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Posted by: Bull Apr 6 2010, 03:28 AM

OK ladies and gents! Here's the skinny on what we have coming up for you!

Season 3

Premiering at Origins and Gen Con will be the finale for Season 3. The current New York Missions story arc ends with a bang with SRM 03-12, Elevator Ride to Hell! We'll also be running Missions 6 through 11, which premiered at Gen Con in 2009. All 7 Missions will be run at both Origins and Gen Con (I'll try and get more info about Dragon*Con soon).

SRM 03-06 - JackKnifed

Defend a truck - What could possibly go wrong?

SRM 03-07 - Knight at the Opera

Will the real Damian Knight please stand up?

SRM 03-08 - Firestorm

A hell of a weapon, or the weapon from Hell?

SRM 03-09 - Something Completely Different

The runners awaken in the lobby coat closet of the Guggenheim museum with no memory of how they arrived. Outside, they find a party going in full swing.

SRM 03-10 - Spin Control

Mr. Johnson hires the runners to locate a shadow project being conducted in Manhattan.

SRM 03-11 - Food Poisoning

Saying, "Business in the City is cutthroat"� is like saying "Russian roulette can cause headaches."� You get the point, just not the severity

SRM 03-12 - Elevator Ride to Hell!

Because a basket isn't big enough.

Convention Mission Pack 01

We're not ready to announce what's next for Missions after Season 3, but in the meantime, we're debuting the Convention Mission Pack! These are a series of adventures that are designed to be run at this years conventions, so you should see them for Origins, Gen Con, Dragon*Con, and should be available for any other convention that's running missions. The CMP series (Listed as simply the MP series for Origins and Gen Con) are adventures not directly related to Season 3 (Or Season 2, or even Season 1). They can take place anywhere and involved nearly anything. You can take your current Missions character in to experience these adventures, and they're still worth karma and nuyen of course. If you're looking for a break from the Streets of New York, time to take a vacation with the CMP adventure series!

CMP 01-01 through CMP 01-04 will be debuting at Origins, with CMP 01-05 through 01-08 debuting at Gen Con!

CMP 01-01 - Manhunt

Fifteen years ago Seattle was plagued by a number of vicious animal attacks. These attacks seem to be on the rise again but Knight Errant is not taking them seriously, a retired Lone Star cop takes matters into his own hands. Is this just a coincidence or is Seattle about to repeat history?

CMP 01-02 Copycat Killer?

The Mayan Cutter and Tempo were two of the causes that the Star lost its Seattle contract. Shortly after Knight Errant took over, the killings stopped. Conspiracy theorists believed the Cutter was a ploy by KE to bring the Star down but now the killings have started again. Is it a copycat or the real deal?

CMP 01-03 - Ashes

Six decades after the Awakening Seattle’s Ork Underground stands at the very threshold of mainstream endorsement. But with Governor Brackhaven’s election , can this safe haven for metahumanity hope to weather the coming political storm?

CMP 01-04 - Humanitarian Aid

Horizon’s community clinic was robbed, days before their scheduled outreach program. When 3,000 people are at risk of dying, even the good guys will call you to go and hurt some bad guys.

CMP 01-05 - Lost Islands Found

When news of ruins appearing on an island comes up, several groups want to have exclusive rights. Now you need to remove some of the competition.

CMP 01-06 - Deconstructing Patriots

The New Revolution came a hair’s breadth from success. In the fallout, many of their supporters went to ground. It’s time to bring a few of them into the light.

CMP 01-07 - Congressional Conspiracies

Unification. That one word could destroy the CAS or start another war. With conflicts simmering throughout the world, there can be profit in war and even more profit in rearmament before hand.

CMP 01-08 - Stormcrow Undone

If you provide the pictures, I’ll provide the war. When pictures come out that the war is being supported for the wrong reasons, the media needs to find a new way to spin.

