I've been trying to put my finger on the difference in feeling and atmosphere that exists between 2nd & 3rd edition, and I can tell you one thing - it has nothing to do with rules.

I run my campaign using 3rd Ed - I didn't go for 4th because, although I like it, too many of the rules changes are 'visible' in the game world (wireless decking, for example) - but currently set in 2051 (1st & 2nd Ed time period) and am currently making use of published material and modules from that era of the game. I've also been reading some of the novels (Secrets Of Power, 2XS, etc) for source material, and that's the feeling I've been trying to go for with my campaign, and I think despite using 3rd Ed rules, I'm pretty much nailing it.

I do agree that it's very much got to do with the extrapolation of technology from the period of writing. If you've ever read novels such as the Secret's Of Power trilogy, or 2XS you might've noticed the all-pervasive use of hard-wired telecoms/dataterms, whether public callboxes or private terminals, rather than celphones. Obviously an extrapolation of the technology of the time rather than modern tech. One of my players has trouble buying into this, continually using his celphone, trying to check the matrix on it, and use it as a GPS ('But I can do it nowadays, why can't I do it in 2050?') - that'll be coming to an end shortly though, he's been warned that it's not a secure technology - easily hacked and easily traced (thank you 'The Wire'!) - so I'll let paranoia do it's fine work! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

I think alot of the changes from 3rd Ed to 4th Ed were concerned with bringing the technology curve up to speed with modern day - ruleswise they effectively rebuilt the decking rules from the ground up to embrace modern wireless tech, and ingame, the Second Crash was a plot device to wipe clean the existing tech and take a massive leap forward.

IMHO, the feel of 1st & 2nd Ed is in the source material & novels rather than rules - it's richer, but can equally easily be generated using 3rd Ed too. 4th, though good in it's own right, is a different barrel of monkeys. An important factor in maintaining that feeling is, I think, keeping them wired and retaining that grimey cyberpunky feeling of tech extrapolated from that time period. If you don't get me, read some of the early novels, I think you'll figure it out.

Three points : scope, flavor and players

Scope: SR1 and SR2 were about North America, and more specifically Seattle, with a few exceptions. It did care about some details and had some consistency, but it also had big holes. It wasn't afraid of getting into caricature, with dumb and ugly trolls and vegetarians elves. From SR3, Shadowrun started to be more complete, to extend to the rest of the world, and to be more "realistic".

Flavor: SR1 illustrations were made by Queensryche fans, and was written in a time when we knew what the future would look like. And it would look colorful and eccentric. Nowadays you wouldn't be taken seriously if you said that in the future people would look like that and that Japan would rule the world.

Players: First there's nostalgia. Then there's the fact that the players were also people who knew what the future would look like.

But after reading a few of the novels, and especially the first trilogy, I have to admit that I didn't get that feel I'm talking about. And when reading the SR2 core book, I only got it from the illustrations and my memories of when I played SR2. The written fluff in itself didn't really feel much different from what we've got in SR4A.

Yes. I love the use of this word. Older ediitons feel dirty, and not just the tech. Probably because they were actual books, and an extension of that is the tendency to get smeared fingerprints from snacks around the table. Then there is that rich and heady aroma of an older book. Add in the fact that (at least down this way) tobacco is still a part of a balance breakfast, and you get that old cigarette smell with some of the books in the used stores, too.

Same applies to old WoD stuff, too. And I think the "new" stuff is aimed at a broader audience. Hell, WoD pretty much flat out booted its old player base out the door, but quickly began to backpedal on that.

It's been mentioned the cleanliness of 4th ed. and what not. I think there is alsoa bit of glamourizing, as well. The feel in the older stuff was that being running the Shadows was because the system didn't want you, or wouldn't let you in. You had to do the corps' dirty work in order to survive. Now? It reads like it's some sort of trend. Like getting a tribal or tramp-stamp tattoo.

I enjoy him on Eureka. He also was great in Watchmen.

