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Dumpshock Forums _ Shadowrun _ Classes of Game Style
Posted by: Simon Kerimov Jul 12 2010, 07:42 AM
Which do you enjoy? Why?
Posted by: Lansdren Jul 12 2010, 08:10 AM
I prefer both ends of the spectrum,
Pink mohawk for the laughs
Cold Pro for the well put together plan and the drama
But most sessions start as one and ends as the other because both are just so much fun
Posted by: Snow_Fox Jul 12 2010, 02:50 PM
Right, it's a nice blend. pink mohawks are fun opening gambitas and releasse of stress but behind them we often has a Ghost in the Shell/James Bond/ Lovecraft type theme runnig.
Posted by: AStarshipforAnts Jul 12 2010, 02:57 PM
I prefer a blend of all of the above. My games tend to be rules light and roleplay heavy, anyway. Mohawk is great for laughs, but I prefer it peppered between more mirror-shades style planning--both when I'm a PC and when I'm GMing.
Posted by: Stahlseele Jul 12 2010, 03:02 PM
I prefer Pink Mohawk, but it's often a Mix of Spy VS Spy and Black Trenchcoats <.<
Last session, i clobbered the two going at it Spy VS Spy stile . .
Posted by: Piersdrach Jul 12 2010, 03:05 PM
I take my hobby probably way to seriously, but I squash any 'pink mohawk'. I even booted my own son from the game when he showed up with his elongated limbed, satyr legged, mood haired hobgoblin with a bad temper. Who had no skills whatsoever that wasn't combat.
Posted by: Snow_Fox Jul 12 2010, 03:09 PM
you said it better than I did.
Posted by: Dr.Rockso Jul 12 2010, 03:11 PM
Well we all make a socially retarded combat monster eventually
Everyone should play an hmg toting sociopath bullet sponge at least once to see the appeal. Also gives you an appreciation of why combat skills aren't everything.
Posted by: nezumi Jul 12 2010, 03:39 PM
I love pink mohawk, but I run black trenchcoat. It's too well entrenched in me to do otherwise.
Posted by: SkepticInc Jul 12 2010, 03:50 PM
I play Dark Tomorrow to the hilt, but I make use of Pink Mohawk. Some writer said once that humor makes tragedy more tragic, and tragedy makes humor more humorous. There is nothing quite like a Pink Mohawk burnout when you are cornered and doomed. It's senseless, usually fails, and is oh so (meta)human.
Posted by: Androcomputus Jul 12 2010, 07:17 PM
I understand what Pink Mohawk is from the roll call, I think mirrored sunglasses are the opposite of that correct? I was wondering if you guys could post what each means for the targets lurking the forum... I would also like to understand so I could employ these elements in my group of new people...
Posted by: AStarshipforAnts Jul 12 2010, 07:30 PM
Many of these names are equivalents to one another, or at least analogous.
From what I understand, Mirrorshades/darkshades/dark trenchcoat means being serious, making plans A-F, and planning for about nine different ways things could go wrong. Everyone is careful to cover their tracks, act professionally, and keep their heads out of trouble. No one ever, ever ends up on the evening news. The characters may have their own sets of personality quirks. But, for the most part, these are played seriously and the characters do their best to remain professional despite any...proclivities.
Posted by: stevebugge Jul 12 2010, 08:02 PM
I find that on any given night we can end up playing just about any style with the same characters. It can range from very serious and planned to fly by the seat of your pants laugh a minute insanity. Alcohol is often a factor
Posted by: Johnny B. Good Jul 12 2010, 08:41 PM
We play Ice Cold Mohawk: Plan for everything, the second somebody fires a gun immediately scrap said plan and shoot everything.
Posted by: Squiddy Attack Jul 12 2010, 08:42 PM
I prefer a game to be mainly serious with humor thrown in here and there, be it character banter or something else, and a splash of Pink Mohawk.
Posted by: MortVent Jul 12 2010, 08:42 PM
tend towards the absurd a bit at times... though mostly the mirroshades types.. but sometimes you just got to say smurf it! and toss a 5 kg bomb into the room... inside a pretty pink lunchbox with 2 kgs of it being ceramic marbles..
Posted by: TheMidnightHobo Jul 12 2010, 09:49 PM
Hear hear! It is oh so much fun, too.
Posted by: Stahlseele Jul 12 2010, 09:53 PM
Ah, so that's what it's called O.o
Posted by: Redcrow Jul 12 2010, 10:35 PM
My preference is more of the "caper" style where the goal is to try and out-think and out-maneuver the opposition rather than out-fight them down to the last man. There is plenty of humor in the game, though it does tend to be more on the dark side. Corruption and conspiracy are rampant, so its never a question of whether you are being too paranoid but whether you are being paranoid enough.
Posted by: Dumori Jul 12 2010, 10:43 PM
In stead of giving it on one of the vagely discribed terms. Pink Mohawk is more than blow everything up. Mirrorshades is more that ditching your gun after a run ect.
I tend to play more to the professional side. That's not to say my current PC has a LMG modded to long bust with no recoil. Some times you need a big gun.
Humour wise its something a bit like fallout 1-2. In fact the entire game can be said as Fallout with more planning and stealth.
Posted by: BlueMax Jul 12 2010, 11:16 PM
I play games. They vary. But a key rule in the garage is as follows:
Details should never detract from the experience.
From my POV, that makes me a NEON Glowing Pink Mohawk. I take that with pride.
What I don't want to do is pass judgment on anyone else's game. If you love details, weights, measures, plastic surgery, DNA scrubbing and rewriting, not having any contacts who know you and so on, GO FOR IT.
Every table is different but they are all Shadowrun.
