In the deepest bowels of the Miskatonic Psychiatric Institute on the outskirts of Seattle lies a hidden facility that only the director, the government, and a handful of select employees know about. Held within this hidden psychiatric facility are scientists, philosophers, magicians, homemakers, criminals, and murderers. All have one thing in common. They hold fast to the delusional beliefs that all the world is really a pen&paper roleplaying game created in 1989 by a company called FASA. But, are they really insane or are they the victims of an ancient conspiracy determined to keep the truth from the world?

In There is no Fourth Wall, PCs begin as inmates of a maximum security psychiatric institution called the Miskatonic Institute. All hold fast to the belief that they are merely characters in an RPG. They begin with no equipment but a backless polkadot medical gown, all disableable cyberware is disabled, and they are sitting on a unique natural rating 9 manawarp known as the chathu. They must use all of their wits and resources to escape into the outside world.

Characters are to be made with 135 BP using SR3 rules. Backstory justifications for skills are unnecessary and incongruent backstories are encouraged. A homemaker who never held a gun with 6 in assault rifles is perfectly fine. 20 BP must be spent on scientific and RPG related knowledge skills and all characters must have at least 2BP worth of mental flaws.
Metagaming is strongly encouraged due to the fact that there is no Fourth Wall. It should, however, be justified by Player-PC interactions. Metagaming gives the PCs a great advantage over the Fourth-Waller NPCs that they will face in the course of the game because the Fourth-Wallers' self-enforced "sanity" prevents them from accessing metagame information that they should not know.

Holy shit... I could see so much potential for RP with this game... too bad I'm swamped with other games and RL right now.

Basically, all PCs act like Red Mage, am I correct?

I'm almost tempted.

Characters who a blatant rip offs of comic book characters of a favorite comic/movie character are to be encouraged.

I was thinking Order of the Stick...

Its all good. Everyone can break the Fourth Wall in their own way.

okay....so...um....I'm interested...but confused....don't worry as soon as my player rolls his dice I'll be fine again...yeah yeah...hurry up dern it! roll them bones!!!!

Damm you.
I'm interested, but currently too busy.

I just want to say that this looks like a mind-bogglingly cool game. Unfortunately, I am seriously overcommitted on this board. But I strenuously applaud your concept and wish I could win the lottery, allowing me to quit my job and have time to play.
My hat is off to you, Mr. hyzmarca.

Hell it's SR3 and even though I an SR4aphile I'm interested.

Is it okay for my character to use a Matrix dice roller to work out whether he succeeds?

This is going to make me pull out all of my old SR3 books, and for this concept I am more than happy to do so.....I will throw my hat into the ring and I will have a concept into you sometime soon.

Maybe I'll need to put out some more enticement. Rest assured, there will be ubiquitous pop-culture references in the background and sometimes in the foreground. There will be government conspiracies. And there will be Drop Bears, when you least expect them.

And I don't want to spoil anything, but I do have plans for the disembodied brain of everyone favorite Führer.

In like Flynn. Literally.

"You don't understand I have proof! Look at me, my charcter is quite clearly based on Errol Flynn, but he loved sailing. Can I sail? NO, because it would've been a waste of points in a setting that rarely uses sailboats! How can I be obsessed with him? He's been dead over a hundred years! What logical reason is there for me to have seen ANY of his films?!? Go to Shadowland, it's where they keep the source books... THE SOURCE BOOKS!"

Ahem. So... I'm able if your willing.

Regarding gear, do we just not buy any? What about lifestyle?

PCs may have both gear and lifestyle waiting for them once they escape, and may have personal effects held in storage on the upper floors of the facility. However, any lifestyle that is tied to their real (or current) identities will be compromised.

Also, in a departure from the standard rules, I have decided to let PCs keep all of their leftover resources in nuyen, instead of the usual percentage. This is to partially offset the general lack of paying jobs related to the overall plot. However, the character sheet should state exactly where this money is kept and I should remind players that the conspiracy will freeze any bank accounts that they know about after the escape.

Hmmm. Social/mystical adept with the ability to tell the major events of the future... divination might finally have a use.

Its still here if anyone is still interested.

im interested, but i really wish it was 4, not 3....

I'm...afraid. I'm up for a new game (I pretty much always am), but this one sounds almost like it won't feel like playing Shadowrun. I dunno. The premise has always been something I'm leery of (I tend to dislike it when the fourth wall breaks down in comics, etc).

I'll kick an idea or two around, though.

I can't promise that It'll feel like Shadowrun to you, Critias but I am most certainly going to play strictly by the rules and you get to determine exactly how much meta-reference your character makes and how much of the "real" world he is aware of.

As for the edition, Aku, there are very good reasons why I chose Third beyond my preference for it. I'm planning to make use of some things that simply do not exist in SR4, yet, and I believe that the wireless matrix would provide too much information access in what is essentially a 'running from an evil conspiracy' game.

my mind is too cluttered to keep both straight i think...

Not such a bad thing. Imagine someone who thinks their in a game, but is convinced that everyone else is from 25 years ago, and they will be doomed to be out of date.

i'll be the beta tester of the next version

Well, I'm still watching the thread. I was waiting to see if more people join before I make a character, but I can just go ahead and make one if you want. If I do, you want it posted in this thread or PM'ed?

Likewise

Posted. I prefer some group cooperating in PC creation, to avoid Seven Samurai Syndrome.