Shadowrun
Shadowrun Play => Gamemasters' Lounge => Topic started by: Fallen on <08-15-11/0738:40>
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I'm interested to know just how important is canonical material to my fellow GMs.
How comfortable are you with playing around with the established material and setting? How much of your campaign's setting is of your own creation?
And, perhaps more importantly, just how much "interpretation" is too much that the campaign could not rightly be called a "proper" Shadowrun game?
Food for thought and discussion is the goal of this thread. It is in no way meant to allude that diverging (or not) from the published works should or shouldn't be encouraged. Merely, I'm interested to read about how my contemporaries tackle the topic.
Keep in mind that I've been more than a bit out of the GM loop for over a decade (longer still, so far as Shadowrun goes) -- and, as such, I find my curiosity to be piqued regarding how it is people running a campaign go about it nowadays.
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In my opinion, following the canon for Shadowrun isn't really that important. What makes Shadowrun is the style and environment. You have a standard cyberpunk dystopia with all the chaos of magic thrown in.
I've run games where every adventure was an official published one and the players oohed and awed over ever tasty morsel of the official storyline, but I've also run campaigns where the characters never made it out of the barrens and the players were still just as happy. If something doesn't jive for my campaign idea, I change it. The only thing I make sure to do is inform my players.
An example of this is my 2050 game that I run using SR4A. I retconned wireless in, but made it ineffective compared to a wired connection. So, every decker worth his salt uses a cyberdeck and jacks in, but I get to keep the niftyness that is AR. The matrix crash was just the wireless 1.0 crashing and wireless 2.0 was brought in to fix everything.
I believe that unless you're hopping to a different setting, you're still playing Shadowrun. After all, everyone has their own style.
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Heh.
Any of my players (or those who played in the same campaign as run my by late roommate) could tell you that, while I do use the evolving cannon to shape my campaign, it often turns out to be just a fingernail scratch to find the left-hand spins. I've got a whole underlying series of linked story threads behind normal cannon that sometimes make the Lost seem simple. Fortunately for my own sanity, it's generally limited to only two or three of them that are important or even nudged up against in a given campaign. The current one is different, unfortunately. I've got about two years of game time before nearly all of them crash together, but in the process I get to seriously screw with the minds of my group, especially my newer players (*waves to the new player that reads the forum* Hi, Darryl! ^_^).
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I generally keep to cannon, but if your game is passing time faster than the cannon evolves there comes a time when you have to guess what makes sense or what works best and hope for the best. Back in second edition I ran a weekly game and when the whole presidential campaign idea was launched I was already a year beyond the election in my world so had to leave it out.
I have always run a large percentage of my own adventures and this breeds having some divergence from cannon.
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I make every effort to not actively contradict canon, but within those bounds I take as many liberties as I like.
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For me, the Sixth World is big enough that my characters have yet to do anything that would de-rail anythng Cannon. And to be honest, my group isn't really into SR all that much :'( so I could tell them that there are legions of dragons and they would buy it. They care less about the overall story but concentrate on what Im throwing at them. That and SR tends to be a fallback game I get to run every now and again because I pester them a lot.
More :'(
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My game world started out closely following canon. From there it has evolved. The evolution from being strictly canon really took off with my second group of player when I opted to use our home town of Toronto as the primary setting. Given the fact that the devs have traditionally ignored it, staying close to canon has been easy.
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I've always personally tried to stay true to canon as much as I found sensible within the confines of how events taking place in the campaign may sometimes alter certain elements. That and some of the stuff I introduce could, on occasion, take a turn in a way that would divert from the course of canonical material.
Thank you very much for the feedback, guys. It's appreciated.
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Considering that "Cannon" suffers from "Unreliable Narrator"...
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Considering that "Cannon" suffers from "Unreliable Narrator"...
There still are Game Information, from time to time.
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Which can also suffer from "Unreliable Narrator". ;)
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I ususally stick pretty close to it for the most part. I usually try to run a ratio of about 3 adventures of my own creation (at least) to 1 published adventure. That is just a general ratio though as some points in time are a bit slower or busier than others as far as published material goes. Also the wants of the group can and has taken that ratio and thrown it out the window a time or two.
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I ususally stick pretty close to it for the most part. I usually try to run a ratio of about 3 adventures of my own creation (at least) to 1 published adventure. That is just a general ratio though as some points in time are a bit slower or busier than others as far as published material goes. Also the wants of the group can and has taken that ratio and thrown it out the window a time or two.
