Let’s face it, chummers: It’s a big, mean Sixth World out there, and your characters aren’t in it by themselves. There are all sorts of other people and things out there that, sooner or later, they’re going to have to deal with. Some of them will be friendly and try to help your character out when he’s in a tight spot; others will try to shoot your character in the face, or eat him, or otherwise get in the way of his success.
This chapter will show you a few things on each side. It’s divided into three sections. The first deals with non-player characters (NPCs), the people your player characters (PCs) will interact with through the course of the game. The second deals with critters, both normal and paranormal, that might be encountered along the way, for better or for worse. Usually worse. The third section deals with drugs and other toxins which can be used both professionally and recreationally.
If the player characters are the stars of their own drama, non-player characters (NPCs) are their supporting cast. From the megacorporate CEO to the dwarf squatter living in a box in an alley, from the dragon in the boardroom to the clerk at the Stuffer Shack, NPCs are the people filling the PCs’ world, the people they talk to, fight with, and otherwise encounter. They walk the same streets, stab the same backs, and sell the same secrets as the PCs. They’re how the gamemaster interacts with the players to tell the story.
Shadowrun is a role-playing game, and by its nature is interactive. Dealings between PCs and NPCs will, for the most part, rely upon the role-playing of the players and the gamemaster. There will be times, though, when role-playing isn’t going to be enough. Sometimes, talking doesn’t get the job done, and things get messy. At times like that, just knowing the character’s motivation and attitude aren’t enough; you need to know what they can do.
Typically, the gamemaster will customize NPCs for the adventure or campaign they’re running. They fill a lot of different roles, after all, and each campaign has a different tone and feel. The NPCs should provide some challenge to the PCs, or be of enough assistance to them, and the gamemaster should keep this in mind as he puts them together. Even if their life circumstances aren’t comfortable, they should fit comfortably into the story that’s being told.
While he should customize the NPCs, it’s often helpful for the gamemaster to have something to start with. Players are unpredictable, and the gamemaster might not have anticipated the tangent they’ve taken. This section provides some basic NPCs that the gamemaster can use. It also has advice and guidelines on how to run NPCs in different ways. They can be grunts or prime runners, faceless opposition or major characters who will have a significant impact on the lives of the PCs. Or they could be something in between, or neither. They might be people the PCs know, contacts who help and guide them— for a price. While most NPCs will fit into these categories, not all of them will, and the gamemaster shouldn’t feel obligated to force the issue. Some NPCs are vital to the story; others are merely set decoration.
Sooner or later in every story in the Sixth World, the protagonists will meet up with a group of antagonists. These can range from a go-gang to an elite corporate security squad. The power level doesn’t really matter; they’re nameless and faceless, and they all have basically the same abilities. They might be next to useless or they might be extraordinarily dangerous, but they’re still interchangeable henchmen and minions.
They’re grunts.
Grunts are NPCs that can be grouped together because they have virtually identical game statistics. They’re most easily handled by the gamemaster in groups, with one set of attributes and skills for everybody. Different groups of similar grunts might have different specializations added to some of their basic skills.
They likewise all have similar equipment and weapons, though there might occasionally be a surprise in the group. One of the gangers might be a street witch, or one of the security guards might be toting an assault rifle when the rest are armed with pistols. The gamemaster should make a note of these special cases, and make sure that they give the specialist the appropriate skill to make the proper use of his exceptional gear or ability. Specialist grunts are good for keeping the players and their characters honest and off their guard; it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking all grunts are identical. Don’t go too far, though; you should limit such specialists to one or two per group of grunts. This helps make bookkeeping easier.
Another way to make bookkeeping easier for the gamemaster is to streamline Initiative in combat by making a single Initiative Test for the entire group of grunts, although augmented specialists can make one of their own if the gamemaster so chooses. The result of this test applies to all the grunts, though some modifiers, specifically injury modifiers, might cause some of the grunts to act on a different Initiative Score than the rest of their team.
Grunts are easier for the gamemaster to manage than other NPCs (and they’re easier for the PCs to mow down). Grunts have only one Condition Monitor, which is used to track both Physical and Stun damage. This Condition Monitor has boxes equal to 8 plus half of either Body or Willpower (whichever is higher), rounded up. All damage taken by a grunt, whether it’s Physical or Stun, is tracked on this one Condition Monitor; when it’s full, the grunt is out of action for the rest of the fight. Grunts don’t get overflow damage like PCs do. It might become necessary to know whether a grunt is alive or dead at the end of the combat. For instance, you might want to interrogate one of them to find out who sent them after you. In such cases, make a note of the type of damage that knocked the grunt out. If it was Stun damage, or Physical damage less than the grunt’s Body, he’s alive, at least momentarily. If the final attack was Physical, and the damage was greater than the grunt’s Body, then he’s dead.
