Alright everybody,
I'm looking for a Shadowrun adventure that perfectly captures the essence/feel of old school cyberpunk or Shadowrun, set (preferably) in the 50s. Is there any adventure, published or homemade, that you guys can recommend, and if so, what are the adventure's main selling points?

Ideally, it would be something short that can be wrapped up in about 2-3 sessions.

Imago, DNA/DOA, Mercurial, Queen Euphoria, ... well, apart from a few examples basically the whole range of SR1 and SR2 products.

Well, I started with 4th edition, so I'm not really familiar with those. Are those products still available?

You can also take a look on the sourcebook for Shadowrun 4th "Shadowrun 2050". It gives all the info needed to run a 50's campaign using the rules of 4th edition.

Renraku: Arcology Shutdown!

Most are LONG out of print, but they should almost all be available as PDF's via DriveThruRPG.

needs an exclamation Mark !


they should be . look for them at Conventions or get them as a PDF
Queen Euphoria and UB (Universal Brotherhood) can become very much like James Camerons Aliens
but

neither of these are
both (Renraku Arc Shutdown and UB/QE) are small campaigns with dozens of Sessions each



HougH!
Medicineman

@Medizinmann:
Done.

@Everybody else.
Queen Euphoria and Universal Brotherhood, Imago, DNA/DOA are, as far as i remember, more Fantasy/Magic Heavy whereas R:AS! is basically you fightingf against murderbots. Which is as Cyberpunk as it gets, really.

DNA/DOA is widely thought to be the shittiest of the printed adventures - basically because it's a dungeon crawl and also ignores world canon about how metagenes work.

For my money, the core 'Shadowrun' experiences are these (in no order):

Double Exposure
Dreamchipper
Imago
Eyewitness

Dragonhunt, I think? The one where you're hired by an amnesiac dragon with datajacks to go and find out what happened is a good one.

Dreamchipper, if that's the one where the personality chips of Cleopatra, Jack the Ripper and Ghenghis Khan get loose.

Dragon Hunt certainly fits the bill of "cyberpunky" a bit better than most of the insect spirit related stuff ... and it doesn't take too long either in comparison to the more "whole campaign" things like Universal Brotherhood.

If it weren't too "over the top" in terms of an alleged "introduction" adventure one could even name "First Run" as fitting the bill

Universal Brotherhood is a great campaign, honestly. But it's more "horror" than "cyberpunk" to me. And the background material is absolutely awesome.

I certainly didn't comment on the general quality of UB (or the other insect spirit related stuff) ... I just noted that it isn't necessarily "cyberpunkish" (to me) either and there are others that fall into the same line despite being on the other end of the spectrum. Notably I would consider Renraku Arcology: Shutdown and its successor Brainscan as great campaign material as well but - particularly the former - being more of a "techno horror" than "cyberpunk".

Mercurial is very cyberpunk... You have rockers, you have a woman with a mysterious past hunted by assassins, you have lock headware that holds a secret that can really hurt a megacorp...

There's a reason it's always one of the first games I riff on when I run a new campaign.

DNA/DOA = short, dungeon-y Shadowrun, just ignore the non-cannon metagene crap
Mercurial = Oh yes, VERY Shadowrun.
Deamchipper = Also very Shadowrun/Cyberpunk, but it can insta-gib your team if they're not smart.
One Stage Before = Rocker Run, TM
Eye Witness = SR Scavenger hunt, actually, no, it's a bit long. Sorry.

One of the best is the SR3 quickstart rules run (Get the cyberhead?) which bugs the hell out of me as I cannot find my Quickstart rules book. It's a simple, in and out run that lets each character shine. Just ignore ol' Goldensnout's lackey (Tres unsubtle namedrop there, authors. But nowhere near as awful as the "First-Run with additional CyberZombie", aka - how to set your runners up for life with recovery of OMGWTFBBQ Deltaware cyber)

A lot of these will have to have the decking changed, as it was really primitive back then - just design the hosts and go with the ratings that you think your team can handle.

Good Runnings!

-Tir

Agrees!

You even roll encounters in the sewers...

My god!

Is this the quickstart rules you are looking for? http://inky.org/scratch/shadowrun/QuickStart.pdf

What's so bad about that? I imagine all sorts of crazy down there.

We don't roll encounters in Shadowrun . .
Keep that to DnD <.<

Point taken. I was referring to meeting the unexpected in the sewer.

i know. i was trying and appearantly failing to poke at you for a bit of fun.

there actually was a book for SR with random encounters both socially and combat . . it's not talked about . .

We people here just roll for the texture, flavor, color and state of the contents of shelves. For a long, long time.

