Introduction

"Thanks for that lesson---it will teach
To after-warriors more
Than high Philosophy can preach,
And vainly preached before.
That spell upon the minds of men
Breaks never to unite again,
That led them to adore
Those Pagod things of sabre sway
With fronts of brass, and feet of clay."
George Gordon Byron, "Ode to Napoleon Buonoparte" (1814)

The year is 2080, and the Sixth World is as much of a drekhole as ever. NeoNET - the giant megacorp de facto in control of the world's communications - is collapsing, and the rapid shifts in equilibrium threaten to destabilize the precarious status quo. It's a good time to be a shadowrunner.

As shadowrunners, you are dangerous, deadly criminals-for-hire. Your skills (and deniability) make you a hot commodity... as long as you keep a good reputation with your prospective employers, the "Mr. Johnson"s of the world. You also have the dubious privilege of sometimes looking behind the curtain, catching glimpses of shadowy conspirators and their terrible schemes. Hey, as long as the job gets done and you get paid, who cares, right?

The Game

Welcome to (I hope) a fun and memorable SR5 campaign with plenty of intrigue, mystery and - most importantly - a world where YOUR decisions matter!

This is a story-focused campaign, with the overarching plot themes heavily connected to the events in official Shadowrun canon (as of Kill Code - 2080) -- however, previous knowledge of lore, Shadowrun history, and major players is not required. the relevant bits are / will be discovered as the game goes on. Many of the runs in this campaign will be reimagined versions of the runs I've GM'd before in the Emerald Grid living community (who are great folks btw -- check 'em out if you are interested in Shadowrun!).

At this point the team has successfully completed 10 runs, elevating them from random nobodies to actually somewhat recognized runners in the Seattle runner scene. I'd say the central plot is about 30-40% progressed at this point. This is when drek starts to get a bit more serious, and it's probably a good idea to beef up the team a bit...

Give me your chrome, your APDS, your Ares Alpha...

The group currently consists of a mage/face, a punchy physical adept, a rigger, and a technomancer. To balance out the team's capabilities, we want to recruit a chromed combatant as #5. The exact flavor of chrome is up to you, but street samurai / razorboy/girl or possibly augmented B&E specialist are all options.

More important, though, is YOU, the player! These are a few things that would make you a good match for the group and vice versa:

• Fun to play with, like roleplaying their character (flaws and all), and think of RPGs as a collaborative gaming experience instead of something to ‘win’
• Familiar with SR5 basics (especially combat)
• Have preferably at least some experience with SR5 -- not an absolute must, but it’d be nice. Character optimization knowledge is NOT required (in fact, I’d like to keep characters at roughly the same power level, and we have one player who has not played SR5 before...)
• Dedicated to a weekly schedule without many RL scheduling conflicts (switching to bi-weekly is not out of the question, but all players would need to agree)
• OK with the principles outlined in the GM Style Guide

Technical details

This is a weekly 4-hour game taking place on Saturday afternoons, EU time (to allow players from North America to join in as well). We are using Discord for voice.

Since the team only needs one more player, I want to fast-track this recruitment process as much as possible -- it'd be great to get someone ready for this Saturday, but we can be flexible about it. The new character would be integrated into the group either before the next run, or the run immediately following this one. Ideally the new character would have some level of in-character relations to existing ones, but 'common fixer' can work in a pinch -- this is something the players can decide among themselves once we have the new player in the campaign! Of course the new character will get extra Karma / Nuyen to put them on roughly the same footing as the existing runners (also to represent them being an established runner themselves).

Due to the fast-tracking, the deadline for applying is fairly strict: June 12th (Wednesday) EU evening time. It may be extended if need be. Once the deadline is reached, the players will choose, and I'll do the onboarding stuff (chargen, session 0.5, Discord/Roll20, etc etc).

Note that there are two Applications threads -- the old one is from November when the game originally launched. Feel free to ignore it. Or don't. :P

See you in the shadows, omae!