Since my D&D campaign was concluded, I’ve been free to enjoy some gaming while Dennis was leading his campaign. With his absence as he escaped to Paris, Frank has taken over, and my days of RPG leisure are continuing. However, I have been planning and scheming, of course. This process knows several phases, and I just completed phase one; deciding which game it’s going to be. The choices before me were Shadowrun, D&D, Call of Cthulhu or In Nomine. I asked the players which game they wanted me to run next, and there was majority that asked for Shadowrun. My D&D campaign can be picked up and continued, Call of Cthulhu is such a fantastic setting that we can continue that at any one point. In Nomine is a bit different, and I’ve never run it before, but I have a great idea for it, and have had that for the last several years, but it’s going to be quite an achievement that actually get that going. And Shadowrun, well, let me just say that I’ll be happy to get back to that any time, though I’m not sure if I want to get into 4th edition yet. So it seemed obvious; most of the players want it, and I want it, so Shadowrun it’ll be.
The next phase is to decide what to run. The problem with Shadowrun had always been an inconsistent storyline, something I only recently learned how to do properly when I prepared my D&D campaign. Before that it the individual stories didn’t flow properly in my opinion. Sure, there were overarching storylines and a relatively rich setting in terms of locations and NPCs, but it didn’t mesh well. One month I’d be all about Bugs, and the next I’d be all about Harlequin’s Back, and the following I’d plunge headlong into Mob War. And so, I’ve decided to reset everything and perhaps keep a few NPCs I liked and a location or two.
I’ve also been toying with the idea of radically changing metahumanity. I’ve always been a bit bothered by the Tolkienesque part of Shadowrun. I like the mysticism, mind you, but I don’t like the idea of actual elves and trolls in the game, nor the idea of magic being anything less than mysterious and mystical. I’ve been saying the later for years, but the former opinion is new, and I’ve got to give that some more thought. I was thinking of changing it slightly so that orcs and trolls were the product of severe pollution, sort of in the same way that there are mutants in games like Fallout. I recognise that it doesn’t explain dwarves and elves, but perhaps they can be the product of the same. In the end, it wouldn’t change much, except the flavour of the game, moving slightly away from manapunk and more towards cyberpunk. I am looking forward to start with a clean slate. There are definitely things I want to keep from my old games, but it’d be nice to put things aside and start over, simply because, looking back, there are so many things I’d have done differently which caused problems later on. I hope that the players are not going to be too upset by that, and won’t feel the urge to rely on old information too much.
So yeah, back to what to run; I have been thinking about the Renraku Arcology: Shutdown storyline for a long, long time. It’s a bit overwhelming, and it’ll definitely need a lot of changes before it’s runnable, but I want to do it. I’m not (ever-ever!) going to take it as it was published, but between playing Gears of War and BioShock lately, and having played System Shock II two or three times over the last five years, I think I have pretty good idea of what I want to do. I’m not entirely certain on how to start it all, since the true origins of the story starts way-way-way back in the official Shadowrun timeline, but I’ll find a way to gather all the important information and tie it all together.