NationStates Jolt Archive

Does anybody else on NSG think Shadowrun is one of the coolest roleplaying games ever? What kind of characters do you usually play?

For those of you out of the cool loop:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadowrun

I'm big on Adepts, personally.

I've only played the Shadowrun game for Sega Genesis, which was fucking awesome, but wasn't the pen-and-paper RPG itself.

I probably should though, since it seems like something I'd be interested in.

I enjoyed Shadowrun. Pity it never became more popular. I had a thing for Combat Mages. *nod*

I enjoyed Shadowrun. Pity it never became more popular. I had a thing for Combat Mages. *nod*

I've never played a Combat Mage (Only been in one campaign), but I did think about playing one. The unplayed one, and any I create in the future, will start with Force 6.

"You do HOW much damage with that powerbolt?"

my longest character was a street samurai.

I've never had the opportunity to play, although I've glanced over the rulebooks from time to time. Looks like fun.

No one will ever play with me. =( My husband and friends apparently played lots of Shadowrun in their early years of college, and pretty much haven't touched it since.

Kinda sad FASA/MS decided to release Shadowrun as Just Another FPS.

Huge shadowrun fan. Currently (well, the game's on hiatus, but will be back) playing a troll wolf shaman named Nighteyes. I love SR4 and buy nearly everything SR related I can get my hands on.

No, but I've always wanted to.
The Sega game was pretty cool, though the inferior SNES version had better graphics. The stupid forest-and-cave maze in the Sega SR was hell of annoying though.

I enjoyed Shadowrun. Pity it never became more popular. I had a thing for Combat Mages. *nod*
What a weird and unexpected thing to have in common with you.
Kinda sad FASA/MS decided to release Shadowrun as Just Another FPS.
The truth, Ruth.


Aside from the afore mentioned combat mage, I also tried to play a rigger for a little bit until what made those guys interesting wasn't really dealt with in the game (and doing so would have slowed the game down to a dull, pointless, half-assed Car Wars) (However, a friend found a way to make a Rigger fun to play without boring mechanisms, so...), a voodoo shark Shaman, and I'm blanking...damn, I know I played something else but I can't remember. I never played a decker. I think it was a Troll of some sort. I wanted to play a gargoyle.

Played briefly as a Decker.

Big shock, yes?

I even have a few of the Shadowrun Clicky Figures.

Ironically the sole WizKids clicky game to die a disappointing failure.

:(

I thought Shadow Runner for SNES rocked, that's about all I know.

Never played it, but I find the cyberpunk setting quite interesting.

Wanted to. Generated a bajillion characters. Never got a campaign started, though.

Played briefly as a Decker.

Big shock, yes?

My husband put together a whole manual on playing a decker (I think), but couldn't publish it or put it online or anything because it had so much copywrited stuff and the makers of the game wouldn't put it out either. It really was a shame though - he spent a lot of time on it.

Does anybody else on NSG think Shadowrun is one of the coolest roleplaying games ever? What kind of characters do you usually play?

For those of you out of the cool loop:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadowrun

I'm big on Adepts, personally.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadlands <----- infinitely better

Lemme put it this way, Bruce Campbell wrote a one page forward in the PHB. What other pen and paper game can make that claim?

Kinda sad FASA/MS decided to release Shadowrun as Just Another FPS.

Battletech was a much better FASA series anyway...

As a tactical board game. Whole different bag.

Wanted to. Generated a bajillion characters. Never got a campaign started, though.

You know what was that game for me? Both Judge Dredd and Paranoia. For some reason whenever 'we' played those games I wasn't there. Like...15 years ago. Never had the chance. It wouldn't even be that big a deal except, you know, not getting to all these years.

I had the Battletech 'kit' (I had abused an office copier and made sheets for all the mechs that I put in giant folder that also had all the maps and copies of all the charts in it as well as a box with all the chits and 'dice rollers' (two miniatures packaging covers tapped together with two dice in them so that rolling the dice wouldn't knock the chits)) so when I showed up we played Battletech more often. In retrospect I should have 'accidentally' left it at home a few times. [/whiny nerd rant]

As a tactical board game. Whole different bag.

Granted. But I never really got into Shadowrun. I guess I'm just not that into cyberpunk.

