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Caadium
Has anyone updated Harlequin to 4th Edition? Or, similarly, any of the other classic modules?

I seem to recall a thread talking about that once upon a time, but my search-fu failed me and I couldn't find anything.

I'm going to be introducing a whole new group to Shadowrun and was just trying to think of some stuff that might be a fun intro. So, if someone has other suggestions, I'm open to those as well.

FYI, I'm trying to stay away from the Dark Artifacts stories because I keep hoping I can convince someone else to use them to GM so that I can actually play.
bobbaganoosh
There is a stat block for Harlequin in Street Legends Supplemental.
Caadium
QUOTE (bobbaganoosh @ Feb 11 2012, 04:44 PM) *
There is a stat block for Harlequin in Street Legends Supplemental.


I'm talking about the adventure module, not just a stat block for him.
bobbaganoosh
QUOTE (Caadium @ Feb 11 2012, 04:48 PM) *
I'm talking about the adventure module, not just a stat block for him.

I was unaware that there was an adventure named Harlequin. I was only aware of the immortal elf named Harlequin. I don't think the adventure has been updated.
Caadium
QUOTE (bobbaganoosh @ Feb 11 2012, 04:54 PM) *
I was unaware that there was an adventure named Harlequin. I was only aware of the immortal elf named Harlequin. I don't think the adventure has been updated.


It is an OLD adventure series that has not been updated as an official product.

I'm asking the player base if someone out there has done it, or any of the other similar products.
ravensmuse
I started on a conversion of Missing Blood at one point. I'll have to see if I can dig that up.
Paul
I believe he means these: Harlequin; and Harlequin's Back which were, as I recall, each contained an interlinked series of adventures.
Paul
By the way you can snag them for the cheap on Amazon. Well I take it back you can snag the first one cheap.
ravensmuse
I came *this* close to nabbing Harlequin's Back for like, $8 at my local Half Price Books. Just FYI smile.gif

(Didn't, because I got Aztlan instead biggrin.gif)
CanRay
I got Harley's Back for a pretty good price awhile ago.

One of the few old books I have.
Caadium
QUOTE (Paul @ Feb 11 2012, 05:27 PM) *
By the way you can snag them for the cheap on Amazon. Well I take it back you can snag the first one cheap.


I have had hard copies of both for a long time, I'm just wondering if anyone had tried to update them to 4th Ed, and if so how it went.
BishopMcQ
Caadium--I've run sections of them. Converting the stats takes a ton of work if you want to convert exactly. My suggestion would be to use the framework and if you are comfortable with NPC creation just make new ones based on the style of the published stat blocks.

Using the Crawlers from HB, p. 25 as an example
B - 7, A - 6, R - 5, S - 9, C - 4, I - 4, L - 4, W - 6
Natural Armor 6/7
Claws 8S, Venom 6P, Nausea
Init 11, 3 IP
Unarmed 6, Dodge 4, Athletics 4

If you don't mind juggling numbers and going for intent rather than perfection, it can be fun.
Paul
QUOTE (Caadium @ Feb 11 2012, 10:41 PM) *
I have had hard copies of both for a long time, I'm just wondering if anyone had tried to update them to 4th Ed, and if so how it went.


Oh, to my knowledge no. For a while, and I can't say this necessarily remains completely true, some of the people writing the game really hated the 4th world connections and magic in general in Shadowrun. So they tried really hard to throw it out of the way for their version of the game. Luckily it wasn't completely successful-but to my knowledge beyond the Street Legends spot Harlequin hasn't seen much mainstream action of late.
Tymeaus Jalynsfein
QUOTE (Caadium @ Feb 11 2012, 05:48 PM) *
I'm talking about the adventure module, not just a stat block for him.


One of our GM's has been running Harlequin for 4thA Edition. Has been a real blast, especially since I missed it in the Previous Editions. smile.gif
tete
QUOTE (Caadium @ Feb 12 2012, 01:08 AM) *
Has anyone updated Harlequin to 4th Edition? Or, similarly, any of the other classic modules?


