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House Rules

Page history last edited by Bolthy 13 years, 8 months ago


Aspects, Qualities

 

As with other games I have run, I will be using Aspects as an alternative to the usual advantages and disadvantages. For those unfamiliar with them: An Aspect is a word or phrase that describes your character. It could be anything from "Beefy" to "I killed a man in Reno just to watch him die." Aspects are meant to say something about your character and provide bonuses that fit his or her style of action. Aspects can be double edged swords, benefiting you sometimes but causing you problems at others.

 

Shadowrun uses a system of positive and negative Qualities, which I will mostly be ignoring. However, some of them provide a function that does not fit with how Aspects work. In general, if a Quality fundamentally changes how you make your character or improve things through advancement then the Quality would be appropriate. If it just provides a situational or dice related benefit, then I would prefer that you use an Aspect for it.
 
For example, "Magician" is a Quality that allows you to cast spells. It's dumb to use an Aspect for that, so that's fine.
 
"Uncouth," on the other hand, would be better suited for an Aspect.
 
Players will have 10 Aspects using the normal Spirit of the Century model: Two to describe your early life, two to describe your early adult life, and then two each for three crossover events with other PCs. By default, your Aspects are limited to 10. But they can be changed over the course of play if something changes about your character. There are some circumstances, such as mages joining initiatory groups, in which I would be willing to consider additional Aspects.


Fan Mail, Edge


In many games, I use a system called "fan mail" and link it with Aspects (described above). Fan mail is basically player-to-player XP awards, but they are also the resource that fuels your Aspects. Having an Aspect negatively impact you earns you fan mail. Using an Aspect to help you costs fan mail.

 

In Shadowrun there is a mechanic in place for adding dice to situations called Edge. It is one of your attributes, right along with Strength and Charisma. It represents your character's luck. 

 
Each session you start with fan mail equal to your Edge attribute. You spend fan mail to use Edge. I might use "fan mail" and "Edge" interchangably when discussing the spending of Edge for a situation. Fan mail you haven't spent by the end of the session gets rolled over into experience points.

 

Edge functions mostly the same as described in the book, with the following changes:

 

  • When using Edge for bonus dice on a roll (including Long Shot rolls), you only receive half your Edge (rounded down) in bonus dice. 
  • If using Edge through an Aspect, then you may add your full Edge attribute. 
    • So, if you have an Edge of 3 and spend fan mail to aid in a roll, then you would get 1 bonus die. But if you have the Aspect "Dead Eye Shot at Shooting" and you are shooting a gun, then you could add 3 dice. 
  • You can only use fan mail to re-roll a dice roll if you are using an Aspect. 
  • You can spend fan mail to tweak reality a little bit. You can get away with more if there's an Aspect involved.  


Recources, Implants, Contacts

Rather than use Shadowrun's normal rules for equipment (and, by extension, cyberware) and contacts, I am going to abstract things a bit more. I have no interest in having people track money, either during character creation nor during play. I do not play roleplaying games because I love accounting. Also, the normal system for Contacts seems a little constrained and doesn't really represent the extent of options for your character's networking ability.

 

My solution is to treat these like attributes, rated on a scale of 1-6, bought and improved the same way you would other attributes, and each will have their own little quirks.

 

Resources

 

Before I get into specifics, I should say for those unfamiliar with Shadowrun that the common currency of the setting is "nuyen." There's other currencies out there, UCAS dollars, British Pounds, Euros, etc. But nuyen is a universally accepted medium.

 

During character creation, I don't care what sort of miscellaneous equipment you have so long as it isn't expensive and makes sense for your character. For particularly expensive (non-implanted) items, the rough guide I'm using is 1 Build Point per 5,000 nuyen.

 

During play, a lot of the purchases you make will be handled with your Resources attribute. The ranks in Resources correspond to the lifestyles levels:

 

1 - Street: 0 nuyen

2 - Squatter: 5/100 nuyen

3 - Low: 50/1,000 nuyen

4 - Middle: 250/5,000 nuyen

5 - High: 500/10,000

6 - Luxury: 5,000/100,000

 

After each description above, I put two numbers. The first is how much you can afford to pay out of pocket, within reason, without any effort. This is above and beyond the basics of cost of living. (For a sense of what your character owns with that Resources level, consult the lifestyle descriptions in the Shadowrun book.) Up to the second number, you can probably afford a purchase if you succeed at a Resources roll. You can make a number of said rolls per month equal to your rank in the attribute. Difficulty will vary depending on cost of the item and availability. If you do side jobs or borrow money from people, that will also add additional rolls.

