General Shadowrun Questions III: Ya like that, Chummer?

[JustIgnoreMe]

Your 6th World may vary.

If said corporation is looking for you, yes, not having a SIN in their database makes life much easier for you.

His squad were burned. The corp have burned him. Burning an asset, to me, means that they've tried to kill them/get them killed, disavowed all knowledge and destroyed all records (except for super-secret records). The corp isn't looking for him; or if they are, they only started after they burned him. Too late now to say "Whoops, yes, sorry Lone Star, that guy we said wasn't one of ours: turns out he was."

How is any of this relevant to his situation? He cannot actively use that corporate SIN anyway, because otherwise the corp would immediately be alerted to his presence, so it does absolutely nothing to make his life easier, it only helps the corp to make it easier to track him down.

You're still looking at this from the wrong end. If you want to burn an asset (or ruin someone's life), rendering them SINless is a good move. You take so much from them by doing so. And if you're a corp suit with access to the corp SIN database, it's easier to delete the SIN that to hack LoneStar to add a criminal SIN.

I suppose you could alter the corporate SIN data to show an internally-deal-with criminal act, but you'd need more paperwork and I'm not sure the 'Star would treat a Corporate Criminal SIN the same way as a standard Criminal SIN.

[Delta]

His squad were burned. The corp have burned him. Burning an asset, to me, means that they've tried to kill them/get them killed, disavowed all knowledge and destroyed all records (except for super-secret records). The corp isn't looking for him; or if they are, they only started after they burned him. Too late now to say "Whoops, yes, sorry Lone Star, that guy we said wasn't one of ours: turns out he was."

Okay, in that case, the whole discussion becomes moot, if they "destroyed all records", that would include deleting or killing off his SIN anyway.

[Daremonai]

Thanks for your replies; I was assuming that the character would be the next best thing to penniless, but was mostly asking about the SIN status for being arrested by Lone Star/Knight Errant if it ever happened. I think fully burned and SINless might be the way to go.

[Lord Torath]

Okay, general building-guarding question:

You've got 15-20 men stationed in an abandoned office tower. The command center and armory is on the top floor, and you've got a handful of guards on the ground floor, with the other floors left empty. You're not anticipating an attack. There are guards patrolling the (sensor-protected) perimeter fence, two guards by the back entrance, one at the loading dock (inside) and one in the security booth on the ground floor. How often do you check in with the guards on the ground floor during the night? Do you assume No News is Good News? Or do you require frequent radio contacts? If it's important, I'm the GM in this scenario.

[LibraryOgre]

Okay, general building-guarding question:

You've got 15-20 men stationed in an abandoned office tower. The command center and armory is on the top floor, and you've got a handful of guards on the ground floor, with the other floors left empty. You're not anticipating an attack. There are guards patrolling the (sensor-protected) perimeter fence, two guards by the back entrance, one at the loading dock (inside) and one in the security booth on the ground floor. How often do you check in with the guards on the ground floor during the night? Do you assume No News is Good News? Or do you require frequent radio contacts? If it's important, I'm the GM in this scenario.

I'd lean towards the guards on patrol giving pings every few minutes... if they're walking a perimeter, then they should note when they reach a certain point at the perimeter that's out of sight of the two emplacements, depending on how long it takes to walk. If they can make the walk along the perimeter from Front to Back guard post in five minutes, you might not check in on them, explicitly... they meet with the guys at F and B and keep walking, with F and B reporting their contact. If it takes them 30 minutes to walk the perimeter, then you might check in more frequently... even if it's just a ping of "Able checking in." "Baker checking in." "Charlie checking in."

"No News is Good News" is a horrible idea... because what happens when someone kills a guard and hides him? You might not know for however long it takes him to reach the next point that there's a gap... and if you're not logging, it might take you longer to notice it.

