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Homebrew Mission : Glitch

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Jamelfr

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« on: <09-18-14/2313:34> »
Some disclaimers first...

#1 : Many parts are strongly inspired (and often copy-paste) from the Crossfire mission. It was easier than trying to re-phrase entire concepts that were already well described and it was more useful than just writing "go check Crossfire card".  :P  My goal was to offer a mission that could be printed and be used without referencing to another mission card.

#2 : English is not my first language. Also, this is my first homebrew mission for any board game ever. So... sorry for any grammar or gameplay errors. :) Any constructive remarks are welcome.


Italicized text indicates story parts.
_______________________________________________________________________

Is that a glitch on my screen?
Difficulty : Average (1 upgrade per runner recommended)
Players : 2-4
Note : One of the main role should be a decker.

Context
Mr Johnson and his sponsor (an A corporation) have asked your team to infiltrate the corp's own headquarters. All systems and drones went crazy 3 hours ago and all outside communications were cut. Also, there are hints of hired mercs patrolling the halls and shooting any employees unfortunate enough to be still there.
 
The corp thinks that the new head of tech department is behind the situation and that he might be in fact a spy from a rival company. The corp’s regular staff cannot help and it's up to your team to solve the situation. Mr Jonhson have provided more info and some equipment to help your prep work.

While walking in the shadows of the streets, you review the plan : go inside the building using the maintenance tunnels, navigate towards the servers room and shut down the mainframe. As soon as you enter the underground tunnels, your team's commlinks and hardwares begins acting strangely. Augmented limbs are moving erratically, cybereyes and AR glasses are seeing things that are not really there. Your decker will block those hacking attacks, but teamwork will be needed.

 
[Texts to be read when beginning a Scene]
  • Scene 1 – Maintenance tunnels : You are travelling through the maintenance tunnels leading to the corp’s HQ. The wireless network is all around you and the decker is having a hard time with the hacking attacks. Earlier, Mr Jonhson said those tunnels would be unguarded but, obviously, unplanned things are meant to happen.
  • Scene 2 – Tech department : Finally exiting the poorly lit tunnels, you go straight to the tech department, trying to find the door of the servers room. You walk low and silently through the deserted cubicles farm, avoiding unnecessary attention. Suddendly, dozens of AR windows are spamming the view of a runner, who hits loudly a chair in the confusion. Bullets are now flying over your heads. Oh well, you hated the decoration anyway…
  • Scene 3 – Servers room : Pushing aside broken furnitures, your team walks toward the server room. Entering it, your decker curses and types frenetically on his AR keyboard. Motion can be seen at the edge of your AR and physical vision, as virtual and meat spaces converge to attack your team. The corporate spy is nowhere to be seen, but for now you must focus on what he have left behind...

Mission set up
Each runner may put one extra basic card in his deck (use the extra cards included in the box set).
 
Prepare the Crossfire deck by shuffling together the following Crossfire event cards : 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, 09, 12, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 23, 30, 31, 33, 36, 37,38, 42, 43, 45, 46, 47, 50.
 
Prepare the Normal Obstacle deck by shuffling together all the hacking (green) normal obstacles AND the following obstacle cards : 01, 02, 03, 04, 07, 09, 11, 12, 14, 23, 24, 29, 31, 33, 34, 35, 40.
 
Prepare the Hard Obstacle deck by shuffling together all the hacking (green) hard obstacles AND the following obstacle cards : 41, 48, 49, 54, 55, 66, 67, 68, 70, 76, 79. Take out GODwire (card 78) and set it aside for later use in the mission.
 
Mission goal
Your runners must reach and shut down the main server in three Scenes, while fighting against obstacles and against glitches infecting their equipments. Each Scene ends when you have defeated all obstacles facing runners and when you have removed the Glitch bugging a runner. Once the third Scene ends, the team wins the mission!
 
Glitches
Glitch revealing : At the beginning of each Scene, reveal and discard the top card ot the Black Market deck. Place the required number of generic markers (see « Scenes and Crossfire ») on the runner whose role matches the revealed card : he is the runner bugged by a Glitch for the actual Scene.
 
Glitch effects : At the beginning of the starting player turn (after drawing a Crossfire card), reveal the top card ot the Black Market deck, then put it back on top of the Black Market deck. If the revealed card is a weapon (black), spell (blue) or skill (red) card, move all obstacles one runner clockwise. If the revealed card is a hacking (green) card, do not move obstacles.
 
Also, if the revealed card role matches the glitched runner main role, the Glitch gains one generic marker (a Glitch can have more markers than its starting number).

