Back to the main page

Mailing List Logs for ShadowRN

Message no. 1
From: Ken Dye <kdye@*****.STANFORD.EDU>
Subject: First run....
Date: Sat, 25 Jun 1994 20:54:48 -0700
I have an idea. How 'bout people post what there first shadowrun
gaming session was like, whether it be humurous or, otherwise...
Lets just say that in my first session i was arrested by lone
star because of an incident with me (troll, lotsa cybertoys and guns.
Very triggerhappy) a cat in a bush, and lone star. [I obliterated the
rustling bush then the nieghbors called the cops for killing there cat
(not to mention blowing a few holes in there house) and was arrested for
"disturbing the peace"]
Message no. 2
From: Tim Skirvin <tskirvin@********.UNI.UIUC.EDU>
Subject: Re: First run....
Date: Sun, 26 Jun 1994 12:01:11 -0500
> I have an idea. How 'bout people post what there first
> shadowrun gaming session was like, whether it be humurous or,
> otherwise...

Sure.

Game Session One...we'd all made characters, amazingly enough.
I was a mage (don't remember the name any more, amazingly...). The first
session we had was just getting used to the rules...so we blew up a truck.
Of course, on the way TO the truck we found two fragging FIRE ELEMENTALS
wandering the streets...so we blew them up (we forgot that bullets didn't
hurt them...), with decent damage (one player: Assault Cannon. Even WITHOUT
knowing that rule, it sounded wrong on a fire elemental...) done to us, of
course...

We then proceeded to ambush the truck (full of guns <grin>). The
motorcycled guards were easy...One got picked off by Mr. Assault Cannon, I
took two with Power Bolts, and the last ones were killed with just plain
old guns. Then, Mr Assault Cannon fired into the truck's engine. Boom.
We got the guns, and LoneStar didn't even try to pick us up...

Next session...an almost REAL mission, for once. Well, we got the
mission. In the mean time, we picked up another player (a shaman), and blew
up gangers (through windows, of course...and we got to keep the motorcycles
this time).

Third (and final) session...we try to proceed with the mission. First
of all, we pick up another character, an insane street doc that refuses to
say that he's a runner. Then, our shaman tries to figure out what FOOD
she's having. *sigh* An hour later, something happens...I
sneak into the apartment invisibly, then cast a chaos world to get their
attention (low force). The whole party gets mad at me...then we go off, and
do part of the mission. I blow up bad guys with Uzis with a BIG Hellblast,
then heal the guy that was hurt. The Assault Cannon fires into their car.
Then, without any idea what's going on any more (and the troll wanting to
crash every telecom he sees...), I go on my cycle and the rest go in a truck...
they try to KILL me (when I'm the one that the mission's around, of course...
the guy we saved will only deal with me after what happened) on the road, and
I ride off into the sunset. Game over.

I had one more campaign with those people, and it last 2 sessions. I
haven't played at ALL since then, but I'll try again later...I need to
play some SRun soon...

-------------Tim Skirvin (tskirvin@********.uni.uiuc.edu-------------
"He's NOT a gibbering idiot - he's cured of gibbering, he's just an
idiot now." -- Jane, "Waiting for God"
Message no. 3
From: Darth Vader <j07c@***.UNI-BREMEN.DE>
Subject: Re: First run....
Date: Mon, 27 Jun 1994 13:25:53 +0100
> I have an idea. How 'bout people post what there first shadowrun
> gaming session was like, whether it be humurous or, otherwise...

