Shadowrunning

This week has been an eye-opener in relation to a setting that I have, until now, never really got into: Shadowrun.

Harebrained Schemes have created a surprisingly entertaining game, Shadowrun Returns, which I got playing this week. Admittedly, I'm playing the iOS version (which only has one campaign and no editor)... but it has been cracking fun!

Sitting on my shelf for the last month or so has been the Shadowrun5 rulebook. This tome is beautiful and seems very complete, if a bit arcane in some ways. Using the Quickstart Rules (link above), however, you get to use some pre-generated Shadowrunners and push yourself through an example encounter.

These two elements, Shadowrun Returns and Shadowrun5, have me itching to investigate the game further. Although set in different period of the Sixth World history, each has drawn me deeper into the techno-fantasy that is Shadowrun. I know the teen players at the school would love it... and I'm pretty sure the home group guys would enjoy it too.

So... what to do about it?

As with all new games, I need to have a run-through. Quickstart characters, short mission, and some willing victims  friends. But I also need to consider what a break from the main action of our existing campaigns might mean.

How do you handle the desire to try something new? Do you break from a campaign... or set up a one-off game day... or do something else?

Right now, I'd appreciate some advice.
Game on?


P.S.: Have you seen the promo vid?

Three RPG Setting Tips

Reading through Shadowrun (20th Anniversary Edition) this week, I was struck by two things: firstly, at the well-described and well-presented details of the setting and, secondly, at how the setting has evolved over time.

There is a level of verisimilitude is the stories and setting details described. The Shadowrun book opens with 59 pages of background, stopping only briefly at the opening to tell us what roleplaying games are about. You are immersed in details and stories, should you choose to read them. It's a delight!

Additionally, Shadowrun has rolled with the punches that technological development gives to an old Cyberpunk setting. In an increasingly wireless world you read about a wireless future - one written some 4 years ago just as the wireless world was getting into first gear.

These developments seem to both respond to technological development as we know it but also to the needs of players of the game: this iteration of the game fixed many problems with the older version... and the next iteration, the imminent Shadowrun 5, purports to do the same.

For me, it's a cool setting made so by attention to setting details. That's what got me thinking this week...

What makes a setting feel immersive?

Let's get the elephant in the room out of the way: Shadowrun has had 20-odd years of play and development behind it. Any setting that we create might be brand new. We can't ignore the fact that time spent in a setting allows time for the setting to develop and take form. And this wasn't always a cool game... it had a dark night too.

Yet... the question is a useful one.

Reading Shadowrun what struck me most was the attention to small details. Little out boxes with lists of brand names for night clubs are a nice example... and inside those clubs, lists of the top drinks and their nuyen prices. I didn't spend much time on those boxes but I was struck by how immensely useful such little details might be when you're trying to bring the setting to life.

Second on my list would be the use of one viewpoint to present the over-arching setting history. The style was engaging, written as a primer for wannabe Shadowrunners, but also implied that what you were hearing might not be the whole truth. There were multiple plot lines and event sequences described, giving the impression of the third thing that I'll talk about in a moment. What I liked about the style, however, was that by combining this narrative with three longish pieces of fiction the authors presented a world from at least four different viewpoints... and made you want to go and explore it for yourself.

Thirdly I would mention the idea of ongoing plots... metaplots, if you like. These are overarching campaign-scale plotlines that, I am assuming, have been part of the Shadowrun experience provided by the ongoing release of supplements. That is to say, there is a story being told through each release. This is pretty much confirmed by the publication of Storm Front recently:

...Storm Front summarizes and updates the major ongoing plots in the Sixth World, while introducing a new thread that will shake the world in the near future.

Meta-plots are something which I always had mixed feelings about. When I worked for GW (many moons ago) I was involved in running two of the annual Warhammer 40,000 global campaigns, developing and presenting a new meta-plot within the setting. At the time it was both exciting to be creating new stories through our gaming... but it was also something which annoyed a lot of fans. While some folks love the ongoing development of the setting through story, many are happier with the status quo.

Nowadays I feel that, although I've missed out on all the stories told in the Shadowrun line past, the sense of life that these tales give to a setting is powerful. Thinking back across the years of gaming, Traveller did this too... and, love or hate the Virus, it was a big and powerful part of what made that setting cool too. The fact that games like D&D have cottoned onto this in later years is testament to how effective it can be in involving fans. Narrative breeds narrative, after all.

What about our games?

First of all, I realise that I need to focus on my stories at these three levels of detail: 

1. Micro details that add a sense of reality to the game.
2. Viewpoint sketches of historic and present conflicts.
3. Having at least one meta-plot bubbling away.

