Category Archives: Shadowrun

Homebrew Theater: Dual-Wielding Actions

Today’s going to be a bit different from previous weeks, as our Homebrew Theater will be custom actions.

No new gear or shotguns shells as we’ve been doing.

I wanted to expand the options for ranged dual-wielding. These actions effectively turn two guns into one gun with a higher fire rate. Both guns must be firing in the same mode for these actions. If a character doesn’t have ambidexterity, the -2 penalty for using the off-hand applies. If both guns have active smartlink systems and are wireless-active, you may apply the bonus to limit/dice pool. The same applies for laser sights. All actions can be combined with the Multiple Attacks Free action and split as usual.

Note: I remember reading in SR5 saying you don’t get smartlink/laser sight bonuses when firing two weapons at once. I’ve been unable to verify this. Check with your GM, though, I don’t think it’s an unreasonable house rule to let the bonuses apply here.

Rather than trying to track two targets at once this is sighting one target with two weapons. A task smartlink should improve.

If a character chooses to wield two different weapons, use the worse values for limits, damage, and AP.

Dual Shot: Single Shot, Complex Action

You fire one shot from each gun in your hands at the same target simultaneously. As with regular single shot, this takes no recoil penalty. The target of a Dual Shot takes a -1 penalty on defense.

Dual Semi-auto Burst: SA, Compex Action

You fire a 3 round burst with each gun at the same target. This turns your SA pistols the effectiveness of a long burst with the same penalties. You fire six shots for up to -6 recoil and -5 to your target’s defense test.

Dual Burst Fire burst: BF, Simple Action

You fire a 3 round burst with each gun at the same target. This lets you get the firepower of a Long Burst in a shorter amount of time. You fire six shots for up to -6 recoil and -5 to your target’s defense test.

Dual Long Burst: BF, Complex Action

This shot is two Burst-fire shots coming from both of your guns at one target. You fire 12 total shots and the target takes a -11 to the target’s defense test.

Dual Full Auto: FA, Complex Action

This is balls to the wall shooting for only the most expert shooters. 20 bullets total at one target racking up a -19 penalty to the target’s defense and a -20 recoil penalty to dice pool. A shooter attempting dual full Auto must have at least 1 die to actually aim with, or else they suffer the effects of a critical glitch.

Steal me!

A quick table

Fiction Friday: Crooked Part 1

The worst part of representing criminals is when they pay you with contraband.

OK, it’s cool I know two dozen guys who can get me whatever drugs I might fancy, but it gets annoying after they rake up those six figure bills. Worse, the one guy in Beantown I trust not to screw me in the aftermarket is taking a Caribbean vacation. The prick.

Still, you’ve got to play polite for The Money. Take this guy, James Falk. We’re waiting to meet with the other side’s attorney and he’s just sitting there twiddling his thumbs.

He’s real middleman’s middleman. So generic you’d think he was a corporate manager. If it wasn’t for the pawn shop he wears on his hands, anyway. He beat up some girl and she recorded it and, like a dumbass, he tried to scare her into giving him the evidence.

Thing is, this girl wasn’t stupid. She talked a guy from New England Security to keep an eye out on what she was doing. Falk got recorded *again* trying to attack her. Then he had a licensed investigator beat six shades of shit out of him “to protect his client.”

Whole thing on trideo and two simsense recordings. His boss’ boss asked me to keep him out of jail for a year or two and I took over his case myself. I’m a slippery bastard, but some people you don’t cross.

Let’s lay out our cards here. Jimmy is hella guilty. Jimmy is going to jail. Jimmy is only walking in the sunshine because I’ve played every card I can without making a run at NES. Sure, I’ve got enough clout with them to make much of this go away. But wasting those favors on Jimmy, boss’ boss or not, isn’t a winning game.

Thing is, I’m running out of moves. Ms Smarty-pants didn’t just hire New England Security to “investigate.” She got herself an attorney to take her case pro-bono.

Every yang has a yin. Mine is a dwarf named Nina Wallen. Overweight, in her mid-60s, and sharper than monowire, Nina is hell in a whatever room you put her in. Nina was one of the first dwarves born and ran away from her parents when her father killed her twin sister. Wallen isn’t one of those people who hit the easy life and lost her edge.

Nina has cut me off at every turn. No matter what trick I used to draw the proceedings out, she’s moved to block it. I’ve managed to hold the main trial off nine months, but the boss’ boss wants at least another six months of his boy walking. I can’t imagine why he’d want Jimmy Falk so accessible. Only thing I can think of is he wants an excuse to cut me loose.

If so, there’s going to be some serious trouble. Don’t get me wrong, chummer, I’m about as slippery as they come. But my arenas are all rooms: Board, court, and my personal favorite: Back. When bullets start flying I start getting the fuck out of dodge.

Which is to say I’m beginning to get fed up waiting for Nina to show up at this meeting. That- Ah. No. I won’t let her annoy me into a mistake. When I was a kid, I saw an old school Samurai flatvid. The stoic protagonist explained his discipline grew out of his mastery over his breath.

Slow breath in through the nose, down into the belly, and back out through the nose. Over and over. A steady wave of life-giving air pumping out toxins. In. Out. In. Out.

Jimmy interrupted my “zen when he dropped his pen on the table. Even with his eyes elsewhere I suppressed a flinch. It’s bad form. Before i could say anything the real wooden door of this conference room opened and the stout frame of Nina Wallen entered. She moved with precision, as if charging in slow motion.

That couldn’t be good. Habit reminded me to project casual indifference. Something else was wrong. Couldn’t place it, so I looked her over again. The usual understated-but-expensive shoes matching blouse and longish skirt. All a cherrywood to compliment her skin tone. Not a hair on her head out of place.

We made eye contact and it dawned on me what the problem was as I stood up to offer her my hand.

Nina Wallen was smiling.

