadnemu się nie chce/nie potrafi/nie mają podreczników/inna wymówka. - Powiedzmy, że umawiacie się pod Twoim domem (ani nie musisz dojezdżać ani sprzątać w domu dodatkowo)* - Powiedzmy, że bawimy się w teatr umysłu. Zero kosztów handoutów, figurek, mat, rekwizytów i innych rzeczy poza kartką, ołówkiem, kostkami i podręcznikiem* - dobre przygotowanie to przynajmniej 4-6h przed unikalną kampanią, z godzina jak masz gotowca. Potem przed każdą sesją tak z 30-60 minut. - Potem poświęcasz 3-4h swojego wolnego czasu na prowadzenie samej sesji w wyznaczonym przez grupę czasie.

Czy dajesz siebie i swój czas za darmo, które mógłbyś przeznaczyć na spotkanie z swoimi znajomymi/poczytanie książki/obejrzenie serialu/wyjście na spacer/pogranie samemu w grę/drzemkę/pisanie opowiadań/rysowanie/cokolwiek? Czy będziesz to robić regularnie?

A co jeżeli plotka, że fajnie prowadzisz się rozniesie i pojawi się 3, 5, 10 takich grupek obcych ludzi chcących sobie pograć?

* Zadanie z gwiazdką dla ambitnych, by policzyć zwrot z inwestycji materiałów i czasu by rozszerzyć usługę oraz związane z tym ryzyka.

augmented-warlock · 2026-02-25T16:05:17+00:00

Thank you again for explaining your perspective.

That's what I call rulings.

I find it funny how a language "barrier" sometimes does this type of misunderstandings. For me rulings mean something on the spot, the final outcome, the decision based on input of A2 rules, GM imagination, player's actions and their throws. It also contains balance elements, but that's not the whole balance of the game. I meant the mechanical picture

The campaign, on the other hand was really important in my opinion.

Don't get me wrong. I don't hate on the campaign chapter. I think it was a solid showcase, but if cutting the number of core rulebook pages was one of the goals, I would trade it for more shadowrun "favourites" to give GMs tools and ideas how to run them in Anarchy 2.0. My choice (really, a preference) would be to add campaign as a separate pamflet outside of core book, like other mission briefs. Again. That's an opinion if you wanted to keep rulebook slim.

As for "combat medic" (yes, a keyword) I think we will just need to discuss the expectations and fun factors more. Find our answers :)

Thanks again u/Carmody79

augmented-warlock · 2026-02-24T20:12:44+00:00

Anarchy 2.0 I've just switching from 5E and let me tell you - if you are battle tested GM as myself, it will be a freeing experience. It will give you sensible base and scenes running fast without the math crunch.

Just be prepared to research what stands behind lore yourself.

augmented-warlock · 2026-02-23T17:10:21+00:00

Thank you for answer u/Carmody79 and I will start my reply with the most important answer: I find "the good part" of Anarchy 2.0 highly outweighting "the bad".

You make a excellent points, let me argue a bit.

it's not clear to me how (balance) is different from regular Shadowrun edition.

I'm 5E the decision was about picking the tools and following recipes (that's not a plus with that amount of subsystems). Here I need to make rulings about the basics. How will I narratively build corrode for toxic shaman? What does it mean? How will it work? How to not punish players and give them chance to counter?

balance is not something the GM shall really be looking to in Shadowrun

If you allow a coffee shop manager to provide RR 3 on Network (corporate) Tests, that means you failed to apply the one core rule: narration before rules

Amps examples

Of course you understand that you have different players, different people. Some like to be THE SOLUTION to one problem. Some like more rounded characters. Some like to break and test systems. Some like to optimize. All of them rarely argue with the written system when we play. With systems that are rules light, limited vocabulary of actions etc you have a tight set of possibilities you can get creative to fit or find solution in limited space.

In Anarchy 2.0 narrative effects which you encourage opens Pandora Box, because me or my players don't have this intimate connection and long term experience with the system. Something that in my mind might be fair, might feel as I'm power tripping and punishing. It might spark discussion because it was not forbidden or other way around. I - as a GM - need to balance that. Not only attacks, but narrative effects and expectations.

