"Come one, come all, to the greatest show on earth. No, not any of that circus crap, I mean Shadow Wars^TM. Thats right, several teams of skilled runners duking it out in an abandoned city and its surrounded wilderness. A multi-day survival event with a multi-million dollar jackpot awaiting the surviving team. There will be explosions, traps, hails of bullets, deadly assassinations, and of course, plenty of violence. Don't miss out this entertainment opportunity, order the premium Trido coverage and get access to RunnerView^TM at no extra charge. Get the platinum package, and you'll get to see who the Enforcers have in their sights. Think you've got the skill, the will, and the cold hard 'ware to survive and claim the 5 million nuyen pot? You don't, but sign up anyway, the audience loves a quick kill."

So, that is the basic premise for something that I've been kicking around for a while. Teams of runners compete against each other for a huge prize. Runners can either enter as a team, or by themselves and they will be assigned a team. The prize is split between each surviving member of the winning team. There are also bonus prizes handed out throughout the war, including Enforcer Kills, Bounty Collection, and Fan Favorite, among others.

Now, I'll say right now, that this isn't something I'm ready to run at the moment. I tried running a game a while back, and simply wasn't prepared for it, and it fell apart. So, I'm going to be putting more effort into getting things set up for this. This means that it may be a month or more before anything gets rolling on this. So right now I'm mostly looking at interest for this sort of game. Those not interested in actually playing the game, feel free to continue reading and/or check the end of this post.

Tentatively characters will be 400 BP + 100 Karma + 100k Nuyen + (for mundane only) 150k nuyen.
The 400 BP will follow all the normal rules for character creations, the 100 karma will follow all normal rules for character advancement. The 100k Nuyen for Awakened(And TMs and drakes/pixies/etc) will have an availability 15 limit on it, up to betaware will be accessible. The 250k nuyen for mundane will have an availability 20 limit on it, and up to deltaware will be accessible.

The War Zone will be an abandoned city of undetermined exact location, but it will be isolated. It will however still have various things that do work, can work, and don't work. You might for instance find that an old corp building still has working automated defense (which may or may not be active) or perhaps there will be a heavily armored vehicle somewhere that just needs a few good whacks with a wrench to get going again, or maybe that vehicle is missing some vital part (which may or may not be at the local auto store). Point is that hackers and riggers will potentially have stuff to do. The War Zone will also include some surrounding wilderness, mainly a forest. This can be used to great advantage for those that know what they are doing. Critters, Ghouls, or other nasties may or may not be around the city, and may or may not have been intentionally put there.

Restrictions:
No Spirits (Character, use of spirits by a mage is fine)
No AIs
No Possession traditions
No Astral Hazing
No Twisted Traditions
(more may come)

Rules:

• All characters must remain within the War Zone for the course of the War. (This includes an air space limit 10m over the highest skyscraper in the town). This also extends to drones, vehicles, or anything similar.
• The last team standing wins the jackpot, and the winnings are split evenly between the surviving team members.
• No help may be given from those not part of the War.
• The city is disconnected from the rest of the matrix, so no access to resources that are not brought with the teams or already in the War Zone.
• No firing on, attacking, impeeding, hindering, or using as cover, or otherwise interacting with Neutrals.
• No impersonating Neutrals.
• Teams are limited to three members. Alliances between teams are allowed, but only one team may win.
• Provided cameras must run at all times, and may not have their lenses covered (And should be cleaned as soon as possible in the event of getting dirty).
• No Coup'de'graceing except on 'Bleed Out' Markers
• Surrenders must be accepted unless the Player has a 'No Quarter' Marker.
• False Surrenders are given a 'No Quarter' Marker, as well as a Wailing Bounty and Priority Target Marker and Bleed Out Marker.
• Those with regeneration have two options after coming back from overflow. They may surrender/forfeit or they may continue with a Bleed Out Marker on them.

(more likely to come)

Failure to follow the rules will result in instant disqualification, and may or may not result in a Wailing Bounty and/or Priority Target being placed on your head.

