Shadowrun: The Darkness Within [EX][Closed][VERY DARK!]

[GloomCookie]

WARNING:
THE FOLLOWING CONTENT MAY NOT BE APPROPRIATE FOR
"NORMAL PEOPLE"
TURN BACK NOW

Don't say I didn't warn your ass.

https://youtu.be/ctJx6lCH0Rg

So I know what you're asking yourself. What the fuck is Gloomy up to this time, that mad bitch. Well I'll tell you, motherfucker. The answer is that a certain GEEKLET said she has not ever had the chance to play a game of Shadowrun. And being that I run not one but TWO, yes, TWO motherfuckin games of Shadowrun, I said "Wow that's... unfortunate and I should probably not try to take on any more games because that sounds like a lot of work." But here we are, so I can't take my own god damned advice.

Shadowrun is the kind of game you don't just pick up and hope someone has the testicular fortitude to intuit on their own. No, this is the kind of game where those little seven-die sets you get at the novelty store just will not cut it. No no no no, we're talking about buying bulk used casino dice to get in the rough ballpark of dice necessary for most runs. Where you buy a pound of ugly dice for $20, weed out all the d6, and realize you still don't have enough. Yes, Shadowrun is that kind of game, and I'm willing to risk my very soul to bring it to you, you lucky little shit.

"Oh but Gloom, you're being awful flippant about this!" DAMN RIGHT! I put up all these nice posts trying to lure in people only to get like maybe a timid nibble and then FUCK ALL! No, this time, you get the Gloom as she is, bitch! Spicy enough to make Curry sweat. So that's the kinda shit you're getting this time around, where if you wanna play, be prepared for the spice. We're talking Bunraku, we're talking about Cannibal Holocaust, Hannibal Lecter, and maybe a bit of My Little Pony because fuck it nothing says creepy like watching a show for little girls while someone in the next room gets their teeth removed with a 3/8" drill.

This game is going to be fucking cursed. This game is gonna be dark. This is gonna be the twisted, mind-numbing shit that brings out all the twisted little shits I know lurk here on E waiting for a no-holds-barred excuse to get freaky. So come on in, boys and girls and everything in between. I'm ready to play.

[Pumpkin Seeds]

Now I'm intrigued.

[Mosos]

*plants flag* I claim this interest post for Mosos!

[Callie Del Noire]

Please, tell us more..

[GloomCookie]

Ok, fine. I have a few gummy bears and I feel like biting heads off. GET BACK HERE YOU LITTLE RED BASTARD!

So, Shadowrun is a dark setting that usually gets glossed over. Most people like to play as the noble heroes of their own little story, where they rescue the kitten on their way home from punishing the bad corporate man who wants to pour millions of gallons of toxic sludge into the river for no other reason than he hates the bunnies. Or they're so criminally stupid that I might as well perform a lobotomy to increase their IQ a few points.

In this game, you'd be playing a Shadowrunner who is first breaking into the industry, so to speak. Your reasons for doing so are varied: Maybe you need cash, maybe you have a vendetta, or maybe you're a rich kid who wants a little excitement in their lives. Regardless of why, you're here to do really shitty work for pay and hope you go home intact.

The game is going to be set in 2077 in Denver, part of the Denver Free Trade Zone. It's a city that has been split numerous ways by the various countries with controlling interests, centered around the stronghold of a great dragon. You'll need to be adept at slipping between the gaps in security, of changing patrols and drone coverage, and of the potential for literal landmines that'll shred everything below your kidneys before you can register. You'll need to lie, cheat, bribe, and steal to get from zone to zone, and at any point you could be arrested and simply disappear.

Because it's so "easy" to get from zone to zone, expect a lot of business from one megacorp to be against another operating in a different zone. Travel is also likely, as you'll sneak from one zone to the other and take a domestic flight from Denver to your final destination. The options are numerous and the stakes are high, because at any point you might find yourself on a table with a creepy Swede who thinks you're cute, but that you could use a bit of work, and he's all out of anesthetic.

So expect a lot of travel around the former United States, all while staying off the radar of a very feisty dragon who is known for eating Shadowrunners that fall into his claws.

[TheSithChicken]

Consider me interested. What edition are you thinking?

[Captain Whitebread]

<waves at all the familiar names>

Denver in 77?  Colour me intrigued.  I've played since first edition (anybody remember phy-ads and their automatic successes?). They lost me somewhere around 4th edition, when character generation got strange.  Even if I don't play, I'll read the shit out of this....

[firepyre]

Damn. Very Dirk Mongomery. I like your narrative style, Gloom.

