This is Shadowrun!

[Derren]

So I am back and I intend to finish the overview of the factions today + a small explanation of the game system.
Lets start with

A Shadowrunners best friend, unless they shoot at you

Lets be honest, a Shadowrunner is not really a law abiding citizen (or a citizen at all, lacking an ID etc.) and over the course of their life, no matter its duration, commit a lot of crimes. One of those crimes is the possession (and use) of highly illegal weapons. And while a normal ganger might be satisfied with a used handgun with filed off ID a Shadowrunner typically wants something bigger. Those things are not usually found in the back of the car of some shady character two blocks down the street. Instead you have to turn to the organized crime to get what you want.

Dealing with organized crime is a tricky business. Get too close to them and you are expected to join them formally (a offer you shouldn't refuse). Go too often against them and they can hunt you down nearly as well as a pissed off megacorp can. And of course all syndicates compete with each other (and the factions within each syndicate).
The big crime syndicates in Shadowrun are:

The Mafia
The good old Mafia straight from the Godfather movies. They have branches (families) everywhere with a Don at the head and like in any good clan are feuding with each other. This internal conflicts resulted in them losing a lot of ground to the other syndicates.

The Triads
China based crime organization which is has made great progress in North America and dislikes the Yakuza with a passion. That comes from they being a pawn of a Great Dragon who has a rivalry with the Great Dragon which controls the Yakuza. The Triads very often employ mages and have less problems with dealing with awakened people than other traditional groups.

Yakuza
The Yakuza are deeply ingrained in Japan and generally wherever there is a Japancorp (especially Mitsuhama) the Yakuza aren't far away. Inside Japan they often operate rather openly with no fear of reprisal. As mentioned, they are also heavily influenced by a Great Dragon. Also there is a schism going through them at a moment resulting in a traditional faction who do not allow non humans and a more liberal faction who have no (less) problem with them.

The Vory
The Vory are the Russian version of the Mafia and have made quite a scene within the criminal circles. While most other syndicates are bound and limited by tradition is some way or another, the Vory have no such limitations which, together with their violent methods, allowed them to expand quickly and push out the other syndicates.

Soulopa Rings
The Seoulpa Rings are a (or rather many) Korean crime syndicates which do not have all that much luck in North America where they pretty literally got destroyed by the other syndicates. The survivors organized them in small, independent cells and specialize in Matrix crime as there is less of a turf war going on there.

Tanamous
Even though most body parts can be cloned in the year 2075 some people can't or don't want to wait or just hope for a bargain. Those people turn to Tanamous, assuming they have no problems with the donor of the organ they want being alive at the time of the order and being quite unaware that they have agreed to donating body parts in the first place.
Tanamous is the biggest organ-legger around with connections to nearly every hospital to get new raw material and informations. That means they have a quite extensive DNA database to get the perfect organ for you.
They also deal a lot in used cyberware and supply meat to ghouls which also make up a bigger part of their members as they can keep the leftovers.

The Gangs go Go Go

Not all that different from organized crime, gangs are more open with their criminal activities, often doing them for kicks instead for money. That doesn't mean they don't like money though. Very often gangs accept only one specific metatype as a member, making them all pretty racist. There is also a special type of gang called Go-Go Gang (hence the title) which are biker gangs which do not only like to drive very fast but also to shoot stuff. At "best" they are rich kids blowing off steam, at worst total maniacs. Initiation rituals often include destroying vehicles with heavy weapons while driving more than 100mph.

Halloweeners
Once a big gang in Seattle they got destroyed by other gangs and are now rebuilding. They have a tendency to use flame weapons a lot, especially the old guard.

Ancients
A elf only gang which has branches all over the world. They do not keep territory like other gangs and very often have ties to the elven countries and are used as smugglers and even as cover for black ops. So don't be surprised when you expect to go against normal gangers and suddenly have to fight against people with quite modern equipment and special forces training.