Battletech was a much better FASA series anyway...

As a tactical board game. Whole different bag.

Here I was writing my rambling thinking I was going to be bringing Battletech up out of the blue...

The roleplaying aspect of Battletech (MechWarrior) left something to be desired.

You know what was that game for me? Both Judge Dredd and Paranoia. For some reason whenever 'we' played those games I wasn't there. Like...15 years ago. Never had the chance. It wouldn't even be that big a deal except, you know, not getting to all these years.

I had the Battletech 'kit' (I had abused an office copier and made sheets for all the mechs that I put in giant folder that also had all the maps and copies of all the charts in it as well as a box with all the chits and 'dice rollers' (two miniatures packaging covers tapped together with two dice in them so that rolling the dice wouldn't knock the chits)) so when I showed up we played Battletech more often. In retrospect I should have 'accidentally' left it at home a few times. [/whiny nerd rant]

Given that my group plays mostly non-paper intensive pen and paper games, we tend to keep all our crap, excluding a few PHBs for quick reference, on our labtops.

I have the deadlands, D&D, spycraft, and cthulhu resource books on this computer right now, a couple more on a different computer, and several cds full of the pds for practically all of 3.0 and 3.5 D&D.

Here I was writing my rambling thinking I was going to be bringing Battletech up out of the blue...

The roleplaying aspect of Battletech (MechWarrior) left something to be desired.

Really depends on your DM, to be honest.

Our DM had a tendency of throwing us into situations where we were totally in over our head to force us to RP, initially, instead of just treating it like it was Warhammer all over again.
After a while he toned down the difficulty and we kept on the RP aspect of the game. Even had a few campaigns that had almost no mech combat.

Given that my group plays mostly non-paper intensive pen and paper games, we tend to keep all our crap, excluding a few PHBs for quick reference, on our labtops.

I have the deadlands, D&D, spycraft, and cthulhu resource books on this computer right now, a couple more on a different computer, and several cds full of the pds for practically all of 3.0 and 3.5 D&D.

Well, Sonny...you have to understand that this was at a time when the closest thing to a laptop available was the size of a large suitcase and weighed about 25 pounds.

Really depends on your DM, to be honest.

Our DM had a tendency of throwing us into situations where we were totally in over our head to force us to RP, initially, instead of just treating it like it was Warhammer all over again.
After a while he toned down the difficulty and we kept on the RP aspect of the game. Even had a few campaigns that had almost no mech combat.

A good GM can make a game based on Strawberry Shortcake compelling.

Well, Sonny...you have to understand that this was at a time when the closest thing to a laptop available was the size of a large suitcase and weighed about 25 pounds.

Oh I'm well aware of that. We haven't always had laptops.

And we've still got hardcopies of all the Deadlands, Spycraft, D&D, and Marvel resources. It's just easier to use fast laptops and pdfs, especially in chargen when the books would normally be being passed around 20 or so times a minute.

Ahh...I'm looking forward to a neat Marvel campaign this summer.
It's a diceless system, so since our DM decided to go with a "new, young mutants discovering their powers" theme, we added a player skill aspect to the game (if you can't physically complete a certain task, determined by your character's power, your ability use goes haywire. Ex: for a character who can control water, the player has to fill a cup up to a certain line blindfolded. How close he is to the line determines the level of success or haywire.)

A good GM can make a game based on Strawberry Shortcake compelling.

This is true. I took a fairly cliche (in my opinion) plot point and made it into one of our group's classic campaigns.

Basically I made everyone's character, gave them all amnesia, and forced them to use an accrued point system instead of the standard D&D experience system to "remember" their feats, skills, spells, levels, and abilities. I also provided many flashback and remembrance situations, and so the character's motivation for doing things was tracking down their collective pasts.

It was a fun game.

I prefer Steampunk to Cyberpunk, to be honest.

This is true. I took a fairly cliche (in my opinion) plot point and made it into one of our group's classic campaigns.

Basically I made everyone's character, gave them all amnesia, and forced them to use an accrued point system instead of the standard D&D experience system to "remember" their feats, skills, spells, levels, and abilities. I also provided many flashback and remembrance situations, and so the character's motivation for doing things was tracking down their collective pasts.

