TEXT: A BETTER-THAN-LIFE SUPPLEMENT
  Writing 
  Raymond Croteau
  Art 
  Arndt Drechsler, Andreas “AAS” 
  Schroth, Echo Chernik, 
  Development 
  Peter M. Andrew, Jr.
  Proofing 
  E.V. McKittrick
  Layout & Design 
  Matt Heerdt
  Art Direction 
  Kat Hardy
  Shadowrun Line Developer 
  Jason M. Hardy
  CREDITS
  © 2013 The Topps Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 
  Shadowrun and Matrix are registered trademarks 
  and/or trademarks of The Topps Company, Inc., in the 
  United States and/or other countries. Catalyst Game 
  Labs and the Catalyst Game Labs logo are trademarks 
  of InMediaRes Productions, LLC.
  ®
  ™
  Special Thanks to: Cindy Smyth, Frank Croteau, Grant Gajdosik, and Jeff Plotnikoff.
  In Memory of Paul Smyth, wish you had been here to help me with this one Dad.
  
  2
   
  SIM DREAMS & NIGHTMARES
  JackPoint Stats___
  Sim DreamS & NightmareS
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  Latest News
  There are days when you’re the 
  windshield; there are days when 
  you’re the bug. Then there are the 
  days the bug doesn’t even know 
  the windshield is waiting for them. 
  Guess which today is? –FastJack 
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  Current Time: 27 Dec 2074, 13:42 hrs
  Posts/Files tagged with 
  “Sim Dreams & Nightmares”:
  * SimSense: The Ultimate Opiate
  * Moodchips: Slot the Rainbow
  * Better Than Life, Worse Than Reality
  * Dreamchips: Lie back and live someone else’s dream
  * Tripchips: Slot In, Drop Out
  [More]
  Welcome back to JackPoint, chummer; 
  your last connection was severed:  
  9 hours, 14 minutes, 3 seconds ago
  Today’s Heads Up
  * Send out warm wishes and plush 
  toys to Butch as she recovers from a 
  chiphead attack, and to Turbo Bunny, 
  who fell off the wagon hard and needs en-
  couragement as she cleans up. We’re going 
  into the dark side of Simsense and its horrors 
  this time around the virtual block, with Turbo venting her spleen (if she still has the original) on what 
  happens when you get hooked on a monkey that almost everyone uses. As for myself, I can stop using 
  hot sim anytime I want to. I just don’t want to. —FastJack
  Incoming
  * The Awakening isn’t done playing with the animal kingdom yet. [Tag: Parazoology 2]
  * Dark clouds, dark actions, and truly dark shadows. [Tag: Storm Front]
  Top News Items
  * Extensive contract exchanges between Horizon and MCT’s media outlets have rumors of shadowrun-style 
  extractions in Hong Kong flaring up, while Wuxing refuses to comment on any changes in their simsense 
  lineup. Link
  * Knight Errant’s investigation into Jimmy Mackleroy’s assault stalled out when an essential witness was 
  murdered by magical means before they could question her. The owners of the Seattle Mariners are ru-
  mored to be hiring external investigators at this time. Link
  * Horizon and Evo’s combined introduction of simsense-enhanced augmented reality has dramatically 
  increased their market share as other corporations scramble to develop similar technologies. Link
  Connecting JackPoint VPN …
  … Matrix Access ID Spoofed.
  … Encryption Keys Generated.
  … Connected to Onion Routers.
  > Login
  ****************************
  > Enter Passcode
  ****************************
  … Biometric Scan Confirmed.
  Connected to <ERROR: NODE UNKNOWN>
  “I reject your reality and replace it with one I purchased on the street.”
  
  3
   
  Slade slipped through the dark, dreary alleyways of Seattle’s underbelly, pistol tight against his body, 
  hidden from the rare observer. Slade was a sniper; the Sniper to be exact. A rifle was his weapon of choice. But 
  if he wanted to save the Sinesearch Princess, Vanessa Greentree, from the Blood Mage ghouls before they could 
  perform the dark ritual that freed Xa’ulla’ttt the Everhungry, he’d have to get up close and personal.
  It’d be hard, fast, sharp, and bloody. Slade worked no other way. He longed for a life of peace; what he 
  had before the night the Dark Reachers came for his family in his house. He’d given up his guns for Mary, and 
  gave up his life as a mercenary and shadowrunner at her request. Worked the eight-to-eight shift working 
  with Steel Badge and the police duties they performed as a civilian consultant. He didn’t need a rifle to know 
  the mind of a shooter, a hunter, or a killer. Cops knew criminals; Slade knew the shadows.
  The pistol wasn’t right in his hands. The weight was wrong, the grip too small, there was no IR LED 
  system that read out the ammo remaining where only he could see it. Slade hated smartguns that did the 
  aiming for you. They turned you into emotionless gunmetal, just another piece of the weapon’s machine.
  Slade shook the cobwebs from his mind. Was he getting old, or had he traveled too many miles and 
  needed a vacation? The Sinesearch was beautiful this time of year, and peaceful. Nights under a clean sky 
  beat the polluted stinging rain that Seattle was spitting now. The traces of volcanic ash in it made everything 
  an oil slick. The reduced visibility was easy enough to compensate for, but was not necessary for this kind 
  of close-range shooting.
  Get one of the “bodyhaulers” from the cult, first. They moved in packs, like the nearly feral ghouls they 
  served. One would need to be left alive for questioning, but Slade could pick his shots easily with his cybered 
  right arm. There is no twitchiness from adrenaline in synthetic memory plastic and metal muscles. Slade 
  had precision machinery for a precision shot. That is The Sniper’s Way.
  Slade slipped from the shadows of the alleyway, standing next to a dumpster. He leveled his first shot at 
  the most obvious target: the heavyset ork, fat from the scraps of metahuman flesh. His bloodletting lords 
  probably fed him well. The round slammed into his head without a problem. Next shot was into the human, 
  probably carrying heavy weapons under his duster to protect his fellow misguided, manipulated fools.
  No, something was wrong. The shot hit him in the side, not the head. Slade missed. Slade never missed. 
  Another round down the tube, and another shot into the target’s side. The human’s hand slipped under a 
  lapel to pull out his own weapon. Impossible!
  Not impossible. Because I’m not him. I’m not Slade. I’m not Slade the Sniper. I’m…
  Brightness and pain slammed in and the real world flooded in.
  Derek “Dirk” Montgomery checked the scene around him, full of panic and chaos from the civilians. He’d 
  have ridiculed himself for his slow reaction if he wasn’t already drek-kicked from exhaustion and hunger, 
  and the stranger who had just casually thrown a flame at him as if it were an everyday thing.
  He slowly removed his empty hand from his jacket and nodded appreciation at the guy. He got a mil-
  limeter nod back as he drifted into the crowd. Just another day in 2052. Dirk told himself as he shook off the 
  pain in his side and walked back to his doss. Not showing any weakness to the street monsters, of course …
  scene on scene
  scene on scene
  scene on scene
  
