Bug Cities and True horror Shadowrun, (Paelsmaestaren keep out) Options

[Lionhearted]

So im thinking about starting up a survival horror campaign based in bug city prior and during the quarantine, but to do that I need details, Any manageable elaboration of the events that led up to and happened during the infestation would be greatly appreciation, as for the time due, I only got access to the small excerpt from BBB, any reference to a setting book based in Chicago during the quarantine would be even better (well, unless it doesnt have what im looking for)

Its quite possible and also very probable that I will change the turn of events a bit, to up the drama.. keep the players on their feet and add to that, oh so lovely Post-apocalyptic feel of isolation.. which brings me to my second point, bug spirits might be scary but its certainly not enough to make me players look around their RL backs to make sure there is no bug lying in ambush and hyperventilating when the IC lights suddenly go out, Have any of you fellows ever attempted anything like this? what was your experience of it, how does it work with the rules, and most important.. any suggestions or tips?

If anyone is interested horror GMing I have a few tricks of the trade of my own

Now then...light the candles.. no low-light allowed (IMG:style_emoticons/default/devil.gif)

[Dr Funfrock]

OK, obviously you need to start with Bug City, cos, you know... it's the book about Bug City. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sarcastic.gif)
You also want Universal Brotherhood, which has the setup to the whole Bug City deal. If you like your horror, it's a great read anyway. Creepy as anything.
Target: UCAS contains an update on Bug City post quarantine, circa 3rd edition.
By 4th the whole Chicago thing is a done deal, thanks to Ares FAB IIIing the entire place (incidentally killing all the ghouls as well), but Feral Cities will apparently contain an update on the city after the clear-up.

Read all of those, and you'll have the essential run-down. Unfortunately, the actual how of the hive getting stirred up in Chicago is in one of the novels, and never got covered in a sourcebook, which makes things tricky.

[Lordmalachdrim]

Novel "Burning Bright" if I recall was set just before and during the actual out break from the point of view of a character involved in the whole thing, even the nuke.

[CanRay]

I'll double the "Burning Bright" suggestion. It gives a great example of "Everything's fine, everything's going great!" suddenly changing to, "OMFG!!! WTF!!!"

[WhiteWolf]

OK, obviously you need to start with Bug City, cos, you know... it's the book about Bug City. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sarcastic.gif)
You also want Universal Brotherhood, which has the setup to the whole Bug City deal. If you like your horror, it's a great read anyway. Creepy as anything.
Target: UCAS contains an update on Bug City post quarantine, circa 3rd edition.
By 4th the whole Chicago thing is a done deal, thanks to Ares FAB IIIing the entire place (incidentally killing all the ghouls as well), but Feral Cities will apparently contain an update on the city after the clear-up.

Read all of those, and you'll have the essential run-down. Unfortunately, the actual how of the hive getting stirred up in Chicago is in one of the novels, and never got covered in a sourcebook, which makes things tricky.

Don't forget about the bug modules Double Exposure and Queen Euphoria.

[sunnyside]

All those books are good, I don't think there is a stinker in the bunch. But if you want to run stuff in the quarentine and have control of your timeline (it's your campaign go ahead and have bug city happen in 4th ED or whatever) I'd say you really only need Bug City. Which, luckily for you, is a very well put together sourcebook and is of the sort where you'll find yourself just reading it cover to cover.

Also as a shadowland file you can just toss it to your players after enough time has passed.

I also strongly advice getting them there on something totally unrelated to bugs. Then have things hit the fan.

[Drogos]

Ghouls and Shedim are your friends. All else about bugs has been said, but those two critters creep the beejesus out of me (IMG:style_emoticons/default/scatter.gif)

[nezumi]

I'm still interested in your horror GM methods (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[CanRay]

I'm so going to have to get more info on Shedim.

I so love me my Zombie Games!