It was a fun game.
One of the funnest things I've done in a game is taking an oversight by the players when I was running Shadowrun (to bring this back to topic as well) where they forgot some dude they captured. I figured that they continued to hold on to him and he slowly went insane and developed an obvious deep seated Caliban like hatred for them. The roleplaying that went into mitigating that was really quite remarkable (trying to figure out how to release him without having him hunt them down, etc. We played the game pretty tight and while they would shoot at guards etc. they didn't take killing people lightly since it would make their lives more difficult. I think they did finally decided to kill him but then he escaped...I can't remember exactly.)

EDIT: OH! The amnesia thing-my favorite character. It was a D&D character that woke up on a battle field with no standard and no memory so he didn't know which side of the fight he was on so he didn't know which direction to go, so he went a third way until he could figure out who he was and where he came from. Some might say I was pawning off backstory on the GM, but those people are...well...shut up...

Last time I played a good game of Shadowrun, I was GMing (a fate I seem to be doomed to endure). Took my players thru Silent Hill.

Heh, they were so jumpy by the end I had them shooting at shadows (i.e. shadows of their teammates...)

One of the funnest things I've done in a game is taking an oversight by the players when I was running Shadowrun (to bring this back to topic as well) where they forgot some dude they captured. I figured that they continued to hold on to him and he slowly went insane and developed an obvious deep seated Caliban like hatred for them. The roleplaying that went into mitigating that was really quite remarkable (trying to figure out how to release him without having him hunt them down, etc. We played the game pretty tight and while they would shoot at guards etc. they didn't take killing people lightly since it would make their lives more difficult. I think they did finally decided to kill him but then he escaped...I can't remember exactly.)

Yeah our group tends to be very big on consequences of actions. It's one of the reasons I prefer games that don't have a set alignment system. It's much more meaningful to have your characters have a distinct personality than a "Graa, I'm an LG Paladin, smite smite smite." mentality, or a "NE, if you can't help me then BURN!" mentality.

Which is why I was disappointed when I moved to Philly and found a group at my college down there.

Man...those guys sucked it big.

Last time I played a good game of Shadowrun, I was GMing (a fate I seem to be doomed to endure). Took my players thru Silent Hill.

Heh, they were so jumpy by the end I had them shooting at shadows (i.e. shadows of their teammates...)

We did something similar involving a Cthulhu campaign. We tend to play at night, overnight, and this particular time I was fortunate enough to be running the game in the middle of a power outage. So we're sitting there, huddled around the table, playing by candle light.

I swear, my friend's cat came into the room after a particularly horrifying scene involving something from (I think) Silent Hill II, rubbed up against our host's leg, and his fear-stricken falling-out-of-chair response led to everyone else screaming like little girls for a minute or two.

But that was a really lucky thing to have the power outage right there.

...man what a bunch of pussies.

Yeah our group tends to be very big on consequences of actions. It's one of the reasons I prefer games that don't have a set alignment system. It's much more meaningful to have your characters have a distinct personality than a "Graa, I'm an LG Paladin, smite smite smite." mentality, or a "NE, if you can't help me then BURN!" mentality.

Which is why I was disappointed when I moved to Philly and found a group at my college down there.

Man...those guys sucked it big.

I'd be screwed in those games. My characters are theatric. As in, in one Shadowrun game, I used ropes to make a corpse into a puppet and used it to absorb police gunfire, then used it as an anchor for jumping out the window, and finally loaded it full of explosives and slung it into the window (Well, only half of it, actually). Of course, everyone on the street started staring, so I had my character just yell "WAS THAT A ROCK SHOW OR WHAAAAAAATTTT?"

Then one of the police officer's hats floated to the ground, and it was time to flee. Then I sent the body to the guy who had hired us, along with the thing he asked for. Via FedEx.

I'm the American Indian of players. I use every part of everything.

I'd be screwed in those games. My characters are theatric. As in, in one Shadowrun game, I used ropes to make a corpse into a puppet and used it to absorb police gunfire, then used it as an anchor for jumping out the window, and finally loaded it full of explosives and slung it into the window (Well, only half of it, actually). Of course, everyone on the street started staring, so I had my character just yell "WAS THAT A ROCK SHOW OR WHAAAAAAATTTT?"

