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Profile: ShadowrunnerNights

Profile by Jay Watamaniuk

If you spent any time in the trenches of the early Dungeons and Dragons days, then you probably bumped into this crazy cyberpunk game that came along not too long after: Shadowrun. Set in a future where magic has seen a rebirth, the world is still adjusting to the fact that Dragons and wizardry exist alongside advanced technology and global corporations that have more power then governments. Peacekeeping duties in Iraq have not stopped SDX from gearing up to reshape Neverwinter Nights into something that comes with a full clip:

Is there a website where I can get more info?

http://shadowrunnernights.chaoticdysfunction.net/

What is you connection to the d20 Modern group which is pursuing a modern setting for NWN?

SDX: I'm currently the head scripting guy from the d20MM team, which I began helping out with around Aug or Sept of last year during my deployment to Iraq. Well, the funny part about this is that if you exclude the d20 team, I am pretty much the entire team for Shadowrunner Nights.

Iraq? How did you find time to help out with this sort of project in Iraq? What is your computer set-up while deployed?

SDX: Well, I spent a lot of time running convoys - providing security from the gun. A lot of times I would take my laptop, or try to spend most of my down time back at the base working on the project. Typically, we were outside our base for more than a day, so once we got there I had from that point till the next morning to work. In any case, I was able to devote at least an hour or two most days, and for about a month I was working in an office due to an injury I had, and during that time I was able to get in about 12 hours of work on the project (12 hours on 12 hours off).

As far as the setup - I used my laptop, which wasn't all that great. It was a 2.0GHz Celeron with 512 MB of ram to make up for the generic Intel video card. It ran NWN pretty slowly when it started raining, so it made it quite irritating sometimes to compile that much source code. But, we also had a local internet connection, as well as one provided by the Army, so I had access to the net occasionally as well. I also built a much better computer while there, but had to hook it up to a TV, and that made it impossible to read any of the text, so... hopefully within the next couple of weeks I'll be able to pick that back up and use it again.

Why Shadowrun?

SDX: The project became focused on Shadowrun specifically almost right after one of the first D20MM releases. The why is that with new modern content being introduced, it wouldn't take much more work to convert that into Shadowrun... or so I thought. Of course, the why of Shadowrun is because it's always been the best RPG in my opinion. Not only does it mirror fantasy, but a lot of real life as well. On top of that, I loved the console versions of Shadowrun... so why exclude the PC? When I found out that there definitely wasn't (even a fan based game) that I could find and that there likely wouldn't be, I realized that if I wanted to play a new Shadowrun video game I'd have to work on one myself.

Will some of the rules used in the tabletop Shadowrun system make it into this project?

SDX: I'm trying to incorporate as much of the original rules as I can (going off of 3E). Unfortunately, not everything can be implemented - although sometimes this turns out to be a good thing. For instance, in Shadowrun you've got the blocks for physical and stun damage. In ShadowrunnerNights, rather than having meters you have the standard D&D hit points, but rather than having that by itself it also has a threshold of damage that a player can take before they pass out, which is relative to their constitution. This, in a way, balances things out a little more and prevents a character from getting killed instantly as they would in either the D20mm ruleset or Shadowrun. Although it's geared more towards a persistent world environment, it is pretty cool to help keep the tension in firefights. Concealment of weapons is almost exactly as it was in 3E, or at least exact as it can be after being converted from a 6 sided die system to a 20 sided die system.

The one compromise was that certain aspects, such as holsters, had to be removed. I've implemented some decking that uses mostly the same rules, but again since the systems are so different there had to be compromises. The system rating has been removed to a degree - instead the targets of the programs being run will use DCs. And finally, the character creation processes have been removed, but this is mainly because on a platform such as this it would be much more interesting to get in a little bit of how your character became a runner rather than, "well what had happened was." A good example is that the full release will be in the same timeframe as the Renraku Arcology shutdown, and one of the backgrounds players can choose from to get started with is a Renraku employee. It'll definitely be one of the more difficult backgrounds to play out given the scenario (in comparison to a background on the street for instance), but it will give a lot more life into the characters....

What is the next phase of the project?

SDX: The next phase actually consists of a few updates to the beta base module's scripting, to fix a few bugs, and to introduce the rest of decking rules. I'm hoping that sometime in the near future we'll also get a few good modellers who can work on some vehicles, weapons, and animations, as I have some ideas that can be implemented via scripting that will totally blow everyone away. But in the meantime, two modules are planned for the near future. They'll both be rather short, one focusing on a Black Ops character (who will make an appearance in both the second module and the full release), and the second on a Decker who runs across some data that will both make and ruin his day. Both of these will be rather linear, but will tie into the full release, which will be as non-linear and dynamic as possible. It is very open ended and focused a lot on role play.

This doesn't by any means mean no combat, but it does mean that picking a generic set of skills focused on nothing but combat won't get you too far. If you have no experience with any other skills you'll miss out on a lot. But even still, it is possible to be a completely combat oriented character - just don't expect to do anything but fight. Of course, to balance this, when you use your skills appropriately you get XP as well - sometimes more so than just jumping into a fight since it could well be your last.

Are you looking for help on this project and, if so, who does one contact?

SDX: I definitely need some help to do all the things that I would want to - Modellers and animators especially. I have some very awesome and unique ideas for this project that would blow everyone away, but they require new models and animation sets. I could use some help with building when the d20 areas are complete since I'm going off of the Shadowrun maps as much as possible. The level of detail will make it a bit time consuming. Finally, I could probably use an additional scripter or two to help collaborate on expanding the functionality and to help knock out different aspects quicker.

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