Some teams are just better trained than others. Players may find themselves facing craven, white-hooded thugs one day, and the next they’re up against a battle- hardened, high-threat security squad. The former will break and run at the first sign of trouble; the latter will probably have the upper hand on the PCs. The difference is the Professional Rating, a rating that measures the group’s determination and how well they can handle facing a team of shadowrunners.
The Professional Rating measures relative overall experience and discipline of a team. It’s used as a dice pool modifier for resisting Social Skill Tests, and it determines the rating of their Edge attribute and Edge pool.
The following list of ratings provides guidelines for assigning a group a Professional Rating.
Grunts aren’t normal characters. Their role in the game’s story is limited, and they don’t have as much Edge as normal characters do. In fact, they don’t have their own Edge attributes at all; instead, they share a common Edge pool with their teammates. This is another means of making bookkeeping easier on the gamemaster. Instead of individual Edge point expenditures, the gamemaster can spend a point of the Group Edge on any grunt on the team.
A team of grunts has a Group Edge equal to its Professional Rating. Gamemasters should make sure that grunts only use Edge in situations that are critical to their goals. Gamemasters can adjust Group Edge as they see fit, especially if a team of grunts might turn up in the story again (in which case they might need a little more). They can also adjust when Group Edge points refresh, though it should never be more frequent than PCs recover their own Edge points.
Sometimes there’s a member of a team of grunts who stands above the others. It might be competence that puts him in the lead, or it might be force of personality. Whatever it is, he’s the one in charge. He’s the lieutenant.
The lieutenant is a grunt, but he’s a step up on the rest of the team. Teams only have one lieutenant. The rest of the team has a common set of attributes and skills, but lieutenants have their own. They’re more powerful and competent than the other grunts on the team. Accordingly, when their attributes are added together, they should be at least 4 higher than the attributes for an individual grunt. Their Active skills, when totaled, should also exceed the other grunts by at least 4 points.
Like other grunts, lieutenants don’t have their own Edge, drawing on Group Edge instead. They do make their own Initiative Tests, however, and if they get the same Initiative as their team, they always go first. They possess a single Condition Monitor, like other grunts.
In combat, a lieutenant with the Leadership skill can try to use it to support his team. In addition to the usual ways to use the skill (Using Leadership, p. 141), he can use the skill to increase his group’s Professional Rating by 1 higher than normal (which also adds 1 to their Edge).
Grunts, no matter their Professional Rating, are nameless cannon fodder. They’re not meant to be remembered, whether they’re a match for the PCs or not. Prime runners, though, are different. They have names. They send the grunts out on their errands. They have their own plans and agendas. Most importantly, they move the plot along.
“Prime runner” is a catch-all term. They’re not all shadowrunners as such. They are, however, significant characters who recur over the course of the adventure, and frequently over the course of a campaign. If grunts are extras and supporting cast, then prime runners are the special guest stars. They can fall anywhere along the spectrum, from the chief antagonist all the way to the lifelong friend of one of the PCs, and all points in between.
A prime runner shouldn’t be thrown together. Like player characters, they should be built from the ground up, using the Priority System (see Building a Shadowrunner, p. 62), and advanced with Karma. As you build them, keep in mind the strength the NPC should have in relation to the PCs. This will determine how much Karma you’ll need to spend on the prime runner (see the Prime Runner Creation and Advancement table below). There are four levels of prime runners.
All prime runners are built with the Priority Table (p. 65); if the campaign is Street or Prime Runner level (see p. 64), those same alternate rules apply for building your prime runner. Inferior NPCs use the same Priority Table as player characters, but they take the next lower level on the table for each category. For example, if you dedicate Priority A to Resources for an Inferior prime runner, you only get the Resources from Priority B. This means that an Inferior prime runner carries the burden of having two Priority E choices.
Once prime runners are built, they should be advanced with Karma to a level commensurate with their strength relative to the PCs. This Karma total is based on the Karma totals of the PCs, modified according to the Prime Runner Karma table.
Prime runners are a great opportunity to add flavor to your campaign. They can be a role model, ally, rival, or enemy of the player characters. They may charm the player characters with their swagger or annoy them with their arrogance, but either way they should make an impression, which can set you up for using them over the long haul (see Fleshing Out Prime Runners for thoughts on making them distinct.
If a prime runner encounters the player characters at many points in their lives, he should be advancing just like they are. If he doesn’t, he’s not going to be as much of a challenge the next time he shows up. Keep track of the Karma awards you give your PCs each time. When they receive Karma, the prime runner should also receive Karma, as modified according to the Prime Runner Karma table. Advance a prime runner the way you would a character you were playing—focusing on a few key areas where they will excel, while also building up a few skills that can make them capable of surprises. Give them what they need so they can be a formidable challenge.
Sometimes shadowrunners get into a fracas. Sometimes that fracas is with one of your prime runners. Sometimes that fracas gets hectic. Sometimes, shadowrunners get lucky and geek one of your prime runners.
