So, I'm playing in a campaign now. Our GM is not averse to using canned adventures. I was thinking about buying the first couple for him to run. What does everyone who's run or played through them think?

I've tinkered with them a bit, nothing major but my group never runs things straight from the book when it comes to published adventures. They're a fun change of pace in how focused they can be on what you make the situation look like, I'd suggest picking up just one and trying it out though before spending a bunch on all of them.

A Fistful of Credsticks has some good ideas but the implementation is terrible. The adventure is generic, with no real pace, no real drive for the PC (except the usual nuyen and karma) and nothing that would have the players remember it, especially since there are little chances the PC will get to know the whole story.

I guess that with some work from the GM, the good ideas could be salvaged and put into something more interesting, but in that case you're better off writing your own adventure.

I have been thinking about running it for my table top group here, especially after tonight when I was rereading the Corporate Enclave Los Angeles section and read the adventure idea in the back: Lost Little Sheep. The paydata the girl has could offer the runners more information from what occurs at the end of Fistful of Credsticks, and could shine more light on the shadows of Horizon. I might space the runs out a little though, so isn't so obvious... I know I prefer plots coming together like that, though I don't know if my players will remember Fistful/Credsticks when we get back to it, as we only play SR every so often; they are more of a Pathfinder group.

Awesome idea!

I had other plans for Little Lost Sheep originally, but linking it with Fistful will be exactly what that piece needs.

That's not enough?

Some also demand soybeer and joytoys.

How can you even contemplate a run without the Joytoys?

Actually, it's the Soybeer that I can't contemplate the run without. I'll never 'Run in a dry county, that's for sure!

Heh... Gotcha, I will remember that.

Canadian, remember? If we don't have beer, things get bad.

You want to see what the Canadian Armed Forces can do? Remove their beer ration until an objective is met.

"Recon that village. No beer until you do."

"Village taken."

"I only wanted you to recon it."

"Shall we give it back? They have a great wine selection."

Priceless....
Some could say the same for the USMC as well...

Since I never use the pregenerated adventures I'll follow this thread, and hope someone will post some play reports. Personally I'm a little wary of the Horizon story line so far-but I'll wait to see how it all plays out.

Oh? Wary in what way?

Plot Train?

WHOO WHOO!!!

To the original poster: Try purchasing or encourage him to pick up Ghost Cartels instead. It is a campaign supplement that provides NCP stats, interesting enemies, a well developed story, and provides a detailed framework of missions over pre-generated ones.

Due to the nature of Shadowrun, pre-planned adventures like On the Run and the the Horizon Adventures usually don't go well unless they have alterations to them by the GM.

From what I've read, Ghost Cartels and Dawn of the Artifacts have a greater overall story and motivation to them. Actually, it depends on the group. If they like running with celebrities and experiencing the life of famous individuals Horizon might be the way to go.

I dunno. Can you provide feedback on actually RUNNING Ghost Cartels? I bought that book intending on running it. I was disappointed and didn't end up doing it.

I felt that Ghost Cartels was a little bit like "Emergence" which I think most people agree was sort of a one-dimensional "Everyone Hates Technomancers" book that didn't really make a lot of sense when you started thinking about it.

I got the same impression reading through Ghost Cartels. "Everybody loves Tempo". I don't think the campaign is really very realistic. Everyone goes crazy and starts fighting over the drug, blah blah blah.

My impressions of Ghost Cartels is that

1) The adventure structure was fleshed out with some scenes and some NPC stats... but it was also OPEN to the point where as a GM I would still need to do a LOT of work to get the game ready to run. This is not something like "On the Run" with fleshed out scenes that I can read through a few times, and then GO. So it wasn't what I was looking for.

2) After reading through it, I found that really the biggest draw of the adventure was the mystery of where "Tempo" comes from. A lot of the adventure makes sense AFTER you know that secret and going BACK through it... but I didn't think that would really make any kind of difference to the PLAYERS as they were going through it. They wouldn't be able to really appreciate it, because they don't know anything going on behind the curtain, and have no way of finding that out.