I’d never seen the expression on her before. Her face was usually composed neutral. More for playing poker than being among people.

She matched my strength easy enough and I let a smirk play at the corners of my mouth. Nina is just bluffing. No one calls a settlement meeting from a position of strength.

Before the thought finished in my head I recognized it was wrong. That little squirrelly part of me urged the rest of me to take cover and run away from whoever was trying to take my nuts.

Heh.

“Good morning, Ms Wallen.”

“Mr Castiglione. Mr Falk.”

She pointedly did not offer a hand to Jimmy. She set down the synthleather padfolio she had brought in.

“I’m offering a one time 5-million dollar settlement. Good for 24 hours. If not, I’ll be forced to turn over the contents of this folder to the state.” She drew a business card and tossed it at me.

“Feel free to use the room as long as you need to deliberate. This copy is your’s. We have others.” And with that she walked away, her face returned to its usual inscrutability.

Falk reached for the padfolio, but I blocked his hand.

“Not here.”

I took out my briefcase, opened it, set the padfolio’s contents inside my briefcase, and left the folio on the table. Then I checked to make sure I didn’t bring anything else and walked towards the door. Wallen looked like she had just served a death notice. If she was right, there was no reason to let her enjoy the show.

“Wait. Aren’t we going to look a-”

“Come on. We’re burning daylight.” And with that I left. Jimmy Falk wouldn’t let me get too far ahead. On my way out I bid farewell to a few of Wallen’s colleagues and a secretary or two. First rule of getting anything done: Befriend secretaries. More skeletons have remained buried because a secretary was willing to help than any of us will ever know.

Falk caught be just before I hit the elevator. My next move was clear. Whatever “evidence” she was throwing on my client, she wouldn’t have pulled this stunt without reason. 5 mil? For Jimmy Falk? I focused on my commlink and had it send a message to a friend who knew Falk’s boss’ boss.

Might as well keep the old man in the loop. It was going to be a long day…

[Continued Next Week]

Thinking Strategically: Security Mindset

More than those fucking elves, magic, or pretty computer graphics Shadowrun is a game about exploiting circumstances.

Recognizing, engineering, and closing such opportunities is a valuable real life skill.

Bruce Schneier, who may have coined the term, contrasted a security mindset with an engineering mindset.

When you act with the engineering mindset, you break an end goal into manageable, concrete parts to refine. Then you make them work together to perform to whatever standards you’ve establish.

Security mindset is both like this and the opposite of it. Engineering is about making things which do what they’re supposed to. Security is about recognizing you can use mechanisms for unintended purposes.

An early affinity for security mindset once almost got me kicked off a plane when returning from England in the summer of 2002. Apparently, it’s not polite to inform someone Security Theater is useless during a performance.

One of my “favorite” security flaws today is uneven security authentication between websites. Things like one website using the same information another website just gives away. The more accounts you have, the more likely to run into this you are. Amazon and Apple are two big culprits here.

Hackers can and do take advantage of these uneven overlaps in security to compromise accounts. Nasty stuff when combined with data mining.

What does this have to do with Shadowrun? Pretty much everything. Shadowrun is usually about committing crimes without getting caught. If things, lol, go according to plan.

Devising a plan means watching a system and pushing it against itself. You ask, “What are they doing to stop people like me?” and “Where are they skimping?”

Note how I don’t say anything about a place being secure. In both shadowrun and the real world there is a fundamental lack of security. Cost and priorities limit what you can do.

The best you can manage is making it too inconvenient for would-be criminals. Make the risk bigger than the potential reward and you’ll save yourself trouble.

As an example, the White House’s security plans assume it will take 10 minutes for someone to break the locks on secure rooms.

A few years back, some researchers figured out to crack the locks the White House was using in around 30 seconds instead of ten minutes.

Ooops. And that’s the locks on one of the most visible secured buildings on the planet.

This illustrates how even well-designed security can contain hidden flaws. I hope they fixed it.

With careful observation and testing, such breakdowns become more likely.

There are two reasons to develop a security mindset. To defend yourself and your interests and to commit attacks. I don’t suggest the latter in the real world, which is why I play games like shadowrun.

Developing Security Mindset.

Martial arts give a compelling reason to spend time practicing and developing skills. If you wait till you’re attacked to think about how to react to it, it’s too late.

This also applies to learning how to think like a subversive attacker.

So, where can you go to learn more? Well, playing a game like Shadowrun will help to a point.

If you’re looking for inspiration there are no shortage of well made fiction. TV such as Burn Notice or Leverage or the movie Catch Me If You Can. Or any good heist flick. On the note of Catch Me If You Can, the story’s protagonist is a real guy who has since become a security consultant. Frank Abagnale is pretty awesome at what he does.

Studying hacking tricks and security techniques are good sources.

Ultimately, the best way to develop it is just be curious how the world you see around you works and where the limits are.

A real life example: I once asked a hotel if I could borrow someone’s left cell phone charger from the lost and found. Because this was a work trip and my boss handled the paperwork next morning, I didn’t return it. Should I assume I could walk into any hotel and expect to be able to get another?

No. For starters, the helpfulness of most people varies on their mood, stress levels, and if they think you’re trying to take advantage of them. My intention to return the charger and my need for one were both honest at the time. Am I a good enough liar to avoid making someone suspicious? Have other people tried this as a scam before? Lots of variables to work around even if each is small on their own.

Ultimately, Security Mindset is about fleshing out the phrase, “The Devil is in the details.” People tend to build systems to handle the most common circumstances. There are always weird exceptions which make it harder to work around. And it will always be possible to create them.

Next week we’ll discuss applying this to shadowrun.

Fiction Friday: High Society Surprise

The following story was written as part of my second SR5 campaign. I was missing a session and still wanted karma so the GM said, “Write something.”

 

I did.