 

If you want to afford something up to the next tier of resources, you can "burn" a rank of Resources. This will lower your attribute down until you can buy it back up.

 

If you have something that affects lifestyle expenses (implants, unusual dietary restrictions, no need to eat or sleep) then that will modify the cost to improve the attribute. So if you are a ghoul and your lifestyle expenses are increased by 10%, then it will cost you 10% more experience to improve this.

 

I will also allow some items to be bought with XP. There's a nebulous territory of what falls under, "reasonable expense" versus "spending points." And there are a lot of weird situations that don't fit well through this. I will handle these on a case-by-case basis. In broad terms, something you spend points on will be considered more of a part of your character than something you just picked up at the local retailer. Your commuter car that you get with your lifestyle is not as significant as your custom Eurocar Westwind that you use as a get-away car.

 

Because of the setup of the game, I'm going to further house rule this house rule. (Yeah, I'm a pain.) Players are assumed to obtain a salary provided by the Motley Institute. By default, this starts at 4. If you have something that would increase lifestyle expenses, that will reduce it to 3 and if you have something that reduces expenses that raises it to 5. You can otherwise modify the attribute per normal.

 

Commlinks

 

By default, your commlinks have ratings and basic software equal to your Resources attribute. You may buy up individual ratings for the commlink for the same cost as improving an active skill. Software costs half as much to improve. Hacking software must be bought up from 0.

 

Implants

 

There will be two attributes governing implants: Cyberware and Bioware. Each implant has an Essence cost. Each rank in either Cyberware or Bioware provides one point's worth of Essence of the relevant implants. Cyberware also covers any nanoware, Bioware also covers any gene tech. Ranks in Bioware cost twice as much as ranks in Cyberware, but the implants it covers have reduced Essence costs compared to cyberware.

 

If your character needs higher grade implants in order to have any implants, then double the cost of the attributes.

 

Each rank in either Cyberware or Bioware reduces your Essence by 1. This in turn has other effects: It reduces the maximum you can raise your Magic and Resonance attributes to (assuming you have them) and it makes it harder to cast healing spells on you.

 

Rather than use the rules for higher quality (and lower Essence-cost) implants, I will be using what I call "System Upgrades." See below.

 

Contacts

 

This represents your general pool of friends and friends-of-friends that you can turn to when you need assistance. When you want to look for a contact, you roll this attribute. Difficulty varies depending on character concept. If you are a socialite, then knowing members of street gangs is unlikely. Success means we make up a contact that you know that is relevant. Being able to talk them into helping is another matter.

 

You can tap your contacts a number of times equal to your Contracts attribute. Unlike Resources or Edge, it does not automatically refresh. The only way you gain more uses of the attribute is to do favors for your contacts. The people you tap for help are the same ones who will come knocking at your door later.

 

You can also permanently burn a point of Contacts for favors above and beyond the call of duty. Your contact will do you the favor, but will never speak to you again.

 

Using Aspects Instead of Resources or Contacts

 

One thing we've encountered when using for Aspects beyond the system they were originally meant for, there comes a fuzzy territory between what you can get through your stats and what you can get by tapping an Aspect.  What's the difference between having good Resources or Contacts compared to Aspects like "Trustifarian" or "I Know a Guy Who Knows a Guy"?

 

The key difference tends to be that the attributes are always there for you. A really useful Aspect tends to be a sinkhole for fan mail, which in turn eats away at the XP you get at the end of the session. Aspects also become something I, as the GM, can more easily use against you. Your Resources attribute will tend to remain pretty solid, whereas your trust fund might have problems with access or your Daddy Warbucks might block access to the purse strings in exchange for a favor.

 

 

System Upgrade

 

This is equivalent to magical Initiation and technomancer Submersion. It raises your maximum Cyberware+Bioware limit by one, and also gives you an additional perk. Costs for doing this will be the same as Initiation/Submersion, with similar opportunities for discounts. Some of the benefits for this will also be inspired by metamagic and echoes. If someone is interested in this route, I will flesh out this section more.

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