This edition of 10-in-Ten is dedicated to Preston Hampton over at the Shadowrunner’s Union group on Facebook. He had questions about introducing his players to a new setting. Mr. Black posted there, but decided to give a more in-depth version. As always, for those of you who are new here a 10-in-Ten is 10 (or so) quick ideas on a subject. They are edition agnostic and rules light (okay, more rules non-existent!). So just how do you engage a group of characters, or more importantly, their jaded and attention deficient players? Let’s take a gander. Since Preston’s original concept mentioned the Walled City of Kowloon, and, as always, Mr. Black sets his musings in Seattle, we will be contrasting Seattle with an Asian setting. But these ideas can easily be transferred to any setting.
Change their living conditions - In Seattle they all had low class houses or hidden little apartments. They were kings and queens of their environment (or more likely, scary little C.H.U.D.s occasionally emerging from their basement hidey holes to kill people and steal their belongings for The Corporates Shilling.) Not so in the Walled City. Living space is tight. So they all ended up at Mama Chiang’s. (Channel the Pig Sty Alley from Kung Fu Hustle) They have a single large apartment, with little privacy and must share a common bathroom with their neighbors. Kids underfoot, inquisitive neighbors asking about their gun bags, Sweet old Grandma Sheng from 3 doors down who welcomes them with a pomegranate. Their next door neighbor Mrs. Li (and her cute son/daughter) who insists they roll a pineapple around the floor of their new flop. Done right this will create both empathy and intrigue. You could even give them the old Guided Tour trope. Whoever brought them to the Walled CIty could give them a short tour while leading them to Mama Chiang’s. You want the Krew to get a look at and experience how the downtrodden look, smell and feel. You want to interrupt their rest with precocious tikes, nosey neighbors, the street sam’s snoring, and the wish-I could-forgettable view and knowledge that the rigger goes commando, and walks around the apartment naked. Get them bickering, get them helping out the neighbors, let them discover all the local establishments. You know, like normal people.
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Welcome Home, Shadowrunners... Give them new Holidays to experience - As Mr. Black has mentioned before (here and here), holidays are powerful reminders of time and period. Having the Krew show up in the Walled City during a holiday will disabuse them that they are still in Kansas. The hustle and bustle of the streets, new sights, new smells, new customs, new superstitions, all to confront your players and their characters. Do they want to stage a Run when everyone will be busy and distracted? Then go local. Perhaps that time is Tuesday, when the weekly water talking races are on. Or at exactly 12:30, when the soap opera, A Guy, A Girl, A Red Panda, airs, and everything shuts down to watch. LEt them race to the top of Bun Towers, or master Pearl Ball. Let them see the beating heart and soul of the Walled City before they enter its dark soul.
Confound them - Any player can easily look up anybody or any group in any of the Shadowrun books or various wiki’s. So give them all new groups and people to confront them. Everybody knows who the Ancients and the Halloweeners are, whether they should stay away from them or just how far they can push them. But not the Black Spiders, the first street gang they encounter in the Walled City. Are they local heroes? Villains? A combination of both? Who do they work for? Or are they at the center of their own little web? When everything is both new and unknown, there is a lot to discover. And those discoveries can keep your players engaged for a long time. So confound them with new people, groups, customs and experiences.
Embarrass them - Few people are so shameless as to not feel embarrassment, and fear it. According to several polls, most people would rather literally die than make a public speech. Did any of the Krew take Walled City Etiquette specialization? Or the Chinese Culture Etiquette specialization? Or bring a Cantonese Lingua Soft? Well too bad, now they have to figure it out. And they will fail hard. Strangers will stare, children will laugh, and the dreaded words “gwailo” “round-eye” and “barbarian” will follow them around. Oh and they all get the Distinctive Style (they neither look, walk, eat, talk or dress like locals), Loss of Confidence (Etiquette or Language) or Chinese Poser Negative Qualities (or 2 or all 3 together!) until they acclimate. After all, most non-Asian visitors to the Walled City are tourists, thrill-seeking influencers, or burnt-out expats looking for a hole to hide in. It will take time to fit in. On the upside, Mrs. Li’s children find the Krews broken pigeon Chinese kind of cute…
Inspire them - Channeling Kung Fu Hustle again, think about the scene when the Ax Gang is about to burn a mother and her child alive for information, and Coolie, the Master of the 12 Kicks of the Tam School intervenes. Mr. Black’s heart soared when he stopped them. Let your players , and by extension, their characters’ hearts soar as well. There are heroes in the Walled City, bright mirrored reflections to the Krew’s (at best) anti-hero credentials. As Belloq said to Professor Jones, “ I am a shadowy reflection of you. It would take only a nudge to make you like me, to push you out of the light.” So give them the opposite. Let them experience things that would give them just a nudge to make them want to pull themselves out of the shadows. In Yojimbo, there comes a time when even a ronin can no longer resist the light. And in the Seven Samurai, the first of the ronin takes up the cause over a meager bowl of rice. Show them the sacrifices the common people make to just exist in the darkness of the Walled City. HAve a Kung fu Master save some townspeople from a local gang. Let a mystic angel stop the evil when the Krew refuses to do so. After all, heroes have everything to fight for, and money can only buy so much. And it takes time to fight for everything…
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They may not look like much but have want it takes to get your player into the game Piss Them Off - No, really! Few things honk off players like dismissing, condescending, or just plain rude NPC’s. Especially if they can’t wipe that smug look off the NPC’s face. So give them someone to hate with the passion of a burning sun. As soon as they hit the streets, get the Krew in a fight with a much more powerful opponent. But don’t kill them. Have the NPC go on about how pathetic they are. Use epitaphs and pejoratives. Killing them means disposing of the bodies, and they just aren’t worth the trouble. Especially as the authorities are so inquisitive of dead out-of-town gwailos and round-eyes. You know you have done it right when one of the players can’t take it any more and tries to pull a “from hell’s heart I stab at thee” sort of thing, like suicidedly tossing grenades about. Just be sure to have the NPC’s spend edge and live. Everytime some NPC yanks their chain, the Krew will add another name to their Book of Grudges. Or as some will know it, The List of Gutterbunnies Who Must Absolutely Die Before I Can Leave Town. MAke it a long list, so they will have to stick around for a long, long time. Remember Mr. Black’s dictum: “Bad guys who get away will create more hate another day”...
