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Message no. 1
From: "Allen St. John" <ShadoRuner@***.COM>
Subject: Missions
Date: Thu, 26 Oct 1995 18:19:41 -0400
Any one have any good missions that I can run some Players on?
I need one that will be very challenging (possibly to challenging?) for a
powerful mage.


I will observe you, but obseved I will not be....
ShadoRuner
Message no. 2
From: The Cuckoo Clock <cukoo@*****.NET>
Subject: Re: Missions
Date: Thu, 26 Oct 1995 18:47:26 -0700
>Any one have any good missions that I can run some Players on?
>I need one that will be very challenging (possibly to challenging?) for a
>powerful mage.

HA HA! <Bravado> I shall once again attempt to smite the evil of writers
block <End Bravado>

Try my web site, it has been designed for just such occasions (though it's
not yet complete) its at http://www.wolfe.net/~cukoo/index.htm

-Salutations from the Cuckoo Clock (cukoo@*****.net)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

"This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as
a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us."

-- Western Union internal memo, 1876.
Message no. 3
From: Mark Steedman <M.J.Steedman@***.RGU.AC.UK>
Subject: missions.
Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1997 13:49:45 GMT
Bull writes

> >>>1. Has anyone got missions yet if so what's it like?
> >
Yes, but only about 2/3rds read.

> >It's decent. The best mission in there is Mission Mars where it goes into a
> >bit of depth on Dunk's photo of Cydonia w/ the Flying Saucer.
> >
> I'm VERY interested in that, but please, nobody post any info about the
> Missions missions w/o serious spoiler spaces...
>
Generally i advise that everyone posts overall opinions only for now,
keep the detailed discussions for a few months while most GM's get a
go at running the contents, some of the discussions would spoil
stuff.


I have tried to keep opinions and comments very general. There is no
detail about contets here, comments on 'nastiness' and 'type' but
thats should be more help in knowing if you want to play them, and
generally unless someone want to give a lot away you will know a lot
more than this about each after 'visiting Johnson / your boss!'


4 missions.

' and i forgot the name of the first one!'
The first is intended for Lonestar charatcers, it could easily be run
with runners hired by te star or even other factions, but it would be
quite a bit different to play. Very good as it stands.


Malpractice.
Intended for shadowrunners, this looks real fun. The title is
suggestive but you brief gives away more than that anyway:)


Mission Mars
Awesome looking! It is supposed to be for a group of corporators,
with lot more company man levels of enhancement but as Mike suggested
can easily be done by runners, medias, nearly anyone, a bit of
overhaul in the NPC firepower department and it will suit nearly
anyone :). This is getting run soon with any luck. And no i'm not
giving much away :)


King of the mountain.
Intended for military characters, i've not read any of it but i would
be very suprised if it wouldn't convert for the more mercenary
equiped shadow team.


All the adventures are interesting. Karma awards follow SR
guidelines, and are a LOT less generous than some of the more
ridiculous old suggestions.
A fair ammount of investigative work is required for some of them,
and some of them do contain some decent firepower.
Full opinions will have to wait till i run some of them but they all
look good, and being investigation based most can have their powr
levels varied quite easily to suit teams from 'bunch of
relatively unboosted cops' to 'don't tick us off' big time runners.

Mark
Message no. 4
From: Celeste Waring <ltwiss@********.COM>
Subject: Missions
Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1997 09:21:02 +0000
Well, here is another jaded opinion of Vael's:

The formating of Missions is excellent. Overall layout and design for
the Shadowrun line has improved. Starting with VR 2.0, Awakenings, and
Bug City, the quality just hasn't stopped. Although I am not fond
of the general art inside the books, the art fits perfectly with the
style of layout. (The one artist that I find staying true of the SR
world <ie guns appearance and visceral content> is MJ. His art is
simplistic yet every little detail are things that you can pull out
of a sourcebook. With no overt dark shading, it's nice to view the SR
world with out squinting or standing far away from the page. Well
done MJ) (I forget his name I just remember the undeniable letters in
the corners of his drawings)

For sometime, I tired of the endless supplements from FASA, gear this
and gear that. The unending supply of SSC style books was wearing
thin. Gear is nice, but any GM can create stats for a gun. FOF,
(minus it's very nice rule addies) Cybertech, Corp Sec, etc all added
to the page an item philosophy and I started just buying 'another
sourcebook' ho hum.

