Shadowrun
Shadowrun Play => Gamemasters' Lounge => Topic started by: Zilfer on <10-06-11/1736:44>
-
Probably been asked to death on this board i'm sure but figured I'd pop the question as well...
How do you guys come up with your games? Is there any set pattern you do? Or is it all spree of the moment? how much planning do you do? I myself find that I cannot plan as long as I would like with my current job and situation so I usually have to run off spree of the moment, and the most planning I do ahead of time is driving home in my car which is about 30 minutes a day to review what i've already thought and possible adventures. I usually have a general idea of I want to throw at them by game time, but no idea how it's going to go down.
-
I write down every single idea O have or find somewhere, even if it doesn;t pertain to the system I am running at the moment, and then organize my campaigjns in a text file with a mix of pre-written adventures and those seed ideas i have. then i organize them into chronological order and take the seeds that happen first and grow them into adventures. It takes up most of my free time not spent on OTHER Shadowrun ventures.
-
I write down every single idea O have or find somewhere, even if it doesn;t pertain to the system I am running at the moment, and then organize my campaigjns in a text file with a mix of pre-written adventures and those seed ideas i have. then i organize them into chronological order and take the seeds that happen first and grow them into adventures. It takes up most of my free time not spent on OTHER Shadowrun ventures.
Sounds like quite a bit of work your doing there. Congrates to you! If i write my ideas down I usually loose them. XD
-
I don't worry about too much detail - good players WILL find another way you hadn't planned.
I carry a small notebook -- one of the little 3x5 composition notebooks you can pick up for 75 cents or so. I write down EVERYTHING I think of - grocery need, BBEG idea, scenario hook, another place to look for work, reminder to see if I can get a sale on roses for the wife's birthday, EVERYTHING.
When I get back to my computer, I pull out the notebook and transcribe (and if necessary expand) all the little notes to respective places: tasklist, a file of story ideas, the shadowrun folder, the calendar, etc. I then use a highlighter to draw through those pages, and move the paperclip (sorry, forgot to mention that) to the next clean page for tomorrow.
I'll keep the old one, going through it once in a while just in case, till I get the new one filled up. Then the old becomes trash, the new becomes old, and I start another notebook.
-
I've always wandered around with notepad and pen, just in case an idea pops into my head, or I see something worth jotting down (or the ISBN of a book that I would prefer to check out online). These days I do the same thing with my cell phone, and I often take pictures of funny/interesting things I see (I try not to take pictures of people if I can avoid it - people sometimes get funny if a stranger randomly takes a picture of them...). Some of these make it to backdrops, NPCs, etc.
When I was writing adventures/scenarios for my weekly (or whatever) game, I would look at the strengths and weaknesses of the PCs, flick through the rule books, and look at the adventure types. Sometimes just going through the types of runs was enough to flesh out a story - I hadn't used Critters before in an adventure, and I was reading through one of the SR2/3 books that used to outline the types of runs and payments and so forth, and came up with a scenario that used a cave system as the backdrop (one that the players were familiar with in the here-and-now), some natural hazards, corp security and a kick ass Critter. The ideas pretty much just came together, and the whole thing wrote itself (more or less).
If you choose to balance runs for your team, it's not hard to pick a formula, pick the opposition (based on the PCs) and go from there. At the end of the day, I guess it comes down to practice, practice, practice...
-
Word, I hear you there. It becomes easier as time goes on i suspect!
-
I wrote a Shadowrun adventure once based on the song "Pretty Fly For A White Guy," it just happened to play as I was turning into my neighborhood.
"Pretty Wiz for a corp kid."
-
Well, I usually run longterm campaigns, so I start at the beginning :p
Meaning, set the groundwork for 5 adventures (runs) right from the get go. Then I take notes on what the players seemed to like and adjust the campaign based on that.
Players seem to like working "hood" jobs? There's always some community in the barrens that needs help, or dome broke mother that wants her baby back...
Players seem to like Corp runs? Well no shortage of work there!
Then I start factoring in all the small stuff... Contacts the runners use/meet/kill off, Rep in the shadows/neighborhood, How many good runs VS f@@k ups, etc. That usually gets me 3 to 5 "major" paths to advance.
