Looping the Hen Games

Well, rereading my last post, I didn't give a lot of information as to why I like the idea of running a Shadowrun (other than it is not the behemoth that is 3.5 and has lots of guns), so I thought I'd expand a little bit.

I'm about 60 pages through the rulebook (300 to go) and I remember some of why I thought it was so cool way back when.

First, although I'm a big fan of sandbox games where everyone gets to do what they want, Shadowrun offers that but is also a hugely mission-focused game. The name of the game even reflects that, as a 'Shadowrun' is the name of a job that a group of hackers, riggers, technomaners and others complete, generally for a mysterious somebody. This should help with the directionless syndrome it felt like my last group had gotten into.

Second, (although it feeds into the first point as well), the game has a system of 'contacts' one can take at character creation, as well as acquire throughout one's career. For example, I can have an Arms Dealer contact (to buy guns), a Fixer contact (to get me work), a Hacker contact (to get me information). So, if someone doesn't feel up to a huge roleplaying event to get a mission, they just give their fixer a call and have them set something up.

Third, the setting is fleshed out and fine with me. I usually tried to create my own settings in 3.5 because I never really cared for any that others had created as other than Eberron and Dark Sun they mostly seemed pretty generic. With Shadowrun, at this point I am mostly worried about learning the rules, so it will be nice to give my brain a rest and use the readily available and fairly detailed free campaign.

And finally, (though maybe most importantl) every round is like a dozen fireballs! Yes! Seriously, no more d12's, d20's, d8's or any other such weirdness! It's all standard 6-siders, all the time! Yay!

Posted by at 9:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (30)

Well, not that I would even recognize the people I play with it has been so long. If we do ever manage to get together again, I've decided to run a Shadowrun campaign. Well, more specifically, I hope to convince Rodney or someone else to co-GM a Shadowrun campaign where we can both have characters that the party runs as NPC's every other session. There is an extended campaign online over at Shadowrun's web site that would make it pretty easy to do so once we learn the rules. (you can also go there to get an overview of the setting)

Why Shadowrun? A couple of reasons, not least of which is because it is not 3.5 D&D. I'm just tired of it and want to try something new. I played Shadowrun 2nd edition a couple of times back in 1990ish (or at least some time around there!) It seemed even more complicated than D&D at the time and we didn't really have a consistent group. However, the setting was fantastic and I remember the Sega Genesis had a Shadowrun game that was awesome (and it still fetches a hefty price on Ebay as a collector's item) that G-Max and I played the heck out of.

Anyway, I'm willing to start as soon as we manage to get 4 people together. I've got a bunch of pre-genereted characters from the book, so we can use them and do an intro adventure to try to learn the rules. If people want to create their own characters from scratch after that they are welcome to. Shadowrun 4th Edition is the rulebook if anyone else wants to pick one up. They are around $23 on Amazon and it's the only book you need to play (that's refreshing in itself!).

Posted by at 8:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)