Hmm good info here. I should add that I mostly lurk here but this got me interested in posting. I will probably starting up a 4th ed game here in the next 3-4 weeks when are Star Wars Saga game wraps up...



Hey we are in Seattle! We meet Tuesday nights at RealNetworks downtown from 6-9pm if you are interested.

Anyway back on Topic...

My plan right now is to update some of the old 1st and 2nd ed adventures (not sure if I am going to run them all but the ones that I like that I am thinking about are Eyewitness, Ivy & Chrome, Dragonhunt with a different dragon reflected in what's his name is dead or might be, and maybe Bottled Demon) and then run the Dawn of Artifacts set (I figure by then they should all be out).

We all have played a Shadowrun 1st-3rd in the past but this will be our first 4th ed. game... I look forward to it...

I would expect you would get a lot of interest here in rewriting some of those adventures. Those are classics.

- J.

Yea I have run all of them back in 1st and 2nd ed days. I have most of them still, just those are the ones I liked the most...

Hmm maybe I should start a new thread with some advice on how I should update these...

I've been meaning to dig up the old 1st-3rd edition adventures. I think I have most of them. My aim would be less to re-write them as to mine them for pieces and parts that could be incorporated into my own ideas for runs.

Regarding Frosty: I just did a (very) quick check through Harlequin and her stat block does not state immortal or otherwise. I doo however seem to remember a mentioning in part of the text that given she is daughter of who she is and so on..

Or maybe my mind is playing a trick on me after reading Harlequin Back where her stat block clearly states that she has Immunity to Age, disease, pathogens and poisons. Can still be killed by the proper application of bullets though.

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Forgot to say that I like the idea of using missions as a framework to get the runners started. Then later on you can always throw Ghost Cartels after them. That, combined with homegrown ideas, is my plan at least.
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br
Peter

I'm still trying to understand what the practical difference, for the purposes of her role in the adventure, of whether or not Jane Foster has the IE gene. Since she was born in the 6th world she doesn't come with all the baggage that the other IEs bring in. Sure, she's got unspecified mojo from being "you know who's" apprentice, but that doesn't put her in the same category as the rest of the IEs. All depends on how much you want your team of PCs interacting with the metaplot. If you don't like metaplot and don't like IE's and Great Dragons then no level of metaplot intrusion will be welcome. If you are inclined to get your group peripherally involved with the metaplot, then Dawn of the Artifacts is a pretty good way to do it. Not to mention having some well-framed scenes and the backdrop of a feral city.

Really the only parts of the adventure I found troubling were the bits of hyperbole in the "Tell it to them Straight" sections and, honestly, who among us *ever* reads those verbatim to the players? When will authors learn that no player ever likes being told that their characters react to something in a specific way not of their own choosing?

A note about DotA - there are four full adventures in the series and hints (hint hint) of a follow up product as well.

I just picked up the second entry in the series, Midnight, and...

I tried to make that point above but apparently Dusk is to DotA as A New Hope is to Starwars!

It looks like I'll be running the Denver missions and sticking in hooks for Dawn and/or Ghost Cartels when and where it seems appropriate. The player who was going to play the drug-hating merc won't be able to play; I'm going to run him as an NPC (with one of my players handling him in combat so I don't have to deal with DMPC syndrome too badly) bullet sponge. I expect him to go out in a blaze of glory a few sessions in.

Oh, she can be replaced with any other GMPC of your choosing, I'm sure.

Seriously, though, she has the dual roles of team Johnson and team mage. Which means she makes both the face and the spellslinger redundant, since she can fill both roles easily. Since she has no stats, but used to be a decking-type, she could reasonably have those skills as well. I mean, she could easily afford the latest hardware and software, which is half of what you need to be a good decker. All that leaves is the muscle, and she used to hang with a biker gang, meaning that she wouldn't be helpless there, either. You easily see how she could fulfill the entire mission all by herself, and the team is just tagging along as cannon fodder. Any way you slice it, that's poor design.

Can you rewrite this to be fixed? I haven't finished reading the adventure (busy life) so I don't know. But the fact is, I don't buy adventures so that I can spend hours fixing the plot holes in it. I buy adventures so I don't have to waste the brainpower closing off loopholes in the plot. I buy adventures so I can quickly run something without thinking too much about it. I don't think that's too much to ask from a product I'm paying money for, now. Do you? Do you pay money so you can spend time twisting and tweaking an adventure into something playable?

I agree if you starting from scratch missions is way to go. Ghost Cartels is an involved campaign that can be stretched into many many gaming sessions and can pose a decent amount of challenge. (Hoping for a follow up/wrap up of this story at some point, spirits involved seem to have been stated in Running Wild.)

Dawn of the Artifacts has really got me interested, this is the kind of story that 1st/2nd edition really did well (ala bottled demon) and so far I'm liking the series. I know some folks have a serious problem with elves/past worlds but honestly I've been running SR for a few decades now (snicker...thats almost painful) and I got no problem with wrapping my stories around them and still getting what my players want out of their game time.

