So, I've been enjoying Dragonfall. However, the idea of the same team of runners doing 2 runs in one day got me thinking. Besides for the obvious issue that anyone who'd been wounded in the previous mission would be "walking wounded" on the new one, I've also come to appreciate from a lot of reading of Vietnam War memoirs that in many cases after a major combat experience people can come to be totally exhausted which can manifest itself in several ways.

Back when I used to GM I always had there be long periods of time between missions during which everyone who was injured was assumed to get treatment for injuries, physical therapy, or what have you. I sort of took it for granted that combats would be far apart as they would need to be for the team to be "as good as new", but I guess that lots of people wouldn't necessarily GM in the same way.

But if you are running a campaign such that there's a big overriding sense of urgency and a lot of missions to be done in a short period of time, it doesn't seem realistic that one squad could basically take part in all of it without any problems arising from fatigue, accumulation of injuries, weapons needing to be cleaned, and things like that.


So what about this for a style of game: instead of everyone creating one character for a Shadowrun game, they create 3. After all why should a team of runners be a squad only and not a platoon? That way, if someone's character gets shot up in the morning and then some do or die urgent thing comes up in the afternoon, the shot up character recuperates in the safehouse and a second character rolls out in the afternoon.

If everyone has 3 characters it kind of provides a minimal basis to allow for one guy to go on mission, a second guy to be on a reaction force or some kind if the first squad needs help (which seems to be reasonable planning; also from the Vietnam memoirs I noticed it seemed to be a very common practice to reserve some people at the base as a reaction force in case the guys going out into the field got cut off or something), and the third slot is empty to allowed for at least 1 wounded guy to be recuperating at a time.


I feel like there could still be an emphasis on character and role playing, because usually a player would only play one character at a time, but it would make some of the aspects of the campaign seem more realistic.

Do you think it would be fun or manageable?

I think that campaigns with higher mission tempo reward characters that are harder to damage or can heal faster.

But basically I think what you have described is similar to a mission with multiple combats. Someone with high Body or can regenerate would be valuable for such missions.

Crunch wise it makes sense, but how would you explain it in the SR universe? Is it just a rotating crew, who take turns in groups to do a run and are essentially a shadowrunner union? Each group is made of 5 members say, so 1-5 run today, 6-10 next week and 11-15 the week after with any uninsured person able to taking the place of someone unrecovered?

Maybe a bunch of slightly more experienced shadowrunners decide to form an association that operates like a platoon. They decide to try and gain a little more security for themselves which includes having a larger group that will basically cover for you while you're injured and has the ability to send a reaction force if things go badly. They only accept new members who are already trusted by existing members and they only accept people who are willing and happy to act as part of this group. Maybe they cost share to be able to better afford a fortified safe house, drones, support vehicles, and things like that.

In order to pay everyones' salary they need to do a lot of missions and in order to spread risk around fairly they basically take turns like you describe either being on mission, or being on the reaction force. If someone is injured they have time off till they're recovered.

Maybe in order to administer these decisions and have a final decision maker they have a few officers, who are elected once per year by people who have been part of the group for at least a year.

It's still different than a corporate getup because the ranks are drawn from the community of shadowrunners and they only accept "friends of friends". I guess you could say it's a bit like a shadowrunner co-op.

It could be this group of runners is hired as a group, with the Faces basically acting like fixers or something of the sort.

It's entirely possible. In fact they used to be called Assets Inc. in the 60's not sure if they made it to the 70's though.

While conceptually I think this is alright I think it jives against the 'punk element. At this point the platoon and the characters within it definitely resemble "the man". If they're being contracted out as a unit they're almost no different than a shadowy version of some PMC.

The thought had crossed my mind. I guess it comes down to if you feel a co-op, as opposed to a corporation, is Bohemian and countercultural enough to pass for punk on some level.

Actually, if you think about it, this is perfect for going against the way the corps sometimes manipulate runners - for example, try going after the last 5 runners you hired because they know too much, only to find out they're being protected by 10 other runners too? I'd say it's in the anti-corp aspects that this might really shine...

I was actually thinking of assets Inc, Smokers club and other larger runners group when I was writing my post earlier. Though I think assets may have been forgotten about for Ryan Mercury's all drake merc group.

And that's what I was trying to remember the term for, a Co-op. Essentially I could see it as a group of runners working together, maybe having a few retired runners take care of primary logistics (runners on downtime would assist), and each run the runners hired give a percentage to the group as a whole (like a union) which would pay for the retired runners work, any medical bills for injured or hiding runners (insurance), group lifestyle and other costs perhaps have a initiatory group too.

And while I could see this being a deterrent to any backstabbing it could also be used as a way of ensuring that the runners are ensuring a reputation of being professional while the union/co-op would be able I act as a fixer in of itself. By this point though would these be Mercenaries who specialize in shadowruns?

EDIT: I also remember back in late 3rd edition someone wrote a player created company on the sixth world wiki that was run by a Night-One and did shadowruns. They were designed to be a security company who hired out higher level members who were actually employees shadowrunners/company men, while hiring sinless and homeless to ensure loyalty (promise to provide for their whole family and their futures)

This is a regular occurrence, right? Most of the runs I see, most of the runners come out injured (even if it's only minor) and certainly fatigued, so it would seem the assumption is if you're hiring me for a run, I'm basically off the market for 2+ weeks.

