Forming a Shadowrun Team

[Conundrum]

I am looking for a group of people who will be interested in a Shadowrun campaign.  I would like to use this campaign to test coming back to play by post RPGs to make sure I will be sticking with it.  To this end and to make sure that the players are going to be sticking with it I would like to talk to players beforehand and everyone will go through an individual run or two or in small groups if people have characters with ties they want to establish in the past.

I have most recently been playing Shadowrun 5e so that is what I am currently leaning towards but depending on how discussions go 3rd and 4th edition are also options and while I have not played Anarchy in the past I am fine to try GMing that system.

The campaign will start in Bornholm Denmark, Fehmarn Germany, or Qingdao China.

The Bornholm or Fehmarn setting is mostly the same campaign with some slight adjustments whereas the Qingdao campaign is entirely separate.

I am not a fan of a lot of the newer metaplots such as CFD, I feel most happen in a manner often not relevant to runners.  I will be drawing more influence from books and plots more seen in places like the "Shadow of" series seen in 3rd edition.

[AndyZ]

Keeping an eye on this.

[Mosos]

Planting a very interested flag here.

[Conundrum]

Keeping an eye on this.

Planting a very interested flag here.

Do either of you have any personal thoughts or questions?


If we do 5th edition the date will be set back just a little bit to fall 2072.

I am also on the Elliquiy discord as DesuVult if anyone would prefer a more rapid response to questions.

[Mosos]

5e suits me fine. Did you plan to include smut?

[Conundrum]

5e suits me fine. Did you plan to include smut?

Yes, since cyberpunk and Shadowrun specifically often deal with sex in the setting it will come up in the game.  This can be simple such as a Johnson offering a prostitute as casually as he would a drink or a smoke during a meeting, get as dark as the runners getting hired to move future bunraku dolls, or part of a relationship with a contact being sexual in nature.

In expanding on this, I tend to tailor stuff to the players.  Johnsons won't hire runners not suited to a situation, if the party is mostly mundanes they won't get hired to deal with magical threats, if they don't have a face they are unlikely to get jobs that would benefit from one.  In that same manner Johnsons like to have research done, if something clashes with a party's morals they are unlikely to get hired for a job.  If you guys oppose slavers you won't get hired to protect their cargo, if you won't do wetwork a Johhnson won't pressure you to do it, he will find someone else.

[Lockepick]

I would certainly be interested to hear more! I played a lot of 3e, and a small amount of 4e and 5e, but not enough to really understand what changing the year does to my options or the technology of the setting; or even the nuances of the different settings offered. If that level of being new to the system is acceptable, I can refresh myself on the mechanics quickly enough!

[Conundrum]

I would certainly be interested to hear more! I played a lot of 3e, and a small amount of 4e and 5e, but not enough to really understand what changing the year does to my options or the technology of the setting; or even the nuances of the different settings offered. If that level of being new to the system is acceptable, I can refresh myself on the mechanics quickly enough!

The main reason the year matters is because of how the matrix changed between editions as well as some other tech influenced by the matrix.  Though, there is a supplement for 5th edition that includes basic rules for throwing tech back to 2055.

[Drowdeviant]

*plants flag but also keeps an eye on this one*

[PixelatedPixie]

I'd be interested (for 4A or 5E) if you run it.  I don't know that I have any real thoughts/questions offhand though.  I guess would you be using specific Shadowrun resources for the setting?  I have the 6th World Almanac from an earlier edition I think, but otherwise am not hugely familiar with Germany/Denmark/China in the setting.  Would you be allowing (if you ran 5E) non-standard creation rules?  Sum to Ten or what not from Run Faster.

[Conundrum]

I'd be interested (for 4A or 5E) if you run it.  I don't know that I have any real thoughts/questions offhand though.  I guess would you be using specific Shadowrun resources for the setting?  I have the 6th World Almanac from an earlier edition I think, but otherwise am not hugely familiar with Germany/Denmark/China in the setting.  Would you be allowing (if you ran 5E) non-standard creation rules?  Sum to Ten or what not from Run Faster.

We will be using Sum to Ten in 5e, I do prefer that method.  Sixth World Almanac is a solid source going up to 2070 a I recall.


Depending if you guys want to play Europe of China know that there will be a good bit of travel involved generally, you won't be setup in just one city.

Qingdao is one end of the New Silk Road, a rail line going from the Pacific coast of China in the Coastal Provinces, to St Petersburg, intersecting various rail lines along the way and moving through many major cities of Asia.  It is part of Shandong province, one of the coastal provinces not part of any major nation but instead a patchwork of microstates which have been propped up and abused by corporations.  This has changed some in the 2060s with the arrival of Lung to the region whose influence has spread throughout Shandong via the Red Dragon Triad.  The Pacific Prosperity group is an alliance of corporations that mostly dominate the region but are fractious and regularly fight with the Japanacorps and other influences to maintain their superiority in the region.  The surviving nations surrounding them bring their own bad of intrigue, the Republic of China, Manchuria, Korea, Japan, Henan, The Canton Confederation, and Taiwan all share roadways or waterways with the Coastal Provinces, and due to the heavy pirate and privateer presence interaction is common.  The Nationalist War is scarcely 30 years old at this point, still in living memory, and a new generation of young men and women appear just as ready to fight as the generation before them.

