Bay 12 Games Forum

Urban Brawl is the fastest-growing sport of the 2050's, and already one of the biggest. It's the big name in the sports world, rivaled in the UCAS only by baseball, football, and basketball in good seasons.

(The following is a simplified version of the Urban Brawl rules, modified from Shadowbeat, a sourcebook made for 1st edition Shadowrun^TS for the purposes of ease of play and simplicity.)

The game is pretty simple. Each team has thirteen players and one ball. Each team tries to get their ball into the other team's goal while obviously trying to keep their enemy's ball out of their goal. The game is divided into quarters (four, natch), each of which is limited to 15 minutes. A quarter is further divided into plays, which last up to five minutes or until a team has scored or wiped, or a ball has been declared dead, or the clock runs out on the quarter. Get the ball in the other team's scoring area? Your team gets a point, congratulations. If a ball goes "dead" (by not being in any living player's hands for 10 seconds, being taken by the opposing team, or being taken on the motorcycle), the other player's team gets a point and can choose to have its players start where they all are next play rather than returning to their goal. Other than that, it's pretty simple.
Oh wait, two more things.
It's played in actual city streets, with the inhabitants evacuated beforehand and rewarded afterwards. Hence "Urban". The biggest draw is the combat, which includes real guns (with "safe" plastic ammo) and a (small) chance of death! Hence the "Brawl".

See why it's so popular? Neither do I. But then, I've never much understood sports.

There are thirteen players to a team.
Four are the Scouts, lightly armored and given a sidearm.
Four more are Bangers, with medium armor and a sidearm.
Two are Heavies, also in medium armor and with a sidearm, but also with an assault rifle, SMG, or shotgun.
Each team has one Blaster, who is lightly armored and has a light machine gun in a gyro-harness mounting.
These are all Offensive Positions, who are allowed to carry the ball. If a player in a non-offensive position takes the ball, the other team gets a point.
One player is the Medic, who wears bright white heavy armor so everyone knows that it's a penalty to shoot him. On the other hand, the Medic can't attack anyone else, either, and doesn't have any weapons anyway. He carries a well-stocked medikit, which lets him heal players.
The final player is the Outrider. He is armed and armored like a Banger, but also gets a motorcycle with an assault rifle, SMG, or shotgun mounted. The Outrider is a pretty important player--he can carry players on his motorcycle around, as well as fight. There are two caveats: The player riding the cycle cannot be carrying the ball, and bringing the Medic on the bike opens him to attack (by attacking the bike or otherwise making the Outrider crash).

All players except the medic can also have essentially any types of melee weapons, save monofilament or charged ones (e.g, monowhips or cattle prods); it's wise to have a nonlethal version to avoid excess penalties and felonies.

There can only be these thirteen players on the field at once. However, the Toads can have backups. Don't feel sad because someone else already signed up as the Blaster/Outrider/both Heavies/whatever; while a full team of PCs would be ideal, having one PC play and one be the backup is fine too. Between penalties and injuries, backups will be useful. However, we really don't need a half-dozen Blasters.

For convenience, rather than having a random kind of arena each game, we will have a standardized arena arena 500 meters by 600 meters, with about 100 meters to a block.
Generic arena:

Your team will start at the south end, the other at the north.

Legend:
Cyan--House
Blue--Apartment
Gray--Warehouse
Green--Park/Fields
Lavender--Unknown
Orange--Shops/Stores
Red--Offices

More types of buildings may be added if I think of some.

You are allowed to go anywhere within the arena--down streets, into buildings, down to basements, onto roofs, even climbing telephone poles* if you want to for some reason. However, you cannot leave the zone; doing so means you're out for the play and can't be replaced that play. Sorry, chummer.
*Warning: Telephone poles may not be present in all given brawl zones.

You might be able to find useful stuff in the arena. A precaution: Any monofilament, charged, or firearm weapons are against the rules to use, capiche?


