At sunrise and sunset, a man casts a long shadow, Rebirth, parabolic change, apocalypse Options

[Talia Invierno]

I'll suggest, here, that the continuing vitality of a roleplaying game with an invented or adapted world and/or metaplot ties directly to the perception of world change (sometimes echoed within personal or group storylines). Such change absolutely requires playing near perceived beginnings or endings of a cycle or single rise/fall, never in the periods of general status quo or where change is so gradual as to be almost unnoticeable.

The Shadowrun universe manages to fit this requirement both of new possibilities (sudden positive change) and of dystopic decay (sudden negative change) -- simultaneously. We find the Sixth World and the (re)Awakening and in fact exponential rise of magic as an active event-awareness within the lifetimes of many, juxtaposed with and contrasted against a corporate world which seems determined at times to drive toward an inevitable death of the world and the spirit. Machinery erodes the traditional limitations of humankind, in apparently infinite change toward newer, better, more powerful -- but the newly discovered rigid parameters of Essence create a new sense of spirit, with cyberzombies embodying the corporate apocalypse. The Matrix simultaneously eradicates the physical within a new world, a new Creation by humankind which appears to be for all intents and purposes infinite: and yet the simulation cannot but ground within the body/mind balance, and ending existence in either physical or Matrix world ends both.

Interestingly, in Shadowrun as increasingly within our own world, a construct formed entirely upon faith seems to foundation all else: money. But offer an otaku or an Awakened type or even a street samurai a choice between personal riches and the pursuit of their own path in life, and which are they most likely to choose? Ultimately, the nuyen is only an illusion: representational of one's own goals, wishes, desires -- but not usually in itself the agent of personal change, growth, evolution. The reality is karma, the measure of personal discovery.

Nature itself reverberates the conflicting drives, one toward restored and thriving and sometimes overthriving life (redwoods, Amazonia), the other toward destruction and toxicity -- and each of the extremes defining such drastic rates of change occurring well within human memory, and having effects that last well beyond a single lifetime. Maybe that's why there had to be so many reactor accidents: not for the sense of realism per se, but to echo that uneasy feeling that whatever it is that's been unleashed here, for positive or for negative, it's (almost) out of control. There's a sense of a continual edge-of-control or even out-of-control, on both sides.

And finally, I suggest that the motif of drastic change within storytelling is effective only against constants appropriate in degree to the degree of change evoked, in this case the perspective of ancient creatures who have seen at least one rise and fall of the cycle of magic: and that the inherent, disturbing conflict of whether this world is actually rising or falling is further amplified by there being no single agreed-upon view by those ancient creatures. Thus, I propose that the existence of ancient, effectively immortal beings within Shadowrun is absolutely crucial to evoking the mythic imagination, and consequently the potentially mythic scale of one's own actions.

Without this constant sense of drastic change, of being either at the beginning of the world or of witnessing its death throes (or, from the pov of Phoenix, maybe both!) and of potentially being a crucial agent therein; if it had been only a game of runs against corporations etc. in a relatively stable social/psychological/spiritual environment: I doubt Shadowrun would have succeeded to the degree it has.

[Da9iel]

Wow. That's well written and very thought provoking. I'll get back with more comments after I've considered it some more, but I wanted to first off say thank you for posting that.

[hahnsoo]

The thing I like about Shadowrun: It has a timer. By the time I'm old and gray, the Shadowrun universe, by virtue of its timeline, will already have become obsolete! Better start playing as much as you can!

[Da9iel]

On the whole I have to say I agree enthusiastically. I differ in one point. I do think that change is best emphasized and seen when placed side-by-side with constancy, but I don't think ancient dragons and immortal elves are a good sample of constancy to most gamers nor most characters. These ancient beings have been suddenly revealed (or not, as in the case of IEs) to the world and are perceived as a great change. It is nicely ironic that dragons are both new and old, but their appearance does not contrast drastic changes but instead adds to the changes. The constants that help me as a player enjoy the new and different world that is Shadowrun are human factors like greed, family, and the struggle to survive. Some complain that things like guns and armor have not changed enough in the 50+ years from now until Shadowrun technology began being chronicled. I appreciate the familiarity that comes with many of the weapons, vehicles and other things. It allows me as a player to see things like cyberware and magic as my character does. It gives me a frame of reference. That and the unchanged human motivations help me feel I'm playing a "real" character in a fantastic world.

