"Listen up! This is a robbery! We want to harm no one! We're after the bank's money, not yours! Your money is insured by the federal government! You're not gonna lose a dime! Think of your beloved ones! Don't try to be a hero. Just shut up, and stay down, and this will be over in no time!"
I used to play a lot of Payday 2. It's a very Shadowrun-esque game. Any heist movie or product is going to remind you of Shadowrun, surely. While I was playing it, I often had "Hey, wait a minute..." moments that made me question Shadowrun's specific design philosophies.
Shadowrun works as a game. I mean, obviously. I have thousands of hours playing 3rd edition and even a bunch playing 5th. But I do think there's some things suspiciously missing from 3rd edition that even 5th edition adds. I'm gonna go over some of them and try to slap some rules suggestions together. This post is mostly full of things that are common in the real world, but later on we're going to see some adaptations from fifth edition Shadowrun.
Shadowrun works as a game. I mean, obviously. I have thousands of hours playing 3rd edition and even a bunch playing 5th. But I do think there's some things suspiciously missing from 3rd edition that even 5th edition adds. I'm gonna go over some of them and try to slap some rules suggestions together. This post is mostly full of things that are common in the real world, but later on we're going to see some adaptations from fifth edition Shadowrun.
First on the list is ballistic masks. Shadowrun was made in the 80s so I'm not exactly surprised it doesn't have specifically ballistic masks in it, but it's weird to me that it doesn't have some sort of protective headwear beyond that one weird bike helmet and security/military armor. In addition to that, protecting your identity is pretty important, right? I guess they're assuming you're always going to have a decker on your team but...we all know what the problem with deckers is. I can't imagine they're popular in actual play. Even if you've got one you're still relying on him not getting IC'ed up there, so...it just seemed like a smart decision to me to hide your face. That logically guides you toward trying to find a nice one, one that "does something" and having either a protective item or something that functions as goggles is what most people would think of first.
It would be pretty simple to slap these together. The first option is simply to let someone reflavor a security helmet and just go with that. It doesn't make sense that a ballistic mask would have such a high availability, but at least you're getting the proper performance out of it. This option would let you put cool shit in your ballistic mask as well, which is something I always love doing. However, since they're not exactly an illegal item in real life, a compromise can be introduced. A Rapid Transit helmet is +2 impact armor for 50¥ and availability 4. A security helmet is +1 ballistic, +2 impact for 250¥ and availability of 12. I think, then, something that was +1/+1 for 200¥ and availability 6 or 8 would be reasonable.
It would be pretty simple to slap these together. The first option is simply to let someone reflavor a security helmet and just go with that. It doesn't make sense that a ballistic mask would have such a high availability, but at least you're getting the proper performance out of it. This option would let you put cool shit in your ballistic mask as well, which is something I always love doing. However, since they're not exactly an illegal item in real life, a compromise can be introduced. A Rapid Transit helmet is +2 impact armor for 50¥ and availability 4. A security helmet is +1 ballistic, +2 impact for 250¥ and availability of 12. I think, then, something that was +1/+1 for 200¥ and availability 6 or 8 would be reasonable.
Next up is that it's really weird to me that this is a game about theft and intrusion, and beyond explosives it doesn't have any rules for cutting through vaults or doors. It has plenty of ways to technologically defeat them, but your only ways to bust open a sealed vault if you failed an Electronics check are explosives or that one cutting laser eye attachment. You can't even get a hand-held version of that laser. Payday 2 is rife with power drills: automatic drill rigs are in virtually every mission. It's by design since the core of the gameplay is to make you hold a position for a specific length of time. I've wrestled with what to design here: obviously a drill and automatic press rig shouldn't be that expensive and should be making an attack on the surface every minute or so based on the power of the drill and the bit used. However, I'm at a loss as to what specific values to suggest. Real-world drilling times are highly dependent on a number of factors that, frankly, I don't understand. If I come up with something I'll be sure to edit it in below.
So, there's this thing, a concept called a Death Cord. Don't google that. The thing I'm talking about is a cord designed to short out an electrical socket or destroy an electrical piece of equipment. Things like male-to-male connectors, unshielded cords that connect ethernet or USB right to the wall socket, or thumb drives with giant batteries attached that dump right into the system when connected. This simple sort of sabotage would be far more prevalent in the age of shadowrunning. Plenty of corporations would likely have measures to prevent widespread damage from this sort of thing, but there's only so much you can do to mitigate it: electricity's gonna do whatever the fuck it wants. In addition to that, there's going to be a lot of locations (even potential shadowrun target locations) where corporations have skimped on protections in favor of low overhead on building costs. Honestly, in 2021 it's hard for me to not imagine a whole fucking power grid going haywire thanks really simple problems like these. Power consumption and demand must be much higher in Shadowrun, and that may mean not every grid, outlet or device is as safe as in the real world. Will corporate locations have breakers in their sockets? Whenever they can, surely. Will a typical slapped-together house in a planned community? Maybe. Will an apartment complex? Don't make me laugh. Thankfully, unlike power drills this is easy to stat out: it's just a device built by Electronics B/R that makes an attack on the system it's plugged into. For power grid purposes this can easily be handwaved: It's either gonna work or it's not. For smaller things like a chip designed to blow a cyberdeck, terminal, or device it's as easy as assigning a damage value. I recommend something like 8D.
