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Realm Works with Shadowrun

M

Molash

Member
So I am using realm works within the shadowrun world. I was wondering if any other user is using it for shadowrun and what tips they can give me for creating and running campaigns in the shadowrun universe.
 
I created a ShadowRun campaign using Realm Works but I mostly just added detail from the Seattle Source book. I started in Tacoma and then we stopped playing so did not do much more. Mostly what I did was review the Seattle source book and added all the 'locations' and 'people' they had listed.

For example, 'Gianelii's Restaurant, I added the text from the book (copy and paste was my savior), I then added a map of the restaurant (found a floor plan on the internet for a restaurant) and made up some information on the place itself (goods sold: food and drink, services sold: Food, Infobroker) and some basic additional text. If the characters ever visited the restaurant, I would add details that came out in the role-playing session such as waiters/waitresses or details that get made up as you go. I also used Google maps to approximate the location within Tacoma so I would put a 'pin' in the Tacoma map where the restaurant was found.

I then 'created' Tony Gianeli, for the most part, except where the Seattle Source book gives detail, I just made up stuff and found pictures on the internet to use as the person. For example, I have

Name: Tony Gianelli, Race: Human, Gender: Male, age: 63, Class: Commoner, Character Role: Neutral.

Story, Retaired mob 'leg breaker', good enough to survive a 30+ year career, Owner Gianelli's Restaurant, Gives balloons to children, will sing along during birthday songs and generally look and act happy and compasionte (my spelling is bad but I can usually figure out what I mean).

Professional Life: Pays employees very well and protects them like family. An ex-boyfriend of Mary Tate was sold to organ leggers because he was not paying child support. (this was added during a role-playing session where Tony hired the runners to collect child support and the runners could not find any way of 'making' the boy friend pay.

Resources: Contacts: Many within the underworld both part of the Mafia and 'hired help'. Cash: large sums and can get more if need.

Methods: Usually hires outside talent to perform any illegal actions and does not involve the restaurant in any illegal activities. Will leave Gianelli's Restaurant before talking about anything illegal.
 
I've been using it for about a month and a half now and have a big chunk of our runner's current base of operations entered in it (Hong Kong).

I mostly cribbed from the Hong Kong section of Runner's Havens and some bits of Jet-Set.

Maps were mostly taken from google maps and the web with map pins placed and content associated from the sourcebooks.

So far so good, ran our first run in Hong Kong yesterday using it and things went very well excepting my massive map of the Jialong nightclub crashed Realmworks VTT feature.

So I threw that up on our secondary monitor using photoshop and continued to access the rest of the content via Realmworks.

The real payoff of Realmworks so far has been having all of that information from various sourcebooks combining seamlessly with web content and being able to access it and share with the players easily.

It's been a real help and players loved the depth of background in-game for their players to explore.

So far so good.
 
Thank you Mmurphy and adzling, that is pretty much were I was heading with my own campaign and how I was going to run it.

Do you ever use the fog of world ability for the maps? the only reason I asked was with satellite access it would be almost useless to attempt.
 
Yeah I have used it for smaller maps I display on our TV battlemat (a 46" tv laid on it's back).

I tried to run a huge map that far exceeded Realmworks recommended maximum pixel dimensions and it crashed on load.

So I just tossed it up with photoshop and created an extra layer I filled with black to mask it. Then just erased the black layer as needed to expose the map.
 
For the most part I do not use Realm Works right now. My GM style is very 'open world', meaning I don't know or care what the players do or how they accomplish the mission. Mr. J hires them to do 'X' and I leave it to them to do it. Sometimes they go in hard (bullets a flying) and sometimes they go in soft (sneaky).

Most of what I was using realm works for was after action notes. They meet a contact named X, who was this and that. If the players never saw or spoke to this contact ever again, it just cost me 5 minutes of data input but if they do use the person again, I have some basic notes. Also, many contacts end up dead after talking to them (I play in a dark world and allow the characters to be 'bad' so long as they can get along with other members of the party).
 
I use the realm as rule reference to find quickly documentation and details from the books. But I'm still in the process of entering it.

Then I use it of course for adventure mapping.

I am currently using the categories as defined by default, but slowly starting to redefine categories (copy -> move existing topics to the new layout) and re-tagging a lot of stuff.

Also began to use relationships more.

I think in the end, it should be enough to navigate & map via a single method otherwise it becomes to much work to enter everything and thing how to enter everything.

Basically I have divided up the history / recaps / actions from the players into handy topics and sorted them between quests and storyline topics containing each other. Via prefix & suffix I maintain the order and also display the duration of each event.

Incident/Event topics might be referenced to.

I also began to add "Rumor / Common Information" topics category references I think (this sheet of paper) and also linked to those form the storyline topics or relationships where feasible.

Also all the topics are tagged with an Id either "permanent" or one or multiple "name of the adventures" it came up.

I have topics to divide astral / meat and matrix space (dimension) and maybe more are needed if other entities like planets etc would be needed. Cities / Adventure Areas etc are grouped within.