  4
  SimSenSe: The UlTimaTe OpiaTe
  SimSenSe: The UlTimaTe OpiaTe
  Posted by: Turbo Bunny
  Simsense is the drug for everyone. Humans, elves, trolls, orks, 
  dwarfs—we all love it. Even dragons and spirits indulge. It calms the 
  masses and keeps them sedate and quiet, but when it goes wrong, it 
  really goes wrong. The legality of it combines with massive media 
  blitzes to keep it fashionable amongst all but the highest and lowest 
  echelons of people. The top tier is too busy enjoying real life to want 
  something scripted, and the lowest can’t afford it. They help the megas 
  and governments keep the populous penned in like chattel. Their 
  minds fly like a hot Ferrari on a straightaway with the cops behind 
  them, while their bodies stay where they’re supposed to be.
  > Speaking of … [moved by sysOp to “Runs Gone Bad”]
  > Ecotope
  > One complaint about the same busted run per file, please.
  > FastJack
  > What did Ecotope mean by that sheep remark?
  > /dev/grrl
  Displacing old flatscreen and the newer ‘trid cinemas, simsense 
  theaters started the trend with primitive electrode nets being devel-
  oped as a civilian offshoot of Echo Mirage in the late 2030s. It didn’t 
  take long for home units to become available and even affordable, and 
  they started became hugely popular and profitable in the late 2050s. 
  The major media centers of Hollywood, Bollywood, Hong Kong, New 
  York, and Vancouver saw the tide changing and jumped in with both 
  feet despite attempts at taking over the industry by independent artists 
  located in Chiba, New Delhi, Winnipeg, and Paris. 
  The usage and regulation of simsense has allowed governments 
  and corporations to spin their own agendas for public attention. 
  Incorporating their propaganda into storylines or through more 
  insidious methods, such as Chile’s subconscious brainwashing and 
  subliminal insertions via secondary feeds that aren’t felt by the 
  viewer, political groups, religious organizations, and organized 
  crime started to use simsense to fight for the minds and wallets of 
  the masses.
  > HEY! If I can’t copy-and-paste from Ætherpedia for school or FastJack, you can’t 
  either.
  > /dev/grrl
  > Snitch.
  > Turbo Bunny
  > Tell me what Ecotope’s sheep remark was about and I’ll stop.
  > /dev/grrl
  As simsense became a popular recreational choice, corporations 
  did lifestyle studies to predict how the increasingly couch-bound 
  populace could be exploited further. Muscle toning furniture, smaller 
  apartments, and doctor-approved computer-controlled diets became 
  affordable to even the SINless and the most destitute.
  > To keep the population quiet and under control, these items are all marketed 
  as “essential” for a fulfilling lifestyle for people on welfare and pensions in 
  the UCAS and CAS. Some governments provide similar support to keep the 
  masses pacified—and to encourage them to get back into the work force with 
  targeted ads
  > Kay St. Regular
  > Let’s start with the obvious: Simsense is the modern opiate of the masses. 
  BTLs are bad to slot, but good for biz and all that. Well, Butch got stabbed on 
  a grocery run a few days ago. She’s fine, BTW, but she’s getting a temporary 
  ban from here until she can stop swearing constantly. Someone decided to 
  pay off a debt to her by tracking down the person that did the dirty deed, and 
  introduced him/her/it to a couple of blades himself. After some investiga-
  tion he found out that it was some CorpDaddy who slotted the occasional 
  Victor Vigilante chip. They are legal-grade simsense in the UCAS, and he had 
  been chipping more often due to pressure at work. Combine that with your 
  typical wageslave’s lack of personality or willpower, and he started thinking 
  he was the protagonist in his favorite piece of horribly written media. He 
  thought Butch was some evil mastermind or something—it was kind of hard 
  to understand the suit between his broken jaw and the sobbing of his family.
  So, with another reminder how dangerous life is, I asked Turbo Bunny to 
  expand on her pervious works on simsense, BTLs and, personasofts,. We also 
  have some input from a friend of Slamm-0! and Turbo Bunny’s who goes by 
  the handle “RRW.” He’s in the biz and gives speeches at a local shadow clinic 
  on substance abuse. Just so you folks know, RRW is only reviewing Turbo’s 
  writing; he’s not going to be allowed on JackPoint, at least for now.
  > FastJack
  > So the beetlehead and some bleeding heart, great. Wake me up when we get 
  to something interesting.
  > Clockwork
  > You hit bottom, and suddenly you’re a pariah.
  > Turbo Bunny
  > You are, until you pay for the repairs. Doctor’s bills, lost gear, and time away 
  from biz. The sheep.
  > Ecotope
  > Turbo Bunny, when I heard you were trying to dry out, I gave Mitch a call. He 
  wants you to contact him and see what help he can provide. If you don’t, he’ll 
  track down every dealer you bought from in the last who knows how long and 
  deal with them to help you. You’re not a complete pariah, hun.
  > Hard Exit
  SIM DREAMS & NIGHTMARES
  
  5
  SimSenSe: The UlTimaTe OpiaTe
  The simsense industry is massive, with every megacorporation looking to 
  grab a piece of the action. Additionally, a number of minor corps have been hired 
  by governments to make their own brand of mind-twisting and money-grabbing 
  bestsellers. Even a dog of a show like Douglas Meets the Martians made double its 
  cost. Major simsense shows can be expected to have profit margins that exceeds 
  some country’s GNP.
  > If you kids think the Cola Wars are bad and eat up lives for marketing, you’ve never worked a 
  major blockbuster summer. 2051 cut the shadowrunner population in Chicago nearly in half!
  > Bull
  > Uphill, both ways, with bugs up to your neck, right?
  > Slamm-0!
  > Git off my lawn.
  > Bull
  > 2047 was worse.
  > FastJack
  Now let’s talk about the delicate matter of simsense and direct control of 
  the masses. Simsense has not been proven to be effective in any form of covert 
  brainwashing or behavior modification. Subliminal messages or other such crap 
  don’t actually change what people do. Yeah, the message in the story can twist 
  people’s ideas and make them think about things in different ways, but that’s no 
  big deal, as it’s also true about books and ‘trid and pretty much any other media 
  form you can name.
  > Also true about your choice of online sources to read or have read to you. I know I’ve been 
  more careful about what goes on in my virtual world with my kid around. I don’t want him 
  to pick up the wrong lessons just because I’m doing research.
  > Slamm-0!
  There are forms of simsense that have “mental massagers” in them, as they’ve 
  been termed by the media, that attempt to subconsciously twist the views of 
  people. The corps aren’t too fond these and tend to smack them down hard—
  except, of course, for the ones they put in themselves. They’ve been known to 
  go as far as to stage covert raids on the studios using mental massagers, deleting 
  any drive with even a trace of the flick in question on it. There was a recent raid 
  in Mumbai that completely halted work at one of the larger studios and left one 
  building a smoldering wreck. Now, like I said, most people claim this technology 
  doesn’t actually work that well, but the corps seem awfully concerned about it. 
  Could be more going on here than they’re willing to let on. 
  > That raid in Mumbai was a rocket ride of a job. Sure they were loaded with low-lethal rounds and 
  used only flash-bangs until it was time to “excessively and rapidly devalue the corporate property,” 
  but whoever was in charge of the sim-feed from the SEALs really screwed it up with the soundtrack.
  > Hard Exit
  > A rival Bollywood studio got the rights as it was “shot” in their neck of the woods, although 
  the SEAL team members got a cut after the mission was de-classified and their identities 
  could be revealed. Use of this technology is one of the few places where getting caught by 
  the Corporate Court is preferable than getting caught by the UN. The CC will just divide up 
  the assets among the members of the court. The UN will literally kill any corporate entity 
  as dead as JetBlack. The UN and the CC have agreed to this arrangement to prevent outside 
  sources from attempting to “wake up” the populous and holding riots and rebellions even 
  more than they already do.
  And thank the spirits I can say that here without some idiot going “JETBLACK LIVES!”
  > Plan 9
  