 

Introduction

Call me Peleg. John “Peleg” Bosleigh isn’t my real name. All you need to know is I worked in Russian Intelligence and had a few… misunderstands. Nothing too bad but it’s best to let my old friends calm down, you know?

Anyway, from Russia I spent a few awkward weeks in Japan. Nice enough people, but they don’t appreciate tourists. Didn’t take me long to realize there wasn’t much future in the House of the Rising Sun.

Circumstances reminded me an old buddy of mine got promoted into a research post in Evo’s Seattle division. A plan formed.

It started when I found an ametueur smuggler from the Confederate States of America who was, as they say, all hat and no cattle. New cargo in hand, I bribed the First Mate on a megaship headed to Seattle, got passage for two and the cargo crate filled with guns.

My lucky traveling companion was an alcoholic Japanese man I befriended at a karaoke bar after watching him literally shove a man’s head into his own ass. I still have the video. One keeps an eye out for talent.

Lining up a buyer in Seattle took a bit more work than I expected, ended up hawking the whole crate to a scary motherfucker named Lucifer. Runs one of the biggest gangs in the city. An all-elven gang called the Ancients.

It’s been six wild months since then. I think I’ve finally got all the ducks in a row. I’ve got a red-hot team of operatives, a ladyfriend who thinks I’m a business consultant for Evo, and plenty of feelers out. Just a matter of time before the bites start coming in…

High Society Surprise

I hate fancy parties. It’s not the boring people, the wasted money, or all the spies. Life is filled with boring waste and spies. It’s the exposure. A successful appearance at one of these makes enough of a splash to get you remembered in the light you wanted.

An unsuccessful appearance at one of these events could get you blacklisted or dead. At least, that’s how it was in Russia. In Seattle… I don’t know. This town is schizophrenic. The left nostril doesn’t know what the right nostril is doing and the hands are might be trying to kill each other.

But, I digress. I’m walking in on a five-thousand dollar suit I didn’t pay for. Any spy worth his Double-0s knows clothes may not make the man, but they give him his chance. It’s almost hard to remember I’m not here on business. The Lady on my arm is Francesca Meier. We met a few months back when I crashed a fund-raiser her father was throwing to support victims of Tsimshian Terrorism.

I’ve only really met two kinds of rich kids. There are the ones who look at their family’s wealth as their ticket to fuck around forever. And then there are the ones whose family wealth is a challenge to be overcome. It doesn’t usually take long to know which you’re looking at.

Francesca was different. She had the look and manner of a party-bunny but every so often someone would say something worth knowing and her eyes would narrow a bit. A few minutes later, perhaps, she’d find some reason to talk with whoever perked her interest in private.

She’s rejoin the group wearing the cutest cheshire cat smile you’ve ever seen.

Yeah, I’m attracted to intelligence gathering. It happens more than you’d think.

So I made a few moves, said a few interesting things, and made sure she knows I know I could have kissed her and chose not to. Blah blah blah, we’re living together now.

And so, a few months later, she’s dragged me to a bridal shower for the niece of a woman whose company my team is robbing as we speak. Heh. She rented out the ballroom at the Laubenstein Plaza, a savvy choice. Still high-class, it’s cheaper than the Westin or Lucas Palace while appearing to be for the aesthetics.

All this is running through my head while I’m providing friendly small talk with some of her college-age friends. After a minute or two, I’ve spotted all the visible security around, masquerading as valets or waiters. There are a few overt security guys too, for what it’s worth. I’ve never been to a wedding shower with 200-some guests.

It only takes me a moment to spot Karen King, directing a half dozen things next to the table for presents. Francesca parades me around like her new toy and I play my part. At least until I spot something which catches my eye.

I excuse myself to refill our drinks and slip into the crowd. Most wedding showers are intimate get togethers where avoiding attention is tricky at best. Luckily, this mammoth party makes it easy.

Which is good, because I spot Travis Shay wearing a bad wig and some decent make up and a rental tux. This is bad because Travis is a middle manager of something called, “Resource Development” over at Horizon. What the hell is a Horizon Johnson doing here?

Oh, Heh. He’s looking for someone. Of course, he’s here for some kind of asinine meet. He really does need to get better at setting his own terms. What the hell, I’ll say hello.

“If you’re looking for someone at one of these, it pays to check the food tables.” Before he can reply I walk away, dropping him a message via AR. Thank Svarog for datajacks.

—Peleg> Whoever sold you that wig isn’t looking out for you.
—Travis> What the hell!? You almost blew my cover.
—Peleg> No one is looking at you. Unclench. No one here looks like they have a care in the world.
—Travis> Fine. What horrible mess has dragged you here?
—Peleg> The worst. I’m on a date.
—Travis> Figures. Dating up again?
—Peleg> Only choice some of us have, omae.

He doesn’t respond to that, which is just as well since it takes me about that long to make it to the open bar. I order myself some gin and juice and one of those fancy drinks Francesca likes.

Before I could return to my waiting lady, a shrill scream echoed from the other side of the hall. Before I could even tell what happened at least six security guards were clustering around someone.

It took a few moments for me to realize they surrounded the space where Karen King’s niece Moriah was holding court. Moriah King stood staring down, shocked, about to cry. Her expression undermined both slender beauty and designer dress.

A convulsing woman lay by Moriah’s expensive heels. Her dress screamed Bridesmaid.

Seizure induced by poison? Before I could slink across the room another two people, wearing EMT clothes, charged in and begin examining her with a medkit. Nothing to do but stare. Best let them work.

I turned to find Francesca and almost walked into Karen King. Aunt of the lucky lady and the boss of a man my team was on their way to kidnap. Of course, I smiled and apologized.

She didn’t hear me, so I moved off to the side and sized her up. She had a look I’ve only ever seen in two people before. On my spycraft mentor and in the mirror.

The look means, “Something has gone wrong and someone will pay for this. But like hell will I let a damn person know just how angry I am right now.” The tell is in the eyes. Focus. Ice.

