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Crossfire: Riding Your Luck until it Explodes: Pacing and Tension

By randall | Published: May 14, 2013

Shadowrun 5 Crossfire Logo

Most deck-building games rely on competition for cards and victory to keep the action moving. Stalling on your turn in a competitive deck-building game is death. Heck, there’s even a mini-cottage industry commemorating Dominion’s fail-by-1 outcome of 7 coins.

As a cooperative deck-building game, Shadowrun: Crossfire has a much more direct problem with stalling. Players build their decks one turn at a time, but they’re not competing for resources and victory points. The goal is to survive, together, to fight through all the corp-bought shamans and security drones the game throws at you. If hanging out for a turn was any kind of good idea in Crossfire, everyone would applaud when another runner stalled. Well, they’d applaud for a turn or two, and then interest in such a snooze-fest would fade. Most likely, those folks would never get around to playing a second game.

So we added a couple of pacing mechanisms into the design. The key mechanic for ratcheting up the tension is what I named the Crossfire deck—a deck of fifty cards (so far) that represent new problems, frakked-up situations, ugly developments Mr. Johnson failed to warn you about, and other dramatic beats tied into the Shadowrun universe.

Generally the runners face a single new Crossfire card event each cycle around the table, which is flipped up before the first player’s turn. Everyone gets used to holding their breath as the next Crossfire card is put into play. It’s not just the immediate effect of the card that hits you, it’s the fact that when previous Crossfire cards slide into the discard pile the effect of the next Crossfire card is likely to be far worse. A good shadowrun is a fast shadowrun. The nasty effects that trigger when too many Crossfire cards have built up in the discard pile can turn a successful run into a fiasco.

I was happily surprised that the fun of designing the Crossfire deck was the same style of fun you get from GMing a good roleplaying session of Shadowrun or most any other RPG. You want to provide problems and adversaries that challenge the PCs and ratchet up the tension without outright killing them. In the roleplaying games I generally enjoy most, the players know that being serious screw-ups is going to have nasty consequences. That’s part of the GM-player contract, in which the GM has to maintain at least the illusion (and probably the actuality) of serious consequences for messing up. Crossfire adjusts the contract so that it’s no longer suicidal stupidity or awful roleplaying that flat-lines the team, it’s taking too damn long to get in and get out.

The Crossfire cards that push the runners closer to the edge are a mix of situations straight out of the Shadowrun roleplaying game and themes that play off elements of the SR universe but couldn’t quite show up in the RPG. To help you get a feel for this mix, let’s start by looking at three sample Crossfire cards.

Time Bomb

    Timebomb
    When this card is placed in the discard, each runner takes 1 damage.
    Crossfire 8+: Instead of taking 1 damage, each runner takes 3 damage.

We’ll start with this card because it makes the pacing system brutally obvious. There is one way to make sure that the Time Bomb never gets put into the discard: whenever the runners finish off all the obstacles facing them and move on to the next scene of the run, the current Crossfire card gets buried at the bottom of the deck instead of being put into the discard. So Time Bomb makes the situation completely obvious: finish off all the obstacles this time around the table or everyone is getting blown up a little. If there are 8 or more Crossfire cards already in the discard pile, it’s no longer a little bomb—you’ve been on this run too long and you’ve got this one final chance to get out with your skins and your rep intact before you’re blown-up-a-lot.

Yomi This

    Yomi This
    The Attack Strength of each Dwarf, Elf, Ork, and Troll obstacle is increased by +1.
    Crossfire 5+: In addition, damage applied to non-Human obstacles by non-Human runners is prevented unless there are no Human obstacles in play.

This is an example of a dramatic situation that plays off elements of the Shadowrun universe without being something you’d encounter directly in an RPG session. If you’re a Shadowrun fan, you know that Yomi Island is where the Japanese Imperial State relocated most of the metahumans in its sphere of influence. Like most internment processes, it wasn’t pretty. So this is revenge for the metahumans. If the number of Crossfire cards in the discard pile is already up to 5+, then your own metahuman runners get swept up in the frenzy and can’t target metahuman enemies until all the human enemies have been removed.