Retirement Age

Since the end of Season 3 provides us with a break in the action, once Gen Con wraps and we officially start Season 4, we're also going to be implementing the Promotion System. There will be more details coming on that in the next few months, but the basics are simple. To help keep the playing field a little more level, we'll be introducing a mandatory retirement "Age" for all characters at or above a certain karma level at the beginning of each season. THe Character will be promoted to Prime Runner status, and there will be some benefit that you can get for a new character, a benefit for having reached that level with a previous character. We will also be releasing Prime Runner Missions down the line, advanced missions designed for more powerful characters so you can take your old characters out for a spin.

There's a lot of stuff in the works for that, and not everything is finalized yet, but we'll be sure to give everyone a heads up. This won't effect Season 3 at all, and basically will go into effect once Season 4 Launches.

Tournament and Scramble

As usual, there will be a Shadowrun Tournament at Gen Con this year.

PITO:PITA

Social networking is all well and good but it gets particularly exciting in 2072, especially if all your friends are professional criminals. A contact just been burned and broadcasted his predicament via local Matrix ping. The cops, the yaks, and possibly a major corps are gunning for his butt, not 10 blocks from where you just settled into a nice cup of soykaf. Can you bail him out and get him to safety before it all comes crashing down?

(Note: This is a 2 night adventure)

Shadowrun Scramble

I'll let Aaron fill you in on what he's got planned for this years Scramble when he gets back from his Honeymoon.

---------------------

So, that's whats coming up. Any questions?

Posted by: KnightRunner Apr 6 2010, 12:50 PM

Will the CMP' s ever be released for open play, or will they remain convention only?

Posted by: Bull Apr 6 2010, 04:29 PM

There's been talk, but nothing definite yet. We'll probably announce something about that once this year's Convention Season is over.

Posted by: TeaTime Apr 6 2010, 09:35 PM

OK, so my PC is getting up there in years, and just guessing, he will probably hit Prime Runner status.

Assuming he hits retirement requirement ceiling, he'll be able to finish up SRM03 Manhattan and get to play the CMP01, but once SRM04 starts, I'll need to start with a new PC, correct?

Man, I'm gonna be sad to say goodbye to the lad....

Posted by: Bull Apr 6 2010, 09:41 PM

The Nomenclature for the CMP seasons needs worked on. May just tag them by years... So Convention Mission Pack 2010, for example. WHatever...

THe CMP's still fall into Season 3, technically. So yeah, you can finish up Season 3 and all of the 2010 CMPs if you like. The Promotion system will only effect you when and if you decide to start playing Season 4.

And like I said, we're planning to do Quarterly Prime Runner Missions that are designed for Promoted characters, so you can still break them out and go nuts. And you'll know that the adventures were written for high rollers like your characters. Big Action, High Stakes, but bBig Rewards.

Bull

Posted by: Bull Apr 9 2010, 05:19 PM

Just to repeat something from the other thread, because I forgot to mention it:

CMP-02 (Copycat Killer?) and 03 (Ashes) have loose ties, but will not be Part 1 and Part 2. I wrote 02, so you should play that and then tell me how much it sucks

CMP-04 (Humanitarian Aid) and CMP-5 (Lost Island Found) are loosely a part 1 and part 2. Same with CMP-06 (Deconstructing Patriots) and CMP-07 (Congressional Conspiracies). Neither have to be played together, but like a few of the New York Missions, they play off each other a bit and work better if played in order.

Bull

Posted by: CrystalBlue Apr 10 2010, 05:50 AM

Ok...because I've not tried out a convension-style game for Shadowrun yet, I'd like to ask a few questions that I hope can get answered here before tickets go on sale Sunday.

1.) How easy is Shadowrun Missions to pick up, make a character for, and get ready for GenCon this year? Do I have much to do in the way of rules on how to build it and such?

2.) Are all games that I see Shadowrun Mission games, or are some of them just free-form games? How do I know which ones are Shadowrun Missions?

3.) The Tournament sounds like jolly-good fun and I'd like to take a crack at it, but I see nothing about how to enter on the GenCon site. Do we enter somewhere else?

