SOTA 2015, any good material for a pre-future game? Options

[SirKodiak]

I'm considering running a campaign starting in 2010, during VITAS and leading up to the Year of Chaos. For my players who have played Shadowrun before it would be an opportunity to play with the emergence of the metaraces and magic, knowing what is to come, and for those who haven't, I think it could be a cool introduction to the world for when we play a game in a more traditional year.

So, first, has anyone here done this before? If so, how did it work out? Are there any good sources online for this sort of thing? Is there a better or more detailed timeline of how things happened than in the core rulebook?

I'm perfectly happy to fill in the missing pieces as far as the world goes, but my biggest question is the technology. Obviously, most of the advances won't be ready yet, but I'd like to give the players something, just so that, as professional criminals, they have something cool to play with, that raises them above normal people. I haven't seen a good source in the official books for this, but I may have been looking in the wrong places. Any suggestions where to look?

Finally, any general thoughts on this idea? Does it seem workable?

[fistandantilus4....]

If you have the time, go through the timeline here on Dumpshock. Took me a few days (at work mostly). But it was worth it.

[thepatriot]

I attempted this. After several days of stumbling over a combination of RW tech and outdated SR1 tech, I determined that 90% of the fun of the game was removed from the game and abandoned the campaign.

However... (don't you HATE that word? :S )

Three of the five PCs from that campaign are still actively played. One has gone on to become a full mage, one of the first in my world, as a matter of fact, and quite well played by his player. Another is now a cyberzombie, and the last has retired to Salish but makes frequent return visits for assisting in major poodle poochings (her daughter is the player's fourth character in my world).

So in short... such a campaign can (if done correctly, which I did not in entirety do) give the players a real sense of history. SR games can span generations in such a campaign, and since the past does not change in SR (one of SRs greatest qualities, if you ask me), a GM can conceivably bone up or consult the boards and still be on tap. You REALLY have to be an expert to pull this off without wrecking the game world, though... a real 'canon companion', you know what I mean?

[Kanada Ten]

I've always thought of doing this with Wheel of Time d20, starting at maybe the Trolloc Wars. But, I digress.

[Cynic project]

K10, the wheel of endless ness and shadowrun should never be in the same thread....DAmn you.

But I would think that if you were going to do a game set like that, you would want players to be things like magically active characters who can only cast one type of spell. Or summon one type of spirit. So basically take another step back from the normal magic,and make aspected,aspected magic people.

[James McMurray]

For technology you won't be too far ahead of what is out there today. Cyber limbs would be available, but they wouldn't have a lot of enhancements. You may want to make cyber eyes and ears also available, but there wouldn't be more than human range hearing and vision (which would sometimes go on the fritz and require a hard rap to the side of the head to fix ;) )

Gunwise I think you could keep a lot of the guns available (without smartlinks of course). Perhaps drop the damage code on them by 1 or 2. Armor would likewise be less available, less concealable, and less protective.

Combination Phone / PDMs with a bit more interactivity would be the predecessors to the pocket secretary..

[James McMurray]

Forgot to mention: You may want to pick up a copy of d20 Modernd20 Modern (or at least peruse it at a local game store. Its effectively a less magical and less technological version of Shadowrun. Magic is only recently creaping into the world, government agencies are the most concerned. The one big difference to D20Ma nd SR is that in D20M you have to have something cause an epiphany to see things the way they really are. Otherwise orcs are just bulky humans, etc.

[The Grifter]

Yah, everyone knows orcs are green and chase around barefooted midgets all day.

[SirKodiak]

[James McMurray]

If a player wants to play a magically active character, let them start off as a mundane and then as the magic slips in they are visited by a totem that fits their personality. Of course, you'll have to limit things, such as only allowing one area of spells, and/or dropping the maximum force of a spell.

Heck, the group could even end up with the job of gaurding the great Ghost Walk from interlopers. I would think several spirits would want to investigate that, as well as mundanes. Just be sure to have the spirits manifest so the party can interact with them.

