Sure, the metaplanes have some rules and strictures, but they are basically a GM's playground...

Now, the thing bothering me is:
How far can you go?
How hard can you make the pc's lives because of events that ocuured in the metaplanes?
Can you actually kill someone in the metaplanes?
Can you make up your own planes?
Is there really any limit, even if only a moral one?
And if so, where does one draw the line?

The answers are simple really.
1: As far as you want.
2: As tough as you want, with the exception that only the people who were with them on the metaplane will really know what happened. So if they go kill a room full of babies in a metaplane, the real world isn't going to know that they're a baby killer.
3: Yes.
4: Yes.
5: No.
6: Duh, easiest question of all. You draw the line somewhere before where it stops being fun.

Usually when your players are getting out the rope, you've gone too far...

In general, only initiated have access to the metaplanes and they limit their quests to the known metaplanes (there is no game effect of going to the metaplane of 'Every negative stereotype of Alabama').

You can also get people to the metaplanes via a free spirits astral gateway power. But spirits with that power hardly grow on trees.

Once in the metaplanes, you can die (as you can on an astral quest) (iirc), but most quests usually are high rating enough to risk death on.

Most of the same things can be said about running UV hosts or slotting BTL chips as well. Go as far as you want, but realize that it can get old rather quickly if the players have absolutely no control over their situation.

Fun Metaplane/UV Host ideas that we've run in the past:
1) The players are crew-members or passengers on board the Hindenberg or Titanic
2) The players need to re-enact a famous assassination (John Wilkes Booth, for example).
3) The players are stuck in an action movie, with all the conventions and physics thereof.
4) The players are in a speakeasy during Prohibition, and must get information from a mobster. Of course, during the run, the feds bust in.
5) The players are in Dinosaur Land.

To take the question at the top of the thread-
Arnhem Bridge

real funny, Snow Fox... A Bridge Too Far.

Yes, but which side of the battle would the runners be on? I have a feeling evil game masters will say "British"...

Not to mention, what kind of game hook would take you to a metaplane that recreates the battle? (other than the obvious Plane of Battle...)

Just for variety, I've occasionally taken characters to the metaplane of Forgotten Realms.

*blinkblink* how did that work? converting D20 into SR musta been a pain.

For the love of something, I urge everyone to avoid the d20 SR tangent in this thread.

Doc, we played Shadowrun rules. It was a Shadowrun game. It was a Shadowrun campaign. However, it was the Forgotten Realms campaign setting.

I've been thinking of sending them on an Astral Quest to the world of D&D for a kick... make it a magic heavy world, where no high technology works properly (cyberware works minimally), but everyone has a magic rating (even mundane members of the group... probably adept power points equal to twice their essence). Could be a fun run around April 1.

JaronK

Sounds kinda like the wild west Harlequin's Back metaplane. You could do worse than check out the conversion rules for that to give you some ideas.

Heh. Can someone in-game (PC, NPC, spirit, Great Dragon) actually create their own metaplane?

My players were recently fighting a Winternight cell on their own turf (an abandoned and highly toxic rocket fuel refinery), and ended up getting whisked to the metaplanes by a bound free spirit calling itself Muninn (after one of Odin's ravens). The Winternight baddies had managed to bind two twin free spirits, Huginn and Muninn, by their true names. When the runners entered the stronghold's innermost sanctum for the final showdown, the toxic Raven shaman who leads the cell commanded Muninn to "wipe them from the face of the Earth"...and by strictly interpreting the command, Muninn used the Astral Gateway to thrust them into the Metaplanes, then hid the unconscious bodies with Concealment.

Next thing they knew, they're in Asgard, and the raven tells them the only chance they have of getting back to their bodies is to free him and his brother -- basically, an astral quest to break their bonds, involving travel throughout the Nine Worlds of Norse mythology, and battle with fantastical creatures such as Linnorms (Norse dragons) and Draugr (undead, much like shedim)...

And the real strangeness begins -- their cyber has become magical items, their guns have become medieval weapons, and their skills and talents have been "translated" into the metaplane reality. The decker becomes an oracle, the rigger a beastmaster, the samurai a warrior, the sniper a spear-wielding thief, and so on...

So far, it's been an interesting twist, and it's been dubbed "Shadowrune" by my players...