Shadowrun
Shadowrun Play => Gamemasters' Lounge => Topic started by: Namikaze on <10-02-14/0202:16>
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My game is set in Seattle. I've built a number of NPCs and organizations in the city, and I was curious if anyone was interested in trying to find a way to share our creations? Sort of to make a meta-Seattle, so to speak. Any interest, or suggestions on how to best handle compiling the information together?
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Interesting one. I've seen several Google maps versions for Seattle, of which I like the one showing the district security ratings, but it's rather out of date and doesn't include every place. It'd be nice to be able to edit things in that, which then also would allow adding some stuff. And a mega-Seattle thing sounds interesting too.
Incidentally, I got a website lying around I never use with plenty of bandwidth and storage space, so if a location for a system is needed I'm available.
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How do you wanna do it?
I am sure that there are a lot of people interested in ideas, location, NPCs and fluff for Seattle.
But what do you want? Should we just dump or stuff in this thread an you sort it out? Or do you wanna have an interactive map you can just use?
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If you go with a blog format, it could be setup similar to Shadowtalk type postings. Use tags if they are supported to help with searching: #fixer #barrens #streetdoc etc.
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Good question Sternenwind. I think if we did a blog style, it would be easy to sort the characters out. But it might be nice to imbed graphics like organization charts and such, too. It makes me lean toward a wiki. As of right now, I've got all my characters stored in a Google Doc, which isn't exactly efficient. I think a wiki might be the best solution, but the tags present some really intriguing options. I don't have a lot of experience with blogs - would a blog be capable of a hyperlink-filled organization chart? Hell, I'm not even sure if a wiki could do that. For example:
Black Lotus Triad
Mountain Master: Zidan
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Vanguard: Unknown Deputy Mountain Master: Mistress Xiao Incense Master: Unknown
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White Paper Fan: Vixen Red Pole: Black Dog Straw Sandal: Unknown
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49ers: Normal Members Blue Lanterns: Uninitiated Members
This would be the org chart for the fictional Black Lotus Triad, who I have populated with four people (Zidan, Mistress Xiao, Black Dog, and Vixen). Each of the four populated people would have their own page to talk about the NPC. This would be the ideal format in my mind, as any organized crime, corporate structure, or society is going to have a hierarchy like this. The freelance criminals, or those that are officially unaffiliated with a group would have no organization chart (naturally) but they'd each have their own information as well.
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I would strongly approve of a wiki format, Each individual should have at least one contact archetype they'd fit as, so that a GM in need of a Fixer could look at the fixer page, or whatever. I'd actually recommend this to expand to 'worldwide' - so that when we fill up Seattle ("Oi, three hundred fixers in Seattle? Really?!?") we could expand.
I would very strongly advise that there be one or several individuals in charge of approvals, for exactly the above reason. There might be a hundred fragmented Seoulpa Rings in Seattle; that's what they're like. But there are only three (or is it four?) Yakuza gumi.
I would also advise restating the 'known people', and point individuals towards the canon for them, instead of copying the information. Don't step on the hand that feeds you, to mix a metaphor.
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I would strongly approve of a wiki format, Each individual should have at least one contact archetype they'd fit as, so that a GM in need of a Fixer could look at the fixer page, or whatever. I'd actually recommend this to expand to 'worldwide' - so that when we fill up Seattle ("Oi, three hundred fixers in Seattle? Really?!?") we could expand.
Yeah, I think that there needs to be an oversight on this whole thing. A group of volunteers that want to try to keep this meta-Seattle realistic, fun, and useful. To that end, it might be good for this group of people to agree on limits for various roles in society. How many hermetic academics can the University District support? Maybe two or three that have contacts with the shadow community? Whereas ID forgers there might be a dozen. The specific numbers don't matter too much right now, but yeah I see that as a potentially huge problem later down the road.
I would also advise restating the 'known people', and point individuals towards the canon for them, instead of copying the information. Don't step on the hand that feeds you, to mix a metaphor.
Ditto - any NPCs that are already part of canon should be untouched, and the information should remain in the book(s) where the information can be found.
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I would also advise restating the 'known people', and point individuals towards the canon for them, instead of copying the information. Don't step on the hand that feeds you, to mix a metaphor.
Ditto - any NPCs that are already part of canon should be untouched, and the information should remain in the book(s) where the information can be found.
Maybe Canon NPC's should only be the Top Dogs and the created NPC's slotted in as supporting staff for the Canon Boys.
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Eww. No.
Canon NPCs should be exactly where they are. If that means they're the top dog, then fine - but just because Bull is a fixer that lots of people in the Ork Underground knows about, it doesn't mean he's automatically the fixer for the Underground, whether you mean 'the best', 'the most connected', or 'the most influential'. Canon characters are interesting - not automatically the best, but who have a key position, are someone the PCs are most likely to encounter, or some other 'advantage' to the world or to the storyline at that moment for them to get the spotlight.
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So I've been looking into Obsidian Portal to host the character profiles. I don't think it'll do quite what I'd like, but maybe Michael knows of some way to do what I'm looking for on his site?
