Going to do some Cyberpunk 2020 crossing over for a few articles!

The big reason for this is that I'm pretty hype for Cyberpunk 2077(whenever it comes out, I'd LOVE for it to come out around 2019, but it'll be done when it's done.) Also, I've been replaying Shadowrun Returns. I actually love both systems. I am more of a Shadowrun fan when you get down to it(while I have left writing pure fantasy, I do still play some D&D, but for me with Shadowrun, I love how it's cyberpunk with a few fantasy trappings. It gives it a bit more of a cool oomph.)

Now this will have some comparisons, but won't be a big 'what's better' war since that really depends on what you want at the moment. Sometimes I like to play SR(most of the time), but sometimes I like CP's feel and attitude. (I do like CP2020 the best of the CP systems.)

I'll probably do a few blogs of discussing it, as well as seeing what my crew would look like made under CP rules(which ought to be a lot of fun.) 

Mechanics: Runner's 'Safehouse Bags'

(I decided to start labeling the blog posts as 'Mechanics', 'Opinion', 'Discussion', and other things.)

--

Shadowrunners are generally in a dangerous business. What with chasing down everything from organized crime to corps to megacorps to AAA megacorps who are run by spirits and dragons and/or who practice blood magic in their halls. 

Thus, occasionally a runner runs into a situation where they need to get outta Dodge NOW and lay low for awhile. This is why you often see on character sheets a safehouse listed(this is usually another lifestyle one maintains-even if its a dingy flophouse somewhere-alongside their main lifestyle.) And while said lifestyle costs probably includes basic food and clothing, it behooves the prudent runner to keep a sort of 'Survival Cache' on hand at said place, just in case they can't get back to their main hideout for a few days(or more.) 

Thus I decided to offer a bunch of ideas for sorta 'sets' that a runner can keep on hand, if you're curious onto what sorts of things a runner might need. 

Safehouses:

Generally speaking, these run Low or even Squatter lifestyle; Middle and up start to cost quite a bit, but if you're playing a more affluent runner, by all means grab one. If you're using optional lifestyle rules that are scattered around, consider upping Security ratings(or if not, splurging some maglocks, etc-anything to help out with security of a sorta more down-low place.) Keep your character's safehouse a fair ways away from their normal lifestyle, of course(sometimes in a place where people wouldn't suspect.) Low lifestyle costs 1,000/month, Squatter 100/month, so one could probably maintain the latter very easily, and the former, if you're not playing a street level campaign, also fairly easily. A Middle lifestyle safehouse becomes a bit hefty; I suggest to invest in things like maglocks and other security on a discreetly-located Low lifestyle place as to not get too out of hand, but it of course depends. If you're playing a game with big payouts? Go for it!

The Gear:

NOTE: COSTS ARE AGAIN FOR THE THIRD EDITION OF SHADOWRUN.  That being said, if one plays newer editions, you can most likely take these and still utilize them, but you will have to adjust costs(some things are cheaper, while others, like low level fake SINs, can run more.) If you need ideas, though, the lists can suffice. 

So when assembling your runner's getaway bag-of course, starting resources probably affect this somehow(starting with 20k, and you're not likely going to get a particularly amazing set out of it, but it'll be enough to survive). Later in this article I'll write up a few 3rd edition(and maybe even note a few 2nd edition bits) pre-made sets for folks to consider for their games. 

Keep in mind what your character does, of course(someone who doesn't use Assault Rifles may not need one and they're a bit more expensive, a couple of spare pistols are cheap and can be tossed to someone else if the whole team is on the run.) As a rule of thumb, a BASE bag should include:

Pistol+Spare Ammo(Price depending. Regular ammo is 20 nuyen per box of 10.) 

Armor Jacket(or longcoat, vest, etc. Range from about 175 to 850.)

