Fireside Chat: Policing

Well, I'm back. It's been awhile but I reached a point where I'm looking to put a group together, and with that I started thinking about Shadowrun again. It only made sense then to restart the blog as well.

I want to ramble for a bit on one of the hardest points to GM of a modern, or pseudo-modern RPG. The police.

I recently wrapped up a play-through of Mafia 2, on the XBox 360, and one of the things I liked about that game, that I think is missing in a lot of games is the fact that the police behaved in a semi-believable manner. Hit someone while a cop is near? That'll get you in trouble. Speed, that'll attract attention. Commit the usual bevy of mayhem, or mischief? That'll get police attention.

Granted, the game handles the police far too leniently in my mind, which results in some odd behavior. For example, you duck down a side ally for a minute, and voila, all is forgiven. Pull back out in front of the same police cruiser, and it's as if you'd never hit them at all. Now, I understand this makes sense from a game mechanic perspective, the game is supposed to be fun, but it rubbed me the wrong way. It, in a way, violates the "rules" that we all intrinsically understand.

The Seattle police department, today, isn't known for their ethnic, and cultural sensitivity. In fact, they aren't known for sensitivity, period. I cannot fathom that this viewpoint will change much in the future, and especially not once you start talking about Megacorps, and meta-humanity.

Where am I going with this? Quite simply, I think the police, and security in general are one of the hardest aspects to get right in Shadowrun. I'm reminded of Shadowrun 3rd Edition. Lone Star officers came equipped with a burst-fire only heavy pistol, the name escapes me, but it was simply terrifying. A car with two officers was a serious threat, simply because they were lethal. Granted, I handled this all wrong when I was GM'ng SR3. I played the cops as bumbling fools, often fudging the dice to reduce the lethality. This made for a more playable game, a more "fun" game, but it's not a memory I look back on fondly.

I firmly believe that the police should be scary.

Part of this comes from a shift in my understanding of what a Shadowrunner is. When I was younger I liked my characters to survive, to reach nearly Godlike levels of skill, and lethality. Character death was unheard of. It wasn't uncommon for characters to retire with millions in the bank.

This isn't Shadowrun.

Shadowrunners die. A lot. Shadowrunners are disposable, cheap throw-away bang-bang for their corporate overlords.

Characters should die. If they do something stupid, or are simply unlucky.

I'm still wrestling with exactly how I want to play the police in my new group, but as the thought processes gel a little more, you'll see my thoughts here.

Fireside Chat: Running in the Real World

I recently read a review of Elder Scrolls Online, and the biggest complaint is that the player didn't feel like they were the center of the world, and in previous games that had been a major selling point. The reviewer stated that he felt okay with the idea that when he left a town that the inhabitants simply froze, waiting for his return.

That got me thinking about role-playing games and how we as the GM tend to build the world around our players. For example, what's it matter if the next town over is under attack, if our players never visit? When I run D&D I build my world as a series of points each of them existing as a chain as the party moves throughout the landscape. However, if the players journey off that road I'm left scrambling. Simply put, I didn't build a world, I built an adventure, and when that adventure went an unexpected direction I was left flat footed.

I've been guilty of the same behavior in Shadowrun. However in Shadowrun I feel it's almost inexcusable. I've talked a bit about the value of having a folio of people, and places, and the help that can come from having a standing cast but I want to touch on the idea that maybe the players aren't that important. I know, this seems radical but stay with me.

Let's envision a run, the team is hired by a rookie looking Mr. Johnson, new suit, ill-fitting, he pays too much out of the gate, and flubs the negotiation badly. The team is looking to make a lot of money for relatively little work. So far this sounds like a standard Shadowrun setup. Let's take a moment to step back. Why is the Johnson hiring the team? Why this specific group. Remember there are hundreds of Runners, of various levels of professionalism, and skill set. Why did he pick this group? What is going on in his background to make him need a Runner team in the first place?

Let's assume that Mr. Johnson is running a scam. He owns a business, and needs an out. He's going to hire the team, make sure they damage the business so he can walk away with the insurance, and to top it all off he's going to make sure he doesn't need to pay them. Why? Because he's Mr. Johnson. Still sounds fairly vanilla-Shadowrun.

A day or two after the meet Mr. Johnson gets nabbed. His insurance company got wind of the attempted fraud, and he's been picked up and is currently sitting in jail with no way to alert the team that the poorly planned insurance fraud scheme is not going to work. The world has taken an action outside of the context of the team, at this point there's no way they can get paid, but they don't know that. Maybe they go on the run, and finding no resistance, quickly accomplish the tasks set for them. Of course, they don't know that the reason they don't meet any resistance is because the building has been seized by the insurance company, and when they contact Mr. Johnson he's gone quiet.

This is one of the hardest things for a GM to work with. You have a group that's now most likely disappointed. They had a milk run, and now there's no money. Bills need paid, and there's no payday. However this is one of the reasons I absolutely love Shadowrun. The world, the real world, doesn't have to sit still and wait for the team to come along and give it meaning. Have a contact you really like? He bar tend? Well, now the bar's closed. What do you do now? Or, he's been shot. There was a row at the bar and he ended up on the wrong end of a shotgun blast.

I'm still playing with the concept, but I like the potential of having a living, breathing world, and the party is a tiny, tiny cog. I'm sure this will come up again, but in the meantime, if you've ever thought about the wider world in your games, or have interesting ways of keeping your party from feeling that the world revolves around them leave a comment!

Fireside Chat: Matrix Topography

I'm in the process of putting together a new story arc, and I decided I wanted to challenge myself and build a Matrix-centric story line. Now, in most of my games the Matrix is seen as a tool, something my players interact with to accomplish the mission, and not as a crucial part of the gaming session. A lot of this is a hold over from Shadowrun 3rd Edition when running the Matrix was a very painful experience.

However, in Shadowrun 5th Edition the Matrix blends with the real-world action a bit better. While it's still not perfect, it's close. So, with that I mind I sat down to think about what I wanted the Matrix interactions to look like. In previous games I always tried to make Matrix hosts ritzy, and glamorous, wild colors, and crazy layouts. However, as I started planning the run I realized that from the perspective of a system administrator, that's the last thing I would want.

A Matrix host is tied to a physical location, so, why would you design your Matrix host to be wildly different from your physical location? Especially in the case of an office building, bank, factory, or other production facility.

I started with the first major location, a boat yard in Everett.I modeled the location on Vigor Industries, a real-world shipbuilder in Seattle. I had a good idea of the yard layout that I wanted, several large dry docs, fabrication sheds, storage sheds, liquid tanks, parking, etc. all enclosed by a high fence, and a legacy drone on rail system, that's a hold-over from Shadowrun 4th Edition.