If someone else actually ran Ghost Cartels and has feedback about it, I'd be happy to hear about it. I'd also like some feedback of "Fistful of Credsticks" since I haven't read through that one yet.

I've run Ghost Cartels, so I'll give my two cents' worth:

Yes, Ghost Cartels requires work. It's also a lot better if you intersperse it with other runs in the beginning (I adapted several of the Denver SRMs to Seattle and ran an entire 'underworld' campaign that led up to Ghost Cartels.). However, it is a pretty solid campaign, with many colorful NPCs and plenty of room for roleplaying and difficult choices for the PCs. My players developed really strong ties to both Dae and Sacristán, and quite a bit of animosity toward Kaz and Uribe, and there was a lot of good rp during the campaign, even to the point of leading to small improv side-runs at several points. One player quickly developed a tempo-habit, but sadly there was never any opportunity for me to use it's side-effects directly on him.

The 'bad' points are that the characters never really understand what they were involved in, though my players drew some fairly accurate conclusions surprisingly early in the campaign (Then again, they are paranoid and expect a new Universal Brotherhood around every turn. Horizon is their latest target of suspicion, and we haven't even begun with the Horizon-arc yet...), and since the storyline is pretty much dropped they never will. Also, it can take some effort to get the 'feel' of many of the locations if you are only used to running in Seattle.

Almost all of the scenarios and scenario-ideas in the book are solid and well-written, and there is a wealth of information on the effects of Tempo/Flipside and the underworld conflict it creates. It's a great opportunity for the players to experience a wide variety of locales in the 6th world, but it helps a lot if the players aren't new to Shadowrun.

The thing to understand about the tempo-craze is that Tempo lets normal people experience the astral. That's huge. Mundanes have heard it described; have read about it, and possibly seen trideo-adaptations of it. Now, all of a sudden there's a readily-available drug out there that gives them a chance at experiencing it... Sure, many 'ordinary' people will never try it. They don't have the connections, and drugs are bad; it's illegal; mages are scary and all that. But, in the underworld and youth cultures drugs aren't that big of a deal. Tempo is available, and it's something completely new, and those who have tried it are ecstatic! Then we have the elite - the rich and powerful. They won't touch tempo with a ten-foot pole. Flipside, however, is marketed as refined and for the wealthy. It's 'high-class', and it offers unique experiences that can't easily be acquired any other way. Of course many will try.

The drug offers something that nothing else can ascribe to, and in addition it's euphoric and increases in potency when people do it together (their astral auras 'feeding' each other with positive emotions, enhanced by the drug), and - also important - there are no drawbacks that they can notice.

It's a drug that is intentionally marketed to new audiences, in ways that will appeal to them, and no one has anything bad to say about it. At first - and when they do, it's too late...

There are plenty of opportunities for the GM to nuance the whole 'craze' however: There's the Farenheit killer plot-idea (Use it! It'll confuse your players, and is worth the extra work); there's the effects of inexperienced people seeing auras of strong negative emotions, further enhanced by the drug (think 'Betman Begins' and Scarecrow's fear-gas - works great on people who are already paranoid or prone to violence); there's the backlash it creates in the underworld.

Play up the good AND the bad.

That's some really good feedback. Thanks!

I've had some fun with Tempo in my campaign. I've hyped it's popularity and made it a drug that is actively being fought over. I didn't go so far as to actually run the Ghost Cartels campaign though.

Am I seriously the only one that really enjoyed Emergence? It's actually been my favorite arc so far in 4e.

I enjoyed the hell out of it, personally.
I am pretty sure that the rest of the group did as well...
Of course, I was playing it, not running it, so..............

I thought a lot of Emergence was good, and it was an excellent introduction to the 'new' types of AI.