Bear in mind the following bit of terminology: While it's technically known as The Brawl Zone, most people call it the Arena.

Yup, here's what you've been waiting for, folks.

Players can attack other players, except the Medic, with their weapons or stuff they find in the arena. They shoot or stab. This is what the audience wants to see, folks. Combat isn't just for publicity and fun, however; it actually has a purpose. You are trying to get the other players out.
There are a few ways to do this. Death and disablement (ie, knocking them out or something like that) are pretty obvious; a dead or disabled player is replaced at the end of the round. A player can also surrender, typically when he fears that he'll be geeked by the other guys; this counts as being disabled, except without the injury, natch. Attacking a disabled or surrendering player on purpose is worth a kill penalty, by the way. Don't do it.
If the other player flees the field to one of the first-aid station, or is brought there by medics (not the Medic, incidentally), he can return at the next play if he desires. Magical healers are often on-staff; magical healing heals all wounds, but that player cannot re-enter that game and must be replaced, so use wisely!

If all offensive members of a team surrender, flee, or are disabled or killed in a single play, a wipeout or "Wipe" is said to have occurred. Congrats; the non-wiped team wins automatically!

A few kinds of healing are available. The only kind which does not require you to sit out the rest of the play is the Medic's healing, which mostly consists of wound dressings and various sorts of medicinal drugs to get the player back on his feet. Between or during plays, heavily wounded players may get a slightly more impressive array of wound dressings and medicinal drugs. Magical healing is also available, but as noted elsewhere it renders you unable to participate in the remainder of the game. One more option is available for players in dire need of medical attention: Over the chest is a shield-shaped patch, which when removed activates the player's surrender lights and a Trauma Patch built into the armor. Trauma patches can prevent death, but at the cost of major injury. Better injury than death though, right chummer?

Sorry, chummer, no-go. Sports are essentially magic-free since '23, and before. Physical adepts get a pass, but only if they don't have cyberware. Spells and spirits, to say nothing of astral magicians feeding the team data, are enough to forfeit the round and risk losing the team's ability to compete. About the only use of magic that's common is getting a near-dead player to not die--and even that's usually only common in districts where such measures are required by law.

What? There's a ball? Oh, yeah.

The ball is a dense "plastifoam" sphere, a bit under 70 cm (about 2 feet) in diameter and weighing in at five to six hundred grams (a bit over a pound to not quite a pound and a half). It is coated in bright yellow or gold glo-paint and must be clearly visible at a minimum distance of 50 meters. It must be carried at all times by a member of the team; if it is not, it is considered dead and the other team gets a point.

Scoring points is as important as not giving them to your opponent. The goals may be placed in any intersection at the team's end of the field, and may be moved between plays to mess with the enemies. It will be clearly marked by a big, glo-paint and "neolux" circle four meters (~13 feet) in diameter. You need to get the ball into the ring while it's in contact with you. Originally, you still needed to be alive when the ball entered the ring, but after the 2044 season (with six disputed cases of if death happened before or after the ball got into the ring), the rule was changed. As long as it's in your hands or somehow attached to your body, it's good whether you're healthy as the day you were born or blown 10 meters across the pavement by the enemy Blaster, torn into two pieces with one in contact with the ball within the ring. (This actually happened in the 2051 game between the Boston
massacre and the Seattle Screamers. The Seattle Blaster has unofficially become the World's Most Embarrassed Urban Brawl Player.)

You do need to actually move the ball, though; no turtling allowed! If the ball is still within its initial block within 60 seconds of the play's start, within the three blocks adjacent to it within 60 seconds of that, or if it stays in the same block for 60 seconds, a freeze penalty is called on that team.

You are allowed to transfer the ball from player to player, whether by handing it over, throwing it, or even rolling it along the ground if it doesn't stay on the ground long enough to become a dead ball. Hypothetically, you could even shoot the ball over to another player, although all four recorded attempts to do so have been taken as evidence that one should not play Urban Brawl while drunk rather than actually being successful passes.

