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CrackedOzy
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Joined: 08 May 2012
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 Posted: Tue May 08, 2012 2:34 pm Post subject: Questions about the Daring Tales of the Sprawl rules |
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Apparently I'm a late-comer to DTotSp, but I'm eager try these out as they seem a great alternative to the clunky mess that is Shadowrun. That being said, I have a couple of questions.
- Does cyberware only cost money, not edge/advancement slots?
- If not everyone takes cyberware (such as magic users might not) will this cause a skew in character balance?
- As an idea to help unskew the previous issue, what do you think about the idea of letting magic users buy new spells? How much should they cost?
- I want to port over SR's rules about cyberware affecting your ability to use magic, so I was thinking of having it be for every 2 levels of cyberware, treating your Arcane Background skill as being 1 die lower. |
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ShatteredAlice
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Joined: 08 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Tue May 08, 2012 3:51 pm Post subject: Re: Questions about the Daring Tales of the Sprawl rules |
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Hi, Kevin Anderson here - author of the Daring Tales of the Sprawl series.
| CrackedOzy wrote: | | - Does cyberware only cost money, not edge/advancement slots? |
As written cyberware is either "free" if playing a pulp, high action game or costs money as listed on page 5 of the free rules download.
| CrackedOzy wrote: | | - If not everyone takes cyberware (such as magic users might not) will this cause a skew in character balance? |
The short answer is "Yes". Characters with cyberware will get an increased Wild Die whereas their magic using colleagues will not.
| CrackedOzy wrote: | | - As an idea to help unskew the previous issue, what do you think about the idea of letting magic users buy new spells? How much should they cost? |
One thing to remember is that spells (powers) in Savage Worlds are much more general than those in Shadowrun (at least up to version 2 which was the last version I ran).Perhaps you could allow magic users to spend their hard earned cash on magical libraries or medicine lodges giving them an increased Wild Die for their magical skills?
| CrackedOzy wrote: | | - I want to port over SR's rules about cyberware affecting your ability to use magic, so I was thinking of having it be for every 2 levels of cyberware, treating your Arcane Background skill as being 1 die lower. |
That could work although you might be better to give a -1 penalty to Arcane Background skills for every 2 levels of cyberware.
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CrackedOzy
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Joined: 08 May 2012
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| Posted: Tue May 08, 2012 4:04 pm Post subject: |
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Thanks for the reply! I think I can make something work given your suggestions.
Oh, one other thing, do the adventures themselves have any additional rules or the like? Or are they just plot & encounters, etc? |
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ShatteredAlice
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Joined: 08 Jun 2005
Posts: 119
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| Posted: Tue May 08, 2012 4:13 pm Post subject: |
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I haven't looked through the tales for a while but from memory there are a few minor rules (allowing non-Hackers to "ride along" with a Hacker, neural inhibitors which stop cyberware working and are worn on planes are the only ones I recall).
Nothing you need to use the pulp cyberpunk rules.
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CrackedOzy
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| Posted: Tue May 08, 2012 9:46 pm Post subject: |
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Cool, I may have to pick them up when I have the money some time and see what I can mine from them too. I'm really psyched about running a SR/DTotSp game now.
Might to do a pbp one on MythWeavers if anyone is interested... |
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archus
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Joined: 11 Jun 2005
Posts: 59
Location: New Mexico
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| Posted: Fri May 11, 2012 12:58 am Post subject: |
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If you are looking to use Daring Tales of the Sprawl for the tech part of a Shadowrun conversion (a good idea I think... really like those rules). Then you might want to check out this old shark nibble for the magic part:
http://savagepedia.wikispaces.com/file/view/Jan05_SharkNibbles1.pdf
Has a lot of the feel of SR magic.
Doesn't cover adepts... which could basically use something like cyberware but more edge driven.
