WW: Shadowrun Edition!

[AvatarVecna]

You step out of the cold into the filthiest dive you’ve ever laid eyes on. The few reprobates still sober enough to peer at you over their dirty shot glasses are already too wasted to ever remember your being here. With a practiced ease, you evade their bloodshot gaze and half-slurred questions, slipping into the kitchen. As you make your way past the various fry cooks keeping this place from going broke, you find what you’ve been looking for: a small package near the back of the kitchen on the bottom shelf. As you stoop down to pick up your package, one of the burlier chefs grabs your shoulder. As you take him in at a glance, making note of his minor cybernetic upgrades, he asks “Who sent you, chummer?”

“Johnson,” you reply steadily. “S. C. Johnson. I’m supposed to pick up his mushroom pizza.” The cook nods and releases his hold on you, returning to his work. You quickly collect your package and make your way out of there, glad to be gone from such a foul place. As you make your way through the backstreets and alleys that make up this part of town, you open your package, even as you strain your senses for any sign of a tail. Opening the package, you quickly download the datapad it contained into your commlink, and your worst suspicions are confirmed.

A few weeks ago, you and a bunch of the runners you’ve worked with severely cheesed off some Renraku executive with your nightly escapades. Unfortunately, you couldn’t stay hidden forever: the bigwig hired some top notch assassins to deal with the lot of you...permanently. From what you can tell, the assassins have been gathering what little information they could on the various team members, waiting for the right opportunity to take them out. A few nights ago, they struck their first target. Ever since, the rest of the group has been scrambling to find the assassins and take them out before they completed their mission. Each of you reached out to your contacts trying to figure out who the assassins could be.

According to the data you’ve just received, your worst fears have been confirmed: the assassins are members of the team who’ve turned traitor. Even worse, you can’t just up and leave: the lot of you were hired for a job right before the assassins struck. Some Ares exec caught wind of your tiff with Renraku and called you up; they want you to hit them again. They’re willing to pay big bucks for you to take out a factory and some prototype weapons, as well as to download some specs and return them. There’s some other stuff, but that’s the minimum. It’s at least a one week job...but you might not have a week. Still, with the amount of nuyen they’re putting on the line, you can tell it’s important...and you can’t afford to have Ares gunning for you, too; that’s a short path to an early grave.

So for now, you’ve got to run the mission, assassins be damned. But you’d be a fool to ignore this information; there’s a chance you can survive this mission and make some big time money, if you can stay one step ahead of the assassins. Unfortunately, you don’t know who you can trust right now; you need to gather information, keep your head down, and find those damn traitors...before they find you.

Spoiler: Gameplay

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All characters have two roles: their runner role, and their loyalty role. The first is known to the group; the second is to be kept secret except under certain circumstances. If you die at any point in the game, you can no longer converse with or share information with any living players. If you died during the night, you do not learn who killed you unless one of your roles says otherwise. At the beginning of the game, the narrator will post runner roles in the OP and will provide links to Quicktopic for each player; this QT will be used to tell the player their loyalty role and their initiative from night to night. Furthermore, a QT will be set up for the assassins; if the disloyal discovers the assassins and chooses to join them, they will be linked in to the assassin QT. Please do not take any night actions until you've been informed of your initiative.

At the beginning of the night phase, the narrator will roll 2d6 for each character, representing their initiative during the night phase (due to the high number of night phase abilities, and how they can interact, this is to make things simpler to keep track of while also adding some randomness to the game); highest roll goes first, lowest goes last. During the night phase, the lot of you will be running jobs for your newest Johnson, and the assassins will strike, likely killing one of you. During the day phase, the active group will discuss their information amongst themselves, eventually selecting one member of the group to kill. Whenever a character is killed off, their loyalty role is revealed to the group.

The game ends when either the Loyal runners or the Traitorous Runners are all dead. Those left alive are the winners.

To have a good mix of roles, I recommend at least 15 players, and preferably more. The more players there are, the more roles there are to distribute in both categories.

Spoiler: Runner Roles

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Runner roles will be posted in the OP once the game starts. As such, they will be known to everyone.

Spoiler: Cyber Samurai

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You've been technologically enhanced to hell and back. There's more machine than man left, but you're all the better for it.

You gain +1d6 Initiative.

During the night phase, you may attack or defend one player of your choice; if you attack, they are killed, but your target learns your loyalty role. If you defend, any attack meant for the character you're defending instead goes against you, killing you.

Spoiler: Decker

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You do your best to keep eyes on everyone, especially when things start going south. If necessary, you can stall them while others act.

