GURPS Shadowrun

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

GURPS Shadowrun conversions always run into conversion problems when it comes to races, augmentations, and supernatural powers. For example, a 4e Shadowrun Troll should possess ST+10 [100], DX-1 [-20], IQ-1 [-20], HT+4 [40], Damage Resistance 5 (Tough Skin, -40%) [15], and Appearance (Ugly) [-8], meaning that the race should cost a minimum of 107 points. It gets even worse with stuff like 4e Adept Powers, since Improved Reflexes should give one level of Compartmentalized Mind [50] and Extra Attack (Multstrike, +20%) [30] per level, and a beginning character can possess three levels of Improved Reflexes. A beginning Shadowrun characters in GURPS should start at 400 CP, but they are not that extraordinary because the average citizen possesses enough augmentations to make them a 200 CP character.

I don't see the conversion problem here. What's the issue?

[AlexanderHowl]

Well, the problem comes down to the basic assumptions of balance in the setting. Races are balanced through the simple fact that augmentations and supernatural powers matter more than the massive attribute bonuses given to races. Augmentations are balanced through their essence cost, not their character point cost, and characters with supernatural abilities can only have the most basic augmentations before they start to impact their supernatural potential, so while a mage might have a datajack, very few mages are going to have a cyberarm.

When it comes to supernatural powers, things start getting even stranger. 4e Shadowrun Magic revolved around four principles: Magic Attribute, Magic Force, Magical Skills, and Magical Spells. Characters added their Magical Skill to their Magic Attribute to cast a Spell and added their Countermagic Skill to their Magic Attribute when they were protecting against a Spell. Their Magic Attribute served as an optimal cap on Magic Force of a Spell (Force equal to or lower than Magic did the equivalent of FP damage while Force above Magic did the equivalent of HP damage). In addition, mages could soak the cost of the magic by succeeding on a Drain Attribute plus Willpower roll. I would not even know how to balance Magic when converting from 4e Shadowrun to 4e GURPS, and that is the easiest conversion. Of course, you can just use the setting and ignore the specifics, but you lose the essential characteristics of Shadowrun that give it its flavor.

[mlangsdorf]

I presume it's the realization that magical or cybernetically augmented characters will reasonably top 500 CP, and the unaugmented mundanes are going to have to be Batman to play at that level - instead of the wannabe rockstar, pseudo Sam Spade, or impoverished tribesman that early Shadowrun presented as mundane archetypes.

I don't think it's an issue, but I can see how people who want to play a "street" level game of impoverished wiseguys being yanked around by people who are better and badder than are would get frustrated.

My advice to Jovus would be to pick up Action: Exploits, Action: Specialists, Thaumotology: Sorcery, and Dungeon Fantasy: Summoning. PCs start with the Basic Action Template, which is 100 CP, and 2 25 point skill packages from Specialists. After that, choose 350 CP of additional skill packages, action power-ups, racial templates, cyberware, sorcery spells, or allies from Summoning. You'll still have to come up with the racial templates and cyberware packages, but all that will give you a lot of pre-built stuff to work from, and Exploits has a lot of good advice for running a modern day/near future game of infiltration and violence.

[Jovus]

I'll be struggling to try and make characters fit into the 200 pt range starting out, and once I get seriously stuck in I will try to post templates and lenses to show it can be done.

As for racial point inflation, I can see that. But I'm not too worried; I'm perfectly comfortable with some of the templates I've seen floating about that put trolls at ~80 points. Sure, maybe they're not as 'Trollisch' as some of the trolls in Shadowrun, but at 200 points Runners will be just starting out on their careers with maybe a handful of runs under their belts. And if they want to get more beefy qua troll over time, that's fine with me.

The same goes for the other races of course, but trolls do seem to be the problem children.

Right now, however, I'm struggling with magic.

Adepts seem fairly 'easy'. I'll take Roger BW's route (and thanks to him for tekeli.li; it's an awesome resource for all kinds of things) and allow Adepts to take various advantages and innate attacks, gated both by an Adept talent and a Style. I'll work out a couple styles, including a baseline 'street adept with no particular schooling' style. I'll probably make heavy use of Imbuements, and the Chi modifier will be -20%, since not only are Qi castings susceptible to Qi disruption, but also to normal magical disruption as well. Imbuements on fists and feet also seems perfectly doable.

Mages, on the other hand, present me with a pickle. For standard 'hermetic' mages I'll probably put together 2 or 3 magic styles, using the GURPS Magic spells as they exist (with some changes) but with prereqs either absent or dependent on style. Anyone who tries to learn magic without a style defaults to some kind of petty wizardry, or contacts a Totem.

Still, there's enough stuff in Thaumotology I feel like it's worth a re-read, especially if I can do something more interesting with magic than just the standard spell system. However, at present I'm not much familiar with it, since it has been a while.

I'd also like to include Threshold magic with a threshold of 0, because I always like the idea of risk and reward in magic.

Shamanism and Totems I'm not sure how to handle exactly. Clearly a Totem is either a Patron or an Ally which gives the shaman access to some magic. (Maybe a familiar?) Also, since shamanism is at least somewhat about summoning spirits and elementals, that's another reason to read Thaumotology.

I think I would allow shamans access to material sources of magic as well, both to increase skill (foci) and, for expense, to provide specific sorts of magical energy for specific purposes. (Not a manastone, but like that old Roleplayer article.)

In both cases, I think I would require an Awakened character to purchase an appropriate Cantrips perk, based on his style(s) of magic. Fire mages would be able to light cigs with a finger or feel surprisingly warm to the touch; that sort of thing.

