Bold New Vistas Of Adventure

[theron]

My Tuesday night gaming group is big.  When everyone shows, there are eleven of us.  Even with a couple of absences, we average a GM and seven or eight players.  Needless to say, this can put some rather heavy demands on a GM.  As the main game (a long-term D&D 3.5 Forgotten Realms campaign) goes on hiatus for a few weeks, we're experimenting with breaking into two smaller games, which will hopefully generate less GM burnout, allow for a wider range of RPGs, and hopefully encourage a bit more roleplay at the table (because, let's face it, there's no way to get a deeply immersive RPG experience when you've got ten players and a three hour play window).  The first two alternate games are a Gamma World-ish post apocalypse d20 game, and Shadowrun 4e.  I'm happily opting to play in the latter.

Shadowrun is one of those games I think is entirely awesome, that I hardly ever get to play.  In fact, despite owning all four editions, probably a dozen novels, and reams of fan-produced material for the game, I can count the number of times I actually played the game on both hands and have fingers left over.  None of the games were ever part of something long-term, and only one actually involved a character of my own creation (the rest being playtests for friends' convention rounds).

In the early 90s, I had a job working in a file warehouse.  It was sweaty, solitary work, digging through thousands of banker's boxes, pulling files and delivering them to another building.  I was the only person working in the warehouse, so my time was largely my own as long as the requests got filled.  I carved out an office of boxes and filled a spiral notebook with Shadowrun characters that never saw the light of play.  Of course, that was two editions (and decades of game time) ago, so few, if any, would be viable now, provided I could even find said notebook.

Not that I'm short for character ideas right now, mind you.  There's just something about Shadowrun, something I can't put my finger on that makes coming up with character concepts easy.  The hard part is actually figuring out which one to settle on.  No, actually, the hardest part right now is focusing on reading the rules in enough detail to figure out which concepts are viable and which are more suited to earlier versions of the game.

Comments

[srhall79.livejournal.com]

Shadowrun was a big part of my gaming experience from the time it was released on. There were some big stretches in the 90s when it was my group's go to game. I'd have to say the 4E rules are my favorite- I've got various gripes with the previous rules, the biggest is the unlimited advancement just getting silly.

I want to say most concepts should still work in 4E, but I have to admit I don't have enough experience with the rules. I've been thinking about putting it back into rotation, but haven't made the time yet.

[theron]

I honestly don't know how I managed not to play it. Seriously, I think I own every 1st and 2nd edition print product, except for DMZ, and a host of 3rd ed stuff.

I think some of it is because my wife fell in love with it early and always expressed an interest in running it. Because I'm the older-than-dirt experienced GM, I felt like I'd be stepping on her toes if I tried to GM it, and she never got around to it, apart from some convention rounds she's run. As a result, stuff piled up and never got played.

(To be honest, all of the 4e stuff in the house is her's. She's just letting me borrow it.)