Not a natural expression.

The risks vs reward of interacting with her here versus avoiding here are… on my side for a change.

“Ms King.” I said, with enough force to get her attention, “I don’t mean to distract you right now. I heard some rumors from a couple of loudmouth ex-lone star cops about some secret project coming out of Ares. Give me a call when you get a chance.”

I offered her a business card which she took, half distracted and I walked away. I spotted Francesca, nodded to Ms King, and walked over to share the bad news.

After catching her up on the play-by-play, sans poison, we walked to Moriah and I stood by while they consoled eachother. It turns out Younger King and her now unconscious friend had play-fought over a piece of dessert intended for King. Her friend won, ate it, and almost immediately collapsed.

Damn.

And Karen King expected something like this, or those EMTs wouldn’t have anti-toxin on standby

Why poison Karen King’s niece?

The party’s energy, kneecapped by the screaming, built up again. Lots of details were poking around in the back of my mind, churning and getting nothing.

What the hell was going on?

Francesca slipped away from her friends and we rotated through the room chatting with her friends, old and new, alike.

And then I got that damn phone call. I stepped away to a corner without people, told my AR to route through my sub-vocal mic, and heard a voice trying to sound calm.

“We have a Mantis Scout in custody. We had to run it over with the Roadmaster.”

There are times in this strange affair we call life when a man hears something so outlandish he loses himself for a moment.

“… What!?” which I did NOT subvocalize. I brushed off the glances and found a service hallway to talk. Our hacker/medic Oni clarified:

“A mantis scout that is an upper level exec at Ares.”

I couldn’t speak. Here I was not 50m from the woman in charge of Ares’ Seattle operations. Ares. One of the ten largest megacorps in the world. With the third largest private military on the planet.

I must have made some kind of noise at this point.

Oni continued, “The target turned out to be an exec at Ares Everett who is a Mantis possessed man/woman”

“… did you get the data we’re getting paid for?”

“No, we captured what we thought was an easy mark. It’s the guy I researched. Only He is a She and possessed by a mantis Spirit. She is unconscious and laying inside the van.”

“Yes. I get that now. Strap it down. Do whatever you can to restrain it. Toss some explosives on it for good measure. Then get the data. I’ll see if we can find a buyer.”

My brain was spinning back up.

“Bag it and tag it? Do we interrogate it/her/him?”

“Fuck no. Gag it a few times. It’s an obstacle. I’ll see if we can turn this into some kind of profit. Freaking bug…”

“Yeah boss. I will keep Sparrow from killing Lilith. Oh joy.”

The fragile state of my brain rejected even thinking why our sniper adept would be trying to kill our magical support. There were more important things. Things about bugs. Bug spirits, I mean. What was it about bug spirits?

“Wait, is it one of those, uh, good merges?”

“Other than He is a She, it’s a flawless human merge.”

I spew an audible string of russian profanity. The shock wears off as I finish.

“Alright. I’m going to make some calls. Get the data.”

“That will require going back to the house or hacking its brain. A bit beyond our scope, boss.”

“Wasn’t hacking the house the original plan? Hell, if you can get… its commlink that should be enough. All we need to do is get on Ares’ servers long enough to find some damn proof this project exists.”

I was a little surprised I even needed to say this. Oni’s a solid leader and knows her trade well.

“His Comm is clean, boss. I get nothing. This thing is either really fucking smart or somebody is watching.”

“Doesn’t even have his login for the Ares systems?”

“First thing I checked. This stinks to high heaven, Boss. It’s too clean and he just moved here 6 months ago with a new elf wife who doesn’t even exist in the matrix before then.”

My mouth swears in russian for a few moments and I feel as clear as I was before I took this awful call.

“You sure you can’t break into his house?”

“Magically warded. We already know it has a mantis spirit living there. The wife is an unknown. If we walk in there blind? Fuck my life. Sparrow just pulled a gun on Lilith. What do you want to do? Shit is getting crazy.”

“We’ll deal with Sparrow later. This thing is our only goddamn lead and it’s already blown to hell. Stop at a stuffer shack and pick up some bug spray. The strongest shit you can find. Then drive south, stay as legal as you can. I’ll call back in a few.”

“Roger. Talk to you soon.”

By the time I’ve ended the call, I idly notice the mystery of who tried to poison my girlfriend’s ladypal reframed as irrelevant.

But I’m back in control. Breath steady. I take a moment and check my pulse. Steady.

I slide the commlink back into my monkey suit and walk back to the party, catching a glimpse of my face in a mirror. My delicate features are a mask. The only tell is the ice in my eyes.

I make a list of things I need and a list of who I need to call. By the time I return to the hall, I’ve fleshed out the first steps of a plan.
I followed the ARO marker back to Francesca, gave her a kiss on the cheek, only to have her shoot me a stink eye and say, “You’re leaving?”

“Duty calls, dear. There’s a train in my office and it’s about to jump tracks in front of an orphanage.” I stroked her cheek with my forefinger, “You wouldn’t want the kids hurt because I wasn’t able to peel myself away from you, right?”

She fake pouted, sighed, and, “Fine. But you’re going to make this up to me.”

I didn’t even need to fake a smile for that one, “My lady, I hadn’t even considered the possibility of doing anything else.”

She gave me that look.

And with that, I turned and walked away. It wasn’t even noon yet and this day had already gone straight to hell.

Strategic Thinking: Hardened Armor

One of the big shake-ups from Run and Gun was putting the option for hardened armor in metahuman hands.

In SR4, the only way to get hardened armor was as a critter power; Shadowrun 5 offers the option of Hardened mil-spec battle armor.

Mil-spec armor makes the wearer almost immune to small arms fire.

How it works:

Hardened is the key word here. Regular armor turns physical damage into stun damage when the Damage Value is less than the rating of the armor.

