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imperialus
*EDIT* Whoops! I forgot I can't edit the subject line once I post the topic. Recruitment is now CLOSED. Sorry if the subject line led you in here.

I’ve decided to try a bit of an experiment here. It seems like there are a fair number of new players, or potential new players looking for a game to join so I figured I would try and give something back to the game that has brought me so much enjoyment. I’ve been playing Shadowrun since early 2nd edition and GMing it regularly since about 96.

With that in mind I am starting a new PbP campaign with the express purpose of giving new players an opportunity to give the system a try with an experienced GM at the helm. As such I would like to limit players to those who have either never played before, or have only sat down for one or two games. By limiting the group to inexperienced players no one will feel like the lone newbie in a group and I’ll do my best to explain the rules and handhold the players though my interpretation of what the 6th world looks like.

This will be a fairly casual game, I’m in school full time and working so I’ll try and make daily updates but don’t be surprised if I occasionally disappear for a day or two. When it comes to combat I’ll roll the initiative for everyone and post the list in the OOC thread. When it comes to your turn you’ll have approximately 24 hours from the last post to declare your actions and roll your dice. After 24 hours I reserve the right to take your characters actions for you. I’ll keep them as conservative as possible (duck for cover, return fire ect.) but it is important that you be able to regularly post during combat.

The campaign itself will be as vanilla as possible. There will be no particular ‘theme’ and characters will be created using standard rules from the core book. If you have access to Augmentation, Arsenal, or Street Magic you can use them but it is not necessary. In fact basing your characters off of the example characters in the core rulebook is probably ideal. They’re pretty capable, but not optimized one trick ponies either. It will be set in Seattle with a start date of January 1st 2070. Any archtypes apart from Technomancers are available though I would also strongly discourage anyone from focusing too much on hacking. In my experience hacking slows PbP’s down to an almost unmanageable level, and the rules can be a bit much for new players. Hacker NPC’s will be available to undertake specific tasks that the team deems necessary. If your heart is set on playing a hacker however please let me know and we can probably work something out.

When it comes to archtypes, don’t worry too much about trying to cover all the bases. I won’t penalize the team if no one plays a face, or a rigger, or a mage. Play whatever archtype suits your fancy, I'd rather tailor the campaign to suit an all street sam team than have a player feel like they were stuck playing the mage because no one else was. I’m also going to be fairly forgiving when it comes to stuff like police response and mistakes coming back to bite you in the ass. That said though I feel that it is important for PC’s to have at least minimal social skills. You don’t need to be able to run for president on charm alone but being able to sit down across from a mafia boss without offending him is useful.

As far as background goes you can be as detailed or as vague as you want. All I need is a one or two sentence background explaining why you are a Shadowrunner. Background can develop as your own understanding of the world evolves.

I’m going to limit the group to 4 PC’s and until I hear back from them I am reserving spots for Dusty Ghost and JoelHalpern. Please post in the thread if you are interested. Once I have enough players I'll post the OOC thread which will have rules for posting, how dicerolls are handled and all the other fiddly bits that help PbP's run smoothly.

Group:
Dusty Ghost
JoelHalpern
Seraph Kast
Mickle5125
Nigel
Dusty Ghost
Woot! I'm in!

Same diff here, if I don't reply for a couple of hours, it's as I am in the UK and asleep!

Please consider 24h delays from me to be hesitation on my Player Character. Though I should be able to reply ASAP.

What about dice roles? Are you trusting us to role?

Right, I'll get a character made and let you know ASAP with the character sheet.
imperialus
I typically use http://invisiblecastle.com/. It's about as simple to use as anything, and since it doesn't sort your roll from highest to lowest, you'll end up with a result like this:

Agility 3, Pistols 3 (1d6=2, 1d6=2, 1d6=5, 1d6=5, 1d6=4, 1d6=1)

What this lets me do is apply dice pool modifiers after the fact so we don't need to waste time messaging back and forth as to how many dice you should be rolling. Say the above roll was an attempt to shoot some guy but he was behind cover. I can just knock dice off from right to left until I reach the appropriate pool. If I decide you need a higher dice pool (say you forgot to factor in your smartlink) I can just make another roll with the appropriate number of dice like so:

Adding bonus for Smartlink (1d6=6, 1d6=6) (the smartlink came in handy there)

This means that you don't need to worry at all about trying to figure out modifiers for cover, smoke and everything else. Just add up your total dice under ideal conditions and roll em. The only negative modifier I would request that you track and take off from your dice pool is recoil. Trying to keep track of everyones recoil modifiers can become an exercise in bookkeeping. Other than that though I can take care of the rest. I'll mention any negative modifiers ahead of time just so I don't catch you guys by surprise but you don't need to worry about flipping through the rulebook to figure out your total pool, at least at first.
imperialus
QUOTE (Dusty Ghost @ May 8 2008, 03:54 PM) *
Please consider 24h delays from me to be hesitation on my Player Character. Though I should be able to reply ASAP.


