Shadowrun
Shadowrun General => General Discussion => Topic started by: Onion Man on <08-23-11/1657:58>
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Related to my comment in Pet Peeves, is there such a thing as competitive Shadowrun?
Missions is fun, but hardly competitive or tournament style. I'm looking for something where poor character design might be a real problem and making bad decisions on a run would have real and lasting consequences, like failing the run.
Does anything like that exist or is that just a pipe dream?
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I have never heard of anything like it before and have never even considered the thought of it, but it sounds like it could be very awsome. If it hasn't been done yet +1 for the cool concept.
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The closest thing would be the TOurnament at Gen Con. In that case though each team runs the same group of characters through the same adventure, and each is scored based on Teamwork, Roleplaying, and Creativity. Rules KNowledge helps with the others, but isn't a huge prereq, and you don't make your own characters, it's all about how you handle the ones you are given.
Bull
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I was thinking it would be fun to run something like the new Sourcebook War! except to have two different teams of shadowrunners, each employed by the opposite side of the battle. One team is trying to, say, assassinate the general and the other team is trying to stop them.
Would be a lot of fun but would require two GMs at two tables who would need some way to communicate back and forth (laptop or something) and the two shadowrun groups would only sit at the same table when they come into direct conflict with each other. Might be something fun to do as a comic shop event or at Gen Con. A little more difficult to get that many people together for weekly/monthly sessions.
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Good to know, Bull.
I guess I may have to swallow my pride and attend a Gen Con in Indianapolis... under protest and extreme duress of course, but might have to swallow my pride and attend.
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Is the prizing for the tourney still 1 year of free product for the winners or has that changed? It was a great reward for a broke university student back in the early 90s...
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It's changed. It's something different most years... This year was a black wooden Tanto style sword made by Geek Chic with the Shadowrun S in the Handle, along with a gift certificate for the CGL booth.
What year(s) did you guys play, and which con (We used to do an Origins one as well, but attendance was never great, so we stopped).
Bull
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A buddy of mine and I were runners up at Gencon the year before the Big D's election.
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Ahh, cool. Before my time then.
*edit* Before I started regularly attending the cons, i should add. I think my first gen Con was the year after the election, and my first origins was the following year.
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Was that the year that the big tourney was the wacky courier road race?Was that the year that the big tourney was the wacky courier road race?
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Yeah, the Cannonball Run adventure. The only year I played in the Tourney (I got drafted to GM the next year), and we took second. Was fun.
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Was that the year that the big tourney was the wacky courier road race?Was that the year that the big tourney was the wacky courier road race?
Yeah, the Cannonball Run adventure. The only year I played in the Tourney (I got drafted to GM the next year), and we took second. Was fun.
Bull, you and me, team up, next year! I'll pull Nas out, and you can be the Horns!
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You could try having two GMs run groups simultaneously towards the same objective. You'd have to keep a very close eye on 'in game time' to keep the groups in synch, but it could be fun to try. Then again I've never seen role-playing as a particularly competitive thing, I;ve never won Dungeons and Dragons.
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You could try having two GMs run groups simultaneously towards the same objective. You'd have to keep a very close eye on 'in game time' to keep the groups in synch, but it could be fun to try. Then again I've never seen role-playing as a particularly competitive thing, I;ve never won Dungeons and Dragons.
It's a whole different kind of monster.
The way Bull described it, the Shadowrun tourney at Gen Con sounds a lot like the old Judges' Guild Grand Prix events.
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You could try having two GMs run groups simultaneously towards the same objective. You'd have to keep a very close eye on 'in game time' to keep the groups in synch, but it could be fun to try. Then again I've never seen role-playing as a particularly competitive thing, I;ve never won Dungeons and Dragons.
Did that in Cyberpunk once it blew up in our faces. There are folks who still will not talk to each other in the gaming circles down in the RGV. Not that it would not be cool just remember that players can get pretty competitive.
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We've tried something like that a couple of times in the past, not as a tourney, but as a normal event... It really didn't go that well. it's nigh impossible to keep multiple teams following the same "time line" without either using some forced "real time" mechanic or by periodically pausing or throttling the various games to let other teams catch up. Both of which will badly break suspension.
