|
I looked through all 5 pages of threads in here but was unable to find anything on Shadowrun. Currently, i'm in a 4ed DnD group, and want to start another night of RPG'ing - been perusing Shadowrun 4ed and looks like that's where we'll go. I've never "run" a Shadowrun campaign and will be trying my hand at DM/GM'ing. Those who I have questioned about Shadowrun have only praise for it. A few questions: - Do you need a grid for combat - Are there any awesome "tips" from people who have played/GM'd before? - The intro adventure I have a copy of is "On the Run", any experience with it? - Where is a good online source of Shadowrun literature (general tips, or even conversation on it)? If there isn't already (if there is please point me to it), perhaps we could get a Shadowrun discussion in TG/Discussion?
|
#
?
Jun 25, 2009 14:33
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 19, 2024 19:56 |
|
|
Shadowrun doesn't require a grid for combat. The most of a map you'll need is something that has the highlights of whatever secure facility your players are breaking into that night. Don't get too bogged down in details when preparing a run, and be ready to make up stuff on the fly. Shadowrun isn't nearly as combat-driven as D&D is; SR combat takes a long time and a lot of dice rolls to run, and characters can die very easily if they're not wearing the equivalent of tank armor. The game encourages players to stay out of combat, using their skills, technological and magical toys, and their contacts to solve problems and move the story forward. If your characters need to shoot somebody, they should shoot to kill or at least to end the confrontation immediately, and not get into a protracted firefight. Shadowrun characters are based mainly on the skills they know; there is no level equivalent like in D&D that keeps characters on roughly equal footing. Characters that try to cover too many bases will be weak in all of them. Each character should focus on a gimmick or a shtick, something they do really well to contribute to the team's success. It's okay if a character is underpowered in combat, especially if full balls-out combat never has a chance to get started. Your characters will have contacts, and contacts are really important in this game. It's not what you know, it's who you know, and it should always be possible to cover a missing skill or needed talent by calling in contacts and friends-of-friends. As the GM, you should be ready to roleplay an NPC out of your rear end for the players' contacts, not to mention the random bystanders or passers-by that could get in the players' way. As for online communities, Dumpshock is the premiere forum in my experience, although it's been a while since I've been active there.
|
|
#
?
Jun 25, 2009 16:27
|
|
|
I'm agreeing with IMJack on all points. Also, On The Run is currently being run by Grey Hunter in TG. And yes, Dumpshock is the best of the best. The guys from Catalyst Games actually post fairly regularily, and Dumpshock is pretty much the first place to get errata and the occasional sneak preview. Dumpshock also has a fairly active PbP board, as long as you get picky about the players in the game (I recently had a game I was running collapse from lack of posting: the first PbP game I was in there died because the GM dissapeared). A couple of the games there have been running for YEARS. Also, another note about combat: You can and will get hosed if you don't get the drop on the enemy, or at least force them to spend thier time running and hiding instead of shooting. Be careful with where you throw grenades too, because if you're not careful you'll get turned into chunky salsa.
|
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2009 00:16
|
|
|
Wow, that pbp of On the Run is awesome to read through and get a feel for it. Two of the players in the group are quite familiar with Shadowrun, so hopefully we shouldn't get too stuck.
|
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2009 07:09
|
|
|
Imagine a D&D game of all Rogues. Yes, when poo poo hits the fan if you're a quick thinker you can kick a lot of rear end, but the general idea is that unless your entire build is all around combat you have a high death risk. Shadowrun really encourages you to be the dudes who slip in through the hole in the fence, creeps along the wall, sprints in and steals the file before anyone knows there's even a drat hole in the fence. The best advice is to remember, even when your job is to kill someone, nine times out of ten, you're not a thug. Hell, even Street Sams are useful in other things besides raw killing if built well. You aren't the guys that break the door in, kill everyone that moves, and then kills the target. You're the guys that steal a vehicle owned by the target's corp, use it to get in the compound he stays in, sneaks off to a good secluded area, sets up a sniper den, and then engages in a high speed escape out as a pair of attack helicopters fly after you, after they clean the guy's remains off the side of the wall though. Shadowrun is one of my favorite settings, I love all the editions (though 4th has fixed so many annoying problems it takes the cake), the setting is beautifully described, the BBS styled books makes reading even books you don't need fun, and all in all it just generally does 'cyberpunk' in the best way. Also I've never been to Dumpshock, but it looks pretty neat!
