Ghost Cartels Hardcopy, Thoughts and such.... Options

[Prime Mover]

Ok finally finished up all my reading and starting to write out my framework for keeping it all together.

Thought about doing a review but seen a few already that sum up what I'd probably repeat so I'll try and just hit a few topics pro and con.

Pro:
1. Great story that doesn't disappoint or skimp on the action. Travel to exotic locals and display your prowess.
2. Succeeds in being a street level campaign but still having the feel of old school epic storyline.
3. Well fleshed out colorful antagonists and supporting cast.
4. Ton of fluff including material for folks to who don't have the location books and plenty of side job hooks.
5. The maps are nice, hoping get a chance to print the color versions for the table top.
6. STATS on npc's and vehicles and not just cookie cutter or modified existing stats. A GM's best friend and the biggest time saver of any adventure. Great to see alot of gear from outside the BBB included.

Cons
1. I'm still not sure about all the fluff in the first half of the book and then the frameworks in the second, like Knasser I have to agree alot of the fiction/shadowtalk will never make to the table. I would love shadowtalk handouts I could pass out at the table. Make the players feel like they were really interacting with the local shadow community during the adventure.
2. This is just a personal feeling but I would have liked all the info for each chapter together. Such as corresponding fiction matched with its framework.
3. Some editing errors, stat block errors (which can easily be extrapolated without much effort) and RAMhounds missing.

Looks like they were accidentally dropped from the Grunts and Moving Target section. Treat 'em as dogs (p.291, SR4) with the augmentations of a Parashield SkySpy (p.154, Augmentation) for the meantime.

For me personally a solid **** 4 out of 5 stars and a fine edition to the SR storyline.

[Prime Mover]

Something I've come across now that I'm going back over stuff to make sure I have it down for our game. Caines apt has 4 floors on map and 3 in the description.

[BlueMax]

For me personally a solid **** 4 out of 5 stars and a fine edition to the SR storyline.

4 out of 5 for a storyline addition, or you have run it and its a 4 out of 5 overall considering how it played?

[Bira]

This definitely not a book that can be run in one session, so you'll have to wait a while to see actual playthrough reviews.

[Ancient History]

Now that sounds like a challenge...

[Malachi]

Marathon 52 hour Shadowrun session at AH's house!

[Ryu]

Marathon 52 hour Shadowrun session at AH's house!

The words. They have been spoken.

[Prime Mover]

I think it could be played in one sitting, if ya had a couple of days and a short nap.

First night running Ghost Cartels:

1. Players had a blast! Can always tell when how well the players are enjoying a session.
a. Our smokers take less smoke breaks.
b. Snack times were on the run as opposed to a solid break.
2. Everyone got involved. The paranoid hacker even got wounded in the meat for the first time as he tried to hang down from a 14th story balcony with a 2 str while the Ragers tore through his apt.
a. Teams did some splitting up to accomplish tasks, something they rarely do. This kept encounters very challenging.
3. Laughter there was a point during the Doc Wagon morgue run were the plan became so convoluted and a phone call went something like this.

Richard: Peter
Peter: Dick
Ricard: Yea
Peter: Snickers....guffaws......gasping....."Dick".....crying....bursts of laughter....more crying....
Richard: yes it's me Dick, Peter whats up?
Peter:Wheezing and crying...yea just a sec......head down trying to get a breath.

[Prime Mover]

Few snags I ran into.

1. Had stats for Ragers at Sinns place but not First Nations. Fixed easy enough with generic ganger stats.
2. No matrix stats for Doc Wagon clinic, well detailed place but didn't see its node anywhere?

Up to the Goldman job now and the team is working smarter and more inspired then they have in awhile. Looking forward to our next session.

[Synner]

Very interested in hearing how they fare in the Goldman run. One of the groups I was running this for made the mistake of trying to stand up to the FBI.

[SincereAgape]

I was flipping through this book at a local gaming store Saturday night while waiting for my event to start. I did not get to conduct much reading, but I did manage to thumb through the pictures and stats of the major NPCs in the game. If those characters are a sign of what is to come in the SR universe through the Catalyst banner, then I am glad that my group and I have decided to resume playing Shadowrun once again!

I loved the full body pictures of the NPCs, and after viewing some of their stats I have to say (IMG:style_emoticons/default/eek.gif) From what I have seen of the NPC's and from what I have read of their bios, I don't care what type of plot the book entails...the RPG experience should be freaking awesome!!!

