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Shadowrun

World of Darkness

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[NullForceOmega]

Well, even with variations for style, generally running Shadowrun would count as college-thesis level prep.  As compared to a few hours for most dungeons to a week or so for a very complex political arc in D&D.  Still slightly less overhead than RIFTS, unless you're like me and throw out most of the rules and rebuild it into something sane, can't do that with Shadowrun.

[Dorsidwarf]

Shadow run fascinates me, but I don't have any of the rules.

[Harry Baldman]

I tried making a character and I ended up making a drug addict Technomancer who carries a pair of... Either machine pistols or some sort of light SMG that he dual wielded with a shotgun that he hardly used, and he always hoped to god he hit something. He was hooked on BTLs (ironically), lives in a little better than dingy apartment, and his safehouse was a cellar on his ex's property. Guy had some decent stats, but other than his gear, most of his money was devoted to buying BTLs (I literally got the minimum for things I needed and bought as many BTLs as I could. Needless to say, I bought a lot), since he was REALLY hooked on them. He also pissed off a few dealers because he's USUALLY broke, so he had a few enemies right off the bat...

Never got to use him and I'm pretty sure I lost the sheet

Ah, reminds me of my only Shadowrun game (5th edition if I recall correctly). Played a street samurai with augmented muscles, a combat axe and a lot of edge, ran him like a more stoned version of the Biker from Hotline Miami (with even better results). Those were good times.

Shadowrun is really fun. I'd certainly love to play again if someone runs a game in a good timeslot.

[highmax28]

I tried making a character and I ended up making a drug addict Technomancer who carries a pair of... Either machine pistols or some sort of light SMG that he dual wielded with a shotgun that he hardly used, and he always hoped to god he hit something. He was hooked on BTLs (ironically), lives in a little better than dingy apartment, and his safehouse was a cellar on his ex's property. Guy had some decent stats, but other than his gear, most of his money was devoted to buying BTLs (I literally got the minimum for things I needed and bought as many BTLs as I could. Needless to say, I bought a lot), since he was REALLY hooked on them. He also pissed off a few dealers because he's USUALLY broke, so he had a few enemies right off the bat...

Never got to use him and I'm pretty sure I lost the sheet

Ah, reminds me of my only Shadowrun game (5th edition if I recall correctly). Played a street samurai with augmented muscles, a combat axe and a lot of edge, ran him like a more stoned version of the Biker from Hotline Miami (with even better results). Those were good times.

Shadowrun is really fun. I'd certainly love to play again if someone runs a game in a good timeslot.

It's pretty impressive if you were a more stoned version of biker. He's already on acid or something in the first with the funky colors and he's plastered in the second game when you meet him

[Rolan7]

Vampire Game

We as players had a good time.
We were worried about one of our characters maybe, at least I was.
But it turns out that character ate Juan, the elder Gangrel holding us hostage.
ate his HEART and SOUL as only a vampire can do, and only to another vampire

so yeah our coterie is okay
My character and our ventrue stayed somewhere else for about a week.  She was in torpor, my character was desperately studying under his mentor, hoping to avoid the slide into monstrosity.

But then we found out that everything was fine.  Juan was dead.  Kayla did it.  She smiled her way through the ensuing interrogation, successfully

Jake knows what she is but couldn't give less of a shit.  The Camarilla, the Prince, they're shit.  He's far more scared of the nosferatu.

Belial's Brood still demands a certain favor, and Kayla is on their side...  It's impossible, but she welcomed us back to our haven.  She is okay with us as tools.
This is friendship for vampires.

Jake made an INTSEC mistake and we had to visit a nearby cellphone tower.  We fought Sanic.  He went fast.
We had fucking shotguns, but he moved really fast.

We did manage to win, in the end.  And we've all gone home as vampire-friends.
Again, that means "useful".
Except that our social vampire fell into torpor again.  And instead of letting her sleep in nightmares, Kayla (with my OOC suggestion) fed her VITAE to wake her up.

Our social vamp is now somewhat infatuated with our monster.  Nothing can go wrong.

It's only fair, really, Kayla's blood potency is far higher than Jake or Amanda's.
due to all the diablery
Which, also, the Prince looked into...  and it's okay.
Because she diablerized her sire, Juan (probably.  He's definitely dead).

Diablery leaves a mark on a vampire's soul of disgusting, pulsing veins.  Anyone with auspex can see it.  It's a lethal taboo.
But she killed her sire, who was the target of a blood hunt, and uniquely a valid target for diablery.  So she has an excuse, and nobody (except Jake) knows that she diablerized several other unkosher targets.

