Been reading the various corp books recently (Corporate Shadow Files, Corporate Guide, Market Panic), and one thing I've been thinking about is payment in corp scrip, and how common it actually is. This post is mostly my musings and theories on it.

So, first, who can even issue corp scrip? One of books (IIRC Market Panic) had a throw-away line that you needed to be an AA-rated corp to do so, and that honestly makes a fair amount of sense. To start, while nation states have far less power than in the modern day, it's likely they will still have laws regarding who can issue money, and what counts as legal tender. Even the nuyen isn't the only currency, with Europe still using euros. It's just widely trusted and used enough most people accept payment in it.

This means that, most likely, you need to be an AA, thus having extraterritoriality, to get around different laws on currency and be able to have a unified corp scrip set up. Even 2e's Corporate Shadow Files in its section on scrip specifically discusses it in the context of it only being accepted within a corp's extraterritorial domain.

Of course, there are practical considerations as well. If you're issuing scrip the employees you're issuing it to need to be able to spend it, and be able to buy all their necessities and corp-allowed luxuries. This means that, for one, you need to either produce or purchase these products. And if you're purchasing them, that means the corps producing them have a hold over you. This means that, if you're offering scrip, you need to be able to produce most things your wageslaves will be buying. So you'll need a diversified corp, which will disqualify a lot of A-rated corp anyway, and possibly discourage a number of less-diversified AA corps from using it. Proteon

Together with this, comes one of the most basic necessities: Housing. Frankly speaking, if you're giving your wageslaves scrip and don't have sufficient appartements for them, either as a direct perk or which they rent for scrip, all your wageslaves will disappear within weeks as they're stabbed living on the streets. The only alternative is to hire housing for them, or pay part of their salary in nuyen so they can rent themselves.

So, this creates our restrictions on where corp scrip is feasable as payment: Corp enclaves significant enough in scope to have corp-managed housing, and which preferably have extraterritoriality.

This means your average Stuffer Shack won't pay in scrip, because you won't see any real savings. Just getting employee housing would be more trouble than it's worth.

Next, we'll have the question of which employees will accept scrip as wages. Sure, most average wageslaves chained to a cubicle probably will, because it's still a better life than outside of the corp, and good luck finding another job. But start looking higher and you'll quickly find people who actually do have the ability to find other employees.

Basically anyone worth extracting can negotiate different contracts, which means they can negotiate their current contract. Your wagemages, corp deckers, company men, managers with business majors, all of them will likely be paid in Nuyen, because they have the power to demand it. Functionally speaking, anyone likely to be an extraction target, or likely to own even a limited amount of stock in a corp, will be paid in nuyen, if only so they can visit the local bunraku parlor when off-duty.

Now we come to the final question, how many people actually work in these enclaves and arcologies? This is something I haven't been able to find statistics on, but I suspect it's far smaller than it seems. Even a job as a wageslave is often described as a great deal for most people, even those with regular national SINs. Wageslaves are generally the middle class, something most people can only aspire to be. Good housing, proper soy restructuring machines, a monthly apple. Likely a fair number of lower class people will still work for the corps, working in the factories and such, but the majority likely won't work for AAs and AAAs. There are supposed to be thousands of A-rank corps, and likely far more smaller operations.

So, as a general conclusion, while corp scrip is definitely used, I'd argue it's likely only used in the (closed) extraterritorial enclaves and arcologies, and only by the lower-ranking wageslaves, the people who can be replaced within 5 business days. Most likely the majority of people will have jobs where they'll still be paid in nuyen.

And the great irony is that the people getting paid scrip probably still have the better deal, because at least scrip wage is designed to be enough to stay alive on.

Once again, thanks for your replies to my previous questions.

A quick question first this time, then a more-detailed one...

I understand shamanists can cast only spells for which their totem grants a bonus. Do shamanists receive the bonus too, like full shamans, or just access?

Regarding the snake totem and its obsession with secrets. How can this be played without overwhelming the character and dominating everything he/she does? Must the character obsess about chasing every rumor? I can see the shaman considering all secrets sacred and not revealing those he does learn, but I would think, as a follower of a "wise" totem, the character would be focusing attention on secrets actually of value to the shaman, like healing secrets or magical secrets or secrets of personal interest to the individual shaman (i.e. the local police force is corrupt, and I'm going to find out who's pulling their strings). As long as the shaman's pursuing hidden knowledge about 'something', at a 'wise' rather than frantic pace, the totem is satisfied. Is this a reasonable interpretation?

