kjones
2009-10-24, 02:32 PM
I recently happened across a copy of Renraku Arcology: Shutdown, a module for Shadowrun 3rd Edition. (Note to anyone anywhere near Portland: check out Powell's Books. They rock! One of the best game books collections I've ever seen.) The story of the Seattle arcology have passed into Shadowrun legend (there's a paragraph in "A History Lesson For The Reality Impaired", and of course Deus played a role in the Crash 2.0.) and so I had to know what, exactly, happened inside.
The module itself did not disappoint - it's dark and gritty, a techno-horror story that made me shudder more than once. By the time I made it through the first couple of pages, I started thinking to myself, "I have to run this!".
Of course, it's not quite as simple as that. The module is for 3rd edition, and my group has only ever played 4th edition. I've heard a lot of good things about 3rd edition, but I think it would be a lot easier for me to convert the module to 4th edition rather than try to teach myself and everyone else 3rd edition rules. Even if we wanted to, we don't own the books, so... yeah.
Converting the module is easier said than done, however. The good news is that the module is not really an "adventure" per se - it's really a sourcebook, written as a compilation of documents obtained by a 'runner regarding the shutdown. Simply put, it's mostly fluff, and fluff is mutable.
The hard parts are detailed below.
Discussions of specifics should probably be spoilered - the big picture is public knowledge by now (see, again, the "history lesson" in the 4th edition book) but the devil is in the details.
The basic plot, as you know, is that the arcology was taken over by the AI known as Deus, who has taken control of half the residents and is using them to perform grotesque experiments on the other half - nobody really knows why.
The biggest problem is, of course, in how the Matrix has changed since 2059. Simply lifting the 4th edition Matrix rules whole cloth just won't cut it - making everything wireless would change too much. The whole arcology would have to be shielded from the outside, for one - that's not impossible, but it strains disbelief. My initial thought here is to use the 4th edition Matrix rules, but restrict them in certain ways - you can only connect through actual wires, only certain cyberware is allowed, etc. (I also wouldn't allow anyone to play technomancers, since they don't really exist yet, and "otaku" are an important part of the module - they're Deus' willing servants, believing him to be the Deep Resonance itself.) Does this sound reasonable? Would this be too crippling to hackers and the like? What should I specifically allow and disallow?
The second problem is simpler - there's a bunch of stats that need to be converted. There's three types of Deus' slaves - blues (security), greens (scientists), and whites (otaku). Each one has a few "levels", and so I'd need to figure out what they would look like in 4th edition. Deus also has many different types of dangerous drones, and I'd need to convert those too. Finally, there's a bunch of stats about the arcology itself (barrier ratings for walls, etc.) that I'd need to convert. I remember seeing some information about how to convert 3rd edition characters to 4th edition, which might be useful - can anyone tell me where it is?
The last problem is that when this module was published, nobody really knew what was going on in the arcology, but as I mentioned before, some parts have passed into common knowledge. I feel like a lot of the appeal of the module lay in figuring out what, exactly, was going on - will it still be fun for the players if "the big reveal" has been spoiled?
Finally, on top of all of this, I'll need to come up with an actual adventure hook - the book has a few suggestions, but I'm not crazy about them.
So, I'll be detailing the changes I plan to make as I come up with them. Any suggestions, especially from anyone who's actually experienced the module, would be appreciated.
The module itself did not disappoint - it's dark and gritty, a techno-horror story that made me shudder more than once. By the time I made it through the first couple of pages, I started thinking to myself, "I have to run this!".
Of course, it's not quite as simple as that. The module is for 3rd edition, and my group has only ever played 4th edition. I've heard a lot of good things about 3rd edition, but I think it would be a lot easier for me to convert the module to 4th edition rather than try to teach myself and everyone else 3rd edition rules. Even if we wanted to, we don't own the books, so... yeah.
Converting the module is easier said than done, however. The good news is that the module is not really an "adventure" per se - it's really a sourcebook, written as a compilation of documents obtained by a 'runner regarding the shutdown. Simply put, it's mostly fluff, and fluff is mutable.
The hard parts are detailed below.
Discussions of specifics should probably be spoilered - the big picture is public knowledge by now (see, again, the "history lesson" in the 4th edition book) but the devil is in the details.
The basic plot, as you know, is that the arcology was taken over by the AI known as Deus, who has taken control of half the residents and is using them to perform grotesque experiments on the other half - nobody really knows why.
The biggest problem is, of course, in how the Matrix has changed since 2059. Simply lifting the 4th edition Matrix rules whole cloth just won't cut it - making everything wireless would change too much. The whole arcology would have to be shielded from the outside, for one - that's not impossible, but it strains disbelief. My initial thought here is to use the 4th edition Matrix rules, but restrict them in certain ways - you can only connect through actual wires, only certain cyberware is allowed, etc. (I also wouldn't allow anyone to play technomancers, since they don't really exist yet, and "otaku" are an important part of the module - they're Deus' willing servants, believing him to be the Deep Resonance itself.) Does this sound reasonable? Would this be too crippling to hackers and the like? What should I specifically allow and disallow?
The second problem is simpler - there's a bunch of stats that need to be converted. There's three types of Deus' slaves - blues (security), greens (scientists), and whites (otaku). Each one has a few "levels", and so I'd need to figure out what they would look like in 4th edition. Deus also has many different types of dangerous drones, and I'd need to convert those too. Finally, there's a bunch of stats about the arcology itself (barrier ratings for walls, etc.) that I'd need to convert. I remember seeing some information about how to convert 3rd edition characters to 4th edition, which might be useful - can anyone tell me where it is?
The last problem is that when this module was published, nobody really knew what was going on in the arcology, but as I mentioned before, some parts have passed into common knowledge. I feel like a lot of the appeal of the module lay in figuring out what, exactly, was going on - will it still be fun for the players if "the big reveal" has been spoiled?
Finally, on top of all of this, I'll need to come up with an actual adventure hook - the book has a few suggestions, but I'm not crazy about them.
So, I'll be detailing the changes I plan to make as I come up with them. Any suggestions, especially from anyone who's actually experienced the module, would be appreciated.