Bonus Prizes:

• Enforcer kills are worth 1 million nuyen to the killer.
• Bounties (of any type) are worth their posted value.
• Fan Favorite is worth an amount based on % of votes.
• Camera Hog is worth an amount based on % of viewers using that person's ShadowView^TM

(more to come)

Markers and Bounties:

• Bounty - This is a price placed on a player's head. Anyone not from that person's team that takes them out will receive the bounty as a reward. Players may use reward earned to place bounties on other players heads at a 2:1 ratio.
• Wailing Bounty - As regular bounty, except that the person's position is reviled to all other Players continually. A wailing bounty will generally revert to a normal or Ping bounty in time.
• Ping Bounty - Similar to a Wailing Bounty, but the person's position is only revealed for a short amount of time intermittently.
• No Quarter - This is a punishment Marker, and shows that the Player with it can not expect his or her surrender to be accepted. This is generally only given if a false surrender has been attempted.
• Priority Target - This Marker denotes someone that the Enforcers are to focus on. Keeping a 10m safe distance away from a Player with such a Marker is advised.
• Bleed Out - Someone that has gone critical will usually attempt to be rescued by Neutral medics. A Player with this marker will not be. A Player with this marker is also allowed to be Coup'de'Graced, either because they broke the rules, or they regenerate and there is no other way to keep them down.

OOC Rules Judgments:

• Number of Turret Mounts will be handled with the 'round up' rule, but recoil penalties will be applied to those vehicles/drones that have more firepower than they can handle.
• DP will be limited to 2*(Skill + Stat). In the case of the matrix this will be 2*(Skill + Program).
• Hackers: Rating 7+ Programs are available with the bonus money only. The cost for these programs is (R²*1000)

Oh, and since you'll be fighting against each other, you'll most likely not want to post your characters here. Feel free to try and form a team with other perspectives though.

As for how this game will be handled, there are two main ways I can think of. One is that people PM/e-mail me their various actions, and I'll reply, making occasional board posts to update the show. The other is if I can figure out how to get a forum of some kind up where I can restrict viewing access to different sections so that each team will have their own section/thread(s) and then a general thread would be back here on the DS forum (I'm not very internet savvy, so if anyone could help with this, that'd be great). I'm also willing to listen to other ideas for how to run this.

For those that like the idea, but aren't actually interested in playing, you can still participate! When the game gets underway, people who aren't playing are welcome to act as the spectators watching at home. Your interest and votes will help determine who gets prizes like Fan Favorite and Camera Hog, and there could even be other interactive things that you can participate in (Or not, your choice).

I'm also considering having one person to work as my Co GM. They would likely be responsible for things like the Enforcers, Neutrals, and possibly work with players when one on one situations arise (such as a hacker going into a node).

Oh my. I'll have to come up with a Solo participant.

Are Martial Arts allowed? Twisted Traditions? Infected characters? Karma generation, or strictly as you've set it out? Does taking the Restricted Gear quality allow someone to get gear with an Availability higher than 20? Do we all have to wear Spandex and fight against the Running Man?

Fun fun fun.

[EDIT] Moved the contestant list here for ease of reference.

YepNoTentative Yes As I've laid it out, I specifically gave the karma to allow people to make up for some of the deficiencies of the BP system (Specialization cost, I'm looking at you) and don't want to have to worry about any sort of power balance between a BP and karmagen character. No. You can however still get it during the BP portion of character creation to spend some of the BP nuyen on gear above rating 12. Well duh

Sure hope so

That sounds great, count me in! I haven't played a combat monster in a while

Haha, this is an awesome game concept. I don't know if I'll have time to participate, but it sounds like a wicked good time.

Same here. I've already got a concept but don't know if I will be able to put the proper time into it. (Maybe for next season ).

Question: As teams take losses, will the remainders be squashed together into a new team? If so, will they be allowed to--or forced to? The dynamic of the whole game could have a different feel depending on how that's answered. Also, how would you want Contacts handled? A Warrior's real-world contacts can't be used according to the rules of the game, but there's also no interaction with Neutrals. Would there be Ascended Extras the Warriors could use for those needs? Would the Corp running the show provide personnel within the network to fill the role? Or have Shadow Wars been planned in such a way as to not need Contacts at all?

Well, depends on how heavy my fall schedule ends up being (It isn't alot of classes, but they're hard and I need to do very well in them), it might not happen, or at least not be in full swing until next year. Will likely start but go slowly before then, but we'll have to see exactly how my schedule works out like I said.

