Adventures that can be converted to SR4, WITHOUT disturbing the canon Options

[HMHVV Hunter]

I've been itching to run an SR4 game, and I've been thinking of running the Dark Angel module converted for SR4. The way I see it, I could run that without disturbing the canon too much; only difference would be that

[ Spoiler ]

Zor Entertainment got some nuyen from Dunkie for seemingly no reason, since they wouldn't even have the Dark Angel account in their history to recommend them.

My question: I only have two adventure modules - Double Exposure and Dark Angel. What other modules are out there that could be run without really disturbing canon?

And yeah, I could run any module and say to hell with the official history, but I like the official history, so...any ideas?

[Bull]

I'm assuming you want to run SR4 and set it in 2070+?

Hrmm... Mecurial and A Killing Glare are both out then, since Perianwyr was running a Nightclub in Denver in 2064 and Kyle Morgan is dead by then, and the events of both are commented on (Dragons of the Sixth World.

Dragonhunt is likewise out, since Eliohann is also in DotSW.

Paradise Lost might be ok, Hawai'i really hasn't been touched on much since.

Queen Euphoria and Double Exposure likewise could probably be run without too much effort, though in a Post-Bug City world, they lose a lot of their impact. However, Missing Blood (The Universal Brotherhood module) is pretty much out since the UB was publically exposed.

Divided Assets could work with a few tweaks. Since it's set in Denver, you might have to modify things slightly to take into account Ghostwaker and the changes to the Zones with the Azzies gone.

Bottled Demon should work fine.

Dreamchipper could work with a couple tweaks, but the Persona Chip tech is pretty dated by then, so you might have to fiddle with the Dreamchips to make them more valuable.

I've never played Celtic Doublecross, so I'm not sure how much of the Tir stuff it incorporates. Plus it's set in New York, which has been getting some serious revamping done thanks to the Missions Games. Flipping through it, it should be doable with some tweaks.

Eyewitness involves Ghouls, so I'm not certain how well it would integrate, considering some of the Sapien Rights stuff that has popped up. I think it's doable regardless, since there's still a lot of Ghoul Bias, but it also involves a cybereye and some recorded memory stuff which might need tweaked, as it's a bit outdated now.

Imago seemed to involve some pretty dated computer tech, but could be doable with some modifcation.

Total Eclipse should be fine with few, if any, tweaks.

Those are the only ones I can think of off hand. Most of the big compilation adventures (Survival of the Fittest and the like) and the Track-style adventures (Blood in the Boardroom and Mob War) are all pretty tied to the metaplot, so couldn't be run without some serious reworking of the storylines, if at all.

Good luck!

[Ryu]

Bottled Demon should work fine.

I hope so. Ask again next month...

[Naysayer]

There's DNA/DOA, basically a harmless dungeon crawl. It had some wacky stuff in its fluffy parts, but from what I remember, it doesn't deal with anything that impacts on the canon timeline.
Then again, it makes some links to the Night of Rage, which by SR4 time is almost what? 40 years ago? So yeah, it would require fiddling.
And it's not really that good...

The NAN books both contained some nice, railroady action-roadmovie type adventures, and they should basically work at any point in the timeline.
At least the one that doesn't deal with the Tsimshian Nation I guess.
Aw, this is hard!

[Tiger Eyes]

You could use an SR4 adventure module. On The Run is an intro run for SR4, and has quite a bit of useful info in there on the new matrix and such. And of course, there will be Ghost Cartels. And there's quite a few SR:Missions available for free.

That being said, we've run DNA/DOA, and it worked just fine, with almost no changes (except a few tweaks to make things wireless). We also ran Dark Angel, and our GM had to tweak it a bit, but it still was fun (and to be honest, the tweaks he made would've been things he changed even in previous editions). We ran Divided Assets, but heavily tweaked (the kid was quite a bit older and it took place in Seattle).

Lately we've been working on the runs in Emergence (while we wait for Ghost Cartels). At some point, we'll probably run a very heavily modified Harlequin & HB; we've been talking about how to modify it for 2070 and fit it into the current timeline. (Heck, it's our all-time favorite, and we've got 2 people in our group who haven't run it before, so I don't care how much tweaking, we're going to be running it!!!)

[psychophipps]

Having run most of the published adventures using 4th, it's an easy conversion. Wireless doesn't honestly change as much as you would think (because nothing really important is hooked up to the wireless world anyway, at least not all the time) and the Attributes and Skills port over pretty much direct-like.