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Not good enough in programming to figure that out, php is kinda a blind spot for me. All I can offer is a site where you got full access to the php and full control.
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This sounds like a great project!
I'm GMing a pbp 'living world campaign' with interlinked NPCs/PCs/Locales etc '2075' (http://forums.shadowruntabletop.com/index.php?topic=17794.0)and I've got a very basic list of NPC contacts that is editable by anyone (Google Doc), plus some Google maps but it sounds like you are after something more advanced?
Of course couldn't it just be hosted here and let people pick and choose the content they want to adopt into their games?
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If you want a system that's more easily searchable and organized in pages and such, a forum doesn't really work.
https://shadowrun-missions-1.obsidianportal.com/characters
Something like that but with more options, such as tags and a modifiable google maps thing would ROCK. But I lack the know-how of what is possible.
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Yeah, something like that is exactly what I'm going for. I suppose it'd be a lot like a wiki, ultimately. A main page that has a list of NPCs, organizations, locations, and maps. The NPCs page is just that - a list of NPCs, with each one selectable and providing the stats, psychology, motivations, affiliations, etc. And tags to make things a little easier down the road. The Organizations page would have a list of known organizations within Seattle, from magical societies to corporate presences. The Locations page would include schematics (if possible), addresses, people known to attend the location, what kind of security might be found there, etc. And the maps would tie into the Locations by providing a Google Maps inset for each Location, and an overall Google Maps page for the city and it's surroundings.
I know several people have been working on building a collective Shadowrun map of the world in Google Maps - I think that's such an amazing project. But for now, I just want to focus on the NPCs, Organizations, and Locations. Those would probably be sufficient in a wiki format - the Maps could come along later, perhaps integrated with the huge overall project and allowing for edits. I'm just worried that if it gets integrated with a larger project, the map will get edited, but the rest of the wiki wouldn't.
Michael, can you see if your web host already has MediaWiki (http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki) or TikiWiki (https://info.tiki.org/) already loaded on your page? If so, those will work perfectly. If not, we might be able to load them up - they're both free.
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Let me see... http://www.spiralhosting.ie/hosting: Unlimited MySQL & PostgrSQL databases, cPanel File managers, PHP 5.3, CGI-bin, Perl, Ruby on Rails, website statistics... Says nothing about anything already loaded wiki/wordpress-wise.
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I went ahead and made a ticket with them to see if they either already have MediaWiki installed, or if they can offer us any advice on installing it. It should be pretty straightforward - just load the site with the files, and that should be that. But I figured I'd ask just in case. I'll update here when we have an answer. :)
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As a thought, what about using NPCs from older adventures to shorten creation time? For example, the old 2nd Edition adventure Burning Angel has 3 yakuza oyabun of a single rengo, all of which had allies statted out and are playing off against each other - I actually used the three of them in a year-long campaign. When I made my Contacts list, I actually just read through all the old adventures and grabbed NPCs from there - Patrick Brumby from the ancient UB book, Morlock and Sandi from the first Harlequin campaign, etcetera.
Making them era-agnostic would be difficult but not impossible; I'm actually working on a way to quickly translate NPCs over from 2nd/3rd to 5e...
...And why is it that fifth editions fix what's wrong with the game so often?
As far as a map of Seattle itself goes, I found a detailed pdf map that a website is selling for FORTY-FIVE dollars, so what I'm thinking about doing is screenshotting Google Maps zoomed into an appropriate size and combining them - and I also have some .psds saved from scanning in my old Seattle Sourcebook map, and my attempts to combine it into one mega-map. Sadly, the images just BARELY don't line up... rather a bummer.
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A detailed pdf map seems like a bit much. Personally I'd prefer figuring out how to update these, especially the first, and hosting that:
http://www.1w6.de/rpg/sr/map/
http://www.chinagreenelvis.com/gaming/tools/shadowrun/map/
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This might help, for Chrome users anyway. And it's free.
iMapBuilder Online - GMap Editor (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/imapbuilder-online-gmap-e/fhgkjpalccpgngmppjgfgeknfehopmoj?hl=en-US&utm_source=chrome-ntp-launcher)
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A detailed pdf map seems like a bit much. Personally I'd prefer figuring out how to update these, especially the first, and hosting that:
http://www.1w6.de/rpg/sr/map/
http://www.chinagreenelvis.com/gaming/tools/shadowrun/map/
Different GMs have different needs; while I do like those two maps (the first one especially with the zones), I do also like having a physical printout that I can cover in clear film, slap on the table, and say, "Make a Street Gangs knowledge roll... Okay, you know that the Red Hot Nukes reign in this area. You're traveling from Seattle to The Rubber Suit in Redmond? Are you trying to get through this way, through Bellevue and Council Island (risking security patrols) for a faster trip, or going north up I-5 to pass all that?"
You don't really need a hugely detailed map for that. I'm probably going to get more detailed myself, just because I'm going to run a street-level game where all the characters are from the same area (southern/western Seattle) and knowing where certain things are will become important. (also, it lends more immersion, something I'm constantly fighting to do more of!)