Whoever has the most points at the end of the game wins. Unless a wipe or other instant-loss condition happens first.

Does this seem like chaos? Well, it sure can be. However, there are some things that are penalties--attacking the officials, attacking surrendering players, not moving the ball fast enough, stuff like that.

Any kind of penalty prevents you from moving, attacking, or whatever. Incidentally, this same stuff keeps you surrendering when you surrender. Penalties (and surrenders) are announced with the cleverly-named Penalty Circuit, which causes a bunch of yellow neolux to light up. These circuits also deliver disabling shocks to players who do much of anything. The exception is the Medic's uniform; it does not contain penalty circuits past the stuff required for surrenders. Medics who violate the rules are kicked out and replaced immediately. All penalties are announced 10 seconds before the circuits kick in.

There are three kinds of penalties: Wound, Kill, and Freeze. Wound penalties kick you out of the game for a play; you are not replaced until the next play. Kill penalties kick you out of the whole game, and typically result in disciplinary action afterwards; you are not replaced until the next quarter. Freeze penalties are a bit different; firstly, they apply to a team, not a player. Any penalties on the enemy team are temporarily annulled, unless they are also under a freeze penalty. Only the player carrying the ball can move. Freeze penalties last until the condition causing them are resolved.

The following actions cause Wound penalties:
*Leaving the Zone
*Missed attacks on a penalized player
*Unnecessary Destruction of Property
*Unsportsmanlike Conduct
*Use of Unauthorized Weapons

The following actions cause Kill penalties:
*Arson (can also result in forfeiture of the match if the game must be called on account of the blaze)
*Deliberate attacks on disabled, surrendering, or (if successful) penalized players
*Roughing the Medic
*Roughing the Officials
*Severe Unsportsmanlike Conduct
*Tampering with the Penalty Circuits

The only offense which can cause a Freeze penalty is Insufficient Offense, which can happen in four ways:
1. Not getting the ball out of the starting block within a minute;
2. Not getting the ball out of the three blocks adjacent to said blocks within two minutes;
3. The ball staying in one block for a minute;
4. Any abuse of the above guidelines to stall and not try to score, such as skipping between two adjacent blocks and trying to avoid everyone.

Penalties are enforced in large part by officials patrolling the streets, two to four per city block. They have clearly marked white heavy armor, and act as referees, technicians, and emergency medics. They typically avoid firefights if possible, although they don't stray too far. Officials can monitor or even watch the game through wiz electronics in their armor, so don't think they can't see that foul just 'cuz you can't see them.


Laws are also of moderate importance. All North American countries save Aztlan have banned "blood sports," ie sports where the main goal is to kill everyone. (Urban Brawl is fine, because the objective is to score goals. Says so right here in the rulebook.) Thus, while you can typically get a good sentence reduction if you kill someone, manslaughter is still charged--especially if a hot new player on a little local team guns down the Renraku Invincible's star Heavy. This is all resolved off-screen, but can theoretically result in anything from fines to imprisonment, or even being banned from playing Urban Brawl! Watch out, chummers...

A tricky question. In general, there are four general strategies: Offensive, Defensive, Balanced, and Murderous.

Offensive strategies are putting most of your players with your ball-carrier for defense, so as to make sure he gets to the goal.
Defensive strategies are keeping most of your players near the goal, to prevent goals from being scored.
Balanced strategies are somewhere between the two/
Murderous strategies keep enough people on the goal to prevent goals from being scored and aim to disable as many enemies as possible, either eliminating key players or, ideally, going for a wipe. These are rare in competitive play, for reasons that should be obvious.

Obviously, each of these four "strategies" represents an array of possible strategies. The Area Predators, Miami Spears, and Mountain Dragons all tend towards offensive strategies, but the type and magnitude of the offensive focus varies.