[comicshorse]

Okay, general building-guarding question:

You've got 15-20 men stationed in an abandoned office tower. The command center and armory is on the top floor, and you've got a handful of guards on the ground floor, with the other floors left empty. You're not anticipating an attack. There are guards patrolling the (sensor-protected) perimeter fence, two guards by the back entrance, one at the loading dock (inside) and one in the security booth on the ground floor. How often do you check in with the guards on the ground floor during the night? Do you assume No News is Good News? Or do you require frequent radio contacts? If it's important, I'm the GM in this scenario.

Technically I'm sure they should check in every 10 minutes or so. Given human laziness and the fact they aren't expecting trouble I'd think standards would have lapsed (assuming we're not dealing with elite security) and they'll probably be checking in every 30 minutes or so. Even then the check in will be cursory and easily faked once heard.
If the downstairs guard miss the check in and don't reply to the curt reminders then any security beyond the most amateurish aren't going to assume No News is Good News but get alert and start checking in regularly and seeing what the hell has gone wrong. They probably won't call for back-up until they're absolutely sure something more than technical failure or incompetence is behind whats happening though.

[Lord Torath]

I'd lean towards the guards on patrol giving pings every few minutes... if they're walking a perimeter, then they should note when they reach a certain point at the perimeter that's out of sight of the two emplacements, depending on how long it takes to walk. If they can make the walk along the perimeter from Front to Back guard post in five minutes, you might not check in on them, explicitly... they meet with the guys at F and B and keep walking, with F and B reporting their contact. If it takes them 30 minutes to walk the perimeter, then you might check in more frequently... even if it's just a ping of "Able checking in." "Baker checking in." "Charlie checking in."

"No News is Good News" is a horrible idea... because what happens when someone kills a guard and hides him? You might not know for however long it takes him to reach the next point that there's a gap... and if you're not logging, it might take you longer to notice it.

The guards on the fence take about 15 minutes to make a lap, so one should be in view of the front door guard every 7 minutes or so.

I did forget to mention security cameras on all floors, and servo guns in select ares of top and ground floors (mostly covering the entrances and elevators). There do not appear to be any external cameras though, a pretty horrible oversight.

[DigoDragon]

There do not appear to be any external cameras though, a pretty horrible oversight.

Or cost cutting measure. If you got a lot of guards patrolling, then you probably can skimp on cameras to save some money. Or vice-versa, less guards, more cameras. Gotta think of the bottom line and that means not paying double for security. ;)

(this is based off a real world experience where the building installed a motion camera at the main entrance and then removed the usual guard there, reducing overall guard count to two).

[LibraryOgre]

The guards on the fence take about 15 minutes to make a lap, so one should be in view of the front door guard every 7 minutes or so.

I did forget to mention security cameras on all floors, and servo guns in select ares of top and ground floors (mostly covering the entrances and elevators). There do not appear to be any external cameras though, a pretty horrible oversight.

So, assuming the guard at the front entrance can see the patrols, I would go with having them report when each patrol reaches their post. It would be boring and possibly constant, but

"Clarence at the front."
"Clarence at the back."
"Clarence at the front."

Gives you a sense of what's going on, and any break in the pattern will become obvious after a while.

[druid91]

So, I'm going to be GMing a game of Shadowrun 4e for my usual Dungeons and Dragons group. To get things off to a quick start so they could get into the game rather than bogging things down with Chargen, I was considering making a few pre-made characters and letting them take their pick from them.

Then, as their characters die off (Because that happens pretty frequently with this group. And I can only imagine it happening more so with Shadowrun.) Hopefully they'll have enough of an idea of how the game plays to make characters of their own.

So, the question is, should I make a character for every possible role? Or should I make a few characters of different kinds for 'core concepts' Like Hacker, Street Sam, Mage, etc?

[Fable Wright]

So, the question is, should I make a character for every possible role? Or should I make a few characters of different kinds for 'core concepts' Like Hacker, Street Sam, Mage, etc?

Consider making a 'port' of their D&D character? The rogue becomes a hacker or B&E character, the wizard becomes a Mage, the fighter becomes a Street Sam, etc.

...Then again, that might teach them the wrong things about the game.

[DigoDragon]

So, the question is, should I make a character for every possible role? Or should I make a few characters of different kinds for 'core concepts' Like Hacker, Street Sam, Mage, etc?

