User:Niven

Niven

Reddit Username	[1]
Timezone	PST, so GMT-7
Country	US
GM Level	0

Characters

• Shrike, barrens techno who kind of thinks he's matrix batman
• Titania, rigger/face with a chrome addiction, an attitude problem, and a need for speed (AWAITING APPROVAL)

GMing style

===Overview=== Shadowrun is supposed to be fun. RPGs in general are supposed to be fun. For me, that means that the hidden fail state of each game is players having a bad time. Adversity is fine, IC conflict is fine, but as soon as the negativity starts spilling out of the game into real life that's some bad mojo. Trust me, I've cocked up games before when I bit off more than I could chew.

===Declining at the meet=== I'd prefer you metagame and not apply a character to runs that your character wouldn't approve of. Remember, despite all the backstory and notes written on the wiki, you have a lot better understanding of what makes your runner tick than I do, so I can't always catch these problems (though I'll do my best.)

===Derailing runs=== I can be a slow thinker, especially when something comes out of left field. However, improv is a skill best learned through practice. So while I'm fine with derailing runs, if you know from the outset that it's likely your runner will attempt to thwart the run's goals then please tip me off in advance. Whether that's the form of a "I might end up working against the Johnson" in your application, up to DMing me our entire plot to kill the J and pin the blame on the bugs, if you go in with that mindset it helps for me to know. You'll have to just trust me. This being said, it's possible for a run to go off-script in a way that ruins the day of other runners, by leaving them in the crossfire, killing their shot at getting paid, potential PvP, etc. If this comes up I expect players to be adults and talk through their thought processes OOC.

Realism in Shadowrun

Bruh.

There are literal actual dragons flying around, tear gas kills you in seconds, tanks turn their occupants into spaghetti sauce when they hit a tree, everyday people keep their devices online 24/7 despite how comically easy hacking is, combat chainsaws are a real weapon, computers are both trivially cheap and absurdly expensive, drugs can turn you permanently insane, some people can just send emails with their brain, this setting has a thin veneer of realism over a dense core of what-the-fuck. I don't feel particularly limited by realism. To me, Shadowrun is a crazy universe where lots of wacky and uncharacteristic stories can all coexist. To this end, while I'll try to have everything make sense, I'm going to prioritize shadowrun's internal logic over IRL internal logic.

Seriousness

To me, Realism and seriousness are decoupled. The former is an approach, the latter a tone. My runs tend to be less serious by nature, but my runs are also more of a grabbag of "what sounds interesting" rather than a tonally consistent whole, so watch the tone/theme section of any run I post carefully for more detail.

Failure and consequences

If this were a conventional campaign I might be less lenient with failure states, knowing I have a chance to make it up to the players. But this is a living community where I can't consistently do that before you have time to suffer from said consequences. So I will strive to limit fallout to things happening in the immediate scene. If you get spotted, alarm gets raised, but you will always have a chance to keep your picture out of the media. If you get shot and start bleeding out, you might get left for dead, but whoever shot you isn't going to use the opportunity to settle a score with your buddies offscreen. Also, assumed competence is a thing. If you fall out of a plane, I'm going to assume you picked up a parachute during the flight, and I won't make you play out the trip back to base once you hit the ground (unless you aimed for a zero-zone or a toxic wasteland on purpose).