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SaintHax
I was disappointed in this mod, but let me critique it from a player and GM perspective. First, SRM historians will remember that the most controversial mod in Virtual Seattle was the "silly" one (I believe it was the mod titled "Crash Test Dummies"). This mod was enjoyed by some supporters, but hated by others. Not only was it silly, but to give proper background, this one had you wake up from a virtual reality experience-- so, unlike "Block War", the previous mod gave you the cliche "it was all a dream" twist in it.

My players in Block War hated this adventure-- I can only imagine it was meant to be a light hearted break from the grim shadows that most mods have us in, however it was expressed to me that "when I come to play ShadowRun, I expect to play ShadowRun". No spoilers here, but the job hires Shadow Runners to do frat boy work-- and the background is silly and there are several rather absurd situations (the "fixers", e.g.).

As a GM, this was more fun for me to run than SRM02-01, which was so linear that I took a year hiatus from SRM after running it at a Con. This mod had options, good floor plan, and was fairly well thought out. Had the premise been changed to something more ShadowRunner like, I'd have had only a few complaints-- it didn't scale to TR 6 well at all, but this is a common complaint: I've yet to get a mod that scales through all 6 TR levels appropriately. There were also nit picky errors-- not really proof read: "while knight" instead of "white knights", the side banner of a map had "Ready, Set, Gogh" on it instead of "Block Party". Rules and items that aren't in the core SR4A, didn't provide a reference book/pg.

My players rated it much lower, b/c even though they were presented with options, and I had some flexibilty in running it, they still were being hired by a goofball team of fixers, by goofball Johnsons, and then given the "boy scout" option of forgetting you are a freelance corperate mercenary, but expected to "do the right thing". They only finished 90% of the mod before walking away and having nothing more to do with it.


Although I generally disliked it as written, and my players all hated it-- it's a YMMV mod. If you want a break and do something comical, this is something you'll like. If you don't, you're likely to play through it with clenched teeth for the karma though smile.gif
LurkerOutThere
I just ran this yesterday and while the Cheli and Klubbs thing seemed a bit off tone, not necissarily a bad idea in concept just possibly could have been handled better if Cheli were a smidge older so it would seem more reasonable to start breaking her into the family trade. Klubbs also didn't seem like the best baked of a concept given the situation. These are far from unreasonable problems and I just did my best to work with them as they go. The biggest thing I did was try and appeal to my players concerns, the females at the table had Cheli asking about being a female 'runner and what it takes and complaining about how her dad won't let her get ware yet. The men at the table got Klubbs trying to get leads on any future jobs and gave a definite sense of a guy trying to hustle to get ahead. No one really had a problem with the runs subject matter as job is a job and who cares why folks want it done as long as their getting paid (and at TR 5 paid well).

Below there is spoiler so please don't read unless you've played/ran the mod:
[ Spoiler ]
Bull
I've played through it (Just did that last month, actually), but not actually read or run it, so I can;t comment much on that.

From a players standpoint, we were mostly just a bit baffled by the whole thing. But I've done and run weirder before, so... That part didn't really bother me. Shadowrun isn't all serious and grit. And a change of pace is nice every now and then. It also helps keep the players and GMs on their toes. smile.gif

I will say though that after watching Kick-Ass this last weekend, I would play up Cheli and Klubbs a little differently myself... Probably a bit more like Hit-Girl and Big Daddy smile.gif

Bull
Chance359
Having just played through this mission a few days ago, in Lurkeroutthere's game, I'll take a few minutes to give my feelings.
[ Spoiler ]
SaintHax
QUOTE (Chance359 @ Apr 20 2010, 08:46 AM) *
Then we got the call from Cheli, two of us at the table responded with "click". Some of us felt like "Oh good, we're not done yet". Of all the people she could have called, she chose the last group of runner her father had hired?




Below talks about "Firestorm" contacts and this mod
[ Spoiler ]


Edit for spoilers
Caine Hazen
Actually the final copy for Firestorm isn't out yet, and adding Crazy Horse in was a late addition to that adventure. I should ask the final editor if she was included in the end as was suggested at multiple points
LurkerOutThere
QUOTE (SaintHax @ Apr 20 2010, 11:54 AM) *
In addition, there's Street Cred bump for helping Cheli. I've talked with mapfl and told him that SRM confuses Street Cred with "Paladin Points". From the RAW, "... additional points may be added to a character's Street Cred for any epic adventures, stonning victories, unbelievable escapes, or similar eyebrow-raising accomplishments,". I hardly see being compasionate as "eyebrow-raising". There's no reason for the hooker with a heart of gold to have more street cred than icecold Streetsam.

Epic misunderstanding the systems intent


That one is easy to explain, Cheli is child of a fixer, who do you think actually keeps track of your street cred? Fixers! You do the community a solid and they talk you up. Further commentary will be spoilered. You should also spoiler out your quote Hax.

[ Spoiler ]






Axl
I ran Block War for our group. We were also somewhat disappointed by the menial nature of the tasks for this professional shadowrunner crew. The counterpoint was the next mission where we had to blow up a bridge.

One of my friends subsequently ran Block War for a different crew and tried to sell it as a "corporate honour" situation. That seemed to work okay.
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