Shadowrun of Yesterday

[dindenver]

Hi!
  Just 2 cents, make the old classes (Street Samurai or whatever) Secrets. Encapsulate that which was cool about each class into an equally cool Secret.
  It doesn't really fit anywhere else does it? Its not quite an Ability, classes are more that. It could be a Key, doing their job well is how they got XPs. But making the old classes Keys might detract from the awesomeness of the other Keys...
  But Secrets give you something special, something that makes your character stand apart, just like the old school classes did...

[xjermx]

Race quandary:

Okay I'd like to get some opinions on moving shadowrun races to TSOY.

The way I see it I have four options:
A) differentiate via secrets available only to that race
B) differentiate via pool bonuses
C) differentiate via race-only abilities
D) no differentiation, races are flavor only

I'm going to cross off (C), since I can't think of any abilities that one race would have that another wouldn't.  I'm inclined against (B) because it'll be difficult to give pool bonuses to elves, trolls, etc, without leaving humans out in the cold,  and I'm rather inclined against (D) because the races are pretty important in shadowrun, and without them, its mostly just vanilla cyberpunk.

That leaves me with (A), but I'm having some difficulty coming up with secrets that would fit.  I'd thought about trying to somewhat closely mirror Shadowrun with the following:
Troll Secret:  Trolls add two bonus dice to all Vigor related tasks, but add a penalty dice to all Instinct and Reason tests.
Orc Secret:  Orcs add one bonus dice to all Vigor related tasks, but add a penalty dice to all Reason tests.
Elf Secret:  Elves add one bonus dice to all Reason *or* Instinct tests (chosen when the secret is taken), but add a penalty dice to all Vigor tests.
Dwarf Secret:  Dwarves add one bonus dice to all Vigor related tasks, but add a penalty dice to all Instinct tests.

On second look, I'm not sure that I like these, because they'll apply to.. well, almost all abilities.   I also don't like them overly much because I dislike the thought of a secret having a negative aspect like that.  Yet I'm unsure how to give bonuses to non-human races, without having the ages old RPG problem with humans just being the odd "man" out.

So, any ideas?

[Ricky Donato]

Do it the way TSoY does it: Each race has one Secret that every member of that race must buy with their starting Secret. That means that nonhumans aren't advantaged or disadvantaged, because they have the same number of Secrets as a human. Instead, every nonhuman race has one special ability that makes that race unique; in TSoY, elves have immortality, goblins have an addiction, and ratkin have rodent friendship.

This assumes that the racial Secrets are the same power level as the nonracial Secrets, which would be a good idea anyway. Have multiple racial Secrets per race, but make that one required racial Secret very unique; no other race can approximate TSoY elves' immortality, for example, but many of their aura-based Secrets could be approximated with some generic Secrets, like Speciality.

[Clinton R. Nixon]

The idea of a negative modifier for a Secret is not one I like very much.

If you're really melding the two ideas of TSOY and Shadowrun, think about making the races more fluid than they are in Shadowrun. It seems to be that you have an axis of humanity in Shadowrun. On one end, people become more bestial, and strangely, urban (orks and trolls), while on the other end, they become more refined, and yet somehow, more natural (elves). I'd lump orks and trolls together, really, and have trolls be orks with more Secrets. That leaves you with elves and dwarves.

As for species Secrets for these, how about:

- Orks: something based around outrage.
- Elves: something based around assimilation and allergies.
- Dwarves: something based around ownership and control.

[xjermx]

*bump*

I know this thread is old, but I gave this stuff a fresh look with some new inspiration and have been throwing alot of new secrets and keys at it, so I hope you'll pardon my pulling this one back up.

As I mentioned previously, Doyce was kind enough to create a wiki page, which I've been hard at work on - trying to capture some of the feel of Shadowrun by creating appropriate Secrets and Keys.

I'd love to solicit some more clever ideas from you folks, or tweaks to what I've already got, as I can't claim that it is perfect.

Clinton, your last comment on there had to do with Species Secrets.  It occurred to me to perhaps create Species Keys, and I thought about how races were done in Burning Wheel, and I wondered if you or anyone wanted to elaborate on species.