Plus, my GM'ing laptop LAAAAGS on the online map stuff. <_< Opening up both of those and trying to scroll around nearly crashed the poor darling.
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Since the objective is not to create a one-stop place for GMs to find all the tools they'll ever need, I think we'll stick with the Google Maps options most likely. Plus, they integrate into MediaWiki very easily. I'm hoping to get a chance in the next day or two to install MediaWiki on Michael's website and begin the administrative processes for it.
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sounds good, then - hell, it's what I was planning on doing myself (just with a plan to print it, too!) Shall I pull my file of NPCs from (FASA) published adventures and start converting the stats to 5e to upload them?
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Actually, if you have a list (complete or not) of NPCs from published adventures, we'd love it here (or there) at least initially without detailed stats - for a couple of reasons.
First, you should understand that especially in 1e and 2e, the writers of the adventures had No Fragging Idea what they were doing, and were creating stuff on the fly and throwing it out there. It wasn't until the Seattle Sourcebook that FASA started to get their crap together on the Seattle background, and it wasn't until 3e until they really got the underworld in line. The 'three oyabun of a single rengo' is a good example; another one is looking at that rengo's name, and realizing that it, never existed in Seattle according to non-adventure canon.
Second, first and second edition stuff is coming from the early to mid-2050's. While some of those people may still be around and involved, most are going to be in different circumstances. Dead, retired, working as a fixer or mechanic, whatever. The names and baseline information - including where we can find them to discuss where they might be 'now' - would be a great thing to have, but primarily as a starting point.
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Ditto with Wyrm on this - if you can compile a list of NPC names, locations, and ideally times of major events (like deaths) that would be very helpful. We might even be able to make some children for these NPCs or something along these lines.
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On the one hand, yes, timeline might matter; but for a game master looking for (for example) a set of oyabun to populate his rengo with, the trio of a young and viciously ambitious woman, an outwardly decadent but sharply manipulative man, and the elderly senior oyabun playing them against each other while wishing he had a decent successor seems like a solid and useful group of NPCs whether you're in 2050, 2063, or 2075.
It's laid out like this:
NAME: Morlock
TYPE: Fixer
SPECIALITY: High society
DESCRIPTION: A dwarf who hires for people who prefer their runners to be descreet, intelligent, and thorough - and who like to be very, very wealthy.
I'll have to go through and add the meat from my GM notes, and the actual adventures, for more detail - the list is meant for players to look through and pick contacts from, so it generally only has a couple of lines. Might take me a bit. Changed version might look like:
NAME: J.P. Morlock
TYPE: Fixer
SPECIALITY: High society; he hires for people who prefer their runners to be discreet, intelligent, thorough - and that want to be very, very wealthy.
DESCRIPTION: "The guy looks like a cross between a hunchbacked dwarf and a dzoo-noo-qua, only somehow even shorter than the former. You've actually seen guys that are paler than him - but only after they'd lost enough blood to fill a bank. What makes him even weirder looking is that his suit is purple crushed velvet, trimmed with lace!"
HABITS: Tests new shadowrunners for their ability to handle things quietly, smokes cheroots from a holder, serves high-class food, talks in a highly cultured tone, but treats others as equals even if they fail test.
LOCATION: Laubenstein Plaza (a hotel), downtown Seattle
B4 A2 R1 S3 W6 L5 I5 C3
Acting 4 Con 5 Influence 3 Negotiation 6
I tend to note only the relevant skills; it doesn't matter whether Morlock prefers automatics or pistols, can use unarmed combat, or even what he can do on the Matrix, so I didn't note those skills. (and yes, I know that Laubenstein is the artist that did all the broken-nose shadowrun art; as much as I made fun of it in the past, these days I almost miss it...)
EDIT: To make it clearer, the list exists, but it's all as above; just one or two lines and a general speciality. It also has characters from other sources, like Ren Martindale from Prime Runners and even the Shadowrun CCG from the '90s - and the latter were mostly just fleshed out by me to fill out the shadows. So, if we're looking for stuff from official sources only I may as well edit it a bit and get it up in the next couple of days as a .txt file. Tommorrow's my Deadlands HoE game though so I can't work on it then.
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No worries on time - I still haven't even gotten the software installed yet. :P
General mooks won't be included on here though, since those are easily built or referenced - we're only worrying about actual NPCs. At this point, we'll just compile all the canon NPCs if possible, then we'll start adding more as we get things up and running. If you get a chance to make a list of canon NPCs, it would be very useful. :)
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Oh, I have the list - mostly, it's just mixed up with my NPCs (and while my players love some of 'em, like Loli Lovely the high society rumormonger who has a physical age of between 11 and 14, a SIN that says she's 22, and the mental age of a 37 year old world-weary Shangai prostitute), I rather think that they need to be separated out from canon NPCs.
How much detail should the list include? Is the first example of Morlock fine for the list, or should I write out the second for all of 'em? And, darn, I'd better attribute the sources... probably by book number for the precon adventure NPCs...
