Shadowrun is Awesome, Part II

Meanwhile, as I am getting fitted into the security rig, team 2 has found the subject. A man lays on a gurney, attached to a multitude of machines. They just start piling the machinery on top of the cart, unplugging from the wall jacks, but leaving it intact, just in case one of these things is keeping the poor bastard alive.

I get the rig on and fire up the monitors. Everything is red. Reinforcements inbound, we have like 2 minutes, and there are guards heading right for team 2. Some decker bakas tries to bounce me out of the securinet, but a couple data spikes feed back into their decks and they're smoked. Two guards come out of a break room, and our team is pushed into a firefight. I radio to the twos to wrap up and burn out, and dump the rig to help out my team.

I can hear assault rifle fire coming from the hall, but drekk is a blur, as the mage and the gunslinger rip the two guards to shreds. I drop the last one on the way out with my Doby, and we head out the door, team 2 right on our heels, wheeling the gurney and all the med tech.

We throw the gear in the van and burn out, passing Badges that were going to bleed us, and meet back at the needle. Johnson seems impressed that we have a live subject with the prototype.

That was a good day.

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Shadowrun is Awesome

Last night's Session 0 started out a little slow, as players trickled in, and our trusty Storyteller was gypped out of his Dr. Pepper. But once the character sheets were (mostly) filled out, and the battle mat was rolled out, it was time to run the shadows.

In the dystopic world of 2059 Seattle, it almost always starts with a phone call. The Johnson wanted to meet in a hurry, and he had all the goods: pass keys, ID badges, even a map of the location with guard stations noted, and a simple instruction:

Find the cyberware prototype.

This was going to be easy.

We walked right through the door and checked in with security without incident, and went about our duties... checking every room while we search for the prototype.

Trash cans were searched, and a note was found: The prototype has been installed in the subject, and seems to be working out.

Computer terminals were (almost) hacked.

And then I walk into the lobby and see two guards. One glances up from his magazine. He takes note of us, sees that we seem to belong here, and goes back to his book. The other, though. This guy sends a shiver up my short dwarfy spine.

He's jacked in to the security system. He is watching as my team rifles through trash cans and fiddles with computers. No one seems alerted, so perhaps he hasn't noticed yet, but it's only a matter of time. If we don't take him down now, when we find the prototype, he's going to alert the whole building, and CorpSec may not be tough one one one, but a whole mess of them will ruin a day.

I quietly mic for someone to bring a tranq patch, and one of the infiltrators comes in, wandering up to the guard station and slapping the trauma patch on the back of his... head? oh, chummer... time for plan B.

I set fire to a trash can.

The book guard just looks confused, trying to figure out why a trash can is on fire. The rigger comes running to put it out. Which is a huge surprise, since he was the one in the system. When he's focused on the can i activate my Doberman, which rises out of the clean cart and fires a quick tranq into the guard's neck. He drops like a sack of simsoy.

The infiltrator pulls a tiny pistol from seemingly out of nowhere and fires at the remaining guard. The noise is deafening in the spacious lobby, and I can't imagine no one else heard that. The bullet must have hit the flask of whiskey in the bookie guard's pocket, because it seems not to have affected him. He draws his Baretta and fires back at the infiltrator, who attempts to take cover, but instead takes a shot in the shoulder.

I spin my drone and fire another tranq - the bookie goes down.

With that, it's over. The guards are down, and the security rig is unjacked.

I grin at my Doberman, "Good boy," and head for the security desk.

To Be Continued...

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Updates, 5e, DarkSun... still no star wars

So as you can see by the dates, it has been a couple years since I posted last. I was running expeditions until this huge problem with my parole officer, and I had to stop. But all that is over, and here we are, back on the posting train.

One of my biggest regrets is that I was starting to get a regular readership and had even been followed and contacted by someone at WOTC, and then a couple weeks later I had drop out. Ugh.

But not running games at the local shop or posting online doesn't mean I haven't been playing.