When Findley passed on, I feared the most for the line. Findley had
almost single handedly carried the line for so long, that I
wasn't sure of it's future. (Tom and Carl did add, but I felt Nigel's
passion for the world in his work.)

But thank god, this didn't happen. If anything, the passion is back,
bigger. A youthful invigorating style has fell across the books and I
am once again excited to get the next book.

Missions carries on this vigor, and is a nice follow-up to Beyond the
shadows.

Of the adventures presented in Missions, I found the Mission: Mars
the most troubled of the bunch. I found the King of the Mountain
adventure the most appealing.

I'll leave the detailed discussion of my gripes of Mission: Mars for
a later time, after everyone has played them.

Vael
Message no. 5
From: Gurth <gurth@******.NL>
Subject: Re: Missions
Date: Tue, 18 Feb 1997 10:19:41 +0100
Celeste Waring said on 9:21/17 Feb 97...

> For sometime, I tired of the endless supplements from FASA, gear this
> and gear that. The unending supply of SSC style books was wearing
> thin.

How do you figure there's been an "unending supply" of gear sourcebooks
from FASA? The majority don't deal with gear at all, and the ones that do
also put in background material and other useful stuff like optional
rules...

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
Oh, paradise... on my TV...
-> NERPS Project Leader & Unofficial Shadowrun Guru <-
-> The Plastic Warriors Page: http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/plastic.html <-

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Message no. 6
From: Vael Lashar <ltwiss@********.COM>
Subject: Re: Missions
Date: Tue, 18 Feb 1997 10:22:39 +0000
On 18 Feb 97 at 10:19, Gurth wrote:

> Celeste Waring said on 9:21/17 Feb 97...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Should read Vael Lashar said ...

> How do you figure there's been an "unending supply" of gear sourcebooks
> from FASA?

Sorry, bad word usage, not to mention bad description of what truly
bugged me.

> The majority don't deal with gear at all, and the ones that do
> also put in background material and other useful stuff like optional
> rules...

SSC style books. That is what i was talking about. Cybertechnology,
Shadowtech, Fields of Fire, Rigger Black Book, Corporate Security
Handbook. I neglected to by these books for a very long period of
time. Simply because, when I flipped through them, I saw many
examples of One Gear a Page (GaP) philosophy. No, FASA doesn't have
an 'unending supply' of gear sourcebooks. But, they did have a knack
for filling up a book with one page examples of gear, and then adding
goodies to the end. Corporate Security was an exception to this rule.
It had lots of source material and a blast of gear and tech, but it
was enough that I didn't buy it for some time.

It's just a matter of personal preference.

I moved into a new town, where I knew no one that played SR, but I
enjoyed the material. So, I would plop down dollars for an Aztlan
source book before I would consider buying Cybertechnology. Fields of
Fire seemed to ramble in the first half, saying little that was
important, then a blast of GaP, followed by a nice set of optional
rules.

I simply was stating that recently the source material for Shadowrun
has been more balanced, not as much 'filler'.

From a players stand point, the GaP was a nice informative layout. I
would have settled for simply a summary description in an index at
the back, making room for more detailed and adventure envoking
dialouge. FASA's older books, (SSC, Cybertech, FOF, CorpSec) didn't
spark ideas in me. Sure, they sparked great ideas for new characters,
maybe even NPC's. Yet, there wasn't a spark of campaign promise.
Something I feel the newer souce material is doing.

Again, it's just a matter of personal preference.