You exaggerate. Either you're trying to prop up a straw man or play the devil's advocate, but either way, it does not take hours and hours of slavish attention to fix the adventure for the typical Dumpshock complainer. It took me all of 15 minutes to adapt the adventure for a theoretical runner group running out of Buenos Aires, all of who have peg legs, hates elves, and will only be paid in bottle caps (who's exaggerating now, huh? *grin*), and the adventure did not have Jane "Frosty" Foster in it. It's not that hard, especially that particular adventure.

Now, if you go onto Midnight, there's the whole stupid divining/dowsing ritual to find the other artifact. That takes a bit of retrofitting, but if the group has a mage, you can just have him/her learn how to use the map from a formula discovered by the hiring corporation. Boom, problem solved. Not sure what the rest of the adventures have in store.

Yes, but the point stands. You don't need hours and hours to fix the Denver Missions modules, or even 15 minutes. They're ready to run, right out of the can. Besides which, having a GMPC is just bad form. At the very least, fixing the adventure involves creating a character with actual stats. And given how long it takes to create characters in SR4.5, that's several hours right there.

I've found at least one Missions adventure which not only railroads the PCs absurdly, the method used I found utterly offensive as both a player and a GM. It's not limited to the books you know. I guess the question is just how "broken" it is.

I'm willing to accept some degree of customisation with any group of PCs. But I hate having to modify entire sections because of godlike GM NPCs and massive railroading.

- J.

Only if you run in Denver. You HAVE to make adjustments to the Denver Missions if you play anywhere else other than Denver, and these same adjustments take the same amount of time as replacing Frosty with your typical usual Johnson from your original game (not long at all). Actually, a lot of the Denver Missions have portions that require GMs to make adjustments before the mission starts. Also, the Denver Missions consist of a chain of events that are predicated by the previous Missions, which adds further complexity. I don't think complaining about it is making you seem much more rational about the whole thing.

The Jake--Which one if I may ask? (I'd like to make sure we don't repeat the same mistakes...)

Cain--I would like to point out that Missions and the DotA adventures are targeting two very different demographics. Missions are designed for brand new players (and in some cases GMs) and they often teach the basics of shadowrunning, and are structured to include a Meet, Legwork, Planning, and Implementation process. The DotA adventures are designed for experienced players and characters who face much more difficult challenges.

All--
I've pointed out some of the differences in the models before, but I'll try and break it out again. Including some of the benefits and drawbacks of each model.

Missions--Probably the easiest for the "pick up and go" campaign, Missions was initially envisioned as a campaign which would attract new players and provide experienced players with a unified campaign structure for convention play. Missions are good for new players as they are fairly linear adventures, with a clear path and challenges which are designed to be able to be overcome by any combination of character types. This allows for a team which is new to the game to completely skip the Matrix or Magic, and still be able to complete the mission. Additionally, because they are designed for convention play, each Mission is a simple four-hour block, able to fit in neatly with many gaming groups. The downside to Missions is that they are designed for beginning players, which means that many experienced players will find them non-challenging. The Missions are also episodic in nature, with small ties between missions, meaning that a story may be able to be played through and the resolution of events doesn't happen until five or six Missions later.

My recommendation: If running the Missions as a brand new GM, go through them in order. If an experienced GM with new players, read through all of them and re-order the Missions to have consecutive plot lines. This will enable players to see the linked adventures as a block and make the story clearer for them. It is important that you read through the Mission and understand the role that each of the NPCs play and their motivations, that way when the players stray outside of the box that everything is written in, you can fill in the extra details.

Ghost Cartels--Probably the hardest for a quick start game, Ghost Cartels is structured as a sequence of events. This storyboards out several scenes and events for the players to get involved with and can be run for new to semi-experienced players, with a GM who is used to structuring campaigns, but may not have the time to stat out a campaign, or who wants her players to be integrated into the current events of the Sixth World. The tracked style of the campaign, assumes a specific course of actions, and will need to be modified on the fly by GMs to adjust for the choices made by the players, including which factions they side with.

My recommendation: Read the entire book once, start to finish. Then, read it again with a pad of paper and take notes about how your team generally approaches specific types of problems and add notes for a few contingencies or changes you will need to make. Between sessions, update your notes and look forward for changes that will need to be made to future pieces based on whether an NPC died, choices that the PCs made, and which of them have been exposed to Tempo.

Dawn of the Artifacts--While not as difficult for a quick start game as Ghost Cartels, DotA calls for experienced players and characters, along with an experienced GM. Dusk is written with certain cinematic moments, where NPC actions are scripted. If this doesn't suit your table's tastes, the modifications can be made fairly easily. When preparing for DotA, it is key to have a strong grasp of the abilities of the PCs to adjust accordingly, as several scenes will either be extremely easy or extremely difficult based on the composition of the runners.

My recommendation: As with Ghost Cartels, read through the entire adventure, though take notes the first time through for modifications you need to make. Keep notes about interactions that the players have with the named NPCs as many of them will be recurring characters throughout the campaign arc.

