Shadowrun - Blood of the Earth - Initial GM Notes

OK. First things first.

1) Say hello to James Todd, our prospective Fourth player. Let me summarize.

Right now, character generation is set at 405 build points, with up to 35 additional points from disadvantages. That number will go up by 5 every session to ensure that a starting character doesn't fall too far behind the rest of the group, without automatically making everyone equal either.

All books are applicable but standard chargen rules apply.

No dark paths. "Weird stuff" from the SR companion is allowable but I want to pay attention to it. Be aware that Forbidden gear can be problematic sometimes because you'll be traveling a lot, at least until you guys get a vehicle with smuggling capacity.

Each of you is encouraged to make up to two characters. A 'main character' and a 'support character'. When we have at least four people at the table, you will only play the main character with the support character NPC'd by me with your input. However I will always run a session as long as we have at least two players so this lets us have a core team if people can't make it.

You don't NEED to make the second character though.

2) Here is a summary of the first session.

http://letmetellyouaboutmycharacter.blogspot.com/2009/10/blood-of-earth-session-1-synopsis.html

3) Downtime points.

OK. A main theme of the game is that your characters are linked to the "Dagger of Arachne" which controls fate on a massive metaplanar level. What that translates into is that you can, to a limited degree, as players affect the world between game sessions.

First, you get downtime points, actual time and special actions. I'll explain those each.

Actual time is actual between session time, ie generally 4 weeks game time which you can use to do stuff just as outlined in the rules and in the book.

Special actions come from abilities chosen by you.

Your characters have potent dreams, in which they are offered three choices. (You as player will choose only one. Your characters choose the same if you have two)

They are in a deep and long tunnel wherein they are offered a choice of a door. They may choose one door. There are ten doors, with the following symbols upon them:

A roman helmet.

A jade jaguar.

An icy claw.

A rising sun.

A blue diamond.

A sun at zenith.

A splatter of blood.

A ruby dragon.

An emerald set in agate.

A ruby lotus.

The second dream involves them being in a deep chamber. Within the chamber they are able to choose an object from a table. They may only choose one object.

A bear tooth.
A cat collar.
An onyx crown.
A dog leash.
A sword.
An eagle talon.
A lighter.
A moon rock.
Mountain climbing gear.
A rat tail.
A raven feather.
A glass of water.
A tube of lipstick
A shark tooth.
A baby rattle.
A car key.
A pair of dice.
A book titled "Sun Tsu, The Art of War."
A wolf skin coat.
A frowny face button.
A hammer
A stock market portfolio.
A pair of crocodile skin boots.
A dagger
A gold coin.
A baby bottle
A severed bird beak.
A deer horn
A saddle
A lion's tooth.
An acorn.
A stuffed owl.
A book marked, "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix"
A bible
A piece of paper marked, "I.O.U."
And a box of Raisin Bran Cereal.

In the third dream they find themselves on a tall mountain, and the wind is howling. Which way do they go to climb down?

Downtime Points
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Getting them: You automatically get three for free each month. Period.

You can also get them by doing the following:

A) Puppet Factions. Keeping track of ALL the factions in a game this hard is difficult.

I will allow you to puppet one country, one corporation and one miscleneous minor group like policlubs. Basically this can be detailed in terms of what they are planning that month or it can be as little as a paragraph. You can earn two DP's this way. One very detailed plan or three high level ones will earn two. A single paragraph can earn 1.

B) Flesh out NPCs. Up to 2. At least one must be one I can use in an encounter against the party. You can earn up to 2 this way.

C) Rumors. Plot seeds and rumors sent to me to make the game more interesting, and that I might use to speed things up. You can earn up to 3 this way.

D) Increase Darkness. I have will have a hidden timeline. Certain events will happen around the world including the ultimate destruction of the world as the 'darkness meter' increases. You can earn up to 2 this way.