Survival Knife(450)

Survival Kit(100)

Ration Bars/10 days(30)

Medkit(200)

Pocket Flashlight(10)

Stim Patch(25 nuyen/rating point)

Certified Credstick with 100-500 balance

This is probably what I'd suggest at a minimum. It's enough for a runner to hole up somewhere, defend themselves, stay awake, heal basic wounds and buy little things they need(food, etc, if they're able to get to a Stuffer Shack or something), or eat if they're forced to literally not come out. The cost of this kit averages 2500, depending on what sort of pistol/ammo/armor one gets(the armor actually is the potentially most expensive bit, with a secure jacket going for 850 and a secure vest around 175, so they can range, and pistols can range a lot as well.) 

Without the gun and armor it comes out to around just under to just over 1k depending on the credstick amount.

If you like more elaborate pistols and armor jackets it'll be higher. 

Here are some example 'safehouse sets' for a variety of price ranges and characters: 

"Basic Safehouse Set"

Survival Knife(450)

Survival Kit(100)

Ration Bars/10 days(30)

Medkit(200)

Pocket Flashlight(10)

Stim Patch/Rating 4(100)

Certified Credstick/100 nuyen balance 

Browning Max-Power w/50 regular rounds(550)  

Armor Vest(200; B2 I1)

Earplug Cellphone(100)

Large Military Rucksack(140)

Total Cost: 1980

You might wonder why I gave the Browning instead for basic. Truth be told, hold-out pistols for a hiding set when you may actually be hunted after are not the *best* self defense. Generally speaking, hold-outs are best for situations where you're going to be against unarmored(or very lightly armored), poorly combatant types(like average suits). And light pistols, while they're nice to hide, tend to have similar concealability factor for the cheap ones(the higher-cost ones are the ones generally with better.) The Browning is an inexpensive and strong handgun with a nice concealability, and I think it's pretty good to pack in a bag like this. 

This set is indeed a lower cost basic set for those who don't have a lot of nuyen and/or want to pack light and fairly discreet. If one feels vulnerable in the Armor Vest, one can add an Armor Vest with Plates instead for just 200 more nuyen, still, IMO, fairly accessible. This set is probably not going to be used for a character to 'work from their safehouse', but more to lay low. 

"All Purpose Safehouse Set"

Survival Knife(450)

Survival Kit(100)

Ration Bars/10 days(30)

Medkit(200)

Pocket Flashlight(10)

Stim Patch/Rating 4(100)

Certified Credstick/300 nuyen balance 

Earplug Cellphone(100)

Browning Max-Power w/100 regular rounds(650) 

Secure Jacket(850)

Micro Flare Launcher/2 Flares(200)

Respirator(200) 

Large Military Rucksack(140)

Total Cost: 3330

This set preps a runner for a bit more. With a bit more money(for whatever reason, keeping in mind one probably still has some resources of their own, this cred is for super-emergencies), more ammo for holing up, and heavier armor, it's probably the set I'd *personally* keep on my characters that can afford it(which is most save for the more street-oriented types.) This set is pretty good for anyone of any 'archetype.' Much like the other one, this one isn't going to likely be used to 'work from a safehouse' alone.

"Advanced Safehouse Set"

Survival Knife(450)

Survival Kit(100)

Ration Bars/20 days(60)

Medkit(200)

Medkit Refill(50)

Pocket Flashlight(10)

Stim Patch/Rating 4(100)

Certified Credstick/500 nuyen balance 

Earplug Cellphone(100)

Browning Max-Power w/100 regular rounds and concealable holster(750) 

Secure Jacket(850)

Micro Flare Launcher/2 Flares(200)

Respirator(200) 

Nav-Dat GPS(700)

Low-Light Binoculars(300)

Antidote Patch/Rating 4(120)

Fake Sin/Rating 1(1,000)

Chemsuit/Rating 4(800)

Pocket Secratary(3,000)

Pager(10)

Large Military Rucksack(140)

Total Cost: 9640

The Advanced set is once again not geared toward any 'vocation' but comes with a few extra bits to help out, like a Chemsuit, extra slap patches and even a very low level fake SIN. Basically the 'High Level' bugout bag for those who want to make sure they have about all the bases covered. You probably need to be packing at least a priority C in Resources for this one, but it's got enough for a runner to basically function out of their safehouse for a fair bit of time. It even has bonuses like a GPS and a set of low-light binoculars in case one doesn't have cybereyes/eye modification. 