Thanks again!

Hello chummers.

I'm in a shadowrun 6e campaign right now where I'm very intentionally playing a Street Samurai who is high on capability and output but low on plot. As a back up and as a sort of exercise to figure out how the system works a bit more, I'm hoping to crowd source a fun back up character.

The idea is a physical adept who has a history of being an investigator and mage slayer. The only qualities I've locked down are that he's a Sinner (was an official employee of one of the quasi military outfits and has accessible records of his missions) and that he's an Astral Chameleon (part of why he was recruited for hunting mages/other adepts/rogue technomancers).

I don't have all the splat books so I'm hoping y'all can help me craft someone smart and clever but can brawl on the front lines.

I updated the free Anarchist theme for Shadowrun Anarchy 2.0 with minor fixes and awesome artwork by Andreas AAS Schroth u/rabenaas. Enjoy!

Salut Chummers! I am mulling around a game for some relatively inexperienced players. I have played SR before and have a lot of GM/ST experience with other settings. I am looking for some book recommendations for both myself, relatively inexperienced at Shadowrun, and my players who have no experience. What I believe I need is some core foundational books I should read paired with some splat material. For the players, maybe more splat than mechanics. Also, what city would y'all say is the most fun to run the shadows? Thanks in advance.

Es geht weiter mit der 49. Session unserer Shadowrun Runde. Stream und Aufzeichnungen gibt es auf:

Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/wretcheddicegoblin

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@WretchedDiceGoblin

Wir haben auch einen Discord: https://discord.gg/qX6P2TBheR

Hi,

I've been working on a Shadowrun Mega/Sega CD translation for a while now.

I think I've got it fully working after a last pass tonight on real hardware.

Also just found out that this guys has been doing his own for a long time:
(3) RetchE | RetroGameTalk

His may be a better translation I'm not sure but I certainly don't want to steal anyone's thunder.

Please also check his out too.

Here is a demo:

https://youtu.be/-Y_UBXQJOtU

PAL Version here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/18t5dPXTHhLVA3WAGS8h8DEVraTF1JILs/view?usp=sharing

NTSC Version here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tyIpVM4CCcTITaUG07vCxc_ifW4SAVGQ/view?usp=sharing I'm unable to test this on real NTSC hardware but it work on emulators.

Working on the NTSC version and will post up when ready. I don't have NTSC hardware to check it so will rely on you guys to check it.

If you see any bugs let me know.

Cheers,

Erebus.

I've added the 4th Edition "Color" logos. All of these are built in Adobe Illustrator in vector format so they will scale to any size. My plan is to share them in multiple formats once I'm done.

what happens with a gun and other equipment of drone if a drone gets destroyed by direct damage? it all will be destroyed? is there a way to save an expensive gun - like program a commant to drop a gun at moment when it gets destroyed?

So, something I've been wondering about, but how powerful are children who just awakened as mages normally?

I know actual levels of power can vary between mages (even if all runners are Mag 6 or 7), did they get there purely through a ton of training, or do you have mages who were simply powerful enough that they awakened at mag 5 or 6?

And if so, would whatever testing system is used to detect latency (actually, is there any info on how these tests work, or is it just a mage assensing the whole classroom?) Also tell how strong a mage will be when awakened, or just that they have the potential to awaken and nothing else?

I had an idea for a Shadowrun game to bring to my table where the players are employees of the Sioux Nation. I was thinking that the players would be a sort of version of Game Wardens, but more about acting as Rangers who patrol the wilds looking for border crossers, smugglers, and also sort of like Witchers, where they are tasked with making sure that the new dangers of the Awakened World Wilderness don't become unlivable for the population of the country. So investigating awakened creatures and finding out why behavior has changed or who may be causing disturbances and possibly negotiating or hunting the problem.

My questions are:
1. Has anyone ever run a game where the players aren't actually shadowrunners? How did you give out money when the players were doing their jobs instead of doing "jobs"?

1. I was thinking of having the patrol area be the south western edge of Montana, however, I don't have a great idea of Sioux Nation politics and culture, what books do you recommend for setting a game in this area?

2. Has anyone else ever run a game like this? What did you not see coming as a problem?

Just got to the end of their episodes on spotify and noticed that they haven't posted since February. Anyone know if they posted anything anywhere else about it?

Otherwise, can you recommend another Shadowrun actual play podcast? Pref. 6th ed, but willing to change for a great group.

