I know there has been some threads on this previously, but I was thinking how cool it might be to follow a young SR kid up from punkhood up to professional Shadowrunner. here's some of my thoughts.

Build Points, only way to go I think, it'll really allow a lot of adjustments to restrictions. Skills no higher than 4, magic/force points divide by half, money no higher than 25k, stats no higher than 5 majority of 4's to start(base not adjusted stats)(figure they'll be able to increase their stats later), no enhancing cyberware(nothing that boosts their abilities, replacement parts okay

I also figure I can cut them deals on used equipment and parts(for cyberdecks/drones) to offset some of the money, but do you think I'm being too harsh anywhere or maybe too lenient in terms of maybe the money? I want this to start off real tight, where the Gang is their family kind of thing, they don't have a lot of money, but the gang helps provide for them, gives them gear they can afford to lend out, and expects loyalty and gives missions and some kickbacks on occassion, at least until someone else takes notice of their abilities and they climb the underworld ladder

let me know your thoughts.
SP

I don't know if you have it or not, but the Shadowrun Companion has alla the rules you need.

I have the 2nd ed version, don't know if it has it or not(not read that particular book in a while) I'll have to peek in there and see if they have good tips on ganger campaigns. thanks for the tip. Any other thoughts especially from anyone that has run this kind of game would be appreciated

Running just such a campaign now in the ROx of Boston.

I'd suggest limiting contacts and making weaponry harder to get for gangers.

Also, you might want to make street-lingo the default language. They'll have to pick up proper English to get by in the corp-world when they get there.

Oh, and read up on the etiquette of drive-bys. It's not just shooting from a moving car you know.

yeah low contacts, I imagine most of the contacts being the gang they are in and any friends from school(if they even attend ) street-lingo sounds good, as does limiting weapons. I figure some good missions can be crocked up from the old Grand Theft Auto Storylines as well if I get stumped on missions


thanks for the good info, keep it up

Don't forget having some of the gangers having criminal SINs!

yeah that can play heck if they are trying to purchase anything legitimately, I'll make the players aware so they have the option of starting with one of those, but more than likely they'll get one of those as time goes on , evil as I am

And it ain't a real gang unless you've got at least a couple ho's out on the street.

Oh, and don't forget gang-honor. There's rules to a rumble an' what not.

I've played around with the idea, for a game set in the Barrens in 2053.

I suggest using Becks over build points for a low-point game. You get better-rounded characters. I found that with build points some people tended to put all their points into 1 or 2 stats or skills. Because it's cheaper to raise a low skill than a high skill in-game. So the build-point characters I was given in a low-point game were very 1-dimensional.
I also put a limit on max resources.


Cyber: I halved the base cost of cyberlimbs, and encouraged used cyber. Max availability 4. No alpha or bioware.

Gear: Max availability 4. Everything uses Street Index.

I enjoyed using the SSG lifestyle rules.

Good luck.

Gang wizs aren't hard to create, but how are you going to limit a physical adept (if any)?

-Siege

Put a limit on the total level of skills or attribute improvments. Or put a limit on how much inital magic can be spent in improvements.

One thing you have to thing about is, if the PhysAd were really that good, why would they still be in the gang and not recruited by some other agency by now.

I am presently running participating in a ganger campaign. I'll just post other restrictions that no one has mentioned yet.

Contacts-Think street level! Otherwise no restriction.

Edges- *1.5 the bp cost

Resources- Adjusted down so max is 100K

Magic- Lowered ratings so you purchase up to magic of six for 50 bp.

Characters do not have to be as group oriented as normal shadowrun. These guys are not professionals and are mainly socially dysfunctional teenagers. If you are 18+ it's a good way to rp through some of those high school disasters.

Critters- Thought your players toasted those guys too easily? Just see them run in fright from a swarm of devilrats or ghouls. Are those CHUDS in the sewers or are we just breaking in a new doss?

The Etiquette of Drive-bys

Somewhere between horrible, terrible, funny, and informative for a GM who wants to do awful things to his players in the Barrens.

Just make the following subsitutions:

AK-47 ==> AK-98
"Timmy" ==> Mr. Johnson
"subway" ==> monorail

limiting an adept, easy, half their spell points I almost forgot about limiting Availability, all Really great info guys, Thanks for all the input, sounds like this game is going to rock!!

Some 1950's gang speak to help you get into the mood...

War Counsellor: A top strategist
Ace Men: Diplomats or top fighters
Citizen: A fellow ganger

A breach of turf could lead to soundings (Hurling insults), a fair fight (An one on one fight by chosen repersentatives, no weapons allowed), or a rumble! (All out fight, no restrictions)

Punk or Chicken were insults that you couldn't back down from.

Gangs might also declare a talk (Deferring to negotiations) to stop a feud.

Slang obtained from the book "Flappers 2 Rappers"

Well ran the first run of Gangers in SR3, started off with: no enhancing cyberware, 20K max starting cash, 63 build points, max availability 4, spell casters/adepts spell/ability points were halved 13yrs for age. a couple of my players complained, mostly because they are used to being strapped.

