Review: Run and Gun Part 5

Tactics

Aside from having some of the better fluff in the book, this section adds a new skill, details on how to think tactically in Shadowrun 5, and  a pile of maneuvers which allow a savvy team take advantage of a situation with superior coordination.

Pretty cool, right? Agreed. Now, right off the bat I’ve got a problem with this section. They added a new skill: Small Unit Tactics. SUT is all about knowing how to train and coordinate a group of people to greatest effect in certain situations. It lets you perform special teamwork maneuvers.

All well and good. Vicar, though, has a problem with it. They don’t define what kind of knowledge skill it is. Vicar, being a former gutterpunk, is uneducated. SUT seems like it should be a professional skill, but you add intuition to it the way you do for street and interest knowledge skills.  Which means he may or may not have to pay 2x the karma to raise it depending on GM-whim, as per the uneducated quality (Pg 87, SR5).

The fluff provides a solid overview of how tactics developed in SR. Here are a few important tips:

1. Geek the Mage. Does someone look magic? Shoot them first.
2. Geek the Decker/Technomancer/Rigger. Does someone have an obvious cyberdeck or Rigger Command Console? Shoot them next. Hope for the best with technomancers.
3. Have a plan and backup plans, focusing on exploiting enemy weaknesses.
4. Be willing to change plans when they become unworkable.
5. Be willing to retreat or give up if it’s called for.
6. Don’t fight chaos with chaos. Going rambo or berserker will usually only leave you exposed and an easy target.
7. Coordinate and don’t lose coordination.

I won’t spoil the maneuvers beyond stating they’re a little ambiguous. Cool idea, it could probably have been edited better. The execution is still sweet.

 Tools of the Trade

There are a few neat options added in this section. Definitely a few worth picking up. My favorites include the Paint Grenade to vex those aspiring to invisibility, an armored bodybag called a “Personal extraction device for those grumpy new employees, and industrial lubricant when you remember how awesome D&D’s grease spell is.

Which, really, should be all the time.

In addition, the new rules for tacsofts are way clearer and way cooler. And, of course, well out of the budget of all but the most wealthy shadowrunners. Costs range from half a mil to  one and a quarter. Nasty business. SR5’s are called Personal Integrated Tactical Network or “PI-Tacs” and they’re both a bit more complicated and a bit more straightforward to use.

All three levels provide locations of all team members, combining all team sensors, team biomonitor, status on all weapons, and a bonus to perception tests. Better PI-Tac systems let one coordinate faster while also providing a bonus on specific skills and enhancing bonuses.

Check out part 6: Here

Review: Run and Gun Part 4

Armor and Accessories

Gear wise, the armor section is probably the best in the book. It introduces both high-class wear which improve your social limits and rolls and some stackable armor. Mysteriously, this latter class doesn’t include form-fitting armor, once every runner’s best friend.

They’ve added a plethora of new qualities for armor, the net effect being a large endorsement to getting your clothes tailored.

Some highlights: The mortimer of London coat-line has many wonderful qualities. When tailored to you properly, they stack as armor. They increase your social limit. And they’re even better than the lined coat at both armor and for concealing stuff. Their only weakness is people will look at you like you’ve got stuff worth stealing.

There’s also the nightshade/moonsilver gown/suit line, which glows. Because sometimes you need to be the light of a party. Oh god, I did actually just type that. Plus side? You’re still armored.

The new, oddly legal, form fitting body armor is called Second Skin. 12k with nigh-invisible ruthenium polymer coating, which lets you change how it appears or attempt to cloak you. Unlike the form fitting, this stuff stacks.

And then we get to security/Hardened Mil-spec battle armor. This is the stuff you don’t want to see on the other side of a fight. “Civilian” armor caps off around 12 rating points. This stuff starts at 15 and goes to 20, 23 with helmet.

The Mil-spec armor is both more and less terrifying than it’s SR4 counterparts. On one hand, it now provides hardened armor as per the critter power. If you’ve never looked it up on page 397 of SR5, do so. Hardened armor means never having to say you’re sorry. At best, light Mil-spec armor doesn’t take damage from a modified damage value of less than 15.