Ok get a load of this, the first time I played SR it was with a GM that was
a total newbie in GMing (that was his first and last attempt at GMing, that had
nothing to do with me I swear :) and we didnt even have a proper adventure, he
just took an encounter from SPRAWL and blew it out of proportion. Anyway
my first char was an elven hermetic mage called Peregrin, he was pretty ok
as a mage (if not a bit inexperienced) and a total wimp in real life. He
fortunately had lotsa contacts in the Ancients (Ancients rule!!!) a buddy,
one contact-gangmember and a tribe :) . So the first thing I did was go
visit my buddies, the gangers decided to have their fun with this greenie
and told me that I could not be considered as one of the cool dudes as long
as I dint have my own bike *grin* . I protested that I had no money to buy
a bike and no inclination/time to learn to ride one, well the ancients would
have none of that and so they bagged me and took me out of a bar where lotsa
bikes where parked, they gave me a keycard and told me to pick a bike and
use this passkey to get it going, the assured me that the "card-trick" always
works. Anyway I took the card and walked up to a Viking and tried to do what
they told me - to no avail, imagine a complete tech-illiterate mage trying to
hotwire a bike. Then a street sammie came out of the bar screaming "HEY YOU!!!
WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH MY BIKE!!!!" and my GM smiled saying roll for
Initiative. That was the first lesson I learned in SR, initiative!!!!
The next day I woke up in my place, my head spinning and I couldnt remember
anything. I had no idea how I got there or who brought me there and I was
surprised to find the bike parked in front of the building. I took the bike
and drove (with my reaction !!!) to the ancients. They told me that they
took care of the sammie and that they where sorry for the inconvienience
but this "card-trick" was so hillarious they absolutely had to try it on me.
I asked them If I did something wrong and they told me that this "passkey"
is just a piece of junk, the whole "trick" is that you wait for the owner
to come out beat the shit outa him and get the real key *grin*.
Well the rest of the "adventure" involved meeting a shapeshifter and
helping her get her eggs back (golden eagle) from some evil enviromentalists.
But I'll never forget the "card-trick" :)

--
Strong am I with the Force... but not that strong!
Twilight is upon me and soon night must fall.
That is the way of things ... the way of the Force.

GCS -d+@ -p+(---) c+++ l++ u+++ e+ m++(-) s+/ !n(---) h*(+) f+ !g w+ t+ r++ y?
Message no. 4
From: Ivy Ryan <ivyryan@***.EFN.ORG>
Subject: Re: First run....
Date: Mon, 27 Jun 1994 09:25:24 -0700
To: Darth Vader,

Now THAT was a good "first run". That actually fitted what a newbie
character in SRII shpuld run into. Too bad your GM won't keep ot up,
cause there's brilliance there.

That was great, indeed.

Ivy
Message no. 5
From: Jai Tao <jdfalk@****.CAIS.COM>
Subject: Re: First run....
Date: Mon, 27 Jun 1994 14:41:29 -0400
My first run was as a stand-in for an already well established (if
extremely combat-oriented) campaign which a number of my friends were a
part of. I play with that same GM now, and one of the same people (when
he shows up), but the campaign is extremely different.
I stood in as a hermetic mage who had been "sleeping in the limo"
for the last few sessions, because the characters' player had not been
there. The rest of the group had, for some reason, gotten themselves into
a shootout with what I beleive was Lone Star (this was before the
Sourcebook, so they weren't half as nasty -- sorta like modern day county
police), and thanks to a lot of good rolls I was able to magically heal
everybody who got hurt with very little damage to myself.
As I recall, the combat was exciting and different (No more magic
broadswords killing three Kobolds a turn!), and the magic was much more
realistic than any system I'd played in (You got hurt? Okay, I'll call
upon the Great Hairy Hand of God for a Cure Light Wounds spell. You're
healed, there was much rejoicing, yay. Next round.) And, though he'll
probably get a swelled head for my saying so, this was the best GM I had
played with.
So, when that campaign was finally retired due to various major
players leaving the area, I jumped at the chance to join the new one.
But that's another story, for another time.
Message no. 6
From: the holy Entombed <rasputin@***.UMD.EDU>
Subject: Re: First run....
Date: Tue, 28 Jun 1994 00:30:58 -0400
On Mon, 27 Jun 1994, Jai Tao wrote:

> healed, there was much rejoicing, yay. Next round.) And, though he'll
> probably get a swelled head for my saying so, this was the best GM I had
> played with.

*head swelling*

And, hey: just for further reference, you weren't "playing with" me, you
were playing in my game...!! =^)



the holy Entombed //////
Rasputin the (not so) Horrible //--
rasputin@***.umd.edu //////

alt.fan.don-n-mike needs posts...
Message no. 7
From: Brett Ryan Brown <calvinoi@*******.SCRI.FSU.EDU>
Subject: Re: First run....
Date: Sat, 9 Jul 1994 20:35:04 EDT
>
> > I have an idea. How 'bout people post what there first shadowrun
> > gaming session was like, whether it be humurous or, otherwise...