So yeah.  The gang's all together, Kayla is actually more in control (due to unspeakable a hornet demon), and we took down a camarilla mekhet guarding a cell phone tower.

Everything's fiiiiine.

[highmax28]

Really starting to hate this player. He's obnoxious, loud, and he tries to break the flow of the game by interrupting everyone. I yelled at him when I was trying to say something to his character and he wouldn't let me talk. Mind you, that thing was my character reacting to his character being a dumbass and sending the BBG into the abyss where the BBG WANTED to go, when he clearly saw me trying to snap his neck since the BBG sees me as a friend. I proceed to yell at him as a player and then him as a character. The DM tried to defuse the situation by saying "weeellll... he didn't know the kid wanted to go there" when the kid clearly said he was going to go there to do an experiment.

Anyway, session started out with us continuing through the zombie infested castle, and we end up having the DM pretty much try and kill off a character who's player quit, and then my character, who's not normally the hero type, decides that he's lost too many allies, and he would like to keep them alive and not have to deal with more recruitment drive missions. He ends up having one ally distract the skeletons (all 8 of them) and they enter another room. I swan dive in with a rope attached to me and my allies holding on to the rope and I proceed to grab onto the party member who's downed. Pulling me up, one of the skeletons sees me and throws his sword to try and cut the rope. He missed, to my luck, and we got the party member out. I proceed to force a healing potion down her throat and we continue on. I get a fantastically stupid idea since we now ahve a party alchemist, and I ask them to grind up some bone meal. I put them in empty bottles of healing potions and put some lantern oil in them and I made my own version of a small firebomb. We find ourselves soon dealing with a door that is about to be opened and a squad of skeletons to greet us, so I set up my new firebomb, and the skeletons pour in. I fire my fire arrow and my shot connects, and I set the skeletons on fire and burned their front line. We deal with them and I continue to be flawless.

We take a long rest and we find outselves down a trapdoor and facing the final boss. The one guy proceeds to try and befriend him (I shouldmention this is his thing as a player; he tries to deal with the bosses non-violently. So much so, he backstabbed the party and TPK the party because the mob boss put up a better argument for putting crime into the world than the party doing judgement on him for robbing and murdering people. This time, he sells out the party halfling and convinces the man the halfling is his wife. The man proceeds to do random mutterings after questioning the halfling, and then he tries to kill the bard. Meanwhile, I'm hiding under a tarp and I use minor illusion to scare him as the tarp looks to be on fire and I emerge, using disgusie self, to look like Asmodeus. Then, the man shouts in a similar voice that I used to sound like what I think Asmodeus sounds like, SPEAKS BACK TO ME SAYING THAT I AM AN IMPOSTER AND HE WILL KILL ME FOR SUCH BLASPHEMY. I freak out, and he proceeds to stab the fighter (the dumbass) out of random madness. We then proceed to fight the guy. He's got 20AC and he hits like a truck. Eventually, everyone except me is surrouding him, and I set fire to his work by launching a fire arrow at his worktable. He lowers his blades and he stands there watching. We think we broke him and snapped him out of his madness, but NOPE. Fucker LEAPS ACROSS THE ROOM AND ROUNDHOUSE KICKS ME, KNOCKING ME TO 6 HP FROM FULL (although 16hp for level 3 rogue is awful...). I panic and the party member the DM is trying to kill off drinks an unknown potion, leaps across the room too and stabs him with her rapier, and my plan to distract him turned out to anger and mutate him so his AC dropped. I disnegage on my turn after the party flanks him and I take a shot. Everyone is at low HP and I need to end this quickly.

NAT. FUCKING. 20.

I deal 20+ damage with one arrow and have my arrow go straight trough his helmet, as I say "See you in the abyss". He explodes in light and, the DM proceeds to tell us that the fire spread rather quickly and the building is catching. Right when this happens, he pulls a "rocks fall, everyone dies" but does it to kill the character he's been trying to kill this whole time. I end up getting her backpack in a hurry as we proceed to freak out and search for valuables before the place collapses. We find a suit of armor that resembled the bosses' but its damaged. We find out the fire is spreading even more, and the others start grabbing some of the valuable paintings and such as I run down to the wine room to grab as much alcohol as I can, since its 300 years old. I stuff 16 into one of my two backpacks I'm carrying and the room catches fire quickly and I crash out of the window after screaming at the party to get out of the building as I pull an action hero as the room explodes behind me. Being half human half drow, I needlessly pointed out that I was much blacker than I started out as.