Vikings
A nordic biker gang practicing neo paganism and liking heavy metal a lot. They had ties to the terrorist organization Winternight which makes them even less sympathetic than other gangs.

 

[Derren]

Well, enough about the different names and places in Shadowrun for now.
If there is interest in hearing about the secret societies in Shadowrun, notable persons not connected to the Megacorps or other places of interest let me know.
But instead, let me talk a bit about the mechanic of Shadowrun. So

Let's roll

The Shadowrun system uses a dice pool mechanic. That means the better your character is at something the more dice he gets to roll. A typical roll is your ability + your skill + eventual modifiers through the environment or gear. A good character rolls about 10 dice, but a minmaxed character can roll a lot more.
Every 5 or 6 is a hit. A single hit is usually (but not always) enough to succeed at a task, with more hits giving better results. When a whatever you did affected a other character he gets to roll his defense dice pool build the same way with every hit reducing the effect you did.
For example when you shoot someone you get to roll your weapon skill + linked ability with every hit increasing the damage while your target rolls his defense ability for that type of attack + armor reducing the damage with each hit.
There are also contested rolls where both parties roll at the same time and the person with the most hits wins.
If more than half of your dice come up as 1 you have a glitch. If you also do not score any hit you have a critical glitch. That means something bad or very bad happens with the details being left to the GM.

Something 5E introduced are limits. What they do is they limit the maximum number of hits you can get. So even when you have a huge dice pool, having a low limit means you are not really good. Limits are either set by the attribute (to increase its value as compared to skill as in 4E attributes were often dump stats) and in some cases your gear.

Shadowrun does have several subsystems like Magic, Rigging (and vehicles in general) and decking. 5E did unify those subsystems somewhat compare to previous editions, still if you want to play a hacker you have to learn extra rules for it.
The default way of playing is being a Shadowrunner, a deniable asset hired by corporations (and other clients) to hurt their enemies, although the book does give suggestions of alternate campaigns like Journalists although not with much examples or advice.

A typical "run" which will most of the time cover multiple sessions has several steps
- Getting the job. This involves meeting the employer, traditionally called Mr. Johnson and negotiating the compensation.
- Legwork. Gathering information about your target and your employer to plan your net move.
- The run, executing your plans with a lot of sneaking or shooting depending on your preference.
- Getaway and delivery. Escaping and collecting your reward while preferably not walking into a trap.

Usually your PCs have a lot of downtime as natural healing requires time and magical healing is not as powerful as in D&D and only a one time deal for a set of injuries. This time can be used to buy new equipment, train (especially doing initiation for mages to increase their magic etc.) or install cyberware, all of which is time consuming. Being a criminal also proves to be quite a hindrance in the year 2075. So there is a lot to do even when you do not follow the usual steps of a run.

 

[darjr]

I love this thread. Please continue about the shadow societies!

 

[Derren]

I love this thread. Please continue about the shadow societies!

As you command, so
Get out the tinfoil hats
(preferably with magical runes attached)

As you might gather from the title, a lot of secret societies, at least the ones who really want to take over the world instead of just talk about it, have turned to magic. There are of course non magical organizations, too, but many of them resort to terrorism instead of schemes.

Lets begin with a classic.
Illuminates of the New Dawn
Despite the prestigious name the IotND are not really a secret society as they operate openly (yes, you can find them in the phone register under that name) and influence politics to further magical research and acceptance (= supremacy). Behind the scenes they think magic is the solution of all problems and have quite a low opinion of non mages. Internally they are very fond of magical duels, sometimes with lethal consequences.

The Black Lodge
Another magical secret society, but this one is serious. They are a combination of freemasons, real illuminati, templars and other "popular" secret societies and of course bend on world domination by influencing the leaders. They have people in high places all over the world and their magic is quite advanced and powerful. It is speculated that they had magical knowledge even before the awakening. Recently they tried to assassinate Lofwyr through a magic ritual which failed (not by much) and are now on the hit list of all Great Dragons.

