I played (well, GMed, mostly) SR 1e, 2e, a bit of 3e, and 4e. I like 'em all, but I really like the core of 4e; the previous versions' dice mechanics had characteristics that I really didn't like. Thus, not playing it for a lot of years, 'til 4e came out.
4e's not perfect -- I think it needs another "half edition" to iron out some of the kinks -- but it's been fun.
But they need to put out some damned books! The 'ware book, the gear book, the decking/hacking/whatever book, maybe some more adventures. It's been eight-and-a-half months since anything new came out. If my SR group hadn't switched to Exalted, the gearhead PCs would be hip deep in nuyen, waiting to find something to buy. ;)
SR rocks. . . who can forget my buddy Marshall finally losing his mind and sending in his army of drug addicted/mind controlled prostitutes on a suicide mission to the local precint with a grenades and enough firearms to supply a war . . .yes, the police were dirty in case you are wondering.
Reading this thread makes me want to play some SR soon!
SR rocks. . . who can forget my buddy Marshall finally losing his mind and sending in his army of drug addicted/mind controlled prostitutes on a suicide mission to the local precint with a grenades and enough firearms to supply a war . . .yes, the police were dirty in case you are wondering.
Reading this thread makes me want to play some SR soon!
I actually thought about Shadowrun when I saw the Initiative = Dexterity + Intelligence houserule for our PbP campaign...
On a side note, Shadowrun is a big reason why I'm not that upset or anything about 4dventure... sometimes a system needs to be cleaned up and streamlined to replace "clunky" mechanics (ie. SR to SR2) and sometimes it needs to be re-focused on the core concept to make it more accessible to new gamers, or those that don't want to purchase 50 sourcebooks along with the core rules (SR2 to SR3). And sometimes a new edition just needs to come out because of business plans. (SR3 to SR4).
But in the end, its usually still the game you loved in the first place. And the important stuff (ie. fluff) doesn't change with the new addition usually, although timelines usually progress.
I still play 3E Shadowrun...
:-)
Logue!
You like SR3 better? Not just like better, but you hate 4th Ed???
Like you, I've been playing since SR1. Long time. Every time they've revamped the system, I've applauded them Each time has been (IMO) an improvement.
Until SR4 came along, I thought SR3 had the best rules yet, but there were still areas of the game mechanics that bugged the crapola out of me.
In particular, that it was possible (though really unlikely) to critically fumble, but there was no mechanic at all for critically succeeding.
Also, the way the dice stage up in 3rd Ed is not a steady incline. At each die step (7, 13, and the very unlikely 19), your odds of hitting the TN plummet, then plummet again. But if you're fulling applying all modifiers, most of the time your TNs are 13+, and often enough 19+. And since each die in a roll is treated individually, being very good at something and throwing a bunch of pool dice at a task doesn't really improve your odds of hitting difficult TNs sufficiently (for someone who's supposed to be a big bada$$ 'runner).
I've been converted body and soul to SR4. The mechanic is so much smoother. The game has waffled since the beginning on whether getting a lot of successes, or rolling high numbers was important. It makes so much more sense to just need more successes. Needing both was too much to ask.
In every way possible, SR4 was like d20 to me -- a revelation. The ruleset the game always should have been. Taking the broken game that was loved despite its brokenness and fixing it. So yeah, I was a little surprised to hear you, a gamer I respect and admire, trashing SR4.
Okay. Suffice to say that I clearly [heart] Shadowrun as much as you do, even if we prefer different editions.
I had a cheesefest character named Timex, built to exploit the fact that you could purchase spell locks with stat bumping spells by being an adept and then pile cyberware on top. He thought he was really cool until he learned he could not actually effect astral targets, but they could ground spells through his locks.
There is a loophole that's still open on that: implanted spell locks. The spell lock is inside a living body and is therefore inside the person's astral body where it cannot be targeted.
Take Astral Perception as an adept ability and save some Magic Points so you can cast spells; you end up with a nasty spellslinger with both cyber and magical enhancements to initiative. Technically, you can enchant cyberware control modules as spell locks, so you don't even lose extra Essence with this trick.
