This is Shadowrun

And here is the dramatic conclusion to this weeks ‘This is Shadowrun.’  Since I let the last section run over, this part is a bit short in comparision.  As would be expected things ended with a bang and the shadows of NYC were seriously changed by the fallout from this run.  I think I succeeded in building up the tension in this third half of the run.  Possibly not as easy to here it over the audio, but I could see the tension in their faces.

Looking back on it though, I made the escape much to easy for them.  After the hit the PCs are able to pretty much throw down the rifle and leave.  Not that I think that it was terribly unrealistic on my part.  I’m not sure what the polices response would be to a sniper at a big game, but I am pretty sure that unrestricted (or barely restricted) chaos would result, so just walking out might very well be possible.  However that was a bit to easy for my players on there current level.

If I had it to do over again I would have had the secound half of the guns program call some spotlights or something up on the snipers position.  Sounds like just the sort of double cross Lady Jade would have done, security would then lock that part of the building down fairly quickly.  This would have been even more exciting, but knowing the other players they simply would have abandoned Go to his fate, instead of trying to rescue him.  Building team loyalty has not been very successful this go around at least.

In any case enjoy and tell me what you think!

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So this is the second of the the halves of our last run. I let this section run a bit longer then I wanted to, it crosses over from leg-work into the actual set up for the run. I’m still getting used to this whole chop it into sections bit, and not entirely sure if I will continue my current pattern (not every run splits neatly into meet, legwork, and throw-down). Anyways this part of the run went well, but looking back on it I had two issues with it.

Firstly I felt I railroaded them into the back-stabbing their Johnson deal a bit to much. I am ambivalently about this. When I planned this run I out I felt fairly certain that they would immediately start looking for ways to back-stab the Johnson (the players hate the Triad for some reason). When they didn’t jump at this at the start, my main intent was to inform them that their might possibly be other options available to them, though I feel I was a bit overbearing on this. On the other hand, I was willing to let them go forward with the assassination of Putin if thats what they really wanted to do, and I feel that all they needed was some reassurance that a betrayal was possible.

If I had it to do over again, I would have both made them hold a vote on their feelings, and possibly had a contact or somebody contact them with a leading sort of counteroffer (something vague that lead them to believe a betayal might be possible). I had plans for what to do if they contacted the other organized crime syndicates, but nothing came of them, as the players didn’t think of this option (maybe I should have had the exchange drop their numbers in their lap, that would have worked well I think).

Secoundly I again think I went to easy on them. The encounter at the Jade Dragon should have been scaled way up (though Wolf rolled insanely well), and I should have made inflintrating Madison Square gardens much more difficult. I kind of hand-waved that bit, a bit to much I think. I should have made them plan out exactly how and what they were inflitrating with and had some more consiquences come of it. Maybe I should have had Putin only able to get them uniforms not passkeys, or some other speed-bumps. I’m usually pretty good a speed-bumps not sure why I had trouble with them this time (poor planning I guess).

But the run was still fun for all involved, the third half will bring us to our conclusions, and it will be up by Saturday. Its fairly short however. Enjoy and hit me back with some feedback with your thoughts, good or bad!

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Sorry for the delay in getting this episode up, real life intervenes. This was a fun run, which ended pretty well. My only complaints with it is that I should have thrown in a couple more complications for them (I think it was a bit easy) and possibly I railroaded them a bit. I’ll address the points when they come up later.

The meet part of the run went off without a hitch due to my careful consideration as to where to place is (during an NYPD) parade. Or else the players surely would have attacked the Johnson the first chance they got. I haven’t done one of these ‘get the players to betray there contacts/johnson’ style runs in a while, so I though we were about due. I got the inspiration from SR Mission 2-24 ‘Hubris and Humility’ but thats about it, the run is pretty much all mine.

I thought Go’s and the rest of the players hatred for the Triad (rather irrational, they were simply the first foes I set them against) and affection for Putin (their first Johnson), would make the betrayal a snap, alas it was not to be that simple. Audio quality is decent, but I made the mistake of putting the mike to close to me, it appears I am rather loud. I was hopping to get Travis’s voice to come in clearer, but I neglected to realize that he was sitting next to me. I’ve also included a little cut down song-intro from the Sarcastic gamers or someplace. Let me know if you like it, or have any better songs for an intro, we might try our karaoke talents out on them. As always enjoy and hit me back with some feedback.

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This is the third and final ‘half’ of our run.  Where the drek hits the fan (again in this case) or the throw down.  The players arrive at their apparent objective and deal with the opposition.  Actually however things went rather smoothly, though one character was seriously injured in this fire-fight. The opposition early in the run was much more difficult so I decided to have things go a little bit easier this time around, though their opponents still gave them a tough time. I am also going to have to begin taking measures to control Wolf’s access to his assault rifle.  He is entirely to lethal with it for common use.  Which makes sense since its freaking assault rifle.  I was much to merciful in letting him convince me that he had it just ‘laying around in the floorboard of his car.’  I have defiantly decided to ratchet up the level of police opposition on future runs and increase the ruthlessness and effectiveness of their tactics.  Also some magical opposition is in the works (cause nothing scares my runners like magic).  Though I do believe this run ultimately did serve its purpose of shacking the runners up a bit.

As all ways enjoy and hit me back with some feedback.  Our next session is on Monday with the first half of the recording going up late Tuesday, which should start a regular schedule for the site.  Session Monday, recordings up Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.  Other sections of the site may be updated on the off days but I don’t promise to keep to that.  NPCs did start to go up today however.