Where as the GaP styled books, might have flourished ideas and
provoked evil laughs and sinister plots. I just felt it was
forwarding SR munchkinist loop holes for cybered and gunned gods.
Awakenings, VR 2.0, Dunks Secrets, Beyond the Shadows, Threats etc,
have been some of my favorite additions to my collection. My mind
reels in the possibilitys.

Missions, was a nice starter.

Vael Lashar.
Message no. 7
From: Brett Borger <bxb121@***.EDU>
Subject: Re: Missions
Date: Tue, 18 Feb 1997 17:57:55 -0500
>Where as the GaP styled books, might have flourished ideas and
>provoked evil laughs and sinister plots. I just felt it was
>forwarding SR munchkinist loop holes for cybered and gunned gods.
>Awakenings, VR 2.0, Dunks Secrets, Beyond the Shadows, Threats etc,
>have been some of my favorite additions to my collection. My mind
>reels in the possibilitys.

I (almost) agree.

I tend to dislike the packaged runs (not that they're bad, just they don't
match my free-lance style or work into my campaign.) I had a real pain with
the recent election, since if I wanted my gameworld to match the FASA
standard (optional, I know) I had to buy these books....but it wasn't one
source book, it was 3+ collections of runs.

Now it looks like if I want more history on some of the new Dunky tidbits,
I'll have to buy Missions, even though it is highly unlikely that I'll run
anything from it.

OTOH, I like some of the gear books. In short, I like the books that expand
your options (such as Shadowtech) while disliking collections of 27
varieties of SMG's, or Munchkin-enabling weapons (Ruger Thunderbolt?).

My favs: Awakenings, Grimmy, VR 2.0(Thank God...I had nearly exterminated
Deckers from my gameworld before this), RBB (desperatly awaiting RBB2), and
NAoRL.

My disliked: Germany, Prime Runners, Sprawl Sites, NAN, Cal Free State

Special Note: I tend to dislike Region sourcebooks...I guess I'm just bad
with geography, but I can't read the whole thing and remember enough about
the attitudes and places....I'm hoping Target:UCAS will be better. My
runners tend to stay in Seattle, or head for barren deserted reagions that
FASA won't touch.

I REALLY dislike the new merge-runs-and-sourcebooks thing. I don't mind the
runs being sold, I mind having to buy them for the non-run part.

-=SwiftOne=-
Message no. 8
From: Erik Jameson <erikj@****.COM>
Subject: Missions?
Date: Mon, 9 Mar 1998 19:50:20 -0500
Is Missions (the adventure book) any good? I didn't get it because I
didn't see any use to it initially (like, when am I ever going to need and
adventure for a DocWagon or Lone Star team?). But I've heard it mentioned
several times recently so I was wondering if maybe this is something I
should maybe pick up when I get Blood in the Boardroom in a week or two.

Thanks.

Erik J.
Message no. 9
From: The Vagabond <nomad74@*******.COM>
Subject: Re: Missions?
Date: Mon, 9 Mar 1998 21:02:23 PST
>Is Missions (the adventure book) any good? I didn't get it because I
>didn't see any use to it initially (like, when am I ever going to need
and
>adventure for a DocWagon or Lone Star team?). But I've heard it
mentioned
>several times recently so I was wondering if maybe this is something I
>should maybe pick up when I get Blood in the Boardroom in a week or
two.

If you plan on running alternate campaign ideas, then yes, it could
be. The Special Forces campaign I'm working on will include the "King
of the Mountain" scenerio(when the PCs get enough Karma). The DocWagon
campaign is originally designed for Shadowrunners in Missions- which is
something all the missions should have.
THe Spec. Forces Mission, the DocWagon Mission, and the Ares Security
Mission can be reconfigured to be played by Shadowrunners, but the Lone
Star one would take a bit more tinkering(but it's possible).
Is it any good? Better than some, worse than most.


-Vagabond <nomad74@*******.com> <ICQ 4297972>
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Further Reading

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