Shadowrun was a cool system (I still have a bunch of 1st Ed. material). The only problems I had with the 1st Ed. rules were that armor was too good (fixed by utilizing autofire rules in the Rigger's Black Book) and shotguns were too weak (fixed by doubling their power level and increasing their base damage category by one). The later versions make physical adepts too weak, IMO; they can't compete with your basic street samurai without being a high-level initiate.
Shadowrun demands lots of preparation from both the players and the GM: backstory, contingency planning, footwork/research, etc. I recommend people interested in Shadowrun watch "The Jackal" (Bruce Willis' character especially) to get an idea of how a Shadowrunner should act.
Okay. Suffice to say that I clearly [heart] Shadowrun as much as you do, even if we prefer different editions.
Ha! Yes! We both have the love for the S-run and that's what matters. To be totally fair I haven't played 4th yet, just read it. I could be converted...but I really dig how hard it is to do anything in 3rd edition...it's so lethal-gritty!
Who knows perhaps you can introduce me to 4th sometime! I might be like "This Rocks!"
And believe me, I'm not about to turn down playing in a game of SR3 with you, either. Especially considering I have books for both editions.
And believe me, I'm not about to turn down playing in a game of SR3 with you, either. Especially considering I have books for both editions.
Sweeeet! Mayhaps someday!
And believe me, I'm not about to turn down playing in a game of SR3 with you, either. Especially considering I have books for both editions.Sweeeet! Mayhaps someday!
Nick, maybe you should run a Shadowrun Play-by-Post here on the boards for us <hint, hint> ;-)
hmm... now that I mentioned it jokingly, a Shadowrun pbp would probably work out pretty well, since you wouldn't need to know the relative distances between combatants nearly as much as you would with D&D. So you could just go with a nice cinematic description of the combat and the GM letting you know it was short range, etc.
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Anyways, back to my original point in making this post.
One of the reasons I think Shadowrun stood up so well to multiple editions was the fluff. Tech/Magic theory/whatever was always changing, and you could see the forshadowing in the fluff, especially the Shadowland stuff.
I loved reading those Shadowland pieces and trying to make the connections to other sourcebooks, novels and adventures. (ex. I remember it being a really cool epiphany when I was halfway through reading the Tir Tanigire sourcebook and realized that the "laughing man" posting on Shadowland was actually Harlequin, from the adventures bearing his name)
I still go back and read some of the older sourcebooks just for the comments like that in the Shadowland sections. Shadowrun always had the coolest and most cohesive fluff/meta-plots out of any RPG at the time. (No insult to FR or WoD fans intended)
Shadowrun truly rocks! From the 1e to 4e, I cannot get enough. My favorite game systemd, in order, are probably SR, Star Wars (WEG version) followed by DnD.
I love the system for Shadowrun, even 1e when magic truly was power. I enjoy increasing abilities and attributes without the unwieldiness of "leveling up". I love the gritty flavor, and the fact that evey mission ever run as a player, we got screwed at least once. I love that as a GM I once ran a group so well that it carried over; when a new guy started GMing with the same characters, the players derailed his plot by insisting "No, you don't understand; we <u>can't</u> go to Mitsuhama."
I have only had the opportunity to play two sessions of 4e, but I still enjoy the algorithms for magic, and I got used to the new dice pool system. We never had the chance to do mch decking or rigging, but I am curious to see how smoothly they now run.
Our groups solution to the "decker problem" was usualy to "multiclass" the decker. One friend played a troll decker, one a samurai decker (with a monofilament whip in a fingertip compartment) and I even had a mage-decker at one point. Yeesh.
Finally, I will mention but one character. I had way too many friends who played characters that hit on every woman around. SO I decided to end that trend once and for all with my shamanic adept from the bayous of Louisiana. This was right after bioware came out, and between totem bonuses, synthetic pheremones and skills he rolled something like a dozen dice to seduce women. Awful, but the message got across and for years there was no more "I want to do her" role-playing.
I hope I can play again soon.
I'm not sure if anyone still reads this, but I have some SR anectdotes to share.
My first gm session was 3E Shadowrun. I was (and is) a horrible gm but I had to do it to get it started. I got the book First Run to make starting the campaign easier. It didn't:
1: Food Fight Scenario; one player throws a (concussion) grenade in the convenience store. Everyone goes flying like tennis balls.