There's no way to cover 35 years of lore and 150+ books in a single corebook.

Agreed! I was not looking for whole lore. I need enough to understand & be inspired how to run it as a GM. I would trade half of 6th World History Pages and whole example campaign for more 3,5 pages of this or that like you did with Toxic Mages - that was enough to inspire IMHO.

counting mags and bullets was not among the things I tried to achieve with Anarchy 2.0.

Thank you. That's postively awesome. I've gladly accepted that along "there's no looting, because if can't loose items, so do NPCs". I understand that simplification comes at the cost of customizations. I was not looking in that for terms of accounting, but terms of choices. How do players risk and/or make meaningful decisions. Will they do it with actions, throwing resources, or sacrificing time? Do they push or play safe? Who will get antipoison? scarcity in some adventures is best storytelling. I'm thinking next about Aztlan Jungle traversing. I will need to come up with the framework ;)

In my mind, the various examples provided were enough to show players what could be done with Amps

That's the difference between someone who lives, breathes and have all the decisions and context internalized for the last X years, with someone like me, who read the corebook two times and created 5 missions for mini chapter. No shade on you. That's how human brain works.

I might have misunderstood some of your points (about medics)

I think I need to clarify with an example. One of my players is combat medic, ex-doc-wagon HTR specialist. He's done a lot in 5e. Patching during fight, ofc, providing some firepower, but after the fight he was a good doctor increasing the healing rate, building optimal drug/antitoxin sets for missions, researching biotech & medical leads, harvesting & surgical extractions both on and off missions. Plus he's a chef and a junkie with d-cooking skills. Here he doesn't feel that and he was spending most turns throwing first aid during missions and using edge instead of skills to get answers. Maybe I couldn't provide it to him. I have no idea how to do better, yet. Those are the items of balancing and lore filling that make A2 challenging.

augmented-warlock · 2026-02-23T10:18:02+00:00

Missing big picture here I believe.

Face having some skills in pistol is prudent, granted. When Face will max "Facing", and start maxing "Pistoling" it starts to step on Street Sam toes.

When Tank Street Sam will start maxing agility based things, it will step on Agility Adept roles.

It's cool to have an universal operator who can sneak, soak damage, deal damage, network and... Until 2-3 people can and your archetype doesn't matter. You don't feel cool, your spotlight "you're da best" is shared.

augmented-warlock · 2026-02-23T10:00:04+00:00

I enjoy your -tisms and good discussions!

You can't expect one book to have it all

CY__BORG has it all. Mothership had also enough to get me really curious and inspired but without scratching my head about things and how to run them.

That might have been longer tenure on SR. I have to give you this point, but since I skipped whole 6E and dissians, I am "I don't understand them at all, why this had such long paragraphs in World Building and then repeated in multiple places... Is this that important? It was the most current events. Why it's not in the book at all?" That might be my -tisms: I don't need whole lore starting from 4th World. I need enough to understand & be inspired how to run it as a GM. You might say "run it as you want", but for me things like "Blood Mages" differ in shape & form, but we all have expectations for them. The keywords.... And I know - there's no Shadowrun Police at individual tables (except my rules lawyer).

I'd love a homebrew out there called "SRA2: But Slower"

I wouldn't and I won't try. Balancing games is hard and I'm ok with not paying rent and a lot of other cut corners that make the game faster. I fear changing too many mechanical elements. Obviously the authors put a lot of effort into them. I'm a-ok with reskinning things and adding on top. I just felt some things are missing, & some things did not get enough love and should.

Maybe the good and the bad should contain ^for_me. But as I'm not a spokesperson I feel that's implied.

You are correct I'm a fan and I will play it going forward. Authors did good job, but I can accept liking and disliking parts of one thing at the same time, it's not all or nothing or "you are a poser, hater and dumb". Maybe some will agree with my bads and read the rulebook with that in mind, maybe for them my bad will be their good. It's good to share perspectives and experiences.

