Shadowrun
Shadowrun Play => Gamemasters' Lounge => Topic started by: CyberNed on <01-23-11/2232:14>
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Question: A lot of the 4e books are told from the pov from the posters on Jackpoint. What's a good way to get one of my players on JP? From the posts in the books it sounds like Fastjack personally vets for each member on the network. What kind of service could a PC possibly offer such a prestigious and powerful runner to earn his trust?
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Well first of all, it's hard to gain someone's trust if you only see them as a means to an end! Likewise, if your only native qualification for joining an exclusive group is that you want to be in the group – well, most likely they'll just see you as a wannabe and shun you or take advantage of you.
However, if you have a character who might legitimately be a good candidate for JackPoint, and you're just trying to deal with the metagame aspect of how to connect the dots: The most likely "in" is to do cool things, and run in similar circles. Pay attention to what JackPointers do, and then do the same kind of thing elsewhere. Find out who's friends with Turbo Bunny or NetCat and make friends with them. Network!
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I like Oreos.
Just kidding. ;)
(OtakuSensei's going to smite me over that...)
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Well, if being on Jackpoint and interacting with the regulars is the goal, then there's going to be a steep barrier to entry.
However if getting access to the info on Jackpoint doesn't necessarily mean you need to be hanging with Frosty. That sort of info leaks down to the various shadownets with time. Usually once its become a bit dated, but none the less, it's out in the world.
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Speaking of Frosty, I hear she could use a hand with some work in Nigeria. ;)
More seriously, Dawn of the Artifacts is a good "in" to the JackPoint crowd, if you do good work and stay on her good side. She has the potential to be a Connection 5, Loyalty 4 contact from this series. It's no cake walk, though: You end up traveling all over the world, mostly to the worst places known to man. And lots of folks find Frosty (and her boyfriend, and her family) to be insufferable, although she gets on well with my group.
Earning trust takes time, and it's important that you actually fit in. If you hate Frosty, that'll make your life harder. If you only get along with Clockwork, you can pretty much forget it. ;)
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Earning trust takes time, and it's important that you actually fit in. If you hate Frosty, that'll make your life harder. If you only get along with Clockwork, you can pretty much forget it. ;)
But...what if you want to strangle Clockwork? Then resuscitate him so you can strangle him again...then resuscitate him so you can give him a sucking chest wound, tie a rope
around his waist, set him on dowse him in oil, pull the pin on a willy pete grenade that you have stuffed in his pants, and throw him off a building?
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Earning trust takes time, and it's important that you actually fit in. If you hate Frosty, that'll make your life harder. If you only get along with Clockwork, you can pretty much forget it. ;)
But...what if you want to strangle Clockwork? Then resuscitate him so you can strangle him again...then resuscitate him so you can give him a sucking chest wound, tie a rope
around his waist, set him on dowse him in oil, pull the pin on a willy pete grenade that you have stuffed in his pants, and throw him off a building?
To those that haven't yet purchased MilSpecTech:
Apparently, our boy Clockwork sold some upgraded software to Aztechnology for their machines making 'running that much harder against them. The boy just digs his rep deeper every day... ;)
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But...what if you want to strangle Clockwork? Then resuscitate him so you can strangle him again...then resuscitate him so you can give him a sucking chest wound, tie a rope
around his waist, set him on dowse him in oil, pull the pin on a willy pete grenade that you have stuffed in his pants, and throw him off a building?
Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter
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[Must. Resist. Commenting. On. Clockwork comments....errrrrrguuuuuarrrrgghhhh, okay. hehe.]
I see this as a three pronged issue.
1. Street Cred
A good metric to use would be the character's Street Cred rating. A Street Cred of around 5 would be a good bench mark +/- what ever you feel is appropriate. That's about 6 successful runs or so and would translate into being pretty well known among the shadow community. But high Notoriety and Public Awareness ratings would hurt the chances (did Clockwork have a high Notoriety before getting on JP or is it all earned post-access? Ak! Must resist!)
2. Favors
The PC should want to join JP and a good start would be to feed Fastjack info picked up on runs. "Hey, you might be interested in this, got it from here, not sure what it's about, but it was heavily defended info" kinds of drops. If enough of the drops are legit/relevant/interesting to JP's topics, then Fastjack (and any other system operators at JP) will get a feel for the PC. Of course...finding the info drop should be a pretty hard Data Search and/or use of legwork.
3. Posting
As a GM, I would want my player to have his PC create a blog (extra kudos for actually creating a blog and posting in character). These would be short little write ups about topics that he/she thinks would be of interest to the JP forums. If the player doesn't have time/energy/skill to actually write some things up, then make the PC roll Artisan skill checks for how well the character can write the blog posts. A few weeks of being relevant & making sure the blog comes to the JP community's attention then there's another notch on the belt for getting in.
