Atmosphere, How do you convey it? Options

[emo samurai]

Is it with random details in the background? The way people talk and act?

[James McMurray]

I say "picture what emo's game would look like at this point. Now reverse it." ;)

Background details when I've got time. Usually it's mannerisms and voices for the NPCs.

[ronin3338]

Short description, depending on where and how much detail I feel it needs.
"The Stuffer Shack you walked into has a sticky floor"
but for more important locations:
"The meeting room is small, with limited seating. It smells vaguely of ozone and Fresh-All, but you can detect a bit of old cigarette smoke too. The furniture is about 2 year's out of style but well-kept, and the carpet is worn under the chairs and table."
Don't rely totally on importance to determine howmuch "flavor" you add, otherwise your player's will clue in to something's significance by how much detail you give.

[Platinum]

All details details details. The lingo people use isimportant, but you have to describe the polluted air, the decaying ferrocrete, and omnipresent haze that hangs over the city in order to really get the feel of it. You need to mention the cramped coffin motels, ultrabright neon LED's contrasting the long dark alleys, brightly coloured fibre mohawks, nano tattoos and chrome studs in people's cranium. That is something else that left with sr4 ... the wide acceptance of visible cyberware. Mirrored shades, chromed eyes, and datajacks have all went the way of the dodo, for a pair bulky goggles and ugly welding gloves.

[Kagetenshi]

In spherical containers.

~J

[Dragonscript]

I like to use diffrent voices for npcs. I also try to go into detail a bit, but only relevent details.

"The rain pounded hard onto the cars and fogged windows as you stroll into the stuffer sack. The floor is a bit wet from the still drenched customers walking around the store. A few of the customers quickly dart thier eyes from you as you look around the place and quickly grab a shopping basket."

Each detail adds flavor to the scene but also has a purpose. Can you guess each one?

[Kyoto Kid]

...Basically I use a combination of things including:

Descriptions for setting specific "scenes"

Example "You enter the bar through a trap door in the pavement (sidewalk) and descend a set of metal stairs. Once at the bottom, it takes a moment for your eyes to adjust since most of the light is provided by numerous candles in all sorts of stands & holders. The bar is a cozy place, triangular in shape similar to the building that sits above it. From the speakers the sounds of old 20th century bistro jazz can be heard and there is a slight haze of smoke. The bartender, a slender woman in a long dark evening dress, looks in your direction & smiles. A number of the booths and tables are occupied however the place isn't crowded. You notice the distinct aroma of fine cigars in the air, something not usually common in most bars you've been to. You can't help but feel like you have just stepped back into one of those old monochrome detective thriller flatvids of 120 years ago. You look down to see if your clothing is still in colour."

(This is the opening to a scene in a bar called the Untersatz from "Rhapsody in Shadow")

a short "story telling" segment to lay the background for major segments.

Background music where appropriate.

Printed datafaxes & transcripts of Trivid news stories for breaking items and general background

Illustrations of locations & major NPC personalities.

Maps, both of specific sites and areas. For example in the last run of Rhapsody I used Michelin maps of the Balkans, Google Maps of various areas in and around London, as well as drawn maps of buildings & places where action takes place.

Character voices and regional accents (as best as they can be performed)

[nezumi]

Like platinum said. Remember to apply to all the senses. In fact, the three non-primary senses oftentimes leave more in depth impressions. Sticky floors, the stench of cheap tobacco, the burn of synthahol as it coats your throat like viscous oil, the feel of synthleather and dirty metahuman flesh as you push through the crowd to your corner stall. Pictures always help too.

[Brahm]

[Shrike30]

[Wounded Ronin]

Well, the issue was already well covered by the previous posters on this thread, so I won't just repeat what was already said. Everything said so far is good.

I'll just add something in addition. You could consider playing 80s music to drive home the 80s feel. Even if you don't necessarily have music to play for the others (as in a IRC game) at the very least you can tell people what the theme music is to give them an idea of what you have in mind.

