Shadowrun Blackjack's Corner

SHADOWRUN ACCORDING TO BLACKJACK PART 1
BLACKJACKS CORNER
PART 1: BLACKJACKS CORNER
INTRODUCTION
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Shadowrun According To Blackjack Part 1: Blackjacks

Corner is a compilation of articles written for Blackjacks
Corner, my little realm of infrequently updated advice
located in Paolo Marcuccis Shadowrun Archive. This
document contains all articles posted before August
1997, some of which I even made a lame attempt to
re-proofread. All of these writings contain only the highest quality advice, except for the half that contain no
useful information whatsoever. Since these articles
were posted over an extended period of time, dont be
surprised if they contradict each other from time to time.
My philosophies on Shadowrun change frequently,
sometimes smack dab in the middle of an article.
3 - Gamemastering 101 1/2

5 - PC Masochism
6 - The Big Picture
8 - Questions?
10 - A New Physical View
14 - More Questions?
15 - Back To Basics
17 - Variety
17 - Perception Problems
18 - Oops
19 - Tales From Shadowland
21 - Blackjacks Top Ten Web Annoyances
22 - Feeling The Run
24 - Magical Theories
26 - Bovine Bombardment
28 - Getting Hurt
30 - One Word, One Run
32 - Random Thoughts
32 - Leveling The Field
34 - Powerless
36 - Using The Toilet
37 - For The Good Of The Group
39 - After The Fight
40 - Character
44 - In The Mood
45 - The Need For Speed
48 - Riding The Runner Railroad
48 - Contact
51 - The Numbers Game
52 - People Production
53 - What It Means To Murder
In any case, enjoy.

-bh
All material written by Branson Hagerty

(bhagerty@thunder.temple.edu). Distilled on Monday
October 06, 1997. Document created using Pagemaker
6.5 and Acrobat 3.1
Blackjacks Shadowrun Page
http://www.interware.it/users/blackjack/
The Shadowrun Archive
http://www.interware.it/shadowrun/
SPECIAL THANKS
Paolo Marcucci, Tom Whitter, Drew Rader, anybody
whos ever been a PC in one of my groups, and the
literally thousands of people who have written me Email over the past 2.5 years expressing desperate anguish over things like autopistol rules. I couldnt have
done it without you.
LEGAL STUFF
Shadowrun is a Trademark of FASA Corporation. Used
without permission. Any use of this name or any other
Trademark or Copyright of any other company should
not be construed as a challenge in any way to said
Trademark or Copyright. Feel free to reproduce and
distribute this document at no profit to yourself or others and with due acknowledgement of the author.
BLACKJACKS NETBOOKS
SHADOWRUN ACCORDING TO BLACKJACK

the player's usual reaction is one of anger over the fact
that they were not told of said crowbar and, if they had
been, they would have picked it up themselves. Well,
all they had to do was ask. All the player would have
had to do was ask "Is there anything on the ground I
could use as a club?" and I would have said yes, there
is a crow bar. And even if I hadn't said yes then it would
also mean there isn't any crowbar for the NPC, either.
My primary defense when a player accuses me
of not describing a location thoroughly enough is, since
the player didn't ask me what they were looking for,
descriptions must not be that important to them. As far
as I'm concerned, if the PC didn't ask me if there are
any scalable walls then they weren't looking for any
scaleable walls. If an NPC ends up dropping on them
from a wall and the PCs did not pick them up through
any perception rolls then I'd assume the players were
not on the alert for anyone coming from that direction.
In fact, if there was a group of PCs, they should always
have one of their members checking above their heads
to see if anything's there.
Now does this mean I'm ditching part of my responsibility as a Gamemaster? Well, that depends on
what you define as the gamemaster's responsibilities.
I've usually divided gamemaster and player responsibilities into two categories, although there is a lot of
grey area:
Gamemastering 101 1/2

I had hoped to come up with an article more elaborate, or at least less digressive, for the grand opening
of Blackjack's Corner but eventually realized that a few
pages of brain leakage regarding my views on
gamemastering would be an excellent introduction to
the ideas which will appear in a more focused form in
future writings. At the very least this should get you
accustomed to my use of run on sentences.
Anyway, I've been gamemastering for a very long
time now, at least nine thousand years, and during this
time have discovered that it is impossible for me to do
everything most believe the archetypical gamemaster
is supposed to be able to do. Perhaps it is just me but
it seems that if I utilize all of the rules, describe all of
the surroundings in detail, roll for initiative for every
turn for every NPC, and follow all of the other one billion things I'm supposed to it would take decades for a
simple fight inside a Stuffer Shack to play itself out,
not to mention the fact that I would be insane before
the session was over. In order to combat this problem
I decided to quit gamemastering Shadowrun and become a D&D halfling. Just kidding! What I really did
was develop a gamemastering style which takes some
of the burden off my shoulders and places it where it
belongs: on the PC's.
An example: If a player asks if there are any scalable walls bordering an alley, I'll let them know. If they
don't, I won't. Sure I could simply state that there are
scalable walls and thus save them the time it would
take to ask the question but when you consider the
hundreds of little traits a single alley possesses you
realize there is no way the gamemaster could possibly
describe them all. What if the player asks if there are
any chunks of asphalt lying around? If I say "yes" does
that mean I should have described it before hand? Gee,
then I should also state that the license plate on that
runabout up there says "ILUVDOGZ" and that it's windows are tinted black and that somebody has installed
an Buick emblem on the hood and that this emblem
has some of its chrome chipped off. Forget it. I'll let the
runner know they're in an alley, let them know if there
is anything obviously weird about it, throw in some color
and the weather and the rest is up to them. Why should
I mention doors if they're not looking for them? Perhaps they don't even care about doors. It'd be an incredible waste of time.
Still, a problem arises when various NPCs begin
to utilize aspects of a given area which were not described to the players. If a NPC is involved in a
fist fight and they pick a crow bar up off the ground
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Player's Responsibility: Keep their character

from getting killed.
GM's Responsibility: Kill the player's character.
Now before all you players get upset and firebomb my apartment let me say that the word "kill" can
be replaced with "hurt", "take advantage of", or any
number of terms. Let's face it, the GM's job is to make
the PC's life difficult. If it wasn't we wouldn't have wonderful entities like security guards armed with machine
guns. We would have people standing at the door, eager to help the runners carry their stolen merchandise.
This is why I believe it is the player's responsibility to
be on the look out for people scaling walls. It is something they should be concerned about. Meanwhile I'm
concerned over whether or not my guy on the wall can
successfully jump them without getting his own head
blown off.
I never have any idea where anything is before
the PCs get there anyway, which I believe is a good
thing. It seems most of the published adventures and
many of the scenarios gamemasters write up
have everything placed exactly where they're

going to be during a run before the game even starts.
This doesn't work for me because I never, ever plan a
run in detail. Ninety percent of the time I'm using a half
page abstract describing the goals of the run and a few
of the important locations involved along with one or
more of my NPC lists and that's it. I can't even imagine
going so far as to draw up a map. I mean, sheesh,
what if the NPCs decided to go out for burgers and a
shootout occurred at Mr. Bun as opposed to some Z
section warehouse? I guess many GMs would keep
their NPCs in one place, probably a place designated
before hand in some multi-page description of the run's
plot. My NPCs are never that cooperative. Sometimes
I think they control the game, not me.
And while I'm on the subject, whatever subject
that may be, I must say that, aside from the PCs, the
NPCs are the most important aspect of shadowrun, or
any role-playing game for that matter. And, in my opinion, the plot is way, way, way down at the bottom of
this list. Since when does one find a plot in life? And
since when has anybody WANTED a plot in life? Life
would be terrible. I hate knowing what's going to happen. Fortunately, we hardly ever know what's going to
happen. Hell, I can hardly ever remember what has
happened and is happening, let along even begin to
consider what's coming up. In order to illustrate this
principle I've typed up an example of a random day in
my relatively mundane life. First I've written it up in
what I'll call "plot" format, structured in basically the
same way one might write up a shadowrun timetable.
Second is what really ended up happening. Bear with
me, there is a point buried here somewhere.
in less than 5
minutes.
8:45
Arrived at work late because a generator
had blown up on
my subway line, thus leaving many stations without power.
11:30
Had to restrain myself from beating the
hell out of
obnoxious computer user. Additional consultants called
in to relieve tension.
12:10 Late to teach because food truck messed
up my
cheeseburger order.
12:40 Encountered wonderful computer crash
while utilizing Avid
editing system during my class.
1:30
Computer back on line
1:32
Computer crashes
2:15
Computer back on line
2:15:48 Computer crashes
3
Send everybody home.
3-4:30
Kill time by using Avid editing system
which mysteriously
came back to life mere minutes after class
was disbanded.
4:30
Get to work
4:45 Get smashed in the face by an extremely
large woman's
extremely heavy book bag as she blindly
swings it over
her
shoulder while getting up.
4:50
Begin to hear things
5:00
Begin to see things
5:05
Feel nauseous
5:10
Write semi coherent message to boss
explaining situation,
requesting pay for the rest of the evening,
and a bunch
of other things I could never remember.
5:30
Ride subway home
5:45
Over shoot stop by several stations
6:00
Ride subway home
6:05
Get home, take aspirin
6:10
Fall unconscious
7am
Wake up
7-8
Get ready to go to work, shower, eat
breakfast, ect.
8-8:30 Ride subway to work
8:30-12 Work at computer services
12-4:30 Teach
4:30-10 Work at computer services
10-10:30 Ride subway home
10:30-12 Write
midnight Go to sleep
Ok, so that was nice and simple. If it was a
shadowrun simply replace each line with "Meet Mr.
Chan" or "Pick up weapons." Now here is what ended
up happening:
So, what was the point of all this, other than to

add another page to this article? Nothing ever goes as
planned. Therefore, if you plan anything, and stick to
this plan, you are in denial of reality. Moreover, it's simply a bad habit. I was once playing a PC (I'm sure we
all remember the day: The world spun backwards. Oh, yeah, I didn't mention I never get to
7am
Woke up. Mistakenly turned alarm off
instead of hitting
snooze button.
8
Woke up. Dressed and out the door
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be anything but the gamemaster. Well, now you know.)
In any case I was playing a PC and was trapped in a
building, I believe the gamemaster was using a published adventure, and I decided to escape by blowing
a hole through the wall and into the building beside
me. The gamemaster just froze. He had no map for
the next building and had ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA what
to do. He planned himself into a corner and had no
idea how to get out.
Well, enough babble. Stop by next week for another spattering of Shadowrun philosophy. Something
profound. Something enlightening.
Something that will make sense. See ya.
Ill probably drop my armor rating by 1 to reflect this

damage. The point is that I dont treat my PC as an
action figure; I treat him as a (meta)human.
This doesnt necessarily mean that, when my PC
is nearing an important part of a run and takes Moderate damage, Ill start blowing his limbs off. I like to
keep my PC alive as much as the next person and to
do such a thing would not only threaten his life more
than it already is but would also take him out of the
game. At such junctures Im more likely to go for a
more traditional simple wound to the chest or arm or
something like that. One thing youll never hear me
say after my PC has taken damage is a simple OK.
I allow the players in the games I GM to do the
same thing. Far too often (in other peoples games;
not mine), the GM/player dialogue during a fire fight
(i.e. the dialogue when the events themselves are described) takes on the following form:
PC Masochism
When I play Shadowrun as an actual player (which
is virtually never) I really beat up my PC. What would
normally simply be called out by the GM as light damage from a punch would probably give my PC a black
eye. After a big fist fight the first thing my PC usually
has to do is go to a dentist to get most of his teeth
replaced because I informed the GM that the moderate punch my PC just took knocked out all of his incisors. Light wounds may take off an ear lobe, or punch
a hole in my hand, or even blow off a finger. Moderate
wounds may mess up my wired reflexes, break an elbow into little pieces, or lodge itself in an uncomfortable - but nonfatal - part of my skull. I dont regularly
declare that Ive lost a leg, although if I get racked by a
serious wound, I just may. Even if my PC took a grand
total of moderate plus 1 boxes of damage during a run
he tends to emerge after its over looking like somebody who tried to challenge a panzer to a fist fight.
People tend to question me about this. Why in
the hell, they say would you do that to your own PC?
My answer is simple: I wrack up my PC because my
PC isnt a condition monitor; its a person. When real
people take a bullet a stack of boxes doesnt magically
appear on their chest and start filling up with damage.
They lose fingers, get holes in unnatural places, and
end up with various body parts strewn around the sidewalk. While PCs are sometimes comic book character-like in the way they can shrug off damage, once
they get hurt they GET HURT. Even when my PC
doesnt get hurt I still relay the fact that the PC has
been shot and that he isnt quite as well off as he was
before. If my PC takes an SMG blast to the chest and
manages to roll off the damage Ill still inform the GM
that my PC is dismayed over the fact that a few of the
pieces of his orthoskin are now lying on the
ground. The next time I take a bullet in the chest
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GM: The moderate shot hits you.

Player: Damn.
This can get pretty boring after a while. Hopefully
the GM would also at least describe where the shot hit,
which adds a bit more depth but still leaves things kind
of bland:
GM: The moderate shot hits you in your right
cyberarm.
Player: Damn.
If the GM is really on the ball he or she may throw
in even more color, but the statement still tends to leave
the player with little to say in response:
cyberarm, blowing off several plates of steel and breaking the motor controls of your hand.
Player. Double damn.
The GM could ramble on about which individual
cyber arm motors were damaged if he or she wanted
to, but the player would be left with nothing to say except for a line pertaining to the fact that, yup, he got
hit. This is why I like to allow the player to generate
some, or, in many cases, most, of the information on
exactly how his PC was hurt, as shown in the following
example:
cyberarm.
Player: My grip on my pistol spastically
tightens, shattering the weapon. I stare at the

arm for a moment, amazed at what just happened.
scales too much in either direction that things get messy,

requiring that the GM step in and make a few corrections:
By making the above statement the player not

only role-plays the fact that his PC has been shot but
also flushes out exactly how the damage affected him
(i.e. his cyberware has been damaged and is apparently shorting out.) If I was the GM I would reward the
player somehow for his creativity; probably by dropping the physical damage to light. But, in return, the
player now has to fix whatever is causing the short in
his cyberarm (and, of course, buy a new gun). Since
the damage received was minimal, I would probably
let him get away with only having the short act up occasionally and wouldnt be so mean as to insist that
the PC continue fighting with a completely useless and
spastic hand. Unless, of course, the player WANTED
to have a temporarily useless limb because they might
view it as a challenge or because, hey, they were going to replace the arm after the run anyway. One thing
the PC is NOT allowed to do is forget about the fact
that his arm is damaged. This isnt a one second deal
with the GM so you can get out of taking damage. Youre
stuck with what you do to yourself which, when you
figure what the GM might do to you had you not stepped
in, may not be such a bad thing.
These small acts of player/PC empowerment
dont necessarily have to apply only to combat situations, as shown in the following example:

cyberarm.
PC: It pings harmlessly off the steel.
GM: And ricochets up your nose.
Store Owner: Can I help you?
PC: Just need a leather jacket.
Store Owner: On the rack in the second aisle.
750 each.
PC: Cool. (To the GM: I walk over to the jacket
that says On Sale) Ill take this one that says 20 dollars.
Store Owner: Ok, but its made primarily out of
old cereal boxes.
Giving the PC power to control their environment
above and beyond normal levels of interaction not only
makes for happier players, but less stressed GMs as
well. Plus, the GM always has the option of declaring
what actually occurred before the players have a
chance to interject or, in extreme cases, ban player
from making such decisions at all if he or shes being a
jerk. Not that Im saying that all players are jerks.
Just about 95% of them are.
Store Owner: Can I help you?

PC: Just need a leather jacket.
Store Owner: On the rack in the second aisle.
750 each.
PC: Cool. (Browses) Hey, how much for this one
that says Harley Scropian on the back? Looks like
they screwed it up.
Store Owner: They sure did. You can have it for
400 if you want.
PC: Double cool.
The Big Picture

Get ready for a big run-on sentence:
Joe Runner started out doing a few odd jobs for a
gang called the Craggers until finally he hooked up
with a Johnson and an actual running group who began to do odd jobs around town for various smaller
corporations thus earning them a pretty good reputation after which they picked up a job with Renreaku
who owned one of the smaller corporations Joe ran for
and who gave his group some good overseas runs, a
few of which took place in south Africa where there
also happened to be a contingent of the Craggers gang
who also were involved in some diamond dealings with
a corp called Diat Inc. who Joe was supposed to run
against thus putting him in poor standings with the
Craggers who also happened to be involved in a diamond dealing which Joe was supposed provide security for which also had something to do with Aztech
which caused Renreaku to become somewhat pissed
at Joe but, hell, shit happens, and it would have
been more expensive to exterminate Joe than
The player decided that hed add a little color to

the game by buying himself a messed up jacket. The
thought of placing such a prop in the game probably
never would have occurred to the GM. Since the action doesnt really throw off the balance of the game, I
dont see why the GM shouldnt allow it to happen.
Ok, now for a few examples of players taking
control of a situation in the WRONG way. Remember,
the whole point of this PC/GM interaction is to create a
more colorful playing environment. It is not intended
to be used by the player solely for the purpose of personal gain. Normally, both the PC and the GM
should benefit in some way. Its when you tip the
BLACKJACKS NETBOOKS

to allow the deal to continue, which it did, after which
Joe did some bodyguard work for the may of Atlanta
who also happened to be laundering money from a
small Chinese corporation who would run the cash
through south Africa and somehow Renreaku got involved and tried to stop the laundering by crashing
Zurich Orbital, which failed, but they tried to pin it on
Joe who, in the mean time, was running guns with a
rigger in an out of Aztlan and the guns were supposed
to be used for assaults on that Amazon dragon infested
country which caused a corp in Australia to become
interested because they were exporting new spell
formuli to the Amazon basin so they called upon a
mercenary group to take out Joes operation but, by
this time, Joe was in Japan providing security for some
Fuchi big wigs who turned out to be working for another corp who had ties with the Craggers who were
supposed to take Joe out when he returned to Seattle
only Joe found out about it so he called on some Aztech
buddies to wipe out the gang, which they almost did,
except for one guy who called in support from south
Africa and tried to blow Joes chopper out of the sky
when he returned to Seattle after which Joe went to
Atlanta and used his mayoral contact to have the cops
take care of the Craggers after which he picked up
some work on a ship smuggling radioactive material, a
ship that was almost sunk by a Renreaku destroyer
until Joe flashed a secret code so the ship was allowed
to continue to some place in, I dont know, how about
Russia which didnt allow it to dock so they ended up in
England where they met up with some people who had
something to do with that old Diat diamond corporation which decided to let Joe use their secret Russian
dock if he gave them a cut, which he did, not remembering that the Diat Corp had retained their ties to the
Craggers who assaulted the ship en-masse, killing everybody aboard; including Joe.
Joe is dead because he lost track of the Big Picture. Remember Diat Inc.? Well, way back in sentence
three I mentioned the fact that he ran against the corporation. Between that incident and Joes death many,
many things occurred; probably far more than I bothered to mention. Over such a span of time and events
its pretty easy to lose track of who your friends are
and, worse yet, who your enemies are. Joe did just
that and wandered into a death trap.
Actually, above was a pretty bad example of how
ignorance of the Big Picture can kill a PC because Joe
didnt die out of ignorance; he died out of stupidity. He
forgot that he screwed over Diat and so when he waltzed
into a deal with them thinking everything was peaches
and cream he completely disregarded the fact
that hed given them the shaft.
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Normally the GM wont be so kind as to blatantly

send a PC into a situation wherein all he has to do is
remember past experiences to figure out whether the
situation is dangerous or not. In the above example
the GM may have chosen to have a corporation called
Grender Inc., a subsidiary of Diat Inc., offer a safe dock
for the freighter. Then the PC wouldnt even be able to
rely on memory to see if theyre being screwed over;
theyd have to do a little research first. In any case, the
point is that the Big Picture is an extremely important
thing to keep in mind.
Perceptions of the Big Picture exist on two levels: That of the PCs and that of the GMs. Since the
GM is the one who creates the Big Picture, he or she
has 100% knowledge of whats happening in it. The
PC, however, isnt so lucky. Even if the PC is really on
the ball, the best he could possible hope for is about a
10% cognition rating, meaning he or she is only really
confident that about 10% of the activities in the
Shadowrun world that he or she perceives, and which
apply to his or her profession, are truly accurate. Simple
facts such as location names, buddy names, corporate names, etc. generally fall into this category. For
example, we can all be fairly positive that our best
buddy Joe is named Joe or that the Renreaku Archology
is owned by Renreaku.
Unfortunately for the PC, knowing about only 10%
of the world wont keep him alive very long. This is
why the PCs need to become more knowledgeable in
other aspects of the Big Picture if they wish to survive.
Ive broken down these areas of knowledge into four
separate categories:
Research
Before a PC does anything for or with anybody,
they should make an effort to find out at least something about the individuals, corporations, etc. who are
involved. Had Joe simply looked at a copy of the Wall
Street Journal he probably could have figured out that
Grender Inc. was associated with Diat Inc. If this was
some kind of secret affiliation some heavier research
may be required, such as having a decker crack some
low level corporate databases to see where Grender
Inc. gets some its supplies. Unfortunately, such research has the potential to take up enormous amounts
of gaming time. Good GMs, however, can take care of
such probings using simple social or computer skill rolls
in place of long matrix runs or social meetings.
Reading
This method of knowledge acquisition falls

onto the shoulders of the player, not the actual PC.
Basically: Read the damn sourcebooks. While you can
normally obtain book based information through the
GM via skill rolls, knowing this knowledge right off the
bat saves enormous amounts of time. Also, in my
games at least, this is an excellent way to earn surprise and smarts karma. Often times a run has developed into a potentially complicated mess when, suddenly, a player remembers a small quote in the Seattle
Sourcebook which states that Corp A is directly associated with Corp D, thus allowing them to complete the
run without dealing with Corps B or C, both of which
own laser equipped Panzers.
saying that it should not occur out of nowhere for no

reason. A chain of events would have to be worked
into the Big Picture in a way that would make the situation believable. The runners may not be fully away
for the events which are occurring but they would at
least be able to sense that something is wrong.
Finally, the primary key to an good and fully developed Big Picture is connectivity. No shadowrun
should stand alone. They all should, in some way, have
some kind of thread running to a previous (or future)
adventure. This thread can be something as simple as
a victim of one of the PCs runs being the nephew of
the half brother of the runners Johnson to something a
little more blatant such as the runners stealing an
Aztech panzer and using it on a Renreaku assault thus
sparking a corporate war.
And, whatever you do, make it real.
Memory
Remembering past information (or, in the case
of Shadowrun, keeping good notes) will probably save
your ass more often than anything else. As a PC become more experienced and encounters more situations, NPCs, etc. the Big Picture will become more
complete.
Questions?
Well it looks like the Shadowrun Companion is
coming (or is) out. Im personally quite interested in
seeing it because it appears that they have a few entries regarding overbearing PCs, running the game
smoothly, and other domains which I have devoted
much time to contemplating, understanding, and writing about without receiving so much as a dime in compensation. Viva La Internet. All I know is that if they
even MENTION dropping a cow on somebody I will be
VERY upset. (If you didnt understand why the previous sentence was funny...tough.)
So, in an effort to stay competitive Ive decided
to devote this weeks article to answering questions
that FASA probably wouldnt touch in a million years
because nobody in a million years would think of asking them. In other words, every one of the following
illogical questions was pulled from nowhere, similar to
pulling a rabbit out of a hat, but with less fur and rabbit
droppings. The sad thing is, some of the following questions are frightening similar to actual questions Ive
received in the past. Makes you wonder how our species survived...
Inference
When the runners dont know something intuitively, cant find it in a book, and cant learn it through
research, they must start making inferences. Basically:
They gotta guess. The key to successful and accurate
inference is to find out all possible information about
the situation before making your guess. The runners
may KNOW that Corp A and B mines diamonds in a
particular town. They may also KNOW that there is
only one actual mine in this particular town. What they
DONT KNOW is whether or not these corporations
are associated with each other. But, by knowing that
there is only one mine between two corporations the
runners can make a pretty good guess that the corporations are, at least in some way, working together.
In the end, the maintenance and coherence of
the Big Picture is the responsibility of the GM. This is a
BIG responsibility and it can mean the difference between a Shadowrun world which is full, complicated,
and organized; and a world that doesnt make an ounce
of sense. The world of Shadowrun has to be
BELEIVABLE and, to a certain point, reliable. While
paranoia is an integral part of Shadowrun, it should not
be confused with nonsense. You end up with nonsense
when you have a gang that was allied with the runners
suddenly attack them simply because theyre now working for a corp who the runners ran against. Im
not saying this event couldnt occur, Im simply
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Q: How do the dice work?

