GenCon event information
Game ID: RPG00818
Title: There's No Such Thing As Retirement
Event Description: Upon learning of a Corporate plan to demolish their retirement home, a group of geriatric retired shadowrunners plan one last run to save it. Hilarity ensues. (Game is BYOC, e-mail ****************** for character creation information)
Event Type: RPG - Role Playing Game
Game System: Shadowrun
Rules Edition: 3rd Edition
Age Requirement: Teen (13+)
Experience Required: Extensive Experience Needed
Event Duration (hours): 4
Event Start Date: 2004-08-20 14:00:00
Event Cost: $3.00
Gaming Group/Sponsor: FanPro LLC
Game Master Name(s): MooCow

GM Info on Game Setting

I'm still ironing out exactly how I'm going to do this, but I can give you the basics now. (All of which are subject to change)

- This game will be very tongue-in-cheek. It's a game about old shadow runners, and I expect to hear "I've fallen and I can't get up" at least once.

- Characters have been retired for at least 15 years (current year being 2064). They should be in their late 60's, early 70's. In their day, they were damned good. So we're looking at around 75 Karma to make characters.

- In terms of cyberware, nothing that wasn't available in first edition (though we're using 3rd edition rules). This means no bio ware, no nanites, no move-by-wire, etc. If you have a question about a specific item, let me know.

- Cyberware will also cost 20% more in essence then what's listed in the book.

- Your characters are old. This means that things that used to work, don't. Mechanics wise, I'll decide what ailments you have based on the character you create (I'm flexible and can be negotiated with).

- The above applies to cyberware as well. You're wired reflexes may be spotty, or you may have a funky rash from your dermal armor.

- Mages are not excempt from this. A likely ailment to strike a mage would be senility. "Why are we sneaking in this building again?"

I think that covers the basics. If you have any other questions, let me know. Hope to see you there!

-MooCow

Questions

Elves and dwarves are out because they can't be "old" in 2064, unless they've magically aged or something. Can we play old orks or trolls?

Yeah, it would really suck to be 60 years old, goblinize, and instantly die of old age.

The only qualification I'll make is that it happened "back in the day". Not neccesarily during that initial wave, but sometime well before this game.

SR3 47 has the Metahuman Characteristics Table
Dwarf "More than 100 years"
Elf "Several hundred years"
Human "55 years (worldwide)"
Ork "35-40 years"
Troll "50 years"

SR3 28 states goblinization began in 2021. As MooCow pointed out, SR3 49 states that humans that goblinized into orks can be over 40 years old. He also said we can't be recently goblinized.

Thus, for the purposes of this game set in 2064, we can be:

1) Born orks (age 37-40, born between 2024-2030)
2) Goblinized orks or trolls (age 70+, previously human)
3) Human (age 70+)

I suspect you should be prepared for the gonzo who shows up at the convention with no character at all.

What is Misanthrope thinking of playing?

And on the subject of no Elves/Dwarves.....

Dwarves we could probably swing by claiming spike baby or something. Elves could be done if the character had a defect that causes him to age rapidly. I know there is one that exists in real life, so certainly one can exist in the 6th world.

(If you feel the absolute need to play an elf or dwarf)

At this point, I'm making two characters (ork rigger and human raccoon shaman) and will decide which one to play depending on the composition of the rest of the group.

Sounds good to me. Now, if we could just find the other players......

*MooCow checks to see if maybe they're behind the couch*

AH HA!! The Truth comes out!

Can I have a basic remote control deck and a small walker drone? I'm thinking of something I would be able to use like the helper dogs owned by people with disabilities.

Do we need to buy our retirement home lifestyle, or does it come gratis? If we need to buy it, how much does it cost?

Im in and im making a senile old mage!

EDIT: when do our characters need to be in? And how much of a background do we need for them?

So some more random thoughts on all this.

The majority of the characters should be living in the retirement community in question. The RC is equivalent to a medium to medium high lifestyle. It's a nice place, situated on a large plot of land (50 acres?) outside of some major city in North America (I don't think it's important which one, so you decide). However, you are not "rich", just plenty comfortable.

The characters made enough money (once properly invested) to keep themselves comfortable and chose to retire for any number of reason. Maybe they were in love, suffered a dibilitating injury (Street Sams with the parapalegic flaw actually make sense in this campaign), or were just tired of being shot at for a living.

You don't have gobs of money sitting around. Your resources stem from income bearing investments, maybe legit businesses you started (but are no longer active in), etc.

The above resource limit is one of the reasons your cyberware, vehicles, guns, etc are old. Staying SOTA is expensive, and if you aren't actively running there is no way you could.

The other is simply that your characters shouldn't be SOTA crazy types. You shouldn't have the type of characters who always have to have the latest deck, cyberware, vehicle mods, etc. The stuff they have is servicable, and that's good enough for them. They enjoyed the life, but not so much that they couldn't walk away (for what ever reason). Of course they may still occassionaly miss the excitment (one of the reasons they ultimatley end up doing this crazy stunt).

