[AJCarrington]

Now available online:



No Job Is Easy

No matter what Mr. Johnson says, shadowrunners are never hired to do anything easy. If the job were easy, Mr. Johnson would do it himself. Sharp shadowrunners learn to recognize when a job is going to present extra challenges. There are certain signs, such as: 1) Mr. Johnson is openly auditioning multiple teams, both to find the right people and to set the auditioning parties on edge. 2) Mr. Johnson doesn’t seem too anxious to reveal relevant details of the job; and worst of all, 3) Mr. Johnson claims it will be easy.

Sarah Silverleaf has a job for the runners, but unfortunately all of the above criteria are met. Danger is waiting for the runners, and she’s not about to tell them what it is. They’ll have to walk in the dark, navigate the unknown, and survive whatever comes at them. Because that’s the job.

Take a Chance is the conclusion of the fifth season of Shadowrun Missions, but it’s not the end of the runners’ time in Chicago. More intrigue awaits—if the runners can survive Silverleaf’s mission.

Take a Chance is a great continuation of the season-long plotline for Missions, or an exciting space to launch a campaign. It is for use with Shadowrun, Fifth Edition.

Shadowrun: Missions: Take a Chance (05-06) - DTRPG

Shadowrun: Missions: Take a Chance (05-06) - BattleCorps

[Wakshaani]

As an aside, this is the first mission I've ever done for anything, so, it was a bit different than the usual Shadowrun.

If you want to run it separate from the MIssion seasons, it stands alone quite well, too.

And, as always, HUGE props to Bull for taking my crappy writing and making into something good. He's a champ!

[deville]

I bought this today and really enjoyed reading through it. I have no doubt I will be running it in the near future. It really feels like something different but still has all the elements we love in a shadowrun. Great job, you guys!

[AJCarrington]

As an aside, this is the first mission I've ever done for anything, so, it was a bit different than the usual Shadowrun.

Any chance we could you (and Bull?) to talk a little about these differences? For me, curious as to how one changes their approach when designing for Missions vs "standard".

[Wakshaani]

As an aside, this is the first mission I've ever done for anything, so, it was a bit different than the usual Shadowrun.

Any chance we could you (and Bull?) to talk a little about these differences? For me, curious as to how one changes their approach when designing for Missions vs "standard".

First and foremost was my own blunder. When we were talking about missions, and Bull nudged me to give it a try, the other missions from the first "pack" were handed out and I made a bad joke based off the title of teh one that was left. The joke *I* remebered was "Well, I guess I should DIVE IN and give it a try! hah HAH!" And I had "Dive In" as the name of the mission all through designing it, writing it, and so on. When I turned it in, Bull was, like, "Uh, Wak? You know the mission is called "Take a Chance', right?" .... D'oh! So the whole thing is based off of the wrong title. *shameface*

NPCs were replaced heavily, in order to keep using the Missions NPCs, like Sarah Silverleaf, instead of a set of fairly disposable ones. Sarah Silverleaf, for instance, was "Mr. Saito", a (very!) Japanese Johnson, who had a few bonuses based on how he was treated. Speaking to him politely in Japanese was worth a bonus, as was conducting the entire meeting in Japanese, and a few other 'polite' behaviors, while rudeness would be penalized. Simon was a generic "Mr. Johnson". Goober was "Zoon", and there was a bit about rousting up some locals if you didn't think you needed him...Ol' Drunk Pete Mackinac, Barnacle Bob, and Jaqueline Cartier (a Quebeccer who spoke English only grudingly and weeth an out-RAGE-eous axe-seent.) ... most of those names were drawn from research about the area and some history. Have to give a lil' shout out to those that came before, yo.

Talk about some critters that don't show up, some shopping lists, minor stuff like that which you could lose but I figured would be needed to keep a GM from hunting up a lot of info, in case people at the table would ask "Hey, can I get a blank?" ... but since then, we've released gear books that made that data superfulous. There's a different ending that's a bit more depressing, but it's kind of a beautiful sadness.

So, you know, beating the rough clay I had into the right shape.

[Bull]

The other big thing was mostly a matter of rearranging the data to make it more friendly to both layout and the gamemaster.  Trying to turn bullet point lists (which end up often looking ugly in a 2-column format) and turn them into paragraphs of concise info, for example.  And Wak had a couple big "Q&A" lists for the meet part, which were awesome, but again, kinda cumbersome.  So that was scrunched down a bit into the description sections.  The rest was just streamlining things to make it easier to pack into a Missions game.

It was solid though, and I retained most of what he wrote, just moved the words around a fair bit.

[Wakshaani]

Yeah, in adventures I've *been* through, there'll be these parts where you can grab someone and negotiate/brefriend/interrogate someone, but there's never any information about what they know, what they'll say, etc. Since this one has so many social encounters, I figured that I'd put that infor out there. BUT, it again grinds against wordcount and, ultimately, is expendable.

I trust Bull 100% on these things. He's a ConGod, while I've attended a few but never gamed at any. Trying to write an adventure for a situation I'd never been in was, to say the least, tricky.

I still want to put 3-5 small ones together for Jason, to put out there as intro sessions for new players. Just gotta find some free time to do it. And then give them to Bull to edit. And then join him in weeping for a while. Because, seriously, he will, and it'll be my fault.

[AJCarrington]

Thanks guys, really appreciate the insight.

[PHDungeon]

I'm currently running this mission for my home group. What I don't really understand is how come the lower module of the facility isn't flooded. The elevator shaft that accesses it enters it from above and that is flooded, so how are the merrow/runners going in and out without it being flooded?

I like the maps for this adventure, but I find it quite frustrating that they are labeled with numbers and yet there is no proper map key in the adventure.

[Wakshaani]

The elevator goes lower than the bottom section, which then has a small 'up' to get to the floor. If you look under your kitchen sink, you'll see a "U" bend below it... that's how the elevator room works. The water fills it up at the bend, but the water pressure 'above' keeps the rest of the place from filling up. Over time, the water level has gone up a bit, so there's a lot of moisture and mold down there, but people don't have to, you know, wade.

The upstairs elevator is, in essence, a second Moon Pool due to where it was broken (Below the pressurized floor) ... like #4 in this chat:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/34/Moon_pool_diagrams.PNG

The downstaris has the "U" joint that's flooded, then the way up acts as a Moon Pool of it's own.

Make sense now?

[PHDungeon]

That clears it up. Thanks. I think the players are enjoying this one so far. They are finding being at the bottom of the lake with the merrow pretty freaky.