I wouldn't worry too much about the 24 hour limit. I'm not terribly draconian about it until it starts slowing the whole game down. We all have lives outside of the message board, it's just something I like to mention right off the bat to nip any potential problems in the bud.

When the group isn't in combat and a player disappears they typically just fade to the background and don't say much until they return. I'd appreciate a PM or a post in the OOC thread if you know you'll be away for a while so I can plan things that don't focus on your PC while you're away but again I realize that life happens, and sometimes people just disappear for a while.
imperialus
Please use the following format to post characters. Also everyone gets a Fixer contact named Tinman with a loyalty of 2 and connection of 3 for free. You might find this excell character generator useful. If you use it please email me the file so I can check it out. My email is imperialus1 at hotmail dot com

Streetname:
Primary SIN:
Concept:
Race:

Attributes: # BP
Bod: #natural (# augmented)
Agi: #natural (# augmented)
Rea: #natural (# augmented)
Str: #natural (# augmented)
Cha: #natural (# augmented)
Int: #natural (# augmented)
Log: #natural (# augmented)
Wil: #natural (# augmented)

Edge: #natural (# augmented)
Essence: #

Skills: #bp

Knowledge Skills: # (free) # bp

Negative Qualities: (Add # of BP's in brackets at the end)

Positive Qualities:

Cyber/bioware: (# bp # nuyen.gif)

Gear:

Contacts: # bp
Dusty Ghost
Coolio! Well this should be fun!

You should know that I have followed the story of SR for some years now. I got into it at SR2 and played a total of 1 game, the people who played with me were hard core D&D players and dissed the rules at every opportunity. ruined the whole game.

But I always loved the story! and the world of SR! I got version 3 and some other rulebooks and play guides (such as renraku archology shut down) but never really learnt the rules as I had no one to play with. A few months after SR3 came out I slowly drifted into other things and SR got put on the shelf. I came back about a month ago to find we are now on SR4!!! So much has changed! so many more characters and archetypes!

So I consider myself a newbie to the game, despite being assosiated with it for some time.

I still only know the quick start rules (...ish) so I hope I still qualify to join in on this campaign.

Is that ok?
Seraph Kast
Yeah, I would love to get in on this. Only played a couple of unfortunately short games IRL, I'd love to try something with a chance of lasting longer! I'll work up a detailed background and so forth, but I like the idea of playing a street samurai style guy. Focus on guns over stabbing. Also, that's a neat die roller site, I like that you can look up the actual roll you made.
imperialus
Dusty Ghost: If you consider yourself a newbie then you're in.

Seraph Kast: Welcome aboard.
last_of_the_great_mikeys
Hmmm...I'm NOT a newbie to shadowrun, but I have yet to actually sit down with anyone (or even talk in person to) who plays 4th edition, so I'm a newbie at 4th edition rules (I tend to read fluff more than rules). Does this disqualify me?
Mickle5125
I'm definitely completely new to the Pbp style, and I haven't played much actual Shadowrun, so I'm pretty sure I count as a newb. Ah well...
last_of_the_great_mikeys
I will step aside for true newbies. smile.gif
Nigel
I'm in, if you'll have me. I've sat down for two games, and that's the extent of my experience. I have very little experience with the PbP system, so I'll likely take a little while to catch on completely. I do have the chargen XLS, so I'll e-mail it to you completed if you don't mind. I've played a face/rigger as of yet, but I'd like to maybe try something more combat-oriented, with lots of wires and such visible. Hmm...started to formulate a character.
Seraph Kast
Awesome, thanks! Do you have any feelings on starting with gear that has mods from Arsenal if we have the skills and tools to make them ourselves?
JoelHalpern
Thank you.
I gratefully accept. I have been looking to play this game.
For fairness, I am new to fourth edition, but not to all of Shadowrun. I GMed a 1st edition game.

Is it reasonable for the players to coordinate a little on character focus? (I tend to prefer to run something different from what other folks are running.) I realize you said that we shouldn't worry about gaps. But two Troll Knife thrower adepts would be pretty silly.

Thank you,
Joel Halpern
Nigel
QUOTE (JoelHalpern @ May 8 2008, 05:34 PM) *
But two Troll Knife thrower adepts would be pretty silly.


Well damn, that's what I was going to make twirl.gif. Kidding, but if we can do this, I'd like to know what everyone else is going to make.
imperialus
Ok, so Mickle5125, and Nigel, you're in. Thanks for agreeing to step aside Mikey. I really don't want to go above 5 players but I'll keep you in mind if someone ends up dropping.

Don't post characters in this thread. I'll have the OOC thread up either later tonight or tomorrow. That'll serve as the character repository.

imperialus
QUOTE (JoelHalpern @ May 8 2008, 06:34 PM) *
Is it reasonable for the players to coordinate a little on character focus? (I tend to prefer to run something different from what other folks are running.) I realize you said that we shouldn't worry about gaps. But two Troll Knife thrower adepts would be pretty silly.