From those 3 to 5 major ideas, I flesh two out as fully as I can and weave them together to create a "web of mystery".
Poor players spend half their time plotting their runs and dealing with the "chaos", and the other half trying to figure out just what the hell they have gotten themselves into THIS time!!
-
I am similar to Reaver in that my campaign usually has 2 or 3 adventure "arcs" going on that will interweave to an extent, but are still separate in motivation and such. These arc advancing adventures are then interwoven in with other unrelated adventures. This way I find the players don't hone in on one idea or thought process. Ie. I wonder what bugs we will run into this week(or month now in my current campaign)? This allows for the use of any type of bad guy, group or motivation.
For individual runs I pull ideas from everywhere. I have based runs off movies, books, music (one of my best adventure arcs -according to my players- came from a song), and the newspaper. I also use music to set a mood in my mind if I am looking to write a certain type of adventure.
As far as details. I have a 5 subject notebook that I am using for my current campaign. I usually write up a "cover page" for the overview of the adventure including twists I am thinking of (and twists on twists ;) ) then I write up the meet with a lot of background details and the Johnson's pitch and payscale. Then I write up major scenes. If going into a set location I'll write up the security for the location.
In the notebook I also list out the different run ideas I have then as I drop them into the campaign I number them into order. These titles are descriptive to help me remember the idea and not for player's eyes (somehow I think if they had known the last run was named bug hunt they would have approached it differently) this allows me to keep my thoughts in order, and see where the arcs I have planned are.
However, if the players take you down a tangent by showing interest in something you had only planned as a throw away run with it. This is happening in my current campaign, and I have been dragging my feet about going with it, but see that it needs to be done and sometimes these lead to the best ideas/runs. They usually are the ones the players talk the most about later because they feel like the characters pushed the story not the other way around.
-
So I have a big three ring binder that I keep adventures, retired characters, generic maps of buildings, npc's that I have made up, and a box of 3x5 cards with grunts and the like. Right now it has my home made stuff and the first two missions of SRM season 2.
-
The campaign I'm running right now has the players just starting out (650 Karma instead of the normal 750 Karma build) and so it's currently a mixture of weird odd jobs.
"Child Support": Used Food Fight 4.0 to turn into a blackmail / con job against the VP that ordered the hit (ala Burn Notice)
"Don't Start None... Won't Be None": Rescue a smuggler contact that got ambushed in the Ork Underground (goon "sewer" crawl against the Scatterbrains)
"How much is that doggy in the window?": Hired by an Ex-Lone Star Occult Crimes Investigator (now a KE recruit still in training) to track down the theft of 8 hell hound pups
"Lights... Camera... Zombies": Hired by a Horizon Exec to locate & rescue a film crew in the Louisiana Bayou that was make a zombie movie with real zombies that quickly got out of hand.
I tend not to make big overarcing plot hooks until at least a half-dozen sessions in just in case things take a major change in course.
-
I'll point out that one of the things I frequently do is have one arc brush up against another. And I will admit a cruel pleasure in letting players chase red herrings and deal with the bugs that crawl out from under the rocks they overturn. (I also take great glee in mixing metaphors.) When they've exhausted themselves tossing rocks only to discover the swamp still needs drained... priceless.
-
Good ways to brainstorm ideas for adventures are to think of the short descriptions that come up on a TV show you like..
For example.. "Tonight on Shadowrun: The runners find things getting complicated fast when casein a small museum for a simple robbery leads to a human smuggling ring, forcing them to choose between saving young women from a terrible fate or getting paid. TV-MA for strong langue, graphic violence and brief troll nudity."
You can even look up synopsis of a TV show online to spark ideas. For example : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_The_Shield_episodes
Another technique to make simple stories is to think of a task or goal for the characters then think of a complication, and always remember;
1) Exposition and Introduction
2) Rising Action
3) Conflict
4) Resolution
-
Joush, that is some awesome advice. I am going to have to take it. +1
-
Hopefully you don't run into the reviewers that do these for Australian TV, otherwise you end up with:
"The Simpsons get up to their usual hi-jinks"
"Hawkeye Pierce has problems with Major Burns"
"Three women prepare a sumptuous banquet"
;)
-
Nah those are the days where the team writes their own doom.
