Invitation to Join Shadowrun History…

Shadowrun has enjoyed enormous fan support over the years and many of our current freelancers have come up from the fanbase. So, we've decided to try something different this year and give our fans the chance of contributing a little something to the official Shadowrun universe...

To celebrate 20 years of Shadowrun, Catalyst Game Labs is inviting fans to submit a proposal for a fully developed, standalone adventure which will be published as an e-book. Furthermore, we're specifically looking for proposals that play off the stories, plots, and adventures released in Shadowrun's early years.

The author of the selected proposal will work closely with the Shadowrun developers to write a 10,000 word stand-alone adventure, which will be published as an ebook and an official Shadowrun product.

Each proposal must contain the following:

• Pitch/proposal (250 word limit)
• A concise outline/plot summary (200 word limit)
• Full character write-up; including stats and description akin to those seen in On-The-Run or Ghost Cartels (200 word limit)
• An introductory fiction vignette (500 word limit)
• One sample adventure scene (1000 - 2000 word limit)

Submissions should be emailed to info@shadowrun4.com and should be clearly label in the subject line as "20th Anniversary Adventure Submissions."

The deadline/cut-off date for proposals is 15 March 2009.

And to answer a few questions:

Only one proposal will be selected. However, fans who submit well written proposals may be invited to join our freelance writer pool or to submit additional proposals in the future.

We look for writers who can stick to a word limit. The word limits listed are the maximum guidelines. Please stick to them.

Refer to On The Run or Ghost Cartels, or to a lesser extent Missions, to see sample "scenes" - these should be balanced and fully contained, and demonstrate the writer's ability to narrate a story and to leave room for a variety of teams to succeed.

Introductory fiction vignettes should be like the stories at the beginning of each chapter in SR4 books (and as the current writers are told, if it's 501 words, it gets sent back...) -- they should both tell a story and whet the appetite of the readers (in this case, the Shadowrun developers).

Any further questions, please post to this thread. Looking forward to seeing your submissions!

Excellent! Time to get to work, I suppose.

Is there any restrictions on where the submitter is located for this?

You must live or be able to commute to somewhere that the internet reaches.

Good enough for me - most days

Thanks.

Since this was announced on Saturday, I have had 2 hours of sleep. My hands are shaking, my eyes are burning, and my mind is racing like a hyper-active devilrat in a 5 gallon bucket.

Dear CGL, thank you for making me feel like a writer again.

now back to digging through all the 1st and 2nd edition books for interesting tidbits...

4th edition only, I assume?

Yes. Shadowrun Fourth Edition is the only edition Catalyst Game Labs is supporting, so all adventure submissions must comply with Fourth Edition rules.

Here's a tip for any potential submissions:

Scenes in Shadowrun adventures tend to box themselves into one a handful of distinct categories—legwork, infiltration, combat, and maybe a Matrix run. We're trying to get away from that traditional compartimentalization, so if you want to wow us, think out of the box. Make your scenes challenging and unique. For instance, if you're writing a combat scene don't make it a stand-up shooting match, play with the setting and circumstances to make it challenging, original, and unique (ie. a parkour-type chase through a crowded mall, or an underwater fight in the Deep Laguna, or a free for all in a limited visibility/restricted movement environment like Ghost Cartel's Kowloon Massacre).

Beware the Ides of March!!(I have to ask, was the deadline date intentional?)

Thanks for the tip,Synner.

The word counts are pretty tight as well as the deadline,but it's a nice challenge and well worth the effort. Its also given me an excuse to read up on all the old material I have in the basement.

"I'm not sitting here like a lump, dear, I am researching!"

How "early years" are we talking about? I just started reading Shadowrun when 2nd edition was in the middle of its lifespan. Can "early years" mean stuff that's in the background history, like the rise of Alamos 20K?

If you think you can craft a compelling modern adventure that relates, go for it.

Awesome

Double post, sorry.

I pretty much understand most of the requirements, but when you say "full character write-ups," are you talking about the Cast of Shadows section? Also, is that 200 words for each major NPC?

As far as the adventure scene, I haven't had a chance to see an adventure format since the 2nd edition adventures. Has the format changed much?

HMHVV--The SR Missions follow a format similar to current adventure releases such as On The Run. Downloading one of them from here should give you an idea of the format currently used.

