Most Henious Published Run, -it's an opinion, not a review Options

[emouse]

For me, as a GM, it was Ivy and Chrome.

The PCs have an initial fight where they're supposed to capture and interrogate someone which essentially starts off the investigation.

The players just offed them instead, without asking any questions.

I did a little to salvage the run and the session, but it pretty much took the PCs directly to the last chapter.

[vladthebad]

The NAN runs aren't half bad either for stuff to carry over. I used to use the Blue Flame club as a carryover meet location for a while after that.

Sho'nuff. I ran the one with Jesse James at least 5 times. Gotta love toxic shamans.

[Lugburz]

So... Crash 2029. You ran Dreamchipper in 4e.

Would you... er... mind sharing some of your conversion notes? That run sounds like hilarious fun. (Especially since it'll actually be taking place in one of the Khan's old stomping grounds- yeah... I'm going to have to do some extensive re-skinning.)

Thinking of running Ivy & Chrome someday- Thankfully, my players will be investigators by trade, so hopefully we'll avoid that unfortunate problem with the info-dump getting a bullet between the eyes.

Only qualm I've got over any of this so far is that one of the players has been at Shadowrun since I was in Kindergarten. Not at all worried that he'll spoil anything- just don't want to see stuff get spoiled for him when he realises what we're playing. Hopefully the re-skinning will be sufficient to hide the truth until we're hitting the meat of the mission. Still kind of daunting, though.

Since you've all done so many of these... er... how was Divided Assets?

[Tiralee]

Divided Assets - this module shall not be spoken of. Ever. Again.

"Well, we could do Brainscan..."
"Oh hell no. The ammo and equipment costs alone run into the millions!"
"I agree!"
"I love losing essence for no good reason?"
"I love losing magic for a POS Datajack, seriously, I wish Deus would manifest in a physical form so I could nut-punch him into oblivion"
"..Ok then, sheesh. Uhlm, I've got Divided Assets?"
<group pause>
"We're bring lasers this time, suck on that, hardened drones!"
"Wait, no Divided...?"
"Roll the dice deus-boy. We're got a killing to get on"

-Tir

[Angelone]

Celtic Double Cross... talk about walking into a blender.
Bottled Demon was a pain, so were the Harley adventures. Paradise Lost was a trickey one.
Didn't have many problems with Divided Assets it was just kinda heartbreaking.

What people think about Total Eclipse, Dragon Hunt, One Stage Before, A Killing Glare, and DArk Angel?

[Black Mamba]

Elven Fire is my bane, solely because of Michael Dumont. The schizophrenic St. Samurai with Wired Relfexes lv3 smoked my buddy's character that he'd been playing for a year. My Phys Ad, that I'd been playing for three years, got his right arm ripped off by the guy. It was not kind.

[crash2029]

For the conversion of Dreamchipper I mostly did it on the fly in my head. I don't think I made any notes. I had run it before in 3E, which made it easier to adjust as we went on. I'm sorry I cannot help more.

One stage before was very deadly. Total Eclipse was impossible to do without a certain Bonnie Tyler song going through my head distracting me. Kinda like I cannot play Mass Effect without Blue Oyster Cult song stuck in my head.

[Angelone]

Yeah, I agree on One Stage Before, that's one of the adventure's that has really messed up my groups.

"Holding out for a Hero"?

[Wordman]

We ran in Queen Euphoria, Bottled Demon and the run from NAN1, all at the same time.

[crash2029]

Total Eclipse of the Heart

[Angelone]

Huh, didn't know that Bonnie Tyler did a version of that song.

I just thought of another one I really didn't like, Super Tuesday, omg what a clusterfrag.

[crash2029]

I've actually wanted to play Super Tuesday for awhile now.

[Neurosis]

I do not understand the poll question (my only answers would be write-ins anyway, no opinion on the oppositions listed). Is the question "Which published adventure is the worst written?" or "Which published adventure has the most stupidly overpowered opposition?".

[Darkeus]

I think it is more: What published adventure has the capability to kick your PC's asses into oblivion.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Wounded Ronin]

Harlequin's Back was my least favorite for EXTREME railroading.

[Darkeus]

By the way, I think Bottled Demon is the most ruthless. Let's see: Cursed Power foci that really gives some ultimate power if you use it and represents ultimate temptation in Shadowrun? Check. Dragon that you have to face off against? Check. Famous Tir Assassin that never dies and his team can probably kick teh PC's teams asses? Check? Dragon on Dragon action (Not that way you perverts!)? Check.

That adventure is fatal, for real!

[Neurosis]

I have not run as many old school adventures as I'd like so I'd like to talk about 4E for a while.

