Shadowrun
Shadowrun Play => Gamemasters' Lounge => Topic started by: Namikaze on <12-25-14/0011:43>
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So I know that one of the complaints people have about Shadowrun is that there are never enough pre-generated adventures for people to draw inspiration from or to use as a one-shot game. I thought it might be fun if we posted some of our adventures, formatted like the way the official adventures are formatted.
Before going into the mission in detail, there should be a synopsis of the mission at hand. This should be long enough to explain the story without replacing the story entirely.
Each scene follows the same structure:
- Scan This provides a quick synopsis of the scene’s action, allowing you to get a feel for the encounter at a glance.
- Tell It to Them Straight is written to be read aloud to the players, describing what their characters experience upon entering the scene. You should feel free to modify the narrative as much as desired to suit the group and the situation, since the characters may arrive at the scene by different means or under different circumstances than the text assumes.
- Behind the Scenes covers the bulk of the scene, describing what’s happening, what the non-player characters are doing, how they will react to the player characters’ actions, and so forth. It also covers the setting of the encounter, going over environmental conditions and other properties of the location as well as providing any descriptions of important items.
- Pushing the Envelope looks at ways to make the encounter more challenging for experienced or powerful characters and other ways you can add some extra spice to the scene. This subsection should usually only be used for home games, or games where time is not a factor. At most convention and Open Play events, gamemasters should omit this information. It adds to the scene but does not contain important information.
- Debugging offers solutions to potential problems that may crop up during the encounter. While it’s impossible to foresee everything that a group of player characters might do, this section tries to anticipate common problems and other suggestions for dealing with them.
Scene 0 is always a little section on ways to get the runners to the location of the mission. This usually means people who are coming in from out of town - so things like border patrols, methods of ingress, etc. It shouldn't require any rolling on the players' parts, but it can be really nice for flavor to start off the whole thing describing just how difficult it was to get into Manhattan, for instance.
At the end of the mission should be a section on Legwork. The Legwork section is always structured with a bunch of tables, all about a topic. For example:
<Topic>
Contacts to Ask: <contact types, fields of interest, etc.>
| Contacts | Data Search | Information |
| 0 | 0 | Data |
| Threshold Number | Threshold Number | Data |
The goal being that if someone asks a contact about the topic, they have to achieve the threshold in order to get that information out of the contact. If they do a data search on the topic, they have to achieve the data search threshold. Either way, they acquire the information. Now the hard and fast rules about contacts and legwork are established in the Missions, but they can be ignored if needed or desired. However, having this section is still critical to communicating to other GMs the information that the contact(s) might know, so I've included it here.
I've uploaded a simple Google Doc with all the basic formatting. If anyone is feeling inclined, they can find it here. (http://tinyurl.com/polwwn9)
My hope is that people will share their favorite missions with other people, and that using the standard Missions format will make people more comfortable with using Missions in their own play sessions. More importantly though, I want people to benefit from other people's experiences. This is what the Debugging section is for actually. A lot of times people will play a mission with their friends and realize that there was something they should have done differently, or might have changed. Share this with us so that we don't make the same mistakes!
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This is nice idea, we are also looking for some sample runs, to be included in the shr5rcp (http://"http://urszeidler.github.io/shr5rcp/"), to have some basic examples for the scripting and the runtime.
https://github.com/UrsZeidler/shr5rcp/wiki/script-editing (https://github.com/UrsZeidler/shr5rcp/wiki/script-editing)
The next version will include a script printer to export the adventure to a printer, or pdf of you have a pdf printer.
A script can be exported and imported, so this file could be also an exchange format for adventures.
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My little entry-level offering is attached; it's designed for new teams of shadowrunners and/or a new GM as a way in to Seattle. Enjoy!
(Tweaked for accuracy issues!)
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My little entry-level offering is attached; it's designed for new teams of shadowrunners and/or a new GM as a way in to Seattle. Enjoy!
Im pretty sure that the Yakuza are Japanese not Chinese
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My little entry-level offering is attached; it's designed for new teams of shadowrunners and/or a new GM as a way in to Seattle. Enjoy!
Great job! I would suggest changing the Yakuza references to Triad, just because that'd be easier than changing things like the names and locations. On that note, I especially love the addition of the little newspaper clipping - where did you find that?
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Thanks for the comments - writing at 2:30am, a few errors crept in!!! Namikaze, I got the paper clipping from www.fodey.com. It's sometimes fun to put in a "what happens after".......