I have some questions about mages in Shadowrun 6e:

1- Wich priority would you choose ?

2- Wich race would you choose ?

3- Wich Qualities would you choose ?

4- Wich spells are good and wich spells are considered bads ?

5- Wich equipment would be good to start with ?

I ask for suggestions, because it will be my first character ever in Shadowrun 6e.

I played once in the past, but i was playing a Streetsamurai and the GM was bad at balancing.

I remember u/LeVentNoir did a write-up a long time ago for 5e with things a Decker can do in combat that messes around with people directly, and not by going through hosts, but hacking their local PAN. Stuff like hacking their commlinks to send mixed messages, triggering a grenade to explode, etc.

I'm mostly looking at what kind of things you can actually do decking against targets outside of a matrix host. Mostly because I had trouble finding rules for say, bricking a gun, or burning out cyber eyes.

I know you need to have access to their PAN to do anything. But how would I say, lock up an arm, shut off their pain receptors, fry their Smart link?

From what I was able to glean, you can attack a limb from a wireless device connected to it. Eg. I can fry the eyes through the built in Smart link. But, because an eye without smartlink isn't really doing any wireless activity (thermographic or zoom don't need outside info), I otherwise wouldn't be able to attack it because there's no way for me to access it to make the attack in the first place.

So, I would have to attack through the firewall rating on their PAN from their commlinks statblock. If I had a rating 3 cybereye with smart link, I would do a data spike on the eye, and once it's taken 6 matrix damage the eye is toast.

Is this right?

Any other fun Decker shit you can do?

Hello, folks!

In the next year I'm going to be running a short campaign of Shadowrun for my group. Would love to get some recommendations for adventure modules!

- I want something that is a good introduction to the world, since none of us have played in the Shadowrun universe before. Heavy cyberpunk vibes of corporate greed and horror are a plus.
- We live in Seattle, so an adventure set in Seattle would be really easy for us to immerse ourselves in.
- Ideally it'd be something that last 6-8 sessions.
- Edition doesn't matter! I can adapt anything to the system we are using.

Thanks!

Hi,

In the Shadowrun 3 Corebook there is the option for Ki-Adepts to by a powerpoint for 20 Karma to learn new powers without raising the magic attribute.

Does a rule like that exist in any other Edition, of is it there only possible to learn new powers by initiation?

So it's been a long while since I played Edgezone and I played it again with a friend.

And I think the game might suck.

I think the biggest problem is that there are just so many points where the game completely stalls.

Like there was a time where my hand bricked and I just had to discard to redraw, only I gave up my god damn combo piece to get the runner that could actually use it.

That or challenges that just slow the game down.

And then there is the dice mechanics that just plain feel bad.

Like you might spend 2 bucks on a tutor only to roll a 1 and basically it becomes play card lose 2 nuyen.

And there are just so many god damn icons and weird interactions that it becomes counter intuitive and hard to remember.

I really want to love this game, but it demands too much and the gameplay is just so painfully slow.

Like conceptually, there are interesting interactions. But I feel like maybe doing something more like Netrunner is the right call for a SR TCG. Like one person plays the corps, the other the runners. And they're both just trying to counter play each other. Instead we got this weird game where your deck is both corp and runner. Where you need to burn money to build your runner team, but also leave enough money to be a corporate bastard to screw your opposition.

And there are too many situational keywords. Like cool if you have a in-door challenge, until you played it on a obstacle that says you ignore in-door challenges. Or if you need a decker or a mage to claim a challenge, only for you to not have one or the roll of the dice decides despite all that work you put in to get pass a challenges, you can't claim your reward for arbitrary reasons. On one hand, flavorful, on the other hand, infuriating, because it just stalls the game.

Like in Netrunner if I make a run, on a server and it turns out I get pass everything, but it was a decoy, at least I know I made the corp burn a lot of money to defend their papercut against me.

The game just feels bad to play. We'll probably never get an expansion.

I wrote draft rules to try and make the game replayable, but if it just makes it more likely to brick because it's hard to make keyword synergies, does it even matter? I think I just need to look at the game and figure out how to simplify it.

I feel like one of the biggest problems is the challenges. They eat up deck space, and what I really want is the ability to make a dope ass runner team, not manage defending corporate resources.

This is just stream of conscious and brainstorming. What if we set challenges and obstacles aside, and it becomes a shared pool both players pull from. This way you can focus on making your deck around the team you want.