A: The way dice work is you go to your local gaming store and decide what theme your dice will have.
Some people prefer normal dots, some numbers, some
colored and some not. Also available are dice with little
faces on them, dice with ugly little faces on them and
dice which would have had little faces on them
if the factory hadnt screwed them up. When

making your final purchase make sure that A: Your six
sided dice have six sides, and B: You have chosen an
extremely obscure die theme so the store owner can
place a secret call back to the die company telling them
to cease production of that particular theme so when
you find out a week later that playing a decker requires
about a thousand dice you can search around forever
and ever for dice that match your originals, which is
futile, thus forcing you to buy a completely new set.
This is how the RPG industry keeps itself in business.
When you finally acquire your dice take them
home and toss them on a flat object. If the dice do not
land on the object properly it probably means there is
no gravity at your current location. If there is no gravity
then you are probably in space. Since there is no air in
space you are probably also dead. I dont even know
how you managed to ask me this question.
Q: I have a friend who is a really good

gamemaster but is also involved with narcotics trafficking, prostitution and has recently committed acts
of arson against several nursing homes. But, again,
hes a friend and a really good GM. What should I do?
A: Remember the nonexistent ancient Egyptian
saying: A friend is as priceless as the River Nile. Of
course Egyptian currency and land values have depreciated much since then so make sure the award for
information leading to your friends arrest exceeds at
least $500. A replacement gamemaster can be found
at any local gaming supply store.
Q: I am the mother of a 9 year old boy who plays
the Shadowrun game in the basement with some
friends. Recently hes started calling everybody, including the pets, chummer. It is beginning to worry me.
Any advice?
Q: The players never seem to factor in pain which

one of their PCs is hurt. How can I make them understand that pain is as incapacitating in the game as it is
in reality?
A: When raising children it is important to recognize that they tend to attach themselves to any ideas
which give them power in their relatively mundane and
insignificant little lives. Child psychologists assure us
that this is only a phase and that parents should actually encourage this alternative world view as a method
of strengthening their childs self confidence and ability to negotiate with street whores. Help the child live
his little empowerment fantasy. When he calls you
chummer respond, with a smile, wizzer!. When he
wants to spike his hair and replace his left arm with a
large hunk of metal, drive him to the stylist and hospital. When he wants to crack off a few rounds from his
UZI (available at most U.S. inner city middle schools)
be sure the range in the back yard has sufficient backdrop. All the stress and sleepless nights and puncture
wounds will be worth it when, later in life, he has the
confidence and determination to keep the other inmates
from accosting him in the shower.
A: You pretty much answered your own question.

Since you cant really force the players to feel pain
through their PCs I find it is much more efficient to
make the PCs feel pain through the PLAYERS! Keep
a heavy wooden or, better yet, stainless steel yardstick
at close reach and, whenever a PC takes damage,
whack the player in approximately the same area the
PC was damaged. Your PC takes a punch to the
face......WHACK!
Q: My players constantly cheat when I GM. Is
there anything I can do about this?
A: I think its a good idea to go with the fight fire
with fire philosophy here and find ways to cheat at the
game yourself. I, personally, have never cheated in
my entire life but I have been informed that utilizing
computerized die rolling programs lets you get away
with murder. Be sure to add a +4 to the end of the
individual die rolling subroutine to really pump up those
die rolls, making sure to adjust any lines which activate a second die roll on a 6 to activate a second die
roll on 6 or more as well as setting up a way to quickly
switch to a program that legitimately rolls dice just in
case the players want to look at what your doing. Its
also nice to have the program generate four or five
complete rolls at a time so you can pick and choose
which one youd like to use. But, remember, Ive never
really tried cheating.....
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Q: Whats your opinion on inter-PC sex?

A: Be sure to remove any figurines or lit cigarettes from the gaming table before beginning.
Q: Not player sex, PC sex.
A: Oh. Thats OK, too. Just be sure that anybody
involved uses the proper protection because most venereal infections in the year 2058 have been given
comical names in the hopes that this would motivate
safe sex. Nobody wants to die of SwollenWinkie
V.

Q: I spend 20 hours out of each day either playing Shadowrun or looking at smut on the Internet.
People are beginning to call me a loser, as well as no
longer shaking my hand. But I like my SR and I like my
smut. What can I do to convince them that Im more
than just a fantasy obsessed smutmonger?
A: Visit a Shakespeare page at least once a day.
At least then people will think youre a well read fantasy obsessed smutmonger.
Q: I play Shadowrun, as well as other RPGs, almost all day. My wife seems to be getting annoyed and
Im pretty sure shes having an affair. How can I find
out for sure what shes thinking?
A: Hold on, Ill ask her.........
A New Physical View

When you break down spell casting you are confronted with two individual methods for delivering your
spell. The first is the mental, or mana route, and the
second is the physical route. Repeatedly, through various rulebooks, the differences or similarities between
the two spell schemes never seem rise out of a state
of muddled contradiction. This confusion is less intense
when dealing with mana spells because, right across
the board, there is evidence to say that these spells
can only be cast against living objects possessing an
aura. Things become much less clear when you start
dealing with physical spells.
The following is an rule interpretation of mine
which deals with physicals spells and auras. Essentially, Ive made an attempt to eliminate auras from
non-living objects while still creating a semi-valid way
to cast physical spells at them. Also, in some cases,
Im merely pulling stuff out of my ass. It is virtually
guaranteed that for every argument I make and back
up with data from a rulebook, you will find three other
quotes which defeat it. In turn, I can pretty much do
the same thing to anything you throw at me. So if you
plan on sending me E-mail stating: But on page 7823
of sourcebook Whatever it says that Auras DO...... it
really wont do much good. Ive simply formulated a
different opinion based on data from the book. You are
more than welcome to stick with the traditional philosophy. If, however, you have something that will debunk my whole theory, feel free to send the explanation along. Im just trying to save time.
Lets begin by dealing with a few of the conBLACKJACKS NETBOOKS
tradictory sourcebook passages which sparked my

theory in the first place:
Upon impact [the spells] energies ground out
through the aura of the target and affect either the
targets physical component (if it is a physical spell) or
spiritual component if the spell is a mana spell and the
target is living. Non-living have no spiritual component
and so cannot be effected by mana spells. (SRII, p149)
This quote states that non-living objects have no
spiritual component BUT they have an aura. Thus, by
this definition, auras are not spiritual. (We all know that
they are; I just included this quote to show how screwed
up some of these passages are.)
Inanimate objects are visible [in astral space] because of reflected light, and block the passage of magical energies and emotions, two primary components
of the astral form, or aura. Because such objects block
the flow of the aura, astral beings cannot assense
through them. These objects posses no aura or astral
form of their own, however, and so astral beings can
freely pass through the astral position corresponding
to the objects physical space. In astral space, one cannot see or assense through a wall, though it is a simple
matter to walk right through it. (SRII, p149)
I interpret the first part of this to mean that inanimate objects can block aural emissions, but not the
aura itself. Fine by me. BUT this paragraph also states
that inanimate objects posses no aura. This presents a
fundamental problem: What does the spell ground into?
The energy of combat spells is channeled directly
from astral space through the targets aura (SRII, p127)
Again, if the combat spell was physical, and the
target was a brick wall, there would be no aura to ground
into if you referenced a different passage. To add to
the confusion, we also find the following entry:
Gamemaster are referred to Spells And Astral
Space (p149). Keeping that section in mind, vehicle
have simple, limited auras that make them vulnerable
to physical combat spells. The attempt is difficult; hence
the high target number. A vehicle is considered a single,
complete entity. Its wheels and windshield, for example,
are no directly connected and may be constructed from
different materials, but they are interrelated components. Because of a vehicles astral wholeness, a
mage cannot use magic to selectively target an individual portion of the vehicle. (SRII, p109)
OK, if we went by this statement then we must
determine that inanimate objects DO have an aura.
Everybody nice and confused? Good. Now using
the above passages you have pretty much equal
grounds for deciding for or against inanimate objects
possessing auras. Here are a few reasons why
Im against it:
10

#1. As soon as you give inanimate objects an
aura you drum up a whole bunch of problems. If it has
an aura, no matter how weak, this aura would have to
appear in astral space, simply because thats where
auras are. Then you have to start asking questions like:
Does this aura impede movement in astral space?
and, If the vehicle has an aura, why dont you see a
vehicle as a spot of magical energy on the normal
plain? Granted, these questions could be answered
by simply stating that the aura is too weak to be seen
or touched in astral space, but I think thats a cheap
way out.
#2. If inanimate objects, such as vehicles, have
an aura which represents its aural wholeness, what
happens when you weld a Ford Americar to the side of
the Renraku Archology? Is the car now part of the building or is the building now part of the car? Exactly when
and how does the various parts of something enter into
aural wholeness?
#3. The aura issue also ties in closely with the
Object Resistance Table, a chart Ive despised for a
very long time because it makes a Panzer as easy to
blow up as a Dodge Scoot. The basis of the Resistance table is, basically, the further you get away from
nature and the more complex an object is, the more
difficult it is to effect it with magic. I think this theory is
swell, but I dont think it goes far enough. A lawn tractor, containing perhaps 100 various parts, is, in my
opinion, a lot less complicated and and is much closer
to nature than a fusion powered submarine containing
1,000,000 parts and a nuclear reactor. Similarly, urban
renewal would receive the same target number whether
it was used on a shack or a 40 bedroom mansion.
OK, so now you know why I hate inanimate auras. While the above reasons may give me grounds
for setting a stable no aura philosophy for inanimate
object there is one big time issue I have to deal with
before continuing: Grounding.
If I get rid of auras for inanimate objects I first
must come up with a way for the physical spell to get
out of astral space so it can beat up a physical target.
Normally spells are cast by synchronizing the aura of
the casting magician with that of the target, thus producing the necessary tosser/target/astral harmony
which allows a spell to get out of astral space. Even
manipulation spells, which travel primarily in the physical plane, have an astral component. (Although Im
still fuzzy on exactly what the magician is synchronizing with if they just toss the spell into an
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open clearing. But Ill leave that to a future article.) In

any case, if the magician casts Power Bolt on a toaster
oven, from which I have just deleted the aura, what
does the spell ground into? And furthermore, what is
the magician synchronizing with in the first place?
Finally, we come to my new view on spellcasting:
Casting mana spells and casting physical spells
work on completely different principles. Mana spells
go after auras; Physical spells go after matter. Mana
spells look for an aura; Physical spells look for matter.
Mana spells are DESIGNED to look for auras; Physical spells are DESIGNED to look for matter. When
casting a Mana spell, the magician synchronizes his
aura with that of the target; When casting a Physical
spell, the magician synchronizes his MATTER with that
of the target.
In the past Ive always used the same thought
process when casting spells, whether they were Physical or Mental. You look at the target, ponder for a moment, and toss it. Little though was ever paid to the
differences between physical and mental energies, from
the point where they originated in the magicians mind
to the point that they slammed into the target. Most of
the time I, and probably a lot of other people, found
that the only emotional difference was that mana spells
tend to cause less drain. I think this is bad.
While mana spells work off emotion, feelings,
aural alignment, and all that fuzzy spiritual crap; physical spells work off of raw power, the manipulation of
atoms, and the destruction of molecules. When a magician casting a Mana spell synchronizes with a target, they link up with its aural emotions, its place in
time and history, its esoteric being and existence and
etctera. When a magical casts a Physical spell they
are thinking of the hard core substance of the target,
its structure, physical cohesiveness, and so on. The
castor synchronizes by getting very close to the real
stuff which makes up the target; spirituality and auras
dont even enter the picture. In the same way aural, or
mental, syncronicity creates the necessary trinity between caster/astral space/and target, so does physical
concentration and alignment.
Now somebody has to be saying to themselves,
But, wait! Magic, by its very nature, is spiritual. Arent
you taking that away? I agree that magic is spiritual
by nature, but I dont think Im taking anything away. If
anything, Im elaborating on the set Shadowrun theme
that Physical magic is more difficult to execute than
Mental magic. Drain codes are higher for Physical spells
and people tend to be harder to hurt with Physical spells because, nine times out of ten, the
11

targets Body is higher than their Willpower. Magic
doesnt like reality, and by casting a Physical spell youre
forcing it to do something it would rather not be doing.
You see, when you cast a Mental (or, again, Mana)
spell, you line up the auras, ponder, shoot, let the thing
sail gracefully through and out of astral space, and
sometimes get a headache and feel tired as a result.
(OK, its deeper than that, but just humor me for now.)
On the other hand, when you cast a physical spell your
heart starts racing, your mind is taken over by images
of molecular structures as you probe into the existence of your target, and you tear off a spell which is,
by all definitions of spirituality, a freak of ethereal existence, sending the spell, whipping and snarling,
through astral space until finally it crashes back into
the real world and ravages the target on a primitive,
solid level. When its over you may find that your heart
refuses to slow down and that your nose has started
bleeding because of drain. (In fact, in the future, I may
give magicians casting Physical spells the option of
exchanging Mental damage caused by drain for a certain amount of Physical damage, thus reflecting the
physically trying nature of this type of casting.)
OK, enough philosophy. Now its time for some
rules. Essentially, not much has changed when dealing with Physical spells. Complexity of the target is still
important, only now complexity is solely based on physical structure, not the strengthening of weakening of an
aura due to this complex structure. Attacks against living beings with Body ratings is still carried out in the
same way. The bigger a living target is, the more complex their meat body is. While it may be argued that a
human with a Body rating of 1 is still far more complex
than a Ford Americar, I believe the fact that the casting magician also possesses a meat body with which
they are fairly familiar would reduce the perceived complexity to something that was manageable.
Casting a spell against a non-living object, however, such as a Citymaster, would be rendered a bit
more difficult because it is quite difficult to synchronize the casters physical being with that of a hunk of
metal. The caster can ask himself What is a Meat
Body?, and come up with a pretty good answer because theyve had one all of their life. If he asked himself, What is a Citymaster? the answer may be more
difficult to come by. Sure, they can see the vehicle,
but that doesnt do them much good. They have to
know what makes up the car, where all of these parts
are, what they do, and so on. Sycronizeing their physical being with that of the vehicle is a rather difficult
procedure, and hence may produce a fairly high
target number.
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Since my view of Physical spells doesnt count a

vehicle, or any target for that matter, as being a solid
entity (unless thats how the spell caster wishes to perceive it) the magician also has the option of casting a
spell against a single part of the vehicle, such as a
window or tire. Since its much easier for a magician to
synchronize with a plane of glass or ring of rubber, the
target number would be significantly lower than if he or
she decided to try to blow up the entire vehicle.
This ability to take on objects as a whole OR single
out their individual parts creates many new options for
Physical spell casting. Theoretically, if the magician
wanted to, they could target an entire city block with a
Powerbolt spell since they have the ability to perceive
it as a single target. Granted, it would never work, because the target number would probably be a three
digit number. But they can still TRY to synchronize their
physical being with that of the city block. Another thing
to keep in mind that the target number difference between trying to blow up a Panzer, and just trying to
blow out the windshield of the Panzer, will be large, but
it shouldnt be too large. If the magician is trying to
blow up the Panzer, odds are theyre concentrating on
disassembling its individual parts (i.e. windows, panels, engines, etc.). When they target the windshield
theyre essentially trying to disassemble the molecular
structure of the glass. Neither is an easy task, but the
window job is made a good bit easier because once
youve synchronized with one square inch of glass the
rest becomes pretty easy to comprehend.
So how do you determine the target numbers for
all this crap? For living targets, you still use the Body
attribute. For other objects, its pretty much up in the
air. I, personally, would probably use double or triple
the body rating for vehicles, adding or subtracting a
few points depending on whether or not it ran on nuclear
power or something else exotic. For simple objects,
such as bricks and glass, I may still stick with the Object Resistance Table. For buildings, I may use the
square meterage of the target. I also may adjust the
target numbers of non-living objects downward if the
magician has some other skill which helps them understand it. (A person with a Panzer B/R of 13 may
have little trouble synchronizing with something he
knows so much about.)
Now for some stuff about Area Effect and Restricted Target physical spells:
When casting a good old fashion Powerbolt, or
any other basic Physical spell, the magician has little
or nothing to assist him when it comes to synchronizing with the target. The spell was formu-
12

lated to go after physical matter, at thats it. You have
to instruct in a calculated and precise matter or it wont
work.
Area Effect spells and Restricted Target Spells
are, in a way, pre-programmed to function in a specific way. Area Effect spells are designed to work over
a large area, thus taking a bit of calculative burden off
the magician. They allow the magician to multi-task
more effectively. Instead of having to view a gigantic
target consisting of the combined complexity of everything involved, the spell allows the magician to consider everything on a more individual basis. While it is
possible under my system to cast a single Powerbolt
at a group of five people (the magician is more than
welcome to try to conceive all of the targets as a single
object) it would never work because of the intense complexity. When he uses a Powerball, however, it is like
casting five Powerbolts. Granted this is still not easy,
hence the larger drain, but it produces a smaller target
number because the spell allows him to think things
through on an individual level.
Restricted Target Spells are also pre-programmed, but instead of working on many targets, it
works on a specific brand of target (Unless it is an Area
Effect Restricted Spell, in which case it does both).
When the individual who created the spell sat down to
write the formula they put as much knowledge of the
intended target into it as they could. The Wrecker spell
formula has all kinds of crap about vehicular structure,
the way they run, how they look, and so on, built into it.
Casting it is much easier on the magician because they
dont have to think as hard as they normally would; the
spell does a lot of that for him.
As a side note, let me quickly explain how Restricted Target spells work in my game. Now, under
normal circumstances, you would probably interpret
Wreckers restricted target of Vehicles to mean that
you could only target the vehicle as a whole. This is
swell BUT, under my system, the spell would be virtually useless on anything larger than a Westwind 2000
unless you were a really good magician because of
the high target number. It would be much more efficient to gradually Powerbolt the target to pieces than
try to take it on as a whole. The same goes for Urban
Renewal. If all you could do was target an entire building, youd end up with target numbers so high that the
spell would almost always fail unless you were attacking something the size of a beach side snack-shack.
So, in order to alleviate the problem, Ive determined that Restricted Target spells are permitted to
target smaller parts of the whole. I figure the Wrecker
spell wouldnt know what glass was, but it would
know what a windshield is. The difference beBLACKJACKS NETBOOKS
tween targeting a windshield with Powerbolt and targeting it with Wrecker is that Powerbolt would shatter
the glass, whereas Wrecker would pop the windshield
out of the vehicle. Urban Renewal may not know what
a brick is, but it would know what a wall is.
The following should tie a few up a few lose ends:
One thing I know somebody is going to try is to
Powerbolt somebodys eyeball or something stupid like
that. In defiance of a few of my own arguments Im
simply giving living objects which posses Essence an
immunity from such individual attacks. Essence ties
together an object in a way that makes it an indivisible
whole. Im not even going to dwell on it.
Finally, since I got rid of the necessity for an aura
for physical spells theres also another problem I have
to deal with: Can you cast a Physical spell on somebody who is wearing a full suit of security armor? For
Mental spells the answer is easy; the aura extends outwards a few inches and is not blocked by the armor.
For Physical spells, now that seeing exactly what your
target is has become very important, Im inclined to
say no, meaning you cant hit somebody in a full suit of
heavy armor because you cant see them. But I think
we could all agree that it would suck if you couldnt
toss physical spells at hooded polyclub members. To
add more complication I just want to toss in, as I have
in past writings, the horrible effects an acidbolt would
have if it spewed corrosives all over the insides of
somebodys security armor.
Unfortunately, I dont have a really good solution
to this dilemma at the moment. For now, Ill probably
stick, for no good reason, to the normal rules which let
you Powerbolt somebody inside a full suit of security
armor even though this violates my non-existent extended aura philosophy. And should somebody firebolt
them, Ill just make them scream real loud as they burn
up.
In conclusion, I should mention that theres tons
of stuff Ive left out, such as dealing with physical manipulations and such. I primarily referenced combat
spells because these types of spells are the easiest to
deal with when discussing auras, grounding, etc. After
looking through the list of other types of physical spells,
it doesnt appear that Ive screwed with them too badly.
All Ive really done is created a different image of how
the spell goes shazam. For the most part, the die rolling remains the same.
It seems that interpreting Shadowrun is sometimes as difficult as deciphering the Bible. But thats
what makes it fun.
13
More Questions?
Once again Im neglecting my duties as a disseminator of semi-informative, yet frequently useless,
Shadowrun advice in the name of slacking off. My last
fake questions article was such a hit that Ive decided
to give it another go. Anything to avoid honest work.
Q: Theres a player in my group who smells absolutely wretched. In our last session three of my regular players became violently ill, with one falling into a
coma immediately after Jack entered the room. Is there
anything I can do about this?
A: First, it is important to determine precisely to
what degree this individual reeks, using the following
table as a guide:
Wretched: Street bums gag whenever this individual is in the area.
Very Wretched: Flies flee at his approach.
Oh God, Is it Human?: Cartoon-like smell rays
are visibly emanating from the individuals body. Raw
sewage shutters at his approach. Air freshener canisters explode when this person enters the vicinity
If the person is merely Wretched, I suggest wrapping a bug spray wrapper around a large can of Lysol
and then chasing an imaginary fly around the room
until the fly lands directly on this individuals head, at
which time you hold down the nozzle and count to onehundred. Very Wretched Individuals can usually be
made to smell more attractive by giving them a once
over with a decent sized flame thrower. Individuals possessing Non Human odors are probably just that, not
human, and I suggest that you get ahold of Scully of
the X-Files to figure out how to return the individual to
his home planet.
Q: I just got a new computer and I want to know
how to use the foot pedal.
A: Its a mouse, you idiot.
Q: Ive written a Shadowrun adventure in Swahili
using a German version of WordPerfect 1.2 and have
zipped, bin-hexed, arcd and encrypted the file. Would
you mind posting it on your page?
Q: My friends and I like to drink heavily while

playing Shadowrun. Unfortunately, after the 10th or 15th
beer, I start to have trouble GMing. Any suggestions
on how I can gamemaster more effectively while completely obliterated?
A: The important thing is to make sure the players are at least twice as smashed as you are. Start out
by offering them free karma every time they finish a
beer. You wont have to give out karma for long because soon theyll be willing to toss one back in exchange for a few rounds of light pistol ammo. Make
sure they always stay five to ten drinks ahead of you.
After your 10th drink (and their 20th) nobody will be
able to tell how badly youre GMing.
Here are a few other pointers to help you get
through the evening:
1. When rolling dice, always half the number of
successes you think you got. This is to compensate for
double vision. If you dont see any successes at all it
either means you didnt roll any or have slipped out of
your chair and fallen underneath the gaming table.
2. Throwing up on the GM should result in a drastic reduction of karma.
3. All riggers should obtain a designated driver.
4. Finally, if so desired, empty bottles may be
placed in two rows of 10, thus creating an interesting
alternative to boring paper based condition monitors.
(Finish the Coors, Bob, Ive gotta drop myself down to
Moderate!)
Q: My friends and I are trying to break the World
Record for the longest role-playing session. So far weve
been playing twenty days straight without sleep and
Im beginning to think that the purple comet wiglies are
something happening in the pumpernickel.
A: Ah, I see. I suggest you fwiggle the snide buckers and clementate novas dematerialization. But, I have
to admit, Im not a specialist on the subject.
Q: I have a joke for you: Where does a Security
Guard who likes simple forms of plant life live?
Mossberg! Get it? Mossberg! Ha! Ha! Arent I just the
funniest guy who ever lived?
A: No.
A: Sorry, I dont take submissions. But Im sure

Paolo Marcucci would be more than happy to
post it on the Shadowrun Archive. :)
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Q: A person at my church said that roleplaying games are the work of the Devil and that
14

I will go to Hell for playing them. Is he right?
ticle?
A: Im not sure, but if role-playing does get you

into Hell, the Devil will probably make me GM.
A: Right about now.
Back To Basics
Q: How many PCs have been killed in your

games?
"Simplify, simplify."
A: Only one. I just didnt realize a pewter miniature could do that much damage.
Q: Not PLAYERS, PCs!
A: Oh. All of them. I like to kill them off within the
first five or ten minutes of the gaming session. The
turn sequence flows much faster if you dont have those
damned PCs slowing everything down.
Q: What are your future plans for Brumby, Troll
Philosopher?
A: Aside from the traditional writings, Im planning a merchandising campaign featuring Brumby trading cards, books, collectors plates, dolls, pillow cases,
firearms, and designer drugs. Look for all of these items
soon at your local gaming store and/or inner city playground.
Q: Do you think you will ever completely stop
writing stuff for Shadowrun?
A: Even if I wanted to, I couldnt. You should see
some of the E-mail I get when I miss one of my weekly
updates. Some of its downright frightening. Some examples:
Dear Blackjack,
If you miss another weekly update, I will burn down
your apartment.
Dear Blackjack,
We have kidnapped your sister. Post some more
Brumby or we will sell her into the Thai sex trade.
Dear Blackjack,
Located beneath your chair is a small device
which contains A: A heat sensor, and B: 5 kilograms of
C-4. If you attempt to move from in front of your computer without posting some more Radio Phree Philadelphia the device will detonate, killing you and everybody else on the block. Just thought Id let you know.
Q: When do you plan on finishing this arBLACKJACKS NETBOOKS
A very famous dead person, whose name I should

remember but don't, spouted the preceding quote many
years ago, probably while thinking about the umpteen
million sourcebooks which would one day be available
for the Shadowrun role-playing system. This is not to
say that I dislike sourcebooks. I think they're great and
purchase many of them, all of which immediately fall
apart because FASA seems to use really cheap glue.
But even with the pages scattered across the living
room floor I can still shuffle through the numerous technological, magical, vehicular, and weaponular (which
is not a real word) stuff that raises my pulse in a way
I'm not always 100 percent comfortable with.
But, at times, it also seems overwhelming. There's
just so much damn STUFF that assembling a character or, if you're the GM, a universe which includes all of
the aspects of all of the books can be very painful.
This is why I think that, occasionally, it's a good idea to
step back and slow things down a bit. Essentially, it's
sometimes a good idea to just start over.
What I mean by this is, for a little while, it's nice
to ditch Fields Of Fire, Cybertechnology, Awakenings,
and the rest of the sourcebooks, dust off the Shadowrun
Second Edition Rulebook, and go from there. The following are a few suggestions for people who feel the
game has gotten a bit out of control and would like to
tone things back, in both the historical and developmental sense. (All you power players out there just
cover your eyes and think happy thoughts; The following ideas could possibly kill you.)
1. Start in the year 2050, or even earlier.
Yes, believe it or not, there was a time when
people would begin playing Shadowrun by placing their
characters in the year 2050. The world was a bit different back then. For example, you would need a helicopter to get to the top floor of the Renraku archology
because it didn't actually exist yet. Dunkelzahn was
still a mysterious figure, as opposed to being a presidential candidate or, more recently, dead. Watchers
had yet to be discovered and I'm pretty sure that
metamagic was still a recently unveiled phenomena. But, most importantly, things were much
15

simpler. It was easier to get your bearings straight. In
fact, I suggest starting in 2049 because this also eliminates instant access to any technological or historical
developments which took place in the 2050 itself, such
as the Street Samurai Catalog, which brings me to my
next point:
2. Start with the Second Edition Rulebook and
nothing else.
Surely this suggestion just sent a shiver down the
spine of any player who dearly loves their bioware.
Despite the rulebook's numerous flaws it still provides
a nice, simple balance of cyberware, magic, matrix,
vehicles, and so on. While it is still possible to "pump
up" a character using stuff only found in the Rulebook
it wouldn't be a spectacularly bright move for a player
to blow a million nuyen on a set of ware they know will
be out of date the next year. A magic user probably
wouldn't want to get 50 points worth of crummy
Rulebook spells when, somewhere along the line, the
GM will introduce The Grimoire and Awakenings which
has better stuff in it. It should become apparent that
they players should work on developing the basic, fundamental aspects of their characters, such as skills and
attributes, instead of taking the million (or the most
"points", or whatever the hell the new system is) and
spending it on crap they'll have to pay to remove or
relearn later.
3. Introduce technology and history into the overall story line as it happens.
Virtually every historical or technological entry in
virtually every sourcebook has something eluding to
when the event or development actually took place.
Some of these dates are simply stated, but sometimes
you have to go off the hints given through those quotes
made by fictitious shadowrunners. By reading these
you'll discover that certain pieces of equipment have
been around for a long time while others don't show up
until much later on the time line. (Meaning they won't
be able to buy that Salvette Guardian until 2054, or
that Dikote until, well, whenever the hell Dikote came
out.) On the other hand it may be determined that certain bioware has been around for ages and it would be
logical to give the PCs access to it immediately AFTER PC creation. It is up to the gamemaster to determine what happens and what is available when. With
magic this can get a bit tricky because nobody really
tells you when the Spark spell first came about, which
means you sometimes have to:
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4. Gradually introduce new Sourcebooks.

