ShadowRun 5E ... 2050
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So I am moving ahead with my plans to create a ShadowRun MUX, set in the year 2050, but using rules from 5th edition. Obviously some things are going to be right out (Technomancers), and others vastly limited (Bioware/Cyberware/Gear/Agents) to try and create the wild west of running, back before power creep and weapon bloat.
My question for everyone who might be interested in such a thing (Since there seems to be some interest in a new functional SR MUX) is where would you like it to be set?
From the outset I am avoiding Seattle, Denver, Detroit, London, and Berlin because those games have been made, they've got their stories, and I want to take things back to the beginning, story wise, create our own future that doesn't end up with stuff like nanites attacking and reprogramming our brains so that AI's can live in the meat (Good for a written book, not so good for a game setting in my honest opinion).
Right now I have Four main cities in mind:
Atlanta, Capital of the CAS
Boston, New Home of the Stock Exchange and a lot of corporate power with it's own nasty slums and whatnot (Probably the easiest due to there actually being more source material, but that comes with it's own pitfalls)
Austin, On the border between the CAS and Aztlan, a volatile place, exciting in it's own right.
San Francisco, East meets West, literally, another great city for intrigue, culture clashes, national pride, etc.So out of those four I'm just fishing for opinions as to what you guys would like to see. Feel free to pick one, or number them in order of most liked to least, or whatever, rant, rave, tell me I'm crazy, etc.
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I'm curious... why no Vegas or NYC? And why Austin over Dallas/Ft. Worth?
I'm neither angry nor ranty, just curious.
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I would vote San Francisco out of those options. I would vastly prefer something West coast to get more of the Japanese influnce that is in cuyberpunk things.
for not on the list I would offer Chicago, not a lot of games set there and in 2050 it would not be Bug City yet. -
I'm curious... why no Vegas or NYC? And why Austin over Dallas/Ft. Worth?
I'm neither angry nor ranty, just curious.
I wanted to avoid NYC because I think it's to tightly controlled by the corporations after the quake that it allows a lot less wiggle room for a wide variety of concepts. NYC is a place where the 'flash' of ShadowRun would get you in trouble very fast with local law. Wage Slave Heaven in my opinion, is not a good place for pink mohawks and go gangs. I just don't feel that it's a good setting for the versatility of concepts that ShadowRun can generate.
Vegas is firmly in the middle of Pueblo and that's also why I avoided Los Angeles, I am trying for places that have a lot of overlap and ideals so that things aren't so set in stone.
Anyone who wasn't playing an Amerind in a Las Vegas set game would automatically be an outsider for example much like playing a westerner in Tokyo. I'm trying for more melting pot cities which I think Atlanta (Being as it's a capital and corporate center) and Boston (What with /every/ corp being there, and huge slums etc) can more easily swing than Las Vegas after the NAN took over.
As for Austin, I picked it because it is a /Huge City/, lots of variety in setting, and it is literally on the border with Aztlan, which opens up Azzy based stories easier. Aztlan makes an /excellent/ foil to most ShadowRunners I believe because of it being owned by Aztechnology, which has such a dark reputation even /before/ we get to what would be discovered in play. It gives a good location for both white hats and black hats to have a wide variety of runs in.
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@ThatGuyThere said:
I would vote San Francisco out of those options. I would vastly prefer something West coast to get more of the Japanese influnce that is in cuyberpunk things.
for not on the list I would offer Chicago, not a lot of games set there and in 2050 it would not be Bug City yet.I totally forgot about Chicago, you're right that it's not bug city yet, but I think I instinctively avoided it because we all know it /will be/, and I'm trying to avoid putting it near stuff people will expect, so as to make it a new story that will be both familiar, and different. If Chicago suddenly isn't bug city it would create a severe disconnect, in my opinion, that might not mesh well.
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Obviously some things are going to be right out (Technomancers), and others vastly limited (Bioware/Cyberware/Gear/Agents) to try and create the wild west of running, back before power creep and weapon bloat.
...create our own future that doesn't end up with stuff like nanites attacking and reprogramming our brains so that AI's can live in the meat (Good for a written book, not so good for a game setting in my honest opinion).
So... reverting Shadowrun to 'the future' as imagined by people a quarter of a century ago, instead of 'the future' as imagined by people from this decade.
That's disappointing.
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@HelloRaptor said:
Obviously some things are going to be right out (Technomancers), and others vastly limited (Bioware/Cyberware/Gear/Agents) to try and create the wild west of running, back before power creep and weapon bloat.
...create our own future that doesn't end up with stuff like nanites attacking and reprogramming our brains so that AI's can live in the meat (Good for a written book, not so good for a game setting in my honest opinion).
So... reverting Shadowrun to 'the future' as imagined by people a quarter of a century ago, instead of 'the future' as imagined by people from this decade.
That's disappointing.
It's still the future, and just because it is 2075 in 5th edition doesn't mean 2050 didn't happen, and that none of those things never existed, it's just further in the future.
I chose 2050 because I /like/ the setting better then. It's not using 1st edition rules, so there will be some changes. There will be the Matrix in 5th edition, with GOD, there just won't be Technomancers and Resonance Realms (Yet?), there will be plenty of cyberware, and magic, and limited Bioware, because Bioware will be the bleeding edge of this version of ShadowRun.
As for imagined by people from 25 years ago vs today?
New does not automatically mean better.
No game will please everyone, and I am not attempting to do so, I am making the game I want to make and know that I can code. If that's not to your liking so be it, I'm not going to apologize for my choices or try to appeal to the bleeding masses.
