| From: | Geoff Skellams <geoff.skellams@*********.COM.AU> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Dark Conspiracy to Shadowrun (was RE: (OT) Dark Conspiracy news) |
| Date: | Thu, 2 Apr 1998 10:32:40 +1000 |
> So is Dark Conspiracy any good (considering I think SR is pretty much
> tops)? How useful would it be to pick up a book or two as background
info
> or adventures for SR? And how hard is it to translate Dark Conspiracy
to
> SR stats?
If you are interested in DC, I would for the most part, stay
away from the adventures. IMHO, they are usually pretty contrived and
get quite wierd (I have ALL the official DC stuff GDW printed at home,
and I don't really like any of the adventures). The sourcebooks are
better value, although it can sometimes be tricky to convert some of the
empathic abilities to SR. I guess the biggest one is "Dimension Walk",
which allows a character to physically transfer themselves to another
dimension, travel through it, and then step out at another point on
Earth (possibly after changing through another few proto-dimensions
along the way).
The books I would recommend as idea generators for SR are (off
the top of my head):
The main DC rulebook: DC used the GDW house system (the one used by
2nd Ed Twilight: 2000 and Traveller: The New Era). Great slabs of the
book are devoted to the mechanics of character generation, combat
(personal and vehicle) and a few other strange things. The stats are
(from memory, IIRC): Strength, Agility, Constitution, Intelligence,
Education and Charisma. Most of these would have something almost
directly related in SR (STR=STR, AGL=QUI, CON=BODY, INT=INT, CHA=CHA).
What you do about converting Education to Willpower I don't know. The
back half of the book has information about the game universe, and lists
a whole pile of strange creatures (both animals and sentients from
another dimension). A lot of these could be converted to SR in some form
or another. Overall, there is some good stuff in here and there is some
crap. Of course, YMMV.
Darktek: the "gear" book for DC. It has lots of strange devices,
some made by humans, some made by the aliens and some created by the
Dark Lords or their minions. I used one of them in a SR session a couple
of years ago, and it both scared and upset the players. If you are after
some strange tech made by some up and coming corp, or just something a
little twisted for your runners to encounter, then you might find some
good stuff in here.
Dark Races Vol 1: A whole bunch of races from other dimensions for
the players to run into. This extends the list that is given in the main
rulebook. All of them have a piccy, the DC stats and a page or so of
description. Not all of them would be useful in SR, but I am sure that
there are quite a few that would be, or at least have concepts that you
can pinch and give to something that exists in SR already. BTW: there
never was a Vol. 2.
ProtoDimension Sourcebook Vol. 1: This one gives details on a
whole pile of protodimensions that can be reached from Earth. Although
SR doesn't allow characters to physically transfer to another dimension,
this one could still be very useful in the context of the metaplanes of
astral space. This book could be used to give you some nice ideas for
astral quests and the like for your initiates. Like Dark Races, there
never was a Volume 2.
Empathic Sourcebook: This one expands on the abilities of the empath
in the DC universe. From memory (it has been quite a while since I read
it), there are three sorts of empaths, and each one is expanded on in
quite a bit of detail. I remember thinking that it was a good sourcebook
when I bought it, so it might have a few things that can be used for a
psionic character (as described in Awakenings).
The Novels: The three DC novels ("A Gathering Evil", "Evil
Ascending" & "Evil Triumphant") by Michael A. Stackpole are worth a
read. Especially "A Gathering Evil", where the main character starts the
book by waking up paralysed in a body bag on the way to a chop shop. All
three of these could give some really good ideas about things to do in a
horror tainted/infested campaign.
I used to list DC as my fave game (that honour is now shared by
Castle Falkenstein and SR) and when I looked at it a couple of nights
ago, I couldn't help but think how munchkin-based it was. Of course, it
didn't had to be that way, but if the GM wasn't careful, it could go
that way very quickly.
As I have mentioned before, converting DC to SR can be a bit
tricky (mainly because the abilities fundamental to DC don't mesh
exactly with those of SR), but there are plenty of seed ideas in DC that
would work very well in SR. I'm planning to start raiding my DC stuff
again soon for the campaign I am about to run for my group.
Speaking of great GM's seed material, I also picked up "The
Complete Mission: Impossible Dossier" at the weekend. It has a blurb on
every episode of the original show, including the transcripted of the
tape - "...Your mission, Jim, should you decide to accept it...".
Because a couple of players in my group have never played SR (or in fact
any cyberpunk style game) before, and the rest don't really have a major
in depth knowledge of the SR background, we're going to be playing a
Shadowrun: Impossible campaign. If people are interested, I'll let you
know how it goes...
cheers
Geoff
--
Geoff Skellams R&D - Tower Software
Email Address: geoff.skellams@*********.com.au
Homepage: http://www.towersoft.com.au/staff/geoff/
ICQ Number: 2815165
"The Stoat - pound for pound the most dangerous creature on the face of
the planet"
- Chris Irwin, spouting crap during "Over Port & Cigars..."