The game is set up so that you don't 'need' contacts from the outside. There is food in the city (Oh right, no more than one day's food is supposed to be a rule) in various unnamed places (Like maybe a grocery store?) and there are other 'edible' things around. Similarly there is ammo, medicine, and various other supplies to be found, some actually left from when the city was vacated, some purposefully put there by the proprietors of Shadow War. The rules in fact specifically forbid any kind of outside help, but that doesn't stop at least one team trying each year.

So, contacts (like social skills) will be of fairly limited use for the most part, but if you are clever, they can be worked in.

If you do decide to run this under 2072, I'm sure there'll be a few people willing to pick up the GMing slack for you on some of your busier weeks.

Will there be a dice pool limit?

So how much external gear are we allowed to enter with? Anything we can pay for? Anything we can carry? Any limit on drones and vehicles?

Anything you can bring with you. There will likely be a limit on a loaded clip of ammo in each gun, and then some number of extra clips. I need to do more work to figure out how many exactly.

That's OK: I'll just bring more guns

Which is totally what they want

As far as having a website that allows for all of the controls you want, we could try the EclipsePhase website. We have some EclipsePhase games running here, so they might not mind us running a Shadowrun game there.

I have a few questions and an idea.

Questions: Cyborgs? If not, what defines a Cyborg? Can we have Biodrones? Can I rig clones? What cheesy Qualities can we not take?

Idea: Corporate Sponsorship to provide some smallish stack of corporation-specific advantages. Things like a 5% discount on x-type of gear, for instance.

Another question: can we purchase Qualities with our Karma?

That's a big one. Many qualities do not make sense in that setting. Things like Day job, Bad rep (maybe this one could hurt for the Fan Favorite contest), SINner,...

I'll have to check that out some time.
Yes, Cyborgs are allowed, but their brain jar must remain inside the War Zone the entire time, just like a regular hacker/rigger. Biodrones are allowed. You cannot rig a clone (No official SR4 rules that I've seen for it).

As for qualities, instead of doing a comprehensive list I'll just say 'use your brain'. Most incompetent qualities won't be allowed (Unarmed, dodge, and infiltration being notable exemptions, among potential others), day job, SINner, the various matrix social penalty ones, etc. If it has near 0% chance of coming up during the course of the war, it likely won't be allowed. Some because of IC reasons, some because of OOC reasons. Uncouth might get allowed if I figure out a way to include social skills more. Also, if there is a quality you really want to take that might not fit, feel free to ask, I might think of a way to make it fit. Bad rep for example will have a big impact on fans. Votes will be decreased, though there is some chance they might have a higher view count thanks to people seeing what the 'bad guy' is up to.

Hmm, I kind of like this, I'll have to think about it more.

I don't want to participate, but if you're still looking for a venue, Myth Weavers should definitely fit your needs. It allows "private posts" where only the specified parties can read the text, and everyone else doesn't even see that private text is there! (though presence is, of course, often easily inferable)

Color me intrigued. Think I'd give it a shot.

You still need a CoGM, let me know. Running the Neutrals/Enforcers sounds like a hoot.

Oh, goody. Since Cyborgs need a weekly 2,000nY maintenance that requires a shop, and every missed week adds one to the monthly Sanity test Threshold, a Cyborg could be a good crowd draw as it slowly (or not so slowly) deteriorates on camera. Hee!

Other weaknesses of Cyborgs:

• They can't resist Physical spells (although they can't be targeted by Mana spells unless the caster can see inside the CCU).
• Every time the drone they are rigging gets hit, they have to deal with biofeedback damage, so hurting them hurts twice.
• Hacking a Cyborg puts them in the position of dealing with 2 nodes at once or ignoring their body (which can be bad).
• Without some form of flotation device, they sink, and can't swim.
• If you engage them in a philosophical debate, they have to stop killing you. If you win, they shout "Does not Compute!" and explode.
• Since we don't have access to delta-ware with our 400 BP, the 250,000nY cost of the CCU has to come from the extra cash we get, and not from BP. Therefor, the vehicle/drone the Cyborg wants to have needs to be purchased with the 400 BP, and the CCU requires the Restricted Gear Quality.
• The Mitsuhama Cyborg bodies are beyond our pay grade.
• Other than the cyberware that is inherent in the CCU (12 Capacity, and the built in stuff), the Cyborg can have no cyberware, or bioware.
• The Cyborg's Essence is 0.1. A spirit with the Astral Gate power kills them very quickly.
• Missing maintenance sessions means that any glitch can mean they lose power.
• Cyborgs must take into account operating times for vehicles and drones, so they will need a fuel source.