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@HelloRaptor said:
So... reverting Shadowrun to 'the future' as imagined by people a quarter of a century ago, instead of 'the future' as imagined by people from this decade.
That's disappointing.
I think that's the point of calling it "2050" and not "2075".
Additional random thoughts:
We're still trying to create the science of original Star Trek, so I don't think this is a complaint that carries much weight this way. Ray Bradbury, too, had a lot of things pretty bang to rights in the science department.
Besides, I think the people of today made their own quasi-post-apoc cyberpunk RPG with people turning into other species. It was called Eclipse Phase.
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I also want to point out that I am updating the tech as is required by necessity of using 5e rules. So the Matrix will be Wireless and Wired both, with decks and comlinks and AR and trodes and all that, there will be GOD and demiGODS and the various noise and host/node rules etc. What I am removing/changing is setting information for the most part so that it /is/ the 2050 future still.
I am not saying 2050 is the holy grail of settings and that nothing is going to be changed, that's just not doable with 5e rules. So there will be wireless matrix. AI's won't be around yet (Publically), Deus, WinterNight, none of that will have happened yet, and may not depending on how the story goes. I am not changing gun stats, or cyberware rules (Other than removing beta and delta grade cyberware and upping the cost/availability on Alphaware).
So will the setting and game be completely /pure/ to 2050? No, it can't for the reasons I said above. The environment overall will be 2050, not 2075, outside of those necessary changes.
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@Lithium Okay, that's fair (re: the cities). As I said, I was mostly curious about your thought process behind why you picked the four cities you did rather than a few others that are more 'popular' or more 'well-known' settings.
Out of the four, I would vote for Boston. East coast still has a lot of that Old World/New World feel to it, especially when you get to the areas that straddle the old sections of the city and the newer sections. I like the dichotomy between the slums and the high rises... and frankly, I'm an East Coast girl. ^_^
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DeeCee is also a place if we want to go there, to toss out the UCAS capital as an idea. On the other hand, Boston and San Fransisco both have better access to water, so BOATS. Which could also make a Carribean League setting interesting.
SO MANY CHOICES. I almost want to vote for all of the things, since it's not exactly the darkages, and transportation exists.
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Lol I would not stop runs from happening anywhere if that's what people wanted, so there could be all sorts of options available, but I am not building five separate grids. I also wanted to stay away from the UCAS because of the whole Dunkelzahn thing.
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Because CalFree is the most broken setting, I thumb up for San Francisco in the absence of a Gunderson Miami.
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My vote is between Austin and San Francisco.
Austin because, it's got a touch of hipster, the south and Azatlan. That sounds like a pretty interesting combination.
San Fran well because it's also a diverse setting, but this time with hippies, yakuza and triads. You have Oakland and Berkeley nearby. A lot can be done with the setting.
To me setting is key here because the more diverse it is, more things become possible. They also effect the theme. So yeah, I think those two have the most play in theme.
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I'm leaning towards Austin due to the diversity and potential.
However Boston is close behind with all the corps, the bad slums, and as previously mentioned water shipping access.
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Why not Hong Kong? You could possibly pull in new players with the recent release of Shadow Run: Hong Kong. Which is fantastic by the way.
Regardless while I prefer straight Cyberpunk to Shadowrun, id play a SR MUSH in a heartbeat.
Could also do Chicago before the rise of the bug spirits and the big quarantine?
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I don't know much of anything about ShadowRun aside from "cyberpunk-ish" and a brief poke at that xbox360 game, but I would definitely be interested in poking at something different from the usual WoD games, so good luck!
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@Tempest Alas, The XboX 360 game was... that whole slap an FPS on every game approach, which would be fine except for tele-portation, and resurrection magic, both previously no-no's/can't happen canon in SR.
Also fuck Magic Healing Trees... because reasons.
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@FiranSurvivor said:
Why not Hong Kong? You could possibly pull in new players with the recent release of Shadow Run: Hong Kong. Which is fantastic by the way.
Regardless while I prefer straight Cyberpunk to Shadowrun, id play a SR MUSH in a heartbeat.
Could also do Chicago before the rise of the bug spirits and the big quarantine?
I'm avoiding Hong Kong because of the game actually. People are looking at Hong Kong now through the eyes of HBS's game and that is fine but I don't want people down the road expecting events from that game happening. Defeats the purpose of trying for a lesser used venue.
Also: I'd rather pull in people who were looking for ShadowRun rather than trying to extend on a setting that isn't my creation (Which is another reason I am going with an underused city/setting, because then there's less established lore to run into).
I put the options out there because those were my initial ideas, so I guess it is between Austin and San Francisco, both are very intriguing in their own right.
Keep the opinions coming! Right now I am working on CharGen. I am using the Lifepath system from Run Faster so that everyone can make a character that is functional without needing to know the ins and outs of 5th edition. I am modifying it (Namely removing attached qualities and just adjusting costs due to that, Qualities I think should be entirely optional, I'll make a 'suggested qualities' tag in chargen based on the lifepath options picked but this way people don't have to worry about buying/selling off qualities unless they want them) and I'm not using every last one (Mainly the technomancer ones). Hopefully it will work to a point where I won't need to go over each sheet individually and approval might possibly be automated if CharGen is completely successfully.
EDIT: Also avoiding non-North America settings because I've found that it creates a disconnect for a lot of players and makes them uncomfortable or less interested in a game because they can have trouble connecting to their characters/setting.
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I for one look for a game, not a game following a preset timeline of setting and events. Given that I doubt a game will last two or three IC decades, concern about where the setting was heading seems odd.
However, I am not a player who plays a certain property because it is that property.