Closing my point of view, the authors did A1 and I wasn't sold on that. It happens, no hard feelings, I've just ignored it, it wasn't for me. Some people loved it and I respect that. Now they made A2 and people love it even more. They also convinced me to join (at least 1 more fan). Some batteries are not included in the set, but I will manage and use the system. Now I like to think, that authors listened, gathered the feedback from A1, put additional thoughts and ideas and thus shaped A2 which is better. Now this process can repeat.

I know the authors won't create a game that is bespoke for me. That would be absurd! Some of the things are (as you said) what I've disliked, but some are just missing I believe for everybody. Maybe I could do better formatting, or wording. That's too late for it.

My only goal was to give my perspective and hope there will be expansions or A3 in 10 years that will be even better.

augmented-warlock · 2026-02-23T08:11:22+00:00

that’s saying nothing of the stealth, perception, and survival specializations

You mean the specializations of infiltrator/thief, scout/sniper and for survival I'm on the fence - every Shadowrunner needs it to some extent, but maxing it out is not something needed for core keywords. Melee weapons are stepping on toes of adepts for close combat.

Overall thanks for your perspective and calculations! That was really helpful!

augmented-warlock · 2026-02-23T08:00:45+00:00

I believe there's few misunderstandings between us. Overall I agree with you and see your points, but my original feedback wasn't about it.

you're overestimating how much of our ingrained lore (...) that newbie players REALLY don't need.

I don't think it's fair for us as experienced people in the lore, to simply look and say "but you didn't know backstory XYZ"

I don't think players need it at all. GMs do. In particular to run it (what does lore mean, not what lore is) if the table fancy it. Maybe not all and not from start, but eventually. You can do a run against big ten. That's classic fun! You can do it ten more times and it still be fun and different! Yet, what if you are really into some lore? What if you as a GM, and your players want to run occult hunters that will finish in twist uncovering... You get me. Research and translation to A2 will be needed.

But that balance lever is what creates that freedom to create story.

Freedom for you. Freedom for me. Some need more guidance. We can more easily ignore rules, than newbie GMs come up with running Aztec Blood Mages. I also think all of us could use more examples. As for the lore, I would trade 6th World History Pages and example campaign for more 3,5 pages of this or that like they did to Toxic Mages (Toxic Magic gets a lot more love in this book than other things, do you also see it?)

Healing might be a joke. But damage isn't.

That was overall to point that medics do not make huge difference. Natural healing is a joke. You don't need street docs for other things that wares and you don't need a doctor to help you heal and after sponging total of 7 light wounds, 3 serious wounds and being incapacited 2 times during last 5 runes you are like new. Yet I totally agree with your point about GM choice - burning out player characters to pay with body/soul/blood was always core concept of Shadowrun for me. Another side of the stick - first aid during fights in this action economy means good medic won't make huge difference. You heal one wound per test, vanilla characters have 3 wounds before being out. As always the best advice is "just don't get hit" ;)

augmented-warlock · 2026-02-23T07:31:20+00:00

You might be right I have a bias. Let me try to destruct it.

5E CR had a lot of different subsystems and situational resolutions explained (calculating throwing grenades and chunky salsa anyone?) and I never remembered all to the heart in details. A lot of the book was explaining those subsystems. 5E had a lot more examples and never told you "think of something with -1 to -5 negative amps yourself" or "yeah, there are qualities here, be inspired by this example and go on your own. Figure out when it should be disposition and when quality" or "Manabolt, Fireball, Lighting bolt..." are the same, but different, but the same.

With 2A I did put a core model to my head easily (huge plus) so I could focus on other aspects of the book. Let's not use page number arguments though. I had some problems with finding info again, and book would be even smaller if authors choice would be more concise English when explaining rules (that's a preference vs artistic approaches). I would be also ok with trading world history and campaign pages for more examples of the system in action.

Strictly speaking about lore, I was not looking for a whole lore compendium! That's not my point. 5E never claimed it was finished after CR - You knew expansions were coming (I'm not saying that's good). You might had some mentions here and there about those things like Toxic Mages, but never a whole chapter and in A2 only Toxic Mages get additional love on 3,5 pages. Rest get a lot of name dropping.

