Arcologies and the big City, What are they like? Options

[Deadjester]

I am curious what Arcologies and the big Cities are like in the year 2070 according to SR. I ask this more in the interest of RPing and visualizing it as I play.

How big are the cities now? Are they not much bigger then they are now or big multi-tiered levels with its own roads and monorails and flying vehicels?

How high is the general tech here, is it like Blade Runner lvl where msg drones and cargo drones go around doing basic runs without need of humans and you have ground and even flying taxies for those who can afford it?

How big are the Arcologies, how many people in general do they hold? What kind of forces in general do they have protecting them from the stanadard security to high lvl teams?

I know in sci fi books where I first read about Arcologies over 20 years ago, an Arcology was massive in and of itself, a city on its own, so I am curious how big they are in SR since places like Seattle are only so big.

Is it more like Mini Arcologies within a massive Arcology of a big multi tiered city that once you get past the boundaries it suddenly drops to urban then run down sprawls?

I am just trying to get a better picture of it for game play visual in my head.

They just don't seem very descriptive yet and I get mixed impressions at the moment.

So any thoughts on this will be welcome.

[stevebugge]

It's probably going to vary from group to group. I actually live in Seattle so I have a pretty hard time with some of the visualization, like the RenRaku Arcology stamping out Pioneer Square for example, or the frequent reference to having a Subway in some of the source material. As far as the Tech Level goes, the Hovercars or Antigrav Vehicles seen in a lot of Scifi don't exist yet. There are some Low Altitude Vehicles based on Vectored Thrust, but they are pretty expensive so they aren being used as taxis just yet. Private Tiltrotor Aircraft, Choppers, and Limos are still the transportation of choice for the rich, and most are probably better appointed than a middle class apartment. The population of the Seattle SPrawl (which stretches from the south end of Fort Lewis to the North End of Everett, from Puget Sound in the West to the Cascade Foothills in the east, is home to an estimated 6 Million or so, give or take a few million Squatters outside the "system" Parts of the City are nearly immaculate, save for the damage done by smog and acid rain, others are slums, a few are even smoldering volcanic debris fields. The bulk of the population lives in Apartment Buildings that may be 100 years old, rides the bus, or the Monorail (when it works) and works for a corp and burns their cred trying to forget about work.

[mintcar]

The way I see it, the Shadowrun metroplex is American cities developing after the principle that people live were they work. So central parts of cities have grow and a lot more people live in corporate enclaves or arcologies. Some of the buildings there can be imagined as any kind of futuristic extravaganza really. On the other hand the suburbs have turn into the worst possible slums. For slums just imagine the area as it is now in -06, and then apply 64 years of violence, neglect and criminal tenants.

It's not really that black and white, but it's a general tendency.

[SL James]

Dude, steve, the shadowrun which runs through the fiction openings of several chapters centers in the beginning around an air taxi ride taken by their target.

And this is yet another reason why not including even the bare minimum of info on Seattle like was in SR3 was just plain retarded.

[evil1i]

[stevebugge]

[SL James]

[Drace]

And, for the air taxi part SL, a air taxi generally refers to a small one or two passenger heli, meant for high up business men nowadays, and probably has the same meaning in 2070.

[Shrike30]

And they've got prices listed for Air Taxis in the "Common Costs" insert, i think it's 1 nuyen/0.1 klick.

[Aku]

[evil1i]

[emo samurai]

Why Seattle in the first place? I don't remember it being mentioned that FASA was based in Seattle.

[SL James]

FASA was based in Chicago.

Three reasons:

1. With the NAN created, you limit the number of potential "free" cities west of the Mississippi. L.A. is played-out and they had other plans for SF and Portland (although IMO they should have been switched around) which leaves only two major cities on the West Coast: Seattle and San Diego.

2. Seattle is surrounded by Native American influences down to its name. Washington has a relatively large Indian population, and their backgrounds tie into the shamanistic magic and NAN concepts used for SR.

3. Because it has a confluence of ideal climate and social conditions to allow for exploitation of cyberpunk motifs as well as a fairly good place to turn into refugee central.

