We should chat mate!  I'll drop ya a line here in a bit.

Welcome Retro!

I'll resume posting in the morning. It's been a crazy day.

Thanks mate!  I've had one or two of those.  But only one or two.

Also I need you to know, that I have this lawyer commercial in mind when I think of your character now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdinZ9DrhlY

Yeah, that's pretty much his client base these days. :)

I've got some people looking to lurk. Let me know if you want to open your solo thread up to the general public.

It's fine with me.

When I get one I don't much mind it being public, so by all means!  I trust folks to keep meta stuff out of character after all.

Not yet, some secrets are more fun if they're secret on the meta level too, at least for a while.  i.e. spoilers.  (Well, maybe.  Certain things would need to be moved into Private Lines.  It's ok if people know he's being blackmailed on a meta level, but not with what, not yet.)


On a different subject, does elemental aura hit on a block/parry?  It seems like it would logically, since you're still touching, but the rules don't say.  I'm not sure whether I want it to or not, I use the spells, but so can other people.  Either both sides would get to inflict their elemental aura on the other when a block happens, or neither does.  I want to melt other people's hands, but I quite like mine un-melted thank you very much.
This message was last edited by the player at 18:43, Sat 23 Oct 2021.

Okay. Work and rl have been killing me, but progress has been made.

Hi all.
This message was last edited by the player at 01:01, Sun 24 Oct 2021.

Not gonna lie, I was really hoping it was going to be one of the Texas Law Hawk commercials lol

Going to need to look those up now...

*Snorts*  Fair enough mate, but still totally worth it.

Also another Matrix type eh?  We should chat!

I've been in the game since the 19th but as stated above have not had free time to work on the character or get on here and say much. =)


...yeah. I don't know
This message was last edited by the player at 01:07, Sun 24 Oct 2021.

Oh trust me mate, I totally get being busy with work/life, so no judgement here!

And not a techno fan in character, or just territorial?

Maybe both, lol, but also need to wait to hear back from the GM on what I took to see if it's okay or not. But was planning on not being a huge fan of technomancers, for a quirk.

Entirely fair mate, you wouldn't be the first!  One of the big reasons that Retro here doesn't broadcast the fact that he's a techno at all actually.  Goes so far as to have a fake deck/license for it and everything.  Plus you know, "Geek the mage first" applies doubly to technos, so this only helps his life expectancy.

Ah. Then sure, we'll see Mr. Johnson GM says and then we can maybe talk. =)

Just as a word of warning this game is going to be a slower start so even if you have everything locked and loaded it might be a week or two before you get your first thread.


Current Status

As you can see I'm severely lacking in openers. Probably the hardest part of getting a new character spun up is putting together a good introduction. It will be my focus but there's a lot of you and a lot of reading I have to do to shake off the rust like "what da fuq does the matrix look like".
This message was last edited by the GM at 14:49, Mon 25 Oct 2021.

If you don't have an opener for Retro before mine gets to a certain stage, I can drag him into things.  Assuming the "sheet" checkbox in his row of your table is filled in by then of course. ;)


And the matrix looks however the winning hacker wants.  Everyone else just has to deal with your matrix sculpting/reality filter rolls after that.  (At least in 4e.  There are sidebars in the 5e corebook that mention matrix sculpting, but I don't have DT yet.)
This message was last edited by the player at 18:57, Sun 24 Oct 2021.

Haha don't you worry, I'm mostly just sitting here playing with the last 10 karma or so and the pittance that is my starting funds.  I'll figure it all out here by the end of the day today.

That said, yeah, I'd be amenable.  Less work for the boss anyhow.
This message was last edited by the player at 19:14, Sun 24 Oct 2021.

Yeah, definitely want to get those spent.  Karma costs change after chargen for... no readily explained reason.  (Seriously, why do qualities double in cost post-chargen?  Most of the game happens after the characters are created, just list the actual quality prices in the book, and increase the chargen karma appropriately.)