-
Nah those are the days where the team writes their own doom.
Happy Days, then? :P
-
Nah those are the days where the team writes their own doom.
Happy Days, then? :P
I just have to worry about "The Fonz." Those meddling kids.
-
Nah those are the days where the team writes their own doom.
Happy Days, then? :P
I just have to worry about "The Fonz." Those meddling kids.
Wait. I thought those meddling kids were the ones with that stupid dog.
-
"The Fonz" was a special celebrity guest star. ;D
-
"The Fonz" was a special celebrity guest star. ;D
Actually, I think the happy days gang are the ONLY ones to not appear on Scooby.
-
*Headdesk* I just remembered one gamer I was with wanted to build a group based around the Scooby Gang members... With "Shaggy" being a Dog Shaman.
-
It could work.
(By the way, congrats, CanRay!)
-
Oh, that was years ago... He's a good friend and is great to bounce any number of ideas off of.
Hoping another game will happen with the group I got in with this time... Wait and see. (If you read this, EP, I'm waiting, damnit!).
-
Oh, that was years ago... He's a good friend and is great to bounce any number of ideas off of.
Hoping another game will happen with the group I got in with this time... Wait and see. (If you read this, EP, I'm waiting, damnit!).
I would love to offer you a place at our table, but I think it is a little far to travel to play SR.
But best of luck getting your group together for some actual play.
Rasmus
-
Lets see, my standard game MO is a very fluid-adaptive type. I have no set "adventure" just several possible jobs out there each with attached obsticles, "bad guys", possible hiccups, etc. How they accomplish this job will have reprocussions on rep which is directly linked to what jobs they may or may not be offered in the future. And every action, both good and bad has consiquences that will have various effects on what is going on in the overall game "story" and vice versa.
-
So what I gathered from the first few is that picking up a small note book to write down ideas wouldn't be a bad thing. :D
-
Anything that helps you remember good ideas is nice. You can probably take notes using your cell phone.
-
Interesting Idea.
-
Oh, another thing that I used to do at the gaming table was to make notes on things the players would say OOC. There was usually at least one "Well, at least it isn't an XYZ", or "Imagine what would have happened if we'd done ABC, or if they'd had an LMNOP". It got to the stage where any player providing me with these OOC gems would get filthy looks from the other players at the table, because they figured it could come back to bite them in the ass...
-
Oh, another thing that I used to do at the gaming table was to make notes on things the players would say OOC. There was usually at least one "Well, at least it isn't an XYZ", or "Imagine what would have happened if we'd done ABC, or if they'd had an LMNOP". It got to the stage where any player providing me with these OOC gems would get filthy looks from the other players at the table, because they figured it could come back to bite them in the ass...
Hey yeah i know that trick a little bit, i'm horrible at writing things down so i guess i'll have to try and create a habit out of it.
-
Oh, another thing that I used to do at the gaming table was to make notes on things the players would say OOC. There was usually at least one "Well, at least it isn't an XYZ", or "Imagine what would have happened if we'd done ABC, or if they'd had an LMNOP". It got to the stage where any player providing me with these OOC gems would get filthy looks from the other players at the table, because they figured it could come back to bite them in the ass...
Hey yeah i know that trick a little bit, i'm horrible at writing things down so i guess i'll have to try and create a habit out of it.
The trick for me was learning to think "temporary". During a game I just make a quick note on a throwaway piece of paper and toss it into a bucket or hat or case to review and actually think about after the game. I keep a pad of scrap paper (printer output that's clean on one side, quartered or smaller and stapled in a stack) for this. four or five words, not full sentences.
-
Write down the ten random serious news stories that you come across on ten different index cards. Do the same for 10 different news of the weird type stories. Shuffle and pick one from each pile, blend and Shadowrun'ify it with tweaks and you have 10 adventures seeds to choose from.
-
Write down the ten random serious news stories that you come across on ten different index cards. Do the same for 10 different news of the weird type stories. Shuffle and pick one from each pile, blend and Shadowrun'ify it with tweaks and you have 10 adventures seeds to choose from.
That's an interesting idea. O.O