Sometimes, this is not terribly convenient for you and your plans, especially if those plans involve the prime runner recurring in a significant role in the future.
Often, you can work around this by exploiting anything in the scenario that could cast doubt on the NPC’s ultimate demise. An explosion obscures the shadowrunners’ view of his doom. The PCs might be knocked out simultaneously and he’s gone when they awaken. He falls off a rooftop and lands somewhere out of sight. Always remember: If there’s no body, he’s not dead.
Every now and then, though, Fate contrives for a prime runner to die out in the open, in full view of everyone. If that should happen to you, you can use the Hand of God to get past this little speed bump. To use the Hand of God, you burn all of the prime runner’s remaining Edge, permanently. Now he’s no longer dead. He might look it, but he’s actually clinging to life by his fingernails. Once something distracts the PCs, he’ll recover just enough to claw his way out, or get rescued, or rebuilt. That kind of recovery, though, leaves its mark. He’ll have a new, interesting scar that he can blame on the PCs, or he could lose a point in one or more attributes, or he could end up with an appropriate Negative quality.
You are who you know. In the shadows of the Sixth World, this is truer than you might want to believe.
Contacts are NPCs who serve as sources of the information, goods, and services that keep shadowrunners alive and well. Often, they can’t get chip-truth about what they’ve gotten themselves into from anyone else. This section will help you get the most out of these all-important NPCs.
Shadowrunners and their contacts are going to see an awful lot of each other. Like other prime runners, they should be built with the Priority System. Generally, they should be considered Inferior or Equal to the PCs. Assume that they’re going to have the basic gear and lifestyle they need to do their day job. A Knight Errant detective is going to have a pistol, handcuffs, and light body armor, for instance, while Mr. Johnson is going to have a fancy commlink and high-nuyen suit. Contacts are different from other prime runners because they’re useful to the PCs. There are two Ratings that measure just how useful they are: Connection and Loyalty.
Connection: This measures the contact’s influence, if any, measured on a scale of 1 to 12. The higher the Connection Rating, the more juice the contact has. The Connection Rating Table describes each level and shows how they should be portrayed. A character can’t start the game with any contact with a Connection Rating higher than 6.
Loyalty: This shows you how much you can trust the contact. This is measured on a scale of 1 to 6. The higher the Loyalty Rating, the more the contact is willing to do for the PC. The Loyalty Rating Table gives details on each level and how it should be handled.
The Loyalty Rating is applied as bonus dice whenever a PC negotiates with the contact (or vice-versa). The gamemaster should also use it as a modifier or a threshold (as appropriate) when someone else tries to put the squeeze on a contact about the runners.
Friday night socials and a beer at the local bar are all well and good, but the real value of a contact is what they can do for you. There are four major things they can do: legwork, networking, swag, and favors. While these things are helpful, they rarely come for free (Favor for a Friend, p. 389).
Before a character can get help from his contacts, though, he has to get hold of them. Since they live their own lives when they’re not helping the PCs, this isn’t always as easy as it might sound. For the most part, there isn’t a set process or test to determine a contact’s availability; that is entirely up to the gamemaster. It depends on the needs of his story. If getting hold of a particular contact would give the PCs information that the gamemaster isn’t ready for them to have, then that contact is caught in a meeting and can’t take the PC’s call. If the PCs don’t call a particular contact, though, and that contact has vital information that the PCs are missing, then he might call the PCs for reasons of his own. This can serve the dual purpose of helping the players out and setting up another run later on down the road.
If the gamemaster doesn’t care one way or another about a particular contact getting involved in the story, he should roll 2D6; the contact is available if the roll equals or exceeds the contact’s Connection rating. The more influential the contact, after all, the busier they tend to be. Other factors might also be in play, such as how the character treated the contact the last time they dealt with each other, or who owes whom a favor.
Legwork: This is the primary function of most contacts in a Shadowrun game. Typically, legwork means discovering or following up on clues, and contacts provide one of the best ways for shadowrunners to get the information they need. Most published adventures have a Legwork section that lists pertinent information that a character can get from a particular source.
When a character asks a contact for information, there is a chance that the contact may already know the answer. Make a skill test using any of the contact’s appropriate Knowledge skills + linked attribute to determine if the contact knows something and exactly what he knows. The contact’s Social limit applies to this test.
If the test is successful and the contact knows something, the gamemaster determines if the contact is willing to share that information. If it’s inconsequential to them, contacts will generally share the info. If it’s info the contact was asked to keep confidential, or it could hurt him if the wrong people learned he knew it, he will be understandably reluctant to share it. In this case, a Negotiation Test will be necessary to get the contact to divulge what he knows; apply the contact’s Loyalty rating as extra dice to your roll. A PC’s Street Cred can affect the Social limit for this test (see Street Cred, p. 372). You can lay out some nuyen to get the contact to be a little more willing to share; the gamemaster can set the exact parameters, but generally for each 100 x (7—Loyalty) nuyen you shell out, you get an extra die on your Negotiation Test (one of the few times you get to actually buy dice).