This system is based off of the system used in 1st and 2nd edition Shadowrun.

You have three priorities to assign, Abilities, Race, and Skills. Abilities are your inborn capabilities; Race is what subspecies of humanity you are; and Skills are what you know.


Fancy, huh?
You get one A priority, one B priority, and one C priority.

You start with 0 in each attribute. Putting a point in an Attribute increases it by 1. A 0 or 1 in an Attribute gives you a -1 to rolls (a 0 also cancels the "critical"ness of a 5); a 2 is no bonus; a 3 is a +1; a 4 or 5 is a +2 (a 5 also cancels the "over" of a 4+2 or a 5+1); and a 6 is a +3 (with no overshots possible). Raising an Attribute to 6 costs 2 Attribute points.
If you somehow get a negative score in an Attribute, you get a -2, and even successes will be...suboptimal.

The Attributes are as follows:
Agility, which deals with reactions and dodging
Body, which deals with toughness and stamina
Dexterity, which deals with aim and control
Intelligence, which deals with cleverness and creating stuff
Showmanship, which deals with doing cool but impractical stuff and otherwise impressing the audience
Strength, which deals with smashing and breaking

Humans are plain vanilla, but also cheap.

Dwarves are short and stout, but don't underestimate them. They have +2 to Strength and Body in exchange for a -1 to Agility. Dwarves are also excellent with machines and explosives, and get a +1 bonus to rolls involving such things. They also get a free Cobbling skill of 1. Due to their short legs, dwarves have a -1 to rolls related to running. Dwarves possess infravision.
Elves are tall and slim. They have +1 to Agility, Dexterity, and Intelligence, as well as low-light vision. Elves are great sprinters; they get +1 to rolls involving running. They're also supposedly in tune with nature, but tell that to George "Eaten By a Bear" MacFadden.
Orks are big and scary. They have +2 to Strength and +3 to Body, but -1 to Dexterity and Intelligence. Orks have low-light vision and a +1 bonus to actions to destroy stuff.
Trolls are even bigger and scarier. In addition to a +3 to Strength and a +4 to Body, they have infravision and dermal bone deposits, which increase their effective Armor rating by 1. However, they have a -1 to Agility, Dexterity, Intelligence, and Showmanship (no one wants to see Goliath squash David).

Bonuses to Attributes are applied before points, and cancel the extra point to buy up to level 6. Penalties can result in Attribute scores of -1.

Maximum level is 6.
A 0 is a -2. A 1 is -1. or 2 is a +0. A 3 or 4 is a +1; 4's have a 50% chance of nullifying overshots. A 5 or a 6 is +2, with a 6 nullifying overshots. These bonuses stack with Attribute bonuses!