Essence has me a little flummoxed. I probably will introduce a new stat that starts at 12 and only goes down except in unique circumstances. Decreases would primarily be caused by bio/cybernetic enhancements (the subject of another post) and certain essence-loss thresholds would come with compulsory disadvantages that would simply lower the point total of the character. Magical ability would be based on, or capped by, essence. (Based on is an easy way to avoid stat inflation among mages.)

[trechriron]

Originally Posted by mlangsdorf

... My advice to Jovus would be to pick up Action: Exploits, Action: Specialists, Thaumotology: Sorcery, and Dungeon Fantasy: Summoning. ...

This advice is golden.

Why get stuck at 200 points? I would limit chunks of the points into areas (attributes, skills, powers, advantages). The above suggestions are awesome (just choose templates/packages/lenses). You can setup 400 point characters to be fine-tuned for the Shadowrun experience without being tweaked Munchkin demi-gods. :D

[Jovus]

I already have the Action series (at least, as of 2013 or so) which includes Exploits. Been a while, though, so I'd forgotten about it. Thanks; I'll take a look.

Originally Posted by trechriron

Why get stuck at 200 points?

Mostly because I'm comfortable with that level of ability as far as other games are concerned. I don't want new runners to be as competent as my Black Ops team.

Originally Posted by trechriron

I would limit chunks of the points into areas (attributes, skills, powers, advantages). The above suggestions are awesome (just choose templates/packages/lenses).

That's what I plan to do, both to limit power creep and because, frankly, I'm likely to be playing this with GURPS newbies anyhow, so the full weight of the options would stagger them.

It's also worth saying that I'm not married to the 200 point limit or anything. I'll go where this all takes me. If that ends up at 300 or 400 point characters, well, so be it. However, 200 points seems like a decent place to start aiming.

For what it's worth, I'm a bit hazy, but I'm looking for something that lasts roughly 12-20 sessions. At a baseline of 5 points per session, characters will gain 60 points over the course of the campaign. That should be enough for a street samurai to install a couple more pieces of cyber (if I use points for that at all), or your adept to pick up a couple more abilities, and so on.

Again, none of these point totals are set in stone or anything. But I find that it's very helpful to have these kinds of targets in mind when I start getting down to the brass tacks of design, so I don't just tinker away and never play.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

GURPS Shadowrun conversions always run into conversion problems when it comes to races, augmentations, and supernatural powers. For example, a 4e Shadowrun Troll should possess ST+10 [100], DX-1 [-20], IQ-1 [-20], HT+4 [40], Damage Resistance 5 (Tough Skin, -40%) [15], and Appearance (Ugly) [-8], meaning that the race should cost a minimum of 107 points. .

You forgot the long arms.

I am ambivalent about official sizes. Shadowrun has always used metric but with the Incompetence: Metric System Quirk. Just one of those results was that official size stats didn't match the art. You had metrically incompetent stats saying Trolls were 2.5 meters tall and weighed 120 kilos.

If you went by the best source that was the "PC races in boxer shorts" pictures in 1e which were all to scale and would have Trolls be between 7 and 8 feet tall and heavily built at perhaps 400 to 500 lbs. So if Andre the Giant had made it to Goblinization Day he'd have gone Troll with just some skin problems. :)

Note that metric incompetence extends to some equipment weights as well. Using late HT and a little early UT instead of translated SR would be a good idea.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by trechriron

Why get stuck at 200 points? I would limit chunks of the points into areas (attributes, skills, powers, advantages).

Doing it in "buckets" even lets you set up ye olde SR A-E point allocation schemes.

A being 100 points, B being say 75, C being 50, D being 25, E being 0... with Quirks and Disads to spread around...

Let thm set the points to Racial Package, Stats, Skills, Money, and Magic as in SR and any 'left over' points going wherever they want (if they set b to race but don't need say 60 points to be an Orc they could put those other 15 into whatever they want)...

[AlexanderHowl]

I really think that a GURPS Shadowrun games needs to run at 400 CP. Oh, when you are designing full mages, you should remember that every full mage possesses Astral Sight and Astral Projection from the beginning (and they can move at around 1000 mph * their Magic Attribute while in the Astral Plane). Their Astral forms are capable of manifesting without any effort, using magic on the physical plane without penalty, and are even capable of summoning spirits while projecting. Oh, let us not forget summoning, where any full mage is capable of summoning spirits that are immune to normal weapons (a Force 5 spirit can shrug off 50-caliber rounds without difficulty) and have a wide variety of effective powers.

[mlangsdorf]

Originally Posted by Jovus

Mages, on the other hand, present me with a pickle. For standard 'hermetic' mages I'll probably put together 2 or 3 magic styles

I'd just use Sorcery (which is Magic as Powers) because it's better balanced against the rest of the system, and because most sorcerers only know a very limited number of spells, which feels more like Shadowrun to me.

Also, since shamanism is at least somewhat about summoning spirits and elementals

Hermetics can summon spirits too, though not as well. Or at least, with a different set of limitations. But there's a reason I suggested Summoners, and that was because it includes a bunch of pre-made elemental allies. You may want to pick up DF Allies, which covers familiars and other summoned allies.

Essence has me a little flummoxed. I probably will introduce a new stat that starts at 12 and only goes down except in unique circumstances.

If you require people to pay CP for cyberware, then ware is already balanced against other options by the CP cost and you don't need Essence to control the street samurai. And then you could cap the total that people could spend on magical abilities and cyberware, and the metal/magic divide just falls into place.

So, something like this:
200 CP characters
100 point Basic Action Template
2x 25 point skill packages
Up to 2 more 25 point skill packages or up to 50 CP spent between cyberware and magic.

In play, you can spend an unlimited amount of CP on magic, or an unlimited amount of CP on cyberware, but if you have both, you can't spend more on magic than (80 - points spent on cyberware).

But it's your game; do what you want.