Ordo Maximus
A society of vampires based in Britain who pose as gentleman club. Their very long term goal is, of course, world domination for vampires but currently they are searching for ways to enhance vampires, either by using bioengineering to remove their weakness to sunlight or allow vampires to use cyberware.
It is unclear if they are connected to

Fear the Dark
A new group of Vampires which has appeared last year after the effects of vampirism and ghoulism worsened (sunlight hurts more, hunger gets worse, etc.). They announced themselves to the world through several murders and the demasking of the vampire hunter Martin De Vires as being a vampire himself. Everything else about them is still unknown, even if Fear the Dark is their real name.

Order of the Temple
The militaristic arm of the Order of St. Sylvester, the only people inside the catholic church allowed to use magic. The Order of the Temple stays in the shadow to further their goals and most members of the Order of St. Sylvester do not know of their existence.

Ex Pacis
Ex Pacis was a organization devoted to the mad AI Deus who used them to bring forth his rebirth. After that failed Ex Pacis was technically destroyed, but it is believed that many membery survived and are now spreading "dissonance" through the matrix which causes glitches or in the worst cases disrupts matrix operations entirely through unknown means. Likewise, their goal is also unknown.

That are the bigger secret societies (or rather the only ones I can think of). I am sure I missed a lot of them.
Further above I said that the line between secret society and terrorism is thin and I covered the secret societies. Which means now come

People who make things go boom for conviction instead of money

There is a lot of terrorism in Shadowrun. No matter if it is the environment, race, believe or plain, simple manic tendencies there are people who kill in the name of it.
The most famous terrorist organization is one which was completely destroyed. I am talking about Winternight who managed to destroy the last iteration of the Matrix (with some help of Ex Pacis). They were mad enough to believe in the nordic religion and wanted to start Ragnarok, but still sane enough to understand that a real Ragnarok was kinda hard to do, so they settled for a digital one. Still, they had an arsenal of nukes which they used.

TerraFist!
Obviously a group of eco terrorists they fought alongside Sirrurg against Aztlan and were, like Sirrurg were beaten back. But by now they have recovered and are already searching for a new cause to support. Probably far away from the American continent, though.

Humanis Policlub/Alamos 2000
The largest and most well known "Humans only" group in North America. The Humanis Policlub is the official political front while Alamos 2000 does the dirty work. They were created when several white power groups banded together to combat the "freaks". They are responsible for many violent and spectacular attacks on Metahumans, even on a large scale and are still enjoying a lot of support from people in high places. Kenneth Brackhaven (soon to be ex) Major of Seattle has close ties to them.
There are similar groups all over the world, the German one for example being called Nationale Aktion.

The Jesters Army
A rather new organization created by Harlequin to combat Ghostwalker. Harlequin left the army by now, but they are continuing without him. Their goals are unclear, but considering Harlequins state of mind when creating them it can't be good. Members include the former Ex Pacis member Puck and most likely also a powerful and rage filled free spirit created by Harlequin.

Sons of Sauron
Drawing their name from Lord of the Rings, the Sons of Saurons primarily consist out of orks and trolls. The group was created as response of for the Night of Rage when a white power group set fire to several detention camps where orks were held and initiating pogroms against them in the whole country. Their favorite target is Humanis or Alamos, but they fight anyone they suspect of racism. According to rumors they fund themselves by piracy.

GreenWar
Another eco terrorist group. Their actions range from simple protests to bombings to actually moving oil spills towards inhabited areas which created the Scottish Fringe Toxic Zone.

Seraphim
Formerly a very good black ops team of the now defunct Cross Applied Technologies they escaped destruction when Ares destroyed their mother corporations and have gone underground with a thirst for revenge.