I had a group from church that would come over almost every Friday and play. We started running Princes of the Apocalypse, and then switched to Star Wars Saga Edition when we were finished. I haven't had the opportunity to play the Fantasy Flight Star Wars, but I'm highly interested.

College got in the way, and I had to turn it over to my friend Malcolm, who would send me weekly updates. They had a lot of fun.

After college, my in-laws came to me and asked to play, so we've been doing some 5e in a homebrew setting that has been a lot of fun. We manage about once per month, and have a good go at it. A city-based campaign with an awakened evil (black dragon) sending minions into the city to steal gold for it's hoard. That's the overarching plot, but it's never as simple as that. The cleric has to raise an army to take his throne from usurpers. The sorceress has to find her missing orphanage brother (that happens to be the human liaison for the goblin-kin that are giving a try at industry). An old woman they met in the sewer (!!!) has asked them to revive the petrified love of her youth that is currently on display in the castle gardens, and in return she will give them magical gifts. The high priest of one of the churches has gone missing! but wait, no, he's there, but acting strangely...

And now a group of friends that wants to try playing has asked me to DM. One is a huge Star Wars fiend. His license plate says Boba Fett. He has hundreds of the action figures in his office, and designed the blue prints for cardboard cutouts of some of the ships, now hanging from his ceiling. I'll have to get pics. They're incredible. Anyway, I said, "Let's play Star Wars." and they said no, they'd rather play D&D. Well, I'm about D&D'd out. But okay, I'll do it.

However, since I'm the DM and they've never played before, we're playing DarkSun, converted from 2e by gzw1010 and posted on Reddit. Because if you're going to play D&D, and you have a choice between fighting the necromancer... again!!! OR a mad max apocalyptic dystopia with psionic cannibal halflings at war with city states run by self proclaimed sorcerer dragon kings... yeah, we're doing that.

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Clerics as Tanks, and The need for a fighter

The Friday night game is going well, and the players are learning that sometimes it isn't a good idea to kick down the door and charge in before you know what is in there.
The cleric is the closest thing we have to an actual face-to-face fighter, and that doesn't seem to be working out so well. He's not smart (the character, not the player. Rick is doing an excellent job of playing him as such), and just busts through doors.
This has led him to falling down pits and being used as a chew toy by giant rats, and as a training dummy for a handful of rat-men (Skaven, stats of goblins, but I don't have gobo minis, just Skaven).
Friday he fell in combat to a Skaven Grey Seer (Adept2)'s burning hands spell and several attacks by the warriors.
The wizard fell, and went all the way to -7hp before being stabilized, the rogue down to 1, the Ranger (ranged type) down to 2, before they managed to kill all but one of the warriors, who ran off to protect his badly wounded Chief, giving the players the opportunity to grab their wounded and drag them to safety, and send for the healer.
For a little background, we are playing a by-the-books 3.5 game, where the only house rule is: Up to level 4, you can change your character in any way. Change class, feats, skills, ability scores, whatever. Try to figure out what you want to play in those levels so you're ready to move on in the campaign as we go up.
All four of my players are brand new to paper/dice playing, so I want them to learn the book way before introducing all the house rules that mess with it, and then bring in house rules in later games when they have a firm understanding of the core concepts and what house rules do to alter them.

This brings me to the topic of this post, the need for a fighter.
Before I begin, let me just say to Demon that yes, a war priest is an awesome fighter, if you don't mind waiting 3-5 rounds for buffs.
Enough said, moving on.
Many players forego the Fighter as being too vanilla, not interesting enough. They want something cool. They want something that can throw fire and shoot lightning, call down the powers of the heavens or choke the evil with entangling vines while their pet bear gnaws on the remains. But the vanilla fighter is the tank for a reason. The shear number of feats he acquires gives him an amazing advantage, especially at low levels.
For example, let's take Togrun. Togrun is going to be a human male Fighter 1.
Using the basic stats (15,14,13,12,10,8) lets give him the following:

• STR 15
• DEX 12
• CON 14
• INT 10
• WIS 13
• CHA 8

HP: 12
Feats: Weapon Focus(Longsword), Sword and Shield Combat Style (+1 to hit, +1AC), Power Attack
Combat: +5 (longsword) 1d8+2/19x2
AC (chain shirt, lg shield) 18.
So he's very hard to hit, has a decent attack, and with a 3-11 damage, 4-12 with power attack, can smash out most any CR1/3 Skaven (Goblin) and CR1/2 Orc.
Compare this to the cleric, that didn't take too many combat buffs, and isn't a war priest, and we have To Hit: +2, 1d8+2/x3, AC 17.
Close on the AC and good on the damage, but that missing extra little bit from the BAB and WF takes its toll at the early levels.
Granted, this is Rick's first time playing, and it is a learning experience, but a good fighter is needed.

A well thought out character takes practice, and its okay to make mistakes and stumble along the way. Plan out a level map for your character with a concept in mind, so you know what to take at each level. Look over prestige classes to see what your requirements are so you can get the most out of them as early as possible while maintaining your concept. Think about what your game and Game Master focus on. Is it RP? Combat? Puzzles? or a mix? How will your stats and skills play their strengths to the GM's campaign goals?
Will that flavor point in sleight of hand come in handy when you suddenly have a need to not be seen pocketing the key while talking to the baron? Or is your answer to every confrontation, "I hit it with my axe"?
If you haven't played a vanilla fighter in awhile, try a revisit and experience the awesomeness that comes from always being combat ready.

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Into the dark, my friends.

We've had a few hiatus, -- babysitter issues, work conflicts, and one player was so confused by the character creation process that he backed out entirely. Ah, 3.5, we love to hate to love you -- but its coming around.

Last time, the party was told of a local boy gone wandering off into the woods and hasn't come back. They joined the search party and set off. One of the party is a ranger, and managed to track the boy's steps until they crossed with a lot of strange prints, much like large mouse prints, but somewhat different. They followed them and came to a clearing in the forest where standing stones jutted from the ground in some strange ruinous formation, and under one that was partially toppled, they found a stone door and an entrance to an underground complex.
It was dark inside, and they had to make use of torches and lanterns, and they have searched the first three rooms, been poisoned, diseased, fought large rats, and a strange creature that was immune to fire and had damage resistance.
Since it is their first game, they know nothing about any of these creatures, so the Lemur Devil was a real challenge. They made some good attempts, by dousing it in oil and igniting it, but didn't know until that point that it had fire immunity. The cleric did decent tank work, but in the end they ran, recovered, and hit it hard with missile weapons as it burst through the door, finally dealing enough damage to put it down.
That's where we ended for the night. Its going good so far.

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"Would you like to join my party?"

I was out for a week before I needed a game. I went where I used to go, only to discover they moved the building. It was in the same parking lot, but not where I was expecting. I didn't really notice a lot of additional space, just a different setup.
They had -no- game postings.
none.
and their RPG section looked like it was being stripped out.
It was.
And they close at 8pm on Saturday night. wtf? What gaming store closes at 8pm on a Saturday? Bard's Quest did it right. Open 'till midnight on Friday and Saturday nights.
So on to the next one.
A better faire, they had two 5e games going, so I dropped into that one at the end of the first episode of Horde of the Dragon Queen.
But one is not enough, and playing is insufficient when you've been running almost every day for 5 long years.
on to craigslist.
I found two posts for lfg, and contacted them both. Now we have a game, because the first person has friends.
I have five players for a Level 1 homebrew 3.5 campaign (the books I still have laying around), and I am happy.
I have five players that have NEVER played before.
That might take some thought. Where do you start? There are so many small changes, borrowings, house rules... what do you teach new players?
I decided to stick to the base rules. no house rules, just right out of the book. That way they can learn the correct way to play and there won't be confusion, because we can just look it up if there's a question.
Tonite is the first game: my players are ready, my story is ready, and it will be great.
Wish me luck.

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