With the physical layout roughed out I turned over to the Matrix. At first, I envisioned this nautical themed host, with boats, and pirates, and parrot IC. This seemed like an amazing idea at first, but as I played with it more, and the physical location came together, the analogy fell apart. It simply was a pain to remember the pirate-centric theme as I developed the run. I realized, that if I couldn't remember the theme in planning, I wasn't going to remember it at the table.

With that in mind I sat back with a coffee and thought about the problem from a real world view. I've worked in web design, both front end, and back end development, and I wondered if I was handed the challenge of designing a Matrix host for a shipyard, what would it look like? How would I design it if I had to sit and maintain it day after day.

I started with the drones. I wanted legacy drones on a rail, with a smaller number of tracked drones inside, and a large group of worker drones in cradles and on charging pads around the 12 acre facility. All of these were represented in the Matrix by an icon that roughly mirrored their function. Welder drones looked like a MIG set, trundle drones looked like a hand cart, etc. Security drones used their default icon, and so would be immediately recognizable to my team, with a spot check, and possibly a knowledge check.

With the drones sorted, I moved on to the buildings. I theorized that with RFID tags, and smart inventory systems, there's no reason that the security rigger shouldn't be able to see the buildings contents, once he had a mark on the building's icon. With this in mind, I developed a layer-cake model for the buildings. Each building was an icon itself. Once a building was marked, the contents icons would become visible, and the building itself would become translucent. Each of these icons would display their contents, unless the container was secured, then it would have to be hacked, and marked, like any other icon. This lets me handle the large amount of material in a fairly natural way, without a cumbersome analogy.

Cranes, dry-dock controls, tenders, and other large machinery would be represented by their own icons. As if they were large drones themselves. As I thought about the cranes, and other large machines I couldn't think of a reason they wouldn't be rigger adapted. With rigger adaption you run the risk of your players deciding to drive a crane into the sound, which I guess I'll deal with if/when it happens.

As I looked over the notes I'd made I realized I still didn't have the objective mapped out, or the IC that would respond if the team botched something. I wanted to use the shipyard offices as the objective. I played with the idea of making the office building it's own host, or going even further and making the office a cable only, no wireless, location. However, making the office offline didn't seem to fit with the idea of this being a working shipyard.

So, I went with the building being a sub-host, with dedicated IC. When the team's rigger jumps into the building he's going to see a relatively standard office space. Devices, files, feeds, will all be represented as small icons similar to their physical self, and roughly co-located with their real world counterparts. I wanted to keep the feel of the real space as much as possible.

At that point, securing the objective data became trivial, the iconography worked for me, a safe, a digital representation of the data store, and the files within represented by manila folders.

I did take a minute to play with the icons of the IC. I wanted the offensive IC to be sculpted as welders, with the torches being their damage output. Marker IC would be represented by a worker, with a spray can, Patrol, would take the shape of a large junkyard dog, and the analogy continues. However, this is still a relatively natural jump. The IC's icons map to their real-world abilities, while providing some dramatic flair for the game, and the story.

Overall, I'm really happy with the session, and I'm curious if my players with actually play in the Matrix, as I've planned for them to do, or if they will try to scale the fence and simply wander around getting into trouble in meat-space without ever bothering to do more than check AR for drones. Only time will tell.

By the Numbers: Playing the Police

Piggy-backing on my previous post I'm going to go through a combative encounter with the Police, as I would run it if I was in game. This should help clear up some of the questions from my last post. If this goes well, I'll do more of these to help illustrate some of the other GM concepts I plan to cover in the future.

As with my previous example the party is trying to rob a store. Specifically they are looking for financial records related to Mafia money laundering in an other wise unassuming Mom & Pop shop. They choose to force the back door, assuming that the alley will give them the cover they need to work undisturbed. The store's back door is guarded by a keypad lock. The team's electronics guru goes to work on the case, making a Locksmith + Agility [Physical] test, and scoring a number of hits. This gets him access to the guts of the keypad. He then goes to work rewiring the internals.

For tests that may have Dramatic Consequences(tm) I will generally make the roll for my player, which some players don't like this, most enjoy the added dramatic tension, especially when I describe success, or failure, with some thematic flair.

On the second  Locksmith + Agility [Physical] to rewire the internals I roll a glitch. Now, when I'm making rolls for my players I'll occasionally fudge a roll in their favor, It helps to keep the game moving, and helps to keep the story tight. However, I won't fudge a roll against a player. If they make a roll, great. This also changes depending on the experience of the group, if I have a veteran group, I don't fudge the dice. To each their own I guess. Anyway. A glitch is rolled, not a critical glitch, so the door does open. However, they have now tripped the alarm.

Once the alarm is tripped I start rolling a threat pool. Adding a die every minute of real time, or, every initiative pass. Whichever is greater. I use the professional rating of the threat as a limit to the test, raising that limit by 1 if a Lieutenant is present, or if combat is underway. Successes on this test determine the amount, of response. Especially for police this pool can grow quite large, and with a limit of 5, or higher, once combat is joined, and senior officers are on site the opposition can ramp up very quickly.

I'll fast-forward through the police response to the actual combat, using the method above the first officer arrive three rolls after the players tripped the alarm. I rolled a single success on three dice, and so a single car arrived, with one officer. Now, the question was asked in my previous post how professional rating effects the behavior of my threats. I'll get into the details a bit later, but at this point the difference in professional rating means that the officer isn't going to be stupid.

Pulling into the parking lot, lights, and spotlight shining into the store the officer takes cover behind the drivers side door, side arm readied. Now, the lights entering the store give a -3 dice penalty, and the officer gets to use the door as a barrier.

Once combat begins, the officer ends up wounded in the opening exchange. I like to view professional rating as a gauge for wound levels. For example, a professional rating 1 grunt is going to retreat at a light wound, anything equal to, or above, a -1 penalty. Simply put, they don't care enough to hang around. However, an officer with professional rating 3 is going to hang around up to a much more serious wound, and a -3 penalty. Also, professional rating determines how a threat will react up to the point where they retreat. For example, in the opening exchange of fire the officer takes three boxes of physical damage, for a -1 modifier. His immediate response is to switch from his side arm, to the shotgun in the cruiser, effectively increasing the lethality of his response.

At a -2 modifier, he's going to move towards the rear of the vehicle, increasing his cover. Also, at the higher professional rating he's more likely to keep calm, and radio effective instructions back to his superiors. This means that other units arriving on scene will arrive in more advantageous positions.

For example, let's take the same storefront. At professional rating 0, the opposition would flee at the first sound of gunfire. At professional rating 1, any backup would simply charge at the front door, and most likely end up in a meat grinder scenario. At 2, they might think about the alley in back, but the focus would still be on the front of the store, at 3, they have the back alley covered, and will work to limit escapes. At 4, or higher, things get really ugly for my players. Specialist opposition, vehicles, drones, snipers, well laid traps.

