Shadowrun
Shadowrun Play => Gamemasters' Lounge => Topic started by: neomerlin on <06-17-18/1917:29>
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Hoi
One of my players has informed me he'd like to buy an Aztechnology Striker, but his character has issues with Aztechnology and would rather not use their products. He's asked if he can buy the same weapon but made by somebody else.
I suppose I could let him buy an Saeder-Krupp Whacker with the same cost. I don't see a particular issue with that on the face of it.
But before I sign off, I wanted to tap into this collective wisdom and ask:
1) Are there greater implications for stripping the brand from gear in the books that I'm not seeing?
2) Rebranding an item is simple but seems like the dull answer. Has anyone done what I'm considering, and tweaked an item to show the new brand's differing design philosophy? Something like Ares weapons always cost more because you're buying the reputation? Or Mitsuhama has a subsidiary that makes weapons for cheaper but with reduced accuracy? Again, what might be unforeseen implications of this?
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The only rules implication I can think of would be if the character has the "Brand Loyalty" quality and gets extra dice for a certain brand. Not a big deal, in my opinion, but it exists.
Frequently, in the gear books, there is shadowtalk along the lines of what you suggested. Feel free to go for it.
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There is no issue at all with what you are thinking. The books only show a small fraction of the gun market.
If you are in the States, think of it like the current anti-gun hype going on against the 'AR-15". The AR-15 is just one of 60 different styles of Assault Rifle available.
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Heck, there's even a sidebar in Core about vehicles and different manufacturers and brand names that all use the same listed statline. Makes sense that weapons, armor, cybernetics, etc. follow the same line.
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It’s written in one of the former sourcebooks that the corps reverse engineer and copy each other’s products constantly so you can rename and reskin any item you like to fit your needs. I usually go for a 5-10% price increase though on such items, but that’s my little spin.
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Heck, there's even a sidebar in Core about vehicles and different manufacturers and brand names that all use the same listed statline. Makes sense that weapons, armor, cybernetics, etc. follow the same line.
Yup, exactly my thoughts on it. Unless it's something experimental or weird, it's likely that another corp (on equal or greater footing) has a similar product on the market. Ares probably has a version of *everything* gun related, for example.
Crunch~
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Not only is it OK, but you should active encourage things like this. There is no reason you cant have a Striker for each corp, or a CityMaster from Neonet. Think of the things those corps are notorious for and you can probably add a cool spin on it as well.
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I would hit that 'Brand Loyalty' thing by making certain things by certain manufacturers more difficult to get a hold of; NeoNET (or its subsidiaries) doesn't do many cars, for example. Also, tweaking a couple things up (and down) by 1 should be good -- maybe Renraku's knock off of an Ares weapon is a little less accurate (but a little less expensive), or MCT has perfected the steering systems for a drone (and made it a bit more expensive).
You can also make an alternate harder to get. He hates AZT, but AZT has the market for That Item cornered in this area. So getting an alternate might involve -- ping! -- a run!! And it just so happens that his armorer has a line on Alternate Manufacturer trans-shipping a bunch of That Item nearby, and if you liberate a crate, he'll buy the rest ...