If the test fails and the contact doesn’t know anything, he can still ask around to learn the answer. The contact makes an Extended Connection + Charisma [Social] Test, where the interval is 1 hour and the threshold is based on the gamemaster-determined difficulty of the question/information sought, as noted on the Extended Test Thresholds table (p. 48). The gamemaster can substitute an appropriate Knowledge skill for Charisma. He can also apply any modifiers he feels are appropriate, especially if the information sought isn’t something the contact would normally have access to.
Networking: Sometimes runners have to talk to someone they just don’t know. Perhaps they’re trying to convince a megacorp to stop hunting them, or they need help from a gang leader to deal with another gang. If the characters don’t know, or can’t approach, the right people, they’re going to have to go to their contacts and ask them to be their go-betweens.
If a contact is approached to network on behalf of a shadowrunner, determine if there is any risk to the contact in making the needed inquiries. Dragons, for instance, might take a dim view of a request for a meeting if it’s handled poorly; this qualifies as a high risk. If there is risk, you might have to convince your contact first (through Negotiation, Con, blackmail, or good role-playing). If the contact agrees to help out, the contact makes an Etiquette + Charisma [Social] Test with a threshold equal to the target NPC’s Connection Rating. Apply any appropriate social modifiers, based on the relationship between the PCs and the target NPC and a dice pool bonus equal to the contact’s Connection rating.
If the test succeeds, the contact has successfully arranged a meeting with the desired person, either in person or via the Matrix. Timing might be an issue; the gamemaster should use his best judgment. If the players push, tell them 4D6 hours. Once the meeting is set up, impressing the NPC, either positively or negatively, is up to the player characters. This generally ends the contact’s role in networking. If the meeting goes really well or really badly, however, it can affect the contact’s rep accordingly.
The contact might not be able to arrange a direct meeting with the desired individual, but he might be able to arrange a meeting with someone close to that person. This person, in turn, can then be negotiated with to arrange the meeting with the NPC in question. These meetings are easier for the contact to arrange, and generally entail less risk to his life, limbs, and reputation.
Swag: This is like networking, except you’re specifically trying to buy or sell something. A contact can use her connections to find potential buyers or sellers. Contacts looking for traders follow the same procedures for Availability and Fencing Tests (p. 418) that PCs do, using their own Charisma and Negotiation skill instead of yours, along with their Connection rating as extra dice (they’re better at it than you are). If you’re willing to sweeten the deal for the potential trading partner, let your contact know in advance—they’re good, but they’re not psychic.
Favors: This covers just about anything else that a contact can do for a character, from patching up a shotup vehicle to patching up a shot-up shadowrunner, and almost everything in between. Any kind of direct aid rendered by a contact usually counts as a favor.
There are two types of favors: business services and personal assistance. Business services are those that you could obtain anywhere, from anybody, such as medical treatment or equipment repair. The problem with getting it from a complete stranger is the fact that a lot of those strangers keep records, and that’s not always a good thing for a shadowrunner. A contact will still charge what the market will bear for services rendered, but he’ll also do it all under the table. If you want to haggle for a lower price, you can try a Negotiation + Charisma [Social] Opposed Test, adding your contact’s Loyalty Rating to your dice pool. Net hits on either side raise or lower the fee by ten percent, as appropriate.
Personal assistance is a little harder to define. It covers many kinds of aid that aren’t paid for with cash. Whether or not a contact is willing to render personal assistance is up to player and gamemaster judgment. Occasionally there might be a need for more formal guidance.
Some favors, obviously, are bigger than others. The gamemaster will look on the Favor Rating Table to see how big a personal favor you might be asking for. Favor Ratings range from 1 to 6; the bigger the number, the more you’re asking their contact to take on. Contacts will normally agree to personal assistance with a Favor Rating equal to or less than their Loyalty Rating. If the Favor Rating exceeds the contact’s Loyalty Rating, you’ll need to convince the contact with a Negotiation + Charisma [Social] Opposed Test.
Of course, you’ll owe your contact at least one favor to be named later. How the favor is repaid depends on the gamemaster, but it should be at least equal in Favor Rating. Of course, a gamemaster can use a favor owed as a plot hook for a new adventure (Favor for a Friend, at right).
When dealing with contacts, glitches can happen on both sides. When they do, the gamemaster has a number of options depending on what the contact was doing for the character. If it was legwork, for instance, he might get some facts wrong and steer the PC in the wrong direction. If he was acquiring swag, the item might be used, or have some unfortunate bugs. Otherwise, a glitch probably means that a third party has learned about what the PC is up to. The gamemaster determines if and when the runners learn about the information leak, and whether they can do something about it or if they find out about it the hard way.