Or, at least, aspects of new Sourcebooks. Spark
has probably been around for a while, but, perhaps
not. Hell, maybe one of the PCs was the one who INVENTED Spark. The GM should decide what aspects
of sourcebooks should be allowed when. This goes for
rules as well. The GM may wish to stick with the basic
Matrix rules for a while and gradually develop them
into the VR 2.0 system. He may wish to introduce spell
creation rules right off the bat so the mage will have
something to do, or he may wish to keep the methods
of spell creation "secret" until the PC finds a teacher
who will instruct them in the proper ways. One of the
problems with starting out with every available aspect
of every available sourcebook is that it leads the player
to believe that knowledge of the material contained
within them is intrinsic . . something every PC is born
knowing. I think this creates a callused view towards
the marvels of technology, magic, and the world of
Shadowrun in general. There are no surprises, no waiting at the cyber clinic for the arrival of the new Smartgun
II systems. There are no thoughts, as a newly developed kind of synthetic muscle is installed, that, "Hey,
nobody's ever done this before......I wonder if it'll work."
5. Create anxiety from the inevitable.
A possible flaw with my system is that, if the players have been involved with the Shadowrun system
for a while, they'll know what's going to happen and
therefore won't be surprised by much of anything. This
is why the GM has to be slick and play around with
history just enough that the players will know WHAT is
going to happen, but they won't quite know HOW. The
PCs are no longer learning about history, they are part
of it. Besides, I think it would rule to see a Merc purchasing his new Guardian quietly mutter, with a slim
smile, "I've been waiting for you for five years....."
In conclusion I'd just like to mention that the Big
Ass Shadowrun Time Line (or whatever it's officially
called) located at Paolo Marcucci's Shadowrun Archive
would be an excellent way to keep track of what is
happening and when. Also, if you plan on using the
guidelines I've portrayed, it is a good idea to instigate
them with a group that's in it for the long haul, a group
that has enough time to get to 2057. It may even motivate them to keep themselves from getting messed
up. No sammy wants to be laid up in a hospital when
the first Ingram Smartguns hit the market (around December, 2050).
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Variety
Lets take a typical gang and set up a simple run
during which the PCs are supposed to raid a building
which the gang occupies for the purpose of stealing a
small device. (The preceding statement was so grammatically incorrect that every English teacher Ive ever
had just spontaneously combusted.) Now it would be
simple enough to set up a bunch of gang members
armed with some kind of default weapon, position them
throughout the building, and sit around and wait for the
runners to approach. The result would inevitably be a
stereotypical fire fight and, generally, the PCs would
win by using normal, everyday bang-bang tactics.
But lets mess up the situation a bit. Ill make one
of the gang members an electrician who is a bit of a
coward and who happens to be working on a fuse box
in the basement when the runners attack. Another member ODd on a drug called Sleep earlier in the week
and is currently lying naked in a shower with no pulse.
The another member is a 4th level initiate adept who
is currently fulfilling some weird ass initiation requirement by training another gang member, age 9. The
gang leader is dead, and has been for about two days.
In an attempt to hide the device he placed it in an odd
place; rupturing something, and dying on the spot.
Nobody has bothered him because hes a mean guy
and ordered everybody to leave him the hell alone
before he locked himself in his room. The rest of the
gang probably accepts fact that he hasnt emerged for
several days as a blessing. There are two more gang
members, both named Steve, sitting on the roof and
cleaning their guns. Steve #1 doesnt know but Steve
#2 has placed some double powered rounds in his sporting rifle; rounds which will cause quite a punch but which
will also destroy the weapon. Three more lower end
gang members are in an obscure 3rd floor room playing poker. One of them has lost a lot of cash and is
considering suicide. One more gang member is actually on guard; in astral space.
OK! Now when the runners arrive theyll be looking around for gang members with guns sitting in windows and looking out or whatever gang members
stereotypically do while waiting for somebody to steal
their device. Odds are the runners wont be expecting
that the guy who ODd on sleep isnt actually dead and
will arise at the first sounds of gunshots, grab his
weapon, and come at the runners completely naked.
The runners also wont be expecting the adepts apprentice to suddenly discover his killing hands ability.
The electrician will accidentally cause the entire
electrical system to completely spaz out as he
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climbs on top of the fuse box in an attempt to escape

out a basement window. The Steves pop a few pain
killing drugs and get into the action, with Steve #1s
weapon making an assault cannon grade bang when
he pulls the trigger. Then, of course, theres the ugly
procedure the runners will have to perform on the gang
leader in order to retrieve the device.
Congratulations, you (actually, I) have turned an
ordinary gang fight into something just a wee bit more
entertaining. Now, is this practical or realistic? Why
the hell not? Everybody has a bad night every now
and then and I see no reason why several people
couldnt have a bad night simultaneously. The point is,
this battle would be much more interesting and, at the
very least, mentally trying than the usual scenario. You
end up with a satisfying gamemastering experience
and a whole lot of PCs who are going to reconsider
their
current
views
on
gang
related
interaction....especially when that suicidal poker player
jumps from the 3rd floor with multiple armed grenades
strapped to his belt and lands on the hood of the PCs
car.
Perception Problems
At about 1:35 am on Tuesday, January 14 a friend
and I finally came to a realization which explained what
had thwarted the speed and grace of many a gaming
session for the last, oh, five years: Both of us had completely different perceptions as to exactly what a C
Security Rating area looked like. My friend perceived
the area as consisting mostly of small single family
homes mixed in with the occasional high rise and office building with virtually no regular foot traffic and
the occasional abandoned stru cture. Take away the
abandoned building and youll have exactly my perception of what a B area looks like. My perception of a
C area revolved around rowhouse apartments, high
rise apartment buildings, the occasional cop racing
through with sirins blarin g. Generally your typical city
oriented blue collar living environment.
It was long before another individual chimed in
that he never really thought the security rating had
anything to do with setting and simply reflected the
odds of you or your house getting robbed, the presence of drugs or gangs, or just all around crime. The
more I think about it, the more I believe this theory is
the most correct.
But the point is that none of us had any idea what
was going through each others head as far as setting
and mood was concerned which was the direct
cause of many a misunderstanding. I like to keep
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things moving and try to spend as little time as possibl
e describing the actual surroundings, often taking extreme shortcuts by describing a tiny bit of the area and
giving the security rating in the hopes that the players
thoughts would align with mine. I see now that it was
similar to attempting to get s omebody to picture an
apple in their heads by simply describing it as fruit.
A brainstorming session quickly ensued as we all
wracked our brains in an attempt to figure out the best
way to align our perceptions of setting and mood without necessitating the need for lengthy, detailed descriptions. Eventually we came to the following conclusions:
Read the sourcebooks
I dont have too much of an aversion towards
Shadowrun sourcebooks but many of my players would
rather be shot through their eyeballs with a crossbow
bolt than read one of them cover to cover. Im still astonished that, even after all this time, NONE of my
players have ever read the Seattle Sourcebook all the
way through. I could tell them that their run will be based
in Hells Kitchen and most will nod slowly in feigned
acknowledgment and arrive at the cracked, cooling lava
bed in their Westwinds which , generally, are not lava
bed oriented vehicles.
In addition to simply informing a player what is
where city sourcebooks also give you a glimpse as to
the mood of certain areas and how they should act
when they get there. Lets say they have to go to an
imaginary district called Fwup located in an imagi nary
sourcebook. If the players fail to read the entry regarding the district they wont know that A: It is run by big
mean trolls, B: Anybody wearing the color mauve is
executed without trial, C: The entry contains the following comment:
>>>>>[Yeah my brother went there the other day
only he didnt know that on Tuesday anybody entering
the area has to keep one finger stuck up their nose at
all times and, well, my brother went in there with BOTH
fingers up his nose and the trolls took it as a personal
affront so they hung him by his genitals from a flag
pole.]<<<<<
-Kruddlemunk (01:32:55-01/22/59)
In other words, read the books.
Media
A good way to get everybody thinking along the
same lines about what everything looks like is
to, well, show them what everything looks like.
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You can use movies, drawings, photographs...anything.

In preparation for future games Im compiling a video
of clips from various movies which contain Shadowrun
like settings (Ill be drawing heavily on Bladerunner).
Im also piecing together a scrapbook of images found
throughout various sourcebooks as a hand out of sorts
to be given to my players before the gam e. Youd be
surprised how many people dont know what a public
communications/ATM terminal looks like even though
its right on the cover of the damn rulebook.
Field Trip
By far the most effective way to get the feel as to
how a city looks and functions is to go to an actual city
and drive or wander around. Even if the area youre in
doesnt exactly represent the area youre trying to describe you can tweak the surround ings a little by adding comments such as Throw in freaky clothing, narrow the street, break out the lights and expose some
weapons and what we have here is a C Rated commercial district.
Oops
This week I was going to follow up my Magical
Theory article with more elaboration, mainly because
of some the interesting E-mail I received regarding it,
but as I prepare for my Winter break Shadowrun campaign I came to a startling realization: The PCs don't
seem to be scared of anything.
I base this statement on the lone experience I
had with my new group of characters over my Thanksgiving break during which the group encountered fire
elementals, vehicle lasers, a room filled with drug
crazed maniacs, the possibility of paranormal animals,
an air force base, a few MP lasers and a heavy response team and NOT ONCE did any one of them
stop an go "Oh, shit." for any reason other than surprise. Not one of them seemed to ponder the thought
of what it may be like to be engulfed by a fire elemental. Not one of them seemed to reflect upon the resulting effects of having their sternum perforated by a laser beam. Not one of them considered the possibility
that the rattle in the woods may be a group of Hell
Hounds looking for a midnight snack, not simply a man
with a gun.
Then I came to an even more startling revelation: This was MY fault.
When one of the runners was scouting a tunnel
leading to a targeted facility he tripped a laser
trap and got shot through the leg. I let it slide.
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"Just take light." were my exact words. I did the same
thing when he tripped two more of them. When I sent
in the corp's vehicle laser armed vehicle I just drove it
right up to them, knowing full well the PCs would be
able to knock it out at close range. "I'll give them a
break.", I thought to myself. When the response team
showed up I just had them hang around for a few minutes and leave, even though somebody had just blown
up a nice, expensive vehicle and penetrated the inner
confines of a major research facility. When they encountered the fire elemental I had it hold back for the
most part. "Why roast them?" I mumbled in my mind,
"They're newbies....".
Damn, I'm an idiot. Now I've got a group of PCs
who think they're hot stuff because they beat the bad
guys when, in reality, the bad guys beat themselves.
The force these PCs encountered could have easily
killed them twelve times over, and I should have let
them. Hopefully it wouldn't have gotten to the point
that the PCs would have actually died, they should be
able to perceive the certainty of death and have the
good sense to pull out. The common sense to retreat.
The fear that if they don't, they could be killed. Even
the fear that simply walking down an underground tunnel will get them killed. Perhaps even the fear that just
standing in the middle of a empty parking lot eating a
lolli pop could get them killed. But, no. I gave them no
reason to fear anything. I gave them no reason to be
PARANOID.
Paranoia is different than the fear that you might
get ambushed on a run, trip a sensor, or simply get
shot. Paranoia is the undefinable overwhelming fear
that, even though you planned, prepared, cybered,
armed, and armored yourself, you can be killed at any
time, anywhere, for any reason. Players and their PCs
seem to hold the nieve notion that simply being wired
and owning a gun offers them some protection from
the dangers around them. On the most basic level,
this is true. If somebody charges a runner, he can shoot
him. If somebody sneaks up on a runner, he can react.
But any enhancements, guns, or gadgets a runner possesses shouldn't give him the slightest bit of comfort
from the fear effects of paranoia. Paranoia has no face
and no name. It is not something you can combat or
defeat. It is the knowledge that right now, right here,
there is something that wants to, and can, kill you.
So how can a runner deal with something they
can't fight? To put it bluntly, they can't. For this reason
there is no point in a runner watching every step they
take to be sure they don't end up getting screwed. If
the gamemaster uses paranoia properly, the effects
will extend beyond role-playing and into the
player's mind. When he picks up his dice, his
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hands should shake. His mind should be moving a mile

a minute in an ATTEMPT to prepare himself and his
character for an adverse situations which may arise.
Simultaneously he will realize that there is no possible
way to prepare for these situations and his mind will
start burning with anxiety. This is paranoia. The knowledge that you can die, right now, combined with fact
that there is nothing you can do about it.
So why obtain guns, cyberware, spells, spirits and
everything else if, in the big picture, they are useless?
Because they do help you keep this paranoia at bay.
They make you feel better. In the world of Shadowrun
your skills and your stuff are like a big fuzzy blanket
that keeps you warm and toasty on a cold winter night.
But, in the back of your mind, there should always exist a chilly, lingering thought that, at any moment, somebody might set your blanket on fire with a blowtorch.
In conclusion, if any of my holiday players are
reading this right now, I've got some news for you: Fun
time is over. You'd better start getting real scared real
soon. Because you can plan. You can prepare. You
can toss your spells and fire your bullets. You can drive
your vehicles real fast and smile real wide when you
resist you drain and damage. Just remember: I am
faster than you, I am tougher than you and I am better
than you in every way. I know where you live, I know
where you sleep, I know what you drive, I know what
you shoot. And I can crush you like a bug under a
Citymaster. So next time I you smile at your triple twelve
die roll I'd damn well better see a quiver of uncertainty
in your smug little face. Because I can rip that face off
and feed it to a Bandersnatch.
Oh, yeah: Merry Christmas.
Tales From Shadowland

I've decided to take a break from manipulating
gamemastering philosophies to the point that they no
longer resemble anything even remotely connected to
anything coherant and have devoted this writing to
several paragraphs of somewhat egotistical Blackjack's
Shadowrun Page related drivel.
When my page first went up in March of 1996 I
had no idea it would be as successful as it has become
and, even more importantly, I had no idea it would eat
up as much of my time as it has. But, luckily, I usually
have a lot of time to spend on it. Sure I occasionally let
one of my weekly updates slide, but I usually have
good reason for this such as I was too lazy to update
the page that week. But, all in all, I believe I've
compiled a decent amount of quality stuff, some
19

of which actually makes sense.
People often remark on the amount of material
on the page with nice, pleasant messages submitted
through my feedback form, many of which, mysteriously, do not possess a return address. Here's a sample:
Dear Blackjack,
Do you have a life?
Dear Blackjack,
You have a large amount of stuff on your page. I
can only conclude
that you have no life.
Dear F**ckhead,
Your page has lots of s*it. F**king tons of it. You
must be a
real f**cking loser you miserable piece of s*it!
Ha! Ha! I love you wacky people! But, seriously,
I also receive a fair amount of positive feedback which
more than makes up for the occasional bash I receive
from some putrid little mutant child who finds time to
stop by as he passes from smut page to smut page,
looking at females he will never in a million years get
within fifteen miles of. I also take comfort in the fact
that I have a friend on the CERT team and, if I felt like
it, could track these little weasels down and destroy
their credit rating for the next sixty years.
But this does raise an interesting question: Why
do I have time to create so much stuff for my web
page? The answer is simple: I don't watch television.
Ever. People spend more time in two days watching
the tube than I do in a week working on my Shadowrun
page. So not only do I have time to work on my page
but I also have time to respond to the honest and coherent questions I receive from my feedback form. Sort
of the self proclaimed "Dear Abby" of Shadowrun on
the web, I receive questions regarding rules, ideas, GM
problems (A lot of GM problems) and the occasional
inquiry as to how old I am. To answer the last one, I'm
347.
Not only does this information exchange give me
an opportunity to solidify my own SR ideas and help
others, it also give me the chance to spend hours attempting to decipher the occasional message that rolls
in written in complex forms of Shadoweese. I've never
been a big fan of Shadowrun's alternative language
and thus rarely use it. But it appears that many people
out there in Shadowland actually think they're in
Shadowland and insist on writing cryptic messages like
this one:
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Hoi, Cummerwalken!
I was jandering down the matrix and said to myself, "Frag! I got a question about the possibility of
spelltossing trogs in the etheral who also sideline in
the wax biz!". So I decided to pass on this wizzer question hoping your head gear is in order so you could
help me out of.....
This gets to be even more fun when somebody
located way the hell across a large ocean in some place
like England decides to send me a message that looks
like they took elements of slang out of the London
Sourcebook completely at random:
Hoi from Brum, Home

Just snaggin C-Net from my jam hole in the
Smoke, sniping baggies with my baldrich after a slamming proff opp in a gopping sec of orbital when this
gopi gator selling rags gets me aggro big time when
this dino in his shazzy jammy makes a slamming snag
of my hilda home....
And if this weren't bad enough, some people insist on writing in both Shadoweese AND internet shorthand resulting in messages that look like somebody
spilled alphabet soup into their computer:
PMFJ,
Chummer IMHO jander SWEUB :( half AK-98
wizzer and happening :D* up in :O-<- the warehouse
FUAGEK SNUPPLE tweed jacket HEFY? chummer,
=>8-# I was ROTFL!
And I don't even want to TALK about the decker
nuts who like to write in binary. (By the way, that last
emoticon is Uncle Sam after getting bit in the rear end
by a badger.)
But, all in all, I get some pretty good mail and,
hopefully, provide some half way decent answers to
SR questions. These questions range from simple inquiries..
How many sides should my six sided die have?

..to more complex questions resembling something you might find on an honors Physics exam:
So one of my players' samurai in a souped up

Brumby was chasing a gang member on a Scorpion when both of them took a sharp right at 90
20

kph down a side street while the sammy fired his vehicular assault cannon from 45.2 meters away and the
gang member let loose with a heavy pistol round from
a Manhunter. Now the sammy was injured with light
damage but also had pain killers, mag vision, and wired
reflexes while the gang member was moderately damaged but had the advantage of a level 2 control rig and
had recently won the Seattle combat biking championships. My question is: If both are traveling at top speed
and firing at a mutual angel of 45 degrees which one
will reach Redmond first and what speed will he be
traveling once he gets there?
The variety of my responses ranges greatly, some
being rather simple..
Drop a cow on him.

..while others are more thorough:
Drop TWO cows on him.

User questions and comments are also the main
way I get ideas for my Guides To Bitter Gamemasteing
as well as the articles found right here in Blackjack's
corner. The way I get ideas for and write the more fictional material found on my page is a bit more complicated but usually ends up following the same basic
procedure:
1. Smoke a cigarette.
3. Check my E-Mail.
6. Check my E-Mail
7. Mix myself a drink.
10. Mix myself another drink.
11. Sit down and mentally prepare myself for writing fictional
material.
12. Mix myself another drink.
15. Steal an idea out of Newsweek.
Of course it takes practice and hard work to establish such an efficient system but if you're devoted
to the task at hand it is possible to produce two, maybe
even three pages of writing a day until such time
as you keel over and die from lung cancer and a
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failed liver.
Well, that's about all for now and I'll leave you
with my top ten pet peeves about running a "viewer
interactive" Shadowrun web page. I'd like to thank everybody who has visited my page, E-Mailed me comments and threats, and made the game of Shadowrun
one of the best damn roleplaying systems on the face
of the earth.
Blackjacks Top Ten Web Annoyances

10. People who submit an entry into my Player
Database but don't have an E-Mail address. (I, personally, am not telepathic.)
9. People who ask me if they can submit stuff to
be placed on my page. (Nobody ever reads the Credits and Other Important Stuff, page. I guess nobody
notices that the names/addresses on every single of
the writings are mine, either.)
8. People who ask me how old I am and what I
look like. (As if I'd tell the truth.)
7. People who correct my spelling of Renreku. (I
also tend to spell Aztlan as Azlan and continually identify Seattle's Lone Star Security as the ancient and defunct SPD. Thanks for the news, buddy.)
6. People who tell me I should use "frag" instead
of "fuck" in my writings. (I now have conclusive proof
that all of this E-Mail is actually coming from the same
individual: Pat Buchanan.)
5. People who send vicious E-Mail through my
mailform but don't include a return address. (Pussies.)
4. People who ask me a question through my
mailform and include something that, at 3:00 in the
morning, looks a lot like an real E- Mail address, such
as "sorry@i.dont.have.an.address.yet", causing me to
write up a three page response which I send and which
immediately gets bounced back, never to be seen by
anybody but myself.
3. People who find the need to inform me that
they A: Conducted a search for Blackjack the card
game, B: Came across my page, C: Don't understand
what it's about, and D: Would like me to explain it to
them. (My typical response: ("Take Bladerunner, Conan
The Barbarian, The X-Files, Strange Days and an
atomic bomb, throw them into a blender, add some
steroids and what you get is Shadowrun.")
2. People who ask me for weapons lists. (I swear
I get about four or five requests a week for this. Apparently people need a refresher course on the concept of
a "copyright".)
21

And the number one annoyance:
This only happened once but somebody actually
used the Shadowrun Player Directory Entry Form to
mail me the following question: "How do I enter myself
into the Shadowrun Player Directory?". Sometimes you
have to wonder.....
Feeling The Run