Harlequinade

    Harlequinade
    The Mage chooses a runner. That runner places the top card of the Black Market deck into their hand. Then flip up a card from the Normal Obstacle deck and place it facing that runner.
    Crossfire 4+: Instead, flip up a card from the Hard Obstacle deck to face that runner.

Harlequin shows up where he’s not expected and dispenses “gifts.” Special gifts, with consequences. Inserting the legendary Harlequin into our deck-building game’s first offering would have been a mistake, so we opted for a touch of his influence. When this Crossfire card shows up, one runner will get a free card from the Black Market deck. That’s wonderful, right? Not so fast! Then that same runner gets damaged by the top obstacle at the end of their turn if it’s still around. And if it’s the endgame, it’s going to be a hard obstacle that won’t do the runners much good when it’s defeated.

Happy Harlequinade!

—Rob Heinsoo
Lead Designer, Fire Opal Media

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SR5 Art Blog: The Setting As The Hero

By randall | Published: May 7, 2013

Shadowrun 5 Logo with Text

There is nothing that can make a fantastical setting feel more immersive than a really good setting shot. This is an incredibly effective way to help viewers instantly imagine what the world looks like, and it works very quickly. Whether it’s a simple camera shot showing the Ark of the Covenant being carted away into a warehouse full of treasures in Raiders of the Lost Ark, or Syd Mead’s amazing matte-painted scenes of the cities for Blade Runner, all it takes is a couple well-designed shots to immerse the viewers to a world of intrigue and shadows.

SR5_Berlin

For this week’s dose of Shadowrun awesomeness, let’s dive into the shadows and give you fan boys and girls a few tips on drawing setting images of your own. Specifically I’ll focus on cities. Here’s the great thing you have going for you—we live in a time where there is lots of great concept art being created all the time for games, movies, TV shows and more, so there is a vast amount of reference that can be found with a quick Google search. While ‘sci-fi city’ queries will net gamers a wide range of futuristic images, there are a few signature elements about the world of Shadowrun that help to set ours apart from the rest. Here are some things to focus on to help you draw the shadows.

    1. In Shadowrun you must treat each city like a star character. Each one has a personality all its own based heavily on its in-universe history, and it needs to be treated correctly. For instance Seattle has become the home to huge megacorp high-rises far beyond the current-day building codes, while Cheyenne, Wyoming has become the capital of the Sioux Nation. Chicago has been heavily infected with bug spirits, while Panama has been nuked and is under the rule of Aztlan. All these details matter and make a marked visual difference in the look and feel of each city—even when viewed from afar.

    2. Strike the right balance between real world and futuristic. As is the case with any run, it helps to know your city. Every city, everywhere, at every time is a mix of old and new. All the cities of the Sixth World are built on current day cities—just 60 years in the future (and such a wonderfully dark future it is!) So when illustrating an SR city, start with real-world reference of that city and then determine how much to change. In general I recommend a 70-30 ratio of the current to the futuristic. Some cities will not fit this perfectly, but the rule will serve you well overall. As for the exceptions, see point #1. With a city like Seattle it’s about 60% current day and 40% futuristic. Berlin (which suffered a much harsher fate) would be about 40% current/30% barrens/20% futuristic (though the exact breakdown is debatable.) Redmond, which in the current day is a posh high-tech mecca, suffers a warzone fate in Shadowrun, making it closer to 50% current, 50% rubble, and 100% thrashed. So check your facts first—both real world and Sixth World—because it will save you editing time and hazing from your fellow players.

    3. Take the “shadows” literally. When drawing SR cities, it can be helpful to remember that most of the characters live and work in the shadows. Literally. These are areas blanketed in the shadows cast by the megacorps. This means that a shadowy scene, even one in the daytime, can be one of the most important elements of the shot. There are always shadows in any place, at any time of day. Find them in your composition and use them. Remember that we want to reinforce the image of a world of megacorps and shadows.

    4. Lit from below. There is an old character technique that says it’s best to light villains from below because it makes them seem sinister, and the rule holds true with cities as well. Most of the lighting from a city comes from the bottom five stories – those closest to the ground. The light sources are street lights, headlights, and signage. Above that there is little lighting other than corp logos on the upper floors of office buildings, searchlights from flying vehicles, or spotlights from the ground aiming up (like a movie premiere trying to attract attention.) This means the buildings and structures should look quite dark, with the only light source coming from windows and ground levels. Staying true to this idea helps reinforce the noir nature of the Sixth World.