So much to do, and that stupid little "Are you a human" thing is still popping up. And it won't accept "I am a meat popsicle". It should only be 10 posts total til it vanishes, just like on the Battletech forum...
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Correct, so you only got 1 post to go.
I'm definitely going to include short versions of a few NPCs I've been using, such as Mr. Gunderson (son of), Boris Errascoe and my new SWAT officer. Wouldn't surprise me if someone gets some of them killed but eh, they're not mine once I share them.
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Fanboy, timeline does matter, and in some cases it's critical - but what's at least if not more important is the fact that the above three 'oyabun' (Dark Angel? I have the adventure, I just don't recall which one those three are in off the top of my head) really aren't canonical once you get into 'hey, this is how the Yakuza work, and this is who exists in Seattle'. Which means the names may be changed, personas may be merged, in order to get to what is / what should be. In other words, we want as close to current canon as possible, and we want to make it populated usefully with what people bring in.
I'm not saying your list is bad; far, far, far from it. But it will get audited for fitting with later canon.
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Okay, the initial format is going to be like this. The source of the NPCs are listed first, then all the reusable NPCs or organizations (like gangs, small policlubs, magical groups) from said adventure - though a couple that might make recurring villains are also mentioned, like Doctor What from Harlequin. I'm gonna go through all the precons I have in paper or pdf (currently only missing Mercurial!) and wring 'em dry for useful info.
Here's the sample for Harlequin.
7306 HARLEQUIN
NAME: Sandii
TYPE: Organized crime fixer
DESCRIPTION: Has a stainless-steel smile that is rumored to be the gift of an oyabun she angered. Works as an intermediary between various organized crime syndicates as a neutral party.
NAME: Morlock
TYPE: High society fixer
DESCRIPTION: A hunchbacked dwarf who hires for people who prefer their runners to be descreet, intelligent, and thorough - and who like to be very, very wealthy.
NAME:Anton Helms
TYPE: International, top-level fixer
DESCRIPTION: A fixer rich enough to operate from Lear Platinum, he moves at the highest level of the shadows - if a normal fixer shifts the balance of power between gangs, he shifts power between nations.
NAME:Association Para-Nobilis
TYPE:Elf poser gang/budding eco-terrorist group
DESCRIPTION:A group of humans who idolize elves - well, Tolkien fantasy elves that shoot bows, wear fur, and eat dandelions that is. Despite that the APN has no qualms about using modern weaponry to 'further the agenda of the elven race'.
NAME:Young Elven Technologists
TYPE:Elven policlub
DESCRIPTION:Sponsored by Ehran the Scribe, a high muckymuck in Tir Tairngire, the YET are the polar opposite of the APN: "Technology is the future" etc. That doesn't mean they neglect magic, though.
NAME:Lancelot Windtree
TYPE:Elven Mystic Adept
DESCRIPTION:If the APN could pick an ideal Elf, it'd be Lancelot - too bad he's also a huge racist and would rather spit on them than say a word in favor of their goals. Troubleshooter for the Tir Tairngire and Ehran personally.
NAME: Bonecrack
TYPE: Street Samurai
DESCRIPTION: A cold-blooded bastard, even for a samurai. He'll do anything for the right price. Save a kidnapped child or kill a little old lady, it's all the same to him, but damn if he's not good at what he does. Has a brother who goblinized into a Troll and suffered mentally, but Bonecrack takes care of him - it's his one soft spot.
NAME:Doctor What
TYPE:Torturer
DESCRIPTION:A man who looks like Santa Claus and is an expert at extracting information with pain, he is known only to a select clientele. A coward who despises pain himself. (probably dies in adventure!)
NAME:Harlequin
TYPE: Immortal (dragonblooded) Elf
DESCRIPTION:A seemingly capricious man, he acts the role of the jester to try and illuminate his fellow immortal elves on the differences in this cycle.
NAME:Ehran the Scribe
TYPE:Immortal Elf
DESCRIPTION:A man, serious to a fault, that takes his role in recreating the glories of the last cycle's elven kingdom as his only joy.
That seem OK?
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That is a fantastic starting point, thank you! :)
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Okay, here's the one for Burning Angel.
7313 Dark Angel
NAME: Homatsu Jinjiro
TYPE: senior Oyabun of the Sword Water clan
DESCRIPTION: One of the old men of the Seattle yakuza, Jinjiro is extremely old-fashioned but very powerful. He wields his power from behind closed doors, and is said to have a distaste for the new generation of gangsters.
NAME: Shiro Usaka
TYPE: junior Oyabun of the Sword Water clan
DESCRIPTION: A young man to be an oyabun, Usaka is ambitious but incautious - and has a taste for drugs, food, and women that borders on the gluttonous. Still, he has built up an excellent information network and should not be underestimated.
NAME: Kat Akmura
TYPE: junior Oyabun of Sword Water clan
DESCRIPTION: A woman who rose up to oyabun meteorically - too quickly for many yakuza's tastes. She is a vicious woman who will eventually avenge even the smallest slight.