[Jackstand]

Really, you could run just about any of the modules, if you just change the names of the people and places involved.

[Naysayer]

While that's totally doable it's as has been noted, a good deal of published adventures are in one way or another pretty firmly nestled in canon. For example, running "Missing Blood" in 2070 doesn't work in the established timeline, since the truth about the Universal Brotherhood and the insect spitits is out and quite widely known even to the general public.

Of course, you can rehash the plot by filing off the serial numbers - "so, there's this new samaritarian organization called the... um, Ubiquitous Fraternity" - most of the "shock value" of the plot will be lost on anyone who has so much as read the history chapter in the BBB.
But even then, for many of those adventures it just would be kind of silly to run them as a cheap knockoff, methinks.

It is of course absolutely possible to go one step further, and keep only the general theme of the plot, and maybe some key-scenes, while changing everything else until you basically have a totally different adventure. In which case you can also just design one from scratch, though.

If you just want to run an adventure without having to come up with all the plot, you can totally go this route. But since you'll be ending up fiddking around with all the names, numbers and background anyways, you might just as well take some of the numerous plot-seeds from the various books and work with them.

If you really really want to play the classics, though, with all the "oomph", and without throwing the established timeline out of the window, maybe you should go with either a "classic" campaign, set in whatever year your favourite modules take place (of course, snce some of them are set in 2050, working your way through to the 70's might be a tad far fetched...) or you go with a set of flashback-runs, one-shots or mini campaigns that only deal with one specific module.
Again, if your players know some SR history, a lot of the thrill and "holy shit" value of some of the adventures may fall a bit flat.
"Yeah, I too totally wonder if our involvement in the 2057 election camaign may have an impact on whether my favourite candidate the late Great dragon Dunkelzahn wins..."

[Sir_Psycho]

I was actually thinking of a way to run Renraku Arcology: Shutdown in 2070. And I remembered one of the runs in Super Tuesday (I think) where the runners get plugged into an ASIST simulation.

If you want to run older modules, you can always have the runners captured and sent through a simulation. In the case of the Arcology shutdown, perhaps the UCAS military has a new simulation based on the Arcology events, but the thing is so potent that it's killing their recruits and overriding the ASIST peak limiters by itself. So to work out the bugs without sacrificing more of their own personnel, they grab/hire some runners to plug in for them.

While it might seem hard to work with, it also opens up possibilities for other hooks. On one level, you're just completing the module, but on the other hand your trapped in virtual reality, and with SIMsense, who knows what's real? And even scarier, who knows who's holding your plug? And how are you going to defeat an antagonist who's in a completely different reality to you?

[Bull]

I was actually thinking of a way to run Renraku Arcology: Shutdown in 2070. And I remembered one of the runs in Super Tuesday (I think) where the runners get plugged into an ASIST simulation.

If you want to run older modules, you can always have the runners captured and sent through a simulation. In the case of the Arcology shutdown, perhaps the UCAS military has a new simulation based on the Arcology events, but the thing is so potent that it's killing their recruits and overriding the ASIST peak limiters by itself. So to work out the bugs without sacrificing more of their own personnel, they grab/hire some runners to plug in for them.

While it might seem hard to work with, it also opens up possibilities for other hooks. On one level, you're just completing the module, but on the other hand your trapped in virtual reality, and with SIMsense, who knows what's real? And even scarier, who knows who's holding your plug? And how are you going to defeat an antagonist who's in a completely different reality to you?

The best part of running a "Virtual Game" is that you can kill off the PCs with impunity, if you want. Is a lot of fun, especially if they don't KNOW they're in VR initially. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[ravensmuse]

I've got conversion notes for Missing Blood sitting in my notebook right now, just waiting to be typed up. Of course it helped that my players were relatively new to SR, so they didn't know the metaplot too well. But I'll be posting them soon.

I've also run Dark Angel for the same players, but that one I did on the fly. I might make it my next project, though I really don't need any more right now with all of the work I've got on my plate (sorry BRodda).

[Wesley Street]

I was easily able to convert the SR1 module Elven Fire to SR4. It's not heavily tied into canon. The Princes of the Tir are mentioned but there's no actual name dropping.

[Gyro the Greek S...]

You could try for a happy medium wherein the rules and tech of 2070 are present in 2050. As has been mentioned previously, wireless connectivity changes little or nothing-characters will still likely have to reach hardpoints to do their thing.

If you manage to work your way up to 2064, the new matrix is just running on IPv20 instead of IPv19 or somesuch.