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This is the second of the three ‘half’s’ of our run. The legwork part. It’s fairly short and uneventful. The players were feeling the heat from their actions in a bit of a panicky mood. Which means my mission for the initial ‘meet’ part of the run went well. I did a lot of hand waving here on the part of equipment John’s character ‘Poon’ had as his character creation was not totally finished. Evidently neither was Travis’s character ‘Ichi’ who is lacking in contacts. We’ll work this out before next run though for sure, and get the Arsenal vehicle rules strained out (somewhat, probably).

This session is nice because it introduces (indirectly at least) most of the Major NPCs in my campaign. I hope to have a page up on the tommorow. Anyways, enjoy. The last half of this run should be up on Saturday. Feedback is always appreciated.

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Hey in case any of you are wondering, no were not dead. Last session didn’t go as planned, as I had to make a trip to Florida. I had scheduled a post stating that to go up, but evidently it didn’t happen. Disney World was great, but no Shadowrun happened (you don’t take your little sisters on shadowruns… at least I hope you don’t). But we played again this week and I’ve got the recording for you.

As a change from the last couple weeks sessions this one was pretty much a success. Though it didn’t start of as one in your traditional sense. Given the players increasing public displays of violence in the last couple runs and their continued run-ins with the law (and other powers that be) I thought it would be appropriate to go with a ‘backlash’ style run. Which is exactly what I did. Heavily adapting this weeks run from SRM02-22 ‘Backlash’. Though the players overpowered the NYPD in this inital ‘meet’ sceen, and I was not able to drop all the Horizion related plot hooks I wanted, I still thought things went well enough. I think I put a little fear of the powers that be into them, but if I had to do over again I would have kicked it up a notch maybe (though the opposition was pretty stiff). I still need to work on my descriptions of the scenes however. Also John’s new character ‘Poon’ makes his first appearance here.

I think I’m getting the hang of mastering this audio recordings, and this one turned out pretty well I thought. The audio quality is the best yet. We did have a rather, unusual interruption about half way in, but I have clipped that part out. Anyways, enjoy and give feedback!

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This is the second half of our session based upon the Shadowrun Mission, ‘An Ounce of Prevention.’ Which in this case did not turn out to be better than a pound of cure. Audio quality is about the same as before. This covers what might traditionally be called the ‘legwork’ or ‘planning’ phases of a run, though unfortunately we never actually get to ‘the run’ part of the run. As for like the 3rd time in a row this run ended in failure (or at least partial failure). This time with an additional PC death.

As a GM I’m not responsible for the actions of the PCs, only the consequences to them, and the environment in which they happen. That said, it would be foolish to think that the consequences of their action and the environment in which I set them has no influence on what they do. So their failures on this run are at least partially my fault. I think I could have done a better job in laying out the setting to them, and more clearly delineating the likely consequences of their actions. In particular I think I should have made clearer (or gotten them to specify) exactly when and where things were going down, I think given better prompting my players would have made more intelligent decisions about committing acts of violence in broad daylight. I also could have provided a better sounding board for there plans. Though I think the plan they came up with (ambushing an ambulance) was a good one, just not thought all the way through.

However I don’t feel any guilt about the consequences I imposed for their actions. If anything I was to merciful to all of them. I was planning to drop the hammer on them when they actually tried to use their forged IDs at the Doc Wagon hospital. I also think the ‘retirment’ of the parties hacker (Travis’s character, ‘Crash Overide’) and technomancer (Kelly’s character, ‘Cid’) seriously came back to hurt them on this run, as they lacked any serious means to deal with electronics.  But I would like to know what any of you might have done differently, and how you would have handled some of the situations that arose. Your thoughts are appreciated!

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We recorded this some time ago, but I though I better post it before it was no longer relevant to our game sessions. This is the ‘20 Questions’ with John and his character, ‘Bubba’ the troll. We tried to do most of it in-character. Bubba comes from up-state New York and is the fits the classic troll stereotype, big, strong, and dumb. John’s character includes the optional add-ons of a cyber-arm and leg.

All my players characters are pretty violent and bloodthirsty, but Bubba much more so than the others. I have to say he’s one of my favorites in the campaign. Though his violent and stupid nature has caused my players no end of grief, and John no end of delight. You can also check out the page on Bubba’s player, John.

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Here’s the first half of our latest session. I tell you at the start that this run did not go well, though it may not be apparent from this half. I was running (as I have been for the last several missions) and adapted run from the Shadowrun Missions series, An Ounce of Prevention. So spoiler warnings for that run I guess, though we did not in fact get much into this time. As per some suggestions I’ve tried to break my run up into more manageable chunks, this first half being ‘the meet’ portion of the run, though I run a good bit over it.

The meet went smoothly enough, though I was fairly certain Go was going to go after those gang members no matter what. The meet went pretty much exactly to plan, and I was successful in dropping some fairly obvious plot seeds for later. We’re still working on our RP skills, and me on my GM skills, but looking back I think I am improving, if only slowly. Any suggestions on what we/I could do better would be much appreciated!

Audio quality on this is good, but there is an annoying hum that I was unable to eliminate. Not an audio pro, so anyone with any suggestions on how to get rid of that would be appreciated. Also, old episodes should slowly start coming back up, in reverse order. Hope you guys enjoy and give me some feedback!

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This is the second half of our last run. Things went pretty well, though I wish the guys had handled the concept of making a run on a brothel more maturely. Anyways it went well, though I did not expect Go to intervene to save the girls, and certainly not to call the police afterwards. But it brought things to a swift conclusion, though surprisingly without much blood shed. All in all it went pretty well, but tell me what you think!

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