Well, thats are the major terrorist organizations. And while there are no anarchist groups (The Black Star, a major anarchy group, was destroyed to the last man in the Aztlan-Amazonian war) or communists on the list, you can be sure they are out there.
There are many more organizations in Shadowrun so here a small list of
All the others

Asamando
Not a organization, but a country mainly populated by ghouls. While it sounds silly to found a country for someone allergic to sunlight in the middle of Africa, you have to remember that prime real estate is hard to come by, especially when you want it for free. But they have a good tunnel network.
The country itself is quite civilized sporting good infrastructure and industry, at least in their capital. Their main exports are minerals and magical material, their main import are prisoners. Yes, they buy prisoners from other countries to house them in their many prisons. Have I mentioned that ghouls can only sustain themselves by eating the flesh of sentient beings? Apart from prisoners they also import ordinary corpses.
They are recognized by the Corporate Court, but not by the UN (because of the whole eating people thing). Recent events (which killed a UN fact finding team) revealed that the number of feral ghouls (ghouls who lost their mind during the transformation or through hunger) is a lot bigger (and conveniently located below the prisons) than believed. And with the ghoul infections getting worse its probably not a good country to be in.

The Atlantean Foundation
A huge magical society. Their main goal is finding Atlantis but they have expanded and now also conduct general magical research and provide all kinds of services to mages and other awakened. They also often fund expeditions to locate artifacts.
There are of course several people (and other things) in the world which were alive during the 4th age and know exactly where Atlantis is but so far no one told them.

GOD
No, no divine being but instead a matrix security group with a snazzy e-mail handle. GOD stands for Grid Overwatch Division and with the latest Matrix changes they are responsible for the security of the whole matrix. Members of GOD are drafted from the 10 megacorps and they have god like powers (pun intended) in the matrix.

The Council of Princes
Former ruling body of the elven nation Tir Tairngire until deposed a few years ago. Most of the princes were elves (and from time to time a few dragons despite the animosity between them and elves) and many of them were immortal. A rare mutations of elves which do not age (existence not known to public). Many princes are currently in hiding or on the run.

MET2000
Germany realized that having a standing army with nothing to do is quite inefficient and costly. So they privatized part of their army and made it a public mercenary company and hold about 30% of its shares. Another advantage is that the German constitution does not really allow for aggressive military actions. A private company is not bound by it, though.
The name stands for Mobile Eingreiftruppe 2000 and with 200.000 men it was the largest mercenary company on the planet with state of the art weapons in all military branches (air, land, sea) and its own intelligence service called Argus. The MET2000 took heavy losses in the Aztlan-Amazonia war when they fought on the side of Amazonia. That was mainly because of the accidental creation of a rage inducing cloud which made them and their enemies unable to stop fighting and reduced their tactical capabilities to "charge". Too bad that the other guys had bayonets.

Jackpoint
Jackpoint is a invite only matrix board for high class Shadowrunner. Until recently it was headed by FastJack but he stepped down and also suggested to relax the invitation requirement on the board to get more perspectives of what happens in the world.
All Shadowrun source books in 4E and likely also in 5E take the form of posts on Jackpoint.

The Exchange
The Exchange is a very curious organization, if you can even call it that. If you are lucky (or not, depending on your point of view) you might one day find a comlink on your doorstep which a interesting program on it. You are now member of the Exchange.
The comlink will from time to time give you jobs. The job can range from leaving a full magazine in the abandoned building down the street, giving the squatter sitting next to the local butchery a hot soycaf or going to Egypt, dig out a still undiscovered grave and open the sarcophagus at midnight under full moon. If you do what you are told you will have good luck in the future which can come in the form of a stranger giving you something to drink while you are on a stakeout or finding afull magazine when you are on a run and out of ammo. If you fail to do the job, well, strange things will still happen to you. You just won't like them as much.
The Exchange has been around a while, even before the crash 2.0 but so far nearly nothing is known about who is behind it or how they manage to predict where to leave what. An AI involvement is suspected but never proven.