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steelbrok
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Location: UK
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| Posted: Fri May 11, 2012 4:21 am Post subject: |
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| Or look at the Zeeks rules from Interface 0 |
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archus
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Location: New Mexico
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| Posted: Fri May 11, 2012 11:36 am Post subject: |
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| steelbrok wrote: | | Or look at the Zeeks rules from Interface 0 |
Zeeks from Interface 0 are good too... actually the rules are pretty similar to the SR rules in that shark bytes. Zeeks have a power (think it is called power... don't have my book handy) rating and the SR rules have a Magic rating and both of those scores determine how many power points a power can take before it becomes more dangerous for you to cast.
Zeeks also have an astral projection power that would be useful for a SR port.
Interface Zero is great, just a bit grittier than I like (easily fixed) and cyberwear is really expensive to have the SR style street samurai... it is also much more complex than Daring Tales of the Sprawl.
But you could (fairly) easily use IZ as the basis for a SR game. Replace Zeeks with Mages and Shamans and add fantasy races (good writeups in the shark byte that could be updated to the new race creation rules).
There is a 2nd edition of Interface Zero coming that I'm interested in seeing.
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Virgobrown72
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Location: The other side of the Sun, baby!!!
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| Posted: Fri May 11, 2012 9:36 pm Post subject: |
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Between the two I find I prefer Daring Tales of the Sprawl. Not to say that Interface Zero is no good. On the contrary, its a welll made, well conceived and beautiful expansion to Savage Worlds. I'm just not in love with the setting. While it is highly evocative of Cyberpunk fiction, I felt it was a lot more of the same, and didn't up the ante enough, na'mean? But, they have EXCELLENT mission geberators, and INCREDIBLE Mutant/Creature creation tables. I felt they were reaching a little by having Humans, Human 2.0's, hybrid animals, and androids. But, you can use what you want from the system, so I guess thats cool too. My preferance is for less lethal, high action cinematic gaming, and interface will kill ya quick if your not careful!!!  But it's not horrible...
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archus
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Location: New Mexico
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| Posted: Fri May 11, 2012 10:09 pm Post subject: |
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| Virgobrown72 wrote: | | My preferance is for less lethal, high action cinematic gaming, and interface will kill ya quick if your not careful!!! But it's not horrible... |
I'm with you there... I too prefer high action cinema gaming. Actually it was Daring Tales of the Sprawl/Adventure/Space Lanes that got me to give SW another try. If I had more time to roll my own stuff (and didn't have players that clamored for Deadlands), I'd be playing one of my favorite settings (Shadowrun) using Daring Tales of the Sprawl. Probably the IZ mission generator and mutant/creature creation tables too.
My deadlands game is leaning more toward high cinema action and pulp than gritty horror (took a few of the Daring Tales rules).
I'll likely pick up IZ 2.0 and fiddle with some SR rules while running the flood and see what happens.
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CrackedOzy
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| Posted: Thu May 24, 2012 12:52 pm Post subject: |
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Well I've looked over IZ and I gotta say for the level of complexity in their Hacking rules, I might as well stick with the original SR rules. So no thanks!
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Here's a few ideas I had for my cyberware-turned-foci
Weapon Focus (Raises Fighting skill WD - rank A cost)
Casting Focus (Raises Arcane skill WD - rank A cost)
Spell Focus (Raises Arcane skill WD for a single spell - rank C cost)
(I thought about one to raise Smarts/Spirit, but I don't see that the Ability actually has any effect on the spells)
I was also thinking of allowing them to spend money to buy new spells, but I don't know at which cost. Probably A+ right?
Btw, I'll be using AB: Magic for hermetic mages and AB: Miracles for shamans.
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I haven't had a chance to look at the racial builds from that Sharkbites article, but here are my attempts.
