An idea for a Shadowrun adventure/campaign [does this sound fun?]

[silentjudas]

Shadowrun, of course, typically focuses on big-gun toting, magic-blasting masters of the shadows trying to eke a living out of KILLING EVERYTHING. haha

But I had a thought the other day about running an adventure/campaign where the characters play as squatters, hobos in the damp streets of the Sprawl. They'd spend much of the beginning scrounging for food and anything else they could find, and later help the local gang with some...work...to pay for protection since they don't exactly have money. Low BP, low gear resources, etc. Nothing sensational, but allowing the players to be in the other part of the shadows, avoiding the police for different and many of the same reasons, and dealing with gangs from the other angle.

Does this sound like something y'all would find fun? If I can flesh it out, I might do it PbP here, since my typically group isn't having fun if someone isn't being cut in half with a minigun and a katana at the same time O.o;;

[dragonshaos]

I like the idea for starting up of a few adventures/campaign.  I think if you added in some sort of element that the players witness some sort of act or come across some information people want, making the players targets for the police/gangs/whathaveyou, it could be an interesting cat and mouse game, players being the mouse...and there's more than one cat.

And since your group seems to like people dying, have them desperately look for help, but eventually the people who help them die by the hands of the 'chaser'.  And have them die by the hands of like an adventuring party, characters that could be players (Or what I plan to do in my DnD game is mention old characters my players played or interacted with).  Have the group chasing them be old characters they played.  That way they know just how fked up they can get.

But yes, the idea is plausible, but what's the hook (or hooks)?

[silentjudas]

I honestly haven't gotten around to fleshing out even the main hook yet to be honest (after all it just popped in my head yesterday and I haven't had time to do anything at all as of late >.>) but I rather like the idea you presented, with the witnessing factor. I like that a good bit actually. Thanks, haha!
I was thinking about somehow having them come in contact with a typical Shadowrunning party through the course of it, but I wasn't quite certain on how to inject that element. I'll attempt to work on it tonight/tomorrow, but I was mostly feeling out to see if that sounded like something people would actually play. As I said, I'm used to the bloodthirsty, who roleplay in...odd manners.

[dragonshaos]

Then if it's bloodthirsty players who have odd ways of playing, your idea has a good and bad part.

The good part being that if they're somewhat crazy, that makes for a good back story and good roleplaying.  Maybe they, like most homeless, are psychologically unstable.  making many of their choices illogical and odd (which could throw off pursuers!).  I brought up the 'chasers' are like a party of players because they can not only see what it's like when a group of psychotic players chase their prey, but they could get a feel for how their actions affect the mindset of NPC's (maybe I'm getting too into this psychologically...).  Also, for a future adventure after this, you can bring up a quest/adventure of the players chasing their old hobo characters!  They'll never see it coming mwahahahaha...

But a bad point I see is that they may be use to overpowered weapons, and the lack of may cause headaches.  Perhaps they witnessed a murder of, lets say the mayor of whatever city.  The murderer set it up to frame someone, but the setting they did it is a setting the players can get into easily, thus finding the scene first, and maybe taking the weapon of said killing (which was supposed to be used as evidence against the intended target.).
This could then make 2 groups of people who are after the players, the police and the mysterious murderers.

just thought, I like the idea btw.  Im just typing what comes into my head as I type, so I may ramble a bit.

[silentjudas]

Yes, but you rambles are interesting and potentially useful, haha! I'm guessing you like the idea then, heh. Oh, and I worried about them obtaining super-weapons at first, but I am going to make sure they can't. Not FULLY certain how, but I will. I'll probably force all but one of them to have uneducated (firearms) and maybe gremlin disads. That will probably do. After all, they are hobos. Not all of them can be war vets, lol.

[Phelanar]

It's only my opinion, but I can't say as I'd find that a hell of a lot of fun as a campaign concept.

[clockworkjoe]

This is a great idea for a campaign and this should be a good source of inspiration http://www.boingboing.net/2009/04/05/shanty-houses-of-man.html

[wrotenbe]

I'll say this, if I were playing in this game and trying to be beefy, I'd go Rat Shaman or Phys Adept. Regardless of the scenario, combat in Shadowrun is quick and brutal especially if you're lacking tech or magic and unless you're supremely lucky then you'll be hard pressed to avoid every scrap in the Barrens. It'd just take one go-ganger to scuff his bike on your collection of bottles and wire hangers to turn you from plucky hobo protagonist to perforated rat buffet. With at least one decent spellslinger or face puncher you have an insurance policy for that inevitable firefight and turns it from bloodbath to dramatic sequence. Anyway, that'd be my case if I had to plead it to the GM.

Now if I were GMing and a player came to me with that proposal, I'd agree to allow him the character but make him take some hefty drawbacks to put him at parity with the other PCs. So, for instance, his PhysAd is also a heavy BTL junkie and spends most of his time in one of two modes 1.) stoned, 2.) getting his next fix. This would make his problems exponentially greater than the others who just need to scrounge for food and shelter, but is offset by the fact that he can, when pressed, be effective in a straight combat.