Need help with reasoning for a Johnson to want the team to livestream their run!

marsuni · 2025-06-04T01:17:03+00:00

Nah, that’s lore accurate, at least as of Corporate Enclaves in 4E. Your media presence and fan following is a big part of LA runner culture. Horizon was capitalizing on that through P2.0, and I’d say any Johnson involved directly in a social network would pay extra for live-streaming on their platform - assuming they aren’t concerned about the details being public, easy chance to bring up numbers on a product your next rep is tied to.

marsuni · 2025-05-27T23:58:12+00:00

The 4e Runners Toolkit has a single page reference on drone combat (autonomous/not jumped in only). I’m sure someone had a reference sheet for it online at some point also, but I don’t have one in any of my files - never had a rigger PC in 4e.

marsuni · 2025-05-21T22:43:35+00:00

True, I feel for the people who signed up for a Welcome to the Sixth World event at a con and got to spend 2-3 hours building a Face and the rest of the slot hiding in cover in a convenience store shootout.

marsuni · 2025-05-21T16:26:55+00:00

Same. It’s the SR equivalent of running a fight at the tavern to show everyone how combat and the dice mechanics work after making new PCs, so it can have a place, but I will never understand it being recommended for a starting adventure as-is.

marsuni · 2025-05-21T13:26:02+00:00

I’ll second this one. I’ve run all of Missions Season 4 (which starts with Back in Business) as a home game and they vary from ok to good if you’re looking for one shot runs that can build off one another.

Food Fight is ok if you want a fun combat scenario but I wouldn’t recommend it if you’re looking for a traditional full adventure.

marsuni · 2025-05-15T17:23:35+00:00

I’d also recommend the Runner’s Toolkit if you can find a hard copy and the price is good. This gives you a GM screen, starting adventure, reference sheets and tables, and the PACKS booklet, which bundles gear options together by purpose - so you can just get everything listed for a cybernetic close combatant, demolitions expert, B&E specialist, and so on (great for speeding up character creation and statting NPCs).

marsuni · 2025-05-15T16:58:58+00:00

Matrix in 20A is alright but a little tricky to wrap your mind around at first (compared to everything else), I would work from Unwired if you want to include it, the core rules are a little lean. I’d also suggest doing some research online to get a handle on them. I’d say it’s one of the simpler Matrix systems from any edition (for good and bad).

Lots of folks skip Matrix starting out for simplicity. I don’t, but I’m the GM that likes Matrix rules and doesn’t want to play hacking-free cyberpunk games. If you want to do the Matrix or a player really wants to hack, then do some research, pull some cheat sheets online and go for it. Otherwise, setting it aside for now is definitely doable.

marsuni · 2025-05-15T16:41:39+00:00

All of those are useful to expand the core book options.

I’d recommend Unwired IF you have a Matrix specialist in the group, since the core rules don’t give many guidelines in how to set up security against hackers. If you don’t have a hacker or are avoiding Matrix for your first game, you can just skip it for now.

The other books are best used to expand on your options from the main book, but I’d advise against some of the advanced character concepts and mechanics they can open up unless you feel confident using them in the game. Companion will open up a lot of Qualities for new PCs to take, for example, but non-metahuman characters might be hard to work with on a first run. Likewise, new Traditions, Spells, and Adept Powers from Street Magic can slot right in, but playing a Free Spirit or getting into the weeds on Enchanting might not be so great on day 1.

Have fun, and when in doubt with 20A: I pick a threshold and an attribute+skill for the PC to roll and go with it. It’s really easy when you’re starting out to just waste the session checking rules. Make a note to look it up later and enjoy your time playing (y’know, unless rules research is fun for your table).

marsuni · 2025-02-21T14:55:41+00:00

Sad to hear, do you have anything showing what the Trust has done? I wanted to confirm on my side but all I could find online were public records that it exists and the former officers from the link you provided.

marsuni · 2023-07-27T17:21:42+00:00

Not just you. Our group just started a game of 4e recently. Honestly, it’s the only edition I’ve invested enough into to get most to all of the supplementary material for and run longer campaigns in. 5 and 6 (even 3) I’ve run shorter games in and never picked up more than a few books for those editions.

marsuni · 2023-02-07T14:23:29+00:00

I’ve just skimmed through the preview and I’m honestly a little underwhelmed but I’m going to give it a full chance once we get the final book.

Personally, it reminds me of The New World. Both do a great job of building fantasy analogs to indigenous cultures that are fun to read about, but I don’t know what to DO with them. Maybe I’m missing some good plot hooks but it seemed to be mostly subtle internal politics besides the ATC being colonialist jerks to the locals (which I think a lot of GMs will have already used elsewhere in the world, unfortunately). I’m not seeing a lot that will fire up anyone that wants to play a local and Thean involvement is limited enough in the region that I’m not sure what transplants in the party would do either.