[Lionhearted]

I'm still interested in your horror GM methods (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

oh there is some good basics, first of to prevent metagaming, use the good ol' "Bring individual player into the kitchen" trick, well on to the tricks

1. Isolation, not only from the rest of the world but from eachother.. nothing creeps out like finding yourself alone in a dark room with something huge breathing in your neck.. not to be overused however but name any good horror movie where they dont get split up eventually ^^ either by A) the crappy logic to split up.. B) an unexpected event that splits a member of from the rest of the party
2. Keep them guessing, never let them know what really IS going on, this is especially useful in settings where your mind gets fucked with on a regular basis.. such as.. oh i dont know, trying to escape an asylum high on psychoactives?
also, dead leads to keep them on edge increases the drama.. if its a cat nine times out of ten.. it wont be very dramatic, but what if it is a cat two times out of five?
3. No false sense of security, usually the groups take great comfort in that they atleast can trust eachother.. but what if they cannot? If they can trust no one, but yet are depending on other people for their own survival.. tricky neh? Switches of random group members are useful, or even better turning them against eachother, this requires some massive player GM co-op to pull of however, and good roleplaying. This work VEEEERY well in a group full of potential bug hosts and a city raving with bug shamans
4. Situation, Situation, Situation.. Sururbial apartment where you got plenty of food and time to do number 2.. hard to make scary, Nuclear fallout in the ruins of a major city full of predators, evil spirits, raving lunatics and people who would do anything to survive.. scary by nature

[Lionhearted]

Novel "Burning Bright" if I recall was set just before and during the actual out break from the point of view of a character involved in the whole thing, even the nuke.

Can i get a short version? ^^ im not really big on reading novels for factual information

[nezumi]

Can i get a short version? ^^ im not really big on reading novels for factual information

To give you the thirty second run-down...

[ Spoiler ]

A group called Universal Brotherhood started doing charity work across the UCAS. Many people were surprised (OOC and IC) to see a genuinely altruistic group in the Shadowrun universe.

Somebody realizes UB patrons sometimes have their chests explode as bugs hatch out of them.

Further research shows that UB has set up shop - and large nests - in several major cities, including Seattle. Once the gig is up, MOST of these nests can be burned out fairly easily.

Chicago, however, is hugely infested. Ares takes most of the work. They wall off the city and send in strike teams. When they're forced out, they release tons of FAB into the air and then nuke the city (the Cemak bomb).

The city has since been mostly abandoned. It has a permanent background count and no one is allowed in or out. Since there are people still trapped on the inside, and bugs still free on the outside, this isn't precisely ideal. People continue to smuggle stuff back and forth, with Ares shooting people for their trouble.

Bugs are basically three types, flesh form (where they live in the person's skin but look mostly human), semi-flesh form (where they look like giant, physical bugs and are super gross) and bug spirit form, which are actually spirits. Bugs are also divided by family; there are cockroach, ant, termite, bee, wasp, etc. spirits. Many of them live together quite happily, some prey on other types of bug spirits and so on.

I'm sure someone else will pop in and straighten out all the details I got wrong.

[CanRay]

True Form, Flesh Form, and Spirit Form.

Other than that, pretty good.

[ravensmuse]

I read Universal Brotherhood for the first time a few months ago and I never got the impression that those guys were "altruistic". Sure, some of them probably had great intentions..but you could tell that there was something floating in the water, if you know what I mean. I'm entirely willing to say that this is due to my exposure to Bug City way before I ever even knew UB (the book) existed, but man. If they were doing the UB now, you could seriously get a Scientology / Qaballah vibe off of 'em, y'know?

Also, Bug City has some of the greatest Shadowrun fiction ever. My favorite part has to be as the city is getting locked down and bugs are flying everywhere and you're watching the shadow community and everyone that can trying to keep the pieces together. Especially the guy that's like, "oh, there's something buzzing outside - probably a generator. Let me go out and check.." and everyone goes, "NO!"

[Earlydawn]

Question from a mechanics perspective.. how do Flesh Forms work on a damage level? Bug City seems like a really great way to inject a little Aliens flavor into Shadowrun for a change of pace, but it seems to lose that flavor if our Ripley opens up with the pulse rifle and the bug gets that crazy immunity business..

[Lionhearted]

To give you the thirty second run-down...

Well now I was more looking for the cookdown of the novel rather than the general storyline ^^

[Zak]

Question from a mechanics perspective.. how do Flesh Forms work on a damage level? Bug City seems like a really great way to inject a little Aliens flavor into Shadowrun for a change of pace, but it seems to lose that flavor if our Ripley opens up with the pulse rifle and the bug gets that crazy immunity business..