NAME: Oni-Do
TYPE: Magical group/assassins for hire, exclusive to yakuza
DESCRIPTION: A gathering of Japanese magicians and adepts who share another bond: all of them are orks and trolls, outcasts in the eyes of Japanese culture.
NAME:Dynamo Blue
TYPE:Xanadu Studios (small music studio) operator
DESCRIPTION:Gives young and radical bands a start, a tough but fair lady who has done shadow work and tries not to mind that the yakuza siphons 80% of her profit.
NAME: Icelady
TYPE: Talismonger/Fixer
DESCRIPTION: A smalltime talismonger who does most of her biz in the clubs, giving her connections to the magical side of the music community. Dossing with Dark Angel.
NAME: Dark Angel
TYPE: Rocker
DESCRIPTION: Pretty even for an elfboy, this rocker sings and both the Awakened and mundanes listen - he's an adept of some kind, but only towards music. Disappears after releasing a mystic rock album called Journey of the Earthdawn.
...I have a question, however. There are three characters omitted from this list: Dark Angel's brother, a ninja, and a mage who works with the aforementioned Oni-Do. They're just generic bad guys which are given names and in one case a motivation. Should I keep them on the list anyway (and try to make this thing comprehensive), or should I keep it to the ones which might be useful to a GM outside the given adventure?
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I honestly wouldn't list them here; create pages and list them on the site when Namikaze gets it up. To answer your question, though, if they're part of a group with no extra motivation, then when you list the group, you might list 'known members'. If they're independent and they have a motivation, listing them wouldn't be a bad thing; they ARE 'named NPCs', so to speak, so they should be out there.
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Yeah, once I get the site up and running, we'll allow people to make some edits and such to the Wiki. In the meantime, if you would please make them into a document (any format will work) and either hold onto it or attach it to a PM, that would be fantastic!
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I honestly wouldn't list them here; create pages and list them on the site when Namikaze gets it up. To answer your question, though, if they're part of a group with no extra motivation, then when you list the group, you might list 'known members'. If they're independent and they have a motivation, listing them wouldn't be a bad thing; they ARE 'named NPCs', so to speak, so they should be out there.
Even if, in the course of an adventure, the PCs off them? For example, in the Harlequin adventure the players are supposed to frag the senior members of the APN and collect their fake eartips; perhaps just listing their names would be enough... hrm. Requires a second pass through the books I've already done, though.
Work work work, that's the life of a geek... at least I'm finding a few new contacts to use.
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What happens in your game doesn't generally impact what happens in the game world. This isn't a MyGameWorld resource; this is a resource for everyone's game world. If you say that Hanzo Shotozumi got whacked and Miko Ishikawa is now running the Shotozumi-rengo, then that's fine - for your world. In this thing, though, we're talking about what the general world is supposed to be.
On the other hand, if in the course of an adventure the PCs are specifically hired to do something, then it's presumed in SR canon that what they did was what they were hired to do. Knight Errant got wind of bug spirits during the 'Queen Euphoria' adventure; that's part of the world's background history. Adventures are essentially (sometimes regrettably) canonical, but it's presumed that the results of those adventures are success on the part of the characters. In Harlequin, they whack the top level of the APN. In Imago, they turn the chips over to Transys Neuronet. In Mercurial, both Maria and her beau survive. All those are part of the mainline assumption, and this resource is based off those mainline assumptions - which is why canonical characters, especially those that are in current (4e/5e) canon, take precedence.
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Well, yes. Part of the thing is that I built my original list with an eye towards NPCs that I can use in my games or organizations that I can use both before and after they come up (actually had the APN pursuing the players in one campaign for a while!), and I keep finding myself discounting NPCs that don't fit that purpose even now. For example, that Harlequin list is completely missing Jane Foster! Kind of important to the whole climax of the campaign, ne?
The questions I am asking are this:
Should I include every canonical NPC mentioned in an adventure in the list, or just those that are important enough to make it into the Cast of Shadows 1e/2e adventures had?
If there are potentially useful NPCs (like Harriet from Harlequin: Hates, who runs the Public Works Archive and might be handy for finding building plans), should I include those based on the idea that GMs and/or players may find them useful?
Policlubs and gangs mentioned also make sense to include in the list, as they are a distinct part of the world's background, but every minor named NPC that doesn't last more than an encounter or two, like Junior from Dreamchipper (whom the players meet twice, once to be annoyed by, and once to kill), seems like overkill for the list to me.
However, as I'm doing this for more than just myself, I think I should ask y'all how far I should go.
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Do what you like. If you're feeling ambitious, add the 'honorable mentions' as well; I know I want more contacts and names than just the fixers, smugglers, armorers, and mechanics.
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Note to self: Remember to steal, ahem, borrow the named NPCs from SR5 Missions (and convince someone to run through Season 3).
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To run, or run you through? 'cause I gotta say, I've been dying to take an elite runner (yes, Hawatari) through a lot of these Missions solo ...
