After a year's hiatus as a Shadowrun GM (due to burnout), I am getting ready to kickstart a new campaign using Shadowland.org.

Currently I only have one active player, who is not only new to having me as a GM but new to the setting of Shadowrun as well. I will add other players soon, but for now it's going to be one-on-one.

Does anyone have any advice on how I should conduct the game? [I'm wanting to keep it more story-driven than combat driven, due to the text-based nature of SL and our bent towards creative writing.] Or perhaps plot twists I can use on Shadowland that I can't use in a tabletop environment?

(And, no, I'm not gonna run Food Fight to "get them familiar with the combat rules" -- it's gonna be more Blade Runner than John Woo)

Check out the Welcome to the Shadows thread here. Quite a few online games there in various stages of completion.

The big difference you find between online and tabletop play is that online is much more about the characters. Whereas in tabletop play, you've usually got to divide an x hour session between roleplay for y characters and z plot time, online you've really got all of the time in the world.

The biggest problem with online play is getting people to make a decision. Because of the lack of time limitations, people can be really slow and let things drag out beyond what they should.

Yes, we've already made plans to make it more about the characters than usual.

And, yeah, I've tried to read through others' campaigns, but without seeing where the campaign started it's hard to get a feel for the dynamic and flow, especially when discussions jump pages or even folders.

What I'm wondering about is content that works well, or should be avoided. Such as: Politics seem like a good fit for this, but I can also see where they would just get convoluted.

Really, the simpler the story, the better. Don't be afraid to lead a player by the nose if you have to get things moving. Detail and depth is something you can work in as you get more comfortable with the medium.

the quickest way to kill your game is to have your players conduct an in-character planning session. don't do it. if a run requires a plan, do it all OOC. i have seen more shadowland games die during the planning session than during any other phase.

My advice:

Ask people on Shadowland, since they know more about SL than the majority of people here, who aren't playing on Shadowland.

Is that a slam at the people who've posted here or a more generalized suggestion to the poster?

Online play is online play, in a lot of ways. Probably 90% of what's true on Shadowland is true on here and is true in PBEMs and is true on a dozen other boards and similar media. About the only form of online play which is really dissimilar to the rest is play by chat (and by extension the various MU*s of the online world) , and that's because it has more in common with face to face RPGing than other forms of online play.

Asking directly on SL is a good thing because you'll get some info on the 10% or so that is unique to that particular board. I wouldn't discount anything that's been said here, though, even if you don't get it repeated on SL.

The implication isn't necessarily that Dumpshock is inferior. For instance, it'd be considered odd to come looking for advice on using oil pants in a charcoal/sketching community.

/random analogy

Edit: oil paints, rather.

~J

indeed. the shadowland-dumpshock mutual antagonism has been in remission for quite some time, and everyone seems to be fairly happy with that state of affairs. let's not revive it by reading too much into someone's post.

shadowland is a very anarchic gaming environment. games with metarules--how and when to post, etc.--tend to not fare well. the best way to keep your game going is to:

a) keep the group small, no more than 4 players
b) make GM posts on at least a daily basis, so that the page stays blue (blue-colored pages and folders have been posted to since you last checked them)
c) watch the rate of posting; if it slows, make something happen--anything at all

Kage is right.

Otherwise, you're trying to read into something that isn't there.