[JoeNapalm]

Oh, and read Lovecraft until you realize that strange whimpering sound is you.

Then pass the favor on to your players. 

Always remember, open the door just a crack...whatever they imagine is worse for them than anything you can describe.

-Jn-
Ifriti Sophist

[mtfeeney = Baron]

Oh, and read Lovecraft until you realize that strange whimpering sound is you.

Then pass the favor on to your players. 

Always remember, open the door just a crack...whatever they imagine is worse for them than anything you can describe.

-Jn-
Ifriti Sophist

Truer words have been spoken before, but rarely...  Want to scare them?  Don't explain anything, just throw random creepy shit at them.  They're leaving a building, they hear footsteps behind them.  They turn, nothing.  No matter how much they search, nothing.  Don't add anything else linked to this in the game.  Next session, they see a girl run by at a hallway intersection.  She's looking behind herself at whatever she is fleeing, but you never see it following, and you never see her again.  I'm creeped out just typing this.

[Shaidar]

While on topic: I really want to try out the Shutdown too, but I lack any knowledge of the 3rd Ed. Is there any translation doc out there, 3rd to 4thA?

Thanks in advance!

I've gotten the character changes figured out and built a Google Sheet to handle most of that from SR1->SR2->SR3->SR4.  The Change in Target number did a real number on the system though.  The best I can do for translating the Variable TN from SR1, SR2, & SR3 is draw corollaries between these:

[quote author SR3 pg. 92]
DIFFICULTY NUMBER TABLE

Difficulty	Target Number
Simple	2
Routine	3
Average	4
Challenging	5
Difficult	6-7
Strenuous	8
Extreme	9
Nearly Impossible	10+

[/quote]
&

SUCCESS TEST DIFFICULTIES TABLE

Difficulty	Threshold
Easy	1
Average	2
Hard	4
Extreme	6

The first table from SR3 the number is the chance of getting that on a single die(or exploded die) [1d6, on a 6 add an additional d6].  I've tried boiling them both down to probabilities but they don't match statistically speaking.

both SR3 and SR4 use the same test nomenclature in their published adventures, Skill (#) Test.  But in SR3 the number was the single die target number, where as in SR4 it is the number of hits threshold.

[Omnibobatron]

Truer words have been spoken before, but rarely...  Want to scare them?  Don't explain anything, just throw random creepy shit at them.  They're leaving a building, they hear footsteps behind them.  They turn, nothing.  No matter how much they search, nothing.  Don't add anything else linked to this in the game.  Next session, they see a girl run by at a hallway intersection.  She's looking behind herself at whatever she is fleeing, but you never see it following, and you never see her again.  I'm creeped out just typing this.

I love this idea

[Reaver]

I used an insane AI nested in an emotitoy factory which a love crush on one of my player's contacts to drive them nuts/creep them out.....

While never really a big threat to the players, having emititoys all over the sprawl spew 'random' bits of info about the player while entertaining their owners REALLY creeped them out in a big way...

What started off as a way to introduce hacking and the matrix (with its total interconnectivity) eventually turned into an epic 12 game sessions trying to figure out just what and why these simple toys for kids 'hated' the player so much!!

[lumiragdas]

As one of his players I'm already scared

[Wailer]

I like the facility idea, like in Shutdown, I still get chills from that and bug spirits still get me too. I was GMing recently and got lazy and stole the shedim filled hospital from Romero and Juliet but in a much larger facility and during it I slammed my hand down on the table and everyone jumped. It was funny and great until I got hit with a Mountain Dew bottle.

I recently ran the Ghost Ship framework from Ghost Cartels' Hong Kong section and was playing up the creep/horror factor of the abandoned vessel on the ocean. When one of my players stepped over the body of one of the 'dead' sailors, I grabbed his arm as the sailor grabbed his leg and had to kick in my reaction enhancers to duck the reflex flailing.

Horror does work better in small doses, but establishing a horror vibe through storytelling technique (no distractions/background tv, speak slightly lower so the players need to devote a touch more focus to listening, buildup of tension through lift and release, etc) is far more important than enforcing a 'you're screwed' rule set. It'd been 12-13 years since I ran my long-term Ravenloft campaign, but as soon as they boarded that ghost ship, I could see the past years of psychological trauma begin to bubble to the surface. Gamer PTSD, make it work for you.

- Wailer

* - Also, use what you know about your players to your advantage. If something freaks them out irl, it's usually an easy scene setter.  Less is often more, though. If a player is afraid of spiders, fighting a giant spider might gross them out - but descriptions of packets of scuttling spiders slipping through cracks in the walls will give them background jeebies that can work you you - and if a spider just happens to land on the arm of that player as he takes a simple action to steady his aim in the next combat, be prepared to /popcorn.
- Wailer

[Wolfboy]

theres really two ways to translate,

1: the old "upgrade" option that came out at the very beginning of fourth, not that good an idea but free
2: use SR2050 to take everyone back to that earlier version and work from there

the other option which my GM did was make us sneak into the ACHE and liberate some data from an isolated node on an unpopulated but sealed floor

[Dinendae]

3) The runners are contracted to check up on a "secret" facility that has gone dark. (Almost any Corp). Upon arriving the somehow get sealed in to this underground facility while an outbreak of something is occurring. Perhaps test creatures got out or an AI got control of all the drones or something, I'm not entirely sure yet. But the "go check up on these people" becomes a "survive and get out". They'd have the choice of working with any survivors or abandoning them or straight up murdering them for any kind of passcodes/data/keys that would help them get out. (I'm thinking something like a bio-engineered virus broke out and is turning people into monsters)

This sounds similar to the very first Shadowrun module I ever ran, DNA/DOA (which was written by Dave Arneson). If memory serves me correctly, you can get a .pdf of it from drivethrurpg and it was updated to work with 4th Ed.

*Edit* Also, the old Renraku(sp?) Arcology shutdown campaign had a good horror element to it.