A critical glitch, of course, tells you that things have gone completely pear-shaped. A contact provides information that is flat-out untrue. Someone in the supply chain decides to double-cross the PCs. One of the NPCs involved has taken offense at something that was said. Worse yet, word about what the PCs are doing has reached the absolute worst person it could. A character could find their arch-nemesis or a devoted officer of the law pursuing them with less-than-savory intentions.
Contacts do things for you—but not for nothing. Everything has a price, remember? They’ll expect some kind of quid pro quo, usually something along the line of their Connection Rating x 100 nuyen for information or expertise, up to around their Connection Rating x 1,000¥ for goods or services rendered; they’ll probably lop off up to their Loyalty x ten percent if you’ve been nice to them. This doesn’t have to be a straight-up monetary donation—you could take them out for a nice dinner, or buy them a new commlink, put in some work at their favorite charity, get their apartment painted, or something else they’d like—but very few people are allergic to cash.
Of course, you can always owe them one. Which means that sometimes you find yourself doing something for a contact. Sometimes, a favor for a friend will turn into a full-fledged job, one that goes beyond the typical work-for-nuyen shadowrun. This lets the gamemaster get creative and work in plot twists, new conflicts, and other drama into their campaign.
Doing a favor like this gives you the chance to choose your own jobs instead of waiting for a call from your friendly neighborhood fixer. It also allows you to pursue personal interests and take on opponents without worrying about being stabbed in the back by a sneaky Mr. Johnson— though that can always happen as the job progresses (who can you really trust in the Sixth World, anyway?).
As the game progresses, contacts are going to become more valuable. When that happens, they’re also more likely to ask you to repay previous assistance with a favor. As the contact becomes more useful, of course, the favors become more harrowing. And isn’t that as it should be, omae?
When the world Awakened in 2011, mankind was not the only living thing that was forever changed. The same returning magic that created metahumanity also created metaspecies of almost every plant and animal species. Mankind contributed to this with rampant pollution and genetic experimentation gone amok. Spirits and other creatures from planes of existence we could barely conceive crossed over into our world as well. Without warning, otherworldly beings and monsters from fairy tales and myths walked the face of the earth alongside metahumanity.
“Critter” is a catch-all term that refers to all the non-human creatures that characters might encounter as they ply their trades in the shadows. Some are mundane, while some are paranormal; some are mindless beasts, while others are just as intelligent as metahumans (if not more so). They’re always played as NPCs, and can run the gamut of NPC levels from grunts to prime runners. The listed statistics should never be considered the final say on a critter’s abilities. Magic being unpredictable, the gamemaster can choose to add or remove powers from a particular critter, or alter the way one of the critter’s powers works, to keep the player characters on their toes.
For critters that operate in packs or swarms, the gamemaster can use the rules for grunts to make his life easier. If a gamemaster wants to have a critter highlight an adventure or campaign, he can make a critter a prime runner. Prime runner critters are usually, but not always, limited to sapient paracritters such as dragons or vampires.
Critters, like characters, have a full set of attributes. These can show considerable variation, since critters can run the gamut in size from a rat to a great dragon. Sometimes a critter’s capability in one attribute or another will be small enough to merit a rating of zero. This means that it doesn’t get to add dice from that attribute into its dice pool for any tests. It can still use any skill it possesses that is linked to that attribute, it just gets no dice from the attribute rating.
As mentioned above, the gamemaster is free to alter the attributes of particular critters as he sees fit to represent larger or smaller specimens of a critter. Attributes can be adjusted up to 3 points in either direction, though it can never be reduced to below zero.
Also like characters, critters have skills. In most cases, these represent innate knowledge and ability. Many critters have the Unarmed Combat skill, for instance, while others have Tracking or Swimming. If a critter doesn’t possess a skill, they’re considered Unaware in that skill (p. 131), unless they have the Sapience power, in which case they’re considered Untrained. As with attributes, skills can be adjusted up or down as the gamemaster sees fit.
Most Awakened critters possess a Magic attribute, indicating the critter’s innate magical potential. This does not, however, automatically give them the ability to cast spells, conjure spirits, or astrally perceive or project, unless they have the Magician or Mystic Adept qualities.
Walking, slithering, flying, or swimming—all critters have some way of getting around. Not all of them move at the same speed as humans, of course, and some of them have more than one way of doing it. Like characters, critter movement is based on Agility (see Movement, p. 161). Movement rates are listed as a walking multiplier, a running multiplier, and a Sprint increase in meters per hit in the following format: x2/x4/+2.
Flight: Critters capable of flight possess a special skill, Flight, which is linked to Agility. This skill measures how well the creature can fly and is used the same way as the Running or Swimming skills.
Critters, in spite of what the trids and sims want you to think, are not all marauding killing machines, though enough of them are that you should probably always approach them with caution. Especially if you don’t know what the frag they are. Most critters, especially those without any combat skills, attempt to run away when confronted. If they can’t flee, though, critters fight until they see an opportunity for escape, which they take as soon as they possibly can.
