I am going to try GMing on a Shadowrun pbp board I frequent. It is my first time being a GM ever. I have been a member of several pbp sites and have seen what works and what doesn't, and have gotten a few ideas about what lends itself to the pbp format and what mucks it up.

Since it is my first attempt at leading a game, I thought that the lower dice pools and simpler gear of a street-level run would simplify things a bit. CG is limited to 300 BP, gear at 8 availability (except for hot sim modules, which are normally rating 12), and the characters are given CHAx2 in free contact points. I have also thrown in the School of Hard Knocks quality for free. Changelings are limited to Class 1. If a character wanted to play a Free Spirit I might let them have 350 to play around with or even the whole 400, because I think that their lower power levels might mimic a wizganger.

I knew I wanted to play in the Seattle setting, and thought that the Redmond Barrens would be a good environment. After reading about it in the Seattle 2072 sourcebook, I was particularly intrigued by the conflict at the Verge, which seems like a mini-Puyallup (Is that the feeling you guys got?). Basically, the Crimson Crush and the First Nations are having a turf war, in proxy for the Yakuza and the Mafia, prospectively.

Attendance on the forum in question is pretty sporadic, and the member base seems to be pretty low. In order to take advantage of the pbp setting and to minimize stagnation from lack of attendance, I wanted to make the game both violent (to kill off stagnant characters) and open (to accept new characters whenever they come). My current idea is to have the characters join up either side, based on the want-ads that each gang is broadcasting. Any character can join either side and they may eventually team up and form mercenary corps, new gangs, etc. I also plan to let the characters earn enough karma by the end of the run that they can start to play in regular 400 bp games with those characters. I will probably run small modules that the characters can jump in and out of - lay siege to or defend a gang fortress, eliminate or protect a toxic mage threat, steal a particular weapon/piece of ware for a crime lord, capture a paracritter for your leader of choice, and any other crazy ideas I may come up with.


I would like some feedback on what you guys think of the game. Particularly, I would be interested in hearing from GMs who have run street-level campaigns and GMs who have tried the pbp format. I would also like to hear some good house rules for this level of run, and success/horror stories of the Logic + Skill with hits capped by Program Rating optional rule for matrix users. If anyone knows any previous edition sourcebooks or Missions supplements that I might be interested in using for this game, please list them! And if you are interested in playing in my game, send me a message and I will shoot you a link: This forum is not the outlet for advertisements.

Thanks in advance.

PBP is a rough format at times. I've run a lot of games this way, and while it has some advantages-you can edit posts, look stuff up, use maps and hyperlinks-a lot depends on participation.

Here's a link to the Street Gang PBP I ran at Bulldrek.. Good luck, and sorry I don't have better adv just yet!

I work as gang investigator for my agency, and some of the things when dealing with gangs to keep in mind are as follows:

• Most active gang members have had some sort of contact with law enforcement, be it arrests or actual prison time. However most gangs have a large infrastructure of friends, associates and family.
• Alliances shift constantly, like market fluctuations. The gang is in business most of the time, and that means profit is goal number one. Some gangs or security threats groups are ideological, but those tend to not be as far reaching as the profit based models.
• Race is everything. In the real world black gangs stick together because they'd rather have black gangs running things than white gangs. Same for whites, Hispanics, etc... So you'll see a Folk and People gang working together, especially inside prison, if there is a threat from another ethnic group. I think Shadowrun would have some similar problems.

I look forward to reading your game's log in its entirety.

The Crimson Crush are an all ork gang, but in my game they are working for the Kenran-Kai, who are adopting the "New Way" by accepting metahumans and the Awakened. The First Nations are an all Amerind gang, but "their standards aren't much more stringent than NAN immigration." They also have magicians in their midst. So while, yes, I do plan on having race be an important part of the conflict, I also don't want it to be too prohibitive for the characters.

Logic+skill can be kinda derpy,
It also fails to consider how it interacts with technos, and kinda breaks them. If you're using it, the solution is to let TM's use the old system(skill+CF). That way their forms actually matter, and count double.(dice AND capping hits).

If you want a street level game, I would strongly consider not changing the availability, but instead putting a cap on the # of initiative passes that any player may have - an overarching campaign ceiling. It doesn't matter where the source is from, everyone's limited to 2 at start, and it will be lessened as time goes on.
It may cause some bitching and moaning, but it handily keeps everyone on the same level, and lets combat actaully be -challenging- instead of 4-pass gunbunny just owning everyone.

In a game focused around game combat, with the threat of violence around the corner, it should do wonders to build a kind of .... unwillingness to fight unless you have the edge, and more of a tough-guy attitude. It should also keep the lowbies/new players/non combat specialists with a gun still feeling useful, AND lets you use NPC's that are a little more powerful for effect - like if the cops bust in.

If you are capping Availability, cap Magic, too, otherwise you will be running magicrun (even more than usual). 300 BP will also tend to encourage more metahumans, because the net point gain for playing one is harder to resist in a low point game, and only 150 points to spend on core Attributes really hurts for the human characters.

I know I plug Karmagen a lot, but this game is basically begging for a 600-ish point karmagen game. It will allow you to make lower power characters without critically gimping everyone. (important: use the erratad versions)

Also capping magic is a great idea. What's a fair point?

I like Tyro's rules for lower-powered characters, reproduced below:

* 600 Karma with German errata, max avail. 8, no restricted gear, max natural attributes 5 + racial modifiers, max skill 3 with two 4's or one 5, max base starting cash 150k (no born rich, in debt allowed but gives no points), max magic 4, max edge 4/5 for humans, max Connection rating for contacts of 3 (the low power option)

I like Tyro's rules, and I hope that the players will not find karmagen too difficult to learn. I had originally restricted skill levels like he had, but had not considered magic. I figured that the lower-powered foci would restrict them enough, but now that I think about it I should cap it.