Yes, but not in the way you are thinking. I have done Mecurial, Dreamchipper, and Harliquin but I changed the names, factions, and locations a bit. For example replace Aztechnologies with Horizon and replace Mecurial with the Wild Cards for the Mecurial module. Of course I made some improvements to as the old system maps are not fun and I also don't like forced outcomes. The Harliquin rewrite is actually rather interesting as your hired by Mr. Darc not Harliquin to get revenge on Harliquin. It starts off with a mission to steal Harliquins guitar (instead of the book) and then follows the Harliquin plot from there sort of. Its really made for people who have played through Harliquin and Harliquins Back

/edit

I'd post them online but I think theres too much of the original content in them still as you could run them with out the original adventures pretty easy.
snowRaven
QUOTE (tete @ Feb 12 2012, 07:13 PM) *
Yes, but not in the way you are thinking. I have done Mecurial, Dreamchipper, and Harliquin but I changed the names, factions, and locations a bit. For example replace Aztechnologies with Horizon and replace Mecurial with the Wild Cards for the Mecurial module. Of course I made some improvements to as the old system maps are not fun and I also don't like forced outcomes. The Harliquin rewrite is actually rather interesting as your hired by Mr. Darc not Harliquin to get revenge on Harliquin. It starts off with a mission to steal Harliquins guitar (instead of the book) and then follows the Harliquin plot from there sort of. Its really made for people who have played through Harliquin and Harliquins Back

/edit

I'd post them online but I think theres too much of the original content in them still as you could run them with out the original adventures pretty easy.


That sounds quite neat.

Doing Horizon in place of Aztech in Mercurial is brilliant! Now I may just have to go and do something similar myself grinbig.gif Thank you!

There are several of the old adventures that I'd love to 'do over' as GM. I have a long-standing plan to set up an 'SR History' campaign going over all the iconic metaplot stuff from 2050 through to today with one team of runners. Now, if I can only find the time and a group of players that haven't gone through it all before...
Hagga
QUOTE (Caadium @ Feb 12 2012, 02:04 AM) *
It is an OLD adventure series that has not been updated as an official product.

I'm asking the player base if someone out there has done it, or any of the other similar products.

Both adventures are a lot of fun. Give them a shot - updating them for 4e isn't too difficult, just a bit of a slog. They're actually the adventures I enjoyed the most for Shadowrun.
Lindt
HB is one of the best modules out there, for any game.
Im running it in fits and srats for my sr3 group and the farther I get, the less I really need the stats. Its all about flavor, and story.
Blade
If you read French, Harlequin and Harlequin's Back have been bundled in a single Harlequin book, updated for SR4, in the "Shadowrun Vintage" line.

The only problem is that they weren't allowed to do any major change so for the Matrix side they had to take the existing VR 2.0 systems and turn each node into a SR4 node, making the Matrix systems very complex and long to hack.
Bigity
QUOTE (Blade @ Feb 13 2012, 03:51 AM) *
If you read French, Harlequin and Harlequin's Back have been bundled in a single Harlequin book, updated for SR4, in the "Shadowrun Vintage" line.

The only problem is that they weren't allowed to do any major change so for the Matrix side they had to take the existing VR 2.0 systems and turn each node into a SR4 node, making the Matrix systems very complex and long to hack.


Ouch. OUCH.
Paul
While I wouldn't oppose an update of the existing adventures-it seems like it could be done pretty cheaply (but obviously I have no idea what it'd really cost or entail)-but I'd also love to see some of the existing plot hooks either tied off or updated. Shadowrun is a big world, so obviously that's a pretty tall order but I don't think it's impossible.
ShadowPavement
I ran my SR players through Euphoria a few years back using 4E. It was a pretty simple to just take the stats for Bugs from Street Magic. Other than that I pretty much kept the fluff the same and everything worked out great.

I think for the most part those great runs are great because the writing and fluff are good and have withstood the test of time. Most of the crunchy bits get updated with each edition in some form or another through the books or fan projects.
snowRaven
QUOTE (ShadowPavement @ Feb 14 2012, 07:24 PM) *
I ran my SR players through Euphoria a few years back using 4E. It was a pretty simple to just take the stats for Bugs from Street Magic. Other than that I pretty much kept the fluff the same and everything worked out great.

I think for the most part those great runs are great because the writing and fluff are good and have withstood the test of time. Most of the crunchy bits get updated with each edition in some form or another through the books or fan projects.


Yeah, some of the early stuff is pure gold...

There are exceptions, of course, but many of the old adventures really captured that cyberpunk dystopia perfectly, yet incorporated magic and other strangeness in a way that made total sense to me. Not much of the newer stuff (and I'm talking from 2000 and onwards) 'live up to' the feel of early SR. That statement should not be take as writer critique, though - far from! Had things stayed the same Shadowrun would probably have stagnated, become hopelessly behind the times, and lost a lot of it's appeal. A game world that advances for 25 in-game years has to evolve and move in different directions in order to stay relevant, and fun.
Mercer
The other side of this-- and I say this as someone who owns a lot of old modules, has played through and run them, and love them dearly-- is that there were parts of those modules that were just bizarre. There's the obvious scene in Harlequin that destroyed more than one group I played with (not the characters mind you, but actually drove the players into near homicidal fits of rage). But my favorite has to be from the Mercurial module that includes a scene where an npc breaks into a runner's apartment, threatens them with the notion that he's planted a bomb and then quote, "leaves before anyone can react." This particular npc had a 5+1d6 initiative.

