Shadowrun Denver & New Plot

[Thenomain]

@rebekahse

We are more mega corporate than anytime before in history, it's just not something we feel we can, or need, to do anything about. A radio piece I heard from a pop culture analyst had superhero movies and now tv as popular because we feel that we have no control over impossible situations, mostly terrorism and rising control of our every day lives.

Back in the 80s, we still had a sense of the "punk" that's in cyberpunk.

I find the conclusion that you can't put in wireless or social networking into ShadowRun to be kind of strange, because Cyberpunk2020 is ready for it right now, and CP2020 has a heavy dose of world building too. (Five corporation books, four cybernetics books, etc.)

Cyberpunk 203x, while wildly unpopular, introduced reputation as currency, too, has a strict timeline of events starting in 2003, and many other conceits that you can find in ShadowRun.

So why do people flip their lid at idea of updating the game world?

[rebekahse]

@Thenomain said:

@rebekahse

We are more mega corporate than anytime before in history, it's just not something we feel we can, or need, to do anything about. A radio piece I heard from a pop culture analyst had superhero movies and now tv as popular because we feel that we have no control over impossible situations, mostly terrorism and rising control of our every day lives.

Sure, we absolutely are. But the lack of paranoia about it is what makes the difference, because Shadowrun's all about the paranoia. It's not a game that would get made in today's climate, I don't think.

I find the conclusion that you can't put in wireless or social networking into ShadowRun to be kind of strange, because Cyberpunk2020 is ready for it right now, and CP2020 has a heavy dose of world building too. (Five corporation books, four cybernetics books, etc.)

That wasn't really the conclusion, though.

So why do people flip their lid at idea of updating the game world?

I don't think most people do. I think the people that flip their lid flip it at 4th Edition's change to "WOD-style" dice mechanics, and thus don't want to play 4th. If you're not playing 4th or 5th, you're stuck with non-wireless 3rd/2nd/1st and all its clunky, 80s-era predictions of future tech. You could theoretically put wireless, social media, etc. into all of those, but you're basically having to write a lot of new rules for an old, established game system at that point, and I've never seen that work really well.

Aside from the dice mechanics thing, 4th and 5th don't feel as "cyberpunky". The writing of 1st/2nd/3rd editions just have an 80s feel to them that I can't describe but know when I see. I like that, personally, but it does feel dated and incongruous with where technology has actually advanced to. Being set seventy years in the future becomes a lot less plausible when people can't get on the internet stand-in without finding a physical jackpoint or setting up a satellite interface. But going with the recent editions of the game that aren't completely unaware of the technological advancements of the 90s/00s/10s loses out on the 80s cyberpunk vibe that I think attracted people to the game in the first place.

You can't have one with the other, basically.

[Thenomain]

@rebekahse said:

But the lack of paranoia about it is what makes the difference, because Shadowrun's all about the paranoia. It's not a game that would get made in today's climate, I don't think.

Absolutely not, because that's not where we are, but you can easily update CP2020 into the modern climate, so why not ShadowRun? We are paranoid, these days. We are paranoid as fuck. Apple unlock your phone because think of the children are we paranoid! We're just not paranoid about corporate control, as the US Chamber of Commerce has announced a lawsuit against Seattle trying to allow unionization of Uber drivers.

We can feed that paranoia, it just takes a good twist in the right direction.

You could theoretically put wireless, social media, etc. into all of those, but you're basically having to write a lot of new rules for an old, established game system at that point, and I've never seen that work really well.

Are you saying that CP2020 is not an old, established game system?

That the latest rules sets are not thematically cyberpunk, that I can get behind, but let's also admit that the whole concept of cyberpunk is very 80s. Gibson's writings have moved on while playing to the strong social noir that made cyberpunk to begin with. I played a point and click adventure called "Void & Null" that captures the mood without having to be cyberpunk.

We can near future sci-if noir, if we wanted. Let's do it.

[ThatGuyThere]

@rebekahse said:
A future without wireless Internet or social media? Nuh uh.

This would be my dream world. ... Alright you can keep wireless but I would sacrifice quite a bit to purge the world of social media.

[Thenomain]

@ThatGuyThere said:

I would sacrifice quite a bit to purge the world of social media.

No online forums for you!

[rebekahse]

@Thenomain said:

Absolutely not, because that's not where we are, but you can easily update CP2020 into the modern climate, so why not ShadowRun? We are paranoid, these days. We are paranoid as fuck. Apple unlock your phone because think of the children are we paranoid! We're just not paranoid about corporate control, as the US Chamber of Commerce has announced a lawsuit against Seattle trying to allow unionization of Uber drivers.