When we say full character write up, the character should be like one in the Cast of Shadows section, with a background and stats. We only want to see 1 NPC writeup in the proposal - we're just looking at how you handle the write up and how well you design characters, with the word-limits we've put in place. And yes, writing a background and motivation, and stats, for a character in 200 words is challenging.

A couple other things: in the initial items (proposal, one scene from the adventure, etc) are you worried much about 1) maps and 2) the two-column format?

Speaking only for myself, if I'm reading a proposal that's in two-column format, I'm going to first turn it back into single column, for my own convenience. As for maps, I don't think they're useful at this stage.

No maps.

I prefer receiving proposals in .rtf personally. We are not looking at your layout skills . The selected proposal will be written and submitted in rtf and all our editing will be done in that format. (Just a peek behind the curtain, folks... yes, we do use Word...)

I've got a 102 page writeup (no joke, it's in a word doc) of a year long game that my group did. Faithfully interpreted from one character's point of view in Film Noir style.

You sure Catalyst doesn't need something like that?

Preferably not the latest version. .docx is the devil.

So how do I make a Word Document in rtf (I'm not very familiar with that file type)?

File -> Save As

Save as type: (Choose Rich Text Format from the drop down)

Ah ok. Thanks.

Just want to make sure I do this right

One small question - I saw in the stat blocks on the Shadowrun Mission that I downloaded a stat labeled "CM." What does that mean?

Condition Monitor

Okay. I have just finished off my work schedule. That leaves me from now till the deadline to produce a submission. *Whew!*

I am reading the deadline as the 15th being the last day that submissions are accepted, rather than submissions must be in by this date. I may need the Sunday to finish mine. Can you confirm that's okay, please?

Peace and be cool,

Khadim.

Yes, it's cool.

Does the 200 word limit for the Full-character write-up include the description, gear, stats, and skills?

Yes, it does.

Something I hadn't thought about until now:

I have only the Fanpro edition of the SR4 corebook and know virtually nothing about the eratta. Are you concerned about using the eratta rules in the sample adventure?

While the final adventure written will use SR4 rules, the initial proposal does not need to be "rules heavy." We are looking primarily at your writing ability and your ideas at this point.

*Whew* That's a relief!

One clarification, though: I've written the sample adventure scene, including stats for the enemy NPCs and such. When you say "not rules heavy," do you mean you don't want the NPC stats at all, or just that you're not going to nitpick about the rules too much?

Stats for the NPCs in your sample scene are fine. We're not going to nitpick about the rules too much for your proposal... the accepted author's final product will, of course, be nitpicked within an inch of its life by the editor, the developer, the playtesters, and the proofreaders...

I'd just like to say also that while we are only taking one proposal for this special 20th anniversary fan adventure, I am looking at each proposal with a careful eye and authors may be invited to submit for a freelance writing project...

Thanks

For everyone who has submitted a proposal - first, a giant Thank You (although you've made my life harder by submitting so many good proposals, and I'm not looking forward to having to pick only one!).

Second, I have sent a "received" confirmation to everyone who's sent in a proposal to date. If you have not received that response from me, PLEASE PM ME ON THIS FORUM. Please, I don't want to miss anyone's work!

I can still send one in today, right?

Yup. We're accepting through today (March 15th).

*Relieved sigh* Thanks

Sent my entry in about three hours ago. Sent you a PM too.

I think I'm out, I'm afraid. I've got about four hours left to do this, alas.

Shame. I would like to have contributed something to the game I like so much.

You can contribute, they just won't use it right away. That's what I'm counting on, for when I finally kill the beast on which I am working now.

Has anyone sent any submissions today? If so, have you received a confirmation e-mail? I sent mine in about six hours ago and nothing yet. The PMs I've sent have also gone unanswered so far.

I hate to be pushy on this; I'm just getting really worried at this point.

hey hey,

I don't work all day every day, and neither does Jen so submissions that arrived today have yet to be passed on to Jen. Please relax.

Again, I'm very sorry if I'm being pushy. I'm just rather worried about the word count (got two different results seemingly depending on whether I'm using a PC or Mac, and I don't know what to do).

Pretty much every different program does word counting slightly differently. Don't sweat the small stuff, we're not going to reject things over 5-10 words.

What about 13? (That's how many more words over the threshold the Mac Word program added over the PC one, for some reason I haven't been able to figure out).

Never mind; questions answered by a helpful source. Thanks Adam