They started their night out with a little "rough up my girlfriends teach" mission, they went to the french teachers house, 2 kids walk to the door, knock, say they are looking for a french tutor, the female says she is the males interpreter, since he knows little english, mostly japanese. the Japanese kid asks for the bathroom, goes and hides behind the wall, while the other 2 try to gain entry posing as girl scouts of UCAS. he passes his willpower check for the cookies, and right as he refuses, the Japanese kid, sneaks up behind him and deals Serious Damage with his Kung Fu. the guy, broken rips wheezes asking who they are, he doesn't answer the Japanese kids questions, he breaks the guys neck. the Healer chick(mage) stabilizes the guy before he dies. the muscle then take a crap on the guy(teenagers being what they are I suppose) and then they start looting. get a good score, and the Healer then warns them she is about to call the star.the kids all dash off in other directions, the kid with no drive skill steals the teaches car, ends up wrapping it around a pole. while the Healer claims that the french teach raped her. she gladly goes with the star to press charges(after beating herself up real good to make it look decent) she claims the guy was a sicko who wanted people to poo on him and have sex with him. badly hurts the guys rep, while the healer calls the school and warns that they better be more careful.

Now the muscle of the group(Jim, not the japanese kid) seems to enjoy stealing cars, he sees a guy on a harley davidson, points a gun at the guy from a decent distance, the guy kicks down his stand, gets off the bike and cracks his knuckles, Jim pulls out his lead pipe. biker charges into melee, begins to try to bash Jim, opposed melee results in Jim winning all challenges, pipes the guy 3 times, and he's in snoozeville. the rest of the gang see this happening so close to HQ, and this is a gang in a different area of the Barrens that they don't want bad blood with, so they heal the guy up, apologize give him his stuff back, and the guy is so impressed a 13 year old thug kicked his butt that he gives them some good rep and respect from the gang.

Second Mission was a delivery of BTL's to a guy in Touristville, they drop the package as easy as anything, on the way out, they encounter some inquisitive brain eaters whose turf these gangers have entered. the Japanese kid gets fed up of the brain eater leaders mouth, so he prepares to fight, Jim pulls his pipe, and all the brain eaters pull pistols, Barbie(the Skater/Car Jacker) pulls her Ares Pred I, and pulls off a all 6's on 6 dice, huge successes, no ability do dodge that attack, the gang boss takes a bullet straight to the dome, falls between his muscle sliding down the stairs. The muscle, in shock by the heinousness of that shot, drop their guns and give up, but the Japanese Kid(Boink) doesn't feel his honor has been redeemed, so he goes kung-fu on one of the muscle, dealing so much melee damage it kills the Brain Eater, the other one begins to run, everyone in the gang, chases after the guy, dealing nearly deadly damage, he's 1 box from dead, crawling away, they squat next to him, and basically tell the guy to let the brain eaters know not to mess with them. they steal the package the Brain Eaters were carrying(BTL's) and their weapons and armor. Success #2 for the night

Last mission for the night was to hijack a truck moving out of north bellvue across the 405 to the 90 into downtown to deliver some goods. White delivery van. Deadeye(the Gang Boss) hooks up the players with a small help from his Decker contact, the gridguide/cell towers will go silent for 10 minutes in the local area that the hit will be made. the players decide that since the van will be escorted to the onramp of 405, and then will be in traffic all the way to downtown, that downtown would be the best site of the hit. so they drive their car up, find the van on the interstate. they stay just ahead of the van, they get off at the downtown offramp, and slam the brakes at the same time the grid goes out for 10 minutes. 2 of the gang get out of the car, appoaching both sides of the vehicle, the japanese Dwarf, knocks on the Door, asks the driver if he has a cellphone since he doesn't have on and his car stopped out. the driver hands the kid his cell, the other gangers get out of the car, the guard in the van, puts his hand on his weapon in case. Boink tries to make a call, there's no service, gives the phone back to the guy in the truck, as he reaches to get the cell from the kid, Boink pulls kung-fu to grapple and pull the guy out of the window of the van, the guy was wearing his seatbelt, so he doesn't get pulled out, instead his head violently hits the support pillar of the van, and kills him. barbie then takes a shot at the guard, finding out the van has strengthened glass, so the bullet deflects badly when passing through it, and the guard dodges it, the bullet ends up in his buddy. the Mage goes to the back of the truck and blows the lock off the back, Boink positions the dead body of the driver to be a meat shield against the guard. the guard uses his van door to smack barbie for 7M stun, she then tries to shoot him again, the mage aims to shoot him, and jim pulls his gun and aims at the guard. Boink drops the dead body into the vehicle and opens the car door, guard tries shooting him after closing the door on his side. Jim and Barbie both shoot through the weakening glass, and cap the guard. they ditch the bodies in the back just as the mage realizes what the vehicle was carrying, a shipment of Ruger Thunderbolts, must be at least 20 there. they drive it back to a safehouse in the barrens, get their cut off the sale of most of the thunderbolts, and all of them were warned not to use these guns if they can help it. mission success

All in all I think it was a terrific game, even though the characters were very low, they managed to eliminate threats, not as easily as pro shadowrunners, but easy enough to grab a gun shipment, traffick some BTL's and teach a teacher to not seek sexual favors for good grades from the Bosses girlfriend.