I always assume that a Runner is professional rating 4. So, at a professional rating 4, you're playing yourself. Anything my players might do, my opposition will do. At rating 5, or 6, the opposition is smarter, faster, better equipped and meaner then my team. I rarely see the need to go above 4 in my games. Police, at 3, with a Lieutenant, or a hardened security team are usually enough of a threat.

Remember, every initiative pass you're making that threat pool roll, each hit means more bad guys show up. Eventually if enough hits are rolled, I usually view it as when I reach a point where I'm losing hits due to the limit, the next group up the threat ladder responds. That might be a drone, or drones, or a SWAT team, whatever is appropriate. At that point the limit for your test goes up, and you keep rolling.

Also, when the team effectively neutralizes the threat, the pool resets. Let's assume that the officer responds, and in that opening volley he's killed. He's not had a chance to radio back, as he's not had his combat turn yet, so all dispatch knows is that he was sent to the store. At this point, the pool resets to zero, and I go back to adding a die a minute. It's a good way to teach players to deal with threats quickly, and cleanly, to prevent them from rapidly growing.

Well, I hope that helped flesh out a little bit in terms of how I handle professional rating in my games, as always, feel free to leave comments and I'll address them.

Errata is Here!

I know, I know, I'm a little late to the party but the first round of errata for Shadowrun 5th Edition has been released. It's a relatively short four pages, and free. Find it here on DriveThruRPG.com a lot of the changes are minor, issues that have been pointed out here, and elsewhere on the net.

As with any body of errata if you have the print edition it's a good idea to grab this, print it out, and tuck it into the back of the book. I also like to tag areas of the book that I know have errata with little post its. It won't damage the book, and it keeps me from forgetting that things may have changed.

Let's Build: A Rigger

I'm going to let you in on a dirty little secret. I love Riggers. I rarely get to play, and most of my groups don't have a PC rigger, so it's a rare day indeed when I get to show my love for the guy in the van with the shotgun. Did you ever notice the Rigger almost always has a shotgun? Or, is it just my groups. Anyway. In honor of Gun H(e)aven 3, and my now un-closeted love of Riggers. I'm going to build a PC rigger. Normal build rules, no street level here, and we shall see how he comes out!

As you may know from my earlier Let's Build, I prefer human characters. However, I'm going to set myself a challenge with this one, and will build a Metahuman rigger. I'm also setting myself the goal of building a character that isn't going to be content with sitting in his car, and letting his drones have all the fun.

Now comes the hard choices.

I want to have a large pool of money, so my initial thought is to assign Resources to Priority A. However, I've said I'm not going to run a Human, and if I want to run a Troll, I really should make Metatype my Priority A. I think, in this case, I'm going to have to let money, and my leftover Karma keep me afloat. So, Resources gets Priority A.

With that settled, Priority B gets Attributes. As I strongly feel that your attribute scores should be as high as possible.

That leaves me C, and D. If I make C skills, then D has to be my Metatype, which in this case would mean Elf (0) Which, if I must admit, is hardly ideal. However, I don't want to have 22 skill points either.

Elf (0) it is then.

Resources: A - ¥450,000
Attributes: B - 20
Skills: C - 28/2
Metatype : D - Elf (0)
Magic: E

Attributes
Body: 3/6 - 2 pts.
Agility: 6/7 - 4 pts.
Reaction: 5/6 - 4 pts.
Strength: 3/6 - 2 pts.
Willpower: 3/6 - 2 pts.
Logic: 5/6 - 4 pts.
Intuition: 3/6 - 2 pts.
Charisma: 3/8 - 0 pts.
Edge: 1/6

I went for a more general spread, maxing out Reaction for the piloting skills, but at the same time, not leaving any real holes in terms of a weak attribute, or a low limit. The advantage of playing a non-Human character is that you don't have to spend points on the boosted attribute, to still have a solid attribute. Charisma in my case, with no additional points, is still a 3.

Qualities
As I've stated earlier I love qualities. I think it's a great way to add flavor to a character. For my Rigger, I had a few in mind. However, I have a slight issue, my Edge attribute is a 1. This, is a very bad idea. So, I'm going to plan on bumping this to a 3 with Karma. However, that means that my 25 Karma I'm given has been spoken for, so any positive qualities must have a matching negative quality to balance out the Karma.

SINner - Corporate SIN: This is a huge 25 point negative quality I take very rarely. However, I love the back story possibilities that come with it. In my case, I'm going to say it's a Mitsuhama SIN

Juryrigger: This is another favorite of mine, I love the idea that I can coax just a little more life out of scrap, and it dovetails nicely with...

Gearhead: Yep, I'm the pilot you're looking for. This is a great 11 pt. positive quality. It let's you get just a little more bang out of your equipment when you really need to. Plus, when added to the bonuses from Juryrigger, you can make a drone do magic, for 1D6 minutes, then well, it bricks itself.

This leaves me with 4 extra Karma, for Contacts.

Next, we need skills. This is always a hard part for me, as I want to take points in absolutely everything, and then have to scale back until I'm in budget. For this character, budget means 28/2. Let's start with the skill group.

For the skill group, I'm going with Engineering. This gives me Aeronautics Mechanic, Automotive Mechanic, Industrial Mechanic, and Nautical Mechanic at a rating of 2. Useful for a vehicle based character.

For the rest of my skills I've taken the following:

Skills:
Perception: 4
Gunnery: 4
Heavy Weapons: 3
Automatics: 3
Pilot Aircraft: 5
Pilot Ground Craft: 5
Hardware: 2
Electronic Warfare: 2

Skill Group:
Aeronautics Mechanic 2
Automotive Mechanic 2
Industrial Mechanic 2
Nautical Mechanic 2

While I'm not going to be a rock star in combat, and I'm out of my depth in social situations, the character has a good spread of combat skills, vehicle skills, and can fix his own gear, a valuable skill set for someone who's expensive toys get shot at.

Next, I get to spend my money. This part always makes me feel like a kid at Christmas. Remember we took Resources A, so we have a whopping ¥450,000 to spend.

Let's start with the easy stuff first. Lifestyle: Low, 3 months. This takes ¥6,000 but guarantees me a safe place to sleep, and a place to park my vehicle. I'm also going to add on the Special Work Area perk, bringing the per month cost up to ¥3,000 and the total bill up to ¥9,000. For the sake of back story, I'm going to say I live in a loft over a garage.

With Lifestyle in the bag, I usually buy my armor, primary, and secondary gun. In this case, I'm going to hold off, and skip to the vehicles and drones next as they will take up a large portion of my money.

For starters, my two vehicles. One for work, the other for play.