I believe the idea is most of the qualities represent things either born naturally or developed over years of practice beyond the typical scope of a campaign.

Suddenly waking up as a math savant or ambidexterous is something that strains credibility when you're typically a 20-40yr old runner already.

The designers were nice enough not to lock most of them behind a bold "cannot take after chargen" rule but they did price them so you have to be very certain you really want them.

Instead the rules imply that qualities should instead ben dolled out or taken away by the ST during gameplay. Hey you're addicted, hey you're wanted, hey you earned a favor etc.

Regarding that table, shouldn't Threshold 4 be outside the Limit for a rating 3 scanner operating independently?  Sure, if someone's actively using a skill with it then they're operating Attribute+skill+rating[Mental], but the device running on its own is just ratingx2[rating].  So there's a 0% chance, not a 10% chance, unless there's actually a decker with that patrol, in which case you're boned.


I suppose that's true.


Except that by the rules, if the GM hands you a positive quality, you have to pay the karma for it, and if they hand you a negative quality, you don't get anything, but getting rid of it costs karma.  It's pretty dickish on the whole, and while it might fit the setting for the system to get you coming and going, it makes it really hard to take a character sheet and figure out the karma total if said total either isn't written down, or can't be trusted (say, because someone forgot to update it.)

In general, I'm not a huge fan of systems written such that two characters with the exact same stats and net worth can have wildly different karma totals.  It just seems clunky, and there are better ways to do it.
This message was last edited by the player at 15:16, Mon 25 Oct 2021.

RE: SINs - The test is Device Rating x2 so DR 3 = 6 dice to roll. It's unlikely but possible to get up to 6 hits on a DR 3 or higher.

RE: Qualities - There honestly aren't many positive qualities I would hand out in the course of the game because as I mentioned they're really things that represent years of conditioning or even raw genetics however there are temporary things you could earn in gameplay that I would offer you the chance to pay karma for to make it "stick"

For example you raid an R&D lab and recover research on biocompatibility. Ordinarily you would just sell the paydata and the game moves on but if you decide you want to add that quality we can talk about your character spending their free time (aka Karma) to reverse engineer a drug/gene therapy (or hiring people to do it for you) to give you that quality.

Another one I can think of coming up is Erased. A Johnson might wipe your record as part of a reward but it won't "stick" unless you put in the karma for it.

As for Negative qualities I like the idea of mechanical consequences for actions. Having characters struggle with addiction fits the themes of the game perfectly and while I won't be handing out negatives like candy I do expect players to pick some long standing problems and scars along the way.

That's not the source of confusion.  6 hits on 6 dice is obviously possible if exceedingly unlikely.  But if a rating 3 device has a limit of 3, then even if it rolls 6 hits it only gets to keep 3 of them.  That's the point of the limits, it keeps things from going off the rails due to very low probability events.

The rule of 4 already prevents failing at parking the car if you're not completely incompetent, roll limits put a lid on the other end of things, where a very low probability of success becomes a guarentee just because the roll is getting spammed.  Because you're right about even a rating 3 fake SIN being relatively useless when it's getting scanned a hundred times a day with rating 2 scanners, because eventually one of them is going to roll 4 hits.  Unless those scanners aren't allowed to get more than 2 hits.


There's nothing wrong with mechanical consequences for actions.  I just don't like the way getting rid of a negative quality gained through play requires both roleplaying working past it and spending karma.

If you're addicted now, sure, have the penalties, have withdrawals, have willpower rolls to avoid falling off the wagon.  Make the character deal with the problem until they get through it.  But it shouldn't just be "Oh, lose eighteen karma because reasons."


This is the core of the issue.  If positive qualities are temporary unless you spend karma on them, negative qualities should be temporary unless you gain karma from them.  The Johnson has you erased as part of the payment, but it wears off if you're not extra careful to keep your head down.  Likewise, if you're hit with black ice and get scorched, that should be treatable.
This message was last edited by the player at 16:23, Mon 25 Oct 2021.