If somebody put a shotgun up my nose and started
screaming at me to state, it two words, what the most
important aspects of any shadowrun are Id have to
say: Mood and Purpose. Then Id get my head blown
off because the guy with the shotgun would count and
as a third word. In any case, knowing what youre doing and knowing how you can, or allowed, to go about
doing it are two essential ideas to keep in mind, whether
your behind or in front of the GM screen.
Knowing what your doing is usually the easiest of
the two to understand. If youre on an Extraction run
you know that unless you extract something, preferably the person you're hired to extract, you wont get
paid. If your supposed to Deliver something itd damn
well better end up in the hands of whomever your supposed to deliver it to. Usually the objective is a bit more
precise and complicated than the flat examples above
but, regardless of how complicated your purpose may
be, simply knowing what it is makes life a lot easier,
regardless of which end of the table your sitting at.
But another equally important, yet often forgotten, aspect of a shadowrun is exactly how your supposed to go about doing it. The how of a shadowrun,
along with many other things, is normally determined
by the mood of the run itself. The mood difference
between an extraction at Renraku, which would involve
a lot of highly skilled and extremely smart people trained
for decades to thwart runners, and an extraction at Devil
Chem Underground Kill All Research Labs, which would
involve a lot of ex mercenaries cybered to negative
essence and toting rocket launchers, would be noticeably different. Over time Ive found that the moods of
shadowruns, like the objectives, fall into certain categories, a few of which I will list later on.
The mood of a shadowrun doesnt just dictate how
the PCs and NPCs should be feeling emotionally at
the time; it also dictates what weapons they can carry,
how they have to act, what they should wear, and numerous other little things, like whether or not a silencer
is required. When performing an Extraction at Renraku
the runners couldnt go rushing in with bazookas
or theyd be instantly slaughtered by sentry guns.
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The run requires an extreme amount of finesse, professionalism, and grace. On the other hand, an extraction at an illegal chemical lab defended by a contingent of mercenaries may require that the runners rent
a Panzer and learn how to use heavy weapons if they
wish to survive. Even performing legwork for these differing runs would require a change in the way a runner
may normally conduct themselves. If research for the
Renraku run requires that they meet with a guy at Chez
Rico then the runners better not be brazen and defensive or the guy they're talking with may call up Renraku
collect and tell the head of security that there are a
couple of punks sniffing for info. Likewise, for the merc
run the first acceptable action when meeting with a
contact may be to punch him in the face lest he think
your some kind of wussy negotiator trying to sweet talk
some information out of him. Hell, he may want the
PC to try to floor him before hell start talking.
A GMs job is to make sure the runners know which
mood is currently active and when one mood changes
to another. After meeting with the guy at Chez Rico the
runners may learn that they have to meet with some
guy named Philly The Stink who works at a bar called
Bash In Your Goddamned Head. If the runners are
smart theyll stop home and trade their Tres Chic and
their Lightfire for an armor jacket and an SMG.
Knowing the mood of a run also helps a lot in
designing adventures in the first place. If I know Im
going to write a Nasty Extraction I can more easily
center my thoughts on the subject of large guns, mean
people, and lots of violence. Once you give a run a
theme; like Elite Raid, Professional Kidnapping,
Adrenaline Contraband; the runs almost write themselves.
Below are a few of the general moods which tend
to permeate my shadowruns. Enjoy.
Nasty: These runs involve meeting, dealing with,
and fighting a lot of really mean, nasty, disgusting
people. Usually nobody wants to negotiate, preferring
to fight out the simplest argument instead. The locations involved are usually drunkard bars, makeshift
combat arenas, broken buildings, etc. The environment
usually involves incessant red rain and foul smelling
fumes. Reputation usually doesnt mean a damn thing,
the only thing which really matters is how much muscle
and firepower you have. Loyalties are rare and
backstabbing is frequent. NPCs tend to be large, heavily
modified and armored, sluggish, and deadly. Nasty runs
frequently generate heavy casualties on both the PC
and NPC side.
22

Elite: These runs require subtlety, grace, charisma, and a silencer. The runners are normally unable
to carry sufficient firepower to get out of a tough situation if they begin to screw up so they must try extremely
hard not to screw up in the first place. High octane
firefights are very rare and when they do erupt they
are highly lethal to the PCs who will end up facing well
armed and trained corporate guards, response police,
etc. Metal detectors, badge scanners, and surveillance
cameras are plentiful thus allowing little freedom for
the runners to carry weapons or discuss their mission
openly. Even wearing armor may not be possible in
many situations. Perhaps the most important aspect
of Elite runs is that the NPCs are extremely intelligent
and ready to hit the panic button at the slightest hint
that the person theyre speaking with may have adverse means.
Adrenaline: Everybody in these runs are wired
and paranoid. Many do heavy BTL chipping or ingest
conventional amphetamine substances in order to keep
going. Locations tend to involve high octane techno
nightclubs, trid theaters playing Natural Born Killers like
movies, and chaotic drug bars. The weather is almost
always torrential rain and frequent lightning. NPCs can
be from virtually any walk of life, but they usually have
a fairly large amount of money to blow on drugs,
women/men, clubs, and so on. When violence breaks
out it is fast and furious, the rush of adrenaline and
drugs overriding all senses of logic. To somebody with
low reflexes Adrenaline runs are a death trap and many
may find it necessary to take reaction enhancing drugs
or BTLs just so they can endure the environment without dying or losing their mind. Adrenaline runs are insanity set to music and gunfire.
Dirt: Dirt runs are extremely depressing to everybody involved. The NPCs have nothing, the PCs
have lost everything, there is no food, no water, no
nada. Settings include desolate sections of the barrens, abandoned towns, or remote deserts. The weather
is hot and dry and the air is full of dust. Any available
weapons are old, low on ammo, and tend to jam. Vehicles barely run. These runs also tend to take place
during the day, which is hell for a runner. The NPCs
tend to be suicidal, willing to do anything for a buck or
simply die for the sake of dying. Dirt runs are rare and
a run usually doesnt become Dirt until the runners have
severely screwed something up or the GM has railroaded them into such a situation for the sake of humbling their egos.
tion between a runners professional duty and their

morals. At the end of these runs the runners usually
feel like crap because they had to screw over completely innocent people for the sake of getting their
40,000 nuyen. The NPCs tend to be ordinary people
going about their ordinary lives and who are intrinsically involved in the plot whether they know it or not.
When they get into an adverse situation the NPCs only
thought is Why me?. These people are constantly
getting caught in the crossfire, innocent pawns in a
chess game they do not wish to play. Locations tend to
involve humanitarian organizations, schools, legitimate
stores, and so on. The weather is pleasant. Violence
tends to take place in areas where the potential exists
for a lot of innocent people getting hurt. Usually Hurt
runs dont involve directly killing ordinary people but
have an underlying tone implying that the runners are
doing something which will cause extreme pain to the
sweet old lady they passed on their way into the building. The GM must grab onto the runners hearts and
squeeze, stopping just before they say I quit. I cant
take it anymore.
Professional: These runs involve dealing with
NPCs who have been in the business of shadowrunning
and crime as long as the runner, if not longer. They
have their technique down just right, know just how
hard to push somebody before they should stop, and
have an outstanding reputation. Anything that happens
during the game is slick and slyly executed. The NPCs
rarely overlook things, leave no back doors, and generally find a way to thwart anything the runners try to
do; always walking a step ahead. They are smart and
well connected. Professional NPCs also tend to have
well developed personalities, and many have grasped
the concept of acts of mercy towards any weaker foe
they defeat. Locations involve high-tech shadowrunner
hideouts, high-tech garages, and just generally high
tech everything. The weather is usually somber, gray,
with a little bit of drizzle. Combat is slow and calculated, rarely generating heavy casualties on the PC
side unless the PCs decide to fight like a bunch of
madmen in which case a processional NPC will kill
them simply because they make the profession look
bad. Respect is very important in Professional runs
and not showing proper respect can be detrimental to
both reputation and health. Finally, the effects of breaking a contract on the professional level will absolutely
destroy a runners rep.
Beck: These types of runs may be unique to my
games and are named after the general alcoholic, white trash, country bumpkin feel gener-
Hurt: Hurt runs are designed to create fricBLACKJACKS NETBOOKS
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ated by the music of Beck. My use of such runs may
also have something to do with me having lived in
western Maryland for several years. In any case, these
runs take place in backwards rural towns filled with ignorant, slightly inbred NPCs. The only vehicles available are pick-up trucks and the only firearms available
are shotguns. Locations involve rodeos, saloons, the
front porch of Mas house, and swimmin holes. Virtually any type of run can have a Beck mood attached to
it. (Beck Thefts may involve stealing a magical tractor
or Beck Contraband may involve shipping marijuana.)
This doesnt mean that Beck runs are a piece of cake.
If the runners violate the standards of a particular town
they may find themselves faced with a posse the size
of a hundred overall clad, closely related people coming after them with shotguns.
Humiliate
Implement
Infiltration
Information
Instigate
Intelligence
Jam
Kidnapping
Legal
Manipulate
Messenger
Passive
Please
Poisoning Prank
Redirect
Raid
Recovery
Rescue
Robbery
Sabotage
Scout
Search
Shaft
Slam
Slap
Suicide
Support
Terror
Theft
Topple
Tracking
Transport
Vanishing
Weapons
Wipeout
P.S. The following is a list of shadowrun topics

which I normally use in conjunction with a mood to
generate a final run theme. They originally appeared
on a Random Table located on my page. Again, enjoy:
Assassination
Attention
Bodyguard
Backup
Bombing
Casualty
Challenge
Clean
Contest
Contraband
Corrupt
Cover-up
Damage
Decoy
Demoralize
Destroy
Dump
Enforcement
Excavation
Exonerate
Extortion
Extraction
Fear Fence
Foil
Forgive
Frame
Front
Game
Guard
Hijack
Horror
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Magical Theories
Recently I was working on a computer program
which, if I ever complete it, would contain just about
every bit of information on every weapon, critter, vehicle, piece of cyberware, and spell in every Shadowrun
book ever created. Obviously I'd never be able to make
this program available on the web, it would violate every copyright in the book, I'm simply constructing it for
my own use in the hopes that it will make me a more
efficient GM. It couldn't possibly make me any less
efficient.
In any case, I was working on my program, typing in spells, when I suddenly realized that a few of the
rules regarding Mana and Physical based combat spells and some of their elemental effects
24

didn't make a whole lot of sense. At least not to me.
Perhaps I misinterpreted them or perhaps they're misprints but something doesn't add up.
I was first clued in that something might be wrong
while looking over the basic spell list which identified
one of the Mana spells, Manaball I believe, as being
physical. Ok, could have been a misprint. Then I looked
up the spell in the rule book and it stated that "this
mana version only effects living objects". Well, yeah.
Mana effects mana. But it seemed to imply that the
OTHER mana spells could effect inorganic objects. Plus
I noticed, as I'm sure everybody has, that in the original rule book the Mana Bolts, Mana Darts, etc. were
listed as being Physical. Did I miss the errata sheet
that explained this?
Well, whether there's a good explanation or not
doesn't really matter. What matters is that it got me
rethinking my whole vision of how Mana and Physical
combat spells damage a target differently. And we all
know what happens when I start rethinking things: I
screw with the existing rules. So lets get started.
age, the damage is transferred to the body itself. Likewise, when you damage somebody with a physical spell
it shows in the aura.
2. If you're hit with a Mana based combat spell
with elemental effects you get to use your armor to
resist the elemental effects. If this spell is Physical,
you don't.
Remember: I'll only be talking about COMBAT

spells.
By the Grimoire's definition a Physical spell grinds
into the flesh and bone or, well, steel of the target,
ripping it apart, while Mana spells hit the target's aura
which then transfers the damage to the physical body.
By the Rule book's words, non-living objects do not
have an aura (so already we have problems with the
Magic Against Vehicles rules which states that vehicles
have an aura. But I'll get to that later.) In any case, it
seems that Physical spells bypass the aura completely
and go for the guts. This makes sense because if Physical spells have the ability to work on inanimate objects
that have no aura, they probably aren't looking for one.
Mana spells, however, have to have an aura to hit because, well, it's the only thing they can hit.
I don't like this idea but the more I think about it

the more it makes sense. Since Mana spells go off
when they hit the target's aura the elemental effects
go off at this time as well, before they actually reach
the target. Remember: The body takes damage because the damage is transferred from the aura. The
spell never makes contact with the body, it essentially
"ends" once it hits the aura. Since the aura extends
past the body this occurs a little bit, perhaps a few centimeters, away from the body. So a Mana based spell
with fire elemental effects would flare up away from
the body, but still close enough to ignight stuff. The
important thing is, your armor is between you and the
effect.
With Physical spells, things get really, really, really, really ugly. Since the spell doesn't go off until it
hits the actual body, the elemental effects don't go off
until this point as well. The effects could be devastating. Take, for instance, somebody wearing a full suit of
security armor, minus the helmet. The spell caster, who
can see the target's head, decides to cast a Fire Bolt.
Now when this spell hits the target is going to catch on
fire....INSIDE HIS ARMOR. This gets even more frightening when you consider a similar spell with blast or,
god forbid, ACID effects.
Ok, enough with the implications. Now for a little
Q&A:
Wouldn't firing a Firebolt at that guy in the security armor just set his head on fire?
So let me start with the implications of these ideas:

1. Physical spells won't work against people whose
entire bodies are covered with something.
In order to hit something with a spell you have to
be able to see it. If you can't see your target, namely a
part of the target's body, you can't hit him with a Physical spell. But you can hit him with a Mana spell. Why?
Because you're firing it at HIM, not his body. You're
hitting a, well, IDEA of the person, not the person himself. Specifically, you're hitting the target's aura.
Since the aura and the body "exchange" damBLACKJACKS NETBOOKS
I don't think so. Even though the spellcaster can

only see his target's head, he's still casting the spell at
the target's body. The body, as a whole, counts as the
target, not just the head.
Well, then, what defines a "valid target" for other

stuff?
I've pondered this a lot and have decided to define a valid target as a, get ready for this, "Object that
can be considered, in its entirety, as a whole or
survivable independent factor of a whole."
25

Woah. I bet everybody's wondering what I'm talking about. I'm not too sure I even know what I'm talking
about but here's a few somewhat schizophrenic examples illustrating the idea:
A mage is casting Urban Renewal on the buildings lining an alleyway. The spellcaster DOES NOT
simply say to himself "I'm casting the spell at these
here buildings" because the spellcaster can not simultaneously take into consideration ALL of the buildings'
aspects. What he can do is look the buildings over,
take into consideration as many aspects as he can,
and fire off the spell. He's not really casting it at "buildings", he's casting it at the walls, windows, doors, stairs,
and so on that he can realistically simultaneously take
into consideration as being the building. Although his
ideas add up to "building" he still isn't targeting the
entire thing, only what he is able to perceive as the
building. The spell does the rest through area effect
damage. "Building" is too large a concept to be attacked
as a whole.
A mage is casting Wrecker on a Americar. He
looks the car over, taking into account as many features as possible which wouldn't be hard because, lets
face it, there's not much to an Americar. With a firm
picture of the Americar in his mind, he casts the spell,
damaging the vehicle as a whole.
Another mage is thinking of casting a spell against
a different Americar, but he only wants damage the
front fender. The front fender can exist just fine without the car and the car can exist just fine without the
fender. He looks to the fender, and casts Power Bolt
on it. No problem. Could he have used Wrecker? No,
because he wasn't thinking of the vehicle (the spell's
restricted target), he was thinking of the fender.
The guy with Urban Renewal just wants to bust
out a window on a building. He can't use Urban Renewal (restricted target) because he isn't attacking his
perception of the building, he's attacking a window. He
does, however, have Ram which will work just fine
against a window. Could he cast Ram against an entire wall or an entire building since it can be considered
as being "one object"? Shit, that's a tough one. I'd say
yes but the target number of the spell would be enormous. Since Ram isn't an area effect spell, which would
allow you to treat each window and door as a separate
target, you'd have to take into consideration every little
door and window and add them up into one gigantic
Object Resistance target.
A mage wants to cast a Fire Bolt only at the
target's head. He can't because the body is an integral
machine which cannot be broken down into smaller
elements. Essence binds it together. What if the
mage wanted to cast the Fire Bolt against the
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target's cyber eye? I still probably wouldn't let him because when the target obtained that cyber eye he paid
essence for it which made it part of his integral body.
What does all this mean for the Object Resistance Table?
Fluidity. I don't think a Dodge Scoot and a Panzer
should rate anywhere near each other on the Object
Resistance scale. The Panzer would probably have an
off the scale rating as would an entire building being
targeted with a Ram spell. Does this mean Wrecker
would be virtually useless against a Panzer? Most definitely. If the spell could talk it would say: "You want me
to do WHAT?", a question the spell caster would not
be able to answer because he doesn't know the first
thing about a Panzer. What if the spellcaster DESIGNED the Panzer? No problem. To him the Panzer
wouldn't appear all that complex. But, at the same time,
some Shaman from the sticks who has never even
seen a Panzer before could blow out a window as easily as the next person using a normal combat spell.
Windows aren't that hard to comprehend. But isn't a
living creature complex? Yes, but the spell caster would
probably be a living creature as well and would have a
decent understanding as to what life is.
Well, I'm out of cigarettes and it is now four in the
morning. Time to call it quits for tonight. I'll probably
follow up this article next week with more elaboration.
Stay tuned.
Bovine Bombardment
This week Im going to spend a little bit of time
talking about cows. Im sure, if youve GMd, you have
(or at least been tempted to) drop a cow on one or
more of your PCs. Im sure there are even a few GMs
out there who are calculating the physics necessary to
loft a cow the size of Seattle into space so you can not
only take care of the PCs, but all the idiotic results of
their petty existence as well (i.e. fortified apartments
they never leave, cyberdecks coated in Orichalcum,
motorcycles equipped with SAM tubes, etc.)
The main reason Ive chosen cows as this weeks
discussion topic is because Ive recently encountered
an bit of frightening, reality based cow information which
I believe everybody should know, lest they be crushed
or otherwise killed by a ton of bovine muscle and flesh.
My concern arises from a news story E-mailed to
me by a variety of individuals concerning the inadvertent bombing of a Japanese trawler by a
group of irresponsible, cow wielding Russians.
26

The fact that these Russians were members of the
military should also present the United States, and other
countries, with a good reason for keeping our war technology up to date. A member of the Russian military
capable of pushing a cow out of a flying aircraft is more
than capable of bumping the LAUNCH MISSLES button.
(NOTE: I have nothing against Russians. They
seem to be hard working, nice people and they make
some pretty good Vodka. My concern rests solely with
Russians who have access to cows. Just thought Id let
everybody know.)
Anyway, there seems to exist not one, but TWO
versions of the Russian cow story. The first version
was sent to me a long, long time ago by somebody
whose name I cant for the life of me remember. I hunted
around the web and eventually came across the article
he (or she) had mailed. Heres the gist of it (Obtained
from somebody who obtained the article from the
Navair Weekly Bfm Wrapup; whatever the hell that
is):
Cows Away!
Earlier this year, the dazed crew of a Japanese
Trawler were plucked out of the Sea of Japan clinging
to the wreckage of their sunken ship. Their rescue,
however, was followed by immediate imprisonment
once authorities questioned the sailors on their ship's
loss. They claimed that a cow, falling out of a clear
blue sky, had struck the trawler amidships, shattering
it's hull and sinking the vessel within minutes.
They remained in prison for several weeks, until
the Russian Air Force reluctantly informed Japanese
authorities that the crew of one of its cargo planes had
apparently stolen a cow wandering at the edge of a
Siberian airfield, forced the cow into the plane's hold
and hastily taken off for home. Unprepared for live
cargo, the Russian crew was ill-equipped to manage a
now rampaging cow within its hold. To save the aircraft
and themselves, they shoved the animal out of the cargo
hold as they crossed the Sea of Japan at an altitude of
30,000 feet.
So there you have it. A innocent, confused cow
brutally kidnapped and then thrust into the ozone when
the kidnappers found it too difficult to handle. Now,
from this story we may conclude that, hey, it was a
single cow and an isolated accident. I mean, how much
damage could one cow do? Such an act of bombing
would have been futile if the target had been, say, the
South Korean army.
Well, thats how I felt: Until I received an
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even more disturbing version of the bombing incident

from a nice man named Ronald Boehm who obtained
his version of the story from a German newspaper. Mr.
Boehm resides in Germany (hence the German newspaper) which, as many of you know, is located so close
to the former Soviet Union that it routinely receives
fallout from that fragmented nations numerous faulty
nuclear powerplants. (Ok, this is an exaggeration; Germany will eventually receive large amounts of fallout
when the faulty Soviet powerplants suddenly blow up.)
Anyway, as you will see from the following article, the Russian cow bombing incident may be more
insidious than we thought:
"Ploetzlich regnete es Kuehe vom Himmel

(Cows Raining from the Sky)
In the Ochotskische sea near the Sachalin island
a cow fell from the sky and sank a Japanese fishing
boat on impact. This was stated in a confidential report
from the German embassy in Moscow to the
"Auswaertiges Amt" (German State Department). This
event was given as one of many examples of the desolate state of security in Russian air traffic. According to
this report, Russian soldiers had stolen a herd of cattle
and wanted to remove them in a transport aircraft - a
kind of theft not uncommon in Siberia. However, the
soldiers failed to tie up the animals. When the cows
got nervous and began to move, the plane became
unstable as well. The Iljuschin was so hard to control
that the pilot feared to crash and ordered the crew to
open the tailboard and to chase the cattle (25 to 30
animals) out of the plane from an altitude of about 8000
meters. Accidentally, one of the cows fell onto a wooden
Japanese fishing boat that could not bear the impact
and sunk. Though the fishers were rescued some hours
later by a Russian patrol boat, they were arrested because their story was not believed. Russian authorities
then checked their statements and found that they were
true. The pilot was able to make an emergency landing
with open tailboard."
Did you see that? A HERD of cows! Twenty five
to THIRTY of them! Pushed out of a plane! Accident
my ass.....
Now I have to admit that Im much more inclined
to take the article submitted by Mr. Boehm as truth
than I am the one produced by Navair Weekly Bfm
Wrapup people, primarily because I think that Navair
Weekly Bfm Wrapup is an unnecessarily long and
annoying name for any news oriented organization. Besides, Mr. Boehm said he liked my page.
So heres my theory regarding what the
27

Russians are really up to: The soldiers never actually
stole the cows; the cows were given to them by the
Russian military for use in strategic bovine bombing
operations. The Japanese trawler just happened to get
in the way. And why were the Japanese fishermen arrested? Not because the Russians didnt believe their
story, but because the Russians thought the Japanese
were onto their plan. Of course, the question remains
as to why Russians would want to use cows instead of
bombs in the first place.
I think it involves some nasty Japanese/Russian
role-playing game incident.
Getting Hurt
You feel a burning flash run through your body
and your vision is filled with a million tiny splatters of
blood as most of the vessels in your eyes simultaneously explode. You try to scream but all that manifests is a horrid gurgle as your lungs also fill with blood,
bubbling up to your mouth and running down your chin.
Red fluid also leaks from beneath your finger nails and
a vein in your wrist pops free of the skin, writing and
twisting and spraying gore. Then the burning fades and
your heart rate calms but still pumps hard to replace
the fluids lost through your wounds. You've been nailed
with a Power Bolt....a Power Bolt that only did serious
damage.
Be it by bullet, car wreck, IC or spell every runner
is going to get hurt. Unfortunately the definition of "hurt"
tends to elude a lot of PCs and gamemasters. A runner doesn't care about the Serious damage because
they say they're "tough". Well guess what, buddy, tough
doesn't help you when fifty percent of your body is covered with first degree burns.
While the Condition Monitor is a wonderful way
of keeping track of exactly how far a character has to
go before they're dead it does a crappy job at giving
you any clue as to what state the character is in before
he gets there. Sure there's the modifiers but it's not as
if the character gets shot, is given his plus two, and is
suddenly unable to do everything as well as they could
a moment before. Light damage may mean you got
the tip of your trigger finger sliced off. Moderate damage may mean a bullet just shattered your elbow.. Serious damage may mean somebody just smashed both
of your hips with a sledge hammer. And Deadly damage, well, we all know what that means. If you just went
by the Condition Monitor the guy with the smashed
hips would take his plus three, get up, and mosey on his way.
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It seems that many PCs, as well as GMs, don't

think about the actual effects of getting hurt. They just
figure that Light damage means you took Light damage, receive a +1 modifier, and are free to get on with
the run. What it really means, or should mean, is that
you're MESSED UP. Parts of you hurt like hell, may
not work the way your used to, or may not even be
there anymore. Your pain compensator doesn't mean
a damn thing if the Moderate damage you took was
the result of somebody breaking all of your fingers therefore preventing you from firing a gun regardless of how
good you feel.
And then there's the morale issue. The condition
monitor may only say Moderate but if that Moderate
means somebody just hacked off most of your right
hand even if you're a magician who casts using chants
and hardly even utilized the damaged hand in the first
place just seeing the white bone poking into areas of
nothingness where once it was connected to a finger
has got to bring you down.
So what's a good way to introduce, if you haven't
already, the true meaning of getting hurt? Well, I'm
going to try to show you parts of the method I use,
although I admit it's a bit messy. Most of the time I just
shout out an injury ("The bullet punches through your
right hand") when somebody takes damage. The system gets even messier once you get to healing. Here
are a few of its finer points:
Damage Effects Hierarchy
One of the first things you should do is set up a
loose hierarchy of damage effects for the sake of consistency. The worst thing you can do is tell one PC that
Serious means he lost an eye then turn around and tell
another the same when he gets only a Moderate. My
hierarchy is a bit brutal, mainly in an attempt to keep
PCs from wanting to get hurt as well as reduce the
over all stupidity factor. The following is a very quick
summary of my hierarchy:
Light Wound: Deep cut, severed/broken finger,
broken nose, flesh wound, small burn.
Moderate Wound: Broken arm, damaged/destroyed eye, partially severed hand/foot, broken sternum.
Serious Wound: Damaged organs, severed limb,
severe burns.
Ok, so how do you know which effect to
hand out? Why should a PC receive a flesh
28