Well...I have yet to 'play', but my first GM'ing
kinda'...well...sucked! I used the published adventure A Killing Glare
(I HATE that adventure. :( ) and my PC's ended up killing the main
informant on "accident" (the sammie said he just wanted to have a
little sadistic fun...) and the group was TOTALLY in the dark for the
rest of the adventure, with no idea what to do or where to go! I kept
on trying to drop subtle hints, but it proved to be in vain.
Eventually, I slipped up and read some information the book had in it
that I was supposed to read to the players, but that was assuming that
they already knew some stuff (that they didn't know!) They laughed at
my slip, and then went on, with this newly gained information, to take
out nearly an entire Urban Brawl team and a numerous Urban Brawl
security guards! (I was too unfamiliar with the rules, they kinda'
took advantage of me!) Needless to say, it sucked, and wasn't much of
a challenge for them once they found out about the info I slipped up
on! A word of caution: I would NOT recommend playing this adventure!


-L8TR,
-Calvinoi MindFlyer
--
_/_/_/_/ _ calvinoi@freenet.fsu.edu/calvinoi@*******.tlh.fl.us
_/ | | _ _ NOTE: All of the above
_/ __ _ | | __ __ (_) _ _ ___ (_) text put there by me
_/ / _` | | | \ V / | | | ' \ / _ \ | | is SOLELY my _own_
_/_/_/_/ \__,_| |_| \_/ |_| |_||_\ \___/ |_| worthless blather.
Geek Code (v1.0.1): GU d(-) -p+ c++(++++) !l u e m*@ s/- !n(---) h- f+
w+ t+(+++) r+ y?
Message no. 8
From: Lehlan Decker DeckerL@******.com
Subject: First Run
Date: Thu, 18 Mar 1999 09:57:40 -0500
Well it didn't seem to generate much talk on the list (or perhaps
that was during one of the threads that I was deleting in mass)
I finally got ahold of a copy last night. So far I like the layout and
the art, the price was affordable (12 bucks for a 1 short, and 2
medium adventures that you could easily expand on). The
character layouts (with everything from range modifiers, etc) are
nice. Particulary for new GM's. And the talk of combat, matrix
actions and such was interesting as well fairly well done for
newbie GM's. I might be griping alot about FASA's horrid delay in
updating the books for 3rd Ed. But the quality of the artwork,
writing and such seems to be improving. Kudos.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lehlan Decker, Unix Admin (704)331-1149
deckerl@******.com Fax 378-1939
Moore & Van Allen, PLLC Pager 1-888-608-9633
Message no. 9
From: Patrick Goodman remo@***.net
Subject: First Run
Date: Thu, 18 Mar 1999 20:43:43 -0600
>Well it didn't seem to generate much talk on the list (or perhaps
>that was during one of the threads that I was deleting in mass)....

I dropped a couple comments onto the list when I got my copy, but I think it
generated all of three comments. Can't remember what it was that was going
on at the time that seemed to distract from other conversations.

>I might be griping alot about FASA's horrid delay in
>updating the books for 3rd Ed. But the quality of the artwork,
>writing and such seems to be improving. Kudos.

My opinions mirrored yours. So far, those same opinions apply to the
re-issued Shadowrun Companion, too. The new, consistent cover layout is
really starting to grow on me, and FASAMike told me last night that it's
going to be consistent across the line at least as far down the line as
CANNON COMPANION (a name we're, tragically, stuck with). He also said MITS
goes to the printers on Tuesday.

He also, for the record, mentioned that 2060 is going to be a nice, quiet
election year.... <g>

--
(>) Texas 2-Step
El Paso: Never surrender. Never forget. Never forgive.
Message no. 10
From: valeuj@*****.navy.mil (Valeu, John W. EM3 (AS40 R-3))
Subject: first run...
Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2003 06:21:13 +1000
Ok, nothing like a good run first thing in the morning. Both physical and
shadow.

Anyway, I have a possible new play. She has a very active imagination and
writes a lot.
She's a lot like me really... Anyway, I think I can recruit her into
joining the shadows.
Since it's pretty much going to be just the two us for a while, any ideas?
Like have her make a character then thrust that character into the shadows
(Sarah Conner in Terminator 1 would be the idea here) or something else?

