Silver Angel Review
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- 9 minutes read - 1798 wordsSilver Angel was the first published Adventure for Shadowrun. It was paired with the original Game Master’s screen for 1st Edition Shadowrun. What’s interesting is that it also came with standees (cardboard cutouts that you could use to show placement of characters and NPCs) which we wouldn’t see again until DMZ was released. These paired excellently with the Sprawl Maps.
This adventure is pretty short, but you can see the gritty bones of what would become the Shadowrun we all know and love.The story includes a dynamic cast of interesting street level people including a ripper jack and a dancer. As well, it is positively dripping with atmosphere. Tom Dowd laid some beautiful writing down on these pages. A line really sums up Shadowrun perfectly.
“To be a Shadowrunner, you must have an edge, something that sets you apart from the others of your type. You’ll be moving in the shadows of giant corporations and intolerant governments. You’ll have to dart through the back alleys of secret installations and supposedly secure databases as though you belong there. Keep your edge sharpened, chummer. There is no future. All you’ve got is now.” - Tom Dowd
This perfectly encapsulates the following years of Shadowruns to come. Wonderful.
So all of that fun aside, what can the players expect? Ratings out of 5!
Magic | 2 | There are some magical threats that can come about, but nothing that requires magic to resolve.
Matrix | 5 | This adventure absolutely requires a decker. Even more than one wouldn’t hurt on this run. It’s one of the rare adventures that is matrix forward.
Combat | 3 | This can be done entirely without combat, but once there IS combat, it will ramp up moderately quickly for new players.
Rigging | 2 | Driving/Drone Combat/Etc would be VERY difficult to shoehorn into this run. You absolutely can, but it will be difficult for sure. Spy drones however could be useful!
Face | 3 | There are some negotiations and a lot of leg work that can be done. So this has a good amount of play for a Face!
So now onto the Spoilers Section where I will walk you through the basic plot and how I would improve it. As well as adding a 3rd edition Matrix Sheafs where applicable.
Spoilers Ahead
General Plot
Silver Angel all boils down to a data steal on a McGuffin. The payout is actually pretty bonkers for a first time run. 50k ahead of the run, 35k on completion and 15k if the theft is subtle enough not to trigger any alarms or the likes. 100k a person is an insanely mouth watering amount of money. So players may get the wrong idea on how much money they should expect on any given run. Normally runs like this peterout and the players can only expect to get part of that money, not the case in this run.
The players need to make their way inside Cavilad Research Center (A Mitsuhama owned shell corp). Their system has an isolated network node known as the Executive System. The file they need is in there. It’s a 80 megapulse file, once it’s downloaded then the run is over and the runners need to get out.
The twist (and all of the modules generally have one!) is that their Johnson’s backer is running two different jobs on this corp at the same time. The timing has to be perfect in order for this to work out, so the module stresses this. 3 days hence, 2am PRECISELY. This makes this adventure more interesting but ultimately it is a super fast adventure which could be completed in a single longer session or 2 4ish hour sessions.
One aspect of the plot that is great is the build up for all the leg work needed to get a good jump on the adventure. The biggest score the players need is the system map to the very complicated system inside of Cavilad Research Center. This is something that unfortunately cannot be converted easily into newer editions, but i’ll do my best!
Changes I would make
This is more of a single run than a module of joined adventures that explains a larger narrative. It’s a jumping off point for the GM themselves to take control of what happens next. For a module, that’s very small, but for the first step into the shadows. It makes sense to lay a groundwork for how they expected individual runs to go.
Silver Angel’s Purpose
When you get an adventure called Silver Angel, the first thing you want to figure out is what exactly IS Silver Angel? Why does everyone want it? Well the answer isn’t very satisfying unfortunately. It’s a McGuffin that the GM has to decide on what it is and what it does.
So what could Silver Angel actually be?
Personally, I like the idea of it being a medical device. Something akin to a rating 10 medical kit. The software/drugs/tools/sensor/etc would make this kit work better than most doctors could ever dream of. This would allow for medical advancements that cyberware creators couldn’t dream of!
Otherwise, some of the other ideas I’d toss around are. A new AI assistant for Pocket Secretaries that would help hundreds with more tasks (while mining that delicious data saved on the device). A satellite which watches over people who have a specific kind of phone or pocket secretary, more horrifically . Another favorite is a whole conversion chrome body which will make any woman look like Maria Mercurial.
Whatever you decide, make it worth the money the runners are getting paid to steal. Having whispers of what could be and blood spilled for such tech is what Shadowrun is all about, corporations using cutthroat tactics to keep prices high and wondrous technology out of the hands of regular people. It should tempt your runners to release such tech to the world.
