I swear to god do not sacrifice me for 3 mana
Hello, welcome to the Lotus GM style guide.
Reddit account: /u/itsalotus
About me
Hi! I'm Lotus, local flower and poor choice maker. Currently looking to learn to GM for Shadowrun, and figure out how to make a challenging encounter in this system.
Things that inspire my runs are...
-Other people's runs
-Games I've played recently
-Honestly a lot of things can inspire me to make a run.
By the way, if you ever want a character of mine to subcontract in a run, don't be hesitant to ask, even if I'm not present. If I can I'll almost certainly be more then happy to hop on.
Style
Because I'm new to shadowrun and gming both, I don't really have a solid style worked out yet. I appreciate your patience in dealing with my nonsense.
Pick Policy
I generally try to pick a balanced team for the needs and level of a run, but again, I'm new to this and bad at it. I will admit that I normally tend towards picking people I am more familiar with, because I feel more comfortable talking and interacting with them.
Declining the Meet
Don't. It wastes peoples time and the slots for the run. Presumably, their fixer tells them enough about the jobs they are going to to let them decide ahead of time that they don't want to.
Thwarting the J and derailment
This, on the other hand, provides player interaction and potential for interesting conflicts, and is perfectly fine by me. However, if you do intend to sabotage a run in my game, understand that you will have been considered to have consented to any PVP that results because of what you did. Be prepared to defend yourself if you get caught.
Realism
Lets be real, the setting of Shadowrun is a terrible place to live. Theres enough to make it a dystopia several times over, without getting to the literal demons. However, in my runs, I like to also show that there is hope. Things can be made better with enough effort. It will not be free or easy, but it can be done.
Negative Rewards
Sometimes, something goes wrong. You get caught, you take a bullet, or something else bad happens. In these cases, I will give negative rewards as I feel appropriate. I believe consequences help drive roleplay, and make the space more interesting as a whole.
Failure
I feel like failure should be painful, but usually not the end. In the case of a character being burning edge to live, I would try to work with the player to develop a thematically and mechanically appropriate consequence for the situation and threat level. In terms of run failure, sometimes that happens, and I feel it is appropriate for the players to lose some of the rewards they would have gained if they had succeeded.
Runs
I just stole this from Sniff, who stole it from Sleevey, Archtmag, and Ed. Thanks palls!
| Name | Metaplot | Date |
|---|---|---|
| Inscrutable Spirit Behavior | 14 October 2085 | |
| Urgent Supply Run | 22 September 2085 | |
| Medicinal Mysteries | 25 February 2085 | |
| Matrix Medicine | 8 December 2084 | |
| Sleuthing for Shifters | 23 November 2084 | |
| Redmond Retroviral Retrieval | 16 November 2084 | |
| A slightly rainy day in Kansas | Swarming Season | 20 October 2084 |
| A Dark night in DuPont | 14 October 2084 | |
| Saving the Survivors | Swarming Season | 7 September 2084 |
| Skulls Splitting | 24 July 2084 | |
| Seattle Sleuthing | 8 July 2084 |