There were some good modules, but you had to keep your eye on them.
CanRay
Bastards the lot of you. frown.gif
CanRay
It was easier to do the Dystopia back then. People remembered the Cold War and the economy destruction that happened right around the time early Shadowrun was coming out.

Of course, if things keep going the way they are...
ggodo
I miss the feel of the old books, I got Renraku Arcology Shutdown and Germany at my bookstore, and Renraku Arcology Shutdown is now my favorite story arc in SR. I think if they ever make another Shadowrun Video game it should be in the Arcology.
Mercer
QUOTE (CanRay @ Feb 15 2012, 06:09 AM) *
It was easier to do the Dystopia back then. People remembered the Cold War and the economy destruction that happened right around the time early Shadowrun was coming out.

Of course, if things keep going the way they are...

That's the beauty of it, the world always seems like it's on the precipice of some great disaster. We're just scared of different things than we were back then. Those fears seem quaint now (whether it was the Soviets or the Japanese who were going to take over) and in a few years, the things we're scared of now will seem quaint. Unless we're talking about animatronic sharks. Those things will always be terrifying.
cryptoknight
Personally I'd love some good conversions of the old mods... I have them... gathering dust on my shelf.

I can convert critters easy enough from edition to edition... I was never very good at matrix conversions... the matrix changes so much from one version to the next that I keep trying to build the old 1st edition system maps... and kicking myself for even thinking down those lines.

At the same time, the idea that a business is really not much more than a really big commlink or series of them, bugs me.
Tymeaus Jalynsfein
QUOTE (cryptoknight @ Feb 17 2012, 10:11 AM) *
Personally I'd love some good conversions of the old mods... I have them... gathering dust on my shelf.

I can convert critters easy enough from edition to edition... I was never very good at matrix conversions... the matrix changes so much from one version to the next that I keep trying to build the old 1st edition system maps... and kicking myself for even thinking down those lines.

At the same time, the idea that a business is really not much more than a really big commlink or series of them, bugs me.


Actually, the System maps from 1st Edition are a good way to visualize/construct a complex series of Nodes forming a target System you might want to raid. smile.gif

Layered protection is a better solution than a Single node...
snowRaven
QUOTE (Tymeaus Jalynsfein @ Feb 17 2012, 07:05 PM) *
Actually, the System maps from 1st Edition are a good way to visualize/construct a complex series of Nodes forming a target System you might want to raid. smile.gif

Layered protection is a better solution than a Single node...


100% Agreed!
Neurosis
QUOTE (Caadium @ Feb 11 2012, 07:08 PM) *
Has anyone updated Harlequin to 4th Edition? Or, similarly, any of the other classic modules?

I seem to recall a thread talking about that once upon a time, but my search-fu failed me and I couldn't find anything.

I'm going to be introducing a whole new group to Shadowrun and was just trying to think of some stuff that might be a fun intro. So, if someone has other suggestions, I'm open to those as well.

FYI, I'm trying to stay away from the Dark Artifacts stories because I keep hoping I can convince someone else to use them to GM so that I can actually play.


I ran Harlequin as a 4th Edition adventure SORT OF. I didn't really adapt it for 4th Edition, though. I had the PCs go back in time to (a metaplane containing echoes of) their past lives and experience the events as dream-like echoes of their past lives using reworked 1st Edition Rules so the campaign alternated between 4E and 1E. The thing that sent them back in time was a magic carousel a la Something Wicked This Way Comes, and the carousel was located in Knasser's Carnival, which is a fan-made adventure/setting that I wholeheartedly recommend; the Carnival part of the adventure climaxed with the PCs and Harlequin taking out the extremely nasty black magician leaders of the carnival. It was all extremely mysterious as it was happening. Even if the players were Shadowrun veterans (they weren't) I mixed things up enough and turned the weird to eleven enough that I don't think they'd have had any inkling what was really going on until well into the campaign.

The above events--which believe it or not ran co-terminously with and tied into an epic hunt for surviving fragments of the three main pre-Crash 2.0 AIs--comprised my second successfully completed, full length Shadowrun campaign ever. A bizarre frankencampaign being played in 1E and 4E simultaneously with two different sets of characters.

An upcoming book that I'm dying to work on but not technically allowed to talk about might make things like actually updating Harlequin (and 1st Edition in general) to the 4E rules a lot more possible.

I really love the adventure Harlequin because you get to do a lot of shadowruns. I'm less excited about Harlequin's Back because, while I love Harlequin, you don't *really* get to do any shadowruns, and that's a LONG campaign to play through in a game called Shadowrun without getting to do any.
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