You do not roll initiative; you always act first. In games with multiple living deckers, all deckers will roll initiative (the standard 2d6); this roll only determines the order among the deckers (all deckers still go before non-deckers).

During the night phase, select one player; their initiative is reduced by 3, to a minimum of the number of dice they receive; if they are assassinated in the night, you know which player killed them, and what their loyalty role was.

Spoiler: Face

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Nobody's better at sniffing out information than you are. You can help your friend figure out when they're being lead down the wrong trail...or you can send your target on a wild goose chase.

During the night phase, choose two players; if either one is the Streetwise or the Clueless, you learn their loyalty role, and can choose to change their loyalty role to the other (Streetwise to Clueless or vice versa). They are not informed of this change in loyalty role.

Spoiler: Infiltrator

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Sneaky tactics are second nature to you after so long running the streets. At this point, you've learned how to lay low if it becomes necessary, and how to disappear without a trace.

You gain +1d6 Initiative.

Anyone investigating your loyalty role receives a "can't be certain" result.

At any point during the game, you can choose to go into hiding; you are removed from gameplay for two in-game days, returning alive during the day phase after two in-game days have passed. This ability only functions once per game; after you've used it, people figure out where your safehouse is, and it's no longer safe for you to retreat to. This ability is automatically triggered the first time you would die.

Spoiler: Shaman

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Your worldly magicks allow you to consult the spirits of the dead on matters of the living...or to muddy the perceptions of your enemies.

During the night phase, select one player to either investigate or confuse. To investigate, you consult the spirits of the dead: if any dead player was directly informed of your target's loyalty role, you know the target's loyalty role. If instead you choose to confuse your target, any attempt they make to investigate another's loyalty role returns a "can't be certain" result.

Spoiler: Loyalty Roles

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Loyalty Roles are not posted at the beginning of the game; you can tell others your loyalty role if you wish, but barring extreme circumstances, they won't have any reason to believe you.

Spoiler: Chummer

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Loyal

You’ve been running the streets with these people for years; you wouldn’t betray them like this. Unfortunately, your particular talents haven’t resulted in an abundance of information gathering skills...at least, not beyond what most anyone can do.

During the night phase, you can investigate two players, one living and one dead. If the living player killed the dead player, you learn the killer's identity and the killer's loyalty role.

Spoiler: Streetwise

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Loyal

You've been running the streets a long time, and you've picked up some tricks along the way. Whether through technology, magic, or old-fashioned detective skills, you have your ways of figuring out who's trustworthy...and who's not.

During the night phase, you may select one player to investigate; you learn their loyalty role.

Spoiler: Clueless

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Loyal

You're a clever one...but not as clever as you think. The assassins know your methods, and have hired someone to mess with your methods of gathering information.

You are told you are the Streetwise runner.

During the night phase, you may select one player to investigate; your investigation will return a randomly determined loyalty role that is presented as if it was true. Investigating the same player additional times does not result in contradictory information: if you re-select a player for investigation, you will receive the same result you receive the first time. If you investigate the Streetwise runner, you will always see them as the Clueless.

Spoiler: Assassin

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Traitor

For one reason or another, you've betrayed your friends and, with the help of your new allies, have begun assassinating them one by one.

Every night, you and your fellow assassins can select one character for assassination. The first night, one assassin selected randomly by the narrator will perform the kill; the second night, a different assassin will perform the kill. This will continue until all assassins have killed someone; if there are still loyal runners alive, the cycle will repeat, starting with the assassin who first executed somebody, then the second, and so on until all assassins have killed two people, at which point the pattern will continue to repeat. If an assassin is killed, they are taken out of the repeating order. The pattern continues until the game is over.

Spoiler: Disloyal

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Loyal or Traitor

You would never have considered taking money to kill your friends...at least, you didn't until this happened. Now that the possibility has occurred to you, you're fine with this. Your first priority is making sure the assassins know you're turning traitor, or they'll kill you, too.

Anyone investigating your loyalty role at any point in the game receives a "can't be certain" result.

You do not know who the assassins are at the start of the game. Furthermore, your role is originally fluid: as long as you are alive at the end of the game, you win. During the night phase, you can select one character to investigate; you are informed of that character's loyalty role. The first time you discover the identity of an assassin, you must choose which team you are on for the rest of the game; once you've chosen, your death is a victory condition for the other team. If you choose to be a Loyal runner, you learn the identity of the assassin you investigated, and they do not learn your identity; if you choose to be a Traitorous runner, you learn the identity of all assassins, and they all learn your identity.