4.) For both the tournament and the SR Missions, my group is fairly competent. We've been playing since this edition came out and have a very good grasp of the rules. Are we good to just enter into these events, or should we bone up on the rules a lot before we get there? I don't want to bring a nice, fun mage to play and find a horribly broken and min/maxed troll that can hurl harpoons with deadly accuracy.

5.) Anything else a first-time player to SR at GenCon should know? :O

Posted by: Bull Apr 10 2010, 07:37 AM

Generally speaking, it's a standard 400 point Shadowrun 4 Character. Generally the only restrictions are that characters can't use anything that's marked in the book as an "Optional Rule", and a handful of Qualities that tend to be RP heavy (Things like Enemy, Big Regret, etc). Missions games are designed to be run in a narrow time slot (under 4 hours), and it's expected you'll play under a variety of GMs with different players, especially at conventions, so there's no real way for GMs to work these Qualities into game pllay.

A full list can be found at the http://www.shadowrun4.com/missions/srm_faq.shtml



Almost all Missions games should be listed as a Missions game and have a numbering system attached to them. Missions marked SRM03-XX are Season 3 Missions, which take place in New York. Missions listed as MP-XX or CMP-XX are part of the Convention Mission Pack, which are "One Shot" Missions not directly tied to the main Mission season and storyline. If a Shadowrun event is not labled in one of those ways, it's a true One Shot game, designed for casual, fun play. The only exception in the Gen Con registration is the Shadowrun Scramble, which is a special Missions event. It's an 8 hour event, half tabletop, half LARP, and a lot of fun.

The Missions game can be played casually and just for fun as well, and you get Karma and Money and can play the same character. the One Shots are designed to be true one shots, so you don't usually get karma or anything. They also can and often do get a littloe... Out of the ordinary.

Also, you do not have to play the Missions events in order, though it can help the overall narrative. There are a handful of Missions that are written to play off of earlier ones (and act as a sequal), but playing them out of order doesn't really hurt anything.



The Tournament this year is called PITO: PITA. It's a 2-day event, all you have to do is register for the first night (You shouldn;t be able to register for night two, but Gen Con frequently has trouble with this for some reason, so... Ignore the Saturday night sign up if it's available, and just buy a ticket for night one on Friday. You'll automatically continue on to Night two)



For Missions it's a crapshoot. It's not uncommon to get players who have a ton of karma and know every rule and have minmaxed. We also see a lot of newer players who just sign up looking for SR games and end up grabbing some pregen characters (The Sample Characters from the SR4A book) to run with. So it tends to be a mixed bag. We don;t expect you to know all the rules, and we sometimes ended up teaching the rules as every now and then we get someone totally new to SR. Having a base familiarity does help though. And if you have a solid group, you get to choose the Table Rating, which adjusts the difficulty (and the payout) of the Mission some, so that can help.

For the Tournament, I'm not sure exactly how they're handling that exactly this year. Stephen or Aaron may know the details a bit better. Its been a few years since I was involved with it, and I'm not sure if they changed up any of it.



A) Don't bring all your books. At most, bring the core book and any relevant books for your character if you think you'll need to reference things. ut we usually have at least one set of books on hand for the room, and the GMs usually have their own copies the players can use. So don;t feel like you need to overburden yourself.

B) If you don;t have a character with you, you can play a Sample Character we can provide for your first mission. YOu get one free "redo" after the first Mission, so you can choose to make your own character after that, and apply the karma and money earned to the new character.

C) Bring Dice, Paper, and Pencils. You'd think this would be a no brainer, but you'd be surprised. I have 4 12-count bricks of the bigger Chessex D6's that I bring just for the players to use, and a couple times, the table had to share.

D) Bribery often works on most GMs. So if you bring snacks or drinks and share...

