Shadowrun

[Munk]

Visit the OOC now!



Hoi, chummers. I feel like the Sprawl needs a visit.

So, Turtlicious is already hosting a Shadowrun tabletop game, but I figured it might be nice to do one here on the boards.

For those of you who don't know (although at least a passing familiarity with the Shadowrun universe would be really sweet), Shadowrun is a tabletop RPG set in the 2070s. Not only has technology evolved to the point of people surfing the internet in virtual reality through a neural interface and replacing limbs with cybernetic ones, magic's had a comeback as well, bringing with it elves, trolls, dwarves, orks and pretty much every kind of paranormal creature you've ever heard of. Saeder-Krupp is even run by a dragon. Shadowrunners are deniable assets, hired by the all-powerful corporations to accomplish the kind of missions that you don't want traced back to you. So a katana-wielding, spell-slinging mage might be working alongside a hacker and a troll with huge cyberarms in order to, uh, extract a scientist from one corp to another. Think Leverage with elves and robots.

There are very few limits to what a Shadowrunner can be and do, but here are a few of the archetypes often found on a team:

The Face takes care of social interactions. Need a grifter to provide a distraction at a fancy party? Someone to seduce a password out of that wageslave? The Face is your guy—or girl. Sometimes both.

The Street Samurai is a cybernetically enhanced killing machine who's literally got wired reflexes. Master of every weapon, the Street Sam is willing to carve out a piece of himself if it means replacing it with a better, faster part.

The Hacker lives and breathes the Matrix. Give her thirty seconds alone with a wireless connection, and she'll have turned the building's security system on itself. She knows about your porn collection.

The Rigger isn't just a mere getaway driver, he's also got a sizable collection of drones. He's got you covered on machines, even if it means he has to load his mind into a drone and become one with it.

The Magician takes care of the paranormal. These days every corp's got wagemages on patrol, and you need The Magician to deal with that. Whether they're a hermetic mage, casting obscure spells from their digital tomes or a shaman communing with the spirits of the Sprawl, you can be sure The Magician will see that fireball coming before you do.

I'm not sure about the particulars—I have next to no GM experience, and there are a lot of ways to go about a Shadowrun RP—but I'm totally open to suggestions. Casual would probably work best for this kind of thing. Here's what I figure so far:

This is gonna be a relatively short mission. It lowers the chance of RP death, and if we wanna cary on, it's as simple as going on a second job (with new people if they wanna join).

A typical Shadowrun follows four phases: getting the job, planning the mission, the mission itself, getting paid. I think that might be a good idea to follow. Gives us some variety, lets the players plan a heist (come on, you know you've always wanted to!), and it ensures we won't be stuck in a single scene for too long.

I really don't wanna railroad this thing (although I'm definitely gonna end up doing it anyway, so feel free to call me out!). So I was thinking, while I'm probably gonna be establishing a few things in a scene, so I thought we could use the good ol' "if it's posted, it's canon". If you write that your character spots a guy on the roof, there's a guy on the roof.

We'll figure out the actual mission once we've got our players ready in the OOC, as it depends on the players. If nobody wants to be a hacker (althought I doubt that, you get to hack computers with your mind), I'm not gonna send people on a dataheist.

Check out the Shadowrun Wiki if you wanna read up on stuff, or just ask any questions you might have.

Cheers!

[Munk]

I think a bump would be appropriate now. Let's throw in a pic of some classic Shadowrun while we're at it.

[Lord Pie]

This would be very interesting.

I've only played shadowrun on the xbox 360 - so the shooter version I'm assuming as I had no idea it was a tabletop game!

I thought the ideas were all awesome so I'd be pretty game.

[Munk]

I've never played it, but from what I've heard it got at least some of the lore right. The setting is very much what you make of it, so putting an emphasis on whatever seems most intriguing about the Shadowrun universe should be no problem. Is there any character type you find more interesting than others? Any questions?

(I've got a pal from the Old Guild over in a nearly identical thread in Casual IntChks who's game. I'd like a few more people to show interest before we start an OOC, but I see no problem with throwing some ideas around as to the structure of the game.)

[Blue Demon]

I've always wanted to get into shadowrun game, but I haven't been able to find anyone who runs one where I live. Here it's all Magic Cards, LoL, and D&D.