[Callie Del Noire]

<waves at all the familiar names>

Denver in 77?  Colour me intrigued.  I've played since first edition (anybody remember phy-ads and their automatic successes?). They lost me somewhere around 4th edition, when character generation got strange.  Even if I don't play, I'll read the shit out of this....

Oh yes, my campaign group went for a long while. I remember my phys ad who deadlier than cancer with 6 auto successes with his sword

[GloomCookie]

Consider me interested. What edition are you thinking?

We're gonna do 5th but different because fuck if I'm gonna wait on a bunch of nerds to stack up dice and roll.

You make your character sheets, turn them in, and then you bow down before the goddess that I am and hope I am lenient. All rolling goes through me, meaning that it's all narrative from that point on. You wanna do something? Describe it. No falling back on "Uh, can I just roll?" No bitch, you gotta fuckin roleplay! I look at what you got, I decide situational modifiers, roll, then decide what happens. You do good, I tell you. You do bad, I tell you. You slip on a pile of dog shit, land on your tail bone, and suffer -1 physical for the next 15 minutes, I tell you.

Means I wanna see some actual god damned roleplay out of people. You tell me what's going on because then I award better dice for your shit. Climbing the wall? Sure, I roll regular dice. Telling me your phys-ad drives his fingers into the brick, of the strain his fingers are under as they support their body weight and the pain they're in trying to do this feat of near impossibility? Fuck yeah you get bonus dice! Say you walk up and try to seduce the hot bitch at the bar? Standard etiquette roll. You tell me you walk up and start complimenting her hair and that she looks like she's lonely and just tell me what kind of smooth motherfucker you are? Well, you get bonus dice for soaking her panties, you absolute lad.



Character Creation Rules
Standard Priority -or- Sum to Ten
Chummer 5e required (Link here)
Max availability: 10
House Rules:

• You may take more than 25 karma of negative qualities but only a max of 25 karma shall be rewarded.
• You may have one pet as a connection 1 loyalty 6 for free, but it will be my discretion if the animal can be of any use in actual play.

Book availability:

• 5th Edition Core
• Run & Gun
• Run Faster
• Rigger 5e
• Street Grimoir

(Ask me on additional books it's 2am I should be asleep)

Before you finish character creation, create a PDF and upload it for me to review. I will likely have questions, mostly about how the fuck you're gonna run the trainwreck you've given me, and I will probably be fine with whatever. Once you get the okay from me, you'll put the chum file in career mode, send me a copy of your save, and then when I reward karma and shit you'll send me updated files.



Shit I will enforce
Lifestyles
Once a month, I will be taking moneys out of your character's horde to cover living expenses. IF YOU RUN OUT OF CASH, you have 1 week to come up with the money before the fat old bitch with rollers in her hair boots your ass out and sells your belongings to that creepy bastard in 3g. You know, the one you've seen trying to steal your underwear out of the wash down in the basement. If that happens, you instantly get the Street lifestyle for the remainder of the month. You'll have a chance at the end of the month to buy your lifestyle back, but with an additional 10% for the costs of buying new furniture/luxuries.

Vehicle Maintenance
Once a month you need to spend money on the vehicle/drones in your garage to keep them in working order. These fees are for shit like oil changes, washing, preventative maintenance, fuel, etc. This maintenance costs 1% of the vehicle's worth, meaning a 50,000¥ vehicle will need 500¥ in maintenance each month. If you fail to spend that money, the vehicle will start to deteriorate in appearance and performance, meaning that every time you go to use the vehicle, I get to roll a percentage die to determine if the vehicle even performs. If you fail to pay the maintenance for 6 months, then before you can use your vehicle, if I roll a 95 on a d100, then the vehicle will not perform and will describe what happens. To fix the vehicle, you'll need to pay the back maintenance and get it fixed, but there will be no penalties for doing so. If you're 5 months behind on the 50,000¥ vehicle from earlier, and owe 2,500¥ in back maintenance, then you can simply pay the 2,500¥ to get the vehicle serviced and it will remove the penalties. This preventative maintenance also has a time component, taking 1d6 hours per maintenance interval to do. So if you are on a run and you need to get 5 months of preventative maintenance fixed, it will cost you 5d6 hours of time to get it fixed. This is to make sure you fuckers keep on top of this shit. I really like cars, fight me.