  6
  SimSenSe: The UlTimaTe OpiaTe
  > JETBLACK LIVES! 
  Is JetBlack the sheep?
  > /dev/grrl
  > The relationship between the UN and the CC as to the use of these chips is long 
  and very complex. As soon as a few other pieces of information get revealed 
  to the public, I might be able to say more. Well, more like write a paper on the 
  subject. What I can say is that this law isn’t made with a wink and a nod; they 
  will hammer anyone using this technology for brainwashing for some reason, 
  and the reason is not easily apparent even when you delve into the full story.
  > Fianchetto
  The degrees of legality of simsense are varied and argued about 
  at the highest levels of government, and occasionally corporations, as 
  to what should and should not be allowed. Most countries, such as 
  the UCAS and most of the NAN, consider an average range of meta-
  human emotions and perceptive abilities to be the legal rating, while 
  California is infamous for having “hot” chips that sit at the peak of 
  what an average metahuman can experience. Some countries use what 
  is able to be experienced by an exceptional person as their upper legal 
  limit, but this is rare due to the lack of export options. These hottest 
  chips are typically kept only for domestic use, while they export goods 
  closer to what the UCAS deems legal.
  > The few countries that do this are quite scary indeed with their use of hot chips 
  to keep the populace from rising up. They purposefully keep away from the 
  brainwashing techniques available to them, but the effects of these are obvious 
  to anyone with eyes to see the lethargy and ears to hear the silence. Needless to 
  say, smuggled forms of these are quite popular and expensive for people who 
  want to keep others out of reality as much as possible, and they can be found 
  in illegal sweat shops the world over.
  > Goat Foot
  The newest trend in simsense, and the most frightening, is 
  Simsense Enhanced-AR that Horizon recently created. This pushes 
  through a minor simsense sub-feed to add emotional content to the 
  AR being displayed, usually to enhance advertising or offer a calming 
  effect when announcing bad traffic conditions. This alarms me because 
  it is the first direct and legal use of simsense against a person’s will. 
  Thankfully, it only works for people who have a direct neural interface 
  to their simunit (via a ‘trode net, nanotrodes, datajack, or cybernetic 
  commlink, and possibly technomancers) while anyone just using AR 
  without a DNI is unaffected. I despise this because it will often trig-
  ger a dry BTL addict’s hunger and force them back to their addiction. 
  When you’re a rigger and jacked into a vehicle, you can’t help but get 
  these hits at you all the time.
  > So you’re blaming Horizon for your screw up.
  > Ecotope
  > I was handling it pretty well before I hit a traffic jam and had the calming 
  Enhanced-AR force-slammed into me. You do the math.
  > Turbo Bunny
  > I have. The bill has been sent to you.
  > Ecotope
  > How much for the sheep?
  > /dev/grrl
  I would be remiss in just talking about the negative views of 
  simsense, as there are forms of it that have been positively used for 
  rehabilitation of criminal habits, as well as being priceless in treatment 
  for psychological conditions and addictions. These forms of assistance 
  have been discussed before and can be found in many areas.
  > Along with the abuse by AA- and AAA-level corporate-owned prison systems, 
  which doesn’t really need to be expanded upon, simsense-assisted addic-
  tion treatment can be done for nearly any form of psychological or physical 
  addiction and has an almost-perfect success rate. At least, for the people 
  who want to be cured. People who find themselves back in the position 
  or condition that made them addicts in the first place tend to go back to 
  whatever they were using before as if they never had the treatment to begin 
  with. The problem with simsense treatments is that there’s a price to pay 
  for them, as the folks making them usually have an ulterior motive. Building 
  loyalty to a corporation, increasing an individual’s work ethic while decreas-
  ing their tendency to cheat on taxes, or mentally conditioning people’s to 
  want to go to church are the most common motives. Some street clinics 
  have “clean” versions, but they are expensive and even then you can’t tell 
  just what it is you are getting, whereas you can go to an Addicts Anonymous 
  meeting and then church every Sunday for the price of chipping in for kaff 
  and a tithe of your earnings. It’s faster and easier with the chips, but for 
  most people I suggest the harder trip. You have to suffer and work hard to 
  earn what really matters. And besides, who knows what kinds of contacts 
  you can make, Anonymous or not.
  > RRW
  > OK, I hate it when I have to ask the stupid questions, but why is this type of 
  simsense allowed to have brainwashing stuff in it, but other types can’t?
  > /dev/grrl
  SIM DREAMS & NIGHTMARES
  
  7
  SimSenSe: The UlTimaTe OpiaTe
  > It’s all about whose brains it’s going into. Rehabilitation-Grade simsense is 
  exempt from most legal restrictions thanks to its target audience—namely, 
  criminals and addicts. Who cares if they get screwed up, as long as they’re 
  no longer committing crimes or hooked on the shit they were doing before. It 
  sickens me, really. Especially with the large number of innocent people forced 
  into criminal rehabilitation “treatments.” It’s one thing to be stupid and get 
  caught doing something illegal; in that case you deserve what you get. But to 
  use this tech on people who just have bad luck or planted evidence sucks.
  > Clockwork
  MooDChIpS: SloT ThE RaInbow
  Despite being available at legal simsense levels with a prescription 
  as a treatment for clinical depression. For example, most moodchips 
  you’ll run across are used at BTL-levels, and rate as the most common 
  form of illegal chip usage by every research file and statistic I have been 
  able to find. It’s also the most common chip used by SINners. In fact, 
  they are given designer names and showy color-coded chip cases, and 
  the people who produce specific versions protect their label harsher 
  than a Horizon Copyright Defense Team (you know, the ones that 
  carry military hardware). Trying to make knock-offs of a known mood-
  chip brand will get people dead very slowly, all recorded for a “Black 
  Beetle” snuff BTL recording. Waste not, want not, I guess. At the end 
  of the day, this isn’t the drug of the rich and famous. It isn’t doing lines 
  of novacoke off a callgirl’s tits, but one for the common wageslave to 
  make their life enjoyable despite the horrific nightmare of drudgery 
  that they’re experiencing from birthday ‘til deathday.
  Often referred to by a color and a name, you have to be careful 
  what you order as you might want the Moody Blues and get some 
  Blue Meanies instead. A person on the wrong chip is said to be “Going 
  Technicolor.” Unlike most other simsense, moodchips do not override 
  the entire body while activated, but instead override the brain’s natural 
  functions and adjust the chemical transmitters and receivers to flood 
  the mind with the emotion the chip promises. How powerful and how 
  long it lasts varies chip-by-chip, and some are even adjustable by design, 
  for a price, with the more powerful chips burning out faster. Typically, 
  not always, it all depends on the brand purchased.
  > I knew a bear shaman that had a trodenet on all the time and had a BTL-level 
  Cool White ready to break her out of going berserk. Too bad she was shot by 
  Lone Star while trying to escape from a broken taillight four years ago.
  > Haze
  > Legal prescriptions are hilariously easy to get, with most street docs writing 
  whatever you want without an extra charge for the office visit. I’ve had my street 
  doc prescribe me an auto-adjusting legal Mellow Yellow moodchip to help me 
  with my hyperactivity. I have the chip but have never used it. I like the edge the 
  alertness gives and don’t want another monkey on my back.
  Which SINners are using moodchips? Legal or illegal? Swing a dead devil rat 
  by its tail during the lunch rush downtown, and everyone you hit is likely using. 
  Yes, even if you’re a troll and have a really long arm. It’s that common, and it’s 
  that ignored by the powers that be. This keeps the people calm, composed, 
  under control, and doing their jobs. It also gives them a reason to fire the people 
  rather than downsize them or some nicer form of removing dead weight from 
  their ranks. 
  The worst part is that moodchips have a nasty effect at BTL-levels. They can 
  burn out emotional transmitters and receivers in the brain. This means that the 
  person who has had this happen can never, ever feel that emotion again, even 
  with moodchips. Some prisons will use Red Ragers or Seeing Red to burn out a 
  person’s ability to feel rage or anger ever again as part of a draconian rehabili-
  tation plan. You’ll also see these on the streets, being sold at discount prices 
  to street gangs when someone wants a gang war to happen, typically to drop 
  property values. They’re also used by SINners to “properly handle their pent up 
  rage in a safe manner” while they’re working out at a gym. This is also why I 
  never do a run that brings me close to a corp gym.
  > RRW
  > So we have two junkies writing this? What’s next, a technomonster telling us 
  about trying to kick the jollies their AI masters are giving them?
  > Clockwork
  > I’ve looked and looked, but have found zero evidence linking AIs to 
  Technomancers in any way. Honestly Clockwork, you’re starting to sound like 
  one of those conspiracy nuts.
  > Plan 9
  bETTER Than lIfE, woRSE Than REalITy
  BTLs come in two basic forms: dreamchips and tripchips. 
  Dreamchips are regular simsense cranked up to the red line and 
  beyond, while tripchips are like moodchips with additional effects 
  such as feeling like you’re underwater or turning everything into a film 
  noir-esque black and white.
  Dreamchips: Lie back and live someone else’s dream
  Dreamchips are the bread and butter of BTL chips for the 
  SINless and other masses. Dreamchips will knock you out and let 
  you experience a world unlike anything you can possibly imagine on 
  your own. The organizations who write the scripts, find actors, set the 
  scenes, and so on often go far beyond what simsense directors and 
  production houses are willing to do. Criminal organizations don’t 
  really care if a few actors get killed, which allows for more “artistic 
  freedom” than even Horizon is willing to grant.
  > To be fair, everything has been done before, even in the underground. It’s just 
  that we’re seeing more of it today because, well, it’s more “above ground” than 
  the old flatvids and trids of the past.
  > Kat o’ Nine Tales
  > Hey, can someone explain why I’m a junkie, yet Kat crams so much shit into her 
  body and isn’t considered unreliable or a hazard?
  > Turbo Bunny
  > She never cost us a job because of an addiction? Just a guess.
  > Ecotope
  > Kat speaks a lot, and has experimented a lot, but the only addiction I’d guess 
  she has is sex. Which, considering the metahuman race is ensured by this addic-
  tion, is a benign one.
  > FastJack
  > Flattery will get you places, FastJack, but statements like that will get you into 
  trouble.
  > Kat o’ Nine Tales
  > Still waiting for more data on the sheep, and less data about various people’s 
  sex lives.
  > /dev/grrl
  