GMC Bulldog (¥35,000)
- Rigger Interface (¥1,000)
- Standard Weapon Mount (¥2,500)
- Standard Weapon Mount (¥2,500)
Suzuki Mirage (¥8,500)
- Rigger Interface (¥1,000)
- Standard Weapon Mount (¥2,500)

I took Gunnery, and Automatics, because I wanted to be able to un-mount the guns from my vehicle if needed, and carry them.This obviously packs more punch with machine guns, but the assault rifles are not exactly weak tea. This helps to make the character more well rounded, as well as keeping me from being tied to my vehicle. Having two weapon mounts on the Bulldog lets me un-mount one gun, while providing covering fire with the second weapon. While Ideally I'd love to have Heavy Weapon mounts, the availability is simply too high.

For the vehicles, and later the drones, and as my personal weapon I'm taking the Colt Inception from Gun H(e)aven 3. With an Accuracy of 7, and a 10P damage code, it's a rock solid assault rifle. Keeping one rifle across the board makes life easier as you can share clips, and ammunition across all your vehicles.

Colt Inception x 4 (¥9,000)
- 10 clips (¥50)
- 1000 Rounds Explosive (¥8,000)
- 1000 Rounds APDS (¥12,000)
- External Smartgun (¥800)

One thing I found when playing Shadowrun 5th Edition is that when buying restricted gear, especially ammunition, it's best to buy in bulk at character creation, as it can be a pain to source in game.

Now, drones, this is one area where we have far too few choices in the core rules. There are, in total, 11 drones in the core rules. Eleven. Some of those 11 are not restricted. The ones that are, some are well worth the money. My personal favorite is the MCT-Nissan Roto-Drone. It's highly modifiable, and that makes it ideal for Shadowrunning. On the ground, the GM-Nissan Doberman is a rock solid choice. For less offensive operations the Lockheed Optic-X2 is a great VSTOL spy drone, and it's not even restricted!

Remember, you don't have to bring every drone on every mission, and it helps to have a variety back at home, so that you can pick and choose to fit your mission profile. With that in mind, I've grabbed the following:

1 x GM-Nissan Doberman (¥5,000)
- Built in Standard Weapons Mount
2 x MCT-Nissan Roto-Drone (¥10,000)
- Standard Weapon Mount (¥5,000)
1 x Cyberspace Designs Dalmatian (¥21,000)
- Standard Weapon Mount (¥5,000)
1 x Steel Lynx Combat Drone (¥25,000)
- Built in Heavy Weapons Mount

For the heavy weapon mount, I'm going to pick up a really inexpensive LMG from Gun H(e)aven 3, the Krime Wave. At (¥2,000) it's an absolute steal. Also, it can handle a clip, and belt, and can switch feed sources. I'm going to add a smartlink for the following setup:

Krime Wave (¥2,000)
- 2 clips (¥10)
- 500 Rounds Explosive (¥4,000)
- 500 Rounds APDS (¥6,000)
- External Smartgun (¥200)

This stable of death and destruction gives me a wide range of options for mayhem, and for a surprisingly reasonable price tag!

So far, I've spent ¥175,060 of my ¥450,000 budget.

Let's look at what else I'll need.

Ares Crusader II Smartlink (¥830) (my backup gun)
- 2 clips (¥10)
- 100 Regular Rounds (¥200)
- Concealable Holster (¥150)

Actioneer Business Clothes (¥1,500)
Urban Explorer Jumpsuit (¥650)
- Helmet (¥100)

Hermes Ikon Commlink (¥3,000)

Fake SIN Rating 4 (¥10,000)
- 10 x Fake License Rating 4 (¥8,000)

The point of the fake SIN, and licenses, is that it gives me a cover story, to help put a line of defense between myself, and the corporate SIN I bought as a quality. Plus, it gives me the option to carry some of my restricted gear, including the drones, and the guns on them, legally. Always a good idea.

Aircraft Mechanic Shop (¥5,000)
Ground Vehicle Shop (¥5,000)

Now comes the other expensive part of the package, Cyberware. First on the list has to be the Control Rig Rating 2 (¥97,000, 2 Essence) and the Smartlink (¥5,000, Capacity 2) in a set of natural Cybereyes Rating 3 (¥10,000, 0.4 Essence, 12 Capacity) in addition, I'm going to pick up Low-Light Vision (¥1,500, Capacity 2) and Vision Magnification (¥2,000, Capacity 2) Here's the cyberware in list form:

Control Rig Rating 2 (¥97,000, 2 Essence)
Cybereyes - Natural Rating 3 (¥10,000, 0.4 Essence, 12 Capacity)
- Smartlink (¥5,000, Capacity 2)
- Low-Light Vision (¥1,500, Capacity 2)
- Vision Magnification (¥2,000, Capacity 2)

So far, I've spent ¥325,000 of my ¥450,000 budget.

One piece of gear that I've not yet bought is a Rigger Command Console, mostly because the table for them isn't in the gear section. With that in mind, I want to pick up the most expensive one I can afford. With an Availability of 12, I can get the Proteus Poseidon. Device rating 5, Data Processing 5, and Firewall 6. For the low, low, price of ¥68,000

On top of that, I need to pick up a few autosofts, and cyber programs. Autosofts, are programs that run on drones, enhancing their abilities. The cost for these isn't listed in the first printing of the core rules, but has been released in the errata as follows:

Autosoft
Availability: Rating * 2
Cost: Rating * ¥500

Note: Don't take the above as gospel, always check your rule book, and any published errata.

I have the following drones:

GM-Nissan Doberman, MCT-Nissan Roto-Drone, Cyberspace Designs Dalmatian and a Steel Lynx Combat Drone so any model specific autosofts will need to be bought for the different drone models. This is another reason to only carry a small number of models.

I'm looking to buy the following list of Autosofts:
Clearsight 6 (¥3,000)
Electronic Warfare 6 (¥3,000)

[MCT-Nissan Roto-Drone] Evasion 6 (¥3,000)
[Cyberspace Designs Dalmation] Evasion 6 (¥3,000)

[MCT-Nissan Roto-Drone] Maneuvering 6 (¥3,000)
[Cyberspace Designs Dalmation] Maneuvering 6 (¥3,000)
[Steel Lynx Combat Drone] Maneuvering 6 (¥3,000)
[GM-Nissan Doberman] Maneuvering 6 (¥3,000)

[MCT-Nissan Roto-Drone] Stealth 6 (¥3,000)
[Cyberspace Designs Dalmation] Stealth 6 (¥3,000)

[MCT-Nissan Roto-Drone] Targeting 6 (¥3,000)
[Cyberspace Designs Dalmation] Targeting 6 (¥3,000)
[Steel Lynx Combat Drone] Targeting 6 (¥3,000)
[GM-Nissan Doberman] Targeting 6 (¥3,000)

That's ¥42,000 worth of software.