So if you’ve been as charmed by the Onotari JP-K50 sniper rifle as I have and your target is wearing a helmet as well, you need 3 net successes for it to even try to hurt the sucker. It gets worse. Before even rolling the damage resistance test, hardened armor grants it 8 automatic hits for resistance. So your badass 15-DV shot is reduced to 7 before your target rolls.

There are two upsides to this: The armor is so bulky that running from it is relatively easy and they no-longer have the option for the mil-spec armor enhancements which let you do things like exceed the augmented maximum for strength because powered armors are awesome and it’s not your muscles doing the lifting. There are, in fact, no special enhancements for this armor. So while they’re damn hard to kill, they’re not as much on offense as the SR4 versions could be.

There are plenty of more obscure armor types, each providing some bonus/penalty in addition to its armor. For example, chainmail lowers your social limit for dealing with non-gangers and raises it with gangers. I guess it’s out this season.

A personal favorite of mine is the Ballistic Mask because it covers your face while having all the strengths of a helmet. Sure, you look like an extra from Army of Two, but it’s a small price to pay in a world of facial recognition software.

There are also the usual slew of environmentally-appropriate armors including an, “I can’t believe it’s not a stillsuit” for deserts.The vice must flow! Honestly, I mostly skipped over these and the rules for the environments they go with. I mean, I’m currently playing a game in Boston. Not much need to retain all my moisture or survive sub-stupid temperatures in Boston.

Armor Modifications

So, I was pretty hard on the weapon modification options. IMO, the armor mod section more than makes up for it. They’ve got a variety of options with some really fun ones such as Fresnel Fabric which reduces wireless signal noise at the expense of forcing you to wave your arms around like some human bunny-ear antenna.

There’s also Pulse Weave, which is like a flash-pack/rave on your clothing. Which is, obviously, awesome. And shock weave, which is like a shock-glove you can block attacks with to taze your enemies. Because you should be tired of wannabe kung-fu masters need to be tazed. Ho ho ho.

Last, there’s a sweet table on pg 87 that lets you see all the capacity of all the things you might want installed into armor from both R&G and SR5. Handy, even without availability or cost.

The bottom line is the armor mods are pretty much complete. Keeps you safe, vexes your enemies, does so with style. Aw, yeah.

Check out part 5: Here

Review: Run and Gun Part 3

Weapon Modifications

The modifications already in R&G are all pretty much well and good. They’ve simplified the modification options from SR4 quite a bit and, while I loathe to admit it, this is probably a good thing. There are, however, quite a few things from previous editions SR5 really could use. Disclaimer: R&G is already a hefty 213 pages. I can understand why space concerns would have them limit how many options are included.

Here are my suggestions:

1. Skinlink.
   1. Skinlink was a special device in SR4 which let you connect gear such as a smart-linked weapon to your PAN without sending a wireless signal.OK, yes. I know SR5 is trying to make hackable gear a serious risk. But let’s be honest: That’s no reason to do away with Skinlink. We aren’t bound by what works with physics here.
   2. Instead, we can say hackers figured out how to interfere with skinlink signals wirelessly, allowing even them to be hacked. Last-gen skinlinks, presumed unhackable, weren’t encrypted. So a new generation was released which provide additional noise (+1 or +2) to anyone trying to hack them.
   3. BAM. Now Skinlink is both a valuable defense without making someone immune to hacking.
2. Additional/Extended Clips
   1. Additional Clips jury rig a gun to accept two clips at once. They can be switched between with a free action with a smartgun or a simple action otherwise.
   2. Extended clip comes with two options:
      1. Increase the size of the clip by 25%
      2. SMGs and assault rifles can get a 50 or 100 round drum-loading mechanism. Naturally, this makes a weapon much easier to spot.
3. Firing Selection change
   1. A delightful option to change weapons with standard loading mechanisms/ammo so they have the option of firing more. It comes in two flavors. A large modification converts a Single Shot or Semi-Automatic weapon into a Burst Fire or Full-Auto weapon. A small modification covers all other possibilities(SS-> SA, BF ->FA).
4. Easy Breakdown
   1. Modifies a weapon to break down into small enough pieces to be easily hidden. The regular modification takes 3 complex actions to assemble/broken down and a powered version reduces that to 2 complex actions.
5. Ceramic/Plasteel Components
   1. MAD scanners got you down? Replace your gun’s parts with stuff that doesn’t show up on them! This is super expensive, but can be worth it.
6. Custom Look
   1. Make your weapon look stupidly elaborate so you can intimidate and push your rep on unsuspecting fools. Comes in a +1 and +2 version.
   2. Showing off with custom weapons is a sure way to raise your public awareness.
7. Electronic Firing
   1. Most of a weapon’s moving parts are removed and an electrical charge fires the bullets. It provides 1 point of recoil compensation and a -1 dice pool mod for hearing the shots.
8. Barrel Extension/Reduction
   1. Extend a barrel to increase range by 10% and concealability by 1.
   2. Cut down a barrel to reduce range by 20% and concealability by 1. Sawed-off shotguns cannot use narrow spread.
9. Trigger Removal
   1. Make all firing happen by wireless command instead of by pulling the trigger.
10. Melee Hardening
    1. Reinforce your guns so you can beat people with them and not break or accidentally fire them! What’s not to love?
11. Personalized grip
    1. Admittedly, this option might go against the focus on adding wireless risk to SR5 options and therefore might be too much power for not any additional risk.
    2. In SR4 it added 1 point of Recoil Compensation to ranged weapons or 1 extra die to melee weapons for the person it was customized to.
12. Ultrasound Sight
    1. Reduce lighting penalties by 1 step

Another weakness to this section is the recoil compensation compatibility chart which reads like a godless mess. The bullet points in Arsenal were much clearer.

Here’s how modification works: You can install a single accessory or modification into one of six slots: Top, barrel, underbarrel, stock, internal, and on the side. Few modifications actually take up the stock or internal slots, so your chances of running into overlap is relatively low.

For some reason, the table with the cost of each weapon accessory/mod doesn’t include what slot(s) they can be used in. Which is a bit annoying when trying to figure out what all you can put on a single weapon. The quick-reference table in the back of the book, normally quite good, doesn’t correct this despite apparently having enough space to do so.

Ammo

The ammo section is also light relative to earlier books. Where both the cannon companion and arsenal had expansive sections on all kinds of ammo with special sections for shotguns, grenades, rockets/missiles, mines, and mortars.

They add five very useful bullet types here. Better explosive rounds, rounds designed to hurt unarmored people but not equipment, flare rounds, rounds with RFID trackers in them, and rounds designed to dose someone with a toxin or drug.

Of these, I’d say Tracker rounds are probably the most uniquely useful. They can embed themselves in armor if all damage is resisted, making them useful even if you fire them from a holdout-pistol.

There you have it, the complete weapons and ammo section. As you can see there are lots of good options for mischief.

Check out part 4: Here

Run And Gun Review

So, I went a teensy-bit overboard writing up an extensive review of the new SR5 book, Run and Gun. Think of it like a Wal-mart, if it were managed by sociopaths and claymore-wielding serial killers.

Yes, it’s good. Not perfect, but one endures. This sucker clocks in at over 5,000 words.

• Part 1: Overview, Fiction and Examples
• Part 2: Weapons
• Part 3: Weapon Modifications and Ammo
• Part 4: Armor and Armor Modifications
• Part 5: Tactics and Tools of the Trade
• Part 6: Advanced Combat Rules, Qualities, and Martial Arts
• Part 7: Natural Hazards, Demolitions, and Endnotes

Enjoy.

-S

Review: Run and Gun Part 2

Weapons

I found this to be one of the weaker sections. There are a lot of cool toys here, but most aren’t anything to write home about.

The melee options are extremely strong, bordering on, “Everything here is better than the core book.” There are a few tradeoffs, but more or less in favor of R&G. Later in the book it implies a weapon called a, “sword breaker dagger” is supposed to exist, but it doesn’t seem to.