Now, there is nothing wrong with keeping up to date knowledge wise. Maybe you subscribe to various industry journals, so you have an idea what kinds of gear folks are running with these days (and you probably snear at it. "Back in my day, we didn't need these new fangled gadgets"). Maybe you help the community keep it's matrix running (decker), or act as a general fix it man (rigger). But, you won't have the insiders knowledge of exactly what the corps are doing or where the bleeding edge is.

Are all these restrictions completely logical? Not really. But this isn't exactly a logical campaign. I don't use the "GM vs Player" model that some do. I just want everyone to have a good time. In this case, that's gonna mean laughing at our characters alot. At the same time, your modern security guard probably isn't prepared for a runner who relies on skill and ingenuity to get by, instead of the latest gear. (Again, probably not realistic, but it should be funny. "How'd he get in?" "He just walked in the back door!")

wow... that was long winded.

Once you've run this, is there any chance of sending a copy of the notes my way?

This sounds like something my group might enjoy...

I just found out about this forum today- I and my boy are both registered for the game, so here's two more players.

I don't know about him, but I am also thinking of a street sam. "In my day, we could hit a fly at 100 paces...these days, kids can't hit the broad side of a barn without enough electronic doohickies to fill a store."

You forgot to add "without the disturbing the wageslave whose donut it was eating" to the fly comment, nor did you mention the fact that it was raining at the time, uphill bothways, and your iron sights were frozen in place and you had to use a dead man's dog tags as a sight to do it.

Spend some time around retired US Marines, you'll be able to get in character for this real quick.

Here is the 6th. The two of us have been doing things that don't involve computers lately, so we haven't had much of a chance to e-mail anyone. I have been thinking of a character. I'm leaning towards a rigger...in his own motorized wheel chair. Just call me Mad Hamish Ok, enough discworld references. I'm going to bed.

Artural - rigger in motorized wheelchair
Silvertek - crotchety street sam
Silvertek's boy - ???
Joker9125 - senile old mage
Misanthrope - a street sam of some sort
TheCat - not sure yet

Silvertek, what is your boy thinking of playing? If Artural is a rigger I'll probably do something else to round out the group.

Artural, I played a quadriplegic rigger once and designed a wheelchair that incorporated a walker drone to which I was hardwired. It's got interesting possibilities.

By my boy, I meant boyfriend, who I introduced to the wonderful world of shadowrunning quite a while ago. And, he's thinking of playing a rigger in a motorized wheel chair. So only five players are known right now....

Ah, I see. I wondered who Artural meant by "we." So, this is the list so far:

Artural - rigger in motorized wheelchair
Silvertek - crotchety street sam
Joker9125 - senile old mage
Misanthrope - a street sam of some sort
TheCat - not sure yet, maybe an adept, keeps changing his mind
unknown - unknown

Damn!

Ok.... well everyone bring bail money then. If someone shows up without having e-mailed me, I'll need to be bailed out before we can play the game.

Still no sign of our last member...?

Nope.

How's everyone coming with characters? Any questions? Requests to raise/lower the power level? Seen any good movies?

I'm about 80% done creating a human adept scout. 75 karma lets me initiate to grade 5 with ordeal/group and a few karma left over. For an adept, that's not bad. I can see a street sam or other characters needing a bit more karma - for characters that were really good in their day, they raise two skills from 6 to 8 and that's 60 karma right there. Riggers and (goddess forbid) deckers get off easy since they don't have to pay for deck/vehicle/drone, so they should do OK.

A lot depends on how you want to run the game. After all, this one is more about story than numbers. We could do it with almost any power level. It might be fun (and a bit silly) to run it with 90 build points and no karma.

75 karma lets me initiate to grade 5 with ordeal/group and a few karma left over.

So you think. MUWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!

After all, this one is more about story than numbers. We could do it with almost any power level. It might be fun (and a bit silly) to run it with 90 build points and no karma.

We can do that to. *shrug* Makes no difference to me. I always make games with plenty of Karma because it's the type of game I /prefer/ to play myself. More karma means more you can do with the character, especially with Mages and Adepts.

It's really you all's game though. You're the ones paying, so I'm pretty flexible about exactly how we set the rules up. It's my cardinal rule when not in a Tournament setting.

Oh, I'd definitely rather play with 75 karma.

Ah, that's fine. I thought you meant you were going to throw some cold water on my character creation and not let me initiate or something. I assume you want us to create character statistics as they were at the moment of retirement, after which you'll age them with input from us. Right?

Input?! YOU GET NO INPUT!!!

Errr.... I mean.... Yeah, that's fine.

Here he comes to save the day: Leaky Larry!

Cool. I like the name.

Did you use a program to create that? I know there are several in development here, but it's been years since I've looked at them. Just noted that all the page numbers and such were on there. Seems like alot of work if you did that by hand.

Did we ever decide where the retirement home is located? I believe I said I'd leave that up to you all.

I used the NSRCG - you can find it on the Dumpshock Matrix. I then edited with Dreamweaver in WYSIWYG mode, because NSRCG has a few minor bugs. This has the disadvantage that I can't go back and edit the character again in NSRCG.

In regard to location, I'd prefer somewhere near downtown Seattle like the University district or Ranier Valley.

Hoping to see some more character sheets before the con...

*Bump*

T-minus 3 weeks until GenCon. Anyone else got characters done?