The hardened armor critter power instead negates all damage under its rating.

And if the DV is over the Hardened Armor rating? Roll a damage resistance test and add half the Hardened Armor rating as automatic hits.

So, a guy with 15 hardened armor won’t even roll a damage resistance test against a light pistol unless the shooter gets 9 net hits. Even with those net hits, the target gets 8 free hits on his damage resistance test. Almost negating the crazy-good roll before even rolling.

Shotguns and assault rifles have an easier time damaging. Yet, I’ve seen a guy in hardened armor take 3 rounds from a Krime cannon before dropping.

Nasty stuff.

The up-side is a few of the options from SR4 which made the non-hardened-but-still-mil-spec-armor extra-dangerous. So, no increased mobility or jacking strength beyond augmented max because the suit isn’t you.

 

Houserule note: It’s possible for hardened armor and regular armor to stack through Cyberware/bioware, adept powers, spells, and critter powers. At my table we assume hardened armor takes AP first so it retains some influence over a fight.

 

Dealing with Mil-spec armor:

There aren’t many good strategies for handling Mil-spec armor. It’s stupidly powerful and each suit has a ton of capacity for extra tricks.

Before going any further we should know a little about the other qualities they provide. First, each Mil-spec armor is tailored for an individual. It won’t fit otherwise.

This is, of course, expensive military equipment. No reason not to pretend they’re not going to protect it.

Mil-spec armor has 3 neat features and one important one. The holster, increased ease to ready gear, and raised social limit for intimidation are neat. What matters is how it halves speed and forces a fatigue roll for every run/sprint.

This means if you can get out of a mil-spec wearer’s line of sight, you can probably get away. The most agility a metahuman can have is 12. So, if you have six agility you can outrun anyone in mil-spec armor.

Most people wearing mil-spec armor will not have 12 agility.

Mil-spec armor halves all movement, including from making running checks.

Yes, GTFO is the first strategy. It’s simple enough in theory. In practice, anyone with this kind of armor probably also has vehicle/air support and getting away might not be so simple.

The next strategy relies on them not having the legal option to wear it. This one is spotty since a corporation or military unit are the main users of mil-spec armor.

If you can get your armored-pursuers to commit some kind of crime near someone with more firepower than you… Mil-spec armor becomes Someone Else’s Problem.

If you have to fight without big guns, it’s best to go for disabling. Disarm, break weapons, shake up, etc. If you can keep them away from their weapons they might not be as big a threat. The book also makes mention of knocking them into water, which is lucky if you can pull it off.

Risky, but there’s a shot.

Keep in mind shake up/Shake, rattle, and pop!/Shake, Rattle, and boom! can hamstring an opponent even if they don’t do any damage, buying you time for plan 1.

Let’s not forget the all-purpose solution to all problems: Magic. These guys are why your mage ought to be able to cast Manabolt/Manaball.

And last, there’s overwhelming force. Get the biggest guns, gratuitous amounts of explosives, and attack from surprise with edge. Hope for the best. Prepare for the bad news they brought an armored mage along.

Bottom line? Stay away from people with Mil-spec armor.

Fiction Friday: A Day in The Life

**Note: This is a story I wrote as part of the introduction of my current SR5 character, Vicar. His friends call him Carlos. You probably don’t need to know his name. The picture which inspired him is from a German SR book. Find it here.

It takes place in the Rox, Boston’s own Barrens. That’s super-ghetto for the jargon-impaired.

 

 

I fuckin’ hate the Rox.

My son, Levi, was awake till god knows last night so I figured it was a good time to slip out for some work. Kid should be asleep for at least 12 hours.

Well, that’s just me kidding myself of course. He’ll be up in six. SINless folks don’t have school to go to so it’s not like anyone cares if he sleeps past the crack of noon.

He can read and has, more or less, the whole of the matrix to learn from. Not my scene, but he loves it.

I head down the access ladder from our deliciously illegal loft. See, back in 2050, a bunch of goodie-two-shoes decided to try and gentrify the Rox.

They took a couple outer blocks and half-built some upscale apartments. Then they discovered the contractors weren’t just skimming a little off the top, but nearly half. And the Rox took in a few new blocks.

The Anvils, an all-dwarf gang, built up the building and we have a simple arrangement.

I pay them for this apartment, they keep stealing electricity and water from the ‘plex. Good people. The kind who prefer to stand in front of a stereotype and let people see what they like rather than fight it.

Gives ’em a lot of room to breathe.

Anyway, my day isn’t real planned. I load up my regular kit: An Ares Light Fire 70, two throwing knives, a stun grenade, and my lockpick set. You never know when someone needs to get into a car, right? Put the Light fire in the arm slide for easy use, the grenade in my duster’s pocket, tack on my cheap ‘shades and a smile on my face and I’m set.

I leave the shotgun behind the wall-panel where it’s hidden. It’s important not to leave guns just laying around for kids or cops to find. I need work.

Before I can plan my day all proper-like, I need to descend the fire escape to the second floor’s reinforced rubble heap. Looks like garbage, walks like stairs.

Time for a drink.

The block’s watering hole isn’t a bar proper as much as it’s a room with homemade synthohol and some tables. Even has an automated tab like the fancy people downtown get, from a few salvaged nexi jury rigged together. The bar doesn’t have a name, but it’s why we’ve got such nice matrix access.

It’s still before noon so the only one inside beside myself is the guy who runs it. He used to be a hardcore gangbanger before he decided to settle down and become a house-bandit. Picked up a few local tech-kiddies, got them to teach him how to hack, and set up a serious business.

Well, as serious as business gets in the Rox. They’re small time criminals, but who here isn’t? Anyway, Aric is good people. And some of the hootch he makes is even drinkable.

“Mornin, Carlos.”

“It’s Vicar today, I’m working.”