I would make characters based on the Shadowrun core concepts (the examples they put in the chargen section are okay for ideas, but build-wise you could probably make them a little more efficient). I wouldn't optimize too much though. Give em a chance to get a feel for the power level and see the connections themselves on how to optimize roles.

[druid91]

So, my current thought is to make Nine Characters.

	Matrix	Magic	Mundane
Combat	Battle Rigger	Combat Mage	Cyber-Sam
Infiltration	Hacker	Manipulation Mage	Face
Utility	Utility Rigger	Possession Mage	Chemist

Possibly with an additional fourth category for 'The Weird.' With a Technomancer, a Drake, and a Martial Artist.

[Delta]

I'd definitely include an adept or two in your list.

[DigoDragon]

I'd definitely include an adept or two in your list.

I agree. Also, the "Manipulation Mage" could be built as a face. You know, social manipulation.

[DodgerH2O]

I'd probably keep yourself to 9. Swap an Adept in for Manipulation Mage and have it be an Infiltration build still. Most players I've had get into Adepts want a SpecOps hand to hand or Ninja type character anyway. Put in a Technomancer in the Utility Matrix column instead of the Utility Rigger. Just focus on the on-the-fly abilities of Threading and utility of Sprites when you build it.

[Lord Torath]

Anyone know how massive a Doberman drone is? I've got a mage who would like to levitate one, and there's a penalty to the check for every 100 kg of mass the target has.

The Doberman and the Steel Lynx (Fields of Fire) both take up 20 Cargo Factors to store, and the Steel Lynx appears roughly man-sized. I'd guess around 100 - 200 kg, myself.

[Dimers]

Anyone know how massive a Doberman drone is? I've got a mage who would like to levitate one, and there's a penalty to the check for every 100 kg of mass the target has.

The Doberman and the Steel Lynx (Fields of Fire) both take up 20 Cargo Factors to store, and the Steel Lynx appears roughly man-sized. I'd guess around 100 - 200 kg, myself.

In 4e, a Doberman can handle up to LMG-sized weapons, so it can't be super-light. It's a walker, which is better for bracing but less efficient at moving mass than treads or tires. (Especially in terms of repair cost -- and the fact that the Doberman appears in multiple editions implies that people consider it a good value over its lifespan.) It has fairly heavy armor and good sensors, and to get those at the drone's low purchase price suggests they're bulky. I'd eyeball it at 100-110 kg, about the same as a large human male.

[Telwar]

That feels right. No more than 200kg at the outside, certainly.

One of my players was bemoaning the lack of just such data, and even the reference points are a little scarcer than they used to be. I know maybe they felt they got burned by MegaPulses, but still, guys...

[Lord Torath]

The 2E description for the Levitate spells suggests 1000 kg per point of body for vehicles, and the Doberman has a body of 3. Definitely something to be applied carefully. The loaf of bread-sized Gaz Nikki Snoop has a body of 1, and there's no way you'll convince me it masses 1000 kilos, let alone the Condor or Condor II.

Mega-Pulses are also quite variable. The 90+ page Universal Brotherhood download is 20 Mp, yet the personnel files on 100 or so members of the Redmond Chapterhouse takes 10,000 Mp. Does each member really need a 450-page dossier?

[Dimers]

The 2E description for the Levitate spells suggests 1000 kg per point of body for vehicles ...

Yeah, no, that's seriously messed up.

Mega-Pulses are also quite variable. The 90+ page Universal Brotherhood download is 20 Mp, yet the personnel files on 100 or so members of the Redmond Chapterhouse takes 10,000 Mp. Does each member really need a 450-page dossier?

I have the same issue with PDFs and word processor documents IRL. Like, one PDF is 4kb and another the same length is 40kb? Why?

[Fable Wright]

I have the same issue with PDFs and word processor documents IRL. Like, one PDF is 4kb and another the same length is 40kb? Why?

Compression, mostly. If the text is stored as images instead of text, then it's going to be much bigger. Likewise, watermarks and other images in the background, however visually faint, can seriously jack up a file size. I assume something similar happens in Shadowrun.

