I played with some modifications.
First, my group plays in a modified SR3 universe. The rules and characters are 3rd edition, so some equipment is not available and drugs aren’t worth shit. Commlinks exist, but are treated as cyberterminals with wireless functionality, using a cellphone as connector, built using the rules in Matrix. We also call them smartphone, since calling them commlink is like calling an iPhone WalkieTalkie (which also is retarded, even though it’s a perfect description of what the use of an iPhone looks like). All players have long experience with the setting, and are at least somewhat immersed in the background. Play medium is an internet forum since half the group lives abroad. Language is a mix of German and English, so I can just copy a bunch of descriptions instead of translating, which is quite convenient with the pdf format of SRM.
I’m using the adventure as an entry to the Harlequin’s Back campaign, so there’s the obligatory Foreshadows dropping of little quotes, strange dreams, barking cats and mad clowns. Also, the run is a test set up by Frosty (who, after all, IS an immortal elf). HB doesn't tell you how, but it wants you to use another run as a Fate Test after all.
Characters are the Wights, a set of characters who all work for one irish Danaan family; hence, they get into this not for the money, but because it’s a favor Frosty asks of them (two characters know Frosty from Harlequin). All characters are named after egyptean gods by choice of the team. Some characters are special creations for this team, others are old and well-played. Average Karma is 300, so this is seriously high-level. I adjust enemies and encounters accordingly. The group is a face/sniper, 2 streetsams, 1 slightly burnt out mage, 1 combat decker and 1 combat rigger.
Team Leader: Shanna “Ammit” O’Connor, unaugmented mundane night elf skillmonkey and face/sniper
Mage: Thomas “Anubis” O’Connor, half-burnt out night elf Pathwalker mage with way more dice than he ought to have
Decker: Ashley “Imentet” Carter, human decker with an implanted custom-built C³ deck, implanted cell for connectivity, and some combat mods
Rigger: Nina “Sekhmet” O’Riley, perpetually dark mooded elf rigger with some combat mods
Streetsam 1: Ian “Kherty” Cowen, standard elf streetsam with emphasis on speed
Streetsam 2: Rory “Imsety” O’Connor, standard elf streetsam with emphasis on tanking, built like an ork and with human-looking edge
[ Spoiler ]
1. Rock’n’Roll Singer
After a short scene in London where Frosty shows off knowing a lot more about magic than she ought and asks the characters to help out her chummer in Seattle, MacCallister, because he has a run to take care of that’s important to him personally and she does not want some Seattle runners to fuck things up bad, and some nudges and winks to the two who know her from before, the crew is off to Seattle. A couple nice scenes there as half of them never were in Seattle before, emphathising how large, violent and dirty the city is to relatively sheltered elves, we get to the meet. The rock concert meet idea goes very well with everyone for it’s old-timey feel.
The Mercurial concert scene goes well. I did the pushing the envelope scene with the gunman, and decided to give the characters a surprise roll and an awareness roll to notice the gun since they’re reasonably close after all. Two (Rory and Shanna) make it, and the poor would-be gunner is steamrollered before he can even pull his weapon because both are just damned fast. Shanna, convinced this was a test by prospective employers (the player’s just as paranoid as his character) gets a phonecall from MacCallister and is even further convinced this was a testing setup. Thomas meanwhile spies the dragon (damn mages can have way too many astral perception dice in SR3) and hence assenses everyone and everything, expecting everything to be something huge and dangerous in hiding. Lulz ensues. Half the characters love mercurial, half more endure the concert. Rory hits on the ork waitress and gets a phone number. I decide to save the toxic mage encounter for later and target another vital contact instead, as it seemed to me as a bit too soon after the gunman.
2. Dirty Deeds Done Cheap
Negotiations with MacCallister are smooth and fast, as they should since the team isn’t in it for the money anyway. Actually, they have to accept, so this is a pretty railroaded scene for my guys. The q&a after accepting was fun though, because Ammit’s player infected everyone with paranoia and they absolutly did not believe that sometimes, if you hear hooves, that actually are horses and not alien zebra demons (okay, mostly). Everybody was seeing elf and demon conspiracies. Hilarity ensued. Poor MacCallister.
Data search was next, what with a decker in the team. I noticed a few things missing but could discern them from the flavor text elsewhere, namely the DF and AF’s activities in Seattle. No big deal.
A cute scene with Mercurial followed (the decker decided to get herself an autograph, and the dysfunctional mage followed, since Maria’s fucked-up-ness had reminded him of himself on an assensing and he wanted to see how someone can live being like that. Not asking, he got no answer, but probably was jealous that Mercurial’s halfway positive despite all.
3. Money Talks
The introduction of Nazaire … well, the reaction was more or less “WTF is that?!” But they at least listened to him and did not shoot him outright or run him over. Also, the meet was held in a nearby generic shadow bar (made up my own, a hint would’ve been nice though) and the decker immediately did research on him – here, a legwork table would’ve been nice. There’s enough unused page space here, too.
The negotiations were interesting because, powerful as they are, the characters have less lenience towards ruthlessness. They were tense. I really missed someone notifying me that the AF has Mystic Crusaders, though, and a short write-up of Nazaire’s security detail. Had to improvise that, and that was a bit bumpy (and there actually are stats for them in SRM04-02, go figure). In the end, though, they just said no and sent Nazaire off to scramble another team (actually, get his local Mystic Crusaders team to chase the runners and make a move for the stone, which would bite them later).