In the past, when the Tourneys were three days and elimination style, we'd sometimes have the teams "Competing" by working for different corporations. The Cannonball Run adventure mentioned above is one example. Every team still played the same adventure, but each teams "Mr. Johnson" had a different corporate logo, so to speak. Our team, for example, was Renraku (For which we came up with the slogan "If this van's Renrak-in', don't come a-knockin' :)). It didn't have any actual effect on story or game, but then we could list the scores each day at the booth (And it let each team know who was progressing to the next round).
We stopped posting scores when we went away from elimination style for several reason, but primarily because we didn't want to discourage teams that weren't doing so well (But were hopefully still having fun), nor did we want to "lose" people who were in a lower placing team, who would give up because they didn't feel they could still win. While it's a competition, it's still also usually a pretty cool adventure.
Bull
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You could try having two GMs run groups simultaneously towards the same objective. You'd have to keep a very close eye on 'in game time' to keep the groups in synch, but it could be fun to try. Then again I've never seen role-playing as a particularly competitive thing, I;ve never won Dungeons and Dragons.
I kind of like BSOD's idea here. Certainly, it would make for a very interesting gaming experience. Now to find me a second group of players... I think I'll attempt something of the like.
Did that in Cyberpunk once it blew up in our faces. There are folks who still will not talk to each other in the gaming circles down in the RGV. Not that it would not be cool just remember that players can get pretty competitive.
Hmm, yeah. That's pretty uncool. However, I don't think trying something like it would necessarily end up like this, especially if people are mostly in it for fun.
We've tried something like that a couple of times in the past, not as a tourney, but as a normal event... It really didn't go that well. it's nigh impossible to keep multiple teams following the same "time line" without either using some forced "real time" mechanic or by periodically pausing or throttling the various games to let other teams catch up. Both of which will badly break suspension.
In the past, when the Tourneys were three days and elimination style, we'd sometimes have the teams "Competing" by working for different corporations. The Cannonball Run adventure mentioned above is one example. Every team still played the same adventure, but each teams "Mr. Johnson" had a different corporate logo, so to speak. Our team, for example, was Renraku (For which we came up with the slogan "If this van's Renrak-in', don't come a-knockin' :)). It didn't have any actual effect on story or game, but then we could list the scores each day at the booth (And it let each team know who was progressing to the next round).
We stopped posting scores when we went away from elimination style for several reason, but primarily because we didn't want to discourage teams that weren't doing so well (But were hopefully still having fun), nor did we want to "lose" people who were in a lower placing team, who would give up because they didn't feel they could still win. While it's a competition, it's still also usually a pretty cool adventure.
Bull
Looks like it must've been a whole lot of fun! I wish we had stuff like this going on around here. I'm certain I'd personally love to take part in a tourney-style SR game!
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The Cannonball Run adventure mentioned above is one example...
Bull
I'm serious about teaming up! Give me a reason to show up to a Con if nothing else. ;)
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In terms of head-to-head stuff (potentially OT):
Back in the day, we had a guy run a homebrew post-Apocalyptic RPG where half of us were "Good Guys" and half were "Bad Guys". He didn't even tell us this to start with...we couldn't figure out why it was taking so long for two halves of the party to meet..
On one hand, it was fun in a PvP adrenaline rush kind of way.
On the other hand, it really didn't work so well in the long run. There was a heavy down-time component - as anyone with a group that likes to split the party knows, this is a bear for the GM to manage, and hard to do well. Also, PCs are generally the wrecking crews of their particular Universes, and when two groups of them meet head-to-head, it gets pretty ugly.
My character ended up with a prosthetic jaw, and the guy who blew off his original set of chompers ended up disemboweled by my set of grapple-claws. Most of the rest of the PCs on either side fared worse...generally maimed or very, very dead...I don't even want to go into what was done to some of the corpses, but let's just say that, even by post-Apocalyptic standards of morality, lines were crossed.
And that was from one PvP encounter.