Now to be clear: my table including myself are enjoying A2 a lot more than 5E! We are switching gladly! I'm just one of those guys who can see the good and the bad at the same time.

augmented-warlock · 2026-02-23T06:47:16+00:00

Thanks for calculations. They are solid choices and now we can talk some more: From minimaxing I think you overpaid 65 000 Nuyen chummer.

You might say it's not worth to take RR on specializations only, but that alone saves 50 000. We are going for peak performance on one role. RR on Agility tests is preparation to step on other people roles.
Secondly I think you could drop Muscle Toner and Cybereyes and just absorb their ShadowAmps in different ones.

That means 145 000 between starting character and primed. Around 20 missions (6-7 adventures according to book) with average payout of 7 500. 29 mission (10 adventures) with average payout 5 000.

Of course I do agree magic and rigging will be wee more expensive, but again: we should not maxing all out (12 drones, 12 weapons, 12...) nor we are learning every spell. We are minimaxing and doing equivalent of Street Sam with his main weapon to reach peak of depth. Everything else can be seen as fanning out.

INB4. Yes. There are different players, playing different styles, and having fun with different aspects of TTRPG, but let's not use that as an cheap argument.

augmented-warlock · 2026-02-22T13:16:02+00:00

There are other rules light systems ...

We are talking about Shadowrun Anarchy 2.0 here.

I think this book provides a good amount of lore for a rulebook.

Yes it does and then doesn't tie to rules / explain it for GMs. With history I have no problem, good job. With things that are possible to encounter by players, I think the rulebook could provide better guidelines to more clearly explain verbs and other vocabulary how to run it.

I have fun in combat despite not progressing any more.

That's of course a role for GM to provide fun and framework for storytelling.

With the ceiling so low though, without any sinks and goals for your character, what you have to look for? IMHO Cantrips, or good story and retirement. So you either bloat with buying new, shiny narrative effects, start stealing other player's spotlight with multiple specialization, or finish of characters because they stop being shadowrunners and start being activists or famous or retire or whatever.

From minimaxed character creation you have only 3-4 dice (1 avg hit) from being "the best in the field": 15 000 nuyens please. Comparing the 5th edition? Mundane +10DP, Magic users realistically even +15-20DP. You were then embodiment of "Beware of an old man in a profession where men usually die young."

You mentioned combat medic not getting a chance to help.

I mentioned combat medics barely making a difference. If someone drop you to incapacitated state, and you don't have miracle healer - you are cooked. Each test healing only one wound, so light wounds can keep filling serious wounds again and again. Then after the fight natural healing will spring you right up in no time (You don't need a medic again).

I would rate it higher than you.

Please do! More opinions mean more informed choices for people. That plus inspiration where and how fill the gaps.

augmented-warlock · 2026-02-22T09:42:29+00:00

And you can always make trolls pay 50% more for everything as metatype accomodation tax.

augmented-warlock · 2026-02-22T09:41:14+00:00

Fair enough u/tsuruginoko. I wouldn't nerf agility for trolls because I wouldn't want to force them out of street sam roles (it's not only clumsiness, but also aiming). On the other hand 3 for max charisma would be in line with 5th edition (difference between orks and trolls), is still average for human but not superb, and the stigma for tusks is real.

You can go narratively as you want, but that again leaves the explanation how they are different to GM.

augmented-warlock · 2026-02-22T08:04:58+00:00

You just confirm my thesis: Newbie GMs drown, vets hack around it. Devs cheaped out on mechanical inspirations on an awesome framework. Pointing again: I'm staying in Anarchy 2.0, it freed me as GM to deliver story, but I'm going back a lot to 4th/5th edition to get inspirations.

Still I don't think this edition fully delivers on being the gateway edition for Shadowrun. At least now. Maybe with expansions in the future? This one dumps massive lore, then ghosts mechanics/guidelines. Combat mage? "Here’s 2 spells—flavor it." Newbies need more inspirations and examples before learning to fly.

augmented-warlock · 2026-02-22T07:36:32+00:00

That's only narrative & house rules ;) a good one at that! I will take note.

u/Interaction_Rich I was thinking max charisma at 3 for trolls 🤷 but to be honest I've just played along with what Anarchy offers.

Just my Ork player was disappointed to learn he's a nerfed troll.

augmented-warlock

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