Right! It's a different kind of paranoia. I don't know why, but it doesn't feel very Shadowrun to me. Possibly just because I started playing Shadowrun in the 90s. Without the 80s-style paranoia, it just doesn't seem like Shadowrun.

Are you saying that CP2020 is not an old, established game system?

Noooooo, I'm just saying that I think updating 3rd Edition Shadowrun for wireless, social media, etc. would require way more work than it's worth, and wouldn't work all that well even if you did it.

That the latest rules sets are not thematically cyberpunk, that I can get behind, but let's also admit that the whole concept of cyberpunk is very 80s. Gibson's writings have moved on while playing to the strong social noir that made cyberpunk to begin with. I played a point and click adventure called "Void & Null" that captures the mood without having to be cyberpunk.

We can near future sci-if noir, if we wanted. Let's do it.

Cyberpunk's very 80s, absolutely. And it's totally possible to move on from it and still keep a lot of what makes Shadowrun Shadowrun, but despite that it doesn't feel very Shadowrunny. I don't know how to describe it beyond that, and it's probably just me - I do like 4th and 5th edition, from what I've seen of them, but they feel very, very different in tone and setting. Maybe it's all just nostalgia.

[Thenomain]

@rebekahse

Shadowrun opens with a circle of Native Americans chanting until magic happens and they all become free. I'm surprised, sometimes, that it managed to be cyberpunk at all. It's ShadowRun's setting, not its technology, that I think people are holding onto. What would the game world be if Dunklezahn didn't have a 50+ page will released as a game supplement, after being elected President at one GenCon. Not very cyberpunk for a very long time, but very ShadowRun.

You play the game you love, that's all. But if you want to see ShadowRun turned cyberpunk, it can be done. There will be a ripping of bandaids. It will not feel very "AD&D With Cybernetics" at all.

[Jennkryst]

The fact that every gear-ish book from SR1 and SR2 had 'consumer review' sections where people gave feedback to anyone buying stuff, and the existence of the Dumpshock Forum prove that social media was a thing. Not as big a thing as Jackpoint became, but still a thing. Wireless matrix may not have existed in SR1, but I'm like 90% sure it was there for SR2 in it's expanded Matrix rulebook, and I am 100% positive that it was there for SR3. The rules may have been shitty (detection penalties, program size limits, speed reduction)... but they were there.

As for the paranoia and dystopia, it's arguable we are already there, but we're either as blind as the wageslaves are, or (more likely) we see what's happening, but we're either too lazy or terrified to actively do anything about it.

[faraday]

@Thenomain said:

It's ShadowRun's setting, not its technology, that I think people are holding onto.

What I find most interesting, though, is that different people have different views of the theme. You see it as "AD&D With Cybernetics", @rebekahse sees it as paranoid cyberpunk, I always viewed it as "misfit heist hijinks". Makes me wonder how one would manage such divergent thematic views on a MUSH. It's easier with a small gaming group.

[Lithium]

@faraday With ShadowRun the best settings I have seen are when it is hands off. Build the world as best you can to provide empty space and openings for people to fill with their own ideas. Allow gangs to be player ran. Allow players in the different criminal and legal organizations. Allow players anywhere, and let players also play ShadowRunners.

Each ShadowRunning team will have very different types of 'jobs' they want to do, some will be white hats, some black, some somewhere in between.

That's my take on it, open up the can of worms and let them all out and the game will settle into whatever it will be.

[Thenomain]

@faraday

I never knew what ShadowRun was supposed to be. A fun game with great art and a janky ruleset where you play a fantasy race in a post-modern corporate-run world.

I have a pretty good idea what cyberpunk is supposed to be, and ShadowRun lives with only one foot in that theme. The other foot is squarely in Tolkein-inspired fantasy.

The only thing I know is consistent in ShadowRun's theme is that you play someone who decided to make money as a criminal for hire in a time and land where the law can change depending where you are and who's doing the talking, which pretty well describes a D&D adventurer.

What does an adventuring party do when they have nothing to adventure? What defines a shadowrunner when they're not on a run?

[faraday]

@Thenomain Yeah, that was always my take on it too. There were smatterings of cyberpunk, but like you said - I think its theme had more in common with D&D than Blade Runner.

[Lithium]

@Thenomain said:

What does an adventuring party do when they have nothing to adventure? What defines a shadowrunner when they're not on a run?

This isn't a problem in my eyes, there is always the possibility of rounding out your character with knowledge skills and other skills that are more than 'Is this useful in a gun fight?'. That is also where RP helps. ShadowRunners spend a majority of their time not on runs. Most of the time they are trying to survive the mean streets where they don't (for the most part) have any legal identity and are relegated to the underside of society.

