[Shadowrun] Retrospective: Dreamchipper (1989)
Y…eah. I mean, I have been doing these things for old DSA scenarios already, so now I get to do them for old Shadowrun ones as well. And Dreamchipper definitely is one of the oldest ones on the block, technically the second of independent scenarios after DNA/DOA (and the fourth after the venerated Food Fight in the rulebook and Silver Angel which was a pack in with the GM screen).
And it’s not even such a bad start. Unlike the previous scenarios this one is the first REAL Shadowrun scenario. Meaning: this is the first one that has all the common tropes that would become the stock in trade for future Shadowrun scenarios. Silver Angel already had part of this, but was organized differently, while DNA/DOA was very railroady in some parts, more so than a lot of later scenarios. It also tried too hard. Not that Dreamchipper…
But no, lets go through other parts first.
The main topic in Dreamchipper are dreamchips, or what later would be mostly known as BTLs (Better-Than-Life SimSense chips) in the setting. The chips in this case are a specific prototype of chips for military use that override the user’s personality with another, i.e. they are what later canon would come to know as persona-fix chips.
Here we have this part of Shadowrun canon in it’s infancy, these chips are meant to be some of the first ones in the setting, and to show off the possibilities of the technology they have been fixed with three very distinctive personalities: Genghis Khan, Cleopatra, and Jack the Ripper. I think it makes sense if you just assume these never were intended to be actually used and only there to show prospective buyers how and how well the technology works.
In any case the chips have been stolen as part of some internal power struggle, and the runners are hired to retrieve them. We get some basic information about where to start investigating, and then we are let loose at the world. Of course the chips are currently in use. While they were stolen, the reason for the theft was to give bad press for the CEO of the company, so the chips stayed with the thieves.
There are a lot of interesting things in this scenario that have not been kept for later scenarios. Some of this makes for intriguing design, some of it just comes across as annoying.
There are “random” encounters/rumors which we can encounter when traveling from location to location. There is a very interesting story progression happening where the different story lines are slowly revealed in small encounters. Early on one might find a guy spraying over a gang tag with a new one, while later a whole bunch of gangers from different gangs might pass by together without fighting. Both indicate how the guy with the Genghis personafix slowly is uniting the biker gangs of Seattle.
There are some real possibilities for giving the world additional texture. Unfortunately the way it is presented (every journey outside gets a random encounter) doesn’t feel very natural. Not to speak about the way the encounters tend to take away player agency. An encounter might tell you what happens, but also how the player character reacts. In game I also simply didn’t get around presenting them as they were intended.
Obviously outside a dungeon, descriptions of actions have a tendency to assume too much. You are given some leeway in how players might want to approach the scenario, i.e. there’s no actual fixed order how to get back the chips from the people that have them, but once you get into the details I found I got tripped up by descriptions that simply assumed too much. The PCs enter an apartment, and the descriptions tell you exactly how the characters are doing it. You enter a party and the text will tell you how the characters feel and behave. That’s… not good. This also shows up with the encounters mentioned above. Your character meets a ganger doing something illegal. You just watch. Then you walk on.
I mean, yes, most likely a runner would do that to keep out of trouble, but what if they don’t want to keep out of trouble?
The descriptions also don’t fit some of the maps we get in my opinion. The later section with the party for example shows a flat that is at odds with what is written in the text. Here we have the feeling of a big crowded place with hundreds of people milling about, with distinct types clustering in certain places, and the flat… is a flat. Just a normal flat. In no way is there space enough for what is described in the text unless everybody is really, really cuddly or there’s way less people at the party than what the text claims.
The mystery part is all a bit thin, and most of it is cleared up in the middle when the person you thought was the big bad tries to kill you in a meeting with your Johnson, and his personal pocket secretary contains evidence for someone behind the scenes. There is a good story in there, but the way it was presented just wasn’t it.
Altogether a valiant attempt for such an early adventure, but it really could have been better. I think this needs someone putting a lot of cuts in before it really is usable.
Random Notes:
- This module has what might be a very early gay couple. Tee Hee is hiding away… in a small apartment with only one bed. In the apartment of the only person he seems to have had a positive connection with in university. It’s never mentioned, but that’s what I got out of it.
- That scene on the cover with the Cleo being surrounded by two orc guards? Striking, and totally doesn’t happen in the scenario.
- unlike what might be assumed in the scenario my players took a dislike to Cleo from the beginning and ended executing her and her paramour on the quay. Interestingly they took pains to keep her bodyguard out of trouble. Players sometimes are weird.
- The Jack the Ripper part was maybe the blandest of the three scenarios. Once the players figure out what persona-fix is in play it becomes a chore to improvise anything that keeps them from rolling over the guy.
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