With all of these options, when playing in a published campaign, there are two key factors for success. Be Flexible and Have Fun. The Gamemaster Advice on pages 271-272 of SR4A is there for a reason. When I prepare a game at home, or when I run a module, my players are always going to stray a little outside the lines. Let that happen. If the module calls for the runners to fly through a supplied rigger, but one of the characters has an airplane, let them choose. They can take the NPC's help or go it on their own--this enables the players and ties them into the story. Likewise, if you want to change the stats for an NPC, change them. As long as you and your crew are having fun, everyone wins.

If it helps anyone, here are the stats I used for Frosty when I was running the campaign for my table. Yes, she has a few metamagic techniques that I made up. She's just that cool.

UPDATE: Seems the adventure I am referring to is not an SR Missions adventure. My bad.

Frosty's stats will come in handy. Thanks Bishop.

- J.

No matter how experienced the players and GMs may be, there's at least one principle to keep in mind: K.I.S.S.

Missions may be more linear and straightforward, but they can be enjoyed by both experienced and new players alike. You can amp up the challenge for more experienced players quite easily without resorting to god-NPCs who can do anything the PC's can, only better. If the module is well-written, you can teach anyone to play Shadowrun with it, no matter what the challenge level.

You never need GMPCs to have a good adventure. You don't need convoluted plotlines and rules minutae to have fun. All you need are a few simple tools. The first chapter of Ghost Cartels, minus the railroading, would be a good example of this-- I personally like the adventure framework idea, where you just run with a concept and flesh it out on the fly, based on what the PC's do. This empowers the players, and helps them invest more heavily in the story. A GMPC, however, negates all that. It makes the game less fun.

I hate Mary Sue GMPCs as much as the next guy, but I actually don't have a problem with Frosty at all in the Dawn of the Artifacts adventures. As GMPCs go, she's definitely no Elminster, or Harlequin for that matter. Despite the overly-dramatic "she's a mage!" revelation, the plot of Dusk and Midnight sort of put her at a similar power level to that of the characters - who should be pretty powerful themselves, as these are not milk runs. Frosty is clearly unable to survive there on her own, as there's at least two points in Dusk where the scene's goal is keeping her alive despite herself. And when she's not in need of rescue, she's kept out of the way, taking care of boring tasks while your PCs get into the action. The "odd magical tradition" is just a quirk, really, and I don't see knowledge of a couple of plot-device rituals as game-breaking.

Bira--
The inclusion of Frosty was a goal from the start, and there was a lot of discussion about whether or not to include stats, and how we should move forward with her interactions. The "I'm a mage" scene was also rewritten a couple of times, and to my knowledge it was a creative decision by the line developer to do it the way it showed up in the final. That said, the authors did their best to keep her out of the way, and as you look forward into Midnight and the later pieces, you will find that Frosty's strong focus on Magic will blind her to non-magical solutions and tactics.

Also, the stats I made for Frosty took about 5 minutes. 4 of those were spent on her metamagics, to create something cool, but within the realm of possibility. Frosty is supposed to know all sorts of magic that no one else except for Harlequin and Ehran know. Giving her some fudge room by changing spells on the fly, is a huge boost to that. I should have added Centering, but I forgot it when writing her up initially. This led to Frosty basically passing out after her "I'm a mage" intro.

If you want to use my stats, great! If you want to change them to fit your campaign, even better! The point is that writing down stats didn't cause the world to explode and the gaming police haven't been sent after me.

Just to reiterate a point that was made upthread:

If you're new to Shadowrun, or SR4, run the Food Fight mini-mission with your group. It was the first adventure I GM'd and it gave my players an opportunity to practice the mechanics of the game. And it gave me the opportunity to work out kinks in the rules. On the Run makes for a good follow-up. Experienced players gripe that it's a mediocre adventure but it's also easily customizable and it gives you all the stats you need in one package. It's meant as a "starter adventure." After that, it's up to you and your play style. McQ gave a good run down of the various pros/cons with Missions and campaign books.

After a hiatus, I'm restarting my SR group and we're continuing where we left off in Emergence. Emergence and even Ghost Cartels will require prep work on your end. GC less so as it provides stats for grunts and NPCs. So until you're ready to dive into that part of being a GM, perhaps taking a group on a side-trip to Denver and running the SM2 Missions adventures would be the way to go. I ran a few of those with my own group as session fillers and they were enjoyed.

Isn't that why Cain's here? j/k

I probably won't use any stats at all for her when I finally run this, but other than that I'm in agreement with you that she doesn't really detract from the enjoyment of the adventures.

Different strokes for different folks. I know many players for whom the mere scent of a Mary-Sue GMPC will ruin their day.

I just started running the Dusk (got till asante), and currently my players seem pretty excited - after many small missions (the Missions incorporated in my europe setting) which were in essence local jobs, they are going international together with big guns.
I think it will be great and only thing to change, I will have to improve her 'grounds' of staying of the out of the action.

Just finished Dusk with my group yesterday. Frosty was not a problem at all. I just ignored 80% of the corny "Tell it to them Straight" dialogue and kept Jane out of the way doing legwork and such.

Despite these issues, I didn't have to mod the adventure any more than I usually do and the players had fun with it. Keep Jane in the background and let the characters shine and all will be well.