Some critters are natural predators; others are trained for security duty. These critters have combat skills and will fight much more readily than normal critters. If they feel they have an advantage, or if given a command by their trainers, they’ll initiate combat. If they sense their advantage dwindling, or they don’t have one to start with, they’ll fight in self-defense and withdraw at the first opportunity. Back a predator into a corner, however, and they’ll launch into an all-out attack that will leave either it or its foe a corpse.
Critter combat is basically the same as that for normal characters. They roll attribute + attack skill and follow the same rules as characters. They also use the regular defaulting rules if they attempt an action for which they have no skill.
The Sixth World is a vicious place; it seems like something is always trying to do you harm. It’s not always a physical weapon, either. Sometimes it’s a fragging molecule or simsense program. Toxins come in a stunning array of forms in Shadowrun, some of them weaponized, some of them recreational. This section will deal with them. It opens with those toxins used primarily as weapons against the characters. Following those come the more recreational pharmaceuticals and their technological cousins. Then we finish up with rules and guidelines for substance abuse and addiction.
Knockout drugs. Truth serum. Nerve gas. All of these are examples of toxins, a catch-all term for a substance that’s mostly meant for use as a weapon, as opposed to recreation. Each substance has several attribute ratings.
Vector: This shows how the toxin is delivered to the target.
Contact toxins can be solid, liquid, or gaseous. They attack the victim through the skin. These toxins, if in liquid form, can be coated on a weapon. In this case, they can be applied with a successful Melee Attack, whether the attack causes damage or not. A chemical seal (p. 437) offers complete protection from this vector, unless it’s breached. Chemical protection (p. 437) gives a dice bonus equal to its rating to the target’s Toxin Resistance Test.
Ingestion toxins must be eaten by the victim. They can be solids or liquids. Since they must be eaten, they generally take longer to have an effect. Toxin extractor bioware (p. 460) provides a dice pool bonus equal to the rating of the augmentation to resist ingested and other toxins.
Inhalation toxins are applied as an aerosol spray or gas, and they must be breathed in by the target. Gas masks, chemical seals, and active internal air tanks (p. 455) provide immunity to inhalation toxins. Chemical protection gives bonus dice to the Toxin Resistance Test equal to its rating.
Injection toxins must get into the target’s bloodstream, whether through a dart, hypodermic needle, or a cut. These can also be used to coat an edged melee weapon. They are applied to the target with a successful melee attack that causes damage.
Speed: This determines how quickly the victim suffers the toxin’s Effect. These effects are always applied at the end of a Combat Turn.
Immediate means the Effect is applied at the end of the same Combat Turn in which the victim is exposed. A Speed of 1 Combat Turn means the Effect is applied at the end of the next Combat Turn, and so on.
Power: This tells how powerful the toxin is. For toxins that do actual damage, either Physical or Stun, Power serves as the DV of the attack. A Toxin Resistance Test (see below) is used to reduce the damage. If Power is reduced to 0, then no damage occurs, and no other effects happen.
Some toxins don’t inflict actual damage. Power is still used to determine if other effects take place. If the Toxin Resistance Test reduces the Power to 0, then no effects take place.
Effect: This tells what happens to a victim exposed to the toxin. Many toxins simply cause damage; in this case, the Effect supplies the type of damage. Damage from toxins is treated just like any other injury. Some toxins cause other effects, which are listed in their description. Unless otherwise noted, all effects occur unless the toxin’s Power is reduced to 0 in a Toxin Resistance Test.
Disorientation causes the victim a –2 dice pool modifier to all actions for ten minutes, due to confusion and disorientation.
Nausea is a catch-all term; it includes pain, panic, vomiting, and double vision. If the Power of an attack after the Toxin Resistance Test exceeds the target’s Willpower, he is incapacitated (unable to take any actions) with vomiting and dizziness for 3 Combat Turns. Whether or not a character is incapacitated, Nausea doubles all of a character’s wound modifiers for ten minutes. A nauseated character with 3 boxes of damage (a –1 wound modifier), for example, suffers –2 dice on all tests instead.
Paralysis renders the victim unable to move by blocking the body’s neuromuscular signals. If the Power of an attack after the Toxin Resistance Test exceeds the target’s Reaction, the target is paralyzed and unable to take physical actions for 1 hour. Even if the target is not paralyzed, he suffers a –2 dice pool modifier for the next hour.
Penetration: This rating works like a weapon’s Armor Penetration and affects the rating of any protective system used to defend against it.
When a toxin comes into play, note its Speed to determine when it takes effect. At the end of the appropriate Combat Turn, the victim makes a Toxin Resistance Test to see if the toxin takes effect. This test uses Body + Willpower + the rating of any protective gear/systems; each hit reduces the toxin’s Power by 1 point. If the Power is reduced to zero, the toxic substance takes no effect; otherwise, apply the effect depending on the remaining Power level.