That's pretty similar to how I do it also. I like using the adventures of my own making as an opportunity to insert bits relevant to published adventures I plan to run them through in the future. Currently, I've put in some bits relating to Dreamchipper (some locales, and news regarding Global Technologies), One Stage Before (the Shadows climbing the charts) and Queen Euphoria (I introduced Amber Gel on the market, yay).
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Thats cool and exactly what I do as far as introducing things like Amber Gel and what not. I also like to introduce big NPCs in simialr fashion. It seems to make the world more real when places and people the players know and understand suddenly become parts of their story. Done right it makes the transition between original and published adventures almost seemless.
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Thats cool and exactly what I do as far as introducing things like Amber Gel and what not. I also like to introduce big NPCs in simialr fashion. It seems to make the world more real when places and people the players know and understand suddenly become parts of their story. Done right it makes the transition between original and published adventures almost seemless.
I completely agree!
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I find that the canon material is a great starting point.... But rarely survives player contact ;)
I try to keep as close to canon as I can at the start, then keep detailed notes about the "changes" the players made to the world. (in my game, the players sold out Gracia Riveros to a pharm Corp to end the Ghost Cartels adventure) Anytime you run a canon adventure you have to be ready for the PC curveball :) From there it's just a matter of working the changes into an over arching storyline that you meld as best as you can with the rest of the material. Your players are important, they and you are building a fantastic story! You cheapen it and them by not acknowledging the changes they have made heough their choices.
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My group nearly re-wrote the face of Seattle, and missed out doing so by one success.
When the Irish Republican Army in Exile (IRAiE) is scared of the guy that goes, "I have a bus!", and considers his explosives expertise a "Hobby", that should be a big warning sign.
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Sad part is, that was the DISTRACTION part of the plan...
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My group nearly re-wrote the face of Seattle, and missed out doing so by one success.
When the Irish Republican Army in Exile (IRAiE) is scared of the guy that goes, "I have a bus!", and considers his explosives expertise a "Hobby", that should be a big warning sign.
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Sad part is, that was the DISTRACTION part of the plan...
Lol!!!
Even better is when they PLAN for a big distraction.... But the demo expert glitches the roll :D
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Actually, we were discussing the plan they has last night, and they just realized, "Um... We'd have been in the blast radius..."
Good thing it didn't go off then. ;)
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Started canon and attempting sand-box. My players have already affected canon to some extent and I like where they're headed so we're keeping it. We're still playing in the '50s; I like knowing what the "official" interpretation is but for this campaign especially it will be more fun I think to let them rewrite increasingly important bits of history.
I'm another practitioner of mixing published adventures with homebrew stuff to have it make sense. Though at this point my players can fairly call me on that... :-\ ;)
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Seems like most people are like-minded here in their approach in balancing canon with sandbox. Good deal!
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Seems like most people are like-minded here in their approach in balancing canon with sandbox. Good deal!
There's also huge swathes of land and cities that aren't given any kind of talk whatsoever. For example, the only mention I have about my hometown is that Lone Star provides the Peace Officer service there. That's it.
Winnipeg, I don't think has even been mentioned once. Which makes it ripe for the picking!
Especially considering the heavy mystical history the city has. And the fact that it's now a border town.
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I tend to look at the game as "small, tough fish in a really big ocean." The forces that players rub up against are frequently so huge that I don't see a handful of hired operatives making that much of a difference. On a local scale, sure. They could clean up (or ruin) a neighborhood, make or break a small or start up corp, do some 'hooding to help the local block or fill their own pockets at other's expense. You might even topple a Mayor if you are really devious. But they certainly are not going to take down a Mega or a government. Take down one subsidiary, that Megacorp has literally a thousand others. They would kill you with a Thor Shot before they let you do something that could actually destroy them.
I guess what I am trying to say is that if when your PCs are done if you down to three mega corps and Harlequin in president of the UCAS, which is in talks with the CAS to form a new joint government, you have probably been too easy on them.
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I guess what I am trying to say is that if when your PCs are done if you down to three mega corps and Harlequin in president of the UCAS, which is in talks with the CAS to form a new joint government, you have probably been too easy on them.
