Is Season 5 still going to be 4th edition or is it going to be the first season for 5th?

I'll be announcing some more information soon, but Season 5 with be launching to coincide with SR5, and will be 5th edition.

Thanks Champ. Good to know there will be something to try the new rule set out on.

Will Origins Game Fair be under 4th Edition still, or will the switchover have happened by then?


-k

When 4E came out, Shadowrun events were run in 3rd, 4th, and a few hybrid games where folks converted their characters as they went (the characters were getting released from prison as I recall...) for about the first three months after the changeover.

That was a different company though...

Hm. I am trying to figure out how much "play time" I have left with my existing characters, as it appears the new campaign will not be allowing conversion.


-k

I had heard this and was curious, is it final yet? or are the prime runners going to be able to be converted?

Red

Right now, at least 90% of Missions characters will be unplayable "as is" for at least a year due to gear, spells, and rules not being updated to 5th edition. Some may never be fully playable again, depending on decisions made when the Companion and alternate character creation rules are done. I don't really know. Plus, 5th edition will likely change and rebalance things to the point where some characters may not be as... viable... as they once were, regardless.

All in all, new editions are a mess for Living Campaigns.

So short answers:

1) Yes, Season 5 will launch to Coincide with Shadowrun 5. We're being fully integrated out of the gate, and one thing I've had my eye on throughout development is Living Campaign Play.

2) Everyone entering Season 5 will be entering with a fresh, brand new, 0 Karma character to keep the playing field level. It also means all new characters will start off as totally "vanilla" core book.

3) We plan to finally launch the Prime Runner campaign. The goal is around 4 Prime Missions per year.

4) Prime Runners will need to be created from scratch, but you'll carry over your karma, and there will be rules covering how much money you will start with. This is intended for you to use this karma and money to rebuild your old Missions character under the new rules, or as close as you can, though there will be nothing stopping you from building a totally different character if you like with that Karma and Money. Prime Runners will only be playable in Prime Missions and certain special events.

5) How much "Play Time" is basically as long as you can find someone to run Season 4 and Shadowrun 4. Officially, with SRM 04-12 out, Season 4 has now wrapped. We had wanted to do a few more Missions for Season 4, but a large number of factors caused some delays and put us to the point where it was better to wrap up and focus on prepping for Season 5. As I said above, Season 5 should launch day and date with SR5, whenever that ends up being.

Bull

Does that mean we should never expect to see, the following missions:

The London Calling series:
CMP2012-01: Swing Vote
CMP2012-02: Five Minutes to Midnight
CMP2012-03: Silicon Slick
CMP2012-04: Depth Charge

The Land of Promise series:
CMP2012-05: Hopping the Fence
CMP2012-06: Domestic Tranquility
CMP2012-07: Grocery List
CMP2012-08: The Hung Over

The Prime Missions:
PM-01: Hunters Hunted
PM-02: Well Preserved

The Convention Mission Packs:
CMP 2010-01: Manhunt
CMP 2010-03: Ashes
CMP 2010-04: Humanitarian Aid
CMP 2010-05: Lost Islands Found
CMP 2010-06: Deconstructing Patriots
CMP 2010-07: Congressional Conspiracies
CMP 2010-08: Stormcrow Undone
CMP 2011-01: Moving Day
CMP 2011-02: The Prize of Failure
CMP 2011-03: Threads of the Past
CMP 2011-04: Ancient Pawns
CMP 2011-05: Burn Notice
CMP 2011-06: TRO 2076
CMP 2011-07: Super Brawl Sunday!
CMP 2011-08: Ain’t That a Kick in the Head?
CMP2012-01: Swing Vote
CMP2012-02: Five Minutes to Midnight
CMP2012-03: Silicon Slick
CMP2012-04: Depth Charge
CMP2012-05: Hopping the Fence
CMP2012-06: Domestic Tranquility
CMP2012-07: Grocery List
CMP2012-08: The Hung Over

I really wanted those

Um, all but a handful of those are available and have been at multiple conventions already.

Pretty much only the Prime missions and like two of the CMPs have not been released.


-k

They've been at conventions, but they're not really publicly available.

The two Prime's don't exist, and never will. The authors had to back out of the projects for various reasons (most real life and lack of time to commit to writing). Those were supposed to be pulled from the website, but... Outside my control.

The Land of Promise stuff is available in the product Elven Blood (which compiles the 4 Land of Promise adventures plus CMP 2011-04: Ancient Pawns).

As for the rest, they're still on the to be released block, but I have no idea when, what format, or even what edition at this point. That's in the hands of upper management. There's been talk of using these for several different ideas, and it's possible some might get converted to 5th edition, but I don't know for certain unfortunately

Bull

I for one would instantly buy them all.
The missions adventures are, in my opinion, the highest quality publications that SR4 has to offer, next to some of the 5$ pdfs.

Thanks, bull that is very informative.

Red

OK, and let me just ask this question for clarity's sake. As of right now, are Shadowrun Missions for GenCon 2013 going to be all 5th edition scenarios, or do you plan to offer any from 4th edition? What about Dragon*Con? Will that be up to the local coordinator?

Origins and gen Con will all be 5th edition, yes. We'll be running a ton of demos at the show of 5th edition as well as a lot of Welcome to the 6th World events, where you'll get the chance to create a Shadowrun character that you can play in Missions (Plus demo the new edition). So if you don't have the chance to pick up, read, and/or play SR before the show, I suggest hopping into a Welcome to the 6th World game first thing.

Dragon*Con will be at least partly up to the organizers, but I imagine it will be all 5th ed as well.

Thanks for the quick reply. I'm not really planning to move up to 5th edition so I was hoping for a few more scenarios before I had to call it quits. Business is business, I guess.

It sounds like this Origins will NOT be wall to wall Missions, yes? I'll be able to sleep this year?

I was hoping the last couple of 4E Missions released would also be running there, for folks who wanted to close out their old characters with a bang. I don't anticipate any other locations I play at to run them before then. Ah well.


-k

As a side note Karma, we will still be running our usual 7 slots of missions at Dexcon in July. Since I am not an agent I will probably not have access to 5th material at that time and will therefore be running the last 4 Mods of season 4. By that time I hope that I will have a copy of 5th from origins or pre-order depending on when it is coming out and will also add some 5th ed demo slots to let people get a chance to play as well. Since I know you usually make Dreamation and Dexcon and the old man is always welcome at my table you may be able to see those mods still.

Red

I have scheduled Floating GMs for pick up games, so we might be able to run 11 and 12 if we have a few players that would like to play them. Just check in at the CDT RPG HQ and ask for me.

I can't offer anything official, but I think it's okay for me to say that on my list o' Origins stuff that I'll be GMing there, I think there's like ... eight(?) ... Season 5 adventures. I know for certain that I'm running six slots, but only four of them are Shadowrun.

Damnit. We could have decent to great adventures and instead we're treated to Storm Front. The London Calling Series is set in London?

I second what bannockburn wrote. I'd buy all of them, in whatever format. Unlike recent sourcebooks, Missions have dependably high quality.

I just noticed I didn't answer your first question, if you mean the schedule, there will be a 1 hour interval between time slots, so you won't have to rush from table to table.