Had it been a standard table-top game, it would have worked, but as an RPG, people are just too into their characters, I think. GM's have to be able to act as a "neutral" judge in RPGs, but really...it's about the story, so at the end of the day, well-played PCs will reign triumphant. But if the PCs are fighting other PCs, then there's zero wiggle room for the GM to interpret the rules or rolls. Not a situation I'd want to be in, as GM...killing a PC is tough enough, but PC vs PC...ouch.
At least in my games, I've generally discouraged PvP...some sparring, here and there, and the occasional "heated discussion" that's been broken up before anyone needed a Raise Dead spell.
-Jn-
Ifriti Sophist
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Given the outside-the-game wars I've seen develop over various miniatures games, the idea that rpg players wouldn't take attacks on "themselves" personally seems the sheerest sort of fantasy.
The competitions I've seen done that went well were, like the cannonball run mentioned earlier, cases where there was a fixed scenario with various objectives that earned points, and the team that got the most points out of the scenario was the victor. (Objective points, not subjective, so no "Oh, their flair was worth an extra 2 Karma, moving them from second to first." If you thought PVP after-effects were ugly...)
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In terms of head-to-head stuff (potentially OT):
Back in the day, we had a guy run a homebrew post-Apocalyptic RPG where half of us were "Good Guys" and half were "Bad Guys". He didn't even tell us this to start with...we couldn't figure out why it was taking so long for two halves of the party to meet..
On one hand, it was fun in a PvP adrenaline rush kind of way.
Hmm... I'd think that anyone planning to run this sort of gaming experience really should give the players a layout as to what's generally planned, if for no reason other than to be sure the people involved will actually enjoy that style of gameplay. Just an opinion, mind you.
On the other hand, it really didn't work so well in the long run. There was a heavy down-time component - as anyone with a group that likes to split the party knows, this is a bear for the GM to manage, and hard to do well. Also, PCs are generally the wrecking crews of their particular Universes, and when two groups of them meet head-to-head, it gets pretty ugly.
Ideally, I'd think you'd need either more than a single GM or to run each group in a different session rather than running both concurrently: it would (I think) avoid a whole lot of downtime and having to keep each group properly involved.
My character ended up with a prosthetic jaw, and the guy who blew off his original set of chompers ended up disemboweled by my set of grapple-claws. Most of the rest of the PCs on either side fared worse...generally maimed or very, very dead...I don't even want to go into what was done to some of the corpses, but let's just say that, even by post-Apocalyptic standards of morality, lines were crossed.
And that was from one PvP encounter.
Had it been a standard table-top game, it would have worked, but as an RPG, people are just too into their characters, I think. GM's have to be able to act as a "neutral" judge in RPGs, but really...it's about the story, so at the end of the day, well-played PCs will reign triumphant. But if the PCs are fighting other PCs, then there's zero wiggle room for the GM to interpret the rules or rolls. Not a situation I'd want to be in, as GM...killing a PC is tough enough, but PC vs PC...ouch.
At least in my games, I've generally discouraged PvP...some sparring, here and there, and the occasional "heated discussion" that's been broken up before anyone needed a Raise Dead spell.
-Jn-
Ifriti Sophist
I think I'd have to agree -- although, mind you, I've never personally been in any game with the kind of PvP you mention above. Sparring, as you point out, yes, and often. There's been some rare occasions when a player's character killed another's, but nothing on any big scale and nothing that didn't fit well within the bounds of the story at the time.
Makes me wonder how it would go, frankly -- and piques my curiosity enough that I would personally welcome a chance to participate in such a thing (or run it, eventually -- I'm starting to pile up a whole lotta stuff I wanna try out now, geeze)
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Good to know, Bull.
I guess I may have to swallow my pride and attend a Gen Con in Indianapolis... under protest and extreme duress of course, but might have to swallow my pride and attend.
Im sure that with enough alcohol you'll get over it.
8)
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Related to my comment in Pet Peeves, is there such a thing as competitive Shadowrun?
Missions is fun, but hardly competitive or tournament style. I'm looking for something where poor character design might be a real problem and making bad decisions on a run would have real and lasting consequences, like failing the run.
Does anything like that exist or is that just a pipe dream?
If it did exist, I'd like to run it. I am beginning to get the impression over the years that I am a pretty tough GM.