Hello gang,

Some of you may recall my yammering about a campaign I'm running a month ago or so. I have a group of six runners and we are playing 3rd edition, but the game is set in 2056. I've started running Harlequin, and have run them through the Sylvan Information adventure in that book so far. I then ran one of the Shadowrun "Missions" adventures (the one that takes place in Freeway park) and they did OK there. Not spectacular, but they made it through. Many of these players are first time runners. Eventually I'm going to run them through the NAN series and the rest of Harlequin, but not until they are far more experienced.

As of right now I'm going to run Mecurial and have a couple of questions. What have GM's found to the be the easiest way to adjust old adventures to 3rd ed stats (minimizing the reworking of stats)? Does anyone have any suggestions about 3rd ed themes that would be suitable to enhance this adventure with? Has anyone run Mecurial in 3rd ed, and how did it go? Maria is supposed to be this smooth slick cyber killer with ultramodern mods, but her book gear basically sucks, any suggestions on how to cyber her up properly?

Thanks for all and any ideas!

I remember reading that module, but I never ran it. You might want to just re-invent her from the ground up and only use the story.

She was tricked out by some elite Japanese cyber clinic, IIRC.

So first off - everything delta. If it was merely beta, she could get that done at dozens of places in the US. That also means more Essence left = more "humanity" = (from a strictly role-playing, non-game stats point of view) a better performer.

The thing that always annoys me when converting older modules is the matrix systems. They're all in the old node-by-node style.Thankfully, nobody I know likes playing deckers.

I played Mecurial twice; first as a player where the group completely screwed it up (and killed the dragon). Then I later ran it as a continuation of the original disaster. That group completely screwed it up as well.

As a side note, the dragon and the guy from that module showed up in two or three other modules that were out in my first few years of playing SR. I'm pretty sure I killed that dragon three times. (Not me personally, but these were the heady days of early 2nd ed, and every group had a troll with a panther cannon. And bandy all you want with how intelligent dragons are, if the guy running the game is a moe-ron, its a good bet the dragon is one too.)

I would either rewrite the module from the ground up, npc by npc, or I'd ignore it and wing it all on the fly. I'd bet dollars to doughnuts the players won't be able to tell the difference.

A quick way to run old NPCs in a 3rd edition game:

Raise all Human attributes, Reaction, and Combat Pool by 1.
Raise all Meta-human attributes and Reaction by 2, Combat Pool by 3.

Run their Firearms skill and Etiquette as they were back then, same with specializations and concentrations.
Use 3rd edition equivalents to spells.
Give them any knowledge skills, on the fly, that enhance your game.
Run all gear by third edition stats.

(These suggestions were posted in New Group and old modules.)