Escalate the Opposition - So they encountered a street gang and cleaned their clocks? Good, but make sure some get away. This gives you a couple of things. Thing 1, there are few better feelings than watching your enemies run before your wrath! Thing 2, if players hate rude NPC’s, the second thing they hate is bad guys who get away. Because they know about Thing 3: bad guys who get away always come back bigger and stronger. If today is a street gang, tomorrow is the gang's enforcers, followed by the gang’s organized crime affiliate, followed by the affiliates enforcers, followed by the affiliates biggest baddest: Triad Black Tiger masters, Yakuza Katana adepts, Vory kill teams, etc. Or their Corp overseer HTR teams, Red Samurai, EVO Special Service Marines, Jaguar Brigades, etc. Sooner or later, the Krew will hit their own Peter Principle of opposition, the bad guys they can't beat without allies…
Scare Them - Expose your players to the Dark Side™. Have the Krew meet the Big Bads of your campaign. Evil conspiracies, monstrous spirits, uncaring Corporate Kill Teams, Chinese Black Magicians, Triad masters, tainted dragons, etc. Show them the Big Bads doing despicable acts, using magick beyond the Krew’s comprehension, filled with Delta cyber/bioware, with guns of immense power. Cockroach Spirits in the sewers, bricked up apartments full of shedim, vampire cabals prowling the streets between midnight and dawn, the Yama Kings, whatever puts the fear of the Goddess into their little money grubbin hearts. Give them a reason to seek help. Because it is going to take more than an Initiated Master to put down that free Blood Spirit. It is going to need a magickal ritual, a very specially constructed weapon foci, advanced in-depth research in black ICE sites and forbidden libraries to uncover the spirits True Name, all while somebody holds off the spirit’s earthly, mortal, heavily armed minions. In other words, the Krew will need allies and information and most importantly, many specialized runs to find everything.
Have Them get Allies - They will need lots of them eventually. Start small, then build big. After all, they will need all new Contacts. Be generous with them, as these Contacts will become the face, heart and soul of your new setting. Everytime they need new gear or info, have a Contact or neighbor steer them to a new source. Everytime the black heart of the Walled CIty exposes its ugly face, there is another, brighter person or group to get the Krew over the next hurdle. Some will do it for prestige, some for power, some for money, some out of righteousness, some just because a Character made them laugh. But all of them will be needed for that final confrontation. And it will take time to find these allies, and the fulcrum needed to lever them into the light. And that means time in the Walled City.
Expose Them to Secrets - This is the best tip of them all. Everybody likes secrets, but so few can keep them. So send them on a run. As they are escaping, the door just won’t open. As the bullets start hitting the walls around them, and the sweat is running down their backs, one of them gets a text: “The door code is 125689. The Pink Rat.” The code works, and as they are running to safety, another text appears: “<your welcome> I’ll be in touch. The Pink Rat.” Just who is the Pink Rat? What do they want? Why are they helping us? So many questions, so little answers, so much to uncover! Better yet, give every character their own secret to uncover. Perhaps the Black Rat helps out the Sammie, the Green Rat the Mage, etc. Maybe the “Rainbow Rats” want to aid the Krew, maybe they want to use the Krew, and just maybe they don’t actually get along. If all of your players now have different and hopefully competing secrets to uncover, it may be months before they ever leave the Walled City…
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So go deep and set your wicked plans into motion. When you are done, you may have had to drag your players kicking and screaming to the Walled City, but if you set the foundation correctly, they will never want to leave, and you will give your players a game they will talk to their grandchildren about. Especially if their last names are Li. “Child, let me tell you about the time I was one of the Sacred Six of the Walled City…”.jpg)
Or even longer if Mrs. Li has her way...
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