So far, I've spent ¥435,000 of my ¥450,000 budget.

I also want Encryption, Signal Scrub, Toolbox, Virtual Machine, Armor, Biofeedback Filter, Guard, Shell, and Sneak cyberprograms. That's ¥250 * 9 = ¥2,250 I'm also going to pick up all the Common cyber programs, for another ¥560.

This is the point that I really like, I've bought all the necessities, now I can buy things that are just silly. That is, bits of gear, or cyberware that I want, but don't consider critical. Unfortunately, I'm sitting on a measly ¥12,190. I'm going to spend that on a few extra hard to find bits of equipment.

- Krime Wave (¥2,000)
  - 500 Rounds APDS (¥6,000)
  - External Smartgun (¥200)

This brings me down to ¥446,010 spent, giving me ¥3,390 + (3D6 * ¥60) to start the game with.

All that's left now, is to assign contacts, and spend my karma. Remember, I'm boosting Edge to 3, which leaves me 4 karma to add to my contacts. For Rigger contacts, I like to keep it simple.

I start with Charisma x 3 in free Karma, that's 9 points. With the 4 leftover Karma I have from Qualities, I can spend 13 karma on Contacts. Some people like to have a few very close contacts, while I find that can be helpful, I like to have a larger number of contacts. However, there's not much I can do with only 13 points.

Fixer: 2/2
Mitsuhama Inventory Clerk: 4/1
Parts Store Owner: 1/3

I grab the usual Fixer, and a Scrapyard owner, think your local Autozone, good for getting parts for the legal vehicles in my fleet. The Mitsuhama Inventory Clerk is your average middle-management drone, left over from my corp days. He can possibly provide me with sensitive parts, and intel, from within Mitsuhama. Not the best contact, but flavorful, and could open other options.

Final Attributes
Body: 3
Agility: 6
Reaction: 5
Strength: 3
Willpower: 3
Logic: 5
Intuition: 3
Charisma: 3
Edge: 3
Initiative: 8 + 1D6
Essence: 3

Limits
Mental Limit: 6
Physical Limit: 5
Social Limit: 4

There you have it! Feel free to comment if you think I've gone off the deep end, or more likely if my math is wrong!

Review: SR5 GM Screen

Man! It's the second coming of Christmas, or maybe it's my birthday come 9 months early. Anyway, hot on the heels of Gun H(e)aven 3 earlier this week, I just received a call that my local game store Games & Gizmos got in my copy of the Shadowrun 5th Edition GM Screen.

Now, I usually don't go for GM screens for a number of reasons. I've never felt the need to hide my dice from my players, and I usually structure my game table in such a way that a player would be unable to casually glance at my notes. For maps, and other items, I have a laptop, which keeps the master view of the map, so there's nothing to hide their either. But, I got talked into the Shadowrun one, mostly because I was curious.

You see, when a company like Catalyst sets the quality bar as high as they did with the Shadowrun 5th Edition Core Rules, you have to wonder if they can find a way to make a GM screen that isn't flimsy paperboard, doomed to be a creased mess inside a few sessions.

Well, I'm proud to say that the quality is superb. The screen itself is made from a hard paperboard, very similar, if not identical to the material used in a hardcover book. This alone makes the screen worth it's price. I cannot fathom damaging this screen enough to render it unusable. The back of the screen is a number of high-quality glossy fluff photos. However, it's the front of the screen that really shines.

I had seen a few promo pictures for the GM screen, and had been worried that the scatter table, for grenades, would be too large, as it seemed to take up nearly a quarter of one of the four panels. As I opened the screen it became quickly obvious that that wouldn't be an issue. While I'm curious about the positioning of some of the tables on the screen, I found that the majority of the data I would need to have to hand was present. All of the applicable modifier tables are there, combat, weather, noise, etc. As well as the weapon range table, which is something I always seem to forget. On top of these are a bunch of utility tables, success thresholds for tests, example test difficulty, and a smattering of other test related tables, all grouped helpfully together.

However, there were two tables that I found odd. First, was the assensing table. While other GM's might find it helpful, this isn't a table I have found much need for. Fortunately it's tucked off in near the bottom of a side panel, and doesn't attract much attention. The only other head-scratcher came in the form of the payout table. This takes up roughly a third of one of the four panels. Maybe it's just me, but I usually plan my payout, plus or minus Negotiation, as part of the run hook, and can't fathom a need for the table in-game. Maybe I'm wrong, but this seemed like a less than optimal use of the space.

However, don't let that dissuade you from picking up the screen. The test modifier tables alone make it well worth the money. I'm going to have it set up to hand for my next session, and I'm sure my players will be shocked when I actually remember to ding them a few dice for the fog and rain that is a Seattle standard.

And, We're Back!

It feels good to be back! Happy New Year everybody, as I'm sure you realize I took the holidays off. Between work, and family obligations I didn't have much time left to game. However, as things get back on track I'm going to be back to gaming, and writing here.

To start the new year off, I took the liberty of buying myself a present! Specifically, Gun H(e)aven 3 off of DriveThruRPG. This mini-supplement tips the scales at 38 pages. Containing 33 new guns, and a few new weapon keywords, and modifications the books not a "must have" but it's certainly a lot of fun, and with a price tag under $8 it's not going to break the bank either. One thing I really like about Gun H(e)aven 3 is that the weapons have both Shadowrun 5th Edition, and Shadowrun 4th Edition stats. This makes the book much more versatile.

As is the norm with Catalyst Games books, the quality is superb. Granted, this is only in PDF form, but even then, the coloring, and layout, is gorgeous. Every gun has it's own page, stats, and flavor text.

However, the one thing that I must say, and feel free to call me crazy, the book contains a number of "antique" guns. Old style revolvers, over-under shotguns, a number of gorgeous Winchester pieces. Makes me want to build a character that would make John Wayne proud. Little details like this really make the book worth the, tiny, price tag.

I will give you one peek, to whet your appetite.

M1 Garand
Acc: 5
Damage: 12P
AP: -1
Mode: SA
RC: -
Ammo: 8(c)
Avail: 3R
Cost: $1,100

The book is filled with in-game remakes of classic firearms. From the Garand, to revolvers in line with the Colt Army, to wild muzzle-loading muskets that you could literally hang on the wall of your flat, and nobody would ever think it strange. That dovetails nicely with two of the new weapon keywords. I've paraphrased below.

Vintage: An old weapon, can be modified but costs twice as much.
Cap & Ball: three complex actions to reload. Ammo code (cb)

While they aren't game changers, they do open up a load of fun ideas, blunderbuss shotguns, and homemade guns now have a rules-legal ammo code. Whenever possible, I like to use what's printed, and rules like this really make me pleased. All in all, for $8, I found this to be worth the money, and I sincerely hope that the rules, and firearms here, make it into Run & Gun, when it's released.