Perianwyr
The typical dragon in Shadowrun is typically the Machiavelli type. Arrogant, powerful, and neck deep in conspiracies. There are a few exception though, and Perianwyr is one of the better known.
Ok, he once worked as an assassin alongside his human partner who rescued him when he awoke and was still a bit groggy, but that episode is in the past. Now he is in the music business, owning clubs and scouting for talent. And he is really good at it. And whats even more strange is that he treats his employees in a fair manner. The contracts he gives his talents are a lot better than the ones the megacorp owned labels do except for the pay. And while most Shadowrunners follow the "Never deal with a dragon" advice, they seem to have warmed up to him.
Of course he is not all flowers and sunshine as recently he went against Ghostwalker. Whats strange is that Ghostwalker, normally a big fan of revenge, do not seem to hold a grudge against him. But knows what happened between those two...

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

Perhaps you should go over common character archetypes and common runs.

 

[zero skill LPB]

Fortunately, if you're interested, they've been releasing PDFs of the old material in a steady stream for a while now. Also, the Sixth World Almanac, while far from complete, gives a fair overview of the setting's history.

Seconded. The Sixth World Almanac highlights the major events in the timeline between the ~1999 and ~2072. Quite a bit of this can also be found out in the wilds of Wiki-dom but having The Knowledge laid out all-clean-like in the Almanac assists digestion.

 

[CAFRedblade]

I'm not sure what happened to the Wiki section, but this would be great if we could throw it into one.

Edit: Ah, Wiki Pages are back up.

 

[Derren]

Perhaps you should go over common character archetypes and common runs.

Ok, lets go.

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the deadliest killer in the sprawl

Shadowrun is a classless system where you directly buy skills, attributes and even spells with Karma, the games XP equivalent (except that its much more rare than in D20, a run taking multiple sessions only resulting in about 5 Karma). That means you can build your character however you like, mixing whatever skills that please you. The only exceptions are magic and resonance which you need at the start of the game in order to raise them. Buying them later is not possible. Also they are exclusive and you can't be both a mage and a technomancer.
The only attribute you can't increase it essence which represents the upper limit of magic and resonance and goes down (and magic/resonance with it) when you install cyberware.

Still, the game has some archetypes which are specializations in one area of the game which make sense and are also thematically addressed in the setting. I won't list all archetypes from the book, just the more important ones.
Also, for most archetypes there is a technological (meaning cyberware) and a magical variant.
Because the usual size of game groups it is not uncommon, or actually the norm, to have hybrid characters instead of the very specialized archetypes presented here.

Street Samurai
The common combat character. Street Samurais are expert fighters and the name "Street Samurai" is highly recognized in the setting itself. But while the idea of Street Sams empathize the "samurai" part, meaning having a katana (in addition to your submachine guns) and following Bushido or another code of honor, street samurai has become a catch all term for most heavily cybered combat characters, even when they do not do melee at all.
The magical variant of street samurais are called Combat Adepts which do not cast spells or conjure spirits, but empower themselves. They can be as effective but are less glamorous than Streetsams, even though they also might follow a code of honor, especially when their magic requires them to.

Mage
One of the archetypes without technological counterpart, mages are awakened characters who cast spells or summon spirits. Most of the time they do both.
They exist in several different forms of magical power with different names, but the biggest difference are the traditions. The current big traditions are hermetic mages, something which might be trained in a British private school reachable via a hidden train from London and Shamans, people who dance around bonfires with funny masks.
There isn't really much of a difference between them mechanically except the way they access magic. Hermetic mages believe in learning magic the methodical way, thus resist the drain of spells with logic and summon elementals while shamans access them through their totem spirit and use willpower for drain resistance and summon spirits. Also they do get (or maybe had them from birth) some attributes associated to their totem. Bear shamans fall in rage when wounded, dog shamans are loyal and coyote shamans like to play tricks, etc. Both of them can see the astral space and even detach their mind from their bodies to travel in it.
When the magic splatbook comes out there will also be some more traditions to chose from like Voodoo with their Loas.
One thing to remember, unlike in D&D, Shadowrun mages are not required to only wear light armor and don't even have to perform arcane gestures to perform magic.