Northern Europe is a far less open area of conflict but has no shortage of competing entities.  Fehmarn is an island in the North German League linking them to Denmark in Sjaelland.  Bornholm is a Danish island in the Scandanavian Union and is in some ways far more isolated than Fehmarn as it has no tunnels or bridges connecting it to any mainlands.  It is easily connected across Northern Europe through the Baltic Sea though.  It is hard to overstate how many entities are involved in Northern Europe.  With Saeder Krupp eternally fighting to maintain's position near the top of the AAA pack, Erikka being a homegrown Scandavian corp that forged ahead creating the systems the matric relies on now, the varied German governments, the dis-unified Scandinavian Union, the gangs crossing borders to expand their control, the foreign influence of gangs such as vory backing Neo-Viking gangs using shamans to aid them in battle, the toxic zones and flooded regions of Northern Germany bringing mages of all stripes and enough smugglers to even worry the corps.  There is never not a flashpoint about to kick off.

[Love And Submission]

Interested as well.

[Orange Marmalade]

Always interested in Shadowrun! I have some reading to go though because I mostly played 2E and some 3E.

[Muse]

I would very much love to play fifth edition shadowrun. 

[NotoriusBEN]

man, I love the shadowrun universe, but I always feel like I'm writing a thesis when I try to build a character, even with a character builder tool like chummer 5e...

[Drowdeviant]

Question: Are we building characters with standard char gen, prime runner char gen, or street level char gen?

[Lockepick]

Whichever edition we select, I would appreciate a primer on what changes there are to the setting! I would also vote as Prime Runner myself, but I'll play which ever!

[Conundrum]

So while there doesn't necessarily seem to be a consensus there does seem to be general interest and I believe of the people who have expressed interest in specific editions I see the most weight towards 5th edition so we will go with 5th edition.  All English language sourcebooks will be allowed, and I am willing to port things forward from previous editions.  Just ignore the addiction rules from 5e as they are utterly nonsensical.  The rules for addiction will instead be closer to 4e's which was mainly GM fiat.

I see so far we have one vote towards prime runners.  Does anyone else have any feelings or questions on this or the location?

[Conundrum]

Whichever edition we select, I would appreciate a primer on what changes there are to the setting! I would also vote as Prime Runner myself, but I'll play which ever!

The main big transition to 4th edition came from Matrix Crash 2.0, which was the culmination of many events.  You have the merger of several large corporations to form Novatech, during the IPO a rogue AI named Deus invaded the stock exchange using the newly expanded processing power there to sustain himself and become something akin to a god of the matrix.  At the same time a terrorist organization called Winternight tried to cause Ragnarok.  Various forces managed to stop them as Winternight and Deus's plans collided due to Winternight's plan involving dissonance virus.  Dissonance was something discovered by otaku as an opposite to resonance and something that can damage and disrupt the matrix but also able to wielded by otaku (and no technomancers) in a manner similar to toxic shamans. 

This paved the way for the new Wireless Matrix, no longer is anything slaved to a landline but most technology is now fully wireless compatible off the shelf.  This reliance on being always online comes with some downsides for shadowrunners who may wish to hide their presence as some previous normal machine functions now require an online presence that can be found by matrix dwellers to get the full functionality out of some things such as firearms with advanced systems.

Corporations also have used this overhaul to increase their own domination in cyberspace expanding the power and reach of the Grid Overwatch Division while parceling up the matrix in some ways.

After Crash 2.0 many otakus have died but have also paved the way for the emergence of technomancers.  Technmancers are still a new and poorly understood variety of people, seemingly quasi-magical they do not interact with magical in any sort of traditional sense but instead have a connection with the matrix.  The wireless matrix has so much information pouring through it that many oddities have already begun to crop up, a dominant one is resonance.  In the past it took immense processing power in one place to create a UV Host, a host strong enough to make a matrix host on the wired matrix that felt truly real, like it was another realm.  Resonance realms however can be found as a natural occurrence on the matrix now by technomancers and tapped into as easily a mage would tap into a metaplane.

[PixelatedPixie]

I am fine with normal or Prime Runner without any huge preference.  I might would prefer China for the location, but again not a strong preference. 

[Muse]

Conundrum, it sounds like you're saying Crash 2.0 happened between 4th edition and 5th?  The wireless matrix came out with 4th edition.  Wasn't Crash 2.0 the event that lead to the creation of the wireless matrix? 

*  *  *

Well, if i really had my druthers, we'd play prime runner sum to 11.  With focus addiction not being the huge limiter that it is in normal fifth I'd love to play a spell casting swords woman type. 

[Conundrum]

Conundrum, it sounds like you're saying Crash 2.0 happened between 4th edition and 5th?  The wireless matrix came out with 4th edition.  Wasn't Crash 2.0 the event that lead to the creation of the wireless matrix? 

*  *  *

Well, if i really had my druthers, we'd play prime runner sum to 11.  With focus addiction not being the huge limiter that it is in normal fifth I'd love to play a spell casting swords woman type. 

They mentioned they played in 3rd I believe.

[Muse]

:)  All right, sorry for my confusion. 

[Callie Del Noire]

Peeks in.. interested..

[Mosos]

China does sound fun if you are a pink mohawk like me. Standard or prime suits me fine.