Starting a long campaign: Thank the Gods, it’s Shadowrun 1e, FKR style

 Dudes, I’m PSYCHED.

We’re playing Shadowrun 1e soon. And not any old oneshot, but we’re starting a campaign, brothers and sisters. Like, a meet-once-a-frigging-week-and-just-play-the-same-game campaign!

Chumskis! This is historical.

It’s been years, really years, since I refereed a long campaign. I’m not talking about mini-campaigns, here, either. What I mean is an honest-to-the-gods long-time campaign. I have refereed so many one and two-shots over the last decade that I’ve lost count.

And that means: They were NOT good. Ho-hum. Mediocre. Off-the-wall-affairs without soul. Like yucky quickies in a run-down Walmart restroom, nothing to write home about.

Noism started it, and soon after, James of Grognardia eternal fame followed suit: We need long campaigns. We NEED them. Be honest to yourself: Where does the vast majority of your gaming memories come from? The war stories, the knee-slappers, the hey-guys-do-you-remember-whens? I bet most of those stories come from a campaign you played in. Not some nameless one-shot. 

So, we’re playing a Real Campaign again, thank the Gods.

And it’s Shadowrun 1e, of course. OF COURSE!

In closing, let me quote a description of first edition Shadowrun I read on rpg.net, ten years ago. I think it fits. Very well, I might add:

“Pink Mohawk is letting the bad guys know you’re come to get them. It’s knowing it’s a trap but going in anyway. It’s fifty caliber pistols with a shake and bake combo when all you really need is the busboy with a silenced .22. It’s blowing a hole in the side of a building 50 stories up and then hang-gliding away once the job is done. It’s going in the front door during broad daylight and getting away with it. It’s dancing with the devil in the pale moonlight and then fragging the bastard afterwards. It’s a flight of rotodrones playing Flight of the Valkyries on the way in and Paint it Black on the way out. It’s the proverbial troll pissed off and he’s not gonna take it any more. It’s stopping gangers from robbing the Stuffer Shack and then doing the job yourself. It’s just one more run til you retire and then it all goes to hell, and you say frag it, you’d have been bored anyways. It’s definitely not going quietly into the night.”

YES, chummers! YES!