We make it out of the building and we proceed to leave the wreck behind. We make our way back to town, and we find it deserted. We hear screaming and make our way towards it to find the Child of Nazaroth again (the BBG) and he's got a big ass portal behind him. I proceed to talk to him, since earlier he deemed me as a friend, as he explains how he sacrificed everyone in town to make this portal appear, and he's going in to do some experiments. I proceed to sneak up behind the child, grab him and I mention that we're both going to meet in the abyss soon and I attempt to snap his neck. Because I have a pitifully low athletics score, I end up making a fool of myself and making the kid think I'm a freak. The fighter, who is asking stupid questions (such as "is there anything of value in the abyss?" and I managed to convince him there was everything he ever dreamed of being in there, because I'm sick of his character and the player) proceeds to see this kid is the bad guy and kicks him into the abyss, with the child laughing as he falls and me screaming "NO! STOP!" but being too late. The portal closes and we have to deal with A FUCKING BONE NAGA. The bard tells us that we can run, but my rogue, Geth, has had it with running away. He may hide and strike in the shadows, but he is NOT going to run away again. I throw a flask of oil on the Naga and tell the others to light him up, and the warlock casts burning hands on the monster. The naga then paralyzes me and tries to drag me away, but the bard manages to cleave the naga apart and free me.

I proceed to start yelling at the fighter when the portal reopens and we're hanging on for our dear lives. The paladin is next to me, and the bard (Disparel) manages to get up and helps the halfing who's near him. I proceed to try and climb up and get some progress while the fighter (who's stupidly named Pringler Yugi by a stupid player) fumbles his roll. I proceed to throw a rope to him in hopes of saving him, but Geth is not strong. He starts screaming at the fighter in his fury and desperation, saying "I'd let the abyss take you, but I want to kill you myself!" and so on. Every time I make a roll to climb up, I mention that if I fail, I will let go of the rope instead of falling.

Just my luck, I fail and he drops, cursing me for letting go. Disparel gets the halfling out and I fail to hold on again, and I, with my deftness, quickly swing my crowbar from my bag out and hook myself on to the edge of the portal. We hear the child counting down from the abyss.

"SIX."

I proceed to shout at the fighter to tie the rope to himself. He does so. Disparel and the halfling help me out and I swing out of the abyss and load an arrow into the heavy crossbow I have in hopes of using it in place of bolts. The child shouts out from the abyss again.

"FIVE."

I race to the other side of the portal and use my string to lower the crossbow to him. He fumbles the roll and falls down more into the portal, still holding on for dear life and is barely able to stop himself from falling deeper in. The crossbow flings itself back up (by DM powers) with a "return to sender" note on it.

"FOUR."

The fighter shoots the arrow towards us and we catch the roep and start pulling him out.

"THREE."

We keep pulling him out. He's 20ft below the edge.

"TWO."

He's at the edge of the portal, but no one can get him up yet because he's quite heavy (and we suck at our rolls)

"ONE."

We get him up finally and we breathe a sigh of relief.

"ZERO."

The DM stops the background music for a moment. Silence. And then the portal grows in size, and we start falling in again. I fail enough that I fall back in, but I grab on to the fighter, and the halfling is grabbing on to the edge for dear life and Disparel leaps back and manages to hold us in place for a turn while he casts enhance ability (bull's strength) on the halfling.

"SIX."

The halfling pulls herself out and grabs the rope. We don't get anywhere in the portal trying to drop us into the abyss.

"FIVE."

They manage to pull the fighter up from 30ft to 5ft. I hang on for my dear life as I slip and I'm stuck on his ankle now.

"FOUR."

The fighter gets pulled out and I swing myself from his leg to the ledge. I'm hanging on for my dear life but this time, I'm not relying on a dumbass who continues to hate my character.

"THREE."

Disparel pulls me out and we book it, save for Pringler, who wants to see how big the portal can be.

"TWO, ONE, FUCK YOU, ZERO."

The portal rips open almost enough to grab him again and he keeps hanging near the edge and then the child counts from 3. Pringler continues to do that thing until the DM just gets rid of the portal, and the fighter claims he did it all himself. I proceed to try and kick him in the balls, but the DM says "NO PVP" and prevents me from doing so. I then proceed to say how much of an idiot he is and the player starts talknig about something random and I, now so fed up with him, I YELL AT HIM TO SHUT UP AND LISTEN AND NOT INTERRUPT ME WHEN I'M TRYING TO SAY SOMETHING. Said he shouldn't have kicked the kid in because that was what he wanted, and the DM tries to sjpport the fighter's decision and I get fed up, and say we should call it.