[Tiger Eyes]

The best part of running a "Virtual Game" is that you can kill off the PCs with impunity, if you want. Is a lot of fun, especially if they don't KNOW they're in VR initially. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Out of curiosity, how would you handle putting a group in VR (unknowingly) when the group includes a technomancer?

[HappyDaze]

Out of curiosity, how would you handle putting a group in VR (unknowingly) when the group includes a technomancer?

It's the technomancer's fault - he's had a mental break and the entire adventure is a romp through his subconscious-directed VR nightmare...

[Bull]

Out of curiosity, how would you handle putting a group in VR (unknowingly) when the group includes a technomancer?

That's a bit tougher. Considering how little I've run 4th ed, I don;t really take Technomancers into consideration (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) Plus, the game I did this with was 3rd ed still (Might have even been 2nd ed still).

I'd probably just handwave it, if I needed to. Magic, and really powerful computers and AI's explain anything and everything necessary to tell a good story (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Tiger Eyes]

After re-reading the UV section of Unwired, it says that GM's can choose to have Complex Forms and Echos translate into physical world skills (so Stealth Complex Form becomes an Infiltration skill in the UV host, or an Attack complex form translates to a pistol). Which sounds very cool. Except, of course, that the TM would know what was up, and ruin the total fun of screwing with the other players minds.

"Waddya mean I know how to sneak around? Roll my what? What the heck did you do to me? Hey, guys..."

[Sir_Psycho]

Slap a wi-fi inhibiting helmet with a trode link that "won't come off" on the technomancer and have them jack in to any computer they want to manipulate. The computer systems within the host could actually be slaved systems outside the host, so it would still feel like hacking.

Also, don't make it so obvious. Maybe crank their skills with what appears to be a dose of some new combat drug than boosts their agility, reaction and other combat related abilities. Or you could have them inexplicably start with better toys, or maybe add their resonance to their edge, to reflect their heightened abilities in virtual space.

The trick is to hold your cards close to your chest. Hell, if the techno doesn't know where the hell he is, you could convince him he has amnesia, and new skills and abilities are from his lost memories. This would give you an excuse to hide his character sheet, too.

[cryptoknight]

An easy to convert would be Silver Angel... just redo the matrix and use RF inhibiting paint to explain the disconnected server.

And change all the mentions of Fuchi to an appropriate mega

[Naysayer]

I like the "combat drug"-angle.
"As part of the objective, we ask you to field-test this new experimental, ahem, performance enhancing drug. Don't worry, it has already been tested under standard laboratory conditions, and we are of course willing to pay you an adequate bonus. There you go, you may experience a slight discomfort for the first few minutes, maybe a short period of disorientation, but that will pass very soon. Let us just hook you up to these "diagnostic tools" here... Ok. Hans, start the simulation!"
...
"Simlshn? Wud simulshn?"
"Hush, sweet prince, hush..."

Of course, that seems like an awful bit of hassle for a corp just to hook a bunch of runners up to VR, but if the stakes are high enough.

"Hmm, the only existing copy of our ultimate security passcode is locked inside the Hot-Sim combat simulator run by our resident rogue AI. Again. Hans, we're gonna need more redshirts!"

[ravensmuse]

I can't be the only one that's thought of using VR simulation to do Portal-esque shennanigans, can I?

[FlashbackJon]

Except, of course, that the TM would know what was up, and ruin the total fun of screwing with the other players minds.

Tell the technomancer ahead of time and get him or her in on the secret. Tell them how to make their "new rolls" and then leave the remainder of the group confused as to the technomancer's sudden stealth dicepool.

[Naysayer]

I mean yeah, why not. Most characters don't "get" a techno and his abilities anyway.
And if, once they find out that they are in a simulation, they ask him why he didn't tel them anything he could just go "Whut? I thought you knew! I mean, it was so obvious, what with all the code dripping out of the walls and stuff, how could you not see that?!"

[Darkeus]

By the power invested in me, I command thee thread to rise from the grave!!!

Sorry for the hellish Necro here but I am really thinking of converting Dreamchipper to 4th edition but I am at a loss on what the would be the big deal about the chips in 2073. Personafix chips are old tech now so what could you add to that to make it experimental and dangerous again?

[crash2029]

Well the chips could be designed with a new macguffin, excuse me, firmware that can use a persons own nervous system as a set of skillwires. Chips like those which don't require any surgery would be worth a fortune, if they worked.