Current Players
Aventine (Decker)
C'nor (Face)
Count Dingdong (Face)
Duck999 (Shaman)
gingersnap13 (Infiltrator)
LegatoEndless (Face)
Lex-Kat (Shaman)
Logic (Decker)
Peebles (Face)
Penguinator (Cyber-Samurai)
Ramsus (Decker)
sojobo (Shaman)
sphazre (Infiltrator)
Sprig (Decker)
Tanar Aeradoth (Cyber-Samurai)
ThePhantom (Infiltrator)

[Ramsus]

Well I'm in, this sounds like tons of fun.

How come no Mystic Adept or non-Shaman Mage though?

[AvatarVecna]

Because those roles are both less classical shadowrun roles, and I was running out of unique thematic powers to give the roles. If anyone's got suggestions for powers that would make sense and wouldn't step one any other role's toes, I'll add them.

[Ramsus]

Well a Mystic Adept could have some limited amount (either total or cooldown time) self vote boost or vote reduction on a target. (Maybe like every other day for either of those ideas? Would be a good idea to set up this kind of thing so that they get 1 use per 2 or 3 day block rather than an actual cooldown as that prevents people from being able to predict when the Mystic Adept will be screwing with votes unless that players screws up and fails to use their power one day they should and winds up effectively losing out on a use of it.)

Mage could.... well attack mage is out cuz of the Cyber Sam's powers, animating objects is I don't even know how.... Oh I know Hive Spirits!
So an illusionist could just switch people targets for powers. (Either forcing a target to have their power target a different target you choose or making anything targeting one person target another target you choose or possibly just a random different person. Or something along those lines.)
Another option would be going into the astral and just seeing who someone targets, but not necessarily with what so that it's not a role/loyalty scry.
I would have suggested a one use day bane, but those are boring and screw with balance as they're usually way better for one group in a game than another.
I guess there's always voiders too but... meh.

Btw I'm surprised this game isn't even more crazy complicated as you could have added in items and wacky stuff like spirit pacts. (Not saying I have a preference one way or the other. Though I guess with a smaller size group of players less complicated probably is better.)

Edit: Not that spirit pacts aren't awesome. Once had a cyber sam with a spirit pact that gave her physical invisibility. So awesome. (Also that character was otherwise hilarious with a bunch of crazy stunts I pulled ended up with me getting amazing rolls.)

[AvatarVecna]

Well a Mystic Adept could have some limited amount (either total or cooldown time) self vote boost or vote reduction on a target. (Maybe like every other day for either of those ideas? Would be a good idea to set up this kind of thing so that they get 1 use per 2 or 3 day block rather than an actual cooldown as that prevents people from being able to predict when the Mystic Adept will be screwing with votes unless that players screws up and fails to use their power one day they should and winds up effectively losing out on a use of it.)

Mage could.... well attack mage is out cuz of the Cyber Sam's powers, animating objects is I don't even know how.... Oh I know Hive Spirits!
So an illusionist could just switch people targets for powers. (Either forcing a target to have their power target a different target you choose or making anything targeting one person target another target you choose or possibly just a random different person. Or something along those lines.)
Another option would be going into the astral and just seeing who someone targets, but not necessarily with what so that it's not a role/loyalty scry.
I would have suggested a one use day bane, but those are boring and screw with balance as they're usually way better for one group in a game than another.
I guess there's always voiders too but... meh.

Btw I'm surprised this game isn't even more crazy complicated as you could have added in items and wacky stuff like spirit pacts. (Not saying I have a preference one way or the other. Though I guess with a smaller size group of players less complicated probably is better.)

Edit: Not that spirit pacts aren't awesome. Once had a cyber sam with a spirit pact that gave her physical invisibility. So awesome. (Also that character was otherwise hilarious with a bunch of crazy stunts I pulled ended up with me getting amazing rolls.)

Vote reduction? That's an interesting ability...although I might give it to the illusionist instead of the adept.

I've had some crazy complicated ideas for this (items, environmental effects, a Mr. Johnson neutral role, etc), which I'll probably include in later iterations of this game, but for now I'm wanting to test how well these particular quirky mechanics mesh together in a real game.

[Tris]

I'm interested.

[Ramsus]

Mr. Johnson neutral role.... Yes, the ability for people to kill their employer. That's exactly the scenario every shadowrunner wants. (Well ok they often do want that. Though usually that desire comes after the job is done, not during it.)

[Duck999]

I'll join. I died in my other active WW game.

[Legato Endless]

I'll join. I died in my other active WW game.

Sorry Duck.

I'll join. I'm probably going to die today in my only active game.