E) Increase Regional Chaos. Every major region (North America, South America, Central America, East Europe, West Europe, North Africa, South Africa, Pacific Islands, China, South East Asia, Middle East, Other (Space/Antartica/Deep Sea Islands) has a chaos rating. As it increases, worse and worse things happen. You can earn up to three this way.

I am potentially open to suggestions of other ways to earn DP, but they should be along this vein.

You can never have more than 10 DP's per month. Unspent DP's only carry over 1 month, so you can never have more than 20 saved up.

Ways you can spend them.

Individually

1)Acquire Contact: Contacts are extremely useful because within their sphere of influence, they can achieve any of the other things that a DP can do for you at no cost to yourself. The downside of this, of course, is that if you use a contact, there is an increasing chance they will ask you to do something for them in return.

2)Upgrade Contact: You can increase either the loyalty or connection rating of an existing contact for each DP spent.

3)Research: Pretty flexible. You can spend a DP to research anything from a new spell, combat technique, item, technology etc. Vastly increased if you have the resources of your own lab or a university at your disposal. Each DP spent represents a month of your or someone else's time spent. You can thus accomplish several months of research at a much faster pace than normal.

4) Gather Information: You can gain a great deal of information on a wide range of topics. Naturally, if you have skills that are more suited for a particular topic, you will be more successful in this regard.

5) Craft Item: This involves making something, either commissioning it or having someone else do it, or making it yourself. This can be anything from your own journal to a play to a magic item. Unique items (besides magic items) will almost always have a beneficial result. Each DP spent represents a month of in character crafting time on your or someone else's part. You can thus accomplish several months of crafting at a much faster pace than normal.

6) Personal Mission: You can undertake your own micro quest. Establish a plan, and I will make rolls for you to determine the result. This can be quite flexible, but this also involves risk to your person; almost never death, but you could, for example, theoretically start the game with damage or loss of an item. Then again, the gains can potentially be quite exceptional as well.

7) Acquire a Knowledge Skill. 1 point for each DP spent. You should never have to waste Karma on knowledge skills.

Group

Everyone can contribute DP towards these.

1) Increase the stakes. For 5 DP's, everyone earns an additional 1 Karma per session. Then it goes to 10, 15, 20 etc etc. It increases the speed at which everyone earns Karma but also the toughness of the bad guys you face.

2) Vehicles. Each DP spent represents up to 10,000NY towards group modification, customization or acquisition of specific vehicles.

3) Bases and Resources. Each DP spent represents up to 10,000NY towards group modification, customization or acquisition of specific bases and group resources.

4) Group Edge Pool. For 5 DP spent, you get one group Edge pool which can be used to solve problems by majority vote at the table during the session. The cost of this goes up 5 for each one acquired 10, 15 etc).

5) Increase the group public rep. Also at a 5 DP increase cost for each spent. 5/10/15 etc.

Metaplot

1)Advocate Organization: All organizations are starting out with an effective 'matrix' in political strength of a certain strength. I will publish that in the first news post. I will track Corps, the 5-6 strongest nations, and other organizations I deem relevant for you to now about. For the first month you won't know what these faction ratings are.

2) Weaken Organization. The reverse of the first.

3) Lower the darkness rating .5. Thus it costs 2 DP's to lower it 1, wherein you can gain 1 DP by raising it one.

4) Lower regional chaos.

5) Advance the Tech track. I will also be creating a hidden tech timeline with technological innovation occurring.

6) Advance the Magic track. I will also be creating a hidden tech timeline with magical innovation occurring.

7) Advance the Reckoning track. There are a lot of scores to be settled and issues that need to be resolved. This will be a hidden track.

Important Note:

Reading this far was wise, because when you reply to me the first time AND when you send in your spent DP's each time I want it to be emailed to me only. If you send it to everyone in the group, you will be penalized 1 DP. This is an increasing penalty so if you accidentally do it twice in a row you will be penalized 2 DP's etc etc.

Bottom line: Send me your responses privately. You can discuss how to spend it amongst each other as much as you want, but when you actually decide how to spend it, I want "Official" somewhere in your subject line.

I hope you enjoy it. :)