Just wondering what timeframe folks like to set their games in.

Personally, I'm about to start a SR3 game set just after the 2056 elections.

I really want to run characters through all the buildup and upsets of 2057 even if its all background noise on the screamsheets.

What would you call early Summer 2055 on the options above?

~J

2060. Just enough time to get all high-leveled before SURGE sets in and i can bag me one of them catwomen. Meeeeee-YOW.

Well, I've been keeping to the books and the standard '60 years from now' aproach. Can't say the same for Rok though.

+60? Oops, we're in 2960. Mm, Space Opera.

Normally it's 2059 though.

Space: Above and Beyond actually takes place in 2063.

Nah, I'm with you, Thistledown. ^_~

There's just something comforting knowing that most of the up-to-date material for Shadowrun always tries to keep about sixty years in the future of present day. For me it's just simpler to do things that way, rather than scrounge for a sourcebook talking about the proper time period in order to make sure your character doesn't have gear or tech that doesn't exist yet, or rather probably wouldn't have because its out of date.

2061, as per the standard rules, I believe.

I play early 2050s and use only 1st and early 2nd ed. sourcebooks. There seems to be a DRASTIC change between things like Shadowtech and Man and Machine. I feel way more comfortable in an environment where the weird far out stuff that the players tend to ignore is cranial cyberdecks, rather than oral dart weapons.

Late 2057, usually to get some of the tech from Cybertechnology, FoF, CCSS and KE, but not yet have to deal with Dunkelzahn's death.

Don

Used to be in a 2059 game, and now am in a 2050 smack-dab game. So I count that.

Our group started in the beginning 2052 (?) and have went on. Then as new "campaigns" actually new characters are started, we just pick a date and start from there. We have had characters just watch the news and the Arc unfold while doing other things. We have had characters take a small role in the Arc unfoldings, I can only imagine one day we will be in it. Some characters are ahead of the others we have in the time line. It is wierd to see character lives catch up and pass or catch up and entertwine. Some times they even catch up and wreck. It is also fun to know that something has happened in the "future" of our game and to see the reactions of new people whne the action is reported. The news in our games has stories of things our runners have done adn stuff like that. It is pretty fun when a new player sees a wanted poster on the news and later runs into that guy. Then when he tries something to that wanted person one fo the other veteran players pulls otu the character sheet and starts to play that character for the interaction. Most times though our well known characters will not be seen until timelines merge. My favorite and 3 oldest character has made cameos in the backgrond of a local bar he owns. His rep has made its round of the group and they are dieing to meet him, but his timeline is a year or so ahead and already done, so they will not actually meet him until then. He has been in the room, they even sat next to him and didn't know it. Sometimes it just fn to see all the stories twist together.

Frag,

I definetly like seeing stuff like that happen in different campaigns.

The interaction between what you've played before, and what your playing now really help to make a particular GMs world come to life as things seem very connected.

We were doing some work for our selves, you know you over hear a rumor and go for it with out a Johnson footing the bill. Well another group of runners were already being payed to do the job. We just heard the trickle down from the leg work our other chracters did. The other characters got the underworld in a little buzz about something big going down. The first runners didn't have a dedicated face so a few of our etiquette checks didn't go so well. The other group, the newer group was just beating bushes looking for some extra cash and ran into some info. If it wasn't for some inter team argueing and arriving at a site on full alert we maybe would have stumbled onto a run in progress. It was just something the GM thought would be fun.

In one of the book adventures, I am not sure which one, and I don't want to know, because I hear it is only the beging of a set of runs and I am a player in it. A team is hired to help take out the power grid? Well a year or so before (we play a year or so behind the canon timeline to allow things to work out across several groups of characters and we don't like the metaplot sneeking up on us) at some of the other characters hideout we were sitting around doing downtime things and the power went out. We had a pick up game of "lazer tag" in the streets, funny watching professional killers play lazer tag with kids, they had no idea what hit them. Well a few months later in real time another group of our characters were the ones who pulled the job.

We have a time line and key points mapped on it so we can keep track of who did what and what time it happened.

Like my third longest running character has a small arms running ring, he is semi-retired, he only does runs that certain "friends" need done. The funny thing is they (the new characters) are in his bar all the time, it is right down the street from their "team" house. Well during the mob wars he helped a "friend" out with some guns and things. Well the new team we are playing befriended an associate of my character's and they get guns from him on occasion (availability and all) but they see the build up to this "favore". It will be funny when the new guys hear about it in comeing weeks.

We have a blast linking all the runners together, we always thought even though runners are plentyful in Seattle it would still be a tight knit group. People know each other, stuff gets around. Now some characters have never met others, some hang out crossing the generations if you will, and on a few occasions some characters have killed the others, some characters that killed the others belong to the same person, like character A meets character B of player 1. Stuff happens and character B dies a very bloody messy death. Yes, you need a score card and map to figure it out, if you want to, most times it never comes up. We don't always bring old and new characters together, it depends on all the circumstances, like what style the character has or diet, or hobbies.