Then one of the police officer's hats floated to the ground, and it was time to flee. Then I sent the body to the guy who had hired us, along with the thing he asked for. Via FedEx.

I'm the American Indian of players. I use every part of everything.

Creative solutions should always be encouraged. Anything that mitigates dice bowling.

We did something similar involving a Cthulhu campaign. We tend to play at night, overnight, and this particular time I was fortunate enough to be running the game in the middle of a power outage. So we're sitting there, huddled around the table, playing by candle light.

I swear, my friend's cat came into the room after a particularly horrifying scene involving something from (I think) Silent Hill II, rubbed up against our host's leg, and his fear-stricken falling-out-of-chair response led to everyone else screaming like little girls for a minute or two.

But that was a really lucky thing to have the power outage right there.

...man what a bunch of pussies.

CoC works much better if you're going the survival-horror angle. It's much harder to do that effectively in Shadowrun:

"The room is dark, to dark for you to see effectively. You grope for a light, and when you reach one you see a malformed, bipedal creature stumbling towards you with a lead pipe in it's hands."

"I shoot it with my AK-97!"

*creature explodes in little bits*

Anyway, kudos to you, my friend. Silent Hill has to be the best horror game out there and the most difficult to capture. My favorite moment was when I demonstrated a scream from an apparition the characters were seeing. Needless to say, I can get my voice pretty shrill and they weren't expecting it. I got sidelong glances all day...but the looks on their faces was well worth it :D.

A good GM can make a game based on Strawberry Shortcake compelling.

You know there's some dark, nasty stuff hidden under all that sugar-sweet coating.

:D

You know there's some dark, nasty stuff hidden under all that sugar-sweet coating.

:D

"I'm gonna try to negotiate."
"It shoots you with a hand crossbow."
"Wait...WHAT?"
"Does a 47 hit?"
"A WHAT?"
"Yeah, I thought so."
"Okay, you take 1D4+5 and 1D6 fire damage from the bolt"
"Wait...WHAT?"
"It is a +5 Flaming Hand Crossbow"
"..."
"Roll Fortitude"
"Why?"
"Poison."
"Umm...12?"
"Take 3D6 con damage. It's covered in black lotus extract."
"Fuck."
"And another 3D6 as secondary damage."
"Umm..."
"Also their was paralyzing poison on it"
"Fuck."
"Also it summoned a Hecantoires riding the Tarrasque"
"The little girl says 'Anybody else wanna negotiate?'"
"Wait...the little girl is making Fifth Element references?"
"Yeah. She also has informed you that 'Death comes for you with long, pointy teeth.'"

I'd be screwed in those games. My characters are theatric. As in, in one Shadowrun game, I used ropes to make a corpse into a puppet and used it to absorb police gunfire, then used it as an anchor for jumping out the window, and finally loaded it full of explosives and slung it into the window (Well, only half of it, actually). Of course, everyone on the street started staring, so I had my character just yell "WAS THAT A ROCK SHOW OR WHAAAAAAATTTT?"

Then one of the police officer's hats floated to the ground, and it was time to flee. Then I sent the body to the guy who had hired us, along with the thing he asked for. Via FedEx.

I'm the American Indian of players. I use every part of everything.

We're not that strict, to be honest. We tend to keep a very loose handle on basic physics, just to make things interesting. In that amnesia campaign, the characters woke up inside a jail. While one of them was trying to get the key off of the belt of one of the (dead) guards that were lying there, the barbarian grabbed a femur from the skeleton in the cell next to his and pried the bars open (wasn't expecting him to try that, and it was a really good roll).
He managed to pry it open, then spent the rest of the time they were in that jail walking around with the femur as a weapon.

We're not that strict, to be honest. We tend to keep a very loose handle on basic physics, just to make things interesting. In that amnesia campaign, the characters woke up inside a jail. While one of them was trying to get the key off of the belt of one of the (dead) guards that were lying there, the barbarian grabbed a femur from the skeleton in the cell next to his and pried the bars open (wasn't expecting him to try that, and it was a really good roll).
He managed to pry it open, then spent the rest of the time they were in that jail walking around with the femur as a weapon.