After these three points have been addressed, then I would say the PC could actually be vetted by Fastjack himself.
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I think you need a lot more than 5 Street Cred to be well-known and respected. Five or six jobs means you're not a noob anymore, but it's a long way from actually being a name. For what it's worth, the Missions campaign sets the bar for "Legendary" characters at 250 Karma with some significant exploits. That's about the level that JackPointers operate at.
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Hehe, okay, okay, edit to add "being pretty well known among the [local] shadow community" ... and I never said "respected"
Very true about the level of types of runners in JP. So the 5 Street Cred would translate to 1/5 the Street Cred of a low-end Legendary character.
My reasoning was stemming from a playability standpoint of being able to introduce a PC to JP (and the related people there) in a time frame that would "seem" plausible (at least to the players, not the PCs) as 250 Karma is over 25 runs. My own bias here is that I'm looking at averaging 1 run every 2 - 3 evening sessions, so 25 runs is equaling about a year's worth of actual game time.
Regardless, even going full 250 Karma = legendary, I would say that my 3 point outline, especially with one or two runs for people already on JP, it could allow access with limitations (not able to post in major document threads, limited to "jobs wanted" forums, pay dues, perform jobs for greater access levels, etc.)...one does not simply hack into Jackpoint...you hack and wheeze and eventually cough up a lung's worth of paydata and hope they let you in as codemonkey slave and from there work your way up until people will bother to turn away from you when taking a leak. :)
Incorporating getting into JP into the ~25 runs helps the players feel like they're accomplishing things, which is fun for them. Watching them weep as the Wendigo's dance on their broken bodies with a "welcome to Jackpoint" invite on their commlink popping up, that's fun for the GM :)
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Oh, for sure it would be a good idea to start introducing the players to JackPointers well before they become legendary, and your suggestions are good ones. Since we started about 10 months ago, my own group has played On the Run, Dawn of the Artifacts 1-3, and Supernova. They each have 105 total Karma, they have a good working relationship with Frosty (Loyalty 3), and they just made Neonet's prime assets list. If any of them are interested in JackPoint, this would be a good time to start serious networking, getting to know the other major players. By 150 Karma they could be up for consideration by FastJack, and in by about 200 Karma. (Not all of the JackPointers are legendary.)
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Yeah, 105 is definitely getting big, that's a 10 Street Cred, and 3 Public Awareness :)
By the way, what's Supernova. I checked the catalog, couldn't find it. It rings a bell, but not the right bell, hehe.
Have you done home-brew runs in between/around the published ones?
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Supernova is a short mission from First Run, the intro adventure book for SR3. It's a milk run that goes sideways, a nice mix of comic relief and in-over-your-head terror. After months of chasing magical artifacts around the world, I thought the gang might enjoy a neat little corp job. It translates pretty well to SR4, although updating the stats is a lot of work, and there are some weird bits (like a cameo by Miles Lanier, who is supposed to be missing in 2072).
I haven't had time lately to put stuff together completely from scratch, plus I haven't really got the hang of Shadowrun mission design yet. I can do a heroic fantasy adventure off the top of my head, but I'm still learning how to do cyberpunk and pink mohawks. Our other GM has done a couple of original missions, but that campaign seems to be on hiatus.
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I haven't had time lately to put stuff together completely from scratch, plus I haven't really got the hang of Shadowrun mission design yet. I can do a heroic fantasy adventure off the top of my head, but I'm still learning how to do cyberpunk and pink mohawks. Our other GM has done a couple of original missions, but that campaign seems to be on hiatus.
OK...best advice on how to do a mission of your own: Decide on the McGuffin, decide how the johnson is going to betray the team, let the party take things from there!
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In terms of adventure design, I got a lot of value out of the way adventures were presented in Emergence. Basically, you create the headings of Set-up, Event 1, Event 2, Conclusion and perhaps Sequels. You can add an event or two more if you want, but each mission I wrote that way produced 6-8 hours of play time, including downtime stuff like Karma spends and getting new gear.
Thanks for the reminder about First Run, it's sitting on my shelf at home and I think it'll make a good resource for the campaign I'm about to start.
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Way to get Jackpoint access before play.
Set it up as a Virtual Contact p.g. 129 Runners companion
Way to get Jackpoint access in play.
Pay your fixer and or hacker contact to get you set up with a guest account then later try to get registered.
Befriend a member of Jackpoint and try to get a referral.