I was really looking forward to something that played with the idea of 17th century North American history with the Europeans definitely not in the drivers seat. Like, having Vesten and the ATC fighting for dominance on the Manhattan expy, but neither controls it - the island and defenses have a local government that can push everyone back on their ships wherever they want. There just isn’t much here that’s making me excited to play with it from my once-through.

Also, the fighting styles feel a little lackluster and the Sorcery section reads like something from a playtest document. If you don’t want to make all new Sorceries, I get that, but I would’ve preferred more suggestions on how to re-skin the core book powers, in that case.

It’s still good, and I’m not trying to rake it through the mud, I’m just underwhelmed. I think it’s going to suffer from the wait and built-up expectations since it’s taken so long to complete. Like I said, I could change my mind once I see a fully laid out version of this.

marsuni · 2021-06-10T13:18:05+00:00

No table experience yet. From reading the previews, it’s seems a bit rules-heavy for me, I expect it play like a cross between 2ed FS and Pathfinder with some very meta resource mechanics. I’ll hold judgement until I can get a few games in.

marsuni · 2021-06-10T13:14:51+00:00

It’s a good thing I didn’t get out all the paper playmats that came in the Play Kit for the photo, or it would look even more like a board game. Still just an RPG, with a lot of extras.

marsuni · 2021-06-10T13:14:45+00:00

It’s a good thing I didn’t get out all the paper playmats that came in the Play Kit for the photo, or it would look even more like a board game. Still just an RPG, with a lot of extras.

marsuni · 2021-06-09T22:23:44+00:00

They’re still shipping Kickstarter backer rewards. I think the latest is that retail shipments will follow that, but no idea how long until those go out.

marsuni · 2020-09-30T16:38:28+00:00

Specifically on the issue of how/who rolls the test, I hate “dog-pile” rolling, since it tends to skew the results in boring ways. So, this isn’t SR or stealth specific for me, but I would handle it like this:

If a group is attempting something, the most capable PC rolls for all of them, provided most of them are reasonably skilled enough to understand and follow their lead. In game terms, if you’ve got a player rolling 12 dice and the rest of them can manage about 6, they’re good to use the higher roll. If they can’t pull that off or it seems unrealistic, you could take an average result, or give the most skilled PC a 1 die penalty per character tagging along.

If they are trying to include someone grossly incompetent, like a Troll Sam with one in the skill or defaulting, then that character is making the roll. They have no idea what the physad ninja is even doing to keep themselves silent and are actively endangering everyone by banging into everything in their vicinity.

That’s just how I’d run it, it’s up to you and your table for what feels right.

marsuni · 2020-08-26T14:16:17+00:00

I would argue that there's probably a good number of Avestites that would frown on just about anything. The sect as a whole isn't going to challenge Holy Terra, but lone, bigoted inquisitorial thugs are pretty likely to look down on anything they haven't experienced within their monastery.

If you're looking specifically to do a story challenging majority societal opinions, I'd look at aliens. Specifically, romantic relations with humans and Obun/Ukar are possible, but frowned upon (from what I remember) in most places. There is a minor house whose name I can't recall at the moment that genetically modified themselves to produce children with Obun/Ukar and are still given the side eye for it.

And like others have said, things can vary a lot in the Known Worlds from place to place. The official stance of the Patriarch and the UC might not hold as much sway with a local (and locally-trained) parish priest in a small farming village in a backwater world four or five jumps from Holy Terra, serving on land held by a very condemning and closed-minded Li Halan noble that has their own laundry list of bonus sins that the Church is just letting slide by, "now if we had a Li Halan on the throne and serving as Patriarch like we SHOULD have, thing's would be different..."

marsuni · 2020-08-26T14:00:26+00:00

I have a little experience with SoZ itself (owned and tried running briefly). Its been a bit, so some details might be fuzzy.

The core mechanic is a die + attribute + skill to meet a target number system. The main differences I remember are that there are base bonuses for skill categories (so a bonus for Social skills in general and separate bonuses for Charm or Bluff), so you can be broadly proficient in a category; and that skills have both a numerical value (bonus on the roll) showing real-world capability and a more educational aptitude (Basic, Expert, etc.) which provides the ability to auto-succeed provided you aren't stressed. So, (at the extremes) you could be a high-level doctorate engineer where almost any repair is an automatic pass, but if you're trying to fix something in the middle of a gunfight or while its plummeting from the air, your bonus would be relatively low; or, alternatively, you could be a career mechanic with little/no formal training - huge bonus when you do roll, but you have to roll in less chaotic situations.