Hacker
Hackers are people who bend the rules of the Matrix, gaining access to systems, shutting of alarms, deleting files or even cause the enemies gun to malfunction. The world of Shadowrun is nearly completely wireless so hackers do not have to sit somewhere safe away at home but can join the rest of the team in their "fun". They can either hack the normal way by typing commands into (augmented reality) shells or immerse themselves into the matrix by connecting their brain directly to it. That means they are a lot faster inside it but lose control of their real bodies.
The technological hacker is called Decker, the name coming from the cyberdecks they use to hack the matrix. Cyberdecks, or Decks for short, are upgraded comlinks which have additional hardware attached to it which makes it possible to perform illegal actions in the Matrix. They are of course highly valuable and combat it the Matrix has the tendency to damage the hardware so you better be good or you end up with a expensive piece of molten plastic. The Deck defines how good the decker performs in the matrix. replacing his attributes with its rating and also limits the amount of programs he can run at once.
The magical, or rather mystical as many people don't like it to equate them with Mages, version of hackers are technomancers.
Those people are a rather new addition to Shadowrun, although a similar concept existed previously with Otaku, who can access the Matrix without any technological help at all as their brain is able to process wireless computer signals. As they do not have a deck, they use their mental attributes for actions in the matrix. Technomancers are feared by the populations and most megacorps want to dissect them to find out how they are able to interact with the Matrix directly. If you want to sell a Technomancer to a Megacorp (already dead or still twitching) call 555-Clockwork.

Rigger
Related to Deckers, Riggers do not connect their minds to the Matrix, but to vehicles and drones. Be it a fly sized microdrone or a nearly tank like van, the Rigger can "jump into" it and control it like it was his own body (his real body hopefully being safe and secured while he does that). And while he can only control one vehicle directly at any given moment, riggers usually have a small army of drones with them on autopilot which he gives general instructions before assuming direct control over one of them.
A subset, but generally not a archetype you play but instead encounter as opposition, is a Spider. Someone who does not control a vehicle with his mind but a building and all security measures in it, giving it much better response time to intrusions like automated systems.

Tank
A tank is another cybered fighter, except that he trades the style of a Street Samurai for staying- and firepower. The term "tank" is quite fitting as the usual weapon for them is the Panther Assault Cannon which was designed for light tanks.
While most archetypes can be assumed by any race, trolls are made for the tank archetype as a heavily cybered human is only slightly more effective than a troll in his natural state.

Face
By now we have a couple of maniacal killers, mystical loonies whit their head in who knows what plane of existence and socially inept basement dwellers. That makes talking to people kinda difficult which sadly is required if you want to get paid or hired in the first place. Enter the Face.
A Face forgoes combat power for persuasiveness, either achieved through cybernetical enhancments or bioware like tailored pheromones to give your after shave/perfume an extra kick or through magical means (Social Adepts). They are the people who negotiate with their clients (which makes them kind of a leader in the group) and fast-talk guards etc. They usually also have the most contacts of all the Shadowrunners, people they know and can get a favor from. A very important resource when staying in the Shadows.
Of course when the bullets start flying they are at an disadvantage as they usually lack combat cyberware or magic. There is another disadvantage of being the face as some Shadowrunner figured out a way to earn some extra money. Since then the term "pimping the face" made its round.

Breaking & Entering specialist
Ok, long term so lets just call it him a thief even though thats not his exact name. While most Shadowrunners are quite well equipped to deal with problems the explosive way, the thief specializes in gettin in and out without being seen. That includes bypassing locks, hiding and sometimes disguising as an employee. This role means that they are often operating independently from the team as you might be silent and invisible, but Gonzo the troll is not.
But no matter how good they are they can only deal with mundane surveillance systems. Without a mage to erase their astral signature and a hacker to turn off cameras and alarm systems they will be caught which is the reason they still depend on the rest of the team.