For playing with powers, give the group a military background. Unless you and your plalyers are in the military, most things would be new to them. Drones are making technological leaps and bounds, and an old school rigger would use a laptop and portable satellite uplink to control his drones. A street samurai would use cutting edge or army surplus weaponry and armor mixed with performance enhancing drugs. A decker would ba a highly advanced hacker. And the magician would be a fledgling being taught the ways of magic by a totem, or searching it out in ancient libraries and tombs.

[tisoz]

Didn't the awakening occur in 2011? So the immor(t)al elves are going to already be around with their knowlrdge of magic and recruiting and training their minions to establish their power base. Of course, they may have been doing this all along, so some fully trained magicians could exist in 2011.

[thepatriot]

Unofficially, the Awakening is not a linear event... were we living in the SR world, it would be occurring as we speak. The singular events that occur in the SR world are the result of increasing levels of ambient mana, not spikes and such.

The Awakening is officially recorded as occurring on Dec 12, 2011... the day Rumyo appeared. Other sources identify 2012 because of the UGE babies. I think we can safely say that by 2021 and Gobbie Day, the Awakening was fully underway.

Have I hit the points pretty clearly, AH?

[kevyn668]

Don't forget the Century Ferret. ;)

[The Grifter]

How about the Predator Omega? When does he come along? ;)

[kevyn668]

[thepatriot]

Scotty, beam me up...




Scotty?

[SirKodiak]

Interesting, apparently I had my dates off for magical awakening. Well, that only makes things better.

I'd agree you could take each archetype and have an equivalent, but just one that is pared down. I also agree that this is a situation where I'm going to want the be pretty giving in letting the players have backgrounds that gives them interesting training, because they'll get less out of any cyberware or magic that they might have.

As for magic, it would probably be easier to include an adept than a spellcaster, as my recollection is that spellcasting started out in people who had a more natural connection to it. Also, the mood I'm going for is one of the strangeness of the Awakening, not comfort with it, so I'd want to limit the experience the players had with magic prior to the start of the campaign.

[thepatriot]

When I did something to this effect I deemed a penalty for magic use every 10 years before 2020. Thus, if one were to try magic in 2000, he or she would not only suffer +2TN, but would also suffer from lack of widespread acceptance. Then again, Goths find magic interesting and fun...

[tisoz]

[FlakJacket]

[The Grifter]

So you improvise. Street Samurais ith hooks for hands! Oh! And titanium peg-legs!

[Kanada Ten]

In 2019 they had "fine" cybernetic control over limbs - enough to play a violin. It's not hard to imagine the tech curve of earlier limbs using muscle control. Maybe +4 to all TNs with precyber limbs? No strength or other enhancments.

[Demosthenes]

Remember as well that the Crash wiped out a lot of tech and set an awful lot of research back by quite a few years. It's not implausible for _some_ cyber to be out there, and fairly advanced (if classified/hard to get hold of/mil-spec only) in 2015. After all, they developed the first cyberdecks in the middle of the Crash...

[RangerJoe]

I think JM hit the nail on the head with street sams using pilfered military tech and hopping themselves up on a variety of performance enhancing drugs. I suppose you could make a mage-esque player who was a member of a practicing magical group in 2010-2011. Such groups exist today, although most of their magic is of a "ritual" nature.

[RangerJoe]

Actually, the more I think about it, the more amusing a 2011 SR game sounds to me. It would be pretty much like "Heat" or any of the other good well-organized crime films, with a slightly techier edge. Aside from a few tweaks in the rules, it's easy to convert deckers to hackers and riggers to wheel-men (and imagine how much they'll save not having to buy cyberware, which can go into a good deck, I mean, computer, or a snazzy set of wheels).

Fast forwards a little bit, and laugh as your players are holed up after a run, and one of them begins to goblinize.....