[Count Dingdong]

I'll join. I died in my other active WW game.

Wow, what a coincidink! So did I! ... >.> And I plan to resume Careless this week sometime.

Count me in!

[Tris]

I've already joined, but I just died in that same game. That makes three out of the four signed up players!

[AvatarVecna]

Welcome Tanar. Out of curiosity, what were you? Ignore this, I just saw. Wow, we're just on a roll, aren't we? First, we lynch a mason, and now we've lynched the pineapple. What a wonderful start to the game.

Also, does anybody have any requests for additional roles, or comments on existing roles? I wanna make sure everything seems fair and balanced once we actually start playing.

[Ramsus]

Hmmm, this game is not filling up as fast as I would have hoped. Would it help if I offered the added incentive of telling tales of some of my more memorable Shadowrun games when someone new signs up? (Disclaimer: I've only actually been in three Shadowrun campaigns and the third one doesn't have much in coherent tales I could tell, though even an explanation of the premise might be interesting to some (potentially deranged) people.)

[AvatarVecna]

Hmmm, this game is not filling up as fast as I would have hoped. Would it help if I offered the added incentive of telling tales of some of my more memorable Shadowrun games when someone new signs up? (Disclaimer: I've only actually been in three Shadowrun campaigns and the third one doesn't have much in coherent tales I could tell, though even an explanation of the premise might be interesting to some (potentially deranged) people.)

While I would certainly appreciate some stories, I imagine this will fill up fairly quickly, once more and more people are killed off in the other game. And hey, if we manage to get the wolves early (despite how the game has started), this game will fill up even quicker. Here's hoping, right?

[Ramsus]

I can't see how the days would pass any faster since they're set in stone.... and people don't for any reason really need to be waiting to die in one game to sign up for another. Also, you really want to wait several months just to get a minimum number of players that way?

[AvatarVecna]

I can't see how the days would pass any faster since they're set in stone.... and people don't for any reason really need to be waiting to die in one game to sign up for another. Also, you really want to wait several months just to get a minimum number of players that way?

What I meant by faster/sooner was that, if the wolves win, that means that the game went on for a long time, but if the town lynches them in the next few days, then that games ends even earlier. And even if this game takes as long as possible, at most it'll be maybe a month, but certainly not several. We started with 16 people, and will have 12 after this night is over; let's assume the longest possible game ends when there's two wolves and two villagers left. That gives us another 8 deaths, which is 4 day-night cycles, each of which is roughly 4 IRL days. That means that, at most, we're looking at almost 3 weeks of this, and possibly even less. I want this game to start, but I'm willing to wait a couple weeks.

[Ramsus]

Wouldn't the longest possible game involve only one wolf left? It's happen before. *looks at quote in sig*

[AvatarVecna]

Wouldn't the longest possible game involve only one wolf left? It's happen before. *looks at quote in sig*

Okay, so what? 20 days instead of 16? That's still not "several months" in any respect. It's hardly a single month, and is still definitely within a period of time that I'm willing to wait for players. Of course, this still doesn't address why they aren't joining now instead of waiting until they die in the other game.

[Penguinator]

I'll join.

[Aventine]

I'll join as well

[Legato Endless]

Well, on the bright side, I don't have another game to distract me from whenever this one starts up now.

[AvatarVecna]

Welcome to the forming team! Here's hoping this game goes better for you, amirite?

[Lex-Kat]

In.

[ThePhantom]

Oh, I'll be in. This could be fun.

[Saposhiente]

Also, does anybody have any requests for additional roles, or comments on existing roles? I wanna make sure everything seems fair and balanced once we actually start playing.

Am I reading correctly that you're not allowed to roleclaim the loyalty half of your role? That sort of rule is a huge minefield, all sorts of edge cases and lawyering, is not an effective way of balancing things, and to me it reduces gameplay possibilities. I haven't yet read the roles but that rule would be a deal-breaker for me.

[gingersnap13]

I'm in. Let's play...

[Peebles]

When does this start? I've been looking for a WW forum for ages and would like to play, but I wouldn't be able to participate much until January.

[AvatarVecna]

By January, I expect the players in Apple WW to join this once the game is over (and/or they die), seeing as many of them already have.

[Peebles]

In that case I'm in if you'll accept a newbie. I've played the real life version before, but this is a bit more complicated.

[AvatarVecna]

In that case I'm in if you'll accept a newbie. I've played the real life version before, but this is a bit more complicated.

Sure; the person above you is actually a IRL person I convinced to play this game, and they've never even played IRL before. And yeah, it's pretty complicated...