wound when they could, instead, receive a severed
finger? It really depends on the situation. If two people
are fighting with swords and one parry's wrong, receiving Moderate damage, the wound would involve a laceration of some kind. Magic effects are tricky because
a Power Bolt can do anything from giving a person a
simple heart attack to blowing his brain out through his
eye sockets. But, as I mentioned above, I usually hand
out whatever damage pops out of my mouth at the
time, although I'm careful to make it realistic and to
keep its severity in its proper category. If an NPC does
moderate damage to PC with a full auto SMG burst I
may shout "The bullets stitch up your arm, up your
neck, and into your face chipping your jaw and clipping your jugular." This may seem brutal until you realize that most of the wounds are superficial, the jugular
hole is so small it clots in a second, and the jaw is still
in ok shape.
Condition Monitor Adjustments
I'm constantly playing around with the levels of
damage on the PC's and NPC's condition monitors to
reflect the fact that the effects of a wound are not constant. A hacked off finger may only give you a Light
but, if you don't do anything about stopping the bleeding, it will further damage your through blood loss. If,
however, the stump was properly treated I may allow
the player to erase the Light damage altogether although they will still have a missing finger; It doesn't
magically regenerate.
Also, with the condition monitor, the modifiers only
reflect the OVERALL condition of a character. The number would be increased if, say, they tried to fire a gun
with a hacked up hand and it would be decreased if
they used a non-damaged hand.
Healing
I'm sure at least one person is wondering why
"severed finger" is under the Light category of my hierarchy when it obviously takes longer than a day for
such an injury to heal. For the most part I do this because on the grand scale of things such an injury isn't
that big of a deal as far as modifiers are concerned. As
long as it isn't a trigger finger the injured person can
wrap it up and keep going. Many of the effects on my
hierarchy seem especially severe for their category and
don't at all jive with the healing system. This is because, for the most part, I've done away with the normal healing system.
This is mainly because it doesn't make a
whole lot of sense. Lets say somebody took SeBLACKJACKS NETBOOKS
rious damage resulting in their arm getting hacked off

in a sword fight. With 2050's technology the runner
could enter a good hospital, get the arm reattached,
and be back out on the street in a day. Of course if he
tired to lift anything with this arm it would probably fall
off. But, for the most part, he's feeling ok. His other
arm works fine and if he swallows a pain killer he might
not even feel hurt. By the healing rules, even if he was
healing at the fastest possible rate he would still have
the +3 modifier for firing a gun with his good hand for
another day. Sure, if he got into a fist fight or had to
climb a fence he's get the +3 and probably have the
arm fall off again but if he had to fire his pistol there
shouldn't be any problem.
And there are a million other examples of odd
healing situations. A decker who has lost an eye ball
because of Moderate damage may decide he never
really needed it in the first place. An hour after losing it
he has a skilled medic cauterize the wound and sew
the eye shut. He feels pain, but it's nothing compared
to the time he broke his leg, and he hardly notices it.
Technically he would have a +2 modifier until everything has "healed". But he's not feeling any effects from
the damage and as long as it doesn't get infected his
eye, or eye socket as the case may be, will heal without him even noticing. Why, then, the +2?
With magical healing things get a bit weirder. If a
character who received Moderate damage because a
bullet grazed their eye was healed magically then I
consider the eye healed as well. If, however, the eye
was completely shot out to the point that there was
little eye left to heal the magic would simply heal the
socket. If somebody had their arm hacked off, receiving Serious damage, magic would be able to heal the
stump but wouldn't be able to take care of the entire
arm. Even through the character was technically
"healed" they would still be without the arm and would
still receive a modifier of some type for, say, climbing
a wall. There are many exceptions to the above results, such as when the hacked off limb is placed in it's
original location and magic is able to merge the pieces
together again.
First aid works kind of like magical healing, only
it's much sloppier. If somebody was shot through a lung
I would allow somebody using first aid to "heal" it, although this healing would involve a quick, messy sealing of the hole and a better repair job would probably
be necessary later to insure that the hole does not reopen. With a hacked off arm on the spot first aid would
be able to do little more than preserve the arm, cauterize the stump, and place the injured individual in a better
position to fully heal once the run was over.
What you have to do if you want healing to
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be realistic is take into account not only the over all
damage shown on the Condition Monitor, but the individual injury as well. Sure this complicates things but
such is the price one pays for realism. Integrating the
concept of "hurt" into the game may be difficult. Most
players like to think of their PCs as machines who's
ability to do and to not do things is measured by the
boxes of a condition monitor. They may not understand
that although the damage was Light the bullet went
through the runner's smartgun pad in the process thus
rendering it inoperable.
And, on a final note, let me mention that the best
way to keep track of wounds and healing and everything related to the two is to give the players karma
bonuses for integrating their damage into their
roleplaying as well as reducing their karma when they
don't. Getting hurt isn't an aspect of a character that
can be overlooked.
P.S. I just wanted to add on these mock injury
related Gamemaster vs. Pain In The Ass Player verbal exchanges because, well, I though they were kinda
funny.
GM: You jump out of the Brumby's way a little too
late and it clips the lower part of your legs, cracking
your shins, and giving you Moderate damage.
PC: I run away.
GM: Uh, you have two shattered leg related
bones.
PC: I only have a +2, I can run.
GM: On what?
PC: My legs.
GM: Your legs are broken.
PC: But it's only Moderate.
GM: You, as a whole, are Moderately damaged.
Your legs, as a whole, are Seriously damaged. Your
lower legs, by themselves, are Dead.
GM: Your sword swing is too low and the troll
hammers his baseball bat into your right shoulder,
breaking it into four or five pieces, and giving you Moderate damage. He then runs away.
PC: Whoooo, that was close! Anybody for a beer?
GM: What about your shoulder?
PC: I was going to take some time off anyway.
It'll heal on its own in a week, ten days tops.
GM: It is in five pieces.
PC: And?
GM: The five pieces don't know where to go. The
first piece is thinking about sliding further down your
arm. The second is considering merging with the
third even though they were not originally joined.
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The forth is wondering if it is sharp enough to puncture

your skin. The fifth is sitting near a major artery and is
wondering what's inside it.
PC: So? I'm getting into my car.
GM: You feel a sting as you open the door. The
fourth piece is happy, your skin was thinner than it
thought.
GM: The sniper rifle round slams into your chest,
nicking a lung, bouncing off of and breaking a rib, ricochetting through your liver and finally leaving through
your stomach thus giving you Serious damage.
PC: Ok! Where is he!!!?? Where's the sniper!!!??
GM: It's getting hard for you to breathe.
PC: He's gotta be around here somewhere. Ah,
on top of that building! I run towards the building.
GM: You feel a burning pain in your gut. As you
run more blood begins to flow from your wound.
PC: Hope he doesn't shoot me again, I'm almost
dead! Tee hee! Hey, maybe under that car!!
GM: You're feeling light headed and can hardly
breathe.
PC: Whoops! No more running for me! I'll just
walk to the car.
GM: The speed at which you are traversing the
sidewalk means little to your liver which, by the way, is
beginning to fail.
PC: I'll patch that baby up back at home base!
Now where was I...Oh, Yeah! Here sniper, sniper,
sniper.....
GM: Your world is beginning to fade, you feel like
you are going to fall over. Blood now soaks your clothing.
PC: Darn! I'll have to get those cleaned! Mr.
Sniper....
GM: You fall to the ground and everything goes
black.
PC: Oh, so he's using some spell on me! Dirty
mage! Show your face, you pansy!
GM: A white light appears above you and beckons you upward. "The good Lord awaits you, my child."
booms an omniscient voice.
PC: Good! Maybe this Lord character knows
where the sniper is!
GM: I give up....
One Word, One Run

First off, you'll have to excuse me if the following
is a bit fragmented. I've been reading Athenaeus's The
Deipnosophists for the last five hours and every
thought running through my mind sounds like
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this:
"...and thus the Shadowrun, as portrayed by
Flababarius in his Consort To The Bonnet Queen, is
but the calm before the storm when we examine
Deivoplubious's quote: 'Fine is the sammy who, unto
his own, can quarter the might god Renreku with only
sword of stone and shield of bone'."
In any case, I recently received an E-Mail message from an individual located in, I believe, Germany
who, offering advice on how to get over my case of
writer's block, suggested that I use ideas found in everyday reality as a source of inspiration. If this person
is reading this article right now I'd like to apologize for
the complete lack of civility my response may have
portrayed, the actual wording of which amounted to,
as I recall: "No shit." Perhaps my annoyance was rooted
in the fact that I figured this was how EVERYBODY
got their ideas and that by singling me out as an individual who may not have been aware of this universal
concept this individual was basically calling me an idiot.
But, upon close examination of the circumstances, I
believe the six cups of coffee I had before checking
my E-Mail may have been more of a factor in my short
fusedness (pronounced "fuse-ed-ness").
This whole scenario alerted my to the possibility
that there may still be people out there who perpetually attempt to yank ideas out of thin air when instead
they could be lazy like the rest of us and simply pick up
a copy of Newsweek. I personally utilize three basic
methods to extract ideas from common, everyday,
materials and situations, although I will only cover one
now because I have to, uh, get milk before the 24 hour
mini-mart closes.
The method I'll explain is what I call the "Word
Association Method", thus named because that is what
I have named it. It's a bit tricky and you have to have a
special kind of wandering, unpredictable, associative
type of creative mind which allows you to take single
words, or a simple idea, and build a story around it.
People with this type of mind can be wandering down
the street, hear somebody say "Hi, Bob!", and their
mind will suddenly create Bob's entire world including
what Bob did today, what foods he likes, what movies
he watches, and whether or not he is the mastermind
behind a large criminal organization known as Spartan
who, using a policlub as cover, is engaging in the shipment and manufacture of various items which could,
conceivably, be used to build a nuclear weapon by an
"associate" of Bob's in the Middle East, a mysterious
man known only as Kabar.
I believe the technical term for such a personality is "psychotic" which is why most people with
these kinds of minds can only write if their ward
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attendants are nice enough to put a pencil in their mouth

because their straitjackets prevent them from using a
word processor. In any case, for those of us who managed to escape the asylum, such thoughts provide us
with years of entertainment until such time as we go
nuts and blow up the Department Of Motor Vehicles,
although there are many perfectly sane people who
would like to do this as well.
In order to illustrate another, non Bob-oriented,
example I will, right now, at this very moment, pick up
my copy of The Deipnosophists, flip to a random page,
read it, and get an idea for a shadowrun. Most of this
volume is about sex so I should be able to find something interesting. Hold on a sec. . . . hmmmm . . . . well
. . . .I'll have to reach but . . . . OK! In the footnotes the
quote "Ye stocks! Ye stones! Ye worse than senseless
things!" appears. I have no idea what this actually
means. It's Greek to me (pun). But the stocks part reminds me of the time I visited Salem, Massachusetts,
the site of several witch burnings and hangings back
in, I believe, the 1600s (although it was nothing like
Europe where witch burning was so common that it
caused a temporary spike in global temperature.) I remember being disappointed because the whole place
was incredibly commercialized and every other store
had some witch-looking chick with a black cat squatting in it, selling books with titles like: "Fifteen Easy
Ways To Summon The Devil". So, lets say, such a situation still exists in the world of 2050 but, finally, the
spirits and ghosts of the deceased are getting a bit
pissed off at their exploitation. They want the commercial types to get out of Salem.
This run could actually go two ways. The runners
could, if they had a magic user, be hired to combat the
spirits. But I happen to be a big fan of deceased Puritans so what I would do is have the GHOSTS hire the
runners to get rid of the store owners. The ghosts could
use a free spirit or possess somebody or do any number of things to inform the runners of their need and
they could pay them with magical formulae or information regarding hidden historical artifacts. So there's
your shadowrun, all thanks to a dead Greek person
who happened to write something with the word "stocks"
in it.
So, how can you as an everyday, non psychotic
person utilize this method? Practice. If you mind doesn't
create the situations for you force it to by sitting back
and dwelling on a single word until something in a remote portion of your brain associates it with something
else. Keep following the chain of associations until you
have enough of them that, if you assembled them into
a plot, they could conceivably kill off every PC
in your entire roleplaying group.
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Well, I'm off to write another shadowrun because
the song Who Drove The Red Sports Car, by Van
Morrison, just rolled around on the CD player and since
the person driving the Red Sports Car is a former terrorist named Krell who is thinking of getting back into
the killing business the runners are going to be hired to
take him out before he even has a chance to go back
to work but, unfortunately for the runners, Krell never
actually left the business and has been working for a
group known as Pure Society for the last five years
while stockpiling weapons and training at his rural Seattle home so, needless to say, things aren't going to
go down as smoothly as the runners had hoped.
Then I'll go blow up the DMV.
Random Thoughts
This week I'm devoting the content of my Corner
entry to a few of the many random Shadowrun related
thoughts which roam my mind but aren't well formed
enough to build an entire article around. And for those
of you who may think I'm doing this just so I can get
out of the serious work involved in writing a coherent,
meaningful essay....you're right.
1: If I ever hear another player say "I hit him"
during melee combat I'm going to scream, take all of
their karma, and shove it in a dark uncomfortable place.
"Hit him" doesn't tell me anything. Be creative, for God
sakes.
2: The same goes for "I shoot him".
3: Just once I'd like to hear a character running
through the sewers say: "You, know what? I'm really
getting tired of the smell of shit...."
4: The first player who announces they are buying Chapstick for their chapped lips get's a billion points
of karma. Same goes for Oder Eaters.
5: It would be nice, just once, to meet a Street
Samurai who has a collection of antiquated Buddy Holly
45s. (For you kids who have never seen a 45, they
look kinda like CDs only they're black and a bit bigger
and don't require the use of a laser in order to listen to
them.)
6: Lesson Number One: You will never, ever BEAT
Renraku.
7: I've never been a big fan of Shadowrunized
profanity. I know it was created in order to keep the
parent groups from going nuts but, hell, most foul words
have been around for centuries and I see no reason
why they wouldn't have survived into the 21st century.
So fuck it.
8: Every time you use a sniping rifle you
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give the bad guys another reason to use one on you.

9: A decker who is a master of computers, but
still writes poetry on an antique typewriter, is destined
to receive large amounts of roleplaying karma.
10: Same goes for a troll mercenary who likes to
play an acoustic guitar.
11: Self imposed vulnerabilities are the most reliable way to make your character more human. Without such vulnerabilities your character is simply a living robot portraying the disposable qualities of such an
entity.
12: Why not stop off at the library?
13: If your character gets shot in the arm stop
you should, for a split second, look at your own arm,
visualize the bullet hole, visualize the blood, and imagine the pain before you decide to pull your own gun
instead of ducking for cover.
14: When your shaman clutches his or her talisman while casting a spell think of the talisman's history, think for the energy flowing from it, think of why
this energy is flowing, and make sure you understand
how this power is manifesting in reality.
15: When you buy an economy sized bag of pretzels at the Stuffer Shack pick up a Chip Clip as well so
the left overs won't go stale. It only makes sense.
16: To a rigger his vehicle is as alive as he is.
The two are one. For this reason a rigger's vehicle never
gets damaged, it gets hurt.
17: Never offer a troll a bite of your cheeseburger lest ye wish to go hungry.
18: The GM can come up for an excuse for everything. Never forget that.
19. Gunnery vs Vehicles. Firearms vs People.
20: Never act: EXPERIENCE.
Leveling The Field

If a character lives long enough it is inevitable
that his or her abilities will reach a level so high that a
gamemaster has to dramatically up the stats of every
NPC confronting them lest the NPCs get their butts
kicked back and forth across the Awakened World. In
theory this is a semi-good idea; it creates a greater
physical and skill related challenge for the PCs and
proves to them that, no matter how high their numbers
get, the GM can always do them one better.
Unfortunately there are numerous flaws to this
tactic as well. First off, any PCs with statistics and overall power amounting to less than the more built up and
experienced characters will fall in a hail of magic and
bullets they cannot possibly withstand. Creating
NPCs specifically designed to counter PCs of
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varying power will work every once in a while, but there
is still the high possibility that a weaker PC will somehow enter the "line of fire" between two hot shots. Another problem with the tactic of raising NPC stats is
that you end up playing a numbers game as opposed
to a roleplaying game. It is too easy to become preoccupied with the frantic process of balancing numbers,
an action which takes your attention away from the
true nature of the game, i.e. roleplaying.
So I present to you gamemasters whose PCs
seem to be on the verge of "running the show" some
more creative, and perhaps devious, ways to humble
the hotshots, as well as ways these hotshots can make
life a little bit easier for their poor, wretched GM.
We Have To Do What?
One thing a gamemaster has to remember as he
watches his NPCs getting cut down like blades of grass
under a rotary lawn mower is that, hey, he put the NPCs
there in the first place and put the PCs in a situation
wherein they had to fight them. Eventually the GM
should realize that, if his NPCs are going to get wasted
in a normal fire fight, don't put them in a normal fire
fight. What you have to do is change tactics. Lets say
the most powerful member of a shadowrunning team
is a heavy weapon wielding troll. This troll makes life
hell for other PCs as well as NPCs because, as I mentioned above, if the GM sends in a force powerful
enough to take on the troll, the weaker PCs get blasted.
But lets say the next run took place inside, oh, I don't
know: A NITRO-GLYCERINE FACTORY. The troll's
gunboat tactics will be useless lest he blow up a large
section of Seattle with a single HMG round. This tactic
also works on PCs who have, had, or are developing
the high and mighty attitude which accompanies high
level stats. Put Mr/Ms. I Am God in a situation wherein
he or she has to delicately negotiate with an Elven
prince who's throne room happens to have a nifty array of very large, and very visible sentry guns trained
on them. Be sure to let the PC know of the inevitability
of death should they decide to be a jerk. If they still act
unruly, read last week's article.
I Don't Know How To Do That
Odds are, even if the PCs have progressed to
the point where they are masters in respect to their
archetype, there are a few skills none of them are too
good at, or even possess at all. Take a good look at
their character sheets, figure out what these skills are,
and then develop a run that requires them if the
runners are to succeed. For instance: You notice
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that none of the PCs have even a half way decent electronics skill so you write up a run during which the PCs
run into a bunch of complex electronic boxes they must
manipulate if they are to succeed in the mission. In
other words, create a shadowrun in which the PCs will
outright FAIL if they do not possess the required skill.
A run where a firearms of 22 wouldn't do them any
good because THERE'S NOTHING TO SHOOT AT.
It's best to begin utilizing this technique by slowly introducing it into runs in a way that, yeah, the runners won't
get their butts kicked if they don't have the skill, but the
run will be noticeably more difficult. Hopefully they will
perceive this as a hint sent special delivery from the
GM. A hint that, in future runs, they won't get the fifty
grand upon completion, or even get out alive, if they
don't have the skill.
Another benefit of this method is that, instead of
raising their firearms from a 10 to an 11, the PCs will
have to divert the karma into other skill areas. It may
actually be a good idea to begin introducing the need
for a more diverse group of skills BEFORE the runners
begin to really kick ass in the interest of slowing their
"progress".
Blasts From The Past
When a PC begins to approach a certain degree
of skill they may also acquire an aura of smugness
and complacency as a result of their success, if they
weren't like this already. They just keep cruising along,
getting good runs, kicking various NPC's around, and,
sooner and later, become somewhat comfortable with
the idea that nobody can touch them. This is an excellent time for the GM to have Renreku show up at their
front door, inquiring with attack choppers and machine
guns as to what the runners did with the data they stole
about a year back.
What I'm saying is: Make the PC's the prey for
once. Now it may seem like such an action requires
that the runners simply fight off the invading force,
which they could do if they were good, and then get on
with their lives. Not quite so. Do you think Renreku
isn't going to try again, this time with bigger guns and
bigger people and, perhaps, a nice missile targeted at
the runner's dwelling? The idea is to make things so
rough on the runners that they're forced to flee underground, abandon some of their equipment, and divert
energies which would have previously been used to
make themselves level 12 firearms experts and owners of various MP Laser systems into the act of simply
staying alive.
Rule Manipulations
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In my own games I've introduced a few actual
rule adjustments designed to keep a PC's development
from getting too out of control and, admittedly, none of
them were spectacularly popular with the players.
The first is a revision of the requirements for raising the karma pool. In my game the amount of karma
you must acquire before the pool can increase is equal
to the current value x 5. In other words: If the current
level is a 2, then it you need 10 to raise it to a 3. If it's
a 5, then the cost is 25 to raise it to a 6, and so on. My
reasoning behind this arises from my extreme dislike
of the pool itself. The karma pool, in my mind, is around
to get the PCs ass out of a jam when they encounter
an adverse situation as the result of, simply, bad luck.
They missed a single die roll, or something else rather
insignificant. Unfortunately many players use it as an
excuse to do really stupid things. When the pool gets
high enough they realize that they could stand in front
of a Panther round, get hit, and then buy their way out
of death. This is bad.
I also altered the cost for raising Attributes, making it identical to that of skills, namely: double the original level. I think it's ridiculous that a normal human
can reach their Body's racial maximum from an original level of 3 for the price of 12 measly points of karma.
He must have one hell of an exercise machine.
people, there does come a point at which the game,

despite whatever tricks the GM pulls trying to make
life difficult, is simply too much of a breeze. Now if you
want to go out in a nuclear blast, or get hit by a laser
from space, or fall to whatever drastic measures the
GM is going to have to use to put your character of a
year and a half in a grave then more power to you. If
not, consider retirement.
The best time to retire a character is when the
number of new and less powerful PCs starts to out
number the veterans. If anything, seeing a majority of
his long time colleagues fall to the shadows should
serve as a sobering reminder to an ageing PC that
every runner is going to die. The only way to prevent
this is to stop being a runner. Now there's nothing dishonorable or weak about retiring. Many Shadowrun
sourcebooks contain examples of those who have retired and have become near legends in their own time.
Pretty much everybody else, though, is dead.
Does this mean you'll never see your beloved
Samurai or Mage or Rigger or Decker again? Hell, no.
You'll be meeting up with some old gaming friends in a
year or two and you'll each pull out your fading, wrinkled,
retired PCs and decide to send them on one more, for
old times sakes. And the gamemaster, seeing such a
glorious array of highly skilled, heavily armed and nearly
invincible PCs, will get a nostalgic tear in his eye, and
proceed to toss his NPCs directly into the garbage.
Mentoring
Mentoring is when a powerful PC takes under their
wing a fledgling character of similar archetype and
assists them in advancing their new character and, most
of all, helps them survive. This may involve the donation of cash but, if I ever used it, would also involve the
transfer of karma. Now this is a bit more complicated
then simply saying "Hey, kid, here's two points." What
it represents is an amount of time during which the
powerful PC trained his underling in whatever skill the
karma is to be used for. The older PC doesn't advance
his skill because he's simply showing the newer PC
what he already knows. The catch is that the skill being taught to the lower level PC can't be more than two
thirds that of the better PC. In other words, a PC with a
Electronics skill of 6 can only train somebody until their
level reaches a 4. Mentoring doesn't necessarily have
to take place between really good and less skilled PCs.
Two more advanced PCs are more than welcome to
do the same thing.
Retirement
Yes, it's the dreaded "R Word". C'mon
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Powerless
A little story:
It began as a simple run. The characters were
new, so I decided to give them an easy one: A simple
kidnapping. The location was a nightclub, large and
lightly patrolled. The target was the MC of an small trid
awards ceremony. In order to add some spice, and to
introduce the new characters to a more aggressive form
of gamemastering, I introduced into the scenario a
group of runners who were far better trained and
equipped than the PCs and who had the same target. I
won't go into the details but, by the time it was over,
the NPCs had the target, and the PCs had one of the
NPC team's members.
Ok, it wasn't quite over. The PCs knew their
Johnson wasn't going to give them drek for kidnapping
a low level mage when what he really wanted was Mr.
Kepler, a high level trideo producer. To save time, I
had the NPCs contact the PCs and arrange a trade.
Perhaps I should go into some detail regarding the NPC team. First of all, they're good.
34