2: Second session of the second scenario in the First Run Book; a different player kills the Fixer. Lannier gasses the place. Campaign didn't last long after that (although they did manage to raid an armory before it ended).
A couple of years later I'm now a player in a 2E campaign. Two of my fellow Runners are players from my GM'ed campaign, including the guy who killed the Fixer. He hasn't changed a bit, his character already tried to double cross us once by slipping out with the "Package" while we're fighting a swarm of animated metahuman body parts (Please don't ask). We cannot trust him as far as we can throw him (so I'm making a troll who should at least be able to throw him a quarter mile).
well, I still read it; I liked SR also, but only played first ed and hehe and have interest in a pbp hehe and I liked the movie the Jackal.
Shadowrun has a living campaign, called SR Missions. We just started the series in Portland, OR. Anyone interested in playing should join our Yahoo group: http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/Shadowrun_OR/ .
(I am also running Spycraft games every other week, the Yahoo group is http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/Spycraft_OR).
Please note, I do not check these boards.
wow
I cant believe I just now saw this thread. Shadowrun is one of if not my favorite rpg. It was the first game I was ever in that was ran correctly. LOL we'd messed with DnD a couple years before that but didnt know what the heck we were doing. We didnt have anyone who had played before so we just sat there and read the modules and played through them like a board game.
ahh, but shadowrun, it was my first year of college, and I got asked to play as an afterthought. The GM knew what he was doing and so did most of the players. I fit in well, better than my roommate who had got me into the game. I was asked back, he wasn't. That was first edition. I bought second when it came out, GM'd it for awhile. I bought 3rd when it was out but never got to play or run it. I have 4th and have been toying with running it. There are things I like about 4th and things I dont get, or dont like. I'm on bnoth sides with the wireless. I dont understand why deckers became hackers since hackers is an OLD term. Suff like that. I also miss the shadowrun cussing. Frag is better than the other F word. Hoop is funnier than ass.
wow
I cant believe I just now saw this thread. Shadowrun is one of if not my favorite rpg. It was the first game I was ever in that was ran correctly. LOL we'd messed with DnD a couple years before that but didnt know what the heck we were doing. We didnt have anyone who had played before so we just sat there and read the modules and played through them like a board game.
ahh, but shadowrun, it was my first year of college, and I got asked to play as an afterthought. The GM knew what he was doing and so did most of the players. I fit in well, better than my roommate who had got me into the game. I was asked back, he wasn't. That was first edition. I bought second when it came out, GM'd it for awhile. I bought 3rd when it was out but never got to play or run it. I have 4th and have been toying with running it. There are things I like about 4th and things I dont get, or dont like. I'm on bnoth sides with the wireless. I dont understand why deckers became hackers since hackers is an OLD term. Suff like that. I also miss the shadowrun cussing. Frag is better than the other F word. Hoop is funnier than ass.
I just figured that "decker" was old news now in whatever year 4th ed is set (2070?) and "hacker" is retro and back in style as the term to use.
*I seem to recall the Echo Mirage team being refered to as hackers... so maybe after the 2nd Matrix crash, hacker got brought back into popular speech after the comparisons between the two crashes?
** But I still refer to them as deckers too ;-)
I've eyed Shadowrun over the years, but never picked it up. It obviously has quite a following, looks like I'll have to check it out.
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I'm coming to the party a little late, but wanted to add a little more lovin' for good old Shadowrun.
We played mostly 2nd edition, adding in the Shadowrun Companion and eventually switching to SR3. I have SR4 but haven't really looked at it much -- since 3e, it's been hard to get the group to play anything that's not d20. But man, did we have some fun.
The great thing was the splatter -- no other game I've played has done a better job of emulating one-shot kills. Although generally not common (except for the physad who voluntarily "lost" his sniper rifle b/c of the lack of challenge) it was extremely satisfying when the non-combat-focused disgraced trideo anchor managed to behead some enemy goon with a lucky pistol shot. One of my favorite characters was a buddy's near-sighted, alcoholic Wolf Shaman. He toted a shotgun around run after run, providing completely ineffectual covering fire. Then one day a wired-to-the-gills samurai drops into the middle of the group, boom-stick goes off, and suddenly the rest of the party is covered with blood, guts and chunks of twisted cyberware.