  8
  SimSenSe: The UlTimaTe OpiaTe
  The cheapest dreamchips on the market are actually regular 
  simsense hits, usually the blockbusters, which have been modified to 
  push experiences beyond what is metahumanly possible to experience. 
  These require the raw sim data, and a few days’ or weeks’ work in a 
  studio adjusting all the effects. CalHots and Kong Chips are the choice 
  flicks for this, not just because they tend to be action flicks either, but 
  because they are already set for such a high-end experience that it only 
  takes a bit of tinkering to get the output in the right places without 
  burning out a person’s brain.
  Higher-end dreamchips are recorded fresh at underground studios, 
  and often incorporate actors who have augmentations or drugs that 
  heighten their senses and make the later adjustments easier on the post-
  production crew. While a lot of these actors die rather quickly, they are 
  often paid; the ones who aren’t paid are often addicts or are kidnapped 
  into the roles, but at least they’re treated well by the criminal organiza-
  tion making the chips. A famous BTL actor can be just as surrounded 
  by fans and groupies as a legitimate actor in Hollywood or Bollywood, 
  but only in the scuzzier parts of town since they’re typically also known 
  felons for supporting the BTL trade. Rumors that they’re fitted with 
  cortex bombs in case they get caught by the authorities have proven to 
  be true far too often, which means that extractions of these people are 
  also harder to perform than even a Zero Zone “job change.” 
  The appeal for BTLs is that they’re cheap to make, the equipment 
  needed for them is completely legal, and there’s a big return on the 
  investment. On the flipside, BTLs get a lot of bad press and heat from 
  the hired goo … I mean, the police. They’re easy to make, so there’s lots 
  of competition, even among major and established organized crime 
  syndicates. And, finally, if you’re not burning the brains out of the 
  users, they will sometimes start thinking they’re in their favorite BTL 
  story and are the main character, or whatever character they’re taking 
  the point of view of. Some BTLs have Poly-Point of View, or PPoV 
  options, to let you be multiple characters.
  > Simsense has PPoV as well. It’s an almost standard option that increases the 
  enjoyment and “lifetime” of a chip’s usage. It makes better sense for BTLs, 
  which almost always have a burn-out timer option on them, but being able 
  to get more enjoyment out of a simsense chip is good marketing. It’s also an 
  advantage to me when I have limited Matrix time to max out my enjoyment 
  when offline.
  > Orbital DK
  While action and porn pieces are the genres of choice, any story 
  can be made better than life. In fact, there are even some areas that 
  typical simsense aren’t willing to go, such as Snuff—Black Beetles as 
  they’re often called—and other recordings where the worst taboos 
  you’d never thought would be broken, are. I won’t go into details, 
  because, well, there are some things I just won’t do. 
  > I’ll tell you about one, something called “Vore,” where someone is eaten—actually, 
  truly eaten—while being recorded. These can be vampire fantasies, where a person 
  is typically drained by a vampire, but other “exotic” HMHVV-Infected options are 
  available, all the way to “Hard Vore” when someone is brutally ripped apart by 
  feral ghouls, and every degree in between. Tamanous has not been connected to 
  these, which strikes me as odd in some ways, as it would seem like an obvious 
  revenue generator. But that might just be them trying to keep a low profile.
  Non-Infected versions are also on the market, of course, but they aren’t as 
  prevalent for some reason. The sad, or scary part, is that sometimes it’s obvious 
  that the subject is willing.
  > Hannibelle
  > One order of BTL-strength brain bleach, please. Straight up barkeep.
  > Slamm-0!
  > Here you go, and I think I’ll make myself a double of the same.
  > FastJack
  > Dreamchips are a drug dealer’s bread and butter because they allow the user 
  to live longer (violence in the community permitting), and despite the horror 
  stories from the press they don’t generally cause the user’s death. BTL brain 
  frying is rare due to long-term effects that take years of heavy abuse or a bad 
  chip. This makes it a long-term profit-making option compared to a lot of 
  chemical drugs that slowly (or even quickly) kill the user. They also keep the 
  person quiet, demure, and not a threat to anyone until it’s time to get the next 
  fix. This means direct conflict doesn’t typically happen to a user unless they 
  lose sense of reality, which happens more often than regular simsense but isn’t 
  as common as the news reports. Though it still happens. I’ve had to deal with 
  forty-kilo beetleheads that thought they were superheroes way too many times 
  while working off some bills at the clinic as an orderly.
  Oh, and they’ll need another fix soon. Endorphin suppression is a side effect of 
  coming down from a BTL high. For those who failed high-school biology, endor-
  phins are what prevent a person from feeling pain, and quite a few other emo-
  tions. Without those, life gets pretty damned hard to deal with. When somebody is 
  drying out, endorphins drop, and pain and depression and all sorts of crap spike.. 
  This accidental but lucrative side effect makes drying out really hard. It often re-
  quires padded restraints, as even a rubber room is too painful to be inside of. I’ve 
  heard the high-end addiction clinics use sensory-deprivation tanks to slowly adjust 
  the body to stimulus again. Good luck finding a back-alley clinic that offers that 
  kind of service. There are some black-market holistic places that have this kind of 
  service available, but you’ll be paying top cred for it.
  > RRW
  Tripchips – Slot In, Drop Out
  Moodchips with a blueprinted engine and a nitro feed that’s 
  emptying the bottle from the starting line to the finish line—that’s a 
  tripchip. While dreamchips are the most popular BTLs, tripchips are 
  the ones most often used by “functional” BTL addicts as they allow 
  a person to operate, sort of, while enjoying their fix. This is the most 
  common type of chip used by shadowrunners.
  > I’d debate calling them “shadowrunners” with a beetle monkey on their shoul-
  der. “Shadowrunning posers” is closer to the target.
  > Ecotope
  > Yes, we get it, you’re pissed off. Yes, I admit it, I screwed up. And trust me, I’m 
  paying for it. Maybe not in cred, but drying out is not a fragging picnic! Going on 
  and on about this is starting to get as annoying as Clockwork and Netcat going 
  at each other!
  > Turbo Bunny
  > Why not just use that simsense-assisted addiction assistance that RRW talked 
  about earlier in the file? Or cuddle the sheep?
  > /dev/grrl
  > Because any form of simsense will trigger the addiction, except VR in the Matrix 
  for some odd reason. That includes the addiction assistors. There’s also no neo-
  methadone or Droneitol-VII to help with the side effects. Cold turkey is the only 
  “treatment” for BTL addiction, and it’s a hell of a ride. Read the rest of the file 
  to find out about the fun.
  > Turbo Bunny
  SIM DREAMS & NIGHTMARES
  