[Delta]

Mega-Pulses are also quite variable.

That was the whole idea behind megapulses, to use a completely ficticious unit of measurement without any base in reality so no one could really contradict you when you said "That file has a size of x megapulse. Why? Because I say so!"

[LibraryOgre]

That was the whole idea behind megapulses, to use a completely ficticious unit of measurement without any base in reality so no one could really contradict you when you said "That file has a size of x megapulse. Why? Because I say so!"

Someone actually worked out a mP to kb conversion, based on something out of Dunklezahn's will, where an object was called a "glorified text file".

[Delta]

Someone actually worked out a mP to kb conversion, based on something out of Dunklezahn's will, where an object was called a "glorified text file".

Which is still completely meaningless and has no base in "Shadowrun reality", unless you know what kind of file system, text encoding and so on is in use in Shadowrun. For all we know, even text files in Shadowrun could be several orders of magnitude larger than corresponding contemporary files.

The reality is, there is no reliable conversion, because the whole point of megapulses is for there not to be such a thing. Another reason why they did away with megapulses or any other unit of measurement altogether in later editions.

[Nifft]

Which is still completely meaningless and has no base in "Shadowrun reality", unless you know what kind of file system, text encoding and so on is in use in Shadowrun. For all we know, even text files in Shadowrun could be several orders of magnitude larger than corresponding contemporary files.

The reality is, there is no reliable conversion, because the whole point of megapulses is for there not to be such a thing. Another reason why they did away with megapulses or any other unit of measurement altogether in later editions.

Shadowrun Emoji are all self-aware Scala binaries.

[LibraryOgre]

Shadowrun Emoji are all self-aware Scala binaries.

Just pictured someone leaving an emoji that was actually a low-level Sprite to open a backdoor for them later. I love the idea and don't care if it doesn't make any sense.

[Nifft]

Just pictured someone leaving an emoji that was actually a low-level Sprite to open a backdoor for them later. I love the idea and don't care if it doesn't make any sense.

The best part is that I'm only half-joking.

If you look at data through the lens of Kolmogorov complexity, the most efficient packing methodology is to write a highly-optimized (and thus often highly-opaque) program which generates the intended package.

Therefore, if you're looking at networks that are saturated by high-density data, it's entirely natural to start looking at how you could turn the packets exchanged into executables -- that goes double if you have a lot of transit layers which don't care about what they're carrying, only about pushing bits around.

Furthermore, for increased efficiency, allowing ad-hoc multicast modes would be really neat -- but how do you future-proof that? Easy, you have a segment of the packet which can execute on some routing stages, and inform the router how to multicast.

Now you've got packets which are able to introspect and moderate their own routing, and then on reception are expected to execute a binary which generates content.

Clearly this is dangerous as hell, so each layer of the network is a VM (perhaps inside another VM) which tries to restrict the actions of the executable packets into safe actions -- but that's not actually safe, it's just an arms race between hackers & sysadmins -- and that turns out to be exactly the situation which Shadowrun hacking demands.

-- -- --

Additionally, you could look at how social media behaves today, and expand that into darker capitalist trends. The coupon email you get tries to access your camera, to see what you're wearing, so the store can advertise that type of thing back to you. The government doesn't bother stopping your cellular wifi provider from selling your real-time location data to every private security or marketing firm. Your phone's mic is always on, the only question is which backdoor virus is streaming your conversation to which search-engine keyword algorithm.

Hackers might not break into your phone so much as they exploit the gaping backdoors which social media has already installed.

[Lord Torath]

2E Question: Does it cost Good Karma to learn a new spell, or increase the force of a known spell? I seem to recall it does, but I don't see that listed in the rulebook (p132) section on learning new spells. I'm not seeing anything in The Grimoire 2E, either.

[comicshorse]

Just over the page on p133 it does say 'Learning spells also cost Karma (see p190) equal to the desired Force'
Ironically on p190 it makes no mention whatsoever of the Karma cost of learning spells but the above is clear enough