The main problem with the book (in my opinion) was that it sort of 're-introduced' Technomancers to the game world - although it didn't contradict anything in the basic rules, it had the potential of offering a very different take from what they already were in established games. With little to go on except the main book and possibly System Failure, thechnomancers appeared to be much more 'known' than Emergence played them out to be. The Powers That Be should've been aware of them for years, most likely, and though the public scare and craze as presented in Emergence is completely logical, the 'behind-the-scenes' stuff involving Great Dragons and Megacorps felt a little arbitrarily 'crammed in'.

Emergence would've worked perfectly if Technomancers hadn't appeared in the main rules except as rumors, and instead had been introduced fully in Emergence and Unwired.

*Looks at my watch*

Yeah, about time for it... BASTARDS THE LOT OF YOU!!!

Yeah, agreed on Technomancers. I understand why, from a rules perspective, that they were included in the main book, but, the flow of the Emergence storyline tripped things up.

Sadness, but, it happens.

Of course, we probably would have gathered up pitchforks and torches and rioted over the idea if it'd been added that way, so, probably for the best.

I'm actually reading through A Fist Full of Credsticks right at the moment. What can I say, it ain't Missing Blood or Elven Fire, but I accept that those days are gone. It has a lot of potential, but like all pre-written modules, it isn't for all groups. In fact, if your group of runners is all about sticking to the mission and ignoring everything and everyone that isn't directly involved with it, they might not even really get the "main" job in the adventure. Most players would probably take the cue, but then it risks feeling a little rail-roady.

Still, if you don't have time to put something together, there is nothing wrong with it, however, I would recommend the Artifacts series for the simple fact that more of those have already been published.

This was the problem I had with my players when we did "On the Run" a few years ago. They completed the job and then went straight for the payday, which basically bypasses a good third of the entire adventure.

Since then the adventures I've written for them don't require them to go TOO much off the beaten path.

Yeah, same thing at my table.

My players usually make PCs that are too professional to 'open boxes', 'decrypt files', or whatever. They know that it may reflect poorly on their rep, their pay, and their future jobs from the Johnson in question if they're caught. If they find evidence of being ripped off, or that the job they are performing is bad news (say, that container is full of 13-year olds headed for the bunraku parlor), they won't hesitate to 'do the right thing'.

They'll never divert from the job at hand unless they are fairly sure that completing the job makes them far worse people than actually completing it.

Sorry to thread-zombie, but I'm catching up on the backlog and I had to comment on this one.

Remember in 2007 when Iranian armed forces captured 15 members of the British Royal Navy (on a contraband search of a Dhow) and held them captive for a couple of days as the typical Iranian PR stunt? (Cue the tearful cries of "I thought we'd die", camera frenzy, that sort of thing)


In 2004, they tried a similar stunt with some crewmen from the HMAS Adelaide who were (legally) checking out (Contraband search, again) the MV Sham when an Iranian Patrol boat mosey'd on by with a few rubber-duckies with the usual RPG-waving rowdies, claiming the crewmen were violating sovereign waters and demanded they disarm and be taken captive. The crewmen then held them off using, and I love this part, "Colourful Language", until the Adelaide fired up it's chopper and lifted them out. Mainly (from scuttlebutt) a desire not to provoke an international incident because the crewmen had reached their knock-off hour and it was time for the traditional 2 cans, per man, per day, perhaps.

Yep - Australian armed services do NOT want their drinking time interrupted. And they will go to war for it.
Incidently, 2 members of the bording party were awarded the DSM for their conduct and tellingly, "The Australian Defence Force did not report the incident to the media at the time, stating that at the time, there was no need to highlight it."

Can you picture it - the two sensible ones holding back the more excitable ones saying calmly, "Yes, look, we know some bastard's trying to knock off your can as we wait, but we don't want to shoot anyone yet - how about you try telling them how you feel."

-Tir.

Yep, that sounds about right.