[Rad]

Our group ran part of this, before we sidetracked into that "quantum tunneler" crap.

Gotta' say, the blackmail/money-laundering bit felt a little unbalanced. Actually, really unbalanced. This was supposedly designed for starting characters? How the hell were they supposed to contend with that uber-wared yakuza sam? We had to bring in our friggin' skytrain to blast him with narrow bursts from a couple of autocannons to stop the guy. Or was this meant to be one of the railroading "you fail your mission because the plot demands it" kind of things?

Poorly written or poorly balanced, either way--like the part where the dealer you're hired to interrogate gets possessed by a force 9 plant spirit and starts going nuts. Luckily, our team has gotten ridiculously uber, and we managed to succeed both times by the skin of our teeth.

Loved the storyline, plot, and character descriptions, especially Kaz--but those Plot Decides The Outcome: You're Just Along For The Ride moments really brought it down in my opinion.

[Malachi]

This was supposedly designed for starting characters? How the hell were they supposed to contend with that uber-wared yakuza sam? We had to bring in our friggin' skytrain to blast him with narrow bursts from a couple of autocannons to stop the guy. Or was this meant to be one of the railroading "you fail your mission because the plot demands it" kind of things?

I know the devs have said that it can be played with starting characters, but I would warn that it would have to be pretty well balanced stating characters. Perhaps the devs were thinking of the uber builds that get posted on Dumpshock when they were thinking "starting characters."

[Tachi]

Very interested in hearing how they fare in the Goldman run. One of the groups I was running this for made the mistake of trying to stand up to the FBI.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/ohplease.gif)

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I guess they didn't learn anything from the Ruby Ridge incident, huh?

[Synner]

Gotta' say, the blackmail/money-laundering bit felt a little unbalanced. Actually, really unbalanced. This was supposedly designed for starting characters? How the hell were they supposed to contend with that uber-wared yakuza sam? We had to bring in our friggin' skytrain to blast him with narrow bursts from a couple of autocannons to stop the guy. Or was this meant to be one of the railroading "you fail your mission because the plot demands it" kind of things?

Actually the scenario assumes that you manage to grab Goldman from Chikao and co somehow. This means getting creative not trying to win a straight fight. The characters are not intended to "win" this encounter as a standing firefight with Yakuza hitmen and an FBI ERTeam. In fact, they could very well end up dead if they try.

Most of the enemies in Ghost Cartels were designed with specific weak points and vulnerabilities that could be exploited. Chikao's unit is weak on magic, for instance, with only the cover in the car park helping balance that. They're not meant to be pushovers that the gamemaster can "upgrade" to provide the appropriate level of opposition though. As a developer, I'm very much of the school of thought that the published stats should be faithful to the character or group's place/role in the setting and his/it's threat level should be consistent with the established background rather than the game as played at any specific table. That means the ERT are an elite team with tactical awareness and coordination, and that the Yakuza is fielding some of their heavy hitters to resolve the tempo issue.

Both groups that I ran this for managed to pin down the Yaks just long enough for the FBI to come in, taking different routes when those two groups duke it out over Goldman. One group focused on snagging Goldman in the confusion and getting the hell out of dodge before the FBI worked their way to them. The other group decided to take on the law, bad mistake. Overconfident players will find their runners in to serious trouble, but ultimately this encounter should only be lethal problem if the players assume their characters can be the last men standing. A tactical FBI ERT with magical overwatch should walk all over the characters if they decided to make a stand.

I'm actually sorry that I edited out a line which said "This is the "run" part of Shadowrun."

Also note that it's very easy for the gamemaster to adjust the number of Yakuza present to balance the difficulty. And if the team makes appropriate use of cover, it should make for a memorable battle... like most of the confrontations in Ghost Cartels, the vibrant characters and the tough opposition should make for interesting roleplaying experiences.

Poorly written or poorly balanced, either way--like the part where the dealer you're hired to interrogate gets possessed by -+a force 9 plant spirit and starts going nuts. Luckily, our team has gotten ridiculously uber, and we managed to succeed both times by the skin of our teeth.

Again this is only a problem if the characters assume they can "win" a fight. If they leave the spirit to do its thing the dealer will commit suicide. Fighting the spirit one on one is going to be tough - though not as tough as trying to face down one of the Yama Kings later on. Shadowrunners are tough, but there willa always be something meaner and tougher in the world - so runners need to be creative and think out of the box. One of my groups let the dealer get shot up and abandonned by the spirit, then Healed him (which made the magician who took the heavy Drain seriously pissed when the Olaya later tied off loose ends in front of him).