At which point the lounge singer/b-rate street mage starts singing "It's Raining Men."
The great thing with SR was that, even when the PCs eventually got access to really nice toys, they were able to use them only rarely -- b/c of airport security, etc., any out-of-town run meant the team had to make do with whatever kit they could pick up locally. I remember a couple of adventures where runners picked up very basic handguns, several lengths of monowire and a couple of concussion grenades, headed for an out-of-the-way warehouse and called in a fake emergency call to Lone Star. One well-set ambush later and there were assault rifles and nifty burst-fire pistols galore.
I'll also second or third the love for Secrets of Power and Fade to Black -- both fantastic books that really capture the shadowrunning goodness. Another I remember being at least decent was "The Terminus Experiment" which was basically a vampire caper, SR-style.
To the poster looking for pit fighting rules: Check out the (SR2, I think) adventure "A Killing Glare" for urban brawl rules -- it's not pit-fighting, exactly, but basically football with guns and motorcycles. The adventure itself ain't bad, either -- another great SR memory was near the end of that one, when one of the characters rolled something like a perfect hit (all successes) to take out a dragon with a burst from an assault rifle. Cheering all around until the thing started plummeting out of the sky ...
Since I love ShadowRun so much, I might as well give this thread a bump with periodic tales of characters past...
My first character was a chromed out merc. Actually I should say my first character that remained playable more than two sessions. It's been almost 20 years now; I think my Native American tribesman may be coming up for parole soon. Anyway, back to the first character, who showed me how to love ShadowRun...
I cannot recall his street name at the moment, but this first edition paragon of destruction lived to get his mitts on a smartgun-linked Panther assault cannon. It was an ongoing quest. He lived in a hovercraft in a garage owned by a mechanic friend. He had more weapons stashed in that hovercraft than a Lone Star banshee. He willingly took extremely deadly missions with high probabilities of being screwed over (in ShadowRun, that probability is 100%) just to accumulat money and contacts to get that assault cannon.
I was blessed with a creative GM, who prolonged this obsession while still feeding. Until finally, one day, the magic happened. In the span of a few hours, he managed to acquire not one, but TWO Panther assault cannons! Woot! I recall out of game, one player commented that with my low essence, I should be acting crazier - in 1st ed. SR lower essence generally meant loss of one's humanity. I was stunned, not by the accusation, but by how the other three palyers imediately commented on how much time my character spent simply sitting and stroking his weapons, and how he slept with the assault cannon.
Perhaps one of the best role-playing moments with this character came shortly after getting the assault cannon. We ended up doing battle with a dragon in a massive ballroom 30-some storied above the Seattle streets. At time, my character had cybereyes with cameras, which were always on. Everyone thought it was a hoot to play back the film of our runs, especially this one.
As battle was joined, because we were too trigger happy to run from the dragon, the camera recorded two others shooting the dragon, and failing to injure it. A spell was launched, but it too failed to affect the dragon. Then I fired the assault cannon... resulting in a light wound; this angered the dragon. I later described the camera capturing the dragon's head swiveling toward my character, staring at him for a moment, before unleashing his attack. Then the camera cuts to snow... Thank goodness for DocWagon, adn other players recognizing now is the time to smash the windows, grab the bodies and get out. Good times, man, good times.
Hello all,
My name is Dashifen, and I've been running Shadowrun now for close to a decade non-stop and fourth edition since it came out. If you've any questions that you'd like me to answer, I'm more than happy to do so!
Someone above asked about hackers and why an old term is suddenly popular again in 2070. From what I understand, the concept was to try and create and edition of the game that would satisfy existing fans of the previous editions while also being approachable and easily understandable by new players. Since "decker" was a genre-specific term to SR, it may have been confusing for some new players. Plus, the shadow-slang (drek, frag, hoop, omae, etc.) probably falls into the same category.
Also, remember that cyberdecks went out with the second world-wide matrix crash in 2064 and the new matrix-technology is referred to simply as a commlink. Thus, the term "decker" being one who uses a cyberdeck is somewhat obsolete.
Anyway, I didn't mean to come across so pedantic, but I think I did anyway.