Those effects cannot be prevented by any abilities or cards : only removing a Glitch will terminate its effects. A Glitch does not affect runners actions or HP in any other way.

Note : If the Glitch was revealed right before the starting player turn, its effects begin on the following round (it still can be removed).
 
Glitch removal: Hacking (green) damage must be dealed to a Glitch to remove it. Remove one generic marker for one hacking (green) damage dealed to the Glitch. Any other types of damage are useless. Level-removal attacks (like Lightning Bolt) are useless on a Glitch. The glitched runner is not affected by attacks made on the Glitch. If all generic markers are gone at the end of a runner turn, the Glitch is removed.

The Glitch is only affected by hacking (green) damage applied during the « Apply damage » sequence of a runner turn. It cannot be affected by Crossfire events or by any card abilities (but those events and abilities still normally affect runners and obstacles). Karma upgrades (such as « Button masher ») can be used to deal hacking damage.
 
If a glitched player is staggered, the Glitch is still active. If a glitched player goes critical, the Glitch is immediately removed.
 
A Scene cannot end if a Glitch is still active.

Scenes and Crossfire
At the start of each Scene, flip up obstacles as indicated in the list below. When flipping obstacles from the decks, first flip obstacles from the Hard Obstacle deck equal to (Crossfire level – 1). Then if you still need more obstacles, flip obstacles from the Normal Obstacle deck for the remainder.
 
Unless indicated otherwise, place the first flipped obstacle facing the runner whose role color matches the obstacle’s color. Distribute the rest clockwise. The first round of the game begins with the starting runner.
  • Scene 1 – Maintenance tunnels
    Flip obstacles equal to number of runners
    Glitch generic markers : Equal to number of runners
  • Scene 2 – Tech department
    Flip obstacles equal to number of runners +1
    Glitch generic markers : Equal to number of runners
  • Scene 3 – The server room
    Place GODwire obstacle facing the decker. Then, flip obstacles equal to number of runners +1 and distribute them clockwise.
    Glitch generic markers : Equal to number of runners -1
Ending a scene
At the end of a turn, if there are no obstacles and no Glitch in play, each runner heals 1 HP and the starting runner removes the Crossfire event from play (it goes to the bottom of the Crossfire deck instead of the discard). Then, starting with the runner to the left of the runner who defeated the last obstacle, each runner, in order, can buy one card from the Black Market. This Scene ends after the last runner buys a card or passes. Play continues in the next Scene with the runner who had the first choice to buy a card. After the third Scene, the team wins the mission!

Playing with Fewer than Four Runners
If there are only three runners, do not flip a Crossfire card at the start of the first round of the game. If there are only two runners, do not flip a Crossfire card at the start of the first and second rounds of the game.

Karma Awards
If the team wins, each runner gets 3 Karma. If the team aborts, and has a successful abort run round, each runner gets 1 Karma. The team can also choose the following bonus challenge options:
  • Indestructible surveillance camera : Flip up one additional obstacle at the start of each Scene: +1 Karma for each runner.
  • Overclocking and memory boost : Start the game with one card in the Crossfire discard: +2 Karma for each runner (In the same game, the team can choose this option up to once for each runner.)
  • Darn carpets. So. Much. Static. : Instead of the above rules, a Glitch begins every Scene with a number of generic markers equal to number of runners + 1 : +1 Karma for each runner.
Karma Scaling
Each runner gains the following Karma award or penalty based on how much Karma they have.
  • 0-20 Karma = full Karma award
  • 21-30 Karma = - 1 Karma penalty
  • 31-50 Karma = - 2 Karma penalty
  • 51-75 Karma = - 3 Karma penalty
  • Each additional +25 = additional -1 karma penalty


Edit : Added details about Glitch effects : "If the Glitch was revealed right before the starting player turn, its effects begin on the following round (it still can be removed)."
Edit 2 : Changed a sentence in the "Glitch Removal" section.
Edit 3 : Minor corrections.
« Last Edit: <10-12-14/1538:24> by Jamelfr »

Jamelfr

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« Reply #1 on: <09-18-14/2323:28> »
So yeah, sorry for the long previous post. I guess the fluff parts are taking too much space, but I want a little more story in my missions. :)

This is basically the Crossfire mission with a twist (the Glitch) and some changes.

I am still on the fence about the part " first flip obstacles from the Hard Obstacle deck equal to (Crossfire level – 1)". I wanted to compensate for the Glitch effects, but I hope i did not make the mission too easy (as if it was possible lol).

