SR Missions Season 5-04 : Liberation Options

[binarywraith]

Just happened to notice this had been released! From the ad copy :

"NOTHING COMES EASY

Every shadowrunner knows the fear that comes with the words “milk run.” Anytime something is supposed be easy in the Sixth World, it’s guaranteed to come with unexpected headaches and danger, and that holds especially true for Chicago. Lothan the Wise, an egotistical troll mage who is extra irritating because he has the skills to back up his braggadocio, says he has a simple job. There’s no question that things will get more complicated than he expects—the only question is how things will go wrong, and which of the dangerous denizens of the feral sprawl will leap up to cause trouble. Runners will have to be fast, flexible, and able to think on their feet—but isn’t that part of the basic job description anyway?"

http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/1419...Liberation-0504

[Critias]

For those that know or care, Liberation was the Missions adventure written by Steven Tinner, who passed away this year. It was finished up by his Critical Glitch-podcast partner Tim Patrick, because they wanted to get it all done and published. So it's cool to see it finished, and hopefully folks'll have fun with it. Tinner would'a liked that.

[Cain]

I hate to speak ill of someone who passed away, but I really didn't like this one.

I've played through it three times, all under official Catalyst GM's. I'm going to try and avoid spoilers, but I do want to explain what parts I didn't like.

First: I don't like "Shadowtemps" runs. That's a personal note, though.

Next: One good thing is that nearly every combat is avoidable. I really appreciate that part. However, should the first one go into a fight, it's a doozy. Only once did it go that way, and it nearly resulted in a PC dying. Also, the situation means many archetypes are going to be utterly useless there. The scene is really tense, and exciting, no matter which way you go. And if a fight breaks out, it's really nasty.

-- The second battle is pretty easy. But what happens after is really kinda mean to the team. You're basically screwed over, and there's no real way to avoid it.

-- The third fight can be extremely tough. It could be played out a lot of ways: all three times, my table chose to fight it out, but they used different approaches each time. I always ended up with a bunch of injured runners, but even though it's a tough fight, it's nicely done. From what i can tell, it really supports different angles of attack.

-- The last bit is the big screwover. The clues are very subtle and small, and so they're easy to miss. If you don't have a techie, or an Awakened team member, you're not going to get any clues at all. The first time I ran through it, we had some clues that weren't in the module (roleplay from an earlier one), and so we caught on. We were prepared, and won easily-- that was the battle where I rolled over 30 successes on a shot, which was one of my few one-drops. The second time, because I had played before, I had to keep my mouth shut-- everyone else missed the clues, and so we basically lost everything. The third time, we caught on late, and so we ended up in a nasty battle for the MacGuffin.