I am not casting my vote against IEs and GDs. I enjoy their inclusion (though characters in my games will only see them from afar). I am merely arguing that they are not a source of constancy from the point of view of a typical Shadowrun character. From a much broader perspective IEs and GDs are indeed pillars in a storm of change, but they do not provide contrast (aside from the earlier mentioned irony) in my POV.

Thank you and good evening.

[Zen Shooter01]

Talia, that's a very complicated way of saying chaos makes for adventure.

Sure, the Shadowrun universe is deliberately written as chaotic and in transition in order to provide the PCs with things to do. There are a lot more RPGs set during World War II or the age of piracy than in 1970s New Jersey, because there was more chaos in the first two places than the third.

[The Grifter]

Word.

[Talia Invierno]

Ah, but it isn't random chaos, is it? and it's certainly not (for lack of a better image) dungeons scattered about the countryside. It's chaos very specific to the types of transitions of power that happen during major changes in society, the kind that occur only during events which redefine the basis by which power is to be measured, and of the kind that have the potential to utterly destroy or utterly transform the society within which they are a part. Unlike the age of piracy (if not WW2), there is a real sense of imminent risk, not just on a personal level but on a species level: new possibilities for growth, and (tying into the nuclear image) for extinction. Anything less, and it's just another societal hiccough, interesting enough to play in a few times, but not something that takes hold at the same deep level.

More relevantly, it's specifically at both "sunrise" and "sunset" of the cycle that the PC's influence has the potential to grow beyond anything possible during non-birth/death times in the cycle. Daylight has its clouds, nighttime its dangers, but it's only at sunrise and sunset that the shadow cast by an individual's actions can potentially stretch to the horizon and "beyond". In general, even in a nihilistically-toned campaign, we like the idea that we can make that much of a difference.

The beauty of something like this is that any given group can choose to use as much or as little of the apocalyptic/rebirth image as it wishes, or even reject it entirely as too "complicated". It's entirely possible to play years-long games in Shadowrun without once having the group touch on anything beyond meeting their immediate needs. (After all, the real world is full of such individuals.) It's also entirely possible to touch on the vast themes of human spirit: become a crucial part of redeeming sacrifice, for example. The one grows out of the other: but the second is very difficult to bring into an existing metastory if the seeds for it haven't already been planted within that story.

Re immortal elves and dragons:

I'd agree with you, Da9iel, in that "these ancient beings have been suddenly revealed (or not, as in the case of IEs) to the world and are perceived as a great change." I'd been thinking, here, more about reader/player perspective than character discovery: in that there are creatures in the world whose sheer length of perspective in turn gives a background against which the relatively abstract knowledge of this being a Sixth World, with five previous turns of the cycle before it. Faced with creatures who've lived through it, that abstract knowledge becomes somehow "real". At some level, I think most of us, as players and GMs, are aware of that ... although we may choose individually to think it means much or little.

The real-life equivalent, perhaps, might be the experience of elementary school children, meeting up with a WW2 veteran who's talking with them about his own memories of a time to them ancient and otherwise abstract ... for the Shadowrun world is accessible and the text about it is there for the reading; each of us has chosen to begin reading and delving into the Shadowrun world of our own free will, and only our own willingness allows us to continue to seek learning about it.

[Da9iel]

I'm not sure what you're getting at Talia. In the same paragraph you say "I'd been thinking, here, more about reader/player perspective than character discovery," and "Faced with creatures who've lived through it, that abstract knowledge becomes somehow 'real.'" GDs and IEs are as abstract to me as a player as the knowledge of previous cycles. I don't feel that creating an immortal living being makes ancient history (not Ancient History-before you say anything) any more real to players. The real life equivalent you mention in the next paragraph would be an in-character experience.

For an in-character perspective (ignoring your protest) an IE or GD would be a good way for a character to learn about the previous cycles. It would also add credibility (though certainly not proof in the cynical 2060s) and richness to have personal testimonies about previous cycles, but I don't see that previous cycles require eye witnesses. There could be myriad archeological, para-archeological, and other mystical ways to learn about the buried past. For a real-life example, I don't doubt what we know about early man just because no-one personally remembers. I still argue the IEs and GDs are good flavor, but not absolutely required by the structure and setting of the Shadowrun world.