I don't think that overpowered opposition that will massacre starting characters (combined with absolutely NO warning label about "Designed for PCs with '200-300 Karma' (or whatever) on the back) is new to 4E, but the second chapter of Dawn of the Artifacts (WHAT-THE-FUCK AZTECHNOLOGY JAGUAR GUARDS AND EAGLE SHAMANS PLUS TEN PROFESSIONAL RATING 4 GANGERS WITH AGILITY 6 AND YAMAHA (LOL 8S(e)) PULSAR TASERS) and pretty much ALL of Ghost Cartels (don't even get me started) have RIDICULOUSLY deadly opposition. There is also one-character that, according to my understanding of the rules, can turn himself into a super-jaguar on K-10. A SUPER JAGUAR ON K-10. Note that this is at the very end of three very difficult fights with the PCs worn down by all of the attrition the run has to offer. How do the writers expect players to cope with that? Can you say...

"I expect you to die, Mr. Bond."

Shadowrun adventures are DEFINITELY written with overpowered characters in mind, and without much thought given to characters who are just scraping by/are not especially well-built/are stuck in a "burn a point of edge to complete the run because it's the only way and then use all of the run's karma buying back your edge thus never advancing" loop. Then again, of course, I have an innate bias, and here it is: I can never find six or seven people to play Shadowrun with. Whether GMing or PCing I'm stuck with a part of THREE PCs which does make the opposition almost twice as hard as it's supposed to be. But I think even factoring that in, the opposition seems ludicrously overpowered. The GM's job becomes either buffing the PCs or nerfing the enemy to make sure that the run can be completed. Plus DotA sends you to nice places like AFRICA and and the freezing toxic bug winterhell of Chicago and DotA 2 specifically tells the GM to NOT REFRESH YOUR EDGE POOLS, EVER, UNTIL THE ENTIRE RIDICULOUS SUPER-ADVENTURE is completed.

Won't someone please think of the anti-munchkins?

[sinthalix]

So in a positive light we can say that adventures have generally improved in that there is a bit less rail roading.

Anyone remember the adventure from the SR1 GM screen?

I never ran it, but it sits in the bathroom at my mom's house and provides well, minutes of entertainment for me each time I'm visiting.

Silver Angel if I remember right...I'm not sitting at home so I can't pull it out and check.

[sinthalix]

I had forgotten the name of it, until I checked...Double Exposure was one of the most dangerous my group had been through.

Imago ended up taking out only one of the group.

I've run them from 7301 through 7320 before jumping into Ghost Cartels, so they have plenty of stories and harrowing experiences...plus a few deaths here and there.

[jakephillips]

I have to say that queen euphoria was the worst for my crew. With the giant packet of information that the pc's get in one spot in the adventure. Here read this there are clues to be had. Then if they don't read it there will be some smackdown later.

[Tiralee]

Mmm, subby here. The question for the survey (I should have really put more choices up, but only had what was on the shelf behind me at the time) was, "Most Henious", that is, the one that didn't just make your eyes roll up and the players go "Choo-Choo, Everyone on Board!" but had the players swear, burn karma, burn contacts, burn long-standing RL friendships in order to get through.

You know the ones. They seem easy, but then you realise that it was a slippery slope and now the gravity well has got you and it's deep. Not the "Ok, just get your 4000k characters out, we're going to give Deus a wedgie" super-heroic (barf) runs, but the old-style book adventures that start smoothly and then smack the players (And often, the GM) right in the daddy-bags and then won't stop kicking until you grit your teeth and get through or before you whimper, curl into a ball and go to your happy place.

It seems that I'd missed a few favourites, but Bottled Demon (and yes, I whole-heartedly agree that it's a wrecking-ball) came up trumps with the sheer tempation->seduction->destruction path it follows and Queen Euphoria for the "Force what now" bugs.

Frankly, Euphoria is, at the end (unless you toss in a queen, then it gets really nasty) a knock-down slaughterfest, a real grindhouse that should be played like a survival horror cranked to 11. And without a happy ending. That adventure seemed, to the various players over time, the real "Evil underbelly of an awakened world" sort of adventure and hard to surpass.

And if you decide that your player are feeling manly, take out the helpful presence of the other dragon (I can never remember her name) and let them go mano-a-mano with that bugger, not forgetting that's it's boosting itself with that damn statue. Anyone who has done this, awesome rolls aside, you're nuts:)
Regarding Teldare (spelling?) yeah, not-so-tough with a few drones rigged to spray down an acre's worth of napalm. Dodge that you...ah, crap, he dodges....


-Tir.

PS: Reading the irritation of the SR4th adventure I'd say, "ouch". K10? That seems a trifle unkind.