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From:	caelric@**.com caelric@**.com
Subject:	Brainscan
Date:	Thu, 01 Jun 2000 23:52:10 -0700

Message no. 1 Spolier space

Uh, ok, that should be enough...

Uh, wow, is all I can say. Very deadly, especcially the last part, and
very devious. Along the lines of Harlequin's Back in power level, but
nothing like it adventure wise.

Two things that stand out:

1-Runners get to meet and run with the Dodger, one of the legendary deckers
of SR

2-Runners without datajacks get them forcibly implanted....this should
bother a few people out there!

Dave

From:	elventear@***********.net.pe (Pepe Barbe)
Subject:	Brainscan
Date:	Tue, 25 Feb 2003 10:56:07 -0500

Message no. 2 Hi all,

I just Brainscan in my hands and plan to give my players hell with it very
soon. I haven't started reading it yet, but I want to know if you guys had
any recommendations for it.

Thanks,
Pepe

From:	maxnoel_fr@*****.fr (Max Noel)
Subject:	Brainscan
Date:	Tue, 25 Feb 2003 19:29:38 +0100

Message no. 3 At 10:56 25/02/2003 -0500, Pepe Barbe wrote:

>Hi all,
>
>I just Brainscan in my hands and plan to give my players hell with it very
>soon. I haven't started reading it yet, but I want to know if you guys had
>any recommendations for it.
>
>Thanks,
>Pepe

>>>>>>> [ WARNING -- POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD -- GO AWAY NOW IF YOU
DON'T
KNOW WHAT CAUSED THE RENRAKU ARCOLOGY SHUTDOWN ] <<<<<<<

Aah, Brainscan. I'm currently running my players through it, and
it's one of the best adventures I've read/played in so far. If run properly
it will be the source of numerous Mastercard (i.e. priceless ;p) looks on
your players' faces. Mine are in the middle of the part called Outside
Influence and the Johnson just gave them *the* call. Those of you who know
Brainscan will probably understand why I just LOVE GMing Shadowrun.
Anyway, here are my recommendations:

- Read it over and over. Appreciate. Grin evilly. Repeat until
you're really familiar enough with the adventure that you can (reasonably)
keep a poker face while running it. Your players will get fucked over and
over in this one, so you need to make sure they'll never expect it.
- Ideally, your players should never know you're running
Brainscan. So use the old trick of copying (parts of) the book (a trick I
think the GM in the second group I'm in is using with SotF, but I can't
prove it). Take notes. Write down the plans. If you're feeling lazy you may
scan and print the book, but you'll need to make sure your players won't
ever glimpse your notes. Well knowing the book will save you lots of work
here (I for example have been able to run "My Name Is Legion" almost fully
from memory, thanks to my players' trademark "yeah hello Max, we're
expecting you to GM uh... about now, so get over here, fast!").
If they know you've bought the book, tell them either that this adventure
is way too difficult for their current characters and that they'll get
themselves killed (which is true: expect at least 1 or 2 casualties in the
grand finale "Runners Ex Machina" -- you shouldn't try to prevent them), or
that you still have a couple of scenarios you've written down and would
like to run before... (which is not entirely false either... *egmg*)
- As suggested in the book, you should run your own scenarios
between those in Brainscan (related to previous point: the players should
not know whether you're running Brainscan or not). The 3 first appear
unrelated unless you know what's going on behind the scenes, and it all
starts to converge in "Outside Influence". The name of Deus should not be
mentioned anywhere before "Revelations" ("hi, my name's Ronin, and this is
my fellow Dodger. We'd like to talk to you about a common enemy." -- watch
out for heart attacks from Matrix users), at which point Deus should appear
to your players as some kind of distant threat. Then you go on to Outside
Influence, and when they get *the* call (you'll know which one I'm talking
about), the player holding the phone should respond by finishing the call,
hanging up, staring at you blankly for a minute or so, and saying something
in the lines of "I hate you." The poker face is of a critical importance
here, and guarantees a Mastercard moment as your players realize 1) that
they're involved in that after all; 2) that they're waaaaayyyy more
involved than they initially thought; and 3) that they're so f**king deep
in it already there's absolutely no way out: yes that stuff is suicidal but
you're gonna have to do it anyway.
By the way, I have even better than scenarios I run between those in
Brainscan. I have a player who's the GM roughly 50% of the time, and who
I've been double-crossing for almost 2 years. Oh, yeah, did I mention
Brainscan is a really big campaign?
- If you can get a copy of the "Renraku Arcology: Shutdown", get
it and read it. The information it contains is invaluable to get the
Arcology "feeling", not to mention that it's the best written SR sourcebook
I've read. Too bad it's out of print; should they reprint it I'd be on my
virtual way to buy it in a matter of seconds.
- Be evil.
- Have. Fun.

If you want I'll give you more detailed advice. I hope that helps...

--
Wild_Cat
(I love Shadowrun...)

maxnoel_fr@*****.fr -- ICQ #85274019
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From:	Gurth@******.nl (Gurth)
Subject:	Brainscan
Date:	Wed, 26 Feb 2003 10:49:29 +0100

Message no. 4 According to Max Noel, on Tue, 25 Feb 2003 the word on the street was...

> - Ideally, your players should never know you're running
> Brainscan. So use the old trick of copying (parts of) the book

There's an easier way: get yourself one of those vinyl covers that are sold
to protect RPG books, and stick the adventure into that. You could also
make one yourself by putting paper or something around the cover of the
book -- anything that will hide the real cover from the players will do.

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
Monster zonder waarde
-> Probably NAGEE Editor * ShadowRN GridSec * Triangle Virtuoso <-
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