Overall, if not including that dumb shit, pretty good and entertaining. We leveled up to level 4, and instead of getting +1 to con and strength that I really needed, I decided to take sharpshooter as a feat. Considering I'm always sneaking, I'll be glad to have it and skulker later on.

[Skyrunner]

Has anyone ran/played Pokemon Tabletop United? How is it? I kinda want to do a pokemon game...

[birdy51]

I can provide insight here. I'll throw down a quick pros and cons list.

Pros
- Most, if not all Pokémon are viable and to some extent unique. Given some love, even Bidoof can shine.
- A wide variety of trainer archetypes are available to play as, mostly in the vein of Trainer Archetypes, Support/Crafter Archetypes, and Direct Combat Archetypes. If you really want to, you can throw a punch or a draw a knife on anyone. 
- Lots of different ways to run it campaign wise. It's got splat books to cover the past, present, and future. It also has support for treatment of Legendary Pokémon, be they forces of nature or gods on earth.
- There is a relative in-game balance as far as how strong certain strategies are. While imperfect, it does a good job of regulating itself outside of a few outliers. (EX. Early game Technician Meowths are monsters at doing damage.)
- As far as systems go, it's pretty open to homebrew and fakemons. If dedicated, it wouldn't take too much work to splice elements from other games and insert them into a campaign.

Cons
- Number crunchy as shit. However, if you enjoy tossing out big numbers, by all means! (Google Sheets can help out with this by the way. Certain fantastic members of the community have made it much easier to actually build a functioning sheet. I can provide an example of one if necessary.)
- Battles can take a long time if you're not used to them. For the love all things holy, be prepared to have a cheat sheet on you.
- Rules can be a bit finicky in some places until you're used to them. This contributes to the point up above.
- EXP can also a persnickety bitch as far as awarding too much or too little goes.
- Having a lot players isn't really an option. Things tend to slow down to the pace of molasses if you have more than four players, especially if you're a newer GM.

Beyond that, if you have any questions I'd be happy to answer them.

[highmax28]

I can provide insight here. I'll throw down a quick pros and cons list.

Pros
- Most, if not all Pokémon are viable and to some extent unique. Given some love, even Bidoof can shine.
- A wide variety of trainer archetypes are available to play as, mostly in the vein of Trainer Archetypes, Support/Crafter Archetypes, and Direct Combat Archetypes. If you really want to, you can throw a punch or a draw a knife on anyone. 
- Lots of different ways to run it campaign wise. It's got splat books to cover the past, present, and future. It also has support for treatment of Legendary Pokémon, be they forces of nature or gods on earth.
- There is a relative in-game balance as far as how strong certain strategies are. While imperfect, it does a good job of regulating itself outside of a few outliers. (EX. Early game Technician Meowths are monsters at doing damage.)
- As far as systems go, it's pretty open to homebrew and fakemons. If dedicated, it wouldn't take too much work to splice elements from other games and insert them into a campaign.

Cons
- Number crunchy as shit. However, if you enjoy tossing out big numbers, by all means! (Google Sheets can help out with this by the way. Certain fantastic members of the community have made it much easier to actually build a functioning sheet. I can provide an example of one if necessary.)
- Battles can take a long time if you're not used to them. For the love all things holy, be prepared to have a cheat sheet on you.
- Rules can be a bit finicky in some places until you're used to them. This contributes to the point up above.
- EXP can also a persnickety bitch as far as awarding too much or too little goes.
- Having a lot players isn't really an option. Things tend to slow down to the pace of molasses if you have more than four players, especially if you're a newer GM.

Beyond that, if you have any questions I'd be happy to answer them.

Roll20 has it on their list of things you can have on it. I have a game on there that I probably won't try and run for a long while. I got one gym leader, and two or three of his team done. Its a loooong process, but the automated stuff makes it a liiiitle easier

[Neonivek]

Ohh my tip for 5e DMs

always check on what spells your PCs are using.

For some reason people have a difficult time reading and understanding the spell sections.

[birdy51]

Ah yeah! I forgot about the R20 support. That is one sweet plus, since I know a lot of people use that.

[BlackFlyme]

DM wasn't available this session, so we played in the back-up campaign, Hell's Rebels.

Unfortunately, I'm a big dumb Strix Fighter, focusing on Natural Attacks. The others are a Lizardfolk Cleric, a Human Swashbuckler, a Human Arcanist, and an Android Unchained Rogue. So I'm kind of useless, since we seem to manage the non-confrontational approach every damn time. Mostly the suave, smooth-talking Swashbuckler being stupidly Charismatic. But also thanks to the Cleric or Arcanist having the right spells. Our Arcanist was even able to create forgeries through Linguistics to screw with House Thrune goons. And our Rogue sabotaged the public execution devices to free some poor guy who was going to be dog-housed.