In other words: It's not bad in and of itself, as long as it isn't the main content of an adventure.
One also shouldn't forget that there are quite a few more dungeon crawl style adventures out there than DNA/DOA, and that it is the first ever published adventure.
So there's that.

It's also worth noting that DNA/DOA was likely done before a lot of SHadowrun was really set in stone. It was also written by the late, great Dave Arneson, who some people may recognize as the co-creator of D&D along with Gary Gygax (and thus, a co-founder of our entire hobby).

Bull

Bottled Demon! Yes!

Sprawl Sites is one of the best first ed books published. the random encounters should be used as filler or a jumping off points.

Whats so wrong with Random Encounters ?
They're fun for Players and GM alike
I like them and still use them
(they must make sense though and should be Balanced . You shouldn't roll 2 Strike Teams of Renraku Red Samurai and a Cyberzombie for Runners on their First Run though)

As a GM I'm preparing a Jungle Expedition Adventure for my SR2055 Campaign and I'll do some Random Encounter Tables
Some planned Encounters too, but at least 2 Random Encounter Tables (for Me thats important)

with a Tongue-in-Cheek-Dance
Medicinemna

I guess that explains why it feels like a D&D dungeon crawl with some chrome bolted on.





-k

I can admit random encounters on some games. But not much on Shadowrun since the game doesn't have that many wandering into hostiles lands. And when it happens, it's IMO better to decide the encounter in the scenario.

Anyways, in DNA/DOA, the encounters doesn't make sense (I'm not sure -like 10%- , but I think there even was a vampire in that encounter chart in the sewer....)

And why exactly doesn't it make sense for a vampire to hide in the sewers?

Because there's stuff down there that eats vampires for breakfast.

Rrright. That's a really good argument against random tables.

Occasional use? I think it's fine.

It definitely shouldn't be a regular occurrence.

Mainly, it encourages a dungeon crawl mindset on both players and GM. This is kinda anathema to the Shadowrun tropes of planning, legwork, and structure. It's also a bit lazy, just throwing random numbers at the players in lieu of actual plot and storytelling.




-k

Yes. Moderation is definitely the key. But I don't see any harm in having random encounters while a group is scouting a sewer, or having a long overland trek through the NAN.




I disagree strongly that it encourages a certain mindset if used sparingly. I do agree that you should be able to plan the main run as meticulous as you're able to, based on information you can gather beforehand. But there are random occurences that can seriously foul up plans. There's a reason for the old saying about plans and first contact.

And finally, I disagree that it's necessarily lazy. Preparing random tables beforehand also requires work, sometimes a lot to make the encounters believable.

If a gamemaster has a little encounter table in case of, why not.

DNA/DAO is a published scenario. You'd expect more from that.


Oh and:

That's DNA/DOA:

"Hi I'm Johnson, you'll enter the complex. Here's a spray that will change the walls from Aztechnologie's wall in chewing gum and here a map from the sewers".

"ok here we are. You get in the sewers moving to the complex, when (rolls dice), you see a vampire".

So let me get that straight.
You expect more from the first ever published adventure for SR, from a time when random encounters were very much the norm, just because you have a different opinion on when and where they're useful?


Also known as "Hey, we've done your legwork for you, and here's a gadget that'll make your job easier". What's bad about that (apart from trusting the Johnson to deliver on that promise)?



Or, you can be a GM, be thankful that someone did the work for you and be smart and roll it up beforehand. That is no appreciable difference to making it up yourself.

DNA/DAO: 1989.
Mercurial 1989.
Harlequin: 1990.
Universal Brotherhood: 1990.
Dragon Hunt: 1991.

Maybe there was some kind of a major breakthrough in scenario writtings between DNA/DAO and Mercurial.

Maybe DNA/DOA is just bad.




The spray changing walls into kind of a chewing gum product through the wall of a high security complex is poor scenario writting but I can live with that. Btw, I changed it to explosives if remember correctly.



Would still be unsatisfying to me.
What's the problem with that Vampire in the sewers?

It has no purpose in the story.

> It doesn't add anything in the story as it is unrelated.
> It doesn't has a rythme purpose (like introducing an action scene to variate the rythme - as at this point, we're right into the action-)
> It doesn't serve a flavor purpose (an underground ork community would have that purpose but the sewer vampire has not)

To summarize, the vampire in the sewer is a bad idea in DNA/DOA and even worser as an encounter table as the GM has to find an explanation on the fly or let it fall flat.
(or just avoid the roll, what I did when I ran this scenario).


PS: about the age of this scenario: I never critized the mutants in the story (lion-men, lion tigers and god know what else). These are "kitsch" under today's standarts (well maybe not in a comic-universe) and IMO unplayable as this in SR. But these are linked to age.
The rest of the structure of the story is just bad and not linked to age (as shown through various way better scenarios written these years too).

