Hi all

I'm running a series of prologue adventures for my PCs to bring them from 2064 to 2070. I had my eye on running a few of the Emergence stories and was wondering if anyone here had ran it and if so, what sort of stories from the trenches would you share.

Was it worthwhile?
Any problems/recommendations?
Things you would do differently?
How did you work it into your existing campaign?

Thanks in advance,

- J.

I know that maxmahem has run them. I've listened to some of them in his Shadowrun Podcasts. It sounds like he modified the frameworks as given in the book quite a bit to fit his campaign, which is how they are intended to be used, IMO.

I ran Emergence myself. It was quite successful. I used most if not all of the Hong Kong material and had my runners in that city during the events of Emergence so that they could be involved therein. Then, later, they protected a group of Technomancers against a rouge AI (not from the books) so that Pulsar could go deal with Sojourner. Peripheral to the main storyline of Emergence, but it fit my campaign so it worked out in the end. Regardless, it was fun and successful. Too bad I didn't get to wrap it up the way I was hoping to with one or two more sessions, but summer vacation and graduations kicked in and I lost some of my players.

I'm actually running Emergence right now and my PCs are right at the point where the Queen Elizabeth Hospital event takes place. Yes, I think it's been worthwhile so far. I wouldn't say I had any problems though I probably wouldn't have run all of the first Adventure Seeds as stand-alone adventures again, I'd probably work them into an existing missions. They're interesting conceptually but they make for a short session without a LOT of fleshing out.

My players use their fixers for jobs so integrating Emergence bits into the campaign hasn't been particularly difficult.

I had my eyes on 'Cause for Distraction' (the HK job where the technomancer's break free) also I liked the 'Rise and Fall of Joey D' because my players are in Seattle and also, they're forming ties to Brackhaven (so its a perfect fit). I also liked what I was reading in Runner's Havens.

My original plan was to finish up the current adventure, do On The Run - then migrate to Ghost Cartels.

- J.

Yes, I've run most of it, not having the book in front of me I can't recall exactly what parts though. I do recall we ran the part where the possible bio-weapon is sent down from orbit, and one where the runners have to escort a technomancer for a media corp. All the runs turned out pretty good.

I haven't run any of the Hong Kong breakout stuff yet though, mainly for two reasons. One because it seemed like it was a major plot event, and since I don't run in Hong Kong, I didn't want to transport it over to my setting (NYC at the time). Now though, it looks like the breakout may not have been such a big deal plot wise, so I may structure a similar event to occur in my current setting, which is Miami. Though the actual breakout will probably happen in one of the Carabian island or something likely (maybe Key-west? I haven't decided). As a major port city the events should translate pretty easily.

I thought about that too because my campaign is focusing on Seattle atm. But I read it and really liked it. Plus a lot of my adventures have been more investigative by nature lately. Something like being stuck in the middle of a city in lockdown sounds like fun

- J.

Seattle is our default setting so I've had the Johnsons pay for coach tickets and local gear contacts for the LA and Hong Kong runs.

Road trips can be fun, but I find my campaign works best when primarily confined to a single location. Where the players can continue to interact with the other long-standing NPCs from my game. And where there action will continue to have a direct impact on their daily lives. There seems to be a tendancy for what happens in Hong Kong (or LA or wherever) to stay in Hong Kong. At the very least, its harder for me to make the players feel the repercusions for their actions in a forgin sprawl then when they take a crap in their own back-yard.

All that said I have been thinking about how to handle some of the globe trotting events that have been comming up in the recent scenario books. One way I may handle it is to move the location closer, so the players actions still might have some effect. For example, I may move the Hong Kong breakout to Atlanta, which seems a nice spraw for it for some reason to me, but is still close enough to my current campaign setting in Mami, for the effect to be felt. Also I think I will have a prominent NPC from the campaign accompany them on their trips, so at least some re-occuring NPC will get some growth out of it. And, with Atlanta being so much closer then Hong Kong, its much more viable for a NPC they develop in that sprawl to show up back again in Mami. (Though having a connection from HK pay you a visit would be way cool though...)

Whats wrong with having them based out of a key location? Runner's aren't going to travel ALL the time. It will make sense for them to stay in the one place and travel occasionally. I'd imagine that for prime runners they may need to constantly travel where the action is but sooner or later, all runner's will want to settle down in a primary location. That's just human nature.

Taking the human element out of the equation, every so often an employer will definitely want to employ talent that isn't local. That go double if you want expendibles (why wash out your own local pool of talent?) or untraceables (local talent will work for a limited number of fixers or might be well known locally).

Just my $0.02 worth.

- J.

It's a bit unfortunate that in my game my PCs never seem to live long enough or stick around long enough to form a real presence in the campaign. I do have reoccurring NPCs but my players' PCs usually die after three or four months of in-game time. I'm hoping that one these days they'll break free of the D&D hack n' slash-style and learn to take cover. Then maybe I'll have one of those campaign settings that I only dream of, where character actions really do have lasting repercussions.

Have you told them "they need to take cover"?

I resent that Shadowrun actually forces PCs to take a 5 pt merit "Common Sense" to get this advice (I mean come on, has anyone seen a player take this??), but seriously, sometimes its warranted for GM sanity.

- J.

Five times at last count. They'll figure it out sometime, I hope.

I'm running an Emergence campaign right now.

It should be known that I don't want to run any of the suggested runs campaigns that are listed at the ends of the chapters because of my personal beliefs about canon and plot material. If something is listed as an event in the book, the players won't be DIRECTLY involved in making it happen or preventing it from happening, BUT, I am making sure the runs they go on directly reference or might be aftermath involving some of those events. Basically for whatever reason I got it in my head, I like the party to be involved in a completely canon story that any one of the writers or devs could read and say, "Yup, that doesn't conflict with what we had in mind for the metaplot." I like to give my players full control over the situation so that they can succeed or screw up at their own discretion and their outcome won't effect what's been written for the realm. That of course doesn't mean that their actions won't have a BIG outcome for their team.

We are still really early in the Emergence campaign. So far in their collection of runs they've met a secret technomancer who they've earned as a contact, and just now they completed a run where they protected a technomancer for a certain period of days while he was waiting for professionals to extract him and hide him way out of the system. He had been targeted by both MCT and NeoNET's black bag goons and needed muscle to keep him safe. Soon we'll be to the point of the timeline where the HK incident happens and all bets are off.