    5. The city gets all the attention. This is the one kind of image where looking at characters’ backs is actually a good thing, because in a city shot any characters are just there as set dressing. The background is the point, so any figures in the foreground are just there to show the viewer that even the people in the picture are focusing on the setting. By looking at it themselves, they direct the viewer to focus on what lies in front of them. In looking at the shot of Berlin above, the foreground character is little more than a silhouette. The spotlight is on the city where it should be. Because it’s awesome.

    6. The city gets all the detail. When illustrating characters into this type of shot, keep them vague and relatively nondescript. This helps the viewer’s eye gravitate toward the point of the shot, which should get all the details.

    7. Keep it dark. Remember when we talked about using shadows? Take that seriously. In a noir setting like this, the shadows you lay in are often more important than the highlights. I recommend at least 50% of your scene should be dark, harsh shadows.

    8. No flying cars in Shadowrun. That’s right, I said it. I know it’s controversial and that some creative teams on this property over the last 25+ years have thrown in traffic lanes of floating cars, but our team tries to pay attention to the fanbase, and over the last fifteen years the fans have clearly said that the sci-fi floating car craze is an aberration, not the standard. This isn’t Coruscant from Star Wars, this is Shadowrun, and it’s only 60 years in the future. Anyone interesting in drawing SR for me has to remember that SW and SR are definitely not two great tastes that go together.

    9. NEVER use a soft edged brush on a Shadowrun setting. Never never never. There are no soft settings in Shadowrun. If you ever even think of using that airbrush tool in Photoshop you should ask your gamer buddies to use a Special Anniversary Blu-Ray Edition of Blade Runner to slap you silly in penance. [No, don’t. That might break it. Just send it to the Shadowrun Line Developer instead—Ed.] Once you’ve regained consciousness, you can have the movie running in the background and be in a much better frame of mind for illustrating Shadowrun settings.

When it comes to crafting the setting as the hero, the devil is always in the details. The best way to save time and pain is to do your homework on the setting first and get your facts right. Thankfully each city is full of juicy awesome details that will likely inspire a whole host of fun twists and infuse your games with gritty realism.

Good luck!

Brent Evans
Art Director
Catalyst Game Labs

Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Responses

Sprawl Gangers Designer Diary 5

By randall | Published: April 29, 2013

Shadowrun 5 Sprawl Gangers Logo

Brawls erupt on the streets of Seattle, blood spills into the gutters and bullets are almost as common as rain.

This is the world of Sprawl Gangers.

When designing the game, I wanted to add more depth to the battlefield than just relying on different weapons and terrain. To give players more interesting options during the game, Sprawl Gangers gives each gang a number of specialists, each one with their own unique contribution.

Today I’d like to cover possibly my favorite of the specialists; the Decker.

Deckers are console cowboys, master hackers that can access the wireless world of the matrix using their cyberdecks and control any connected electronic device.

Some of these electronic devices are part of the terrain for Sprawl Gangers – certain markers are designated as “nodes,” and these are access points for a decker to hack into the matrix. A decker that successfully hacks a node gains an advantage – and this is often represented by additional objectives for a Mission’s victory conditions. In addition, a decker that controls a node can scan it for paydata—important information that the gang can then sell after the battle for significant financial gains.

In the cyberpunk future of Shadowrun, electronic devices are everywhere; this includes cameras, sensors, and a multitude of other means of tracking a gang’s movement. A decker can access and use this information to provide “Matrix Overwatch,” helping his gang defend against sneaking opponents, providing early warning of attacks to protect his friends, and even assist with planning the gang’s next moves in the ebb and flow of the battle.

Deckers can also use the matrix to inflict penalties on enemy gangers! A decker can fill an enemy’s field of vision with augmented reality spam, making it difficult to connect with any target. Advanced weapons are not immune to a decker’s charms, either—a smartgun link can be switched off through the Matrix by a skilled decker, rendering a weapon temporarily useless.