  9
  SimSenSe: The UlTimaTe OpiaTe
  Tripchips add additional effects to BTL-level moodchips, introducing 
  anything the programmers can think of to trick the brain. That includes 
  slowing down the perception of time so even though your reactions move 
  at the same rate it looks like you’ve got wired reflexes or such, feeling like 
  you’re in low gravity, upside-down, being fellated by a one-thousand-
  nuyen-per-hour professional joytoy even if you don’t have the parts, or, 
  well, anything else. It gives you a beautiful, wonderful feeling—if that’s 
  what you paid for of course. Most, if not all, of them also come with a 
  limiter to adjust how much a person is affected. That’s is how most addicts 
  are able to be functional if given enough time to adjust their program. 
  So this is where I fess up. I screwed up. I got the taste from the 
  simsesnse-AR, wanted more, turned up my tripchip, and got a nice, 
  mellow feeling that made everything slow down for me. Too bad the 
  rest of the world was working at one second-per-second rather than the 
  whatever-the-hell setting I was at. I made stupid choices, and things 
  got screwed up.
  > Screwed up! That’s hardly a way of putting… [User disconnected by sysop]
  > Ecotope
  > Warned him. I’ll let him back on the same time Butch stops swearing.
  > FastJack
  > Can you kick /dev/ for asking about that damned sheep?
  > Turbo Bunny
  > No, she’s learning.
  > FastJack
  Tripchips are the next step for suckers who are addicted to BTL-
  level moodchips and sometimes serve as the gateway drug of choice for 
  peddling to schoolchildren accustomed to simsense levels. They appeal 
  to their immaturity and eagerness to push boundaries. Needless to say, 
  this practice is not accepted by any of the powers-that-be, and even 
  some organized crime groups.
  > Please, like an organization of any type is going to give up a customer base!
  > Clockwork
  > Actually a few have made examples of peddlers of this kind of thing. Of course, 
  it might just be a PR bit to show they’re not all bad. Surprisingly, they usually 
  use runners for those kinds of things. Pay is lousy, but you can sleep better 
  knowing you’ve made at least one solid change for the better.
  > Netcat
  > Hooding: “The Way to Get A Slim Credstick.”
  > Kane
  > Tripchips are usually what the news is talking about when BTL users go bad. 
  They’re the chips that make a user think they’re invincible, full of whatever 
  emotion they bought. Rage, Relaxation, and Happiness are the most popular 
  (go figure) but there are infinite other weird and wonderful options to purchase. 
  These chips also have the endorphin-suppression side effect like dreamchips, 
  so expect users to want replacement units fast. Or worse, they got a chip with 
  a countdown display timer that will warn them to get a new one before the 
  old one runs out, and you have to deal with them while they’re still high on 
  whatever they’re programmed to feel. These are where we get the “Beetlehead 
  Store Robberies” and “Random Shooters and Looters” headlines, typically with 
  double-digit body counts.
  Tripchips were predicted to become obsolete with the creation of augmented 
  reality. Too bad most people who use tripchips can’t afford the expensive ‘link 
  and software that would duplicate their environment of choice. This is the sim-
  sense/BTL drug of choice among shadowrunners who can’t handle the stress of 
  the job without a little helper along the way. Watch out for anyone with addi-
  tional parts added to their datajack, wearing a hat indoors, or having club-style 
  nanopaste on during a meet with a Mr. Johnson. They might have some extra 
  hardware, or they might be using. I’ve had some runs go bad because folks that 
  were supposed to be reliable suddenly went offline and started crying about 
  the city lights being too bright or the bumps in the street hurting too much. I’ve 
  taken to double-checking the credentials of runners with these attachments to 
  see if they have a beetle monkey on their back, and to ensure that if they’re an 
  essential part of the job, they have a new fix ready in case one runs out.
  > RRW
  > Or, you know, not work with folks like that then. You can always walk away from 
  a bad team because they’re unreliable due to being addicts. Oh, wait, I forgot, 
  this guy is also an addict, nevermind.
  > Clockwork
  Personasoft: Puppets Without Strings
  The origin of personasoft technology was classified by the CAS 
  for many years. I had no idea where to begin looking, but thanks to 
  some connections, I was able to find the full details complete with 
  video of the first test subject I uploaded to the Denver Data Nexus, 
  seen here.
  > No applause, just throw nuyen. Seriously, there’s this new Pensodyne symbiont 
  coming out soon that I want to check out.
  > Plan 9
  > Wow, I haven’t seen swearing like that since one of my NCOs got hit in the left 
  ass cheek by a tracer. And to the face of a three-star general, no less!
  > Picador
  As you can see, there’s an eighteen-year-old, forty-kilo wimp who’s 
  acting like a tough-as-nails drill instructor who has seen more combat 
  than a grizzled mercenary captain. According to the document, sim-
  sense technology created a virtual DI for the kid and put him through 
  basic without the need for the instructor to be present. It was able to be 
  adjusted for the capabilities of each recruit. Well, the DI overrode the 
  test subject’s personality, completely. Useless for the design purposes of 
  the experiment, but the technology leaked through back channels and 
  soon found itself in the world.
  By 2048, anyone with a datajack could take a vacation from them-
  self for the right fee. It caught on for a little while, but petered out 
  pretty quickly, since simsense gave you the same kick at a cheaper price. 
  Organized crime, in particular the Yakuza, seized onto the technology 
  for their whorehouses, allowing the customer to choose the personality 
  of their companion of the night. The original version also came with 
  a memory lock-down option that was popular with the Yaks and the 
  prostitutes who could indenture themselves, sign on for a few days or a 
  week, get paid, only to wake up sore with a spot of cash to show for it. 
  All the gain of prostitution, but no bad memories.
  > Personal experiences, Turbo?
  > Haze
  