Maybe one shadowrunner likes to paint, write, or play a particular sport. Another might enjoy boozing and whoring. A different one might spend time with his old ganger pals to make sure that they're not dead, or to help them out. One might have family to take care of. Every Runner has a /reason/ for running the shadows and those can drive a lot of what the Runner is doing while not on a run.

There's also downtime work, repairing gear and vehicles, making contacts, buying your Fixer a drink or watching for Backlash from previous runs. ShadowRun since it is such a huge setting has a lot of different tones that can be used, and a lot of that is up to the players and the particular GM.

One of my /favorite/ SR games was when the GM said, nobody can take more than C resources, everyone is a ganger in the same gang, or an ex-ganger in that gang trying to claw their way out of the Barrens. Was a blast. Another game everyone was part of a Doc Wagon team for platinum member recovery.

There are a lot of games to be had that aren't, go do bad things for money, and the setting is vibrant enough to allow for all of this in my opinion.

[faraday]

@Lithium said:

There are a lot of games to be had that aren't, go do bad things for money, and the setting is vibrant enough to allow for all of this in my opinion.

There was a section in one of the sourcebooks - 3rd edition Companion, I believe? - where it listed alternate campaign ideas. Docwagon, reporters, police, gangers... I forget the others. But these were all geared around a tabletop group running a cohesive team.

On a MUSH, you're more likely to end up with one Docwagon medic, one cop, one reporter, and two guys on different street gangs. You lose that cohesion, making it difficult to come up with interesting plots to throw at such a motley crew. (Not saying it's impossible, but it's certainly hard to do repeatedly.)

And plots are important. Downtime can be fun, but a game that was nothing but downtime would be tiresome.

[Lithium]

@faraday I agree completely. The best fun to be had in ShadowRun, as ShadowRunners is when you can come up with a team, or at least a group of people who can play at the same time as you so you can end up /as/ something similar to a team, at least familiar enough with each other's playstyle and capabilities that you can make a plan accordingly.

As a random solitary Runner, being thrown into runs with people I didn't know or trust? I don't think if I was being totally realistic I'd do that, but we did for the sake of story. Finding a /team/ you can at least partially count on is paramount.

That'd be a good tool to have, a piece of code that a person could put in their archetype, focus, and times available so as to help organize the players to find teams.

Teams are easier to run for as well. On ChampionsMUSH way way back in the late 90's, you couldn't even get approved without having a staffer 'sponsor' you which in general meant the staffer was willing to take you onto a team. It wasn't the best way to run things, but it also wasn't the worst way to run things either.

[Jaded]

@Lithium said:

@faraday I agree completely. The best fun to be had in ShadowRun, as ShadowRunners is when you can come up with a team, or at least a group of people who can play at the same time as you so you can end up /as/ something similar to a team, at least familiar enough with each other's playstyle and capabilities that you can make a plan accordingly.

Agreed. The setting is extremely versatile. My tabletop group for Shadowrun right now involves four former Lonestar who formed a team with some of their more capable Confidential Informants to do work in an Equalizer-style of justice.

[Thenomain]

@Lithium said:

This isn't a problem in my eyes

It is in mine.

[Lithium]

@Thenomain

May I ask how it is a problem? I am honestly (for real) curious as to how it is one in your eyes because that seems to be a flaw at character design/creation made by the player rather than the system itself.

Any character can be made to be more than who they are on a job. They can have interests and skills outside of shooting/stabbing/fisticuffs/spells/drones/decking or whatever if they are a whole person no?

I remember in the very first edition (and 2nd and I think maybe others) there is a whole encounter designed around going to the Stuffer Shack which is then 'robbed' by gangers while the runners are in the place.

There's a lot of stories that can be told in ShadowRun other than: Do X for Y.

[Jennkryst]

@Thenomain You eat, sleep, learn a new spell, heal any wounds, do the contact shuffle, implant new 'ware...

[faraday]

@Lithium said:

There's a lot of stories that can be told in ShadowRun other than: Do X for Y.

Sure, just look at all the SR novels. My favorite RP in our tabletop campaign came from things that happened outside of a traditional Shadowrun. Rescuing a runner's girlfriend, who'd been kidnapped by the Universal Brotherhood. Getting involved in an underground mixed martial arts tournament. Helping a boyfriend's street gang hijack some goods. Investigating something going down at the clinic where one of the runners was moonlighting as a medic.... actually I think we did more random stuff than we did actual 'runs

But I think that's the exception rather than the rule. The world is open for you to tell whatever stories you want to tell, but the game is structured around the idea that most players will be doing 'runs - a very limited slice of the world. I'm curious if that's what @Thenomain was getting at?