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I just finished up an adventure that I'm going to post on here after tomorrow's game. I also wanted to share this link: http://www.signgenerator.org/ - they can generate handout images. It's a bit disorganized, so just do a CTRL+F find to find what you're looking for.
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My little entry-level offering is attached; it's designed for new teams of shadowrunners and/or a new GM as a way in to Seattle. Enjoy!
(Tweaked for accuracy issues!)
Thanks. I'm using this to start my campaign.
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Bloody Business will give gamemasters all sorts of ideas of how to
kill challenge characters at their tables. But get back to sharing ideas, that's my favorite thing to see on these forums.
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You can also search the GM Toolbox subfolder for "[Module]" as that's where a lot of people have posted their fan missions.
I have two, 4th ed, missions there
Guarding Eden (http://forums.shadowruntabletop.com/gm's-toolbox/(module)-guarding-eden/) and Medical Assistance (http://forums.shadowruntabletop.com/gm's-toolbox/(module)-medical-assistance/), and plan up uploading my missions from my podcast there as soon as I get them formated.
Edit: for correct search format.
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Posted my group's first SR5 mission in the GM's Toolbox (http://forums.shadowruntabletop.com/gm's-toolbox/(module)-(sr5)-eight-albert-smash-a-short-introductory-adventure/)
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While I don't have one set up in the above manner - it's far too PC-specific for it - I like the Fantasy Island / Zombie Breakout adventure. I have done this, or had this done to me, in several SR games, almost universally with smashing success. It helps if there's one character whose first reaction to 'someone pops out of the bushes!!' is to quickdraw and put a few APDS/AV rounds through them.
The Place
Fantasy Island. No, literally - an island with several 'zones', within which paying customers get to fulfill a large number of potential fantasies, depending on how much the package they bought cost. Tailor the zones to your players - a Wild West zone for a cowboy/adept-pilot, a Feudal Japan zone for a Japanese street samurai, a Caribbean party zone for the ganja-loving voodoo guy, a Monaco zone for the speed-freak rigger, whatever. The zones are defined by your PCs, by which I mean each PC has a 'zone' that's just right for them to go vacation in. (You WANT them to be split up for the first part of it.) If guns are allowed - even required in some places!! - then they are supposed to be loaded with gel rounds for the shootout-at-high-noon or the gunfight in the A-OK Corral, or the guns-blazing bar-brawl in the saloon, or whatever, and people are NOT supposed to be killed. (But make sure there's a way for psycho-shooter to smuggle in and load up his APDS.) Easiest places for this are the Caribbean, the South Seas, or somewhere in Southeast Asia - especially the Phillipines.
The Time
Immediately after an earth-shattering run for someone who can pay a drekload of cash for them to go to Fantasy Island 'as a bonus for such good work'. Preferably after the PCs' Public Awareness has shot through the roof, and they have to get out of town for a while, and dammit, a vacation sounds great. Have the Johnson pay for two weeks for a one-or-two-steps-below-top-grade vacation - not the million-nuyen expense of being the Japanese daimyo, but at least they can take the part of a valued retainer - or a mysterious ronin.
The Setup
The runners get together every couple of days for lunch, dinner, breakfast - whatever. They may hang out in different places, but this ain't nobody's home ground, and a smart shadowrun team is going to double-check each other's safety. If necessary, the GM should take aside one of the players and ask that their PC insists on the team getting together at least that frequently. Then, one evening when they're walking together (very important!!) down a dimly-lit 'romantic' path towards (or away from) their get-together, somebody clad in dark clothing, armed with an SMG, pops through the bushes right next to them. Or down the path a ways from them, but raising the gun to point at them.
Then ask for initiative. 90% of the time, your gun-bunny will loose off at least one shot. If he gets even one hit, the shot connects, and the target goes down like a sack of potatoes. Security shows up a minimum of two minutes later - tough to track down the target - so the PCs can decide whether or not to take off, or wait for security.
The Sucker Punch
The next time the PCs get together, all hell breaks loose. It's a zombie outbreak - and not the nice fluffy voodoo-based spirit-inhabitation zombies, but viral-caused gonna-eat-yer-flesh-baby zombies!! The PCs are armed only with what they happen to have with them - ammo count (and type!) is critical, because y'know, gel rounds are gonna knock that zombie down, but they sure as hell ain't gonna take it out.
The Opposition
There's three types of zombies.
- Type III, which is your classic zombie - make them shambling Walking Dead ones, with the lunging at the last second if you like, but they infect other people into other Type IIIs. Dismemberment might put them down, or a heart-shot, but to be smart, aim for the head.