|
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2009 07:36
|
|
|
I'm glad you think so! Dumpshock is a great place, but powergaming is rampant. It's fine to do a bit of min/maxing, but a fun character is every bit as good as a badass killing machine. On the subject of killing anything that moves, I'ev noticed a disturbing lack of recoilless rifles in Arsenal. The closest thing is a bloody mortar! Would someone here happen to have some sort of stats for one? It'd be much appreciated.
|
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2009 07:51
|
|
|
Timefortea posted:Wow, that pbp of On the Run is awesome to read through and get a feel for it. Thanks! Thats what I was aiming for. Shadowrun can be complex in places, the matrix being the worst, but once you get the idea of the hits system, most things play out in that. Avoiding combat and generally being sneaky important in the game, and be careful about combat. I've seen characters of 10+ runs blown apart in combats against street punks, one time thrown in because the GM thought that the session would be boring as it had no combat in it. So he had us mugged, five combat turns later (about 15 seconds) and four highly skilled runners were dead. In "On The Run", the team have been in one fight, and 3/4 players came out injured, and as healing is much slower, the've had to go to the street doc, as each type of healing (magic, first aid, medical) can only be applied once to each wound, a long run with no downtime for natural healing can lead to players being unfit for the finalie. Great setting though, you can do practically anything with the combination of magic and technology. As I hope to show in Cyberpirates of the Carribean 
|
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2009 13:23
|
|
|
This has always been my favorite example of how a Shadowrun game should play out. It's several years and two game editions old, but still relevant.
|
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2009 15:25
|
|
|
SR is the best RPG world made to date. Just tons of stuff going on, and drat cool. I read all the little dime novels, and there are some that are just "wow, this is a cheesy RPG novel? This should be a movie." One of the worst set of rules mechanics in comparison to how bitchin' the world is. I can't imagine running a game because of that failing, and I'm too lazy to make a d20/4e port.
|
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2009 16:02
|
|
|
I found the Urban Brawl rules online a while ago. I love the poo poo people are assumed to do for entertainment in 50 years: Combat Cycles, Simsense/Better-Than-Life, The Shadowrun MMORPG that exists in the Shadowrun tabletop game...
|
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2009 17:56
|
|
|
mr4 posted:I found the Urban Brawl rules online a while ago. I love the poo poo people are assumed to do for entertainment in 50 years: Combat Cycles, Simsense/Better-Than-Life, The Shadowrun MMORPG that exists in the Shadowrun tabletop game... Holy poo poo, Urban Brawl rules. That's loving awesome. Now I just need to do an Urban Brawl game. Edit: given there's enough interest in a game that's going to be 60% combat, 20% football/soccer/rugby, 10% running for your lives, and 10% talking, getting paid, and buying gear, I might be willing to run ssuch a thing. We'd also have to do short rounds with small teams, 5 minutes IC per round with five or six members per team, resulting in an extremely fast and brutal game. And lots of room for replacements. MohawkSatan fucked around with this message at 23:56 on Jun 26, 2009 |
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2009 23:35
|
|
|
The thing that got me about Shadowrun 4e was that the Matrix rules, while a lot better than those in previous editions, were extremely badly-explained. Matrix combat seems to just be "I attack him, did I hit, he attacks me, did he hit" ad nauseam, and having nodes limited to System values of 6 was just retarded. Did they ever say if it was okay for an Agent to run an Agent to run an Agent to run an Agent and just have a huge army of Agent programs to do everything? The rules as written confuse the hell out of me.
|
|
#
?
Jun 29, 2009 01:32
|
|
|
Gort posted:The thing that got me about Shadowrun 4e was that the Matrix rules, while a lot better than those in previous editions, were extremely badly-explained. Matrix combat seems to just be "I attack him, did I hit, he attacks me, did he hit" ad nauseam, and having nodes limited to System values of 6 was just retarded. the Agent Smith trick (agents running agents) is perfectly possible... Keeping in mind that each agent is a program, and anything they run is a program. As for overall Matrix rules, SR4A really cleared it up so it wasn't quite so damned confusing.
|
|
#
?