  10
  SimSenSe: The UlTimaTe OpiaTe
  > No, but a chummer got the money for her first cybernetics by doing just that. 
  She got out when they started putting her onto more dangerous customers, but 
  that’s her story to tell.
  > Turbo Bunny
  It took no time at all before illegal immigrants and kidnapped 
  men and women started to disappear into these bunraku parlors, never 
  to be seen again outside of them, constantly switching the personalities 
  of who they are again and again. Well, we all know the stories, so I 
  won’t go into them.
  Creating a personasoft is a difficult task. First, you choose a per-
  sona you want to create. You can either make it up using a complex 
  programming system if the person you want doesn’t exist, or use a 
  personasoft recorder on the person from whom you want to have a 
  profile made. Sometimes, you can modify a pre-existing persona, or 
  someone who is close to what is wanted, or something like that. It’s 
  high-level programming stuff.
  > I looked into it. My brain hurts now, a lot.
  > Slamm-0!
  Attached to the fresh persona is a series of knowsofts tied to the 
  knowledge the person is supposed to have. The persona recorder only 
  records emotions and reactions, not memories, so it can’t read some-
  one’s mind. I think you still need magic for that. Anyway, link them all 
  together and put them in a package, and you have a full personasoft.
  > Personasoft addiction is rife with losers full of self-loathing, as well as suck-
  ers that have never taken any other drug before. With the perception option 
  switched to “off,” one can be aware of everything that is going on but enjoy the 
  fact that you’re someone else. I’ve even heard of wageslaves that have aced job 
  interviews with the help of personasofts and then couldn’t stop. They needed 
  personasofts to keep their position, and they bought new and better personas 
  as they went along. The ability to be someone better and more able than your-
  self is a very powerful pull for people that don’t have much of a personality of 
  their own.
  The other issue with personasofts is that long-term use of various differ-
  ent types can cause personality destruction, which is frequently seen in res-
  cued parlor puppets. Sometimes the original personality can be recovered with 
  therapy. Sometimes a new personality can be developed from almost scratch 
  like a child, and some people just can’t have a personality at all without having 
  a ‘soft riding along.
  > RRW
  > Did the sheep lose its personality?
  > /dev/grrl
  > It is only in the fires of adversity that a man can truly learn his place, his 
  strength, and his courage.
  > Man-of-Many-Names
  Skillwires: Why Learn When  
  You Can Just Buy It Wholesale?
  It seems odd to add skillwires into a piece on addiction, but I’ve 
  learned the hard way that the ability to swap out abilities as needed can 
  be addictive, to the point that a person will lose confidence of any skills 
  they learned on their own. Even using skillwires to train up a needed 
  skill can leave someone fumbling for their skillsoft when it comes down 
  SIM DREAMS & NIGHTMARES
  
  11
  SimSenSe: The UlTimaTe OpiaTe
  to the wire, feeling they need the ability even if their natural ability has 
  surpassed what the chip provides in its limited database.
  > Nothing beats actual skills. Being able to switch from one area of expertise to 
  another at the flip of a switch is great, especially if you can do it wirelessly, but 
  they usually suck compared to someone that’s really trained with their natural 
  abilities. That said, if you want to get good fast and don’t care about how you 
  get there, skillwires are the way to go.
  > Kane
  > Hm, a “Swiss Army Knife” style of working. Sounds familiar …
  > Clockwork
  > Don’t you dare start.
  > Netcat
  > Did the sheep have skillwires? Was that why it was on the job?
  > /dev/grrl
  Every expert I’ve contacted about the problem has agreed that the 
  addiction is a psychological crutch and can be treated with therapy, or 
  by forcing an addict to not use them until their self-confidence returns. 
  Until it’s broken, though this has all the regular psychological effects 
  of addiction.
  For a quarterly subscription fee and an hourly rental for Horizon’s 
  increasingly popular Singularity System, skillwires can give unskilled 
  labor knowledge on demand. Its use in security is high because a bunch 
  of low-paid janitors and factory workers can go from “non-threatening 
  bolt-tightening technician” to “highly trained in martial arts” in less 
  time than it takes me to hotwire a 2050s-era Ford Americar. There 
  hasn’t been an increase in skillwires addiction reported in the media 
  yet, but a lot of people in the know are predicting it.
  > Plan 9 again?
  > Glitch
  > The Smiling Bandit, actually. I conferred with him on this, and he seems quite 
  concerned. I’m surprised he hasn’t come on to give any comments here, but he 
  said he had something major on the go.
  > Turbo Bunny
  Horizon blew their “Good Guy” rep with the Personafix system 
  that combines personasofts with skillsofts. Not only do you gain the 
  skills, but also the attitude and personality of the sort of person who 
  would use those skills. These personalities can range from a sex bunny 
  right out of a bunraku wet dream to “Neil the Ork Barbarian” hacking 
  away with a combat axe. The limited line-up has proven to be quite 
  popular, especially since they’re far more affordable than skillsofts alone.
  > Not surprising. Aside from some DRM-stripped copies that are filtering 
  through the black market, these burn out at the same rate as illegal per-
  sonasofts. They are even legal, despite having all the addictive properties of 
  personasofts. They’re being sold as “product improved” skillsofts through a 
  few legal loopholes that Horizon has paid to ensure remain open. The Sun Tzu 
  P-Fix has proven to be a popular choice among gaijin wageslaves attempting 
  to understand the Asian mindset. Enough JapanaCorps use “The Art Of War” 
  that even though he was Chinese, the cultural impact is clear in the cultures of 
  those megas. The addition of sword skills attached to the P-Fix allows for some 
  additional self-defense options if their bodyguards aren’t enough protection.
  Skillsoft addiction doesn’t see much support in comparison to BTL or 
  Personasoft addiction, and P-Fixes are too new to have too many people hit the 
  “cleaned out former junkie”-stage, so cleaning out on your own, or with a little 
  help from your friends, are about the only ways to get through the detox. On the 
  bright side, aside from depression, there isn’t much in the way of negative side 
  effects while going through the paces of getting away from the problem. Though 
  psychological addictions are hard to pin down in a lot of ways.
  Getting the wires removed has been the suggestion of the doctors at the 
  clinic where I speak, and it is not a popular option, to say the least. It is one 
  hundred percent effective but very expensive.
  > RRW
  > The first “Personafixes” were known as “StatSofts.” They were developed for 
  Fantasy League Teams, often nicknamed “The ByteGhost Leagues.” It started 
  when skillwires were declassified from the military at the same time that 
  the MLB was hitting some major problems with sales … [moved by sysop to 
  “Slamm-0!’s Sports Rambling”]
  > Slamm-0!
  > I’ve had to comment and edit this file too much. Don’t make me do it anymore.
  > FastJack
  Cleaning Out: The Fun Part
  > Did you clean the sheep out?
  > /dev/grrl
  So, now we know all about how great and wonderful BTLs are 
  and what they’ll do to a person’s body and mind. Now on to the next 
  part: handling the addiction and getting out from under it. Let’s start 
  with getting cured. It’s simple—you won’t.
  No matter how much you work at it, no matter how hard you 
  fight against the cravings, they never, ever totally go away. For some 
  people, they’re a slight annoyance or a “taste” that is always in the back 
  of their mouth. For others, even handling a datachip in the palm of 
  their hand can bring back wishes to slot in and enjoy the ride. That’s 
  after going through withdrawals. Let’s start with those. First, you’re 
  going to be suffering from a reduction of endorphins, the natural pain-
  killers that the body produces on its own, which we mentioned before. 
  Without them, a stubbed toe feels like a broken foot, and drinking a 
  cola will feel like you poured battery acid on your tongue. That’s just 
  the beginning. You still have to deal with reality, which now seems 
  dank, dark, and dreary. You have to face the horror of real life after 
  you’ve experienced something better than life.
  > Funny, I thought life was dank, dark, dreary, and horrible anyhow. Well, I feel 
  that way sometimes, then look at the kid and realize it’s a hell of a lot better 
  than I thought.
  > Slamm-0!
  > At least until diaper-change time.
  > Bull
  > Oh, that goes without saying.
  > Slamm-0!
  So, after dealing with a world that completely and utterly sucks for 
  weeks or months, which will feel like years, you then have to deal with 
  
