Living in the Shadows: Guidelines, Still here and better than ever Options

[WinterRat1]

Hello Everyone,

and welcome to our ongoing Living in the Shadows campaign. I, WinterRat1, head a team of GMs who are happy to host your PC through the perils of actually living life in the Seattle shadows. The other current members of our crew are banditf50, grendel, bclements, Scrapheap, and Sedna.

The general purpose of this thread is to introduce players to the concept of Living in the Shadows, as well as to provide a central place to post guidelines, announcements, rulings, and general policy decisions. To this end, we’ve divided this Guidelines part of the thread into four sections: an introduction, Player Information, Player Interaction, and GM Information.

PLEASE NOTE THIS IS A GM ONLY THREAD FOR UPDATES ON LITS POLICY. ALL REPLIES SHOULD BE POSTED IN THE 'RECRUITMENT' THREAD:
Living in the Shadows: Recruitment 2


What is Living in the Shadows?

The basic premise behind Living in the Shadows (LitS for short) is simple: we are attempting to create a living world which goes beyond isolated runs. What this means to players is that finally you have a place to play your character through their everyday life in the shadows.

Just as our job defines our lives, so does a shadowrunner’s. As such, the GMs of LitS will be working with players to encompass their characters’ lives in their totality, from the jobs they take to the friends they have, the enemies they make, the places they frequent, all the things they do in their spare time. For the first time ever on Dumpshock, players will really have the chance to guide the destiny of their own characters. Therefore, LitS is heavily character-driven, background-based, and story-centred. We are less concerned with running your characters through a linear plotline than we are with working with each and every player to create a world that brings the people in it to life; with the enjoyment all of us derive as your and other characters come to life, grow, and develop the world around them. LitS is a story that is constantly unfolding and being written, not a script in which everyone plays a specific archetype.

Since life is ongoing, LitS is also an ongoing campaign. Although we will hold regular recruitment drives, LitS is never closed. You may join at any time. No more people feeling shut out of games. No more rush to get a half-thought-out character in to meet a deadline, or trying to be one of the first six to get into a game. We not only prefer, we require quality. We’ll gladly work with you to develop the character you really want to play. Having a character that you would absolutely love to play, whose story you want to see unfold, will provide a much more rewarding experience for all of us.

I’ve been saying “you” and “we” as though the only people we’re trying to bring into LitS were players. It’s certainly true that we want to have character-driven players, the more the better! but we’re always looking for character-driven GMs, as well to run players within LitS, as well as GMs looking to bring their runs under the LitS banner. If you are only interested in running the daily lives of one or two PCs, we’re fine with that. If you are only interested in doing runs, we’re fine with that too. If you have a specific area of specialty that you’d be willing to help guide PCs through on an as-need basis (the Matrix? hint hint), we’d absolutely be fine with that as well. Since we are focusing on character development, our long-term goal is to have one LitS GM for every 3-5 PCs (because that’s the most we’ve found we could handle well at this level of involvement), as well as several GMs interested primarily in doing runs. The advantage of this system to run-oriented GMs is that they can pick and choose PCs that fit the game they have in mind, while at the same time the fallout from the run will flow seamlessly into the character’s everyday life (or as seamlessly as these things ever get in the shadows). Especially from a run perspective, we hope that working within the LitS banner will cut down on games dying by keeping the players interested. And the best part is: even if you come on board as a GM, you still get to play! One of the other GMs on our team will be more than happy to GM your PC while you run others. If any of this sounds like something that you would be interested in helping to run, contact any one of us and we’ll be glad to bring you on board.

If you are the type of player who enjoys developing solid backgrounds for your characters and seeing their life stories unfold, if you are the kind of GM who enjoys fleshing out backstory and bringing it into the character’s everyday life; and if you would like to take part in a dynamic, interactive gaming environment: we believe that you will be a tremendous asset to this campaign of ours.


Sounds good. How do I join up?

If you are thinking of joining the LitS Seattle-verse, please read through the LitS and Shadowland threads first, to get a sense of how the whole system works in practice.

If you’re really hooked by now and thinking of joining as a player, please read the Character Creation guidelines below. Note that we don’t encourage McMackie’s, and that in addition to the standard 20 Questions (below) we will require a timeline for each character noting all the major events of the PC’s life to date.

If you are thinking of joining the GM staff, please read the rest of this thread, outlining the structure of the LitS Seattle-verse as it exists thus far. If you’re still interested, contact me (WinterRat1) via PM or e-mail, outlining what you are willing to take on. Remember, we are looking as much for GMs who want to do runs under the LitS umbrella as we are for GMs to run players within the LitS thread. It’s a commitment for sure, but we think the rewards are amazing.

If you’re thinking of joining as both: great! :D