I agree about recognizable human character traits being important for a playable game. I've tried to portray inhuman but still personally motivated machines. They come out acting like stiff humans. *fail* I was merely rebutting a comment about having constants on which to contrast the drastic changes of the Shadowrun world. I believe those constants are in the human heart and motivation. I as a player-character would be just as struck by the mythic scale of my own actions were I to learn about the mana-cycles from ancient manuscripts. I would be even more scared/excited/tense knowing that we must re-learn and discover ways to survive the (re-)coming apocalypse if there were no veterans to reassure me. The very existence of IEs and GDs make me take the future more for granted than if our fate was fully in our own mere mortal hands.

P.S. We may be just sharing irreconcilable viewpoints, but keep it coming. Good stuff.

[Crusher Bob]

Hmm...

Good stories must have change in either the self, the environment, or both. Good games do not necessarily require either. Tetris is a great game, but it has no story.

We can see from the games that are actually popular that being a good game (nice mechanis, etc) seems to run a distant third to having the ability to change both the 'self' and the 'world'. The White Wolf revolution happens becuase previous RPGs had largely concentrated on being games first. The emphasis on the self in Vampire (humanity, virtues, derangements, etc) attracted a large amount of 'new blood' (heh, I made a funny) by appealing to a different group of people. The stereotypical White Wolf player (angsty teen) can safely explore thier 'self' without actually having to join a gang of outlaw bikers (or whatever it is that angsty teens wish they could do).

I think your 'edge of the revolution' perception is a bit flawed. Change is constant, it is only when things are compressed to a few terse sentences in a history book or viewed through the narrow visor of 'everyday esistence' that you lose sight of the potential of every moment. The real chase is finding the will to power, even in the safe confines of the game world it can be surprisingly hard to track down.

[Crusher Bob]

There's something I want to add here, but I'm not sure how to articulate it yet.

It involves fear, every day life, and why a lot of PCs can seem so monsterous...

[Talia Invierno]

[The White Dwarf]

Zen and the art of Shadowrunning, which may or may not include motorcycle maintenance. Dont forgot to pickup your copy today, free with every purchase of NERPS.

[Talia Invierno]

And yet, ironically, there is very little truly Zennish in shadowrunning, vehicle zen and street samurai notwithstanding. In fact, I'd argue that Zen and the whole Shadowrun concept are almost exact opposites.

Ehn -- I thought just for a change this place might like to talk about the nature of the game itself, rather than how to tweak different parts of it to one's own benefit.

For a slight change in topic, I'll throw out another loose idea with a less abstract basis: that new adventures have to be the primary source of income for any roleplaying company -- it's inherent to the type of market. Beyond that, any roleplaying game company has to keep coming out with new editions and expanding their timeline if it is to remain solvent ... until eventually it implodes under its own weight.

Reasoning: there's only so many core books a player really needs. To a large extent, many groups share those that are less core. Once those books are purchased, the only additional and continuing market, beyond continually trying to attract new players, is for new adventures. The easiest way around this is to periodically come up with entirely new editions: necessitating that the existing market re-purchase all their core books again -- and again -- and again. It implodes under its own weight when the sheer amount of non-immediately relevant information starts causing players just to start tuning out new information -- to stop caring about updates. We're not there yet ... but we're starting to get close.

(Another, less drastic means to the same end would be to come up with regular SotA books -- call them regular "books of the year" -- with major rules revisions only once every decade or so: but that might not be enough, in itself, for solvency.)

[Lindt]

Wow... Talia, I may be picking your brain in the near future. I have a major paper to write.

[TheQuestionMan]

Bravo great thread :cyber:

[Crusher Bob]

I find it fascinating how conditioned we are to play the game. Even when we encouter someone who is playing a different game, our first response is not 'Oh, he must be playing a different game!" but instead is usually some sort of mental wheel spin.

Even with RPGs, where part of the whole point is to make up your own rules, people who do are quite often shut down by the community at large. We'll take BECKS as a sample. Some people don't like it, not because they don't like the rules mechanic, but simply becuase it is not written in a SR book somewhere...

When people usually first start out with RPGs they are more than willing to change the rules, but when their rules changes are posted here, most of the cries are 'munchkin!' and 'How dare you deviate from the holy canon!'. I'm sure RAygun has gotten plenty of mail saying 'OMG, your rules are so broken! It's so easy to kill people with them.'

Admitedly, the differences between WeredigoRun and RaygunRun can make communication between their adherents somewhat difficult... Think of it as preparing yourself for real life. The skill of quickly identifying identifying that someone s playing a different game from you is very useful...