Jun 29, 2009 01:55
|
|
|
IMJack posted:This has always been my favorite example of how a Shadowrun game should play out. It's several years and two game editions old, but still relevant. It was a nice story but this has two of the characters not doing anything for about 70% of the game time  Anyway, Shadowrun's a good game but from what I've read of the official missions they are not very impressive. I think you're better off knowing what characters you'll be running for, and working out missions that will have something for everyone to do. Wi-fi inhibiting wallpaper and astral barriers may seem like something to put a damper on Hackers and Magicians, but they actually make the game better, for my money, because it means the hackers and mages come along instead of doing a boring 20 minute solo scouting mission. Oh and the rules are a mess of crazy modifiers. As an example, there's six different types of visibility conditions (Full Darkness, Partial Light, Glare, Light fog/smoke, Heavy fog/smoke, Thermal smoke), and then four different types of vision (Normal, Low Light, Thermographic, Ultrasound). So there's 24 different dice pool modifiers based on the conditions and what you're seeing through. I have a feeling they could've just done a simple "okay conditions, no mod", "poor conditions, -2" and "real lovely conditions, -4" but, I dunno, maybe the book didn't have enough tables. Then there's about 25 different possible modifiers for ranged attacks, and about half that many for melee. It's a mess, a horrible but awesome mess that can make for some great games once you're familiar with the rules (or just decide to say screw it and approximate everything).
|
|
#
?
Jun 29, 2009 02:50
|
|
|
children overboard posted:(or just decide to say screw it and approximate everything).
|
|
#
?
Jun 29, 2009 06:28
|
|
|
I'm a big SR fan and currently play in a 3rd edition group. I've been thinking about a troll adept who specializes in social skills and powers like cool resolve, voice modulation & empathetic reading. To deal with any combat, he has a background in unarmed pit-fighting from his youth in the Pullayup. Combined with adept powers Killing Hands (S) & Delay Damage 2, he can do 12S+ damage to an unwitting target by bumping into him on the street and be two blocks away before the guy explodes into gibs. A charismatic troll adept assassin. How could that not be fun to play?
|
|
#
?
Jul 1, 2009 05:25
|
|
|
Cozy Hemp Mines posted:I'm a big SR fan and currently play in a 3rd edition group. I've been thinking about a troll adept who specializes in social skills and powers like cool resolve, voice modulation & empathetic reading. Sounds kickass to me.
|
|
#
?
Jul 1, 2009 06:58
|
|
|
Cozy Hemp Mines posted:A charismatic troll adept assassin. How could that not be fun to play? He has no hacking skills (of which there are 500).
|
|
#
?
Jul 3, 2009 01:59
|
|
|
So....what's all this I hear about the RAW 4e book being almost out-of-box unplayable, though? I mean (and I own it here, just never played it and I'm not particularly familiar), it looks a lot more coherent than 3rd, but people have been telling me that certain rules are either completely wrong or just completely missing, and telling me to get the 20th Anniversary Edition. Can someone confirm/deny this? (grognard alert: gently caress the wireless matrix in its shiny wireless rear end)
|
|
#
?
Jul 8, 2009 06:26
|
|
|
Confirm. Shadowrun 4e as released is certainly playable, but it has a lot of issues.
|
|
#
?
Jul 8, 2009 06:39
|
|
|
FirstCongoWar posted:Confirm. Shadowrun 4e as released is certainly playable, but it has a lot of issues. Like layout? I've never seen an RPG book that is more confusing to navigate when I need something specific. ((And that includes the misleading WOD indexes.)) I do like that they had the 'how to modify to taste' sidebar/page in the book though.
|
|
#
?
Jul 8, 2009 07:11
|
|
|
Another confirmation as being highly playable out of the box. The main issues are how things are laid out, especially Matrix based things. Magic, combat, and pretty much everything else are fairly easy. But get the Aniversery Edition anyways. Shiney pretty colours and pages upon pages of flavour text. Shiny. Edit: Seriously, gently caress the Matrix. That poo poo is confusing as gently caress and left to a dedicated technomancer(who is also our Matrix rules specialist) in our group. MohawkSatan fucked around with this message at 07:46 on Jul 8, 2009 |
|
#
?
