| From: | abortion_engine abortion_engine@*******.com |
|---|---|
| Subject: | What is it about Shadowrun... |
| Date: | Wed, 19 Apr 2000 09:30:37 -0400 |
since late 1989, which means somewhere around 11 years. I was 24 when I
bought the SR1 main book. For much of that time, I've played at least twice
a week, and for the last few years, I've rotated around 5 groups with
multiple GMs and a core of something like 20 players. And yet I still play,
and still am involved online in discussion of it. At my age, and with what
might charitably be called a very busy life, I spent some time wondering why
this game - and no other of its type - had held my interest for so long.
The I realised something else. While we've played in such exotic locales as
Germany [brief portions of a few campaigns], Tir Tairngire [entire
campaign], Tir N'an Og [portions of several campaigns], the Middle East
[entire campaign], Denver [3 entire campaigns], Chicago [count 'em, *5*
entire campaigns!], and various other countries and locales, there are so
many we haven't played in. Although we've all read California Free State, we
*still* have done little more than visit it. While we've talked about a full
NAN campaign - come on, we've got 2 whole books devoted to it - we've still
just, essentially, vacationed there. We've played maybe two adventures with
Cyberpirates material, and three with Smugglers' Havens [New Orleans,
Siberia, African coast]. It's not that we don't *like* those places, it's
just that we *haven't gotten around to it yet.* After 11 years of playing.
I've played literally hundreds of characters. At last count, my GM had made
over 1,000 full character sheets. [He's a dork. Seriously.] And whenever
some guest Gm says, "We're making new characters," there's never any
shortage of ideas for them. I'm playing, most recently, a socially adept
drug addict, son of wealth and culture who got dragged into drug deals
through his debts to his dealer, and, as his dealer moved up in the scale of
crime, dragged my character up with him. This isn't a character I've ever
played before. How can I still have completely new character ideas after 11
years? I've played an incredible panoply of characters, from Catholic
priests to a Toxic Horned God Shaman, from elven mages to a cyberzombie
[pre-Cybertech] who'd replaced his brain [the only flesh he had left] after
deciding it was "bothersome." [That was a campaign designed for pushing the
limits. And being really silly. :) ]
And I'm not alone. Besides my core of 5 players who've been with me for all
11 years, there's all of you, many of whom have similar stories to tell.
[Replies could easily snip everything but the below chunk.]
So my question is this; what is it about Shadowrun that can keep us
interested, that allows us to still have options for characters and places
and campaigns, even after so many games and so many years of playing?