If there's any other questions, ask away and I'll see what I can do.
- Dash -
Edit: And I should mention to that play-by-post shadowrun does work rather well. There's a whole forum set aside for pbp games at the Dumpshock Forums (DSF) (http://forums.dumpshock.com). Registration for the DSF is somewhat broken at the moment, but there are instructions for getting an account if you're interested.
Probably the hardest part for breaking into SR4 for pbp games is character generation which can be rather complex.
yeah im working on picking up the novels i dont have. I have most of them already. Out of the original 40 novels I'm only missing 8 now. Well and also the 6 new ones.
Im also picking up the game books I'm missing when I can.
yeah im working on picking up the novels i dont have. I have most of them already. Out of the original 40 novels I'm only missing 8 now. Well and also the 6 new ones.
Im also picking up the game books I'm missing when I can.
Congrats, I'm still working on my collection of the novels. I love 'em- great pulp sci-fi fantasy that I have yet to see anyone do better on- even the new books don't stand up to the originals.
And on a side note, I still use the original slang whenever I can squeeze them into everyday conversation. My old roomie still calls me chummer.
yeah i call people Omae and chummer all the time
or refer to my "hoop"
lol
what gets me about dropping the slang and even using "the F word" in SR4, one of the old novels i just read, the main character uses the "f word" and someone says "you said F@%^... how quaint."
heh
In SR4, the game has definately lost its 80's cyberpunk flair, but this new 'cybertech' style is nice, too. I'm even starting to play it after hating on the changes for a good 2 years. My campaign (Chronicles of the A-Team) will remain SR3 until it ends...But the sequel will be SR4.
Huh. Even more than the rule changes for SR4 (which I loved right off the bat), I was SO GLAD to see the desperately needed fluff changes.
I mean, when it got to the point that (despite the "megapulse" handwaviness) I could go out and buy better, more compact technology today than much of the everyday tech in SR3's 2063, the fluff was waaaaaay overdue for some updating.
(Just trying to see Superfly's missing post)
Edit: There it is!
I have some thoughts on your post, Superfly, but it'll have to wait until morning. Time for bed for me.
I mean, when it got to the point that (despite the "megapulse" handwaviness) I could go out and buy better, more compact technology today than much of the everyday tech in SR3's 2063, the fluff was waaaaaay overdue for some updating.
Ah, remember the good old days (SR1/SR2, circa 94 or so) when it cost 1.5 million nuyen to get a satellite connection for your cyberdeck so you could deck wirelessly?
Or course, back then, we never dreamed of something like an iPhone or Blackberry, and everyone was on dial-up, so it didn't matter. ;-)
I'm okay with updating the tech after the latest crash. As much as I love SR2 (my favorite edition, because its the one I started with) I think the decision to update the tech base and also move to incorporate deckers more seemlessly into the main action was the right one.
It makes the suspension of disbelief easier, especially on new players that don't have an attachment to the SR1/SR2 era. And it makes decking, always a cool choice for flavor, but hard to implement properly in a group during play, a viable option.
*Of course, I'm throwing all this out with the disclaimer that while I have played multiple campaigns in SR1 & SR3, the vast majority of my play was SR2. And I haven't played any SR4 yet, aside from reading the SR4 & Magic books, and playing through the First Run adventure. (We are too busy with adult life and our current D&D campaigns now to run a second system unfortunately)
Has anyone tried to use the SR4 ruleset (which does seem to be the best of the 4), but run the campaign pre-Crash/Bug Spirits/Big D's election bid, etc?
ie. Set the campaign back in the early 2050s? That might be the best of both worlds, although the GM would have to adjust the tech available...
Has anyone tried to use the SR4 ruleset (which does seem to be the best of the 4), but run the campaign pre-Crash/Bug Spirits/Big D's election bid, etc?
ie. Set the campaign back in the early 2050s? That might be the best of both worlds, although the GM would have to adjust the tech available...
I've wondered that myself
i think itd be cool to do, so many sourcebooks, and story elements to use, I mean 20 years worth of stuff (game time anyway)
Time for a little bump...
Nostalgia -- it's story time, chummers.
Long ago, in 1e ShadowRun, after retiring the Panther Assault Cannon-loving merc, I dipped into the PoWeR. I played a mage.