Aric sighed. We’ve argued about my name more times than I can count in the past few months. Still, I’m regular money and no one refuses that.

“Anything drinkable today?

“Nope. An ale, then?”

“It’ll do.”

I take my table by the corner and activate the burner commlink I’m using this week and punch in the code for the Nexi upstairs. Rather than surfing on what I’m told is, “last year’s shit” I let them do the hard work and use the burner to display.

As it loads up the wider matrix I consider what I need. Cash is low, though we’ve got a few months paid in advance. Might be time to hit up the guys at Tailwings. They usually pay well enough. If only they weren’t such cocks about smuggling. I pushed past my disdain and got to work.

I shoot off a half dozen emails to people I haven’t talked to in a while. I would have sent out a few more, just stirring the pot a bit, but a thought occurred to me.

Yes. Walkabout. Used to have something to do with coming of age in the Australian Outback.

Nowadays it’s about going for a mean strut and seeing what trouble you stumble into. Just the right cure for the mood I felt settling on me.

Aric handed me a “brew” and I chugged the fucker, headed out the door, and got ready for whatever heads my way.

It doesn’t take me long to realize Aric has been trying to brew slagging Hurlg again. What that bastard calls Ale the rest of us call poison. A single pint shouldn’t make a healthy dwarf in the prime of his life tipsy.

And he never puts enough nutmeg in. The philistine.

The first half hour of my walkabout is a bit loose. Most of the riffraff aren’t around with the sun out so high but every so often I see packs of gangs hanging out on corners and whatnot.

It’s not long before I recognize the tell-tale signs of street craps. A bunch of fools hunched over something in an alley, a couple of them flying colors looking out.

Easy money. Just need to put on the right look. I slumped my shoulders, stopped focusing, and meandered towards them. The trick is to look abusable.

I almost walk past them, but stop, appear to look behind the look-outs, and ask if there’s room for another. I make a point to speak to no one in particular.

They disagree and we discuss the matter at length, but my charm and innocence (faked, though it is) win out. There are four gangers crowded around with some non-gang punk and a woman who’s clearly slumming.

A glance to size up everyone leaves me with the following impressions: Limpy is a thin ork. Probably one of those grown-up Betameth babies. The runt of the litter. Smiles, clearly in charge, with one of them trusting smiles and “concealed” streetline special. He has to play Boxman and Stickman himself. The harsh lesson of the streets: If you want it done right.. do it yourself.

To Smiles’ right stands Aces, a cocky fuck. I decide if this goes badly, I’d cripple aces on principle. Human swine. And the last ganger is their Heavy. A reasonable sized troll, if there is such a thing, but he’s got little more than a chain on him. Too much tight fitting clothing, guys.

The other “marks” were fascinating, briefly. Slummer did a decent job of dressing down but didn’t skip a manicure and her hands aren’t covered in dirt. Sloppy, sloppy. And Easy is such a sap I immediately assume he’s a planted ringer.

That twitch in my stomach tells me I’ve bitten off more than I can chew, which only puts a bigger grin on my face. I’ve been in worse with less.

Smiles welcomes me over with all the “New Shooter!” pomp he can muster. It’s not a bad try. Really.

We get down to business without any more pomp or circumstance. We all bet and I roll.

I won’t bore you with the details of who bet what or whose dice were loaded or what they were saying. Let us be sure of two things: Easy was definitely a ringer. And I won more than Smiles liked.

“You’re a cheater.”

I looked smiles in the eye. When you’re lying to someone’s face, it always works best if you give them strong eye contact into one eye. People think it’s harder to fake.

“Like hell I am.”

Slumming girl’s eyes widened, “You’re a cheat!? I thought you were just lucky.”

Aces spoke up, circling around me, “No one’s that lucky, chicky.”

“Oh, I get it. You’re just pissy someone else is winning. Don’t be such a sore loser.”

I took a moment to reassess the situation. The money was floating in a temporary escrow account. They were using a cheap program to do it so they couldn’t close the betting till I made a bet. Aces was cutting off the only exit not covered by two extra mooks.

Between me and that fight were Heavy, Smiles, and Limpy. Getting out of the situation meant changing the balance of power.

I couldn’t be sure of a KO on Heavy. Limpy and Easy weren’t important enough to the gang and Aces was already ready for a fight.

My smile perked up a little higher. With a mental command I set my reflexes to max. This was going to be awesome.

I took two steps up the wall behind me and leapt six feet towards Smiles. In transit I pulled out the grenade in my duster, and triggered the slide which loaded my pistol into my right hand.

I then shoved the gun’s muzzle up to Smiles’ throat and held the grenade above my head with my left hand. Thumb on the pin. He went white.

“We all die, or you pay and I leave.” OK, it was a flashbang. But they didn’t know that.

With only a few moments before shock wore off and they realized they could take back control. I pushed Smiles back with the barrel and he moved.

We moved out of troll’s reach and held the grenade towards the still-stunned crowd. Time to get going. I pushed him as far as I could then eased off a bit.

“Transfer the funds. Now. Hands where I can see them.”

I took a steadying breath. Wired reflexes got jerky if you didn’t keep them under control. That was dangerous. I needed to appear unconcerned and in control.

Smiles took his commlink out and slowly pressed the appropriate buttons. My Commlink popped a notification I’d received 300nu. Not a bad walkabout.

My smile perked. Yes, again. I then shoved my left elbow into Smiles’ groin with as much of my weight as I could manage. His eye bulged and I renamed him Groans.

But that wasn’t going to be enough. I fucking booked it. Full speed towards the alley. The grenade would work but this just wasn’t a big enough score to warrant it. If I wanted measly 70% margins, I’d scam my way into a straight job.

I slipped the grenade into my pocket as I ran and got ready for the hard part.

Aces had already started chasing me before I’d even finished clearing his boss. Easy, Heavy, and Limpy were slower to start, but it wouldn’t matter much. The pair of lookouts weren’t going to just let me get by either.