Well, in game and in RL, our game is at a crossroads. If the group continues to meet in RL for this game instead of for another game or dissolving altogether, we're going in uncharted territory for us for the Shadowrun universe. (Silly statement. When is anyone ever not going into uncharted territory for their own games?) To this point, my group has been balancing running their own legit, unrated corporation and the shadowrunning required to keep it afloat. (When they pitched the idea of having their own corp, I needed to be convinced that we'd still be playing Shadowrun. I was.)
Dunkelzahn has just bought the farm. He was suitably impressed (through a recent report from Carla Brooks) with their performance in Dry Run (Not too easy on them; a few nearly bought some of the farm the Big D just did.) that the public Face PC got a conditional bequest in the will.
When they're done, I don't expect that it will be down to 3 Megas and Harlequin in the Oval Office but they might, might, have gone Mega themselves. I'm quite hopeful the game continues and am very curious to see what they make of it. Will the small, tough fish eat enough to grow teeth? Will it cost them their souls if they do? Who knows?
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Winnipeg, I don't think has even been mentioned once. Which makes it ripe for the picking!
Especially considering the heavy mystical history the city has. And the fact that it's now a border town.
This! I was tempted to set a campaign in Winnipeg but simply don't have the time to make it justice and be worthwhile. As it is, the PCs briefly touched down there to catch a connecting flight on their way to DC from Lake Louise/Calgary. If you or anyone does play Winnipeg, I'd love to know how it goes. :)
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There is mega and there is mega. I kind of like the idea of characters forming and driving a company, it shows they are thinking. But a AAA corp is HUGE. It is made of hundreds of smaller companies with thousands of product lines. They are the financial equivalent of a medium sized country. They are generally also ruthless, evil, and greedy on a level that would make Machiavelli blush. Corporations can live forever, and some of the current big ten have taken generations to get where they are.
I think it would be possible, however, to maybe build a character run Corp up to single A status. Even at that level if the characters still own most of the stock they would be living a luxury plus lifestyle, and one those AAA Megas would show up with a dumptruck full of cred sticks to take it off their hands if they had a good business model and were making money.
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Winnipeg, I don't think has even been mentioned once. Which makes it ripe for the picking!
Especially considering the heavy mystical history the city has. And the fact that it's now a border town.
This! I was tempted to set a campaign in Winnipeg but simply don't have the time to make it justice and be worthwhile. As it is, the PCs briefly touched down there to catch a connecting flight on their way to DC from Lake Louise/Calgary. If you or anyone does play Winnipeg, I'd love to know how it goes. :)
I was working on a "Shadows of Winnipeg" document for a bit, then realized I don't know the city well enough to do it justice.
I'll see if I can dig up the work I did and post it somewhere here. I'm sure I put it up on The Other Forum.
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Seems like most people are like-minded here in their approach in balancing canon with sandbox. Good deal!
There's also huge swathes of land and cities that aren't given any kind of talk whatsoever. For example, the only mention I have about my hometown is that Lone Star provides the Peace Officer service there. That's it.
Winnipeg, I don't think has even been mentioned once. Which makes it ripe for the picking!
Especially considering the heavy mystical history the city has. And the fact that it's now a border town.
I love "reinventing" cities and towns that aren't mentioned in source-books and converting them to the Sixth World. My setting outside of Seattle is rife with ghost towns, ghoul-infested farmlands, and quasi-post-apocalyptic landscapes mixed with hippy-tripped returns of Nature's grandeur, with all an Awakened Mother Nature can plausibly toss around to make matters interesting.
I have a part of a game coming soon that's meant to take place in Salem, Ma. Certainly, there's material that mentions what's been going on in Salem in the Sixth World, but I'll amuse myself with rearranging some elements to suit my fancy.
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OK, sick thought time... During the chaotic time of the early 21st Century, I could see The Vaults (From Fallout) being put into place/use...
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OK, sick thought time... During the chaotic time of the early 21st Century, I could see The Vaults (From Fallout) being put into place/use...
Hahahaha!
It does fit -- not only with Shadowrun, but also with Earthdawn's concept of Caerns and Citadels that people sought shelter into during the Scourge.
I so want a Pipboy.
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Almost done my Fallout 3 Fan-Fic, BTW. The uses he had for his Pip-Boy 3000A, and its limitations come into play a number of times.
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Right on.
It's going to take me a while to read through everything, no doubt.