E) If it's your first Gen Con, there are a lot of useful tips out there, but the biggest one is Adam Jury's 3-2-1 rule. A minimum of 3 hours of sleep per night, a minimum of 2 meals per day, and a minimum of 1 shower. For the love of god, please shower. I also suggest bringing along a water bottle and keeping it filled at all times. Makes your life easier.

Good luck!

Bull

Posted by: KnightRunner Apr 10 2010, 12:44 PM

Since Bull brought it up, I thought I would throw a few useful tips out regarding first time Gencon Attendees.

1. Do not be afraid to be early. This gives you plenty of time to explore and learn the area a little. This will help drastically. Trying to find a certain place or room is much easier when the place is next to empty.
Note: Indy has a lot of great places to visit within walking distance of the convention center. My family and I drive to Terre Huate Tuesday after I get off work. (cheaper hotel there) Then make the quick jaunt into Indy Wednesday morning. That gives us all day to do something fun before the con craziness hits hard. Last year we spent the day at the Zoo and rented a boat on the canal. Both within easy walking distance of the convention.

2. Find what you need before you need it. Figure the best route from your hotel to the convention hall. Find the dealers hall and your way back. Locate the room(s) you are most likely to visit and game in.

3. Scope out food. Find some places that you might like to eat at. I usually try to have one good sit down meal while at the convention. Everything else is fast food. Find something close and a quick way to get there. The food court is a great option here. It really is close, fast, and about as good price as your are going to get. Just don't bet on finding a table to sit at. I have gobbled down many a meal, while walking back from the food court.
Note: Some extra advice here. Do not be afraid to bring food if you have the room. Or even buy it once you get there. There is a drug store about 2 blocks away that has the basics. Buying a box of pop-tarts and a 2-liter is a big money and time saver. Not to mention it helps pushing the sleep time to the last minute.

4. Do not try to do it all. GenCon is WAY to big to try. I try to hit it as hard as possible and I still probably only catch 5% of what I would like to do. Figure out your "Must Do's" and get them first. Plan some time for the dealer's hall as well. I like to have some time to just wander around. It's huge and you can easily spend all day in there. Although personally I can only stand a few hours at a time. That place is crazy busy. I have to break it up into chunks for my own sanity.

5. Schedule time for sleep and stick to it. I make sure I am back in the room close to midnight. Since most morning slots are at 8, this gives me a reasonable amount of sleep. The con is full throttle gaming all day long. I am at it from 8am to midnight. If you are not careful you will be a zombie by Saturday or Sunday. It is far more exhausting than most people realize.

6. Since it has been brought up, for the love of god and everyone else, shower! I always shower every morning. I also bring two shirts for every day at the con. They are small and easy to pack. Each day at some point I take a restroom break, change shirts and freshen up the deodorant. And Yes I carry a small travel deodorant in my Convention Essentials Bag and freshen up almost every trip to the restroom. Just say no to gamer funk!

7. Last but not least. Plan to decompress. The Con is basically over by noon on Sunday. That leaves plenty of time for me to drive home and unpack. But I still take Monday off work. Coming home from Gencon is like coming down off a drug high. (So I hear anyway) There is a definite crash, followed by post-con depression. Hey laugh if you want, but it is true. Give your self some time to adjust and make yourself ready to rejoin the real world again.

Posted by: Banaticus Apr 11 2010, 01:17 PM

Also, try not to lose your ID.

When you were "just on time" to the con instead of a a little over a day early because on the way there airport security saw the wooden Pirates of the Caribbean gun next to the tangle of fake pirate jewelry that you threw into your backpack at the last moment (when your suitcase was full of books) for the costume contest on the final day of the con... and having a replica of a firearm in an airport secure area is a felony (thank goodness they didn't press charges)... When you try to go home, the airport is going to...

Just try not to lose your ID.

Posted by: cryptoknight Apr 13 2010, 08:02 PM

*Grumble Grumble*

Anime Central comes before Origins... *Grumble Grumble*

No CMP's for us

*Grumble Grumble*

You know, it actually sucks for me that Acen happens before the beginning of the summer convention season (Origins)... I guess next year we can get this year's CMPs... but *sob* they'll be a year old by then.