I'd recommend associating a particular song with a recurring location. So, for example, if there's a particular club or bar the PCs always go to when they meet a Johnson, you might associate a Pat Benetar song like "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" with that location and play it whenever the PCs are there. You can see this principle illustrated when you play Deus Ex and notice how the same music always plays in the UNATCO headquarters and also every time you go back to New York City. I think it's very effective.

[Witness]

Yeah incidental details are good, and a little can go a long way if you strike it lucky. If you tell your players they're in a Stuffer Shack, I think they can be relied upon to fill in many of the obvious details themselves, so IMO it's better to spend time on some of the less obvious details.

I had a Sammy go in to a restaurant on her own to grab some bites, but unfortunately there was a small childrens party going on close to where the waitress sat her, and the kids kept pointing and staring at her obvious cyberarm. I thought that worked out quite well as a not-too-obvious scene-setting detail.

Music, especially for bar locations, is one of my favourite things. I have tunes that I should have scrubbed off my hard drive for being so awful, but which I kept hold of just in case.

Example: on arriving in a new city, one of my PCs was looking for a bar to hang out in for the few hours before the meet. He'd done a bit of homework but got a bit confused. After he'd bought a drink and sat down he realised his mistake, as a short bespectacled and terminally-sad-looking middle-aged sarariman took the mike and began to sing his broken heart out at the top of his lungs. The japanese-businessman-sings-tragic-love-song-karaoke novelty mp3 that I acquired from somewhere years ago finally found its purpose in life. Which was to be one of the most painful (but painfully funny) things I ever inflicted on my players. ;)

[Drraagh]

Being descriptive with places is always a good idea, but sometimes you can't always come up with something on the fly or perhaps you want something a little different for you to build off of.

Well, there was a list that The Shadowrun Supplemental had released a long time ago now; The Shadowrun Random Atmosphere Generator. You can get it here in a zip format from their site, though there are a number of other places to get it, as well as the whole collection of the TSSes. Maybe they can give you some ideas on where to go.

[James McMurray]

[Platinum]

Yes, I know that there are social modifiers for cyberware, but in reality, most wage slaves had at least a datajack. Which has now been replaced, and most people will now have a wireless commlink that will not be visible. The people with cybernetic limbs will always have people looking at them wondering what happened, just like now-a-days when someone sees a prosthetic limb.... the option in the future is that it can be hidden better.

[Cynic project]

Live ammo drills.

[Tiralee]

Atmosphere, it's the details, always with the details.

You give them the basic outline, throw in a couple of favourites like,

"The floor of the bar is sticky with spilled alchohol and other less drinkable fluids. The longer you stay in one spot, the more likely you're gonna lose a shoe, so you keep on moving towards the back, where the familiar bulk of Kronk encourages the barflies to settle somewhere else."

"The multistory car park is cold and gritty. Old oil and unburnt fuel coat your teeth and tongue everytime you open your mouth, so you keep it shut and breathe through your nose as best you can."

"The lab clinic is a warzone - the familiar smell of EXEX rounds, naked fear and fireball aftermath sticks to you as you wade through the carnage looking for loot to fence."

Etc.

-Tir

[FanGirl]

[Brahm]

[Brahm]

[mfb]

you will pay for your horrible crimes.

[Platinum]

[Brahm]

Bottomline is:
- Datajacks are NOT gone. My characters have them, at least so far any of the ones with any cyberware at all (mages and adepts still tend to have few if any implants). Hell, my Technomancer has one.
- Mirrored eyeballs and obvious eye alteration are NOT gone. Check out the cover art of the first SR4 product out.
- You are, apparently due to self-imposed ignorance, clueless.

[James McMurray]

You do not need a datajack or trodes to use a commlink. You can accress AR fine as long as you have some way of displaying it in your field of view. If you want to go deeper than that into cold or hot sim you'll need a jack or trodes.

[James McMurray]