Scene topics are either shown the storyline or if strongly linked to a location (e.g. scene triggered when adventure area is being visited) contained in there. Also the scene topics have a section that explain from where the runners could go next and what rewards they gained here if any.

Mission critical / quest items are always contained by the character who currently has them.
 
So where do you guys file Corporation info?

I have a few in "Sources" as background info for players and some in the actual "Organizations" under Corporations.

Not really sure what the role of "Sources" is as compared to other container groups.
 
Hi!

I create a group list and give it a certain name for example "Megakons" or "AAA-Corps" or just "Corporations" whatever you like, under that I contain it with suitable corps "Shiawase", "Ares" and whatnot.

Things that will be "forever" tied to the corp will be contained within. Other things like employees or temporary resources will be connected via links & relationships.
 
I guess I was looking for a bit more info on how you get that info into the players hands.
Do you expose it as they encounter it or just have much of it available for them to read at their leisure?

Sources would seem more suited to the latter while Organizations: Corporations would seem more suited to the former.

Thoughts?
 
Why would a megacorporation or other corporations that affects millions or billions of peoples lives on a daily basis be relegated to information dispersal on a by encounter basis? I'd put corporations that have a presence in the region as read at the players leisure. Make anything that isn't a secret the players have to find out about visible for the players to read about any time they want. Now secrets related to the adventure, I'd keep private until they discover it and then reveal it to them so when you sync at the end of the game session they can review the information away from the game table.
 
Actually, since my list of megacons would be incomplete I would hand my players more information than necessary if I prereveal the mega-corps of the upcoming adventure (E.g. they would know who might be involved). Thus I would only reveal what they heard and then it's explained as well.

In my case the "live" reveal feature would act also primarily as lookup-reference after a session. During the session I'll "explain" the story and description to the player and don't show them text on a 2nd TV to read from.

The feature is probably great at session start as recap, or when "collecting" the clues or to review a lot of information, if the players are in thinking / planning mode.

It has to be seen if the live feature will find a use in my rounds.
 
thanks guys
i think im just gonna enter the general info into the Sources section and create entries in Organizations:Corporations for the secret stuff.
 
I would recommend duplicating it, removing all the classes, then adding the archetypes. Then put your new snippet in the topic template, removing the old.

So "Classes" gets duplicated to "Archetype"
Remove all entries from Archetype
Add new ones (Street-Sam, Face, Decker, Mage, etc...)
Go to the Templates where the Class Snippet is, and remove it.
Add the Archetype snippet in its place.

This would help keep out the possible issues when the marketplace comes out, or issues that may occur with sharing with your players.

At least, that WAS best practices a few months ago. I started copying all templates, and making new ones when I customize now, including Topics. Just to be safe.

I know I take it overboard, but that's just what I do.

You "in theory" could just delete "Fighter, Rogue, etc..." and put in "Shaman, Face, Technomancer" but You'd have to ask Rob on that.

As for your Organizations:Corporations for secret stuff... I'd actually put the base common knowledge in the overview for each one, and then reveal ONLY that. It won't tip them off as to who's pulling strings if you put in as many as you can (i.e. not just Horizon and Ares, but also K.E., L.S., ViaComSoft, etc...)

You'd actually have enough info that they'd not know where to look.

AND, you can keep adding them in as you get time. This makes them think that you're still putting in entries, throwing them off the scent that 3/5 of the first set were directly involved.

Just a thought.
 
Thanks Pollution this helps.

Man it would be nice to have a base configuration for Shadowrun.

Any other points for organization that you use specific to Shadowrun?
 
I don't actually run SR anymore.

Just PF for me (and some WoD).

But the customization of RW really makes SR pretty easy to set up IMO. It's just a question of HOW you want to do it.

you can set up Astral to be a Celestial entry, and Matrix to be Dimensional, or just put put an Astral entry and a Matrix entry in the topic.

There's really no wrong way to do it. It's just a question of how much you want to customize.
 
Has anyone entered / created a run that uses the standard Srun format in a snippet layout?

i.e.....

1) story arc overview (a container for multiple scenes):
Adventure Background (snippet)
Mission Synopsis (snippet)

2). then each Plot Point has a Snippet for each of the sections below:
Scan This
Tell it to them Straight
Behind the Scenes
Debugging
Pushing the Envelope

I don't see a way to assign snippets to a Plot Point, only external content.

Do I create a realmworks "Scene", enter "Snippet" content for the scene then assign the Scene to a Plot Point?

This seems rather convoluted and inobvious.

Why not put the Snippets directly into the Plot Point?

Anyone offer me some advice on how to best approach this?

thanks
 
When you jump from the plot view into a scene (or other) topic you can see on top area a "table of contents" area. If you unhide that it will show all the sections from the current topic that you can click on (and jump to the corresponding section). There you could jump easily around between those areas. Thus you could safely link to the topics knowing that you can find the section starting points immediately after you have opened the topic.

I actually took the adventure sections and changed the format to make it fit the scenes topic layout. But customize to book format might also be a nice way of doing it.
 
Sorry this is confusing to me.

Are you saying create the entries as a "Scene" under "Events" and then link the "Scene" to the "Plot Point"?

thanks
 
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