You seem like someone I can share with this philosophy with. It's something a friend and I started saying.

It's this- WWBC? (What Would Be Cool?) It's the most important question that could be asked, in our opinion, during a game. Challenges are cool, creative solutions are cool, character melodrama can be cool. For us, dice bowling wasn't really all that cool.

It's why I never took to computer RPGs, they took everything I didn't like about RPGs and lost all the stuff I did. I just can't get into clicking on a menu while an avatar thats me flashes in front of an avatar that's the 'monster.'

CoC works much better if you're going the survival-horror angle. It's much harder to do that effectively in Shadowrun:

"The room is dark, to dark for you to see effectively. You grope for a light, and when you reach one you see a malformed, bipedal creature stumbling towards you with a lead pipe in it's hands."

"I shoot it with my AK-97!"

*creature explodes in little bits*

Anyway, kudos to you, my friend. Silent Hill has to be the best horror game out there and the most difficult to capture. My favorite moment was when I demonstrated a scream from an apparition the characters were seeing. Needless to say, I can get my voice pretty shrill and they weren't expecting it. I got sidelong glances all day...but the looks on their faces was well worth it :D.

Heh, the particular scene was a bathroom scene in (I think) Silent Hill 2.

And yeah, I can see that. There definitely is more of an effect from "If you don't move NOW, this thing is going to kill you. Painfully. And slowly. Did I mention you were paralyzed with fear?" than "Go ahead, blow it apart from the inside. Damnit, I need to find harder things to throw against you guys."

You seem like someone I can share with this philosophy with. It's something a friend and I started saying.

It's this- WWBC? (What Would Be Cool?) It's the most important question that could be asked, in our opinion, during a game. Challenges are cool, creative solutions are cool, character melodrama can be cool. For us, dice bowling wasn't really all that cool.

It's why I never took to computer RPGs, they took everything I didn't like about RPGs and lost all the stuff I did. I just can't get into clicking on a menu while an avatar thats me flashes in front of an avatar that's the 'monster.'

I agree wholeheartedly. I've had more scenes dictated by "What would be the coolest outcome from this," than I really care to admit. As a DM I often disregard dice rolls if I think the other outcome would be more interesting.
I also think, though, that with many skills you've gotta have something material to back it up with. It's fine and dandy for you to roll a 30 in Bluff, but if the best your character can come up with is "Turn around. T-turn around." Then no, it's really, really not going to work.

Edit: This is why I'm frightened that one of my friends is going to Law School. He is, perhaps, the most unnecessarily capable and convincing liar EVER. And he tends to have very long-winded tales and explanations to add in.

Does anybody else on NSG think Shadowrun is one of the coolest roleplaying games ever? What kind of characters do you usually play?


I like the setting and the general idea. The FASA rules were fairly complex - I have half an idea of writing a Rolemaster conversion of Shadowrun.

I played a elven rigger from Scotland, who lived in her 18-metres truck and worked (when not on a run) as a mechanic in countryside areas of the West Coast.

Never much got into shadowrun - i liked the idea a lot, but the game mechanics were a little annoying at times. combat with a new character could get excessively tedious. Having a decker in the group is annoying as they are not much use unless in a computer, during which it is basically a solo adventure with everyone else sitting around sucking their thumbs for a bit.

My favorite system was the old D6 version of starwars.

"I'm gonna try to negotiate."
"It shoots you with a hand crossbow."
"Wait...WHAT?"
"Does a 47 hit?"
"A WHAT?"
"Yeah, I thought so."
"Okay, you take 1D4+5 and 1D6 fire damage from the bolt"
"Wait...WHAT?"
"It is a +5 Flaming Hand Crossbow"
"..."
"Roll Fortitude"
"Why?"
"Poison."
"Umm...12?"
"Take 3D6 con damage. It's covered in black lotus extract."
"Fuck."
"And another 3D6 as secondary damage."
"Umm..."
"Also their was paralyzing poison on it"
"Fuck."
"Also it summoned a Hecantoires riding the Tarrasque"
"The little girl says 'Anybody else wanna negotiate?'"
"Wait...the little girl is making Fifth Element references?"
"Yeah. She also has informed you that 'Death comes for you with long, pointy teeth.'"

http://archive.gamespy.com/comics/dorktower/images/comics/gamespy098.jpg

:D

Never much got into shadowrun - i liked the idea a lot, but the game mechanics were a little annoying at times. combat with a new character could get excessively tedious. Having a decker in the group is annoying as they are not much use unless in a computer, during which it is basically a solo adventure with everyone else sitting around sucking their thumbs for a bit.