Nuyen & Currencies
Because Chummer has different currencies, I feel like enforcing them. So congrats, while we'll mostly be talking about the equivalent value of items in terms of Nuyen (¥), it's very likely that your day to day transactions will be done in a local currency, which of course means you get to deal with the ever so fun task of shuffling money from one currency to another. While we'll primarily be using Chummer for this, be aware that just like in real life, there will be exchange rates that equal net losses for you here and there as different currency values shift. When you go to change currencies, there will be a +/- 3% flux in the value, and it's per transaction. This is determined by rolling 1d6 and then subtracting 3. So if you roll a 6, it's +3%. If you roll 1, it's -2%. I'll make a quick calculator or two and throw it up on Google docs for you fuckers since I know half of you probably get confused with any number past 4 (which is impressive if you're playing this game of all things).

Sex, Drugs, & Rock and Roll
This is E. I'm not stupid, and I'm not a prude. I SAID I'M NOT A PRUDE STOP LOOKING AT ME THAT WAY >///< Anyway, we all know sex is gonna happen so because this is a dystopian nightmare, you get to roll on the "What's making my genitals itch?" table! I haven't come up with it yet but I will, you bet your ass I will. The table will be percentile based and most sex won't result in anything at all, but there's the likelihood of unprotected sex leading to diseases and, if you're really unlucky, a pregnancy. Oh yeah, I'm going down that road, and you fuckers better know there's a negative quality for pregnancy! If you get pregnant, then lucky you you have options. For those who just do not give a shit, you can get an abortion and you'll have a 3 day recovery period while you get over the trauma of some ork getting between your legs. You can choose to keep the baby in which case you get the PREGNANT negative quality for 9 months during which time if you suffer 6 or more boxes of physical damage I get to roll to determine if the baby survives. Hey, you're the one still reading and I promised this shit gets dark. If you manage to carry the baby to term, congrats! You now have a dependent who will need you to survive meaning you can't spend more than a certain amount of time away from home without paying additional fees for babysitters. Look I have no idea if this shit will even get that far so don't make me roll up rules until one of you fuckers actually does it.

DRUGS! So yeah, there's lots of rules on drugs and all the shit that entails. Drugs absolutely will have an affect on your mind and body, and there are already rules for the drugs. The more you use, the more likely you are to get addicted, blah blah blah, you get the idea. Long and short of it is that drugs are fun to use but every dose could be the one that makes you want to stay on Mr. Toad's Wild Ride forever. Aren't you lucky you have me around to tell you about all the fun things that your mind goes through while you sweat it out?

Life of SIN
If you put down that you have a SIN, I want to know details. I want to know the name associated with that SIN, all the licenses associated, what their job is, all of that. For each and every SIN, you'll need to provide a fake biography of the person you're claiming to be, and that can and will come back to bite you if you're not careful. If you put down that your fake SIN is named Joseph Baklava, and you claim your name is Joseph Baker, then yeah you're gonna get some funny looks from the officer and he's gonna get suspicious. Having a firearms license may seem legit but if you've got three guns in the car with you within sight, the Lone Star cop is gonna radio backup, meaning more of a chance you'll blow your cover. And with the numerous checkpoints and border crossings in Denver, that can and will come back to haunt you. If there's a whiff of drugs in the car, then you bet you and everyone in the car gets taken into the little booth and questioned while a troll with a hand larger than your leg gloves up to do a bit of investigating. This is not gonna be a game of hand waving, you and your actions will have consequences, and it's entirely likely that a cop might just be an asshole and demand payment just for not immediately searching your car, and then search it anyway because he's got a quota and what are you gonna do, whine that you bribed a cop?

If you get caught with a fake SIN, then things get so much more fun. Anything and everything tied to that SIN gets burned, meaning that if you had an apartment? Gone. If you bought a car? It's now shown as illegal. Your social media accounts with those selfies? Well, that last one might not be a huge loss to the world. Instantly, you're an illegal person, and that means detention is going to be the order of the day. If they get their hands on you, then you get to find out just how little they care about the SINless in society. You'll likely be stripped, searched, thrown in a jumpsuit, and left to rot in a jail cell for a few days before you're hauled in front of a judge, who will decide if you're worth the trouble of detaining. Most of the time, you'll be tossed outside naked, without even a commlink, and left to your own devices. If you were caught during a crime, you might be hauled off to Organ Grinders, where you will be parted out. Yeah, life's a bitch. Your compatriots can always attempt to break in and get you out, but police stations are a bit tough even in Shadowrun. And while everyone loves the cliche of fat cops eating donuts, High Threat Response Units, the equivalent of SWAT today, are usually located at these stations. It depends on the context but if things go wrong enough, you might need a new character, omae.