Hack in to Jackpoint with some paydata in hand tell Fastjack how you got past the firewall and hand over the paydata to grease the wheels
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Just so you know, the last option (Hacking into Jackpoint) is probably the most difficult. FastJack's computer skills are legendary and he's built the security personally to keep out types like Aztechnology and other AAA megacorps.
So yeah, if you hack in, you're good. ;D
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Just so you know, the last option (Hacking into Jackpoint) is probably the most difficult. FastJack's computer skills are legendary and he's built the security personally to keep out types like Aztechnology and other AAA megacorps.
So yeah, if you hack in, you're good. ;D
The sad thing is my PCs would try that option first
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And if they don't fail hard, but have a slight chance of success, they might get an invite. I bet FJ loves fresh talents.
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And if they don't fail hard, but have a slight chance of success, they might get an invite. I bet FJ loves fresh talents.
Proof of that would be Netcat, Clockwork and /dev/grrl. Especially /dev/grrl. I have a feeling she hacked her way into his good graces. ;)
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And if they don't fail hard, but have a slight chance of success, they might get an invite. I bet FJ loves fresh talents.
Proof of that would be Netcat, Clockwork and /dev/grrl. Especially /dev/grrl. I have a feeling she hacked her way into his good graces. ;)
I don't know about that, she might have gotten in with connections, as she seems to know quite a few members personally.
Ofcource she might have met all of them only after joining.
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/dev/grrl is connected through family. Check out Vice. :)
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/dev/grrl is connected through family. Check out Vice. :)
Do you have a page reference? I don't remember seeing that. I know she's a corp brat and has hung out with most of the Jackpointers, but I don't remember seeing anything that said she was related to them.
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If i remember right, there is a chapter introduction with her and another Jackpointer, that seems to suggest she's family. Or like family, i'd have to check. I don't have Vice on me here. On home system only - this cheap deck doesn't have enough space... I'll try referencing via phone.
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I don't have Vice on me here. On home system only - this cheap deck doesn't have enough space... I'll try referencing via phone.
Thanks, if you can give me the reference, I'll add it to my project.
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Vice, Chapter is Crime Pays pg. 7? She is crashing at Pistons place.
(Gogo thumb drive library!)
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Sounds like the chapter intro "Crime Pays," p. 5, Vice. The main characters in the story are Pistons, her sister Bette, Bette's twin children, and /dev/grrl. At the end of the story, Pistons refers to /dev/grrl's parents worrying about her. It's possible that Pistons and Bette are /dev/grrl's aunts, but I think it's more likely that they're just close family friends. Also, /dev/grrl is old enough to provide medical supervision for long-term VR, but young enough to need a babysitter. I'd estimate 10-12 years old.
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That's what I thought he might be talking about. I know /dev/grrl's a Corp brat (Corporate Guide p. 32; "Corporate Life"), so I think Pistons is just one of her Hacking contacts, but isn't related to her, especially since her parents don't know that she's there with her.
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Yeah, although I got the impression that the issue wasn't who /dev/grrl was with, so much as how long she was gone. Maybe /dev/grrl's parents think it's OK for her to hang out with Bette's kids, maybe even sleep over, but after three days they'd get worried.
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Also, /dev/grrl is old enough to provide medical supervision for long-term VR, but young enough to need a babysitter. I'd estimate 10-12 years old.
I don't know about Vice, but in Corporate Guide Pistons specifically mentions /dev/grrl's age as 16:
"C'mon, Sticks! She's sixteen! Her idea of "entertainment" isn't nearly as depraved as yours!"
It's a little too old to need a babysitter, but she's definitely old enough that I could see her holding her own as a 'runner. Also, given how coddled kids are in the corporate world, it doesn't surprise me too much that her parents are the over-protective sort.
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Good point. Also, in the story the parents were out of town for about a week, so maybe they felt a sitter was necessary even for a teen. Or maybe it was just courtesy of the corp. :)
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Of course, who thinks in MilSpec Tech, dev/grrl kinda....got into some real trouble? As in, maybe flat-line type trouble?
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Nah, she's probably just making a conspiracy theory joke, like all the old hackers who would(*&(#^LJKjlkjj
CARRIER LOST
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Nah, she's probably just making a conspiracy theory joke, like all the old hackers who would(*&(#^LJKjlkjj
CARRIER LOST
I might have thought that...if not for the followup by another jackpointer...
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She actually doesn't comment at all in the rest of the book, but I think she's just nursing some fried synapses and a wicked nosebleed.
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Mechanically speaking, she got enough damage to fill the whole Stun track, and around half of the Physical track. That would make her quiet for a few days at least.
And I really hope she'll be okay, as I've grown to like that character. Especially by the nickname.
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Mechanically speaking, she got enough damage to fill the whole Stun track, and around half of the Physical track. That would make her quiet for a few days at least.