My favorite system was the old D6 version of starwars.

We played the hell out of that game. I played a pilot for a while then switched to a burnt out jedi with a blacklight light saber.

We had a weird pattern that emerged. No matter how we tried, we'd blow our sneak rolls, then try and con and blow those rolls, then try and bribe and blow that so we'd have to shoot our way out. It was almost unavoidable no matter how we tried to work it out.

We also started running a black market on imperial blasters to fund rigging up our ship. Don't know why, we never fought other ships or anything.

The SNES game was alright. I never tried the pen and paper version though.

You seem like someone I can share with this philosophy with. It's something a friend and I started saying.

It's this- WWBC? (What Would Be Cool?) It's the most important question that could be asked, in our opinion, during a game. Challenges are cool, creative solutions are cool, character melodrama can be cool. For us, dice bowling wasn't really all that cool.

It's why I never took to computer RPGs, they took everything I didn't like about RPGs and lost all the stuff I did. I just can't get into clicking on a menu while an avatar thats me flashes in front of an avatar that's the 'monster.'

You should probably look into roguelike games. Whilst you miss out on the character melodrama, they do a far better job of simulating creative solutions to issues than most of their counterparts. For example, whilst playing ADOM (www.adom.de) the other day, I encountered a rust monster, somewhat out of for my level 8 Halfling thief, but I was more worried about the equipment damage it would cause. Fortunately, rummaging through my backpack, I spied an oil of rust removal...immediately I thought "oh good, I can attack him now!" and then proceeded to use the oil to wipe the rust off my sword after I succeeded.

Only afterwards did it click that I could have thrown that potion at the monster instead. I love games that give that kind of creative flexibility.

I have played it and enjoyed it. I played a physical adept that I modeled off of Roland The Gunslinger. It was cool. I did not use any body modifications so I was not like min maxed or anything but that made it all the cooler. I role played him like Clint Eastwood in the Spaghetti westerns.

I loved the game. Played in a 4-year campaign a few years ago (3rd Ed). Played my usual combat Shaman character. Good times.

I love Shadowrun. I was even in a tournament where my character Knievel was named most memorable personality (call me a dweeb if you will!).

I mostly played vehicle riggers that had the equipment for drones; my longest lasting character is still alive and kicking long after most of his old chummers have croaked or lost thier nerve for the drek. His name is Knievel, and surprsingly enough he idolizes Evel Knievel.

I always sucked with mages...

I love Earthdawn! :D

I would have loved to see Earthdawn and Shadowrun become more integrated... I also would have liked to play more Shadowrun, I never really got the chance to do so.

On kind of a funny note about Shadowrun, it was because of the game that my husband actually new where my place of birth was. Because he played so much for a while, he had practically memorized maps of the Seattle area. I was born in a little-known suburb of Seattle called Puyalup. When I told my husband, he actually knew exactly where it was - before I even mentioned Seattle. =)

Did he also mention that the Puyallup is a volcanic wasteland ruled pretty much by local gang warlords?

I still remember how my wife reacted when I told her what happens to Chicago...

Does anybody else on NSG think Shadowrun is one of the coolest roleplaying games ever? What kind of characters do you usually play?

For those of you out of the cool loop:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadowrun

I'm big on Adepts, personally.

Not played it (only really played CRPGs, I was in a tabletop Vampire game but it got cancelled). From what I've read it sounds interesting though.

Did he also mention that the Puyallup is a volcanic wasteland ruled pretty much by local gang warlords?

I still remember how my wife reacted when I told her what happens to Chicago...

Yup. Well, I don't remember the volcanic part, but he did tell me it was a really awful area of town. =)

Great game, I've played it extensively.:D The pen and paper version, of course, not the computer game version.

The only char I've ever played is a elf combat mage.