Would a meta-shadowrun game be fun?
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I'm watching this Enron documentary during my lunch break and can't help but think Shadowrun while watching this.
I'm imagining a game where the players are all Johnsons doing sketchy things.
All of the shadowrunners are rostered characters that keep 'evidence points' on each Johnson every time they work for them, along with a + - to see if they like them or not.
If a shadowrunner has enough evidence points and a poor enough perception of a Johnson, they might become antagonists and give the evidence to a Johnson they like.
Players try to accumulate evidence against other players to ruin their careers, while they do their best to have a luxurious life.
This might work better as a kind of app or door game, though.
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This sounds super interesting. I like the fact that it'd be a more social based conflict, versus direct. Direct, brute force combat just seems really bleh to me lately. So, I'd probably be all for getting involved in a game like this.
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Thread necromancer; but this could totes be a thing on a shadowrun mu all its own. Just allow orgs and stuff.
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Reminds me of the video game line Majesty, but with social karma between heroes and crown.
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I actually really like this idea. I can see it working well. Only problem is social rolls. If someone doesn't like you OOC but ICly they are meant to be charmed by your character or vice versa, I am worried the -/+ will be skewed based on OOC feelings.
I do love the idea of having 'antagonists' built into the game. Would be fun to start a game with built in conflict aimed directly at certain characters.
When you said meta-shadowrun game for some reason I thought it was basically a Shadowrun game where they are aware that they are characters or at least the absurdity of their existence.
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Just so it's clear: This doesn't sound like a MU*. It doesn't sound like there is a lot of RP going of between characters. They will be in info wars with one another, and involvement with one another would be compromise security and their bosses trust in them.
It's a war game, or a board game.
I have a waggish sense of humor.
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To each their own, but I find the character generation for Shadowrun a high bar for entry into a lot of games. I find it teeth pulling levels of tedious.
So, I'd play just about any version of Shadowrun as long as the CG wasn't like trying to do your income taxes in long form while blind folded.
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Note to @GangOfDolls: Have you seen Eclipse Phase. Phew!
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos -
@Thenomain Oh this.... this is kind of sexy.
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@GangOfDolls said in Would a meta-shadowrun game be fun?:
So, I'd play just about any version of Shadowrun as long as the CG wasn't like trying to do your income taxes in long form while blind folded.
Check out Chummer it is available in versions for 4th and 5th editions and makes Shadowrun Cg about as painless as possible.
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@Misadventure said in Would a meta-shadowrun game be fun?:
Just so it's clear: This doesn't sound like a MU*. It doesn't sound like there is a lot of RP going of between characters. They will be in info wars with one another, and involvement with one another would be compromise security and their bosses trust in them.
It's a war game, or a board game.
Yeah, it definitely has a board game aspect to it. A few months ago I was toying with the idea of a Diplomacy mush, which I think this would likely work similar to.
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Missed this one.
Yeah, it definitely has a board game aspect to it.
This isn't a bad thing. One of the most interesting RPGs I've looked into, FreeMarket, uses a mini card game as a story-telling plus conflict resolution system.
As long as there is "role-playing" and "game" involved, that's fantastic. One-Roll Engine has a system (Reign) for running nations which can be easily mixed into your character role-play.
Anyway, if it did have a board game aspect to it, I don't think that's a downside.
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@ThatGuyThere Does Chummer for 5e work for the Karma/Lifepath build? Or is it just Priority? We hates the Priority rules, worse than we hates the hobbitses!!
@Thenomain Eclipse Phase is beautiful, because all of the costs for raising things in chargen is 1:1 for raising them with XP. Skill/Atrribute-wise. Morphs and Rep are where it deviates, but I have a plan for that, if I ever get my dream Eclipse Phase MU: Rep and Morphs be handled separately from Chargen stuff (which will have less XP to compensate).
Tangentially related to Eclipse Phase and Shadowrun stuff: what is the preferred sacrifice to the digital gods, to entice a Thenomain to code things?
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My proposal for the Mook System:
A mook's stats each is rolled 1-6:
Stealth: 1-6
Fighting: 1-6
Technical: 1-6
Intrigue: 1-6
Magic: 1-6
Resources: Mook retires at 10 resources. Goes down by 1 per month of inactivity. It takes 2 resources to get out of Lone Star Custody.
Values: A trait the mook likes/dislikes.J specific stats:
Dirt -- Each job a mook does for a J, they gain one dirt point, evidence that can be used against them.
Alignment -- This is a plus/minus for each J. If it gets too low (-10), they will use their dirt against a J and leak it to Lone Star. This should probably involve an intrigue roll.
Each J can hire a mook for 1 resource.
The J will earn 1 resource for every test the mook passes.
Each job the mook works for the J will increase the dirt score by 1.
If the job goes bad (there is a failure), the alignment score goes down by 1.
For jobs with 3+ tests, alignment goes down by one because the mook isn't getting paid for this shit. There should be a formula for hiring multiple mooks.
To kill a mook, a J needs to hire another mook to beat it in a battle for 2 resourceRuns:
Each mook can do 1 run per week. This will include legwork that they have to do in order to accomplish the task.
Each stat is a pool of 6 sided dice.
Standard run requires rolling a 5+ for a success.
If a mook fails 3 tests on a run, they are captured and hand over their dirt to Lone Star.
To fight another mook, they need to roll against the other mook's scores on each stat.This is also starting to remind me a bit of Lords of Waterdeep a bit.
Game runners would have to decide how much dirt it takes to put away a J. I'm imagining a J could lawyer up, spending Resource against Dirt to do away with the issue.
A J would have an income of 1 resource per month, plus that earned via runs. Resources can be spent on their homes and swag. They should be able to use resources to get out of lower management and into the executive team at some point, where they'd 'retire' from the risky side of J-dom.
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Consider having Dirt age out, either over time, or after anything in particular is over and done.
EG: A Job helped win an election. Either 3 months, a year, something later on it won't matter that much.
OR
After this news cycle is over, or the elected person is no longer in any office, the Dirt is of less value.I would suggest that some mooks are highly loyal, naively loyal (loyal until they learn some lesson), treacherous (looking to betray), mercenary (clear that money is how they stay loyal) etc.
I would also suggest that some have a rating for being easy or hard to take out due not to their stated ratings, but because they have people who will follow up.
You could consider the agents, or teams, to have Values, where missions that promote (or are spun to promote) the value are given higher loyalty, and where if it comes out that Other Jobs promote or hinder these values they are more or less likely to hide or share their Dirt as well.
I have a waggish sense of humor.
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@Misadventure I like those ideas. On the train ride to work, I was thinking that if you recruit/train a mook for 3 resources (Add one to the roster of mooks) they'd have an established positive alignment towards you.
Of course, they might totally suck due to rolls, but hey, they can't all be Johnny Silverhand.
For values, I was thinking each player would belong to a certain megacorp/secret society, and each mook would randomly like and hate one in particular for extra alignment action.
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@Jennkryst said in Would a meta-shadowrun game be fun?:
@ThatGuyThere Does Chummer for 5e work for the Karma/Lifepath build? Or is it just Priority? We hates the Priority rules, worse than we hates the hobbitses!!
Last I looked at it it was just Priority rules but that was also before the life path stuff was published. Have not played a Shadow run table top since then so have not looked to see if they have added an option for that since it has been published.