Tactics: Riggers, Deckers, and Party Design

I'm a car guy. I love vehicles in Shadowrun. It always pained me in 3rd, and 4th Edition that most of my teams had an NPC rigger. Strictly from a mechanics, and flow perspective it wasn't feasible to have a PC rigger. Once the player had spent most of his money, and/or build points into a vehicle they had little incentive to get out of the vehicle. This meant that one player would usually sit out the run, until the group needed a quick getaway. This, to say the least, was no fun. Drone riggers fixed this to a point, but then the drones took over the scouting and combat roles, and other players who would usually be performing those roles ended up sitting twiddling their thumbs. In the end, most GMs, and most groups, abandoned the Rigger.

Even in 4th Edition, where the vehicle rules were better, few groups ran a PC rigger. When I picked up Shadowrun 5th Edition, I had low hopes for a lot of the mechanics. After reading through the Matrix rules, and wanting to build a Decker for the first time in a long while, I moved on to the vehicle rules. I fell in love with the amount of synergy between Riggers and Deckers. That was a master-stroke and one that has fundamentally altered the way I run, and plan, my games. You can no longer have a Rigger without a Decker. Opposing Deckers are now a massive threat to a NPC, or PC, Rigger.

This has prompted a shift in the metagame, the dynamic of the "Default" party. When I say default party I want you to think back to D&D, specifically early D&D. When you sat down to play D&D with your friends, as I often did, there was a default set of characters that had to be played, or the party never quite worked. You had the Fighter, the Mage, the Rogue, and the Cleric. Granted, some of these roles could be filled by other classes but the optimum build was always those four. Shadowrun, despite not having classes has an optimum build. In 3rd Edition you could do without a Decker, provided you had someone with good hardware skills. You needed a Face, but often times you could get away with another player taking some social skills, and a decent charisma. Usually, in my groups, that was your mage. There was no real call for a Rigger, in fact most of the time you only needed a car, and didn't even need the driving skill, 4th Edition was more or less the same. However, 5th Edition changed all that.

Let's look at the default build-point based 3rd Edition party.

- Street Samurai (Usually metahuman, Ork, Troll, etc.)
- Socialite (Elf, usually)
- Magician (Elf, or Human)
- Wildcard (Medic, Hardware guy, gun nut, decker, adept etc.)

The point being, with a Street Samurai, Social Character, and Magician, you had the game on lock. There was little you couldn't do with those three builds. The forth character was syntactic sugar, a nice to have, but not needed for the group to accomplish their objectives. The issue here is simple, you've reduced the game to a formula and whomever got stuck playing the forth man was in for a less than stellar experience.

With 5th Edition, things shifted. Sure, you can turn your network connectivity off, but the bonuses for wireless connectivity are huge. So, you leave your gear connected. Most characters won't even think about being hacked. As a GM, you let the following story play out. Runners get a job, they get hacked, badly, things go south, their gear goes haywire, guns won't fire, cyberware bricks, commlinks smoke and fail. Everything goes south. It's not hard to orchestrate, and it proves a point. So now you have to run a PC Decker, it's flat-out required. Now let's look at the default party again.

- Street Samurai
- Socialite
- Magician
- Decker

Still looks awfully formulaic. But, let's take it one step further. Why take a dedicated Socialiate? Your Magician, if they are a conjurer they will have a solid Charisma. So, your Magician becomes your Face. If not your magician, pick a character with a decent Charisma and tack on a Negotiation skill.  It's not hard to imagine. So now we have an empty spot. What do we do? We take a Rigger. Why? Because noise forces them to be johnny on the spot, and drones are incredible. Plus, it's nice to not have to walk to the meet.

So now your baseline party looks like this:

- Street Samurai
- Magician (with Negotation)
- Decker (possible with Negotiation, if the Magician isn't a conjurer)
- Rigger

Everyone has a job to do, there's enough overlap to handle injuries, and nobody is left sitting out because they've done their part. 5th Edition solves the wildcard character problem, while promoting synergy within the team, and making your Rigger, and your Decker into best friends.

Fireside Chat: Mages

I wrote two blog posts on the magic rules in Shadowrun 5th Edition, specifically Spellcasting, and Conjuring. I wanted to take a moment and write one more post about an interesting opinion I read online while building my canned characters for my first session.

"Being an aspected mage actually penalizes for taking power limitations at priority C.  (At priority B, aspected magicians are equal to magicians at least in terms of the karma value of their bonuses.)  At priority D, obviously there isn't a comparison.  The obvious conclusion however is that nobody should ever play an aspected magician except at priority D, unless you are going to be a conjurer, and even that is debatable.  (Of course, then there is the question of why you would ever want to be a magician instead of a mystic adept, since Mystic Adept > Magician > Aspect)."

Courtesy of Ricochet here

Now, let's look at this a bit closer. At priority A, there's no Aspected Magician, so you have to choose Magician, or Mystic Adept. I cannot fathom why you would take priority A for Magic. By taking A in Magic you are selling yourself short. So much of the game focuses on Attributes, and Skills, I cannot fathom why you would waste A on Magic. Especially when B is nearly as good, and leaves your top spot open for Attributes.

Priority B is where I like to start with every Magician I've built. I look at it like this: If I'm building a human Character, then Mystical Adept, Magician, or Aspected Magician all make sense. Remember, if you're going to take Magician, you might as well take Mystical Adept. You don't have to buy the power points, but having the choice doesn't cost anything, and can leave interesting growth options open to you down the road. If I'm building a non-human character and I'm not going to have a large number of extra points to add to my Edge, and Magic, then I prefer the Aspected Magician at this level, as the one higher point in Magic can help offset the lack of special attribute points from the metatype. That being said, a full Magician at priority B can be solid with a non-human metatype, you need to balance the metatype choice, and the rest of your priority choices though.

Priority C is the first level where I'd actually consider taking an Adept. You have a reasonably high Magic, and you've left Priority A, and B, free for attributes, skills, or metatype. Though again, I'd caution against taking Priority A as anything other than attributes. For Magician, Mystic Adept, or Aspected Magician I have to agree with Ricochet. The skill group for the Aspected Magician simply isn't enough of a benefit to make me not want to take the full Magician or Mystic Adept. Magic 3 is still solid, especially if you're playing a human, or other metatype with a few special attribute points to bolster your magic rating.