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I mean npc-wise. ^_^ I'm not familiar with Manhattan and don't know a thing about how relevant the NPCs in season 3 are. I already manually updated some of season 4's contacts to add the info from Season 4 to them for my own campaign (nearly every player has Bull as contact).
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Since the objective is not to create a one-stop place for GMs to find all the tools they'll ever need, I think we'll stick with the Google Maps options most likely. Plus, they integrate into MediaWiki very easily. I'm hoping to get a chance in the next day or two to install MediaWiki on Michael's website and begin the administrative processes for it.
Would it be possible to dissect Seattle 2072 somehow to get the compact list of all locations listed in the book, with the ardess a and description? I think it would be possible to work with PDF this way, well I am not a specialist in this field.
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I think that would be fantastic actually, and it's definitely the plan down the road. I want the wiki to contain the locations, organizations, and NPCs that are found in Seattle. I'd like to include the old and the new, making a fan-based comprehensive history of Seattle. But I also want to add fan-made material as well, to flesh out Seattle even more.
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I could try starting in on Seattle 2072 to get information dissected. I have never GM'ed a Shadowrun game before, so any NPCs would probably just be barebones descriptions.
Any descriptions I find/come up with would probably be posted here if you don't mind. Unless you want me to post them somewhere else.
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Depends on the pdf; if it has text over an image background you could just cut and paste the text into a new file. If not, then you would have to hand type them into the text file.
Might be interesting to go through that for the original Seattle Sourcebook, and the New Seattle Sourcebook, and harvest it for data to get a over-time snapshot of the game...
But no, back to data mining adventures for NPCs!
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I could try starting in on Seattle 2072 to get information dissected. I have never GM'ed a Shadowrun game before, so any NPCs would probably just be barebones descriptions.
Any descriptions I find/come up with would probably be posted here if you don't mind. Unless you want me to post them somewhere else.
If you can make them into a document and either hold onto the document or send me a PM with the document attached, that would be ideal. Thanks for volunteering!
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I could try starting in on Seattle 2072 to get information dissected. I have never GM'ed a Shadowrun game before, so any NPCs would probably just be barebones descriptions.
Any descriptions I find/come up with would probably be posted here if you don't mind. Unless you want me to post them somewhere else.
If you can make them into a document and either hold onto the document or send me a PM with the document attached, that would be ideal. Thanks for volunteering!
Is a Google Doc all right? Also, no problem with volunteering, just expect it to take a little bit of time.
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Google Docs are great - I use them for most of my stuff too. I've got about 45 minutes before I need to go somewhere, so I'm going to try loading MediaWiki on the site now. If successful, I'll have some info for it up later hopefully tonight.
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Alright, I got MediaWiki installed on the site the Michael provided. For now, I've just locked the Wiki from being edited. I haven't played with users, administrative rights, etc. yet so don't expect much. All I did was change the logo to the SR5 logo from Catalyst's media kit. The site is located here: http://www.eternaldreamers.com/srwiki/index.php
You should be free to register at the wiki, but as I said it's currently locked to edits. Once I have a chance to go in and play with the PHP files a bit, I'll open it up.
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Registration not yet allowed. Nope nope nope nope.
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Oh, and I am reminded: if we want the wiki to survive, we do not want to extensively duplicate copyrighted material. Extract address and basic info all you want - 'Rubber Suit, 123 Elm Street, Yakuza hangout' - and then reference it (Seattle Sourcebook, New Seattle, etc.) so that people can go get the entire skinny, but anything extensive really needs to not be there.
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Oh, and I am reminded: if we want the wiki to survive, we do not want to extensively duplicate copyrighted material. Extract address and basic info all you want - 'Rubber Suit, 123 Elm Street, Yakuza hangout' - and then reference it (Seattle Sourcebook, New Seattle, etc.) so that people can go get the entire skinny, but anything extensive really needs to not be there.
When I get to extracting some information from Seattle 2072, I'll set up a sample of what it will look like to make sure we aren't violating any copyright material. Sound ok?
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so far Ive seen descriptions on chinagreenelvis and the second map also linked in this thread, and descriptions are pretty complex...
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so far Ive seen descriptions on chinagreenelvis and the second map also linled in this thread, and descriptions are pretty complex...
I don't understand this post, Sichr. Can you clarify?
Just so everyone's clear on this: once this gets opened up for editing, we have to be exceptionally careful about not stepping on copyrights. That means that we copy nothing from the books. Edits must be made in your own words, and references must be made to the original material source. Images and text cannot be used from the books, unless we have permission from Catalyst. Once we start adding fan-made NPCs, locations, and organizations, we need to be exceptionally careful not to use any art that is copyrighted as well. If anyone violates this, their privileges to make edits will be revoked.
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so far Ive seen descriptions on chinagreenelvis and the second map also linled in this thread, and descriptions are pretty complex...
I don't understand this post, Sichr. Can you clarify?
Just so everyone's clear on this: once this gets opened up for editing, we have to be exceptionally careful about not stepping on copyrights. That means that we copy nothing from the books. Edits must be made in your own words, and references must be made to the original material source. Images and text cannot be used from the books, unless we have permission from Catalyst. Once we start adding fan-made NPCs, locations, and organizations, we need to be exceptionally careful not to use any art that is copyrighted as well. If anyone violates this, their privileges to make edits will be revoked.