Jul 8, 2009 07:36
|
|
|
With everyone talking about the anniversary edition, I'm going to need to pick it up myself. . . considering my first book has gone missing somewhere. . . ((I've moved twice in the last six months, could be anywhere.)) I still haven't gotten to play since buying the first book. ((Local runners = rare.))
|
|
#
?
Jul 8, 2009 07:47
|
|
|
The SR4 core book is horribly organised. It's a loving mess. Playable, but have fun learning everything. One thing I always do is have everyone roll up two characters. Shadowrun is deadly, and the runs require diverse skill sets from one to the next. With a character pool of 10 characters you're never really limited in what you can run, and little downtime for when poo poo hits the fan. Karma gained applies to all characters even if they didn't play that run, prevents some being under equipped when it's there time to shine. Be sure to cause trouble for everything too. Contacts drying up, some runs may cost more than the pay off, hacking and stealing drones, false/late information. Bad reputation from lovely work, or worse. That's not to say gently caress them everytime/all the time but keep them aware that running has some serious down sides. Shadowrun is a complex world and everything interacts. Be prepared for batshit insane ideas too. Because of the tech level, magic and overall feel of the world, your hard rear end run could turn into a cake walk. Go with the flow and reward them too, or if the idea is a terrible one don't be scared to make them pay. Welcome to the shadows chummer.
|
|
#
?
Jul 8, 2009 08:09
|
|
|
Aye, it can all go to poo poo in Shadowrun quickly. It's one of the two games where I like to have my players have two or more characters: one primary and the others back up. The other game is All Flesh Must Be Eaten, where I recently had a zombie bite someone's throat out, killing them instantly, and having the body jump back up five seconds later and start attacking. On the note of skills, with a decent fixer for an established team, they shouldn't be getting jobs that go outside of thier skill sets. You don't set a group of sneaks to steal data, a team of detectives to blow up a building, Matrix specialists to handle a Toxic spirit, or a team of combat monsters to sneak in and steal something. A well balanced team has someone who can do one thing well and everything else decently. Your hacker, or face, or sammy should be able to do everything the other team members can, but nowhere near as well.
|
|
#
?
Jul 8, 2009 11:41
|
|
|
The General posted:One thing I always do is have everyone roll up two characters. Shadowrun is deadly, and the runs require diverse skill sets from one to the next. With a character pool of 10 characters you're never really limited in what you can run, and little downtime for when poo poo hits the fan. Karma gained applies to all characters even if they didn't play that run, prevents some being under equipped when it's there time to shine. You know, that might be fun for forum play as well, instead of people creating characters for specific games, have a thread full of everyone current character, and then do the runs as one shots/short campaigns, picking out of the "database" Character gets killed, go back to the pool with a new one. Also, whoever wrote the matrix ruls *for every goddam edition of this game* should be beaten to death with their own works.
|
|
#
?
Jul 8, 2009 12:50
|
|
|
Grey Hunter posted:Also, whoever wrote the matrix ruls *for every goddam edition of this game* should be beaten to death with their own works. Agreed, though it seems to be getting better, from what I've heard of 2nd and 3rd editions. SR4A helps a lot too, since it's actually possible to read through it and understand WTF is going on.
|
|
#
?
Jul 8, 2009 13:42
|
|
|
MohawkSatan posted:Agreed, though it seems to be getting better, from what I've heard of 2nd and 3rd editions. SR4A helps a lot too, since it's actually possible to read through it and understand WTF is going on. Oh yeah,I've played 2+4 and read 3 quickly, and the 4th edition rules are the simplest. still make my brain hurt though.
|
|
#
?
Jul 8, 2009 14:25
|
|
|
The General posted:One thing I always do is have everyone roll up two characters. Shadowrun is deadly, and the runs require diverse skill sets from one to the next. With a character pool of 10 characters you're never really limited in what you can run, and little downtime for when poo poo hits the fan. Karma gained applies to all characters even if they didn't play that run, prevents some being under equipped when it's there time to shine. I've never run a Run (  ) but my idea is to make a big pile of pregens for my group, since we'll mostly be doing a series of semi-connected oneshots. That way, they don't have to make their own characters (since none of them have the books) and we can jump right into the action at the start of a session, despite dead characters or new players. And yeah, I know pregens suck, but these people have been my friends for decades and I know what they like (and they certainly don't like making characters, other than suggesting concepts).Question: has anyone ever played a good vehicle rigger or had one in their game? They just seem so easy to leave out during the fun parts of a mission.
|
|
#
?