Some pieces of terrain are also hackable; they can be controlled by a decker. Doors can be closed and locked, bridges can be retracted, and elevators lowered to street level or frozen in place to strand an enemy ganger on top of a precarious position.

Deckers can enter cybercombat with other deckers, engaging their opposite number in a duel of hacking skills through the matrix. The Black Hammer program is a form of Black IC (intrusion countermeasures), a dangerous set of code that can inflict harmful neurofeedback into an enemy decker’s brain, possibly injuring or even killing him.

Ultimately, deckers won’t turn the tide of battle all by themselves, but they are nigh-essential to the gang’s overall ability to improve and grow over the length of the campaign. Deckers provide access to additional funds, help control the battlefield, and give the gang more flexibility to react to the changing tides of combat.

Ross Watson

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Crossfire: Damage Tracks

By randall | Published: April 24, 2013

Shadowrun 5 Crossfire Logo

In a previous article on Teamwork in Shadowrun: Crossfire, I wrote briefly about the damage track on each obstacle. In this article I’ll expand on that topic by telling you the story of how we got there.

The early versions of the game were vastly different from the final design. The main elements that survived are the Black Market and general deck-building concept, and the idea that obstacles show up to threaten the runners.

We started out with a simple HP number on each obstacle. It represented the total amount of damage you needed to defeat the obstacle, much as you’ve seen in many other games. To make the game cooperative, we allowed multiple players to defeat an obstacle together.

In order to combine cards from different players, we experimented with simultaneous turns. This direction had some major problems. To be efficient with their damage dealing, players had to talk very explicitly about their hands. That didn’t feel good, so we tried not discussing our hands; but that led to a game of chicken to see who would play the first card. For example, if an obstacle has 6 HP and players A & B each have a 4-damage card and a 1-damage card in their hands, while players C & D each have 2- and 3-damage cards in hand, what should happen? Player A tries playing a 1-damage card. Player B follows with the same. Player C adds 3 damage, for a total of 5, but then player D has to waste damage. Why wouldn’t player A play a 4-damage card, then player B pass, and player C play a 2-damage card? Without explicit hand sharing, it was hard to communicate well enough and frustrating to play, and we felt a little stupid trying to force it to work out.

There were plenty of other problems with simultaneous turns, including fighting over who gets to make the first buy out of the Black Market. In the end we felt we had to abandon that design.

So we tried taking turns and using counters to track the damage dealt to everything. The gameplay was okay, but there were a lot of counters and a lot of math. It also wasn’t interesting enough overall, though it was sometimes interesting to figure out what you wanted to defeat first; but then you’d just do that, making the game too easy. We needed another hurdle for players to overcome—we wanted players to first figure out what they should defeat, but then sometimes have trouble figuring out how to actually get the job done.

We were also starting to feel that the runners were all the same. In an RPG party, each player makes a unique character whose skills defined their role in the team. We wanted the same thing for Crossfire.

Finally, we hit upon the big break. We broke up the HP of each obstacle into a series of smaller bites. Instead of 8 HP, an obstacle would have HP of 3, 2, 2, 1. This helped clue players in to how to spend their card damage. You have a card that deals 3 damage? You should be the one to start damaging this obstacle. You have only 2 damage? You should wait, or you could combine cards with 2 damage and 1 damage to deal the 3 damage.

At the same time, we added colors to these new “damage tracks” and to the cards the players use to damage the obstacles. That 8 HP obstacle now looks more like: 3, Green, 2, Black, Black. If you’re holding two Black cards, you know what your role will be in defeating this obstacle. If you’re not holding any Black or any Green, you know you’re going to be responsible for the 3, the 2, or both.

This design philosophy also gave us the “we want to, but we can’t” scenario that we were looking for. When there are several obstacles in play threatening to drop you, the team has to figure out not only the ideal order to beat them, but also the efficient order to beat them given what cards are in the players’ hands and whose turn it is. Making these decisions together as a team turned out to be very fun and very interesting. It also gave each player a clear role in the team, one that we were careful to reinforce with the configurations we provide for the starting decks of each role.

—Gregory Marques, Lead Designer

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