This set is extensive enough that a runner could feasibly 'work' from their safehouse for a bit of time(as in, actually still go to meets, etc, and the like, while living away from home.) Note this should probably be done at the runners' risk, but if they feel like they can work 'from the road'-or perhaps the next town over-it can be very useful. 


Characters can add to these as they see fit, too; these are just starting packages for easy purchase. A samurai could add an extra weapon or two, a decker a cheap cyberdeck, a shaman an extra set of shamanic lodge materials, a mage extra conjuring materials(and magicians in general perhaps spare fetishes), a face extra sets of nice clothing and so on. 

Anyhow, a little something for folks to chew on! 

Exploring the different 'classes' of Shadowrunners(Read: A Ramble)

In my time playing Shadowrun, I've probably played in numerous styles of campaigns. A very long running one in the US that I was a part of on and off(depending on when my work allowed, it went on for a LONG time though), had everyone fairly middle class and doing a lot of legal work; it started out as critter hunting and had a lot of really awesome arcs and twists(and I hope to see the campaign again sometime!) 

The first game I played in had a motley crew of characters from rich to poor to middle, and I've played in dirt-poor street campaigns, and, well, about everything in between. 

I also am a fan of various old SR sites that featured a variety of 'types'-the great Winterhawk Mage Space is an old favorite to read, as is Twilightrun, and both of these have been very big inspirations for me in terms of the more 'Middle Class' runner-hell, in the case of Wiinterhawk, upper class. Meanwhile, another favorite old site was Blackjack's, who actually dealt more with the 'gritty' end of Shadowrun from mostly what I gathered. (Not necessarily street level stuff, and actually he had several articles espousing good moral behavior in runners like not shooting everything dead, but a little less upper class, I can say.) 


(As a quick aside, I highly suggest anyone check those sites out if you want some good SR reading material. They deal more in the older editions, too.) 

So what do all of these tell someone? Well, there are lots of ways to play and enjoy Shadowrun, indeed, at all sorts of levels. I don't mean 'power' necessarily-but there is a difference between, say, the Twilightrun campaign and one where the team all lives in a Low lifestyle and the like(even if they use the same creation methods.) 

One of the big questions people ask to folks who run a more 'high class' style campaign(where most of the 'runners are packing high lifestyles and earning enough for its upkeep plus their own upkeep), is 'why, is someone who is able to earn this much, running in the first place?

There could be a lot of reasons. Middle? Middle is fairly easy to explain. Middle lifestyles, as it says in the old books(I grabbed my 2e here), are the realm of 'ordinary successful wage-earners or criminals.' So it's something that a team who takes reasonable jobs can get on. I can see why people may continue to run here; to make it bigger, they're stuck in a more underground lifestyle but want to stay comfortable, they choose more decent targets, etc. 

But high lifestyle? At that point, a runner probably has a fair bit of nuyen socked away. Like possible savings, even if it's certified credsticks stuffed under their mattress and hidden around other safehouses. They probably take one decent job with a big payoff that gives them decent paydata and probably run a small biz on the side or something. Or a mix of this stuff. One might think, though, someone with those sorts of resources-couldn't they invest in a strong enough fake SIN or something, or even use a real SIN, to go ahead and live a more normal life?

For one, discovery. I notice particularly in the realm of mage characters, there are likely magic secrets that are kept very...under wraps by corps and other higher-ups. Magic is one of those things that even in the 20whatevers(depending on what edition you play) there are tons and tons of untold secrets. Not all of these can be learned sitting in a ritzy apartment. Maybe one wants to liberate these.

Or perhaps some runners actually are motivated a bit by benevolence, and they want to try to make the world somewhat of a better place, the best they can; sticking it to some of the more nefarious corps is certainly a way to do this, albeit a dangerous one. 

I'm of course just throwing out a couple of ideals. I mean whatever people want to think up. If you really want to pull strings, Batman is filthy rich and still 'shadowruns'. And no, your game doesn't have to lose its 'edge' for this. You can still feed all the cool cyberpunk descriptions in! Like, you don't need to lose atmosphere brought on by pictures like this:

(3rd picture is the Sprawl Sites cover)

(Yes, this is from CP2020's Night City supplement, but I'm just going for atmospheric pictures here)

(The fly in from the intro to Bladerunner remains one of my favorite movie intros ever, the Tyrell buildings looming on the landscape of the super-cyberpunk city is too fantastic)

(And to show the contrast; the inside of the Tyrell Building is very much...'cleaner', being the corporate office. But it's still hella cyberpunk!)

