Playing as non-shadowrunners Options

[mister__joshua]

Hey

As an old school Cyberpunk player I've been used to ill-fitting character roles for years. One upshot of me getting bored with it though was my tendency to make increasingly inappropriate characters. While most of the group played as solos with the odd nomad or techie, I always liked to try playing as a fixer, a medtech, or even a corp.

Over the years we did away with the archetypes, but still they intrigued me. Although most players (As mentioned in Listen Up...) played the game as a combat oriented team, the archetypes suggested that the game was supposed to support a different playstyle, where it is possible to play as a corporate middle-man or a rocker playing in a local band. I've never seen game play out this way, and I think for it to even work the GM would have to heavily tailor the game to the characters.

I was wondering if anyone has ever played shadowrun in this way? Have you ever made a character who's a Johnson, or a Fixer, or something else and actually tried to carry out that role rather than the ex-whatever turned shadow operative. It's an interesting side to roleplaying. In our last ever game of Cyberpunk (which lasted over a year) I played the whole mission as a fixer for the team, making contacts, dealing, and eventually double-crossing the team and selling them out for personal gain (it's very much the fixer way). I played little to no role in any combat situations but that didn't bother me and I sat smiling to myself as the team all got shot at while my character hid in a wardrobe waiting to see who was left.

This has turned into quite a lengthy post, and with no real point, but I was just wondering if people had played and enjoyed shadowrun in this way and whether it can work well?

[Paul]

We do this almost all of the time. Our games tend to be lower powered, however even the higher powered games are often nontraditional. We've had players at our table play everything from the Street Kid archetype (Literally, with no changes) to Insurance Investigators, to one game where they were a National Geographic Photography team.

[Aria]

My first Emerging pbp game had all the players as a collective of fixers each with their area of expertise - I think the idea was probably better than the execution but it was enjoyable while it lasted!

[Glyph]

The potential problem of playing a non-shadowrunner is that either everyone needs to be on board, or it needs to be a solo campaign. Otherwise, the GM will have an increasingly difficult time contriving ways for the non-shadowrunner character to be working with shadowrunners. Yes, shadowrunners work with many different people, but typically those people provide them with information or resources; they don't go on the job with the professional freelance spies/saboteurs. It's fine if everyone is playing up-and-coming musicians, but less so if an up-and-coming musician is in a typical shadowrunner team. Of course, a lot of things like rockers, accountants, strippers, and other walks of life can make good shadowrunners, but that's assuming you have an "ex-" in front of their vocation, as opposed to what you are talking about (playing their daily life as a rocker, etc.).

[Paul]

It can be a problem I suppose Glyph-and obviously I'm biased!-but it's often rewarding. But I guess it comes down to what we're looking for, and what we're willing to do to get it.

[Hamsnibit]

Although we try to play a real realistic setting most of our chars are still some kind of runners more or less.
Avoiding confrontation or only fighting when you are absolutel sure to win is the key in survival.
Thing is, as a fixer/johson you need to have widespread contact and a solid reputation which works as a trust fund for you and thats a thing which can take years to build up, getting a name and all.

Playing a puppeteer sounds interesting, but what do you do when your runners or an enemy faction turns against you?
As a runner you tend to have at least some defense (expect for technomancer who usually only have their drones unless they are karma-fed monsters)
and your chummers who may jump to your help.
The hackers and the mage will always be the first ones at your side when something unexpected happens.

[3278]

The potential problem of playing a non-shadowrunner is that either everyone needs to be on board, or it needs to be a solo campaign.

100 percent true. When our group does it - I'm in Paul's group - it's a decision all the players agree to, either implicitly or explicitly,* but obviously if some player just showed up at the table with a tax accountant and was like, "Hey, I'm ready to play!" that would have a pretty short shelf-life. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

*Like, Paul says, "So what are we doing next week? Do you want to do the National Geographic photographer campaign you guys were talking about, or else I have a game set up where you're Vice cops in Tampa. What do you want to do?" After 23 years, we've pretty well covered the "shadowrunner" thing; it's basically the exception to the rule, now. Mostly our campaigns are Outlaw Biker Gangs or prison guards or mercenaries or street kids or paranormal detectives or Asian gangs or...I could go on for a while. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Stahlseele]

Aren't there official campaigns for lone star, knight errant or docwaggon?

[Paul]

Yup. Plus a few others.

[thorya]

I just started GMing a game where everyone is starting as non-shadowrunners and the goal is by the end of the campaign they will have evolved from SINners to shadowrunners. Everyone knew going it this would be the campaign and we built with 300 BP, so no one is very powerful.

The team consists of-
-A nurse/low level mage that works at a corp hospital.
-An accountant that works for a small (in Shadowrun terms) computer corporation.
-An IT specialist.
-A Coke delivery truck driver and vending machine repair guy.
-A biker that lives out of his van and steals car parts to get by.

We've only had one game so far, but it worked pretty well. No one's built for combat or anything high level, so it was mostly foot work and sabotage to deal with some thugs and thenm tracking the thugs until they were comitting a crime and alerting Lone Star that a crime was in progress so the guys got arrested. The most dice anyone rolls for anything is 9 and that's rare. The highlight of the evening was someone using edge on their Knowledge Foreign Jelly roll.

