More Interruption
So... I joined the San Antonio Sci-Fi/Fantasy RPG Gaming Guild a month ago but haven't had much time to actually join any games. Last week, Robin and I attended the first session of a new Shadowrun campaign where we decided to bite the bullet and play the team's decker and shaman -- despite the fact that Robin hasn't played Shadowrun in 20 years and I have never played it all. We've both been gaming for a long time and we like Lupin III, The Matrix, and The Lord of the Rings, so it seemed like we could easily jump into a setting that mixed up heists, hacking, and elves.
In retrospect, that was a terrible mistake.
While the mechanics are more complicated than I like, I think it was really the setting that left us baffled by the end of the night. Shadowrun is a weird, complicated world with a lot of idiosyncratic assumptions about character behavior that we just don't get. Trying to balance ongoing design issues with The King is Dead and Steamscapes: Japan, making up a new duet campaign, and learning a new world is just too much for my brain right now, so we had to bow out this week.
Which, as far as I know, leaves a team of street samurai and a face with no tech support.
Sorry.
I feel like a heel, but I really don't have enough space in my brain for that world right now. I'll try to make it up to everybody by running The King is Dead soon.
In retrospect, that was a terrible mistake.
While the mechanics are more complicated than I like, I think it was really the setting that left us baffled by the end of the night. Shadowrun is a weird, complicated world with a lot of idiosyncratic assumptions about character behavior that we just don't get. Trying to balance ongoing design issues with The King is Dead and Steamscapes: Japan, making up a new duet campaign, and learning a new world is just too much for my brain right now, so we had to bow out this week.
Which, as far as I know, leaves a team of street samurai and a face with no tech support.
Sorry.
I feel like a heel, but I really don't have enough space in my brain for that world right now. I'll try to make it up to everybody by running The King is Dead soon.
If you want to start the slow merinade of the setting, adding this podcast to your stitcher/podburner whatever is a great option. http://neo-anarchist.com/ it's an "in character radio show about shadowrun history.
ReplyDeleteI have also found Shadowrun rules too much work and draw away from the world. You should try Interface Zero from Gun Metal Games. The feel of SR but the mechanics of Savage Worlds.
DeleteEvery time Interface Zero is on sale, I wonder why I haven't bought it yet.
DeleteWhat are the assumptions about character behavior that you encountered? That kind of varies with each GM, IMO, more than baked into the setting itself. I've played Shadowrun many times over the years, and I've had GMs that went with open warfare in the city streets with cars flipping over and explosions going off and others that felt characters really had to stick to the shadows constantly to avoid everyone from the law to rival 'runners to corporate assassins.
ReplyDeleteThe main assumption that baffled me was that our characters would have any interest in working for a corporate suit in the first place, let alone one that hazed us by setting a drone to watch the rendezvous point where we were to meet the Johnson, and then sending a really jerkass Johnson.
DeleteAsking for humility from players is just so counterintuitive to the whole "Hooray! I get to pretend I'm an elf and escape my miserable corporate job for a few hours!" thing that I think most of us want from RPGs.