First edition was rediculous for the sheer number of dice one could roll. Especially in a very long-running campaign with a mage who joined a hermetic society to Initiate and crafted his very own uber-weapon focus. Nothing like 14+ months of [b]real time,/b] working on crafting an item (3 or 4 years in game).
Anyway, I developed my very own mage-zilla. I recall being able to toss off a Clout spell with up to three dozen dice behind it. Nothing like looking at the GM and saying, "OK, that's twelve stages above Deadly".
At this point, all of characters were massively powerful, and we had a GM who could meet that challenge. He crafted a story based off a book he read about Blackbeard still being alive, having found the Fountain of Youth. I wish I could recall the book. Somehow we ended up tracking down BlackBeard, and ultimately did battle with him, in his home, which was so ensorceled that it powered us down a lot (cyberware users and people holding non-enchanted metal pretty much had the option of shutting it down adn putting it away, or taking damage). His magic skills were off the charts (and given he had been alive for 400 years, understandably so).
The culmination of this epic confrontation came down as we players were in a kitchen aroung 3 a.m., desperate to finish this now, finally. My mage, Argent (the original, mind you, not the knock-off that showed up in offical products some years later...) was devoting a ton of dice to spell defense, simply so the rest of the party would not die immediately.
In virtual deadlock, with neither really being able to hurt the other, but with slow attrition on his side, I took a chance and allocated some of those defense dice to offense. What followed was one of those moments where the bell curve shows the outliers. The GM and I through our fistfuls of dice simultaneously. His 18 dice read mostly ones and twos, with only a smattering of sixes. My 14 dice showed 12 sixes. And thus the legend of the astral dice was born. From that moment on, those dice were only used for shadowrun magic. As for the battle itself, all those successes managed to inflict a Severe Wound. Another two rounds of multiple Lights and we claimed vistory.
To top it off, we learned the secret voodoo rituals whcih made him immortal. And though we retired our characters after that campaign, there were a few one-shots over the years where they saw play once again. Still, the immortal characters now always carried a bottle of rum, a bag of gummy bears (for the sugar), and stayed near salt water. That was perhaps the greatest RPG campaign I ever played in. Never since have such scope, breadth, longevity and creativity aligned themselves, and perhaps that is yet another reason I heart SadowRun so much.
Has anyone tried to use the SR4 ruleset (which does seem to be the best of the 4), but run the campaign pre-Crash/Bug Spirits/Big D's election bid, etc?
My gaming group and I came late to shadowrun, but one of us had been a long time fan of the system and has most of the old books. When S4 came out, he ran us through the big Denver shake up, so that we got to use the S4 rules as Ghostwalker ravaged the city, and we had a totaly blast working both sides, and eventually throwing our lot in with the dragon and helping to break the Aztec sector defences so the UCAS could roll in.
Basically, he just said that the first Crash didn't set the world back quite as far as it does in the cannon settings, and so wireless took off sooner rather then later. Since everyone had the wireless tech of S4, the corps were well defended and the game was very balanced.
We had a great time, and will be running again soon.
Never played 4th ed by some mates and i did play at euro gencon 92 with sam lewis... that whole royal family thing... cheese but great too (prince charles as a troll... who'd have thunk it!). to date SR is the only game i have consistently GM'd and i ran thru 1st, 2nd and 3rd eds. this was the first and only game that i have played in and run where it don't matter how great you think you might be even the cops can leave you as nuthin' more than a greasy stain on the streets of seattle. i still have a box full of stuff up in the loft... only thing that got my goat was decking... man it took forever!!!
Mr Johnson (Kendrik)
I had played Shadowrun once or twice and I have to say that, at the time I was not a big fan of the system but I admit that it was 2nd ED. Might have to give that system a second look. :)
Just curious, how did you get the heart sign on the title?
We wrapped up a 2nd Edition game with plans to start again in 2008. Unfortunately it ended in a bit of a mess, our fixer is now missing fingers and two of our runners had to leave Seattle (one runner did not attend as he has finals, Coyote knows what he's going to do now).
