In the Long Shadow of Steel & Glass recruitment, persistent world runs set in Seattle, 2069 Options

[noonesshowmonkey]

Gritty, street level Sandbox SR4A in Seattle, 2069.

ILSSG is an open-world rendition of Shadowrun. The game is hosted at a ProBoards forum with resources on Obsidian Portal. Currently, games are managed Play by Post with a few periodic deadlines to move play along. Basically, this means that I ask that a given scene be wrapped up within a certain number of days or posts. Original intentions included using RP Tools and Ventrilo to have live-play capability or just to resolve particularly tense or complex tactical scenes.

Being a sand-box style game, player characters can go anywhere (within reason) and do anything (again, within reason). The majority of activity is handled in an In Character forum titled ShadowSea.Seattle@Jackpoint. This is an open-world IC play-space where PCs go about their business. Within the open-world space, run seeds are generated based on the activity. These run-seeds create 'instanced' content in the form of small scale (generally GM and single player) IC threads or 'Active Runs' - a traditional Shadowrun scenario with a team.

As a result of the format, several of the problematic tropes of table gaming are resolved:

1) Characters are never 'required' to take a run. When gaming with your friends at a table, there is often some (serious) mental-jujutsu required to justify the presence of a given character in a run that places them well out of their element. ILSSG characters only take runs that they want (or need).

2) Too many chefs in the kitchen. Many times, groups end up having two (or more) PCs that do the same thing. Sometimes this is a problem. ILSSG allows each Player to manage up to three PCs, allowing them to pick whomever they are most interested in or feel might be best suited for a given 'run.

3) Positive and Negative qualities rarely come up. Many games (rightly) place emphasis on the major run itself. This leaves down time between runs sorely over-looked and can often make Negative Qualities like Addiction or Enemy or Wanted into more of window dressing than character flaws. ILSSG takes place over a series of months in a world that lives and breathes and grows (with or without you). Incidence ratings mean a lot more over such a timeline.