[Lord Scythican]

Okay first off, sorry it has been awhile since I posted. My gaming group kind of busted up and then got back together about 2 months ago. We have been playing D&D, but I plan on starting up a new Shadowrun game so it's all good.

Anyways I figured I would share my idea for the new campaign and get some feedback from you all.

Now the game will start off very different from most shadowrun games. They players will begin the game deep in the sewers beneath the city. These sewers are very old and still have aqueducts that have metal grates and gates. The PCs will have nothing but rags for clothing and will rely on scrap pieces of metal and chunks of wood as weapons. Magic will be useful but anything that uses tech will not be.

Now this sounds weird, so I guess I might need to go ahead and say what is going on. Basically without the players knowing, I am going to start the game with battles with monsters, etc. Later on they might find a corpse with a sword or something. By the end of the adventure the players will eventually be given a revelation either through their own cunning or from me as a the Gamemaster.

Basically they have been playing in a Futuristic Virtual Reality version of World of Warcraft. When one of the PCs die I will take the player outside and explain to him how his character as died and he can respawn if it wants.

Hopefully the players will all understand what is going on and will eventually leave the game. The players will then have the choice each session to follow the shadowrun campaign that I have developed or the World of Warcraft game campaign set in the Shadowrun setting.


Now a couple of things. The story within the virtual reality world will eventually have an impact on the real world. It becomes more than a game. Players will discover all kinds of secrets and conspiracies while in the virtual world. Eventually I have plans to kill off a PC while he is connected to the game. His real body dies but his soul is sort of trapped in the game world. He eventually gets out of the game world and takes over a robot body or something, (something like Tron).

Now I am not sure how to do the stats. Should I have a set of stats for the Shadowrun PC and a set of stats for the WoW PC? With it being true virtual reality, could I not justify it being on the same stats?

What do you think? Any suggestions?

[Rascal]

That sounds like a great set-up! I´m a sucker for surprise games that end up somewhere you never saw yourself headed!
Even so... I once lost it with a GM who, after years of in-game time, declared that it had all just been a dream the characters had been locked inside. Always make the actions in the meta-game world have relevance to the "true" game world (and it sounds like you have a plan, with all these secrets to unlock!).

Keep us posted as of how this fares!

[Lord Scythican]

That sounds like a great set-up! I´m a sucker for surprise games that end up somewhere you never saw yourself headed!
Even so... I once lost it with a GM who, after years of in-game time, declared that it had all just been a dream the characters had been locked inside. Always make the actions in the meta-game world have relevance to the "true" game world (and it sounds like you have a plan, with all these secrets to unlock!).

Keep us posted as of how this fares!

I am glad you liked the idea. I admit I was a bit worried as to how this might go. I hope they enjoy it. The only thing is, I want the WoW world to at first seem like it is the real world. They escape from a prison (Oblivion style) and go into the sewers with nothing more than a stick and their prison garb. It is only when one of them dies or when they escape the sewers that they realize they are in a fantasy world.

So do you think I should have them have two different stats or one set of stats? I would love it if a Street Samurai could play as a rogue if he wanted, but I would like the game world to affect the Street Samurai's stats? Any ideas?

Ideas so far:

A Minotaur in the sewers that is a were-crocodile.
A crime syndicate that bases its operations in the gameworld.

As for your GM, man that would suck. All those years being a dream. Didn't they do that on Dallas, the TV sitcom?

[Rascal]

I guess this is some kind of matrix-game, not an off-line one?
A crime syndicate using the game as a platform for their business is just great, and obviously lots of people just looove hiding special stuff inside games...
I can easily imagine runners and hackers finding really really secret information about the AAA:s or Dunkelzahn or whatever, and hiding this information inside game nodes so that those in the know will be able to find it...

Also: take a look at "Otherland", the book series by Tad Williams. Jumping from game to game...

About the double stats: Let them spend some time creating their Shadowrun characters when they get fragged the first time! That way, you can keep running the team in the fantasy world without the "dead" guy for a while, making them even more confused as he suddenly respawns. And they won´t know it´s actually Shadowrun until you tell them.

[Lord Scythican]

I guess this is some kind of matrix-game, not an off-line one?
A crime syndicate using the game as a platform for their business is just great, and obviously lots of people just looove hiding special stuff inside games...
I can easily imagine runners and hackers finding really really secret information about the AAA:s or Dunkelzahn or whatever, and hiding this information inside game nodes so that those in the know will be able to find it...

Also: take a look at "Otherland", the book series by Tad Williams. Jumping from game to game...

About the double stats: Let them spend some time creating their Shadowrun characters when they get fragged the first time! That way, you can keep running the team in the fantasy world without the "dead" guy for a while, making them even more confused as he suddenly respawns. And they won´t know it´s actually Shadowrun until you tell them.

Yeah a lot like the Matrix. Pretty much take the World of Warcraft game and combine it with the loading program from the Matrix. The only thing I am going to do different is if your real body dies you actually stay connected to the matrix world like in the Ghost Rider 2099 comic.

You are right on about the dead guy respawning. I think it will really make them scratch their heads.

Also I will check out that book. Thanks for the heads up!

[Canticle]

I guess this is some kind of matrix-game, not an off-line one?
A crime syndicate using the game as a platform for their business is just great, and obviously lots of people just looove hiding special stuff inside games...
I can easily imagine runners and hackers finding really really secret information about the AAA:s or Dunkelzahn or whatever, and hiding this information inside game nodes so that those in the know will be able to find it...

Also: take a look at "Otherland", the book series by Tad Williams. Jumping from game to game...

About the double stats: Let them spend some time creating their Shadowrun characters when they get fragged the first time! That way, you can keep running the team in the fantasy world without the "dead" guy for a while, making them even more confused as he suddenly respawns. And they won´t know it´s actually Shadowrun until you tell them.

Yeah a lot like the Matrix. Pretty much take the World of Warcraft game and combine it with the loading program from the Matrix. The only thing I am going to do different is if your real body dies you actually stay connected to the matrix world like in the Ghost Rider 2099 comic.

You are right on about the dead guy respawning. I think it will really make them scratch their heads.

Also I will check out that book. Thanks for the heads up!

You should also watch or read .hack//sign. It is about an MMO where conspiracies and other crazy stuff starts happening. I believe it would spark a few ideas.

[Lord Scythican]

Will do! BTW can you get the same info through the .hack//sign games?

[Canticle]

The games follow the same story, but not the same plot-line. The games follow Kite and BlackRose while the .hack//sign series follows Tsukasa, Subaru, Mimiru, Bear and a few others. I find .hack//sign to have more of what a Shadowrunner would go through in a VR MMO while the .hack games have more action. There is a lot of legwork and research in //sign as well as a few good combats.

For this, I would think that you would make a shadowrun character and an in game character that would run a lot like Matrix combat.