Sort of a running gag was whenever we had to think of a plan I would start running off a list of things we "need":
-Hacksaw
-Handcuffs
-Rubber tubing
-Two spools of Razor wire
-Special gloves for handling the wire
-Our Native American Adept has hatchets already.
(The GM seems to be the only one to get the reference so I'm gonna stop).
I play a heavily cybered Bodyguard (archetype) who apprently has no personal memory short of meeting my fellow runners. A subplot had me meeting with a stripper who apparently was someone I knew in the past, just before she got killed by another heavily cybered Yakuza.
Naturally I'm on this crusade to find her killer and avenge her but after the first session with this subplot, I started thinking. This sort of revenge thing is a common staple in pulp fiction, but they never show the crazy guy out for revenge thinking about the victim, what'll happen to their remains, their family and such.
So next week I started by putting the hunt for revenge on hold and arranged for the dead girl's funeral even paid for it out of my pocket and we were almost broke at the time.
My other runners were not impressed, they act like a bunch of borderline sociopaths most of the time. It's funny how I'm at 0.1 Essence, yet I seem to have the most "soul" in my whole group.
So, the 4th edition shadowrun group I am GMing for had their second game yesterday and I've had a few thoughts about it the system, and generally how it feels to play Shadowrun.
I've played in one campaign, and am now running my second. Basicly, in every game I've been in, the run works generally the same way.
I'd like to know if this i how everybody's games go:
-Call is placed to team: Minor character development stuff to bring party to meet.
-Meeting with the Johnson: An intresting bar or reastraunt to meet in, minor talking with the NPC, and a negotion role. Money sometimes exchanged.
-Legwork phase: Where the game flounders a bit as the team thrashes about trying to find the info they need. Usually, it comes down to a good Data Search roll, as contacts prove unreliable because of low dice pools.
-The PLAN: Group takes an half an hour to an hour to carefully plan their entry, exit, and general stratigies to deal with the defences. Plans have involved chicken, Voodoo, pretending to be the cops, or generalling just shooting/hitting people until they stop moving.
-The Run begins: Character tip toe towards thier goal, rolling Stealth and generally trying to be quite about things. Rolls are made, spirits are summoned, and the team enters whatever location they are going to. Careful planning gets the team most of the way in, until somebody forgets an important item, say bolt cutters, or rolls their dice and blows the banishing or similair.
-Benny Hill Music starts: Gunfire ensues, frantic dodging bends credibility, crazy driving ruins the lawn, mind control and more chicken happens to people, and generally everything goes crazy. The plan is totally useless, the characters run fast as they can through the rest of the run, often ending in a mad capped chase as they evade the cops, other shadowrunners, and generally look like fools as they escape. (Hopefully with their target in hand.)
-Final meet with Johnson: Goods are delivered, payment is received, and people use first aid. Characters return home, hoping not to see themselves on the evening news.
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Shadowrun ranks as one of the best RPG's EVAR.
I'm still of mixed emotions on SR4. I was excited as hell when it came out, but my primitive brain has problems processing all of the implications of the whole wireless world. I like the old mechanics better, clunky or not, though.
Since SR4's release, I've run several games using the new rules. It's not bad, it just doesn't seem right to me somehow. (The improvement for deckers is great though). I think the next game I run though will go back to SR3.
I get to play some SR3 later today.
Hell yeah.
w00tage 100%
Amusing account of typical shadowrun snipped
That's hilarious, but also one of the reasons I stopped playing SR. All the runs seemed the same. I find it's more interesting to take the world of SR and really twist it up (make it more post-apocalyptic) and to squeeze out all those tired 80s cliches. SR4 was a decent update to the rules and technology, but it seems to lack the cruel cyberpunk flavour of the old versions (1 and 2). I also miss Tim Bradstreet's gritty art. Now it's all anime/super-action and that rubs me the wrong way.
SR4 was a decent update to the rules and technology, but it seems to lack the cruel cyberpunk flavour of the old versions (1 and 2). I also miss Tim Bradstreet's gritty art. Now it's all anime/super-action and that rubs me the wrong way.
Yeah, what is it with fourth editions of games?!? j/k
We played some SR3 yesterday.
I am so envious. I haven't played in over a year. I think I may have to run a game, though not until March when I will have some more free time to set things up. At least I seem to have some players in this area.