One of my GMs is running a campaign where he is only allowing core rules and releasing new stuff as it comes out on Shadowland. Note: All of the following is SR2.

With creation, you only get the stuff in the corebook. No spells outside of it, no items, no metavariants, no nothing. Just the corebook. SR2 core starts in '50, so you get that, and a few months down the road you add Street Sammie Catalog. Next up is Grimoire and Shadowtech, followed by a few books that don't have very much in terms of items and spells, and then Awakenings and Cybertechnology.

While I don't get to play in this one (He runs in WV, and I have no ride.), I do think it's a great way to get character development as well as good old limitations to what you can and cannot do. It also makes for better planning and a lot more background development.

I'd really love to do this, but I need the players first, as well as the length of time that would be needed to get a good way through. Also, I'd feel cheap because, as far as I can tell, it was his original idea, and I'd be ripping it straight off of him.

Thought I'd share the general idea with you all, don't need comments like "Hey, go ahead, I'm sure he'd understand, blah blah blah..." Although those might be interesting to read.

OK, so now I'm rambling. Time to click the post button.

Clicky.

It's an interesting way to do it provided he sticks to his guns about what is allowed. I was in a similar game once where the rules got broken for a few people but not for everyone. That annoys me to no end.

He's well known (At least, to us) for sticking just to the story and never playing favorites. Kind of frustrating at times, but, hey, it's more fun to not have to be angry because he let one person do it and not another.

Tanka, dude, you wouldn't be ripping off any idea - it's been done thousands of times by hundreds of GMs in scores of games and genres which have a myriad of assorted sourcebooks that "improve" a character. GMs (and some players) just hate it when a new book comes out and every player wants to immediately revise their character to include the latest drek so once in a while, a GM says, "ENOUGH!" and goes down this road.

As TinkerGnome says, the GM just has to make sure that he sticks to his guns and the players don't go bananas when the next shiny new toy comes along and they get fed up with not being able to incorporate it into their characters.

[edited for grammar]

It may be true that isn't original, but I got it from him, and that would be cheap, to me, in and of itself. I might do it anyway at some point when I have a good group of players that are here year-round and that will be here to run pretty much every weekend.

Nah, I don't see it as cheap. It's a compliment to him if you've learned something from him and use it. That's how we all learn, bubba. To be modest, I'm a decent GM (to be immodest, I'm a GREAT, FANTASTIC, UBER-GM ) and I owe much of it to learning from one of my best friends who used to GM for me when we were in high school. Before that, I was a good storyteller but a shitty GM limited to playing hack-n-slash D&D games because that's what I started with and was influenced by other shitty D&D gamemasters.

This, of course, is also true. Which, again, is why I may end up using it once I find a good group who'll be there for the entire year and not just summers.

And, yes, I will stick to the tech only being available if the comments are out for it. Even then I might make it harder to get if it's a better piece.

Oh, and, he's not allowing clinics until we get the contacts for them. Unless, of course, it goes in the history. No Alphaware goldmine in Mom and Pop's Cyber Shop. However, if Daddy-kins wants the best for his son, then Alpha it is! Assuming, of course, you've got the lifestyle to back it up.

Oh, yeah, note on the magic: You can design the spell if you really, really want to, but it's done as if you are actually designing it from scratch using Grimoire rules. So if the drain turns out to be different than listed in the book, well, that's your fault for not waiting.

I would personally take the time to go through sourcebooks and allow a few items that make sense. For instance, the security equipment and survival/load bearing stuff in SOTA 2063 wasn't a technological advance. It's been around the whole time, you just didn't have it spelled out in the rules.

I was annoyed by the lack of rules for ghillie suits in that book, though, considering that they were featured in the text writeups.

For awhile after 3rd ed came out, we were using just the basic book for characters. It's not that the things in the other books are unbalancing, but its nice for everybody to start off on the same page. Also, it gives the players something to work for.

What has always annoyed me is that there are no helmets in the basic book available to starting characters. The only helmet listed is the security with the availability of 12. A motorcycle helmet would be nice.

I've always run a Motorcycle Helmet as obvious for what it is (no concealability) cost 100 , rating 0/1, weight .5 kg, and easily available to my players with no permit.

Apparently my costs are high (or not munchkin enough) because when the Cannon Companion came out I find a Rapid Transit Line helmet (p. 50) for 50 with a rating of 0/2.

we've done this once or twice, its kinda cool provided that you live long enough.

With my tabletop game I'm playing, I made all the characters start with only gear from the core book even though I have a wealth of others. The deal was that they could easily purchase them through a fixer (a former character of mine) who always have anything with an avail under 7 days. But that was just something I did with them, it was to stimulate a "well-prepared" fixer.

My group has just gone the opposite route. After years of playing characters from scratch, I've had them all create 150-BP (mundanes) or 175-BP (Awakened) characters without any cyber-/bioware or having to allocate for resources. They have to create characters who used to be runners or spooks or soldiers, etc., and are now, for one reason or another, out of the game. Then, an NPC shows up and begins recruiting them one at a time for something special, of which they have not been told what it is.

After some sessions of role-playing and testing the characters for loyalty, competence, blah, blah, yaddah, yaddah, I'll plug the mundanes with SOTA deltaware and bioware, and the Awakened ones will have their own little toys.

SR2 "starts" in 2053, btw.

That may be, Adam, but it's a bit more of a challenge, I think, to make characters that don't have any access to stuff introduced in books that are commented on in '52. I would simply, also, reverse the timeline to start in '50 and basically twist their lives around the pattern that has already been set.

Of course, if they do something drastic, like seriously alter the timeline, then, I guess, for that point on in that timeline, the timeline they create becomes canon, which means I'd probably have to change a few other events to go along with it.

Makes for a fun and exciting universe, when the players can make or break the world they live in, doesn't it?

Of course, you can play any edition any way you want. However, you stated "SR2 core starts in '50", which isn't right according to the book. I was trying to correct a factual mistake, not tell you that your game is 'wrong' somehow.

Ah, point noted and taken, Adam. My mistake.

Phasma: No... That's different, duh.

Actually, no, you're right, by technicality, of course. However, SR was meant to be used, however, to me, it's just the idea of it. The guy is a good friend of mine and I'd rather not make it seem like I'm just using him for ideas.