Real good. Dimples is a female elf street sam, brutal
and intelligent. Cheetah is a female human cheetah
shapechanger, quick and deadly. Liver is a grade A
decker. And Diocese, the captured mage, well....of all
the people they could have snagged. Diocese was new
to the group and hadn't yet built a very strong connection with them. She does too many drugs and is always a little bit out of it, in sharp contrast to the rest of
the group's efficient nature. They were thinking of ditching her anyway, which didn't help the PCs position at
all.
Now for a little info on the PC group. Ok, well, it
wasn't quite a group. It was two people, a sammy and
an ex-bodyguard, both of whom had rolled into town
the night before and, out of sheer luck, managed to
hook up with this run. They knew nobody, lived in a
small, crappy apartment, and were terribly under experienced.
Back to the NPCs group. They'd been running for
years and had a complex web of connections and
safehouses. They took the kidnapping run because they
were bored, a simple ten grand payment being a drop
in the bucket as far as finances were concerned. They
were fully prepared to simply hand Mr.Kepler over to
the PCs, but wanted to make them sweat a little bit
first.
The meet took place at a shadowrunner club
known, simply, as the Underground. While one PC
guarded the captured NPC outside in a van, the other
entered through an upper class club, traversed several back hallways, numerous staircases, and a half
dozen bouncers to whom he had to drop Dimples' name
in order to get past. I made it very apparent that Dimples
and her group were very well known here. This became more obvious when the PC finally got to the
Underground and spotted Dimples and her group seated
at the best table in the club, with numerous other runners eyeing the PC's actions to make sure he didn't try
anything. Thus began the negotiations.
Dimples asked for the return of her group member as well as ten grand, an amount of money which
would have made the run profitless to the PC. The PC
refused the offer. Dimples stated that this was the only
offer she was going to provide. The PC still refused.
Please allow me clarify a few points. Number one:
this was the NPC's first run in a new city. If he, and his
"group", succeeded then more runs would follow. If they
failed, they would probably have to locate a new
Johnson. Number two: the PCs are NOBODIES. They
have no power in their new town. They have no reputation. In short, if they simply vanished off the face of
the earth nobody would really care. Number
three: The PC involved in the negotiations had,
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to his discredit, written up a character who didn't believe in negotiation, never yielded, and never knuckled under. To continue:
The negotiations lasted, in game and real time,
for two hours, during which time the PC refused to
budge when Dimples A: Threatened to have her decker
forward the surveillance footage of the kidnapping, with
Dimples and her group edited out of course, to the
police. B: Explained to PC runner that, even if he made
no money, completing a run would build his reputation.
C: Informed the PC that she had the power to squash
him like a bug. It ended with the PC breaking off negotiations and leaving the club.
Actually it ended when one of Dimple's buddies
blew a six inch hole through the PC's chest as he walked
out the front door.
This was the first time I outright executed a PC.
But I can't say I feel the least bit bad about it. Why?
Picture this: Two people enter a gun fight, one armed
with a Panther assault cannon and wearing military
armor and the other armed with a Streetline and wearing only boxer shorts. What the PC did was the equivalent of taking his Streetline and ordering the Panther
wielder to drop his weapon. The Panther person would
have blown him away simply for being an idiot, which
is exactly what Dimples did.
I'm sure at least a few readers are thinking, "Well,
if the PC was faster and stronger then he could have
survived." All I have to say to that is: Wake the fuck
up. There will ALWAYS be somebody faster and better
then a PC. The GM should see to that. As a PC develops the number of people better than him lessens, but
never quite goes away. Too many gamemasters allow
PCs to waltz around with a high and mighty attitude,
living out the lives of flawed characters who's attitudes
and actions are going to eventually get them killed.
This is really messed up. If anything's going to kill a
PC it should be a situation which pushed their skills to
the limit and, unfortunately, over the edge. A character
should never die because they're a screw up. And that's
exactly what the PC in my example was: A screw up.
He was in no position to do what he did and he paid the
ultimate price for his actions. Dimples was trying to be
nice, she was trying to teach him a lesson, a lesson on
the value of knowing when to give in to a superior force.
The PC insulted her by being such a moron and presented himself as a disgrace to the shadowrunning profession. Ego played into it too, but ego COULD play
into it because, let's face it, she had the right to have
one. She'd been running for years, having built herself
up from absolutely nothing into a respected professional. Why should she have to put up with crap
from some idiotic newbie? Sure, she could have
35

let him slide but his unwillingness to change would have
eventually put him in a grave anyway. By having
Dimples waste the PC I simply saved time.
So what, exactly, am I trying to say? Simple. A
runner has to know when to yield and know when to
stand strong. They have to juggle the pluses and minuses of everything so, even though setbacks may
arise, the runner always comes out in the end. They
then move forward, slowly at first, but more rapidly as
time passes until, eventually, they reach the point that
they have a good rep, some nice friends, and their own
table at a nifty nightclub. Only then can they tell everybody to go to hell. But, by this time, they would have
earned the privilege.
Using The Toilet

The following is true: The largest spontaneous
karma amount I have ever awarded during a game
was the 10 points I gave to a character known as Mr.
Bungle when, upon finishing a run and returning home,
he announced that he was going to use the toilet. I had
been gamemastering for four years before that moment and never once had anybody ever even hinted
of taking care of one of the human, or metahuman,
body's most basic functions.
But this article isn't about toilets, although a
Shadowrun-Toilet writing would be rather entertaining.
My main subject of concern, however, is the advantages and proper use of downtime. Downtime is the
period of idyll a character experiences between
shadowruns, a period of time which is often used for
healing or the replacement of missing appendages, but
a segment which may also be utilized in a freeform
way allowing characters to engage in activities not normally appropriate while on an actual run. I'm aware
that many gamemasters don't even utilize such periods of time, they simply bounce their players from one
run to the next, giving them only enough time to buy
more ammo and perhaps surgically replace their eyeballs. I'm a big fan of downtime because A: It doesn't
require that I write up anything even remotely resembling a run, and B: It gives the characters a chance to
relax a bit before Mr. Johnson calls them up again,
offering 100,000 nuyen if they can acquire a sample of
harpy snot. Although I enjoy reason A simply because
I'm lazy, reason B is much more important in regards
to the game.
Downtime is important for the following reasons:
Roleplaying: More often than not a run
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doesn't provide much of an opportunity for a character

to explore the finer points of their personality. A character has, or should have, interests which simply don't
jive with shadowrunning. A Bruce Lee fan can't stop
off for a triple feature in the middle of an extraction
against a remote Aztlan corporation. A shaman who
enjoys growing flowers finds little time to engage in
such activities while tromping through the sewers looking for Grognark, the much feared god of the Redmond
Barrens underworld. A connoisseur of fine wine won't
have the opportunity to toss back some samples while
transporting a shipment of experimental C-16 across
the UCAS. By taking some time out to engage in such
"mundane" activities a character gains a better understanding of who they really are, beyond the guns and
the fireballs and the combat programs.
Contact Building: It takes a lot more than a
simple introduction to acquire a contact, at least in my
game. It is a delicate balance of give and take, a balance which is often difficult to establish on the spur of
the moment. If a character finds out they need a Decker
contact in the middle of a major shadowrun, and if they
don't have one already, they're screwed. You can't just
walk into a bar, sit down next to somebody with a keyboard, and say "Hi, chummer! My name's
Dweenlemark. Hey, you would happen to know where
I can get a map of the Renreku security construct, would
you?". No. You'd better know this person, and know
them well. They're not going to start spilling top secret
information at the drop of a hat...for all they know you're
working FOR Renreku. This is why, during your down
time, you have to work on building these people's trust,
getting to know them, perhaps even doing a few favors yourself. The, when it hits the fan, they'll remember you. What you did for them. And why they should
do something for you.
Getting To Know The Neighborhood: A
shadowrunner doesn't know everything, not even when
it comes to their own town. I don't care if somebody's
lived in Seattle for 180 years, there are some streets
they haven't seen, some places they haven't been, and
some places they aren't welcome because nobody
knows who they are. The last thing a runner needs,
after the pop out of the sewer and onto a remote, desolate street, is to have no clue as to where they are and
no better idea of where they're going. During downtime runners should do all they can to remedy this problem by visiting these remote places, poking their heads
into a few bars, and trading shotguns (not shotgun
blasts, just the shotguns) with local gangs until
they feel confident that they could wake up from
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a dead sleep in this area wearing nothing but their pajamas and still have a place to go. Neighborhoods are
very suspicious of strangers. Make damn sure you're
not a stranger.
Independent Endeavors: The runs handed to
you by Mr. Johnson aren't the only way to make money.
Every once in a while a street sam might come across
an interesting weapons facility while fleeing through a
sewer, or a decker might scan a neato piece of data
while perusing a government node, only the nature of
the run they were on at the time didn't give them the
opportunity to engage in a personal treasure hunting
stint. Downtime provides an excellent opportunity for
the runners to go back and get these little prizes while
not jeopardizing their reputation. No Johnson wants to
find out that their runners failed a run because they
took a hiatus to recover the Lost Talisman of St. Olaf
when they should have been extracting an important
scientist.
General Everyday Realism: Every once in a
while it's nice to see a shadowrunning group shed their
fully automatic weapons, dress up kind of snazzy, and
hit a nightclub for no other reason than to hit a nightclub. Or go get some soy burgers. Or get some ice
cream. Or rearrange the living room. Or get their car
painted a different color because they're sick of "Arrest Me Red". There are a million little things people
do everyday that are virtually ignored during the game.
I'm not saying you should do all million of them, but
taking a hot shower now and then does a lot to remind
you that this fantasy world still consists of 90% reality.
If you ever want a crash course in downtime, start
out as part of a new group while I'm GMing. What you
get is 100% downtime until YOU find a way to snag
yourself that first run and build up a reputation. As your
rep improves, the runs come faster, and the downtime
lessens. I refer to this as "Motivational
Gamemastering". You have to get yourself motivated,
or I'll gamemaster you into starvation.
And on a final note I'd like to address my favorite
aspect of downtime: If you use it properly, you won't be
able to tell it's there. I know this contradicts what I preciously said about keeping downtime and the runs separate, but it's so difficult to merge them successfully that
most of the time separation is what occurs. But since
so much of what you gain in downtime can be utilized
during an actual run you may soon get to the point that
the whole shadowrun-everyday life mix begins to blend
together. A run ends, but it doesn't end, because
you go back and grab what you missed, using
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contacts you gained while not on a run, but used while

on a run, in a section of town you visited once, and ran
in twice, when Mr. Johnson called, and said there was
run down the block, but not for another hour, so you
went to a movie, and one of your contacts was there,
he gave you some info, which helped on the run, which
you finished early, allowing you to go back to where
you had your last run, which was a block away from
this run, after which you met your Johnson at a bar,
owned by a contact, which introduced you to a gang,
which saved your butt from another gang, which allowed you to get home in one piece, on the way receiving a call about another run, but not till tomorrow
night, so you stop for some ice cream, head home,
smooth out the details with your group, watch your favorite trid show, which has a commercial for a gun which
would be great for tomorrow's run, after which you take
a shower, use the toilet, and go to sleep.
For The Good Of The Group

"Kenada, were going in once the cameras go
down. Delta, crash those cams. Flashback, I want to
know what's waiting for us in astral space. Marques,
you're driving and I may need artillery if things get
rough. Everybody got your headsets? Ok, gang, let's
do it."
Ah, the ideal Shadowrunning group. A glorious
web of professionalism, efficiency, and devotion. The
goal: To get the job done. Every time I encounter a
new role-playing group I come to the gaming table with
this utopian idea frolicking in my mind. And then, when
I see what I have to work with, this world comes crashing down.
The sammy wants to blow away every living things
he sees. There is no decker. Nobody even has Street
Etiquette so there's no way to go out and hire one. The
Rigger only owns a two seater Wasp. The mage is an
adept who has blown all of his money and magic on
making himself the fastest draw in the west. And astral
space? Nobody even though about astral space. Two
of the three mercenaries have already started arguing.
Now the sammy slips me a note: He wants to cheat the
rest of the group out of part of their pay.
Augggghh! Sometimes I wonder why I even
SHOW UP. The bickering. The cheating. The yelling
and screaming. And most of all, the selfishness. It is
very clear to me that many, many people out there
don't really know the definition of the word "team".
Perhaps I missed something but I'm pretty sure
the purpose of the game of Shadowrun is to par-
37

ticipate in activities known as, gee, what are they called,
oh yeah: SHADOWRUNS!!!! Now, granted, the overall purpose is to have fun, but again, this fun is supposed to manifest as a result of working in a team with
the common goal of successfully completing those little,
what are they called again, yes: SHADOWRUNS!!!!!
Even when these groups go to a bar, or toy around the
mall during down time, they still are supposed to remember that their purpose on the face of the Earth is
to work together to better their skills for the sole reason of completing bigger and better. Damn, what are
they called again?
You'll have to excuse me. I'm just getting sick of
it all. Of all the apathy and lack of professionalism and
just general careless mucking about which has reduced
many, many of my games to a idiotic series of internal
conflicts, stupidity, and selfishness. I'm sick of the
"WAHHH! I can't have FUN unless I KILL EVERYBODY
and am a COMPLETE ASS HOLE throughout the ENTIRE FREAKING GAME" attitude. The "I only work for
myself" players. The millions of times teams of players have SAT THERE and done NOTHING because
they don't want to pick up the damn Seattle Sourcebook
and plan a meet at a decent restaurant and the times
when they have and some jerk off ruins the whole deal
because "My character HATES corps so I just HAD to
spit in that company man's face."
Perhaps I take the game too seriously. Perhaps
I'm an idealist. Or perhaps I'm right on the mark. For
some reason or another the world has forgotten the
idea that, without a team, you do not have a game.
The purpose of this writing is to provide a few suggestions on how you can create the ideally balanced
Shadowrunning team. These suggestions are not going to work for everybody because there are some
people who are going to keep on being their normal
"Screw you" selves no matter how many times you beat
them over the head with a good idea.
The key to a good Shadowrunning team is balance. This balance must be achieved in several different areas:
Power: If any one of the characters is substantially more powerful than another then the gamemaster
is forced to elevate the degree of risk to compensate
for this spike. If the gamemaster simply kept the risk
level on the same plane as the less powerful characters, the more powerful PC would have the run of the
town. Unfortunately, elevating the level of risk to a degree which would challenge this more powerful character puts the rest of the team in an uncomfortable, and often times fatal, position.
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Archetypes: When you have a team of three

samurai's and a shaman the odds of the team becoming successful is almost nil. Who's going to drive?
Who's going to deck? If a group doesn't possess the
basic decker, rigger, magician, sammmy mix then they
won't stand a chance at succeeding at any run more
complicated than a drive by shooting.
Personalities: You can't have a good
Shadowrunning team which possesses personalities
which are in complete opposition to each other. If a
majority of the team values life then the slaughtering
sammy would never have made it into the team in the
first place. Then again, if the group does not value life,
a softy never would have stuck around either. Members of a team must have at least a few things in common in regard to their attitudes, desires, and goals.
Essentially, they must be friends.
Leadership: I've always been a firm believer that
a Shadowrunning team should have a leader and that
the rest of the team should follow this leader's orders,
unless these orders are stupid or inherently lethal. I
also believe that this individual should be placed in the
position of leadership on the basis of knowledge of the
actual gaming system, not aggressiveness. The leader
should be somebody who has read all the books, knows
all the rules, and, most of all, knows how to use what
he knows and has read to successfully carry out a run.
He or she doesn't have to be the one who negotiates
the best, or has the prettiest face. This leader should
be somebody who can take in all of the facts given to
him by his team and use them to come up with the
best course of action for the given situation.
Ok, now you have some swell ideas on what the
ideal team should be like. Now the question is: How
the hell do you successfully build one? The big problem with teams is that they are comprised of characters who were probably drawn up in somebody's spare
time and who were created without any knowledge of
who they were going to work with. The result is usually
five people showing up to play with incompatible characters. Some characters simply will not work with other
characters. It's like taking a football player, a surly bus
driver, a street bum, Bill Gates, and Mother Theresa,
throwing them into the same room and asking them to
work together. Never in a million years would this work.
Similarly, if you take a human Sammy who hates trolls,
a troll sammy who hates magic, a physad who hates
everybody, and a shaman who talks to a tree all
day, and put them in a group you're not going to
38

be able to get anything done. Plus there's nobody to
deck or drive. So we can, hopefully, see the importance of working together to make sure everybody gets
along. As I said before, everybody must be friends.
Teams who have the common goal of money or simply
adventure quickly fall apart because the participants
quickly see that they can obtain either of these without
necessarily giving a crap about his team mates.
The only good way I've found to achieve a good
degree of group unity is through the use of Character
Creation Sessions. What you do is get everybody together who's going to play and then spend a rather
long time creating everybody's characters AT THE
SAME TIME. This allows the group to work out a common goal, compatible personalities, a good spread of
archetypes, a good leader, and so on. It also gives them
a chance to work out the group's backstory. Backstory
is the string of events which occurred that brought them
together as a team in the first place. Perhaps some of
them were old friends, or old lovers, or old coworkers,
or were all put through similar adverse conditions which
resulted in them teaming up. Two characters may purchase a bartender contact and determine that it's the
same person. The rigger may purchase vehicles which
make it unnecessary for other characters to purchase
their own. If somebody's character runs out of money
during the creation phase they can strike up a deal
with a "friend" in which they trade weapons, a ritual
that dates back to their hunting days in the NAN. Perhaps all of the players will decide to start out rather
weak, diverting their points and money in unique ways,
because they know that, with the group strength consistently low, the gamemaster won't throw anything too
tough at them until they build themselves up. The possibilities are endless.
More importantly it allows players to keep an eye
on each other to make sure nobody is getting too far
out of line with their characters stats, power, etc. It also
allows the gamemaster to interject with advice and
questions so he or she can stop potential problems
with the characters BEFORE they enter the game. The
whole session is structured rather democratically with
each player being able to voice concerns or complaints
with the ultimate goal of "ratifying" everybody's characters and, eventually, the entire team. And I know, as
a gamemaster, I'm a million times more likely to give
the players and their characters a few breaks if I can
see how much effort they went through to create the
team. They deserve it.
After The Fight

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As a runner exits the warehouse carrying several

grand worth of stolen merchandise he sees a man in a
security uniform walking up the street. The man stops
and, realizing what's going on, goes for his walkie-talkie.
The runner cranks off a shot from his Warhawk, blowing a hole straight through the guard's chest, and knocking him backwards, blood splattered, onto the wet street.
The runner checks around for additional security and,
seeing none, dives into the Seattle shadows.
Marvin didn't want to be a dock security guard
and neither was this a wish his wife or friends. The pay
sucks, the benefits are nil, and the mortality rate is
high. These and many other thoughts were running
through their minds as Marvin was wheeled into the
intensive care ward of Seattle General. The gun blast
had severed his spine and stopped his heart for nearly
fifteen minutes. Even if, miraculously, his brain was
still fully functional, Marvin would never walk again.
The surgeons went to work and fifteen hours later they
wheeled out nothing more than a shell of the man who,
just a few hours ago, was sitting and chatting with some
coworkers over coffee. His best friend, Max, was the
first to brave a look. Slowly he entered the darkened
room and, peering through a web of tubes and hoses,
looked into the eyes of what was left of Marvin.
Five minutes later he's the phone with a contact
at Lone Star. The investigation was going badly, he
was told. The perpetrators were good and left virtually
no evidence. Max explained what had happened to
Marvin and the contact promised to put all he had into
the investigation.
A month later Max receives a call from his Lone
Star contact. Another robbery had been perpetrated
the night before, matching the previous crime to a tee.
And this time they had a witness, a young gang member who had managed to escape and was later captured fleeing the area. It took some roughing up but
they finally got a name: Snake. Both robberies involved
the theft of a special chip which has a high market
value on the Asian continent. The contact gives some
fence names which deal in this area of the world and
sends him some similar chips he "found" in the evidence storage room.
Max's search takes months and he finally gets a
lucky break. While discussing the chips with a local
fence a group of people walk in, a group of
shadowrunners. The fence quickly brushes Max aside
and, as he walks out the door, hears the fence greet
one of the runners as Snake. All it takes is some tailing
and Max finds out where these runners eat, sleep, party,
and meet. He also gets a snapshot of the mysterious
Snake.
Max visits Marvin, who has made little
39

headway against his condition and is still all but a vegetable. He pulls out the photograph of Snake and places
it in front of Marvin's vacant eyes. The heart monitor
jumps. Max smiles. Now all he need do is wait. And
plan.
It ain't over till it's over and, as we've learned in
life and in Shadowrun, it's NEVER over. Most of the
time the loose ends simply dangle. But sometimes
these loose ends act as a fuse, slowly burning down
until it ignites a blast of retaliation. Every action leaves
a loose end and, no matter how hard you try, there's no
way in hell you're going to be able to tie all of them. It's
called paranoia and paranoia is what forces you to keep
your edge.
Far too often runners, and even gamemasters,
forget about these loose ends and allow potentially
volatile, and exciting, situations and scenarios to simply die away. There's a tendency to consider an NPC
"out of the picture" as soon as he's out of the fight. The
result is runners who go through life without anything
on their minds other than their current run and, after
this run is finished, the following one. Such an attitude
denies a central theme in Shadowrun which is, again,
paranoia. Without paranoia runners acquire an attitude
of invincibility and smugness which accompanies the
knowledge that nobody's going to mess with them.
The lose ends are what keep them on their toes.
You can't simply send a corp after them for no reason
whatsoever in an attempt to "scare" them into paying
attention because what the hell does a megacorp care
about some runner group which never messed with
them in the first place? But waste Renreku's most celebrated combat mage and they're gonna want to take
the price it took to train him out of your ass.
Frequently, a runner will attempt to get rid of a
lose ends through the use of simple elimination. Elimination of the witnesses, or the wounded guard, or the
passers by. For some reason the runner finds comfort
in knowing that this person will not be able to come
after them in the future because they're dead. Well,
guess what, these NPCs do not live in a parallel universe from which they enter the "real world" for the
duration of a firefight and then vanish back to wherever they came from. They have friends, dependents,
and other people who are going to be quite upset over
what has occurred. Now, granted, the average security
guard won't have the resources to go after a full fledged
Shadowrunner who wasted their buddy, so perhaps
Marvin was a bad example. But wax a Yak soldier who
happened to be the son of a high level boss and there's
gonna be trouble.
Gamemasters should also be careful not
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to over use NPC retaliation. You want your runners to

be paranoid, but not so terrified that they're scared to
go to the Stuffer Shack to get some sloppy soy. What
they should be is on their guard while going to the Stuffer
Shack, or nightclub, or wherever. I know when I personally walk down a city street at night I assume that
every person I pass is going to pull a gun on me. I don't
exactly consider myself paranoid, I just find comfort in
knowing that if somebody does pull out a gun I won't
shit myself in surprise and perhaps do something stupid that will get me shot. In Shadowrun, you'd be ready
to go for your own gun. I can't exactly do that in real
life, although I can quickdraw my wallet faster than
anybody I know.
Character
I tend to catch a lot of flack from gamemasters
and fellow players when the rare chance arises for me
to create a and actual playing character. "Damnit,
Branson (my real name)", they say "I could have written up ten PCs in the amount of time it takes you to
decide what rating your Street Etiquette skill is going
to be.". Well, gee, sorry, I guess. Perhaps I do take the
process of character creation a bit too seriously, but it
also appears that there are a lot of players out there
who don't take character creation seriously enough. I
run in to a lot of "My guy sucks" comments, not necessarily meaning that their skills aren't up to par, but usually referring to the fact that the character they spent a
whopping ten minutes drawing up isn't fun to play. Then
there are also a lot of the "forever a sammy" types who
say they can't have fun playing anything else, probably because they never put any effort into trying to
create something unique.
In any case, the following is a character I created
followed by details describing the logic behind just about
every one of his attributes, pieces of equipment, etc.
My goal is to show how, through the investment of a
little bit of time and thought, you can come up with a
fleshed out and interesting character.
40
The character:
Attic - Elf Physical Adept
ATTRIBUTES
Body: 5 Char: 5
Quic: 6 Inte: 4
Stre: 5 Will: 4

Magic: 6
Essen: 6
Ascent Decent Kit (Gloves + 100M Rope)