Just to have some runners who might live a more middle+ lifestyle. All of this has a ton of cyberpunk feel to it. And you don't need to give up the 'noir' angle either. (To be frank, what 100% counts as film noir, cyberpunk-noir, cyberpunk, post-cyberpunk and so on is extremely up in the air. Shadowrun already mixes fantasy and cyberpunk! I don't think we need to stick too terribly hard to rigid definitions here.)

So let's look at the lower end now. I think for many, they like the more 'low-life' aspect of cyberpunk since perhaps it sort of hits home that you're small potatoes compared to a lot of bigger stuff. It's perhaps easier to believe because at that level, you sort of have to do something to get by, possibly things of questionable legal nature(in-game, of course.) Maybe for some playing(or GMing for) a more higher-class character feels 'off' because they could, in theory, sit down at any time. I think for others yet, the stories at the lower ends are more 'personal'. 

(Again, not talking about power levels here. You could be playing a mundane face with very little 'ware and all of their resources sunk into living arrangements, or a street samurai with eight hundred thousand nuyen worth of 'ware in his bod who lives in a scuzzy house on the border of Redmond.) 

I can see the 'personal' argument. I admit; when I think about Shadowrun Returns: Dead Man's Switch(still one of my favorites of that series, that and Hong Kong, which is tied with it despite me thinking HK is very much the better game)-my favorite part of DMS was the first half of the game I'll say up to the end of the UB arc(not spoiling it). The last third or so of the game ended up getting...'big.' Now don't get me wrong-it was still pretty awesome to watch your runner go from zero to saving a lot of stuff, but going back and replaying it with a variety of characters and such, there was something that was just...fun about the lower level game when you're running around the Barrens trying to solve crimes and talking to Dan the Donut Man. 

So perhaps, for some, characters living a more luxurious lifestyle makes one feel like they miss that level; because 'why would they have a reason to be involved more at the street level?' Hell, I can think of lots!

In SR Returns, one of the early plots was your character being hired to find your friend's killer, which in turn leads to a chase. I can't see why class would come into play here. I mean sure maybe someone with nuyen to spend could hire someone to look into it, but if its someone's friend, why not go poke around yourself? A creative GM and characters could come up with lots of reasons why someone might poke around a lower class than they actually live. 

I guess my little ramble was inspired by a couple discussions I saw about how 'rich shadowrunners have no reason to run', and just figured I'd maybe attempt to debunk that. It really doesn't matter, and you can still keep that cyberpunk feel to your games regardless, I think!

Shadowrun Character Creation(mostly 3rd, but early in general)

So going a little more into the typical SR3 character generation, generally speaking there are three mostly used:

-Priority(like the SR3 Core Rulebook)

-Points(in the Companion)

-BeCKS(Karmagen in newer versions, it used to be a set of houserules that was actually adopted because it worked so well.)

In SR2, BeCKS didn't exist(well, maybe in some people's houses) at the time, but Sum-to-10 was a bonus method in the SR2 companion, but I'll only touch on that at the end.

I've used all, and I really like BeCKS the best(though I enjoy all of them for their own reasons.) I'll go over real fast all of the systems and some ups and downs of them, for those who might be looking to try out Shadowrun 2^nd or 3^rd edition!

So Priority is where you have A-E, and you have to pick Attributes, Metatype, Magic, Resources and Skills and assign them, with A being the most important thing and E being the least. If you want to be human, E goes to metatype, but metahumans have to pay extra(C for trolls and elves, D for dwarves and orks, in SR2 this was A for everyone), and mages have to pay(A for full mage or shaman, B for an adept. In SR2, A was metatype, and B or C was magic. Yeah, they were stiff costs in those days.