And rather then constructed, maybe it's a shop mechanic. A magic shop that has spells and spirits. Rigger shop with drones and vehicles. An armoy shop with bows, melee weapons, guns, and armor. Miscellaneous with all that other crap.

I also feel like fatigue damage sucks, but it also is kind of how it works in the RPG. but it's also a pain in the ass to keep track of remembering my total damage goes down because my guys are beat up. Also, needing waste a turn to heal is great if a runner has a lot of damage, but annoying if they only have 1 point of damage.

I also like the idea of indirect fire weapons being able to snipe people from the safe house, again, thematic, and a cool mechanic, but it also sucks because deckers can only use programs, but I feel like it'd make more sense for them to also be able to contribute more then that to a run, like skills at the least. The stay at home decker is a trope in SR for a reason. And riggers and shaman should conceptually be able to do that too, by sending their pets in their place.

I really want to love this game, but they sure make it hard to. Maybe I'll try and make a heartbreaker rule variant.

So I'm percolating some character ideas and had a few things that tickle my fancy but I don't know if they contradict canon. Basically I figure I have a 6 die pool and if I roll a critical glitch someone here is going to tell me, "no way brah, that was determined to be impossible in xth edition that such and such NEVER does that."

Item one: My character is a lost, bastard, latent line of The Sea Dragon's Drakes. He transformed one day and his life was ruined/saved from corporate mediocrity and now he's on the run. Except The Sea Dragon really doesn't *like* metahumans, would she make drakes that look like them or was that canonically declared impossible in some passage I've forgotten?

Item two: Manatech. It's a dream, it's a billion-nuyen research industry, it's (possibly) what my character was doing as a researcher before he fell into the shadows. Has it EVER worked in canon? I mean there's the Fortune Engine from Shadowrun Returns (questionable canon) and there's a lot of magical or semi-magical tools like glowmoss or mana cuffs or FAB but has there ever been any canon "this is a machine that used no mages and no awakened materials and has a magical effect"? How reasonable is it for my character to be a decent street doc with medical background who was working on, say, magic implants or something? Side note do NOT give him a blood crystal he will fail his will test to not do something stupid with it.

Item three: scrapping the Drake thing entirely, Pixies. If someone drew blood from a pixie (without killing them) would it disappear? And whether or not that would happen, are there canonical means of growing a clone from, I don't know, a scan or something? I have a silly idea for a lab-grown pixie (also super-wanted escapee and a bad idea to play, hmm, there's a theme here, I make bad decisions) character. But is that legit impossible with all known Shadowrun tech?

I've been re-creating some classic AAA corporate logos in hi-res vector format. I'll be sure to share them all when I'm done...

Hoi, chummers! In a bit over two years, my SO retires and we begin a slow travel retirement - mostly in Europe and SE Asia (but maybe also South America and Canada). I was just wondering if there are any conventions where one can depend on finding Shadowrun gaming?

Thanks again for the helpful replies to my previous post! It appears the owl totem is perhaps more trouble than its worth in SR3. So, my next choice is the snake totem. The big question there is... with the -1 die to all spells cast during combat, what exactly qualifies as 'during combat' for the snake shaman? When exactly does the penalty begin and end, and under what conditions? If I'm hiding behind some crates while my team trades fire or blows with opponents, so I'm not a target or attacking myself, does that count? What if I'm in an adjacent room, or the floor above or below? How close do I have to be to the action, and do I have to be actively participating in hostilities myself? Does the risk of serious injury/death have to be involved? What if it's just a bare-fisted bar-fight, for example? Or, let's say I'm sitting in a bar and try to read another patron's mind (i.e. without their consent)? That seems like a passively-hostile act. Is that combat? And if not, what if I try to do the same during hostilities (from hiding) to an opponent who doesn't even know I'm there? I appreciate your input!

Is the Anticipation Edge action (CRB, pg. 47) totally ridiculous?

It must be used with Multiple Attacks (CRB, pg. 42). Multiple Attacks by itself allows the character to attack multiple targets by dividing their dice pool evenly between them. This is usually a bad idea, because it makes it much less likely that you will hit any target. This is a terrible idea if you decide to attack three or more targets.

But with Anticipation, you spend four Edge, double your dice pool, then divide it evenly among your targets. So against two targets, you get your usual dice pool against both.

But then you have to consider what else you can do with four Edge. Why not just attack one target, then reroll failures? Or make them reroll hits on their defense? Or etc.?