Bike: This skill lets you drive a motorcycle! It's obviously vital to the Outrider and not useful to many others...although there's no rule against someone taking the cycle of the enemy Outrider after disabling him...
Cobbling: Not the art of making shoes, although you could use Cobbling to make shoes if you wanted. Cobbling, in this context, is using random junk to make stuff. It's sometimes useful in the game, but as coffee cans and banana peels can't be made into grenades you may want to combine this with Scrounging. Note that any weapons you make are legal, as long as they do not incorporate monofilament weapons, charged weapons, or firearms...and you might want to make sure they're not one of those, just to be on the safe side.
Gun Skills: Longarm, Machine Gun, Mount, and Sidearm are separate skills. Longarm lets you fire shotguns and assault rifles; Machine Gun lets you fire the SMG or the Blaster's LMG; Mount lets you fire weapons mounted on the Outrider's bike; and Sidearm lets you fire sidearms, ie pistols. Each Gun Skill can be used untrained as if you had it at half the level of your highest Gun Skill; raising a second Gun Skill to half the level of your highest costs half as many points as normal.
Intimidation: Being scary. Who knows? Maybe you'll be able to scare the other team into dropping the ball or something.
Medicine: A darn important skill for the Medic and highly situational for anyone else (like the cycle, there's nothing stopping a guy from using the medic's medkit...although this will come up much less often). Medicine lets you heal people and such. It can be done without a medkit, but this causes a -2 penalty; it's advised that healing be left to the Medic and officials.
Melee Skills: Axe, Bludgeon, Knife, Polearm, Staff, Sword, Unarmed, and Whip are separate skills; if you come up with a different melee weapon, I'll either incorporate it into one of these or make a new skill. Each Melee Skill can be used untrained as if you had it at half the level of your highest Melee Skill; raising a second Melee Skill to half the level of your highest costs half as many points as normal.
Parkour: A bit misnamed, the Parkour skill covers pretty much any athletic activity except swimming that isn't covered by another skill.
Scrounging: A combination of knowing where to look, a keen eye, and luck can help you find just about anything in the Brawl Zone. This skill lets you have that.
Stealth: A cowardly technique and not one likely to get you high ratings, sneaking through the streets can easily be effective. And if a Scout makes cunning things like this his schtick, well, who knows?
Tech: Making and using technological devices. This is mostly useful out-of-game, if at all, but maybe you'll find a broken-down car in the arena and get the idea to drive it at the enemy team. This would be legal, but to be on the safe side I wouldn't put the ball carrier in the car. (That's also technically legal, but it's risking the wrath of the Officials. And it'll only work once.) Having at least one technician on the team may be a good idea, since that would let you repair stuff much more cheaply, but you probably don't need much more than that.
Throwing: Not as long-range as a gun or as damaging as a melee weapon (or, for that matter, a gun), thrown objects are nevertheless an available combat technique.

Remember: You can't do everything. You have somewhere between 10 and 25 skill points; use them wisely, or your Master of Noneitude will lose you the game.

At the start of the game, you may select just about any basic cyberware (limbs, muscle replacement, stuff like that) and I'll count it as incorporated into your stats. Later cyber will have to be bought separately, but will provide extra bonuses.

Magicians are rare, due to a ban on magic in the game, but you can be one. Just bear in mind that you won't actually be able to use magic in a Brawl, and you'll be judged more suspiciously.

For guns, just assume that any of the Basic Weapons listed below are available for any player. You're not broke.

For melee weapons, pretty much any number of simple melee weapons like knives, truncheons, staves, and such are available. Swords, polearms, and other weapons like that are rarer but not impossible to get.

Specify what you'll be taking with you into the arena.

Name: This can be a legal name, a street name, or both.
Gender: While I keep referring to players as "he," that's mostly due to convenience. While male players outnumber females by about 2:1 or 3:1, in this age of cyberware and metahumans a woman can easily be every bit as strong and tough as a man with an equal budget.
Race: This should be pretty simple. Human, metahuman (and type), etc.
Appearance: Go nuts or not.
Bio: Same, although some insight into your backstory makes these kinds of games more fun.
Position: What position you play...usually. Sometimes, you just need a backup Blaster and all you've got is a Scout.
Priorities: What did you give Priority A/B/C to?
Attributes: This is where you put your Attributes. Include racial modifiers.
Skills: Put all your skills here.
Gear: This is where you put your Brawl Gear.

Template:
[b]Name:[/b]
[b]Gender:[/b]
[b]Race:[/b]
[b]Appearance:[/b]
[b]Bio:[/b]
[b]Position:[/b]

[b]Priorities:[/b]

[b]Attributes:[/b]
Agility
Body
Dexterity
Intelligence
Showmanship
Strength

[b]Skills:[/b]

[b]Gear:[/b]


Each turn is about equal to 15 seconds. This is about enough time to go halfway down a block, or go all the way if you're running as fast as you can. Such running requires an Body check; elves get +1 and dwarves get -1. If you fail, you get tired and can't run anymore until you have about a minute (4 turns) of rest. Overshots do not apply to such rolls--a 6 is not dangerous. Whilst running, you cannot do many actions, and those actions you can do (such as shooting or dodging) are at -1.