3.1 Meet Moureau
Next, they went to meet Moureau. I took the meet scene from SRM04-02, but a little hint how to handle this in SRM 04-00 would’ve been nice. In the end, they negotiated with Moureau that he would check with the Mulvihill and take care of a room for them there. It’s still his kid after all.
4. Night Prowlers
Right, then it’s finally off to the Mulvihill. They check into the suite Moureau cleared for them one by one, avoiding the scrutiny of the detective. The bellboy was a bit of a pest, but was paid off. Then, they made off with a ritual sample (used underwear) and images of most documents and a bit of stuff I tossed in as red herrings, and after a nice WTF is this stone moment, they went on to draw in intel about Jack Turner. They found he lives in the underground, is a smuggler, and probably would not mind smuggling in artifacts, since Tempo dealt BTL a blow it hasn’t recovered from yet.
5. Ruff Stuff
They chose the underground entry via Lordstrung’s. The map went very well with my players, as it should. I allowed a bit of downtime before the gang attack to draw players away from the entrance. The Hackers then came in in force (giving me a chance to test-drive my commlinks in SR3 terminals, which did reasonably well considering how outclassed they were by the decker’S C³), and the group pretty much immediately jumped them, choosing firmly the Skraacha’s side. And then fled the cops by cleverly disabling drones and running, despite one character staying behind at first to heal wounded (but he was just carried off by the tank). Hey, it’s their Karma. But two characters have dossiers on file, so it was obvious they’d run.
6.1 Guns for Hire: Junior
To compensate and for another mission, I descided to borrow a character from SRM0401 – Tomino. He then gives them the side quest for Jack (cause he’s in the mob’s way and they want to discuss business and either force them into their fold or make an example of him). The team reluctantly agrees.
7. Shake a Leg
They make off into the underground, fight off the toxic coyotes (I had decided to employ them in the underground rather than with Mercurial) and happen upon the Goblin Market from SRM 04-01. There, the team takes some time to do their own things, buy some goods and try a ratburger or two, but in the end hire Pip and head for Pirate’s Cove. The way there is relatively uneventful, since Pip rolled 5 of 5 on his edge test. I only put the Skraacha waytoll booth in their way, but they just paid. Maybe I’ll use the Ghost Gator on the way back.
8. Kicked in the Teeth
Everybody of my guys loved Smuggler’s Cove. Nonetheles,s they immediately scout the empty boat by watcher, find it empty, and look for his storehouse. Pip is bribed and finds a local streetkid who shows them the place. They scout it properly and find it heavily fortified. Rigger and Decker decide to try and break into the internal rigger network to take over the place, and being generous, I decide to give them a dataline to try their luck. Luck is with them, so they sneak in and wait, to try and just disrupt the drones when the attack starts. I also decided that Fiona’s Blackberry Cat hangs around here and gives the characters some basic info (violent orks) just because I love using these critters. Then, they try to parlay, but since Captain Jack is not in a mood to, they kick in the doors and carnage happens.
Combat was hard, but doable for the team, with doubled spirits and two more orcs + mage (consider how high level this team is). They made good use of well-aimed grenades to kill security downstairs, the Drone network was subverted, and on they went up, for Captain Jack’s last stand … which, given that their mage scouted well and they used even more grenades, was slightly disappointing.
I had, then, the pushing-the-envelope dockworkers appear, who heard explosions and gunfire and want to help one of their own against intruders. The mention of Junior and some diplomacy calms them down. In the end, the runners take Jack’s boat out of town, because he was also smuggling Deepweed, and Ammit, the leader, wanted it.
9. Picking up the Pieces
In the end, they handed over Jack to Junior for some in-depth discussions about Yakuza, BTL and Junior’s territorial expansions; the morel stone went to Fiona, who then sold it to Nazaire, and the team collected their dues from MacCallister.
What went well: The adventure was very well received. It had the feel of an old module of 1st or 2nd Edition, with many stands to take, many moral decisions to make, but a very linear backbone. It was felt as a bit short, but that's the format. Mercurial went extremly wellw ith the players, I had a couple pretty much squeeing about that NPC. MacCallister was well received too.
The adventure's structure is linear, but that's not too bad because there's not much reason to go astray. I had one scene whre I really had to improvise and make up a replacement for an important NPC (see spoilers if you want to), but with other Missions, that was easy to do. The pushing teh Envelope pieces I almost all used, even though two slightly time shifted. Nazaire's introduction was a bit bumpy, but that'S also due to the short timeframe Missions are meant for, I guess.
The art and maps were very well received, too. Especially the map of the underground. But the NPC pictures too.
Overall, this was one of the best canned adventures for SR I have run to date. It was fast paced, had a nice story and feel, and gave me as a GM most of what I needed without having to scour for things endlessly or leaving me to deal with a mess. I could have, in the instance where my players managed to totally run from an opportunity, just let it be (that's what the adventure suggests), but I decided to introduce another interesting character from SRM04-01 instead. Lots of fun with the locales (I'm starting to really look forweard to the underground book), and with that old-timey feel, perfect as the entry for one of the classics of Shadowrun adventures.
Great job, Missions team.