So as we now have the team of murderous psychopaths (and the face), what are the usual jobs they do?
Things we do for moneyand karma

The general theme of Shadowrun is a hidden war between the corporations with Shadowrunners as pawns. That means typical runs usually have something to do with espionage, but in the end Shadowrunners do whatever they are paid for. A movie team wants to film them doing criminal stuff for a reality show? Deal! A rich brat got grounded and pays you to get him out of his parents house and into the super hot concert (which he is much too young fr of course) and safely back undetected? Deal! The mafia wants you to posion the novacoke supplies for the Yakuza? Deal! A young girl with her Cyborg and animal Shapeshifter friends which you met in Kansas are hunted by a witch coven and... Well you get the idea.

But generally a run falls into one of the following categories, no matter if you are going up against corporations, gangs, organized crime or powerful individuals.

Smash and Grab
The most iconic Shadowrun. You are paid to go in, get something, destroy any copies and get out again. The "something" most of the time is a prototype but also might be a file or evidence. The point is that your employer want to get it and to make sure that the opposition do not have it or a copy of it any more.
Variants of this run can be to either just smash (which tend to be the most fun) or just grab, but usually both.

Wetwork
Wetwork is a bit distasteful and some runners might not do it (most have no qualms against it, though) and simply means assassination. There is someone your employer wants dead and you should ensure that he dies. Of course most of the time the individual is heavily guarded and his location might not even be known (finding him is part of the job) and sometimes your employer has special request when it comes to the circumstances of the targets demise.

Extraction
Like a Grab run, except that you are dealing with a person instead of an object. No matter if you are rescuing a hostage or help a employee in a Corp to have a career change, if he wants to or not, it is an extraction. The problem here is that your cargo is extra fragile and also has needs (those whiny idiots) so keeping it in the trunk for two weeks till you deliver the cargo is not quite possible.

Security
Pretty much the opposite of everything mentioned above. There is someone, or something, which needs to be protected from people just like you. Either for a specific amount of time or till you take out the opposition.

Smuggling
Not often the primary goal of a run (there are full time smugglers for that), but it might be part of a job as your target is somewhere else than you are. So at first you have to get yourself and your bulky, highly illegal equipment to wherever the job takes place and then bring this super-valuable thing you just stole people are willing to kill for (you likely just did) back to your employer.

 

[Derren]

So, I think I am done with my walls of text.
Looking back, they seem a bit unnecessary. Its probably too detailed for people not knowing Shadowrun and people who do, even a older edition, know all that already.

Still, are there any questions? There is still a lot left I haven't touched. An more in depth explanation of how magic works (and what is possible with it) or the same information about decking/rigging/the matrix? A small combat overview (and dealing with the nasty results), more information about the world (small details mostly like what is a SIN, what is a Stuffer Shack, how does credits/money work etc.). Or maybe a small overview of the sentient races in Shadowrun (both, playable now and NPC only till a future splatbook)?

If you do have a question, please also say if you want a more rules or setting based answer. So far I talked mostly about the story and setting but I guess people who don't have played SR are also interested in the rules.

 

[CAFRedblade]

So, I think I am done with my walls of text.
Looking back, they seem a bit unnecessary. Its probably too detailed for people not knowing Shadowrun and people who do, even a older edition, know all that already.

Still, are there any questions? There is still a lot left I haven't touched. An more in depth explanation of how magic works (and what is possible with it) or the same information about decking/rigging/the matrix? A small combat overview (and dealing with the nasty results), more information about the world (small details mostly like what is a SIN, what is a Stuffer Shack, how does credits/money work etc.). Or maybe a small overview of the sentient races in Shadowrun (both, playable now and NPC only till a future splatbook)?

If you do have a question, please also say if you want a more rules or setting based answer. So far I talked mostly about the story and setting but I guess people who don't have played SR are also interested in the rules.

Hey Derren, this has been perfect for me who just recently joined a Shadowrun group (4th ed) and we'll be starting a second gamenight for 5th ed. I'm actually pointing a few other players here since they might not have some of this info either.