NEWS

SR6: How to start ?

  • 6 Replies
  • 2975 Views

lostpapers

  • *
  • Newb
  • *
  • Posts: 6
« on: <06-04-21/0501:42> »
Hi chummers

I'm initiating a return to Shadowrun through SR6. To explain the context, I've been playing in the 90's with SR1 and SR2, thanks to the excellent scenarios that FASA was releasing.

I've let SR aside for almost 3 decades, then decided to come back, first thanks to Anarchy. I found at first the simplification of rules quite interesting, but realized that it still required many house rules (for me) to be viable.

Then I looked at SR6 (French edition release). I found that it brings all I need in terms of rules and context (not everything is perfect, but I find them in par with my expectations).

I really appreciate the Streetpedia, that gives a good glance at what happened since 2055. Note that during the 3 decades, I've followed what was transpiring, so I was aware of the major plots.

However, I 'm quite at a loss on how to start a interesting campaign, without having to spend my nights on fleshing the scenarios.

Where are the scenarios like the ones made by FASA, that are focused on one mission and that are rich in details and context like Universal Brotherhood, Ivy and Chrome, Maria Mercurial, etc...

(For information, the team will be composed of a Weapon specialist/Face, a rigger/decker technomancer, a physical adept and a shaman)

- Cutting Black is only a plot sourcebook. Though it is really interesting, it is not a turnkey campaign

- 30 nights feels like a campaign and not a scenario, and at first glance the theme and context is not appealing. It feels like falling short on its goal. Moreover my technomancer player will just be useless

- Slip Streams events are too far in the timeline for me to start with them, ignoring again the fact that all scenarios need to be fleshed out.

This is why I come with a simple question: How to start an interesting SR6 campaign? Should I fall back to SR5 scenarios and convert them?

Michael Chandra

  • *
  • Catalyst Demo Team
  • Prime Runner
  • ***
  • Posts: 9920
  • Question-slicing ninja
« Reply #1 on: <06-04-21/0518:20> »
Free Seattle takes place before 30 Nights, it has players help prep the game for the events that cause an actual Free Seattle after the blackouts, maybe that could help?
How am I not part of the forum?? O_O I am both active and angry!

Sir Ludwig

  • *
  • Catalyst Demo Team
  • Chummer
  • ***
  • Posts: 163
« Reply #2 on: <06-04-21/1713:11> »
lostpapers,

Welcome back to SR!.

Shadowrun Missions is always a good place to start.  I ran a group through Free Seattle (changed the city, I run my games out of CAS) and they all seemed to enjoy it. 

Once you get your hands wrapped around the rules, use adventures in previous edition and change them for 6th edition.  I do it all the time.  I ran through Mercurial not too long ago for 6th edition.  However, it was in Nashville and you guessed it was a country music singer (not a fan myself but fit the game). 

Good luck and welcome back,
SL

If you have an old mod

Si vis pacem, para bellum

Beta

  • *
  • Ace Runner
  • ****
  • Posts: 1946
  • SR1 player, SR5 GM@FtF & player@PbP
« Reply #3 on: <06-09-21/1028:02> »
First a comment for anyone not French reading this thread who was surprised by the praise of the Streetpedia: the french edition of the Streetpedia pulled in extracts from some other 5e books (which have not been published in French), to capture major 5e plot points.  So it does a more complete job of bringing the lore up to date.

For the OP:

- I know that they take place during the 5th edition timeline, but have you looked at the adventures in Black Book Edition's 'Neo-Revolution'?  It would be a different sort of campaign, but not a bad resource.

- You are correct that there are not a lot of scenarios or campaigns out for 6th edition, just Free Seattle and 30 Nights.  Free Seattle is OK (although it really does need to be set in Seattle unless you want to do a lot of work, and for that amount of work you could likely make up your own adventures).  It certainly is not up the standards of some of the old FASA adventures.  In my opinion 30 Nights plays better with 'not shadowrunner' characters (although you could play it to pull them into the shadows).  And it is tied to Toronto unless you put in a lot of work to move it to another UCAS city, which still doesn't help if you'd rather play in France.

- There is a bit more for 5th edition (the Denver trilogy, Toxic Alleys, and the Chicago seasons of Shadowrun missions).  In general I would say none of these are as interesting as the old FASA modules either, although we did have fun playing the Denver trilogy of adventures (Serrated Edge, False Flag, Ripping Reality) and selected Shadowrun Missions from seasons 5-8.  Obviously you'd have to convert things to 6e, which is, again, more work.

- There is a good fan made introductory run for 5e that is worth taking a look at, "Delian Data Tomb"  again you'd have to convert to 6e, but it is a nice first run

- But if you are going to have to be converting things in one way or another, have you considered just running the old FASA modules?  (especially if your players have not experienced them before).  For grunts you can mostly use the ones in the 6e CRB, while the key characters you can re-build for 6e largely using the dice pool method (where you don't list out the entire character, but determine their dice pools in key areas and just record that.  You need to do a bit of approximating to make those reasonable, but it is less time consuming than listing everything in detail and then coming up with the dice pools.

lostpapers

  • *
  • Newb
  • *
  • Posts: 6
« Reply #4 on: <06-09-21/1140:23> »
@Michael Chandra:
I was thinking to start with Free Seattle indeed. However I find the content quite sparse. Hence my questions.