It was a nice system since it was quick; you basically had your idea and tossed some priorities into place. General rules of thumb were if you played a Decker or Rigger, you picked priority A resources due to the cost of 'ware and equipment. If you wanted a mage, one of your priorities was picked for you depending on what kind, and so on.

Its drawbacks was that it didn't cover a huge amount of ground in terms of Resources. For the first three, you either got a million nuyen, 400k, or 90k; there wasn't too much middle ground, which could mean you ended up spending more than 400k but not too much more, leaving you with like another 450k to end up trying to make up shit on how to spend. Or if you wanted to play a more 'Ganger' type of human and you took Resources C, you'd have to make up some cyberware to spend since you'd probably playing someone living a squatter lifestyle without much in the way of stuff.

Plus occasionally being able to fine-tune your Attribute or Skill points is nice, though Attributes were fairly well spaced out with 30, 27, 24, 21 and 18; it was very easy to find something that fit.

Moving onto point-based, this originated in SR2's Companion. The point values that you started with differed(skills were handled differently in those days), but generally speaking you got 120 average in SR3 suggested(I usually took the book example and gave 123 for a tiny bonus-this never got out of hand and could just be used for a round-out skill or something), and 100 in SR2. You had some limits(like in SR3, no more than 60 points on skills, etc, GM could set differences but I find the book ones were fine), but otherwise you looked at things like Attributes 2 Build Points for 1, Skills were 1 for 1, and Resources were on a different chart; 30 Build Points net you a million, where taking the bottom level(IIRC, 500 or so), you GAINED 5 points. Magic and Metatype had a cost as well.

A nice bit with the Resources is that they included a couple of other amounts; 650,000 and 250,000. This took care of one of the Priority issues I mentioned above. It also lets you fine-tune characters; in Priority, Skills for example were 50, 40, 34, 30 and 27; but you could take, say, 45, or 37.

It had two downsides; one being that it simply took more time, particularly for new players. Two, mundane humans had a clear edge(even more so), over metahumans(or just humans in general.) The metahuman cost was just enough that humans often had quite a bit more to play with in 3e(in 2e, actually, this drawback wasn't so much in, due to them being Priority A.) It didn't unbalance them, but more metahuman players may have felt sometimes like they wanted to go human for those extra 10 skills or whanot(which was fairly significant-in fact, the skills is where the difference mostly was. Attributes were made up for from meta attribute bonuses.)

Finally, BeCKS(named after the creator), or Karmagen-being my favorite.

In the other systems, there was a tendency to do a little more minmaxing than one might have to, mostly due to the cost of raising things in game. After you made characters, you'd advance them later with karma(experience), and stuff had escalating costs. So it was actually worth it more to a lot of people to buy up stuff early, and then buy low-level skills in game. Numerically, this was sound, but a lot of starting characters missed out on rounding-out skills because a 2 in game cost half as much as upping a 5 to a 6(or a 1 base, 3 specialization cost 1/3 as much!)

BeCKS gets rid of that. To give an example:

Someone is creating their whatever, and they have a 5 in 2 skills(maybe they're making a decker, and they have 5's in both Computer B/R and Electronics B/R.) They now have a choice to increase them to 6, or spend the points on getting a small round-out skill. Under Priority or Points, where characters are built differently, those 6's in game would cost at least 9 Karma each, or 18 Karma, where the 2 skill would cost 4. It then becomes a case of 'why wait.'

Under BeCKS, you're actually CREATING the character from the ground up with Karma. So that 18 Karma could buy:

FOUR skills at 2 with 2 points leftove

One skill at 4(actually damn good!) and one at 2

Two skills at 3 with 2 points leftover

And so on. It suddenly becomes much more appealing to take the extra skills! Even though, yes, getting the 6's in game will still cost a lot, it simply becomes a case of looking at the numbers and it has a mental effect. It's like people, I find, WANT to make more rounded characters under BeCKS. Some skill lists can look downright OP under BeCKS sometimes. The typical cost(attributes depending) of two 6's and a 5 under BeCKS is 81 Karma total(there are formulas for this and programs that do it for you.) That 81 Karma could be used to get five 4's and a three, literally doubling the number of skills.