Global Positioning System
500 nuyen in gold
500 nuyen in silver
100 nuyen in gems
Cheap Flute
Small Grey Cat
Reaction: 5 + 2D6
SKILLS
Armed Combat:
4/6 (edged weapons)
Unarmed Combat: 1
Firearms:
4
Stealth:
2
Athletics:
3
Street Etiquette: 5
Negotiations:
3
STARTING CASH
$80
Ok, now for the comments:
Streetname
ADEPT POWERS
Armed Combat +4 (Gesture Geas)
Increased Reflexes +1
Mystic Armor Level 2
Freefall Level 2
ALLERGIES
Sunlight (Moderate)
LIFESTYLE
Low Class (1 Month)
WEAPONS
Knife x4
Sword x2
Stainless Steel Pipe x2
Ares Crusader MP x2 (200 Rounds Normal Ammo
+ Holster)
Colt Manhunter x2 (100 Rounds Normal Ammo
+ Holster)
Defensive Grenades x4
ARMOR
Real Leather
Form Fitting Level 3
Forearm Guards
STUFF
Ordinary Clothing
Music Playback Unit (5 Chips)
Pocket Computer (40MP)
Micro Transceiver
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Most street names, in some way, reflect the attitude of the individual it titles. Attic's name, however,
ties in with his history more than his disposition. Attic
has already tried his hand at running, beginning three
years ago at the age of 18, and, for the most part did
fairly well. Unfortunately he also discovered the existence of drugs during this period of time and, quite rapidly, became an addict of a variety of substances. On
the street he came to be known as The Addict or, more
simply, Addict. Attic later checked himself into a rehabilitation clinic and, somewhere along the line, Addict
became Attic. He loves to make up elaborate, melodramatic stories about the history of his name. ("I am
known as Attic because my mind is where the bats of
my consciousness dwell.")
Attributes
None of Attic's attributes really stand out. Many
were probably higher before his addictions wore them
away. Attic was very lucky to emerge from his drug
laden world with his magic attribute in tact. In fact, it
wasn't until he entered rehab and met up with his room
mate, Devon, that he even realized he was magically
active. Devon, an adept himself who had all but destroyed his magical ability with drugs, was Attic's first
"instructor", training him how to use, recognize, and
respect his power.
Skills
Attic is very good with bladed weapons, so good
that, under normal circumstances, the gamemaster
would probably be a little agitated with his skill level.
But there are several catches to the use of his adept
powers. Before entering rehab and discovering
his magic Addict was still pretty good with swords
41

and knives and the like. He liked using two weapons
simultaneously, training with them to the point that he
would actually mess up if he was only using one. What
Attic didn't know is that, while training, he was not only
harnessing his adept powers but also placing a Geas
on himself. Attic would always go through a series of
motions with his weapons before entering combat, a
series of motions which ended up being integral to his
ability to use the weapons properly. Now, before attacking, he spends an action or two putting his swords
or knives through this series of motions, climaxing when
he rakes the blades across each other causing them to
spark with energy. He cannot attack or defend while
doing this and the necessary actions prevent him from
sneaking up on people (which he doesn't like doing
anyway) because the actions are fairly obvious. He can
also go through the motions with other kinds of weapons, so long as they are metallic which is the reason
for the two stainless steel pipes. In addition he must
have two weapons in order to properly execute the
maneuvers. Although he can, technically, use his adept
powers to fight with one weapon if he loses the other
after executing the maneuver he's somewhat psychologically dependent on the two weapon system and
would probably go after the lost weapon before entering combat again. So the bottom line is while, technically, the has 10 dice at his disposal for bladed weapon
armed combat he will almost never use that many in a
single attack. Typically he would use five dice on whoever he was attacking with his right weapon, and five
for the guy on the left. Remember, I didn't have to put
these limitations on my character. I did so because I
thought it would make him more interesting to play.
As a side note, when creating this skill set up I
used the assumption that the GM would be using the
"split dice" system of dual weapon combat. Although, I
believe, the rules state that a second weapon in combat just adds a +2 modifier, I have always ditched this,
replacing it with the "split dice" system. In case you
don't use this system, it simply means that, when using two weapons, no matter what kind they are, you
divide up your skill dice and make individual attacks.
This means if this character had both swords out and
was fighting two guards, one of which was fairly good
and one of which sucks, he would allocate more dice
to attacking the good guard and use just enough on
the suckie one to keep him off his back. In firearms
you may want to use one gun to lay half hearted cover
fire, using only one or two dice, while using the other to
actually try and hit someone. If the gamemaster didn't
use this system I probably would choose a different
character to use in his or her campaign. Attic
would be no fun at all.
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Attic's pathetic unarmed combat skill reflects his

dependance on having a weapon in his hand, but the
fact that he at least has started the skill shows that he's
at least considering a remedy for the problem. I'd probably simply default to his Quickness until the skill gets
better. His firearms skill is a bit better and he's making
a concerted effort to improve it with practice and magic.
As you can see from the weapons list Attic has carried
his symmetry concept into the realm of firearms. If he
obtains an adept power in this area it would probably,
in some way, have the same type of geas as his armed
combat.
Attic's stealth and athletics skills could both use
some work but he'll probably work on improving his
athletics more than anything. In order to engage in
armed combat you have to get close. Unfortunately
there always seems to be something in your way preventing you from doing this. Athletics helps you get
close and is therefore essential to Attic's tactics.
Finally, street etiquette and negotiations, two skills
which seem rather high for a beginning character who
only had a few points to blow in the first place. Again,
this is a result of his history. A druggie spends a lot of
time getting to know people, extracting info out of them,
manipulating them for cheaper prices, etc. Fortunately
these same skills can help you find someone on the
street, bribe people, and engage in other interesting
activities. Attic is a very likable and sociable person,
he is not a burn out, although he would probably be
one my now if he hadn't gone into rehab.
Adept Powers
I've pretty much covered his armed combat powers, which leaves the reaction, armor, and freefall powers. Attic was fairly quick, even when stoned or blasted.
When he finally "came down" he realized that he was
even faster. Attic finally traced this quickness to the
fact that, when he acted spontaneously, the resulting
action usually was the appropriate one to execute. He
didn't have to think about why he should move in a
particular direction, he just did it. Sometimes, when in
combat, Attic will end up fighting his way across a room
and then, when everything quiets down, wonder how
he got there. The freefall power operates on the same
principle. Attic can launch himself over a desk or rock
or whatever and not have to think about hitting the
ground right on the other side. While flying through the
air he may be able to pull out his swords because he
doesn't have to concentrate on landing in a way that
doesn't break his wrist or smash his gun into his hip.
The mystic armor power manifested simply as a
result of Attic's strong desire to not get cut up.
42

Perhaps somewhere along the line his magical subconscious realized that, since Attic is in physical combat a lot, it might be wise to find a way to defend the
body against retaliation.
Allergies
One of the only remaining signs that Attic ever
used drugs was his allergy to sunlight which manifested
as a result. Sunlight practically blinds him.
Lifestyle
When, or if, Attic first enters a game it will be
only a few days after he left rehab. He returned to his
small, low class apartment, and has since been waiting around for something to happen.
Weapons
All of Attic's weapons are remnants from his early
days of shadowrunning. One of his worst fears is being
caught in a combat situation without two of some kind
of weapon, two melee weapons most of all. He keeps
two of the four knives taped to his ankles, and the other
two in his pant pockets. The swords are kept in sheaths
criss crossing his back in the traditional fashion. He
carries the pair stainless steel pipes, the length of a
sword and only a few centimeters in diameter, just in
case he ever needs to knock somebody out, as opposed to chopping them into little pieces. The sheathes
that hold his swords also have a side "pocket" the pipes
can slide into.
Attic isn't especially fond of guns, not because
he doesn't like the concept of the firearm, but simply
because he isn't too good with them. All he's really
good at is laying cover fire and causing general confusion, not really hitting much, but making a lot of little
holes in things. He'll typically wear the MPs on his hip
and keep the pistols in his inside jacket pockets.
The grenades he found in an old warehouse a
few years back where he had gone to get high. He's
never used one and it's likely the four he possesses
won't even work.
Armor
Attic prays to a random god every night that he
won't get shot. He's found that most armor which protects well against bullets is rather bulky and cramps
his style and speed. As you can see most of his armor
is geared toward impact protection, which he
needs more than anything else.
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Stuff
Attic's dress still gives off the impression of
druggieness, which he's found has been beneficial in
street situations. Although he looks rather runnerish
when he has his swords and pipes hanging off his back
he still doesn't portray the image one might attach to
the profession. In situations where his shabby appearance might be adverse he can usually reassure everyone of his professionalism by utilizing his street knowledge and good old fashion charisma.
I'm sure at least one person is wondering what
he's doing with a Global Positioner and a pocket computer. First, I have to confess something. Technically,
this character only started with the 500ny granted to
him by the priority chart. In violation of the rules I rolled
for his starting money, which came out to 12,000ny,
and then spent it during character creation. But I did
this for a few good reasons. First of all, 500ny doesn't
buy you anything, so the 12 grand would have been
spent immediately upon starting the game anyway.
Second, this character would never have that much
money just laying around. He may have gone through
rehab but having that much cash to blow on anything
you want (like, perhaps, drugs) is a bad thing. I did it
for a noble roleplaying reason and I don't believe it
drastically messed anything up. When Attic returned
home his first priority was to get rid of the little bit of
money he had. The positioner and the computer simply represent two frivolous purchases he made for this
reason.
The repelling kit and the transceiver were more
thought out. The repelling kit ties in with his Athletics
and his need to get close and the transceiver was still
around from his old shadowrunning days. You can't run
if you don't know what's going on.
Attic purchased the gems and minerals as another way of getting rid of some of his cash. But it also
assured him that, if he absolutely needed money, he
could sell the goods for real money. This extra step is
intended as a deterrent to going right out and buying
drugs. Not many dealers take lumps of gold as payment.
While in rehab Attic passed time by attempting
to play a small flute given to him by Devon. He never
was that good at it but still enjoys whistling out his own
little tunes from time to time. If he ever develops a
centering skill, this flute will probably play a part in it.
Finally, there's the cat, a small, grey, skinny little thing
Attic found rooting through garbage in an alley near
his apartment as he walked home after leaving
rehab. The cat took a liking to him and now Attic
43

lets it stay in his apartment, leaving the window open a
bit so it can go about it's catly business. He has named
it Allie.
Starting Money
I'm surprised he has that much on him.
So, as you can hopefully see, virtually every aspect of this character has something to do with who
this character is. I could have used the same line up of
priorities to create a more badass PC with panther cannons, and bazookas, killer reflexes, and everything else
but I really wouldn't have been able to come up with a
decent reason for why.
There's probably at least one player or, perhaps,
gamemaster who's saying "My god. This wimpy little
piece of crap character wouldn't last two seconds in a
campaign!". Well, sheesh, he is just starting out. Too
many players hold the notion that they have to possess a powerhouse of a PC when the game begins. I
don't know how this got started but we really have to
do something about it. Why is everybody so eager to
hit the big leagues right off the bat? Or are gamemasters
making beginning campaigns too tough? I admit, my
character wouldn't last two seconds against Fuchi, or
even Lone Star, or maybe even the gang down the
street. He just started, for christ sakes. He hasn't run in
a long time and would appreciate a few kitty cat runs to
get him back into the game. When I start up, as a
gamemaster, a game with new PCs I devote almost
the entire first gaming session to general wandering
around, getting to meet people type activities. Sure I
send them on runs, but these involve little more than
snagging a ganger's bike or the infiltration of a teenie
tiny minicorp facility.
So take some risks with that priority chart. Start
out with the wired 1. Put some of those points into natural attributes and save the cyberware for later. Give
your PC a bunch of flaws, and slowly correct them as
he climbs the ladder of power. When you start out with
a killer character you quickly find that there's hardly
anywhere to go with him. You end up trying to make a
perfect character even better. It's much more fun to
take a mediocre, or even bad PC and turn him into a
contender. Somebody who deserves the Fuchi run
because he WORKED for it and didn't just play with
the numbers.
In The Mood
I've received a few E-Mail messages from
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people who are having trouble getting their friends, or

even themselves, into the gaming mood. As would be
expected if nobody feels like playing, the game is going to suck. This is not to say that said people don't
want to play, as if they were being forced at gun point
or something, it simply means that, for some reason or
another, they can't slip into the Shadowrun "mood", the
alternate reality necessary for enjoyable play. You want
to play, but something isn't letting you.
The following are a few suggestions for helping
you get into the Shadowrun mood.
Pre-Game Dialogue: Just because the
gamemaster isn't ready yet, the rest of the players aren't
there yet, or you're not even there yet does not mean
you can't roleplay your character or, if you are the GM,
your NPCs, through dialogue. Convincing dialogue is
essential if the game is ever to get past the basic I
shoot him, he shoots me format and if the character is
ever to develop a well rounded personality. During the
game you often don't have time to converse to a degree which exposes your character's personality quirks,
interactive tendencies, and so on. For this reason it's a
good idea to set up some conversations between characters, NPCs, or characters and NPCs before the game
even gets running. When driving to a roleplaying session a friend and I would converse as if he was his
character and I was an NPC. We would set up various
circumstances under which this dialogue was taking
place and talk the situation out as if we were actually in
the game. Obviously there are no real consequences
if one individual pisses off the other because we couldn't
exactly fight it out while driving down the road, although
on a few occasions we came close to trying. It may
also be beneficial to critique the dialogue for flaws ("It
felt like I was talking to you, Frank, not your Troll rigger.").
Meditation: Ok, this sounds a little bit hokey but
bear with me. When you're gamemastering and sitting
in a activity room, or cafeteria, or convention hall, or
wherever you might be playing there are usually multiple distractions which can prevent your mind from
slipping into the game mode. You may not be able to
picture the street in front of you, the noise of a gang
fight, and the roar of a Seattle downpour, because all
your mind wants to focus on is the idiot with the hyperactivity disorder doing jumping jacks behind your players. Or it could be something as simple as a wall with a
nifty picture on it. Your mind prefers to stay in the real
world because, hey, it's a hell of a lot easier thank
making stuff up.
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Sometimes, right before a run, it's good to take
some time out, close your eyes, and picture exactly
where the heck you are. If you know you'll be in the
streets and then in a corporate outpost and then on the
subway simply take a little walk in your mind to all of
these places. Say hello to the guard at the gate or the
old lady sitting next to you. Concentrate on the details;
the sound of cars passing by, the size of the moon, or
the shouting of nearby residents. Make sure none of
the players bother you while you're doing this. After a
few minutes, when you're ready to play, your mind will
be more closely aligned with the fantasy plain and many
of those distractions will no longer bother you. Your
mind has already been where you're going and therefore doesn't have to try as hard to get back there. Players may also wish to do this, to sit back and picture
their apartment, their possessions, what they look like
in the mirror, and what their characters are feeling. You
can't just instantly switch from playing pool or Nintendo
to playing Shadowrun. It takes more than a few seconds to switch realities.
to integrate these activities into the Shadowrun world

so, although you're sitting around playing Killer Instinct
in the living room, you could roleplay the situation as if
was occurring in the game itself. Again, it sounds kind
of weird, and should probably be restricted to non-public activities unless you wish to suffer significant loss
of respect, especially if you're playing pool, in reality,
at a bar called Dirty Frank's against two large motorcycle oriented people. In any case, a game of pool
played in somebody's basement could be roleplayed
as if it's being played at a shadowrunner bar. Killer Instinct could be roleplayed as if you're in an arcade.
Even Axis and Allies could be played as if it were in
the matrix, with each country being represented by a
different node. Or maybe not. Just have your shadowrun
stuff set up near by so, if it seems like the pool game is
going to get ugly you can roleplay, and roll for, the fist
fight that ensues.
Gamemaster Pep Talk: Sometimes all it takes

is a little bit of goading by the GM to get players into
the roleplaying mood. One method is to bring up past
examples of how they had a blast playing the game
and exactly what transpired that made it so enjoyable.
Another is to bring up a few cool things the players
might want to do during the game which may not necessarily be related to the actual run. For example, if
the character has an interest in art let him know there's
a new exhibit in town and that the curator has heard of
him. Sure it borders on bribery, but so what. The players may also be reluctant to participate because of a
particular thing the gamemaster did which ruined the
game for them in the past. This is a good time to resolve such problems. The gamemaster should still stick
to his guns, however. If a player states that he or she
did not enjoy themselves because the GM sent the
cops after them every time their character blew up a
nunnery the GM, in my opinion, shouldn't budge. And,
on a side note, I've found that another good way to
deal with the slaughtering sammy types is to have them
captured, possibly by radical psychologists, and then
interrogated for answers as to why they're so maniacal. It keeps what would otherwise be a GM lecture in
the form of a roleplaying event.
Activity Integration: If it seems the game is
never going to get off the ground because there are
too many other activities distracting the players, be they
video games, the internet, pool, Axis and Allies,
cooking, or whatever, it is sometimes possible
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Temporary Insanity: Finally, if the reason for

your unwillingness to play revolves around the fact that
the game has, for one reason or another, simply grown
boring, the group may wish to have what I call a Temporary Insanity session. The way it works is that an
exact duplicate of the players's character sheet, stats,
etc. is made and then used in a shadowrun which usually involves few rules and even fewer consequences.
Since the player is not using his or her real character,
only its stats, they can engage in some wildly insane
and, perhaps, idiotic activities which would normally
put the character at grave risk. They can try things that
they would never try in a million years with their actual
character and, in the process, learn what would and
would not have gotten them killed. The gamemaster
can also try some stuff that, during a normal game,
would be illogical and maybe even stupid. Switching
back into the normal gaming mode can be a bit difficult but the increase in morale usually makes up for
the rough transition.
The Need For Speed

I'm working with a new group and inform the players that a small and violent gang has appeared, describe them and their positions, and make the point
that it would be best if everybody rolled for initiative so
the proper order of butt whipping can be established.
The samurai rolls first while the rest of the group, inexplicably, awaits his die results. Then goes the decker
along with the mage after a moment of contemplation
to see if either wouldn't mind the other rolling
first. Then rolls the rigger who, apparently achiev-
45

ing a low number, sits heavily back in her chair with a
hull. All is quiet. I glance around and the players look
back, slowly realizing that it's ok to announce their
scores, which they do in a simultaneous roar of digits.
After two or three attempts I manage to get them to
reveal their numbers one at a time, although one has
already forgotten. The samurai goes first. He asks me
what he sees. I quickly spill the descriptions and locations of the five gang members again. He stares forward for a moment, looks to the ceiling for answers on
what to do, and then slowly announces that he wishes
to quick draw and fire his pistol. I announce he has to
make a quickness test, target of four, completely throwing him off guard. One by one he gathers up his quickness dice, adding one more before the roll because he
forgot he had a eight instead of a seven. Shaking the
dice five or six times he tosses them in the pattern of a
wide gauge shotgun across the table, with one die falling on the floor and requiring a moment to retrieve. He
shakes this one die five or six more times before releasing it. After a moment he looks at the results, standing to see the one which practically rolled into my lap.
He sees a six and rerolls it and, seeing another six,
rolls it again. I inform him that this is not necessary, as
achieving a four is achieving a four and achieving an
eighteen is still just as good as achieving a four. He
sits back down and waits for something, perhaps the
spaceship that will take him home. Finally it registers:
I have another test to make. He states that he wants to
shoot a gang member. I ask him which one. He asks
me to describe them again. I do and he states he wants
to shoot the one with the SMG. I ask him how many
shots he is firing. He states that he is firing three, which
is ok under my rules. I calculate the target number to
be a seven and the player informs me he has a
smartgun link. I then calculate the target number as
being a five and he announces he has a shock pad. I
drop the target to a three and he asks why it isn't a two.
I give an explanation and we undergo another tedious
die rolling procedure. He hits, and hits quite well. I roll
the resistance test and make six slashes next to the
NPC's name. The player then informs me he is using
APDS ammo. I cross out the NPCs name and look to
the next player, the decker. Startling him out of near
slumber he looks to me and asks how many gang members there are. I go home.
The above is a rather extreme, though not implausible, example of slow game speed. Fast speed is
essential if the game is to be anything more than a
jerky and tedious string of die rolls with the occasional
bit of roleplaying. The following are a few possible ways to speed up your sessions:
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1: Have the players sit clockwise from highest to

lowest potential initiative. When things start to speed
up and you feel like ditching initiative all together it
makes jumping from highest to lowest a lot quicker
and easier and makes sure you don't accidently let
somebody with a maximum possible roll of 11 go more
often than somebody with a maximum possible roll of
36.
2: If the player isn't ready with an idea on what
they are going to do, basically just sitting there with
one of those "uh, whuh?" expressions, then skip over
them for the time being. You can always come back to
them later when they've made up their mind.
3: The players should be thinking about what
they're going to do during their action while other players are preforming theirs. This does not mean the player
should ignore everything else that is occurring for the
sake of their own contemplation, they should simply
divide their attention properly.
4: If a player knows they will be using a certain
skill very soon they should have the dice palmed and
may sometimes even roll them before they even announce why. If you're playing with untrustworthy players this won't work because their unsuccessful demolitions roll may suddenly turn into their semi successful
athletics roll.
5: Don't waste time making idiot die rolls. An idiot
die roll is a test which is made even though there is a
ninety nine percent chance of a certain outcome, such
as somebody without armor getting wasted with a twelve
shot assault rifle burst. Just cross out the NPC and get
on with the game.
6: Eliminate certain die pools or find alternatives
to using them. I speak in particular of the combat pool.
Other pools aren't all that hard to deal with, like hacking or rigging, because there is usually only one player
using them. But the combat pool slows the game down
immensely because everybody has access to one and
I've found nobody who can allocate dice quickly enough.
The gamemaster should compensate by raising target
numbers, giving severely hit characters a "break" from
time to time, and by informing players that they should
duck more. If a piece of cyberware gives dice to this
pool, compensate by raising an attribute or thinking of
a new way to utilize such dice.
7: Simplify compound rules. Every once in
46

a while you'll come across a particular action which
requires three or four separate rolls to successfully execute. Other than magical drain tests, most of these
can be reduced to a simple attack/resist structure.
Check out "The Joy Of 4" rules on my page for more
information on such a system. Also along these lines
is a slowdown attached to the combat pool, namely
that screwy "if your combat pool dice exceed the number of successes rolled by the attacker then the attack
has missed" or something like that. Teach the players
to duck and 86 this rule.
8: The GM, whatever their method of
gamemastering, should be able to do it efficiently. If
the game is running badly and it's not the players fault
then the gamemaster should find a new way of making
things work. Beginner GMs will always run into slowdown problems as they adjust to the system. If an experienced gamemaster is having the same problem
they should really rethink the way they are running
things.
9: If you are a player, GM at least once. If you are
a GM, play every once in a while. You'll find that, in
each position, there will be particular things your players or your gamemaster are or are not doing that are
frustrating to you. I get this feeling a lot when I
gamemaster for a lame group of players. I call it the
"Do THIS!" phenomena by which the players never
seem to do anything fun, spontaneous, or exciting in
your world and you wish you could be a player in your
own game so you could show the other players the
zillions of options available.
11. If you're a player, memorize your character
sheet. Know your skills, attributes, and available equipment by heart so you don't have to waste time looking
them up.
12. New players, i.e. players who have never used
the Shadowrun system before, should be pared with a
veteran gamer who knows the rules and can explain
them as the game progresses.
13. Know the rules associated with the type of
character you are playing. If you're a mage, learn and
memorize as many rules as possible associated with
being a mage and have any sourcebooks available on
that subject by your side.. Same with a decker, rigger,
sammy, or anybody. This is definitely something I wish
more players would do because, although I've been
gamemastering for as long as the game has been
around, I am still horrible when it comes to reBLACKJACKS NETBOOKS
membering the rules. If somebody announces they're

going to conjure a great form force six elemental using
all kinds of fetishes and things I will probably have to
look the procedure up in one of the rule books to make
sure I do it right. If the player knows this procedure, or
hands a sourcebook to me they have opened to the
correct page, it saves valuable time.
14. And finally, if the roleplaying aspect of the
game starts to take off in a situation, ditch the rules for
a little while. This takes a lot of self discipline and will
not work with Slaughtering Sammy type players who
would view this as an excellent opportunity to do evil
with out those pesky dice holding him back.
So lets try this again:
I'm working with a new group and announce that
a small and violent gang has appeared, describe them
and their positions, and announce that it would be best
if everybody rolled for initiative. Simultaneously four
sets of dice hit the table. Clockwise the results are announced and, as usual, the samurai has priority. I finish rolling my guys' initiative, taking my time as I know
none would approach that of the sam's, as the sam
announces he is quick drawing his pistol with a shock
pad and APDS ammo and firing at the leader. I blurt a
target for the quickness test and move onto the decker
while the sam rolls his quickness. "I'm outta here." He
states and bolts down the street. Back to the sam. "Got
it." he states, firearms dice already in hand, "Three
shots.". I shout another target number, palm the leader's
body dice, and move onto the mage. "I'm gone too."
he says and rolls the dice for his personal invisibility
spell. Back to the sammy, who announces his successes and the adjusted damage code. I dump the dice
for the resistance roll and cross out the NPCs name.
It's the sam's action again and he decides to seek cover
by ducking behind a dumpster. One of my guys' actions. I notice the rigger is beginning to roleplay the
confusion one with a low reaction experiences by darting her eyes around and bolting upright in her chair.
My guy simply dives for cover. On to the rigger. "Whut
the hell?" She yells and dives for cover. The mage's
action again. "Four successes, +8 to perceive me." he
announces "Oooh! A wall!" he adds and begins to slink
along it toward the gang members positions. Three of
my guys' actions. None perceive the mage and I make
three quick and futile firearms tests to see if they hit
the decker running down the street. Final action, the
sam's. "Watch it, flashy!" he warns the mage, and palms
a grenade.
47

Turn over.
the system yet. But you eventually have to grow out of

them. Here's two suggestions to make the transition
easier:
Riding The Runner Railroad