Priority D, this is an interesting one. You're left with Adept, or Aspected Magician. You get no spells, or skills, for free. Why would you bother taking Priority D for Magic? Honestly, I would only take Adpet at this Priority. Given that all Adepts have to buy power points with Karma you might as well take Attributes, Skills, and Metatype/Resources as A, B, and C, and use the special attribute points to up the magic attribute, and the skill and attribute points to build a solid foundation for a character. I can't advise taking Aspected Magician at D, as there's simply too many demands on your skill picks, and karma, to make a mage work at such a low priority.

This is one of the only failings of a priority based build system. You end up with character builds that simply aren't as good, or aren't even viable. In the end, you're going to see a lot of Human Mystic Adpets. If this was intentional by the designers, or not, this is definitely the way I see things going.

Attributes: A
Magic: B (Mystic Adept)
Skills: C
Metatype: D (Human (3))
Resources: E

That's your cookie-cutter mage build, in my opinion.

I'm curious though, does anyone have an idea for a character that doesn't seem possible? I'd like a challenge. If you can think of a character concept post in the comments, and tell me what the character concept is, and what you'd pick for Metatype, Attributes, Skills, Resources, and Magic. I'll pick a few I like and see if I can actually build them.

First Session!

After some weeks I've finally nailed down a date for my first Shadowrun 5th Edition session. I have nearly all new players, so I'm running this as a one-off. I'm going to build a number of canned PCs and let the group pick. As this is a one-off, that will make things smoother, as I'll know the player's characters, their capabilities, and can offer advice as the game progresses.

I started by trying to come up with a hook, that is, the point of the run. I wanted to keep the players at street level, so I started thinking about a less technical run. I wanted them to experience Shadowrun, and have an enjoyable game, yet in a lower threat environment. I decided that they were going to be hired by a friend, of a friend, to help deal with a local gang that is muscling in on some new turf. Setting the run in Tacoma around the Port of Tacoma and Commencement bay would give me ample opportunity to tie the narrative in with the wider Seattle area, and the Shadowrun world.

I plan to expose the characters, some who are SIN-less to the dangers of not being a citizen in a world where the police are for profit. Police presence, the hazards of open carry, and the risk of low-rating SINs are all going to come into play between the call, and the meet itself. For the meet, I'm  borrowing a favored location of mine the Three Stone Steps Pub. This is a well known, and well loved, location. As with most of it's incarnations it's a small, basement level pub. Mafia controlled, usually by the Finnigan family, it does treble duty as a watering hole, money laundering front, and fence house. I describe the location as small, dark, and well worn. Think of your favorite townie bar, put it in a basement, add bagpipes, and you have the rough idea.

Mr. Johnson is a low-level made man in the Finnigan family, who's been contracted to deal with a problem in Tacoma. A new gang has started moving chips, and setting up a protection racket. This, obviously, cannot stand, but the family can't get involved directly, for political, and personal reasons, which if this wasn't a one-shot could serve as a plot point for later runs. When I plan a run, even a one-off I try to leave myself options, leave things open, so that I can reuse the run later, in a different setting, if needed. This keeps me from ever having to toss a run, everything is reusable.

Once the team goes through the negotiations they will need to use their contacts to find the gang, their hideout, and any other information they might need. I like to leave the legwork phase open to interpretation. Depending on the player they may think to ask an unexpected contact, an unexpected question, and if their logic is sound I like to reward them. This means I rarely tie specific bits of information to specific questions or contacts. Instead I have a list of answers, and when a player asks a reasonable question, to a reasonable contact, they get an answer. For a more experienced group, I might take a harder line, but for a one-off, with mostly new players I focus on the fun, and flow, of the session rather then trying to run a tough game.

Once the players have amassed enough information they move to planning the run itself. This is a fine balancing act. If they dig too deep, I'll have the gang get wind of the impending attack, and the lethality goes up some. If they don't have enough information, then the run becomes more difficult if not impossible. Once the planning begins, I leave it wholly up to the players. If they want to scope out the hideout, great, if they want to show up guns blazing, great, if they want to wait for nightfall, and go in stealthy, great, but the point here is that I'm leaving it up to them. This is one of the big issues I have with canned adventures. You lose that flexibility. I like to have a series of points, plot points, if you will that the players will bounce from. Keeping a series of points in mind keeps the session from turning into a railroad, which is no fun for myself, or my players.

Once the run is planned, I let them execute. At this point my role shifts, I move from being a narrator, to being the op-for, I am the bad guy. While I need to keep the game moving, and fun, I need to put myself in the shoes of the NPC, the mindset of these gangers. Once that is done, then I can have them react in ways that make sense, that mirror reality. This, again, is where staying flexible really helps out.

Here's the roster I've put together:

- A human decker/face.
- An orc investigator, think Eddie Valient with tusks.
- A human street aspected mage, no SIN, focusing on combat spells.
- An elven adept, focusing on stealth.
- A human rigger, with a small arsenal of drones, and a large shotgun.
- A troll "street samurai" though at street level play there's not much cyberware.
- A dwarf gunman, two pistols, and a leather duster.
- A human shaman, low-grade mage, mostly optimized for conjuring.

With four players, this gives them some choice, and flexibility. For me, it limits the potential pool, and makes planning the enemy much, much, simpler.

Tactics, Recoil, and Single-Shot Guns

I sat on this post for a good long while, mostly because I wanted to try and find a way to explain what I was seeing, and thinking, with the 5th Edition rules changes around combat without having to go back and explain 4th Edition combat to readers who haven't played 4th Edition.

In the end, I gave up, and simply wrote the post below with the understanding that I would have to preface the discussion with a lesson on 4th Edition mechanics, before I could go on to talk about the new mechanics in Shadowrun 5th Edition.

Let me start by going over how combat worked in 4th Edition, and why it was, frankly, terrible. Combat in Shadowrun is usually a matter of putting as much lead down range as possible. In 4th Edition this meant a few very simple things. First, you never took a single shot rifle. It just didn't make any sense. With the exception of the miniguns, and why they are single shot, we have no idea. Anyway, there was simply no reason to take a single shot gun when you could take a semi-automatic gun, and have two shots in the combat turn verses one. The same was true on the other end of the spectrum, you never saw a character with a fully automatic rifle, as the recoil penalty simply got out of hand. Fully automatic weapons were used, in my games, for supressive fire, and that was it. This meant, for my players, and for myself that you only ever saw semi-auto, and burst fire guns, with a lot of gear strapped on to overcome the recoil penalties. While this was "legal" it certainly wasn't much fun. There were whole swaths of guns that nobody ever took, as their were cheaper, easy to fire, and more accurate options.

Now, we move to 5th Edition where several rules changes have turned the formula for ranged combat on it's ear. First, let's look at Progressive Recoil. This is a very simple rules change with massive repercussions. Progressive recoil states that recoil carries over from combat turn, to combat turn. This, if you think about it, makes sense. If you've ever fired a rifle, or pistol, as fast as you can eventually the gun gets away from you. That's what progressive recoil means, and we love it. In 4th Edition it was as if everyone stopped to take a breather between combat turns. There was no sense that combat flowed from one turn to the next, now, there is.