Also, you can completely fine tune everything, down to spell points, money(money is done in small increments) and so on.

Its only real drawback, IMO, is time. It's by far the lengthiest character generation method, and new players can find it overwhelming. Also, it pays to have a calculator on hand, or at least something like NSRCG(the old SR3 character generation program.) At the very least, you want scratch paper and the BeCKS guide(though scratch paper is helpful for people with high Resources under any system.)

So there we have it. Those looking into SR3 to actually play, there's some description of the character generation, and in particular why I favor BeCKS. It's just so flexible!

Yeah, this post was a LOT more for the 'nerds' than the people who like reading cyberpunk fiction, but once in awhile I try to do a nerdy post like this. Will probably have some character sheets up too soon!

A bit of Shadowrun terminology

Okay so I thought that I'd connect folks to a bit of Shadowrun information, more so you might understand some of the terminology and the like.

Here's the Wikipedia rundown:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadowrun

(As mentioned, we usually run around with the 1^st through 3^rd editions, spanning the 2050s to the early 2060s; after that I feel it got a bit too...'modernized' instead of the classic, slightly campy cyberpunk.)

This will at least give a bit of a rundown, though, of the gist of the world and such.

Here's a more full glossary, courtesy of the Wiki:

http://shadowrun.wikia.com/wiki/Glossary

And here are a few definitions of various words that might pop up:

Chummer: As it might sound, it's slang for 'buddy/friend/dude' in this setup.

Drek: Shit.

Frag: Fuck. Yeah, some of the curse words are fairly self-explanatory. Later editions started using more real world words. While I have no issue of this(I curse like a sailor IRL), I feel that it took away a little of the 'character'.

Tir Tairngire: An Elven nation located on the West Coast. Owned and ran by elves; non elves are anywhere from a little to a lot biased against.

Humanis Policlub: A bunch of anti-metahuman humans in a sort of political club. They can range from just loudly assholish toward metahumans(elves, dwarves, orks, trolls, metavariants, etc), to downright murderous.

Hermetic Mage: Often just called 'mages', they cast spells but believe in more stringent, scholastic 'theories' of magic. They summon and bind elementals as well to do their bidding.

Shamans: Also magicians, they can cast any of the same spells as mages(they summon nature spirits instead of elementals and don't bind them), but they believe in a more natural, primal 'system' of magic. They have totems, idols, and other spirits they follow.

Adepts: Adepts have magic, but channel it 'inside.' Their magic lets them fight/shoot better, or increases their reflexes or attributes, or gives them other cool abilities. Not all physical adepts need be actual martial artists, as some of them channel their powers into archery, firearms, stealth, and so on. In later editions they started channeling it into a very wide variety of skills; in the 2050s, we mostly deal with 'classic' adepts. Sometimes called physical adepts or 'physads'.

There are also Hermetic and Shamanic adepts, who are more partially in tune with magic, and also Sorcery/Conjuring adepts who can only do one aspect(where full magicians can do both.) This is more of a rule thing, and the Magic chapters are pretty broad, but this will at least let people know what is mentioned in the stories.

Astral: The fast 'other world' which basically sits on top of the main world, and all sorts of things can and do live there. There are also the deeper metaplanes which no one understands totally, not even some of the immortal elves. Astral Perception is when magically active people(including some adepts) can 'peek' into that plane, they can function in both worlds at once(albeit at a penalty in the real world, as its disorienting.) Astral Projection can only be done by full mages and shamans, and they completely leave their bodies with the astral form to explore it. Their body must be kept safe during this. Yes, they can fight(and die) in astral space. (Mental attributes are used in place of physical ones in astral space since there is no physical body.)

Deckers: Hackers. Have big cyberdecks and plug into the Matrix, where they basically have avatars and do everything they need to with that. Their avatars even fight(other hackers, or IC-sometimes called ice-or Intrusion Countermeasures, which are programs.) Deckers can be hurt or even die in the Matrix(through lethal biofeedback during combat.) When a decker 'jacks in', they're sort of out of it in the real world and must be defended.