Without using any maps from the books, can I take a Google Map and plug in addresses for reference? I can always just leave it as barebones text if you want, but I figured having a map of Seattle with the addresses of Locations would be useful. I'll make sure I double check that I'm not using text from the books with the descriptions as well.
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There was someone on the boards here that has a map of the world in Google Earth, with overlays to represent all the canonical locations and several locations that are fan-made as well. I'd like to either use that, or find a way to do it ourselves. So go ahead and use the real-world address, but bear in mind that there are several key differences between SR's and the real Seattle. Namely the Renraku Arcology, quite a bit of false land that was reclaimed from the Puget Sound, and a TON of streets and neighborhoods that changed a lot.
So feel free to do it, it's great preparatory work, and then we'll update it as necessary once we have a strategy for using Google Maps or Earth or something.
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so far Ive seen descriptions on chinagreenelvis and the second map also linled in this thread, and descriptions are pretty complex...
I don't understand this post, Sichr. Can you clarify?
I can. look at the two projects liked here in this thread:
A detailed pdf map seems like a bit much. Personally I'd prefer figuring out how to update these, especially the first, and hosting that:
http://www.1w6.de/rpg/sr/map/
http://www.chinagreenelvis.com/gaming/tools/shadowrun/map/
if you check the locations on the map, quite often you got a description that is pretty close to those in books. Is it problem....or was it problem so far?
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Ahhh, now I understand. Thank you!
I'm not sure if it was ever a problem, or if it would ever become a problem to use the data in that way. If I had to guess, I'd say it's probably perfectly fine. However, I should probably ask for clarification from Catalyst before giving a definite answer.
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Is the site already down? Tried loading and got errors.
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Well the wiki registration isn't open yet, and nothing has been added. But I just tried connecting and couldn't connect either. I wonder if the site's getting hit with a lot of traffic or something? Thanks for notifying me, I'll look into it and see if I can find out what's going on.
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I'm working on getting some info from Seattle 2072 into a Google Doc now. I'll get a link up when I'm done with Downtown Seattle, so that you can check to make sure I am not violating any copyright stuff. Sorry if that bothers you, but I figure we should all audit each other to make sure everything is aboveboard and clean.
As a side note, I never noticed that it was spelled Aztechnology. I always thought it was Aztechknowledgy ... I must have read it thousands of times and only just noticed that.
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Not bothered at all, 8-bit! Thank you for your help in this. I've sent a message to Jason Hardy asking for clarification on what we can and cannot use from the official material, so hopefully in a few days we'll have an answer. In the meantime, I can use this time to try to get all the configurations for the wiki set up, and make sure the site can handle the load.
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Is this project dead already?
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I am, slowly, getting stuff from Seattle 2072 into a document. I've been incredibly busy, and I'm sorry to say it's been a lower priority for me. I'll try to get more of it done soon.
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Is this project dead already?
Want to volunteer? I've got a two month old, a new business, and a new job starting. Not to mention that I donate two nights a week to help spread the Shadowrun goodness around my town, and I'm planning on going to a bigger con later this year. Lots on my plate. You?
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I will volunteer, if you send me a PM. I will respond with my abilities and what I may be able to add to the project.
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Is this project dead already?
Want to volunteer? I've got a two month old, a new business, and a new job starting. Not to mention that I donate two nights a week to help spread the Shadowrun goodness around my town, and I'm planning on going to a bigger con later this year. Lots on my plate. You?
Real job, trying to start a flgs, girlfriend pushing for a ring... life... life
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I don't have a perfect grasp on what's being attempted here, but it sounds like something I wouldn't mind assisting with. I've got no life (;_;) and so could probably find time to do some things. Just tell me what can be done?
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So here's the latest update on tasks that need to be completed:
- Website's MediaWiki needs a script to get it up and running (PHP-based)
- NPC data needs to be compiled
- Organizational data needs to be compiled
- Location data needs to be compiled
I'm working on the website scripts when I get a chance (which is rarely), 8-bit is working on some of the NPCs, iamfanboy is working on NPCs from the various fiction and adventures out there. Michael Chandra donated his website to the cause. Shaidar and Michael have both suggested map integration methods, but they need to be looked into for viability. But ultimately, we need to get the site up and running to allow people to start making updates on their own. I know that I've locked the database while figuring out what to put into the localsettings.php script, and that is what is preventing users from registering. There are elements of the localsettings script that I need to examine and determine how to configure in order to get the wiki into a usable state that isn't going to be something sloppy and weird.
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For map integration, once the thing is running we could look into the Maps Extension for mediawiki. Then see if that can be combined with custom google map data like used by the seattle shadowrun map sites.
Edit: Not that this is necessary, but it would be nice for the locations.
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Just as a note, I am also trying to get some of the location and minor description data for the various places of interest. I've been using Latitude/Longitude coordinates for locating them, which can be inputed somewhere.