All this makes me wonder how the groups are going to navigate the Kowloon scene. No line of sight to speak of for magic, very short distances to enemies, lots of hand to hand, threats around every corner.

Note that we've never said that this campaign was designed for starting characters, just that it could be played by starting characters - notably the first story arc. The opposition only gets steeper in the later arcs. I had a lot of fun with Tenoch.

[Drogos]

To echo Synner's post, this isn't DnD. There is no experience for killing the monster and just because it fights you doesn't mean you should be able to kill it.

[toturi]

I managed to run some First Taste for my play group.

Stranger in Our House Part 1 Climax - Why would a very discrete team of runners receive a visit from the Ragers? It is almost assumed that the Ragers will be able to spot the runners.

Dirty Pretty Money - Runners should have been able to snatch Goldman without his being able to contact Lone Star and/or FBI and intercept and fake his comms with them in the first place - I had a metasapient AI and a technomancer in the group. However, I did managed to run the fight with the Yakuza and the FBI. It was TPK.

[ Spoiler ]

For the FBI and Yakuza.

[Tiger Eyes]

Note that we've never said that this campaign was designed for starting characters, just that it could be played by starting characters - notably the first story arc. The opposition only gets steeper in the later arcs. I had a lot of fun with Tenoch.

I think if you begin the campaign with 400 bp characters, your GM may want to consider awarding karma (lots of karma) as you go through it. Because if you can get a 400 bp character through the final runs, then either it was a very well built character in a very balanced team, a very very well played character, or you bribed your GM with homemade butter toffee (my prefered method of ensuring survival, feel free to copy).

[Malachi]

I had a lot of fun with Tenoch.

I shows. I made note of him in my review as an undoubtedly "memorable" villain. The only mistake I see is that the later adventure frameworks don't mention him enough so less experienced GM's won't necessarily pick up on the fact that Tenoch should be dogging the characters at every turn in that last arc. As a compliment to you, I loved the idea of the "shorn ones" villains that I couldn't wait to implement them, so I'm stealing Tenoch and his buddy and putting them in my present campaign starting next adventure. It should be good times...

[BookWyrm]

Just got Ghost Cartels yesterday, along with Rifter #44 & the new Wild Cards RPG book. Gotta lot of reading to do.

[Prime Mover]

Stranger in Our House Part 1 Climax - Why would a very discrete team of runners receive a visit from the Ragers? It is almost assumed that the Ragers will be able to spot the runners.

This surprisingly fell into place without me doing anything. Our teams Prime Hacker had his agent/slash evil doll hack Caines comm during the Littletree meet and got traced due some lucky rolls on Caines comms part. Ragers were able to catch him home alone multitasking on other jobs. Catching him completely by surprise.

[Malachi]

This surprisingly fell into place without me doing anything. Our teams Prime Hacker had his agent/slash evil doll hack Caines comm during the Littletree meet and got traced due some lucky rolls on Caines comms part. Ragers were able to catch him home alone multitasking on other jobs. Catching him completely by surprise.

Gangers catching a Matrix specialist by surprise? Was that when he started hanging from the balcony?

[Prime Mover]

Hahaha yea a little over confidence in the buildings on site security. He checks camera feed for the door cam and sees 3 ganger's standing in hall banging on door. Quickly gathers up his stuff and in a panic runs to balcony and proceeds too hang off of it not having the confidence in his physical skills to climb to any of other nearby landings.

A failed Str check and permanently burned edge point later and he painfully impacts with a balcony 4 stories below much to the surprise of a 4 yr old girl looking out the sliding glass doors.

"Daddy she squeals." "Theres a clown outside!" (The hacker Bozo not only looks the part in the matrix but the meat as well.) A battered and beaten clown gingerly knocks on the window and asks. "Could you please get your daddy I need to get out of here." (His bright red fiber optic hair flickering)

[Malachi]

Ah, that's how great Shadowrun memories get created.

[toturi]

This surprisingly fell into place without me doing anything. Our teams Prime Hacker had his agent/slash evil doll hack Caines comm during the Littletree meet and got traced due some lucky rolls on Caines comms part. Ragers were able to catch him home alone multitasking on other jobs. Catching him completely by surprise.

Except that the team hackers didn't get traced, and unless I handwave it, none of the PCs physically monitoring the meet got spotted either.