Riggers: Nicknamed for their 'Vehicle Control Rigs' and also a take on the term 'Jury rig'(since they tend to be good at fixing stuff on the fly), its the nickname for folks who control vehicles and drones through said VCR, which is a piece of cyberware in their brains. They essentially become 'one' with their vehicles while jacked in. They can also be hit by lethal biofeedback if something goes wrong(which can of course lead to wreckage.)

Street Samurai: Usually heavily cybered(though not always), sort of classic 'street warriors'. They can range from honorable who literally follow bushido codes to sort of crazy and everything in between. They have a variety of combat specialities depending(some are all around, some are more gun focused, etc.)

Face: Usually the member of a team that does a lot of the wheeling and dealing, with good social skills and high Charisma. Sometimes specialized, other times they're just the team member with a lot of said skills, and they can be of any occupation. Often they are schooled in several types of etiquette and good at negotiation at the very least.

Fence: People who sell ill-gotten goods that Shadowrunners may 'liberate' from various jobs.

Fixer: The people who set Shadowrunners up with jobs, or at least point them in the direction of jobs.

'Mr/Ms Johnson': A catch-all nickname for the people who drop jobs for Shadowrunners. Working for, or hired by, various corporations, Johnsons(as they're called), while they often meet in person, are otherwise anonymous, they drop the jobs, give the pay, and otherwise listen to their bosses(sometimes screwing over the runner; a saying goes '9 times out of 10 a Johnson will deal straight with you. The 10^th you need to look out for.' You can read a little about Johnsons here: http://shadowrun.wikia.com/wiki/Mr._Johnson They do go under different names in different countries. Generally it's a very 'generic' sounding name for that particular country.

Megacorporation: A corporation generally so huge they obey their own laws on their territory. Generally AAA and AA ranked have this status. Gone into a bit after 'The Meet'. Will probably have a separate section describing various megacorps briefly.

SIN: System identification number, or basically your ID that is pretty important. Without a SIN, you're consider sinless, can disappear without a trace and no one will care. That being said, having a SIN for a Shadowrunner is considered a flaw(that gets points) in some games because you need to go doubly careful to cover your tracks(a benefit to being SINless is that you don't exist, so if you get caught and escape they have nothing to track you with.)

Bioware: While cyberware is self-explanatory, bioware is more 'natural augmentations'. It's friendlier on 'Essence'(your 'body wholeness', starts at 6, hit 0 in game and you basically die), harder to detect, and more expensive. Mages/adept sometimes like getting some since it doesn't harm their magic as much(Magic is harmed by getting cyberware.)

--

Okay so that's a quick little bit of terminology. You can check some stuff yourself as well on the sites, and I'll probably do more of these! But I figure this can sorta help get folks off the ground if they read something in a story and don't understand it or would like to know more. 

A little tour!

So I'll give a little rundown of what's happening with the site here. Most of it is written around, but, well, it's nice to give a little tour of a new place.

The character writeup sections are done more in a 'technical' style, rather than actual stories. Descriptions of their appearance, their history, and so on; if this sort of more descriptive style is not your cup of tea, you might prefer the Fiction section, however it does give you backgrounds of the characters from a tabletop sense. Same for the NPCs and locations; these are all written in a sort of tabletop RPG descriptive sense.

Character sheets will likely be mostly of interest to folks who actively play the games. This is all of the technical stuff; however, I will be soon posting a bit of an FAQ on Shadowrun(particularly the older days.)

Fiction is where the actual stories go.

As said the site is still a WIP, but hopefully soon it'll be hammered down to more where I'd like it! Happily, the writeups for the 'main group' are done, but there is still a lot to describe for the story backgrounds and the like.

Construction going decently!

As we see I'm transferring the stuff slowly but surely. Decided to actually just make pages for all of my stuff there at the side, even though I already blogged some of it. I think I'll leave blog posts to just game discussion or editorials or whatnot, or new character concepts or whatnot, but leave the bigger meaty stuff on pages where they are easier to find in a pinch.

Hopefully it'll all be updated by the end of the weekend and I'll be able to fill out more(I still have two character writeups to do), and then I can start maintaining this better.

Also thinking of opening a Shadowrun discord, which could actually be pretty cool for online gaming with the US crew!