BlueMax
Posted by: yukami Jul 13 2010, 01:35 AM
i don't know what my style is... probably something like "unprofessional realist living in a cyberpunk world" maybe?
as someone who's personally familiar with the *contemporary* anarcho-street-punk lifestyle, i can say that the ice-cold-mohawk is certainly not a contradiction in terms (shouts to johnny b good for saying it first) - when you don't HAVE a home, and you don't HAVE id, and you smell and are dirty and are OBVIOUSLY a homeless street kid and just a couple hours ago you were sitting in the park spanging or flying a sign so you could front yourself some work (work = drugs) you ARE ice-cold about how you do business. in fact, you're probably MORE cautious and practical than your standard, "intelligent" white collar criminal who plans all their **** out to try to not get caught, because everybody is already watching you and assuming you're a criminal.
it doesn't take a pair of $200 sunglasses to take on the man - any day of the week i'd throw my money on the pink mohawk to get out of a situation, because they ARE criminal, they live it and embrace it and know what they're getting into. Mr. Mirrorshades might as well be on somebody's payroll, for all i care.
straight people don't DO crime, and johnny ice-cold who pretends he's a normal wageslave is just surrounding himself with a lie that takes more effort to maintain and is bound to fall apart in the end anyway.
mohawk love forever! ^_^
Posted by: Xahn Borealis Jul 13 2010, 01:36 PM
I know what Pink Mohawk and Black Trenchcoat/Mirrorshades/Ice Cold Professional are, but what's Spy vs Spy and Dark Tomorrow?
Posted by: Stahlseele Jul 13 2010, 01:52 PM
Sound to me like Mohawk PvP
Posted by: StealthSigma Jul 13 2010, 02:06 PM
Our games start out with lots and lots of planning. We try to figure out the best way to accomplish our goal.
Then we execute. We start following the plan. Then at some point we get to a "f--- it" moment where the plan is tossed out the window and anything goals.
I've noticed this tends to happen towards the end of the plan execution or for the escape portion of the plan.
Posted by: Stahlseele Jul 13 2010, 02:09 PM
*nods*
sounds familiar . .
"ah hell with it . . gimme a gun, i'm going through there . . "
Posted by: The Grue Master Jul 13 2010, 02:35 PM
Then we execute. We start following the plan. Then at some point we get to a "f--- it" moment where the plan is tossed out the window and anything goals.
I've noticed this tends to happen towards the end of the plan execution or for the escape portion of the plan.
That generally mimics strategy sessions in my group. We have a whiteboard with 'the universal plan' that was written on it almost five years ago. It reads:
Plan A: Talk our way in.
Plan B: Sneak our way in.
Plan C: Drive a bulldozer through the wall.
Posted by: Johnny B. Good Jul 13 2010, 02:35 PM
Then we execute. We start following the plan. Then at some point we get to a "f--- it" moment where the plan is tossed out the window and anything goals.
I've noticed this tends to happen towards the end of the plan execution or for the escape portion of the plan.
Welcome to the world of Ice-Cold Moehawk. Plan your way in, shoot your way out.
Posted by: Lansdren Jul 13 2010, 02:37 PM
would that make it "Blue" mohawk then
Posted by: StealthSigma Jul 13 2010, 02:47 PM
You know, given my character's propensity towards stealth and infiltration, I've considered in every shoot your way out situation to let the rest of the team do that while I quietly sneak away.
Posted by: Johnny B. Good Jul 13 2010, 02:58 PM
Think full Berwick line suit, mirrorshades and a 6-inch tall silver mohawk.
Posted by: AStarshipforAnts Jul 13 2010, 03:01 PM
Classy.
Posted by: SkepticInc Jul 13 2010, 09:25 PM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spy_vs_spy was a wordless cartoon from the old Mad Magazine, where a White Spy and a Black Spy (not race, just a monochromatic print style) were always trying to do each other in using rube goldbergian devices, and it took awhile to see which one had out gambited the other one. They were quite clever. In that case I would imagine a Spy vs Spy SR game to be more serious than a Pink Mohawk game, but too ridiculously convoluted to be considered realistic, which I imagine the Dark Tomorrow is supposed to be. Reminds me of the Paranoia system, or IOU (Illuminati University. You're not cleared to know what the O stands for) where they had three different play styles (Straight, Classic, Zap). Zap was basically the Three Stooges level insanity, Straight was playing the game with a dark and serious style, and Classic was just playing the game at it's suggested, and odd, level of seriousness.
For SR you could call it Gritty, Normal, and Pink Mohawk or something.
Posted by: BlueMax Jul 13 2010, 09:38 PM
One man's gritty is another mans ridiculous.
One man's noir is another mans corny.
We all share Shadowrun.
BlueMax
Posted by: tagz Jul 13 2010, 09:45 PM
http://www.cycleblind.com/media/00/a20792b12788801f8d2afb_s.jpg on top of a power business suit in a board room meeting with Ares execs, a small drone shaped like a pterodactyl sitting on your shoulder spitting little puffs of fire.
"Lets talk stock options."
Posted by: Saint Sithney Jul 14 2010, 09:58 PM
I sort of pictured Spy vs. Spy as black hats and white hats blowing each other up for all eternity and Dark Tomorrow to be each man against a hostile world.
Personally, I'm not the biggest fan of 'grab the MacGuffin" plots, but when I play them myself, I tend to treat it like capture the flag. You want to sneak as close to the flag as possible, but you're pretty much going to have to start sprinting at some point.
As far as details and getting lost in them, I generally run games, and when I do, I only care about moving the plot along. If a character is being a jackass, he obviously wants to catch some heat. If a player goes out of his way to detail how he shaves every hair and scrubs every skin cell off, then he's wasting his time, because, unless he asks for trouble by acting a fool, I'll assume he takes whatever precautions he needs to to maintain the lifestyle which I assume has existed since before the game start.
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