THE BLOOD OF THEIR ENEMIES!!

I mean... there may or may not be power sources they can tap into around the city

Fat and muscle may be better, though. And there is the multifuel engine mod.

Hmm I just thought about a Defiler/Soulgrinder type vehicle that eats its victims.
Which brings me to a question. Since this is supposed to be a broadcast and marketed event, am I right that deniability is not that much of an issue as with traditional shadowruns? Does the event attract more real runners or other professional athletes like Combat Bikers or Urban Brawlers?

Oh, and yes, I still do. I'll certainly keep you in mind, and if no one else asks for the post, you'll get it

Deniability is mixed, as are the contestant. Some are 'professional' combatants, including merc squads, some are actual runners, some are gangs with dollar signs in their eyes. Some groups will be very weak, some will be quite strong, some will have a mix of characters.

The enforcers will kick your ass three ways till Sunday, which is why there is a huge bounty on them.

Back to deniability. Some people love all the fame and glory, and others don't want it personally, and so will hide their face and use a handle. Thus the merc group and gangs may use their real names and not hide their faces, while runners may keep their faces covered or disguise themselves, but make sure their name is know so they will get plenty of street cred without becoming instantly recognized.

So there will be NPC contestants too? Not sure many players will be interested in playing gangers I was actually more thinking of playing a merc than a runner. Anyone else tempted by a MET2000 team?

I was thinking of taking Sinner, Day Job and In Debt and saying I was there with Corporate Sponsorship.

Yeah, if only because I wanted to do this as teams and I doubt I'll have the 20ish players required to get the minimum of 4 teams I was hoping for.

Or you could go for smaller teams? One mage, one hacker and one sammy per team should be enough.

Yeah, but I didn't want to force that particular composition. Even so, we haven't had the 12 people that that would still require sign up (yet). I could switch to each person controlling a full team, giving a grander melee overall, likely reduce team size to 3 or so in that case so people don't have to make a ton of character sheets.

Edit: Although I was against it when I first came up with this idea (It was something I considered) the more I think about it, the more I like the idea. It would make handling teams easier as I'd only need to deal with one person for each team instead of needing to wait on five people, and would allow for a much larger spectacle. The fight is for several million after all, it should generate a ton of contestants. I'll still throw in some NPC groups to serve as some of the 'stronger' and 'weaker' ones.

This sounds quite fascinating-- I just started the series with SR4, so I'm unfamiliar with the previous editions. My current GM tells me that this isn't a new concept persay, but we're all very intrigued by the idea. I'll be keeping my eye on this.

In fact, though I'll give the credit where it's due, I may borrow some of this for my upcoming chron.

Well, I've not seen it before, and I've actually done something very similar IRL before with The Other Game with great results as two teams of high end characters went at it.

On the other hand, the idea of a grand melee or a grand melee with teams isn't exactly new, though the multi day/huge terrain twist is somewhat new I think. I'm sure it's been done somewhere though

Oh yeah, Naruto did it back in the Chunin Exam Maybe that's where I got the idea.

I hope you took no offense to my response, I wasn't at all accusing you of being unoriginal-- the concept you've presented is well thought out and very creative. The movie The Condemned runs with a similar concept, and I believe there was some incarnation of it called Urban Brawl in the SR system, which is one of the most popular sports in the SR universe. Your idea isn't quite the same concept, and I actually like it a lot.

No, not offended

Yeah, Urban Brawl is somewhat similar from what I've gathered, except that it involves only two teams, far more structure, isn't supposed to be lethal, and has some kind of goal (ball though goal).

Haven't seen The Condemned.

Don't bother. It's 'Stone Cold' Steve Austin in a WWE films release. It's really, really not good. The concept is basically the same as yours-- the exception being that it takes place in the jungle, and the participants are not there of their own will.

Oh hoo hoo hoo hoo!
How do you want to handle vehicle recoil?