I tried it with 2 runners (human decker and troll street samurai), both having 2 upgrades (+1 HP and +1 card in starting hands). It went smoothly in the first two Scenes and I barely win the third round.  It was a fun session.

Let me know if you have any thoughts (and sorry in advance for the typos).

AJCarrington

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« Reply #2 on: <09-22-14/0458:13> »
Thanks for posting this...will take a closer look at once back home, with game in hand ;)

Jamelfr

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« Reply #3 on: <09-22-14/2141:53> »
Thank you in advance for trying the mission. This is really appreciated. :)

I think the "Glitch" section can surely be written in a better, more concise way. Maybe I'll do a rewrite next weekend...

Bagpuss

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« Reply #4 on: <10-01-14/0617:47> »
Glitches
Glitch removal: Hacking (green) damage must be dealed to a Glitch to remove it. Remove one generic marker for one hacking (green) damage dealed to the Glitch. Any other types of damage are useless. Level-removal attacks (like Lightning Bolt) are useless on a Glitch. The glitched runner never lose HP when a Glitch is attacked. If all generic markers are gone at the end of a runner turn, the Glitch is removed.

This phrase in bold in misleading I think, or at least unclear. Does that mean if you damage the Glitch in the round the character with the Glitch is immune to damage from obstacles that aren't removed?

Jamelfr

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« Reply #5 on: <10-01-14/0853:41> »
Good point. Thank you for your observation.

It should be read : "The glitched runner is not affected by attacks made on the Glitch."

I will make the changes in the main text later today, when I'll be on a computer. :)

Update : And done. Thanks again for your input.
« Last Edit: <10-01-14/2000:56> by Jamelfr »

Jamelfr

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« Reply #6 on: <10-13-14/1305:03> »
If any generous soul can do a quick proofread on my mission text, it would be great. I am not quite sure about the story section (most of the other sections are almost directly from the game, so no corrections needed here). You can contact me by PM.

If no one has the time, that is okay too. I just hate the feeling of having such a long text posted online with possibly a lot of errors (yeah, I am a perfectionnist lol). Thanks in any case!  :)

iduno

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« Reply #7 on: <10-30-15/2323:31> »
Interesting run. I just tried it at 20 karma (with both +1 karma options), and barely won (2 runners at staggered, 1 at 3 hp, 1 at 2 hp).

The worst problem is glitches do nothing in the final scene, other than add a crossfire card each round. Then again, 2 of the 27 crossfire cards do 1 damage (would have caused an abort instead of win in my game), 3 would have added one or more obstacles, and 2 would have healed me. Still, 5/27 (>18.5% chance) of losing. If the worst problem I can find is defeating all of the card-based obstacles means I've won about 4/5 of the time (I may not clear all of the glitches in one round), you're doing real well.

As for typos: Furniture is already plural, so the word "furnitures" at the beginning of scene 3 is unnecessary. Also, the description of scene 3 should end with "what he has left behind."

Jamelfr

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« Reply #8 on: <01-06-16/1136:48> »
Interesting run. I just tried it at 20 karma (with both +1 karma options), and barely won (2 runners at staggered, 1 at 3 hp, 1 at 2 hp).

The worst problem is glitches do nothing in the final scene, other than add a crossfire card each round. Then again, 2 of the 27 crossfire cards do 1 damage (would have caused an abort instead of win in my game), 3 would have added one or more obstacles, and 2 would have healed me. Still, 5/27 (>18.5% chance) of losing. If the worst problem I can find is defeating all of the card-based obstacles means I've won about 4/5 of the time (I may not clear all of the glitches in one round), you're doing real well.

As for typos: Furniture is already plural, so the word "furnitures" at the beginning of scene 3 is unnecessary. Also, the description of scene 3 should end with "what he has left behind."

Sorry for the delayed reply, i was really sick lately.

Thank you for playing my mission and your commentaries. Those are appreciated. I will correct the errors later today. :)

Is it possible to precise what you meant with "glitches do nothing in the final scene, other than add a crossfire card each round"? Did you mean that you had to draw more crossfire events bcause the glitch was the last "obstacle" standing? If so, it was intended like this, but the number of obstacles drawn at the beginning of scenes was reduced in consequence.

iduno

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« Reply #9 on: <01-11-16/1331:45> »
I could have worded that better.

I meant that the glitch is probably the last "obstacle" left, but it had no attack. No more enemies come out after the final round, so the players are mostly safe. Aside from a few crossfire cards that do damage, there is no real danger at that point. Not really a complaint, just something I noticed.