For the French version, we have the advantage that our book version is containing 4 additionnal scenarios, with more details, but the contexts are perhaps requiring the players to have played some runs before, just to grasp the world of shadowrun.

At the moment, I'm thinking to use the starter kit scenario as a first run, just to grasp the rules, then perhaps roll into Free Seattle.

Thanks for you suggestion

@Sir Ludwig

Thank you for your warm welcome

I haven't took a glance thought the SR Missions, so I have little idea of practicability. But I definitely plan to run one of them at some moment, as they have quite an interesting reputation

Playing old FASA runs is definitely a valid option. Mariah Mercurial was my first game as a GM with SR2, it would be great to replay a new version of it. So as explained before, Starter Kit -> Free Seattle -> Mariah might be my first step. Though, I wish that in the meantime there will be more SR6 content after that. ^^

Perhaps someone has already adapted Mariah to SR6 :p

@Beta

I was not aware that Streetpedia was more furnished than the US version. That explains why I found it quite furnished

Now, for NeoRevolution, I must say that I'm not a fan of the proposed French context. I found no appeal to play in a future distopic version of France. I must admit I've always been in love with Seattle and its story. But perhaps I could adapt the context

As you say, 30 nights really feels like it should be played with 'not shadowrunners' characters. So it automatically eliminates it as an option as my players have made their characters

I agree, there are lot of old great books in SR4 and SR5 probably, for which I lack knowledge as I only was proficient with SR1, 2 and 3. I'll take a look at your references (the Denver trilogy, Toxic Alleys, and the Chicago seasons of Shadowrun missions)

I never saw a mention of "Delian Data Tomb". I'll browse it with interest (https://www.gmbinder.com/share/-LL1Ft_k7Kb7q19sKzvq)

I definitely feel that I'll rerun old FASA runs. Your sugegstion is on point regarding conversion. Concentrating on pools will make the process less difficult

Thanks a lot for your feedback

MercilessMing

  • *
  • Omae
  • ***
  • Posts: 598
« Reply #5 on: <06-09-21/1756:59> »
Unfortunately the starter kit scenario is trash.  You can run it, I've run it, and we all had fun, but as is the case with SO many SR products, it needs lots of work from the GM to fix the author's mistakes.  I found Free Seattle to be a better product.  If you found the content quite sparse, then I'm afraid very little in the post-fasa time will satisfy you.  The days of maps, dialogue, and fleshing out every scene with step by step actions are long gone.  These days you're lucky if the author gives any guidance on how to run a scene.  I just finished running the first night of 30 Nights, and the book barely gave me anything to do.  It just gave a couple ideas of what could possibly happen and what the pc's should have achieved by the end of the session.

Beta

  • *
  • Ace Runner
  • ****
  • Posts: 1946
  • SR1 player, SR5 GM@FtF & player@PbP
« Reply #6 on: <06-14-21/1237:08> »
LostPapers, a  few more words about 'ShadowRun Missions'.

Seasons 1 & 2 are available for free on the Catalyst site
- Season 1:  https://www.shadowruntabletop.com/missions/downloads-season-1/
- Season 2:  https://www.shadowruntabletop.com/missions/downloads-season-2/
- Season 1 is set in Seattle, written for 3rd edition, Season 2 is set in Denver and was written for 4th edition
- In particular I like season 1 runs 1 and 3 for introducing new players (run 1 brings them together, run 3 is sort of like a practice run where they are scouting out a facility that is not in operation yet)

As mentioned before seasons 5-8 (6 missions per season, for a total of 24) are written for 5th edition, but they are set in Chicago.  Also a classic ShadowRun setting, but if you really want to play in Seattle they will be less for you.  A lot of them are associated with the particular character of Chicago as a fairly wild city (the bugs were driven out, but most people stayed away from what had been the bug zone). 
- You can buy the PDF for those on DrivethruRPG.com
- You could also get summaries of most of those missions (plus a few extra) from the Anarchy supplement "Chicago Chaos."  No useful SR stats, but it basically summarized the entire four seasons of the SR missions for use with Anarchy.

Missions season 4 was set in Seattle, and was written for 5th edition.  I've not played any of it so no further comments.

==========================

About Neo-Revolution: I loved their dystopic take on future France :)  (Personal opinion: Black Book Editions have fixed so much compared to the early FASA version of France in the SR era).  Having totally-not-an-AI controlling an entire country, what could go wrong?  ;-)

But if that is not to your taste I understand.  Unfortunately the adventures would not adapt well to Seattle (one is set in the magical mists of Brittany, another in the toxic wasteland of the SOX, a third deals with a particular political even in the French future history).  So if you are not interested in France in the SR timeline, I would save your money.

About the French version of the Streetpedia, I seem to recall that Black Bood Editions said they added ~50 pages of material compared to the English version.  I can't find that statement now, of course.  Here is a summary of the main things they added, however:  "En exclusivité française, Streetpédia complète les entrées d’informations qui n’avaient pas encore fuité dans notre langue, comme sur la Guerre civile des Grands dragons. Mais elle est surtout enrichie de dossiers compilés par les Ombres françaises qui vont permettre aux runners et Johnson français de comprendre toutes les intrigues américaines. Sont ainsi abordés Ares et notamment son rapport aux esprits insectes, le SFC depuis son apparition à son « dénouement », les mégacorporations AAA après la Réforme et enfin, la mystérieuse secte des Nulls."  (I'm actually considering buying the pdf just to have their summaries of information that originally was scattered over many books)