So I did the only sensible thing. I tried sliding under them. Leftie swung a club wide, but Rightie almost got me with a knife. Bastard nicked my duster.

But I cleared them and ran a hard left staying near the wall. I knew, even as short as I was, I was probably faster than these shitheels.

Then again, I owed Aces a crippling.

So I stopped about four Meters past the alley and turned around into the firing stance my mercenary mentor had taught me. Both hands on the grip, spine elongated, sphincter unclenched. Deep, slow breath in. I knew Aces would break through his friends shortly. Dude was seriously tense.

As if on cue, he burst out of the alley first. I exhaled, sighted the knee he was putting all his weight on to turn, and fired. The little red dot of my laser sight vanished as his knee crumpled under him.

The gun barely made a sound.

With my heightened senses he fell in slow motion. Like some giant killer felling a mighty foe, I fucking rushed away. And the rest of the pile kept chasing me. Heh. Stupid fuckers.

Still, there are some problems with being so short. A few times I thought they would catch up, but after three blocks I’d definitely lost ’em.

I stopped a few minutes later and sat on the street and laughed.

Walkabout indeed!

Might pick up something nice for Levi on the way home…

Fiction Friday: No Respect

Tinkerbell shrugged. Some fights were avoidable, but didn’t his therapist tell him to embrace his feelings when he could?

Right now all he felt was the desire to punch this mouth-breather in the face.

He checked around the room before doing anything else. He recognized his townie victim, a shabby ork from St Kitts or some other nonsense Island, had more friends than he’d thought. The rest of the bar, though, looked like it was just waiting for an excuse to get in a good barfight.

Tinkerbell felt a smile creep onto his face and he large body relaxed a tic, lowering his center of mass somewhere under the ork’s head. Tinkerbell wasn’t a pretty troll, and his face alone should have warned M.B. he’d seen plenty of scraps.

But, some people don’t listen even to themselves. And there’s really no helping them. They have to learn the hard way pissing off someone almost twice your size doesn’t make you Einstein.

Tink realized the poor asshole was just showing off for his Lady Macbeth girlfriend.

Heh. heh heh heh.

Tinkerbell slammed his the bony plate of his forehead against M.B.’s nose things began to blur a bit. Evolution had seen fit to arm his people against concussions from headbutting. But it didn’t quite smooth out the fuzzies from head trauma.

Tink always suspected evolution had left meta-humanity incomplete.

The Ork still stood, but only as a technicality. Even before the impact of their heads, though, the rest of the bar erupted into a din of screams, breaks, and stamping feet.

At least now Tinkerbell knew why the furniture was so cheap. These little Islands never build anything to last.

M.B. tried to hit back but his new broken nose must have distracted him from the serious work of defending himself. Tinkerbell didn’t even need to move for the Ork’s punch to go wide of his shoulders.

Idly, Tinkerbell wondered if this was M.B.’s first concussion.

Then he noticed M.B. had left his beer on the table, still half undrunk. The shit-eating grin invading his ugly face perked up at that. It would be alcohol abuse, but sometimes a man has to do horrible things to live.

And sometimes he gets to do them for fun.

As Lady Macbeth went to try and pull her man out of the fight, Tinkerbell grabbed his wrist and picked up the bottle.

“Don’t forget your beer on the way out.”

M.B. struggled without success to escape and his Lady Macbeth wasn’t able to pull him from the larger troll.

Tink made eye-contact with M.B. for an instant. In that moment, they understood each other. M.B. didn’t want to lose his girl and figured he’d be able to impress her by beating up a troll. If Tinkerbell let him go, he wouldn’t pull this shit against anyone. He didn’t want to fight in the first place, let alone now.

But, really, he shouldn’t have said what he did about Tink’s mother. Civilized folk can’t tolerate such rudeness. Even on this unnamed Island theoretically in the Caribbean League.

And in that perfect, silent moment, M.B. recognized he was about to have a bottle broken on the side of his head.

For a instant, Tinkerbell let the slack go out of his hold. M.B. pulled away, not seeing where this was going. As the mouth breather extended Tink’s arm, the troll pulled back with all his considerable weight. And crunched the bottle into M.B.’s skull.

Two things broke and Mouth-breather the Ork collapsed bonelessly. Tink let the remaining beer pour out on the unconscious man.

Then he chuckled. His laugh was flat, devoid of real mirth.

It was time to get going. If he left now, he could be drinking down at the docks in a few minutes. These townies didn’t like the pirates who ran them. Yeah. That was the ticket.

So, at the height of a brawl he’d started, Tinkerbell strolled out of the bar slamming the door behind him. The night air sweltered with heat and the thick scent of jungle pawed at him him. He wished, for a moment, that he had a cigar to smoke on his way to the next bar.

He idly wondered what his therapist would say about tonight…

Review: Run and Gun Part 6

Advanced Combat Rules

Kind of scary we’re only now getting to the real meat of this review, isn’t it? The “Killshots and more” section is probably the best part of the whole damn book. It’s a pile of new combat options, mostly in the form of actions. Some of these are  called shots, some require martial arts training, and some are just specialized variations on existing actions.

The first section is six optional rules for more or less lethal combat. Two of the six optional rules are massive changes in game balance. The first of these, RG1, allows multiple simple-action attacks per initiative pass. While they recommend to keep a close eye on progressive recoil, it’s not really enough to change how much more powerful ranged combat is than melee.

The other unbalancing option is RG4, which removes Initiative passes and has the person with the highest initiative go first. So, rather than everyone getting a turn before anyone goes a second time, the high-initiative characters get to go until they’re on the same level as the low init ones.

And heaven help you if you’ve got a decent drone rigger.

I strongly dislike this option, but I guess if you want to be eventually killed by someone with better initiative without the option to defend yourself, that’s your business.