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4th gen seems to not only have forgotten the influences that made Shadowrun, but it seems to have gone without influences itself. For me, the final nail in the grave was the Steampunk outfit. That's when I was sure we weren't meant to be playing Phillip K. Dick characters, we were meant to be playing ourselves. Everything became so sanitized. Everyone had rights. Like R.E.M., Shadowrun had gone from "It's the End of the World as We Know It" to "Shiny Happy People".

Agreed. I think it was in Shadows of North America that the PCC started giving SINs to anyone who asked...by the time we get to 4th edition, SINless are on the outside by choice. The runners kind of feel too....professionalized, to me. I'm not sure that I'm putting this in the right words.

Anyone watch Burn Notice? Remember how much more fun the show was early on, when it was just a burned spy with no friendly gov't contacts, his crazy ex-terrorist girlfriend, and a washed-up Navy SEAL? And now Michael is only "burned" as a cover, Fiona is angling to get married, and Sam seems almost respectable. Oh, and Jesse is now a private security contractor. What gives?


It's kind of like that.

I'm waiting for them to give up entirely on helping strangers A-team/Stringray style and just focus on taking down evil criminal organization X.

http://xkcd.com/864/

This.

And if I had a phone like that, it would be pertinent. Where's my flying car and jetpack?

This and by now your runners started having deltaware, YOTC with more crazy zany, basically the power creep got insane. The beginning of 3e was just dull (lack of interesting fluff) and by the end your super cyber troll was even more over the top than before. Magic was already less painful in the beginning of 3e. Still for a target number system the rules were pretty solid but again lost the flavor of the skill web and other odd mechanics. This was a trend in the late 90s though toward good mechanics less fluff. If you look at the early 90s you had VtM, Shadowrun, AD&D all trying to sell some amazing fluff with odd or wonky rules.

I have a phone like that.
But i STILL want my Hover-Board damn it!

Maybe the fact FASA closed doors mid 3e and Fanpro took it over has something to do with this ? Or not ?

Here's a companion question: If the game has lost so much of its "grime" and street-level feel, how do we get it back?

Nerf bioware?
Harsher drain resistance rules for magic?
Secure paydata stored in dark archives, requiring break-in and direct connection access (this is kind of already the case, right?)
Rejection of any character sheet describing a pale slim gun thug dressed all in black?

I'm a firm believer that we can recapture the glory of 80's fun. I managed to enjoy 80's cartoons again by inviting some buddies over, getting plastered on whiskey and coke, and watching TMNT and She-Ra. We can make this happen. Though if previous experience is any guide, we may have to get drunk first.

First off:
Nothing valuable is connected to the wireless matrix.
Secondly:
No more "ex-cop", "ex-marine", or "ex-super-soldier" type character concepts. They don't fit into the game world. Any corp willing to implant you with that much deltaware isn't going to let you go.
Third:
Illegal shit is fucking illegal. APDS shouldn't be the staple of every runner's arsenal, much less ex-ex. Just because you're doing illegal things to make money doesn't mean you have access to illegal gear unless you nab it illegally. There's some room for some items to be on the black market, but not in quantity and not cheap.

I can't agree with the ADPS thing enough. Getting that stuff was the result of hard work and luck, and you saved that crap for when you really needed it.

It's like shadowtalk that came with ADPS when it was introduced in the SSC 'i stole 2 clips of this stuff from Fort Lewis, but I had to use it up to get out'. The responses were like 'damn you got balls'.

EDIT: I also think the uncaring brutality of the world needs to be spun up again. Even JackPointers are almost touchy-feely types it seems like. This is a world where people sell bums for cash to ghouls and organ leggers, so they can eat for a week. Where bunraku parlors are thriving, and almost everyone either escapes from real life into the matrix or BTL chips.