I'm close to completion of a character. Are you set on players submitting a team each, or can we still form teams with players running single characters?

I'm interested in playing. I'm also very interested on how you would do the whole 'team y and team x' randomly bump into each other. Would it be like a few blocks gridded, and teams choose where they go, and depending on whether there is another team there, is whether they fight ect?

Edit: yeah will you still allow single characters in a team with other players? Playing several characters is a bit overwhelming for me.

No, I'm not set on it. I may simply have it as an option for those who want it to allow for more teams to be generated. I think teams of 3 are more reasonable though. I was going off the last time I did this and there happened to be 10 people, so two teams of 5 worked out well.
Weapons on vehicles don't have recoil with a few special exceptions for particularly big weapons on small vehicles. Drones will follow a similar rule but be much closer scrutinized as to if they are big enough. Also, I should note that I believe in the 'round down' version of the mount rule found in 4a, as opposed to 'round up' found in Arsenal, so no 1 or 2 body drones with mounts.
This is basically exactly how it works. Teams can wander around looking for other teams, better positions, or supplies, or they can set up wherever they are, or split up, or whatever else they can think of except leave the War Zone. Based on movement (Stalking, walking, running, vehicles) they'll move around at different rates and be spotted from different distances and be more or less likely to set off traps that may or may not be around, etc. Movement around the city and surroundings will be critical, which is the biggest reason I'm delaying, because I want to get a city properly mapped out so this can be done properly.

Yeah, a single character joining up with others is perfectly fine. I'll adjust the rules post later (have some new stuff that needs to get added from all this).

Basically character setup will be the same, but any player may make and control one, two, or three characters which must all be on the same team. So two people could get together and one could make two while the other makes one, or three people can get together to form a team, or a person can make their own team.

Thank you for the quick reply Look forward to this going ahead. Shall we watch this space in the meantime for updates?

Yep, this will be the main place for it. Rules will get updated every so often, and I'm sure more Q&A and 'LFG' posts will crop up.

Also, I'll likely throw something into the 2072 thread at some point (Mostly just hype and 'order now' type stuff.)

Can we get more about the local? Or are there likely to be hazards of all kinds?

All the rule from Arsenal does is allow small drones (Bod 2) to have a weapon mount, this is where you should use the optional recoil rule. Furthermore to allows large drones to havetwo LMGs or one larger weapon. Micro and minidrones cannot take a weapon mount since it is the wrong type of modification.

Do trips to the Metaplanes violate the rule for needing to stay inside the city?

Also, I assume our characters are not supposed to be cheaters? Should we add a roleplaying element to this, or is it best left as more of a strategy game?

If you're fighting in a fair fight, you haven't planned well enough.

To expand, there will be plenty of chances to 'pose for the camera' so a personality certainly isn't a bad thing, but the main focus of the game will indeed be on the combat side.

Alright, we'll go with round up, but expect anything with a body less than 3 to suffer debilitating recoil.

Not so long as your body remains within the War Zone.
Still working on it, so I can't give too much, but as I've said, it will be taking place in an abandoned city and surrounding 'wilderness'. The city will include of course buildings both ruined and not, as well as parts of the city being overrun with encroaching vegetation. There will be a fair amount of forest, with the rest of the wilderness part being scrubland with space buildings.

As for hazards, the Shadow Wars guys are specifically indistinct about what might be waiting for you. Alot of 'we can neither confirm nor deny that horrible thing X is in the War Zone, and we can neither confirm nor deny that we put it there intentionally'. It is however generally believed that there will be security emplacements (drones/turrets and similar) both active and inactive in the city, and there is likely to be at least a couple critters in the forest area, though how dangerous is anyone's guess.

So, possible hazards include just about anything you can think of. Might be critters, para and non, there might be infected, there might be a secret underground base, there might be drones and turrets, there might be landmines set up in front of the Stuffer Shack. The point here is tread carefully.

Edit: Various updates added in the first post.

Hmm. Urban Wars, the new spin-off from the smash hit Desert Wars...

I have a team. They aren't built yet, but the design phase is coming along well. I'm building a 3 person team, and I'll have a team name and bios in a bit.

I'm assuming that if you buy implants with the 250,000 nuyen after chargen, then you have to pay for the medical bills out of that as well. Is this correct?