In general, anything you can do in 15 seconds you can do in one turn. I'll be pretty lenient; maybe I'll give you 20. Expect that complex/lengthy actions like assembling weapons, combing an entire basement, or hotwiring an abandoned car to take multiple turns.

Attacks and dodging works like in normal Roll to Dodge games, where you roll to, um...dodge. Damage, however, works a bit more like in Shadowrun.

You roll a number of dice equal to your Body attribute, adding a number equal to your Armor value. Natural sixes are re-rolled and added; rolling a 6 then a 3 would be 9+armor. Each weapon has a two-part damage code: The first tells you how high you need to roll for a success, the second tells you how much damage it deals. Each success reduces the damage dealt by one box.

As for reloading...it's a little important. As Urban Brawl puts no restrictions on the number of clips/magazines or bullets you bring into the Zone, it will generally be assumed that you have 10-30% more than you use. However, you still need to reload. Reloading a weapon takes a turn in which you can only move or perhaps do other simple actions that don't require your hands.

A bike can be in one of several settings, each with a different Speed:
Off (0): No movement.
Sluggish(1): Move up to 1/2 block per turn.
Slow (2): Move up to 1 block per turn
Average (3): Move 0.5-1.5 blocks per turn
Quick (4): Move 1-2 blocks per turn
Fast (5): Move 1.5-2.5 blocks per turn
Very Fast (6): Move 2-3 blocks per turn

You can change your setting by up to 1 per turn, or 2 with a successful Bike check. You need to move all your distance in a given turn. You may turn freely if your Speed is 2 or less, or with a Bike check when your Speed is 3 or more (this check is at -1 at Speed 5 or 6).
A rider (except the Medic or Outrider, obviously) can shoot from the back of the bike. If the bike is moving at Speed 2-4, a -1 penalty is taken on attack rolls; at Speed 5-6, a -2 is taken.
Firing a mounted weapon can only be done within 30-40 degrees of the direction the bike is pointing and does not take penalties from speed. The Outrider is typically the only one with access to the mounted weapon's controls. Firing a weapon causes a -1 penalty to all other Bike checks that turn unless the Outrider takes a -2 roll to the attack.

There are two "health tracks," each with 10 boxes. The "Stun Track" measures how much nonlethal damage from battering and buffeting you've received. Once you hit 10 boxes of Stun damage, you fall unconscious; extra Stun damage goes into the "Lethal Track," which measures how much actual dangerous damage you've taken. When you hit 10 boxes, overflow goes into your Physical Damage Overflow, which can hold an amount of damage equal to twice your Body (if positive) or 1 (if 0). Once this is filled up, you're dead. Fini. Kaput. Time to roll up a new brawler. (You're theoretically in danger just from having damage in the Overflow, but the presence of on-site medical personnel makes this fairly minimal. Unless the officials/medics hate your guts, perhaps, but there's not much you can do about that.)
In theory, the Stun track should be used more often. In practice...well, the big leagues are always recruiting...

There's also a bit of "chunky salsa" damage; most injuries attained this way will be difficult to heal, and may require that player to be removed from the game for magical healing or something.


Damage causes penalties, varying depending on the total number of boxes filled in for Stun and Lethal damage.
1-2: No penalties!
3-5: -1
6-11: -2
12-18: -3
19+: Not possible to be conscious at this level