One aspect of this rule I do like is how it makes the interrupt actions more dangerous. But even that isn’t enough to compensate for the downsides.

The other 4 options are much more mild. RG2 adds a size modifier based on body+strength, which is fine if you want the extra paperwork. Though it leads to some weird oddities  where a slightly above average dwarf is easier to hit than an average sized human despite the latter having two feet on the former.

There’s a progressive movement speed penalty option (RG3) where the further you go the more penalties stack up.

RG5 is interesting. It takes armor away from damage resistance tests and applies it as a negative dice pool modifier to attack tests. Not sure how I feel about it, but the concept is at least more original than the others.

And RG6 adds a bonus to damage for when you’ve lowered someone’s defense test dice under zero. Perfect for that flechette round fully-automatic shotgun. Go ahead and start laughing.

Just don’t get caught surprised.

Acres of Called Shots

New actions start by piling on a heaping load of optional called shots. Oh my, so many. These come in more or less three varieties: Ammo-specific, Martial-art-trained, location. and general use.

One of my personal favorite location options is kneecapping. It does almost no damage (Up to 1 box), takes a massive -8 modifier to the hit, and kind of crippled. They get stunned, knocked down, have their move-speed halved, and are unable to make complex actions for a number of combat turns.

My old Ork Bouncer, Big Caper, would have loved this shit.

Naturally, there are also rules for shooting someone’s junk. It’s real bad all around.

Next comes the ammo-specific options. These can be things like shooting someone in the temples with a gel round to stun them (-10 initiative!) or shooting a capsule round in someone’s open mouth to improve the power of the toxin (get a ballistic mask!).

Another hiccup in editing includes a called shot for an ammo-type which didn’t make it into Run and Gun. If you had Hi-C rounds (or gyrojet rounds which are in the book), you could perform a ricochet shot. Which would be pretty sweet if they bothered putting the suckers in the book, especially as they’re the plastic rounds designed to go through MAD scanners.

There are so many tricky options here it makes me almost giggle. Maybe the best of them is “Through and through… and into” which has one shoot a little bullet through one person so it doesn’t harm them to mess with the jagoff using someone as a human shield. Not using armor piercing rounds? Don’t apply.

MOAR ACTIONS!

Next up is 8 pages of new actions available to anyone with the right gun, martial art skills, or will to live. There are a few major kinds of actions worth noting.

First might be grouped as, “empowered automatic fire.” Basically all the multiple-shot actions (Burst first, Long burst, fully automatic), except to improve their damage instead of making them harder to dodge.

Next is fancy melee moves, from grabbing an enemy’s hand to negate their reach and get superior positioning for a more serious grapple to reversals and finishing moves. Some of these require spending a point of edge to do them at all.

Modified suppressive fire which makes it harder to dodge at the expense of area of effect.

Even playing possum, which is awesome.

There are also preemptive versions of the three single-action defense tests which allow you to use your melee weapon, unarmed. or gymnastics skill for an entire combat turn instead of just a single action. They must be declared on your turn.

As well as some new interrupt actions which allow one to counter strke, dive for cover, throw back grenades, throw yourself on a grenade, and a few other interesting choices.

One favorite of mine is, “Protect the principle” which lets a defense-heavy character take a hit for someone else. They lose 5 from their initiative score and spend a point of edge to actively take a hit. They get no defense test, only a damage resistance test.

They also add new edge options. Such as using a martial arts technique one hasn’t learned, remove up to 4 points of called shot penalty, spend a point of edge for another player to dodge, get a defense test on an attack they’re unaware of, or find some lucky/unexpected cover.

Qualities

There are seven new positive qualities. Four of them let you substitute willpower for Agility, Charisma, Gymnastics, or perception during full defense.

The best name of anything in the book is the Charisma full defense option titled simply, “Too pretty to hit.”

The other three are also pretty cool. One gives you a bonus for brand loyalty with a product line or a specific device and a penalty for similar devices from different manufacturers. A second lets you perform a martial arts technique without learning it’s martial art. And the last gives you a bonus to called-shots for a penalty to less precise shooting.

Only one negative quality, though. Combat Junkie. Whenever you’re in a situation and you want to not assault people, you’ve got to roll a Composure(4) test to do so. Great for parties of people you don’t like.

The only thing I don’t like about this section is how changes to how the Tailored Pheromones mean Vicar can’t get the same benefit from Too Pretty To Hit as he can from Agile Defense.

 Martial Arts

Shadowrun’s martial art rules have always been a bit awkward and occasionally overpowered. R&G has, I think, fixed this. There are 42 martial art styles to choose from each with 6 technique choices. You buy a style for 7 karma over a month and it comes with a technique. Each additional technique costs 5 karma and takes two weeks to learn.

Most of the techniques either let you lower a called shot penalty, a bonus on one kind of test, use one of the new action choices, or reduce another penalty. The max penalty reduction is 2 and the max bonus is +2 which clears up some of SR4’s awkward bonus stacking.

There are some rough edges though. The technique most of interest to Vicar is called, “Close quarters firearms” and it reduces the ranged combat attacker in melee penalty by one. You have to pick one skill for it to apply to. Vicar is a Longarms(Shotgun) man and all the martial arts which grant close quarter firearms specify a skill at either pistols or archery. If, as I assume, this is intended to mean those martial arts don’t teach being a guy who doesn’t care about wading into melee combat with a shotgun for some inexplicable reason, the only way for him to get this technique is to take the One Trick Pony quality for 2-3x the cost in karma.

Sad. Shotgun. Panda.

Still, even with the kinks it’s a big improvement on SR4 where some of the techniques were so powerful they would almost singlehandedly beat people not using them (Ex. Two-weapon defense).

There’s one last page in this overall section which describes how to heal/fix all the horrible things R&G allows you to do to people/gear. Pretty straightforward.

Check out part 7: Here