I don't have the books here, but thanks to Grendal, I don't really need
them. But it's kinda hard to convey setting without them.
Any ideas?
Message no. 11
From: uptoic@***********.net (Aethelwulf)
Subject: first run...
Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2003 13:51:55 -0700
> -----Original Message-----
> Subject: first run...
>
>---appropirate snippage---
>
> I don't have the books here, but thanks to Grendal, I don't really need
> them. But it's kinda hard to convey setting without them.
> Any ideas?

well with out starting up threads the others may find tiresome there is
always the novels

but otherwise look up the past what movie shoes the shadowrun setting the
best threads...

I would reccomend the into the shadoews anthology btw ;)

Aethelwulf
Message no. 12
From: maxnoel_fr@*****.fr (Max Noel)
Subject: first run...
Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2003 00:18:11 +0100
Valeu, John W. EM3 wrote :

> Since it's pretty much going to be just the two us for a while, any
> ideas?
> Like have her make a character then thrust that character into the
> shadows
> (Sarah Conner in Terminator 1 would be the idea here) or something
> else?

Well, there's something I've used a couple of times while writing
backgrounds for ex-corporate characters, which might be fun to try with
her.
Have her character be a mid- to high-level corporate
researcher/mage/whatever fits the concept. In an ideal scenario, she
should have little to no combat skills (if needed, make her create her
character below the standard power level -- say, 100 to 110 points in
SR3C -- then give her loads of karma after the intro).
When the game begins, she's in her office late at night, finishing
urgent work after everybody's gone to bed. That's when a team of
shadowrunners break into the room and ask her to come with them.
Something in the lines of "Good evening, your contract's been
renegociated, your new employer is waiting for you with an interesting
job that pays better than this one, now please follow us and don't
force me to use my Narcoject dartgun, thank you very much."
The extraction completes smoothly, but, somewhere between that and the
meet with the Johnson where she'll sign her new contract, something
goes terribly wrong.
Wrong enough that the entire shadowrunner team gets killed. And for
some reason (either she awakened, or managed to sneak away, or she just
got lucky), she's the only survivor.
Now, the problem is that before dying, the team's decker had, as per
the instructions given by the Johnson, completely erased her identity.
He was a very skilled guy: she doesn't exist anymore. At all.
Welcome to the shadows... Here, have some plot hooks. ;)

To make it work better, I would recommend letting one member of the
team survive... Amnesiac, or at least partially (enough not to remember
who the Johnson was or where and when the meet was supposed to happen).
It'd make for an easier entry in the shadow business, and he can be
used as a mentor for her.

Whoops... I would detail this, but it's getting late here ^^. I hope
that will inspire you...

-- Wild_Cat
maxnoel_fr@*****.fr -- ICQ #85274019
"Look at you hacker... A pathetic creature of meat and bone, panting
and sweating as you run through my corridors... How can you challenge a
perfect, immortal machine?"
Message no. 13
From: valeuj@*****.navy.mil (Valeu, John W. EM3 (AS40 R-3))
Subject: first run...
Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2003 10:21:29 +1000
>> Since it's pretty much going to be just the two us for a while, any
>> ideas?
>> Like have her make a character then thrust that character into the
>> shadows
>> (Sarah Conner in Terminator 1 would be the idea here) or something
>> else?

> Well, there's something I've used a couple of times while writing
>backgrounds for ex-corporate characters, which might be fun to try with
>her.

<snipt>

> To make it work better, I would recommend letting one member of the
>team survive... Amnesiac, or at least partially (enough not to remember
>who the Johnson was or where and when the meet was supposed to happen).
>It'd make for an easier entry in the shadow business, and he can be
>used as a mentor for her.
>
> Whoops... I would detail this, but it's getting late here ^^. I hope

>that will inspire you...

Sounds better then my idea, which would been ripped almost entirely from
Terminator 1.
Thanks. Anything else?

Further Reading

If you enjoyed reading about First run...., you may also be interested in:

Disclaimer

These messages were posted a long time ago on a mailing list far, far away. The copyright to their contents probably lies with the original authors of the individual messages, but since they were published in an electronic forum that anyone could subscribe to, and the logs were available to subscribers and most likely non-subscribers as well, it's felt that re-publishing them here is a kind of public service.

Thwap!