Sometimes a character gets hit with a lot of a toxin. If exposed to more than a single dose at a given time, increase the Power of the toxin by +1 per additional dose. Duration might also increase, at the gamemaster’s discretion.
Likewise, if left in contact with a toxin for an extended period, the effects can be increased. If the victim is still being exposed to the toxin when the toxin’s Speed interval elapses, perform another Toxin Resistance Test, and so on each time the Speed interval elapses. For each subsequent Toxin Resistance Test after the first, increase the Power of the toxin by +1, cumulatively.
If they’re to do any good, antidotes must be taken before a toxin’s effects kick in. An antidote taken afterwards will not diminish the damage caused by the toxin but may reduce the toxin’s other effects. Note that some toxins simply have no effective antidote, particularly neurotoxins.
If a victim has suffered Physical damage overflow from a toxin, then application of the appropriate antidote automatically stabilizes her.
In the world of Shadowrun, there are lots of things you want to get away from—some of them big, some of them small. Everybody faces them, and everyone needs an escape from them. Most people seek solace in a hobby or other recreational pursuit.
Some people define “recreational pursuit” as using drugs, whether those drugs are chemical or technological in nature.
While many traditional intoxicants of the past, such as alcohol and cocaine, are still around, they’ve lost some popularity to the new breed of brainbenders. Better-than-life (BTL) chips and their myriad electronic cousins have become extremely popular due to their immediacy. Not to be outdone, drug cartels have created the next generation of narcotics via genetic engineering and the magical properties of Awakened flora.
Drugs are toxins that you take on purpose, and they run the gamut from beer to high-intensity performance and mood enhancers. They can have enormous effects on a character’s mood and personality. If a character gets high on street drugs, it shouldn’t be glossed over; role-playing should be encouraged. People on these drugs usually display dramatic changes in their behavior. Depending on the drug, they can become deliriously happy or catastrophically depressed. They can become sexually aroused, with or without an accompanying loss of inhibitions. They might become paranoid and enter a homicidal rage.
Like toxins, drugs have several attribute ratings. Most of these are the same as for toxins (see above), but a few are specific to drugs. Each drug (along with other addictive substances and products) also has an Addiction Rating and Addiction Threshold used in tests to determine if you become addicted after using the substance. These ratings are found in the Addiction Table (p. 414), along with rules for making Addiction Tests.
Duration: This indicates how long the effects of the drug last. This can range from several minutes to several days.
Addiction Type tells whether addiction to this drug is Physiological, Psychological, or both.
The technological drug of choice since the early 2050s, better-than-life (BTL) programs take simsense recordings and remove the safety protocols. These highly psychologically addictive programs produce high-intensity simsense output that directly affects the pleasure centers of the brain.
Users frequently loop BTLs into continuous-playback mode. When done over extended periods, this can lead to catatonia, amnesia, dissociative identity disorder, flashbacks, synaesthesia (sensory “crossover” where sight is interpreted as taste, sounds becomes smell, etc.), and eventually death as users lose all will to do anything but be entertained by the program. Most deaths from BTL abuse are from malnutrition, dehydration, or suicide.
Better-than-life used to be exclusively chip-based, but advances in wireless technology have enabled some BTL pushers to operate exclusively online, selling their wares as downloadable software
All better-than-life programs, whether chips or downloads, have the following common statistics:
Speed: Immediate
Duration: Varies, typically 10 x 1D6 minutes
Addiction Type: Psychological
All the above are, of course, available as one-time, self-erasing programs. The user’s commlink has to have an appropriately modified hot-sim module to use these programs.
People use. It’s a fact of life on the streets of the Sixth World: People use substances to escape reality, and more often than they want to admit, they abuse those substances. Sometimes it’s for recreational escapism, sometimes it’s to get an edge on the competition. When people abuse substances, they run the risk of becoming addicted.
Substance abuse and addiction should be handled in terms of role-playing. Part of a character’s portrayal and actions should be influenced by his choices, his temptations, and his struggle to overcome (or succumb to) those temptations. While the player should ultimately be allowed to decide his character’s choices and fate, the gamemaster should be ready to take advantage of opportunities for drama during the game. If the game they’re playing leans that way, dealing with addictions can provide tremendous drama. A long-sober character can be pushed to her limits by events around her, or she may discover a stash of her intoxicant of choice, which she had long thought destroyed. An active addict can find herself in jail, unable to get a fix and forced to go cold turkey.
Characters can start the game with the Addiction Negative quality (p. 77), or they can get it at the gamemaster’s discretion during the game. This gives the gamemaster the ability to determine how common substance abuse is in his own game, including whether or not it’s a part of the game they’re comfortable including.
When you starts using drugs (or chips, or foci, or hot-sim, or anything else in this spirits-forsaken world that’s addictive), you might need to make an Addiction Test when you do too much of it. Each substance that can hook you has an Addiction rating and an Addiction Threshold, listed on the Addiction Table (at right).