There was also a plot twist I won't share that left us laughing. This campaign's DM couldn't even keep from laughing while reading from the book.

I'm just a big dumb bird whose answer to most questions is "Hello, I am birb". At least I have a pet bird/Familiar. Mauler archetype. It's a beast. One that almost died from a single hit because Familiars are squishy.

I am itching to play the main campaign, even if that DM is rather restrictive. It's not often you get to play a Mythic Gestalt campaign. Was able to add my Tier to my effective Caster Level for my Kineticist/Barbarian. Would have been a genuine god-killer in the end-game. If he was ever able to go first. Damned Ranger/Paladin. The Kensai/Bloodrager would have been bad as well. At a certain level, Kensai-Magus get to treat their initiative roll as if it were a twenty, every damn time.

[NullForceOmega]

Game has been slow lately, this weekend's session should change that, I'm almost ready to get the final ball rolling in this campaign, and its going to be hectic.

[Neonivek]

DANG IT DANG IT DANG IT!!!

Battletech finally has its "Campaign" book.

I am SO tempted to break my rule and actually run a battletech game.

But it is also probably one of the hardest games to run hands freeken down and be nearly impossible to run in a PBP format.

[highmax28]

I pulled a kratos on what I thought was my DM's attempt at a shoggoth, but it seems to just be some watcher in the water stuff. I crit a strength check when it tried to devour me while I was size large (he was gargantuan) and I tried to pry his mouth open and hold it open so my allies can kill it. Instead, I SNAP ITS JAW AND ON MY NEXT TURN, PROCEED TO DO A SECOND CRIT, KILLING THE MONSTER AND RIPPING ITS HEAD OFF AND FLINGING IT INTO A WALL, splattering eldritch blood and gore everywhere. I took an eyeball as a trophy, which is as big as my torso, and I'm a 5'11" barbarian shifter normally.

We then got to work and found this lady who we were supposed to report to, and she proceeds to use some sort of ability to make the rape-Druid paranoid of everyone but her, and the entire time, to disguise my voice, I make it sound raspy and under a helmet (which I hated). I discern that she's not an elf like she looks, because she has nothing inside her mouth; no teeth, no tongue, no no flesh, nothing. We head to the keep, since we have to get audience with the king (who we are trying to kill so his son can take over and the Order of Leon be ousted from the city) and she proceeds to interrogate us. Cliff, my barbarian, gets upset at the lack of hospitality after about a dozen questions and says that the party is hurting, smelly (we were in a sewer and I was jumping on the horror that used sewage as a second layer of skin), hungry and tired, as this was closing in on the evening and we fought an entire war in about a week and took about 5 rests during our crusade. She proceeds to try and deny she's an elf and, despite criting on her deception check, it doesn't work if you know the truth. I grab her, and due to how strong my character is, he ends up CRACKING HER FACE SOMEHOW. Our wizard casts mending, and apologized for me, and she comes out and says she's the equivalent of an android. Rape-Druid proceeds to try and seduce her and she hands him a shard of her face, which is porcelain (he's a Genasi and he has a dick that's, literally, solid stone). He just goes batty for her the rest of the time and we're invited to eat finally, and we are given the chance to eat with the king, and we do, despite stinking of sewage (the 15-16 year old NPC rogue wasn't too thrilled about going into the sewers). We find out the porcelain lady's sister, who's more of a warrior than an "entertainer" like the one we dealt with. We find out they represent the Order of Leon (whom my character hates with a passion) and I try reaaaally hard not to smash them both.

Session ended with a bath and a long rest. Thankfully, despite the rape-Druid telling everyone about our exploits against this King, we're still managing to keep a low profile. I'm expecting a bloodbath at some point where I go hulk by downing a giant strength potion, shifting, raging and my party wizard casting enlarge person on me, and just ripping everyone apart with my axe. Mostly because the consensus is the people follow their leader, and the King likes the order.

Considering last session, I soloed three low inquisitors (second or third lowest rank, but pretty much the corporals of their army) and did it hotline Miami style by booting in the door and just insta-killing one of them, they have something to fear for once. My goal for once the king is dealt with is to rout or kill any order in the area, driving them out of the region. I've already killed one of their higher ranking soldiers (a high inquisitor, which for context, is a custom paladin that is the lowest of their elite soldier units and in a 1v1 fight with a level 4 barbarian, the barb almost died in 3 turns while raging... I needed backup, but with backup, they're like a mini boss) I'm pretty sure we can send them packing.