And I disagree in full with your assessment.
There are tons of adventures out there with unrelated side quests. Not every opponent needs to be connected to a main story. Sometimes it can just be a bunch of rats attacking you and making your job that much more difficult and reminding you of random environmental factors, also known as the elusive "some shit happens for no reason whatsoever". True, it bears the risk of the group taking that as a red herring and following the "clue", but that has lead over the years to hilarious bouts of fun, so I can live with these kinds of consequences.

To comment on your points:
- unrelated to story, no purpose: The purpose is to have an encounter and show that the sewers are a dangerous where wild things live that may eat you.
- no rythm purpose: I don't really get what you mean. Do you mean that at certain points in an adventure stuff needs to happen to make it flow better? If so, that seems highly subjective to me.
- no flavor purpose: Again, I disagree. Scum of the earth hides in sewers and eats passersby. Big whoop. It's to be expected. Why do orcs need to live there, and why would that be "better flavor"?

- lazy writing in regards to the Macguffin: Sure. It is lazy writing. But I don't fault the adventure for it. It helps a GM to set up the scene quickly, especially an inexperienced one (as a reminder: all SR GMs were inexperienced at the time). It isn't particularly inspired to wave a magic key at a concrete wall to make it dissolve, but as it is presented, it works fine.
For reference: That Macguffin is a catalyst to dissolve the particular brand of Plasteel Aztech used in building this facility. It is believable enough, and works within the setting in its form of technobabble. Calling it out seems weird to me, especially with the sort of magical artifacts out there that get waved around on a semi-regular basis all over the history of SR.

You don't like random tables. That's cool, just don't make it out as if they don't have any place anywhere in Shadowrun, because it's a game system that's inherently too exalted to use random tables. Because that isn't true. It's just a matter of personal preference.


How so? How would you even know?
You as a player wouldn't even be told how that series of events came to be. How is it inherently better if the GM just decides what happens at certain points on the map?
And why would the GM have to have an explanation ready? What kind of GM needs to explain where his encounters come from, or for that matter, cannot explain why a vampire might hang out in a dark place?
It's not as if its a dragon in a cave without an exit big enough for said dragon.



People hate Harlequin. Very vocal, too. It's "lauded" as a ride on rails, with entirely too much GM fiat and too many God-NPCs.
Personally, I have no problem with it other than recognizing its fault and potential, but it seems to be weird to include such a lambasted piece of writing as an example to make DNA/DOA look bad.

Sure. It's a dungeon crawl. It's not particularly inspired, and it didn't have the full grasp of the fluff yet (a fact you haven't criticized, of course). Yet still it captures the essence of a typical Shadowrun setting.
The runners are hired at an expensive place by a corporate suit to steal research material from another corp (both of which are evil). There's little time to scout or plan, but that just makes the adventure fast paced, and it's mitigated by the Johnson providing that role. Sure, there's the lamented "dungeon crawl", but it's neither the focus of the adventure nor is it so integral that you couldn't cut it (and the random tables with it) out.

When it helps the rythm. Just to give an exemple. Let's say you have a long part of your scenario based on clue gathering, legwork and interrogations. This please a part of the RPG players. Other parts loves action (some both aspects). It's not bad to put in your story something happening that introduce an action scene, even if it's a few giant rats in sewers.

(snipped a part because we just disagree on the purpose of that sewer encounter table)



I did cut it out in order to avoid some retconing from my part.



True that. But I guess expressiong an opinion on a writing is always a matter of personnal preference. No?


(next part is snipped cause I don't think we can agree on the vampire in the swer thing)




To me Harlequin ranges from good enough to bad (Germany part), with an overall rated very average. Why did I include it on the list? Because, at my taste, it's still way better than DNA/DOA. The only one I remember of that was worser than that was the real first scenario ever published (which is actually not DNA/DAO AFAIK), Silver Angel.



Well, yes, summarized that way, it could have been an ok run. The end result is way lower in my eyes.

Hey! There's nothing wrong with Sprawl Sites! It's how I've got Beaky, my pet Griffin.
(Sprawl Sites, page 80, number 3 - it's awesome )

"Holy &*$^&%%$%#@!"
"It' a griffin, I think it's a Griffin!"
"GET IT OFFA ME!"

Archtypes:
Griffin - Use Griffin rules

Info/Contacts:
Having a Griffin as a pet definitely violates the local ASPACA rules.

Toilet-training Beaky wasn't fun, nor was making sure he's sit and stay at home (although the life-sized Lonestar combat dummy with genuine Lonestar armour (5/3) keeps him occupied for hours!) but as for sheer swag rights, nothing beats walking your Griffin in the dog-park.

-Tir