And I really hope she'll be okay, as I've grown to like that character. Especially by the nickname.
Why? the grrrl part of it? As in, a teenager who is actually not at all shame to self-out herself? I admit, I do like her, but for the
fact that she brings a bit of fresh air to the whole bunch of old timers who make up alot of the Jackpointers. Do you think, though,
she has learned that when the old timers warn you to be careful of something....you should be careful?
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After something like that? Who wouldn't? :P
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After something like that? Who wouldn't? :P
A teenager?
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*bump*
Two issues:
A) What if you're a PC who is continually spending Street Cred to pay off notoriety? We have runners in the group with 90 Karma earned (Street Cred =9), but have paid off their notoriety (Spirit Bane, Deal with Dragon etc) so they're back to Street Cred = 1.
They're Solid operators who don't want a negative rep. Seems like exactly the sort of runners that JackPoint would benefit from, but you can't just use Street Cred as a measure.
B) you can always donate intel. Any decent shadowrunner should have heard of Jackpoint, and any decent fixer should know how to get messages to at least a forum member or two. So why not donate some data to the cause? Think of it as an application fee that will at least get your name introduced for potential vetting.
In our campaign, I'm playing a Free Spirit (who obviously can't read frickin AR/VR, so is still trying to find some workaround to get a working eMail account), so FastJack received a notification through a fixer that he had a typed-up data-dump awaiting pickup at his convenience. Free Spirit in question is still building enough cred to pass the fastJack vetting process, but hopes to get into the elite group one day :)
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If you're paying off a lot of Notoriety, you might be a solid operator now, but you have a bad rep behind you that you've just barely been able to put behind you. Now you've got a clean slate, but if you want people to actually take you seriously, you'll need to continue the progress by earning more credibility. (Pretty much how it works in the real world too. Far too many people clean up their act just to slide back into bad old habits. You've got to go beyond just balancing the books for now.)
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If you're paying off a lot of Notoriety, you might be a solid operator now, but you have a bad rep behind you that you've just barely been able to put behind you. Now you've got a clean slate, but if you want people to actually take you seriously, you'll need to continue the progress by earning more credibility. (Pretty much how it works in the real world too. Far too many people clean up their act just to slide back into bad old habits. You've got to go beyond just balancing the books for now.)
Yes and no. There are some fairly dodgy operators on the JackPoint books...
- Clockwork will sell his soul for the right amount (even to Aztech)
- Lyran I believe works closely with dragons
- Kane is a psycho with an unmentionable bodycount
I'm just saying some of these runners have good street cred, but big notoriety as well.
If a runner is willing to sacrifice the cred to take down the notoriety, why should they be looked on as any less of a candidate for access?
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And there's even more to that. I believe that for example Slamm-O! has a decent Notoriety. :)
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Personally, as a GM, if my players wanted to hang out with the cool people at Jackpoint, they would need to have something to offer.
Judging from the books most of the JP users are very knowledgable in more than one area, they are often either the people describinb situations and/or locations, or they are the ones with connections to people who can do it.
So thats what I would require of my players, for FJ to want them on JP, they would need to know something of importance, and not just a single time data-dump, but a topic which would regularly be important.
In game terms, I would expert the character(s) to have a high rating in a specific (and otherwise rarely used) knowledge skill (aka, they would have to "waste" karma on it), alternatively a specialized high rating etiquette skill.
Secondly - then I could see myself expecting some sort of write-up about the subject - be it a new location not covered in SR books, a AA corporation not detailed, details about a conspiracy or anything similar.
I think most of the JP users are simply there due to connections and knowledge, and thats what I would expect from from characters wanting to join. Bring something to the table, have a lasting value to add to the usergroup.
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Let's not forget NetCat who gained a lot for not being totally honest about being a TM. Even Uncle FastJack gave her a thumb's down for that. Then again, after Clockwork sold her out, I'm sure that reversed itself quite quick.
Butch has a bit notoriety now after her outright (if forthright) declaration as to what she does with people that die on her table...
But, hell, let's face it, almost everyone on the JackPoint will shoot people in the face for money. Well, maybe not Man-of-Many-Names... But even him...
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The thing is, most of them have pretty strong work ethics. Clockwork is more of an exception that confirms the rule. They bicker, argue and snarl at each other sometimes, but look what Clockwork's betrayal earned him - you can do that by checking out This Old Drone preview on the SR4 site. Just look at that rep score. :P
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Are we sure that's his Log-In to the JackPoint? We never do know whose it is, really... Or even if it's the same person.
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It is almost for sure. As that's 'his' material. And the stats and messages confirm it.