Black Hole in the System
One of the things the players can pick up while trying to dig for information (Specifically about the System Map) is a hint about a super powered up security feature called a “Black Hole.”. This has killed a few deckers in its experimentation, but ultimately has been taken offline. I feel like this is a missed opportunity.
Given that they have said the Black Hole system is working, I don’t think it should be completely offline. Instead I think it should still be in the system. If the runners fall into it, have the deckers who were killed by it, echoed in place. Where their icons are constantly repeating their last actions over and over against the Ghosts of IC that killed them. Its stuck in some kind of diagnostic mode where it’s trying to see what went wrong by replaying the combat or scene over and over. It’s only dangerous if the player decides to actually try to interact with the “Ghost” of the dead deckers. Of course there needs to be a good reason for them to want to do this. I would recommend either the System Map (if they don’t have it) or a security key which will allow them to either ignore some Access IC (or free success on Deception tests for 3rd edition).
The Matrix to me should always have some amount of wonder to it, just like Magic. No one person should fully understand all of it. There should always be things like this, where man is pushing the limits of what they understand and it almost always ends in paying in human lives.
Super High TNs on some of these Etiquette Rolls!
Both of the key NPCs who can get you the System Map for the matrix system has an etiquette TN of 9. I’m sure there are a lot of things you can do to lower that TN in the older systems, but in newer systems that TN cannot really be lowered. So that seems incredibly wild because it means almost assuredly your characters will miss these things. I would highly recommend lowering these TNs.
If you want to make their bases at 9, that’s fine, but allow for more things to lower them. Miss Whisper trusts deckers more, so maybe their street etiquette roll should be lowered if the roller is a decker. Perhaps offering protection or helping Miss Whisper get out of town, all of these things should help.
Bonus Data
Converting this is kind of a nightmare. Its a massive system and in general, there is a feeling that is given when you run through a system in 2nd edition that cannot be fully replicated. The beauty of the older systems was to allow for multiple connections (SANs) for attacking systems from different entries. This was great because it meant that getting more information about a system or a system map (as presented in this story) could drastically reduce how difficult a system was. As well, because everything was its own node, the deckers could discover what was inside the building by finding slave nodes by surfing through the system. I will have to take some time and do a write up of the pros and cons on this approach, for now however, onto the 3rd edition transition.
SAN (5206) ---> Host A (Personal Terminals, Admins Terminals)
|
V
SAN (5208) ---> Host B ( Buildings Systems ) ------> Host C (Security) <---- SAN (8206)
Host D (Executive Systems)
Host A (Personal Terminals, Admins Terminals)
This host contains all of the access to the different terminals used by employees. Also contains all of the printers, scanners, etc used by employees.
orange-6/8/8/9/10/8
Step: Event
4: Tar Baby-7
8: Killer-9
12: Trace-5
16: Scout-7
19: Killer-5
22: Passive Alert
26: Sparky-7
30: Trace-7
34: Sparky-9
39: Probe-5
44: Active Alert
49: Sparky-9
52: Sparky-9
55: Crippler-5
59: Blaster-7
63: Shutdown
Host B ( Buildings Systems )
These systems include Power, Elevator, Heating and some of the Airlock Controls used in the BioTech and CyberTech areas.
Step: Event
5: Killer-10
10: Trace-7
14: Killer-7
18: Killer-9
23: Construct-7
27: Tar Pit-5
30: Passive Alert
34: Scout-9
38: Killer-5
43: Crippler-5
48: Tar Pit-9
53: Active Alert
57: Crippler-9
60: Killer-9
64: Shutdown
Host C (Security)
This includes Cameras, Maglock Controls, ID Card Scanners, etc.
red-5/8/9/9/10/10
Step: Event
3: Probe-5
6: Probe-7
10: Tar Pit-5
13: Tar Pit-7
16: Tar Pit-5
19: Passive Alert
22: Scout-9
25: Killer-5
29: Sparky-9
33: Ripper-7
36: Active Alert
38: Killer-5
40: Blaster-5
44: Scout-9
48: Shutdown
Host D (Executive Systems)
Includes the Silver Angel file 80 MP. It has a Scramble-6 on it.
red-7/12/11/12/14/13
Step: Event
3: Crippler-9
5: Trace-7
9: Probe-7
12: Passive Alert
15: Black-5
18: Blaster-7
21: Active Alert
24: Ripper-7
27: Black-8
29: Shutdown