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So what is/has happened with this project?
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Working on setting the place up. If I knew how to do that - and if I had time, which is in short supply on my end - it'd already be running.
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Unlocking the database just requires me to change over one line in the configuration file. But I need to make sure the configuration file is ...configured... correctly before I open the flood gates. Plus, we've had some intermittent issues with connecting to the host that require more testing to ensure that the host can handle the load.
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Alright, in the time being, I've migrated the wiki over to a Wikia site. http://shadowrun-seattle.wikia.com/wiki/Shadowrun_Seattle_Wiki
Ground rules:
- Any non-canon post will be reviewed and may be removed without explanation
- Any canon post will be reviewed and may be amended or edited without explanation
- No use of copyrighted materials - NO EXCEPTIONS
- Using copyrighted materials will result in a ban from editing the wiki
I need to develop a template for NPCs, Organizations, and Locations. I could use help with those.
I want the NPC template to look like this:
Stat Block
Metatype
Affiliations
Description
Psychology
Habits/Quirks
History
I want the Organization template to look like this
Stat Block
Key Members
Areas of Interest
Resources
Number of Members
Description
Culture (this is everything from a corporate culture as described in Corporate Guide to a criminal culture like Yakuza or Vory)
History
I want the Location template to look like this:
Stat Block
Neighborhood
Address
Description
Uses (this covers both legal and illegal uses for the location, whether it's a regular meeting place for the I-5s or a front for a bunraku parlor)
History (this would be the history of the location in books and stories, ancient history, and real-world historical events that took place at this location)
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Here's an example of what my current location template looks like:
A Little Bit O’ Saigon | Seattle 2072; page 44
South Jackson Street & Broadway | Approx. Latitude: 47.59918936, Longitude: -122.3208493
Vietnamese Restaurant with a French influence. The Nguyen Family, the owners, are currently in debt and closely monitored by the Red and Yellow Seoulpa Ring.
Seattle 2072 doesn't have much on history, but I could try and find something. The location stuff was me going into Google Maps and trying to find an approximate intersection (some of the streets seem ... different in 2072-2075).
As a note, I can give you what I have so far, but honestly, work is going slowly. Between family, school work, and other things, this tends to be a lower priority. That being said, I'll try to get more of it done soon.
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Low priority sounds about right. :) I've got a lot on my plate too, so no worries. Feel free to send it my way, and I'll revise or clean up what you've got so far. The streets should be vastly different from real life, what with that giant arcology taking up all of western downtown, a volcano erupting in Puyallup, etc. We'll try to find the closest approximations, and use geographical data when we implement the map system, so as to prevent issues with intersections that don't exist.
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As an FYI, I've still been working on this. My group and I decided to pick up an Obsidian Portal site instead of the Wikia thing. Obsidian Portal is a little more restrictive, but a lot easier for us to use. None of us have experience editing wikis, but we're familiar with blogging so it makes some sense. Plus, it's all contained in a nice format already, where we don't have to create all the rules ourselves.
I've only put in some of my unofficial NPCs, but if any of you is interested please feel free to poke around: shadowsea.obsidianportal.com (http://shadowsea.obsidianportal.com).
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Just a quick note to let you guys know there's been some serious updating. I've added all the official bosses and lieutenants for each of the Three Families in Seattle: the internal squabbles of the Finnigan Family, the old-world class of the Ciarniellos, and the brutal efficiency of the Gianellis are now updated. Additionally, each of the official NPCs of the Laesa are updated. In each of these categories, there are some unofficial NPCs as well, and where possible I attempted to get actual descriptions, pictures, and stats for the NPCs.
The stat blocks are currently in the GM Only section, but that's something I might look to change. At least for the official NPCs anyway. In addition to these criminal scumbags, I've got a slew of unofficial freelance criminals that include everything from a borderline psychotic arms dealer to a homeless script kiddie. These are available for anyone to use of course. And finally, we've got the five current runners that make up the team I work with. Fade, the drug-addicted former DEA agent, Shay, the spy-turned-shadowrunner, Jojo, the gangbanger with a heart of gold, Troper, the hacker with a lot to hide, and finally Lynx, the Dragon-slayer mage who can't settle down.
Drop in and take a look around - I'll be adding more NPCs as time goes on. Next on the list are the Yakuza NPCs and organizations.
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Update! The following groups and their respective NPCs have been fleshed out:
Mafia
- Ciarniello Family
- Finnigan Family
- Gianelli Family
Seoulpa Rings
Triads
- Eighty Eights
- Octagon
- Yellow Lotus
Yakuza
- Kanaga-gumi
- Kenran-Kai
- Shotozumi-gumi
Other Syndicates
- Koshari
- Laésa
- Tamanous
- Vory v Zakone
In addition to giving extensive details on the structure, rituals, and organization of each syndicate, the NPCs that I've been able to find that are affiliated with the syndicate have been completely fleshed out. They have backgrounds, personal details, and stats. The stats aren't visible to the general public, as they are considered GM information. This may change though, if my players can prove to me that they won't metagame. :P