- Type II, which should only be a few dozen, and should be 'boss zombies' - always run, never tire, dead only with an explosive/evacuating headshot or decapitation - severing spinal cord or destroying the brain. World War Z or 28 Days Later.
- Type I, the (potential) number of which is (Number of Players) + 1. Think of whatever will make a character a seriously scary badass, from +4 to all attributes to Awakening (adept or mage, GM's choice) to regeneration to invisibility (Adaptive Coloration, i.e. the Predator effect) to ... whatever. Definitely infection - because anyone they kill by biting or with their 'natural weaponry' gets turned into a Type II. But whatever makes them an oh-shit badass, that's what the Type I gets. And as the 'event' happens, until one of the PCs dies, there's only one Type I - the person Mr. Trigger-Happy blew away.
Type III and II should not be able to survive underwater; you want this to be a one-time highly-controlled (i.e. not leaving the island) event. Make them take on weight as well - bonuses to their body and strength mean denser materials, means sinking like a rock and drowning. As for Type I ... that's up to you.
The Escape
The PCs are, obviously, 'survivors'; the plague should otherwise spread like wildfire though an island population of actors, waitresses, cooks, guests, and service personnel. A few of the very-rich should flee - or try to flee, perhaps, if you want the PCs to watch the automated systems pop off a couple of SAMs and take out the luxury helo of some rich guy trying to get out of dodge. The PCs have to find out what the hell caused all this, discover if there's a way out, then make it to that escape boat/sub/helo - without, of course, getting eaten by some damn zombie. Sure, there's mass panic, especially when conversion takes only ten or twenty seconds. But since there's only a handful of the Type II zombies (and only one of the superzombies), there's a middling-decent chance of finding pockets of survivors - an exec with his bodyguards holed up in a hotel room, a squad of security keeping on the move, whatever.
The main encounters will be, first, a security guy who knows a way out and is willing to take the PCs with - maybe because he can't pilot the escape craft, and the PCs can; second, a scientist who was involved with the creation of the virus; third, lots of zombies, including both Type III and Type II; and fourth, an encounter with the Type I pseudo-zombie.
Key encounter, the last one. The Type I retains full sentience, and even gets an enhancement to their brainpower. He or she desires a partner, and has tracked down the PCs in order to identify which one would make the best partner - and be most likely to take the plunge into becoming an elite impossible-to-kill assassin. Seduction is the key, here; try to get that character alone, so you can take the player aside in an attempt to seduce them to the dark side. After all, they have cookies. If the character agrees, great!! Surrender the character sheet, and off they go. If they say no, up to you - or them. I tend to have the Type I pull a fast fade, and figure out his/her own way off the island.
The Explanation
Look, the island was a cover - a very good one, too. Deep in its heart, it is/was a biowar research facility, trying to create a variant of HMHVV that only drains essence and thus kills the person. A highly-skilled black ops infiltrator, world-class, broke in, stole the latest iteration, and was in the middle of evading security and heading to his or her extraction point when s/he accidentally came across the runners, wrong place wrong time, and the stupid APDS put a hole right through the frakkin' tank, infecting everyone. Thing is, the virus only goes to work after you're dead, and it can't survive in the open for very long - which means only the people who were right there (PCs + World Class Black Ops) were initially infected, and only the WCBO died, activating the virus.
Of course, the virus mutated on transfer, getting weaker with each iteration; anyone the Type I killed (with bites and claws) became a Type II, while Type IIs could only create Type IIIs, and that's where the virus's mutation stabilized, so Type IIIs could create other Type IIIs. But the panic button was pushed, and oh, by the way, not only do the PCs have to escape the island, but they have to do it in X hours - because that's when a series of low-yield thermobaric devices will be launched, blanket the island, and sterilize it of all life. And, err, unlife.
The Letdown
So you escaped - congrats. Just in front of the blast wave, ooo, cinematic. But the parent corporation has sent a ship (or ships) to wait just offshore, and of course they pick the group up a scant hour (at the most!) after the escape. They take the PCs into custody, isolate them, take samples ... but the PCs are already fighting off the virus, and the only effect on a living person is for the person to ... do something harmless but kinda disgusting. Shed all their skin and hair, for example. So Sorry, Umbrella Corp, good luck next time.
The Comeback ... ??
Did the Type I escape? If the PCs didn't manage to kill him/her - and s/he's an experienced ops agent with lots of evasion know-how and the brains to run away when outnumbered and outgunned - then mmmaaaaayyyybe. Keep your ear to the ground for a zombie outbreak ...