Addiction can be physiological, psychological, or both. Psychological dependence usually stems from the emotional gratification, euphoria, and escapism derived from use of a drug. Physiological addiction results from the body’s dependence on the substance for its continued “survival.” Some drugs can confer both types of addiction, making them among the most difficult to kick.
Every time you use an addictive substance during (11 — Addiction Rating) weeks in a row, you need to make an Addiction Test. The clock on this keeps ticking even if you skip a week, but every week you go without indulging reduces the Addiction Threshold by 1 (it returns to normal when you use again). If the threshold hits 0, you’re off the hook until you use the substance again. This means that substances with high Addiction ratings (like kamikaze) could get you hooked in a single dose.
When it’s time for an Addiction Test, check to see if the addiction type is psychological, physiological, or both—that will tell you what you’ll be adding to your dice pool for the test. If it’s psychological, use Logic + Willpower; if it’s physiological use Body + Willpower. If it’s both, you need to make two tests: one psychological and one physiological. The threshold for the test is given on the Addiction Table (at right). If you’re using more than one addictive substance, you need to make tests for each of them every time an Addiction Test comes up.
If you fail the Addiction Test, you gain the Addiction quality for the substance you’ve been using (without picking up any bonus Karma for it). If you already have the Addiction quality for the substance, it gets more severe by one step (Mild to Moderate to Severe to Burnout). If you’re already at Burnout … well, it’s not good. If you fail an Addiction Test when you’re already burnt out, your Body or Willpower—whichever is higher—is permanently reduced by 1, along with your maximum Rating for that attribute. If they’re tied, reduce Body for a physiological addiction or Willpower for a psychological addiction (if it’s both, flip a coin). If either attribute drops to 0, you fall into a coma. Fill your Stun and Physical Condition Monitors and then start taking one box of overflow damage (Exceeding the Condition Monitor, p. 170).
Everyone handles addiction differently. In game terms, this is based on their Addiction level (p. 77).
Mild addiction indicates more social use of the drug. They’ll feel a craving “every now and then” and don’t see any kind of problem with indulging their habit. There’s no reason not to, as they see it. Most don’t realize that they have a problem, even when they notice problems with their attempts to cut back on their use. Mild addictions are as close to manageable as addictions get.
Moderate addiction indicates that the character has developed a tolerance for his drug of choice, and displays stronger cravings. They begin to use more frequently, up their dosages, or move on to something harder. Others have begun to notice the problem, in spite of attempts to conceal it. Repercussions from his habit begin to increase; these generally include mood swings, a drop in reliability, and the beginnings of financial problems as he begins spending more on his habit.
Severe addictions are typical of stereotypical junkies. Their lives are out of control, they’re constantly strung out and need their fix, and every shred of income goes to feed their habit. They’ll steal, borrow from loan sharks, prostitute themselves, and just about anything else to finance their next fix. It’s up to the gamemaster and the player to figure out where the bottom is. One thing to keep in mind is that when someone hits rock bottom, he could die … or he could be inspired to climb out of the pit.
Burnout addictions are what happen when someone bottoms out and then proceeds to go lower. They’re longterm addicts who now display physiological and psychological side effects from continual substance abuse. Characters who continue in this state usually have life expectancies measured in weeks, if not days, and they suffer deteriorating health effects along the way. Once a character has reached the Burnout stage, things start getting bad very quickly. They begin to show physiological health problems and slurred speech. As the downward spiral progresses, they might also develop abscesses, infections, incontinence, and other unpleasant side effects. In addition to the physical effects, the addict suffers psychological effects including blackouts, flashbacks, drastic mood swings, schizophrenia, and paranoia, among many others.
Once addicted, users need a dosage, or fix, on a regular basis, as appropriate to the severity of their Addiction quality (p. 77). To resist the craving, make a Withdrawal Test (use rules for Addiction Test), applying modifiers appropriate to the addiction level. If you don’t resist, you need your fix or you’ll go into withdrawal.
Withdrawal is a bitch, whether it’s voluntary or forced. Depending on the drug and the degree of addiction, withdrawal may take a while. When you go too long without using what you’re addicted to, you enter withdrawal, with the effects listed under the Addiction quality description (p. 77). If you can stay off the stuff for a number of weeks equal to the Addiction rating, you can make an Addiction Test for the substance—if you succeed, you can buy off your Addiction quality with the appropriate amount of Karma. If you fail or can’t afford to buy off the quality, you’re still in withdrawal and the process starts again.
Too much of anything can hurt you, or even kill you. Whenever you take a substance while you’re already on that substance or one that has a shared effect (like the way cram and novacoke both affect Reaction), you take Stun damage with a DV equal to the sum of the Addiction Ratings of the overlapping drugs, resisted with Body + Willpower.