  12
  SimSenSe: The UlTimaTe OpiaTe
  the mental tricks that your brain will inevitably crop up to make you 
  wish to slot a chip again, even just simsense. This is the mental addic-
  tion kicking in. The brain is starved for the stimulus it got while on the 
  beetles, and then got when your body was kicking the crap out of you. 
  Your mind gets used to having attention paid to it and will want that 
  returned, much the same way the body will crave chemical drugs. But 
  you have to fight against that and handle it however you can. I found 
  that high-action ‘trids and lots of soykaf was a good way of starving 
  off the craving enough to get me through. Either that, or a nice tough 
  shadowrun. Of course, being an adrenaline junkie is not a good thing 
  for a lot of jobs, so you have to shop around and make sure your fixer 
  knows exactly what you’re looking for.
  > Or sign up with Kane.
  > Riser
  > Or sign up with … ninja’d.
  > Kane
  So, say you get through all of that? Then what? Well, first off, 
  you’ll never live down the fact that you were a beetlehead. You won’t 
  forget and neither will anyone else. There are no ex-addicts, only dry 
  ones. Few people want to trust an addict, dry or not. You can never 
  tell when they will slip. It’s a stigma you’ll have to live with and handle 
  however you can. Hopefully you can work up enough street cred 
  through low-paying jobs just to prove yourself reliable again.
  > If you ever were considered reliable in the first case.
  > Ma’fan
  I guess I can sum this up with the simple statement: “Say ‘No’ To 
  Drugs.”
  > Damn, the old War On Drugs is still with us even now. I thought we’d be past 
  that, but some parts of it just cling on.
  Anyhow, drying out from a BTL addiction is difficult to handle, but if you got 
  a crew you can trust and they honestly want to help you out, all it requires is a 
  sturdy bed, restraints, and someone willing to handle the feeding and clean-up. 
  A few larger black clinics will do it for you, but it will cost about the same you’d 
  pay for intensive care at a major hospital. I’ve mentioned the sensory depriva-
  tion tanks used by some places, but those are as rare as a completely honest 
  fixer and will probably cost you just as much nuyen in the end.
  But the first step is admitting you have a problem, and, even harder, admit-
  ting that you want to solve that problem. Just realize that even after you’ve 
  gone to hell and back, few folks will ever see you in the same way ever again.
  > RRW
  > Aw, that’s it? Come on, I never did learn about the sheep!
  > /dev/grrl
  > That’s something you’ll have to learn. These are the shadows, they’re dark. Not 
  everything is handed to you, and sometimes you’ll just have to go on wondering. 
  But choose carefully what you want to learn about. Snooping into some things 
  is like poking a nest of Renrku Hornet-Class Black IC 
  > Bull
  SIM DREAMS & NIGHTMARES
  
  13
  SimSenSe: The UlTimaTe OpiaTe
  Escape from 
  Bug City!
  “Fragdamnit, take it easy on an old man!” Bull shouted after giving another scream of pain as his right 
  arm was jostled again. The cloned replacement had been healing well, but it still hurt the normally tough 
  and resilient ork. I’m getting too old for this drek ran through his head, as the memories of the recent past 
  came rushing back again while he was dragged by the troll and minotaur.
  He had been shopping for something for the wife, only packing a light pistol for the shopping trip, when 
  the van pulled rapidly up beside his Entertainment Systems FunWalker scooter. The door opened as he 
  fumbled for the pistol with his still-healing right hand. He was quickly disarmed and had a bag shoved over 
  his head. The bag incorporated a jamming device that prevented any of his cybernetics from transmitting 
  out, and obviously had not been cleaned from the last time the bagmen had grabbed someone. They were 
  pros for sure; in and out in next to no time. Even if the abundant privacy-invading cameras had gotten a look 
  at the abduction, it wasn’t likely that he would be found anytime soon.
  The trip was uncomfortable to say the least. Bull had repeated his long list of curse words more than 
  twice, including a few he didn’t even remember he knew. Finally, he was deposited surprisingly gingerly 
  into a metal seat, shackled tight at the wrists and ankles, and the hood was pulled off. He looked around 
  to see a warehouse full of cubicles with people jacked into high-end simsense units. Each cubicle had old 
  fashioned clipboards with thick forms on them. The retired shadowrunner was about to raise an objection 
  when a human that looked like Middle Manager #2 out of a Horizon production came forward and sat across 
  from the old ork, smiling.
  “Mr. MacCallister, or Bull—can I call you Bull?” the suit asked politely, as if this were a regular meeting.
  “You can call me the slot that’s going to shove his fist so far up your hoop that …” Bull started, but was 
  stopped when the minotaur followed the suit’s command of “Gag him.” Bull settled for a look that could 
  destroy even the most macho and tough sons of slitches around.
   “Now, I am in charge of an intellectual property that could prove to be quite profitable, but I discovered 
  there was someone else who could claim ownership of it. I had Legal look into the situation, and found 
  myself a solution.” The human signaled his hired muscle to drag the chair carefully to an empty cubicle, 
  where he played with the jack to the simsense deck. “All I have to do is prove that you personally agreed to 
  and signed off on the project. I discovered an easy solution to my little problem …”
  Bull screamed and fought against the restraints, hurting his arm further as the jack set into his old, but 
  still high tech, datajack with a mechanical sound. Soon he found himself on the floor, pushing himself up. 
  He felt better than he had in years. His cyberhand curled around the Panther Assault Cannon carefully as he 
  looked around to …
  It took Bull only a few moments to realize just how wrong the situation was. He hadn’t had a cyberarm 
  in years. The Panther Assault Cannon was an older model. And, hanging above him were letters that spelled 
  out something that brought horrific thoughts to him, as he screamed in rage at the situation.
   “Bull the Ork Decker in Escape from Bug City!—Beta Test Model” circled around his head.
  Escape from 
  Bug City!
  Escape from 
  Bug City!
  