Slang and Language
Speaking of slang, I don't give two shits about the list of slang and terms created for Shadowrun. I just don't. I don't have time to consult a list of bullshit terms every time I want to immerse myself in the world. So if you say "Fuck, he actin kinda sus to me, bruh." Then sure, whatever. That being said, when it comes to language, I tend to operate on rules of "Ok, tell me what you want to say, then I'll translate." So if you have 4 dice in Japanese and try to say "I need to find this building", then if you roll badly it might get translated as "Dirudo no hako o sagasu hitsuyō ga arimasu," or "I need to find the box of dildos". So be very careful about how many dice you put into languages and other knowledge skills. If you put only a single rank in Engineering and try to roll to understand some plans, oh you bet your ass I'll fuck with you. "The criss-crossing lines of blue, red, green, and gold make it hard to keep track, so when you finally find the pipe you think is the right one and turn the valve, you hear a rumble from elsewhere in the building. What you thought would only turn water off to part of the building has instead led to the entire sewer backing up and now the toilets are spraying water like fountains. On the plus side, two women on the fourth floor are having a slightly better day as the water hits them just right, and a guy on two who was constipated until the water scared the literal shit out of him."

Shouldn't you be asleep, Gloom?
Yes I should! *backflop onto sleepy spot*

[Callie Del Noire]

Well I like what I see, but mostly I run on a Mac or more often a tablet.. so Chummer 5e doesn’t work for me..

And I find a solution. Wine.

However I can’t find out if it’s 64 bit.. cause my version of Mac OS doesn’t support 32 bit

[Captain Whitebread]

You're forcing me to consider learning a new character creation system....

[GloomCookie]

Well I like what I see, but mostly I run on a Mac or more often a tablet.. so Chummer 5e doesn’t work for me..

And I find a solution. Wine.

However I can’t find out if it’s 64 bit.. cause my version of Mac OS doesn’t support 32 bit

You run a Mac. There's your problem.

You're forcing me to consider learning a new character creation system....

I like Chummer, fight me.


In both cases if you have alternative ways of generating character sheets, then fine. I just know Chummer works for me and that's the program I use most often.

[Callie Del Noire]

You run a Mac. There's your problem.

I like Chummer, fight me.


In both cases if you have alternative ways of generating character sheets, then fine. I just know Chummer works for me and that's the program I use most often.

I do... I have hero lab which I’ve used extensively for 5e to make a variety characters from a variety of methods. but it just sound like you were solely set on Chummer

[GloomCookie]

I do... I have hero lab which I’ve used extensively for 5e to make a variety characters from a variety of methods. but it just sound like you were solely set on Chummer

As long as I can understand it enough to put it back into Chummer like all proper Shadowrun character sheets should be, I'm good.

[Pumpkin Seeds]

And now to go shaman or not....so many choices.

[TheGlyphstone]

Must join all Gloomy-run Shadowrun games. Must join! Hat Trick!

Please? *puppy hellhound eyes*

[Callie Del Noire]

I’ll see if I can do an adept.  Which type of cranial bomb are we using?

[GloomCookie]

Must join all Gloomy-run Shadowrun games. Must join! Hat Trick!

Please? *puppy hellhound eyes*

No.

I’ll see if I can do an adept.  Which type of cranial bomb are we using?

The one that takes you out, the guy next to you, and maybe that other motherfucker in the room.

[Pumpkin Seeds]

So what are we looking at people bringing to the table so far?

[Mosos]

I am looking at a Mystic Adept, heavy chrome Street Samurai, or going Technomancer. (Assuming the gm doesn't murder me for daring to consider being a Technomancer,)

[Pumpkin Seeds]

I am toying with the idea of a troll magician that embraces the idea of chaos magic and is sort of an anarchist type.  Though I am also wondering if I should go Mystic Adept and be a more combat mage focus, which is why I wanted to know what else was being played.

[Callie Del Noire]

Leaning towards a face or stealth type runner. Not sure it I want to go the implant route or magic. Starting out a point of magic down is pushing me toward ‘ware though

[Mosos]

I am toying with the idea of a troll magician that embraces the idea of chaos magic and is sort of an anarchist type.  Though I am also wondering if I should go Mystic Adept and be a more combat mage focus, which is why I wanted to know what else was being played.

A mystic adept is quite a monster, especially a troll one. You could still use chaos magic and shore up any weaknesses with the adapt powers. If you really want to sow some chaos that is.

Leaning towards a face or stealth type runner. Not sure it I want to go the implant route or magic. Starting out a point of magic down is pushing me toward ‘ware though

Is the cranial bomb part of your concept, or did I miss something important?

[Pumpkin Seeds]

Yeah I'm still trying to figure this all out after getting the book.  It's certainly a lot.