[Paul]

Sounds great. Definitely give us a play report thread!

[Ascalaphus]

I could definitely imagine a game where most characters don't think of themselves as fulltime, professional shadowrunners, not to begin with anyway. They earn some money on the side by moonlighting as a shadowrunner.

For example, the priest (Theurge) who shores up meager parish funds with some shady activities. Or the professional sales rep who does some work on the side as a Face. Or the repo man who also does some Mob jobs. The eco-activist who funds his peaceful protests by "hurting evil corporations". And so forth.

Of course there should be occasional side stories about how shadowrunning clashes with your day jobs. Or how day jobs give you a lead on shadow work. Some characters may decide to turn Pro. All in all, it's interesting for a story about characters who start out as little better than amateurs but (hopefully) make it to the big leagues.

[Murphy01]

One of the best ideas I heard was Bob. Bob is an insurance salesman trying to score contracts off high profile runners, so he gets involved in the shadowscene in order tol accurately judge how much coverage they'll need.

[3278]

Another enjoyable campaign involves completely ordinary characters caught up in extraordinary circumstances. Say, a group of friends living in Chicago in March of 2051, who experience a series of progressively stranger paranormal events in their neighborhood. And then maybe they meet a journalist named Zeb Wanderly...anyway.

This kind of power level is much more relateable than "high-end professional freelance criminals" that it's much more immersive for non-roleplayers, and much more intense for people used to being able to just throw dice at problems. We've really seen a trend at the table of players clamoring for lower point limits on characters, and it makes for a very different kind of campaign.

[pbangarth]

I've got a couple of PCs going here (or not, this being DS), one an archaeologist in the shadows looking for the crime boss who framed him, and the other a drummer looking for the "Heartbeat of Gaea".

[CanRay]

...One an archaeologist in the shadows looking for the crime boss who framed him...

Did the crime boss also steal a relic "that belongs in a museum", and the character wears a brown fedora? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Udoshi]

I've always wanted to play a ripoff of Tom Clancy crossed with Spider Jerusalem(and maybe a splash of Mcgee from NCIS). A world-famous writer contractually obliged to make another book, and he is absolutely 100% out of ideas.

He has money, contacts, resources, and an epic Disguise check - and is really only in the shadows to for inspiration, because its his ass if he doesn't come up with SOMETHING.

[CanRay]

I just want to play. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif)

[Snow_Fox]

Rogono the pastry cheff!

Usually our players have well developed back stories with a lot of ex-corpers

[mister__joshua]

I just want to play. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif)

I feel for you. I miss it when our group can't play for a week (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[CanRay]

Rogono the pastry cheff!

Usually our players have well developed back stories with a lot of ex-corpers

Oh, very nice! I have a character that's an accountant that had his SIN purged and an assassination attempt on him, so he had to flee to the Shadows.

He learned how to launder money, and makes most of his cred that way. Shadowrunning is just ways to try and figure out who did the dirty on him and why.

[pbangarth]

Did the crime boss also steal a relic "that belongs in a museum", and the character wears a brown fedora? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Professor's RL name is Nathaniel Jones, and he inherited a fedora passed down through the generations from great-grampa Jones, which fedora turns out to be a Power Focus. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

I have another character, Hodder, who is an art and artifact thief, and cousin of Professor. He grew enraged when Nathaniel inherited the fedora, and decided to get a little revenge by selling his cousin out through his fence-channels to the crime boss. Professor is in the shadows trying to find proof he is innocent of the theft (of an artifact with potential info about earlier magic periods) and murder for which he was framed, and Hodder is in the shadows trying to prove he is the rightful heir of the fedora and great-grampa Jones' legacy.

In the (many) moments when I can't play, I imagine scenarios in which the two come to meet in the shadows, and the various ways that meeting could turn out.

[CanRay]

BASTARDS THE LOT OF YOU.

I'm going to my corner to cry now. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif)

[Midas]

I have one character I am planning on posting here who I would describe as a "proto-fixer" - he has one day job (detective), and at least 2 contacts who might offer a job either to him or him plus a team on a semi-regular basis.

[mister__joshua]

My current character (who, importantly, is in a group of full on shadowrunners) is very non-shadowrunner. He's a former Chulos drug runner who is risking it all by trying the shadows because his girlfriend got pregnant and now he wants a better life for his son away from the gang culture he grew up in.

I started out with no weapon skills, no 'ware at all, and no magical ability, just a set of physical stats and skills. It's been great fun. As he's gained karma I've given him weapon skills to fit.

Originally I set up his family in a nice home and the idea was that he told them he'd got a job and was actually going out running the shadows. He managed to go home every couple of nights without any physical bruising and injuries, and managed to keep the charade up for about a month before a triad boss decided to kidnap his family. That blew his cover somewhat. Still, he got them back and he's back running.

I find it's more satisfying to achieve your goals and become a street legend when you start from the lowest place possible.