[Purple Library G...]

My friend the question man pointed me to this, because it's something I've thought about some.
I think that generally, times of more change than usual, whether creative, destructive, or both are more interesting to set roleplaying in. But there's a reason behind that, which doesn't necessarily depend on change per se.

For good adventuring, there needs to be a certain amount of room to maneuver. There has to be some possibility that one might break the rules, crash the big boys' parties, and get away with it. The social fabric cannot be too tight. You can make exceptions to this by having entire groups of effective spies or social engineers--but even there, what you're doing is creating a situation where the social fabric isn't that tight and constraining *for them*, even though they would be to normal people or even most adventuring character types.
So for instance, I have long been interested in the Italian Renaissance as an adventuring setting. The Italian Renaissance wasn't really changing that fast, although over a couple of centuries things did change quite a bit. And the change isn't what makes it adventurable. What the Italian Renaissance had was a whole bunch of little squabbling city-states. They made unstable alliances, fought on land and sea, betrayed one another, and used up enough energy doing it all that their holds on the countryside were often less than firm. Even if that's a fairly stable situation over a long time, there's lots of room to maneuver--do something that makes the doge of Venice hate your guts, and you can go to Florence. Or turn pirate. Or become a bandit in the hills. Or . . . Whether you're interested in theft, intrigue, social climbing, military shenanigans, piracy, peasant revolts or whatnot, there is something for you. Another milieu I've thought had great adventuring promise would be a sort of black-powder-era Philippines-style archipelago, with maybe some magic added in. You'd get the same kind of wide-open piracy and politics, plus martial arts, lost tribes, and secret societies.

The Shadowrun setting is also quite a bit like this. Authority is splintered and reaches some areas fitfully if at all. There are lots of factions. Class mobility can occur through the muzzle of a gun, the blink of a pixel, the nimbus of sorcery or above all the transfer of nuyen. There're attempts at being authoritarian, but there are lots of cracks--heck, gaping chasms--to slip through.

In a more monolithic society, you try something, and if the game master's being halfway faithful to plausibility and the nature of the milieu, the next segment of the campaign is about your desperate quest to stay one step ahead of the law and come up with some fresh identities. Of course, it can be good to have some constraints--enough to make some degree of finesse important. If absolutely anything goes, you lose some scope for skill, and it's also harder for any given action to matter much. But if the system's untouchable and will adapt to anything you do, actions don't matter then either. For the best gaming on average I'd say you want enough structure that there's something to change or build on or get to the top of, but still pretty open, with a lot of scope for individual action. And one of the most common and plausible reasons for things to be like that is some degree of breakdown in social controls caused by sizable changes.

[Shadow]

Talia,

Thank you. That was marvelous.

[Talia Invierno]

[weblife]

Roleplaying is life speeded up.

Its like overdosing on all the exiting things in life. Mental exploration.

I've been roleplaying, as GM and player, for most of my life, and its uncanny how much it has taught me about tackling new situations and problems. Professionally and personally.

Its better than a book, even better than a movie, when it flows its a rush.

[Crusher Bob]

RPGs make people expose different 'masks'. Face it, everybody we know wears a social mask, which is why it is so hard to 'really' get to know other people. Do we know them, or do we know the person they are pretending to be? This is why 'meeting the parents' is such a big step in a relationship. It shows that we trust someone enough to let them see us with a different mask, getting them closers to knowing our 'real selves'.

In general, just 'hanging around' with someone shows us the same mask constantly; gaining insights into their character is a slow process. Playing an RPG, on the other hand, typically has players wearing different masks. It's also a social venue where more deviations from the social norm can be 'forgiven'. So, ever wanted to know if your friend is really a nice guy, or just pretends to be one? Watch the characters he plays.

Even better is the dynamic of the game within the game. You are not playing a game populated by ‘meaningless constructs’ (e.g. why player behavior in most single player ©RPGs tends to be even more socially deviant that in multi-player RPGs). The players are ‘playing’ both in ‘meat space’ and ‘game space’ at the same time. Watching people move in two or three different social spaces at once (and, of course, doing so yourself at the same time) all the while pretending to be a a puppet in a grim world of make believe is … let us say, a most satisfactory way to spend one’s time.

Grr, this idea seemed much neater earlier in the evening, before I lost my 'net connection and had to wait to post.