My friends and I have begun our very first foray into the world of Shadowrun. Here I will document our triumphs and disasters....probably a lot of disasters.
Week Two - Baby Steps
We started this week off with finishing up character creation. There are still a few things that need to be worked out, but I'm giving the players a chance to try out their runners before they make any permanent commitments. None of us have any experience with Shadowrun so this will help prevent anyone from being locked into a character that doesn't work how they thought it would.
Next the players began their first job. For this I am using the pre-made adventure 'On the Run' from the Runners Toolkit. The adventure it self seems pretty good, especially for beginners, plus it gives a lot of GM advice. Though I feel like it suffers the same problem that I have with the main SR4 20th anniversary rule book; the layout is terrible. Information is all over the place, telling you stuff that you wont need for a few pages then backtracking on its self. Nevertheless it does provide me with everything I need to run the game.
So first of all I'll introduce the characters a bit better.
First of all we have Takamoto Kimiko or 'Miko' a 50 year old human Japanese Rigger. She came to Seattle from Japan in search of a better life but has found her self a squatter and a criminal, but as least she is free to do as she pleases. Miko spends her days fixing vehicles and machinery for a mechanic friend. She is also a pacifist, only resorting to violence when all other options have been attempted, this may cause some tension in the group but we will see how it plays out.
Next we have the young Dwarf Hacker.... Simon, or as he prefers 'Neuro'. He has gone for a bit of a jack-of-all-trades character really, he may be good at hacking but he has also picked up some social skills, to fill in the 'Face' role when required. After all someone is needed to speak for the group. Neuro is also semi-capable with small guns so isn't totally useless in a fight.
Finally there is Viselliev (I have definitely spelt this wrong) formally Jurngen, a Troll Brawler from Russia. He works as a bouncer for a low level club and is an expert in smashing heads together, loving nothing more than being in the thick of a fight. He is a little dimwitted and prefers to let others make the decisions, hanging back until he is needed, plus he has a really bad fashion sense.
So that's the group. I'm a little worried about what will happen if they find themselves in a desperate situation, but as far as I can tell, in Shadowrun it's best to avoid fire fights so this may not be too much of a problem if they play smart.
The game began with Miko receiving a call from her Fixer with a job. She was directed to meet Mr Johnson at the Infinity night Club at 9pm. Miko promptly gathered her fellow runners and they met outside the club. Miko and Neruo went in without a problem, but Viselliev (I must find out how he spelt this) wasn't so lucky. His poor fashion sense worked against him and the Bouncers wouldn't let him in, not sure what to do he decided to accost an innocent club goer in an ally next to the club and swap clothes, this certainly didn't help things considering the human clothes were a poor fit for his Troll physique. The guy ran off, but there still may be repercussions for this. So now dressed in overly tight leather displaying his entire midriff to the world Viselliev attempted to enter the club again. The bouncers very confused at what they were seeing, didn't know how to react and accepted a somewhat smaller bribe than they usually would and let the Troll in.
Miko and Neuro, slightly scared at the sight of Viselliev tried to push forward with the mission at hand and promptly bribed the elf barmaid to take them to see Mr Johnson. Mr J explained that his employer had something of value stolen from him, an old-style optical disc and he wanted the runners to retrieve it. Neruo attempted to persuade Mr Johnson to up his 10,000¥ payment but failed, still the team was happy with the amount and left in order to begin their legwork.
Things slowed down a lot here, the players had a lot of discussion and roleplay, which was great as it is something that didn't happen much when we played DnD. It will be a lot better though when we don't have to check the rule book every time someone wants to do something but that will come with practice.
Through contacts and data searches they managed to discover that there was a good chance this stolen disc holds some lost tracks from legendary rocker JetBlack and that many big personalities in the music business received a fairly vague email offering a disc with something very special on it for sale, including the very popular Goblinrocker Nabo, who they discovered is playing a gig in an old warehouse in two days. Unfortunately it took them a very long time to bite this hook and kept trying to find more information from other sources which led to Viselliev not having a whole lot to do. I kept mentioning the Nabo gig and eventually they decided to attempt to access his comlink to retrieve the email while he is on stage.
The game ended with Visselliev and Neuro going to check out the warehouse where the Nabo gig is being held. We had to finish there as we ran out of time. Next week we should be able to get through a fair bit more now that everyone has a better idea of what to do.
So will they manage to sneak into the gig? can they find who is selling the disc? does it contain what they think it does? Find out next time.