Posted by: Bull Apr 13 2010, 08:06 PM

WHen is Acen?

Posted by: Adam Apr 14 2010, 12:31 AM

I didn't invent that rule, I just practice and preach it.

My Gen Con advice, broken into three articles:

http://adamjury.com/2009/gen-con-indy-attendance-tips-part-1-before-the-show/
http://adamjury.com/2009/gen-con-indy-attendance-tips-part-2-at-the-show/
http://adamjury.com/2009/gen-con-attendance-tips-3-looking-for-work/

Posted by: Bira Apr 14 2010, 02:55 AM

I'm pretty out of the loop when it comes to US convention circuit, but I do enjoy reading the Missions adventures. I notice DTRPG only has up to SRM-03-07 for sale. Are the others available anywhere?

Posted by: Casazil Apr 14 2010, 05:04 AM

They are for sale at a rate of 1 per month with last months (i belive) being 03 - 07 so theory states this month you can buy 03 - 08.

Posted by: Bull Apr 14 2010, 05:20 AM

With everything that's been going on, they've been delayed. I don't have an ETA on when it's going to be released, but I'm hoping soon.

I'll post when I know more.

Bull

Posted by: DireRadiant Apr 14 2010, 07:44 PM

May 14, 15, 16. I'll be running 1 through 7 there, so it would actually serve as a good lead in for the Origins and Gencon sets.

Posted by: cryptoknight Apr 15 2010, 03:48 AM

Yes, I very excited and happy when I realized that I scored people I know from these forums as Demo members.

I know I should have expected it, but it still made me happy with glee

Posted by: map Apr 19 2010, 09:37 PM

Bull, any ideas as to how much Karma would be retirement level? Any numbers being tossed around?

Posted by: Bull Apr 20 2010, 12:27 AM

Not yet. We have some ideas, and Aaron had been working ona set of guidelines, but we want to give those a thorough review before we initiate it. But "Retirement" won't kick in until you plan to move to Season 4. So you'll be fine all through Season 3, and through the 2010 CMP's if you end up playing in those.

I will say this, generally we're "aiming" retirement at folks who have carried over from Seasons 1 and 2. If you started a fresh character in Season 3 and have only played in Season 3 Missions, you should be ok. We want to level the playing field some for Season 4, but obviously we don't want to punish players that have been playing through the previous seasons of Missions either. So it's a fine line to walk, and we want to find the right balance.

I do, of course, want to emphasize the fact that there will be a bonus or benefit for a player who retires his previous character. These are still being determined as well, and as with everything else, we need to make sure they're fair and balanced.

I hope to have all of this, and the information for Season 4, ready by late June, as I want to have this information ready for players at Origins.

Bull

Posted by: Blue DragonFly Apr 21 2010, 03:47 AM

It's been mentioned, but stay hydrated, and rest when you can. Get some fresh air occasionally as well. Con-crud really ruins the real world.
--Con-crud is that flu like cold from breathing all the recycled air and germs. Actually it kind of resembles really bad jet-lag.

Posted by: CrystalBlue Apr 29 2010, 10:39 AM

So, now that all of the games seem to have been taken up since tickets went live, I guess that means there's no luck in getting into a game this year for GenCon? This just reminds me why I really, really hate their ordering website. I was barely able to get in and get the tickets for my RPGA events. And each Shadowrun game was only open for that game and no others.

Posted by: SaintHax Apr 29 2010, 10:59 AM

I do hate the ordering system-- I wish there were a +10% up charge on pre order, and no refunds. Sadly, that's not the case, but you probably can play in some games, you just have to have generics and hang out around the table.

This is why I suggested doing the gaming schedule different, but I had no feedback.


On a different note, I hope SRM04 stays in NYC. I hate getting moved around so many times, so quickly.