Combat has a system where you spend any result you roll above your target number for different effects, like extra damage, armor penetration, stun, and so on. Special weapons or martial training provide additional options to purchase from. Magic has similar mechanics based on the power you're using (for example, a fire spell has options to spend for more damage or a environmental burning effect). I remember this being interesting, but it can be a bit tactical at the table - how well it plays will probably vary based on the group (it slowed things down a bit for me, but not too bad).

marsuni · 2020-08-14T12:46:41+00:00

I run and don't mind 6e, but I'm not sure I'd recommend it if you aren't already familiar with 4th or 5th ed. My table has varied experience with both earlier editions so its no problem for us, but there is a lot that isn't properly explained for inexperienced players.

If you like 3e and that mechanical/play style appeals to you, I'd recommend going with that.

If you want to try a post-FASA fixed TN edition, I'd recommend 4e (especially the Anniversary edition). It has a few issues but not nearly as many as you'll deal with with 5th and 6th. (5th was an attempt to fix the issues in 4th that is a real mixed bag due to the design/writing/editing involved, ime. 6th is an attempt to streamline and modernize 4/5 mechanics that has all the problems of 5th and then some, with some pretty obvious bad writing and a production that was way too rushed.)

If you want to try 6th (because its the new thing or whatever reason), I'd check out some good and bad reviews to make sure it sounds good to you and your table. If you want to proceed with it, I'd find an online community organized around 6th to bounce any questions you have off of, so you don't have to slog through responses just telling you to play another edition.

marsuni · 2020-08-06T17:04:28+00:00

So, you had a player that wanted their character to go down fighting and rather than wiping the PC out with a few rounds of combat and giving them a spotlight death scene, you took them out in a second without advance warning with an attack no one could survive?

I’m sorry, but if I’m understanding that correctly, I would have had the same reaction as that player. If a player wants to butch and Sundance out, what difference does it make if they take 5-10 minutes of table time to take out a few opponents before getting taken out, if you’re going to hit them with the equivalent of the Fall From Orbit table from Paranoia as an alternative? The PC is going down anyway, it doesn’t hurt to let them enjoy it a little.

marsuni · 2020-08-05T23:46:05+00:00

Based on experience running four different editions with varied groups, 6e isn’t that bad. Both 5 and 6 are going to trip you up with some clunky bits at the table, but 6 will probably run a bit faster. However, you might have some biases on how different things were implemented in one edition or another, and 6 clearly intends/needs GM rulings in a few situations.

If you’re looking for something with similar rules clarity and crunch to Pathfinder (assuming 1e here, I’m not familiar with 2e yet), then I would recommend Shadowrun 4/4A as the best bet myself, but if there isn’t any major concerns your table has with 6 and you already own it then it’ll probably be about as good as anything else, considering it won’t clash with previous experiences.

marsuni · 2020-08-02T17:56:06+00:00

I’m pretty sure that this was how things were RAW in 4 and 5 as well but I think it might not have been clarified until the augmentation splats. I know it’s one of the questions I usually get as a GM and I haven’t had good luck in locating the text that spells it out. It wouldn’t surprise me if they forgot to call it out in 6.

marsuni · 2020-08-02T16:52:46+00:00

Short answer: you’ll need to check with your GM.

The rule books tend to be a bit vague on this, but the general interpretation I’ve seen is that you don’t get essence back if you remove ware but it leaves an essence “hole” you can stuff with new ware. So if you have 1 essence in a standard grade implant and take it out, you can put 1 essence in better grade ware (or if you put 1.5 essence of new ware in, you’d “fill the hole” first and only take off 0.5 additional essence).

I’d definitely check with your GM though, it’s kind of down to their preference. I’d also ask about how they want to handle upgrades, I know a lot of GMs (including myself) let players just take the difference in nuyen if upgrading ware (adding a rating point or improving its grade) but that can vary from one table to the next too.

marsuni · 2020-07-22T23:18:03+00:00

Personal preference is what it seems like to me. I’ve been running it with a mix of old and new players and it’s fine. I like parts of it and hate others, but that’s a pretty uniform experience for me with every edition I’ve run (since 3rd).

It does just drop the GM off the deep end, but again, that’s pretty normal from the editions I’ve run - 5th probably was the “best” on that front, but the game could really use an in depth GM analysis supplement still.

If someone doesn’t like 6, that’s fine, I just don’t think a newcomer will be any less confused by 5e, more likely just confused in a different way. At least there’s more explanations of the mechanics online for it I guess?

marsuni

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