Healing isn't too bad. You just roll a die and add your Medicine skill and the following modifiers:
No Medkit: -2
Advanced Medkit: +1. Not available unless the Medic robs the nearby medics' stations.
Hospital: +3. Not available in general.
Patient Uncooperative: -1. This is for when the patient does something other than sitting quietly and doing what you tell him to.
Patient Hostile: -3. You shouldn't have to worry about this too often.
Rushed: Variable.
This heals a variable amount of damage:
1 or less: Damage is dealt! The patient must resist damage as if hit with a weapon that has a damage code of 4-x, where x is two minus the result. There is a one in three chance of dealing lethal damage.
2-3: No damage is healed.
4: One point of Stun damage is healed.
5: One point of Lethal or two of Stun damage is healed.
6: Two points of Lethal or five of Stun damage is healed.
7: Three points of Lethal damage or all Stun damage is healed.
8: Five points of Lethal damage or three and all Stun damage is healed.
9: Seven points of Lethal damage or five and all Stun damage is healed.
10 or more: All damage is healed.

Healing takes about a minute (1d6*3 turns), unless rushed. Taking a -1 penalty reduces the time by half; taking a -2 penalty makes it only 1d3+1 turns; and a -3 penalty lets you heal in one turn, assuming you don't roll below a 4 of course. Obviously, rushing healing is only for the best medics.

Damage is healed between plays as well. Assuming no magical healing is applied, all Stun damage and 1d6-1 boxes of Lethal damage are healed. (This "healing" is mostly just injecting the player with enough drugs and splinting enough minor fractures that the player can play without falling unconscious or killing himself. More...medically sound treatments are applied between quarters and especially at half-time, when there's more time to do so; the half-time treatments do so well enough that they heal another point of Lethal damage.
Magical healing is present but rare, since (as mentioned previously) a player who receives magical medical attention during a game cannot play for the rest of it. However, magical healing may be used at the end of the game to get everyone nice and healthy for the next one! All Lethal and Stun damage is negated at the end of a game, as are most other injuries; however, some such injuries (such as missing limbs) cannot be cured by magic and must be replaced later.

Guns should be the bread and butter of combat; while they're not as flashy as melee brawls, they're less likely to get you shot as you charge into range. Unfortunately (?), guns are pretty much the only weapon you can't loot from corpses or use if found. Hence, if mid-game you are not content with your weaponry, you'll have to look elsewhere.

You can take melee weapons from other players. It's generally advised that you take them from your enemies, as your friends might find them useful.

You can search for stuff--not just weapons, but also other things. In general, state what you are looking for. You could theoretically find a golden bowling trophy signed by Dunkelzahn in a flophouse, but this would incur a massive penalty. In general, things that should be omnipresent in the place you're looking get a +2; common items get +1; items that would be present get +1; items that might be present get -1; and objects which are almost certainly absent get -2 or worse. A 1 means there is nothing to be found; a 2 means nothing useful is found; a 3 means a useful object similar to the one looked for is found; a 4 means the requested object is found, more or less; a 5 means a good example of said object is found; and a 6 means a dangerous version of what you looked for is found.

You can make stuff. If you have proper materials, you can make just about anything; if you don't, you can try, but with somewhere between a -1 penalty (trying to make a crossbow from sticks, gears, glue, and a pair of underwear) to automatic failure (trying to make a grenade from a coffee can and a banana peel). Naturally, the success of the die roll causes levels of success from "destroy what you used to make it" to "cause it to activate prematurely"...although a 4 or a 5 ends well.

In general, stick to your guns.

Guns
Firearms are, as mentioned, one of the most-used weapons for reasons that should be obvious. They are divided into three categories, based on what the positions are allowed: Sidearms, Main Weapons (that is, assault rifles, SMGs, or shotguns), and Blasters (the light machine gun the Blaster can use).
Sidearms

Gun	Damage	Firing	Ammunition	Special
Walther Palm Pistol	3-1	Single-Shot*	2 shots	Small
Fichetti Security 500a	5-1	Semiauto	25	Light
Ares Predator	8-3	Semiauto	15	N/A
Remington Roomsweeper	9-5	Semiauto	8/mag	Shot
Ruger Super Warhawk	9-3	Single-Shot	6 (cylinder)	N/A