Personally I have not lost the grime on the streets even using the SR4A setting as a starting point. It is the responsibility of the GM to build a mood, and really that is what this dark, grim, hopeless, old tech feel is. How do you accomplish it? Accentuate the difference between the corporate havens, a seeming utopia, a glass, stainless steel marvel of technology and city planning, and everywhere outside of that is in varying states of societal decay. Kids shoot each other with designer throwaway guns over food. Everyone has intermittent power in the bad areas of town, running water is a luxury, a place to live with a locking door and only half the plaster or drywall missing is pretty nice. What about AR? How is that second hand commlink? The slightly used pair of sunglasses with image link that some rich corp threw away, and then a dumpster diver pawned it for food. Sure your runners are not using second hand gear, but they are probably living in a less than pleasant area. They have several fake SINS all with backgrounds in crap neighborhoods where it is difficult to verify a damn thing, I mean their cover ID's need to be nobody's or their job becomes difficult, sure later on one might be a SIN in a nice area with a Luxury lifestyle, but you sure as hell ain't doing business using it, and if you are expect it to get burned. It rains, a lot, and it eats through your clothing. Any useful data is in a dedicated Nexus that can only be hardwired in. Real important shit gets couriered not transmitted. Did I mention people really will shoot you in the face for food. New shit sticks out like a sore thumb advertising that you have money, do it without a rep and you are going to get messed with. Have a rep and still expect the occasional kid out to make a rep for himself by taking out the big dogs. It is still a jungle of the have nots and the haves who have fallen, nothing has really changed.

But I bet you started SR before 4th edition. Am I right?

1: make shadowrunners elite again. not just run of the mill.
2: magic needs to be nerfed. bring back grounding.
3: change initiative back. If you are not fast or a tank, you are dead. it reflects reality, he who moves/reacts faster goes first and many times (also helps to nerf magic)
4: need 2 tiers of matrix/decking. AR for information and simple things around the world. Anything of value is wired.
5: need to bump up the camera paranoia. shadowrunners should not be walking around just anywhere they are criminals. make them keep to the shadows.
6: runs need to pay more. I am not going to do something illegal for 3000. make it 50 000 and now you are getting close. +25 000 for everyone I have to murder
7: tone down the uberness of dragons, and pump up the competitiveness of corporations. (kill the politics)
8: undo anything ever Rob Boyle touched in shadowrun (eclipse phase is his sweet spot)
9: kill the bio\cyber index. In second you had 6 essence, and up to your body in bio.
10: get Jim Butcher to write some novels.
11: kill the timline. nothing wrong with a game staying at 2053
12: Seattle is rainy, dismal. perfect for shadowrun. make more happen here. being surrounded by native and elves really helped keep things in the city.
13: get rid of skin link and PANs.

All four/five editions though not much of third. Actually I just started this one up a month ago, and I am not trying to guide it based on any nostalgia, rather I want it to fit the fluff. The fluff as I see still represents an overpowering, technically savvy, corporate elite with its tendrils in everything, corrupting everything it touches. Even those who "do good" in the Shadowrun world have to take ethically questionable actions to forward their agenda, and how often do they fall. The stories might seem slicker, they might even seem cleaner sometimes, a little more 007, Bourne Identity, but in the end it is all shit. The world is shit, the players live in shit, and the Megacorps keep it that way. The only people fooled by the glitter are the corpdrones with their Selective AR filters on Corp is Good mode.

I'm all for Jim Butcher writing novels. I think my stories are pretty grimy as well, but that's just my opinion.

Really point out the disparity of the neighborhoods, that's what I did for my group. They rarely felt the world was a nice place, even in the better parts of LA they had their van tagged by a "Gang". (They were wannabes, but they were still a "Gang". (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif) ).

San Diego I showed as being a wonderful, beautiful place with picturesque buildings and a wonderful convention going on with a low crime rate, even Shadowrunning. Then I brought in the Police Presence to show how it was done.

I have a strong urge to start a 2nd edition game somewhere.

my friend and I play all the time over skype. If you dig up your old char, you can join in on a game. I would prefer to create a group that plays regularly. The problem is that everyone else we meet isn't willing to gm. so we just gm each other. It's more novel-esque that way.

Yea, being able to set aside a set time is my problem. My third kid is 4 weeks old Friday (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

That just means you are on parental leave and have tonnes of time.

If you are interested down the road, we normally play for a few hours late nights on weekends.
Dig up your old char, and we will stick it on file. Any amount of karma is fine.
We aren't munchkins, but we have experienced characters. Nostalgia is really why we play.

I appreciate the offer and will keep it in mind (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Until then, I'll keep re-reading the sourcebooks starting with 1st edition moving up.