[Icetower]

Just about to start Season 4 with my Home Group.

Here's my question:
Do I use SRM 04-00 – Back In Business, then SRM 04-01 – Hiding in the Dark (Buried Underground, Part 1) and then SRM 04-02 – Extraction (Artifact Rush, Part 1)?

 Or do I choose which storyline to follow: Buried Underground or Artifact Rush?

Or do both and follow the storylines to conclusion first?

[Crash_00]

I haven't run Season 4 yet, but generally they work best when run in order (00 to 01 to 02 and so on). The characters will shift back and forth between the two storylines. It may seem confounding, but remember, they're getting paid to deal with what's happening in Seattle and more than one thing is going on.

You can run them out of order (to facilitate convention play where a player may run 05 before 00 for instance due to time slotting), but it can cause some continuity issues that have to be ignored IC or OOC.

[Icetower]

Thanks for the reply. I was a little confused as how to go about it, I'll stick with numerical order.

Just didn't know how the order would play out splitting the storylines with a home group.

[Bull]

If you want to run teh Seattle Missions in order, timelinewise:

There are three "prequel" CMPs that we ran at the conventions:  CMP 2010-01: Manhunt, CMP 2010-02: Copycat Killer, and CMP 2010-03: Ashes.  Eventually we will have these all released in a bundle pack, and we actually have someone working on cleaning them up and organizing them so we can do that, but it's been slow going. By the SR Timeline, these adventures take place in Summer 2072. 

The events from Ashes get referenced a bit in the Missions, but it's not necessary to play it to understand anything that's going on (Part of the Ork Underground gets torched).  Copycat Killer, on the other hand, plays a more direct role and is teh first introduction of both MacCallister and Tosh to the Missions Campaign, and is a prequel to SRM 04-05: On a Silver Platter.  Because of that, we bundled Copycat Killer with Silver Platter for release, so if you buy the one, you get both.

SRM 04-00 takes place in December of 2072, officially, and introduces both plotlines.  After that, the Missions take place once a month chronologically.  So 04-01 is January 2073, 04-02 is February, etc. 

That said, if you wanted, once you've run 04-00, you can stick with running just one plot or teh other.  the odd numbered Missions (04-01, 04-03, etc) follow the "Buried Underground" plotline, which involves the Ork underground and Seattle Politics, while the even numbered ones follow the "Artifact Rush" plotline.

I suggest mixing the two myself, to give the PCs some variety, and it lets them build up a larger stable of NPCs as they go.  But it's not necessary.

Bull

[Icetower]

Awesome! Just what I needed to know. Thanks!

As far as reporting my games goes, do I need to do anything special?

[Zilfer]

Yeah recently the last two weeks ran my group through the first two missions, i think they are having a blast, and it's getting me aquantied with the system more as to what type of plot lines there can be. I'm doing them in strict order of 00 01 02 ect. Seems to work fine.

[Phoenix8008]

Looking at the possibility of running Season 4 of Missions for my home game and I have a few questions.

First, are the contacts listed supposed to be the only thing people can draw from in character creation so that they will slot properly in the storyline? As in, they shouldn't have any contacts other than from the SRM04 Contacts list on the Catalyst website? As of now, missions 00-09 are out. That is ten missions designed to be 4 hours (1 sitting/session) each. Being somewhat new to SR, I'm sure we would take longer than that on the front end at least. Looking at the previous seasons, Season 3 was 12 episodes and Season 2 was 25. Is it known yet how many episodes there are scheduled to be in Season 4, and how often is a new episode released?

Thanks for any help, chummers!

[CanRay]

[A]re the contacts listed supposed to be the only thing people can draw from in character creation so that they will slot properly in the storyline?

Thanks for any help, chummers!

Nope, you can have any contacts you like at character creation, those are the contacts you'll be getting through the Missions sessions.  Certainly shouldn't stop you from taking them as contacts to start with, however, they're all good contacts.

My group certainly loves Pip and is working on increasing his Loyalty!  They also hate Tosh with the fury of ten-thousand burning suns, despite him being a good contact for them.  Just goes to show you don't have to like the people you work with, just have to be able to trust them as far as you can throw them.

[Scarecrow71]

I'm currently running a PBP right here using Season 4.  I've got the characters currently going through Copycat Killer, and once they finish that we'll go on to Back in Business.  From there, I plan on running them through both storylines (Buried Underground and Artifacts Unbound), and I'm planning on trying to throw Free Taiwan in there somewhere.

[Phoenix8008]

Anybody know yet how many episodes there are supposed to be in all when it's done? I checked back and found the rate of posting a new adventure in the series has been slowing over the year or two since it started. Looks like a few months between each of the last few adventures.

[Scarecrow71]

Brothers United and Assassin Nation were just released (and I bought them, and they are a fantastic read), and according to the Season 4 downloads page there are 3 more Season 4 missions:  Romero and Juliette, Not-So-Super Tuesday, and Showcase.  This makes 13 missions, not counting the campaign or prime runner missions.
 
As for when they are being released...I'd say sometime this year, but we're in September with 3 missions to go.  So unless Catalyst releases them one per month (October, November, December), you're probably (un-confirmed as I'm not a Catalyst employee) looking at early 2013 before the final one for Season 4 is released.

[Phoenix8008]

Brothers United and Assassin Nation were just released (and I bought them, and they are a fantastic read), and according to the Season 4 downloads page there are 3 more Season 4 missions:  Romero and Juliette, Not-So-Super Tuesday, and Showcase.  This makes 13 missions, not counting the campaign or prime runner missions.
 
As for when they are being released...I'd say sometime this year, but we're in September with 3 missions to go.  So unless Catalyst releases them one per month (October, November, December), you're probably (un-confirmed as I'm not a Catalyst employee) looking at early 2013 before the final one for Season 4 is released.

Cool! That would probably be soon enough that even with only a little filler added in for other missions, we wouldn't run out before the remaining ones came out to finish the series. Good news.