Now if I'm a runner in Denver, and my bud WR got shot up in Seattle, I know he's not covering the Seattle market for a few weeks. Presumably if WR got a job offer in Seattle, he still wants to be known as a guy who gets things done, even if he himself can't do it, so it's in his interest to push the next job offer to me, and vice versa. It's not a 'shadowrunner's union', it's people sharing the wealth when they're not in a place to cash in themselves.

Alternatively, you could have your backup runners be less skilled guys. You have one runner at say the 500 karma level, one at 200, one at 100. The other two guys are junior runners or just gangers, so they aren't 'competition'. Your primary runner gets first pick and needs to decide for each job offer if it's really worth his time, or of he's going to roll it off to someone else so he's available for a better job later.

Now that I think about it another aspect of this style of game could be rewarding could be more of an emphasis in gameplay on resources on hand and resources in reserve. So the tactical picture would be a bit bigger.

If the runners hit a facility and the alarm is raised, what resources does the corp have to react to that? Does the corp send an infantry platoon in an armored vehicle supported by a helicopter gunship? And if so, the gameplay encompasses not only how the runners at the base react (perhaps by running away mostly), but could also potentially "cut away" and shift to the reaction force, who perhaps might be able to ambush the corp reaction force.

It also opens the door for the runners to call for air support or mortar fire, for example, and thus adds a lot more layers to gameplay.

I mean people already cut away from the action for decking, so why not equally cut away for an ambush on the corporate reaction force?

I actually ran a short campaign along these lines. I had the players each create any number of characters they wanted; the only stipulation was that each character had to have the same Fixer contact with the same Contact rating. At the start of the game the GM (me) got together with the players who were basically RPing their own Fixer contacts about information for the job from the Johnson. The players were then able to select which of their characters they wanted to send on the 'run.

A sidenote on damaged players: between Magical Healing, First Aid, and Medicine I've rarely seen someone take more than three days to go from Physical Damage Overflow to no damage at all.

I'll bet having multiple character helped people to be more mature about in-character setbacks.

Interestingly most people ended up settling on one character they normally used. Imagine getting 3-5 karma per run. Now imagine having to decide which character gets that karma. It's certainly incentive to just use one as you'll actually get advancement.

Tying in with the discussion of run rewards, I can see one advantage of having a "platoon" or group of runners, along with one fixer; getting rid of the whole "negotiating with the Johnson" part of the game that can take up the first 30 minutes of any session.

You're at your friend's house, you cleared your calendar; you're taking the run. The "negotiation" is just a waste of time that spawns arguments about how much a run should be "worth". If you're getting your jobs directly from your fixer at a flat fee, then this could eliminate that whole set of issues and get players right into the action. If you're presuming your fixer isn't trying to screw you, then it makes sense to trust his judgement to the run's value.

-DrZ

Could also use an old troupe method:

The character used on the adventure, referred to as the 'main' for this discussion, receives their Karma and money reward.

The other characters held as part of the troupe that were not active for that adventure receive a Karma award equal to half that of what was awarded to the 'Main', rounded down.
This goes with the idea that the others are not just sitting on their thumbs or hanging like an old coat while the main was on the adventure but doing other things/studying/training, but just not as dramatic or rewarding as the main.

This allows for a player rotating the characters in their troupe to stay fairly close together over the long term.

Adventure 1: A is the main this time and earns 5, B & C earns 2

Adventure 2: B goes into play and earns 4, A & C earn 2

Advencture 3: C takes a milk run and slouches through it earning a 2, A & B get 1.

End totals from 3 runs: A has 8, B has 7 and C has 6.

Obviously if you focus on any one predominately they will pull ahead, but this method does keep the lesser used ones from falling too far behind.

See, I'd have awarded Karma to each of that player's characters specifically to avoid that.

So you would be able to magikarp your secondary character then? I do like how this could work, with the support characters possibly helping with legwork and research for the main on their run.

But then again what's to keep the player from having a primary main and then 2 support characters who's only job is to support the main? And how would you explain that many awakened in a group (cause we all know there will be atleast one per player).

And while the idea of shadowrunners calling in support is pretty cool to say the least, air strikes and mortor/artillery strikes is bordering on mercenary/urban warfare/terrorist level IMO. Personaly for shadowrunners I see spirits, extra hackers and rescues being more likely and useful without KE being down their throats

to a limited degree, remember they are only getting half karma reward. It is more to keep the pool to draw from from being 1 Prime and 2 Newbs. The off-roles will progress slower unless they get some time in the main spotlight as well.


Indeed, this can be filled by a variety of roles. The classic PI type who might not be front line combat, but could be running down leads/roughing up snitches across town to get data for the team, usually more in the form of mini-mission style. The main spotlight remains on the primary team.


Well this idea is more for the idea of a player have an extra character or two who can step in should the main be healing up/otherwise unavailable or possibly handling other matters somewhere else, like the scenario described above.
They should not be operating in the same scene at the same time.

I'm in a Mage (nwod) game where everyone has two characters. Specifically because "When you're a cabal of mages, magic is a hammer, and everything begins to look like a nail."

Just make sure that each of the three characters any given player has has a distinct use. E.g. one face, one rigger, one combat mage. Or summoner mage, street samurai, hacker.

You know, I'm starting to flash back to that one campaign I was in where I had something like 7 characters... That, legitimately, was a little insane. Fun, but insane.

(There wasn't a point where they were all in the same place at once, though - this is good, because I only have so many hands for holding up signs so you know which character is speaking. )

Maybe you all work for the Commander.