If you don’t like your enemies, the exotic ranged weapons section has your name on it. Two items specifically inspire maniacal laughter: The Boom Bola and Monofilament Bola. Boom Bolas are two grenades tied together. If you succeed in hitting your target, they get to take the awful amount of damage from multiple explosions and being at ground zero.

Laugh with me, Jocko. Laugh with me!

The Monofilament Bola is, obviously, awesome. But it suffers from some weird layout thing where they put the stats for the standard bola on one line then the monofilament bola on another and then duplicate the stats for the standard bola on one side of a slash. It continues to explain in the text you’re only supposed to look at the bit on the right of the slash. Weird choice.

Speaking of odd editing choices, there’s a bit of inconsistency with how recoil compensation is displayed. In SR5, they created a convention where recoil compensation was listed as a positive number. If some accessory which needed activated such as a fold-out stock or gas-vent system needed activated they put parentheses around it. Here’s where things get strange: Starting at shotguns and running until the end of machine guns they list it as a negative number when it’s clearly supposed to improve one’s ability to control recoil.

My gaming group got pumped over the inclusion of a weapon we’d made up under a different name. Our Tazeooka has become “shock net” ammo for the netgun. It’s a net and a taser. IE: Awesome. Expensive, but totally worthwhile if you need someone taken down.

Tasers and pistols are standard fare. Of note is the Shiawase Arms Puzzler. A light pistol which breaks down into apparently harmless pieces for when you need to sneak something past security. Even if the Remington Roomsweeper is better than SR3/4’s Hatamoto 2, I’m sad the little shotgun-pistol wasn’t included. It was an old favorite of mine.

SMGs include an update of the old-standby for packing heat during interviews, the Executive Protector (A SMG hidden inside a briefcase). Ares, masters of PR, have renamed it the “Executioner.” Real subtle, guys.

One complaint I do have is the Ares HVAR, previously one of the scarier weapons in Shadowrun 4, is just a fully-automatic assault rifle. Still a bad day at the office, of course. But quite a bit better to be shot at with.

Mind you, if you’re new to shadowrun 5 that doesn’t really matter. It’s still a neat weapon.

Sniper rifles add another burst fire rifle, marginally better in some ways than the Cavalier Arms Crockett EBR but more expensive. The Onotari JP-K50 also sports a better backstory as the sniper rifle Lofwyr gave to mercs to help him kill his brother Alamais circa Stormfront.

There are two fully-automatic shotguns: The Auto-assault 16 and Mossberg AM-CMDT. The former has a larger drum magazine and does more damage, but lacks Smartlink built in and is more expensive. The AM-CMDT can only really fire one Full-auto burst before reloading, but could be useful if you’ve got geckogrip or a sling. You draw it, unload into a guy, and reload when you’re clear.

3 new machineguns are introduced, the most fun of which is the Vindicator Mini-gun. Sure, it’s not as powerful as other weapons, but it’s got an optional 200 round belt option allowing you to suppressive fire 10 times before giving a fuck about ammo. And it’s got a built in smartgun system and superior armor-penetration. Seriously, what’s not to like? This isn’t quite so much about damage as it is about controlling a battlefield.

If you’re into heavier weapons, I rather enjoy the Mitsubishi Yakusoku MRL. Which lets you fire two missiles/rockets at once, avoiding the need to split your dice pool by aiming the rocket while having the missile target itself. Just be sure whatever you’re shooting at is worth the money you could have been spending on hookers and blow.

R&G also adds laser weapons and a new flamethrower to SR5. I tend to ignore laser weapons despite how awesome they are, but the flamethrower rules include allowing you to use the flamethrower for suppressive fire.

In case you’re unsure, I’m a big fan of anything that forces my enemies not to think about shooting at me.

Check out part 3: Here

Character Library: Ivy Mike, Sledge Hammer Adept

“The first rule of Club Club is everything is a club.”                                                                  -Big Caper, Your Friendly Neighborhood Ork Bouncer

Ivy Mike

People over-complicate things. There’s wrong and there’s right, even in the shadows. Show respect, protect those who can’t protect themselves, and beat the living fuck out of anyone who thinks the previous two are optional.