Right on the heels of Progressive Recoil comes another small, but catastrophic change to combat. You may take one attack action per round. One. That means, your single-shot rifle fires once per round, or your semi-automatic pistol fires once as a simple action (making it the same as a single-shot gun) or you can fire three times as a complex action. This is great, you get more bullets that you did in 4th Edition, but with the progressive recoil rules your three-round burst recoil carries over to your next turn. Fire another three-round burst and you have to contend with six bullets worth of recoil, out of a semi-automatic gun! That's nuts! Burst fire is even more insane, regular three-round bursts are a simple action, but you can fire TWO three round bursts as a complex action, however you're now carrying six bullets worth of recoil into your next turn. Full auto guns fire 6 rounds as a simple action, and a whopping ten rounds full auto!

What does this all mean, from a tactical perspective? Well, quite simply you cannot stand behind cover and spray bullets down range and expect to hit things turn after turn, after turn. You must take time to pause, adjust, aim, and at the very least break the flow of bullets to minimize the Progressive Recoil. Large characters, and guns mounted on tripods, or in fixed positions will still allow you to fire numerous rounds before incurring penalties, and that's as it should be, but for the average Runner the player now needs to weight the options, do I fire a burst this turn, and accept that I may have recoil to contend with next turn, or do I fire a single round and then move to a better position? Do I use a Take Aim action, and break the flow of recoil, before firing another round? All of these things were included in 4th Edition, but rarely used as it was simply easier to fire, and to keep firing.

Catalyst, good job. Seriously, good job.

After I published this, several of the comments brought to my attention two additional points. First, single-shot guns do not suffer from Progressive Recoil, they are immune. This makes single-shot guns, especially rifles, very useful.

Second, all characters start with one free point of recoil compensation, and then get strength/3 (round up) points of additional recoil compensation before any other equipment is added in. This means a troll, with a very high strength can handle Progressive Recoil much more readily then a human, or other less bulky character.

Group Sensitivity

Since moving to Seattle WA, I've gotten used to the idea that women play games. I know this seems fairly straight-forward, but I can count on one finger, the number of active female participants I had in any game in NY. In Seattle however, it's a much more common occurrence.

When it comes to Shadowrun, the topic of this blog, I find that to be a great thing. Shadowrun doesn't have to be combat-centric, it doesn't have to conform to a male-driven view of the world. Crime, as we all know, doesn't discriminate. However, I'd never given much thought to the sex of my players, nor to any other factor then if they could roll dice, and follow the rules, and some semblance of table etiquette.

This is why, while reading the Shadowrun 5th Edition core rules, I was pleased to see a significant amount of space given over to Group Rules and Boundaries. Even more surprising was the frank and open nature the designers discussed the need for sensitivity when it comes to racism, sex, violence, and the questionable morality in Shadowrun. While this was always something that was in the back of my mind as a GM, having it spelled out in the core rules was a new experience for me. Quite frankly, it made me sit down and think about things in a more structured sense then I ever had before.

As I'm approaching my upcoming game, with three players who are new to me, and one veteran, I wanted to take a moment and decide how to approach the issues raised above. If a player approaches me with a concern about the content of a run, or the direction a group is taking I feel it's my job, as GM, to address the concerns.

Morality: I love Shadowrun, as it allows me, as the GM, and my players to act out criminal behavior that would get us all arrested in the real world. It's escapism on a level not seen in most other games. In D&D, and Pathfinder, you're the hero, the villagers all know it, you are there to right the wrongs, and slay the bad guys. Games that go in another direction exist, sure, but they are the exception. I like to encourage my players to think outside the usual societal morals. Want to deal with a snitch, killing him is a perfectly viable option. That is if you can get away with it. However, this might not sit well with all players. With that in mind I try to design a run with a number of solutions. With that in mind, I try to encourage quieter behavior. Killing people, and breaking things, while fun is messy and should evoke an appropriate legal response. Frankly, the cops frown on bodies.

Racism: I try to not play the race card. This isn't so much a group dynamic decision, as it is a storytelling decision. I find racism a poor motivator. If I as a GM cannot find a better motivator then racism, I've not done a good job. Now, there are scenarios where race plays a factor. Posers, the Ork Underground, and modified gear come to mind. I have no issue with making it harder for metahumans, specifically Trolls, and Dwarfs, to find gear. This isn't racism, in my mind, this is a game mechanic the player agreed to by taking a troll, or dwarf metatype. With metatype-centric organizations, where racism is already a factor, again I feel that this is a style decision made by the designers, and if it's an issue with the group I simply won't write the organizations into the story.
Note: I feel the need to address real-world racism. If I were to encounter racist attitudes within a gaming group, I would simply disallow the offending player to return. While I know this seems extreme, I cannot help but feel that there's no place for any "ism" in a group I run.

Violence: This is a big one for me. I GM, to tell a story, and violence makes for great storytelling. There are two points addressed in the core rules, how graphic the violence is, and if there are any groups that should be off limits. I tend to not be overtly graphic in my descriptions, unless it's meant to set the tone. I'll gladly describe an ossuary, as a dank pit filled with half cleaned bones. But I won't go into the look of a hit and run victim, unless the players ask for more detail, or there is some detail that is crucial to the advancement of the plot, or story, and in that case I'll reveal only the necessary details. As for groups, or acts, that are off limits, I struggle to draw a clear line in the sand. From a storytelling perspective I'm willing to go anywhere, as long as the group agrees. From an individual perspective, I draw the line at gratuitous abuse. I'll gladly describe an abusive relationship, if it's relevant to the plot, but I won't toss details into the narrative about the child prostitute on the corner, unless it's absolutely critical. I don't view suffering, and violence, to be good narrative flavor. If I have to resort to those tactics, I'm not telling a good story in the first place.

Sexuality: This is another tough one, though murkier then violence. I think sex, and sexuality has a huge part to play in any Shadowrun game. If we look at the trends in our world, and extrapolate out to the Sixth World you can't help but think that sex will simply be everywhere. However, there are limits. Openly describing sex acts, or sexual abuse, in a gaming session is off limits to me. References to abuse, as plot devices, or hooks for a run, sure, but as with violence above if I have to resort to describing sexual abuse, as narrative flavor, I've not done my job. While it will largely depend on the group, and their triggers, I do plan to use sexuality in my game, specifically prostitution, and human trafficking. While these are sensitive topics, I feel they add a significant amount of depth, and emotional investment, into the setting.

These are my initial thoughts, and I'm sure they will change as I gain experience with my current group. As my views adapt, and change, I'll be sure to continue to expand on the thoughts above.