[Aku]

You can't avoid having a setting though, even d20/dnd has a base setting in the book (greyhawk, iirc is what it expands into) Sure, there isn't MUCH there, but to seperate the rules from the fluff, leaves you with numbers, and something looking like the SRD. Think about it, you have no idea what a dnd elf is anymore, because in the books, it's a greyhawk elf, not a D20 elf.

[Demonseed Elite]

Runner Havens will help with this a great deal when it is out. It should define one type of city in 2070 Shadowrun through six examples (including two in-depth examples of Seattle and Hong Kong) and background information on how a city comes to be defined as a "runner haven."

And RH will be the first in a series, each subsequent book focusing on a different type of city. There isn't really a single definition of a Shadowrun city, but they can be roughly put into categories. Players and GMs will be able to see the different styles and pick which ones they want to play in (or visit all of them) and should be presented with enough information to help them develop custom locations to fit in the atmosphere of these different city types.

There's no way we could write up any other city to have the 16 years of background information that Seattle has in SR. But many SR4 players aren't coming to the game with 16 years of Shadowrun Seattle background experience. The players who are coming with that extensive background will still be able to apply all that background to the information in Runner Havens.

The one-city focus on Seattle in the past has been awkward for gamemasters and writers alike. It became implausible to fixate all of Shadowrun's metaplot on Seattle but it became unwieldy to place plotlines in other areas of the world where we had given gamemasters very little background information. The new approach should create a balance, where plot points can be developed in different areas of the world but focused on areas we have provided background information on.

[SL James]

Uh huh. And when is RH coming out? Origins? If new players are lucky.

That's a genius release schedule. Create rules and then wait seven months for any actual setting, since Life on the Edge is about as useful in describing the world as reading the Almanac to get an impression of the U.S.

[Kyoto Kid]

For much of what I have runin the past and am planning to run in the future, I have pretty much avoided of Seattle. My first campaign (pre TT source book) was set in Portland which had little if any details written about it at the time. When the TT book came out, I basically ended the campaign since so much had been changed & the nation itself became a kind of Elven Reich [complete with it's own version of the Berlin Wall & Checkpoint Charlie(s)].

I have for the most part been running in Europe - predominantly London (Londion Sourcebook), as well as the Balkans (again with freedom to design the setting since little or no background appeared about the region in SoE). My next campaign I will be centered around the Great lakes (I have been writing a lot about the Cheeshead state & have been working on write ups of both Milwaukee & Madison). It will the move to the Pacific Island nation of Hawai'i which again has only sparse information (even in SoA) allowing me to once again provide the details.

[Deadjester]

Another question I would have on the larger scope.

What areas around the world would be ripe as central hubs besides Hong Kong, etc.

How many Arcologies would the AAA have around the world?

I am just curious, not much is mentioned about the UCAS and the CAS and what major areas they might use as a Seattle like setting.

Though realisticly a shawdow run can happen just about anywhere since it deals with more then just the AAAs.

Heck you could consider nocking off a beer truck a shadowrun at its basics but I am just curious how the SR world looks on the larger scale.

There are many countries and other smaller corperations looking to upscale and it would be nice to have an idea of what the political climate looks like for I am sure goverments would be hiring teams to that they could eaisly wash their hands of it things went wrong.

[stevebugge]

[evil1i]

[Reprisal]

Wow, a whole not of not-arcology content on this thread... I posted up a thread earlier about a campaign I'm running set inside an arcology. It's nothing related to Deus or how one can turn an arcology into a big dungeon, but it serves as a setting. There's a bit of information there. Whether it will help you is another matter altogether since it's fairly stylized toward a larger arcology presence.

Anyway, it might help. 8)

[SL James]

[bladepoet]

Yo,

Greater London had 7,172,036 according to the April 2001 census.

That doesn't even include surrounding areas such as Berkshire and Surrey to name two.

Extrapolate that by 60 years.....

Just though i'd mention it as it was left out of the list :)

regards

bladepoet

[nick012000]

And Brisbane. We're the 4th largest city in the world, by area.

[bladepoet]

No offense, but I have been ti brisbane, and it is as far removed from being an archology or a plex as you can get.

Basically, it's really nice :)

Open spaces, lots of green


cheers

Ballad