Ivy Mike would think of himself as a modern Paladin, if he wasn’t such a thug. The son of an exiled, cancer ridden Tir Na Nog noble, Ivy strives to live up to an ideal hollow even in the home country he can never know. IM’s natural optimism and exuberance are tested by the shithole he lives in.

His inner nobility is undercut by his natural love of nasty, nasty fighting. Disdaining overly formal styles for a more vicious approach, Ivy Mike has learned the joys of beating people senseless for fun and profit. He prides himself on being able to hurt people with unusual things. Things not necessarily made as weapons.

He grew up surrounded by crippling poverty, his father’s bitter rage, and legends of noble elven warriors. Ivy Mike dreams of being an ascendant hero. Life is not obliging him.

You can check out his sheet here.

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Using Ivy Mike

Some characters are built for subtlety. Ivy Mike isn’t really in their number. He’s a straight forward brawler made fun by the contrast between his natural optimism and the depressing world he lives in.

It should be noted that while he favors a sledge hammer, his skills allow him to use most anything hard enough to survive being used to beat someone.

I’ve used an adept power from Shadowrun 4’s Street Magic book on page 179. Nimble Fingers gives a +1 bonus on palming and makes Insert Clip, Pick up/put down object, Remove Clip, and use simple object free actions. If you don’t want to port such things, feel free to swap it for a level in Attribute Boost Strength.

IM’s big weakness is, sadly, accuracy. Because he focuses on weapons with naturally low accuracy, he can’t do too much damage without spending a little edge extra. This does have the benefit of giving him lots of room to play with called shots, however.

Compensating for that, though, is his helmet. With 6 points available for + Armor accessories and using the Most Important House Rule in R&G, Ivy Mike can make himself quite a bit harder to hurt. When kit up for a fight, he’s got form fitting body armor under some regular clothes, with an armored Jacket, and his Green Man-themed Ballistic Mask. This combination gives him a hefty 16 armor. 18, when his mystic armor Qi Foci is on.

If you want to use him as a NPC keep his Code of Honor in mind. He doesn’t hurt women or children and reacts badly to those who do. His ability to Riposte effectively from many attacks allows him to be an effective counter to melee-focused characters. Have him use push the limit when doing so. If wielding his sledge hammer while doing it, he’d be rolling 21 dice without a limit. Especially have him do so when he has initiative ending in an 8, 9, or 0 which allows him to keep his number of actions solid.

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Creation/advancement notes

This is my second experiment with creating a character heavily skewed towards attributes and away from skills. I got the idea from a guy I play with and it seems to work out pretty well. Despite his awful skills, he has enough to manage one overwhelming skill and a few solid ones.

Basically, since it’s easier to raise skills than it is to raise attributes, it makes sense to go light on them if you can spare it.

Ivy Mike got his name from the testing of the world’s first Thermonuclear device. A  85-ton, 10-megaton son-of-a-bitch. It’s a badass name and needed to be used. Ivy Mike’s actual name is some nigh-unpronounceable creole of Sperethiel and Gaelic. He’s accepted no one wants to speak his actual name.

I imagine his Astral Beacon quality comes from his emotions being large and flaring. He isn’t really a subtle person.  And he legitimately doesn’t understand people who try and make things more complicated than they are. If he was a SR4 Adept, he’d almost certainly be a Way of the Athlete instead of a Way of the Warrior adept. IM is all about the joy of using his body rather than winning fights.

Long term, he’s probably going to be moving towards picking up Arnis De Mano to get Multiple Opponent Combat(Defender has defended), Two-weapon-Style Attack, and Two-Weapon Style Defense. Then picking up enough arcana to initiate so he can make out his improved reflexes. So many martial arts options give new uses for initiative nothing else really makes sense

 

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Ivy Mike- Sledge Hammer Adept

A Attributes 24
B Magic – Adept Magic 6, one R4 active skill
C Race – Elf (3)
D Skills 22
E: Money 6k

“The first rule of Club Club is that everything is a club.”