Recently I had the displeasure of playing a PC in
a Shadowrun game run by a friend of mine during which
I gained an even higher degree of respect for non plot
driven game scenarios. This particular GM had apparently attended the "Pre-Packaged Shadowrun Adventure In Those Neat Thin Books With The Nifty Looking
Covers" school of gamemastering, a discipline which
teaches the GM to read words off of a piece of paper
which resemble the following: "The runners were exhausted and frustrated from their encounter with Big
Bad Nuntucket The Barghest and decided to spend a
few days laying low at Uncle Slim's Eat And Spew until
their Johnson made further contact."
Yeah, ok, sure thing. Exactly what I want to hear,
somebody else's drivel regarding how MY character is
feeling and what my charector is going to do. A real
life example: After a scene in the run I went on the
gamemaster stated that I was "tired" and "could think
of nothing but getting a good night's rest". Well, quite
frankly, after a two day chase after a shadow I could
never even get close enough to launch an ICBM at I
was FAR from wanting a good nights rest and wished
for nothing more than a case of Jolt cola and some
Speedy BTLs so I could keep myself going long enough
to at least verify that my target actually existed. Then,
after I had objected to his statement, the gamemaster
announced that I had collapsed from exhaustion and it
was now the next day. Swell.
As I've so eloquently mentioned in previous writings, plots blow. They restrict the GMs creativity, they
restrict the players creativity, and, worst of all, they
give you the unnerving feeling that, no matter what
your character does, everything's going to end up the
way it's written down on the piece of paper in the GM's
notebook. I admit that I once used a plot based system
and remember committing such acts as I've described
above. Half of the time I would follow the plot because
I didn't know what to do if I didn't follow the plot, a
problem less experienced gamemasters run into often
but which slowly subsides the more you play. The other
half of the time I'd stick to the plot because, damnit, I
spent a day writing the thing up and didn't want that
work to go to waste. By either reasoning the style is
inherently flawed because, lets face it, nothing ever
goes the way its planned.
I'm not saying that plot driven and pre written
shadowruns are all bad. They're excellent for
brand new GMs who don't know their way around
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1. While using a pre packaged run revise the plot

while the run is in progress. Basically, screw the plot
up. You can still use aspects presented in materials
but change them subtly, develop new plot lines, and
bring everything to a new conclusion.
2. Concentrate on the personalities presented in
the run, not the plot. Use their stats and some quotes
and so on, but develop a new run premise around them.
If things start to go bad you can still refer back to the
book. Hopefully you won't have to.
By utilizing the simple methods above not only
will you better train yourself to create runs "on the fly"
but also reassure your runners that the events to come
are not written in stone. That the players still have power
and that nobody is ever going to tell them what to do.
At least not without a Manhunter pointed at them.
Contact
I'm going to tell a little story, whether you like it or
not, about a recent Friday night Philadelphia adventure I had involving a broken down Grand Marques, a
homeless man named Erving, and the American Automobile Association. This story may have very little relevance to the world of Shadowrun, but I don't care.
It all started with a phone call from a friend living
in up state New York I hadn't heard from for a very
long time and, having nothing better to do but write
stuff for my page over the weekend, I decided to drive
up for a visit. The time was about eight p.m. and I
figured I could make the drive in a little under three
hours, barring the high possibility that I would receive
my token speeding ticket. (Cops come from as far as
Nebraska just so they can ticket me. I believe it's some
kind of contest.) In any case I grabbed some stuff,
stopped by a drug store for a Cherry Coke and some
cigarettes, and walked to my car.
I should probably mention the fact that I live in
downtown Philadelphia. If I was any more downtown
than I already am I would be living in the mayor's office. And if you've ever lived in the dead center of a
major metropolitan area you know the significance of
a Friday night. If you haven't I'll lay out the general
mood for you: Chaos. During the week everybody works their nine to five jobs and goes home
48

and goes to sleep and when the brain realizes that it
doesn't have to stick to this routine for a few days it
releases a hormone to the rest of the body which tells
it that no boss will yell at it if it decides to try to negotiate the cost of a prostitute, whether the person it's negotiating with is a pimp or not. But I'll get to that later.
What's important is the fact that I managed to drive
something along the lines of five blocks before my car
decided it didn't want to be a car anymore and would
be happier being a road block.
I hit the gas at a major intercity intersection and
my '87 Lincoln Mercury Grand Marques simply died.
No sputtering, no jerking, just a nice, simple transition
from a fully functioning automobile to a sedan shaped
rock. I quickly glanced around and realized from the
number of individuals drinking large amounts of
alchohol related substances concealed in soggy paper
bags that there were around seventeen billion better
places this could have occurred. I tried to start the car.
It was turning over fine, it just wasn't starting. Two of
the many individuals standing on the corner approached
and instructed me to pop the hood
. The first thing that crossed my mind was the
possibility that the moment I popped the hood the individuals would rip out every available component from
my engine and run off. I told them to hold on, and tried
to start the car again. Nothing. Ok, so here's the situation: I'm in a not so hot area, there are two bums who
want me to pop my hood, I'm blocking a lane on a busy
street, and my car is not going to start. What do I do?
One of the first rules I established for myself when
I moved to the city was to never trust anybody. It was
simple enough and worked rather well as I had yet to
be screwed over. After a moment of thought I decided
this rule needed an appendix. I remembered seeing
some of these bums on this corner before and although
I was in a fairly bad area it was surrounded by fairly
good areas so A: if they grabbed some parts where
would they go and B: if they did I'd know where to find
them and would have no trouble figuring out a way to
exact revenge. Finally there was the fact that ninety
percent of the bums you meet are generally good
people, despite what current stereotypes portray. I finally realized I had to trust these people as the current
situation didn't put me in a position where I could get
away with NOT trusting them. If I didn't do something
soon the cops would show up with a ticket book and a
tow truck and I'd have to spend the better part of July
trying to get my car back. After pondering this for a
moment I opened the hood.
The two looked around the engine, with me carefully keeping watch, and went through the traditional motions one goes through with a stalled
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vehicle, checking wire connections, hoses, etc. and, of

course, asking me a question which would be repeated
some five thousand times over the next four hours,
namely: "Do you have gas in it?". I tried starting the
car a few more times to no avail and when the two
bums offered to push it to a place across the street and
off the road I accepted, knowing full well that it was
going to cost me a few bucks.
The second rule I established when I moved to
Philadelphia is to never give anybody money they didn't
earn. I have yet to "bum" anybody anything but a cigarette and through the thousands (no exaggeration this
time) of attempts people have made to get money out
of me I have yet to break this rule. Sure I'll loan a friend
a few bucks or buy them lunch or something but nobody who's approached my on the street has gotten a
cent. On the other hand I am more than happy to hand
out cash to someone who has assisted me in some
way as I believe it is fair compensation for work rendered, and whether they spend it on food or crack
makes no difference. It's their money, they earned it,
and they can do whatever the hell they want with it.
After a pulse raising push across six lanes of traffic I was off the road and up on a sidewalk where I
would be safe from the cops so long as I stayed with
the car. I decided to take a look under the hood myself
and quickly developed a longing for my old '77 Grand
Marques which had an engine that looked a lot less
like the inside of a nuclear reactor, complexitywise,
than my '87. The individuals who pushed me introduced
themselves as Willie and Erving and, in turn, I introduced myself as Branson.
Ok, so I screwed up and broke rule number three:
Never give them your name. Now I know that the use
of an alias or street name in the real world is usually
associated with an attempt to be "mysterious" but you
don't really realize its practicality until you start dealing
with individuals who, for all you know, could be heroin
addicts willing to drop your name to the cops just for
the fun of seeing you get screwed over. In normal, civilized situations giving you name is ok, and I don't go
around introducing myself by a call at work or anything, but on the street you're better off with people
knowing as little about you as humanly possible. Normally, in street related situations, I introduce myself as
B.J. or, don't laugh, Blackjack. I don't know where my
head was. Probably 100% devoted to trying to figure
me a way out of my situation.
So I bummed Willie and Erving a cigarette and
they asked if I could help them out with a few bucks for
giving me the push. I handed over twelve, more than
enough, and the two vanished, as would be expected. I tried to start the car a few more times
49

and finally gave up and decided to call AAA for a tow
from a phone that was, thank god, within line of sight
of my car. After being placed on hold for a good half
hour they informed me that a truck would be out within
the hour. Satisfied I returned to my car, positioned
myself on the hood, lit up a cigarette, and waited.
And waited....and waited....and waited. About forty
five minutes had past when Erving reappeared and we
began to chat about the his life, the city, the fact that
he blew his share of the twelve dollars on weed, that
he was hungry, and that he should get his priorities
straight. I found out he was homeless, in drug rehab,
that he usually slept closer to downtown where a security guard would watch over him, that he was intelligent, articulate, and that we both agreed that people
who smash out car windows for no reason are the ones
that should be on death row because it's crimes like
that which piss you off the most. Another individual
showed up and tried to convince me to give him five
bucks so he could get his ex brother in law, who he
said was a mechanic, to come up and take a look at
my car. Yeah, right. I informed him he wasn't going to
get a dime from me and he left and didn't come back.
Two hours had passed since my call to AAA when
Erving offered to walk up the street and see if there
was an open garage. He returned a few minutes later
with a friend of his who he said knew a lot about cars
so I popped the hood and the man systematically
checked every wire, connection, hose, and mechanism
with an aura of professionalism which became even
more impressive when I found out that he, too, was
homeless. We tried a few tricks and after everything
had failed he informed me he had tried everything he
knew and that, without tools, he could do nothing else.
I gave him five bucks for the effort and he went on his
way, but not before I got his name and information on
where he usually hung out, just in case. A few more
people came up and attempted to get money from me
but, as midnight rolled around, it was just me and Erving
again.
We chatted for a while but as the night grew longer
my thoughts once again focused on trying to find myself a way out of this mess. The late night crowd was
getting kind of rowdy and, although the street was nearly
empty, the multitudes of people who drove by began
to get irritating, particularly the individual who asked if
I was the pimp for a young prostitute standing on the
corner. And, again, although this was not an incredibly
bad area of town there was still the very real possibility
that, and I'm not implying this in a racist way, somebody might decide to take a pot shot as the white guy
sitting on his car at one in the morning. I already
had planned to repay Erving for his moral and
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physical support and finally asked him, as a final favor, if he could assist me in moving my car off of the
road and into a nearby parking space which had recently opened up. He was more than happy to assist
and when I confided with him that I was going to simply give up, leave the car for the night, go home, and
call AAA again in the morning he informed me that I'd
better put everything in the trunk or somebody was
sure to mess with it. "Even the scraps of paper," he
said "because somebody's gonna wonder what's underneath them." Together we emptied out the vehicle.
With the car empty, the trunk closed, and the
Club deployed on the steering wheel I asked him if
there's any way I could repay him. He was very straight
forward, asking if I could give him a few bucks so he
could get a beer or two. Unfortunately my cash situation wasn't too good at this point in time and I offered
to get him a few beers from my apartment, which was
a few blocks away, and whatever change I could find.
He said that was ok and together we began to walk to
my dwelling. About half way there I stopped and asked
him to wait in an alley for me to return.
Rule number four: Never let them know where
you live. A very, very important rule. I admit he was,
essentially, a bum and probably harmless. But you
never know. You see, you can accidentally reveal your
name, your past, and your emotions and usually get
away with it, even if the individual you revealed them
to has adverse goals. In situations like this one the
individual usually doesn't have the resources to effectively use this information to screw you over. But giving somebody your address is like giving them the dictionary to your life. Every part of you, every skeleton in
the closet, every evil you have committed, everything
you own, and everything you are exists in your home
in some way, shape, or form. And all they have to do is
kick in the door to get to them.
I stopped by my apartment, grabbed a few beers,
some spare change, and a box of cigarettes, threw them
into a bag and returned to the alley. Erving was still
there, and was actually surprised when I returned. He
didn't expect anything less than me screwing HIM over.
I didn't realize the perception of the possibility of getting the shaft was a two way street. I handed him the
bag and asked him if he could keep an eye on my car
for me. He nodded and we were about to part when I
decided to try something that may sound familiar, even
funny, to anyone who has ever seen this line in a movie
or used it in a role-playing game. I don't even know
why I said it, perhaps just to see if it would work:
"You don't know me. I never gave you anything.
And if you remember this I promise to help you
out some time in the future."
50

Again he nodded and then turned away, his wiry
figure slowly disappearing into the Philadelphia night.
I returned home, smoked a final cigarette, and went to
sleep.
I won't go into what happened the next day; my
continuing AAA hell, the gruff tow truck driver, and the
Sylvester Stallone lookalike who finally fixed my car.
What I will mention is the fact that, as I walked to my
car early Saturday morning I passed Erving sitting on
some stairs with a clear line of sight to the vehicle I
had asked him to keep an eye on last night. I stopped
for a moment, silently handed him a few cigarettes,
and, with a mutual smile, we both parted, me heading
toward my car and he toward the towering sky scrapers of downtown. His job was done. For now.
Sound familiar?
The Numbers Game

The game is about to start. We're using a new
batch of characters and the players have just finished
filling out the PC sheets. Slowly they side them over to
me for review, a tradition I started years ago when
somebody tried to slip a Skillwire 8 and a Panzer past
me. I hesitate for a moment and pray to a random
omniscient being that the stats I'm about to view are
different those I've viewed a thousand times before.
Slowly I look down at the sheets.
Damn, they took the million again.
I don't know what I ever did to my PCs to make
them think that they'd need fourteen tons of steel built
into themselves in order to survive my game but I really wish I knew what was up with the heroin addict like
craving players generally have towards creating mega
kick ass characters. It's always the same damn thing,
tons of cyberware designed to increase Body and
Strength, the token wired reflexes, muscle augmentation, some kind of lacing, and a dozen other trinkets,
dropping their essence to practically nothing and leaving them in a state of invulnerability which necessitates the use of heavy weapons if I want to even scratch
them. Like I'm going to throw Renreku's standing army
at them the moment they start playing or something.
I've always felt that role playing should always
take precedence over numbers and rules and have, so
far, everybody's been pretty cool with that EXCEPT
when it comes to character creation. They still
sit there and calculate the most efficient way to
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raise a PCs body from a six to a seven, pay for the

ware, and they're happy. Very rarely does a player rationalize why that particular piece of metal is there
beyond the justification that it makes the character a
"more efficient (fill in archetype)". If you pry you find
out that, most of the time, the character has what he
has to A: keep him from getting killed or B: help him
kill. They want the highest number for their dollar, using the two above reasons as motivation for what they
decide to buy.
Another problem which is relative to this subject
is the funneling of skill points into only three or four
areas, leaving the character with nothing but those
skills. Something which also occurs way to frequently
is the use of the concentration and specialization of
skills for the sole purpose of raising a skill to an insane
level, with only a half assed excuse as to why the character is so good in that particular area.
In any case, what this all adds up to is that somebody is putting too much emphasis on metal and not
enough on creativity. Over the weekend I was allowed
to play a PC for a few hours (yet another sign that our
planet is nearing the threshold of oblivion) and created
an immensely cybered character, an action which is
not characteristic of myself. This character possessed
a cyberarm, cybertorso, and cyberskull. If it had been
created by somebody else for use in one my own
games, would have made me a little bit nervous. Normally, bordering on 99.999 percent of the time, a character with such high metallic capacity is created for
the simple purpose of being able to kick serious ass
with the efficiency of a pc using a 166mhz Intel processor. Well, one that's running something other than
Windows 95. (rim shot) In any case, mine was not.
Sure I added on a bit of plating and installed a knife
but, over all, the cyberware didn't toughen up the character to the extreme one might think. Actually, there
were several other combinations of cyber and bodyware
I could have used which would have added up to the
same numerical stats, but at a fraction of the cost. The
reason I blew several hundred thousand new yen and
most of my essence on the listed cyberware was because, in his past, he had nearly been killed in an explosion while working for his former corporation. That's
it. Sure once he gets the cash to pump up the limbs
strength and add a few toys (which will never happen
because I've already lost his sheet) the cyber additions would work to his advantage. But right now he
has them because he didn't have much of a choice.
When somebody creates a character they should
put as much thought, if not more, into the role playing
aspects of the pieces of metal and skill shortcuts as they do into what the numbers will add
51

up to. In return the gamemaster must be nice and not
waste them. Try taking something other than the million and see what you can do with it. Grab a variety of
skills, not a handful with ratings of six. Try creating a
character who CAN'T kick ass, one who's still working
his or her way up the ranks. To put it simply: Use your
creativity, not your calculator. Your GM will thank you.
People Production
If you'll permit me a moment of egocentricity I'd
just like say that I personally believe I have a pretty
damn good NPC collection. Not NPC sheets, mind you,
but actual living and breathing people which reside in
slumber in a charcoal notebook until such time as I
release them into the fantasy world. For those who
might have wondered where they all come from I provide the following step by step description of the thought
process I use when designing my non player characters. For those who don't care, go watch Oprah.
Step One: Pick Up A Publication With A Bunch
Of Nifty Words In It
My favorite are music catalogues, my most recent name source being the Discovery magazines I
get from the BMG Music Club (motto: "serve you now,
screw you later"). Other good sources are video catalogues, text books, weird WWW pages, car manuals,
Sears advertisements, and anything else containing
words and names like "Diebold", "Hellground",
"Bloomdido", and "Shania". Type all of these up in a
long list, not stopping until you get at least thirty of
them. Congratulations, you now have names of your
NPCs.
Step Two: Look For Names That Compliment
Each Other
Certain words are simply made to be with one
another. Diebold and Hellground make an excellent
couple, Diebold and Bloomdido do not. When creating
groups with members of diverse professions this rule
can be broken, although it is rare one will find a "Throg"
and a "Muffin Seed" standing side by side. Your list
should slowly clump into smaller groups of four or five
names each. As for the left overs, make them into a
group anyway because an NPC is a terrible thing to
waste.
Step Three: Go For A Walk In A Densely
Populated Area
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I openly admit that until I moved to center city

Philadelphia from my home in backwoods Maryland I
couldn't write an NPC worth crap. They'd all turn into
the same thing: cliche's. When you only come within
twenty feet of another human a measly five or ten times
a day it's impossible to even begin to understand the
diversity of people we have roaming around this planet.
I can safely say I encounter more people I have never
seen before in Philadelphia in a day that I did over the
period of an entire year in Maryland. I have also learned
that a majority of these people are screwed up in some
amusing way. Get to know them.
Step Four: Name The NPC Groups
This isn't a name in the strictest definition, meaning the group probably doesn't use it describe themselves in the shadowrun world, it is more of a personal
reminder of what the general "theme" of the group is.
The group name sets the general mood of the personalities contained within and is usually derived the names
of these NPCs, although the relation is sometimes
vague. I'll be looking at the names Sylvania, Chaz,
Heitzer, and Jerico and think to myself, "Gee. Sounds
like 'Damnation Game' to me!".
Step Five: Describe The NPCs
If I was using the name 'Damnation Game' I would
probably relate all of the personalities and their professions to the idea of a deranged crusade, or a combat
group in an underground club, or, if I felt like being
corny, a group which battles people on boats by Hoover
Dam (get it?). If I was using the crusade idea I would
figure out why each of these NPCs would be involved
in such a crusade, what the crusade was about, and
how their individual profession would apply to it. Chaz
would be the leader, having assembled a group dedicated to bringing down religious organizations opposed
to their own warped faith. Their twisted tactics are designed to terrify the opposition, constantly toying with
their enemies convictions in a frightening "game" of
faith breaking manipulation. Heitzer would be the most
evil and the most intelligent, gathering information on
each opponent's convictions and figuring out intricate
ways to destroy them. Jerico would be a master of
stealth and disguise, infiltrating these groups in order
to instigate Heitzer's plans. Sylvania would use more
direct tactics, her former samurai skills coming in handy
when its time to clear out a service with good old fashion SMG fire.
And there you go. You have an NPC group.
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Use this procedure on each group of names you have,
the groups don't have to be related although they're all
part of the same campaign. Actual physical descriptions aren't as important as personality and ideals as
these are what the PCs will be primarily dealing with,
not whether the mercenary speaking with them is a
blonde or red head.
Side Note: The NPC Sheet
I initially stopped filling out NPC sheets because
I just didn't have the time. That and I found myself
getting frustrated when someone quickly wasted an
NPC which took me an extended amount of time to
write up. Eventually I realized the additional benefits
of not filling out these sheets before the game and instead filling them out, in one way or another, on the fly
DURING the game.
I'm sure a lot of gamemasters out there have figured out that their NPCs usually only use about ten
percent of their recorded numeric attributes, weapons,
and skills during a run. Half the time all you need is a
body rating and a firearms or other skill rating and a
vague idea of what their reaction is. The way I now
assign various ratings to an NPC is wait until a rating
or item is needed and then simply jot it down. If an
NPC gets shot I write down the following next to their
name on a piece of paper: B:6(7) 5/3 Jacket. If they
get wounded I add a few slashes. This method takes a
lot of self discipline as it is easy to scribble out B:6(10)
8/6 Full Heavy if you're not watching yourself. The
gamemaster shouldn't use this ability to pull attributes,
skills, and weapons out of their ass in order to completely screw the players, it is designed to allow the
GM to adjust their NPCs powers and weaknesses to
better align with those of the Pcs. Plus you don't have
to fill out the damn sheet.
The down side of this method is that you have to
memorize the stats of any weapons, cyberware, decks,
spells, and other stuff you plan on giving the NPCs.
Not knowing these ratings will slow down the game
and piss off the players. No player wants to sit around
and wait for you to look up the drain rating of a powerbolt
that will soon be heading their way.
What It Means To Murder

Unless it involves, as the victim, a convicted rapist or child abuser, murder isn't what I would think of as
"fun". And it DEFINITELY isn't funny. Ninety nine percent of the time there is no savior, no hero, and
no glory....there is simply death. Usually the death
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of somebody innocent.
In the world of fantasy role-playing it's frighteningly easy to forget too much of reality, not the reality
of technology and time and physics and so on, but the
reality of human emotions. I understand that not having to deal with this reality is part of the pleasure playing an alter ego and, perhaps, my opinions on violence
and murder within the fantasy world are off base. But
I'll tell you straight up that the murderous character
does not last long with me at the helm.
Now I've read the articles defending violent roleplaying actions as being a cathartic experience and
that it helps the individual work out their aggressions
in a fantasy world as opposed to reality. I believe this is
only half true. Sure it allows them to blow off some
steam by hammering away at imaginary enemies with
a large firearm but, at the same time, I firmly believe
that in most role-playing situations, under the direction
of many gamemasters, it cauterizes the player to the
point that they commit to such actions without really
thinking about exactly what that action entails. More
often than not these actions and their results can be
summed up in one word: Murder.
I've always divided the term "murder" into two
categories: Guilty and innocent. The two categories
depend on the morality of the victim of a murder (or
the target, if they have yet to be killed), not the individual committing the act. These categories are also
independent of laws and are based upon the perception of the murderer in regards to their target. When
referring to a target as being "guilty" the word "murder", as used as a verb, is usually replaced with something a little less ominous, as "murder" is generally
associated with doing something bad. If the target is
perceived as being guilty then the individual committing the act commonly referred to as "murder" isn't really doing anything wrong. If the target is "innocent",
however, the player should have at least a momentary
debate with him or herself over how to act, react, and
deal with the situation.
As for the exact definitions of who is "guilty" and
"innocent", that depends on the individual. In the world
of Shadowrun it's easy to have a character run under
the "everybody's guilty" philosophy. Any player who decides on this philosophy should take a course in creativity. I personally am sick to death of cold as steel,
built a wall between him and his emotions, one hundred percent professional shadowrunners. They always
fall back on the stupid "it's his job" or "he can't feel
remorse" lines which, in my opinion, means the players either can't or don't want to deal with the wonderfully multifaceted and gloriously flawed human
mind. It should not be possible for a character to
53

kill somebody and not think about what they've done.
When a character levels his Manhunter on a convenience store clerk who's refusing to give up a password, the image of the clerk's pathetic body writhing in
a pool of blood as a family member tries to plug the
hole in his head with a handkerchief should at least
flash through their mind before the gun goes off.
The gamemaster must also put some thought into
what it means to murder. In the world of Shadowrun a
player should rarely be put into a position where they'll
have to take innocent lives. When they are placed in
such a position time after time it doesn't allow them to
have anything but a "no remorse" personality. They
would have to acquire such an attitude or they'd never
be able to participate in the game. If the gamemaster
does set up such a scenario it should have the primary
goal of testing the players role-playing ability. If the
gamemaster sends the players on a run which involves
killing a young girl's father in front of her for the sick
pleasure of a high paying client the players should show
at least a bit of a moral struggle over the situation. If
my character was placed in such a situation, and I may
come off as a hypocrite when I say this, I would carry
out the assignment. But a twenty rock a day crack head
wouldn't be able to hold a candle to the drug induced
mess my character would be for several weeks afterwards.
All I'm really asking is that players and
gamemasters put a little bit of thought into the way
they run, or run in, the world of Shadowrun. And what it
means to murder. Nobody's going to buy you a beer or
pat you on the back for plugging a zoo security guard.
Especially not his kids.
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SHADOWRUN ACCORDING TO BLACKJACK PART 1

PART 1: BLACKJACKS CORNER

Shadowrun According To Blackjack Part 1: Blackjacks

3 - Gamemastering 101 1/2

In any case, enjoy.

All material written by Branson Hagerty

SHADOWRUN ACCORDING TO BLACKJACK

PART 1: BLACKJACKS CORNER

Gamemastering 101 1/2

Player's Responsibility: Keep their character

SHADOWRUN ACCORDING TO BLACKJACK

PART 1: BLACKJACKS CORNER

So, what was the point of all this, other than to

SHADOWRUN ACCORDING TO BLACKJACK

PART 1: BLACKJACKS CORNER

Ill probably drop my armor rating by 1 to reflect this

GM: The moderate shot hits you.

SHADOWRUN ACCORDING TO BLACKJACK

PART 1: BLACKJACKS CORNER

scales too much in either direction that things get messy,

By making the above statement the player not

GM: The moderate shot hits you in your right

Store Owner: Can I help you?

The Big Picture

The player decided that hed add a little color to

SHADOWRUN ACCORDING TO BLACKJACK

PART 1: BLACKJACKS CORNER

Normally the GM wont be so kind as to blatantly

SHADOWRUN ACCORDING TO BLACKJACK

PART 1: BLACKJACKS CORNER

saying that it should not occur out of nowhere for no

Q: How do the dice work?

SHADOWRUN ACCORDING TO BLACKJACK

PART 1: BLACKJACKS CORNER

Q: I have a friend who is a really good

Q: The players never seem to factor in pain which

A: You pretty much answered your own question.

Q: Whats your opinion on inter-PC sex?

SHADOWRUN ACCORDING TO BLACKJACK

PART 1: BLACKJACKS CORNER

A New Physical View

tradictory sourcebook passages which sparked my

SHADOWRUN ACCORDING TO BLACKJACK

PART 1: BLACKJACKS CORNER

open clearing. But Ill leave that to a future article.) In

SHADOWRUN ACCORDING TO BLACKJACK

PART 1: BLACKJACKS CORNER

Since my view of Physical spells doesnt count a

SHADOWRUN ACCORDING TO BLACKJACK

PART 1: BLACKJACKS CORNER

SHADOWRUN ACCORDING TO BLACKJACK

PART 1: BLACKJACKS CORNER

Q: My friends and I like to drink heavily while

A: Sorry, I dont take submissions. But Im sure

SHADOWRUN ACCORDING TO BLACKJACK

PART 1: BLACKJACKS CORNER

A: Im not sure, but if role-playing does get you

A: Right about now.

Q: How many PCs have been killed in your

A very famous dead person, whose name I should

SHADOWRUN ACCORDING TO BLACKJACK

PART 1: BLACKJACKS CORNER

4. Gradually introduce new Sourcebooks.

SHADOWRUN ACCORDING TO BLACKJACK

Shadowrun Blackjack's Corner

Shadowrun Blackjack's Corner