As should surprise no one, all sidearms use the Sidearm skill. They can all be fired one-handed, at a -1 penalty, with another -1 penalty for dual-wielding.
Ares Predator: The #1 Name in heavy pistols, the Predator is used by most Urban Brawl teams.
Fichetti Security 500a: A light pistol, and hence not often used in Urban Brawl. There is no penalty for firing one-handed.
Remington Roomsweeper: Something of a short-barreled shotgun, the Roomsweeper is a weapon most useful for intimidation. Its shot rounds can hit multiple enemies that are near each other, but armor's effect is doubled. (Firing with slug rounds make it basically an Ares Predator with a lower ammunition capacity.)
Ruger Super Warhawk: Essentially the heaviest pistol available, the Warhawk is a largish revolver. It is typically not used, though, due to the relatively small amount of bullets held in the weapon and the slower firing rate.
Walther Palm Pistol: A holdout pistol as small as its name implies. It's obviously rarely used; just about the only use is for the Medic smuggling a gun into the Zone. It takes no penalties for using one-handed or dual-wielding.
Main Weapons

Gun	Skill	Damage	Firing	Ammunition
HK227	Machine Gun	6-3	SA/Burst/FA	28
AK-97	Longarm	7-3	SA/BF/FA	38
Defiance T-250	Longarm	10-6	Semiauto	5

AK-97: An assault rifle, still Fyodorov's design at heart but with an improved covering. The worldwide standard in assault rifles, rivaled only by the European FN HAR (which is pretty similar to the AK-97 as far as rules go).
Defiance T-250: A good combat shotgun.
HK227: A fairly standard submachine gun.
Blasters

Gun	Damage	Firing	Ammunition
Ingram Valiant	6-6	Burst/Full-Auto	50

Ingram Valiant: The only LMG in the basic Shadowrun rulebook. It's pretty much the standard LMG.
Bear in mind, this is only the basic weapons. More interesting, exotic, and rare weapons exist as well.

Melee Weapons
These are generally the audience's favorite bit of the Brawl--two Brawlers, out of ammo or looking for fame or something, brawling mano-a-mano. Each Brawler has his or her own favored weapons.

Weapon	Skill	Damage	Special
Knife/Dagger	Knife	(S)-1*	Short Reach
Throwing Knife	Knife	(S-1)-1*	Short Reach Can be Thrown
Staff	Staff	(S+2)-2	Long Reach
Sword	Sword	(S+2)-3*	N/A

*Comes in lethal versions
Knife/Dagger: Just what it sounds like. A fairly popular weapon for the last-ditch, climatic stuff.
Staff: A long, thin pole, typically made of metal or plastic (although wooden staves exist for traditionalists). They're typically a defining aspect of Brawlers who use them.
Sword: A sword.
Throwing Knife: A smaller knife balanced for throwing. It's technically a melee weapon!

Armor
There are three grades of armor: Heavy, Medium, and Light. All are painted in team colors (except the Heavy armor of Medics and Officials), including "at least one light color and one dark color," according to the rules, and come with helmets. The Bay Toads' armor is mostly shades of green, but with some blue accents.
Armor has two values per type: Impact and Ballistic. Ballistic is for high-velocity, low-contact-area blows (ie, bullets); Impact works for everything else. Light armor has a value of 1 for each; Medium armor is 3 Ballistic and 2 Impact; and Heavy armor is 5 Ballistic and 3 Impact.

Initial recruiting will last until we have a good team or people stop signing up. Past that, you can apply; your application will generally be "accepted" within "a few business days" (ie you'll be on the team at the end of the current game)).
If more players are on a given position than can play at once, and they can't agree who will play and who will be in reserve, it will be up to the team to decide. Similarly should other questions come up.

24 hours (and probably change) after a turn is posted, PM's will be sent to players who have not posted an action. 24 hours (and again probably change) after the PM's, I will turn to the Delinquent Player's thread noted in my sig.