[Munk]

This probably isn't gonna be an actual Shadowrun game (although I have been toying with the idea of having players roll dice to see how well their character does on something and using it in a post), but this Sunday, Turtlicious is gonna be running a Shadowrun game using a Dungeon World hack for rules. I'm in that one as well. Here's a link if you wanna check it out.

[Blue Demon]

I did, but alas, the time everyone is available is like 3 in the morning for me. And to be honest, I'm not staying up that long just to get in a game.

[Munk]

Oh, right. That's no good, then. I have the same problem—people don't really run SR in Denmark. You're welcome here ^^ you familiar with the setting?

[Blue Demon]

Vaguely.

I've read a little about it, but I probably need to read up more. The link you gave seems to be handy. I'll have to troll that for more information.

[Blue Demon]

Questions (Yay!)
I've skimmed through what you've given me twice. (Still cross-eyed) Now I've got some questions. I'm assuming we're going to be Shadowrunners. So that's not really a question.
1) Races. In the manual (of doom!) there are humans, elves, trolls, orcs and dwarves that are playable. However in the wiki link you gave there are such things as shapeshifters. Link. Are we just going stick with the main five races, or can we play others?
2) You mentioned rolling dice, how much will that affect our characters. Will we need to pull up stats and the like to also affect our dice roll (if we do such a thing)
3) I'm going out on a limb here and assuming this is mostly going to be free form because you didn't put this in the table top area, confirmation?

Whew. About done for now.

[Munk]

Let's do this.

1. Yeah, there's a crapload of other races in Shadowrun. Shapeshifters frequently end up in the shadows seeing as they're often actively hunted. Like I said, I don't have any specific idea about where this is gonna go yet, so at the moment I'm cool with other races.


2. Yeah, Idunno about the dice. I thought it might be cool to just, like, use the Sixth World rules with rolling 2d6, counting 1-6 as a fail, 7-9 as a weak success and 10+ as a strong success, and basing the post on the result. Just to reflect how things can go haywire and stuff. But these things get really complicated really quickly, so maybe we should just stick to hashing it out in the OOC.


3. Either way, it's gonna be mostly free-form. I'd like to run an actual game at some point, but it's not gonna be right now ^_^

Hope that cleared things up a bit.

[Blue Demon]

It did.

Munk said But these things get really complicated really quickly, so maybe we should just stick to hashing it out in the OOC.

So I guess I'll wait for an OOC then for the rest of it. :D

[Munk]

By "hashing it out" I meant more like "figuring out if beating up these bad guys is gonna go smoothly," but most of the time I figure people can handle it themselves. I don't think we're quite at the OOC stage yet. I still wanna figure out how this is gonna go down, then I can get an OOC up.

Gimme a sec, then I can write down what I've been thinking so far and run it by you guys.

[Blue Demon]

I kind of assumed you wanted more interest. And those people would probably have more input than me and then we'd be ready for an OOC wherein we'd probably be ready to address what I'm thinking. Not that I wanted an OOC "RIGHT NOW". :D

[Munk]

That might actually be a better idea. Gives me time to write a little more.

[Munk]

Alright, updated the OP with what I've been thinking so far.

This is gonna be a relatively short mission. It lowers the chance of RP death, and if we wanna cary on, it's as simple as going on a second job (with new people if they wanna join).

A typical Shadowrun follows four phases: getting the job, planning the mission, the mission itself, getting paid. I think that might be a good idea to follow. Gives us some variety, lets the players plan a heist (come on, you know you've always wanted to!), and it ensures we won't be stuck in a single scene for too long.

I really don't wanna railroad this thing (although I'm definitely gonna end up doing it anyway, so feel free to call me out!). So I was thinking, while I'm probably gonna be establishing a few things in a scene, so I thought we could use the good ol' "if it's posted, it's canon". If you write that your character spots a guy on the roof, there's a guy on the roof.

We'll figure out the actual mission once we've got our players ready in the OOC, as it depends on the players. If nobody wants to be a hacker (althought I doubt that, you get to hack computers with your mind), I'm not gonna send people on a dataheist.

[Munk]

Okay, an OOC is up now. Take a look here: Sprawl Stories

[Foster]

Geting paid is the hardest part.

#YOLO

[Munk]

Thought I'd bring this back to the top and remind people that we're still totally accepting players over in the OOC. Come on over and say hello!