SHADOWRUN RACES for SAVAGE WORLDS
Human: (+2) 1 free Novice edge
Ork: (+5) d6 Vigor & Strength, +1 Toughness, low-light vision; (-3) Outsider, costs double to buy Smarts at char-gen
Dwarf: (+4) d6 Vigor, +1 Toughness, infra-vision; (-2) Pace 3
Elf: (+4) d6 Agility (may raise it to d12+2), low-light vision; (-2) Arrogant
Troll: (+11) d8 Strength, d6 Vigor, +1 size, +2 Armor, +1 reach, infra-vision; (-7) Outsider, costs double to buy/raise Smarts & Agility |
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ValhallaGH
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Joined: 25 Apr 2010
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| Posted: Thu May 24, 2012 2:47 pm Post subject: |
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| CrackedOzy wrote: | | Well I've looked over IZ and I gotta say for the level of complexity in their Hacking rules, I might as well stick with the original SR rules. So no thanks! |
Did you look at their Hacking 2.0 rules? Much simpler than the first printing.
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CrackedOzy
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| Posted: Thu May 24, 2012 5:38 pm Post subject: |
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| ValhallaGH wrote: | | Did you look at their Hacking 2.0 rules? Much simpler than the first printing. |
How would you compare them to the DTotS ones? |
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thurak
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Posts: 995
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| Posted: Thu May 24, 2012 5:42 pm Post subject: |
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| CrackedOzy wrote: | | Well I've looked over IZ and I gotta say for the level of complexity in their Hacking rules, I might as well stick with the original SR rules. So no thanks! |
I'm sorry you found IZ hacking to be so complicated. There was a lot of things to cover in the first edition, and ultimately it came across as being much more complicated than it really is.
Did you look at the Cheat sheet at the end of that chapter? The original system ultimately boils down to two things. Hacking through the firewall, and making a hacking roll to do what you need to do. here's an exerpt from the cheat sheet:
Step 1. Hack the Firewall
Roll the dice determined by your cutter program’s rating against a TN of 4 modified by the network’s System Designation Code (See page 48 for more information on system designation codes). Hacking a human brain (via their TAP) requires a similar roll, only you are making a roll (Using the dice determined by the rating of your cutter program) against a TN of 4 modified by the rating of the TAP (See page 48 for more information on
Tendril Access Processors).
If you succeed on the roll, you have gained access to the target's brain or the domain, as the case may be. Failure to crack a domain’s firewall means you haven’t succeeded and the domain makes an opposed roll pitting its system dice against the dice determined by your Masking program’s rating, if you are running one. If the system wins the check, it goes on alert and combat begins.
If it fails. It doesn’t detect your presence in the domain. If you failed an attempt to hack someone’s TAP, you make an opposed roll (using the same dice mentioned above) against the dice provided by the target’s alarm program (if any).
2. Manipulate the System
Once you’ve broken through the firewall, you can manipulate the system in whichever way you need to. Examples of things you might do include shutting down power to a wing of a building, looping security cameras, jamming inbound/outbound calls, etc. You manipulate the system in much
the same way you break through a firewall—by running the appropriate program. Make a roll using the dice determined by your program’s rating. The difficulty is a TN of 4 + the System designation Code of the Domain or, if you are poking around in a person’s brain, the rating of the TAP.
If you succeed on your attempt, you get the system to do what you want. You must make separate rolls for each individual attempt, unless the program you use can perform more than one function (See Programming Reality, page 59). Any failed attempt to manipulate the system triggers an opposed roll by the domain (or an Alarm program running on a character’s TAP) to see if your actions are noticed.
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thurak
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| Posted: Thu May 24, 2012 5:43 pm Post subject: |
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| CrackedOzy wrote: | | ValhallaGH wrote: | | Did you look at their Hacking 2.0 rules? Much simpler than the first printing. |
How would you compare them to the DTotS ones? |
Send me a PM with your email, an d I'll hook you up with Hacking 2.0
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ValhallaGH
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| Posted: Fri May 25, 2012 2:11 pm Post subject: |
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| CrackedOzy wrote: | | ValhallaGH wrote: | | Did you look at their Hacking 2.0 rules? Much simpler than the first printing. |
How would you compare them to the DTotS ones? |
About the same level of complexity, better immersion, and it feels a lot more like taking control of something.
So, I'd rate them as an improvement.
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"Got a problem? I've got the solution: Rocket Launcher."
"Not against a Servitor."
"... We're all gonna die." |
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