Karma: 25
-7 Natural Athlete
-4 Ambidextrous
-7 Martial art and maneuver (Bartitsu; Called Shot(Disarm))
-5 Mentor Spirit(Eagle)

+15 Code of Honor
+10 Astral Beacon
+0 Allergy (Pollutants, mild)

-10 for 20k in money
-6 to raise sneaking to 3
-8 to bond w/ Qi Focus
-3 Carry Over
Attributes 24

B 5
A 7(8)
R 4(6)
S 5
W 4
L 3
I 5
C 3

E 4

Initative: 11+3d6

Defense: 12
-Riposte: 7(+2) Clubs + 6 Reaction +1 Combat Sense: 14(+2)

Armor: 12 Armored Jacked +2 Ballistic Mask + 2 Form Fitting Body Armor + 2 mystic armor: 18
Soak: 23
Skills 22
-Clubs (Improvised) 6(+2) +8 Agility +1 adept = 15(+2)
-*Gymnastics 4 + 8 Agility + 2 NA = 14(+2 Jumping)
-Running 2 +5 Strength +2 NA = 9
-Perception 1 +5 Intuition + 2 Eagle = 8
-Unarmed 2 + 8 Agility
-Automatics(Machine Pistols) 1(+2) +8 Agility = 9(+2)
-Throwing Weapons 2 +8 Agility = 10
-**Etiquette 2 + 3 CHA = 5
-Negotiation 1 + 3 CHA = 4
-**Sneaking(Urban) 3(+2) + 8 Agility = 11(+2)
-Palming 1 + 8 Agility = 9

*= Free from magic
** = Raised with Karma

Knowledge Skills 16
-Sprawl life 2
-Area Knowledge 2
-Tir Na Nog Lore 4
-Sperienthiel 2
-(Area) Gangs 3
-Street Fighting 3

Adept Powers 6:
-Enhanced Accuracy(Clubs) .25
-Critical Strike (Clubs) .5
-Improved Physical Attribute (Agility 1) 1
-Improved Reflexes 2 2.5
-Light Body 2 .5
-*Combat Sense 1 –
-**Nimble Fingers .25 (SM pg 179)
-Danger Sense 2 .5
-Improved Ability(Clubs) 1 .5

**If you’re using our Combat Virtuoso power, he drops Enhanced Accuracy (clubs) and Critical strike (Clubs) for Combat Virtuoso(clubs). Giving him a hefty 7 limit with improved weapons.

*Free from Mentor Spirit
** = From SR4’s Street Magic

Gear: 26000
-Sledge Hammer 40
-Stun Staff 1000
-Ultimax 70 800
-Concealable Quick Draw holster 275
-Gecko Grip 100
-Force 4 Qi Focus( Mystic Armor 2) 12,000
-Fake SIN R1 2,500
-Form Fitting Body armor 1,300
-Customized Ballistic Mask 300
*Note: Styled after the Green man
-Gas Mask 200 [2]
-Trodes 75 [1]
-Ultrasound Sensor R3 300 [1]
-Low-light Flashlight 25 [1]
-Armored Jacket 1000
-Fire Resist 6 1500
-Nonconductivity 6 1500
-Squatter Lifestyle 500
-Meta links x5 500
-Respirator R6 300
-Chain Mail 900

885 left

Contacts 9
-Kroc, One armed Troll martial Artist Bartender. 4/2

-Skippy, newbie fixer 1/2

Review: Run and Gun Part 1

They finally released Run and Gun, first of the Shadowrun 5 core supplements. This is wonderful news for those of us who are waiting for the kinks in SR5 to be ironed out.

Sadly, R&G tackles the more-clearly defined area of combat rather than the murkier waters of magic, the matrix, and the doomed reaches of Rigger-land.

What it does, though, is expand combat with tremendous style. Let’s take a close look. And I mean close. This beast topped out over 5,000 words.

Overview

If you’re looking for a new pile of options for SR5, buy Run and Gun. I know it’s a bit gauche to put the bottom line at the top, but we’re going to be here awhile. This is your chance to get out quickly before I pick this bird apart.

Some background on myself and the book: My name is Steve and I’ve been playing Shadowrun since 2002. I started out as a GM, stopped playing after high school, and have *finally* found a stable group that lets me swap out GMing/playing duties in a manner I like. Which is the SR GM holy grail.