Immunity to normal weapons is overrated. Against good weapons and shooters it won't help that long for a low to mid force spirit.
And it comes down to a basic question: Do you want the flavor of Alien or Aliens ?

[Lionhearted]

Immunity to normal weapons is overrated. Against good weapons and shooters it won't help that long for a low to mid force spirit.
And it comes down to a basic question: Do you want the flavor of Alien or Aliens ?

For me its Alien returns/ Alien 3 all the way, coupled with some good ol' post apocalypse

I read Universal Brotherhood for the first time a few months ago and I never got the impression that those guys were "altruistic". Sure, some of them probably had great intentions..but you could tell that there was something floating in the water, if you know what I mean. I'm entirely willing to say that this is due to my exposure to Bug City way before I ever even knew UB (the book) existed, but man. If they were doing the UB now, you could seriously get a Scientology / Qaballah vibe off of 'em, y'know?

The recruitment poster just oozes of scientology (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sarcastic.gif)

[Dr Funfrock]

Don't sweat the immunity thing. It isn't actually immunity, just good armour, and that's dependant on Force.

A Force 3 spirit loses it's immunity the moment it's hit by anything with a combined damage and AP of 6 or more. That means a standard assault rifle does for them straight away.

Assault rifles loaded with EX-EX ammo will ignore the immunity of Force 4 spirits, and with only a halfway decent hit they'll go right through Force 5. After that they just have armour equal to double their Force, which isn't all that scary really at low force.

You want an Alien style horror? One force 6+ spirit. You want Aliens style bug-hunt? Lots of Force 3, some Force 4 when you want to throw something tough at them.

[CanRay]

The recruitment poster just oozes of scientology (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sarcastic.gif)

From my understanding, that was the intention.

[nezumi]

I read Universal Brotherhood for the first time a few months ago and I never got the impression that those guys were "altruistic".

You have to understand that FASA started to lay the seeds for UB well before the actual book. I remember reading the Street Samurai catalog and they have an ad in there talking about brotherhood and love, which seemed completely out of place. There are a few other ads and asides through some of the following books about how these guys, Universal Brotherhood, honestly were giving away free food and medical care as best they could. They had no corporate ties, and no one was digging up any dirt on them. Basically everyone who came back seemed completely normal. No strange deaths by untested bioware, none of that drek.

The actual book, Universal Brotherhood, came after the actual organization of UB, like Maria Mercurial (Deus bless her) and Darwin's Bastards had already become established aspects of the Shadowrun world.

[ravensmuse]

So that's in the 1e era, huh? I came in around Dunk's Will / Bug City, so I missed a lot of that. Just means I gotta go out hunting for more old books, I guess (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Lionhearted]

Shadowland never did get Zeb's transcript.. did they? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/question.gif)
UB is the best shadowrun fluff i've ever read.. and about the only one that is fluff straight the way through

[CanRay]

So that's in the 1e era, huh? I came in around Dunk's Will / Bug City, so I missed a lot of that. Just means I gotta go out hunting for more old books, I guess (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

How do you think I feel, coming in at 4th Ed?

Been wanting to play since '92, but no interest at all. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif)

Would have loved to have done a campaign in Bug City.

[psychophipps]

While I'm all for buggy fun, if you really want to mess with their heads...it's all about Cthulhu. We were kinda freaked out as we ran through the UB adventure where the grand conspiracy first got introduced and nobody believed the group afterwards, but the group about had to shake out their boots when my pet Shogoth (aka the black, oozing freight train of pure insanity that shrieks "Takeli Li! Takeli Li!" while hooting, moaning, and screeching at move 45) lunged across the sewer chamber when they found the cult's old hangout.
The old Chinese herbal medic got crushed and eaten by the thing just before it chased his No. 4 grandson out of the sewer entrance (and yes, he moves like pregnant yak). Of course, the open manhole made some dumbass random look who then got snacked up instead as the Shogoth oozed out to get #4GS. Made for a really interesting news clip that night, I gotta tell you, seeing some woman getting engulfed by a multi-mouthed black gibbering ooze and then her being pulled down lengthwise to great crunching effect back into the sewer entrance.

Good times...