[Wisconsen]

So i'm doing some planning work for a new campaign, and wanted some input from other people's experiences, and opinions on a location. Mostly for a perspective other than my own.

The game will be starting at street level (as per core) and i'm trying to get a good pro and con list for my players to let them choose a city to be based in. Currently we are debating between Seattle, Denver, Chicago, and Hong Kong (but are open to other suggestions as well). In an effort to broaden our shadowrun experiences, and/or see if we missed things. I wanted to ask the shadowrun community,

For a street level game (with growth room for established runner, and eventually Prime level play), what do you think the best/most fun/ most interesting city to base it in would be? And Why?

[Halinn]

Seattle has the most depth, it's sort of the standard Shadowrun setting.

Denver is interesting in that it's cut up into zones, with border checks and stuff. Extra much opportunity for shadowruns, because it's a corporate hot-spot.

Chigaco is a nice place to visit, but not a place for a street level campaign IMO. Bug spirits and a high background count makes it very dissimilar from other settings.

I don't know much about HK.

[Dinendae]

Outside of the little bit of Hong Kong I have seen in SRR: Hong Kong, I have no experience wih it And I can't really give any pros or cons for it. Denver is interesting, but I don't know a lot about it either. Depending on how it is set up, it could be difficult for street level characters to move between the zones. On the other hand a city split between five countries, ruled by a dragon, and which has seen Atzlan come marching back in after being kicked out previously and successfully taking down another great dragon? Lots of potential there.

Seattle is the most used setting, and thus has the most material for it. That benfits you by having a wide array of source material and missions to fall back on. On the other hand, it's been used so much that it's wearing a bit thin. Chicago has the benefit of being the current Missions Season city setting, and so there are some missions adventures available. It also has some background established for it, especially the old Bug City and Feral Cities sourcebooks. It also has the rather unique distinction of being a feral city in North America, leaving all kinds of opportunities for you to explore. However with the charaters starting at street level, don't send them into the CZ until they get a chance to improve enough to survive there.

[Tecumseh]

I'm from Seattle, so I'm biased, but Seattle is classic Shadowrun. For transparency, I know a bit about Denver and Chicago and next to nothing about Hong Kong.

Not only does Seattle have a ton of content but it also has everything you need to progress from a street-level campaign to a prime runner campaign, all without leaving town if you don't want. I had a long-running street campaign that started in Puyallup and slowly moved north as the players advanced. Puyallup, then Auburn, then Renton, then finally Bellevue. You could do something similar with Redmond too, no problem. I liked it a lot because the neighborhoods themselves became characters in the storyline. Initially the players were fish-out-of-water when they left the Barrens, but after they had been gone for a while they had to go back and have the reverse experience. ("Drek, we used to live here?") -

Seattle is fun because it's a UCAS outpost in the middle of less-than-friendly NAN lands. I always like that touch of mystery and vague foreboding just across the border. Plus, if you ever want to run a rural mission or two, then there are tons of forest and mountains and critters right in Seattle's backyard. There's also a strong Asian influence, so it's easy to include anything from the Pacific Rim. Vory, Triads, Yakuza, Seoulpa Rings, Japancorps, you name it. Have them cut their teeth with street gangs, then move on to organized crime, then end up as professional runners striking the corps.

Denver is tricky because you have so many borders to deal with. Maybe you handwave those as a GM but they can be a big logistical hurdle than you may or may not find to be fun. On the flip side, Denver is primo for smugglers if you have players that want to play riggers and/or mess with vehicles.

One of the neat things about Denver is you get a lot of different players in a small space. Want to run something with the Wildcats (presumably once you're prime runners)? Hop over the Sioux sector and have fun. It also has a lot of nearby wilderness, like Seattle. Ghostwalker can be the Prime Mover in the background, if you like major behind-the-scenes actors.