  14
  Game infOrmaTiOn
  Game infOrmaTiOn
  nEw QualITIES
  poSITIvE QualITIES
  DRUG TOLERANT
  Cost: 5 Bp
  The character has a higher-than-average tolerance for drugs (sometimes called 
  Ozzy Osborne Syndrome). This could be due to a hardy constitution, or a natural 
  genetic mutation that allows for better absorption and filtering of foreign 
  chemicals from their system. The character in question receives a +2 dice to all 
  addiction Tests to resist addiction. They gain no bonus, however, for attempting 
  to dry out after being addicted.
  nEgaTIvE QualITIES
  BLANk SLATE
  Cost: 10 Bp
  The character in question has abused personasofts to the degree they no longer 
  have an original personality. They enter an almost fugue state, having nearly 
  no willpower of their own. They are easily led unless they have a personasoft 
  running to give them a personality. This can come with or without amnesia 
  (p. 102, Runner’s Companion) of varying degrees. for all intents and purposes, 
  the original person has “died” and only the virtual personalities remain.
  DEAD EMOTION
  Cost: 5 Bp
  The character has abused BTl-level moodsofts and can no longer feel one specific 
  emotion under any circumstances The player and the gamemaster are highly 
  advised to work together to figure out how this will affect the character and how 
  it should be played out.
  DRY ADDICT
  Cost: 5 to 20 Bp
  Can be taken at character creation or substituted for addiction (p. 93, SR4A) after 
  the user has cleaned out (p. 15) from their fix of previous choice. The addiction 
  still exists, but the character no longer suffers the penalties from being without 
  the particular substance. any situations that make the fix available require a 
  Composure Test (p. 138, SR4A) with a threshold based on the stress the character 
  is currently under, starting at 1 for passive situations (offer of a social drink) to 5 
  for high stress situations (before, during, or right after a major life-threatening 
  situation.) Dry addicts range from mild, moderate, Severe, and Burnout levels 
  (5 Bp per level) depending on how far their addiction went before they kicked 
  it, and they receive a penalty of –1 die per level of the Quality to resist getting 
  addicted again. When taken at character creation, the character gains one level of 
  notoriety, just as if they had taken the addiction quality (p. 265, SR4A).
  FAMILY CURSE
  Cost: 5 Bp
  Your parent(s) liked their drugs. a lot. So did theirs, and their parents before 
  them. To say that addiction runs in the family is like saying water is wet and 
  multinational corporations like nuyen. When making addiction Tests, the 
  character receives a –2 dice pool penalty.
  LIGHTWEIGHT
  Cost: 10 Bp
  On the bright side, it’s easy, and cheap, to get drunk. On the downside, it takes 
  far less to get a person addicted to the various types of chemical drugs on the 
  market. The addiction rating (p. 16) is 2 levels higher for the character.
  opTIonal aDvanCED  
  aDDICTIon RulES
  Addiction Rating
  Different drugs have different levels of addictiveness. While some 
  can take weeks, or even months of habitual use to get someone hooked, 
  others can have someone addicted to it on the first dose. As Shadowrun 
  doesn’t often delve into the day-by-day existence of the characters 
  (using the Lifestyle rules to handle that situation), the Addiction 
  Rating system is a method of determining how often a character is 
  likely to use a given drug before an Addiction Test (p. 256, SR4A) 
  is rolled. Characters should make an Addiction Test every time they 
  use the drug for (11 – the Rating of the drug) consecutive game ses-
  sions. The threshold for the Addiction Test is in the Addiction Rating 
  List below. Failing the Addiction Test means your character is now 
  addicted to the drug in question, with the consequences listed on p. 
  256, SR4A. Success in the test means your character steers clear of an 
  addiction for the time being. The clock starts ticking down for the next 
  Addiction Test, which again takes place after the character uses the 
  drug for (11 – Rating of the drug) game sessions.
  If the character does this and gets to a point where they need to 
  make a second Addiction Test, they do so at a –1 dice pool penalty. The 
  next Addiction Test after that comes with an additional –1 penalty, for 
  a total penalty of –2. This penalty accumulates with each Addiction 
  Test for that particular substance, up to a maximum penalty of –4.
  If a character skips taking the drug in a single game session, this 
  does not reset the timing for the next Addiction Test. Instead, treat the 
  effective Addiction Rating of the drug as one less than it actually is for 
  each session in which the character does not use the substance. If they 
  skip enough sessions so that the effective Rating is reduced to zero, 
  then the timer resets; the next time they take the drug, it will be as if 
  they were just starting a new sequence. The accumulated penalties for 
  each Addiction Test tied to that substance, however, do not go away.
  SIM DREAMS & NIGHTMARES
  
  15
  Game infOrmaTiOn
  If drugs are mixed (p. 73, Aresenal), the highest Addiction Rating 
  of the drugs involved, plus one, is used, so as to demonstrate the dan-
  gerous consequences of mixing drugs (though the number of game 
  sessions a drug can be used in before an Addiction Test is made can 
  never be lower than 1). The threshold for the test should be the highest 
  threshold of all the drugs involved, plus one. If the Addiction Test is 
  failed, then an addiction is acquired for all the drugs currently in the 
  character’s system. If the character habitually takes drugs like this, the 
  maximum penalty to successive Addiction Tests becomes –5 instead 
  of –4.
  Just Like Deepweed Leads To Bliss
  Addicts to one type of drug can get addicted to more severe forms 
  easily. Betel is an infamous gateway drug to stimulants, just as the 
  equally legal long haul is to the illegal novacoke. Addiction Ratings for 
  drugs in the same family act at +2 to an individual already addicted to 
  a drug in that family, and Addiction Tests for those drugs start with a 
  –1 penalty, up to a maximum penalty of –5 for successive tests.
  opTIonal RulE: ColD TuRkEy: 
  wIThDRawal anD STayIng ClEan
  While the standard rules and descriptions given for withdrawal 
  from drugs (p. 257, SR4A) are effective, they do not suggest how long 
  a person is going to suffer from the symptoms and how long it’ll take 
  to clean out completely, if they can at all.
  Withdrawal symptoms should last as long as the Addiction Rating 
  in consecutive game sessions. For example, trying to kick soykaf takes 
  one game session, while trying to kick K-10 takes ten game sessions 
  before an Addiction Test is made to see if the character is able to kick 
  it. If the character is able to beat the addiction, then they are able to 
  make a choice: buying off the Addiction Negative Quality using Karma 
  because they were able to completely kick the habit, or transferring the 
  Addiction quality to the Dry Addict quality (p. 14) to show they still 
  have to fight the urges while not dealing with the direct consequences 
  of substance use.
  
  16
  Game infOrmaTiOn
  aDDICTIon RaTIng lIST
  TYPE OF DRUG
  ADDICTION RATING
  ADDICTION THRESHOLD
  Chemical Drugs
  Aisa
  5
  1
  Alcohol
  3
  2
  Betameth
  9
  3
  Betel
  7
  2
  Bliss
  5
  3
  Cram
  4
  3
  Dopadrine
  6
  2
  G3
  1
  2
  eX
  4
  2
  Hurlg
  5
  2
  Jazz
  8
  3
  K-10
  10
  3
  Kamikaze
  9
  3
  Long haul
  2
  1
  Nitro
  9
  3*
  NoPaint
  8
  2
  Novacoke
  7
  2
  Oxygenated fluorocarbons
  1
  1
  Psyche
  6
  2
  Push
  4
  3
  Red mescaline
  5
  1
  Ripper
  3
  2
  Slab
  —
  —
  Snuff
  2
  1
  Soykaf
  1
  2
  Woad
  5
  1
  Zen
  3
  1
  Zero
  1
  3*
  Bio-Awakened Drugs (BAD)
  Crimson orchid
  9
  3
  Deepweed
  3
  2
  Galak
  5
  2
  Laés
  —
  —
  Overdrive
  6
  3
  Pixie dust
  5
  2
  Trance
  2
  2
  Simsense-Based Drugs
  Legal-strength simsense
  2
  1
  Hot simsense
  3
  1
  “Hottest” simsense
  5
  2
  Moodchips
  6
  2
  Dreamchip BTLs
  6
  1
  Tripchip BTLs
  8
  3
  Personafixes
  7
  2
  Skillwires
  5
  2
  Magical Focus Addictions
  Focus Addiction
  Focus Power Level
  2
  * Mixed Drug (p. 73, Arsenal)
  SIM DREAMS & NIGHTMARES
  
  17
  Game infOrmaTiOn
  SIMSEnSE-baSED DRug pRICES
  DRUG
  AVAILABILITY
  COST
  Simsense movie
  —
  10-60¥
  Simsense PPoV movie
  —
  25-100¥
  Simsense series
  —
  100-250¥/Season
  Simsense pay-per-experience broadcast
  —
  50-100¥
  Simsense sports rebroadcast
  —
  25-50¥
  Simsense arcade machine
  —
  1¥/Play
  Simsense video game (commlink)
  —
  20-100¥
  “Hot” simsense movie (outside of legal jurisdiction)
  3F
  10-100¥ per 6 hours of total runtime
  “Hottest” simsense movie (outside of legal jurisdiction)
  4F
  25-150¥ per 6 hours of total runtime
  Cold sim-level moodchip
  1R
  50¥
  BTL-level moodchip
  2F
  75¥ per 12 hours of total runtime
  Dreamchip
  4F
  10-250¥ per 2 hours total runtime
  Dreamchip with PPoV
  4F
  25-300¥ per 3 hours total runtime
  Tripchip
  6F
  50-500¥ per 6 hours total runtime
  Personasoft
  8F
  250-1,000¥ per 24 hours total runtime
  Unlimited-duration personasoft
  14F
  1,500-3,000¥
  DRM-stripped personafixes
  20F
  2,500+¥
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Shadowrun [multi]/4th Edition/Shadowrun 4e - Sim Dreams and Nightmares {CAT26S024}.pdf