Run and Gun is the first major supplement for SR5. As you might infer, it’s about being able to shoot at people in new and more interesting ways. There are new guns, new armor, new ways to customize both, a few new qualities, a whole slew of new/modified actions, revamped martial arts, and 30 godforsaken pages worth of demolitions rules.

It looks good, and the rules seem good. There are too many new options to be sure how it impacts game balance, but my first read through didn’t find anything standing out as too unbalancing. In short, it’s an excellent pile of more ways to be awesome.

R&G is a dense read with lots of new additions to SR5. Part of what this means is I can’t really be sure my first impressions on how rules and the like are going to work out in actual play. Just because something strikes me as awkward or bad doesn’t mean it is so. Your mileage may vary.

There is one other disclaimer we need to get to before proceeding. I’ve been playing shadowrun for 3 editions now. Many of the things I don’t like about R&G are differences between previous editions and SR5. Feel free not to care about these. Another set of gripes comes from things which are awkward or annoying for my current character: Vicar, the Mercenary/Face/Drug Dealing Dwarf. I’ve included those comments because every player looks at new information with the question, “How does this impact my character?”

In some places I’ve even broken out the old Cannon Companion from SR3 and Arsenal from SR4 for comparison.

Gives a good bit of SR flavor and thinking without taking away from the “crunch”/hard rules. SR2 still wins for this stuff, but I think SR5 does a good job of balancing the two.

One of the strengths of R&G is the sense of humor which pops up. From random digs in the flavortext to a camouflage suit’s wireless bonus of, “Um… you draw in curious hackers?” R&G will bring more than a few chuckles to mind.

Fiction and Examples

There are 2 full stories in R&G and an opening piece for each chapter. Cat’s Paw is a heartwarming (Really!) tale of selling out and betrayal. Good stuff. I wouldn’t lie to you. OK, it’s actually a gritty clusterfuck but if you didn’t like that sort of thing you’d probably be playing some sunnier RPG like Kobolds Ate my Babies.

The second story, Hostile Extraction, actually is a heartwarming tale of a mildly psychotic professional grenade-tossing dwarf adept and his quiet assault-cannon wielding troll. It’s pretty much fantastic. The two of them have staked their rep on being noisy specialists who get the job done as long as you don’t mind extra chunky salsa.

The chapter-starting shorter stories were also mostly fun. Nothing really stand out, but good fun to get you in the mood for the subject matter.

I’m of two minds about the examples. First, with all the new mechanical tweaks there should be more. I’m sympathetic for space requirements and all that. Maybe Catalyist would find it a good idea to release a pdf of examples to show how all the new mechanics play with eachother.

The examples they do have though, are pretty solid and fun to read. The end of the martial arts section is out and out hillarious. It has some mouth breather starting a fight and getting beaten up by the well trained people he wanted to bar-fight with

The demolitions section has more reasonable amounts of examples and they’re a lot more fun. One series of them takes an almost, “good idea/bad idea” format showing the difference between the competent Twitch and the foolish Tic.

Remember: A little skill in demolitions is just enough to get you and everyone you know dead. Or arrested for a long time!

I’m just happy they saved their examples for the detailed-demolitions rules.

Check out part 2: Here

It’s 12:34 AM. Do you know where your meatbody is?

Welcome.

This is Power-Walking In The Darkness, a blog by Shadowrun GMs for anyone who enjoys the special mix of madness, desperation, technology, crime, and fantasy that is Shadowrun.

Back in the end of 2010, I was on a wild meditation retreat in the Washington State. Ten days of silent contemplation.  Among the many creative rushes I experienced over those all-too-long days was, “Power Walking In The Darkness” a Shadowrun themed sitcom I imagined done as a flash cartoon.

But even then flash cartoons were dead. But the name is fun, so what the fuck. Let’s run with it. See what I did there? Not impressed? Well, fine. You jaded jagoff, you.

You’re probably in the right spot.

Thing is, this blog isn’t just for me. We’re looking for other fans of Shadowrun to contribute fiction, art, blog posts, gear, reviews, house rules, etc.

Welcome to the show.