Posted by: Black Jack Rackham Apr 29 2010, 11:50 AM

That's not exactly true, CrystalBlue. I run SR:M every year for the KFG at The Ram on Wed. This year I'm coming in early early so I'll be doing games Tues night and Wed afternoon.

If you (that is any of you) are interested in playing, signups will begin on July 4th Weekend (not sure exactly when as the PIC hasn't finalized his work schedule yet). Just go to the KFG subforum of the GC Community forums and ask for a spot.

Just so you know, the games will be, Player's Choice on Tues night, and Jackknifed! on Wed afternoon.

Mark

(oh and fyi, no you don't need to be a member of the KFG, games are open and free to all)

Posted by: LurkerOutThere Apr 29 2010, 02:31 PM

Yes and no I've had good luck getting into games with just Generics and at least personally as long as I don't have another commitment and there is table space or space somewhere and Chuck (or whoever is herding cats for us) is cool with it I will be happy to run extra tables for folks to get as many people as possible in seats and playing.

Posted by: CrystalBlue Apr 30 2010, 02:43 PM

Yeah...my brother always does our ordering for the plane and stuff...and he refuses to get there any earlier then Thursday. It's a pain, because the con starts Thursday morning and we don't get there until 1 or 2 PM...it's a real cramp on our schedule. And as of now, there's no way to get him to have us there an extra day...he gets to pick the plane tickets, not I.

Well, I really do want to play this year. The tournament would have been fun, but RPGA takes up nice 4 hour chunks of my time and it's hard to schedule anything that's more then 4 hours. I'll pick up some generics and hope we can play. My fox shifter and my friend's Adept Samurai really, really, REALLY want to play.

Posted by: KnightRunner Apr 30 2010, 02:49 PM

Just picking nits, but there is no RPGA anymore. The brand has been dropped entirely and is now the WPN. Wizards Play Network.

Posted by: SaintHax Apr 30 2010, 05:07 PM

Let's stay on topic-- we've kept getting farther and farther from it.

Posted by: DWC Apr 30 2010, 05:24 PM

Taking things back on topic, any more news about the Scramble?

Posted by: Naptown Wendigo May 11 2010, 03:57 PM

For the Scramble this year at GenCon, will it be part of the New York missions or its own stand alone adventure?

Posted by: LurkerOutThere May 11 2010, 07:21 PM

I could be wrong but I believe from an earlier thread it was strongly hinted it would be a NYC mission.

Posted by: Kai May 18 2010, 06:39 PM

No one ever tells me anything....

We're the end of the summer season, if its cool with the Missions crew, we'll run CMP at Dragon*Con. Email me sometime Bull, and we can chat

Posted by: Wasabi May 18 2010, 11:01 PM

Nom Nom Nom, the more Shadowrun we can eats the betta!

Posted by: RobertB May 19 2010, 12:38 PM

Ahhh, hear that sound? It's the sound of fistfuls of d6s being rolled on the table.

Rober (aka Spanner)

Posted by: Trae Jun 14 2010, 10:06 PM

I have a question about the convention mission pack.

Some of the local groups of gamers in my area just got into SRM, and we are still playing through the Denver scenarios.
The mission pack is supposed to be location independent. Since it sounds like they are going to be run at Dragon Con, I'd like to play some of them.

My question is if I have not yet migrated my character to NYC (because I'm not finished with Denver) can I play the convention missions or not?

Thanks!
Trae

Posted by: Bull Jun 14 2010, 10:20 PM

The Convention Missions are completely independent of Seasonal Play, so yes, you can play in them, no problem

Posted by: Trae Jun 14 2010, 10:30 PM

Sweet. Thanks, Bull, you made my day.

Trae

Posted by: DWC Jul 16 2010, 06:13 PM

Just to ask again, since it's been a while since the last time. Any info available about the scramble that might influence costume choices?

Posted by: Aaron Jul 18 2010, 02:35 PM

Go for "comfortable yet presentable." Something you'd be okay wearing during air travel, that sort of thing.