It's perfectly fine if you want to co-ordinate characters. I just didn't want to give the impression that you had to co-ordinate characters. Like I said, I'd rather everyone get to play the character they want even if we do end up with two Troll knife throwers rather than being forced to play an archtype that doesn't grab you just to fill a role.
JoelHalpern
My preference is a Troll by the name of Mack Garvin.

Background: Was hired as a mercenary, with a short lived, not very successful, company. That's where all the cyber / biowear comes from (part of their problem was that they spent a bit too much.)
He was trained in Heavy Weapons. He is still convinced that if you are going to shoot something, use a big gun. (An Ingram White Night will do fine.)

However, somewhere along the line he realized that the real win was throwing things. Particularly knives. He likes knives.

So He is an adept with 3 power points (4 magic, minus one for the implants.)

Still working out the exact balance on the 400 points. He will be incompetent with pistols (which ties to the character name.)

Yours,
Joel / Mack

PS: Can we take a skill group at level 1 for 10 points, and one skill from the group at level 4 for an extra 12 points? As I read the book, that is a GM call.
Seraph Kast
My character is going to be an Orky Street Samurai type, focused on shooty, not so much the stabby. Lots of 'ware. He's a genebaby that goblinized in his teens so take that as you will. Working on fleshing out the backstory a bit more, but I'll wait to toss that in the character thread.
imperialus
QUOTE (JoelHalpern @ May 8 2008, 09:24 PM) *
PS: Can we take a skill group at level 1 for 10 points, and one skill from the group at level 4 for an extra 12 points? As I read the book, that is a GM call.


Sure, I'll let you do that. Just keep in mind that it might muck with the character generator so you might need to check its math.
Nigel
Hmm...two heavies. We're going to want (not need, but it's good to have) a face, magic-type, and probably a stabby type. Or rigger.

I think I'll go for a face. It's what I'm good at in RPGs, and what I've played in Shadowrun. I'm more comfortable with trying out new things in person.

So I'll most likely be an Elf. High charisma, possibly some skills in swords or monofilament whips or something. I'll make a backstory, personality, etc. and post it with my character.


Oh, and Mikey, I forgot to mention that I thank you for relinquishing your position smile.gif. I appreciate it - it gives me more exposure to SR, as well as the PbP format.
Mickle5125
my current idea is a priest from a church in a poor neighborhood who's forced to do runs to help the church keep going...

Human adept with social skills and enough other skills to not go splat in a firefight.
imperialus
Looks good guys, the OOC thread is up, and I'm going to bed.
Dusty Ghost
I'll be the face, I have a idea in mind for a character if that's ok? EDIT: Face taken, so this is an sneaky covert ops specialist.

He is a professional blackmailer and dirt digger. Who wants to try his skills in the Corporate game that is the Shadowrun.

Small and not too handsome for an elf, but quick with lots of hidden surprises.

This guy plays dirty!

Very good at getting out of tricky situations either with his quick tongue, or quicker short blade.
Dusty Ghost
One other thing.

How do you keep track of player locations.

Have you got an online battle mat? Or do you guesstimate distance and such?
imperialus
QUOTE (Dusty Ghost @ May 9 2008, 08:55 AM) *
One other thing.

How do you keep track of player locations.

Have you got an online battle mat? Or do you guesstimate distance and such?


For the most part I just guesstimate distances. I'm not a big fan of battle mats even in face to face games but if there is confusion I'll whip something up in paint to give people an idea of where things are.
Nigel
QUOTE (Dusty Ghost @ May 9 2008, 05:54 AM) *
I'll be the face, I have a idea in mind for a character if that's ok?

He is a professional blackmailer and dirt digger. Who wants to try his skills in the Corporate game that is the Shadowrun.

Small and not too handsome for an elf, but quick with lots of hidden surprises.

This guy plays dirty!

Very good at getting out of tricky situations either with his quick tongue, or quicker short blade.


Actually, I was going to be the face. But hey, more than one is always handy. If you'd like, I can try my hand at a different type - though I would most definitely be building from a Sample Character.
Mickle5125
so that makes 2 street sams, a true face, a priest who can face or shoot, and another face? something tells me this might need a little work...

for example, does anyone want to be sneaky so that we don't always have to talk or shoot our way in?
Pyritefoolsgold
Damn you have to be on the fragging ball to get into these things. I was all optimistic too!
Dusty Ghost
QUOTE (Nigel @ May 9 2008, 05:08 PM) *
Actually, I was going to be the face. But hey, more than one is always handy. If you'd like, I can try my hand at a different type - though I would most definitely be building from a Sample Character.

OH NO! You go ahead! That makes my life allot easier!

I just knew that we needed a face so thought I'd volunteer. But your welcome to it if want.

EDIT:

Teach me not to read ealier posts!
Dusty Ghost
QUOTE (Mickle5125 @ May 9 2008, 05:19 PM) *
for example, does anyone want to be sneaky so that we don't always have to talk or shoot our way in?

That's exactly the type I was going to be!! grinbig.gif

I just thought we had no face at the time, LOL
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