Running in the Shadows – TMA RPG Update

A Few weeks ago I launched a little recruitment drive for an RPG group, and while no one contacted me directly through The Mental Attic, I did manage to get a group together.

With the players assembled, the plan was simple: first, we’d play a demo game of Era: The Consortium, a game I mentioned during my MCM London Comic Con coverage. After that, we’d move to a main campaign with me as the storyteller.

Phase 1 of that plan was successful and a couple of weeks ago we had that Era game. Due to real life responsibilities, half of the team couldn’t make it but the remaining pair made up for it in pure zaniness. While the Era universe is quite serious, everyone knows that when friends get together to play RPGs, hilarity inevitably ensues. I have to give credit to the players, Edgar and Serena. They were absolutely hilarious.

You’ll soon have the chance to watch and listen to that game we played, as I’m editing the footage to present it hopefully very soon along with the Era: The Consortium review.

In the time before and after the game we’ve been speaking about the games we’d like to play and while there is a giant list already, and some of the group want to take the mantle of GM at a later date, we all agreed that we’d go along with the original plan of having me as the Overlord…I mean, Game Master. And the game we decided to play is Shadowrun 5^th Edition by Catalyst Game Labs.

If Shadowrun sounds familiar but you’ve never played the Pen & Paper RPG, it’s because of the Harebrained Schemes adaptations of the system into PC: Shadorun Returns, Dragonfall and Hong Kong. It’s that awesome universe, yes!

We will begin our preparations for the game very soon, and hopefully early next month we’ll be running this fun campaign, which I’ll of course record and publish to The Mental Attic’s YouTube channel.

The Shadowrun adventure takes place in Seattle, one of the core cities in the game and a very common setting for stories in the Sixth World. I decided to start there because of the amount of official resources detailing organisations, events and story hooks in the city, so we may acclimate ourselves to the game and its mechanics as comfortably as possible. I have experience with the setting but the players don’t, so I want to make things as easy as possible for all of us.

But, and this is important, Seattle won’t be their only home or base of operations. As the players grow in skill and the adventure advances, they’ll do a bit of world trekking for their jobs as runners. I don’t want to give much information, since I don’t want to spoil the stories.

Speaking of stories, for this campaign I’ll do things in a way that has worked for me with other groups. Normally, the GM has a basic premise for a story and slowly guides the players through it, adapting to their actions but having a clear starting and ending point.

I won’t do that. The story will be up to the players and their choices. I will have a variety of hooks ready and it’s their decisions while playing that determine which story they experience. If the players decide to keep working for that first Mr. Johnson they did a job for, that will take them in one direction, but if they decide to cut ties and look for other gigs, then that will generate new stories. If they decide mid-way through a story to abandon it, I’ll adapt to that and have more stories ready for them.

I like players to feel like their choices matter and in a game about disposable mercenaries taking jobs for shadowy branches of Megacorporations, their choices are even more important.

As it stands, there is only one impediment to that game and it’s our lack of a Fourth Player. Due to the responsibilities, one of the players had to leave the group, as their work schedule changed and conflicted with our playtime. So, right now my main focus is getting that 4^th (and perhaps even 5^th) player to round out the team of runners.

Finding that new member of the cast will be the greatest delay factor, but I am confident that it won’t be a problem!

As soon as I have more news or the video for the Era: The Consortium game, I will let you all know. And if you’re interested in joining this merry band of weirdos, then get in touch with me through our contact page!