Making a list of possible brews that fit our fantasy taverns, or making sure that the SF setting has a selection of cool Corporation names seems like basic GMing. Yet, and this is a hard truth, I don't make the time to do this... I wait until I need a detail and then throw it out there. Designing some useful micro details and using them consistently will help to bring the game alive. I think I'll listen to the questions that players ask to guide my writing, though - no point creating something you don't need.

Writing up sections of background from a single viewpoint, or of a few different viewpoints over time, is another nice technique. I tend to opt for third-person top-down descriptions of history. It is far more effective to create a viewpoint character and write things from their more limited but much more interesting standpoint.

Finally, and this is easier for me that I realise, I need to have one or more active meta-plot lines bubbling away. Whether in fantasy or SF, things larger than the heroes will make the worlds seem more alive and real... and threatening. It also allows the heroes moments in which they can step up and take an action within that plot, affecting it for good or ill. That's the stuff that legends are made of... and that good roleplaying cries out for.

What about you? Do you think I'm onto something? Is there something I missed? 

Let me know by throwing a comment when you've time...

Game on!

Of Traveller and Shadowrun

People who know me, or at least who read this blog, will realise that I consider myself to be first and foremost an SF roleplayer. Truth is, however, that the last time I played in or ran an SF session was several years ago. But I digress already...

As an SF roleplayer (at least in theory) I have been wondering why it is that I have always focused on hard-SF or serious-SF games, such as Traveller, and never played Shadowrun.

With a new edition of Shadowrun in production (see Catalyst Games' website: http://www.shadowruntabletop.com) and due in the Summer, I've been delving into the system a little more than I have previously.

Shadowrun 5

Yes, there's a new edition of the game coming out. There's also a tabletop skirmish game, a card game and a computer game coming - the Year of Shadowrun. With some curiousity, having bought the 4th Edition back in 2004/5, I have been reading the Preview Files - there are 3 out at present, and they are free to download.

Shadowrun 4 didn't resonate with me. At the time I wasn't interested in a fantasy-meets-cyberpunk setting. The art was too cartoon-like and seemed to not treat the idea of urban fantasy seriously enough for my taste. Nine years on my attitudes have obviously changed.

Shadowrun 5 seems to resonate. Why?

Fantasy versus Science-Fiction?

For me the two genres have been separate in my mind. I have used terms like "Star Fantasy" or "Urban Fantasy" to talk about the kinds of games that I want to play... and ignored Shadowrun's blend of SF. 

That seems odd, when I think about it.

Yet, when I read Traveller5 I felt disappointed by two things: 1) the dodgy nature of melee combat; 2) the lack of a decent Psi / Magic system. I never expected Marc Miller to include a magic system... but I was deeply offended by his dismissive and offhand treatment of Psi. Offended? YES! 

You see, in recent years I have come to regard the position of scientific supremacy as questionable. I have at the same time been having a lot of fun with fantasy elements in my gaming. When you bring together my doubt in the Scientific Priesthood with my love of a good fantastic yarn, you get something that isn't Traveller. It's something that looks more like Shadowrun.

A review, attributed (spuriously) to "Joe Chummer" on amazon.com, begins:

Shadowrun can be distilled into three important words: "Magic cyberpunk noir."

I like this description. It appeals to me... and it makes me want to grab a character sheet, a handgun and a spell book. Magic cyberpunk noir.

What do I want in my SF?

It's weird. I started writing Serene Dawn recently and I included magic, angels, demons and conspiracy in my top five elements... the fifth was an "alternate future".

I'm not so sure about Elves and Orcs with guns and cybertech... but, so Joe Chummer assures me, Shadowrun will suit my tastes:

If you're looking for a sci-fi RPG you can really sink your teeth into, this is the one. Shadowrun is quite possibly the richest, most detailed, and most beloved sci-fi RPG setting I have ever played. The way the rules and fiction are presented in this rulebook quickly dispels the "cyberpunk with namby-pamby elves" stigma (which usually originates from people who write off the game without really knowing anything about it). On the contrary, this book makes Shadowrun's world of magic and technology come alive.

What's odd to me is that this change has taken me around 30 years to notice. In fact, looking back, it's not really a change of taste... just of attitude.

When I was playing Star Frontiers back in the 1980s I was indulging in pulp SF. It's not too big a leap to my position today, really. It's just that my attitude to mixing fantasy with science-fiction has finally let me accept the concept without sneering.

This lends me to think about my intellectual snobbery once again: why have I, for so long, seen fantasy gaming as a secondary and less serious indulgence than playing SF games? They are both made up, imaginary... dare I say it, fantastic?!

Is the scientific illusion so ingrained? Not any longer, it seems.

Thank you, Shadowrun 5! You've opened up my eyes to something fun!