Jul 8, 2009 19:22
|
|
|
Oh, Troll punch-adepts. You are the most hilariously broken thing. But significantly less broken than you were in 3rd, 'cuz I mean goddamn.
|
|
#
?
Jul 9, 2009 00:10
|
|
|
Though 4th ed has its flaws, I think the way the setting has progressed more than makes up for it. An unwired Matrix makes sense considering the advances of today's society and it opens up an avenue of play usually unavailable to players. Some of the new source books have been good too but standard. The 20th anniversary edition is pretty nice too. It looks really good and is easier to navigate. You still need to have a level of knowledge higher than normal to run the game and house rules might be necessary. One of my favorite parts of Shadowrun is the rich background the game has and it is usually well written. There are big players moving around on occasion too like the Harlequin and Dunklezahn, when he was moving around, but they were not the one's accomplishing stuff, kinda. The Earthdawn stuff was pretty cool to follow as well. There are always great antagonists too like Aztlan, Imperial Japan, and unspeakable horrors like the Insect Spirits. I kind of always wanted to run a game set in Chicago during the big Insect Spirit invasion. I thought that the Chicago book was really cool and the whole post apocalyptic feel to it was pretty awesome. I never got to run one though because the only game I ran was all new people to the game and I didn't feel like thrusting them into the most dangerous location Shadowrun has had so far.
|
|
#
?
Jul 9, 2009 06:43
|
|
|
Ze Pollack posted:Oh, Troll punch-adepts. You are the most hilariously broken thing. This is why you ALWAYS keep an assault cannon handy. ALWAYS.
|
|
#
?
Jul 9, 2009 12:51
|
|
|
I've never liked bugs as an enemy, they tend to make whatever run your running turn into whichever Alien film the players can best fit it to.
|
|
#
?
Jul 9, 2009 13:03
|
|
|
Grey Hunter posted:I've never liked bugs as an enemy, they tend to make whatever run your running turn into whichever Alien film the players can best fit it to. That's not always a bad thing.
|
|
#
?
Jul 9, 2009 13:45
|
|
|
Grey Hunter posted:I've never liked bugs as an enemy, they tend to make whatever run your running turn into whichever Alien film the players can best fit it to. If they're done right, they can be used as "OH poo poo OH poo poo OH poo poo" type antagonists. For instance the Runners are tasked with assassinating a powerful local don, only for him to turn into a giant insect when poo poo goes down. The characters could then become involved in stopping an insect spirit incursion with far reaching consequences.
|
|
#
?
Jul 9, 2009 15:47
|
|
|
RocknRollaAyatollah posted:If they're done right, they can be used as "OH poo poo OH poo poo OH poo poo" type antagonists. For instance the Runners are tasked with assassinating a powerful local don, only for him to turn into a giant insect when poo poo goes down. The characters could then become involved in stopping an insect spirit incursion with far reaching consequences. 
|
|
#
?
Jul 9, 2009 21:06
|
|
|
Ethnic Hairstyles posted:I learned everything I know from Chrono Trigger. 
|
|
#
?
Jul 9, 2009 21:35
|
|
|
IMJack posted:This has always been my favorite example of how a Shadowrun game should play out. It's several years and two game editions old, but still relevant. More games should have trolls urinating all over everything.
|
|
#
?
Jul 9, 2009 22:04
|
|
|
Shadowrun is a game where you take crippling drug addictions to better build your character to shoot people in the face to earn more money to spend on drugs.
|
|
#
?
Jul 10, 2009 00:44
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 19, 2024 19:56 |
|
|
The first run of the last game I GMed involved two elderly gentleman (both PCs were 70+ years old) hiring a gang to do a drive-by on an Ork Rights Committee rally. They booby trapped the cars they provided for the gang, and blew them up outside the rally. They then used a spirit to retrieve the keynote speaker, but mistimed it and it the spirit dragged her through the explosion at about 30 miles an hour. It ended up handing the runners a leg attached to a pair of shattered hips. They got the hell out of there real fast. The most amazing part is that it was all accomplished without rolling initiative. I love Shadowrun.
|
|
#
?
Jul 10, 2009 02:09
|
|